Dead of Night by Barbara Nadel Read Free Book Online Page B

originally operated in Manhattan had set up new and sometimes even more successful
     criminal operations. Shifting the problem was not, as far as he could see, any kind of real solution to anything. Besides,
     one had to look at every situation case by case, surely!
    İkmen clearly remembered the policing around the European Cup Final football match between AC Milan and Liverpool that had
     taken place in İstanbul back in 2005. There had been some rowdy behaviour by both sets of fans, but unless violence had ensued,
     they had been left alone. The police had been visible and clearly serious, but they hadn’t punished people for walking along
     with cans of beer, or even for being drunk, unless they were causing a nuisance.Zero Tolerance in that instance would have resulted in police cells full to bursting.
    And what about ‘white flight’? Applied to İstanbul, he could see a trend in some districts that could be equivalent. But it
     was nothing to do with class or colour. Some native İstanbullus were moving out of districts like Ayvansaray and Balat because
     migrants from the countryside were moving in. Those areas were still relatively cheap, and so migrants were fetching up in
     such places because they could afford them. In addition, because of migration, such places were becoming more religiously
     conservative, something that native İstanbullus didn’t always appreciate. In İstanbul, the split was town and country as opposed
     to black and white. Although in a rather curious parallel, some people did actually talk in terms of ‘white’ and ‘black’ Turks.
     The white Turks were the sophisticated urban dwellers, while the black Turks were the country folk. If İstanbul followed Detroit
     from boom into decline, it was a sobering thought to consider that one day the city might be almost exclusively given over
     to ‘black’ Turks.
    ‘And of course, complicating the issue of “white flight” still further,’ the officer at the podium continued, ‘is the presence
     of those people who don’t fit anywhere. People of mixed race and . . .’
    İkmen thought about Ezekiel Goins and the Melungeons, and wondered how many of them, if any, had ‘flown’ Detroit’s broken
     centre.
    Ayşe Farsakoğlu didn’t often stop off on her way home from the station to have a drink. She most especially didn’t stop off
     on her own. But the Kaktus café in Beyoğlu was a casual, freewheeling sort of place, beloved of writers and journalists and
     not the sort of bar where a woman on her own would attract attention. Ayşe didn’t want to go home to the apartment she shared
     with her brother, not yet. A small beer was needed, she felt, to try to wash away some of the things she had been learning
     about at work.
    Now that he had been released, Ayşe had been reading about the ‘career’ of the Edirnekapı serial rapist, Ali Kuban. Back in
     1973/4, he had raped seven women, ranging in age from eighty down to twelve. Although none of his victims had died, allowing
     Kuban to escape the hangman’s noose at the time, he had attacked them with staggering brutality. It had made sobering reading.
     Although Kuban was now seventy-three years old and apparently way beyond picking up where he had left off in 1974, the fact
     that he was out again was something Ayşe’s superiors were taking seriously. He was to be monitored and watched, and the slightest
     piece of inappropriate behaviour would see him brought in for questioning very quickly. The world had changed a lot since
     he had been incarcerated. Now sexual predators had so many more tools at their disposal, pornography online and the miracle
     of the mobile phone being only two of them.
    Ayşe had ordered her small glass of Efes Pilsen when she realised that İzzet Melik was sitting at the opposite side of the
     café. Nursing what looked like a cappuccino, he was staring blankly down into the depths of his cup like a lost soul. With
     the knowledge in her head