Petrified by Barbara Nadel Page A

she took a large swig from her chipped champagne saucer. ‘It’s too risky out here.’ She smiled. ‘And, anyway, in my room who knows what may happen?’
    ‘What will happen is that you will give me the information that I need to avenge your friend,’ Suleyman replied sternly.
    ‘You know you’ll have to pay to make it look—’
    ‘I’m not stupid!’ he hissed as he pushed her hand roughly from his leg. ‘I’ve got money for you and for this filthy stuff too.’ He nodded in the direction of the champagne bottle.
    Masha frowned. ‘I like it,’ she said.
    ‘Well, you can drink it then,’ Suleyman replied. ‘Now can we get on with this business? I want to leave this place as soon as possible.’
    ‘All right! All right!’ She smiled again, a dull-eyed heroin grimace. She reached for his hand as she rose slightly unsteadily to her feet. ‘Come on then, my eager prince,’ she said, as she led him past the hard little Turkish gangster who seemed so very taken with her friend Raisa.
    Masha’s room was obviously not her home – if indeed someone like her had a home.
    ‘Where can I sit?’ Suleyman asked as Masha shut the door behind them.
    ‘On the bed,’ she replied.
    He did as he was told, turning just in time to see her remove both her dress and the bra beneath it.
    ‘Masha . . .’
    The strained expression on his face made her laugh. He could try as hard as he liked to fool himself that he didn’t want sex, but he couldn’t fool her.
    She walked over to him and then lowered herself quickly into his lap.
    ‘The information . . .’
    Her hand moved swiftly to the front of his trousers, and began massaging what was already hard.
    ‘I thought you’d like some of this first, Inspector,’ she said as she raised one of her large breasts up to his face.
    ‘No . . .’
    ‘Oh, come on,’ her hand was moving now, slowly, expertly, ‘you can come inside me.’
    ‘No . . .’
    She was a cheap, heroin-addicted tart – a creature from and of Rostov. Probably riddled with disease, maybe even HIV positive. And yet when one of her heavy nipples touched his lips, when he looked at her pubis moving rhythmically towards the penis in her hand . . . It had been such a long time, such a long frustrating time . . .
    He took her breast into his mouth as she slipped him inside her. It felt so good. As she rose and fell with his ever-increasing thrusts, she even gasped with what could be pleasure. He shouldn’t be doing this! This was dangerous! He should, had to push her away, get the information and get out of this place . . .
    ‘I think I’m in love,’ Masha murmured into his ear.
    And even though he knew that it wasn’t, couldn’t be true, that statement moved him on to a place of no return. Just the relief of that moment made him scream.

C HAPTER 6
    Melih Akdeniz looked, with a critical eye, at the huge swathe of material stretched tautly between the two largest trees in his garden. The morning sun shone strongly on its blank whiteness, causing the artist to squint as he considered it.
    ‘I’m wondering whether it will be big enough,’ he said, before tipping the liquid from a small brown bottle in his hands into the back of his throat.
    The thin, black-eyed woman at his side looked dully on.
    ‘I don’t know,’ she said, ‘I don’t know much right now.’
    Melih handed her the bottle.
    ‘Just drink, Eren,’ he said without looking at her, ‘drink deep.’
    He walked over to one of the trees and adjusted the tapes holding the material so that it was stretched even more tightly.
    Eren Akdeniz put the bottle to her lips and drank. Afterwards, her face wrinkled in disgust at what she’d just done, she threw the bottle on to the flagstones at her feet. It smashed into many sharp, tiny pieces.
    The noise caused her husband to look round. ‘What did you do that for?’ he asked.
    Eren sat down on the patio table, her eyes heavy and glassy. ‘Because I shouldn’t be doing