DARKMARKET

the Ottoman Empire was renowned for the tolerance that its rulers displayed towards the three ‘Peoples of the Book’, Jews, Christians and Muslims. Its reputation for violence originated in the bloody massacres of its distant past, only to re-emerge during its slow demise in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

In the Turkish republic that arose from the ashes of Empire after the First World War, Istanbul had experienced some depressing times: first, when its status as the country’s capital was lost to Ankara, an Anatolian upstart to the east; and later, during the Cold War, when a merciless military sought to suppress the city’s independent spirit. Its infrastructure began to crumble and people actually started moving away, its population stagnating at about two million. But since the early 1990s Istanbul had been making swift strides towards regaining its place at the top table of the world’s most dynamic and intriguing cities.

Crowded, noisy and exuberant, with economic activity flying back and forth between its European and Asian sectors, Istanbul could sometimes feel suffocating, as tens of thousands of rickety cars and trucks plied their way across its two continental bridges. On the Euro- pean side, the traffic shuffled at a snail’s pace around Taksim Square or along Dolmabahçe, the former imperial gardens, which looked across at Asia. Even when the weather was cool, the dust kicked into the back of the throat. But in the last decade, the city has been brimming with possibilities – artistic, commercial and political – and there can be few greater pleasures in life, at the end of a hard day’s work, than taking a ferry from Europe while staring at the Bosphorus and heading for a scrumptious meal in Kadıköy on the Asian side.

For all the fears that the ruling AK Party might represent a fifth column of Islamic fundamentalism, since it came to power Istanbul’s youthful middle class has seized economic opportunity with both hands and begun to create successful manufacturing, design, high-tech and service companies that compete with the best from Europe, America and Asia.

Of course, policing the city is a complete nightmare, especially since few inhabitants have any trust in a force that for many decades was a key symbol of the repressive state apparatus.

New crimes engendered a new breed of cop, and Bilal was not associated with any of the old traditions of the Deep State, nor had he antagonised any especially powerful people, so he was welcomed in