A Passion for Killing

by Barbara Nadel

  After first shaking his head and then taking a deep breath, Süleyman changed the subject. ‘Now that Haydar is dead, will someone else assist you in your hunt for the peeper? He, the peeper, seems to be gaining in confidence.’

  ‘In your opinion.’ Mürsel leaned forward again but this time he only very lightly ran his fingers across Süleyman’s chest. ‘Remember, sweet boy, that you really don’t know anything. I, on the other hand . . .’ He moved his fingers up to his mouth and licked each one very slowly. ‘I know about you.’

  ‘Do you?’ Even the soaking wet hairs at the back of his head stood up.

  ‘I know you prefer it when your wife goes on top during sex. She’s a very dominant woman – usually.’

  In spite of the heat, Süleyman felt his face drain of blood. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Giving head isn’t a particularly dominant act, is it?’ Mürsel replied. ‘But it brings you so much pleasure, I’m sure that Zelfa doesn’t mind. I know I wouldn’t mind personally. In fact, I would love—’

  ‘Have you been watching me?’ His heart was hammering, his breathing laboured.

  ‘If one has the skills, sweet boy, then one can and does. The only pleasant thing about this whole ghastly affair has been you. I’ve always said I’ll have you. And let’s face it, if you were wholly heterosexual, you wouldn’t have come here with me, would you?’

  He was right, of course, but even so, this situation had peaked rather sooner than Süleyman had imagined. The spy was slavering for sex and Süleyman was still no nearer to finding out what was going on in Mürsel’s mind with regard to the peeper and his possible relationship to the offender. Now it was Mürsel who wanted an answer. Süleyman looked into his eyes and said nothing. It was the spy’s idea to go to the massage.

  ‘Ah, well, what happens, happens,’ Mürsel said cheerily. ‘Let’s get some of the knots out of your back, shall we? Then maybe other things will follow on naturally.’

  Slowly, Süleyman lay back down on to the hot, slick stone. For just a moment he didn’t turn over. But then, as Mürsel pointed out, if he didn’t, a back massage would be entirely out of the question. And so the policeman complied. His back was a mass of tension knots. It was something his masseur pointed out as soon as he insinuated his long fingers into Süleyman’s muscles.

  ‘Allah, but you are tense!’ the spy said as he fought to work his hands through what felt like vulcanised rubber. ‘Poor Mehmet, this has to hurt.’

  ‘Yes . . .’ It did. A lot. ‘Mürsel, the peeper, what is happening?’

  ‘What?’ The hands continued to knead without missing a beat.

  ‘I’m worried. So many people are dying and we don’t seem to be any nearer . . .’

  ‘We? What is this “we” you speak of, Mehmet?’

  ‘Well, yourself and myself and—’

  ‘As I’m growing rather tired of telling you, Mehmet, it is my agency who will apprehend this offender. You are only where you are for show. Because of the public nature of the peeper’s offences, you the police have to be in evidence.’ The massage grew stronger, the fingers digging that little bit deeper. ‘You mustn’t catch him, he’ll hurt you and I wouldn’t want that, would I?’

  ‘No . . .’

  ‘No. I wouldn’t like you to die in the way that Haydar died, would I? I’d have much more fun with you if you were alive.’ Süleyman felt Mürsel’s hands move down towards his buttocks.

  ‘Mürsel . . .’

  ‘Oh, that’s a very nervous voice. What’s that nervous voice about, Mehmet? Have you something to confess to me?’

  Suddenly everything was beginning to sound like a threat. Suddenly not everything sounded sexual . . .

  ‘Well, I can confess to you’, Mürsel said, ‘that on occasion I love to play the woman with the men in my life. If you’re worried about losing your manhood to me, then don’t be. I love men to give me pleasure, but I also know how “masculine” you proper Turks can be.’

  But then perhaps he was wrong about the threat, perhaps it was only sexual? If it were, and Mürsel was as besotted as he imagined, then perhaps he could press ahead with his line of inquiry?

  ‘Mürsel, I don’t understand what is happening in this investigation,’ he blurted. ‘You’re always where he, the peeper, is and—’

  He felt the spy’s lips plant a kiss in the middle of his back. He also felt a rush of hot air as the man moved his leg in order to straddle him. Although he knew that he could turn over quickly and easily if he wanted to, he was vulnerable now. He was also, just very slightly, aroused.

  ‘Mehmet . . .’ The breath was hot on the back of his neck.

  ‘Mürsel . . .’

  ‘You know I can see the way that your face contorts with both pleasure and pain when you’re very close to coming. I can see that in my mind. Of course I fade out the picture of your wife in that scenario.’

  ‘Mürsel, I’m confused!’

  ‘Sexual angst is not uncommon even in adults,’ the spy replied. ‘If, of course, this were about sex, which it isn’t.’

  Süleyman felt a slight pressure from one of Mürsel’s hands on his right wrist. The hot breath on his neck became hotter as the spy lowered his body down close to Süleyman’s. ‘This is about the peeper, about how you told Çetin İkmen all about me and my investigation into his activities and your fears about that, isn’t it?’

  Süleyman could feel his arousal collapse, his breathing fracture and disintegrate with terror in his lungs. How had he found out about his conversation with İkmen? How?

  ‘It isn’t about sex,’ Mürsel continued softly. ‘I have sex with men a lot younger and prettier than you, Mehmet. I wouldn’t say no, if you offered it, of course. But if you thought you might seduce whatever information you think I have out of me, then you are very wrong.’

  The policeman’s right wrist was suddenly pushed so far up his back it was touching the crown of his head. The pain was unspeakable, but the hand that held the wrist in place was, he could feel, barely even tense.

  ‘Not gorgeous enough any more, Mehmet!’ He slapped him hard around the side of the head. ‘Treacherous too. I heard you at the church with İkmen. Bad.’

  ‘You . . . with the peeper . . . you . . .’

  There was a sound from over by the door into the hararet, but Süleyman couldn’t lift his head in order to see what it might be.

  ‘I told you if you told anyone but Ardıç about me, I would kill you, didn’t I, Mehmet?’

  ‘I . . .’

  ‘So now I suppose I’m going to have to make good on that promise, aren’t I?’ He pulled Süleyman’s right shoulder out of its socket and, above the screams of pain, said, ‘Shame.’

  Chapter 12

  * * *

  ‘I don’t know why you keep on bringing up the subject of Handan Ergin,’ Matilda Melly said exasperatedly. ‘I haven’t seen her for months! I stopped teaching. But poor Kim and the others were quite terrified by that ghastly husband of hers.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ İkmen said as he puffed on yet another Maltepe cigarette. ‘But, Mrs Melly, you have to understand that you have connections to both Mrs Ergin and Yaşar Uzun, two people involved in—’

  ‘That neighbour of Handan’s you took me to see, she didn’t know me from bloody Adam!’ the Englishwoman cried. ‘I wasn’t at Handan’s apartment on the night Yaşar died! I was at home, in bed!’

  It was certainly what her husband was saying. Matilda Melly had been at home while he went to the carpet show and Handan Ergin’s nosy neighbour had not identified Matilda as the woman who came to see the young wife on the night that Yaşar Uzun was shot. Admittedly, the neighbour said that all westerners looked the same to her, however . . .

  ‘Mrs Melly, just today you have separated from your husband. Could you please tell me—’

  ‘Just today I found out what he paid, so far, for that bloody carpet!’ Matilda Melly cried. ‘It was the last straw!’

  ‘You have been having problems in your
marriage?’

  ‘You could say that, yes.’ The Englishwoman sniffed as if she had an unpleasant smell underneath her nose. But then that wasn’t surprising. İkmen’s office, even to Ayşe Farsakoğlu’s well-accustomed nostrils, was not the pleasantest place in the world. The mixture of dust, stale smoke and sour tea was not suitable for all tastes.

  ‘And these problems,’ İkmen continued, ‘do they involve other people?’

  Matilda Melly looked up sharply. ‘Even if they do, what has that got to do with you? I’ve done nothing wrong!’

  Ayşe Farsakoğlu for one had to agree. Mrs Melly had, as far as they knew, done nothing wrong. As she watched their superior, Commissioner Ardıç, get into his brand new BMW with his driver, she wondered about just what İkmen hoped to achieve by this line of inquiry even if his English was absolutely stunning.

  ‘Mrs Melly, no one is saying you have done anything wrong,’ İkmen said. ‘All I am doing is trying to establish connections between people if they exist. We have a number of people across both the Handan Ergin and the Yaşar Uzun investigations who know each other and have relationships of various sorts.’ He flashed one of his totally charming smiles. ‘I am just a poor policeman, Mrs Melly, I cannot always keep all of this information in my head.’

  She visibly softened. But then, as Ayşe Farsakoğlu knew only too well, the İkmen charm offensive, in full flight, rarely failed especially with women.

  ‘I’m sorry, Inspector,’ Mrs Melly said with a very lovely smile of her own now. ‘My husband . . . Some years ago, Peter was unfaithful to me. We got over that, somehow, but . . .’

  ‘The quarter-of-a-million-pound-carpet was too much for you,’ İkmen said.

  ‘Yes! And when I realised he wanted to mortgage the house again to pay off the second payment, well . . . I didn’t want to lose my house, and my future too, for the sake of a carpet, Inspector!’

  ‘I can understand that.’

  ‘Well, that is more than Peter could!’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  She shook her head girlishly. ‘That’s all right.’ She was, Ayşe Farsakoğlu felt, really quite flirty and pretty in certain lights too. She was just very slightly coming on to old İkmen.

  ‘So you were at home in bed at the time of Mr Uzun’s unfortunate death . . .’

  ‘Yes. I didn’t hear Peter come in. I was sleeping by then – we sleep at the front of the house – and he hadn’t taken the car with him so the place was as silent as the grave, but I saw him in the morning.’

  ‘Do you drive?’

  ‘God no! No, I’m afraid I taxi across the city. Expensive, I know, but . . .’

  ‘And you haven’t seen Handan Ergin?’

  ‘For months, no! As I said, her husband made his position quite clear to Kim Monroe. I liked Handan when I taught her. But I haven’t seen her since I stopped teaching.’

  ‘No.’ İkmen shifted in his chair before, smiling yet again, he said, ‘So did you ever meet the carpet dealer, Yaşar Uzun, Mrs Melly?’

  She looked up at the ceiling as if attempting to find inspiration to her recall up there. ‘Yes, yes, I met him once last year, I think.’ She looked down again now and into İkmen’s eyes, ‘At Raşit Bey’s shop in the Grand Bazaar.’

  ‘And what did you make of Mr Uzun from your short acquaintance?’ İkmen asked.

  She shrugged, looked up to the ceiling again, and then said, ‘Not a great deal.’ She smiled. ‘Carpets are really Peter’s interest, not mine, as I imagine you know!’

  İkmen laughed. ‘Quite so. Quite so. Well, Mrs Melly, I’m very sorry to have inconvenienced you like this, but you know how it is. One of my officers will drive you home.’

  ‘I can go?’ She looked surprised.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Ah.’ Matilda Melly stood up. She then took a deep breath before she bent down in order to retrieve her handbag from the floor.

  ‘Sergeant Farsakoğlu will accompany you downstairs,’ İkmen said and then, turning to Ayşe, he continued in Turkish, ‘Get Roditi to take her home.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ She turned to the Englishwoman and made a gesture towards the door. ‘Mrs Melly?’

  ‘Oh, thank you.’ She leaned across İkmen’s desk and shook his hand before walking towards the door after the younger, much slimmer woman. However, just as she was going through the doorway, a deep, dark voice called her back.

  ‘Oh, Mrs Melly!’

  She turned and saw him smiling at her from behind his desk, lighting yet another cigarette. ‘Yes, Inspector?’

  ‘Do you sometimes like shopping in Nişantaşı?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nişantaşı, do you like shopping there? In Marks and Spencer, Armani . . .’

  ‘Not generally, no.’ And then she frowned. ‘Why?’

  Still smiling he shrugged, ‘No friends in that area or . . .’

  ‘No. Why should I have friends in that area?’

  ‘There is no reason, it . . .’

  ‘Then why are you asking me about it?’ Her voice was tetchy, even if her face was entirely impassive.

  ‘As I said to you before, Mrs Melly,’ İkmen said, ‘it’s all about connections, relationships between people.’

  ‘But I have no connection to Nişantaşı. Why would I? If I wanted to go to Marks and Spencer I would wait until I went home to go there. Their stuff is much cheaper in the UK.’

  ‘I see.’ He looked across at Ayşe who was frowning. ‘Well, that is very good then, isn’t it, Mrs Melly? Thank you.’

  She watched him smile again and then look down at the papers that littered his desk, before she said, ‘Inspector.’

  And then slowly she made her way out of his office and into the corridor beyond. As soon as she was out of earshot, İkmen called Matilda Melly’s husband.

  Mürsel was far more physically fastidious than the man who had recently entered the hararet to join him.

  ‘Shooting shouldn’t be done in an enclosed space, I want to live,’ he said as he held Süleyman down on the göbektaşı so hard that the policeman could feel his right cheek beginning to burn.

  The other man, whose words were more a collection of growls than proper speech, said, ‘Lift the head, I’ll cut the throat.’

  ‘And splash about in his blood for the next hour? I think not,’ Mürsel replied.

  ‘Because you desire him . . .’

  ‘Oh, don’t start with that!’ Mürsel exploded. ‘I have nothing on you. You who have pleasured yourself all over your victims!’

  ‘I did what you wanted!’

  ‘You did what you wanted, too!’ Mürsel replied. ‘You did that well before I came on the scene. Mad bastard.’

  Süleyman, still gagging with pain, tried to look up at who Mürsel was talking to, but found that even the slightest movement of his head was far too painful to allow him to continue. Strangely, even to himself, the policeman couldn’t get over what Mürsel had said to him earlier. Although terrified, part of his mind was still smarting from the way the spy had so spitefully disparaged his appearance. Over the years people had said many negative things about his wit, his intelligence and his morals, but never, ever his looks. That he was so disturbed about something so trivial made him vain and despicable in his own eyes. A sexually irresponsible, vain and stupid man.

  ‘I’m going to snap his neck,’ Mürsel said very matter-of-factly. ‘Clean, quick . . .’

  ‘You don’t want to do anything with him first?’

  ‘No. I’m not you. I . . .’ There was a pause then, a long one, during which, it seemed, no one moved. Mürsel’s grip was still tight upon his hand and now dislocated shoulder, but there was something in the character of that hold that had changed. He didn’t know what . . . ‘On your chest,’ he heard Mürsel whisper. ‘Look down, look down! On . . .’

  ‘Oh . . .’

  ‘Keep . . .’

  ‘You’ve an identical red dot on your back I think you’ll find,’ a very cultured and entirely different voice boom
ed across the marble and the steam. Now, just very slightly, Mürsel’s hold on Süleyman’s wrist began to slacken. ‘You’re lined up in my sights. Let the police officer go.’

  ‘What?’ Mürsel was suddenly speaking at increased volume now. ‘So you can shoot me?’

  ‘I can shoot you anyway. We can shoot both of you. It’s over.’

  ‘What is?’ Silence again. Then Mürsel reiterated, ‘What is? What’s fucking over? Nothing’s fucking over until I say it is! You do what I say! I’m in charge! I don’t need you! Who authorised you? I didn’t ask the department for help! I don’t need any help!’

  His voice had suddenly gone into something Süleyman hadn’t heard before. Rough, guttural eastern tones. ‘Well? Well?’ Süleyman felt the force of these words as they poured out of what felt like his weakening captor.

  The sound of feet running and scuffling against the hot slick floor was followed by a slight whirring sound and then a dull, damp thud somewhere across the other side of the space. Mürsel gasped.

  ‘He . . .’

  ‘He’, the unknown voice said, ‘was a dog we and you knew had to be put down some time. He tried to run. We’ve done it now. Stand down. Move away from the police officer. Stand down. That’s an order.’

  Mürsel yanked Süleyman’s hand back up to the top of his head again. ‘And if I don’t?’ he said. ‘What if I don’t?’

  ‘You are a patriot. You will obey the orders of your superiors. I am your superior, Mürsel. Obey me. To do anything else would be the action of a traitor.’