by Jane Bastin
“Okay, so weapon and motive almost clear but not quite.”
Sinan smiled. He was tired. The food had made his thoughts hazy and he could feel his eyes begin to close involuntarily.
“So, Bea. I suggest you take your mother up to her room. She probably needs to rest. Agatha, you must not leave the hotel like all of the other guests who have been told by my officers and we will carry on talking about this tomorrow morning. “
Agatha stared, saliva dribbled out of one corner of her mouth.
“Understood, Agatha?” Sinan repeated the question, looking to Bea for support.
“Come on, mother. It’s been a very long day. Probably best to get some sleep ready for tomorrow.”
“Don’t patronise me, miss big shot writer, I am not a child.”
Agatha stood up suddenly, shook her daughter’s hand from her elbow and walked towards the door. Bea looked back and shrugged her shoulders at Sinan.
Although spring had arrived, the night air was still biting. Rubbing his hands together to incite some warmth, Sinan looked around his flat. He knew it looked as though no one actually lived there. Each of the women that he had brought back after Ani, commented on his spartan way of living. And each one brought some vestige of what they considered life to the flat. One peppered the living room with plants. Large, spidery leaves were now scattered across the cold tiles. Another positioned her own paintings over the bedroom walls. Images of screaming babies stared down on Sinan as he tried to sleep. Every time, he fought with sleeplessness, he resolved to remove the paintings and burn them but as soon as he rose, he would leave almost immediately for the police station. Domestic life did not interest him at all. Pulling up the cold duvet, Sinan tried to relax his tense muscles. And just as sleep began to ooze though his veins, his phone rang. Scrabbling about at the side of his bed, he unplugged the phone, checking to see the caller. Straining his eyes in the dark, the neon letters blurred. Randomly pressing a button, his mother’s disembodied voice boomed.
“Son?”
“Yes, mother. Are you okay? It’s late. Past 1 a.m.”
“Son, can you hear me?”
“Yes, I can hear you.”
“Son, can you hear me?”
Sinan could hear both his mother and the soft wind whipping off the Aegean. As his mother continued to ask whether he could hear her, he closed his eyes and pictured her standing in her front garden, hand raised high in the air trying to catch the signals as she put it when he questioned what she was doing.
“Mother, I CAN HEAR YOU.”
“Good. Now listen son. You need to know and you need to help. You need to get the Istanbul police to sort this mess out. Are you well, my son?”
The sleep that had begun to drug him dissolved in an instant.
“Yes, yes, of course I’m fine. What’s the problem? Mother?”
“Well, when the sheep turn into wolves, we know that we should never have trusted them but good hearts do not always see evil until it comes in the dark of night to hijack them and then it’s too late. You see evil wears a black cloak that it is able to hide beneath. It can change shape. But good wears a transparent coat, it hides nothing from no one and it gives evil a head start.”
“Mother, stop talking in riddles. I’m tired. What is the problem?”
Sinan instantly regretted the sharpness of his tone. He had not seen his mother in over six months.
“Son, I won’t trouble you again. What kind of a world have we created when a son has no time for his mother!”
Sinan felt the stab of his mother’s words. He knew they had no malice but he felt her disappointment in an unmarried son who lived far away.
“Mother, tell me. Of course, I will help.”
Without stopping to berate him further, Sinan’s mother spoke quickly of the problems facing the village.
“The muhtar, the imam, the head teacher, the police chief down in Ayvacik have decreed that all women must cover their entire bodies in black and must not be seen out of their houses without the chaperone of a male. Oh, and they have also decided, in their great wisdom – the BUFFOONS – that we must not listen to any music or dance. I swear on your father’s grave that these MEN are barking mad. Power has befuddled their brains and the hatred that they have for women because of some inadequacy that they have yet to share with us has driven them to enforce a state of Iran on my mountain. Ida will be crying herself to sleep.”
Sinan stared at the screaming baby painting that bore down in the darkness. Ida, he thought. Ida, the name of the mountain where he had grown. Female and beautiful.
“Mother, keep your voice down. No need to rile anyone especially not the old goatherd, Mustafa, next door. I’ll look into it and I’ll come down in a few days.”
“Promise?”
His mother’s voice wilted. Sinan heard the bark of foxes.
“Of course, now sleep.”
Chapter Four
My eyes can’t get enough of the trees,
they’re so hopeful, so green.
Sinan always woke too early. A habit from childhood. An early morning cacophony of chickens, cockerels, sheep, goats, eagles and the soft moan of the Aegean wind had burned its blueprint. Now, in a small flat at the top of Serencebey Hill, surrounded by cars, buildings and people, his body still woke to the cooing of pigeons and cats squealing for scraps amidst the clatter of bins falling sideways. Rubbing his hands over his face, he thought back to the night before. It was bound to be headline news. No television meant he would not know until he got to the station or picked up a paper but the Prime Minister… His thumbs caught on the sharp bristles that poked through his chin and he thought momentarily that perhaps he ought to shave. But the ping of his mobile phone changed his focus.
Meet at the Meze bar at the top of Galata Tower 7:30. j
It was about 6 a.m. he thought, by the way the spring light seeped through the curtains but he checked anyway. He was right. He was always right, he thought as he moved straight from the bed to the shower.
The steepness of Serencebey Hill helped to ease him into the day. At night, the relentless pull on his thigh muscles meant that he fell easily into sleep for an hour or so. The morning, however meant that he met the pull of gravity head on, almost ricocheting down the hill. There was rarely any food in his flat and his stomach would begin to clench by the time he reached the ferryboat to take him along the Bosphorus to the police station at Beyoglu. Pulling out some loose change, Sinan took a bread ring, some white cheese, a handful of olives and glass of hot tea. The boat glided across the water, chugging black smoke behind it like a tail. Sinan sipped the tea, scalding his top lip and thought about the Prime Minister’s death. Could it have been a suicide pact? Unlikely, he reflected, chewing on the bread ring before popping an olive in his mouth and spitting out the stone. Could the girl have committed murder and then killed herself? A stronger possibility but still remote. He pushed the tip of his tongue against the bottom of his teeth, trying to dislodge sesame seeds that had loosened from the bread ring. An old man, elf-like with a long grey beard and small woollen hat fanned out a newspaper and coughed. Sinan looked up and saw the headlines:
Prime Minister Murdered in a Crime of Passion
Just beneath, he saw a picture of a beautiful young woman with a mane of dark hair. The newspapers were more efficient than the police, he thought wryly. Sinan hadn’t yet seen such a clear picture of the woman. Leaning forward, he tipped some tea over his trouser leg but the liquid was cool and he simply brushed it away. She had the sharp nose and high forehead of eastern Kurds and he hadn’t noticed that yesterday. Her vulnerability had shaken him. Biting into another olive, he thought of her family. Where were they? How had she fallen into prostitution? She didn’t look like an addict but he knew the story and he was rarely wrong. Repression, violence within the family, threats to marry her off at a young age, very possibly to a relative and suddenly she’s on a long distance bus to Istanbul. The brothels of Istanbul were full of the same nar
rative. Young girls desperate to escape the violence of home but with no skills to offer other than their bodies. She was one of them, although she had a certain protection with the Prime Minister. Sinan thought quickly of the Prime Minister’s wife and children but his thoughts were halted by the collision of the ferryboat with the landing quay.
Sinan walked purposefully. Slim, dark trousers, white shirt open at the neck and a grey jacket fastened half way up, he could have passed for any office or shop worker. Non-descript, anonymous was a look he didn’t crave but certainly perfected. But his handsome features gathered glances as he walked along the street away from the police station. He ought to tell Sergeant Mehmet, he thought but he reconciled that he would not be too long and, in any case, it would probably be of absolutely no consequence.
Onur Bestelen sat at the far end of the bar. The light of day had not reached this particular corner and Sinan did not, at first, see him. Skulking might have been too strong a word but he was certainly huddled over a steaming cup of coffee, sniffing and coughing. Sinan tapped him hard on the shoulder and he raised his head half-heartedly. Becoming Minister of Agriculture after years of running a farm on the Anatolian steppes had not prepared him for city life. He had never really become accustomed to the hemmed in way of life and he had felt a connection with Sinan when he told him of his village. Sinan had fostered this connection. He had exaggerated his despair with the city and Onur Bestelen rose to the bait. He had been reading the biography of Sultan Suleyman’s Grand Vizier, Ibrahim Pasha at the time. It was unlike Sinan to promote useful relationships, perhaps the impression of Ibrahim Pasha and his rise from slave, captured as a child in Venice, to friend and confidant of Suleyman when still a prince had shaped his thinking at the time. But, fostering a relationship with those in power had led Ibrahim Pasha to eventual execution, and Sinan trod carefully with his ‘friend’, Onur Bestelen.
“Onur bey, minister, how are you? Not well by the look of you. Let me get you some ginger and cinnamon tea, it’ll work wonders.”
Sinan raised his hand but Onur pressed it down.
“No, I’m fine.”
As if on cue, he spluttered into a grubby handkerchief. Bloodshot eyes moistened and his nose dripped into his bushy grey moustache.
“Hay fever, I think. You know I never got this when I worked on the farm. Only when I moved to the city. Not natural, you know, Inspector.”
Sinan motioned to the waiter for a Turkish coffee and sat back, stretching his long legs beneath the small table.
“So, the Prime Minister.”
Sinan threw down the gauntlet.
The minister snorted loudly. Two elderly women seated on the other side of the bar tutted loudly.
“What do you think?” Sinan asked
“Of what? An elderly man, a Muslim who should know better than to be committing adultery. A man who represents all of us, who commits sin in the shape of fornication, lies and deceit? What should I think?”
Gasping for breath, the minister pulled out a cleaner handkerchief and wiped his forehead. Sinan waited.
“He got his comeuppance. I’m here to tell you about the murders of Irfan bey of the Ministry of Agriculture and Serdar bey of the Ministry of Transport.”
“The Flower Passage murders? How do you know about the second one?”
The minister ignored Sinan and continued talking between long wheezes sucking in air as though drawing his last breath.
“Yes, of course I know. I am a minister for all the good it’s done me and the country. Look, I don’t have much time. My driver is waiting down by the quay to take me to a Russian delegation. They’re suddenly interested in the price of beef, can you believe it? No, of course not.”
The minister rambled as though conducting a conversation purely with himself. Sinan was not really there in his mind. He made no eye contact and engaged in no dialogue other than his own monologue.
“But, it’s the Americans that are the problem. Look, those two murders are not unconnected. Irfan was one of my most trusted senior civil servants… gone… in a heartbeat. The same goes for Serdar bey although I didn’t personally know him. But… snuffed out… and why?”
Sinan could feel his hands clench with frustration. He had a mountain of work, his Turkish coffee was finished and the minister was gabbling.
“The Americans are playing a dangerous game. They play with the lives of countries as though we are mere pawns on a chess board. We have a big, potentially huge, project involving thousands of wind farms all over Thrace; it’s a big national focus and the plan is to provide Greece, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Belarus and others with our electricity surplus. The Albanian mafia have been dragged in. But they are pawns as well. Puppets of their American masters or whoever will pay the highest price. Their fingerprints will be all over the murders, mark my words.”
“But why would the Americans want them dead?”
“They’ve been trying to turn them for months and their love of country and their Muslim values stopped them.”
“But why?” Sinan tapped his fingers on the table and the minister glared.
“To gain control of the wind farms of course. Anything to stop Turkey from getting too big for its boots.”
The Minister fluctuated his tone, paused before suddenly pushing his chair roughly back and strode out of the bar.
Whoever named Taksim Square had roundly deceived those who were yet to see it. It was not a square, thought Sinan as he raced ahead of a speeding car that almost nipped the leather from the back of his shoe. At least, it was not a square in the quaintest of senses. Italy had squares. Large public arenas decorated with magnificent statues. Britain had squares made beautiful by trees and flowers. But the central square of Istanbul had little to recommend it. People pushed roughly past each other to avoid tripping off the kerb onto the road and speeding traffic. No one met another’s gaze. The pleasantries of Sinan’s mountain village were redundant here. Few helped others as they stumbled. The concrete bleakness of the square with one central statue of Ataturk held little promise. The police station stood on one side of the square, a product of the brutalist architecture of the 1960s. As if to highlight its ugliness, a seventeenth century Russian Orthodox church sparkled with mosaic covered spires next door.
Sergeant Mehmet met Sinan as soon as he left the lift. Waving a clutch of papers in his right hand, he pressed Sinan’s left arm firmly. Sinan stopped, clicked his fingers and waited. Sergeant Mehmet lifted his hand as though it had just been scalded.
“Sir, the post mortem report into the alleyway murders.”
This time, Sinan held up his hand. Sergeant Mehmet stopped. He had worked with Sinan for the past two years but was still uncertain. Maverick, many said when he announced that he was joining Sinan’s team but he had quickly realised that this was his strength. Sidestepping the routes and processes of traditional policing, Sergeant Mehmet told everyone that he had learned more in two years than he had in the past twelve. Sinan, he told them was both intuitive and logical. Inconsequential information was filed in his mind to be retrieved when you least expected it. And, Sergeant Mehmet would counter to all who would listen, Sinan’s knowledge of the city was unsurpassed.
“We don’t yet know that they were linked so maybe we shouldn’t be too quick to lump them together, eh?”
“Well, sir, the report makes a few suggestive links.”
Sinan took the papers and walked briskly into his office.
Sinan’s secretary, Ruhi loped behind with a glass of tea balanced dangerously in one hand. Unusually tall with a Black Sea nose that protruded proudly, oily black hair and large coal black eyes that looked permanently startled, he was unable to slip into the background. Sinan could scan the main office for a split second and spot him almost immediately sitting in the far corner. Sinan walked into his room divided by a thin pane of glass from the main office, catching Ruhi’s shin with the door as he closed it. Accustomed to pursuing Sinan with a glass of tea in hand, Ruhi simply sidled pas
t the closing door and waited at the edge of the desk. Sinan was usually earlier, he thought but would never ask questions. Sinan’s temper had gained a fame of its own around police headquarters and he was determined after one year of working with him not to experience it.
“Ruhi, did anyone try to contact me today? Anyone from the government?”
Without looking up, Sinan switched on his computer before taking a long sip of tea.
“No sir.”
Ruhi resisted rubbing his hands together, a habit he had developed as a child whenever he felt anxious.
“But there was a call that I noted at about eight this morning, sir. A lady.”
Ruhi left the office, returning almost immediately with his notebook. Sucking the end of his pencil, he flicked through the pages.
“A lady called from the Pera Palas Hotel. She wants to talk to you about the mad honey. Her name is Bea. Maybe she knows about honey?!”
Sinan did not look up.
Ruhi persevered with his joke.
“Bea or Bee, she probably knows all about honey.”
Sinan smiled wanly and looked back at the computer screen.
Dozens of emails. He flicked through them; notifications about new promotions in the drugs and fraud squads; statistics about robberies in Sisli district in the last month; fundraising for a new coffee machine; new code of conduct rules for interrogation with attached online training. Sinan sat back, sipping his tea and thought back to the oddity of his early morning meeting with Onur bey, Minister of Agriculture. He had met him before in stranger places but the timing was… perfect? Onur bey was a farmer from Kayseri turned minister literally overnight because the Prime Minister was his second cousin. Were his far-fetched allegations about the Americans using the Albanian mafia to grab land, a cover for his anxiety about losing his job after the death of the Prime Minister? Wind farms as a ruse to grab land in Thrace… stranger things had happened.
