An Oriental Murder

by Jane Bastin

  “This is how the sultan chose his girl for the night.”

  The group laughed and the young girl’s face burned crimson.

  A moment’s distraction and Rick McFarlane had disappeared. He must have gone through the door to the teachers’ room which was out of bounds to visitors. Sinan had visited the palace many times over the course of his career in the city but the labyrinth of rooms was still a nest of confusion. Only twenty out of a possible three hundred rooms open to the public, he had no idea which room he might have entered. The guide had not noticed Rick leave the room and Sinan was confident that he would not be noticed either. Turning the tortoiseshell door handle, Sinan stepped beyond the tourist zone.

  The teachers’ room, tiled in blue, gold, orange, pink and burgundy overwhelmed the senses. Small with three possible doorways, Sinan felt uncomfortable with the confusion building within him. He might not follow rules, but logic and rational thought were his guiding principles. The elongated consonants of a Texan accent drew him to one of the three doorways. Carefully turning it Sinan saw Rick in one of the courtrooms with what looked like the director of the Topkapi Palace Museum and the Mayor of Istanbul. Waiting just beyond the doorway, he felt the buzz of his phone. His heart thudded as the three men stopped talking. Flicking the phone open quickly, Sinan turned it off. It had been nothing short of irritating all day. After what seemed an interminable length of time during which Sinan felt he would be seen at any moment, Rick McFarlane left the director’s office with a large box-like object covered in red velvet.

  Chapter Fifteen

  You are free to be arrested,

  imprisoned

  and even hanged.

  “It was like something out of a story. I felt as though Scheherazade were telling a story from the Arabian Nights. A red velvet box. Full of what?”

  “Treasure.”

  Bea laughed. A little too coquettishly, she thought, but let it linger anyway. He had come. Not too late but late enough that her mother had retired to bed, most probably to dream of the ridiculous notion that she might have murdered her long lost lover, the Prime Minister of Turkey. Bea snorted at the thought and felt Sinan’s arm tighten around her waist. His fingers now laced through her hair. Istanbul was beginning to breathe again after a night of intense heat. But, the early morning light did not distract Sinan. He kissed Bea with the same intimacy as he had when he appeared at her doorway the night before.

  Sergeant Mehmet noted that Sinan wore the same navy shirt as the day before but said nothing when he met him in the foyer of the Pera Palas. He also noted Bea, hovering a little too close.

  “Sir, inspector Haris…sir”

  Sergeant Mehmet could feel the early spring heat seep through his shirt. Stretching his arms outright, he tried to show his discomfort but Sinan was looking in the opposite direction.

  “Sir, Inspector Haris was angry…sir, yesterday at the meeting that you didn’t attend …that you were meant to attend…that he expected you to attend.”

  He had Sinan’s attention but knew it would last seconds. As the junior officer, Sergeant Mehmet had difficulty with asserting his authority. Life in conservative Turkey stifled him. The rigid and fixed nature of rank within the police force was mirrored by the rank he held within his family. Occasional nightmares where his head slipped beneath crashing waves, hands flailing in mid-air woke him, gasping for breath and his wife, lying peacefully beside him merely told him of the busy day she had ahead of her and of her need for sleep.

  “Sir, Inspector Haris was livid.”

  There, he had his attention. Sergeant Mehmet felt a stab of excitement at the way in which Sinan turned to face him.

  “And, Sergeant Mehmet? You evidently have more to tell me?”

  “Well, sir,” Sergeant Mehmet felt the exhilaration of being listened to and although he did not want to lose Sinan’s attention, he did want to stress the impossible situation he had placed everyone in.

  “Sir, Inspector Haris was so furious that he shot globules of spittle from his mouth as he ranted. Some landed in poor Sergeant Fusun’s eye.”

  “Sergeant Fusun?” Sinan repeated the name. Sergeant Mehmet took a quiet, deep breath, annoyed at Sinan’s lack of understanding.

  “Sir, Sergeant Fusun works in financial fraud. We worked with her on the Pangalti bank case a couple of years ago.”

  What does it matter who she is? thought Sergeant Mehmet. The woman got spit in her eye.

  Sinan screwed his eyes and Sergeant Mehmet knew that his boss had no recollection.

  “Never mind, sir. Inspector Haris is fixated on Gaye’s boyfriend. He told everyone assembled that the Prime Minister was an accidental victim, that Gaye, the young girl, was the real victim. “

  Sergeant Mehmet paused. He still had Sinan’s attention.

  “Carry on, Sergeant Mehmet. I’m enjoying hearing Haris’ fantasy.”

  “Well sir. He told us that the murders were a crime of passion that went wrong. Gaye’s boyfriend was consumed with vengeance and planned the murders.”

  “And the cyanide cigarettes?” Sinan murmured.

  “Sources unknown, sir.”

  “How fortuitous. If only that were the only evidence we had to provide for every case… sources unknown, judge.”

  Sergeant Mehmet grinned.

  “What next, sergeant?”

  “He has had Fevzi Cakmak, the boyfriend arrested. They picked him up while his was doing the lunch shift at the café in the Flower Passage.”

  “Links to the civil service murders?”

  Sinan leant against the wall, his focus solely on Sergeant Mehmet.

  “None, sir.” Heaving a sudden breath, Sergeant Mehmet relaxed and laughed suddenly.

  “Okay, Mehmet. Let’s grab a simit and tea and head off to this tattoo parlour.” Sinan punched his sergeant on the arm, nodding a subtle ‘goodbye’ to Bea.

  Police-issue cars in Istanbul are rarely replaced. They withstand the knocks and scrapes of a city colliding with its own geography every minute of the day and the car that Sergeant Mehmet drove across the city with Sinan was no exception. The clutch wobbled, the brakes screamed and the gear stick occasionally left its base when least expected. Sergeant Mehmet, however was proficient in handling it. Sinan though, was not and gripped the door handle. Walking was his favourite method of transportation. The smells, sounds and sights of the city he had adopted assaulted his senses. Walking from the top of his hill in Besiktas to the police station in Taksim was an immersion in everything the city had to offer both profound and shallow. Overcome by the roar of cars, the persistent horns, hawkers selling everything from cups of fluorescent yellow lemonade to bread rings encrusted with sesame seeds, small children chattering like birds laden down by heavy school bags, the call of the muezzin and the peal of church bells, he knew the soundscape of the city like nowhere other than his mother’s mountain.

  It was easy to understanding why Roger McDuff might have chosen this tattoo parlour. It was walking distance from the Pera Palas and had Sinan and Mehmet walked, they might have arrived quicker, Sinan thought as he yanked the door open. The Galata Tower thrust into the sky, shadowing the wooden houses that lurched drunkenly on either side. The Genoese in the fourteenth century had produced something sturdier than anything built in the twentieth. Flashing lights above a small doorway that tilted sideways at almost ninety degrees, CERKEZ TA T OS wincing like a half-blind beggar waiting for the offerings of benevolent passers-by. Sinan ducked his head to avoid the lintel and Sergeant Mehmet pushed an overflowing cobweb to the side. The light of the street seemed to have been sucked from the room. Blinking to adjust his eyes, Sinan saw two young men dressed identically in tailored suits, with carefully groomed beards that formed a sharp point below their chins matched by sharply pointed shoes. They sat in almost identical poses, stiff backed, pinched resolution on their faces, and legs extended. The sound of the needle hummed bumble bee like in the foreground. An older man covered in greying, bear-like facial hair jabbe
d a needle at a young man’s arm while a younger woman, a large hoop hanging from her septum and black lined eyes that made her look fierce drew the fire of a dragon on a middle aged man’s calf. Every inch of their arms and bare legs were covered in a mottled canvas of blue, purple and red images. Sinan felt nauseous as the steam of the heat and the closeness of the room pressed down. No one seemed to register their presence. Sergeant Mehmet banged his hand firmly on the wall but nothing seemed to cut through the relentless, tooth-numbing sound of the tattoo drills.

  “Police. Can I have your attention please?”

  Sinan’s patience broke as he felt the bread of his morning simit rise to his throat.

  The older tattooist switched his drill off but the younger girl continued, a snarl on her face as she looked at Sinan.

  “Begum, stop. He can wait.”

  The older man bellowed into the young girl’s ear and she put the drill down on the side and stomped off to a curtained area at the back of the room.

  “How can I help you?”

  “Inspector Sinan Kaya of Istanbul police and my sergeant, Sergeant Mehmet. We would like to ask you a few questions about where you source your red tattoo ink in relation to a series of murders in the Istiklal road area.”

  Sergeant Mehmet stopped chewing the end of his pencil.

  “Our non-toxic red ink?” The bearded tattooist looked confused.

  Sinan pointed to the word ‘Barbaros’ etched on the inflamed skin of the two men seated side by side. Crimson inked.

  “Oh that ink. Okay, I get this ink from the Egyptian Spice bazaar. Some of my customers prefer it because they think it does not have not the side effects that other more toxic inks can cause.”

  “Such as cancer?” Sergeant Mehmet removed the tip of his pencil from his mouth and Sinan glared.

  “Yes, that. Anyways, I don’t quite understand how I can help you. How could a tattoo ink be linked to a murder?”

  The tattooist pushed his large, stubby fingers covered in words and symbols through his tangled beard, tugging them free after a few seconds.

  “Each of the murder victims found in an alleyway opposite the Flower Passage had been tattooed with this ink and almost certainly at this parlour. Same lettering and same ink.”

  “Photos?” The young girl appeared, nestling a large, steaming cup of coffee in her hands.

  Sergeant Mehmet flicked open a tablet and scrolled through the photos of each of the murder victims. Sinan slowed his thought processes down. Subtle changes in body temperature, small ticks of the face, anything that might suggest that they knew something.

  “I think I tattooed all four. The last one was only a few days ago. He said he was in town for a meeting but wanted to get out to the meyhane for some fun.”

  Sinan looked at the studious face on the screen. Scrubbed skin, small glasses firmly placed at the top of his nose and an expression of fierce earnestness did not suggest that this was the face of someone who craved ‘fun’.

  “Why so many tattoos of the same name?” Sinan leant back against the wall and felt it move slightly.

  “It’s a mark.”

  “A mark?”

  “Yes, a brand. Like cattle. Gay men in Istanbul have allegiances to different meyhanes and they can see immediately when they meet up which ‘tribe’ they belong to.”

  Sergeant Mehmet and Sinan glanced quickly at each other.

  “And did any of these men have concerns about their well-being at all?”

  The young girl flexed a bony arm that rippled with a tattoo of a purple python.

  “None of them really spoke. None of them had ever had a tattoo before. I must admit I thought it was odd that they wanted one in the first place. Not our usual type but then we do get all sorts.”

  The young girl placed her coffee cup suggestively beneath her chin and smiled at Sinan. Beneath the kohl-ringed eyes, she had deeply etched acne scars.

  “And this man?” Sergeant Mehmet scrolled down to a picture of Roger McDuff, a university staff photograph.

  “Roger the dodger.” The older tattooist laughed and scratched loose hairs from his cheeks.

  “Yes, I remember Roger. Only the other day. What a great man.” The young girl smiled and slurped her coffee.

  “What did he say about why he wanted a tattoo?”

  “Just for fun. A hieroglyph, I did of a scorpion. He liked that… a lot.”

  The young girl giggled beneath her breath and shuffled her feet. Sinan looked down to see two green and black sea serpents curl around her shins up to her thighs.

  Sinan returned to the Pera Palas. He had promised Bea that he would meet for a drink but he was tired and irritable. The suppression of people’s lives, their inability to live the way they chose, the way that would make them happy filled him with a melancholia he found difficult to shift. Homosexuality was still taboo, forcing people to make decisions that would compromise their safety. To be born in a different place at a different time and the life chances of these men would be so vastly different. Sinan wiped a sheen of sweat from his forehead just as Bea entered the bar trailed by a middle-aged woman. Fine lines etched around her mouth as she spoke; the woman introduced herself as Marjory from Devon, England, not far from the house of the great woman herself, Agatha Christie.

  “Sorry to intrude on your little tête-a-tête but I got talking to Bea about writing and here I am!”

  Bea squeezed Sinan’s hand. “Well, Marjory has a small seminar to attend in a while so…”

  Marjory sat firmly down on the bar stool next to Sinan, barking an order for a mojito and anything else that her guests would like.

  Sinan shifted on the stool, bemused, irritated and fractious. Bea glared, but Marjory was not looking.

  “Well, so nice to meet you, Inspector.”

  Marjory no longer acknowledged Bea. She had served the function of introducing her to Sinan.

  “Just out of prison, aren’t you, Marjory?”

  Bea pulled on her repertoire of weapons with which to discredit female competition. Although, Marjory’s prematurely grey hair and shapeless hessian smock did not mark her out as obvious competition. Instead of being overcome with embarrassment, Marjory laughed suddenly, baring a gap where her front tooth should have been.

  “That’s right, my dear. I was living at her majesty’s pleasure in Downview Prison.”

  Sinan watched as the barman placed a cherry on a cocktail stick in each of their drinks. He did not respond but waited. People especially writers, he had decided, coveted the opportunity to talk about themselves even if it might be incriminating or embarrassing.

  “They got me for murdering my hubbie. Well, there was no body but they still convicted. If I could have, I would have murdered the living daylights out of the hubster. Cheating, thieving swine but I told the court, he’d scarpered before I could do it. They said I’d tried to get the life insurance – well, that bit is true ’cause he fleeced me of everything. Still, I got my dignity which is more than can be said of him is what I told the judge.”

  Bea and Sinan sipped on their mojitos quietly. Marjory shifted her smock above the knee and widened her legs. “Well, you see, Inspector, I did two year for a crime I hadn’t committed although, god knows, I would love to have committed it and if I ever lay eyes on him again, I probably will commit…”

  Marjory stopped mid-sentence, threw her head back and laughed. Bea twizzled the cherry on the end of her cocktail stick, pausing to note Sinan’s reaction. Stony faced, inscrutable would be how she would have described him had he been a character in one of her books but he was here, real, flesh and blood and he showed little interest in anything.

  “How did you get out, then?” Bea pressed her hands together, hoping to tie up the distraction with Marjory so that she could focus on her real prey.

  “They found him, didn’t they! Police out in Thailand, living a nice life, thank you very much with an eighteen year old Thai girl in a small village with a baby. You see, he never wanted kids so we n
ever had any…”

  Bea stretched her hand out to stroke Marjory’s arm as her body convulsed in a violent, unexpected sob. Sinan sipped on his mojito and looked around the room.

  “So, you are writing about it, are you? I hope so.”

  Bea’s gentle tone calmed Marjory until her heaving breast subsided.

  “Yes, yes, I am. The papers and publishers were all after me for my story and I told them that I need to learn the craft first hence this congress.”

  Bea positioned her hand beneath Marjory’s elbow levering her off the bar stool towards the door.

  “Marjory, if you walk quickly, you’ll just make the start of your seminar. I can’t recommend it highly enough. It’s led by Hank Forsyth, the renowned thriller writer. Quick, you’ll only have missed five minutes.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  But I know

  a wind comes up with the moon.

  The trees are whispering.

  Your bare arms will be cold.

  Sinan was not surprised to receive the summons. Sergeant Mehmet bit through the courgette fritters that Sinan had promised him were worth travelling to the top of the Galata Tower for and waited to hear the news. He had almost lost his job a couple of years ago and it was only the sudden change of Chief Inspector that stopped everything. But now. He knew, perhaps more than Sinan the strength of feeling back at the police station. Sinan had not been in for days. Although not quite refusing to follow orders, he had distanced himself enough not to be able to carry out what Inspector Haris had asked of him. Wiping his mouth clear of yoghurt, he looked up at Sinan. He did not seem in the slightest concerned. In fact, he smiled and leant back, his arms behind his head.

  “Do you know, Mehmet, that sub-atomic atoms can appear in more than one place? When you examine the sub-atomic world, the world beyond the visible, things are very different to how we perceive them. They change their behaviour when observed and stop changing when we stop looking. So interesting.”