by Jane Bastin
“Inspector Sinan. You must come upstairs. NOW.”
Agatha Schiller stood at the head of the stairway, a purple bandana tied around her purple hair. Purple lipstick smudged, she opened her mouth and said nothing. Sinan noted the traces of purple lipstick on her front tooth before following her line of sight. Bea. In the birdcage lift. A knife held to her throat. A knife with the same serrations as the ones used in the murder of the civil servants. He was sure. And Ahmet Sari, former police officer, specialist in torture, brutal husband of Sylvia. As if a mask had been stripped from his face, Ahmet now revealed his true face – one of contorted anger. Every sinew was taut, every muscle twitched, and every nerve ending flickered as though his whole being might explode. Sinan switched his gaze back to Bea. Eyes wide, mouth firm, she did not look scared. The box? He could not see the box? Was he working for the Russians? No. The glance between Agatha and Ahmet. The gold chain around his neck with the name Agatha. The book. Now, it made sense. Agatha clasped her hands together as if in prayer and spoke.
“Ahmet, my son.”
Sinan felt the manager tug at his jacket sleeve. The anger in Ahmet’s eyes softened slightly.
“You call me son but you do not mean it. Here is my sister and she does not accept me as her brother. If I were your son, would she not see me as her brother?”
“She knows you are her brother, my dear. It will take time.”
Ahmet pressed the tip of the knife blade further into Bea’s neck. She made no sound.
“Let her talk. She can’t talk with a knife pressed into her throat, Ahmet.”
Ahmet looked back and momentarily released the pressure on Bea’s neck. His eyes bulged, black sleepless shadows spooled across his face. Blinking erratically, Ahmet leant forward to focus on Sinan.
“What are you doing here? It has nothing to do with you. This is a family matter.”
Sylvia whimpered in the corner, her blonde hair wrapped taut around her finger.
“I know how terrible this has been. For years, Ahmet. That’s true, isn’t it? Orphanages, no one to love you.”
Ahmet released the knife a little more and Sylvia whimpered in reply.
“You see, I read your book. The one you wanted all of us to read. The answers were there all the time and none of us saw it.”
Ahmet screwed his eyes closed. His hands punched at his stomach.
“I have been tortured my whole life and all I ever wanted was to be loved, to be part of a real family.”
Sinan closed his hands over Agatha’s as she raised them to stop him.
“I understand why you had to kill the Prime Minister.”
Ahmet loosened his grip on the knife. “You do?”
“Of course, I do. I had a father similar to yours. One who did not care for me. One who had other children with a woman who was not my mother. It must have hurt so badly when he rejected you years later.” Sinan drew on vague snippets from the blurb he had seen of Ahmet’s book, hopeful that he was following the right thread.
Sinan could see that Bea had edged ever so slightly to the side of the lift. The iron bar of the cage brushed her cheek. The knife hung more loosely in Ahmet’s hand.
“You will never know how much it hurt me. My own father, the Prime Minister of Turkey ashamed of me, his son, his flesh and blood.”
Agatha moaned before falling against the landing rail. Ahmet leant forward releasing Bea even more. Bea slipped her foot beneath Ahmet’s and thrust forward. Ahmet caught her elbow. Swung her back. Hair whipped his face. Twisting her wrist behind her back, he screamed as she screamed. The knife slashed the side of her cheek. Blood trickled a line to her chin. He pushed the knife closer to her throat. The point, a fraction from cutting Bea’s paper thin skin.
“Now listen, all of you. I do not want any of this to end badly. But I will kill her, my sister, if I do not get resolution. She must accept that I am her flesh and blood. Mother, talk to her.”
Ahmet looked directly at Agatha as she pulled herself to standing and forced a weak smile.
“Of course, darling. Bea, I can explain all of this. You see, I loved Ahmet’s father before I ever met yours. But his family were so against him marrying a foreigner that, well, they put the complete kybosh on it. I was heartbroken and even more so when I had to leave my son behind. Speak to him, Bea. He is your brother.”
Sinan supported Agatha’s back as she steadied herself against the banister. A strong whiff of lavender perfume filled the air as she tossed her hair back.
“But the others?” Sinan asked.
“Others?” repeated Ahmet through a vice of clenched teeth.
“The civil servants. Irfan bey, Ministry of Agriculture, Serdar bey, Ministry of Transport, Isa bey, Ministry of Mines. You killed them, didn’t you? Why?”
Sinan watched as Ahmet stared intensely at his mother, Agatha and said nothing. The hum of the delegates below and the slow whirring of air conditioning units broke the silence.
“Why kill them? They were hard working, decent men who only wanted the best for Turkey. Isn’t that what you wanted? When you were questioning enemies of the country, didn’t you only want what was best for your country? Even Sylvia’s husband, torturing him must have been hard or maybe easier knowing that you had an eye on the prize of his wife if it all went horribly wrong, which it inevitably did.”
Sylvia screamed. A powerful, deep scream that belied the frailty of her body.
“Isn’t it?” persevered Sinan.
Sinan could see the knife shake against Bea’s skin. She did not blink. She did not move. No sweat formed on her forehead.
“They did not want the best for our beautiful country, they thought only of their genitals. Married men with only thoughts of fornication with men. Their own sex. They disgust me. I asked for their help. They knew he was my father and they laughed in my face. Well, I had the last laugh. And Sylvia…well, Sylvia is my private affair.”
“And the cyanide cigarettes – you had access to the Russian archive in Ankara, didn’t you?” Sinan’s voice was insistent.
“Always. You think they are innocent of this crime? The Americans? I worked for the highest bidder. And they will always find someone who can be bought at the right price – Turkish, Russian or American.” Ahmet’s voice tailed off as he looked around at the crowd that had formed.
Bea pulled her free hand up to Ahmet’s face but it was met by a sudden slash of the knife. Blood dripped but Bea continued to raise her hand and brushed her fingers across Ahmet’s cheek, whispering ‘brother’. As though a spell had been broken, he dropped the knife and wept.
Sinan stood back as Sergeant Mehmet and an army of police officers arrested Ahmet. Agatha, stooped and wailing into the fur of her small dog, held out a hand for her son. Bea, brushing tears away with her wrist, kicked out at the hard iron of the lift. Sylvia stared at the wall behind them. Not the resolution to the murders he had suspected or even remotely hypothesised. And yet, it was standing upright, to full attention all of the time. He had insisted on them all reading his book and he had …of sorts and still it did not click until the moment with Bea held at knifepoint. The detail Ahmet had gone to with the tattoos and the sealed room murder were all tricks of his trade. He should have known. Sinan wiped his hands across his face and when he opened his eyes, Inspector Haris was standing at the top of the stairway.
“Well, I suppose that clears that matter up. I have informed the Chief Inspector but, of course, there are reports and questioning still to be attended to. I expect to see you at the station later this afternoon for the debrief which I shall be conducting.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
For the first time they took me out into the sun today.
And for the first time in my life I was aghast
that the sky is so far away
and so blue
and so vast
I stood there without a motion.
Fevzi Cakmak walked, head bowed down into the arms of his waiting mother. A few press ph
otographers had arrived early to catch sight of the man charged with the murders of the Prime Minister and the civil servants. The release of one who had been falsely charged was of little consequence or interest. Sinan pressed the save button on his antiquated computer, picked up his umbrella and wandered out of the office. Ahmet Sari could wait. Small puddles glistened in the sunshine as the clouds dispersed and Sinan picked up speed at the sudden change in weather.
Onur bey, former Minister of Agriculture now appointed permanent Prime Minister following a rushed vote in parliament days after the arrest of Ahmet Sari, sat in the corner of his favourite café in Galata. But this time, the sun threw bouncing beads of light across the table and he looked up with a large grin. His bear-like hands clenched Sinan in an embrace that felt as though it might extinguish his breath.
“You did it. My young man, you did it. I cannot tell you how grateful I am but if it helps I looked into the business of your mother’s village that you told me of and I have dismissed the imam, the mayor and the chief of police. One fell swoop!” Onur bey pushed the table back with his enormous belly and laughed.
“I have tabled legislation to halt the takeover of state land and mining interests particularly in Hakkari so that should stop the Americans and Russians.”
Onur bey clicked his fingers indicating the speed and impact of his work.
“Turkey is safe in my hands! Do not worry. And you, my fine young man, I shall make you Chief of Police.”
Sinan felt his chest constrict. Chief of Police? Nothing was changing. The old system of cronyism continued but in other clothes.
“Sir, that is immensely kind but I am afraid that I am neither ready nor willing to take up such an honoured position. “
Onur bey bit into a large slice of revani cake, the syrup oozing out of the corners of his mouth.
“Why on earth not? You are a first rate policeman obstructed by third rate leaders.”
Sinan smiled. Schadenfreude was not beyond him. He thought of Haris still full of hubris as he carried his personal belongings out of his private office to a shared desk in the main office.
“I am quite content working at my grade. At least for now.”
“The man, Haris, is a buffoon and corrupt. Thanks to your expert policing, his backhanders from the Ramadan Gift Holding company have been exposed and he will face the consequences. Helping our enemies even on the smallest of scales is treason and I shall see to it that he is hounded out of the force. So hard to weed out the corruption and lies that have damaged our beloved country.”
The delegates’ suitcases cluttered the main entrance to the Pera Palas and Sinan did not, at first, see the diminutive manager clamber over them.
“Inspector, you are most royally welcome. May I congratulate you on your immense courage, your profound intellect and above all your wonderful kindness? You are wonderful.”
Sinan pulled his hands away quickly as the manager began to smother them in kisses.
“Well, well, well, a man of many gifts.”
Bea appeared from the conference hall. Her emerald green dress catching the green of her eyes.
“High praise indeed for a man who has all but disappeared from sight.”
Bea slipped her hand into Sinan’s and eased him away from the manager into the restaurant. She knew that he had organised his time with her to coincide with the serving of lunch but she drew a deep breath and brushed her fingers against the palm of his hands. The smell of food emerging from the large, gold embossed doors that led to the kitchen pushed his embarrassment at the fawning praise of the manager to the back of his mind. He would rather Bea had not witnessed that, he thought before drowning in the smell of the aubergine dish in the middle of the table. Karniyarik was not one of his favourite dishes, he explained to Bea but the oven roasted aubergine filled with tomatoes, onion and minced beef flavoured with parsley and cumin was divine.
Bea was not interested. She had not seen Sinan for days since Ahmet’s arrest. Her mother had been confined to bed, medicated with tranquillisers. The conference had continued, subdued and unsure. And she had yearned to hear and see him and yet, he had not returned any of her calls.
“This is really nice, Bea.” Sinan spoke between mouthfuls of aubergine.
“Nice?” The word was innocuous enough but Bea felt as though she wanted to scream. As long as food remained on the table, he was able to block everything out.
“No, actually, it’s not very nice.”
She heard the tinny reproach in her voice and regretted it instantly. Sinan looked up from his forkful of aubergine and tilted his head.
“No? Too much tomato?”
“No, there’s isn’t too much bloody tomato. It’s you. You have not been nice. To me. I ring you, you don’t answer. I contact the police station, you don’t reply. That is not nice.”
Sinan put his fork down and turned to face Bea. No one else had yet entered the restaurant. They were alone apart from the waiter who hovered close whenever Sinan looked up from his plate.
“I apologise if my actions have appeared callous and unkind.” Sinan stopped, unsure of where his words were taking him. Bea leant forward, lips puckered and Sinan swerved his head just as she moved to kiss him.
“Unkind? Yes, very unkind. You may have saved me from the man who turned out to be my brother, a demented torturer, but afterwards? Days have passed, Sinan. Surely, you can’t have been that busy not to have rung to see how I was. I imagined you alone in your flat in Besiktas. The picture of the screaming baby above your head and the single, loose cover that falls just beneath your stomach as you sleep. I missed you and soon I’ll be gone.”
Sinan felt an uncomfortable stirring.
“I can stay if you want?”
The aubergine appeared to have been well cooked and yet, he felt the food move into his throat. He knew how to catch the ‘baddies’ as his mother called them but women… They were far too difficult and far too complicated. They messed up the order of everything. They made demands he could not meet. They held expectations that he did not foster and now, after Ani when he thought he might be ready to commit to something more long term, he was back in the same position and he could not. He knew that he could not.
“Rick McFarlane has left the country. His visa has been rescinded. He probably won’t be allowed back into the country until a change of government. A stooge for the Americans and Russians, collecting land deeds like a glorified rent collector.”
Bea stared at Sinan, her eyes wide and moist.
“What are you talking about and what am I talking about? You don’t want this, do you? You don’t want a me and you, do you?”
Sinan chewed on the aubergine even though his stomach heaved.
“Do you, Sinan?” Bea screamed his name and he nodded in response.
Sinan’s mother woke him in the early hours of the morning. He felt giddy with relief, a relief he should not have felt if he listened to his mother. A man in his late thirties with no wife or children is a disappointment to his mother, she would chide regularly. The closest he had come to submission was Ani and she was not what she had seemed. Bea was not even close.
“Son, can you hear me? Can you hear me? Can you hear me?”
Sinan listened to the soft wind of the early morning Aegean Sea and waited.
“Yes, mother, I can hear you.”
“Good, son. I just wanted to thank you for ridding the village of those religious freaks. We are free.”
Sinan laughed and his mother laughed as though there were nothing more to worry about.
THE END
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