Belshazzar's Daughter

by Barbara Nadel

  “Would you come this way please, gentlemen?” the butler said.

  Ikmen and Suleyman followed him across the hall and through a door which the menial held open for them. Like the hall, the room they found themselves in was enormous, but unlike the hall it was dark. Books, thousands of them—some black, some dark green, a few wine-red—lined and described the contours of every wall. The bright sunlight from outside seemed to be absorbed by their spines, thinned by their no doubt yellowing pages. An old and venerable library. The den of some impractical and absorbed academic.

  “Inspector Ikmen and Sergeant Suleyman, sir.” The butler smiled at them both, bowed politely and then left. The man the policemen found themselves facing struggled painfully to get out of his elegant wing chair and smiled.

  “Please forgive me, gentlemen, getting to my feet is not the easy operation it once was.” It was a deep, beautiful, almost operatic voice. He motioned them gracefully toward some chairs opposite his own. “Sit down, please.”

  They moved forward. As he passed the old man, Suleyman took a good look at him. Reinhold Smits had been very handsome once. His hair, though gray, was still luxuriant and the bones of his face had that chiseled look that was almost stereotypically German in its hardness. He dressed well too. Given that he had at least to be somewhere in his eighties, Reinhold Smits wore stylish clothes. He dressed like a young businessman, rather like Suleyman himself, and it suited him. A pale gray double-breasted suit with matching shirt and tie flattered his thin, languid form. As he reseated himself his bony legs jutted out in front of him like tall silver birch trees.

  Ikmen sat down and Suleyman seated himself beside him.

  “Well,” said Smits, lacing his fingers underneath his chin. “How can I help you gentlemen?”

  Ikmen smiled in that slightly sad way that people do when they wish to be both friendly but also convey bad news of some sort. “We’ve come about one of your employees, sir.”

  Smits smiled also, although his was patient rather than sad. “That much I gathered from my secretary. I have had many employees over the years. Might I ask who you wish to inquire about?”

  “I’m afraid it’s someone who worked for you many years ago in the packing department,” Ikmen said. “One Leonid Meyer.”

  Knowing how vitally important Smits’s reaction to this information would be, Suleyman was not surprised to see that Ikmen leaned forward a little in order to observe the old man more closely. Not that there was anything, not even a flicker of recognition to see.

  “I’m afraid,” Smits replied, “the name is not immediately familiar.”

  “Oh,” said Ikmen, “that surprises me.”

  “How so?”

  “Our interest in Mr. Meyer stems from the fact that he was recently found murdered in his Balat apartment. He was named in the newspapers and so I assumed…”

  “Ah.” Smits held up one long, thin, silencing finger. “Ah yes, the old gentleman battered to death. Yes, I am aware of that. But as for his being one of my people…” He shrugged. “I mean he may well have been, but if as you say it was many years ago…”

  “Yes,” said Ikmen. “I’m sorry sir. I realize that it must be difficult when one employs so very many people.”

  “Quite.” Smits twirled one delicate wrist through the air like a magician and changed the subject. “May I interest you gentlemen in a cup of tea?”

  The rapid change of direction caught both policemen unawares.

  “Er, yes, thanks,” said Ikmen. “That would be nice.”

  Smits then turned to Suleyman. “And you, young man?”

  “Oh, thank you, yes.”

  “Good!” Smits took a small silver bell from the table beside him and rang it. He then leaned forward and raised his eyebrows as if he were imparting some great and scandalous secret. “Of course the tea will be au lait, to the English taste, but Wilkinson cannot make it after any other fashion. I hope that is acceptable?”

  Suleyman hated English tea, but it seemed churlish having accepted now to refuse.

  “Fine.”

  Ikmen was obviously of the same mind. “Yes, yes,” he said, but Suleyman could see from his face that he didn’t relish the prospect either.

  For several minutes after this exchange they all sat in silence, until the butler appeared and Smits gave him his orders. Suleyman noticed that Smits’s tone was quite different with the servant. It was harsh and without warmth. Perhaps, he speculated, Smits was one of those who believed the “lower orders” undeserving of common politeness.

  As the butler left, Ikmen opened up the conversation once again. “Getting back to Mr. Meyer…”

  “Yes?”

  “And acknowledging that this was all a very long time ago…”

  “Your point being?”

  “Two quite independent sources have led us to believe, sir, that you actually dismissed Mr. Meyer from your employ sometime in the early 1940s.”

  “Really? Might I know who or what these sources might be?”

  “I’m afraid I cannot divulge that information.”

  “No, no of course you can’t. Stupid me!”

  Ikmen looked across at Suleyman who nodded very slightly, well aware of what was now expected of him. He took over. “What we can tell you however, Mr. Smits,” he said, “is that Leonid Meyer still had the name and address of your Üsküdar plant in his address book at the time of his death.”

  “Did he really?” A look that was almost impossible to interpret passed across his features. “How very odd.”

  Ikmen, who had now silently slid back into the depths of his chair was, Suleyman observed, watching closely.

  “Er…” Smits paused briefly as if trying to gather his thoughts in the right order. “Did either of these sources of yours say why I might have dismissed this man?”

  “Not really—”

  “Unless,” Ikmen, suddenly animated again, interjected, “unless you include idle speculation under the heading of reason.”

  Smits raised his eyebrows. “I might.”

  “Well,” Ikmen continued, “there is one theory that you may have dismissed him for drunkenness at work.”

  “Yes?”

  “And there is another”—here Ikmen smiled, rather too pointedly for Suleyman’s nerves—“that you dismissed Mr. Meyer because he was a Jew.”

  It was at this point that the butler returned with the tea, which was just as well considering that Smits’s deep tan had now turned an alarming shade of gray. Not for the first time, Suleyman wondered whether his boss had gone too far too soon.

  As the butler placed the tray down on to the coffee table he asked his master whether he should pour and received an affirmative reply. As the menial performed his task, Smits reminded him that he should make it “Au lait, after your usual fashion, Wilkinson.”

  The china was, as would have been expected, of the finest quality. A delicate, almost transparent cup and saucer were handed to Suleyman; the cup’s little handle was so small that it was impossible for him to slot his finger through it with any degree of comfort. But then that wasn’t its purpose. Suleyman observed how Smits drank, keeping his little finger aloft as he tilted the cup to his mouth. Unnatural, affected and obviously quite correct. Amid great discomfort he attempted to copy Smits’s method, the foul taste of the beverage only adding to his misery. Smits, who had been keenly observing Suleyman’s struggles, acknowledged the young man with a small nod.

  But when the butler had gone, the atmosphere changed quickly. Smits turned to Ikmen and, with all vestiges of politeness gone, made his position quite clear. “You can’t imagine how thoroughly sick one becomes of slights upon one’s character due to no fault of one’s own. Your assumption that I dismissed this Meyer character because he was a Jew can only be connected to the fact that my father was German—a leap of so-called ‘logic’ that I resent deeply!”

  “The assumption is not mine, sir,” Ikmen put in, “it is—”

  “The idea that the wo
rds ‘German’ and ‘Nazi’ are somehow synonymous is wounding in the extreme! I neither recall nor do I currently have any interest in this Meyer fellow and the fact that he was a Jew is, I believe, immaterial to anyone but him!”

  “I—”

  “I don’t know where you received your information from, but I would suggest that you put those persons right about the fact that my involvement with the deceased was, if indeed it happened at all, of a totally benign nature. Furthermore, if anymore stories of this nature were to come to my attention I could, as you can imagine, access enough legal expertise to both exonerate myself and destroy those who speak against me!”

  His anger temporarily spent, Smits retreated, trembling, behind his now shaking cup and saucer. Ikmen, for his part, took a little time out too, time during which he also drank (with revulsion) and thought.

  Strangely, or so Suleyman thought at the time, when Ikmen did speak, his tone was both gentle and conciliatory. “I do apologize if my words have offended you, Mr. Smits,” he said, “but with this being a murder investigation you can, I hope, appreciate that I have to explore every angle.”

  Smits, rather than reply, simply sulked further back down behind his cup.

  “I would not,” Ikmen continued smoothly, “for one moment suggest that you possess anti-Semitic views. I know very little about you and, anyway, I would not simply take the unsubstantiated word of others against you.”

  “Well…”

  “If, however, you could check through your past records and see whether this man did ever work for you, I would be grateful. I realize that it was all a very long time ago, but…”

  Smits shrugged. “I will do as you ask, although I hold out little hope of success. As you said, Inspector”—and here he paused for just a moment, his eyes twinkling in the reflected glow from the gold-rimmed cup—“it was a very long time ago.”

  Ikmen smiled and then put his not even half-finished teacup down upon the table.

  “Very well then, Mr. Smits, I will leave that with you.”

  He looked across at Suleyman who was attempting to pour the last of the liquid down his unwilling throat. “Sergeant Suleyman and I have things to do, as, I am sure, do you.”

  “Yes.” Smits moved to ring the bell to summon the butler, but Ikmen stopped him.

  “We’ll see ourselves out, sir, thank you.” He bowed slightly as he stood. “Goodbye, Mr. Smits.”

  “Goodbye Inspector.” His face, which until that moment had been set and grave, suddenly broke out into an uncontrollable, wide sun-ray smile. “And goodbye to you too, Sergeant. You take care out there now, won’t you?”

  “Goodbye, sir,” Suleyman replied, bowing very slightly prior to exiting.

  It wasn’t until the two men had left that Smits allowed the smile to drop from his face.

  As he heard the front door close behind them, he rang the bell to summon the butler once again. In the minute that it took Wilkinson to return, Smits wiped his hands across his brow several times and shuffled in his chair as if seeking, but not finding, some sort of comfort.

  When Wilkinson did finally knock and gain admittance, Smits’s tone told him all he needed to know about his master’s mood.

  “Get my address book and look up the number for Demidova.”

  “Yes, sir.” He made a move to walk further into the room—an action that was quickly cut short by Smits’s voice.

  “I mean now, Wilkinson!”

  “Yes, sir, but the tea—”

  “Just leave the bastard tea things and do as I have asked!”

  “Er, yes, sir, er…” He scuttled out far more rapidly than he had arrived. This type of mood that his master was exhibiting, though uncommon, was not unknown to the butler.

  Smits, now alone once more, looked into the middle distance, an expression of blind fury playing upon his taut, aged features.

  * * *

  Under Ikmen’s direction, Suleyman brought the car to a halt just outside the entrance to Reinhold Smits’s drive. As soon as the engine had been switched off, Ikmen began to speak. “So what did you make of Mr. Smits, Suleyman?”

  “Well, I suppose his reactions to the questions were understandable. Whatever his connections may or may not have been with Meyer, they happened a long time ago. And the contention that he dismissed Meyer because he was a Jew came rather rapidly and—”

  “You think I handled that part ineptly?” It was said with a twinkle in his eye which Suleyman, nevertheless, missed entirely.

  “Oh, no, I don’t think that you—”

  Ikmen laughed. “It’s all right, Suleyman, you can criticize me—provided”—here he scowled in a most overt and theatrical manner—“you don’t do it too often.”

  Suleyman smiled, if a little weakly. “I just thought that you launched into that particular subject a little hastily. I wasn’t sure about forcing his antagonism at that point.”

  “Oh, but I was, you see.” Ikmen raised a finger in order to stress his point. “My reasoning being that if Smits did know Meyer, whose name originally you may have noticed elicited absolutely no reaction, and if he did indeed dismiss him because he was a Jew, he is probably quite a worried man now.”

  “Which of course we want him to be?”

  “Absolutely. How Smits behaves from now on and whether or not he ‘discovers’ whether Meyer worked for him all those years ago could give us some useful pointers to his alleged anti-Semitism.”

  “Without, of course,” Suleyman added, “giving us any clues as to whether Smits may have murdered Meyer.”

  “No.” Ikmen’s face dropped slightly again and he sighed. “No, even if Smits did dismiss him for that reason there is still nothing, as yet, to connect him to the murder. And even if Smits is involved there has to be more to it than simply Jew-baiting. I mean, if he’d wanted to kill Meyer because of what may or may not have occurred in the 1940s, he would have done it long ago, wouldn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  “And besides”—he paused briefly to light up a cigarette—“I don’t think that Mr. Smits is the only person in the frame.”

  “No?”

  “No. I can’t tell you why, but I feel that those Gulcu people could be involved too. It may be that I am being led astray by the appearance of Mr. Cornelius in their home, but—”

  “Ah!” Suleyman, suddenly remembering, turned quickly toward Ikmen. “Yes. I telephoned London about him. Inspector Lloyd said he’d get back when he had some news.”

  “Good.” Not that Ikmen had really heard, in the fullest sense, what his deputy had just said. His mind, as had happened before when he thought about the Gulcus, was fully on that family and their strangeness. “You don’t think I’m being a bit irrational about those people, do you, Suleyman?”

  “Well…” He did and he didn’t, it was hard. “Well, yes and no, I … They were very strange and it was odd that Cornelius should be with them at the time of our visit. But … from what the old woman said it would seem that she had at least some affection for Meyer. I mean, to kill him would be—well, really rather nonsensical. It…”

  “A bit like Smits killing him after all this time, I suppose. Yes, I see what you mean, Suleyman.”

  The younger man eyed the older one narrowly. “You’re not convinced though, are you, sir?”

  Ikmen smiled. “Oh, I don’t know, Suleyman. Mind you, whichever way you look at it, it’s doubtful whether any of the extraordinarily elderly people we’ve seen so far could actually have perpetrated the crime themselves.”

  “No,” Suleyman agreed, “I think they would have to have had some help.”

  “Oh, yes indeed. Someone young and fit. Perhaps, in Smits’s case, someone typically Aryan too…”

  Suleyman smiled. “Someone like Cornelius?”

  Ikmen laughed, a short, sharp retort. “Perhaps. Although I think that that particular mixture might just be a little too rich for my stomach.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning that it is quite e
xotic enough having the Englishman ‘involved’ with the lovely Gulcu girl without throwing the disturbing Mr. Smits into the equation too. Let’s not get too carried away, eh?”

  “No.”

  “Anyway”—Ikmen, laughing, banged his hand down hard against the dashboard—“let’s get back to the station. I must find Cohen and then get out to see the Blatsky woman and some of those derelicts. She has, in my opinion, waited quite long enough for a slice of our attention.”

  Chapter 7

  They met, as they usually did on their shared short day, at the bus-stands on Taksim Square. In spite of the fact that he had left his school at twelve and she her shop just thirty minutes later, both of them looked and indeed were quite tired. Although very little had happened to either of them since their last meeting, internally they had both been very busy with their own thoughts. Robert, in particular, looked pale and strained—not, of course, that his beautiful companion seemed to notice. When the bus arrived she simply got on board and sat down without either proffering a ticket to the driver or speaking so much as a word. Gallantly, but typically, Robert found himself paying for her transport. Then, as if to compound his burgeoning isolation, Natalia didn’t speak a word to him during the entire course of their journey across the city. In an attempt to distract himself from her coldness, Robert looked out of the window and tried to enjoy the view. The route back to his apartment took them right along the edge of the Bosporus. The broad seaway sparkled in the sunlight; ferries plowing and criss-crossing their way between Europe and Asia left glittering trails of thick white foam in their wake, like great, fast-moving snails.

  Although next to Natalia, he wasn’t happy. His hands clenched and unclenched nervously as he desperately tried to think of something to say. But nothing would come. Not even the kind of mindless trivia the English are supposed to be so good at. Talk of the weather, the iniquities of politicians, the price of food.