Ikmen 16 - Body Count

by Barbara Nadel

  İkmen extended a hand towards him. ‘Abdurrahman Bey?’

  ‘Yes.’ He smiled, tilted his head and then led them both into a very large, art-nouveau-style apartment that, Ayşe noticed, smelt of cigarettes and spices. He showed them to two large armchairs either side of a photograph-heavy occasional table and then sat down himself on a long sofa opposite. Very briefly Ayşe looked at the photographs and then at the man, who said, ‘Tea?’

  Like her superior, Ayşe agreed that tea would be a very good idea. Abdurrahman Bey called a tiny servant girl to his side and told her to make tea for all them, adding that she should bring a tray of lokum with it. When the girl, who was not much more than a child, had left, he looked at İkmen and said, ‘So. John Regan.’

  ‘Who was the son of your sister, Betül,’ İkmen said.

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘Did you know that he had come to the city to research a book – a romance – based upon the life of one of your ancestors?’ İkmen asked.

  Abdurrahman Şafak took a cigarette from a wooden box beside him on the sofa and lit up. He neither offered his guests a cigarette or gave them permission to smoke. ‘The first I knew about his presence in the city was when he turned up dead,’ he said.

  ‘And yet you neither contacted the police or, I believe, spoke to Dr Regan’s English father.’

  ‘And why should I?’ He shrugged. ‘I met the man who became my sister’s husband once; I never met their son.’

  ‘And yet you are related.’

  He shrugged again.

  Ayşe watched İkmen, who, she could deduce, was becoming impatient with this man. In common, so it was said, with Mehmet Süleyman’s mother, he was playing his role as a higher-order being to the hilt. The little servant girl came back in with their tea glasses and a small silver plate covered with traditional rose-flavoured lokum, then left with a bow to her master. Ayşe looked at the tea the child had so carefully put beside her and wondered whether she was happy.

  Abdurrahman Şafak smoked. He said, ‘So this book that Dr Regan was writing …’

  ‘A romance set at the court of Sultan Abdülhamid II,’ İkmen said. ‘The subject of the piece is the relationship that existed between the sultan and a Belgian glove-seller called Flora—’

  ‘Preposterous,’ Abdurrahman Şafak said.

  ‘Preposterous, sir?’

  ‘Never happened,’ he said.

  ‘And yet,’ İkmen said, ‘the story is something I remember hearing as a child, and it features in the only in-depth biography of the sultan by—’

  ‘I do not care where the notion comes from; it’s a myth,’ the other man said. ‘Now, Inspector İkmen, do you actually have any questions you want to ask me, or are we simply going to argue about one of my ancestors?’

  Ayşe saw İkmen perform one of those changes of mood designed to wrong-foot whoever he was talking to. ‘Where were you on the night of the twenty-first of March 2012?’ he said.

  Abdurrahman Şafak’s normally ashen cheeks flared red. ‘Are you suggesting …’

  ‘I’m not suggesting anything,’ İkmen said. ‘I’m asking where you were the night your nephew died.’

  For a moment he didn’t answer. When he did, his voice trembled. ‘I was here,’ he said. ‘Ask the maid.’

  ‘I will do,’ İkmen said, and he paused and then smiled. ‘Can you call the maid in, please, sir?’

  Abdurrahman Şafak cleared his throat and called out, ‘Girl! Come in here, please.’

  Ayşe looked at İkmen, who didn’t betray anything even though both knew what the other was thinking. He doesn’t even know the kid’s name!

  Impatient, the man reiterated, ‘Girl!’

  From a far-distant corner of the apartment Ayşe heard a tiny voice say, ‘I am coming, sir. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Well make it quick!’ He banged his hand down on the sofa beside him and then leaned towards İkmen and said, ‘I don’t mind people writing what they will about my family provided it is factual. I have helped film-makers, authors, theatre directors …’

  ‘But you wouldn’t have helped your own nephew,’ İkmen said.

  ‘No, I would not, sir,’ he said. ‘Because that story about Abdülhamid and the glove-seller is a lie. A sultan would never have had relations with a woman who was not a Muslim.’

  The little maid came into the room and stood by her master, who said to her, ‘Now, girl, these police officers want to know where I was on the night of the twenty-first of March – that is, last month. Can you tell them where I was, please?’

  She only looked at her master when she answered, and Ayşe noticed that she trembled as she spoke. ‘You were here, sir,’ she said. ‘You are always here.’

  ‘There you have it,’ Abdurrahman Şafak said. Then he smiled, and Ayşe felt her skin crawl.

  When they left, it was the little maid who saw them out. At the door, partly out of curiosity and partly out of revenge upon her careless master, Ayşe asked the girl her name.

  In a small voice she said, ‘It’s Suzan, madam.’

  ‘Şukru?’

  There was a moment before he answered her as he put her voice and her face together in one place in his head.

  ‘What do you want?’ Gonca’s brother asked her. Ever since she’d had that affair with Süleyman years before, there had been little love lost between them. She’d given her Mehmet up for Şukru, her father and her tribe. This time, however, things were going to be different.

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘What’s it to you?’

  ‘The police have been asking,’ she said. ‘They want to know why with Hıdırellez almost upon us you are elsewhere. There’s money to be made. What are you doing?’

  ‘They don’t care about my money or Hıdırellez. What are you talking about?’

  ‘Şukru, like it or not, the police don’t believe you have nothing more to say about the death of that madman,’ she said.

  She heard him click his tongue in irritation. ‘I told them everything I know.’

  ‘Eventually,’ she said. ‘You kept the boy secret.’

  ‘To protect him! Kids like him get kicked around by them.’

  ‘I know why you did it, Şukru, but …’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘But now you have disappeared, they are suspicious,’ she said.

  For a moment he didn’t say anything, then he growled, ‘Did they come to see you?’

  She considered lying to him but thought better of it. Her daughter had seen her with Süleyman. She’d put her head around the studio door and, for a second, watched them make love. Other eyes had seen the policeman leave her place.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘They sent Süleyman.’

  ‘Hah!’

  ‘And yes, I did tell him that I would make contact with you somehow,’ she said. ‘Because until a solution is found to these deaths, then everyone who has come into contact with any of the victims will be under suspicion.’

  ‘You think I killed a man whose life was cannabis and numbers? Who loved an old Kurdish whore?’

  ‘No, of course not, but you have to prove to them that you know nothing.’

  ‘The police?’

  ‘You must be here,’ she said.

  ‘So that your boyfriend can beat me up and—’

  ‘No!’

  They both knew that whatever the police might want with him, she would not willingly allow them to hurt him, even though he’d made her howl in pain when he had insisted that she leave Mehmet Süleyman.

  ‘Did you sleep with him?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  She heard her brother clear his throat and spit in disgust.

  ‘And if I hadn’t, how much slack do you think the police would have cut you, eh?’ she said.

  ‘Oh, so you sacrificed yourself for me.’

  ‘Yes!’ she said. ‘Yes, I did, Şukru. Süleyman can come after you whenever he wants, but he left you to me.’

  ‘Because you opened your legs to him
willingly.’ His voice was bitter now, and Gonca began to feel just a little bit afraid. Şukru was capable of murder; he’d done it before. Even if she had given herself to Süleyman to protect him, he wouldn’t forgive her.

  ‘Şukru, come back,’ she said. ‘Come now and I will never have anything to do with Süleyman again.’

  But he put the phone down on her, which was frustrating, but which at least meant that she didn’t have to lie to him about Süleyman, not in the near future. Now that she had Mehmet Süleyman in her life again, she was never going to let him go.

  It was late by the time Süleyman returned to the station. He’d sent Ömer Mungan home when they left the office of Selçuk Devrim, the late Levent Devrim’s brother. Try as he might, Selçuk had not been able to make any sort of connection between his own family and that of the deposed Osmanoğlu dynasty. The Devrims had been high-ranking soldiers and faithful followers of Atatürk.

  ‘Unlike poor John Regan’s family,’ İkmen said when his friend and colleague entered his office.

  Süleyman sat down at Ayşe Farsakoğlu’s desk. ‘What happened?’

  İkmen told him about Abdurrahman Şafak and his low opinion of his nephew’s now defunct literary project.

  ‘But of course they’d hate it,’ Süleyman said. ‘Especially now.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ İkmen asked. He put an unlit cigarette in his mouth for comfort. Soon he’d suggest that they both went down to the car park for a smoke.

  ‘Because this government is the first one since Atatürk to pay them any attention,’ he said. ‘The AKP like the Ottomans, provided they present themselves as good Muslims.’

  ‘But half your ancestors were drunks!’ İkmen said.

  Süleyman laughed. ‘Of course!’ he said. ‘But don’t say it too loud, Çetin; some of these old efendis almost see themselves as constitutional monarchs these days.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous!’

  ‘Tell that to my mother.’

  Briefly they both laughed.

  But then Süleyman’s face dropped. ‘It’s like resurrecting a corpse,’ he said. ‘Our time has come and gone.’

  ‘Ah, it’s not a connection that works across all our victims anyway,’ İkmen said. But there had been something particularly creepy about Abdurrahman Şafak … He said nothing.

  Süleyman leaned his elbows on Ayşe Farsakoğlu’s desk and said, ‘You know, Çetin, when I was with Levent Devrim’s brother, I began thinking about those equations we found scrawled across his apartment walls.’

  ‘In what sense?’

  ‘In the sense that although we know that the formulae are mathematically insignificant, we don’t know if they have any other sort of meaning.’

  ‘Didn’t you check out occult meanings? Mr Devrim was a somewhat alternative man, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, but nothing came up,’ Süleyman said. ‘Doesn’t mean there’s nothing there. Maybe the right person just hasn’t seen them yet. What if we publish photographs of the equations from the apartment?’

  ‘In the press?’

  ‘Yes. Maybe they were just mad numbers in his head. If so, we’ve reached a dead end. But what if they have meaning for other people too? People we just haven’t accessed yet?’

  İkmen frowned. ‘We’ve had enough trouble with the number twenty-one, if you remember, Mehmet. I’ve more unsolicited tarot cards than—’

  ‘Yes, I am aware of the possibility that every lunatic in the city and beyond may very well contact us with the intimate details of their theories of life, death and everything in between, but if that means we find someone who can really unravel those numbers …’

  ‘Mmm.’

  The office door opened and Ayşe Farsakoğlu came in carrying a large sheet of paper. When she saw Süleyman she said, ‘Oh, Mehmet Bey, I didn’t know …’

  ‘Ayşe,’ İkmen said, ‘you may as well finish for the day. Inspector Süleyman and myself are just discussing a few points.’

  ‘Oh. Right.’ She pulled a tight smile and put the document she was carrying on İkmen’s desk. ‘That’s the photocopy of Mr Şafak’s family tree,’ she said.

  ‘Thank you, Ayşe.’

  ‘Sir.’ Reaching behind Süleyman, she took her jacket off the back of her chair. Briefly their eyes met but neither of them said anything. Then she left.

  İkmen, who had been looking at the document she had given him, said, ‘And here we have John Regan’s Osmanoğlu relatives. Endless, endless relatives.’ He looked up. ‘How, if our murderer is targeting this family – maybe Levent Devrim was a mistake – are we supposed to warn all these people without alarming them, and how can we possibly provide them, or rather you, with protection?’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘You’re one of them, aren’t you?’ İkmen said. ‘How extensive is the Süleyman side of the family?’

  ‘It’s big.’

  ‘Precisely,’ İkmen said.

  For a moment they sat in silence, and then Süleyman said, ‘We can only do what we can. We can’t control everything. I’ll be honest, Çetin, I feel as if I’m losing touch with some of the early details about these deaths, like the maths on Levent Devrim’s walls, like the testimony the boy Hamid gave about having seen a monster leaning over Levent Bey’s body.’

  ‘Which takes us back to the gypsy Şukru Şekeroğlu,’ İkmen said.

  Süleyman looked uncomfortable. İkmen ignored it. ‘Once he is back … But I leave that to you.’ He looked down at the Şafak family tree again. ‘I do agree with you about Levent Devrim’s equations, though,’ he said. ‘Let’s clear it with Ardıç and see what happens. How bad, after all, can a deluge of delusion actually be?’

  İkmen left before Süleyman, who had to go back to his own office to collect his briefcase. When he went out to his car, İkmen had already gone. But Ayşe Farsakoğlu was waiting over by the entrance to the car park, smoking. ‘Are you coming over tonight, or …’

  He lifted up the briefcase and said, ‘Sorry. Things to do.’

  As he got into his car, he watched her face cave in on itself with disappointment. But he stuck to his guns and started the engine. Across the car park he saw her walk slowly towards her own car and get in, and he felt more than just a twinge of guilt. Once out of the car park and headed towards Balat and the waiting arms of Gonca, though, he soon started to feel better.

  Chapter 15

  Her daughter and her friends stayed in the house in spite of the good weather, but Gonca preferred to sit outside. The sun was warm, and with Hıdırellez only two days away, she wanted to make sure that her plants looked good for the festival. As a girl, before her first marriage, Gonca had always become very excited just before Hıdırellez. Not only was it a time of feasting and fun, it was also a small window of opportunity when young gypsy girls might meet young gypsy boys and fall in love. Back then she’d been in love with at least ten boys and had flirted with them all. Now she was in love with just one, a man whose name she was going to write on a ribbon and fix to the mulberry bush in the corner of the garden the night before the festival. Her need for him would be blessed by the prophets Hızır and İlyas, whose meeting on the earth thousands of years before was celebrated every spring at Hıdırellez.

  But Gonca’s thoughts were not just concerned with Mehmet Süleyman. She hadn’t seen him for days. This was, he said, because he was very busy. She hoped he wasn’t lying to her. But Gonca also thought about her brother. After the business with Şeftali the prostitute’s son, he’d gone to stay with some relatives in Edirne. He hadn’t told her himself, but when Gonca had called an old aunt of theirs in Edirne, she’d quacked with the pleasure of having ‘our dear Şukru’ in the town again. Gonca hadn’t told her lover any of that, even though she had promised on her honour to do so. What was honour anyway? What use did she have for something non-gypsies had always denied her people? Her only fear was if Süleyman found out that she knew where her brother was. Would he leave her and go back to that insipid policewoman if that happen
ed?

  Her job was to keep Mehmet Süleyman in her arms for ever and to protect her brother at the same time. But she nevertheless had an anxiety about Şukru that just wouldn’t go away. She couldn’t reconcile what he had said about the discovery of Levent Devrim’s body with what she knew to be the truth. He’d told the police that he’d been out collecting wood for the family’s fire. But all the men had been out the day before collecting wood because everyone had known that snow had been forecast for that night. Şukru had had no reason to be out that early in the morning. Except that he clearly had.

  Would she be able to protect Şukru while still holding on to her policeman lover? If the prophets Hızır and İlyas were with her, yes. She couldn’t bear to lose him a second time. If that happened, she’d kill herself.

  As Çetin İkmen had predicted, once the photographs of Levent Devrim’s equations had been released to the press, and put on the Internet, every lunatic in the country came forward to offer his or her interpretation of them. And because the numbers were so arcane and apparently without meaning, it was difficult to sort the simply delusional from those whose theories could have a point. One woman even managed to ‘prove’ that some of the figures corresponded to the exact distance between the Great Pyramid of Giza and Sirius the Dog Star. It was quite an intellectual feat, which left Çetin İkmen, not the world’s greatest number-cruncher at the best of times, exhausted.

  Just occasionally a person of rather more substance would either arrive at the station or call, and these would usually be directed to the office of Mehmet Süleyman. One of them was a man that Çetin İkmen had met before in connection with the death of Leyla Ablak. He was also someone that Süleyman was more accustomed to seeing on the television.

  ‘Professor Atay,’ he said as he stood to receive his guest in his office.

  Cem Atay was as good-looking and as carefully groomed in the flesh as he was on the screen. In his mid fifties, he looked more like a well-preserved forty-five-year-old. He put his hand out to Süleyman, who shook it. ‘Inspector Süleyman, I met your colleague Inspector İkmen some time ago in connection with the death of a lady …’