‘So you need some of my hair, do you?’ she said. She walked over to the TV and switched it off.
‘Dr Sarkissian would be very grateful,’ İkmen said. He put his hand in his jacket pocket and pulled out a roll of small plastic bags. ‘He’s trusting me to transport it to him, but I expect I can manage that. You’ve got the hard job.’
‘You want a hair pulled from my head?’
‘Complete with follicle, yes,’ he said. ‘You have to pull it out.’
She put a hand up to her head and gripped her hair. ‘If it’s for Şukru …’
‘Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!’
He tried to stop her pulling out a great lump, but it was too late. Without a murmur she tugged out a hank of hair and put it into İkmen’s hands. While he looked down at it in a rather horrified way, she said, ‘Is that enough for him? It comes out easily now that I am old.’
She sat down again while İkmen bagged up far more strands of hair than even Arto Sarkissian could possibly need. ‘This is, er, it’s …’ He sealed the bag. ‘So what’s this about being old? You’re not old.’
For the first time since he’d entered her house, Gonca laughed. She usually laughed a lot. ‘I remember you when you were young, and now you’re retiring,’ she said. ‘We’re both old, İkmen, although it doesn’t matter so much for you because you’re a man. Men can look like shit and women will still love them.’
He put the hair-filled bag into his pocket. ‘Ah come on now, Gonca,’ he said. ‘You don’t have any trouble attracting men. You never have had and now …’ But his voice faded out. He both did and didn’t want to talk to her about Mehmet Süleyman.
‘Is there any reason why Mehmet Bey didn’t come to ask me for my hair tonight?’ she asked.
‘Beyond his rather squeamish desire not to hurt you, no,’ İkmen said.
‘So you came instead.’
‘You and I are not … involved,’ İkmen said. ‘We never have been and so, much as I like you, Gonca, I am a disinterested outsider in your life.’
She sat down on the cushion beside his and put an arm across his shoulder. ‘Maybe my life would have been better if we had been involved,’ she said.
He looked into her eyes and shook his head. ‘Oh no, Gonca. What would you do with me, eh? You don’t do ugly men, do you?’
‘You’re not—’
‘I’m short, I’m skinny, I’m ugly, and really only Fatma has ever had the courage to love me, which makes her a remarkable woman.’
Gonca curled her fingers around his neck. ‘But had I had a good man, a reliable man …’
He gently disengaged her fingers. ‘But you never have and you never will,’ he said. ‘Gonca, you do beautiful, crazy men who let you down. Your first husband …’
‘Enver.’ She smiled. ‘He could make love all night long and then get up, chop wood and … well …’ She looked down at her lap. Her first marriage, just like her second and all her other relationships with men, had ended badly.
‘Enver liked a drink,’ İkmen said, ‘to put it mildly. And you know that although Mehmet Süleyman doesn’t like a drink more than he should, or run about all over the city on amphetamines like, er, your second husband …’
‘Demir.’
‘Like Demir did … still, that boy has a weakness and you and I both know what it is.’
Her face fell. ‘Women.’ She took her arm off his shoulder and laid both hands in her lap.
‘I don’t want you to get hurt and I don’t want him to get hurt either,’ İkmen said. ‘I care about both of you.’
She looked up at him and he saw that her eyes were wet.
‘Gonca Hanım, even if you married Mehmet Süleyman, you couldn’t have the life of a normal policeman’s wife with him. How would that work? What would you do? Read all the other police wives’ cards and then hand out the rakı?’
‘There’s been no talk of marriage,’ she said.
‘And yet you love him,’ İkmen said. ‘Against everything your family said to you last time you two were together, you have got back with him and you’ve – both of you – broken my sergeant’s heart in the process.’
She looked into his eyes. ‘I had to have him,’ she said.
‘I know,’ İkmen replied. ‘And don’t think that I’m advocating on behalf of my sergeant, because I’m not. That was a desperate, unhappy relationship, and I know he is and always has been besotted with you. But think about where this relationship is going. Think about the future and ask yourself honestly whether the life of a—’
‘You don’t want me to carry on seeing him, do you, Çetin Bey?’ she cut in.
İkmen had to think about what she’d said for a moment before he answered, because much as he did like them both and want what was best for the pair of them, he realised he had another agenda too. And he was honest about it. ‘You’ll end up destroying each other, you know it and I know it,’ he said. ‘A long time ago I said to you that proximity to princes was dangerous, and that still holds. Mehmet Süleyman Efendi may be a prince without a country, but those who support the return of such people are being listened to and regarded, and that’s quite apart from his family themselves, who I think would oppose any sort of permanent union between you with every force at their disposal.’
She didn’t attempt to contradict or argue with him. But she looked sad when he left her, even though she kissed him on the cheek, as she usually did, with affection. Tough love was a bastard.
Ömer Mungan took the call. Süleyman, deep in both paperwork and thought, hardly noticed. All he could think about was Gonca, and what Çetin İkmen had gone to tell her. He’d seen the Aksaray body, and although he hadn’t been able to recognise it, he felt that it was Şukru, and not just because of the height. Like the gypsy’s sister, Süleyman knew that Şukru Şekeroğlu had always been involved in things that were either only just inside the law or completely outside it.
‘Sir?’
He looked up into Ömer’s slanted brown eyes.
‘A call from Şişli, sir,’ Ömer said. ‘The maid of a man called Abdurrahman Şafak has found him dead. She thinks he’s been stabbed.’
Süleyman looked at his watch. It was still well and truly 21 May, in spite of the fact that it felt as if he’d been working for over twenty-four hours.
‘So we have a second death?’
Ömer shrugged. ‘Who knew we’d get to be so lucky?’ Slowly but surely he was developing a slick, sick city sense of humour as well as a rather harder shell than he’d had in Mardin. But then Süleyman knew that the young man’s introduction to İstanbul had been more bloody and shocking than any other time he could remember.
He stood up and put his jacket on. ‘Abdurrahman Şafak,’ he said. ‘That sounds familiar.’
Ömer was way ahead of him. ‘He is or was the uncle of the Englishman John Regan.’ Süleyman clicked his fingers. ‘Of course. Well done, Ömer, that’s good.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
Süleyman drove to Şişli, where they found Abdurrahman Şafak’s apartment building ringed by uniforms. Up on the second floor, where the old man had lived, they heard the familiar sound of Arto Sarkissian’s voice, and as they entered the apartment, he walked towards them.
‘Doctor.’
‘Inspector.’ He smiled at Ömer. ‘Sergeant.’ He took off bloodstained gloves and placed them in a rubbish disposal bag. ‘This declaring life extinct job is becoming tedious.’
‘Twice in one day.’
‘Yes, it’s bordering on the excessive. But life, whether I like it or not, is extinct in the case of Abdurrahman Şafak Efendi, and again we have been able to do nothing to prevent it.’
Süleyman lowered his gaze. What the doctor had said was not a criticism of him; rather a more generalised expression of the frustration they all felt. But Süleyman felt bad anyway.
Arto Sarkissian, aware that he had caused some distress, cleared his throat. ‘Well, cause of death I have yet to determine, but if I tell you that the v
ictim is lacking a heart, I’m sure you’ll get the picture. Time of death, again I will have to do some more tests, because the man’s apartment was heated like a sauna.’
Süleyman shook his head.
‘However, you do have, if not a witness, the man’s maid. She found the body, and of course, as you can imagine, she is not exactly jumping for joy. She’s in the kitchen.’
‘Thank you, Doctor, I’ll speak to her,’ Süleyman said. He turned to Ömer. ‘Take a couple of uniformed officers and see what, if anything, the neighbours witnessed.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Süleyman walked past the doctor and into an apartment that reminded him all too vividly of his parents’ house in Arnavutköy. Although the Bosphorus village where his family lived had recently become chic in the extreme, the Süleyman family home was like the shabby abode of some sort of imperial Ottoman hoarder. This apartment was the same. Every centimetre of wall was covered with portrait photographs of men in fezzes and women looking extremely uncomfortable in tight European dresses of Victorian vintage. Any occasional tables not covered in silver cigarette boxes and ornamental nargiles were used to prop up piles of books about Ottoman regimental insignia and accounts of the reign of every sultan who had ever lived, all topped off with endless maps of the city that were eighty years out of date.
He walked past the butchered corpse – a dead man without a heart was sadly something he had become accustomed to – and went into the kitchen. He saw the uniformed female officer first. A very overweight woman, she was in stark contrast to the tiny, almost anorexic-looking girl who sat at the kitchen table with her head down, weeping. He asked the officer the girl’s name and then sat down beside her.
‘Suzan,’ he said, ‘my name is Inspector Süleyman. I’m afraid I need to ask you some questions about what has happened here. I know it will be distressing, but there really isn’t anything else I can do.’
She just sobbed.
The overweight officer said, ‘She hasn’t said a word beyond her name, sir.’
‘OK.’ He looked at the girl again. ‘Suzan,’ he said, ‘do you want to see a doctor? Would you rather talk to a doctor? We can arrange that. You’ve experienced a terrible thing, you—’
‘They took his heart,’ she whispered between her trembling frightened fingers.
‘They?’
‘Someone.’ Her entire body shook as she raised her head from the table.
‘Did you see anyone, Suzan?’
Now that her head was up, she looked at him with frightened if slightly curious eyes. ‘He is dead, isn’t he, Abdurrahman Efendi?’
‘I’m afraid he is, yes,’ Süleyman said. And then he smiled. He knew that because he was good-looking, he appealed to almost everyone he interviewed in virtually every type of scenario.
Suzan duly looked at him, through her tears, with wonder. She said, ‘What am I going to do?’
Where maids went when their masters died he really did not know; besides, that was not his concern. ‘Suzan, I need you to tell me how and when you found Abdurrahman Efendi.’
For a moment she looked at him as if she hadn’t understood. He was just about to reiterate his question when she said, ‘I was due back at six.’
‘And were you on time?’ Süleyman asked.
‘Oh, I’m always on time, sir,’ she said. ‘Especially when I’ve had the afternoon off.’
‘You had the afternoon off today?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And what did you do with your afternoon off, Suzan?’
‘I went to look at the shops in Nişantaşı,’ she said.
‘Which shops?’
‘I like the big stores, Beyman and Vakko,’ she said, naming two of İstanbul’s most famous department stores.
‘And you spent all afternoon in Beyman and Vakko?’
‘Yes, sir. Efendi had a visitor due to come at four. He said he didn’t want me back before six.’
Süleyman briefly looked at the uniformed policewoman, and then said, ‘Who? Do you know who Abdurrahman Efendi received here this afternoon?’
‘It was a man he’d seen before,’ she said. ‘A foreigner. He didn’t like him and he said he didn’t want to talk to him for long. They spoke some Turkish but mostly English.’
‘Do you know the name or the nationality of this foreigner?’ Süleyman asked.
‘I don’t know his name, but I think he might be English,’ the girl said. And then she began to cry again. ‘I’m so sorry, sir, that I didn’t call the police as soon as I found Efendi. I was so frightened I just couldn’t move.’
After dropping off Gonca’s hair samples at the pathology laboratory, Çetin İkmen was almost home when his phone rang. Although he couldn’t fathom his hands-free mobile phone kit, he answered it anyway and spoke to Süleyman for some time before turning the car around and heading for the station. It was already dark, and after the difficult time he’d had with Gonca, he’d just wanted to go home as soon as he was able. But he couldn’t, because for the first time a twenty-first-of-the-month murder had been committed and they actually had a lead.
Süleyman had already arrived with Arthur Regan when İkmen entered Interview Room 2. It was very strange to see the elderly Englishman in this particular context, but it did make some sort of sense.
‘Mr Regan,’ Süleyman began. ‘You know by now that your brother-in-law Abdurrahman Şafak was found dead at his apartment earlier this evening.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You told me yourself, Inspector Süleyman. I am, if not sad, shocked and distressed. Abdurrahman Şafak was my wife’s brother.’
‘You were not sad …’
‘It’s no secret that I didn’t get on with Abdurrahman. He didn’t get on with me.’
‘Why was that, please?’
‘You know why.’
‘We are recording this interview, Mr Regan,’ Süleyman said. ‘Please, you must repeat what you have told us of your family before.’
The interview was conducted in English, and for the duration of Arthur Regan’s story about his marriage and his son John, he spoke rapidly so that only İkmen could understand him with anything approaching ease. When he’d finished, Süleyman asked him, ‘Mr Regan, did you go to visit Abdurrahman Şafak this afternoon?’
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘at four or thereabouts.’
‘Why did you go to see him?’
‘He asked me to visit,’ the Englishman said. ‘He wanted me to somehow stop my son John’s British publisher from going ahead with reassigning his book to another author. I told him I couldn’t do that, just as I’d told him over the phone about a hundred times before.’
‘Abdurrahman Şafak, he, er, he was, er …’
‘He was bothering you with calls?’ İkmen cut in.
‘Yes, he was, and threatening me with court action too. It had to stop,’ Arthur said. ‘Apart from anything else, there was nothing I could do about preventing the book from being published.’
Süleyman looked at İkmen, who motioned for him to continue. Sometimes the younger man’s language skills would let him down, and İkmen would pick up for him, as he’d just done, but it was still Süleyman’s interview.
‘One witness at Mr Şafak’s apartment block tells us that you had an argument with Mr Şafak before you got to the apartment, on the intercom …’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘The stupid old fool told me he didn’t want to see me. But the only reason I was there in the first place was because he’d wanted me to visit him.’ He shook his head. ‘He wouldn’t let me in and it made me angry. I said some awful things to him. You know he was dying?’
‘I did not,’ Süleyman said.
‘Well I told him I was glad,’ Arthur said. ‘I swore and shouted and made a real fool of myself.’ He shook his head again. ‘But then he let me in and we talked in quite a civilised fashion. Still with no resolution, but I think I left him with at least some understanding of my point of view. When I took my leave, he was most certainly alive, th
at I can tell you.’
‘Which was at what time?’
He thought for a moment and then said, ‘It must have been about four forty-five. I didn’t stay long. I can’t remember exactly.’
‘And what did you do after you left Mr Şafak’s apartment in Şişli?’
‘I went back to the apartment I’m renting in Beyoğlu and had a drink,’ he said. ‘I needed it. Then I watched television, BBC World.’
‘Er, Abdurrahman Şafak’s maid, Suzan Arslan, can you tell me …’
‘Oh, she wasn’t there,’ he said. ‘The poor little thing had the afternoon off. She must’ve been delighted.’
‘Why is that?’
‘Didn’t she tell you? Probably too scared. He treated her like rubbish.’
‘In what way?’
‘You mean apart from shouting at her, ignoring the fact that she had a name and generally behaving like some sort of autocrat? I don’t know, but I saw her shake every time she had to come close to him. Abdurrahman when young was an arrogant prig; in old age it seemed he’d become a spiteful one. As I say, I don’t know what he did to that girl, but whatever it was she didn’t like it.’
Arthur Regan submitted willingly to DNA and forensic testing, but it was hard for either Süleyman or İkmen to entirely discount him as a suspect. Until Dr Sarkissian had completed his examination and testing of Abdurrahman Şafak’s corpse, a time of death as well as a definitive cause could not be clearly established. Also neighbours in the Şişli apartment block reported hearing raised voices speaking English on several occasions over the past weeks since Arthur Regan had been in İstanbul. Obviously the men had been very much at odds with each other, but had this turned to violence? Specifically had it turned to the kind of twisted violence that allowed one person to cut out another’s heart? Had Arthur Regan killed his hated brother-in-law in almost exactly the same way as his own son had been murdered?
‘It’s highly unlikely,’ İkmen said.
‘But that means that someone else must have come into Şafak’s apartment after Arthur Regan.’
‘Yes.’
‘But none of our witnesses saw anyone apart from the Englishman and the maid.’
Ikmen 16 - Body Count Page 21
