Ceren
Parents will be told she is missing
NB their distress
Ceren must contact them.
Then what?
Think again about police – why so afraid?
Must talk to them
The list for Annie reads:
Annie
Distress to Ceren’s parents (take seriously)
Ceren witness in murder case.
I am committing crimes
a) wasting police time
b) conspiring to pervert course of justice.
NB
I SHALL LOSE MY JOB AND GO TO PRISON
I look at the two sheets side by side. They look compelling to me, but then I’m a mother and a responsible citizen. I am also, I have to admit (and you will notice that this appears on neither list) interested in having some sort of relationship with a policeman. Specifically, with Detective Chief Inspector David Scott, who is leading this murder investigation.
I’m not just worried about losing my job and going to prison. Oh, who am I kidding? Of course I’m worried, I’m frantically worried. There is something else, though. I think Ceren knows something about Ekrem’s murder. In my sleepless hours, I’ve been replaying my conversation with her last night. Her tears and her problems with modal verbs made what she said unclear, but when she said, ‘Police want to question me about Ekrem, but I cannot to answer. I am afraid. I am afraid what I can say’, isn’t the obvious implication that she knows something and she’s afraid the police will get it out of her?
Clearly, she didn’t kill him herself; the police are sure that it took two strong men to do it. But she knows something about why or how he was killed and she is afraid. Is she afraid of the murderer, perhaps – afraid of being punished for talking? So what should I do? Persuade her to talk to the police and possibly put her life in danger? Protect her and help a murderer to go free?
My agonisings are interrupted by Ellie, carrying a hungry Freda. By the time I have made her a bowl of Ready Brek, cooked some more scrambled eggs for Ellie, who has looked longingly at the remnants of mine, and finally packed the two of them off home, I feel sure we’ve made enough noise to wake Ceren, even if Annie is still sleeping the determined sleep of the righteous. I put some clothes on and go into the sitting room.
Ceren is awake, I feel sure, but would like me to think she isn’t. I sit down by her feet and say gently,
‘Did you manage to sleep?’
She nods. She is still pale and her face looks thin, surrounded by a mass of dark hair, usually tied back in a neat pony tail but now wildly curly after its night in the rain.
‘Would you like a cup of tea?’
She shakes her head and whispers, ‘No, thank you.’
‘Ceren,’ I say, ‘we need to talk about your parents.’
I see the panic in her face but I have to go on with this.
‘Tomorrow, someone from the college will have to ring them and tell them that you’re missing. That someone should be me, really, but if I don’t do it then someone from the International Office will. I’m sure you know how worried they’ll be.’
By way of an answer she slides down further under the duvet and turns her face into the pillow. I push on.
‘I know how worried I would be if one of my daughters went missing in a foreign country – and I know what I’d do. I’d be on the first flight I could get. I’d go straight there to find out what was going on.’
She looks helplessly at me and, mercilessly, I carry on.
‘And, quite honestly Ceren, if you know something about Ekrem’s death – about who murdered him – then you should tell the police. It’s your duty. You don’t need to be afraid; the police will protect you.’
She says nothing but a veiled look comes into her eyes and I feel I’ve lost her.
‘Think about it,’ I say. ‘Think about your parents. I’m going upstairs to talk to Annie now. Then I’ll ask her to find you some clothes. Yours aren’t dry yet.’
I dash upstairs and go into Annie’s room before I have a chance to lose my nerve. She is semi-dressed and sitting on the bed getting her clarinet out of its case. This is a surprising turn of events since the clarinet has not been heard in the house for several months. It is carried to and fro to school occasionally and I assume that Andrew is still paying for lessons, but not a note has sounded within these walls. I comment to this effect.
‘It’s for Ceren,’ Annie says. ‘She plays. We had a chat last night and she told me.’
‘When last night?’
‘After you’d gone to bed.’
‘I told you to go to bed. Why do you never do as I ask you?’
She says nothing but continues to fiddle with the clarinet.
‘Annie, we need to talk and you need to be sensible. There could be a lot of repercussions if we let Ceren stay here. For a start, what am I to tell her parents? She’s one of my tutees and she’s officially missing. It’s my job to let them know.’
‘Well, pretend,’ she says, before trying a note.
‘What do you mean?’
She looks at me.
‘Tell whoever you have to tell that you’re going to ring her parents and just don’t,’ she says, with the pitying air of the quick-witted for the slow.
I am appalled.
‘I can’t do that! It’d be dishonest. I’d be lying to my colleagues. I could lose my job.’
‘Oh, your job,’ she says dismissively, and I flare into a rage.
‘Yes, my job!’ I shout. ‘The job that pays for all this – stuff, for a start.’
I sweep my hand around the clothes, the heap of shoes, the computer, the shelves of CDs, the MP3 player and all the rest of her accumulated stuff.
‘We wouldn’t get far without my job.’
‘There’s always Pa,’ she says.
‘Unfortunately, that’s just what there isn’t, as you well know. There is very occasionally Pa, as a matter of fact.’
I’m getting diverted. She’s always able to do that. She wants to follow in her father’s footsteps and she’s argumentative and manipulative enough to make a very good lawyer. She’s been practising her courtroom techniques on me for years. I have another argument, however, beyond the moral one.
‘Anyway,’ I say, ‘if Ceren stays ‘missing’ the police will contact her parents – they’ll want information from them. If I haven’t even told them she’s missing, they’re going to get a very nasty shock, and I’ll be in serious trouble.’
‘This is all about you, isn’t it?’
‘No it’s not all about me; it’s about you too. This isn’t a game, Annie. Ceren probably knows something about the murder that happened at the college and she doesn’t want to tell the police about it. The police are looking for her. If I hide her here and don’t tell the police where she is then I’m pretty sure I’m committing a crime: wasting police time at the very least, and almost certainly conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. I could go to prison, and then what would become of you? Actually, they could charge you too.’
‘Fine. Ceren needs sanctuary and it’s our moral duty to give it to her. If the police want to charge me then they can. I’m prepared for that.’
‘No, you’re not. It’s all very fine, the grand gesture, but just think about it. You might not go to prison but you’d have a criminal record. No decent university will take you and bang go your chances of becoming a lawyer.’
‘So you’re just going to turn her out, are you? Or are you going to let your friend the policeman know where she is?’
‘Neither. You know I wouldn’t do that. I think I can persuade her to go back to college and put herself under police protection, if you don’t interfere. So just keep quiet, Annie. I don’t want any of your histrionic poses. I want to get her to be sensible.’
‘Oh, sensible!’
I swear her lip curls with the weight of disdain she gives to the word.
It’s my fault, of course. I should never have called her
Marianne. It won’t have escaped the notice of those of you of a literary disposition that I seem to have channelled Sense and Sensibility in naming my daughters Eleanor and Marianne. A foolish idea, you might think, since Austen endows her Elinor (different spelling, of course) with all the desirable qualities (intelligence, moderation, self-control, unselfishness) while giving Marianne irrationality, excesses of emotion and a penchant for the wilder shores of romantic poetry. In my own defence, I didn’t plan it: I named my firstborn Eleanor because I liked it and because I’ve always been impressed by Eleanor of Aquitaine, one of the most thoroughly bloody-minded women in English history. Then, when a second daughter came along, Marianne seemed the only name to pair up with Eleanor. Ellie lived up to her name quite spookily for years: she was sensible, quiet, hard-working at school, Deputy Head Girl. Then she produced Freda and threw it all over. So, I’m hoping my Marianne will follow her in thwarting her name’s expectations (she has, after all, made it her business to thwart me in everything else in the past sixteen and a half years).
Like Milne’s little bears, as one gets worse, perhaps the other will get better. I live in hope, never more than now, and I leave the girls together while I cycle off to do the weekend’s shopping because, whatever gets decided, we still have to eat.
20
MONDAY: Investigation Day Twelve
‘So why did you tell me Yilmaz was a drug dealer?’
Farid Hosseini’s face was impassive, the eyes blank, as he answered, ‘Because you asked for information about him.’
‘You didn’t tell me right away, though, did you?’ Scott objected. ‘Why did you change your mind?’
‘I have no experience of UK police. I didn’t know if I can trust. I talked to our teacher, Mrs Gray. She said I can trust you.’
Scott, together with Paula Powell, was questioning Hosseini in an interview room at the station. He had shown no emotion on being taken in, neither surprise or resentment. Now he sat, apparently relaxed, facing them.
‘How did you know about the drug-dealing?’
‘I heard the French boys talking. They don’t know I understand French. I worked two years in Algérie. My company sent me.’
‘In Algeria?’
‘Yes.’
Paula Powell leaned forward across the table.
‘Have you ever taken drugs, Farid?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
For the first time, Farid Hosseini looked surprised.
‘Why ask me that? It is a crime. Why I should do it?’
‘It’s not just a crime, is it, Farid?’ Paula Powell asked. ‘It’s a sin for you, isn’t it? Isn’t it forbidden in the Koran?’
‘The Koran tells us we must put nothing into our bodies that changes us. Nothing to make us lose control of ourself. So we take no drugs, no cigarettes, no alcohol.’
Scott took up the questioning.
‘Tell me, drug dealers are sentenced to death in Iran, aren’t they?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘Do you think that’s right?’
‘It is our law.’
‘And what about our laws in the UK? Do you think they’re not tough enough?’
‘I have no opinion.’
‘Surely you must have. Don’t our laws seem lenient compared with your laws in Iran?’
‘I have no opinion.’
Scott glanced at Powell and she asked, ‘Did it upset you to see a fellow Muslim dealing in drugs, Farid? Was it worse because he was a Muslim?’
‘It is for him. For his soul. I am not his judge.’
‘Do you think he has been punished now?’
‘That is for Allah.’
Scott allowed a pause and then asked, ‘What do you think has happened to Laurent Amiel?’
‘How should I know? This is your job, I think.’
‘But you must have an opinion. You’ve studied with him for six months. You must know him quite well.’
Hosseini leaned across the table and glared into Scott’s face, his eyes dark and fierce.
‘I have no interest. These rich boys with all their privilege, they throw their lives away and I don’t care. I must sit in class with them but I don’t need to interest in them. I study Electronics. For that I am here. The university says I must also study English, so I study. I sit with these people and I learn with them but I don’t need to know them. I have no interest.’
Frustrated by this interview, Scott decided to let Atash Shirazi cool his heels for a bit before talking to him. He thought he might be the easier nut to crack. He rang the English Language office and asked when Gina would be free. He was told that she had just come out of a class so he rang her mobile but got no answer. He went to the canteen, where he found Paula Powell drinking coffee and eating a doughnut. He joined her for coffee, resisting the doughnut though comfort food was appealing in his present mood, and they went up together to interview Shirazi.
As they entered the interview room, Shirazi gave a nervous start but then turned a broad smile on them.
‘Good morning,’ he said. ‘Very good coffee.’
He indicated the plastic cup on the table in front of him.
‘I don’t think so,’ Scott said, ‘but I’ll tell the duty sergeant you enjoyed it.’
He sat down and looked at Shirazi.
‘So what else do you like about living in the UK, apart from the coffee?’
‘I like to study. I like to learn English.’
‘Nothing else? The weather, for example?’
Shirazi laughed a little too heartily.
‘I was here only in winter. Perhaps summer weather I shall like.’
‘I wouldn’t bank on it. What about British culture? Our way of life?’
The Iranian smiled again.
‘Ah, multi-culture,’ he said. ‘Our English teachers like multi-culture very much. We discuss a lot. How is it in your country? Oh how interesting! In our country is different! How different culture!
He acted out his parody with heavy irony, then shrugged.
‘They like. It’s fine.’
‘But you like your own culture best, do you?’ Powell asked.
‘Of course. Like everyone. Why not?’
‘Do you think,’ she asked, ‘that living here might be bad for Islamic students? Do they forget how they should behave?’
‘I try hard to be good Muslim. I am not forgetting. Why are you asking this?’
‘I wondered how you felt about Ekrem dealing drugs. You did know he was selling drugs, didn’t you?’
There was a moment’s hesitation before he agreed that he knew something about it. Paula Powell went on,
‘And Ceren. Ceren doesn’t cover her head, does she? And she wears western clothes. What do you feel about that?’
‘She is Turkish. There is different. There is secular society. Before women cannot wear headscarf in university in Turkey. But now is changed. Law is changed and students can wear. Prime Minister’s wife now wears headscarf in Turkey. Is good, I think.’
‘Does it make you uncomfortable to see Ceren with her head not covered, when you know she’s a Muslim? Is it difficult for you to sit in class with her?’
Shirazi looked at her for a long time.
‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘It’s fine.’
Further questions elicited nothing more and with no evidence against either man, there was no option but to let them go. Scott went back to his office, tried Gina’s mobile again and found it was switched off. He tried her office number but found his call was diverted to the English Language office. It was twelve-thirty and he was due at The William Roper School at three-thirty. He was debating what to do next when he got a call from reception: Mme Amiel had called earlier, while he had been interviewing. She wanted to see him and would be coming in that afternoon. That decided him: he would go to the college and see if he could take Gina to lunch. Maybe, he told himself, she had thought further about the Iranians and might have an angle they could use.
&n
bsp; He got no response when he knocked on her office door, but he had the odd sense that she was in there, hiding from him. He was tempted to go in via the inner office, to which he still had access, but it felt too much like being a stalker. Instead, he went over to the Common Room to see if she was having lunch there. Failing to find her there either, he went over to the library, still closed and barred with scene-of-crime tape. He walked round to the porter in the foyer and got him to unlock the staff door. He went through into the librarian’s office and then beyond into the library itself.
He walked up and down the rows of stacks, drawing the stale air of the place into his lungs. He looked into cupboards that opened off the library: a stationery cupboard, another with a trolley in it and boxes of books with post-it notes stuck to them, ‘awaiting repair’, ‘to be accessioned’. There were certainly enough places for three men to hide on an evening when the library assistant was in a hurry to go off duty.
He walked on until he stood before the winding mechanism that controlled the stacks which had killed Yilmaz. He tried to imagine the scene as he had pictured it. He was no believer in ghosts but he felt himself infected by something of the victim’s panic.
He paced Yukiko’s walk down to the main doors and then back to the library office and he stood in the office looking around him. It was no wonder the body in the library had been a murder mystery cliché. It was irresistible, order and silence shattered by violence and confusion.
He walked down to the emergency exit, opened it and stood outside, smoking, looking across at the English Language building just as he had on the morning the body was found. Perhaps, he thought, he could conjure Gina out from her office to stand there shivering without her coat as she had done then. And what had he achieved since then, twelve days in? Pathetically little. A half-baked theory, no evidence, his prime suspects whisked away from him and two more students missing. Looked at that way, it was amazing he hadn’t already been taken off the case.
This Is a Dreadful Sentence Page 14
