Perhaps it was these grim thoughts that made Suleyman, unconsciously, pull off the long shore road and head for a small wooden house that nestled discreetly behind a row of trendy art shops. But perhaps not The pretty Bosphorus village of Ortakoy where, hopefully, he could spend a little time before returning to Cohen's unruly apartment had become quite familiar to him in recent months. That he had fetched up here so unconsciously was, however, a worry. If he was driving to Ortakoy without thinking then what else was he letting slip about his visits to the village?
After he had parked his car, he walked up to the salt-stained front door and knocked For quite some time he heard nothing from inside. The lights were on but even so no one was in, or maybe the old man was at home alone. Suleyman put his hands into the pockets of his jacket and watched as the earth beneath his feet juddered just very slightly. 'Only a tremor,' he muttered softly to himself, his usual mantra to chase away the demons of the earth. And, indeed, the tremor did subside almost as soon as it had begun even if his heart persisted in racing. One never knew when the demons beneath the city might get tired of such paltry spells.
The woman who eventually opened the salt-stained door was short and blonde. The thick black cigarette sticking out from between her fingers made her, together with her long, sleepy eyes, look rather like a plump Lauren Bacall.
'Hello, Inspector,' she said in that strange, foreign way of hers. 'This is a nice surprise.'
'Hello, Dr Halman,' he said. 'I was just passing and. . .'
She smiled broadly at a neighbour who was walking by and then said to Suleyman, 'Father is out with some old university friends but if you don't mind having your drink prepared by me . . .'
'That would be very nice.'
He walked into the house. She closed the door behind him. He walked straight up the stairs and into her bedroom. Zelfa Halman, following, discarded her skirt at the doorway.
Chapter 4
Mina rose quickly from her bed and stepped lightly across to the window. As she did so she looked back, briefly, to make sure that Mickey was still sleeping. She could just see his open mouth breathing heavily through the thick mat of his long grey hair. She opened the curtains, revealing the quiet early morning street beyond. She let her eyes rove searchingly across the shuttered old building opposite.
Mina herself couldn't remember when the old Ìskender Hamam, the public baths, had been open for business. For all of her life the owner, Madame Kleopatra, had been dying up in that top bedroom where Mina's mother had attended to her needs for the last fifteen years. It was said that Madame Kleopatra had once been part of that odd and rare phenomenon, a Graeco-Turkish marriage. But no one could remember her Turkish husband these days and the old Greek herself, now finally drifting senselessly along on the cloud of morphine her doctor gave her every evening, barely knew her own name. Not that Madame Kleopatra or even Mina's mother, Semra, were the objects of Mina's thoughts at that moment. It was the child that had her thoughts now, that little life that Semra guarded just as surely as she had once cared for Mina herself.
Though not ideal, this arrangement was better than if she had the child with her. Semra only had to attend to her barely conscious charge a couple of times a day, times during which she could take the child along too if the little one were restless or wakeful. Mina's work was of quite a different order. The last thing the usually European men whom Mickey pimped to her bed wanted was a child around while they exacted release from her body. Mickey didn't know about the child but then nor did anyone else in Mina's immediate vicinity, apart from her mother and, of course, poor old 'Fat Boy'.
Mina moved her gaze down the face of the building and into the street. A short, skinny figure caught her eye as she scanned for signs of early morning life. It was a policeman, a local, that Jewish cop who had sometimes visited her when she was younger. Though physically unpleasant he was not, she recalled, a bad man. Cohen, that was his name. He had quite amused her by translating dirty Turkish words into his native tongue, Ladino, the language of the Jews. That facility, plus his very obvious distrust of Mickey, had made her like him. She turned back from the window and looked again at the wasted form of the man in her bed. Mickey had first come to Turkey in the year of her birth, 1970, an English.boy on the hippy trail to India who had found Istanbul's drug scene to his liking and decided to stay. She didn't know exactly how old he had been then but she imagined it was around twenty. In the years that followed, Mickey had done lots of different things to enable him to pay for his drug habit; pimping for Mina was just the latest of these. The child would not fall in with Mickey's plans, except perhaps as something that could be sold in order to obtain drugs. He would hate it, were he to discover its existence.
But then Mickey knew nothing of what occurred in the Ìskender Hamam anyway. Though resident in Turkey for nearly thirty years, he still couldn't speak the language and therefore knew nothing about Semra or Madame Kleopatra or, more importantly, Madame Kleopatra's regular doses of morphine. So the child was safe, for now. In the future, however, things would have to alter. The child had changed everything now; for the better, to Mina's mind, although not yet as totally as she would have wanted. In order to be with the child she would, somehow, have to get rid of Mickey. How she might do this she didn't know. But an idea came to her later when she finally managed to slip out to see Semra and the child. Through a crack in Madame Kleopatra's door, Mina saw the smart Phanariote doctor use his big syringe to plunge the dying Madame Kleopatra into yet deeper painless euphoria. Mickey, too, when he was particularly bad, let others, as he put it, 'medicine' him. Sometimes he even let Mina do it.
The child pawed gently at Mina's small, empty breasts while the prostitute cooed lovingly, smiling into the little one's eyes.
Various fingerprints and some faint footprints had been found in Ruya and Erol Urfa's apartment. Some fingerprints no doubt belonged to one or other of the couple. Forensic were not yet able to say to whom each example belonged but they did know that there were four distinct types of print, only one of which represented that of a small child. Cengiz Temiz was, so far, the only person who had been obliged to supply prints for matching - with the exception, of course, of Erol Urfa. Suleyman was, as he told Dr Arto Sarkissian when he met him in his office at ten o'clock that morning, still keeping an open mind on the seemingly innocent Arabesk star.
'But if Urfa did kill his wife that doesn't answer the question about the whereabouts of his child,' Sarkissian pointed out.
Suleyman, whose face, the doctor observed, was rather more tired and drawn than was usual even for him, lit a cigarette before answering. 'He could have taken her to some friends, some of his own sort from the east. Everybody in the country was watching the football that night so nobody would have noticed.'
'But he's a nice-looking boy and although his poor wife was quite a plain little thing, well. . .' He paused in order to rub a hand roughly across his sweating forehead. To kill her in order to be able to marry that Tansu creature is—'
'Mad, or the act of a man who is unbelievably ambitious.'
Sarkissian smiled. 'Now if we were talking about his manager I would say that either or both of those things could apply. But Urfa himself ?' He shrugged. 'I don't know. He doesn't strike me as either even if there is, oh, I don't know, something about him I cannot quite place.' . 'Something not quite right?' 'Yes.'
- 'I have the same feeling myself.' Suleyman flicked the end of his cigarette into what Aito Sarkissian instantly recognised as one of Çetin Ìkmen's ashtrays. 'But then there's an awful lot not right with Cengiz Temiz too.' The Down's. Suleyman nodded.
Through the frosted glass in the door of Suleyman's office they both observed the vague smudges that were a senior officer of both their acquaintance and an unknown woman offering her body and her jewellery to him. Suleyman and Sarkissian did what they knew Çetin Ìkmen would not have done, and ignored it
'Has he spoken yet or is it still just rote denial?'
'As soon as
I walked into the room he flung himself under the table,' Suleyman replied. 'I don't think I've ever seen a person in such a state of terror.
He drools, he gibbers, he stutters that he didn't Mil anyone ... But how he could possibly know that Ruya Urfa was dead before Erol had even arrived at the apartments is a mystery. His parents and one of the other neighbours maintain he was well away from the apartment when they heard Erol scream. The door to the apartment was shut, according to Urfa, and so it wasn't as if Cengiz could have spotted the body from the hall.'
'He usually went out through the fire escape anyway according to his parents,' the doctor pointed out.
'Yes.' Suleyman sat down behind his now rather messy desk and ran his fingers through his hair. 'He denies what he should not know, his parents were absent at the time of the murder and he's terrified beyond belief. Whether he did it or not, I've no idea. But I'm certain he has some knowledge of the events surrounding the death. It's just getting at what they might be. And until forensic come across with something I am temporarily at a loss.' Glancing briefly at his one dust-grimed window he said, 'I just hope that when they do call, it's to my mobile. The switchboard's been jammed since dawn with press calls, Erol's more demented fans and various unhappy individuals who claim to have the child. The latter, of course, require action by uniform and I must get out of here myself in the near future - if I can get around the TRT pack who appear to be constructing gecekondu accommodation in the car park.'
With a smile, Arto Sarkissian rested his considerable behind on the edge of Suleyman's desk. 'You probably need to speak to Zelfa Halman with regard to Cengiz Temiz.'
'I've mentioned him to her,' Suleyman said in the kind of automatic fashion he knew he should avoid. For was it not just one step from talking about mentioning things to stating where that mentioning occurred? 'She advised rather more intervention with the parents at this stage, until forensic come up, or not, with something. I have instructed Çöktin to meet them when they arrive, no doubt accompanied by Mr Avedykian, later this morning.'
'They've already gone to the top for their lawyer then?'
Suleyman shrugged. 'It is their right And if they are rich enough to buyAvedykian, well. ..'
A pause hung between the two men for a while as they both recalled their previous dealings with Sevan Avedykian. Principal among these was the moment only ten months before, when Ìkmen aided by Suleyman had been obliged to tell Avedykian that his son, Avram, had been murdered by his psychopathic lover, Muhammed Ersoy. Suleyman could still vividly recall the stony silence that had accompanied the greying of Sevan Avedykian's face, as well as the hysterical screaming that had signalled Mrs Avedykian's knowledge of the facts. Arto Sarkissian had once been a friend to Avram and as a fellow Armenian had visited frequently, for a while, after that. But not recently. For as Sevan Avedykian's sorrow had grown, so his silences had hardened. Every fibre of his body shouted to Sarkissian that he should have alerted the father to the son's activities many years before. And perhaps Sarkissian should have done just that. He had, after all, known about Avram's obsession with Ersoy for many years. True, he didn't realise quite how dangerous the fabulous Ersoy was until it was too late. Not that Avedykian would have listened then any more than he did now. And so, after just one abortive attempt to explain his involvement in Avram's past, Sarkissian had walked out of the Avedykian house for what he hoped was the last time. That had now been three months ago.
After looking down briefly at his pocket diary, Suleyman broke the silence. 'I've learned who Erol Urfa claims to have been with on the night of the murder. Çöktin told me.'
'Oh?'
'Yes. Ali Mardin; he owns a small pansiyon on Yerebatan Caddesi. Like Urfa he is a .. .'
'He's Kurdish,' the doctor assisted. 'Don't you think you should take Çöktin with you, in that case?'
'No. I think it might be better if I impress upon Mr Mardin the seriousness of what has happened alone. I want to cut through as much clan loyalty as I can. These people need to know that only two things are of importance to me - the safe return of Merih Urfa and the apprehension of Ruya's killer. I don't care what values these people adhere to or what they consider their origins to be.'
'How very modern’ Arto Sarkissian said with more than a hint of irony in his voice. 'I wish you luck although I do have some anxieties. I mean, you are dealing with people -Erol, Aksoy, Tansu and now possibly Mardin - who know how to keep secrets very effectively. After all, Ruya and Merih were, until yesterday, nonexistent people’
'Yes. Strange’ Suleyman's eyes glazed over as he considered this point 'I would have thought that Aksoy would have wanted to exploit the fact that Erol honoured his village betrothal. Man of principal marries little country girl. After all, most of his fans are of a certain class . ..'
Sarkissian laughed. 'Oh, you terrible snob!' he said. 'But yes, I suppose they are mostly peasants. It does rather depend upon what Aksoy had in mind for Erol though. And his affair with Tansu was frequently headline news. That woman is so volatile she ensures whoever she is with is never out of the public eye’
'And if the public are fascinated by a person, they will buy their tapes, CDs or whatever.'
The doctor bowed in agreement. 'Precisely.'
'How horribly cynical.'
'That's business.'
There was a knock at the door. In response to Suleyman's call to enter, a smart, if rather nondescript young man, entered the office. Tipped as Suleyman's replacement, Ìkmen's new sergeant, Orhan Tepe was one of those men who always looked cheerful, whatever the occasion. And now was no exception.
'What is it, Tepe?' Suleyman said, only briefly looking away from the doctor.
'We've got some people downstairs who claim they killed Ruya Urfa. They say they've got to see you, sir.'
Suleyman groaned. 'Crazies.'
'Well, yes, but, er, not obviously so, sir,' said Tepe. 'Not mad old women in rags or men who think they're Adnan Menderes.'
'Oh,' the doctor said with a smile, 'unusual crazies, eh?'
'Well, if you call two teenage girls wearing chadors unusual then, yes, they are, sir.' Turning back to Suleyman, he said, 'Shall you be coming to see them, Inspector, or shall I just get their parents to collect them?'
I am an addict for the sorrow that you bring I embrace the knife's edge of your disdain I am lost I am gone I am dead
Until your sweet return into my life happens once again.
As he looked at what he had just written, Çetin Ìkmen shook his head in disbelief. 'You know’ he said calling out to Fatma over the top of the tape he had been transcribing, 'I think the state should give the Ministry of Culture some sort of award for attempting to get this dross banned back in the eighties.'
'That's Tansu at her best!' his wife answered as she walked over to the stereo and made to turn up the volume. 'She sings of universal emotions, Çetin; of love and loss and—'
'Don't touch that dial!' he shouted. 'In fact, turn it down, will you? Makes me want to jump into a bottle of brandy and stay there. I don't think I can stand any more ungrarnmatical sorrow-filled insults to my intelligence.'
'All right, all right!' Fatma said as she laid the towel she had been using across the back of a chair and then turned the music down to almost silence.
'No wonder the suicide rate in dumps like Sivas keeps on going up. They listen to this stuff all the time out there. Being in the country is bad enough but with this going on day and night. . . I'd be slitting my throat within hours.'
Fatma, already wearied by the younger children, who were on vacation, and the housework, sat down beside her husband. 'Oh, you've been listening to Arabesk all your life without noticing,' she said. 'People play it everywhere. I play it I like it'
'You,' he replied, touching just the end of her nose with stern affection, 'should know better.'
'It's romantic.' She shrugged. "The stars themselves are romantic. Women like such things. Even Cicek will sing along to Arabesk at times, when she's not
listening to those Western musicians. We are Turks, we like to imagine ourselves involved in grand passions like the singers. And then we like to have a good cry.'
'A rather sweeping generalisation there, Fatma,' her husband said with not a little amusement in his voice, 'confounded, of course, by people like myself who want to vomit when we hear it.'
'Oh, that's just you!'
'And Suleyman and Arto. I can't really even see Commissioner Ardiç. getting damp around the eyes just because some spoilt old plastic-surgery victim has been cast aside by a lover who is young enough to be her son. I may be wrong, but... It's just all "Oh, I can't live without you", "I think I want to die"; it's so unremittingly morbid! It's helpless too, which I don't like. I mean, have you seen that photograph of Tansu on the front page of Hurriyet?’
'No. I haven't really had time for reading.'
He reached over to the table and grabbed hold of one of the newspapers stacked behind a heap of ironing.
'Look at this,' he said as he spread the paper across his wife's knees. A large photograph of an anguished Tansu howling into a white-and-silver lace handkerchief screamed off the page. 'Poor Mrs Urfa lies dead on a slab, her baby, who is described but not shown, is missing and what do we get? A photograph of some adulterous old has-been who reckons that her poor Erol is so badly traumatised their love will never be as it was ever again. It's sick!'
'I agree we should see a photograph of the baby. If members of the public are to look for her they need that.' Fatma's face was set with the seriousness of the subject 'But people do like this romance thing with Tansu and Erol. I myself find it disgusting because he's so young. I would hate it if one of our sons became involved with an older woman. But bad as they are, Allah has punished them now and it is not for us to judge.'
Ìkmen, whose opinion of religion of whatever type placed such phenomena somewhere between folk tales and the astrology columns in newspapers, rolled his eyes with impatience.
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