Petrified
Page 9
‘No, but if they were drugged or restrained in some way . . .’
Melih laughed. ‘This is fucking ridiculous!’ He moved in close to İkmen’s face. ‘You’re mad.’
İkmen smiled. ‘Maybe,’ he said, ‘but if I am, then so are my superiors.’
‘We’d like your willing compliance with the investigation, Mr Akdeniz,’ Ayşe Farsakoǧlu added, ‘even though we don’t actually need that.’
Melih and Eren’s eyes met briefly before the artist brought his thin hands up to his face and groaned. ‘I’m working. I must work.’
‘The forensic team will work around you.’
Melih tore his hands away from his face and yelled, ‘If they damage any of my works, either completed or in progress, I will sue everyone involved, including you!’
There had been a time when even the rich and powerful would have balked at suggesting the notion of legal redress to a senior Turkish policeman. But times had changed and this wasn’t the first time İkmen had been threatened in this fashion. His response was both practised and typical of him.
‘Well, sir,’ he said, ‘you are at liberty to do that, should damage occur. Legal action against my department is—’
‘Oh, do whatever the fuck you like!’ the artist shouted, throwing his arms in the air as he stumbled his way back towards his house.
İkmen, Ayşe Farsakoǧlu and his own wife watched Melih go – his long hair joining his arms, flailing in the hot, still air. İkmen noted that Melih seemed immune to the wounds on his feet. With what he hoped was a reassuring expression on his face, he turned to Eren Akdeniz and said, ‘I will also need to speak to your brother in due course, Mrs Akdeniz. He was, I understand, here on Friday night collecting one of your husband’s art works.’
Eren Akdeniz first regarded him blankly, then her face lost all of its colour and she sat down slowly on one of the garden chairs.
On both the European and Asian shores of the Bosphorus sit many yalıs – summer houses. Although anyone with the money to do so may now own a yalı, traditionally these residences were occupied by Ottoman royalty and dignitaries. In Tarabya and Büyükdere the yalıs belonged to the European ambassadors, in Kuruçeşme to the wealthy Ottoman Armenians and Greeks. The large wooden yalıs of Sarıyer were, however, and still remain, the most prestigious. These tall, ornate properties, now priced well beyond the reach of anyone but the most wealthy, were the summer residences of the Ottoman princes. As İsak Çöktin entered the oval-shaped central area of the yalı, a space known as the sofa, he wondered whether this was the type of building Mehmet Suleyman, his boss, had been raised in. There was a common concensus that Suleyman had been born in a palace – maybe he spent his childhood summersin a place like this. Yalıs, even Çöktin knew, had been, to those who possessed them, rather downmarket, slightly amusing places for the over-privileged to spend a few months in the summer playing at being ‘rural’. Çöktin smiled as he recalled an old photograph he’d once seen in a tourist shop of a group of Ottoman princes lounging around in silk şalvar trousers and heavily embroidered waistcoats, being peasants. Such a long way from his own experience: the sight of his uncle in dung-stained şalvar trousers and the thin, hungry looks on the faces of almost everyone in sight.
The current owner of this, the Pembe Yalı, was the late Rosita Keyder’s sister-in-law. Tall, thin and dressed in a most severe shade of grey, Miss Yeşim Keyder was an unsmiling woman in, what Çöktin calculated, was probably her early seventies. She was not, he quickly discovered, a woman either well versed in or approving of the traditional Turkish niceties.
‘Sit there,’ she said, pointing to a brown chair over by the door which led out to a landing stage.
Çöktin sat, his eyes directly in line with a black and white photograph of a graceful dancer snapped in mid-step. Not, he felt, the grim Miss Yeşim Keyder as a girl.
‘So you said you had some bad news for me,’ Yeşim Keyder said as she lowered herself down into an identical chair across the other side of the sofa. ‘What is it?’
Çöktin, uncomfortable with the vast amount of space between himself and this woman, leaned forward.
‘I’m afraid I have to tell you that your sister-in-law, Rosita Keyder, has passed away,’ he said. ‘I’m—’
‘When?’ Both the thickness of her voice and the sudden blanching of her face told Çöktin that Yeşim Keyder hadn’t been expecting this. She obviously hadn’t read the newspaper reports.
‘Our doctor has recorded last Wednesday as the date of Mrs Keyder’s death, Miss Keyder,’ Çöktin said. ‘She died from something called an aneurism, which is—’
‘I am fully aware of what the word “aneurism” means,’ the woman snapped, ‘and it’s Dr Keyder, not Miss Keyder, for future reference.’
‘I’m sorry . . .’
‘So what happened? How did you get involved?’
Çöktin told her about how Father Giovanni had raised the alarm and when and why he himself and his officers had entered the Kuloǧlu apartment. Through all of this Yeşim Keyder looked on impassively, regarding him coldly with her pale blue eyes across the vast wastes of the sofa.
‘Of course, Father Giovanni would like to bury your sister-in-law after the Christian fashion,’ Çöktin said, ‘but he, and ourselves, are aware that Mrs Keyder may still have relatives in Argentina, who may want her body to be returned to that country.’
Yeşim Keyder sighed. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said tightly. ‘Rosita was an only child. By the time she married Veli her father was already deceased. Her mother died sometime in the nineteen sixties.’
‘Yes, but if we knew the family name . . .’
‘Arancibia.’ It was, to Çöktin, a strange, foreign word, but it was one Yeşim Keyder said without hesitation. ‘My brother met her in Buenos Aires in nineteen forty-nine,’ she continued. ‘Rosita Arancibia.’ She spelled the word out for him, lapsing afterwards into silence.
Çöktin smiled. ‘So how did they meet,’ he asked, ‘your brother and Mrs Keyder? I mean, she was a Christian Argentinian and he a Muslim Turk. In those days surely—’
‘My brother was a scientist,’ she replied, ‘a biologist – religious differences meant nothing to him. There was a scientific convention in Buenos Aires, he went – he stayed with one of our uncles who emigrated there – and met Rosita.’ She scanned her surroundings haughtily. ‘My father fought alongside İnönü in the War of Independence. Quite correctly for a family possessed of both nationalistic fervour and intelligence, we have done well.’
‘I see.’
‘As far as I am aware, Rosita corresponded with no one in Argentina,’ she said.
‘I will check this name out with the Argentinian authorities.’
‘That’s up to you. But as far as I’m concerned her priest may bury her. She had, I believe, some friends at St Anthony’s. They may wish to attend her funeral. Rosita and Veli were childless and so the property will revert to me. I will call my advocate.’
There was no emotion. It was impossible to tell whether or not Yeşim Keyder had been close to the dead woman. Given her tone, one could be forgiven for thinking she was only interested in what she might gain materially from Rosita’s death.
‘Father Giovanni was always of the opinion that Rosita lived alone after your brother died,’ Çöktin said.
‘Yes, she did.’
Çöktin took a deep breath. Quite how he was going to broach the subject of the young man’s body he hadn’t really thought through. During the pause in which he pondered this, she looked at him quizzically.
‘I have to tell you that we found another body in your sister-in-law’s apartment,’ he said, ‘that of a young man.’
Yeşim Keyder remained motionless and silent.
‘We’ve no idea who he was.’
‘Maybe he was an intruder.’
‘No.’
She looked down at the floor. ‘If you don’t know who he is, how do you know that?’
Çöktin wa
sn’t sure just how much or how little he should tell this woman. Given what Dr Sarkissian had said about the body, its embalmed state, the sergeant didn’t feel confident getting into such bizarre territory with a family member before he knew a little more.
‘There are indications that this person might not have been unknown to Mrs Keyder,’ he said. ‘I can tell you there are no signs of foul play. He died naturally.’
‘In that case, I can’t see why I need to be involved in this,’ Yeşim Keyder responded harshly. ‘As far as I am concerned, Rosita lived alone. And, if as you say, this man died naturally, I would suggest that you bury his body with all haste.’
As a Muslim, particularly in the height of summer, it was logical that she should suggest such a sanitary move. Although she knew that he was nameless, Yeşim Keyder didn’t know how important it was to discover this man’s identity. Probably Argentine, definitely embalmed some long time ago, whether he had been murdered or not was almost immaterial. What he needed was a name, a nationality, a religion and, ideally, an ‘owner’ to put an end to what seemed to Çöktin a most peculiar state of death within a simulacrum of life. Displayed by that window in Kuloǧlu, the young man reminded Çöktin of one of those Ancient Egyptian mummies on display in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
There was no point going any further with this at the present time. Yeşim Keyder knew nothing about the unknown man and cared, apparently, little for her deceased sister-in-law. And so Çöktin decided to leave her to call her advocate in peace. She saw him to her front door and then shut it behind him with alacrity – probably because she didn’t want him to see what she did next. But he heard her anyway, bitterly weeping her way back into the sofa. As he got into his car, Çöktin thought about how wrong one can be about people and found himself feeling sorry for the strange, stiff old woman rattling around in her great, lonely yalı.
‘Valery Rostov is going to take possession of twenty kilos of heroin tonight,’ Suleyman said as he stood, almost to attention in front of his superior, Commissioner Ardiç.
Metin İskender, who was standing next to his colleague, cleared his throat.
Ardiç, who was a large and, in this heat, red and sweaty man, removed the enormous cigar from his mouth and viewed his officers with a harsh eye.
‘That’s a huge amount. Very tempting. Where did you get this information?’ he said. ‘The Rostovs of this world are not above starting a gun battle, I’m not prepared to commit officers unless this is going to be worth it.’
‘It’s very possible that the heroin drop is a bluff, sir,’ İskender said as he looked sideways at a very slightly reddening Suleyman. ‘The informant is one of Rostov’s prostitutes, so this could well be a set-up.’
‘What we’re proposing, sir,’ Suleyman continued, ‘is to stake out both the drop site and follow Rostov himself. If, as I suspect, his “work” takes him somewhere other than the location I’ve been told, we will be in a position to see why he’s hoping to divert our attention elsewhere. I’ve had contact with this informant for some time and I believe her “mission”, if you like, is to try and lead us as far away from Rostov’s business dealings as possible.’
Ardiç leaned back heavily in his considerable chair and looked into Suleyman’s eyes. ‘Why you?’ he said. ‘Why contact with you?’
In the absence of any cohesive departmental plan with regard to the gangs since the demise of the dreaded Zhivkov organisation, it was a fair question. It wasn’t, however, that easy to answer. There were several possibilities, including the notion that Masha had received her information about Suleyman from someone inside the department. Someone who could have knowledge about what Suleyman was involved in investigating. In addition, there had been some gossip about his marriage. His wife was, after all, a lot older than he.
Masha said she loved him, which had to be a lie. And yet . . . She’d thrown herself into his pleasure with abandon. Even when he’d finished, she’d continued; stroking, sucking, winding her body in an almost desperate fashion around his. The relief had been amazing, or at least it would have been had he not felt so guilty.
‘Inspector Suleyman?’
The harsh words of his superior brought him back to himself.
‘Er, I suppose Rostov must have discovered, somehow, that certain officers, including myself, have an interest in trying to control organised crime. Inspectors İkmen, İskender and myself have had some success in this area. If you recall, sir, last year—’
‘The subtext,’ Ardiç interrupted, ‘is that some of my officers are paid by and loyal to people like Rostov.’
‘Sir . . .’
‘I know you don’t want to actually come out and say that, Suleyman,’ he continued, ‘but you’re not telling me anything I don’t know. Some of my officers are in the pay of mobs,’ he shrugged, ‘I know that. I don’t know their names, but I know my department has leaks. If you know this is a set-up, you will also know that men at the drop site could be in considerable danger.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘There is also the possibility of a double bluff,’ Ardiç looked at both of his officers in turn, ‘that Rostov wants you to go to the drop site and follow him while whatever it is he wants to conceal from us takes place elsewhere.’
Suleyman looked at İskender who shrugged. ‘We had considered that too, sir. But we need to make a decision. We don’t have much time.’
‘I don’t like getting involved in anything at short notice,’ Ardiç said. ‘I like to be given time to plan, which is not, of course, what Rostov wants us to do. He wants us to react. The question is, do we play his game and see what, if anything, we can achieve by that, or do we take the safe option and do nothing?’
He leaned back into his chair and puffed thoughtfully on his cigar. The two officers in front of him remained silent while they waited for Ardiç to answer his own query.
CHAPTER 7
There were strange, unearthly figures moving around Melih Akdeniz’s house and garden. Creatures, whose sex was indistinguishable, covered from head to toe by thick white overalls. Also present were İkmen, and the beautiful policewoman he always had with him, the two of them serious and hot in their stuffy-looking business suits. Seemingly oblivious to the activity was the artist himself, who was in his garden, sitting in front of a large sheet stretched tightly between two trees. He was sewing what looked like a small jacket.
Although the people of Balat had been told by the police to move away from outside Melih’s house several times, a considerable number of them persisted in returning. Mainly old people and children, this group also included the tall and exotic figure of Gonca the gypsy, who was there with the youngest of her daughters, six-year-old Ceylan. Half hiding from what she called ‘the spacemen’ behind the folds of her mother’s skirt, the little girl looked gravely at the artist as he pushed and pulled his sewing needle through several thicknesses of plum-coloured velvet. He was a man that Ceylan knew, not a friend of her mother’s but someone who would sometimes come to the house, sometimes at night in order to share her mother’s bed. Other men did that too . . .
‘What’s he doing?’ the child asked her mother, pointing at Melih’s downturned, shaggy head.
‘He’s sewing,’ her mother replied.
‘Is sewing art?’
Gonca smiled. ‘It can be,’ she said. ‘Many things can be art. Walking along the street can be art if it’s done in the right way.’
Ceylan frowned. ‘Do you paint a picture with your feet?’
‘In a sense,’ Gonca said, and then she too frowned as she watched Melih Akdeniz break off from his labours to drink from the small brown bottle that she knew to be always at his side. Instinctively her eyes flew to İkmen, who had also been watching the artist at work.
Would he, obviously confused about the purpose of the little brown bottle, now go over to Melih and ask him about it? Well, even if he wanted to do so, he didn’t. He just stood with that slim and attractive girl and looked on, unsmiling.
Melih reached down and picked up something that was familiar to Gonca from the ground beside him. He held it up just as one of the white overalled forensic technicians passed in front of him obscuring the gypsy’s view. But Gonca knew what it was anyway, and when the technician had moved away, she looked at it again and smiled. That brought so many childhood memories flooding back.
She’d come to see him, she said, because she thought they might go to lunch together. He knew she was lying. Lunch for her was a cigarette. She’d come to check up on him. It wasn’t the first time. But he smiled anyway, sent out for kebabs and settled down to the idea of entertaining his wife for half an hour.
‘So, you’re all alone in here then,’ Zelfa said as she looked around his office with critical eyes.
‘I am at the moment,’ Suleyman replied. ‘As you know, Çöktin shares with me.’
‘But not today?’
‘No.’
‘So you’re alone today?’
‘Yes.’
If the lack of sex hurt him physically, the constant questioning damaged him psychologically. In fact, the questions and the implications behind them hurt him more. The distrust, the suspicion – none of it justified – until Masha, of course. Suleyman looked down at the desk in front of him lest his eyes reveal what his mind had just recalled.
‘So are you always busy like this or do you get to actually go out to lunch sometimes?’
‘Not generally,’ he replied, still with a smile. She was fishing to see whether he would own up to having lunch with another woman. When had their conversation descended into this?
‘Oh.’
Couldn’t she see that by doing this, by pushing him away physically and by dwelling on her own insecurities, she was actually precipitating the event she was most afraid of? She was a psychiatrist, she had to be in contact with people like herself from time to time. Not, of course, that any of this excused his behaviour with that whore. Middle-aged insecurity allied to sexual problems wasn’t exactly an unknown phenomenon – lots of men had it and experienced it from their wives. Lots of men didn’t look elsewhere. He’d have to tell her.