Petrified

by Barbara Nadel

  It was already very hot and the air had that sticky, humid quality that characterises high summer in İstanbul. As Gün looked out across the tops of the old Greek and Jewish houses towards the Golden Horn, her vision was blurred by the heat haze that hung like a tacky rug over the great waterway. She didn’t like summer in the heart of the city. But unless one happened to be very wealthy one was more or less stuck with it. The rich could escape to summer houses in one or other of the Bosphorus villages. Gün, her eyes once again pinned to the back of Eren Akdeniz’s pattern-wrapped head, wondered idly whether Inspector Suleyman’s family still retained one of these places.

  At the bottom of the steps the artist’s wife turned right on to some nameless street where little bits of activity were taking place around a general store and a barber’s shop. A group of middle-aged and elderly men stood outside the latter, their hair just slightly overgrown, smoking. They spoke in low voices, each one waiting his turn to sit in the barber’s chair and have the short, neat standard Turkish haircut. As Eren, a plain and also headscarfed woman passed, they didn’t so much as flick their eyes in her direction.

  More surprisingly, she was also ignored outside the general store with its knot of headscarfed women and their many bags of shopping in tow. Groups of thin, excitable children played around them like insects, occasionally stopping to berate their mothers for not buying them this or that in the shop. Like a small patch of darkness she passed beside them, and two tiny white kittens flew from in front of her feet as she went.

  A little further up the road, on the opposite side of the street from a vast, vine-covered mansion, the sound of hammers on metal signalled the existence of a coppersmith’s workshop. Entered via a fenced yard at the front, it was typical of the small-scale artisan businesses that had always characterised Balat. Without looking to either left or right, Eren entered the courtyard and, by the time Gün had caught up, she had disappeared from sight. The hammering inside the building stopped.

  Reluctant actually to follow her into the ramshackle little workshop, Gün stood beside the opening into the yard and surveyed the area. Large cauldrons, some of which were obviously there to be repaired, lay carelessly on the ground outside the workshop, which was little more than a wooden shed. At the back of this building there was a wall, to which it appeared to be attached or at least leaning against. The wall, Gün observed, was old and crumbling in places, but that wasn’t unusual in this area. Long ago it had probably been part of something – a house or maybe even a church or synagogue.

  When, a few moments later, the hammering started up once again, Gün moved slightly back on to the street and waited for Eren to reappear. But seconds passed into minutes and with no Eren in sight, Gün decided to go in and see what was happening.

  The workshop, which was stacked from floor to ceiling with copper – pots, pans, plates, kettles – only supported one workman. Small and elderly, he sucked heavily on a home-made cigarette as he brought a small hammer down on to a currently very misshapen plate. He seemed, from the look of wrapt concentration on his brown weathered face, to be contented in his solitude. However, when he saw Gün he stopped what he was doing and looked up.

  The policewoman could see at a glance that there was no one with him.

  ‘Good morning, uncle,’ she said to the old man. ‘Did a lady come in here just now?’

  ‘Yes,’ the old man replied, ‘Eren Hanım. But she’s just gone.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But, uncle, I didn’t see her leave. I’ve been outside in the street.’

  The old man smiled, his eyes almost disappearing into the heavy lines that surrounded them. ‘She left by the back door,’ he said as he waved a hand towards a rough-looking plank in the back wall, ‘out on to Mürsel Paşa Caddesi.’

  Without even asking if she could do so, Gün sprang forward and pushed the plank roughly to one side.

  ‘Young lady!’ the old man said disapprovingly as he watched her make a most unladylike exit.

  There was a small piece of rough scrubland just beyond the door which fell away sharply towards the fast-moving Mürsel Paşa thoroughfare and the glittering Golden Horn beyond. On the side of the road, standing beside a now stationary yellow taxi stood a woman in a patterned headscarf. As Gün struggled to maintain her footing on the powdery scrubland the woman turned just before getting into the vehicle. Eren Akdeniz first said something to the driver and then, with a smile directly at Constable Gün, she got into the vehicle and sped away in the direction of the Atatürk Bridge.

  ‘People who purchase my expertise pay me a lot of money,’ Yeşim Keyder said as she placed a large buff folder into Suleyman’s hands. ‘They expect me to operate in legal and sanitary conditions. You’ll find everything pertaining to my conformation with City and Government regulations in this file.’

  ‘I have never questioned the legality of your practice, Dr Keyder,’ Suleyman said as he briefly glanced through the documents in the folder.

  ‘Just its morality,’ she returned sharply.

  ‘You weren’t exactly forthcoming about your profession when Sergeant Çöktin first spoke to you about Miguel Arancibia.’

  ‘I feared the lack of understanding you are exhibiting so graphically now, Inspector,’ Dr Keyder retorted. ‘I work, as I’m sure you can appreciate, in a very discreet and confidential world. It isn’t, in general, Muslim practice to embalm the dead.’

  ‘No.’ He put the folder down on a bench, which looked very similar to those used by Dr Sarkissian at the mortuary. Dr Keyder’s laboratory, which was situated in the basement of her yalı, was a somewhat unnerving place. Various instruments were visible, the function of which was only too easy to imagine. Çöktin, who had been given access to a filing cabinet in the corner, briefly looked up.

  ‘I must confess,’ Suleyman continued, ‘that I find it very odd that you chose to practise in Turkey, Dr Keyder. Surely you could make a far better living in Western Europe or even back in South America.’

  ‘Turkey is my home,’ she said shortly. ‘I left it once before, but now I’m too old to leave.’

  Suleyman shrugged. ‘I was only thinking that professionally—’

  ‘I make a living, a good one, as you know,’ she sniffed as if there were suddenly a bad smell under her nose. ‘My work is without equal. People will pay almost any price. And anyway,’ she added, her voice now just tinged with spite, ‘some of my clients are Muslims. Not everyone is who he or what she seems.’

  ‘No,’ Suleyman replied, smiling, ‘that’s true. Some Jewish people for instance . . .’

  ‘Look, if you’re trying to make something out of the fact that my parents were Jewish then don’t bother,’ the old woman said as she lowered herself down into the chair behind her desk. ‘Just because I don’t publicise my origins that doesn’t mean that I keep them secret. I am a Jew, I was born in Balat.’

  ‘You told me when we first spoke,’ Çöktin interjected from across the room, ‘that your family had become wealthy because of their involvement with the Republican movement, that your father knew President İnönü.’

  ‘No, what I said,’ Dr Keyder corrected emphatically, ‘was that my father fought with İnönü. Like many people at that time, my father was in the Republican army. I told you further that we had done well as a family, but by virtue of our intelligence and not because of some sort of favour from İnönü. My brother, Veli, was a brilliant biologist. Because of my involvement with Dr Ara, I am the world’s premier embalmer.’

  Suleyman leaned back against one of the benches and looked down at her. ‘So do you have assistants?’

  ‘I use those endowed with more muscle than brain to assist in the delivery and placement of my subjects, yes.’

  ‘But you perform the process?’

  ‘Like Dr Ara, I work alone,’ she answered shortly. ‘The more people you have in a laboratory the more likely it is that contamination will be transferred to your subjects. Others bring th
em in, set them down here and take them out, but only I do the work, Inspector.’

  ‘Quite stressful for—’

  ‘An old woman?’ she smiled. ‘Ara taught me well. I know all the tricks, all the shortcuts, all the right ways in which to do everything. I need no one and nothing.’

  ‘Except that you once needed Ara,’ Suleyman said. ‘I assume from what you’ve already told us that you met him through Rosita’s family?’

  ‘Yes. I went with Veli and the rest of Rosita’s family to view what he had done with Miguel and,’ suddenly she smiled, dazzlingly, ‘it was magical. So perfect, so alive! Señora Arancibia, Rosita’s mother, cried with joy. Dr Ara could bring back the dead, I could see that. I wanted to have that skill for myself.’

  ‘Dr Ara didn’t think it odd that—’

  ‘I, a woman, should want to do such a thing? No.’ She looked down, Suleyman felt, a little coyly. ‘Pedro was a brilliant, fascinating man. An artist. We . . . we got on well. We shared a philosophy about the preservation of beauty. Beauty should never die. It’s too precious and rare. That’s why Pedro refused to work for the Soviets. Using his skills to preserve the likes of Lenin and Stalin was anathema to him.’

  ‘And yet some of your subjects must be old and unattractive,’ Suleyman said.

  ‘I am not Pedro.’

  ‘You know he was accused of necrophilia?’ Çöktin put in.

  Yeşim Keyder’s eyes blazed. ‘Don’t talk about things you can’t understand! Pedro Ara was my soul-mate. Everything he did was aimed at the preservation of beauty. Everything!’

  ‘Dr Keyder!’

  The three of them looked up towards the door at the top of the stairs leading into the basement. Roditi, corpulent and slovenly, stood in front of it, looking vaguely horrified at the scene below.

  ‘You’ve got a visitor, Dr Keyder,’ he said, ‘a lady.’

  ‘All right, I’ll come,’ she said, and then rose from her seat. ‘Excuse me, gentlemen.’

  She walked up the stairs towards Roditi, who escorted her out of the basement.

  Suleyman, now that she’d gone wrinkling his nose up against the strong smell of formaldehyde that pervaded every part of the laboratory, walked across to Çöktin, who was still busy with the filing cabinet.

  ‘Anything?’ he enquired as he watched the younger man flick through the contents of a large green file.

  ‘If you mean have I come across the names Vronsky, Bulganin and Malenkov, no I haven’t, sir,’ the Kurd replied. ‘Most of these records are in excess of five years old.’ He sighed. ‘I don’t suppose she’s volunteered any names.’

  ‘No.’ He looked down at the floor, lost in thought for a moment. ‘I wonder if she gave them code names or numbers.’

  ‘None of the other records are compiled like that; they’re all very explicit,’ Çöktin said. ‘She must have destroyed them.’

  ‘Is there anything recent? She works all the time.’

  Çöktin sighed. ‘There are records for Miguel Arancibia and for a male and female by the name of Nabaro.’

  ‘Mean anything to you?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  Their conversation was temporarily cut short by the arrival of Constable Roditi. He was alone, and from the expression on his face he was somewhat troubled.

  ‘Roditi?’

  The constable drew rather nearer to his superior than he usually did and said, ‘Sir?’

  ‘Yes?’

  He looked once over his shoulder towards the stairs before proceeding. ‘Look, sir,’ he said, ‘it might not mean anything but . . . you know I’ve been working on that Akdeniz missing kids case with Inspector İkmen?’

  ‘I didn’t know you were working with him,’ Suleyman said, ‘but go on.’

  ‘Akdeniz’s wife has just come to see Dr Keyder,’ Roditi said.

  ‘Do you know why?’

  ‘No,’ he shrugged, ‘they just went into the sofa together and Dr Keyder closed the door. I couldn’t really insist that she keep it open, could I? I mean it’s weird, this embalming stuff, but it’s not like she’s actually done anything wrong.’

  ‘No,’ Suleyman said frowning. ‘No, you were quite right, Roditi. Thank you.’

  ‘Sir.’

  And then he left.

  Suley man turned to Çöktin. ‘I wonder what Mrs Akdeniz can want with Dr Keyder,’ he said.

  ‘Maybe one of her relatives has died and she wants to use Dr Keyder’s “service”.’

  ‘Don’t you think that’s somewhat odd in view of what is happening with her children? I don’t think I’d be capable of attending to such a thing if I were worried about my son.’

  ‘If this job and particularly this case has taught me anything, sir, it’s that people are weird,’ Çöktin replied, shaking his head from side to side as he spoke. ‘As Inspector İkmen always says, life is infinitely variable and anything is possible.’

  ‘Mmm . . .’ Suleyman took his mobile phone out of his pocket. ‘I think perhaps I should pass this information on to him, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  However, before he could bring İkmen’s number up on the screen Dr Keyder returned carrying yet another folder which, this time, proved to be full of invoices. Rather oddly, she was smiling.

  İkmen first looked down at what he’d just written in his notepad and then turned his attention to the red-faced young woman by his side.

  ‘Right, so,’ he said, ‘the car was a Mercedes, it pulled in to the open gates at the back of the house . . .’

  ‘Someone I couldn’t see closed the gates,’ the young woman put in breathlessly.

  ‘And then, ten minutes later, the gates opened and the car rolled out.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Could you see who was driving the car?’ Ayşe Farsakoǧlu asked.

  The girl with the red face, young Sibel Yalçin, bit down on her bottom lip. ‘Er . . . a man.’

  ‘On his own?’

  ‘Yes, I think so.’

  ‘What was he like?’ İkmen asked. ‘Young, old, fat, thin . . . ?’

  ‘Er . . .’

  ‘You didn’t get the licence plate number, Sibel,’ Ayşe Farsakoǧlu said, more as a statement than a question.

  ‘Er . . .’

  İkmen, suddenly infuriated beyond reason by the youngster’s seeming lack of attention, said, ‘All right, Constable, that will be all. Thank you.’

  ‘Oh, but, sir, don’t you want me to stay?’

  ‘Allah forbid, no!’ Realising from the hurt look on her face that he had gone way too far for her delicate sensibilities he moderated his tone. ‘No, thank you, Constable. That will be all for today, thank you.’

  ‘Sir.’ She saluted, sloppily, but with conviction – something that wasn’t lost on İkmen, who duly saluted back. Both İkmen and Farsakoǧlu watched as the young woman trudged grimly back down the hill and away from the Akdeniz house.

  Once she was out of earshot, İkmen said, ‘You’d think wouldn’t you, Ayşe, that someone like Ardiç would have learned his lesson with that girl’s father.’

  Ayşe, a little embarrassed to be discussing another senior officer with one of his fellows, simply looked down at the ground.

  ‘I mean poor old Hüsnü Yalçin has always been a liability. Allah forgive me, I mean him no harm, but wouldn’t you think that Ardiç would draw the line at employing the old man’s idiot daughter? She sees nothing, hears even less . . . The only thing she can ever be counted upon to do is wander around after Inspector Suleyman whenever he’s in her vicinity.’

  ‘Sir . . .’

  ‘Oh, well,’ İkmen shrugged, ‘at least I suppose we can be grateful that she noticed the car. I would have liked a licence plate – even a colour would have been nice – but . . .’ He placed a cigarette firmly between his lips and looked up into the seemingly sightless windows of the Akdeniz house. ‘OK, Ayşe, let’s see what Mr Akdeniz is up to today.’

  CHAPTER 16

  Melih Akdeniz was in his garden st
anding in front of the great swathe of material strung between his trees. When he saw İkmen he took a long swig from his ever-present medicine bottle and then wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his shirt.

  ‘Have you come to see Reşad?’ he said as the policeman and his assistant approached.

  ‘No, Mr Akdeniz.’

  ‘Haven’t got the results from all those tests you made on his van?’

  ‘No, sir.’ İkmen, now level with the artist, smiled into the other’s sick, bloodshot eyes. ‘As I told Mr Kuran, these things take time. Sadly.’

  ‘Mmm . . .’ Melih Akdeniz looked up into the sky and squinted as he bathed his face in the rays of the midday sun. ‘So what is it, İkmen?’ he said huskily. ‘Have you found my children?’

  ‘Unfortunately no, sir,’ İkmen said. ‘No, my visit is just a courtesy.’

  ‘Wanting to know why that car pulled into my drive this morning.’ The artist looked back at İkmen again and smiled. ‘I saw your little retard write it down in her little book,’ he continued unpleasantly. ‘You must try harder, İkmen. Is it any wonder that my children are still missing when the İstanbul police are reduced to employing the mentally subnormal.’

  İkmen, choosing to ignore this little tirade, said, ‘And so the car, sir? What was that about?’

  ‘It was about,’ the artist mimicked both the depth and seriousness of İkmen’s voice, ‘some materials I need for my performance exhibit.’

  ‘Ah . . .’

  The clearing of a throat from over by the house signalled the appearance of Reşad Kuran at the back door. His hair tousled and his face unshaven, he looked as if he’d just fallen out of a very uncomfortable bed.

  ‘I’m having a preview here tonight for the media,’ Melih continued. Turning his gaze from İkmen to Ayşe Farsakoǧlu, he added, ‘It’s at eight. Want to come?’