‘Gonca. Just Gonca.’ She pushed a thick lump of unruly black hair away from her face and said, ‘Not much. I know he’s been working in camel skin, which is the traditional material used for Karagöz puppets. I know he’s been making costumes for them, something using designer labels. But then if you’re going tonight . . .’
‘If I’m going.’
‘All will become clear, won’t it?’ Gonca said, and with that she started to move away from the car, her jewel-covered hips swaying as she moved.
‘Er . . .’ Ayşe Farsakoǧlu, confused about why the gypsy had approached her, opened the car door and got out. ‘Did you want something?’
Gonca turned, looking provocatively over one shoulder, ‘No,’ she said smiling, ‘only to say that if you see Çetin Bey you might like to tell him that I think the answer to the puzzle he has been trying to solve is at hand.’
‘What puzzle?’ Ayşe replied.
‘The one about the two little children,’ Gonca said, ‘Melih’s kids.’
‘Yes, but how—’
‘You can tell him that I know because I had a dream. Their torment is about to conclude. He will understand,’ the gypsy said, and then, with one last pout at Yıldız she started to make her way down the steep stone steps that led to lower Balat.
Ayşe, her head shaking in disbelief, got back into the car. Just in time, Hikmet Yıldız turned his head away from the retreating gypsy and towards his superior.
‘She’s a bit . . . full on,’ he said. ‘A bit . . .’
‘Anyone known to Inspector İkmen on that . . . that sort of witchcraft level, which is where I would place her, is odd,’ Ayşe said with a sigh. ‘Dreams, magic. Allah! But Çetin Bey will take her seriously. Modern police force but we still use soothsayers.’
‘My mum always says that it’s dangerous to ignore all the old what she calls countryside ways,’ Yıldız replied in a rare moment of disclosure. ‘She says that Allah in His great wisdom makes only those who can deal with such things aware of these mysteries.’
‘Oh?’ Ayşe, who was a woman who, though very respectful of İkmen and his ilk, was a very ‘earthbound’ person, raised a sceptical eyebrow. ‘And what does your mother have to say about rapacious middle-aged women with an eye for young men?’
Yıldız blushed again. Ayşe, in order to hide the smile that was spreading across her face, looked away. She would tell İkmen about the encounter with the gypsy as soon as she could. He laid great store by such things and she, in spite of herself, felt that what Gonca had said was important.
CHAPTER 17
İkmen was, as Suleyman had suspected he would be, lurking disreputably outside the hospital entrance. Like Suleyman himself, being in hospitals tended to make the older man feel nervous. Not helped by the fact that smoking was now frowned upon inside.
After the two men had embraced, Suleyman said, ‘How is Talaat?’
İkmen sighed. ‘He was restless last night, with the pain,’ he said wearily, ‘but this morning, after I’d left for work, it became uncontrollable. Fatma called an ambulance.’
‘She’s inside?’
‘Yes.’ İkmen lit a new cigarette from the butt of the one he’d just finished. ‘They’re trying to get the pain under control now. It’s like a nightmare in there, but she won’t leave him.’
‘Is anybody with her?’
‘Çiçek was visiting this morning and so she’s come along,’ he said naming his eldest daughter, who worked as an air hostess. ‘You know these women are far tougher than we are, Mehmet. I was in there, Talaat screaming, I was beside myself. But Fatma? She just held on to him, speaking softly into his ears while my daughter very calmly bathed his forehead. Doctors everywhere with monitors, plunging hypodermics into Talaat’s arms. But then I don’t have to tell you about tough women, do I? You have Zelfa.’
‘Yes.’ Not that he wanted to discuss his wife, his betrayed wife now. Suleyman changed the subject. ‘Ayşe Farsakoǧlu said that you wanted to see me about my involvement with Dr Keyder.’
‘The embalmer. Yes. Did you find out why Mrs Akdeniz went to see her?’
Suleyman lit a cigarette before replying. ‘Dr Keyder told me that Mrs Akdeniz’s visit was about art rather than embalming,’ he said. ‘The doctor is a great admirer of Melih Akdeniz’s work and has a considerable collection of his art. It was something to do with that, I understand.’
‘Yes, Melih told me the doctor wants to buy one of his old pieces,’ İkmen sighed. ‘Seems on the level, although I’m not sure about Mrs Akdeniz’s brother.’
‘Who?’
İkmen briefly outlined Reşad Kuran’s involvement in his investigation and then said, ‘He claims he’s never met Dr Keyder and has never been to her yalı. However, mention of her name did prompt him to miraculously recall the address he delivered to in Yeniköy on that Friday night. I’ve got to check that out.’
‘Do you want me to ask Dr Keyder about him?’
‘Yes.’
‘You know Dr Keyder is a very enthusiastic fan of Akdeniz’s work – her yalı contains many examples,’ Suleyman said. ‘Like him, she’s a Balat Jew, although she’s a lot older than he is.’
‘Mmm. The fact that she lives in Sarıyer I find interesting too,’ İkmen said. ‘Akdeniz had promised to take his children out to a restaurant in Sarıyer on the day they disappeared. Did that visit perhaps involve seeing Dr Keyder? She’s a collector, he knows her. I also feel sure that Kuran has to know her too. He does all of Melih’s deliveries, he must have come across her. Maybe Melih and Reşad don’t want to be associated with something so grisly, although they’re both so odd, I can’t see why that would be. I know a bit about what’s been going on, with regard to Çöktin’s involvement with an embalmed body, but I don’t know much about your investigation.’ He frowned. ‘One tends to develop tunnel vision when working on a missing children case. Tell me some more about it.’
At Suleyman’s request they both sat down on a low wall to one side of the hospital entrance. The younger man then spoke at some length about Rostov, about the trade in body preservation and about the strange career of Dr Yeşim Keyder.
‘I think it’s possible she may have had some sort of romantic attachment to this Spaniard, Pedro Ara,’ he said
İkmen visibly shuddered. ‘How macabre,’ he said, ‘and also, I don’t quite know why, but how very Latin. I remember some years ago, Çiçek flew to Palermo in Sicily and visited the catacombs of some monastery there. She said they embalm all their deceased initiates and place them standing up in this place. It gave me the creeps.’
Suleyman smiled. ‘I know what you mean,’ he said. ‘I think that perhaps one has to be a Christian to really understand these things. Zelfa does.’
‘Mmm. But you say this Dr Keyder is Jewish . . .’
‘Yes, although she doesn’t practise her religion. I get the feeling that Judaism belongs to a past that Dr Keyder would really rather forget.’
‘Except maybe through her devotion to the works of Melih Akdeniz.’ İkmen thoughtfully rubbed his chin. ‘So you think she’s working for various mobsters?’
‘Yes. There were no records bearing significant names that we could find but . . .’
‘So what are you going to do?’ İkmen, his eye caught by a figure that was approaching the hospital gates, waved at it energetically. ‘Orhan,’ he said to Suleyman by way of explanation.
The younger man turned to look at the figure and smiled. Then he turned back to İkmen and said, ‘I’d like to use these unburied bodies as levers to get into the homes of people like Vronsky. I know Ardiç does too, although he’s holding back at the moment – afraid, I think, like we all are about how entering such homes might affect relations between mobsters and their men on the streets.’
‘He’s right to be cautious,’ İkmen agreed. ‘If you’ve nothing apart from Rostov’s evidence your intervention could cause trouble for him.’ And then seeing the look of disgust on his colleague’s face he added, ‘N
ot that you’re bothered about Rostov’s safety.’
‘You know he killed Masha.’
‘The girl you . . . ?’
‘Yes.’ Suleyman turned away just as the man İkmen had seen at the gate drew level with them.
‘Orhan!’ İkmen stood up and took the man, who was considerably taller and younger than he in his arms.
‘Hello, Dad,’ the man replied after he had kissed his father on both cheeks. ‘How are things?’
‘Not good.’
Suleyman, who had now risen to his feet, took one of Orhan’s hands in his. ‘Hello, Orhan,’ he said. ‘It’s such a shame that we should meet under such unpleasant circumstances.’
Orhan İkmen smiled. Even though he didn’t see him from one year’s end to the next, he had a lot of affection for Mehmet Suleyman. When he’d been a poor medical student in Ankara some years before, it had been Mehmet who had kept him supplied with much-appreciated pairs of shoes. Ostensibly given because Mehmet had tired of them, Orhan and Fatma always believed that the far more financially secure Suleyman had bought the shoes for the young man out of the kindness of his heart.
‘Mehmet.’ He embraced him before turning back to his father. ‘So is Mum inside?’
‘Yes,’ his father replied. ‘Çiçek also. I’ll take you in in a moment.’
He turned back to Suleyman and said, ‘Listen, Mehmet, I think we must maintain contact over these matters. I’d like to talk to you again soon.’
‘Of course.’
‘The fact that this doctor lives in Sarıyer bothers me.’ Once again he visibly shuddered. ‘Oh, just out of interest, was she working on “anyone” when you went to her laboratory?’
Suleyman smiled. ‘No,’ he said, ‘apparently the Nabaros – a couple, I believe – had just “gone”, been delivered or whatever.’
‘Oh.’ İkmen shook his head slowly. ‘Unbelievable.’ He started to walk away and then stopped. ‘Nabaro, you say?’
Suleyman, who had started walking away from the hospital, turned. ‘Yes. Why?’
Once again İkmen shook his head. ‘I don’t know,’ he said as he raised one tired hand up to his brow. ‘Just sounds familiar.’
‘Give Ayşe Farsakoǧlua call,’ Suleyman said. ‘You work together, maybe she’ll know.’
‘Maybe.’
İkmen and his son went into the hospital while Suleyman went back to his car. No one had called him while he’d been with İkmen and so it was unlikely that Ardiç had come to any sort of decision with regard to the embalmed bodies. He was in all probability taking advice from higher up. But there were still tasks to be done in the meantime. Suleyman brought Dr Keyder’s number up on his mobile phone and pressed the call button.
‘You do know what this means, don’t you, Valery?’ Lütfü Güneş said as he lowered himself into the chair beside Rostov’s bed. ‘If the police raid the homes of your –’ he hesitated to use the word ‘rivals’ to a client – ‘friends, they won’t be best pleased.’
Rostov shrugged.
‘In fact, it could start a war—’
‘Not if the police arrest them,’ Rostov cut in coolly, ‘which they will. Malenkov is a drug dealer, Vronsky busies himself with guns and Bulganin is a pervert. I’m on very friendly terms with all of them. They will know that I’m having a little trouble from the police at the moment. Russian businessmen do from time to time. They will all be very relieved it isn’t them. They will carry on as usual. The police are bound to find a lot of illegal goodies as they search through their homes for – what do they call them? – unburied corpses.’
Güneş lit up a cigarette. ‘They came here looking for things, Valery.’
‘Ah, but I am an innocent man, aren’t I, Lütfü?’
The twinkle in Rostov’s nevertheless unsmiling eyes said it all.
‘Oh, come on, Valery, you and I both know . . .’
‘What?’ Slowly Rostov rolled over on to one side so that he was directly facing his lawyer. ‘What do we know about me, Lütfü?’
Under the hard and menacingly amused glare of Rostov’s clear blue eyes, Güneş felt himself shrink. Instinctively he looked away.
‘Valery, this place was totally clean when the police . . .’
‘Well, that has to be because I’m not doing anything illegal then, doesn’t it, Lütfü?’ He reached over and took a cigarette from a box on top of his night table.
Güneş, who could now actually feel his blood pressure rising, turned back to look at his client. Very lucrative, Valery – not that that stopped him from being a cheap, tasteless Russian shit.
‘You know that these friends of yours have these embalmed bodies?’ he asked once he had managed to get the courage up to look Rostov in the eyes again.
‘Yes. As I told you, Lütfü, I have seen them in their homes.’
Until the police had discovered what Rostov said was the body of his daughter in one of the kitchen freezers, Güneş hadn’t known anything about either embalming or Tatiana. Like a lot of people, he had always assumed that the Russian was gay. OK, so mobsters, which was what Güneş knew Rostov to be, had to employ lots of hard young men in order to protect themselves and their investments. But they didn’t have to employ so many beautiful men. They also didn’t have to have the young men suck them off – something Güneş had just walked in on one evening. Rostov with some youngster called Vladimir. Someone who, like several of the boys, now he came to think about it, had left rather smartly.
‘I don’t know why you didn’t tell me about your daughter, Valery,’ Güneş said.
‘Perhaps because Tatiana is none of your business.’
‘But how did you get her into the country?’
‘By plane.’
‘But why now, Valery?’ Güneş asked.
Rostov eyed him coldly. ‘Because now is the right time, Lütfü,’ he said. ‘Now suits me.’
Temporarily bullied into silence, Güneş looked down at the floor. Although he’d been into this room several times during the course of his association with Rostov, it was only now that he noticed how gaudy the carpet was. Pink with thin skeins of gold threaded through the weave. It was dreadful. But then so was Rostov – with his cocaine parties, his boys and girls for sale all over the city, that greedy face of his, slavering with pleasure as that youngster gave him oral sex.
‘So you don’t fear a war . . .’
He looked up just in time to see Rostov smile. ‘I’m an antiques dealer. My friends showed me their very unusual works of art. I didn’t know that what they were doing was against the law, I’m not from this country.’ And then, as he rearranged his features into a sad and regretful expression, he said, ‘As long as Tatiana is preserved I will be happy. I will do anything to prevent anyone taking her away from me.’
Although he both looked and sounded sincere as he said it, Güneş couldn’t find it within himself to believe Rostov. If the police were going to take Malenkov and the others’ ‘unusual art works’ away, then why did Rostov think they would spare Tatiana?
İkmen eventually managed to slip away at just after 6 p.m. After what had seemed like for ever, the doctors had finally managed to deal with Talaat’s pain. This had, however, meant putting him into what was effectively a morphine coma. Drugged beyond any ability to communicate he just lay there, attached to an alarming array of dials, drips and monitors, Fatma and Çiçek sitting one each side of him holding his hands.
As soon as he got outside the hospital building, İkmen switched his mobile phone back on. No one except for the person experiencing it could know what went on when a person entered a coma. The doctor had told Fatma and Çiçek to keep on talking to Talaat. ‘He can hear you,’ he had said, ‘your voices will give him comfort’. Orhan, although he’d said nothing to either his mother or his sister, disagreed – İkmen could see it on his face.
There was one message on his phone. It was from the Forensic Institute telling him that faint traces of blood had been found inside Reşad Kuran’s van.
The blood group was the same as that of the Akdeniz children. Not proof – yet – but İkmen was nevertheless pleased that he had detailed his men and women to keep on watching Kuran. He phoned Ayşe Farsakoǧlu to let her know.
‘Kuran is still at Akdeniz’ house,’ Ayşe said after İkmen had given her his news. ‘The wife is back too.’
‘On her own?’
‘Yes. Three of them in the house, all preparing, I imagine, for this show tonight.’ Then with a sigh she added, ‘It’s all beyond me, sir. I mean whether art is important or not, surely your parental feelings would dominate and effectively bring your life to a standstill at a time like this. If I had a child and he or she went missing I don’t think I’d even be able to feed myself, much less organise a show.’
İkmen rubbed his bloodshot eyes with his fingers. ‘I don’t know,’ he muttered. ‘These artists . . . The statements they feel compelled to make.’ He then cleared his throat and stood up a little straighter. ‘So, look, did anything else happen?’
‘No, no movement here. The gates are closed at the moment, as are the curtains.’ İkmen heard her light up a cigarette and then exhale smoke into her telephone. ‘Oh, we did have a visit from some huge gypsy woman.’
‘Gonca?’
‘Yes.’
‘What did she want?’
‘She asked me whether I was going to Akdeniz’s show tonight. She went on about how it was to be based on Karagöz – things we know.’
‘Ah.’
‘She and Akdeniz are sometime lovers, I think . . . She asked me to give you a message. She said that the solution to your puzzle about the Akdeniz children was at hand. She had this dream,’ Ayşe said. ‘I’m sorry, sir, I know you believe in and use this occult stuff yourself but . . .’
But the voice of his sergeant was a very long way away now. For the moment, İkmen was back in the gypsy’s house, walking in through the spangled fabric doorway, looking down at the colourful cushions on the floor – the prim seated figure of Nilufer Cemal, the ceramicist. The bitter ceramicist who knew a thing or two about both Melih Akdeniz’s artistic philosophy and his past.
Petrified Page 22
