Land of the Blind

by Barbara Nadel

  İkmen looked at Kerim as he got into his car. ‘See you back at the station.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  When Kerim had driven off, İkmen sat quietly for a moment, thinking. Samsun had a lot of faults but lying wasn’t one of them, and so he had no doubt whoever these people she’d met in Gezi were, she had believed them. İkmen had personally never met Kerim’s wife. She had rheumatoid arthritis and was an invalid. Was she also a lesbian? It wasn’t his business, unless for some reason Kerim’s unusual lifestyle – if in fact he had one – impacted on his work. But İkmen knew that it could. Some officers were very punitive when it came to transgendered people and would arrest them for the slightest infraction of the law, real or imagined.

  He wouldn’t tell Kerim what he knew – yet. But if he needed to some time in the future, in order to protect him, he would break Samsun’s confidence. But then, for all her protestations, İkmen knew that she had to know that.

  Being back in Dr İnçi’s dental surgery a second time was unnerving. Just sitting in the waiting room made Ömer Mungun wonder whether that dull ache he had at the back of his mouth was a sign that one of his teeth was rotting. Then she called him in.

  They shook hands.

  ‘Thank you for coming,’ she said. ‘It’s so difficult for me to find a few free minutes.’

  ‘It’s no problem.’

  ‘Please sit down.’ She directed him to a stool at a bench in front of a light box. She sat down next to him and then clipped an X-ray slide in front of the light box.

  ‘This is the X-ray of your Galatasaray victim’s mouth that was taken by your forensic people,’ she said.

  He was familiar with it. ‘Yes.’

  She took the slide down. ‘The plate I’m going to show you now was loose in a drawer so I don’t know who it might have belonged to. We’ll talk about that in a moment,’ she said. ‘But it is the closest match I’ve found to your X-ray.’

  She held an old glass X-ray plate up to the light box and then clipped the new X-ray back to the box. ‘You see this molar here has been crowned, and there’s a bridge across from the right central incisor, across the gap where the maxillary right lateral incisor should be, to the maxillary right canine. You may also notice that the bridge unit is canted slightly to the left.’

  Ömer couldn’t really see it. Mouths were mouths and the old plate was very hard to decipher.

  ‘However, I’ve also done some measurement comparisons and looked specifically at distances between teeth. And fillings. I can’t say for certain, because as I said, I don’t have a name here, but I think this plate probably relates to your Galatasaray man’s dental work. Now, with regard to identification, you will see something in the top left-hand corner.’

  There was what looked like a series of scratches and a smudge. Ömer narrowed his eyes. He heard her laugh.

  ‘Oh, don’t even try to see what it is,’ she said. ‘I’ve had it under my most powerful microscope and I can’t see a thing.’

  He looked up.

  ‘But,’ she said, ‘I have an idea.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Your forensic people,’ she said. ‘I don’t know whether their equipment will be able to find something I can’t but I think you should give it a try.’

  Ömer put the plate carefully into a storage box Dr İnçi let him have. He made a note of the resolution of the dentist’s microscope and left.

  Süleyman finally got Mary Cox into police headquarters at seven o’clock in the evening. She’d been out with her charge, Kelime, all day, and because Ahmet Öden had been elsewhere, organising care for the young girl had taken time.

  He took her into a room just like the one Teker had described. He’d enjoyed smoking in an interview room again. He’d appreciated smashing up a few chairs even more. Her face as she walked in front of him quickly showed her disgust. She said, ‘In here?’

  ‘Sit down,’ he said.

  A female constable, large and expressionless, walked in behind him. He knew her name, Özal, but not much else except that she boxed. She also very easily elicited fear. When Mary Cox saw Özal her eyes visibly widened.

  ‘Stand at the door,’ Süleyman said to Özal.

  ‘Sir.’

  He sat down opposite Mary Cox and lit a cigarette. ‘Mary,’ he said. ‘Miss Cox.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Citizen of Great Britain, fifty years old. Single.’

  ‘Yes.’

  He said nothing. He didn’t even look at her, not directly.

  She said, ‘What do you want, Inspector Süleyman?’

  ‘You have a permit to work in Turkey?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You have that. You have my passport too.’

  He’d taken her British passport from her when she’d arrived. Foreign nationals always felt vulnerable without their passports, particularly the British.

  ‘Do I need to contact someone from my consulate?’ she asked.

  Although the grim surroundings were clearly not to her taste, she seemed to be adapting and was showing very little fear.

  ‘I want you to tell me what happened the night before last,’ he said.

  ‘I told you, Kelime was ill, Mr Öden stayed with her. All night.’

  ‘During which time you didn’t sleep once.’

  ‘I told you, I—’

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ he said. ‘Why stay awake all night if the father of the child is sleeping in her room? Do you not trust Mr Öden with his daughter?’

  Her face flushed. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Do you think Mr Öden is some kind of idiot that he can’t look after his own child?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Then why stay awake?’

  Her eyes moved very quickly from his face, to the floor, to the filthy table.

  Süleyman dropped cigarette ash on the floor.

  Mary Cox sniffed. ‘Do you mind . . .?’

  ‘No. No I don’t mind, Miss Cox, at all,’ he said. ‘And now I say again, why stay awake? Is there something you wish to tell me about your employer and the sexual abuse of his daughter?’

  ‘No. No! Mr Öden would never do anything like that,’ Mary said. ‘He’s a good man, a moral man.’

  ‘With a mistress who used to take her clothes off for men to look at her body,’ Süleyman said. ‘We have photographs of him with this woman.’

  ‘They are entirely fake,’ she said.

  Süleyman looked at her. There was possibly something more in that rebuttal than just admiration.

  ‘Did he tell you that?’ Süleyman asked.

  ‘No. I haven’t spoken to Mr Öden about any of this,’ she said.

  ‘He must have spoken to you about what you said to us.’

  She looked a little confused for a moment, then she said, ‘Well, yes, I suppose so.’

  ‘Did you or didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So what? I told Mr Öden I’d told you the truth, which is that I was awake all night,’ she said. ‘I didn’t see Mr Öden or anyone else leave the house.’

  He sat back in his chair and crossed his arms. ‘You would have me believe that you sat up all night when the sick child in your care was peacefully asleep and with her loving father. What did you have to worry about under such circumstances?’

  ‘I wanted to be available in case Mr Öden needed help.’

  ‘What help would he need? The child wasn’t seriously ill. Some minor sickness. According to you and Mr Öden, she asked for her father to sleep in her room. The impression I have been given is that Kelime Öden is somewhat spoilt.’

  ‘She is Mr Öden’s only child.’

  ‘Who has Down’s syndrome—’

  ‘Yes, which is all the more reason to monitor her health very carefully.’

  ‘I do not know about that.’

  ‘Well, it—’

  He held up a hand to silence her. ‘Miss Cox, whatever, er, implications that may have, I am still not sa
tisfied that you remained awake all night for no reason. I am not happy that Mr Öden slept, alone, in his daughter’s bedroom.’

  Her face went purple. ‘He’d never do anything like that to Kelime! He’s a good man!’

  ‘A good man who uses a prostitute,’ Süleyman said. ‘A good man who may have a secret life of vice. I can accept that you didn’t know about his mistress but I cannot believe that you were happy about his presence in Kelime’s room if you really didn’t take a sleeping tablet. I looked at your tablets myself and you have many. They are prescribed for every night. You clearly have a problem. You must have to take sleep whenever you can, whenever you don’t have to watch Kelime Öden. On the night in question you didn’t take a pill, which has to mean that you felt that you couldn’t. I am asking you why.’

  She didn’t reply.

  ‘Miss Cox, the law here works, in some ways, just like it does in Britain. If someone has to wait to be tried for a crime they are kept in prison until their court appearance. That includes assisting a criminal. What is different here, according to my understanding of your prisons, is that ours are much more . . . mmm . . . old-fashioned. Life is hard if you don’t have someone outside to bring in proper food for you. There is a system of barter amongst prisoners and guards can be . . . ah . . . Well, I’m sure you have heard how guards can be.’

  Mary Cox still said nothing. He hoped she had not just tuned out and was actually thinking through her options.

  ‘Whatever you may feel for a person, if they have broken the law you must forget that.’

  She took in a deep breath. ‘I feel nothing for Mr Öden but respect.’

  Süleyman knew he hadn’t done what Teker had asked him to. He hadn’t screamed at her or evoked visceral terror. Once inside the interview room it hadn’t felt right, for her. Maybe it was because her response to her surroundings had been muted. She was tougher than she looked. Only one thing might get through to her and he raised that issue again.

  ‘I wish I could agree with you,’ he said. ‘But I can’t. Miss Cox, I am not happy with your explanation about the events of that night. And although it does not make me happy to have to do this, I feel I must speak to Kelime Öden.’

  This time her skin went white. ‘Kelime! But she’s just a child!’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘A child who it is my duty as a police officer to protect.’

  ‘Mr Öden wouldn’t abuse Kelime! He wouldn’t!’ She got to her feet. ‘Why are you trying to accuse him of doing things he hasn’t done?’

  ‘Sit down.’

  She didn’t. Constable Özal began to move towards her. Mary Cox sat.

  ‘Listen to me, Miss Cox,’ Süleyman said, ‘A woman is dead. A woman who was Mr Öden’s mistress. We don’t know whether he killed her or not. But at the moment he has an alibi. You. Now in my judgement, there is something wrong in the stories I have been told. One of them is definitely wrong. Mr Öden told me he didn’t know the dead woman when he did. He told me he was in his daughter’s room all night. So I am thinking, is he lying about that? Are you lying about that? And if you are not, why did you stay awake? If you stayed awake.’

  ‘I did!’

  He shrugged. ‘Then if that is the case, I will have to speak to Kelime Öden.’

  ‘No! You’ll frighten her!’

  Süleyman leaned across the dirty table towards her and said, ‘Then I suggest we take you home and you think about your options tonight. It’s late now. We will start our conversation again in the morning when maybe you will have slept and maybe you will not.’

  Chapter 19

  Aylın Akyıldız looked down at the partial skeleton she and Ariadne Savva had called Palaiologos and said, ‘Thank you for letting me see him.’

  Professor Bozdağ shrugged. ‘He’s still yours,’ he said. ‘Once I’d got over not being told, I realised that.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  The broken sword was at his side; robbed of its jewels, it looked violated. But it still dazzled her. Its provenance was still a mystery – like the body. Maybe it would remain a mystery forever.

  ‘What about the threats? To you?’ Professor Bozdağ asked.

  She looked up. ‘Oh, they still keep coming,’ she said.

  ‘Do the police have any idea where they’re coming from?’

  ‘No. Their experts think that whoever is sending them is routeing them though servers they’ve hijacked. Abroad.’

  ‘And the letters?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘No identifying features found so far. They know what they’re doing.’

  ‘But it seems that, if they’re still sending you threats, they don’t know that our friend is here.’

  They both looked down at the skeleton.

  ‘Which is the way we have to keep it,’ Aylın said. ‘Can you imagine what people like that would do to him?’

  The professor shook his head. ‘And yet, who is he? Are you sure Dr Savva never told you who she was going to attempt the DNA comparison with?’

  ‘I’m certain,’ she said. ‘And believe me, I’ve looked at every item of documentation that passed between us. There’s nothing.’

  ‘They’re sick. Measles.’

  Süleyman looked at the man who said he was a doctor and then asked to see his ID card.

  ‘Mr Öden called me this morning,’ the man who was indeed Dr Akurgal said. ‘This now explains why Kelime Öden was sick two days ago.’

  ‘Does it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He looked at Ömer Mungun, who, he noticed, had an expression of cynicism on his face which pleased him. The boy was learning.

  ‘Well, I need to speak to Mary Cox,’ Süleyman said.

  ‘Mary Hanım is too ill to speak to anyone and this house in quarantined.’

  ‘I’ve had measles,’ Süleyman said. ‘Sergeant Mungun?’

  ‘Oh, I’ve had it too, sir.’

  He looked at the doctor. ‘Step aside, sir.’

  And then Ahmet Öden appeared.

  ‘What do you want this time, Süleyman?’ he said. ‘You bullied my nanny last night, now you come back to do it all over again. Well, she’s sick and so is my daughter. Miss Cox told you what she knows last night, and by the way if you do want to talk to my daughter you will have to do so in the presence of Dr Akurgal and my lawyer. And only when she is better. If you want to speak to Miss Cox again then I suggest you charge her with something. I’ve already spoken to the British Consulate on her behalf this morning. I expect that Commissioner Teker will be hearing from them very soon.’

  Teker, who had ordered him to get tough with Mary Cox. Süleyman felt himself deflate.

  Together with Ömer Mungun he’d driven out to Bebek because Mary Cox hadn’t arrived at the station at nine a.m. as agreed. All attempts at calling her had failed, and now this. Thwarted on Öden’s doorstep.

  ‘Miss Cox didn’t have any sort of rash I could discern yesterday evening,’ Süleyman said.

  ‘It came on overnight,’ the doctor said.

  Between them, Öden and this doctor had and would have answers to every objection Süleyman might make.

  ‘I was here all night when that woman died in Moda,’ Öden said. ‘Just like Mary Cox said. Just like my daughter would tell you, if I ever let you near her, which I will not. And don’t think that those disgusting suggestions you made to Mary will be forgotten, because they won’t. Now go away and allow me to look after my sick child in peace.’

  They left. For a minute or so Süleyman drove in silence, then he pulled the car over into an unmade rural lane, put his head back and closed his eyes.

  ‘Bloody bastard.’

  Ömer Mungun, accustomed to the occasional outburst from his superior, could nevertheless understand this one. ‘His fingerprints are all over that apartment, we know he lied about knowing that woman,’ he said.

  Süleyman opened his window and lit a cigarette. ‘But did he kill her? In a way, knowing that he was having a relationship with her for certain isn’t
helping. When he does confess to his affair with Mrs Ocal, which he will, he’ll say he was there off and on all the time. He will do anything to save his own skin in the end. Miss Mary, on the other hand, will I believe do anything she has to, to help him.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why do you think? He’s a good-looking man and so she’s convinced herself she believes his holy man act.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Süleyman smoked. ‘Ah, but Miss Mary and the girl can’t be ill forever.’

  ‘You think they’re really ill?’

  ‘No. But it’s a clever delaying tactic and involving the British Consulate was smart. As if these people didn’t have enough pull already with those at the top of the food chain.’ He shook his head. ‘You know, Ömer, I look at this city and—’

  ‘Öden!’

  Ömer pointed to his right.

  ‘What?’

  ‘That was Öden’s car, just went towards the city,’ Ömer said.

  Süleyman started his engine and roared out on to the road ahead. ‘You sure?’ The driver of a Porsche slammed on his brakes, narrowly missing a shunt from a Mercedes behind.

  ‘As much as I can be.’

  A Land Rover was three cars in front of them but neither of them could see the licence plate. They followed, Ömer Mungun trying to find some vantage point that would allow him to see the back of the Land Rover properly. But this didn’t happen until they reached a set of traffic lights. Süleyman stopped the car and Ömer jumped out.

  Seconds later he was back inside Süleyman’s BMW again and he was smiling. ‘It’s definitely him, sir.’

  Süleyman shook his head. ‘What a caring father he is, eh?’

  Fatma had gone to pray at that space behind Aya Sofya again and so İkmen was in a bad mood.

  ‘Why do you want to pray amongst lunatics?’ he’d asked her before he’d left the house that morning. ‘You know the people who go there only do it to piss off the Christians, don’t you?’

  ‘No, they don’t,’ she’d said. ‘They are sincerely religious men and woman.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ he’d retorted, ‘the type of “sincerely religious men and women” who like to make big shows of themselves dressed for the desert that we don’t, you might have noticed, live in. They’re bigots and fanatics, and if I were in any way like one of their men I’d forbid you from going there.’