‘Maybe, but I’m becoming concerned that everything I’m doing might be irrelevant. They can’t have killed each other, and yet so much of what I’m reading exhibits murderous intent. Do you know whether there has been any word from the forensic investigation?’
‘No, I don’t,’ he said. ‘All I do know is that Inspector İkmen is out with Sergeant Gürsel. Ah, now that’s a thought. Have you tried his number?’
‘Sergeant Gürsel?’
‘Yes. Çetin Bey is, as I’m sure you know, not a lover of technology. He switches his phone off whenever he feels he can. But Sergeant Gürsel is a true son of the twenty-first century and so his mobile is always on. Try it.’
She smiled. ‘That’s a good idea. I will.’
She rose to leave. He caught a glimpse of the tops of her breasts. He wondered how they would feel – and taste.
He stopped her. ‘Oh, Constable, we left at dawn this morning,’ he said. ‘If you saw us go, you must have been here very early.’
‘Yes.’ She felt her face colour. ‘I couldn’t sleep,’ she said. ‘There’s so much material to go through.’
Was that the truth? From the blush on her cheeks, he wondered. But then what else could she have been doing?
‘Don’t work too hard,’ he said. ‘I understand completely that you want to do a good job. But don’t wear yourself out. Çetin Bey is an individual who attracts intense loyalty – I know; I used to work for him – but he wouldn’t want you to make yourself ill.’
‘No, sir.’
Every section of her viscera itched. Her skin was entirely calm and her eyes were shut, but inside everything was churning, irritating, howling. She knew she looked at peace because she’d seen how the coppers had reacted when that doctor had spiked her. She knew what it was. The stuff they gave the loonies so they could throw them into hospitals where they’d be tortured and raped. She’d grown up listening to stories told by roaming prophets on the streets about the poison that made a person calm outside while killing him inside. Somehow she’d get round it. It had to stop sometime, and when it did, she’d strike. She’d sunk her teeth into that copper and she hadn’t seen him since. Had she killed him? That would be a coup. An unlooked-for bonus.
Her Syriani father/lover had killed, and he’d thrown a million euros on his bed and had sex with her on it while she watched the singing contests on the television. She loved the girls with the big hair and high voices who cried. Their tears fell on to the diamonds stitched on the silk dresses they wore. Sometimes they wiped their eyes with their long painted nails, and just occasionally, you’d see their handsome boyfriends in the audience. Lucky girls. Lucky famous girls who didn’t itch inside and who didn’t want to kill the world.
If they kept her like this forever, Elif still wouldn’t believe she was being punished for what she’d done. Murder was never punished. Murderers got rich. Girls who had sex with men were punished, and she’d done that all her life. Only Ali hadn’t made her do that. If they needed money, he did it. But Ali was unusual. He was a saint.
‘Sometimes, if my wife wasn’t feeling well, I’d help her. She’s got women’s trouble now. It’s her age.’
İkmen looked at the overweight, slightly rumpled figure of Bilal İnce and knew that the guilt on his face was not in his imagination.
‘Really,’ he said. ‘Your wife didn’t mention taking you to her place of work.’
‘She must have forgotten.’
‘I find that hard to believe. But if you say so . . . How many times did you go to the Teufel Ev?’
‘Two or three,’ he said.
İkmen took note of the photograph of the Kaa’ba in Mecca on the wall, the little light-bulb flag of the AK Party on top of the television. ‘You’re a good Muslim, Mr İnce.’
‘Yes, of course,’ he said, as if that was in some way a given.
‘Well then you will know about the value of telling the truth,’ İkmen said.
Bilal İnce nodded.
İkmen leaned across the coffee table towards him. ‘If you don’t care about lying to the police, then I imagine you do care that Allah is watching and listening. And before you think about justifying your actions by asserting that Fatima Hanım was some sort of infidel, then remember that, through her mother, she was also a member of the Ottoman royal family. My understanding is that the political party you claim to support holds the Osmanoğlu family in high regard. Also, if it’s any help to you, I can tell that you’re lying. I’ve been doing this job for forty years, and trust me, it’s written all over you. Oh, and there’s forensic evidence too.’
Bilal İnce picked up the remote control. For a moment, İkmen thought he might be about to turn the TV up to drown out his words. But instead he muted it. Then he stood up and walked into the one small bedroom in the apartment.
Kerim shrugged. But İkmen stayed where he was and waited. Bilal İnce was too fat to climb out of a window, especially one that was three floors up. And in the course of time, he duly returned.
He placed a thin twist of paper on the coffee table. ‘I took it.’
İkmen put on a pair of latex gloves and opened the parcel. It contained a large boncuk, or evil eye talisman, encased in thick yellow gold. The blue eye stone looked as if it might be a sapphire.
‘My brother’s daughter is having a baby any day now,’ İnce said. ‘My brother is a builder; he gets contracts all over the country. He makes a fortune. My sisters too have money. One is married to an IT specialist and the other to an official in the Fatih mayoral office.’
‘And you’re a . . .’
‘I’m sick,’ he said. ‘A back problem. Selin works, but she earns nothing. It’s true that sometimes I have walked with her to work, for the company. But this day . . .’ He sighed and rubbed his hands over his face.
‘Which was when?’
‘A month ago. Three weeks . . . I’m not entirely sure.’
‘You took this boncuk.’
‘I couldn’t face it, not again,’ he said. ‘Everyone bringing expensive presents for yet another family baby, and Selin and myself turning up with some bit of trash. My own children looking at me as if I’m a piece of dirt. I saw it on the old woman’s dressing table and I took it. A moment of weakness. But I didn’t kill her, I swear.’
İkmen looked at the jewel. ‘Did you find it in this paper?’ he asked.
‘No,’ İnce said. ‘That was lying on the dressing table. I wrapped the boncuk up in it so that it wouldn’t make a noise in my pocket. I didn’t want Selin to know.’
‘So theft with forethought,’ İkmen said.
‘Yes.’ He bowed his head.
The paper was covered in weird, shaky-looking Ottoman script. Had Fatima Hanım been looking at one of her letters and left it on her dressing table?
İkmen looked up at Kerim Gürsel. ‘Charge him with theft, Sergeant.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Ali Erbil wasn’t just another junkie.
‘Your father is an oncologist,’ Mehmet Süleyman said.
He’d chosen to interview the man because, according to the custody staff, he wanted to talk. The woman was another matter. She, he felt, even under sedation, would have to be approached with caution.
‘Yes,’ Ali answered.
‘Oncologists have access to very powerful pain medications,’ Süleyman said.
‘If you want to know whether I stole my stuff from my dad, then the answer is sometimes,’ Ali said. ‘But he didn’t throw me out because of that. My dad’s a really nice man. I left. Does my dad know I’m here?’
‘Yes. He would like you to have a lawyer.’
‘I don’t want one,’ he said. ‘God, Dad must be so upset!’
Dr Erbil had been upset when the police had arrived at the door of his smart Nişantaşı apartment, but he had also been relieved that his son had finally been found alive.
‘At the moment,’ Süleyman said, ‘you are being held for possession of an illegal firearm plus a quantity of heroin. You
are also implicated in the supply of another illegal firearm to a third party. In addition I have reason to believe that you and the woman we understand is called Elif Büyük may have been involved in crimes of violence in this city. I should point out to you now that we possess forensic material from three sites where people have been murdered in the course of the last seven days. Those sites are the Grand Bazaar, Zeytinburnu tram station and the Galata Bridge.’
‘I see.’
‘Would you like to consult a lawyer?’
‘No.’
‘Very well. Then will you tell me what—’
‘I did it all,’ he said. ‘I killed those people. I killed all of them. I did it on my own.’
Barçın Demirtaş knocked on İkmen’s office door and then went in. She held the thin piece of paper that Bilal İnce had given to the detective.
İkmen offered her a seat. ‘Well?’
‘Well,’ she said, ‘it’s a letter from a very young Fatima Hanım to her father.’
She sat down.
‘Interesting. What does it say?’
‘It’s a promise,’ she said. ‘In short, Fatima Hanım is promising to make sure that her mother behaves properly when her father dies.’
‘When was this?’
‘It’s dated 1928.’
‘The year Rudolf Paşa died.’
‘Yes. So Fatima would have been nine. Not that the letter is what you’d call childish,’ she said. ‘The handwriting is immature but the content is . . . well, I think it’s remarkable.’
‘In what way?’
‘This was a girl who was all over her father,’ Barçın said. ‘On one level it’s a love note, and I do mean that. The passion this child expresses is bordering on something that makes me very suspicious. But it’s the way she talks about her mother that really makes me shudder. Again, passion, but this time hatred. A little girl, telling her father that she’ll make sure that her mother behaves in a proper way once he has died; that she won’t let her be alone with a man and that she’ll ensure that she covers in public. If Rudolf Paşa really wanted Perihan to behave in this way, then he must have become completely Ottomanised.’
‘Some of them did,’ İkmen said. ‘A number of the German troops converted to Islam. But then again, that might just have been his character. Lock my door, will you, please, Constable.’
‘Yes, sir.’
İkmen lit a cigarette. ‘Now,’ he said. ‘According to our pathologist, Dr Sarkissian, his grandfather, Dr Kevork Sarkissian, attended Perihan Hanım when she gave birth to a child in 1931. His source, an elderly relative, did not mention any husband. Also we don’t know whether, at birth, the child was alive or dead. What we do know is that Perihan must have had sex with a man in spite of her daughter’s promise. The story goes that the princess died of septicaemia, but we don’t know how soon that happened after she gave birth. What we have to ask ourselves is: did her children know? And if they did, what does that mean?’
‘You think they killed their own mother?’
‘I think it’s possible, though maybe it wasn’t all of them.’
‘Fatima was only twelve,’ Barçın said.
He shrugged. ‘Never heard of child murderers, Constable?’
‘Yes, but . . .’ She shook her head. ‘Sir, I’ve not been able to talk to you about the letters until now. I’ve been really conflicted about them.’
‘In what way?’
‘I can’t work out whether all this hatred between the siblings is just an illusion. Today I’ve read a series of letters about Kemal from the other three. Fatima to Kanat, Yücel to Fatima, et cetera. What he is doing – sorcery, I guess – bothers them. Kanat calls him insane. He exhorts him to take his punishment, whatever that is, like a man, and says he hates him and wishes he were dead. Kanat also openly hates “that woman”, who I assume is Fatima.’
‘Well if she killed their mother, what can you expect?’ İkmen said. ‘Plus we know that their father left that house and all his worldly goods to Fatima.’
‘This is just so strange. Kanat even wants to meet with Fatima and Yücel to talk about Kemal. I don’t yet know whether that ever happened.’
‘Mmm.’ İkmen leaned back in his chair. ‘These were people who came from a much-maligned background at a time of fear for the old elites. The Ottomans were perceived by many as being responsible for the First World War and for the ruination of the empire. Many of them were still afraid for their lives. And they were superstitious. We know that Kemal practised alchemy, which his siblings would have believed was a real force for evil.’
‘But how does that relate to their deaths?’ she said. ‘If at all?’
‘Maybe it doesn’t. We know that nothing was stolen – bar the boncuk taken by the husband of Fatima’s carer – and sometimes people kill for kicks, though that’s rare. All I can say, Constable, is keep on looking. I’ve had an email from Forensics, who have discovered some unidentified DNA material, so someone we don’t know about yet must have been in that house. Normally we’d have at least some CCTV footage. But the Teufel Ev has no cameras, and over the years the house has all but disappeared. Nobody thinks about it. It has become a tangle of weeds and trees behind some shops.’
‘What about Yücel Rudolfoğlu’s carer?’ she asked.
‘Background checks have revealed nothing of any importance,’ İkmen said. ‘He has no connection to the family, no criminal record. He’s a genuinely philanthropic man who chooses to care for elderly people by day while working as a dancer in a gay bar at night. Forensically he’s clean.’
Chapter 14
He saw her when they moved him to another cell. The woman who had given him the gun, slung between two policemen, her head down, a thin thread of drool hanging from her mouth. He asked them why she was there, but they just told him to shut the fuck up.
The woman herself didn’t say a word, didn’t even look in his direction. As they disappeared down a corridor with her, he shouted, ‘Be careful, sister! They’re not who you think they are!’
Then he got a slap and so he became silent. But at least he’d warned her. He could see those coppers’ horns through their caps, their tails sticking out of their trousers . . .
‘I hate confessions,’ Çetin İkmen said.
‘I only like them when they’re genuine,’ Mehmet Süleyman replied. ‘And this one isn’t.’
It wasn’t often that the two men had time to meet, talk and drink on their own. Usually İkmen’s sorties to the Mosaik Bar were large gatherings, but this evening it was just the two of them. Even İkmen’s cat Marlboro was elsewhere.
‘He’s covering for the woman,’ he continued.
‘Ah, the magnetism of the female . . .’
‘She’s a junkie,’ Süleyman said.
‘So is the man, according to you.’
‘Yes, but at least he can read,’ Süleyman said. ‘Actually Ali Erbil has been extremely well educated, partly abroad. Father’s an oncologist. He was brought up in a well-appointed apartment in Nişantaşı.’
‘Ah, but as we know, the delights of smack transcend all classes,’ İkmen said. ‘I take it this woman is not someone of whom the man’s father would approve?’
‘Her soliciting career goes way back into her childhood,’ Süleyman said. ‘Elif Büyük is a street addict. Can’t read or write and was probably born into prostitution. She’s also, I am sure, mentally ill.’
‘Not a winning combination.’
‘No, but Ali loves her.’
İkmen shook his head. ‘Who knows where the heart will lead, eh? Does Mr Erbil’s confession stand up?’
Süleyman frowned. ‘I’ll come to that.’ He took a sip from his whisky glass and lit a cigarette. The fierce heat of the day had finally abated and been replaced by a tolerably warm evening. Both men were enjoying being outside.
‘So, apart from the fact that he’s in love with this woman and comes from a rich family, what else do you know about Ali Erbil?’ İkmen said.
‘He has a degree in Natural Sciences from Cambridge University. He was going to do a PhD, but then his sister died, so he came home. That’s when the addiction began. He stole from his father, drugs and money, wouldn’t look for work, and then three years ago, he left Nişantaşı for life on the street.’
‘Which can’t have been comfortable.’
‘No. But reading between the lines, it would seem that his relationship with Elif Büyük made it bearable. Love among the syringes. Ali’s father wants him to have a lawyer, even though he has refused representation. He turned up with one this afternoon.’
‘Who you sent away.’
‘What else could I do? Ali’s an adult. Although I think that in his way, he is as mentally ill as his girlfriend.’
‘Not many addicts escape mental scars,’ İkmen said.
‘The problem is,’ Süleyman said, ‘that in part his story does stack up. I’ve no doubt he’s involved, but as a sole perpetrator . . .’
‘What has he admitted to?’ İkmen asked.
‘The lot, and more.’
‘Which is?’
‘The killing of Ali Baykal in the Grand Bazaar, of the Englishman Simon Oates on the Galata Bridge, and of the gangster Hasan Dum and his Hungarian henchman Gabor Karpathy. He has also held his hands up to the murder of Saira Öymen in the tram car. Mrs Öymen was killed by a large dose of heroin, but initially, at least, I was rather erring on the side of her husband being the perpetrator, even though I had no evidence to that effect.’
‘Why?’
‘He beat his wife. And when I say beat, I mean there was damage to her internal organs.’
İkmen wrinkled his nose. ‘Vile!’
‘The few witnesses we have had to these killings have described the assailants as a couple,’ Süleyman said. ‘In addition, I was told this afternoon that the gun the woman gave to the boy in Tarlabaşı used to belong to Hasan Dum. These are probably the people we’ve been looking for, but Ali wants Elif to go free and I don’t.’
‘You think she stuck the odd syringe in?’
‘I think she was the prime mover. Ali Erbil, in spite of the smack, is just too, well, mild.’
The House of Four Page 14
