The House of Four

by Barbara Nadel

  ‘All the men were also found dead on their beds.’

  ‘Yes. I closed her eyes and then I went to Yücel’s apartment. He was asleep, so I killed him as he slept. Kanat was dying, in my opinion. I could hear the death rattle in his throat. But I stabbed him anyway. I can’t say I consciously did it for that baby; I did it for myself. But I did have a picture of my dear mother Zenobia and poor Konstantinos Apion in my mind. Only Kemal was awake. I told him who I was and what I knew, and he cried. I let him show me all that shit he had gathered to try and raise the dead, and I told him that it meant nothing. I said that if he was truly sorry for what he’d done, he’d lie down on his bed and let me kill him. And he did.’

  ‘So if you are dying and you meant no harm or distress to the son of Konstantinos Apion . . .’

  ‘I don’t know him.’

  ‘Then why didn’t you just give yourself up?’ İkmen said.

  The coffee arrived.

  When the waiter had gone, Rauf Bey said, ‘I’ve asked myself that on many occasions. I led you, or rather Sergeant Gürsel, in the right direction. But I’d had no plans to do that. I did it because he was a nice young man and I rather fancied him.’

  İkmen wondered whether the old man had sensed that Kerim was gay. But he didn’t ask.

  ‘Had you arrested anyone else for those murders, would I have given myself up? I don’t know. All of this – my diagnosis, my realisation about what I wanted, the murders – it’s all come about almost in spite of me. Maybe that’s what happens to people whose lives have been lies. Or perhaps it’s all part of being a child of the Devil. Yes.’ He smiled. ‘Now that was devilish and knowing of me.’

  ‘What was?’

  ‘Ever since my mother died, I’ve had animals. One of them has always been called Zenobia in her honour. Until last week, when she sadly died, I had a puffer fish with that name. My last pet. I buried her in the window box. But that picture you saw on the side of her tank was not of her. I cut it out of a book I have about puffer fish.’ He laughed. ‘When Sergeant Gürsel said that he was coming to see me, I knew you must have found something out. I thought it would be fun to see how bright he was. I already had the halibut, which I butchered as you saw. Putting the picture of the fish on Zenobia’s tank just amused me. I’d told the sergeant I lived with a fish, but I hadn’t told him what kind of fish. I wondered how observant he was, and how clever. But you beat him to it.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have told us she was in the bath,’ İkmen said.

  ‘I was thinking on my feet.’ He drank his coffee. ‘Because that is what little devils do, isn’t it? Oh, and I’m not sorry I killed my mother and my uncles. They deserved to die. They were a waste of skin. Now look, if you’re going to put me in prison, I’d like it very much if you’d register me, or whatever it is you do, as Rouvin Rudolfoğlu.’ His face dropped. ‘Even Rudolf Paşa has his correct name on his headstone. As you know, I’ve seen it. And he was a really evil man.’

  Chapter 27

  ‘Whenever we transfer anyone to Bakırköy, it makes me feel cold,’ Ömer Mungun said.

  ‘We can’t help Mr Erbil,’ Süleyman said. ‘What can prison do for him? Nothing. The hospital is where he wanted to be when Elif was alive.’

  ‘But she’s dead.’

  ‘Did they tell you whether he had settled?’

  ‘Yes. He hasn’t.’

  Süleyman sat down. ‘All that carnage just because Elif wanted to be somebody,’ he said. ‘What does that even mean?’

  ‘My sister says it’s a magic trick,’ Ömer said.

  ‘What?’

  Peri Mungun was a very forthright and unusual woman, but this was left field even for her.

  ‘The fame thing,’ Ömer said. ‘Get everyone chasing impossible fame dreams, keep them watching television and buying the products that support the delusion – Botox, make-up. It’s how capitalism makes sure we all behave ourselves . . .’ Then, realising that might sound a bit too radical, he added, ‘According to Peri.’

  ‘And Elif was an addict with, if Ali is to be believed, a horrific past. Those who know about these things claim that one never really gets over suffering sexual abuse as a child. That rage has to be expressed sometime.’

  ‘She tried to anaesthetise herself with drugs . . .’

  ‘With impossible dreams . . .’

  ‘And then the one place she felt safe she had to leave because the only man she’d ever been safe with was afraid,’ Ömer said. ‘It is incredibly sad.’

  ‘Sad for the people she killed and their families too,’ Süleyman said.

  ‘Of course. But it is also a lesson in how, if you brutalise a person, you potentially create a monster. No one ever gets away with a free pass, do they, sir? Not really.’

  Hürrem Teker closed her office door and locked it. Then she opened her window.

  ‘I would probably have paid to see your faces when you realised that Zenobia the puffer fish wasn’t in the bath,’ she said.

  ‘It was no laughing matter at the time, madam, I can assure you,’ Çetin İkmen said as he lit up a cigarette.

  ‘Well now we know the fish was halibut, we can relax,’ she said.

  ‘Have scene-of-crime officers found Zenobia?’

  Teker lit a cigarette of her own. ‘They’ve found a desiccated puffer fish, yes,’ she said. ‘What an extraordinary old gentleman your Mr Karadeniz is.’

  ‘Rudolfoğlu,’ İkmen corrected. ‘Grandson of a paşa, remember?’

  ‘Albeit the Devil.’

  ‘Maybe we shouldn’t joke about that,’ he said. ‘He’s been around a lot in this city lately. We shouldn’t invoke him.’

  ‘You’re an extremely strange man, you know, Çetin Bey,’ she said. ‘You’re not religious and yet you acknowledge all sorts of supernatural myths and entities as if they were real.’

  ‘I like to keep my options open.’

  She laughed. Then she asked, ‘Have you spoken to that other Greek man?’

  ‘Yiannis Apion. Yes,’ he said. ‘Poor, sad man. I believe he feels that his sister’s body has been dug up for no reason.’

  ‘Such crimes have to see the light.’

  ‘Crimes against children so often go undetected,’ he said. ‘Even now we dismiss them. We ignore them or we justify them by reference to convenient beliefs. I don’t know whether Rudolf and Dimitri were evil, but they both certainly created it.’

  ‘The terrible Fatima Hanım.’

  ‘And all her victims, in which I include her brothers,’ he said. He shook his head. ‘Poor Rauf Bey. A kind, gentle man with a great love of the most despised of animals, and yet there is a small devil in him. I can see it.’

  Teker said nothing. Sometimes his flights of occult fantasy irritated her.

  ‘But you know puffer fish can be quite attractive,’ İkmen said. ‘If Zenobia was anything like that picture on her tank, she was a looker.’

  ‘Ah, and talking of lookers, I assume you don’t need the services of Constable Demirtaş any longer?’ she said.

  ‘No. Not until the case comes to court.’

  ‘Well then I’d better contact her superiors,’ she said. ‘In view of that carnage on the bridge, they’ll need all the help they can get.’

  ‘Yes, madam.’

  ‘Ask her to tell you how long it will take her to finalise her reports.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh, and İkmen, I assume you have been satisfied with her work?’

  ‘Absolutely. It’s been fascinating. Like looking through a scrying glass into the past.’

  She glanced down at her paperwork. ‘I won’t mention her misdemeanours, then?’

  ‘Misdemeanours?’

  ‘With Inspector Süleyman,’ she said. ‘Don’t you two talk any more?’

  ‘I don’t . . .’

  ‘Don’t even try to dissemble, İkmen,’ she said. ‘I have eyes and ears everywhere. I can’t prove that you knew about their romantic trysts, but . . . I will discipline him myself
, then that will be an end to it.’

  İkmen walked slowly back to his office. He’d known that Demirtaş had possessed feelings for Süleyman, but he hadn’t realised that anything had happened. When he drew level with his colleague’s office, he saw that he was alone. He went inside.

  Süleyman looked up at him. ‘Çetin?’

  ‘You know I always say that you’re the younger brother I never had?’ İkmen said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well if you really were, I would thrash you.’

  ‘What?’

  İkmen pointed to the office that was being used by Barçın Demirtaş. ‘You messed with that woman,’ he said. ‘A woman not your own. You have your own. What is wrong with you?’

  ‘Çetin, how . . .’

  ‘I just know, OK,’ he said. ‘Don’t ask. I know women throw themselves at you, I’ve seen them. I’ve even encouraged you to make the most of it! But not at work. That is screwing on your own doorstep. It’s risky and it’s wrong. I don’t blame the girl. I don’t blame girls! You are entirely culpable, and let me tell you, it’s making carrying on loving you as a brother really hard.’

  Barçın went home to her apartment. Going back to looking at driver machismo on screens all day long was going to be tough. But she still had to finish her reports for Inspector İkmen, and she was glad that she had been part of a successful investigation. It would look good on her record. It was also making her think that maybe she should think about utilising her language skills more in the future.

  The old man who had killed the Rudolfoğlu siblings had looked so small and weak. He must have been in the grip of such terrible rage. And what a background to come from! Hideous secrets and lies, and on top of that, an ethnicity that he couldn’t express. But then was that so odd? Things hadn’t changed much over the years. Turgut said they should both go home to their own communities, their own people. She had never and would never believe in a separate homeland for the Kurds, but she knew that he did. He couldn’t see how that could lead to war, because as he never tired of saying, ‘war is not rational’.

  She couldn’t leave the city. Here she rode her bike when she liked, and she could drink and smoke and wear what she wanted without her relatives threatening to lock her in the house. And then there was Süleyman. What was going to happen with him? Ömer had been right, she was in love, but the most she could expect would be sex. But that was OK. Wasn’t it?

  She could be the other woman. Couldn’t she?

  ‘Baby, you have blood on your shirt.’

  Süleyman felt a sudden dart of anxiety.

  ‘On the back,’ Gonca said. ‘Take it off and I’ll wash it for you.’

  ‘Not now,’ he said. ‘There’s no need.’

  His shirt was unbuttoned. She put her hands on his chest and began to push it from his shoulders.

  ‘Oh, come on,’ she said. ‘Give me the shirt and I’ll suck your cock. Fair exchange.’

  He felt his entire body solidify. If she saw his back, she’d know. But then she was going to see it sometime. Barçın had bitten deep.

  Gonca took his shirt off and then, briefly, licked one of his nipples. She held the garment up to the light.

  ‘Mehmet!’ she said. ‘What happened?’

  Çetin İkmen had told him that this time he wouldn’t get away with it. Teker knew – somehow. And now Gonca was going to know. He turned around.

  The breath when it came out of her body made a grunting sound. When he turned back, she was sitting on a chair.

  What he’d expected to happen next, he didn’t know. But it wasn’t calmness.

  Eventually she spoke.

  ‘Who is she?’

  ‘Just a—’

  ‘Just a girl, just for a fuck?’

  ‘Well . . .’

  ‘Young?’

  He was sounding pathetic! He had to be a man about this even if it meant she killed him.

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  Gonca looked as if she was about to speak again, but he cut her off. ‘And it was just sex,’ he said. ‘She was there, I was there . . .’

  ‘And so you just had to stick your cock inside her.’

  ‘That’s what men do, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘We fuck. Occasionally we make love. When we’re in love, we make love. I make love to you each and every time we have sex.’

  ‘Well that makes the old woman feel a whole lot better,’ she said.

  ‘It should do.’

  He reached down to touch her, but she pulled away.

  ‘Whoever that bitch was, she tried to take lumps out of you!’ she said. ‘Passion, was it? What did you do? Go down on her? Make her come like she’d never come before?’

  ‘No. Yes. I . . . Gonca, you knew this about me. You knew about my poor track record.’

  ‘And you knew that if you were unfaithful to me I’d fucking kill you,’ she said. ‘Because I told you. I said that if you screwed around I would be unable to take the wound to my honour and . . .’

  She broke down. She raised her hands to her face and wept.

  ‘Gonca . . .’

  He wanted to go to her and comfort her, but he couldn’t. When she’d finished crying, she screamed. Alarmed by the fierceness of her misery, he took her in his arms, fighting with her as he attempted to placate her.

  ‘How can I love you when you do this?’ she wailed.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘All I know is that I do love you! And if I could go back and undo what I’ve done, I would. Gonca, it was a moment of stupidity!’

  It had been more than a moment, but he couldn’t tell her that. He couldn’t tell her that just the thought of Barçın’s hard breasts aroused him.

  Gonca slapped his face. ‘Cunt!’ she screamed. ‘You filthy fucking cunt!’

  His face stung so badly he thought she’d probably drawn blood. But he kissed her. He placed his mouth over hers, even as she struggled to hit him again, and then he pulled her towards him.

  Barçın Demirtaş was nothing on Gonca Şekeroğlu. This was not violent sex but furious sex. It was sex with a heart that was broken. By the time she’d had enough of him, he was bleeding not just from his back. And she was still angry.

  As she gathered her fallen clothes to her naked body she said, ‘I knew this day would come, Mehmet. So now that it has, you can take your things and go!’

  He said nothing. What had the sex been? A bloody goodbye?

  ‘You don’t live here any more. If you try to stay, I will tell my father and my brothers what you did and they will kill you.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘No you don’t,’ she said. ‘I will have to keep it from them. That will not be easy. Nobody walks away from one of my family, and that includes you.’

  She picked up his bloodied shirt from the floor and threw it at him.

  ‘When I want you for “just sex”, you will come,’ she said. ‘But you’ll fuck me and then you’ll go. I will not be humiliated by you! My family will never know how you preferred another woman over me. Do you understand? Never! Now get out and go and fuck whoever you want. But come here when I want you or I will have my brothers cut off your balls and feed them to the dogs!’

  Chapter 28

  The day that Rouvin Rudolfoğlu died, Aslan Gerontas became suddenly calm. He didn’t make some sort of miracle recovery, but he did appear to settle. The staff at Bakırköy said that it was as if a weight had been lifted from him.

  Çetin İkmen was taking Mehmet Süleyman to the theatre. Although he’d not asked, he understood that his colleague had moved back into his apartment in Cihangir on a permanent basis. He was sad that Gonca Şekeroğlu was no longer in Süleyman’s life. He liked her and she’d been good for him. But he’d always known that it couldn’t last forever. Gonca was hardly policeman’s wife material, and Süleyman was not a gypsy. His friend had sadness stamped all over him. But İkmen just continued as usual.

  ‘This isn’t so much a theatre as a house where people perform,’ he said as th
ey walked down a tiny alleyway near the Kamondo Stairs in Karaköy.

  ‘I wasn’t expecting La Scala,’ Süleyman said.

  He looked gaunt, and was smoking heavily.

  İkmen stepped into a shabby doorway and disappeared down a long, dark corridor.

  ‘Follow me,’ he said to Süleyman. ‘Professor Vanek awaits.’

  Süleyman sauntered into the darkness. ‘Why are all your friends so odd, Çetin?’ he asked.

  ‘Because I’m easily bored,’ İkmen said.

  The auditorium, which had once been a ballroom, was packed with people. A lot of them were young, and there were many tattoos on display. The two officers sat between a couple of men in flat caps and greasy suits and a group of excited teenagers.

  As the lights went down, İkmen said, ‘Prepare yourself for magic.’

  The ayazma of St Katherine was open again. The flagstones were back in place and a new priest, Father Aristotle, had been installed to replace Father Anatoli.

  Yiannis Apion prayed that he could soon rebury his sister Sofia in a proper grave with a stone that recorded her existence. That way she would take her name and her place in the world. She would have lived.

  He looked around the shrine, which was illuminated by the many candles well-wishers had lit when it had reopened. Yiannis had lit his not for Sofia, but for the soul of Father Anatoli.

  The man who had killed the Rudolfoğlus, Rauf Karadeniz, had told the priest what he’d done just after Father Anatoli had spoken to Yiannis at the ayazma. Yiannis didn’t know the man, but when Inspector İkmen had described him, he’d recognised him as a local resident. He’d even seen him in church from time to time. But they’d had no connection. Except the priest. Father Anatoli knew everyone and everything. He knew this Rauf Karadeniz. He knew too much.