Pretty Dead Things Read online

  PRETTY DEAD THINGS

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  TItle Page

  Also by Barbara Nadel

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Cast of Characters

  Prelude

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Also by Barbara Nadel and available from Headline

  The Inspector İkmen Series:

  Belshazzar’s Daughter

  A Chemical Prison

  Arabesk

  Deep Waters

  Harem Petrified

  Deadly Web

  Dance with Death

  A Passion for Killing

  The Hancock Series

  Last Rights

  After the Mourning

  PRETTY DEAD THINGS

  by

  BARBARA NADEL

  Pretty Dead Things

  Copyright © 2007 Barbara Nadel

  The right of Barbara Nadel to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  First published in 2007 by HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP

  1

  Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978 0 7553 3561 9 (Hardback) ISBN 978 0 7553 3562 6 (Trade paperback)

  Typeset in Times New Roman by Palimpsest Book Production Limited, Grangemouth, Stirlingshire

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc

  Headline’s policy is to use papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products and made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The logging and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

  HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP An Hachette Livre UK Ltd Company 338 Euston Road London NW1 3BH

  To my husband, my son, my mother and all my fantastic friends both in the UK and in Turkey.

  Cast of Characters

  Çetin İkmen - middle-aged Istanbul police inspector

  Mehmet Süleyman - Istanbul police inspector, İkmen’s protégé

  Commissioner Ardiç - İkmen and Süleyman’s boss

  Sergeant Ayşe Farsakoğlu - İkmen’s deputy

  Sergeant İzzet Melik - Süleyman’s deputy

  Metin İskender - young Istanbul police inspector

  Hikmet Yildiz - young police constable

  Dr Arto Sarkissian - Istanbul police pathologist

  Fatma İkmen - Çetin İkmen’s wife

  Zelfa Süleyman - Mehmet Süleyman’s wife, a psychiatrist, known

  professionally as Dr Halman

  Dr Krikor Sarkissian - Arto’s brother

  Natasha Sarkissian - Arto and Krikor’s cousin

  Balthazar Cohen - ex-Istanbul police officer

  Estelle Cohen - Balthazar’s wife

  Berekiah Cohen - Balthazar and Estelle’s son

  Hulya İkmen Cohen - Berekiah’s wife, Çetin İkmen’s daughter

  Ahmet Aksu - successful style magazine owner

  Emine Aksu - Ahmet’s wife

  Edmondo Loya - eccentric Balat resident and academic

  Maurice Loya - Edmondo’s identical twin brother, an architect

  Ali Paksoy - Balat shoe shop owner

  Handan Sarigul - Ali Paksoy’s sister

  Rafik Sarigul - Handan Sarigul’s son

  Esther Sinop - elderly Balat resident

  Gazi Sinop - Esther’s grandson

  Juanita Kordovi - romantic novelist

  Garbis Aznavourian - Armenian church custodian

  Ali Tevfik - prominent Istanbul businessman

  Kadir Özal - old hippy

  Prelude

  ‘My wife, Inspector, is a tart,’ the man said with what could only be described as amusement in his deep black eyes.

  ‘As in …’ the policeman began tentatively.

  ‘As in she sleeps with other men as and whenever the mood takes her,’ came the reply. ‘Both Emine and myself are free spirits, Inspector.’ He smiled. ‘We are of the generation that first discovered the crazy world outside this country.’ Then, holding up a large decanter filled with a light caramel-coloured liquid, he said, ‘Whisky?’

  The policeman, Inspector Çetin İkmen, placed one hand over his heart and said, ‘No, thank you, sir. I am on duty.’

  The man, who was a tall, rangy individual called Ahmet Aksu, shrugged his shoulders. ‘As you wish,’ he said as he topped up his own already rather full glass. He then paused in front of the large picture window that let so very much light into his vast sitting room and looked at the amazing view beyond.

  Haskoy was not yet one of the more fashionable suburbs of the city of Istanbul. Situated on the northern shore of the Golden Horn it was a place of steep hills, narrow roads, and houses that ranged from tin-roofed shacks to elegant mini-mansions made of wood in the style of the nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire. In the past it was a district heavily populated by Jews and gypsies. In the latter half of the twentieth century, however, many of the ‘ethnics’ moved away and Haskoy became the preserve of poor migrant workers from eastern Anatolia, who came to the city to find employment and to make their fortunes. Now, the flfty-seven-year-old lkmen reflected, Haskoy was experiencing a different kind of incomer. Ahmet Aksu, İkmen decided, was about his own age, though better preserved. He was the owner of a glossy lifestyle magazine. Elegant and media savvy, Mr Aksu and his wife had purchased one of the Ottoman mini-mansions and had turned it into what İkmen imagined the inside of a Zen Buddhist temple might look like. Not that a mere Turkish policeman like İkmen had ever had the opportunity of seeing a real Zen Buddhist temple - he had rarely left his country and when he had, it was only on business. He did know, however, that Zen minimalism was ‘in’ because Mr Aksu had told him that it was. Mr Aksu had also told him that his home was a perfect example of this style and philosophy, but Çetin İkmen found that sitting so close to the floor, even on large pad-like cushions, was not comfortable. It made his knees feel very sore and meant that in order to smoke effectively he had to crouch inelegantly over the ashtray Mr Aksu had given him. He must look, he felt, like some sort of dark, scruffy hobgoblin - especially when compared to the pristine Mr Aksu.

  ‘Mr Aksu,’ İkmen said as soon as he saw the other man move away from his view of the Golden Horn and the teeming suburb of Ayvansaray on the opposite shore, ‘you mentioned that you were of the generation who discovered some crazy world beyond this country…’

  Ahmet Aksu laughed. ‘Ah, yes,’ he said, ‘in the 1960s.’ With a youthful effortlessness, Aksu lowered himself on to the cushion across from the long, low table in front of İkmen. ‘Yo
u were there too, I imagine, Inspector,’ he said, ‘when the hippies, flower children and drop-outs arrived from Western Europe.’

  ‘Yes …’ İkmen wanted to smile too, but he didn’t. Long, long ago he’d loved a ‘flower child’, a British girl called Alison. Even now, in 2005, the memory of her, long since dead, still gave him pause.

  ‘At first I would go down to the Pudding Shop in Sultanahmet where they all used to gather, and just watch them,’ Aksu said as his eyes shone with the memory of it. ‘Later, groups formed. We all talked incessantly. They taught me a lot. Conversations with them about everything from drugs to psychoanalysis to music improved my English. I learned that growing one’s hair was not a sin - even though my father begged to differ - that men could wear flowers and still be heterosexual, and, of course, I met a kindred spirit in Emine. We both committed to explore free love in 1969.’

  ‘I see.’ İkmen was a little shocked by this admission and turned his head to one side. He remembered the old hippy cafe and hangout in Sultanahmet called the Pudding Shop. As a young constable he’d raided it for drugs on more than one occasion and had himself seen quite a few curious young Turks within its walls. He knew that some local people took to the hippy lifestyle like ducks to water, but he’d never had a great deal to do with such people himself. Not until now.

  ‘We married eventually, in 1974,’ Aksu continued. ‘But that didn’t change anything with regard to how we lived our lives. Emine and I take lovers, Inspector. I call her a “tart” as a term of endearment. In reality I am as hungry for sexual adventure, if not more so, as my wife. You may disapprove but—’

  ‘Sir, my only concern is for the safety of Mrs Aksu,’ İkmen replied. ‘If, as you say, she has been missing for two weeks—’

  ‘Two weeks and a day,’ Aksu corrected. ‘And Emine has gone off before, Inspector. In fact, last year she spent three weeks on the south coast - at Bodrum, as it turned out. First in the company of a young conscript, then an Israeli kayaking instructor, and then an artist from Izmir. I didn’t hear from her until the eighteenth day of her absence. But I was never worried.’ His slim face suddenly clouded. ‘Not like this.’

  Frowning, İkmen said, ‘Like what?’

  Aksu shrugged. ‘I can’t really articulate it,’ he said. ‘It’s only a feeling. But this time, I am uneasy. There’s something … wrong. I…’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ İkmen said as he rocked painfully back on to his thighs and then lit a cigarette.

  A moment of silence ensued, after which the elegant media man said, ‘Emine left home two weeks and one day ago to go, I know, to meet someone. After all these years, I know the signs and I could see that she was excited.’

  ‘You didn’t ask whom she might be going to see or where she might be going?’

  ‘That was never part of the deal, if you like, Inspector,’ Aksu said. ‘My wife and I come and go as we please, as the spirit takes us. We always have. But this…’ he leaned forward his face now set and serious, ‘this was different.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ Aksu said. ‘Call it a feeling, an intuition, some sort of emanation from the unconscious, or second sight, but something was … wrong.’

  İkmen knew all about ‘second sight’. ‘Did you tell your wife that you were concerned about her? Did you express your fears to anyone, Mr Aksu?’

  ‘No!’ He shook his head, his eyes beginning to fill with tears. ‘She would have thought that I was stupid.’ He took a long slug from his whisky glass and said, ‘I thought I was being stupid.’

  Çetin İkmen sighed. How many times had he seen intuition ignored in this way? How many times had he known, to the bottom of his soul, that it shouldn’t be so easily discounted? He put out his cigarette and consulted the notes he had taken from Mr Aksu earlier. Emine Aksu was fifty-five years old, slim, blonde, and apparently without noticeable inhibitions. ‘Mr Aksu,’ İkmen said as he looked at the finer details of his notes, ‘your wife’s mobile phone would seem to be out of action.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So it’s not likely that we can trace her via that method.’ Not that technology was anything that İkmen generally placed great professional faith in. In his experience, the more complicated a system was, the more delicate and temperamental it also could become. ‘Mr Aksu, do you know in what direction your wife went when she left you two weeks and one day ago?’

  Aksu looked towards the window at the grey, now slightly autumnal-looking waterway beyond. ‘Across the Golden Horn,’ he said, ‘towards the old southern neighbourhoods. I can’t be any more precise than that, Inspector. I’m sorry.’ And then with a certainty that lkmen found chilling, Ahmet Aksu said, ‘Emine is dead, isn’t she, Inspector?’

  İkmen didn’t answer.

  As if suddenly struck by a thought even more disturbing than his wife’s death, Aksu looked at İkmen and said, ‘It was as if she was a girl again. When she left here that afternoon it was as if she was her old self, years ago, going off to meet me in Sultanahmet with her most beautiful clothes on and her brain full of strange ideas. Actually, Inspector, there is just one thing. I don’t know if it is significant…’

  Chapter 1

  Çetin İkmen was sitting in the Pudding Shop with his friend and colleague, Mehmet Süleyman. After they had bought their coffees, he turned to the other inspector. ‘Young people can do a lot of things these days which were just not possible thirty years ago. They can talk to each other endlessly on their mobile phones, wander around wearing iPods that allow them to listen to the music tracks of their choice - they can even afford Prada and Versace clothes and accessories. One of the things they can’t do, however, is go on the hippy trail from Istanbul to Kathmandu. The conflict in Afghanistan and the instability in Pakistan, not to mention the practical difficulties for independent travellers in post-revolutionary Iran, have rendered travelling the trail an act of madness. In the sixties and seventies it was a very “hip” thing to do. Getting to Kathmandu, finding enlightenment in a Hindu ashram, having a lot of sex whilst stoned and doused in Patchouli oil, were definitely where it was “at” back then. Much of the initial “tuning in” and “dropping out” began at the beginning of the trail in Istanbul. In fact, it began right here, in this small, seemingly insignificant eatery.’

  The Pudding Shop had been started in 1950 by two brothers from the Black Sea coast. It had specialised in cheap milk and rice puddings, ideal for those afflicted by the ravages of cannabis-induced hunger. Cheap and friendly, it also provided an information sharing system, in the form of a notice board as well as by word of mouth, for all of the freaks, heads and seekers headed East. It was, for a time, where the Flower Children first learned what it meant to be on the trail, where the excitement, as well as the drugs, first really and truly kicked in.

  ‘It was a lovely dream while it lasted,’ Çetin İkmen continued as he stirred four sachets of sugar into his frothy cappuccino. The Pudding Shop did still sell bog-standard old Turkish black tea, but many of its youthful customers now openly preferred designer coffee, which was not exactly ‘roughing it’. ‘I mean I know I took part in searching this place for drugs on several occasions, but that didn’t mean I didn’t sympathise with the hippies’ goals. Finding oneself or rather some sort of satisfaction in life, by whatever means, is an admirable aim. And some of the young people were absolutely gorgeous…’

  ‘Then,’ his younger, taller and far handsomer companion raised a warning finger before tipping his head back towards the left hand side of the restaurant. ‘Now, however…’

  İkmen looked up to see what or who Süleyman was indicating with his head. It was a man, probably, of indeterminate age. Crusted with filth, his features were nevertheless fine and narrow like those of an English or Frenchman. His bare arms were, significantly, threaded with livid and, in some cases, bloodied track marks.

  ‘I think that he probably found something of a rather more malignant nature than a lot of them,’ İkmen said. r />
  ‘An eternal appointment with Dr Heroin,’ his companion replied. ‘Çetin, a great many of them ended up that way.’

  ‘Yes, well…’

  ‘I know that the girl you liked, Alison, didn’t do drugs until they were forced upon her by those dealers but…’

  İkmen lowered his head once again. Inspector Mehmet Süleyman was one of the few people in his life who knew about his brief and innocent dalliance with a young English hippy girl back in the 1970s. Married with children, İkmen had been a constable and was basically happy, as he was now, with his lot in life. The attentions of a pretty and funny foreigner had, however, been flattering. He had never slept with Alison, or had anything more than rather superficial conversations with her, and he had only ever kissed her once. But somehow a connection had been made and when he learned many years later that she had died at the hands of drug dealers when her personal trail eventually finished in Pakistan, it had affected him profoundly. In spite of ‘busting’ more than a few hippies for drugs in the seventies, İkmen still possessed an irrepressible admiration for those early heads, freaks and seekers of Nirvana. The drugs aside, there was a lot about their rejection of materialism in favour of the world of the contemplative and unseen that chimed positively with Çetin İkmen. As the son of a woman many had consulted as a seer and a witch during the course of his childhood, İkmen knew all about looking ‘inside’.

  ‘Drug casualties are littered along the old hippy road to Kathmandu,’ İkmen said. ‘We naturally have our share of these ghosts of the sixties and seventies.’

  Mehmet Süleyman offered his friend a cigarette before lighting one up for himself. ‘I can remember being warned about this place when I was a teenager,’ he said. ‘My mother believed that if you so much as set foot in here you became a drug addict.’

  İkmen laughed. ‘By the time you were a teenager the glory days of the Pudding Shop were very nearly over,’ he said. ‘In the late sixties when you were still at primary school, I was pulling lumps of hashish the size of bookshelves out of backpacks. By the late seventies raiding this place for a few grams of Lebanese Gold wasn’t worth the effort, not when compared to what you could pick up from all the wandering dealers in the streets behind here and up towards the Grand Bazaar. Pudding Shop drugs were largely recreational. What came after that time - well, that was different.’