Belshazzar's Daughter Page 10

  “Yes.” His tone was flat. He hoped he had managed to crush the disapproving edge out of his reply, but he knew he hadn’t. Balat reared its litter-encrusted head in his mind once again, and all the old doubts came flooding back. He wasn’t here to meet Natalia’s family! If Monday hadn’t happened he would never have even got near number 12, Karadeniz Sokak. He was deeply offended. What kind of moron did she think he was? Who in their right mind would fall for such a transparent ploy? But he knew the answer to that and his heart sank. He’d come of his own free will, hoping … Hoping for what? The food in his stomach curdled as his muscles tightened with anxiety. Whatever Natalia had been doing in Balat on Monday was more serious than he had thought. Perhaps he had been too quick to rule her innocent of dark deeds? After all, could he say that he really knew her? Perhaps by his continued silence to the police he was aiding and abetting this stranger? The uncles watched and waited. He could see their tension. It poisoned the air around them, like a noxious cloud. Robert felt a little sick and excused himself from the table.

  “Er, the bathroom?”

  Nicholas smiled. “Back into the hall and to your right, the second door.”

  “Thank you.” Robert left.

  Silence dominated the room until the sound of Robert’s footsteps was replaced by the click of the bathroom door shutting behind him.

  Sergei turned to his brother and groaned. “Oh, God!”

  Nicholas, his face grim, raised his head in agreement. “We handled it badly, didn’t we? Clumsy.”

  Two short raps on the front door terminated their conversation. Nicholas looked puzzled and put his cigar down in his ashtray.

  “Who can that be?”

  His brother’s answer was sharp, bitchy even. “Why don’t you go and look, Nicky, then you’ll find out. You’re the one with the working legs.”

  Nicholas shot the little cripple a murderous glance and strode off briskly into the hall.

  * * *

  When he opened the front door, Nicholas found himself confronted by two men. The shorter and older of the two was smiling.

  “Good evening, sir.” Producing what looked like a small identity badge from the top pocket of his jacket he politely introduced himself. “Inspector Çetin Ikmen of the Istanbul Police Department.”

  “Police!” What little color resided in Nicholas’s face disappeared very quickly.

  “Yes, sir.” Ikmen’s smile broadened. “Nothing to worry about, Mr. Gulcu, I assure you.”

  “How do you know my name?”

  Ikmen ignored the question and inclined his head toward his younger colleague. “This is Sergeant Suleyman.”

  Nicholas looked at the young man without smiling, observing his face sharply. “What do you want?” he said, looking back at Ikmen.

  “We understand a lady called Maria Gulcu lives in this house, sir.”

  “My mother, yes. What do you want with her? She’s very old, you know. She doesn’t take kindly to being bothered by people.”

  “I won’t take up much of your mother’s time, sir,” continued Ikmen smoothly. “As you may have read in the papers, an old gentleman was murdered in Balat on Monday afternoon. Among the deceased’s effects was an address book. It contained your mother’s name and the address of this property.”

  “Oh.” It was more an exhalation than a word. The breath drained out of Nicholas and his face sank. For a moment he stood silent, blinking, utterly helpless—a condition not lost upon Ikmen who swiftly took the advantage.

  “So you see, sir, it’s very important that we speak to your mother. If she knew this man, she may be able to give us some information about him. As you can appreciate, the more we know about the victim’s lifestyle, the greater chance we have of apprehending his murderer.”

  “I see.” Nicholas looked down at the floor and swallowed hard.

  “You have heard about this murder, sir?”

  “No, no—no, Inspector.” It was a distracted denial. He ran his fingers through his hair and gazed glassily into the blank space above the policemen’s heads.

  “Then if she did know this gentleman, Leonid Meyer”—Nicholas’s eyes flickered. Just a little, a movement he knew the policeman had seen—“she may be a little upset when I tell her that he is now dead. I will be as gentle as I can, but if you or another member of the family wish to be present, I—”

  “Quite so.”

  “I am right, I presume, in assuming that your mother wasn’t related to—”

  Ikmen’s words were cut short by a laugh which was both harsh and inappropriate. “Oh, no, oh absolutely not at all, no!”

  “Oh … right.”

  There was an awkward pause. Nicholas didn’t know what to do next. He looked at the policemen, turned and stared back into his house, then returned his gaze to Ikmen. He bit down on his lower lip with his top teeth and scratched the side of his head.

  Ikmen for his part, carried on smiling. “Why don’t you go and get your mother ready, Mr. Gulcu?”

  * * *

  Robert splashed some water on to his face and looked in the mirror. Drips rolled down his chin and back into the sink; a transparent globe clung fiercely to the end of his nose. He looked haggard; dark circles engulfed his lower eyelids. He traced with his finger the deep lines running from his nose down to the corners of his mouth. The first stirrings of approaching middle age. He reached for a towel and wiped his chin. His hands trembled and he clicked his tongue impatiently. He hated that.

  He sighed and opened the bathroom door. He would have to leave this house, get back to his apartment and think. This relationship with Natalia had always been a strain. He should never have got involved with her in the first place: she was too difficult. This latest event was the final straw and yet …

  As he pulled the door shut behind him, he saw her. She was standing in the hall with her back to him, her long dark hair hanging thickly down her spine. He groaned. It was all too easy to be strong when he wasn’t actually with her. But as soon as she appeared…! Even in the plain white dress she excited him. In this house she was different: quieter, smaller, chaste even. Nicer—and he liked it. But now he really looked at the proud tilt of the head, at her muscular fingers curled against the swelling of her hips, he saw the underlying and intoxicating arrogance was still there. He reached out and twined an arm around her waist, pressing his body and his rising erection into her full firm behind. She didn’t move. She was looking at something. Robert followed her gaze.

  Nicholas was standing at the open front door talking to someone. It was dark outside and Nicholas’s body obscured the caller from Robert’s view. They talked in hushed, barely discernible tones. Robert looked down at Natalia; her face was taut, unmoving, fixed upon the action at the front door. He had the uncomfortable feeling that she didn’t even know that he was there. His loving gesture, his physical response to her body, was wasted.

  “Natalia?”

  Robert looked up with her, their heads moving in unison. Nicholas had come back inside now; he had two men with him. One was young, darkly handsome and unfamiliar. But the other …

  “Natalia, will you please go upstairs and make sure that Grandmama is decent.” Nicholas looked very pale. “Some gentlemen from the police wish to speak to her.”

  Of course! It was the Inspector who had interviewed him at the school! Unmistakable. Small, grimy, looked like an unmade bed—he was looking right at him and he was smiling.

  Natalia pushed Robert’s arm gently to one side and moved forward. “Yes, Uncle.”

  “Hello, Mr. Cornelius.”

  Natalia froze. She looked across at the small dirty man standing next to her uncle. Nicholas was sweating heavily. “Go on, Natalia.”

  She mounted the stairs and glanced briefly at the face of her lover as she passed. For once his eyes were not upon her, but fixed on the little group of men by the door. “Hello, Inspector Ikmen,” he replied mechanically.

  * * *

  Natalia pulled the door shut behi
nd her. Maria heaved her body up into a sitting position and leaned back against her pillows. She looked at the silent figure sitting in the chair over by the window, its head bowed. There was a pause and then she spoke.

  “When the policemen come in you stay silent.” Her voice was commanding. It was an order, it wasn’t open to negotiation.

  “If you want.” The reply was flat and hollow.

  “It’s not what I want, it’s what must be.” She took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment. There was a knock at the door.

  “Grandmama?”

  She opened her eyes and reached under the bed-covers for her cigarettes and lighter. “Come in.”

  * * *

  Natalia Gulcu ushered the policemen into a large, dimly lit apartment at the top of the house. For several seconds they could see little as their eyes adjusted to the gloom. Ikmen felt one of Suleyman’s hands brush against his back. The young man always touched, reached out, when he was nervous. It was a curious habit for someone like Suleyman.

  In this case, however, Ikmen could understand completely his sergeant’s need for a little comfort. As his eyes grew accustomed to the weak viscous light from the single oil lamp in the middle of the room, he began to make out detail. Dark, heavy furniture, cupboards, chests and cabinets loomed against the walls. Pictures, dozens of them, hung in black weighty frames from a rail close to the ceiling. As the inadequate light touched them a purple glow rose up from the curtains, wall hangings, carpet. A large violet mass glittered in the center of the apartment: an enormous gilded bed shaped like a boat, its tall headboard touching the ceiling. Waves of thin netting shrouded the bed, giving the impression that it was somehow enclosed and contained within a pale violet cloud. The lamp flickered, lending substance to Ikmen’s feeling that the room was eerie. For a few seconds nothing moved. There was a faint smell of incense, like in a church.

  Then Natalia moved forward and pushed the netting over the bed to one side. A waft of smoke escaped as the violet mist was dismantled and Ikmen became aware of a small figure lying beneath the covers. It wasn’t short, more long and thin, its head crowned by a thick tangled mass of gray hair.

  The girl then said something in a language he could not understand and the figure answered, its voice deep, dry and scarred by time. The portraits on the wall looked down on Ikmen without humor. Long-dead men and women in military uniforms, bustles and tea gowns. It was like being in a tomb or a crypt that hadn’t been opened for many years. There was an aura of redundancy, a smell behind the incense of stale vitiated breath.

  Natalia returned. “Grandmama is not very fluent in Turkish. Do either of you speak Russian?”

  She was an arrogant creature, Ikmen felt. Not by her words but her gaze. When she looked at him her top lip curled upward slightly, as if she had a bad smell under her nose.

  “No,” he replied flatly and then looked away from the girl toward that great gilded bed once again. That someone could have lived in his country for so long without learning his language struck Ikmen as most peculiar. But then, given the reclusive atmosphere of the apartment …

  “English?” she inquired, looking over the top of his head and smiling, doe-eyed, Ikmen thought, in Suleyman’s direction.

  “Yes, we can both speak English—miss.” He couldn’t help snapping.

  The girl ignored his temporary lapse into spitefulness and spoke again, presumably in Russian, to her grandmother.

  As the old woman answered Natalia stood aside to allow the policemen to pass. “Grandmama will see you now.” As he moved past her, Natalia smiled sensuously at Suleyman once again. The young man’s cheeks flushed hot.

  The girl left the room, closing the door behind her.

  “Come on then, Mel Gibson!” hissed Ikmen. The two men walked toward the golden and violet barge.

  * * *

  Robert took a deep swig from his wineglass and tried to smile at Sergei.

  “You are shaking,” observed the cripple, without concern.

  “I’ve—had a bit of stomach trouble lately.”

  “Nothing you ate at this table, I hope.”

  “No.” He took another big gulp and then refilled his glass from the decanter.

  Ikmen! What the hell was he doing here? Robert felt as if he should bend, throw his arms about his body, curl up against the constriction of events that were closing in around him. There was something awfully wrong in the Gulcu house, he’d noticed it as soon as he saw the place. Outward decay and internal opulence, strong jarring colors, the strangeness of the people. Until Nicholas and Sergei had tried to treat him like a fool, he’d ignored it. But now he couldn’t do that anymore, Ikmen had arrived and had seen him. It could only be about the Balat murder! Wherever the Gulcus were in Ikmen’s mental assessment of his case, Robert was now right alongside them. He felt trapped, caught in a net, and with some very curious fellow prisoners.

  Natalia came back into the room and smiled at him. She said something in a foreign language to Sergei and he answered her with a nod.

  “When Uncle Nicky and Mama are finished in the kitchen we can play bezique or maybe tavla if you like.” She was so calm, so relaxed.

  “But the police—” Robert started.

  “Mama has a very old tavla board, it belonged to my grandfather. Would you like to see it, Robert?”

  He stood with his mouth open like a fish. She took his arm and led him over to a chair by the fireplace.

  “I’ll bring it to you.”

  She left the room again. Sergei poured a little splash of red wine from his glass onto the pure white tablecloth. He rubbed it into the material with his finger, frowning.

  * * *

  She looked even older close up. Her pale, withered face was almost completely brown with age spots; her blue eyes, clearly defined and bright but rimmed with red, regarded them coldly from beneath crêpy lids. An arm like a stick brought a fat black cigarette up to her mouth and a frosting of diamonds on her knuckles sparkled slowly into Ikmen’s eyes. Considering she was so old and skeletal, her jaw was surprisingly firm; strong evidence that she still retained at least some of her teeth. She was, nevertheless, unpleasant. There was something crocodilian about the way her skin flaked around her fingers and elbows, leaving patches of cracked, leathery hide.

  “Bend close, both of you, I want to see your faces.” Though desiccated and scarred by age her voice was cultured. Her accent was perfection: the clipped, commanding tones of the English upper classes. For a second Ikmen was quite lost in admiration.

  “Come along!” She tapped the side of her cigarette impatiently on her ashtray.

  Ikmen bent toward her. She reached out her hand and grabbed him roughly by the chin. “Mmm.” Her hands were dry, her nails sharp. Ikmen felt suddenly vulnerable, as if he had inadvertently entered a room of strangers naked.

  The walls of the house creaked slightly as the breeze outside strengthened.

  She released her grip and Ikmen instinctively backed away from her. He wiped his chin with his hand as if trying to eradicate the touch of something tainted.

  Suleyman nervously stepped forward and the old woman smiled. She didn’t grab at him, but stroked his cheek gently with her thumb as if caressing fine porcelain.

  “Mmm,” she murmured again, but softly.

  Suleyman straightened up and turned sheepishly to Ikmen.

  “You are becoming a liability!” whispered Ikmen with some passion.

  “Oh, don’t scold the boy!” said the old woman, stubbing her cigarette out. “He can’t help being beautiful.”

  “I thought you couldn’t speak Turkish, madam,” countered Ikmen.

  “The parameters of my understanding are of no importance to anyone but myself. But Turkish or no Turkish, your tone was clear. I am familiar with jealousy. I was once beautiful myself.” Her voice became cold again. “Anyway, what are your names, I can’t just call you ‘Officer,’ it’s too degrading.”

  “I am Inspector Ikmen and this is Sergeant
Suleyman.”

  The old woman cleared her smoking requisites away from the side of the bed and smoothed the counterpane. “You can sit on my bed if you like. I don’t mind.”

  Ikmen took her at her word, but Suleyman remained standing. Reaching into his pocket, Ikmen took out a notebook and pen.

  “My granddaughter tells me that you’ve come for some information about the late Leonid Meyer.” Her face was like stone, it showed no emotion. A flash of light from a corner of the room caught Ikmen’s attention: illumination from the lamp bouncing off the golden faces of saints on an antique ikon screen. He turned back and looked at the woman again.

  Here is someone, Ikmen thought, who always likes to be one step ahead.

  “Your son wasn’t sure whether you knew of the tragedy, madam.”

  She waved her hand impatiently at him. “Nicholas knows nothing! He thinks I’m losing my mind. He’s a fool.”

  Ikmen tended to agree with Mrs. Gulcu’s assessment of her son. The old woman’s mind was as sharp as his own, perhaps sharper. “You did know Mr. Meyer then, madam?”

  She lit a cigarette and pushed the packet toward Ikmen. “Help yourself.” He nodded in thanks and gratefully took a thick black Sobranie from the packet.

  “Yes, I knew him. We first met back in Russia.”

  Ikmen lit the cigarette and savored its cool smoothness. A rich man’s smoke. “I imagine you must have been very young at the time, madam?”

  “Teenagers, both of us.”

  She leaned her head back upon the pillows and observed him with still, piercing eyes. Her succinct replies gave Ikmen the impression that she was not going to volunteer anymore information than was absolutely necessary.

  “How did you meet Mr. Meyer?”

  “Surely that is not relevant—”

  Her almost regal dismissiveness annoyed him. Ikmen held up his cigarette to silence her. “Madam, with respect, everything is relevant. The more we know about a murder victim, the more, by extension, we know about his killer. Very few people are murdered by complete strangers. Most murders are committed by relatives, friends or acquaintances. The victim’s biography is essential.”