Arabesk Page 11

  As soon as he had said it, Suleyman realised that he had spoken in that patronising way the upper orders were wont to do when attempting to communicate with the poor and ignorant. Not that Mina was a member of the latter group, as he soon found out.

  'A smart man like you doesn't believe in demons, Inspector,' she said. 'I know you're just trying to get me to deliver my friend and—'

  'If you don't, Mina, you will stand trial for kidnap, at the very least, on your own.'

  'And given the profile of this case,' Kaya put in, 'you could go to prison for a long time.'

  'Besides,' Suleyman said as he ground his cigarette out in his ashtray, 'perhaps what your friend saw, though not a demon, was a person whose description could be very useful to us. We do need to catch this person before he kills again, you know.'

  Mina took a long drag on her cigarette and then tapped some ash out onto the floor. 'The fat boy might be a bit crazy, but I definitely heard him call the demon a her.'

  'So he saw a woman somewhere in the vicinity of Mrs Urfa's apartment presumably, and . . .’

  'He saw her coming out of the apartment, I think. Then he went in to get the baby.'

  Suleyman frowned. 'How?'

  'I don't know.'

  'Well, I need to know and very quickly, Mina.' Suleyman rose to his feet and walked over to her side of the table. 'And now would be as good a time as any.'

  He placed his hands firmly on the table one each side of Mina's body. She cringed. Towering above her, his tall body reeking of expensive aftershave and privilege, she suddenly felt very small and very frightened. People, she had heard, sometimes disappeared in places like this. Hard-faced policemen could and did do awful things, the bazaars were full of such stories. And just because this man and his unnatural-looking woman in uniform hadn't beaten her yet didn't mean anything really. Mina felt her heart begin to pound. Perhaps she should have taken the inspector up on his offer of a lawyer after all. Not that it was too late now, but.

  'I'm waiting, Mina’ he said gently, wheedling into her ears. 'If this person kills again you will not only be answerable to the law but also to Allah. You will have colluded in another death. Think about it'

  'But if I say’ she said through the tears that were now spilling heavily down her face, 'you will hurt him and I know that he didn't do it. He is gentle and good.'

  Pressing home his rising advantage, Suleyman placed his lips almost on Mina's ear as he whispered, 'But if he is innocent I will have no reason to hurt him, will I?'

  Officer Kaya, who had been watching what seemed to be almost a seduction enacted before her, shifted nervously in her seat But neither Suleyman nor Mina paid her any heed.

  As he moved Mina's chin upwards so that he could look directly at her face, Suleyman said, 'Please tell me his name now, Mina. Please.'

  As his large slanted eyes bore into hers, Mina murmured, 'His name is Cengiz Temiz’ And then, all of a sudden as if a spell or some such had been broken, her revulsion of him returned and Mina put her head down and vomited onto the floor.

  When he returned from putting Erol Urfa, the baby and entourage into the vehicles to take them home, Ìsak Çöktin was smiling. 'When he comes back tomorrow, EroFs going to fill the station with roses, by way of thanks,' he said gleefully.

  'Is that going to happen before or after his interview with your boss?' Cohen asked acidly.

  'Don't you think it's wonderful that the baby has been found safe?' Çöktin said as he sat down next to an exhausted and strangely plain-clothed Cohen.

  'Well, seeing as how I was there, yes I do,' he said. 'You were with Urfa, weren't you?'

  'Yes.' There was something a little guarded in Çöktin's reply which Cohen picked up on immediately. 'He was very distressed after the broadcast. He's getting edgy about when he might be able to collect his wife's body. He wants to take her home to his village.'

  'Until Dr Sarkissian's finished taking samples, he'll have to stay edgy. And anyway I find all this concern after death a bit insincere. I mean, it's not like he was that interested in the poor woman during her life. Too busy running around with that old tart.'

  'You don't understand,' Çöktin said with some heat in his voice.

  'Oh yes I do,' Cohen replied in kind. 'Erol Urfa wanted it all. He wanted to be the dutiful son of his father and marry the little girl he was betrothed to who could and would give him children. He also wanted to further his career and have some real dirty sex with that Tansu. There is nothing you can tell me about men, sex and arranged marriages, so don't even try.'

  As they both sat in disgruntled silence, Sergeant Orhan Tepe passed by and smiled. "The hippy has asked for somebody from the consulate,' he said as he threw his car keys into the air and then caught them again. 'But I'm going home to my wife and family.'-

  'Lucky you,' Cohen murmured dejectedly.

  Tepe laughed. But then just before he reached the door to the car park he turned and said, 'Is your name really Balthazar?'

  ‘Oh, fuck off!'

  When the door had closed behind Tepe, Çöktin looked up at Cohen and sighed.

  'He's always so happy, isn't he?' he said, looking after Tepe, a slight frown upon his face. 'But then his wife has recently given him a son and I guess that has to be reason enough.'

  Cohen, relieved that further discussion of his name did not seem to be on the agenda anymore said, 'So was the Urfa baby all right? No rashes from beans or whatever it was she wasn't supposed to eat?'

  'No.'

  'You do know that the inspector would have had your balls for staying on with Urfa, don't you?'

  Çöktin, missing the point of just who Cohen was talking about, said, 'He seemed OK when he arrived with you and the prisoners.'

  'I'm not talking about Suleyman!' Cohen said with just the hint of a bitter laugh in his voice. 'God, you're young! No, I was talking about the inspector, Ìkmen. He always wants to know where everyone is all the time. Feels personally responsible for us.'

  'You're not criticising Inspector Suleyman, are you, Cohen?'

  'Not to you,' he said as he stood up and moved towards the front office. He opened the door just as Dr Halman swept majestically out of the building, her face vaguely furious. As he stood amid the general hubbub of police officers coming and going, Cohen wished that, rather than wait for Mehmet, he could just settle himself to going out to see Ìkmen at Madame's. But then he had a really rather important report to write plus he felt that, in view of Dr Halman's expression, Suleyman might really need him.

  Despite the fact that the car, which was taking the most direct route back to Yeniköy, was passing through brightly lit streets, Merih Urfa stayed resolutely asleep in her father's arms. Although exhausted, Erol couldn't take his eyes off her for a second. From time to time he reorganised her shawl in order to make her more comfortable. Tansu, who cooed at the child occasionally when she wasn't staring blankly out of the window, sat on one side of her lover while on the other was Erol's manager, Ibrahim Aksoy, who was smoking a large Cuban cigar. Despite their police driver and Tansu's sister Latife, sitting beside the officer, Aksoy was being extremely candid about his protegees future.

  'Of course we'll have lost the George Michael fan base now,' he said as he flicked his ash out of the window.

  'What do you mean?' Tansu inquired as she took her cigarettes out of her bag and lit up.

  Aksoy sighed. 'Darling, we marketed Erol after what I call the "George Michael model". It's why we kept poor Ruya such a dark secret. Like George Michael, I designed Erol to appeal to the young teenage girls who, I know you will agree, would cry bitterly if they discovered their idol was a married man with a child. With you in tow I knew we could retain the children and fascinate their mothers at the same time. It was perfect But Erol's fatherly state is now out in the public domain, like Michael's homosexuality. I'll have to find an altogether more mature image for him now.'

  Latife, who had until now been sleeping, suddenly found herself awakened by wreathes of
acrid smoke.

  ‘I don't think it's a very good idea to smoke around that baby,' she said, winning a smile of agreement from Erol.

  Aksoy, who had been genuinely unaware that what he was doing was wrong, quickly put his cigar out in the ashtray in the car door. 'Sorry.'

  Tansu, however, was quite another matter. 'Well, she'll have to get used to it if she's going to live in my house,' she said, giving her sister the sort of look that could strip paint. 'I have to smoke.' And then, as if to make the point even more strongly, she took a drag on her cigarette and blew it into Latife's hair.

  'I'm sure we can come to some sort of arrangement,' Erol said, taking Tansu's free hand in his and kissing it 'After all, we won't be with you for that long, Tansu.'

  'Oh, but you mustn't go now!' the ageing singer cried, hurling her cigarette out into the night as she clung, limpet-like, to Erol's arm. 'Not now that you're—'

  'We can't stay with you for ever, Tansu,' Erol said and nervously looked across at Aksoy.

  'No,' his manager agreed, 'it would hardly look right, Tansu darling. Not at least until things are finalised with regard to poor Ruya. You must see that.'

  'Yes, but well,' she was pouting now, thwarted in her desires, child-like, 'well, we could get a nurse or maybe Latife could—'

  'As soon as I can I must set about making a home for Merih and myself.' Erol hugged the child tightly to his chest 'I must do the right thing.'

  'And what about me?' Tansu asked, her long, thin eyebrows arched with arrogance. 'What about the "right thing" for me?'

  'In time all will become clear,' Aksoy said with what seemed to Tansu misplaced confidence. 'I have a meeting tomorrow with Ferhat Göktepe.'

  'With my agent?' a very agitated Tansu cried. 'Why are you meeting him?'

  'To discuss how we may jointly facilitate your careers in the light of this tragedy. How you two plus little Merih here may be—'

  'I don't want Merih exploited!' Erol said as he tore his arm away from Tansu and looked angrily at his manager. 'I want things to be quiet now.'

  Aksoy laughed. 'Oh, Erol,' he said, 'I don't think there's much chance of that, do you?'.

  Erol Urfa's features flushed, forcing him to turn back to face the front of the car. But then the truth, he knew, could provoke many emotions, including anger. Of course Ibrahim Aksoy was right, there would be no peace until the business of his wife's death was concluded. Her killer, sooner or later and whether or not it turned out to be that odd neighbour, had to be nailed. Until then, suspicion and rumour would abound, not least about himself. If nothing else, his appointment with Inspector Suleyman tomorrow morning was testament to the fact that he was hardly out of the frame yet. After all, with Tansu sitting extravagantly at his side, he didn't exactly fit the traditional model of an ideal husband.

  As the car passed in front of the heavily guarded Dolmabahce Palace, the driver no doubt noticing Erol's sweat-swamped face said, 'Would you like me to turn the air conditioning up, Mr Urfa?'

  'Yes,' Erol said as he smiled into the sleeping face of his child, 'that would be nice.'

  Chapter 8

  At first the thing in front of his face was no more than a vague blur. Given his current assignment plus the rather disordered state of his thoughts, Suleyman thought that it might be a pool of blood, possibly even his own. Well, the thing was red and so a pool of blood was not such a crazy idea. But as he raised his head slowly from the surface of his desk, he began to see certain details he had not focused on before - petals, stems, a vaguely sweet perfume.

  'A sprig of bougainvillea,' Ìkmen said as he picked it up and sniffed at its flowers, 'from the garden of the Ìskender Hamam.'

  Suleyman's eyes which were sore and small from lack of sleep blinked as the harsh light from the rising sun outside assaulted them. 'Sir?' he said huskily. 'What. . .'

  'Madame Kleopatra died almost exactly an hour ago,' Ìkmen said as he slipped down wearily into the chair in front of Suleyman's desk. 'I left Dr Katsoulis to make the arrangements. After all, she was a Greek and so is he. It's fitting. When he's done I'll send

  Cohen, if that's all right with you, and a few of the youngsters over to dig up the fig tree.'

  Suleyman, who had by this time pulled himself up in his chair, put his hand up to his head and groaned. 'Why a fig tree?'

  Ìkmen smiled. 'Ah, but of course you don't know, do you?'

  'Know?'

  'Cohen, for all his unsavoury habits, is at centre a good man. Strictly speaking he has broken the law, but. . .' He pushed his cigarettes and lighter across to Suleyman who had been distracting him by searching for his own. 'When he first went to see Madame, she told him something, you see.'

  'I knew that,' Suleyman said as he lit up and then relaxed back into his chair. 'But he wouldn't tell me what.'

  'She told him,' Ìkmen said with a strangely inappropriate smile upon his face, 'that the body of her late husband is buried beneath the fig tree in her garden. She also told him that she killed him.'

  'So how was Cohen breaking the law?'

  'He should have opened an investigation immediately. That garden should have been dug up while the old woman lay dying upstairs. After all, homicide is homicide whatever the condition of the perpetrator. But,' he sighed and then smiled again, 'she wanted him to promise that he wouldn't do anything until after her death, which he agreed to.'

  'He told you, sir.'

  'Only because she asked him to. Madame Kleopatra is, or was, one of those characters I came to know through my mother. Probably quite insane. But she was always very interested in my brother and myself when we were young, perhaps because she didn't have any children of her own. I believe she was very good to Cohen and his family too although I don't know how or why. When I make my report I will say that Madame confessed to me on her last gasp.'

  Suleyman rubbed his head again and then smiled weakly. "That would seem to be the best course of action.'

  'Good.' Standing up quickly, Ìkmen said, 'And now I'm going to take you to breakfast.'

  'Oh, but I've got Erol Urfa at nine and I have to get back to Cengiz Temiz.' With nervous rapidity, Suleyman moved various papers around on his desk as if searching for something. 'I must draft a report for the commissioner and then there is the issue of Dr Halman.

  Ìkmen kindly but firmly placed his hand across Suleyman's, effectively bringing his manic searching to a close. 'If you were to look at yourself from the outside, Suleyman,' he said, 'you would see a man staggering under too many issues. You would see, as I do, confusion and rising anxiety. Now I'm going to take you to that very expensive tourist cafe' across the road and I am going to buy you lots of coffee, some eggs and replenish your cigarette supply. The place has a balcony from which we can view all of our beautiful if polluted waterways. There’ he said as he slipped one arm around Suleyman's shoulders and pulled him to his feet, 'you will offload some of your worries onto me and we will talk.'

  'But you're not well, sir,' Suleyman said as he shakily achieved verticality.

  'Yes, that's right,' Ìkmen replied with a smile, 'I'm not well, so I'm not involved, so I'm not interfering in your work. Oh, and by the way, my name is Çetin from now on,' he said with a twinkle in his eye as he proffered his hand to his colleague. 'Hello.'

  Suleyman took the hand with a small bow and, smiling, said, 'Mehmet Mehmet Suleyman.'

  Although still early, the streets of the old city were already alive with activity. A horse-drawn cart carrying a huge pile of fruit eased its way down the narrow street, only just avoiding collision with an eccentrically parked BMW. Two little girls resplendent with vast hair ribbons both laughed as the horse appeared to do a last-minute double take. The shaven-headed simitci boy behind them sneered at what he perceived to be the irrationality of such an ancient form of transport. In the shops on the periphery of this scene, the carpet and leather goods men were putting their wares out onto the pavement for display. Occasionally a little competitive, if cheerful, banter would pass betw
een them-- stuff about prices and the scandalous degree to which one's rivals over-inflated their charges. From various, and numerous, directions, the sound of Arabesk music floated up towards the two men talking and drinking coffee on the balcony of the Marmara Türist Restaurant

  'Now that you've found the baby and are, therefore, officially heroic, you'll have to deal with the press again,' Ìkmen said as he drained his coffee cup and then signalled to the waiter that he would like some more.

  'Yes,' Suleyman replied with a scowl, 'although I think that the details of the arrest of Mina and company are best left unsaid.'

  Ìkmen laughed. 'I would have paid good money to see you negotiating for a prostitute. Mina Arda must have thought her business had taken a turn for the better when she saw you.'

  'You know mat her mother performed an abortion on her when she was seventeen,' Suleyman said, lowering his voice as he recounted this scandalous fact. 'She claims she has been unable to conceive since.'

  'Semra Arda has been suspected of such practices for years’ Ìkmen said with a sigh. 'I arrested her on suspicion of just such an offence involving another girl about ten years ago. But there was no proof.'

  'But to give your own daughter an abortion!'

  Ìkmen shrugged. 'It's quicker and cheaper than going to a doctor, plus you don't have to explain anything..These are very poor people, Mehmet, ordinary standards do not apply.' He lit another cigarette and leaned back in his chair. 'So the man with Down's syndrome gave the baby to Mina presumably because he knew she either liked or wanted a baby?'

  Suleyman waited until the waiter had taken their empty coffee cups away and replaced them with full ones before answering.

  'Yes,' he said, 'although until he speaks to us we won't know how he got hold of the child. Mina says that Cengiz Temiz rescued the baby from the Urfas' apartment after seeing what he describes as a female demon in there. At least that is what she claims he told her.'

  'This Temiz is, I assume, very frightened.'

  'Yes. He speaks, when he does, in sort of harsh monosyllables and wets himself. It doesn't help either that his lawyer is Sevan Avedykian. When he's with him he won't let Cengiz answer any questions anyway.'