Harem Page 13

  ‘Oh, lawyers, lawyers!’ Sılay lifted his bottle up towards the ceiling and laughed raucously. ‘Nothing but fucking arse whores for the state! They don’t care about the common man, only money, money – just like Hikmet!’

  ‘Money is important, Mr Sılay.’

  ‘No it isn’t!’

  ‘To those who’ve never been without it I suppose it can be peripheral,’ İkmen said tartly, mindful of what Tepe had told him about Ahmet Sılay’s privileged background.

  ‘Hikmet Sivas sold his body, his soul and his principles for money.’

  ‘Yes, and you may have done the same had you been born into poverty,’ İkmen said, his patience stretched to breaking point by this bitter, ruined old rich boy. He would have said more along those lines had his mobile telephone not started ringing at that moment.

  He turned away to answer it. Tepe and Sılay both watched the back of his head as he spoke, sometimes urgently, into the small device. The conversation lasted less than a minute. But when İkmen turned back to face the others, his face was the colour of dust. Tepe felt his heart beat faster.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘We have to go, Tepe,’ İkmen said as he rose quickly to his feet. ‘Now.’

  She’d had all the time that it had taken them to calm Mrs İpek to think about why Berekiah might have come up to the apartment. First she had made tea for her friend’s mother, while Berekiah disappeared briefly in order to buy Hürrem a packet of cigarettes. And then they had talked, the three of them. Sometimes about Hatice but usually in more general terms about how cruel life could be and how that cruelty could come about so suddenly. Hulya knew that Berekiah had personal experience of such things himself. There had only been the briefest warning of his older brother, Yusuf’s, mental breakdown and there had been no time at all to prepare for the massive 1999 earthquake which had ripped Berekiah’s father’s legs away.

  Hürrem İpek was both charmed and comforted by Berekiah, but all Hulya wanted to know was what had brought him here in the first place.

  At last they felt able to leave Hürrem and the two young people walked back into the dusty, litter-strewn hall. ‘I actually came to see whether any of your family wanted to go to the hospital to see Mehmet’s baby,’ Berekiah said. ‘Zelfa can’t receive people at home in the normal way because she’s had an operation. But the family are very happy to see friends at the hospital and I know Çetin Bey has bought a gift for the child.’

  ‘So you came to see my dad then really,’ Hulya said as she fought to disguise her disappointment.

  ‘I didn’t know who would be at home,’ Berekiah replied. ‘But today is my day off and I was passing. Do you want to come?’

  She did. And so they went together, picking up various items of food, as instructed by Berekiah’s mother, along the way.

  When they arrived at the hospital, however, Hulya could see instantly that all was not well with the new little family. Dr Halman, as she even now felt obliged to call Mehmet’s wife, still looked worn out from her ordeal and barely managed to raise a smile even when little Yusuf İzzeddin was brought in to her. Her father, Dr Babur, made numerous and forced attempts at jolly conversation which worked only patchily. The whole experience was strained in a way that Hulya couldn’t understand. When babies came, people were happy. Her mother had always been happy when a new child arrived. She couldn’t understand why Dr Halman looked so sad.

  But when, a little later, Mehmet Süleyman arrived, Dr Halman’s demeanour changed. Now animated, she passed the baby quickly over to her father and then held her husband’s hands in hers. Gazing up into his eyes, she laughed wildly at any little comment he made even if it was only remotely amusing. It was almost as if, Hulya felt, Dr Halman and Mehmet were on a first date and she was trying to impress him. Not once did she look at the baby after her husband arrived and when Mehmet himself wanted to spend some time with his son, Dr Halman looked positively jealous. It was all very odd. But Hulya didn’t say anything about her observations even after she and Berekiah left.

  However, on the way back to Hulya’s apartment, to which Berekiah had insisted on returning her, he raised the subject of what they had just seen at the hospital.

  ‘I think that my mother is right when she says that having babies takes a lot of energy out of women,’ he said as he took her hand in his to cross the road. ‘Zelfa is still, I think, quite ill.’

  And although Hulya herself wouldn’t have put what she had observed in Dr Halman down to ‘illness’ as such, she agreed.

  ‘But not all women are ill like that, you know,’ she said.

  ‘Oh?’ Now that they were back on the pavement he let his fingers gently disengage from hers.

  Hulya, feeling the sudden loss of him, forced a smile. ‘My mum has always been all right,’ she said. ‘And I think that I will be too – if I ever have children. Hatice and I always dreamed of starring in the movies . . .’

  ‘Well, you’re, er . . .’ he looked down briefly and then smiled into her eyes, ‘you’re very beautiful and so I expect that you could . . .’

  Hulya felt her face catch fire and so she looked away from him, fixing her eyes on the side of a passing tram.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  He pulled her round to face him and put his hand up to her cheek.

  It was a touching sight and one that affected Ayşe Farsakoǧlu who had noticed one of Inspector İkmen’s daughters being romanced by the son of old Cohen the Jew. Ayşe was across the other side of Divan Yolu where, overheated, she’d stopped to buy a drink. Just for a moment she felt jealous. Never again would a young man make her blush, take her hand tenderly in his. Not that she wanted any of that juvenile stuff, of course not. She wanted a man, a home of her own, and not to be pitied by her family any more. If she couldn’t have Süleyman, she’d have Orhan instead. As soon as he divorced that wife of his, she could have him and no one would pity her ever again.

  But then she tore her mind away from Orhan and looked at the young people once again, this time frowning.

  Chapter 11

  * * *

  İkmen looked down at the crumpled figure of Metin İskender as he bent his head over the bucket one more time, retching, but without production.

  ‘How many times has he thrown up?’ İkmen asked İsak Çöktin who, together with all the other officers stationed inside the Sivas house, was standing on the landing outside Hikmet Sivas’s bedroom.

  Çöktin shrugged. ‘I don’t know, sir,’ he said. ‘I’ve not been that concerned with him, to be honest.’

  İkmen nodded. He could understand that. Aside from the fact that İskender wasn’t well liked, what had taken place in the house in the last two hours overshadowed any other considerations.

  At approximately eleven forty-five that morning, Hikmet Sivas had said that he was going up to his bedroom to lie down. He hadn’t managed to get much sleep the previous night and he was tired. Çöktin had said this was OK although when, five minutes later, Inspector İskender had arrived he had asked him whether anyone should go with Sivas to his room. İskender had said that wasn’t necessary. He would check on the star in a while. Half an hour later he did so. What he found was an absence of Sivas and the presence of an unknown box that he had made the mistake of opening. He had been vomiting ever since.

  Çöktin, his hands covered by the familiar thin whiteness of surgical gloves, held a small piece of paper up in front of İkmen’s face.

  ‘I found this with it,’ he said.

  İkmen motioned for him to open the note so that he could read it.

  ‘Japanese Ivories – to be personally delivered to His Majesty, the Sultan.’ İkmen, strangely, grinned. ‘How very apt.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘It’s to do with history, Çöktin,’ İkmen said. ‘History concerning perceived betrayal and remarkable cruelty.’

  ‘So what does it mean, sir?’ Tepe looked across İkmen’s shoulder at the small piece of paper between Çöktin’s fingers.

&n
bsp; ‘The words are the same as those alleged to have been written in a note sent to Sultan Abdul Hamid II by the men he charged to execute our great reforming Vizir, Midhat Paşa. Midhat was killed in Arabia, where he had been exiled some years before. So the Sultan in İstanbul didn’t actually see his old enemy die. But because he was paranoid, which is why he had Midhat killed in the first place, he couldn’t believe it had happened until he saw Midhat’s head, which arrived, apparently, some weeks later with a note just like this.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘To someone who knows this story, it would make sense. And Mr Sivas obviously did because he didn’t open the box.’ İkmen sighed and then put his hand up to his head because it was starting to hurt. ‘He just ran away from a house full of police officers and is now either in danger or has gone into hiding. How did this happen, Sergeant Çöktin?’

  Çöktin, who was well enough acquainted with İkmen to recognise that his outward calmness was not destined to last, began, ‘Well . . .’

  ‘It happened because you all fucked up, didn’t it?’

  ‘Er . . .’

  ‘You did not stay with Mr Sivas at all times as you had been instructed and you also failed to sustain effective observation over this property.’ He sat down beside İskender on the brocade-covered bench outside Hikmet Sivas’s bedroom. ‘You all behaved like a bunch of amateurs. You facilitated a catastrophe.’

  Metin İskender, who had now just about managed to stop vomiting, looked up.

  ‘Sivas had been up to his room alone before,’ he said, ‘to go to sleep.’

  ‘Not when I’ve been in this house!’ İkmen roared as the floodgates of his anger finally burst. ‘When I’ve been here there has always been one man at least outside rooms containing Sivas family members! Even when the sister goes to the toilet!’

  ‘Inspector—’

  İkmen turned on İskender. ‘You and I both felt that Sivas was hiding something. Now that he’s gone we have lost the only, admittedly tenuous, connection we might have had with Kaycee’s murderers! You have messed up in a big way!’

  İskender’s already white face turned grey.

  ‘And as lead officer in this investigation,’ İkmen said fiercely, ‘I am as of now taking personal charge.’ He looked around at all the other officers on the landing before he returned his gaze to İskender. ‘No more working alongside each other. You do as I say at all times and if you can’t do that then you do nothing!’

  ‘But that is for the Commissioner—’

  ‘The commissioner, when he finds out about this, will go berserk!’ İkmen shouted into İskender’s face. ‘You were in charge! You messed up and you will take the consequences like a man!’

  He stood up and addressed Orhan Tepe. ‘Well, we’d better take a look at what’s in there and then I’ll have to set about salvaging something from this catastrophe.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  İkmen walked towards the bedroom door, took a deep breath and entered.

  The box was exactly as İskender had left it. The lid was off and the bloodstained newspaper that had padded it out was strewn haphazardly across the floor.

  Before his courage failed him, İkmen marched across to the box and looked inside. The face was uppermost, obviously in order to have maximum impact on the person opening the box. And although the eyes were only half open, the look that Kaycee Sivas seemed to be giving him was one filled with accusation. Whoever had severed her head had done it very cleanly just below the chin. They had then pulled her long blonde hair up on top of her head so that it looked like a large pillow at the crown of her skull.

  İkmen moved away to allow Tepe to glance just briefly at the head.

  ‘Inspector İskender and I saw a head like this out in Edirnekapı when I worked with him some years ago,’ Tepe said, using words to prevent sickness rising in his own throat. ‘That’s probably why the inspector has been so ill now.’

  ‘I don’t really care just at the moment, Tepe.’ İkmen sat down on the edge of the bed and lit a cigarette. ‘We’ll have to inform Dr Sarkissian. See what he can tell us about this thing.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  İkmen took a deep drag on his cigarette and let the smoke out on a sigh.

  ‘I’ll need to interview the brother and sister,’ he said. ‘Arrange it.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Do you want me to contact Dr Sarkissian too, sir?’

  ‘No. I’ll do that.’

  Tepe gratefully left the room. İkmen, now alone, took his mobile telephone out of his pocket and keyed in the doctor’s number. As he waited for the familiar voice to answer, he looked at the box again for just a second, and then he shut his eyes. Kaycee Sivas had been young and very beautiful and whatever she may or may not have done in her life, she hadn’t deserved such an horrific end. She must have been so terrified . . .

  But İkmen didn’t, couldn’t dwell on such matters and when Dr Sarkissian eventually answered the telephone he gave him the information he needed with cold detachment.

  The man the whole district knew as Rat was dead. Under torture he had confessed to speaking to İkmen about something he shouldn’t. And then they had killed him. Just to be certain they’d also burned his body on some tip up by the wretched Topkapı Bit Pazarı, the ‘louse market’ where poverty meant clothes that fell apart in your hands and a man’s body could be burned like a piece of old rag. Rat, whoever he was, had been, would never be found now.

  Hassan Şeker wept as he thought about these things. He wept because he was guilty. If he hadn’t let on that he’d seen Rat follow İkmen into Ticarethane Sokak, none of this would have happened. But he had; Rat was a well-known police informant and Hassan had been scared. So scared!

  He still was. The fear hadn’t receded. As his wife was so fond of saying when one or other of his ‘business partners’ showed up at the pastane, ‘You see these flash, rough boys but you don’t really know who they’re working for, do you?’

  Suzan was wrong in this instance. Hassan did know now, which was why his blood was like ice. Even though he had done everything that he could to please those whose names he couldn’t even think of for fear of discovery, he knew that they blamed him for so much that had gone wrong – simply because of his romantic connection to Hatice. If only he possessed his father’s strength! Kemal Şeker had always and with passion resisted all advances, offers and threats from such people. No good could ever come of it, he said. And he was right. In spite of all the handouts and favours Hassan had received, what he was experiencing now, the agony of fear, was not worth any of it.

  Rat aside, what had happened to little Hatice was beyond endurance. Not that he’d had anything to do with it himself. Indeed if he’d known what had been planned, what had really been planned, as opposed to the half-truths they had fed him he would never have got her involved. The girl, Ekrem said, had been seen and had been greatly desired. And even though Hassan had told them she was in love with him, it had made no difference – not with ‘that man’ involved. No. But then, if he hadn’t given her to them, to that unnameable man, they would have taken her anyway. Nothing would have changed.

  But thinking of Hatice’s death as an inevitability didn’t make him feel any better. He would miss her, she’d been so sweet. And he’d done himself no good by his actions anyway. Not now that another, more powerful and, to his ‘friends’, far more useful associate was involved. Apart from the money that he paid them on a monthly basis, Hassan was almost redundant now. Almost, but not quite. Someone to take the blame for their actions was always useful and the policeman İkmen, despite all of Hassan’s best efforts, was continuing to pursue him. Soon he would be back, asking questions, moving in. What was Hassan going to say, what could he say without letting something slip?

  Hassan Şeker lowered his head into his hands and wept again. This time his wife, hearing noises that sounded like an animal in pain, entered her husband’s office without knocking. She stood in the doorway and watched him. Poor weak thing, he’d real
ly made his life a misery getting mixed up with people like Ekrem Müren. Or maybe he was just crying because Hatice was dead. Unlike all the other girls he’d seduced over the years, Hassan had really seemed to care for her. Not that this knowledge made it any easier for Suzan. She loved and hated her husband in equal measure and so instead of going over to comfort him she just pushed the door to his office shut with her foot and went about her business.

  ‘I’m going to need help,’ İkmen said as he paced agitatedly backwards and forwards across the room, a cigarette ever present at his lips.

  ‘And you shall have it,’ his superior replied. ‘Name who and what you want and it shall be given to you.’

  Ardıç had been at the Sivas house for just over half an hour. During that time, İkmen and his officers, including İskender, had acquainted him with the facts regarding Hikmet and Kaycee Sivas. At times he had looked thunderous, but he had not gone berserk. In view of what had happened and how it had in effect been allowed to take place, this was startling. Ardıç was famous for his volcanic temper and given the high profile nature of this case, one might expect him to be furious. But he wasn’t, which made İkmen feel unnerved and deeply suspicious.

  ‘If Ahmet Sılay is right about Sivas’s connections with the Mafia,’ İkmen said, ‘then I’m going to need to speak to officers in America. In fact I should speak to them now if Sivas is “known”.’

  ‘Yes, well in time that will be possible,’ Ardıç replied, wiping his heavily sweating face with a handkerchief as he spoke. ‘But because that is all rather speculative . . .’

  ‘Well, it’s quite enough evidence for me!’ İkmen cried. ‘Even the suggestion that the Mafia might be amongst us is enough for me. Our own families are bad enough, but these people are experts. They invented organised crime!’