Belshazzar's Daughter: A Novel of Istanbul (Inspector Ikmen series Book 1) Read online

  When she had composed herself a little, Leah turned her attention to her appearance. The old man was a complete crazy, but that gave her no excuse for turning up looking a mess. He was old, but he was still a man. And she was a woman, a professional woman. She still had a certain pride. A little powder on her sore and blackened eye, a dab of lipstick here, eye-shadow there …

  She patted her elaborate hennaed wig with her hands, making sure it was firmly in position. A relic of happier, more solvent times, that wig. When she originally purchased it, she hadn’t actually needed it. Perhaps she’d had a vision of the future all those years ago. She replaced the make-up in her cheap mock-leopard-skin bag, drew herself up to her full height, and sashayed past the filth-encrusted doors of the Abrahams’ quarters.

  Meyer’s door was open. This was not unusual; the old man rarely shut it during the summer months. His tiny cell caught the sun nearly all day and a source of ventilation was absolutely vital for both his comfort and his health. His light, however, was off. This did not augur well. It indicated that he had probably drunk all his liquor and was now sleeping it off. Leah didn’t know what to do. She had been looking forward to this drink, and to be thwarted like this …

  She turned the possibilities over in her mind. She could wake the old man and ask him for a drink, thus risking a justifiably angry outburst on his part. She could go away boozeless and depressed. Or …

  Or, if Meyer were dead drunk, she could switch on his light, go in and scour his room for dregs in discarded bottles. There was unlikely to be much, but even a drop would do. It was doubtful that he would wake unless shaken, and she was desperate.

  She pushed the door gently with her foot, letting just enough light into the room to discern the bottom of his bed. A smell of sour vomit—or was it rotten vegetables?—assaulted her nostrils. No. Burned food—meat. Filthy old bastard! God, but she needed this drink! She knew that the light switch was on the wall just beside the door, but she couldn’t see it. She searched. Her roving hand skittered noisily over the cheap plasterboard wall as her deep-red fingernails sought out the telltale protrusion. She found it. The switch clicked and suddenly the room was bathed in a jaundiced light from the single grimy bulb. For a second she didn’t really know what she was looking at. At first, and to her confusion, it appeared that someone had thrown a heap of old clothes and a large lump of meat onto the bed. But then she saw the eyes, crusted with blood but open, forced apart by the action of rigor, staring right at her. From the mouth downward, right to the tops of his legs, Meyer was just a mass of blood and weeping organs. So ravaged was he that even some of the rib bones were exposed, white, stark, covered only by thin streamers of raw, shredded flesh. As she looked on, horribly fascinated, what was left of the liver detached itself and fell glutinously on to the blood-soaked bedclothes that surrounded the body. Leah felt a bitter sickness rise in her throat, but she couldn’t stop looking. And the smell! Leah put her hand to her mouth and gagged. She had not eaten that day and the hot bile from her stomach, its only contents, seared her throat.

  Her gaze traveled up his body once more, his entrails, his eyes, his hair, the wall behind the bed … the wall …

  It was there. Drawn in what appeared to be blood. Huge, its hard edges feathered by dried drips and smears of red: a swastika.

  Every brittle, Jewish bone in her body screamed in recognition. Sour yellow bile bubbled between the fingers clenched around her mouth and then she screamed. She didn’t move. Even when Mr. Abrahams from next door came in to see what was wrong, still she didn’t move. She just screamed.

  And twenty minutes later, when the first of the policemen and the doctor arrived, Leah, her legs wet with her own urine, was still screaming. She knew what the swastika meant all right.

  * * *

  “Inspector Ikmen?”

  The little man half lying on the couch was holding the telephone to his left ear, but his eyes were closed. It was dark. Still obviously an unhallowed hour of the night. Not the sort of time to be talking on the telephone, not the time to be doing anything apart from sleeping.

  “Suleyman?” he growled. “What do you want?”

  The voice at the other end of the line took one very deep breath and sighed. “There’s been an incident, sir. A very unpleasant business. In Balat.”

  Chapter 2

  The voice was grave and, for the normally cool Suleyman, unusually querulous, almost as if he were trembling. Çetin Ikmen half opened his eyes and observed with some irritation that he was still wearing his clothes from the day before. It was not easy living with Fatma when she was pregnant, consigned to the couch for three months at a stretch. Ikmen took a packet of cigarettes from his crumpled jacket pocket and lit up.

  “So who’s dead then?” He sounded resigned.

  “An old man, sir. One of the old Balat Jews. A neighbor, Mr. Abraham, said the victim’s name was Leonid Meyer. That is, as far as he could identify—”

  “Where and how did he die?”

  “In his apartment, sir.” Suleyman paused. It was a tense, troubled silence. “As for how he died, Inspector … well, I think you’d better come and see for yourself. The doctor’s already here, but … I’ve never seen anything like it before. Never.”

  Ikmen started to wake up. He had not been imagining things. Suleyman was upset and it took a lot to rattle his cool exterior. It was bad, then. A nasty one. Shit.

  “All right. Where are you?”

  “Bottom of Fevzi Paşa, turn off toward the Kariye. You’ll see the cars and I’ve got men posted outside the entrance to the block. Top floor.”

  “Any witnesses?”

  “There’s the woman who found the body, another neighbor; but she’s still in shock, sir.”

  “All right, I’m on my way.”

  “I’m sorry, sir, to wake you…” Suleyman’s voice broke into something that sounded almost like a sob. “I think you’ll need to bring—”

  “I never work without it, Suleyman, you know that.”

  “Of course, sir. I’ll see you—”

  “I’ll be as quick as I can.”

  Çetin replaced the receiver on its cradle and stubbed his cigarette out in one of the numerous nearby ashtrays. He rubbed his face with his hands and, rising wearily to his feet, moved unsteadily across the room to the light switch. With a flick of his finger the room was bathed in white, cold, slightly pulsating neon. The effect upon his tired night-time eyes was like having sand thrown into his face. It was at times like this that Çetin wished he had an ordinary job: in a bank, driving taxis, hotelier—anything except police inspector.

  But then, realistically, what else could he do? After twenty-two years on the force, it was no longer just a job. Like smoking or drinking, it was a habit, an addiction, an essential part of him. Giving up would mean painful withdrawal symptoms. He moved, blinking painfully, into the kitchen.

  As he passed the sink he caught sight of himself in the small, cracked mirror above the draining board. Lit from behind by the merciless neon from the living room, his face stared back, an education in shadows, pits, lines and, where his cheeks should have been, deep skull-like depressions. Although the force could never be described as boring, it did little for a person’s looks. Stress, erratic hours, long meetings in smoke-filled rooms, dead bodies …

  He opened the door of the battered cupboard beneath the sink and took, from a long line of identical bottles, an unopened one. The English, he recalled from his language lessons at college, considered the dog to be man’s best friend. But Çetin disagreed. Brandy was, in his opinion, far superior. It helped him think, gave his ulcer something to do, meant he could cope with the inhumanity of his chosen field of police work. Murder. How and why had he got into that? He had never got used to it, inured to the ugliness of its consequences. But then perhaps that was the reason in itself. If he ever did he would quit.

  He put his bottle on the kitchen table and scribbled a short note to Fatma on the back of an envelope. She wouldn�
��t be pleased. She’d never really got used to the job, or the drinking. He thought of her angry fat cheeks in the morning, her pudgy hand screwing his note up into a ball and hurling it petulantly down on to the floor. It wasn’t fair. A devout Muslim wife and mother saddled for all eternity with a drunken, largely absent policeman. But it wasn’t all bad. Çetin picked up his bottle again and smiled. There were eight Ikmen children—so far—with another due in a few weeks’ time. Philosophical differences aside, this was a good marriage, characterised by both love and passion.

  He checked his pockets for cigarettes, lighter and car keys, and made his way quietly toward the front door of the apartment. He looked around at the dim, dingy corridor and listened for the gentle breathing of his sleeping children. The unpleasant thought occurred to him that he would not be standing thus in his own home for many hours to come.

  * * *

  When he reached the third floor of the building he found Suleyman waiting for him at the top of the stairs. Tall and slim, his face looked drawn in the watery light of the single bulb above the stairwell. His eyes, large and sensual, looked even bigger now, widened by shock, stilled by the lateness of the hour. He tried a smile as Ikmen mounted the top step and drew level with him, but it was an effort which resulted in only a slight movement of his mouth.

  “Where is it then?” Ikmen gasped. Fifty cigarettes a day did little to enhance his stair-climbing abilities. He took the wrapper off the top of the brandy bottle and tossed it away.

  “The one at the end, sir.” Suleyman pointed to the third door down. “Dr. Sarkissian’s still in there.”

  Ikmen uncorked his bottle and took a large fiery swig from its neck. When he had finished he wiped the top with his sleeve and offered the liquor to Suleyman. His deputy shook his head. Ikmen smiled. “Damned religious maniac!”

  They walked in silence along the balcony. The immediate neighbors, like most of the other inhabitants of the block, were awake, nervously awaiting developments, clustered around doorways in their nightclothes. As they reached the second door a small, middle-aged man in a dressing gown came out to meet them. Suleyman turned to his boss.

  “Ah, Inspector, this is Mr. Abrahams, the deceased’s neighbor.” Ikmen stretched out his hand in greeting. The small man took it warmly and bowed slightly over his outstretched arm. “Mr. Abrahams,” Suleyman continued, “this is Inspector Ikmen. Perhaps you could tell him what you told me.”

  “Of course.” The little Jew smiled sadly. Looking into the Abrahams’ doorway Ikmen became aware of what seemed like hundreds of pairs of eyes watching him. Children, lots of children. Eight? Ten? No, more! It reminded him of home, the comfort of the couch, the endless litter of toys in the little ones’ bedrooms. The same, but different. Here there was squalor, hunger in the eyes of these children, the awful stench of too many bodies crowded together in a tiny space.

  “It was about midnight,” Mr. Abrahams continued, his voice heavily accented and obviously unused to long expositions in the Turkish language. “We, all persons, are sleeping. And then it comes, screaming, terrible, from Meyer apartment. All waking now. Rivka, my wife, very frightened. She say me ‘go look.’ So I go.” He paused, his bottom lip beginning to tremble, pain, great pain crossing and then settling into his eyes.

  Ikmen put a hand on his shoulder. “Please go on, Mr. Abrahams.”

  “The door is open and first I see Leah Delmonte. She live downstairs. Leah screaming, screaming like, like … crazy! She sick on dress too. I go her and then I see. Leonid on bed, Inspector, but not Leonid.” Mr. Abrahams cast his eyes down toward the ground beneath his feet. “Like someone cut and pull him body with swords. Terrible. Blood and, and smell too. Like meat. Leah screaming, but not look at Leonid, Mr. Meyer. She look at wall. Because on wall…”

  Shaking violently now, overcome by the horror of his recent experience, Mr. Abrahams broke down in tears.

  “There was a large swastika drawn on the wall, sir,” Suleyman whispered softly into Ikmen’s ear. “Looks like it might have been drawn in the victim’s own blood.”

  The night was hot, but Ikmen suddenly felt a chill ripple through his body. He turned again to the little weeping Jew. “Thank you, Mr. Abrahams. I realize it must have been hard.” His words seemed so trite under the circumstances. “You’ve been most helpful.”

  The two policemen pushed gently past the traumatised little man. From the apartment a dozen necks craned to watch them go.

  “You catch him, yes, Inspector!”

  Ikmen turned. Abrahams was ramrod stiff now, pulled up to his full height, his face trembling with fury.

  “I will do everything I can, Mr. Abrahams.”

  Avcı was barring the door to the Meyer apartment, his arms crossed over his barrel chest. It was difficult for Ikmen to believe that this giant of a man was only twenty-one years old, younger even than his own eldest son. Though alert, Avcı was not on this occasion looking his usual cheerful Neanderthal self.

  “Hello, Inspector,” he said as Ikmen and his deputy approached. Both men nodded briefly in reply and Avcı moved smartly to the left to allow them admittance. As he did so a short, fat man wearing pebble spectacles emerged from behind him.

  “Hello, Çetin!” His voice was spirited, jolly even. He looked down at the bottle in Ikmen’s hand and smiled broadly. “I’m glad to see your habits are still as disgusting as ever,” he said, holding his hand out in the direction of the brandy. “May I?”

  Ikmen placed the bottle in the man’s sweaty palm and lit a cigarette. “Hello, Doctor. What’s all this about then?”

  Dr. Arto Sarkissian uncorked Ikmen’s bottle and took a long, satisfying draft from its depths. “Wonderful!” He recorked the bottle, wiped his wet mouth upon the sleeve of his shirt, and returned the brandy to its rightful owner. “Well,” he continued, “it’s all very fascinating actually, Çetin. Horrible, but fascinating. In fifteen years I’ve never seen anything like it.” He clapped his fat hands up to his fat cheeks. “You’ll see in a minute, but, just to summarise…”

  There was an awful stench somewhere on the air. Even through the thickness of his cigarette smoke Ikmen could smell it. Burning mixed with blood.

  “The victim received blows to the head. Some sort of blunt instrument, I should imagine. Considerable force was used, breaking the skull and exposing sections of the brain tissue. After that came the acid.”

  “Acid?”

  “Yes. Sulfuric would be my guess. Poured over the body and, interestingly, down the victim’s gullet. It’s possible he was still alive when that occurred.”

  “I told you it was unpleasant, sir,” Suleyman muttered as the doctor related his findings. Avcı fanned his livid face with his left hand. Trying to push the nauseating smell away, Ikmen supposed.

  “What about this swastika?”

  “Drawn in the victim’s blood, I should say.” Sarkissian crossed his strong arms across his chest. “The murderer used a cloth, rag, something like that. From the condition of the corpse, its rigor, I’d put time of death at around four, five, maybe five-thirty yesterday afternoon. Come and have a look.”

  Suleyman visibly whitened at the invitation. He looked at the doctor and smiled weakly. “Dr. Sarkissian, if you don’t mind…”

  The doctor laughed loudly and punched one gross palm with his other fisted hand. “No, not you, Suleyman, I know you’ve seen it already,” he said. “Come on, Çetin.” He turned and bustled merrily back into the apartment.

  Ikmen took one last swig from his bottle and issued his orders to his deputy. “All right, Suleyman, while I’m in there there’s some things you can be getting on with. First, I want a complete press blackout on the acid and the swastika, understand? We don’t want panic or this city’s lunatic fringe getting new and interesting ideas. That means silencing the neighbors, everything. Give no details to anybody, do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Also, speaking of the neighbors—in this block and across the street—
I want our men talking to them. I want to know where they all were and what they were doing around the time of the murder. I want to know if they saw anything, heard anything, any odd people about the place. And I want background. Anything and everything that they know about Meyer.”

  “Yes, sir.” Suleyman turned and made his way back down the stairs.

  * * *

  The swastika was larger than he had imagined. Really quite huge. It dominated the tiny, litter-strewn apartment, making it look even more like a cell or one of those awful concentration camp barrack rooms in old documentaries about World War II. “Bit of a shock, isn’t it?” chirped Sarkissian as he removed a bloodstained sheet from the ancient iron bedstead. “Here’s your victim. He was in bed when he was attacked.” Ikmen could see that it had once been human. It had arms, legs, eyes, hair. But from the mouth to the groin it was like looking in a butcher’s shop window. Blood, offal, misshapen lumps of meat, even at places bones sticking through torn and twisted ribbons of flesh. Now he was actually next to the thing the smell was overpowering. And those eyes! The horror in them! Was that why Sarkissian reckoned that Meyer was still alive when the acid was poured down his throat?

  He couldn’t speak, and silently indicated to the doctor that he should recover the corpse. He’d seen enough. As Sarkissian replaced the sheet over Meyer, Ikmen tried to come to terms with what he had just seen. He felt sick. Not enough to vomit, but distinctly unwell. Suleyman had been right. It was impossible to put that thing, an obscenity on that scale, into words. And the swastika—it was so personal somehow. As if it justified the act.

  “Your man Suleyman’s a very professional officer,” the doctor said lightly. “There were two others with him when he arrived on the scene. Youngsters, younger than him. You can imagine how they were when they saw all this. Poor Suleyman admitted to going quite green himself. But he took charge, got them out, assigned tasks to them straight away. Tried to take their minds off it.”