Harem Read online

  ‘That’s true,’ Süleyman said, ‘but still we might be interfering in an operation deemed to be way above our heads.’

  ‘Then perhaps we shouldn’t interfere but merely observe,’ İkmen replied.

  İskender frowned. ‘But how would we know, without more information, what we were observing?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ İkmen said, ‘but I do feel that we should be there. Something is happening in that park tonight at eight and I want to know what it is. Vedat Sivas is alive and apparently in good health. He is doing something with Tepe. There may or may not be a connection to Zhivkov but one thing is for certain: after forty years Vedat knows Yıldız very well.’

  ‘He must know you two quite well too,’ Süleyman said, looking both of his colleagues up and down.

  ‘Well, if anyone, you’ll have to track him, Mehmet,’ İkmen said. ‘Metin can give you a description – if, of course, you want to come in on this with us?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t I?’

  ‘You’re a new father,’ İkmen said. ‘You might not want to take such a risk with your career.’

  ‘Or your life,’ İskender added. ‘Whatever else we may think we know about this business, one fact that is irrefutable is that Kaycee Sivas was brutally murdered. And whoever the killer is, he’s dangerous and ruthless.’

  ‘Think about it, Mehmet,’ İkmen said gravely.

  Süleyman smiled. ‘Without me it’s going to be difficult for you to follow Vedat.’

  ‘Difficult, but not impossible. We can stay out of sight and keep in contact by mobile.’

  ‘Yes, but I can follow him overtly, right up until he meets Tepe. I want to do this, Çetin,’ Süleyman went on. ‘I always remember you telling me the story of that London murderer Jack the Ripper. You said no one will ever now know who he was and how frustrating that was. I know this isn’t the same, but it is a mystery, and no one else seems keen to unravel it. More to the point, our superiors could be involved, and if they are, I want to help get to the bottom of it.’

  ‘Well, if you’re sure.’

  ‘I am.’

  They agreed to meet at a büfe they all knew in Beşiktaş at six. From there it would take them about ten minutes to get to the palace gates and, although they were as yet unsure about what they might then do beyond observing what may or may not unfold, İkmen for one felt that it was important their activities were not heavily proscribed. They had to be both mobile and reactive since they had no idea what they might find at the palace. In a sense they didn’t want to think about that too deeply.

  İskender left first. Like the others he wanted to get changed.

  When he’d gone, İkmen turned to Süleyman. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘Hikmet Sivas may have been one of the Harem’s customers.’

  Süleyman’s face assumed a grave expression. ‘Why do you think that?’

  ‘I have a rather unusual source.’

  ‘Someone very odd and unreliable,’ Süleyman said, only too familiar with the sort of informants his former boss seemed to attract.

  İkmen smiled. ‘You could say that.’ Then his expression sobered. Although the decision to get into whatever it was they were about to embark upon had been jointly reached, he still felt responsible. Against orders he was taking two young men into something that could either ruin or kill them all.

  Chapter 21

  * * *

  Tonight was the night when all things became possible. The moment he had thought about, planned for, done the most awful things to facilitate was about to come to pass. Sometimes he had thought that it would never happen, that Hikmet’s ‘friends’ would simply overwhelm them all. And indeed without the intervention of the Bulgarian they would have done. It was why Vedat had sought him out in the first place. Alone, even with all the knowledge that he had, he could never even have considered it. Zhivkov’s money had bought so much: silence, fear, loyalty, death. Even the police.

  In spite of the steepness of the climb, Vedat smiled. That young sergeant was going to be struck dumb when he saw who he was going to be sharing a dinner table with tonight. In years to come people would talk about this night with awe. But only some people. Most would never know that a ‘new order’, as Zhivkov had put it, had been imposed. As long as they had TVs and mobile telephones, people cared little about who actually pulled the strings.

  Strange to think that what was about to happen had been born out of weakness. Hale had always said that only damnation and death could come from licentiousness and greed and she had been right. Vedat himself had never been troubled by too many sexual feelings, and as for being greedy, well, he was only getting what he deserved, wasn’t he? He’d spent years and years in those brainless security jobs, taken just to help Hikmet and his ‘friends’, watching as his son went to university courtesy of his film star uncle and all the time knowing what was going on, why and by whom. Hikmet had to be cursing himself now for sharing it all so willingly with his poor, dull brother.

  There had been moments of fear. When Hikmet simply ran out after discovering Kaycee’s head, Vedat had been afraid. Bent upon revenge as he had been, there was always the possibility that Hikmet might kill Zhivkov. In addition, he couldn’t be sure that the police wouldn’t find the old Paşa’s tunnel and cut off his own escape route. But by the time that happened he had gone, out through the ruined houses at the edge of the estate, Mahmud Paşa’s boyish harem. Vedat would have smiled if this had been the only association those tatty buildings had for him, but there was something else. Kaycee, too, had in a sense been in those houses . . .

  For that alone Vedat Sivas knew he would certainly burn in hell. But not yet. Death was still, he hoped, a long way off; he had time to enjoy the largesse of the high and mighty before the flames detached the flesh from the bones of his soul, like a virgin removing her nightgown. Forcing a smile, he looked around the private room that the maître d’ at the Malta Kiosk had prepared for them. Buying all this had been costly for Zhivkov – not so much the food as the silence of the maître d’ and a few significant others, the men and women the police had interviewed without learning a thing. Not that they really knew anything beyond the fact that Vedat had never really been missing. Billions would be on offer here tonight, but they would never know that, only a very few would ever know that.

  After briefly inspecting the cutlery and glass that adorned the long mahogany dining table, Vedat walked back outside again. Although it wasn’t yet evening there was a vague sense that the temperature might be about to drop a little. That would be a relief. Walking around in disguise took it out of a person, especially that huge, stifling hat. The only consolation was that he was better off than his brother. Everyone had to be better off than Hikmet. Vedat looked down at the honeycombed earth of Yıldız Palace beneath his feet and smiled.

  ‘I thought we were going to spend the evening together,’ Zelfa said as she watched her husband put on a clean, blue shirt. He’d finished showering some time ago and, as was his custom, had taken care to style his hair and inspect his clothes before dressing.

  ‘Yes, I’m sorry,’ he replied, ‘but I’ve got to go out.’

  Zelfa scowled. ‘Where?’

  ‘As I told you, it’s work,’ he responded calmly.

  ‘But you’re not back on duty until—’

  ‘I’m helping Çetin with something, Zelfa.’ He took his trousers off the end of the bed and put them on. He purposefully avoided her eyes as he did so.

  ‘So what is it?’ she asked. ‘This thing you’re helping Çetin İkmen with?’

  Mehmet zipped his trousers and then looked down at his wife who lay on top of the covers on their bed.

  ‘It’s not anything I can talk about, Zelfa,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Something dangerous then,’ she said petulantly.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Something mad then, knowing İkmen.’ Rapidly changing language into her native English, she added, ‘Boys out chasing the bad guys just for the craik.’


  ‘What?’

  ‘Oh, you’re like fucking kids, all of you!’ Zelfa exploded. ‘Guns and football, strutting about.’

  ‘Oh, so now I’m some sort of football thug, am I?’ Mehmet responded, as he wrestled with the fury he could feel welling up inside him. ‘First I was out chasing other women and now—’

  ‘I apologised to you for that!’ she shouted. ‘I said I was wrong!’

  ‘Yes.’ He snatched his keys and cigarettes off the table beside the bed. ‘You did. And I accepted your apology. I was very insulted that you would even entertain the idea that I could have an affair while you were having our son, but I did forgive you.’

  ‘Oh, do you have to make it sound like you’re doing me some great favour.’

  ‘Just leave it!’ He was shouting now. ‘Go no further, Zelfa! I’m going out.’

  ‘Mehmet!’

  Following precisely the pattern of behaviour she had exhibited when she’d discharged herself from hospital to come home and accuse Süleyman of infidelity, Zelfa suddenly came back to herself and started crying. This time, however, her husband didn’t go over to comfort her. He fastened his watch on his wrist and then placed various items in the pockets of his jacket.

  ‘Mehmet, I’m—’

  ‘Yes, I know you’re sorry, Zelfa,’ he said, in a tone that was more controlled than affectionate.

  ‘Well, I am, really!’ she sobbed. ‘It’s just that—’

  ‘I don’t know when I’ll be back,’ Mehmet said as he moved towards the bedroom door, still avoiding her eyes. ‘So don’t wait up.’

  ‘Mehmet!’

  ‘Goodbye.’

  He opened the door, stepped outside and then slammed it shut behind him.

  Zelfa’s cries became bitter, waking the tiny baby who had been sleeping in the small nursery next door.

  She wasn’t wealthy enough for gestures. Film stars, pouting Arabesks and pampered odalisques could throw away the jewellery their faithless lovers had given them, fling it out into the street like shit from an old-fashioned chamber pot. Some princess or other had even ground a great diamond her husband had given her to dust which she had then flung into his eyes, along with her sharp fingernails – or so it was said. Anyway, far from being faithless, her own lover had been too attentive, far too keen to know her, to see the woman beneath the skin – literally.

  Ayşe moved the jewellery away from her open bedroom window and replaced the items in their boxes. Just because she wanted nothing to do with Orhan Tepe ever again didn’t mean that she had to beggar herself. The pieces were lovely, valuable, she liked wearing them. Why shouldn’t she have them? After all, if money became tight, she could always sell the stuff.

  The mobile telephone in her pocket trilled and vibrated against her thigh. Painfully, for her back was far from healed and still quite raw in places, she reached down to retrieve it from the pocket of her trousers.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hello, Ayşe.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk to you, Orhan,’ she responded sharply.

  ‘Because you told our bedroom secrets to İkmen? I can understand that.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘But I forgive you for that and so you don’t have to worry, you know,’ he said.

  ‘Just leave me alone.’ She could hear the tremble in her voice, feel it as it shimmied its way down her arms and into her hands.

  ‘Oh, Ayşe.’

  Why was she so frightened? It wasn’t as if he was in the room with her, she had nothing to fear. There was just his voice at the end of the telephone, a voice that was so cool and normal, though she knew how strong he was, strong enough to beat and rip . . .

  ‘Get out of my life!’ she yelled and pushed the off button, then turned the whole thing off. As the liquid crystal display on the face of the phone dimmed to nothing, Ayşe threw it roughly onto her bed and looked away from it.

  But try as she might, she couldn’t stop her eyes being drawn back to it. Orhan had said that he would leave his wife for her. Perhaps he still meant to do what he had promised and make her a proper married woman.

  Stupid girl, she thought as she looked out of the window at one of her prim, headscarved neighbours hanging her washing out on her balcony. You’ll never be fat and contented like her. Orhan would always want you to be lithe and provocative, ever ready for sex. His own particular brand of sex . . .

  Quietly, lest Ali, who was still ignorant of her recent experiences, should hear her, Ayşe began to cry. She was on her own again now and that hurt far more than her physical wounds. Orhan, for all his beastliness, represented what might have been her last chance at marriage. She was so sick of being the spinster in her family. Her mother and father were uneducated peasants who believed that marriage was the most important and sacred thing in a woman’s life. She knew they suspected she had lost her virginity and believed that this was what was keeping her single. She couldn’t explain, because she feared their outrage, that she’d only let her first lover take her virginity because he’d promised to marry her if she did. She’d given him what he’d wanted in the same way she’d give in to Orhan. Orhan had wanted her in order to assert his superiority over Süleyman, at least in part. But unlike her first lover, Orhan, hadn’t dumped her when he’d achieved his objective. He called. He loved. But he’d almost beaten her senseless. She couldn’t tolerate that, not again!

  Weeping even harder now, Ayşe opened the small boxes containing the jewellery he had given her. She was going to be thirty very soon. Alone and thirty! It was horrible. Better women than her took beatings from their husbands all the time, Turkish peasant woman often suffered in return for a secure home. And Ayşe, for all her loose morals and pretensions to sophistication, was just a girl from a peasant family. She snatched up the mobile phone and switched it on again. She knew his number by heart and she punched it in as soon as the instrument was active. But he wasn’t answering, so she left a message.

  She didn’t want to burden him with her concerns. She’d been told many times that the case was as good as closed. Her daughter, a whore, had died a natural death whilst pleasuring several men. The confectioner hadn’t been enough for her, the dirty pig! But as quickly as Hürrem’s anger rose, it subsided again. Watching İkmen come out of his apartment, a small hug for Hulya on the threshold, she knew he wouldn’t be angry if she did just mention it . . .

  ‘Inspector?’

  He turned. ‘Mrs İpek.’

  Hürrem moved towards him, her head slightly bowed. ‘Inspector, I know it is a trouble, but . . . but Hatice . . .’

  ‘I know.’ His thin face eased slowly into a sad smile. ‘Her death is never far from my thoughts and I will, as I promised you, Mrs İpek, find out who defiled your daughter.’ He looked down at the litter-strewn floor and sighed. ‘But with so little assistance from my superiors, it will take time.’

  ‘I know! I know!’ Hürrem wrung her hands nervously in front of her chest.

  Impulsively İkmen reached out and lightly touched her elbow. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘you’re in the service, you know I can’t tell you anything until I’m certain about the information that I’ve gathered.’

  ‘I know.’ She moved her arm until it was no longer in contact with his hand. A decent widow lady.

  ‘But I promise you that I haven’t been idle.’

  ‘Oh, Inspector, I never—’

  ‘I’ve given you my word I will bring Hatice’s tormentors to justice and I will do that.’

  And then he left.

  Alone again in the hot, dark hallway, Hürrem İpek fought against the images that kept torturing her mind. Pictures of Hatice running in from school, her face flushed with the innocent joy of being home with her beloved mother and sister once again. Where was that little girl now?

  Chapter 22

  * * *

  It was an ideal evening for eating al fresco. Warm and still, the awful heat of the day had given way to the kind of evening that was perfect for a meal with one’s lover. He wo
uld be dressed in the lightest of summer suits, she wrapped in delicate white muslin; they would enjoy a meze with champagne which would be French because only the best would be appropriate.

  Silly thoughts! Süleyman smiled. His idle musing was beginning to remind him so much of his father it was frightening. But this place did tend to nudge one’s thoughts towards the hopelessly romantic. The Malta Kiosk, Yıldız Park, with its panoramic views of the distant Bosphorus, the elegant restaurant, echoing with Ottoman grandeur . . . Süleyman looked around at the numerous other diners on the restaurant veranda and wondered how they would react if they knew this was, in a sense, his home they were eating at. He also wondered how Vedat Sivas, that shadowy figure, just inside the entrance to the building, could be so calm in such a public place. He was, after all, in hiding from the police at the very least. But then he had other activities and people on his mind. People like Orhan Tepe who, observed by Süleyman from behind sunglasses and an open newspaper, had been ushered by Vedat into the depths of the building some time ago, together with a very smart, possibly foreign man, and Ali Müren. İkmen and İskender were somewhere in the thick foliage that smothered the hillside. İkmen had been surprised when Süleyman had used his mobile to tell him of Müren’s presence. Ali Müren was nothing, a cheap gangster in charge of a second-rate family – a thug. But still, he had connections. Through his sons he could be linked to the Hatice İpek case, which in turn had a tenuous connection to Vedat Sivas, via his brother, Hikmet. İkmen now believed Hikmet had been one of the Harem’s high-class customers. And so if Ali Müren was here with Vedat and a group of obviously wealthy men, it might mean this meeting had something to do with the Harem. It was all rather Byzantine though.

  Süleyman sipped his very expensive coffee and lit a cigarette. A young woman with straight black hair cut to look like an ancient Egyptian headdress smiled at him from the table opposite. The policeman returned the greeting and then he lowered his eyes behind his sunglasses. Zhivkov hadn’t made an appearance yet. Various men had arrived after Tepe and his new friends but Süleyman hadn’t recognised any of them. One had looked obviously foreign. He had spoken as he’d entered the kiosk, and Süleyman had caught the American-accented English. He and the foreigner who had entered with Tepe had both looked uncomfortable and tense. Neither of them had taken Vedat Sivas’s outstretched hand as he greeted them. Not like the Turks, assuming the dark-haired, Turkish-speaking men he had seen were in fact Turks. Eastern Europeans, as well as Georgians and Azerbaijanis, adapted quickly and soon learned to speak Turkish.