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

  Ikmen found his voice. “I wish someone would take my mind off it.” His shaking hand brought the bottle of brandy up to his lips.

  “Like I say,” the doctor continued, suddenly grave and devoid of his usual chirpy lightness, “I’ve never seen anything like this before. The acid was obviously used as an instrument of torture. The killer didn’t apply enough to consume or conceal the victim’s identity. I can’t really let myself think about the kind of agonies this poor old man went through before he died.”

  Ikmen wiped the top of the bottle with his sleeve and passed it silently to the doctor. He was going to have to be careful now. Looks, he knew from long hard experience, could be deceptive. He gazed up again at the swastika. Meyer was—had been—a Jew. A racist murder, on the face of it at least. Until he had more information at his disposal perhaps. But for now it was the only lead that he had to go on. It was awesome! So blatant! It was hard to believe that even they—Nazis, Hitlerphiles, whatever—would be quite so brazen. Such people existed, he knew. But now, at this vast distance in time? Unless it was a crank, a sick mind working alone, killing for thrills.

  “Do you think it’s anti-Semitic, Arto?”

  “Looks like it. The way the world is these days, it wouldn’t surprise me. Hate is endemic to the human race, I thought you knew that.”

  “But here?”

  “Why not? It’s happening all over Europe, Çetin. Germany, France; there’s even been a Mussolini revival in Italy. Communism, Fascism, it’s cyclic: Reds for a few years, then Nazis for a few more, then Reds again. It’s why neither of us gets involved in politics.”

  “Or religion.”

  “Or religion. We’re individualists and individualists don’t join. That way we don’t get sucked into ideologies that lead to things like this.” He tilted his head sourly in the direction of the body on the bed.

  Ikmen sighed. “I wonder why him, why Meyer in particular?”

  “That’s your job to find out,” the doctor replied, giving the policeman back his bottle, “unless of course you subscribe to the concept you Turks call ‘kismet.’”

  “That it was his fate? No, I don’t believe that. I don’t believe that anything this horrible could be … ordained, if you like.” He paused. “What’s Armenian thinking on it, Arto?”

  The little doctor’s many chins wobbled as he laughed. “What, kismet? I don’t think we have any thinking as such. We’re Armenians, hated infidels, outsiders, there’s never been enough time to philosophise. Too many people trying to kill us, just like the Jews in fact. Grab your wife’s jewelery, hope for the best, and run like the Devil’s on your tail!”

  Ikmen took one more look at the sheet-covered remains of Leonid Meyer and put his hand lightly on the doctor’s shoulder. Levity, even Arto’s well-meaning variety, was out of place here. It was like whistling in a cemetery. “Come on, Arto, let’s get out of here.”

  “All right.” The doctor rolled down his sleeves and picked up his attaché case from the rickety chair by the side of the bed. “There’s a body bag and transport on the way. If any relatives turn up you’ll have to tell them that I’ve got to do some more tests before I can release the body. It’ll be quite a long job.”

  The two men moved toward the door.

  “What about the woman who found the body?”

  “Leah Delmonte? I sent her to hospital. She was in deep shock. I’d give it a good twelve hours before you contact her, Çetin. And when you do, be gentle, OK? When she’s had enough, you stop.”

  “Of course.”

  Sarkissian looked almost tearful. “She’s an old prostitute, you know. Lot of them round here. But then that’s in the nature of poverty, isn’t it? The degradation of the self.”

  Ikmen often wondered what went on behind the merry eyes of his old childhood friend at times like this. He was always so cheerful, so light, so disrespectful. The Inspector knew it was simply Sarkissian’s way of coping. His humor was a breastplate shielding the softness of the heart within. “Come on, Arto,” he said, “you’re getting maudlin.” He strode purposefully out of the room and stopped by the door to speak briefly to Avcı. “All right, Constable?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good boy.” He patted him gently on the cheek with understanding. “We’re going to dust for prints now. I’ll send forensic up as soon as I get downstairs. Give the lads any help they need and try to keep the neighbors away, OK?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Ikmen turned to Sarkissian. “Ready, Arto?”

  They walked along the balcony toward the stairs. The Abrahams had disappeared back into their apartment now, but they could still be heard. The father weeping; the children, their voices angry, disgruntled by lack of sleep, each trying to find some small area of floor on which to rest their ill-nourished little bodies. Ikmen sighed deeply. What hope was there for such people?

  The two men descended the filthy stairwell.

  “I’ll let you have my report as soon as I can, Çetin.”

  “Good.” Ikmen lit a cigarette. “How is Maryam?”

  A small but discernible cloud passed across the Armenian’s features. “As ever. And Fatma?”

  “Staggeringly huge.”

  Sarkissian smiled. “And how is Timür? Still fighting Allah?”

  Ikmen laughed. His mirth echoed and bounced like a ball, up and down the gloomy stairwell. “Oh yes. Some things, and my father is one of them, never change.”

  “When he dies he’s either going to get a dreadful shock, or he’s going to be unbelievably smug for all eternity.”

  “I would think the latter, wouldn’t you?”

  Sarkissian grunted in agreement.

  They reached the bottom of the stairs and stepped out into the noise and glare that always seemed to surround police cars en masse. Sarkissian held out his hand and smiled. “I’m going to get down to the mortuary now. I want to have everything ready when they bring the body in.”

  Ikmen took his hand and smiled back. “See you later, Arto.”

  As Sarkissian left, Suleyman returned. He was looking pleased with himself. Ikmen turned aside and hailed a tall man leaning sullenly against the wall of the apartment building. “Demir!”

  The tall man straightened up and came to attention. “Yes, sir.”

  “You and your men can go up now. The doctor and I have finished.”

  “Right.”

  “Oh, and Demir?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “The usual. Anything of interest, papers, anything at all, back to the station.”

  “Right, sir.”

  Suleyman, now standing directly in front of his boss, was patiently waiting his turn.

  He had news.

  “All right, Suleyman, what have you got?”

  “A woman across the street, sir. A Mrs.…” He consulted his notebook. “Yahya. Said she saw a man, a stranger, hanging around the corner here at about four, four-thirty yesterday afternoon.”

  “Any description?”

  Suleyman smiled. “Quite good, actually, sir. Tall, about my height, very blond, fair-skinned. Could be Western European or Scandinavian. Apparently he was smoking a cigarette, just standing in the road.”

  Ikmen threw his cigarette butt onto the pavement and ground it out with his foot. “Well done, Suleyman. It might mean nothing at all, but get a statement anyway.”

  He looked up and across the road toward the dark, silent bulk of the Byzantine Kariye Museum. He thought back to his last trip to the site. Marvelous thirteenth-century mosaics: the Birth of Christ, the Death of the Virgin Mary; holy pictures glittering through the thin light of a late autumn afternoon. Fatma, outside, too pious to enter; the children running riot around the narthex and annoying the foreign tourists. The hundreds of foreign tourists, he recalled, even then, in October.

  Suleyman hadn’t moved. He was watching Ikmen. “I know what you’re thinking, sir, but it doesn’t apply.”

  “What?”

  “The Kariye was clo
sed. Been closed for weeks, sir. Emergency repair work.”

  Ikmen sighed. “Well, I suppose that cuts it down a bit. Any thoughts on why a foreigner might come here if the Museum’s closed?”

  Suleyman looked around at the district with undisguised distaste. “I can’t imagine, sir.” He turned and made his way back to the opposite apartment block.

  Ikmen took a large pull from his bottle and watched as two stout orderlies carried a blue body bag across the street and up the stairs. He was starting to feel weary. He leaned against the side of a waiting squad car and briefly closed his eyes, but Meyer’s burned and smashed face reared up in his mind and he snapped them open again.

  “Sir?” A short, very swarthy individual was standing at his elbow, his once-smart blue uniform hanging limply from his spare frame.

  “Yes, Cohen, what is it?”

  “Sir, I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation with Sergeant Suleyman…”

  “Yes?”

  Cohen shrugged. “Well, it’s just that I know this area. I was born here and one of my uncles still lives here. I just thought you’d like to know that there are some Europeans who work here, sir. Just a few streets away in Ayvansaray. The Londra Language School. Teaches English, French, stuff like that. Been there years.”

  Ikmen pursed his lips, thinking. “Mmm…”

  “Well, it’s a possibility, what with the Museum being closed. There’s no other reason for tall blond men to come down here. I mean, even the tarts are a bit—”

  Ikmen smiled. “Yes. Thank you, Cohen, very useful. Do you know where this place is?”

  “Oh yes, sir, I can take you there if you want.”

  Ikmen took another swig and lit another cigarette. “Perhaps tomorrow, if nothing better turns up. We’ll see what Sergeant Suleyman gets from this Yahya woman, see if anyone else saw this man. Could just have been some disappointed tourist who didn’t realize the Museum was closed.” Ikmen waved his constable off about his business.

  * * *

  Robert Cornelius didn’t like late starts. His first class began at eleven o’clock; two hours later than usual. Tuesdays! He hated them. What could you possibly do with two extra hours at the beginning of the day?

  But he recognized that he was particularly tetchy on this occasion. The events of the previous afternoon had unsettled him. A whole night of questioning and requestioning his own senses and memory had resulted in no firm conviction. Whom had he seen in Balat? He had seen Natalia. Well, he had seen her face. And that was the problem. If he had seen her face then why had she not acknowledged him? What was it about that fleeting touch that had so unnerved him? Why had she run away? Oh, she could be obtuse, even cruel at times. But it was just her way, her charm even. Didn’t he like women like that? Well, obviously! His own history bore his preferences out time and time again.

  He sighed heavily, sat down on one of the cheap plastic chairs on the balcony of his apartment and sipped his coffee. Of course this worrying and agonizing was pointless. He either asked Natalia what she had been doing in Balat, or he didn’t. He knew already he would choose the latter option. Ignorant bliss. Except that it wouldn’t be; he would worry, he would fantasize, he would look at her with jealous, suspicious eyes.

  Being in love with someone is not easy. In the early stages of a relationship there is a lot of uncertainty, a lot of nervous tension. Will your lover meet you? Will she phone? Is the attraction mutual or are you just a meal ticket? Unfortunately, even when the relationship matures, the problems do not go away. They take on new and, if one is not too careful, even more destructive forms. Familiarity can often breed suspicion.

  Robert had been seeing Natalia Gulcu for just over a year. Seven years his junior and dramatically beautiful in a dark, full-lipped way, she had stunned him at first sight. He had been buying a bracelet for his mother in the Gold Bazaar. Natalia was both the merchant’s assistant and his translator. She could speak two languages in addition to Turkish—brains as well as beauty. She had helped him a great deal on that occasion, his Turkish being quite ropy in those early days. She had persuaded him to purchase a gorgeous and expensive piece of jewelery and then she had teased herself into his bed. He had never had sex like it. He was hooked.

  To his surprise, this sensual creature wanted to continue their relationship. On her terms, but he didn’t mind. And, like it or not, that aspect at least was familiar. In a way it was comforting. As the months passed, lust became love and he showered her with presents to prove it. But this love of his was no easy taskmistress. In a whole year he had learned little about Natalia. Her family, her history, even the location of her home, they were all still mysteries to him. While he prattled merrily on about his friends, his parents, his brother, her personal details remained a closed book. He had to make do with vague hints and riddles. Some of her family members were Russian, hence her first name, but that was as far as he could get. And he didn’t push it.

  He also didn’t push the infrequency of their meetings. At least they were regular. Once at the weekend, and then again on Thursday afternoons, when they both worked short days. He wanted more, always had, right from the start, but that didn’t suit Natalia; she had other, unnamed things to do during the remainder of the week. So Robert was alone for most of his leisure time; alone, resentful and suspicious. That wasn’t unfamiliar ground either. And to make matters worse, he had to suffer all this in silence. She was dominant, unchallengeable, very like his ex-wife in that way. And, he felt, quite capable of walking out of his life without a thought should she be crossed. It was not a happy arrangement. But since when had that been a feature of his personal relationships? Sometimes Robert would even consider finishing the thing himself. But then they would have sex again and he would realize that he could no more live without her than he could fly.

  He put his empty cup down by his chair and lit a cigarette. It had crossed his mind that perhaps Natalia and her family lived in Balat, but that was absurd. It was a poor Jewish district and Natalia was neither of those things. She dripped jewelery in a manner that he found almost vulgar, dressing like the wife of a plutocrat, and a crucifix or two always adorned the long golden ropes around her neck. Unless, of course, she was married?

  With tremendous self-control Robert stopped his racing mind dead in its tracks. The “married” theory was not one that he would entertain. Whatever her reasons for behaving as she did, marriage could not be one of them, for no better reason than the fact that he refused to believe it. There was a limit, even to his paranoia and fretting—on the surface, anyway.

  He looked at his watch and decided that the time had come to make a move. He had a job to do; a thankless, largely pointless job, but gainful employment none the less. He would have to push away these thoughts about Natalia for the time being. He could once again rejoin his internal agonizing when school was over at five-thirty, when he was free from the rigors imposed upon him by uninterested students, greedy school directors and demoralized fellow teachers.

  Out on the street, Robert resumed his usual dreary daytime routine. On his way down to the Beşiktaş Iskele bus stop he bought a morning paper from the man outside the grocery shop and scanned the first two pages. He was proud of the way that, over the past two years, he had managed to master the Turkish language, with its endless suffixes and prefixes, not to mention the nightmare of vowel harmony. It had not been an easy task. But Robert had persisted. Being effectively deaf and dumb in most situations had irked him. Admittedly, with no close friends, and seeing Natalia only twice a week, he’d had plenty of time for study. But it was still an achievement.

  A small article at the bottom of page two caught his eye. The name Balat appeared in the title of the piece, so it was only natural he should notice it in view of recent events. But it wasn’t about Natalia. Why should it be? An old man had been battered to death in one of the seedier apartment blocks. There were no details, just that the police were investigating.

  He closed the paper, folded it in half
and continued on his way to the bus stop. The air was hot and dusty. The pollution left an acrid taste across his lips and in his mouth.

  * * *

  When he arrived at the Londra Language School, Robert found the place in a state of some confusion. The first thing he noticed was the police car parked in front of the entrance. Two rather disreputable-looking officers were sitting in the front, smoking and failing to answer their blaring radio. They ignored him as he passed and made his way toward his classroom. Typical police! he thought as he turned into the main entrance hall. It was then that he saw the students.

  There seemed to be hundreds of them. Leaning against walls, squatting on the floor, eating, smoking, an endless babble of loud chatter coming from their throats. Why the hell weren’t they in their classrooms?

  “Robert!” A fair woman of about fifty ran toward him from the direction of the toilets, waving.

  “Rosemary? What’s going on?”

  She came to a stop in front of him, breathing heavily. Her head was a good twelve inches below his own. She craned her face upward and back to see better, her features breaking into a mass of crinkles, bags and lines as she greeted him with a smile.

  “We’ve got the cops in, Robert.”

  “Yeah, I noticed the car outside. Why?”

  She took his arm and drew him conspiratorially away from the students. “They’re questioning the staff about our movements yesterday. I don’t know whether you’ve seen, but there was a report in the paper today about a murder in Balat. It’s to do with that.”

  “Why us?”

  Rosemary shrugged. “I couldn’t tell you. It’s only the male staff they want to interview. They’ve made camp, as it were, in the Director’s office. They’ve already seen Colin and I think Lindsay’s in there now.”

  “Is it just the Brits or are they seeing everyone?”