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  ‘I couldn’t help seeing you talking to my brother,’ the Armenian began.

  ‘Yes,’ Süleyman cut in quickly, ‘but not about . . .’

  ‘I realise that Krikor won’t have your results yet,’ Arto said, alluding to the second HIV test Süleyman had recently undergone at the hands of his addiction specialist brother.

  ‘No.’ Süleyman reached into his jacket pocket for his cigarettes and lit up. ‘Çetin told me that Jak Cohen has bought the young couple a house,’ he said, reverting to the lighter side of the İkmen/Cohen wedding once again.

  Arto shook his head slowly from side to side. ‘Yes. Amazing. In Fener and needing some work, I understand, which is why they’ll be living with Mr and Mrs Cohen for a while. But to give them a house! I don’t know what Jak Cohen does over in England but he must be very good at it.’

  ‘I think he works in the entertainment business in some capacity,’ Süleyman confided. ‘His brother isn’t exactly forthcoming on the subject, which I suppose could lead one to all sorts of rather unsavoury conclusions.’

  The Armenian laughed. ‘By which I take it you mean sex “work”.’

  ‘Maybe. But then if he runs strip or dancing clubs, so what? Such places are legal in Britain and so any money he earns from these pursuits would be “honest”.’

  ‘Nothing to disturb Çetin’s sleep then,’ Arto said.

  ‘We all know that Balthazar and his brothers can be a little morally selective, to say the least,’ Süleyman replied, ‘but I don’t believe that they’re bad people, and I’ve lived with them so I should know.’

  ‘Then all we can and should do is be happy for the young people.’

  ‘Yes,’ Süleyman agreed, ‘that is all we should do.’

  Hamdı Alan had been a police constable for only three years. Based at the small and really quite picturesque station on the waterfront at Anadolu Kavaḡı, he didn’t get to experience much beyond the odd disagreement between drunken fishermen. Luckily Hamdı, whose main preoccupation in life was to find a nice Muslim girl, marry her and have children, liked it like that. No trouble meant more time sitting quietly in the sunshine, reflecting, or not, upon the meaning of life. However, this new situation – he didn’t know what to call it yet – had already rattled his customary peace and thrown him rapidly into a world he neither knew nor wanted to know.

  The body had been discovered by an elderly woman who’d been up at Yoros grazing her small family of goats. Not so much shocked by the blood, most of which had soaked into the ground, as by the girl’s nakedness, she’d thrown her coat across the body in order to preserve the modesty of the deceased. Constable Fuat Ayla, who had offered, reluctantly, to accompany Hamdı up to the site, had pulled the coat away and then turned the body on to its back as soon as he arrived.

  ‘Obvious what happened,’ Ayla said as he stared down at the butchered body at his feet. ‘Killed herself.’

  ‘Yeah.’ She’d taken off all her clothes to do it and laid them very neatly in a pile at the edge of the clearing. She’d even put a lump of what looked like crystal on top to hold them down. Hamdı frowned. Something similar had, he was certain, occurred somewhere else in the greater city area . . .

  ‘Choosing to send her own soul to damnation.’ Ayla stuck a cigarette into his narrow, fat mouth and shook his head. ‘Can’t understand it.’

  ‘No.’ Although, good Muslim lad that he was, it wasn’t the dead girl’s soul that was exercising Hamdı’s mind at this precise moment.

  Ayla, his large almost womanly bottom wobbling as he walked, stomped over to the pile of clothes at the edge of the clearing.

  ‘All we can do is find out who she was, get a doctor to look at her, and then return her to her family,’ he said.

  And yet the way she had killed herself, if indeed that was what she had done, was so violent, so bizarre, and there was that other case, involving a boy, if Hamdı remembered correctly . . .

  ‘No,’ he said, holding his hand up to stop his colleague from disturbing the girl’s clothes, ‘no, I don’t think we should touch anything, Fuat.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Hamdı shrugged. He didn’t actually know why he felt so edgy about this suicide – Allah knew that he didn’t want the aggravation – but there was something just too weird about it all.

  ‘I think we should get help,’ Hamdı said after a pause. ‘I think we should get someone over here who knows what he’s doing.’

  The girl’s identity card stated that her name was Gülay Arat. She was seventeen. Sergeant İsak Çöktin held it up for his superior to see, but Süleyman just flicked his eyes up at it without comment. Over by the trees the two local cops, the old fat one and the young sleepy-looking one, stared down at the site, smoking in that silent, concentrated fashion so typical of those raised away from the bustle of the city.

  ‘I’ll need a doctor to look at her before I make any sort of judgement,’ Süleyman said as he rose, rather grey-faced Çöktin thought, to his feet, ‘but I think it’s the same as Cem Ataman.’

  Çöktin, unaware of what his out-of-town colleagues should and should not know, lowered his voice. ‘Stabbed herself through the heart.’

  ‘She or someone did.’ Süleyman took his mobile phone out of his pocket and searched through his directory for a particular number.

  ‘How could she do it?’ Çöktin said, shaking his head as he looked down at the blood-soaked corpse spread-eagled on the earth before him. ‘She’s only a little thing. You need to exert tremendous force to stab through the chest. What state of mind must she have been in?’

  Süleyman shrugged. ‘We’ll need to get a team up here as soon as possible,’ he said. ‘I just hope that our local friends there,’ he tipped his head in the direction of the two Anadolu Kavaḡı cops, ‘haven’t disturbed the site too much. The word as well as the concept of procedure is, more often than not, unknown to people like them.’

  ‘Right.’ Çöktin, who didn’t always share Süleyman’s views about the ignorance of ordinary folk – he was, after all, a working-class Kurd himself – did grudgingly have to concur in this case. The two locals, with their scruffy uniforms and slow, country ways, did appear to be less than well informed.

  ‘Ah, Dr Sarkissian . . .’ Süleyman said into his telephone, turning aside in order to gain some privacy as he did so.

  İsak Çöktin had attended the scene when Cem Ataman’s body had been discovered in Eyüp Cemetery. Slumped behind the tall, uninscribed gravestones of several Ottoman executioners, the eighteen-year-old’s torso had been folded over the arm carrying the knife that had taken his life away. And although his upper body was bare, he had been wearing trousers and underwear when he died. Cem, though not big, had been far larger and stronger than this tiny, naked girl.

  ‘The doctor’s coming straight way,’ Süleyman said as he replaced his mobile in his jacket pocket, ‘and I’ve called for a team to be dispatched. I’d like to find the weapon used.’

  ‘I thought the doctor didn’t work on Sundays,’ Çöktin said in reference to Arto Sarkissian’s nominal adherence to Christianity.

  ‘No, he’s on duty all day,’ Süleyman replied. ‘I’ve told him to rescind his order for the release of the Ataman boy’s body.’

  ‘That was suicide.’

  ‘I thought so, yes,’ Süleyman said as he moved away from the body and lit a cigarette, ‘and that may still be the case. But this has raised some doubts.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean that even taking into account the fact that this girl’s death could be a case of copycat suicide, I think that two incidents of this nature in such a short space of time necessitates our further involvement.’

  ‘Dr Sarkissian was certain that Cem Ataman took his own life. The boy left that note about—’

  ‘Yes, and I’m not saying that he was wrong.’ He beckoned Çöktin to come closer to him. ‘I’m not even saying that I suspect foul play, but as Inspector İkmen taught me many years ago,
two similar events could be the start of a pattern and violent patterns require our attention.’

  ‘So if young kids are killing themselves . . .’

  ‘We won’t be able to stop that, but if young people are being encouraged to do so, that we can try to prevent,’ Süleyman said, and then seeing the look of confusion on the younger man’s face he added, ‘I have read of instances, not in this country, where people have been encouraged to end their lives by others.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Sometimes a person is terminally ill and a friend or relative helps them to commit suicide.’

  ‘Yes, that I can understand,’ Çöktin commented.

  ‘But there are other instances,’ Süleyman continued, ‘where self-destruction is encouraged for more sinister reasons. For instance, some families may encourage an unstable but wealthy relative to end it all, and then there are the truly sick instances of people doing it because they get pleasure from it. And Cem, as we know, was interested in some pretty dark stuff.’

  ‘Yes,’ Çöktin frowned. ‘Mind you, sir, the method Cem used wasn’t reported in the press. So a copycat—’

  ‘Oh, I agree the possibility is remote. But maybe if this girl knew him and his family . . . But we’re very much in the dark at the moment, so keep your mind wide open.’

  ‘Inspector Süleyman?’

  He looked across at the younger of the two local officers and said, ‘Yes?’

  ‘Er, what’s happening? Should we move the body?’

  ‘No, no.’ Süleyman held up a staying hand. ‘No, I’ve asked for an investigation team and a pathologist to attend.’

  Constable Hamdı Alan’s eyes widened. ‘So, do you think she’s been murdered then, sir?’

  ‘I don’t know, Constable,’ Süleyman replied. ‘That is why I’ve requested expert help.’

  The two country policemen looked at each other with something between fear and excitement in their eyes. If it was murder then Anadolu Kavaḡı wasn’t going to be as quiet as usual, which would, they both knew, be a mixed blessing. More visitors, more money, more disputes to settle, many more sightseers, deranged murder ghouls they would have to try to keep away from Yoros.

  ‘Oh, and I’ll need to interview the person who discovered the body,’ Süleyman said before turning back once again to Çöktin. ‘Once the site has been secured you and I must contact this girl’s family.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  They both momentarily looked back at the naked corpse upon the ground. Although Süleyman at least had dealt with giving similar bad news to Cem Ataman’s parents, he didn’t know how he might do that in this case. After all, Cem, though young too, had been strong, male and dressed. Allah alone knew how little Gülay Arat had managed to summon up the strength to plunge a knife into her chest, if indeed she had done so. Also, she had been naked and so the possibility of sexual assault was not to be ruled out. Maybe she’d taken her life after she’d been assaulted; maybe her family were very traditional and she just couldn’t face telling them about what she had endured.

  ‘I also want to re-interview the Ataman family,’ Süleyman said as he put his cigarette out. ‘I want to see if there are any connections between them and this girl’s family.’

  Çöktin shrugged. ‘OK.’ And then he wondered what, if anything, new he might learn from Mr and Mrs Ataman. He, post mortem, knew Cem better than they ever had. Finding similarities where, on one side at least, only a void existed was going to be difficult. Çöktin lit up a cigarette and watched his boss climb away from the site up towards the old castle. Wanting, if only briefly, to be alone. He did it a lot now. The rumour mill back at the station had it that his wife, who Süleyman himself said was on holiday, had left him. If she had, she’d taken their infant son with her.

  Süleyman was sitting on the ground now, just below the castle, looking out across the startling blueness of the Bosphorus. Though still handsome, recent probably unintentional weight loss had made his features look sharper than before. In profile as he was now, he looked like a great, noble bird.

  CHAPTER 3

  The place seemed empty without her. Of course it wasn’t. As usual, there were numerous people in, out or resting in the İkmen apartment. There were three other daughters, for a start. But in spite of whoever else was about, Çetin İkmen missed Hulya. For weeks she’d dominated activity in the apartment, running around with swathes of white material and pretty but uncomfortable shoes under her arms. Phone calls to and from her groom, Berekiah, and his Uncle Jak in London had happened sometimes on an hourly basis. The place had been mad and, OK, if he were honest, really quite irritating too, right up until they’d all left for the ceremony. Had that happened just yesterday morning?

  İkmen put his head in his hands and tried to remember whether he’d taken his last dose of aspirin two or four hours previously.

  ‘How’s your hangover?’

  İkmen looked up into the amused eyes of his daughter Çiçek.

  ‘It’s a very good one, actually,’ he said as he moved across the settee to allow her to sit beside him. ‘Pounding head, churning stomach.’

  ‘Oh, all the symptoms,’ she smiled. ‘Maybe you should ask Sınan or Orhan to give you something for it.’

  İkmen took a cigarette out of his pocket and lit up. ‘Doctors, even if they are my sons, can’t help me with this,’ he said gravely. ‘The spice merchants in the Mısır Çarşısı can say what they like about their disgusting so-called remedies, no living being has ever developed a truly effective cure for a hangover. It is one of the great mysteries of life that Allah, in His wisdom, chooses to conceal from us.’

  ‘I don’t think Allah has a great deal to do with overindulgence in alcohol.’

  ‘No, He probably doesn’t,’ İkmen said. ‘If I believed in Him, I’d say a prayer and ask Him, but since I’m an atheist, I’ll have to just remain ignorant on that point.’

  He was always tetchy after drinking sessions these days. Time was when Çetin İkmen would happily throw vast amounts of brandy in particular down his throat with no thought for anything beyond the pleasure that drinking gave him. But ever since his numerous stomach ulcers had started giving him pain a few years previously, drinking had become something for which a price was always exacted.

  ‘You know that Berekiah let Hulya tread on his foot,’ Çiçek said, alluding to the old belief that whoever manages to tread on the other’s foot during the marriage registration will have the upper hand in the relationship.

  İkmen shrugged. ‘She’s my daughter and he’s a realist.’

  Çiçek reached down into her handbag and took out a cigarette. ‘Dad, do you think that Zelfa will ever go back to Mehmet?’

  İkmen, not at all happy to address the Süleymans’ marital relations, turned slightly away. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘It’s just that he looks so lost . . .’

  ‘Zelfa left for a reason, Çiçek.’

  ‘Which, of course, you know all about.’

  He turned to face her. Çiçek had always been very fond of Mehmet Süleyman, and he had no desire to undermine that fondness. But, given his colleague’s track record with women, not to mention his current possible health troubles, he didn’t want Çiçek getting any ideas about his elegant Ottoman friend. His daughter was, after all, nearly thirty, still unwed, beaten to the marriage register by her teenage sister. Çiçek was vulnerable.

  ‘What I know and don’t know about Mehmet is not your concern,’ İkmen said sternly. ‘That is his private business.’

  ‘I’m only trying to—’

  ‘I know exactly what you’re trying to do, or rather find out, Çiçek,’ İkmen continued. ‘I saw you talking to him yesterday. Your eyes were glued to his face.’

  Çiçek put her head down, just like she’d done when she was a little girl, caught out by her father in the pursuit of some prank or other.

  ‘Your hot sergeant couldn’t take her eyes off Mehmet either,’ an amused masculine voice put in. />
  Somehow, without either İkmen or Çiçek even noticing, the latter’s twenty-year-old brother, Bülent, had entered the room. Tall and skinny, he threw himself down on to one of the cushions on the floor and then proceeded to stuff pistachio nuts into his mouth.

  ‘I’d prefer it if you spoke more respectfully about Sergeant Farsakoğlu, Bülent.’

  ‘I’m only saying what I saw, Dad.’

  And, of course, the boy was right and, of course, İkmen knew it. His deputy, Ayşe Farsakoğlu, had once enjoyed a brief affair with his friend some years ago, prior to Süleyman’s current marriage. She’d never got over him. But then most of the women he seemed to come into contact with were like that. Not for the first time, İkmen wondered what it was that Mehmet Süleyman had that so fascinated and obsessed women of all ages and backgrounds. Bülent, young and also, famously within his family, tactless, offered up one theory for discussion.

  ‘Perhaps he’s some sort of sexual superstud . . .’

  ‘That’s enough!’ İkmen, his head now pounding more violently than it had been when he first woke up, rose to his feet. ‘If you can’t at least fake some respect for your elders—’

  ‘Dad, I was only joking! I like Mehmet!’

  İkmen, suddenly deflated, sighed. ‘Yes, we all do,’ he said as he looked down at the sad face of his daughter. ‘Some of us like him a lot. But he’s got a few problems at the moment and so perhaps it’s best if we don’t discuss him and his business at this time.’ He put his cigarette out in one of the ashtrays before muttering, ‘I feel really bad. I’m going back to bed. Got to be at the station in the morning.’

  He then left his now silent son and daughter and walked down the corridor towards his bedroom. Fatma, İkmen’s wife, made a brief appearance as he passed the bathroom, distracted from her cleaning activities by the need to harangue him once again about his drinking. But he ignored her, closing the bedroom door behind him with a bang. He threw himself down on his bed and shut his eyes. However, as soon as he did so, his neighbour, Mr Gören, ‘started’, his raised voice, together with that of his adversary, Mr Emin, dragging İkmen’s reluctant head back to full consciousness again.