A Chemical Prison # aka The Ottoman Cage Read online

  Arto turned the car off the main Divan Yolu thoroughfare just before the large parking area in front of the Sultan Ahmet Mosque and negotiated his way down the brightly lit side street. Although the tourist season was now officially at an end, small streets like this still continued to reverberate to the sound of music and laughter, usually that of men, within its little Mediterranean-style bars. Having parked the car as best he could given the fact that the pavements were crumbling and there were numerous bags of litter on the road, Arto walked across to an establishment which boasted many multi-coloured lights around its door. The smell of cheap cigarette smoke and the sound of wooden counters being bashed down on to the surfaces of tavla boards assailed his senses as he entered.

  Çetin İkmen, still marvellously unresplendent in last night’s dinner jacket, was sitting just inside the door nursing a glass of his favourite brandy. As the two men embraced in greeting somebody behind the bar put on a mournful arabesque tape; the miserable but sexy music of the great İbrahim Tatlisas.

  It was quite warm inside the bar, after the sharpness of the weather outside on the street, and so Arto had to wipe the steam off the lenses of his spectacles before settling down.

  Çetin smiled as he watched his friend and, when the waiter came over it was the policeman who ordered the doctor’s Coca-Cola – as ever knowing full well the mind of the other. It was only when the waiter had brought the drink that the conversation began.

  Arto opened the proceedings. ‘So you wanted to see me?’

  ‘Yes.’ Çetin lit a cigarette which, given the heap of butts that now resided in the ashtray, was definitely not his first. ‘I want to know what, if anything, you’ve found out about our victim.’

  Arto was used to rather global requests like this from his friend who had very little understanding of pathology. He smiled. ‘Well, he is, as I suspected, around twenty years old, and rather overweight, which is a little strange for a drug addict, but … Cause of death was asphyxiation, strangulation by cord or ligature. Where, or indeed if, his habit played any part in this, I don’t yet know. He was a long-term user with marks all over his body including the groin. I think we’re looking at someone who had been an addict since childhood. The toxicology tests are not yet completed, but I imagine that the narcotic involved was heroin.’ He frowned. ‘There’s also the fact that his limbs are somewhat atrophied.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean that his limbs show signs of lack of use. It’s a phenomenon that you sometimes see in people who are crippled or have been bed-bound for a considerable length of time.’

  ‘So what you’re saying is that he could have been in that room for a long period?’

  Arto Sarkissian took a sharp intake of breath. ‘That I don’t know. It’s possible. There are, however, no signs of his being forcibly tied to the bed or anything like that. And despite the atrophy he appears to have been quite normal – by that I mean not obviously crippled in any way.’

  ‘Interesting. Any sexual evidence?’

  Arto frowned. ‘Why?’

  ‘I’ll tell you in a minute.’

  ‘No. No signs of anal entry if that is what you mean. His penis was clean and, I should also add, uncircumcised, which would indicate to me that we are either dealing with a native Christian or a foreigner.’

  ‘Yes, that could fit.’

  His friend was being somewhat evasive. Çetin did this when he wanted others to question him about something, usually when he’d been rather clever about discovering a particular fact. Arto took a small sip from his glass and then did what was expected of him. ‘All right, Çetin, come on, what is it?’

  ‘The missing tenant of the house is, apparently, a Mr Zekiyan.’ He raised his eyebrows questioningly.

  Arto shrugged. ‘Well, the name is undoubtedly Armenian, but it isn’t one that I know.’ Then he added rather acidly, ‘We don’t all know each other, you know.’

  Çetin waved a dismissive hand. ‘No matter. But the uncircumcised state of the victim could possibly suggest a connection between the two.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But, and this is what really chills my blood about the whole affair, there is evidence which you have just underscored, to suggest that the boy may have been imprisoned in that room.’

  ‘You mean the windows?’

  ‘Yes, but also the door too. This morning, Suleyman discovered that the door to the apartment had quite recently been padlocked. We didn’t see it at first because the place from which the lock had been removed had been painted over. The paint was actually still damp to the touch. This indicates, I trust you will agree, that whoever did that did not want us to know that the door had at one time been locked. In addition, the landlord of the property told me that he had absolutely no knowledge of the apartment at the top of the house. According to Mr Azin, the landlord, the place should be just a plain storage area. This begs all sorts of questions about why Mr Zekiyan secretly constructed this area.’

  Arto put his hand up to his head and raked thoughtfully through what little was left of his hair. ‘Which is why the issue of sexual interference interested you so much.’

  ‘Yes. Although if there is no evidence to support that …’

  ‘No, there isn’t. Although we both know that there are many sexual acts which do not leave any visible signs.’ He took a sip from his glass and then looked up gravely. ‘So what are you doing to try and discover who this boy was?’

  Çetin shrugged. ‘The usual. I’ve circulated my initial rough description, plus I’ve got people searching through missing persons. I do fear, however, that the victim may have been from outside the city or even originally from abroad. So’ – he said it quickly and with what he hoped was a stunning smile – ‘I’m going to enlist the services of Mrs Taşkiran.’

  Arto suddenly wrinkled up his nose as if a bad smell had just assailed him. ‘Oh, God!’

  ‘It has to be done,’ his friend continued. ‘If we can circulate a portrait of the boy we are going to stand a much greater chance of obtaining a positive ID, particularly amongst those who can’t read Turkish.’

  ‘Yes, but …’

  ‘Look, Arto, I know that you don’t quite see eye to eye …’

  Arto leaned across the table and lowered his voice. ‘If she didn’t insist upon touching them I could just about cope, but she treats corpses as if they are live sitters. Talks to them, even laughs sometimes. I feel like a fucking mortician when she turns up. She’s fucking mad, if you ask me!’

  Çetin laughed. ‘She’s an artist, Arto! They’re all weird. But she is good, you have to admit, and if she gives us a decent likeness then we can start putting that about and, hopefully, get some answers.’

  The doctor, floored by this argument, leaned back in his seat again and grudgingly muttered his assent. His friend smiled.

  ‘It would also be helpful,’ he continued, ‘and I do really mean absolutely no disrespect here, Arto, if you could run the name Zekiyan by some of your—’

  ‘I’ll access the Armenian “network” if that is what you want, Çetin,’ the doctor replied, his face a taut mask of distaste, ‘if, of course, you will do something for me?’

  ‘Name it.’ Çetin raised his empty brandy glass up to one of the passing waiters and indicated that he would like another.

  ‘I’d like you to give your father the care he deserves.’ It was not said unpleasantly and, indeed, Çetin’s reaction to his friend’s request was not hostile in any way.

  ‘My father is perfectly all right where he is now,’ he said, smiling.

  But Arto was not to be put off that easily. ‘He’s very sick, Çetin. And I know that that is very hard for you but—’

  ‘He’s an old man who has rheumatoid arthritis, Arto, of course he’s sick.’

  The doctor maintained an awkward silence as the waiter placed the brandy in front of Çetin, but as soon as the man had gone he continued his offensive. ‘I’m not talking about his physical condition, Çetin, as well—’

  ‘Are you a member of my family?’ This time the policeman’s tone was unmistakably harsh as were his eyes which bored into those of his friend. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘No, but Halil—’

  ‘Oh, you’ve been talking to my brother, have you?’ Çetin leaned forward across the table and, in a move that was most certainly one of warning, wagged his finger underneath his friend’s nose. ‘Now, you listen to me, Arto, my brother may pay for me to care for our father, but his involvement ends there, do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘My family and I are perfectly happy to care for Timür for the rest of his natural life. And if my brother has a problem with that, he should come to me, don’t you think?’

  Someone behind the bar switched the İbrahim Tatlisas tape for Europop. It was a particularly inappropriate change of tempo. With some difficulty, Arto went on, ‘Yes, I agree. But, Çetin, you must understand that it is so difficult for people to talk to you about this. You will not or cannot acknowledge what is happening to Uncle Timür and I do understand that that is hard, but—’

  ‘Hard!’ The policeman laughed but without mirth and his eyes were shiny with unshed tears. ‘You have no conception, do you?’ He leaned forward still further so that the tip of his nose was almost touching Arto’s chin. ‘I don’t talk about it, doctor, because I can’t! And what is more I won’t! My brother may have all sorts of most laudable ideas about getting me some help with Timür, but while he lives under my roof he will remain as he always has been!’

  ‘But there are, I know, therapies and drugs that can alleviate behavioural—’

  ‘The old man may have lost his mind, but at least allow him the dignity of dying without fucking his brain even further with your fucking drugs!’ Çetin turned away quickly, pausing only to pick up his glass from which he now drank deeply.

  A moment of silence followed, during which Arto had a chance to reflect upon what had passed between them and, in part, to regret his words. At least Çetin had finally admitted his father had a problem, but he was now very angry and extremely upset – which wasn’t at all what his friend had wanted. Arto also realised, as he watched Çetin’s face as the latter wrestled with his tears, that it would be stupid to press the point any further.

  Arto took another sip from his drink before continuing along an entirely different track. ‘So you will organise Mrs Taşkiran to come in?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I suppose the sooner the better from your point of view.’

  Çetin turned back to half face Arto and, wiping his dampened eyes on the cuff of his jacket said, ‘Yes, if that’s all right with you.’

  ‘I’ve said so, haven’t I?’

  A small but perceptible smile passed briefly across Çetin’s lips. ‘Yes, and … and look, I’m sorry she’s such a weird old—’

  ‘I’ve watched people converse with the dead before,’ Arto said, smiling a little too, although in his case it was out of relief at the passing of what had been a most awkward moment. ‘Not many of them, admittedly, keep their pencils in the brim of their hat or wear army boots in the summer but then Mrs Taşkiran is nothing if not entertaining.’

  ‘True.’ Çetin took another sip of his drink before asking, rather sheepishly, ‘And with regard to the Armenian …’

  ‘I will ask around as I said that I would.’

  Çetin looked down at the floor as he spoke. ‘So you won’t put that condition …’

  His friend attempted to find Çetin’s downturned eyes with his own. ‘That wouldn’t be very professional of me, would it? And besides, whatever I may have said before, I don’t think that our friendship is about conditions, do you?’

  ‘No.’ Çetin looked up quickly and just as rapidly barked out what amounted to a get-out clause for his friend. ‘You just got frustrated, right?’

  ‘Yes.’ Arto smiled sadly. ‘Yes, that’s all, Çetin. I’ve had a long and tiring day and I just got frustrated. In fact we should both really start thinking about getting home to bed. It’s been a terrible twenty-four hours and I know that if I don’t get some rest soon I’ll be absolutely useless tomorrow.’

  Çetin flung what was left of his drink down the back of his throat and then growled appreciatively. ‘Yes. You’re quite right there.’

  Arto took out his wallet and threw enough money on to the table to cover their drinks plus a very healthy tip for the waiter. ‘And to celebrate our leaving this place, have your drinks on me – together, as ever, with my love and my esteem.’

  He said the last with, as was his custom, a slight note of amusement in his voice. Only Çetin would have known, and did know, that he meant every word he had said.

  Wordlessly, for there was nothing more to say, the two men embraced before going their separate ways. But just after Arto got into his car and fired up the engine, he happened to look back at the front of the Mosaic Bar. With some dismay, he noticed that Çetin İkmen was sneaking back inside.

  It is easier to be pragmatic about one’s dreams in the cold, grey light of a mid-October dawn than in the thick darkness of the small hours when they are actually happening. Although feeling quite calm and logical about it all now, the dream that Mehmet Suleyman had experienced in the middle of the night had caused him to wake, sweating and thrashing around in panic. Frankly, it was a miracle that he hadn’t woken Zuleika Suleyman, who lay beside him, one that he had been very thankful for. She would, he knew, have read all sorts of things into his dream had he been obliged to tell her about it, things to do with his feelings about entrapment, some of which would have been quite accurate.

  In the dream he had been in that apartment at the top of that house in İshak Paşa Caddesi. Some things had been different, because he was in dream country. For instance he had seen a wardrobe where there was in reality none and there had been a panel of vibrant blue İznik tiles across one of the walls. But apart from that it was the same, with the notable exception that he was alone in the room, sitting on that bed. Probably because in waking life Mehmet Suleyman was a very ordered, logical person, he knew that to panic in this situation would be pointless and so when he did finally rise from the bed, he moved around the room with a measured curiosity. As in life, the chest of drawers had numerous crystal figurines lined up across its surface, and when he walked over to the windows he found that they were indeed nailed shut as he had expected they would be.

  It was the door that was to change the character of the experience. Unlike the real door, in the dream it was closed which, at first, simply aroused his interest. Since he didn’t know what the door really looked like, when he approached it he found it quite blank and plain, unlike the rest of the ancient building. In addition, there was no handle. As he would have in real life, he tested the door with the palm of his hand to see whether it was spring operated. It wasn’t. He pushed it again, but still it didn’t give. It must be locked from the outside, but that was OK because there had to be colleagues beyond the door to open it for him should he ask. He opened his mouth to call to them and it was at that point the true nightmare began. Although he called and called, no sound came. He even, in an attempt to help his voice to emerge, pushed his hand down over his larynx to try to massage the damn thing into action. But it flatly refused to comply. He was quite dumb and perfectly alone in a room where someone had only just recently died. Weird and uncharacteristically superstitious feelings found fertile soil within the rising panic inside his mind. Then, just as if someone had either put out a light or closed the blinds across the windows, the room suddenly darkened.

  Frozen in front of that terrible, unyielding door, Suleyman hardly dared to breathe as day became night. Lightly at first, and then with more insistence, something touched him on the back of his neck. He was certain that the touch was someone’s fingers and, as they took a slightly stronger hold upon him, he remembered how the previous occupant of that room had died. It was then that, either by coincidence or via a supreme act of will, he came hurtling out of the dream and into the shaking, midnight reality of sweat and lingering fear.

  At first, as his mind absorbed the far less sinister reality of his bedroom, he simply lay on his back panting. It wasn’t and hadn’t been real; he was safe; it was all over. But as the minutes passed he realised further attempts at sleep would be futile. He decided to get up and make himself a glass of tea.

  The kitchen, although very tastefully fitted out, did not show any signs of recent use. Zuleika alone had been invited to the post-holiday meal and conversation session at her mother’s house. It was an event which summed up the current state of the Suleymans’ marriage. Not that his wife would have criticised him to her parents; she wasn’t like that, she loved him too much to do such a thing. The tragedy was that he could not, despite his very best efforts, reciprocate her affections. Not that his lack of love for her was her fault; it wasn’t even his. If there were any villains within the drama of this marriage it was their mothers, two very forceful women who were also sisters and who had many years previously decided that their children should marry. Had he been rather more forceful in his opposition to this arranged union it would not have happened, but then he, like his father, hated complications in his private life and had taken, as ever, the line of least resistance. As he turned on the heat underneath the kettle he could even recall how, just before the wedding, he had told his brother that he would, he felt, learn in time to love his cousin. He remembered how his brother had first laughed and then begged him to ‘run away, right now, Mehmet. Now before it is too late!’ But he hadn’t listened to anything other than the drumbeat of his own sense of stupid, aristocratic duty. And where, ultimately, had that got him? Where he was now – sleepless, disturbed and lacking the benefits of a recently home cooked meal.