Belshazzar's Daughter Read online

  “How is Arto Sarkissian?”

  Ikmen lit a cigarette and wordlessly passed it to his father. “Oh, same as ever. Fat, overworked … you know.”

  Timür smiled. His two sons had grown up with the Sarkissian children, Arto and Krikor. Every summer for fifteen years the two families had gone on holiday together. Wonderful holidays. There had been other benefits too. The Sarkissian boys had always been studious. Their diligence had rubbed off on Timür’s elder son, Halil, the accountant. Çetin, on the other hand …

  Timür stretched to the side and tapped Suleyman on the elbow. “Do you know Arto Sarkissian?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “A fine doctor. My son grew up with him. Inseparable, they were, as children.” He became gloomy and he showed it. “Pity he didn’t follow his example when it came to choosing a career!”

  “Timür!”

  Suleyman cleared his throat. He didn’t know what to say really. One could never be sure when the old man was joking and when he wasn’t. Cruel jest, it seemed to Suleyman, was the principal form of communication between this father and son. He didn’t begin to understand and had the feeling that he wasn’t really meant to either.

  Ikmen interrupted his sergeant’s musings by handing him the car keys once again. “Here, you drive him back. I’ll help you down the stairs with him and then I must get on!” He slipped his arms gently around his father’s waist and hauled him slowly to his feet. “Come on, Timür, time to go.”

  “Oh, wonderful!” said the old man, his voice dripping with what sounded very much like resentment. “Back to your lovely wife and beautiful children!”

  “You love it!”

  Suleyman followed the Ikmens out of the office and down toward the stairs. He watched the two men descend, locked in an embrace, both swearing loudly and copiously at each other.

  * * *

  He saw her, but she didn’t see him. The window, although only dimly and inadequately lit, threw back a yellow, glittering glow into the tiny cubby-hole shop behind. It was well stocked. Mr. Avedissian, her employer, made sure of that. The stock wasn’t just anything either. All was gold without exception and the workmanship was of the finest, from the tiniest signet ring right up to the great Egyptian-style collar that took center stage in the latest display. The patrons of Avedissian’s were, with few exceptions, wealthy and powerful. Only the best was good enough. Not surprising that this minute cupboard-like shop had attracted Robert’s attention all those months ago when he had been searching for some jewelery for his mother. Not for tourists, Avedissian’s; there was not even the slightest whiff of popular influence upon its glittering, high-class shelves. It had been just what he wanted, and so had the assistant who had served him. Just what he had, and still, wanted.

  He looked at her dark, delicately sculptured profile, her smooth skin lit and warmed by the soft iridescent gleam bouncing off the precious items around her. A princess in her treasury, bathing her beauty in the warm fires of great wealth. A thick black curl flopped forward onto her broad forehead. One long, perfectly manicured hand pushed it away, back over onto the crown of her head. The movement was lazy, sensual, typically her. She was arranging a display of rings, her face set, intent upon the task in hand. Absorbed, and yet he knew that at least part of her mind would be elsewhere. Maintaining that perfect profile, sustaining the most alluring stance possible, took concentration. A very high degree of self-absorption, self-love.

  He pushed the door open. Glowing colors assailed his eyes. Before he found Avedissian’s it had not occurred to him that gold could be so variable. White gold, cold and hard as silver; red gold, warm, fiery, sexual; yellow workaday, familiar gold; and then, most mysterious of all, green gold, unnatural to the eye, jealous, evil. Green gold was Natalia’s favorite.

  The bell above the door clanked rustily as he entered and she looked up. Enormous, round, brown eyes, ringed with black kohl, protected by lashes so thick they were almost feathers. Her mouth opened slightly, but she did not smile. He had not expected her to. He was a trespasser, poaching upon her time, the space in which she did “other things.” The unknown country of her life without him.

  “Hello.”

  “Hello,” she replied, her heavily accented English stiff, devoid of emotion. “What you do here, Robert?”

  “I came to see you.”

  Her face didn’t change. Beautiful, severe, a little nervous even, he thought. She put the ring display onto a shelf behind the counter.

  “I wondered if you wanted to come for a quick drink.”

  The ring display fastened to the shelf with a sharp click. She turned back and looked at him again, her neck held high, elongated and arrogant.

  “Is Tuesday.”

  As usual when faced with her displeasure, he fumbled his words clumsily. It irritated her, he knew. She hated him in apologetic, doormat mode, and yet what did she expect? Her eyes were ice, they offered no help or support to their lowly struggling victim.

  “Well, I was just, er, you know, passing, and … er, it’s very hot and I thought, um … Well, it’s, er…”

  “You come to spy on me.” It was direct rather than cruel. A statement made between friends rather than lovers. Consequently it wounded him heavily.

  “Er … No! No!”

  She walked over to the shop window and started switching off the display lights. The warm glow of precious metal dimmed as the life-giving illumination was withdrawn. She didn’t take her eyes from his face for a second.

  “I have other things I must do.”

  Robert remained silent, nervously holding his peace, his mind concentrating fully upon blocking out what the “other things” to which she was referring might be.

  “I am busy. I will see you Thursday.”

  She turned and slid one graceful hand into a drawer beneath the counter. There was the sound of keys jangling impatiently in her hands. Keys to the front door of the shop, his cue to leave. His dismissal until his appointed time returned once again. Bitterness rose in his throat, the taste of jealousy and suspicion. Emotions he knew could only be expressed at his peril.

  “I saw you in Balat yesterday.” His voice had an edge. The running, frightened figure thrust itself through the alleyways of his mind once more. Her face was blank, haughty and without movement. Suddenly, he felt foolish.

  The jangling stopped. She fisted her hand firmly around the keys and looked down at the Rolex upon her slim, tanned wrist. Robert hadn’t seen that watch before. It wasn’t one of his gifts. But then neither was the solitaire diamond that hung around her neck. He didn’t know where that came from either. Other things! The expression on her face had still not moved a millimeter.

  “I am here yesterday, all day.”

  “Mmm.”

  It was a weak and bad-tempered little reply on his part. It reflected how he felt. Diminished.

  “You don’t believe?”

  “I don’t know. I thought I saw you—”

  “You thought!” Her lips pulled back over her teeth in an ugly sneer. She might just as well have slapped him.

  Believe or not; it wasn’t really the issue anymore, not for Robert. He had upset her. He looked into her face. It quivered just a fraction, but the sneer remained static. He knew that look; he’d seen it before. It usually came just before she told him to get out of her life. She did that occasionally. Numerous and very elaborate presents had to follow in order to avert disaster now. Robert, not for the first time, wondered whether his bank account could bear it.

  “You think you see me in Balat yesterday?”

  “I thought…” His voice died in his throat. “He thought,” what the hell did that mean? What the fuck was the value of his thoughts anyway? His spirit seemed to die in his breast, turn its back, surrender.

  But unbelievably she turned her most beautiful smile full beam upon his face. The sudden change of expression robbed him of his breath.

  “OK,” she said brightly. “One quick drink. You tell me about it
.”

  He coughed. “Right.” His voice sounded husky, nervous, smoke-dried.

  She turned the rest of the shop lights off and locked the display cabinets. As they went through the front door, he turned and stole a furtive glance at her again. Her face was anxious and there were lines, deep and hard, from the corners of her mouth down to her chin.

  * * *

  The Sultan Pub, a peculiar mock-Tudor establishment opposite the Blue Mosque, was a strangely ideal place for a quiet talk. Its clientele, almost without exception Western European youth in transit, did not tend to linger. One or two stomach-churning local whiskies and then out was the usual form. The internal décor was pure Hollywood Salzburg: beams, cowbells, Alpine horns and pictures of blonde girls with plaits. Cool mountain streams and snow figured quite heavily too. The Southern Europeans’ insatiable hunger for the cold.

  Robert and Natalia sat down at the table affording the best view of the famous mosque and were quickly joined by the teenage waiter.

  After they had ordered their drinks they sat in silence for a while. Robert, at least, was not anxious to open conversation. The drinks arrived quickly and he took a generous gulp from his glass. Natalia, her glass untouched, gazed blankly out of the window, her eyes riveted to the graceful dome of the mosque.

  “I’m not accusing you of anything, you know.”

  She didn’t answer; she didn’t react in any way. Self-conscious, he took her hand. The waiter slouching arrogantly against the bar saw their hands join and smirked.

  “I’m just confused, that’s all. I was on my way home yesterday afternoon, not feeling a hundred percent, and suddenly there you are. I go to say ‘hello,’ greet you, and you’re gone!”

  “Was not me.” Her tone was flat, matter of fact. Her earlier smile had disappeared long ago. It irked him. Of course it had been her! Who else had a face like that?

  “Look, I know what I saw, Natalia. I’m not asking you to explain yourself. I just don’t like mysteries. Whatever you were there for is your own business, I just…” He paused. What he had to say was difficult. He couldn’t accuse her of lying, but he was finding her denial very hard to reconcile with his own experience. Whatever that was. “Look, it doesn’t matter why you were there, I just want to know if you were there. I need to know whether I was seeing things or not. It’s important—for me.”

  She started to sip her drink. Her face was grave, but still—defiantly, he felt—unmoved.

  He tried a slightly different tack. “I was afraid, when you didn’t acknowledge me, that perhaps I had upset or offended you in some way.” He pressed her hand gently in his. “You know how I feel about you. I couldn’t bear it if something that I did wrong came between us.”

  “I not you property.”

  Her stilted pronunciation irritated him. He had an urge to correct her. It was not the first time. Her foreign “otherness” frequently grated. She could use it as a weapon, an excuse not to understand or be properly understood.

  His voice had hardened. “It’s important.” He paused. “Look, I’m not saying for a second that you were involved, but there was a murder in Balat yesterday.” She put her glass back down upon the table with a thud. “I have, because I was in the area at the time, already been interviewed by the police.”

  He tried to look into her face, but she dropped her eyes.

  “Police?”

  “Yes.”

  Her features had shifted position slightly, thin lines surrounded her mouth once more, the same lines that had marred her face earlier when they left the shop.

  “The police came to the school this morning. They interviewed all of us. The scene of the murder’s only a few streets away. As it happened, I was in the area at about the right time. I gave them a statement.”

  She looked up, her eyelids snapping apart to reveal wide, deeply searching eyes. Her pale face, he fancied, was a shade whiter.

  “What do you say in the statement?”

  He lit a cigarette. “That I was in the area near to where the murder was committed at four-thirty yesterday and that I saw and heard nothing unusual. I saw a woman—”

  She jumped. “The one you think was me?”

  He paused. Now she was scared. He’d only seen her like this once before. In Balat. That same face. He shuddered. It was almost tempting to string her along, let her believe he’d told the police, see how she would react. But Robert knew that was not in his temperament. That was her trick.

  “No, I didn’t tell them about … you.” Her face relaxed, just a fraction, but enough for him to notice. “I couldn’t be a hundred percent certain it was you and if it wasn’t, I didn’t want to make unnecessary trouble. The woman I told them about was standing in a doorway, she was old, I doubt very much whether she could harm anybody.”

  “I could not hurt people!” She folded both her hands around his and gripped tightly. “I not there, Robert!”

  She wanted him to believe her, which was precisely why he couldn’t. He felt a sudden need to draw his hand away from her. He pulled his arm back sharply and her hands fell apart and rested limply on the top of the table. For the first time in their relationship he felt as if he was in control. He smelled her fear. It was an intoxicating experience.

  “I want to believe you, Natalia, but, quite frankly, it’s difficult. I can’t very well call my own eyes liars.” He paused. That had been a stupid thing to say and she, as well as he, must know it. But he had to go on. “I know we’ve been seeing each other for some time, but I still don’t really know you. I don’t even know where you live, for God’s sake!”

  She looked down at the table again. Her hands, resting on the white linen cloth, trembled very slightly. It was mention of the police that had first rattled her. Right up until then she had been her usual cool, haughty self. Of course she had been in Balat! He had seen her. Her repeated denials were ridiculous! Was what she had been doing there so terrible? He couldn’t believe it. If she had been unfaithful, he would forgive her—probably—she knew that. And why was she so alarmed by police involvement in a crime that had nothing to do with either of them? Or did it?

  He looked at her sad, down-turned face, her soft rounded shoulders. Oh God, but of course, that touch! The thin, wasted bone that had slipped through his fingers like an oiled fish. It didn’t make any sense. And why on earth would a beautiful young girl like Natalia murder some penniless old alkie? Robert inwardly chided himself. Now he really was wandering into the realms of fantasy!

  She raised her head, and, to his surprise, she smiled.

  “Look, Robert, I tell you the truth about Balat, I not there, but…” She shrugged helplessly, a little nervous laugh accompanying the gesture. “I understand what you say. We very close now and you know little of my life. Perhaps time to change that. You maybe come to my home, meet my family…”

  Her words caught him off guard. An invitation to her home was the last thing he had expected. It was quite obviously a ploy to distract him from the issue. Christ, it must have been her! And yet an invitation to her home …

  Greed, the kind of selfish, thoughtless longing that makes all lovers occasionally act against their better judgment, possessed him. Ever since he had realized that he was in love with Natalia, Robert had harbored secret and long-term ambitions for this relationship. The failure of his previous marriage had all but destroyed any confidence he may have had with women. To a certain extent Natalia, simply by not leaving him, had given him back some of that confidence. Although educated, Robert was simplistic in his thinking when it came to his personal life. He didn’t want to be single anymore. And if Natalia wasn’t the right woman, then who was? There was nobody else! Meeting her family was surely a significant step! So she’d slipped from grace a little in Balat? A tawdry but probably, to her, exciting liaison with one of the local toughs. It had to be that! Was he going to let something like that, a minor indiscretion, come between them? And yet if this assumption were correct, why was she so afraid of the police? He loo
ked at her perfect, smiling face. He couldn’t think why. There were lots of seemingly irrational things he didn’t understand about Turkey and the Turks. Perhaps it was one of those? Perhaps…?

  Although still tense, he smiled back. “When?”

  “Tomorrow evening, for a meal?”

  It seemed pointless to deny himself such an opportunity. For what tangible reason would he? “Yes.” He felt good again. “What time?”

  She spread a paper napkin out in front of her and took a pen from the pocket of her blouse. “At about seven?”

  “Fine.”

  She wrote slowly and carefully on the thin tissue paper. When she had finished she handed it to him. “My address.”

  He looked at the words on the paper. So she lived in Beyoğlu, the old diplomatic quarter, near Istiklal Caddesi, the Oxford Street of the East. Number 12, Karadeniz Sokak.

  She finished her drink and rose from her seat. She looked around—nervously, he thought.

  “I must go now, Robert. I have things I must do.”

  He was slightly disappointed, jealous even. “Things to do” again! But he hid his feelings behind a smile.

  She bent toward him as she passed and brushed her lips lightly against his cheek. Even after a year the merest touch of that thick, fleshy mouth excited him. It had explored every part of his body, kissed, nibbled, sucked. He raised his arm up to her as she passed and gently stroked her side with the back of his hand. “See you tomorrow.” He heard the heels of her shoes click-click against the cheap linoleum floor, then the loud clunk as she stepped down on to the pavement outside. He turned to look after her, but she had disappeared into the thick rush-hour crowds on the street. Robert picked up his drink and sipped thoughtfully. The strange events of the previous day had unexpectedly played into his hands. He smiled. Balat and its ghosts, the police, his own anxiety: he could file all these things away now. He was one step closer to possessing her. It was all that really mattered.