Arabesk Page 7

  'And also,' Fatma continued, 'you have to remember that Tansu, anyway, is not always helpless.'

  'Oh, I know that, 'Ìkmen blustered on a laugh. 'She's reputed to have the most volcanic temper, be totally selfish—'

  'No, I mean in her music,' Fatma said. 'There are some songs where the words are resentful rather than sad. They're often songs about her lover being stolen by another woman. They're really quite, well, I suppose you'd call them sort of tough.'

  'A bit masculine, you mean?'

  'No, her tone is much the same as in the others. But in songs like "I Want None of You" or "Hate Is My Only Friend" the words are very strong, very .. ‘ She thought hard to find the right words, 'very sort of bitter, I suppose you'd say.'

  'Expressing the collective frustrations of the lahmacun-eating classes?'

  'Those are your words, not mine,' she said as she rose and picked up her towel once again. 'Anyway, I have things to wash. I haven't got time to sit about with you. Oh, and you might have a word with Bulent whenever he decides to come in.'

  Ìkmen looked up and frowned.'Why?'

  'He's lost his job.'

  'At the Pudding Shop?' Ìkmen's face took on a thunderous look. 'Why this time?'

  'He turned up drunk,' Fatma said with more than a little edge to her voice. 'I think you should speak to him, don't you?'

  'I've never been drunk at work!' he roared as he followed Fatma's retreating figure with his eyes. 'I used to take a drink, but only what I could handle: I was never drunk! What was the boy thinking, I mean—'

  'He doesn't care, Çetin,' Fatma called out from the kitchen. 'As long as he's having fun he doesn't care.'

  'Well, I'll just have to make him care then, won't I? If he's wobbling around in public he could get arrested even!'

  'I think that may be the object of the exercise, actually.' Fatma put her head round the door of the kitchen and sighed. 'I mean, what better way to get back at you, eh?'

  'But why would he want to get back at me? Am I not a good father? Do I not listen to his ghastly adolescent ravings without complaint? Have I not always had a stable job in order to provide for my—'

  'I think that's the problem.'

  For a moment he just sat and stared at her, his mouth open and a little dry. 'You mean the job?'

  'Well, it's a bit sort of with the establishment, isn't it? He's young. It's what they do, Q!etin.'

  'Is it indeed?'

  'Yes, and you're going to have to be very calm when you tell him off or he'll do it all the more. I don't know how you're going to achieve this, Çetin, but you're going to have to be very "modern" indeed.'

  And then she was gone, leaving her husband even more desperate for a drink than he had been before.

  Although they gave the outward appearance of being devout Muslims, Deniz and Gulsum Ertürk were in fact obsessed with only one thing - sex. That they didn't realise this was a tribute both to their youth and to the fact that the twins had been raised with only scant education in that area. All they knew was that ever since they had seen Erol Urfa for the first time three years before, they had been in love. They'd been fourteen when Erol's plaintive tones had entered their lives and ever since that moment he had dominated their every waking moment.

  As much as they loved Erol, the sisters hated Tansu. One of their favourite games was to ascribe all her successes, both personal and professional, to witchcraft Deniz had once heard that some people in the far east of the country worshipped Shaitan and she had taken it into her head that Tansu might be one of them. These people, it was said, always avoided blue, a colour that Tansu with her shades of dramatic red, black and white seemed to shun.

  The death of Erol’s wife had, however, taken the twins to a new dimension. Now, as they sat silently looking at the stern inspector across the table from them, was their finest moment as fans of Erol Urfa.

  'We could stand it no longer, you see’ Gulsum said as she nervously twisted one edge of her chador between her fingers. 'Erol is special, he deserves so much better than just a peasant girl’

  'And so you killed her,' Suleyman said, noting the fine, cultured accent of the two young women. A lot of high-born girls had taken to the veil in recent years. In some cases it was a form of rebellion against Westernised, materialistic parents. But they still, he reflected with grim amusement, retained all of their prejudices against 'peasants'.

  'She was no good for him.. She didn't love him,' Deniz added as she leaned across her sister's chest

  'So how did you kill her then?' Suleyman asked.

  For just a few seconds the sisters exchanged a glance and then Deniz said, 'We poisoned her.' 'With?'

  'With the stuff that Resat uses to kill the rats,' Gulsum said, enthusiastically adding, 'It contains cyanide.'

  Suleyman frowned. Although the press had reported that Mrs Urfa had been poisoned, the substance involved had not been named. This could just be a coincidence, however. 'And who is Resat?'

  'He is our father's servant. He tends the garden. Rats come up from the water sometimes and so he kills them.' Deniz gave her sister a slow, sly smile. 'But we used it for another purpose.'

  'And the child.' Suleyman leaned forward the better to see into their sweetly deranged and identical eyes. 'What did you do with Erol Urfa's child?'

  Gulsum looked at Deniz and then stared blankly back at Suleyman. Then she tipped her head just lightly towards her sister and smiled.

  'The baby wasn't there,' Deniz said with the kind of direct confidence not popularly associated with the wearing of the veil. It was a confidence Suleyman recognised as one to which a person can only be born.

  'So how do you account for the baby going missing?'

  'How should we know?' Deniz replied haughtily. 'We only killed the peasant woman, we would never have hurt the baby.'

  'Not Erol’s,' her sister put in. 'He wrote "The Long Road to Your Heart" which means so much to me. He is a true and great artist and we would not even think of destroying such a genius's child.'

  'You do know’ Suleyman said, leaning back in his chair and then lighting a cigarette, 'that Mr Urfa is from peasant stock himself? Unlike you girls he has always had to work rather than spend his time musing upon impossible imaginary romances.'

  Gulsum, outraged, looked across at her sister.

  'How dare you speak like that to us!' Deniz blustered at Suleyman. 'We came here in good faith to confess to a crime and not only do we not get to see Erol to apologise to him but we are subjected to your rudeness too.'

  'We're not afraid of the police, you know,' Gulsum added. 'Our father knows three judges—'

  'And your father is where right now?'

  Gulsum looked down at the floor and murmured, 'He's with Mummy in New York.'

  'Leaving you two alone? I can't believe that,' Suleyman said, knowing that however virtuous a girl might be or however modern her parents, Turkish adults rarely left a woman's honour to chance.

  'Our brother Kemal takes care of us,' Deniz said sulkily and then waving her hand in front of her face she added, 'Do you have to smoke!'

  Suleyman replied with a face as straight as his back. 'Yes, I do. Now, I think that I should perhaps call Kemal before we go any further.'

  Deniz sniffed. 'He's at his work now.'

  'And anyway he won't come,' Gulsiim said. 'He finds us tiresome.'

  Suleyman could appreciate Kemal's point of view.

  'His opinion of you is immaterial.' Suleyman rose from his seat and then motioned forward the female officer who had been standing at the back of the room. 'You have admitted to a very serious crime about which you appear to have some knowledge.'

  'That's because we did it, you silly man!' Deniz said haughtily. 'And as soon as we see Erol we will tell him why and make him understand.'

  The female officer was now beside Suleyman. They exchanged a brief, knowing glance.

  'Well, I'm afraid that seeing Mr Urfa at this stage is out of the question,' Suleyman said gravely. 'Victims do n
ot usually see suspects until the case comes to trial.'

  'But—'

  'Officer Kavur here will take you down to the cells.'

  'The cells?' Deniz shrieked.

  'You will have to be detained, Miss Ertürk,' Suleymari said and inclined his head to Gulsiim. 'And your sister too. I must investigate your claims and see if they have substance. In the meantime, I cannot have you on the streets if you are indeed murderers. You must see that’

  'But can't we just see Erol for a little while when we're in the cells?' Gulsum pleaded. Officer Kavur placed one hand heavily upon her shoulder. 'Don't you dare touch me!'

  'Officer Kavur and myself may do what we like,' Suleyman said as he took Deniz gently by the arm. 'We may even use handcuffs if the need arises.'

  'But we're just—'

  'Young girls, yes,' he said, releasing his grip on Deniz and then smiling. 'And if you go quietly now with Officer Kavur and my constable outside, I will call your brother and perhaps then we will be able to sort this thing out.'

  'But Erol, can't we—'

  'Just go,' he said, as Kavur waved the two girls forward in front of her. 'Please.'

  As the door shut gently behind the policewoman and the girls, Suleyman sat back down. That the girls had named cyanide was spooky, but nothing else in their story fitted the facts. Suleyman put his head in his hands and wondered how many more such scenarios involving Erol's fans he would have to endure.

  Even though fully twelve hours had passed since the police had left her home, Semahat Temiz was still shaking with indignation. They had explained why they were removing three large sacks full of Cengiz's belongings but the careless way they had bundled them up was inexcusable. All his shoes had gone, plus his jackets and most of the contents of the washing basket. Some books and magazines had been taken too. Semahat knew nothing about these and said so to the police.

  On the plus side, however, was the fact that she trusted Sevan Avedykian implicitly. Kenan had originally protested that the lawyer's rates were extortionate. But as Semahat had told him, after she had engaged Avedykian, if you wanted the best, you had to pay for it. After all, not every lawyer would head straight for a police station as soon as a client was in custody. But Sevan Avedykian had. He'd got very little out of either the sergeant who had apprehended Cengiz or the man Semahat now thought of as 'the big boss', Commissioner Ardig. Avedykian had however seen Cengiz.

  "The main problem is that he won't speak,' he told the parents as the three of them entered the police station. After signing in at the reception desk, he went on, 'He won't either confirm or deny their accusations. It makes them,' he flicked his head at a small knot of uniformed officers, 'very suspicious.'

  'But if he's done nothing to be ashamed of then there is no need for speech,' Semahat protested.

  'I take it as given that Cengiz is innocent,' Avedykian said with a thin smile, 'but to be honest, madam, we must look at this logically. Both you and your husband were out, on the night of the murder, you sir, at the inonii Stadium watching the football. Cengiz was home alone and so the only evidence the police may rely upon with regard to his movements are his own testimony and forensic evidence. Nobody else in the apartments saw him that night—'

  'Well, precisely! And if that ghastly little impresario or whatever he is had not had that so-called conversation with my son then we would not be here now! You would have thought the ridiculous man would have realised that Cengiz is as he is and discounted his words.'

  'Mr Aksoy may well have done, but the police cannot.' Avedykian lit up a large Cuban cigar. 'The calculated use of cyanide in a sweet plus the clever timing of the event does however work in our favour.'

  'How?' Kenan, his eyes red from lack of sleep, temporarily rose from his stupor.

  'Well, Cengiz couldn't possibly have planned such a thing!' his wife exploded.

  'Unless his actions came about by chance,' the lawyer added, 'although what his motive might have been I cannot imagine. But we must wait now for the forensic evidence to be assessed and for the pathologist to finish his work.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'Well. . .' This was not easy. Avedykian knew that Kenan and Semahat Temiz never spoke of the time, twenty years before, when Cengiz had been arrested for exposing himself to a young girl. 'Although time and mode of death have been established, the pathologist must now look for other evidence - injuries, signs of, er, abuse, er.

  Painfully aware of what her lawyer was attempting to say, Semahat changed the subject. 'So who are we seeing now then, Mr Avedykian?'

  'Sergeant Çöktin is coming to meet us. He will ask you some questions you are not obliged to answer.'

  'Will we be able to see our son?' Kenan asked.

  Sevan Avedykian sighed. 'That I don't know,' he said.

  'I mean, they could have beaten him or anything,' Kenan went on, tears filling his eyes. 'You know how it can be.'

  Avedykian had opened his mouth to tactfully respond when a red-haired man appeared in front of them and said, 'I think you'll find your son is all right, sir.'

  'How can you be sure?'

  'Your son, Mr Temiz,' Çöktin said, 'is the responsibility of the investigating officer, Inspector Suleyman. If anything were to happen to Cengiz he would personally rip the offender apart.' He smiled.

  'He sounds,' Kenan remarked, 'like quite a violent man.'

  'He did have lovely manners,' his wife recalled, with just a tinge of affection.

  'If violent,' said Kenan drily.

  Çöktin smiled. 'The inspector is both the perfect gentleman and a very frightening person too.' With an evil grin he added, 'His kindness frightens me to death.'

  Avedykian sniffed a little contemptuously at all of this Suleyman talk. When Avram had been killed he had seen rather more of the haughty Ottoman than he liked. But he turned his mind away from that now, focusing his attention on the present. Though so much shorter than Cdktin, the lawyer looked down his nose at the officer and asked, 'So I take it we can now see Mr Temiz, Sergeant?'

  'Yes, Mr Avedykian.' With a sweeping gesture he pointed to a badly stained door at the end of the corridor. 'Shall we go, madam, sir, Mr Avedykian?'

  Chapter 5

  Ali Mardin had been very reluctant to discuss his friend Erol Urfa. As various groups of tall Australians either took or replaced their keys on the board behind Mardin's desk he responded to Suleyman's requests in monosyllables.

  'So, if you didn't watch the match or any other television, what did you do the night before last, Mr Mardin?'

  'Talked.' His accent, like Urfa's, was rough with country tones. 'About?'

  Mardin shrugged. 'This and that'

  Mardin was comfortably seated behind his desk but there was nowhere for Suleyman to sit, forcing him to shuffle restlessly from foot to foot The extreme heat of the summer was debilitating enough without this.

  'And were you alone, yourself and Erol Urfa?'

  'Yes.'

  'Are you sure?'

  Ali Mardin lifted his heavily lined, element-worn face to look at the policeman. He could be, Suleyman thought, anything from thirty to fifty-five years old. 'I am sure. I am not a madman.'

  Suleyman sighed and then wiped his wet brow with his handkerchief. Middays in August had to be the closet thing to hell. 'At what time did Erol Urfa leave your premises?'

  'In the morning when he went home.'

  'Did you see him go?'

  'No.' And then curling his Up into a sneer he said, 'What you want? That I should sleep with him?' He waved one hand dismissively to the side. 'I don't screw men.'

  'I didn't say that you did.'

  Mardin first burped and then grunted his grudging agreement. His lack of manners enraged an already unhappy Suleyman.

  'Well, Mr Mardin,' he said through now tightly clenched teeth, 'your contribution to this investigation has been so fascinating that I fear I will have to go now before I become totally entranced.'

  'Eh?'

  'So if you will j
ust allow me to look at your identity card I will be on my way.'

  A very strange moment followed during which Mardin appeared to become frozen both mentally and biologically. As the blood raced from his face, rendering his walnut-hued cheeks ashen grey, it was as if this very simple request of Suleyman's had temporarily robbed him of the will to exist.

  'Is there a problem?' Suleyman asked as he leaned, fascinated, across the desk towards Mardin. 'I do hope not.'

  Inside his jacket pocket, Suleyman's mobile made its presence felt He took it out and, turning aside from the traumatised Mardin, pressed the receive button.

  'Suleyman.'

  'Hello, Inspector,' Çöktin said. 'I thought I'd better let you know that Erol Urfa is going to be on television tonight.'

  'What?'

  'TRT are going to broadcast a plea by him for the safe return of his daughter.'

  Suleyman sighed deeply. 'I dislike these things, especially in view of the fact that we don't have any idea who we are dealing with in respect of the child. Have TRT approached the commissioner regarding involvement from ourselves?'

  'No. As I understand it they, or perhaps Mr Aksoy, want Erol to be filmed in a domestic setting, soft focus and that sort of thing. They intend to build a programme of sorts around the plea.'

  'We'll need to know what he intends to say,' Suleyman replied. 'Is he still at Aksoy's place?'

  'No. He's with Tansu Hanim at her house.'

  'I'll have to get out there to see him then.' Suleyman wiped his hand across his brow. Blast this interminable heat! 'How are Mr and Mrs Temiz?'

  Çöktin groaned. 'Hostile.'

  'No word from forensic?'

  'Not yet. Although a Mr Ertürk has returned your call. It was a bit garbled but it would seem that he's speaking at some sort of conference. He says, if this means anything to you, that you can keep "them" until he's finished.'

  Suleyman raised his eyes up to heaven in despair. 'I don't believe it!' He turned round to face Mardin who, once he became aware that Suleyman was watching him, started frantically to turn out the drawers in his desk.

  'So will you go out to see Mr Urfa then, sir?' 'Yes. Perhaps you'd like to contact forensic and inject a little urgency into their investigations.' 'OK.'