Petrified (27 page)

‘How?’ Incensed, his eyes blazing, Suleyman drew away from him. ‘How do you know that?’

İskender raised his eyes upwards as if looking for inspiration from above. ‘Oh, Mehmet, please,’ he said wearily, ‘every time you’ve seen her you’ve been like a teenager. You were in that room with her for a very long time.’

‘I was . . .’

‘Oh, don’t keep on lying to me, Mehmet!’ He moved away quickly and then threw himself down on to one of the large, gaudy settees. ‘I’m not going to tell anyone!’ Noting that his colleague hadn’t moved out of his outraged pose, İskender leaned forward. ‘The fact is, Mehmet, that if we want to make some sort of progress with the Eastern European mobs using what we know from Rostov we have to be careful. We can’t just go tearing into people’s houses looking for bodies and anything else we hope we might find using only Rostov as a lever. For a start Rostov could be lying. This Dr Keyder of yours wasn’t very forthcoming with any actual names, was she? But then even if it is all true, so what? If we only find bodies and the mobsters can verify who the deceased once were, they’ll just be taken away for burial. Unless we find drugs or arms, Malenkov and co. will be back on the streets very quickly. And they’ll be angry and they may go looking for Rostov. If they do we’ve got a war. Think about it,’ he said gravely, ‘you know what the Russians are like. Do you want to have shoot-outs in the streets of Beyoǧlu?’

‘No.’ Suleyman, temporarily deflated, looked down at the floor. ‘But why would Rostov lie?’

‘To buy a bit more time for Tatiana?’ İskender shrugged. ‘Maybe he thought he could prevail upon this embalmer woman to get on with the job while we looked into the activities of his friends. Who knows? That he’s still got her dead body is beyond me.’

Suleyman moved forward and sat down. ‘So how do we proceed?’

‘You’ve spoken to Ardiç about what happened at the embalmers?’

‘Yes.’

İskender took a cigarette out of his pocket and lit up. ‘We’ll wait and see what he decides,’ he said. ‘If he thinks this dead body angle is worth pursing I guess we’ll go in. But he has to be considering the fact that Rostov’s “friends” must know we’ve been here. If they put that together with our appearance at their houses and Rostov’s boys are on the street . . .’

‘Yes, I know. I know.’ He sighed.

Suleyman’s mobile phone started to ring. He took it out of his pocket and placed it against his ear.

‘Suleyman.’

‘Inspector.’ The voice was female and familiar. ‘It’s Sergeant Farsakoǧlu,’ she said. ‘Are you free to talk, sir?’

‘Yes.’

She was very formal, considering that they had once, if briefly, been lovers. But that was as it should be and Suleyman was pleased that she had at last accepted the situation.

‘Sir, I have a message from Inspector İkmen,’ she said. ‘Unfortunately one of his relatives has been taken ill and he’s had to go over to the Taksim State Hospital.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ This probably meant that his brother-in-law, Talaat, had taken a turn for the worse.

‘İnşallah the inspector’s relative will recover.’

‘İnşallah.’

‘But in the meantime, sir,’ she continued, ‘Inspector İkmen has asked, if you can, if you would meet him at the Taksim.’

Suleyman frowned. ‘Why?’

‘You contacted him earlier, about Mrs Akdeniz, Melih Akdeniz’s wife . . .’

‘Yes.’

‘Inspector İkmen needs to talk to you about that, sir. Urgently. He feels there might be some sort of connection between his case and what you were doing out at Sarıyer.’

Suleyman looked at his watch, more out of habit than necessity. Until Ardiç made some sort of decision with regard to Rostov and his countrymen, he wasn’t exactly needed anywhere. His appointment with Dr Krikor Sarkissian, something he didn’t in any way relish, wasn’t until 6 p.m. It was now two thirty.

‘All right, Sergeant,’ he said, ‘I’ll get over there as soon as I can.’

‘Yes, sir. I’ll get a message to him to let him know you’re coming.’

‘Thank you, Sergeant.’

They both cut the connection at the same time. Suleyman still frowning, put his phone back in his pocket. Metin İskender, who had only been privy to one side of the call, gave his colleague a quizzical look.

‘Çetin İkmen wants to talk to me about some connection he might have made between his missing children case and Dr Keyder,’ he said as he made his way towards the door of the salon. ‘The children’s mother, Mrs Akdeniz, was over at Dr Keyder’s yalı this morning.’

‘What was she doing with an embalmer?’ İskender asked.

‘I have no idea,’ Suleyman replied, ‘which is why I’m going to see İkmen now. I’ll keep you informed.’

‘Please do.’

Suleyman left. Alone in Rostov’s vast and tasteless salon, İskender found his thoughts, wandering back to that evening he had spent in that pavyon, watching Mehmet Suleyman through a thick carpet of smoke, alcohol and cheap females – looking at the other man looking at Masha. She had, even he had to admit, been stunning in an obvious sort of way. Ripe and tempting . . . She had, they knew, worked for Rostov – all that stuff about Vladimir, one of Rostov’s boys . . .

Mehmet was probably right when he asserted that Rostov had killed Masha. If, as they suspected, he’d used her to draw the police into what had in truth almost become a public relations nightmare, then it had to make sense to get rid of her. It had really been fortuitous for the police when Suleyman discovered Tatiana’s body in the freezer. If, indeed, it were fortuitous . . .

İskender frowned. To follow Rostov and enter his house had been a police decision – one that Rostov could not possibly have influenced. But then, given that Masha’s status as an informant was so obviously suspect, it was a logical, even a predictable, move. And when Suleyman did arrive he found nothing beyond Tatiana. When you broke it down like this . . .

İskender sat down and then looked at the floor beneath his feet. Below in the kitchen was Rostov’s daughter – or was she? As yet, no tests had been performed on the corpse; she hadn’t even been seen by Dr Sarkissian. She could, in theory at least, be almost anyone. But why then did Rostov guard her so jealously? No, that didn’t make sense. It didn’t make sense but it did keep on representing itself in his mind. There was something else, about Tatiana, about the cleanliness of this house, something that failed to add up – something that İskender was not yet, to his frustration, able to see.

At three o’clock that afternoon, Eren Akdeniz arrived back at the great ochre house in Balat. As soon as she was in, Melih locked the back gates and closed all of the curtains at the windows. Effectively blinded with regard to activities inside the artist’s house, Ayşe Farsakoǧlu, now partnered with Hikmet Yıldız, and now ostensibly protecting the Akdeniz family, leaned back in her seat and lit a cigarette. Even with all the windows open, the inside of the car was unbearably hot and she was uncomfortably aware of the pace of her own pulse every time she moved.

The young constable, whose face still bore fresh and livid scars from Rostov’s attack upon him, looked across at her a little nervously before he lit up a cigarette of his own. Perhaps he thought she might disapprove of his smoking in her presence. But then he didn’t say a lot and so it was difficult to tell. Yıldız came, Ayşe understood, from one of the tower-block apartments near the airport. Not the most salubrious part of town – his parents were, in all likelihood, originally from the country. Maybe, she thought, his mother discourages him from associating with women.

‘You’re the beautiful girl with İkmen, aren’t you?’

The depth and huskiness of the voice made Ayşe think, at first, that it had to belong to a man. However, the smiling face that had thrust itself into the open window was definitely female. It was also, Farsakoǧlu noticed, extremely voluptuous and exotic.

‘My name is Gonca,’ the woman continued. ‘I have met with Çetin Bey, he knows me. I’m an artist.’

‘Oh.’

‘I, like most of the district,’ she said wryly, ‘have noticed you and your very cute companion watching the Akdeniz house. Melih is exhibiting his work tonight. Are you going?’

Yıldız, in response to her words, blushed.

She was very direct – it wasn’t something Ayşe Farsakoǧlu was accustomed to or, in fact, that she liked.

‘I am not at liberty to say,’ she responded haughtily.

Gonca shrugged. ‘Suit yourself,’ she said lightly, ‘but I think it will be worth a visit. His work, if you know how to look at it, always shines with magical energy. He’s invited me and I’m going.’ She smiled. ‘But then I would.’

‘Oh?’

‘Melih Bey and I are old friends,’ the gypsy continued. ‘We do things for each other, you know . . .’

‘I understand it’s performance art, based on Karagöz,’ Ayşe said.

‘Yeah. Shadow play with a contemporary theme.’

‘What theme?’

‘I don’t know,’ she smiled. ‘Just because Melih and I occasionally pleasure one another doesn’t mean that he tells me anything about his professional plans. Artists don’t.’

Now red to the hairline, Hikmet Yıldız cleared his throat in an obviously nervous fashion.

Gonca laughed. ‘Has this old gypsy embarrassed you, little one?’ she said, oozing sexuality as she did so.

‘Er . . .’

‘That poor little boy needs taking in hand,’ Gonca said to Farsakoǧlu, ‘in my opinion.’

‘Yes, well . . .’ Ayşe too cleared her throat nervously. This gypsy was a little too rich for her blood. What on earth would İkmen have made of such a person? Probably had a good laugh with her. ‘Do you know anything else about this performance, Miss . . . ?’

‘Gonca. Just Gonca.’ She pushed a thick lump of unruly black hair away from her face and said, ‘Not much. I know he’s been working in camel skin, which is the traditional material used for Karagöz puppets. I know he’s been making costumes for them, something using designer labels. But then if you’re going tonight . . .’

‘If I’m going.’

‘All will become clear, won’t it?’ Gonca said, and with that she started to move away from the car, her jewel-covered hips swaying as she moved.

‘Er . . .’ Ayşe Farsakoǧlu, confused about why the gypsy had approached her, opened the car door and got out. ‘Did you want something?’

Gonca turned, looking provocatively over one shoulder, ‘No,’ she said smiling, ‘only to say that if you see Çetin Bey you might like to tell him that I think the answer to the puzzle he has been trying to solve is at hand.’

‘What puzzle?’ Ayşe replied.

‘The one about the two little children,’ Gonca said, ‘Melih’s kids.’

‘Yes, but how—’

‘You can tell him that I know because I had a dream. Their torment is about to conclude. He will understand,’ the gypsy said, and then, with one last pout at Yıldız she started to make her way down the steep stone steps that led to lower Balat.

Ayşe, her head shaking in disbelief, got back into the car. Just in time, Hikmet Yıldız turned his head away from the retreating gypsy and towards his superior.

‘She’s a bit . . . full on,’ he said. ‘A bit . . .’

‘Anyone known to Inspector İkmen on that . . . that sort of witchcraft level, which is where I would place her, is odd,’ Ayşe said with a sigh. ‘Dreams, magic. Allah! But Çetin Bey will take her seriously. Modern police force but we still use soothsayers.’

‘My mum always says that it’s dangerous to ignore all the old what she calls countryside ways,’ Yıldız replied in a rare moment of disclosure. ‘She says that Allah in His great wisdom makes only those who can deal with such things aware of these mysteries.’

‘Oh?’ Ayşe, who was a woman who, though very respectful of İkmen and his ilk, was a very ‘earthbound’ person, raised a sceptical eyebrow. ‘And what does your mother have to say about rapacious middle-aged women with an eye for young men?’

Yıldız blushed again. Ayşe, in order to hide the smile that was spreading across her face, looked away. She would tell İkmen about the encounter with the gypsy as soon as she could. He laid great store by such things and she, in spite of herself, felt that what Gonca had said was important.

C
HAPTER
17

İkmen was, as Suleyman had suspected he would be, lurking disreputably outside the hospital entrance. Like Suleyman himself, being in hospitals tended to make the older man feel nervous. Not helped by the fact that smoking was now frowned upon inside.

After the two men had embraced, Suleyman said, ‘How is Talaat?’

İkmen sighed. ‘He was restless last night, with the pain,’ he said wearily, ‘but this morning, after I’d left for work, it became uncontrollable. Fatma called an ambulance.’

‘She’s inside?’

‘Yes.’ İkmen lit a new cigarette from the butt of the one he’d just finished. ‘They’re trying to get the pain under control now. It’s like a nightmare in there, but she won’t leave him.’

‘Is anybody with her?’

‘Çiçek was visiting this morning and so she’s come along,’ he said naming his eldest daughter, who worked as an air hostess. ‘You know these women are far tougher than we are, Mehmet. I was in there, Talaat screaming, I was beside myself. But Fatma? She just held on to him, speaking softly into his ears while my daughter very calmly bathed his forehead. Doctors everywhere with monitors, plunging hypodermics into Talaat’s arms. But then I don’t have to tell you about tough women, do I? You have Zelfa.’

‘Yes.’ Not that he wanted to discuss his wife, his
betrayed
wife now. Suleyman changed the subject. ‘Ayşe Farsakoǧlu said that you wanted to see me about my involvement with Dr Keyder.’

‘The embalmer. Yes. Did you find out why Mrs Akdeniz went to see her?’

Suleyman lit a cigarette before replying. ‘Dr Keyder told me that Mrs Akdeniz’s visit was about art rather than embalming,’ he said. ‘The doctor is a great admirer of Melih Akdeniz’s work and has a considerable collection of his art. It was something to do with that, I understand.’