A Passion for Killing (21 page)

‘Mrs Melly, I’ve just been to your house where your husband told me you were out shopping.’

‘Did he?’ She moved further into the living room and then said, ‘Well, he was lying.’

‘I gather from Mrs Monroe—’

‘I’ve left Peter,’ she interrupted baldly. ‘I’m going to stay with Kim and Mark until the consulate get my passport organised. That’s where I’ve just been, to the consulate.’

Frowning, İkmen said, ‘What do you mean, “get your passport organised”?’

In light of what Ayşe had told him about a Matilda Melly travelling to Bulgaria on the seventh of the month this was, İkmen felt, about to prove interesting.

‘I’ve lost my passport,’ Matilda Melly said.

‘When?’

She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Peter and I had a row early this morning. I won’t bore you with the details, but suffice it to say that I decided I’d had enough. I went upstairs to pack my things and it was then that I discovered I couldn’t find my passport. As soon as I got here I phoned the consulate, who asked me to come in immediately. I’ve been there all day.’

‘So when did you last see your passport, Mrs Melly?’

She looked behind him to where Kim Monroe was now standing in the patio doorway. ‘What?’

‘When did you last see your passport?’ İkmen reiterated.

Matilda Melly pulled her chin backwards and suddenly looked very, very plain once again. ‘Why? I’ve told my consulate. What is it to you?’

‘There is a very lively trade in stolen European Union passports through this city, Mrs Melly. As a police officer I am bound to investigate any such passport that appears to be missing.’

‘It hasn’t been stolen,’ Matilda Melly said now with one of her smiles again.

‘Hasn’t it?’

‘No. I’ve misplaced it. I hadn’t seen it for weeks. I’m careless, it—’

‘Mrs Melly, a person as yet unknown entered Sofia in Bulgaria on a British passport in the name of Matilda Melly on the seventh of this month. The age given on the passport was the same as your own and this person has, since arriving in Bulgaria, apparently disappeared.’

‘What?’ She sat down on one of the Monroes’ sofas where she was quickly joined by her friend Kim.

‘Mrs Melly,’ İkmen said, ‘I have a lot of questions I must ask you. I think it might be better if you accompany me to the station.’

Instantly, and in a high-pitched girlish way, she began to cry.

Mehmet Süleyman tucked the top of the really very small peştamal around the edge of his underpants and then looked at himself in the full-length mirror at the far end of the men’s changing room. Apart from the colourful checked cloth around his hips he looked very white. He was also, he noticed now for the first time, going just slightly grey across his chest. But this was not the time for either vanity or self-doubt. Mürsel was waiting for him in the hararet where, he had told him earlier, he would give the tired policeman one of his very efficient, as he had put it, massages. What this actually meant, Süleyman tried not to speculate upon. It was, in common with the mystery of who exactly was operating the boiler that provided the steam for the reportedly closed hamam, something that was as yet concealed from him. After slipping a pair of enormous takunya clogs on his feet he made his way unsteadily towards first the soğukluk, the cooling down room and then into the hot and steamy hararet.

A hamam or Turkish bath generally had four main areas: the camekan or reception area where tired bathers could lie down, drink tea and smoke cigarettes, the changing rooms, the soğukluk or cool room, and, at the centre of the building, the red-hot hararet. The hararet was nearly always covered with marble and was frequently a domed area with light filtering down through the thick steam from small star-shaped windows. At the centre of the hararet was a great marble slab known as the göbektaşı or navel stone. It was here that massages were given by trained masseurs to tired and aching customers. Not that a trained masseur was in the Saray Hamam on this particular evening. It was just Mürsel, dressed in the same short peştamal as Mehmet Süleyman, sitting on the slab, staring into the thickening steam around his ankles.

‘Ah, my customer,’ he said as he watched the policeman clack his way shakily towards him. Takunya clogs were one of those inventions that defy logic in that they were completely insufficient to their purpose. One false move on a pair of takunya in a wet and slippery hamam and one could only too easily fall over and break an arm or crack one’s head.

The göbektaşı was hot and so Süleyman sat down with care. The boiler must have been started hours before.

‘I used to give Haydar a massage from time to time,’ Mürsel said with a sad smile on his face. ‘Sometimes we were far from what you would call civilisation.’

‘Did you and Haydar . . . Have you worked abroad?’ Süleyman watched Mürsel watch a large drip of sweat run down the entire length of his face.

Neither the smile nor the look of hungry sexuality moved. ‘That isn’t your business,’ he said. And then with a rapidity that was truly breathtaking he darted forward and crushed his lips against Süleyman’s mouth. It became a long, and terrifying open-mouthed kiss. If he were honest, Süleyman’s terror was not about the fact that Mürsel was a man; Süleyman knew, if with considerable guilt, that he experienced sexual feelings for other men from time to time. No, it was the all-encompassing viper-like nature of his ‘lover’, the way that Mürsel almost seemed to eat him while pinning his hands with enormous force down on to the hot stone below. When he had finished the spy said, ‘I assume I am not being presumptuous, am I, Mehmet? I mean, why come here if you didn’t want . . .’ He left the issue of what Süleyman might or might not want open to the hot, steamy air.

After first shaking his head and then taking a deep breath, Süleyman changed the subject. ‘Now that Haydar is dead, will someone else assist you in your hunt for the peeper? He, the peeper, seems to be gaining in confidence.’

‘In your opinion.’ Mürsel leaned forward again but this time he only very lightly ran his fingers across Süleyman’s chest. ‘Remember, sweet boy, that you really don’t know anything. I, on the other hand . . .’ He moved his fingers up to his mouth and licked each one very slowly. ‘I know about you.’

‘Do you?’ Even the soaking wet hairs at the back of his head stood up.

‘I know you prefer it when your wife goes on top during sex. She’s a very dominant woman – usually.’

In spite of the heat, Süleyman felt his face drain of blood. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Giving head isn’t a particularly dominant act, is it?’ Mürsel replied. ‘But it brings you so much pleasure, I’m sure that Zelfa doesn’t mind. I know I wouldn’t mind personally. In fact, I would love—’

‘Have you been watching me?’ His heart was hammering, his breathing laboured.

‘If one has the skills, sweet boy, then one can and does. The only pleasant thing about this whole ghastly affair has been you. I’ve always said I’ll have you. And let’s face it, if you were wholly heterosexual, you wouldn’t have come here with me, would you?’

He was right, of course, but even so, this situation had peaked rather sooner than Süleyman had imagined. The spy was slavering for sex and Süleyman was still no nearer to finding out what was going on in Mürsel’s mind with regard to the peeper and his possible relationship to the offender. Now it was Mürsel who wanted an answer. Süleyman looked into his eyes and said nothing. It was the spy’s idea to go to the massage.

‘Ah, well, what happens, happens,’ Mürsel said cheerily. ‘Let’s get some of the knots out of your back, shall we? Then maybe other things will follow on naturally.’

Slowly, Süleyman lay back down on to the hot, slick stone. For just a moment he didn’t turn over. But then, as Mürsel pointed out, if he didn’t, a back massage would be entirely out of the question. And so the policeman complied. His back was a mass of tension knots. It was something his masseur pointed out as soon as he insinuated his long fingers into Süleyman’s muscles.

‘Allah, but you are tense!’ the spy said as he fought to work his hands through what felt like vulcanised rubber. ‘Poor Mehmet, this has to hurt.’

‘Yes . . .’ It did. A lot. ‘Mürsel, the peeper, what is happening?’

‘What?’ The hands continued to knead without missing a beat.

‘I’m worried. So many people are dying and we don’t seem to be any nearer . . .’

‘We? What is this “we” you speak of, Mehmet?’

‘Well, yourself and myself and—’

‘As I’m growing rather tired of telling you, Mehmet, it is my agency who will apprehend this offender. You are only where you are for show. Because of the public nature of the peeper’s offences, you the police have to be in evidence.’ The massage grew stronger, the fingers digging that little bit deeper. ‘You mustn’t catch him, he’ll hurt you and I wouldn’t want that, would I?’

‘No . . .’

‘No. I wouldn’t like you to die in the way that Haydar died, would I? I’d have much more fun with you if you were alive.’ Süleyman felt Mürsel’s hands move down towards his buttocks.

‘Mürsel . . .’

‘Oh, that’s a very nervous voice. What’s that nervous voice about, Mehmet? Have you something to confess to me?’

Suddenly everything was beginning to sound like a threat. Suddenly not everything sounded sexual . . .

‘Well, I can confess to you’, Mürsel said, ‘that on occasion I love to play the woman with the men in my life. If you’re worried about losing your manhood to me, then don’t be. I love men to give me pleasure, but I also know how “masculine” you proper Turks can be.’

But then perhaps he was wrong about the threat, perhaps it was only sexual? If it were, and Mürsel was as besotted as he imagined, then perhaps he could press ahead with his line of inquiry?

‘Mürsel, I don’t understand what is happening in this investigation,’ he blurted. ‘You’re always where he, the peeper, is and—’

He felt the spy’s lips plant a kiss in the middle of his back. He also felt a rush of hot air as the man moved his leg in order to straddle him. Although he knew that he could turn over quickly and easily if he wanted to, he was vulnerable now. He was also, just very slightly, aroused.

‘Mehmet . . .’ The breath was hot on the back of his neck.

‘Mürsel . . .’

‘You know I can see the way that your face contorts with both pleasure and pain when you’re very close to coming. I can see that in my mind. Of course I fade out the picture of your wife in that scenario.’

‘Mürsel, I’m confused!’

‘Sexual angst is not uncommon even in adults,’ the spy replied. ‘If, of course, this were about sex, which it isn’t.’

Süleyman felt a slight pressure from one of Mürsel’s hands on his right wrist. The hot breath on his neck became hotter as the spy lowered his body down close to Süleyman’s. ‘This is about the peeper, about how you told Çetin İkmen all about me and my investigation into his activities and your fears about that, isn’t it?’

Süleyman could feel his arousal collapse, his breathing fracture and disintegrate with terror in his lungs. How had he found out about his conversation with İkmen? How?

‘It isn’t about sex,’ Mürsel continued softly. ‘I have sex with men a lot younger and prettier than you, Mehmet. I wouldn’t say no, if you offered it, of course. But if you thought you might seduce whatever information you think I have out of me, then you are very wrong.’

The policeman’s right wrist was suddenly pushed so far up his back it was touching the crown of his head. The pain was unspeakable, but the hand that held the wrist in place was, he could feel, barely even tense.

‘Not gorgeous enough any more, Mehmet!’ He slapped him hard around the side of the head. ‘Treacherous too. I heard you at the church with İkmen. Bad.’

‘You . . . with the peeper . . . you . . .’

There was a sound from over by the door into the hararet, but Süleyman couldn’t lift his head in order to see what it might be.

‘I told you if you told anyone but Ardıç about me, I would kill you, didn’t I, Mehmet?’

‘I . . .’

‘So now I suppose I’m going to have to make good on that promise, aren’t I?’ He pulled Süleyman’s right shoulder out of its socket and, above the screams of pain, said, ‘Shame.’

‘I don’t know why you keep on bringing up the subject of Handan Ergin,’ Matilda Melly said exasperatedly. ‘I haven’t seen her for months! I stopped teaching. But poor Kim and the others were quite terrified by that ghastly husband of hers.’

‘Yes, I know,’ İkmen said as he puffed on yet another Maltepe cigarette. ‘But, Mrs Melly, you have to understand that you have connections to both Mrs Ergin and Yaşar Uzun, two people involved in—’

‘That neighbour of Handan’s you took me to see, she didn’t know me from bloody Adam!’ the Englishwoman cried. ‘I wasn’t at Handan’s apartment on the night Yaşar died! I was at home, in bed!’

It was certainly what her husband was saying. Matilda Melly had been at home while he went to the carpet show and Handan Ergin’s nosy neighbour had not identified Matilda as the woman who came to see the young wife on the night that Yaşar Uzun was shot. Admittedly, the neighbour said that all westerners looked the same to her, however . . .

‘Mrs Melly, just today you have separated from your husband. Could you please tell me—’

‘Just today I found out what he paid, so far, for that bloody carpet!’ Matilda Melly cried. ‘It was the last straw!’

‘You have been having problems in your marriage?’

‘You could say that, yes.’ The Englishwoman sniffed as if she had an unpleasant smell underneath her nose. But then that wasn’t surprising. İkmen’s office, even to Ayşe Farsakoğlu’s well-accustomed nostrils, was not the pleasantest place in the world. The mixture of dust, stale smoke and sour tea was not suitable for all tastes.

‘And these problems,’ İkmen continued, ‘do they involve other people?’

Matilda Melly looked up sharply. ‘Even if they do, what has that got to do with you? I’ve done nothing wrong!’