A Passion for Killing (22 page)

Ayşe Farsakoğlu for one had to agree. Mrs Melly had, as far as they knew, done nothing wrong. As she watched their superior, Commissioner Ardıç, get into his brand new BMW with his driver, she wondered about just what İkmen hoped to achieve by this line of inquiry even if his English was absolutely stunning.

‘Mrs Melly, no one is saying you have done anything wrong,’ İkmen said. ‘All I am doing is trying to establish connections between people if they exist. We have a number of people across both the Handan Ergin and the Yaşar Uzun investigations who know each other and have relationships of various sorts.’ He flashed one of his totally charming smiles. ‘I am just a poor policeman, Mrs Melly, I cannot always keep all of this information in my head.’

She visibly softened. But then, as Ayşe Farsakoğlu knew only too well, the İkmen charm offensive, in full flight, rarely failed especially with women.

‘I’m sorry, Inspector,’ Mrs Melly said with a very lovely smile of her own now. ‘My husband . . . Some years ago, Peter was unfaithful to me. We got over that, somehow, but . . .’

‘The quarter-of-a-million-pound-carpet was too much for you,’ İkmen said.

‘Yes! And when I realised he wanted to mortgage the house again to pay off the second payment, well . . . I didn’t want to lose my house, and my future too, for the sake of a carpet, Inspector!’

‘I can understand that.’

‘Well, that is more than Peter could!’

‘I’m sorry.’

She shook her head girlishly. ‘That’s all right.’ She was, Ayşe Farsakoğlu felt, really quite flirty and pretty in certain lights too. She was just very slightly coming on to old İkmen.

‘So you were at home in bed at the time of Mr Uzun’s unfortunate death . . .’

‘Yes. I didn’t hear Peter come in. I was sleeping by then – we sleep at the front of the house – and he hadn’t taken the car with him so the place was as silent as the grave, but I saw him in the morning.’

‘Do you drive?’

‘God no! No, I’m afraid I taxi across the city. Expensive, I know, but . . .’

‘And you haven’t seen Handan Ergin?’

‘For months, no! As I said, her husband made his position quite clear to Kim Monroe. I liked Handan when I taught her. But I haven’t seen her since I stopped teaching.’

‘No.’ İkmen shifted in his chair before, smiling yet again, he said, ‘So did you ever meet the carpet dealer, Yaşar Uzun, Mrs Melly?’

She looked up at the ceiling as if attempting to find inspiration to her recall up there. ‘Yes, yes, I met him once last year, I think.’ She looked down again now and into İkmen’s eyes, ‘At Raşit Bey’s shop in the Grand Bazaar.’

‘And what did you make of Mr Uzun from your short acquaintance?’ İkmen asked.

She shrugged, looked up to the ceiling again, and then said, ‘Not a great deal.’ She smiled. ‘Carpets are really Peter’s interest, not mine, as I imagine you know!’

İkmen laughed. ‘Quite so. Quite so. Well, Mrs Melly, I’m very sorry to have inconvenienced you like this, but you know how it is. One of my officers will drive you home.’

‘I can go?’ She looked surprised.

‘Yes.’

‘Ah.’ Matilda Melly stood up. She then took a deep breath before she bent down in order to retrieve her handbag from the floor.

‘Sergeant Farsakoğlu will accompany you downstairs,’ İkmen said and then, turning to Ayşe, he continued in Turkish, ‘Get Roditi to take her home.’

‘Yes, sir.’ She turned to the Englishwoman and made a gesture towards the door. ‘Mrs Melly?’

‘Oh, thank you.’ She leaned across İkmen’s desk and shook his hand before walking towards the door after the younger, much slimmer woman. However, just as she was going through the doorway, a deep, dark voice called her back.

‘Oh, Mrs Melly!’

She turned and saw him smiling at her from behind his desk, lighting yet another cigarette. ‘Yes, Inspector?’

‘Do you sometimes like shopping in Nişantaşı?’

‘What?’

‘Nişantaşı, do you like shopping there? In Marks and Spencer, Armani . . .’

‘Not generally, no.’ And then she frowned. ‘Why?’

Still smiling he shrugged, ‘No friends in that area or . . .’

‘No. Why should I have friends in that area?’

‘There is no reason, it . . .’

‘Then why are you asking me about it?’ Her voice was tetchy, even if her face was entirely impassive.

‘As I said to you before, Mrs Melly,’ İkmen said, ‘it’s all about connections, relationships between people.’

‘But I have no connection to Nişantaşı. Why would I? If I wanted to go to Marks and Spencer I would wait until I went home to go there. Their stuff is much cheaper in the UK.’

‘I see.’ He looked across at Ayşe who was frowning. ‘Well, that is very good then, isn’t it, Mrs Melly? Thank you.’

She watched him smile again and then look down at the papers that littered his desk, before she said, ‘Inspector.’

And then slowly she made her way out of his office and into the corridor beyond. As soon as she was out of earshot, İkmen called Matilda Melly’s husband.

Mürsel was far more physically fastidious than the man who had recently entered the hararet to join him.

‘Shooting shouldn’t be done in an enclosed space, I want to live,’ he said as he held Süleyman down on the göbektaşı so hard that the policeman could feel his right cheek beginning to burn.

The other man, whose words were more a collection of growls than proper speech, said, ‘Lift the head, I’ll cut the throat.’

‘And splash about in his blood for the next hour? I think not,’ Mürsel replied.

‘Because you desire him . . .’

‘Oh, don’t start with that!’ Mürsel exploded. ‘I have nothing on you. You who have pleasured yourself all over your victims!’

‘I did what you wanted!’

‘You did what you wanted, too!’ Mürsel replied. ‘You did that well before I came on the scene. Mad bastard.’

Süleyman, still gagging with pain, tried to look up at who Mürsel was talking to, but found that even the slightest movement of his head was far too painful to allow him to continue. Strangely, even to himself, the policeman couldn’t get over what Mürsel had said to him earlier. Although terrified, part of his mind was still smarting from the way the spy had so spitefully disparaged his appearance. Over the years people had said many negative things about his wit, his intelligence and his morals, but never, ever his looks. That he was so disturbed about something so trivial made him vain and despicable in his own eyes. A sexually irresponsible, vain and stupid man.

‘I’m going to snap his neck,’ Mürsel said very matter-of-factly. ‘Clean, quick . . .’

‘You don’t want to do anything with him first?’

‘No. I’m not you. I . . .’ There was a pause then, a long one, during which, it seemed, no one moved. Mürsel’s grip was still tight upon his hand and now dislocated shoulder, but there was something in the character of that hold that had changed. He didn’t know what . . . ‘On your chest,’ he heard Mürsel whisper. ‘Look down, look down! On . . .’

‘Oh . . .’

‘Keep . . .’

‘You’ve an identical red dot on your back I think you’ll find,’ a very cultured and entirely different voice boomed across the marble and the steam. Now, just very slightly, Mürsel’s hold on Süleyman’s wrist began to slacken. ‘You’re lined up in my sights. Let the police officer go.’

‘What?’ Mürsel was suddenly speaking at increased volume now. ‘So you can shoot me?’

‘I can shoot you anyway. We can shoot both of you. It’s over.’

‘What is?’ Silence again. Then Mürsel reiterated, ‘What is? What’s fucking over? Nothing’s fucking over until I say it is! You do what I say! I’m in charge! I don’t need you! Who authorised you? I didn’t ask the department for help! I don’t need any help!’

His voice had suddenly gone into something Süleyman hadn’t heard before. Rough, guttural eastern tones. ‘Well? Well?’ Süleyman felt the force of these words as they poured out of what felt like his weakening captor.

The sound of feet running and scuffling against the hot slick floor was followed by a slight whirring sound and then a dull, damp thud somewhere across the other side of the space. Mürsel gasped.

‘He . . .’

‘He’, the unknown voice said, ‘was a dog we and you knew had to be put down some time. He tried to run. We’ve done it now. Stand down. Move away from the police officer. Stand down. That’s an order.’

Mürsel yanked Süleyman’s hand back up to the top of his head again. ‘And if I don’t?’ he said. ‘What if I don’t?’

‘You are a patriot. You will obey the orders of your superiors. I am your superior, Mürsel. Obey me. To do anything else would be the action of a traitor.’

A long time passed, or rather it seemed like a long time to Süleyman. The voice of the man who had come to reason with Mürsel was not familiar to him. It had to be the voice of one of Mürsel’s people. Some other twisted, shadow-person. The water around the base of the göbektaşı was now streaked with fine threads of deep red.

‘Do you want to die as a traitor?’ the unfamiliar voice said. ‘After all you’ve done in the past? After where you’ve come up from?’

Mürsel didn’t answer for a while, nor did his hold on Süleyman slacken.

‘Come along,’ the voice said. ‘There’s nothing we don’t know. It’s finished.’

‘Nothing?’

‘Nothing.’

‘I thought I was better than that.’ It was a statement made with great sadness in the voice. But then Mürsel cleared his throat and addressing Süleyman said, ‘You probably don’t realise it, sweet boy, but you were only two centimetres from death. I only had to move my fingers and . . .’ He let go of Süleyman’s hand and what sounded like a regiment of heavily armed soldiers ran across the hararet towards the spy and the still motionless policeman.

‘Don’t move.’ A face almost totally obscured by first a helmet and then an elaborate mouthpiece and microphone crashed into Süleyman’s line of vision. Somewhere behind him, he could hear the metallic snap of handcuffs being secured around wrists. The ‘helmet’ and his fellows had to have been sent by Mürsel’s employers, MIT – or whoever – finally as convinced of their agent’s corruption as Süleyman himself.

‘There was another man, I think,’ Süleyman said to the helmet, which he now saw had very deep-set, black eyes.

‘He’s dead,’ the helmet responded. ‘Someone’s going to have a look at your shoulder.’

‘I think it’s dislocated . . .’

‘I’m sure it is,’ the helmet said.

Süleyman felt a pair of confident hands move around his shoulder and a short way down his arm. The helmet looked up and widened his eyes. He then nodded before saying to Süleyman, ‘Inspector, my colleague can put that back in for you now. It’ll hurt . . .’

‘I’m not afraid of pain.’ He was a man and a Turk, of course he wasn’t!

The helmet nodded to his colleague and Süleyman first felt as if his shoulder was being ripped off before the pain settled down into just an excruciating burning sensation. They turned him over and sat him up immediately. Staring, white-faced, into the now subsiding steam, Süleyman was confronted by a scene that resembled something from a futuristic horror film. Tall, slim creatures, dressed in what looked like heavy black leather, stalked the hamam, their heads covered by great black helmets, their faces obscured by mirrored visors.

‘Allah!’

Of course they were men, or women, who certainly worked for a very powerful security agency. But they were not police, they were not, thankfully, people whom Süleyman had knowingly come into contact with before. He looked for Mürsel amongst their ranks but he didn’t see him. As if in anticipation of questions about the spy, the man who had spoken to Süleyman earlier said, ‘He’s gone. You’re safe. Can you walk?’

He said he’d give it a try. Of course he was shaky, but he didn’t want any of them to have to carry him. Whatever these people had seen of his ‘performance’ with Mürsel, he still felt the need to hang on to some shred of dignity.

‘How did you know . . .’

‘Let’s get you out of here, sir.’ The man attempted to take his one good arm, but Süleyman shrank away from him. In the process he found himself looking down at the floor and the body of a very tall, thin man who was dressed in something that looked like a wet or ski suit. His face was entirely nondescript and in death seemed completely at peace. His fingers, curled lightly at his sides, looked so delicate, like the feet of some large, rather vulnerable bird.

Süleyman didn’t have any need to ask the identity of the body. After collecting his clothes, he just let himself be guided out of that terrible place and into Commissioner Ardıç’s brand new BMW, which was waiting for him outside in the courtyard at the back of the building.

‘So if Mr Melly says that his wife was at home when he returned from the carpet show, and you believe him, then she cannot be our culprit,’ Ayşe Farsakoğlu said as she sat down opposite her boss and then lit up a cigarette.

‘If you believe him, true,’ İkmen replied.

‘Mrs Melly told us she doesn’t drive and her husband has just confirmed that to you,’ Ayşe continued. ‘So it would seem . . .’

‘Yes, it would seem that Mrs Melly lives an entirely blameless life. The Ergins’ neighbour didn’t know her and yet . . .’ İkmen leaned back in his chair and lifted his feet up on to the top of his bulging waste-paper bin.

‘And yet what?’

‘Nişantaşı,’ İkmen said. ‘We know she was seen in Nişantaşı.’

‘Yes, but she didn’t say she’d never been to Nişantaşı, did she, sir? What she said was that she didn’t generally go there. She was only, it is alleged, seen in Nişantaşı once. The notion of her having affairs could just be so much gossip.’

‘Yes, it could,’ İkmen replied. ‘I have no doubt that in closed communities like the diplomatic corps, all sorts of jealousies and accusations occur. But, Ayşe, there was also Mrs Melly’s body language.’

‘Her body language?’