Arabesk (21 page)

'Mmm.'

'And anyway,' she continued, 'quite how you think this peacock business might help Mehmet, I really don't know.'

Ìkmen took a sip from his glass. 'Fatma,' he said, 'have you ever heard of the Yezidis?'

Ìkmen watched with horror as his wife's eyes hardened. 'They that dance in the dark and then couple with each other? The sons and daughters of Shaitan?' She spat, admittedly in the direction of the sink, Ìkmen noted, though she missed it. 'In§allah we will never meet their like in this city.'

'Oh? Why is that?'

'Because, as I just said, they worship Shaitan! Even for someone like you, surely the dangers of actually worshipping evil must be clear!'

'There are some who think they are simply misunderstood, that the Ye—'

'Do not say that name in my house again!' Fatma roared as she clutched her blue boncuk to her neck. 'As if I haven't suffered enough with your addiction to malevolent characters! Soothsayers, beggars, weavers of wicked tales - and you make it quite plain that you still live with the ghost of your witch mother!'

'Fatma

But she was up now and across the other side of the room from him, wiping dishes that were already spotlessly clean.

'No,' she said, 'I don't want to talk about this any more!'

Ìkmen sighed. Although horrified by even the slightest hint of anything supernatural, Fatma was deeply superstitious in that particularly vehement way that only religious ladies were. Like the time he. had, foolishly, told her about how his mother had always smiled at the new moon to ensure good fortune for the month to come, she was now once again on her guard against the forces of evil. Soon, he knew, she would revert to calling him 'witch's child' again and he would become weary of her ignorance. Not that Fatma was stupid, quite the reverse. She was an intelligent woman - except in this one respect.

But no matter. He had other things to do and, when he returned, she would, as ever, have cooled down again. He knew he would never convince her of Dr Halman's and possibly his own view of these people as merely misunderstood. But if he kept quiet about it when he came home again Fatma would be herself with him.

Not that he could resist just one last comment before he left. 'So I won't bring any Yezidis home for a meal then?' he said as he moved quickly out of his seat and over to the door.

'Get out!' Fatma said as she attempted to both shout and spit at the same time.

Sevan Avedykian took in another deep breath and men started again. 'Look, Cengiz,' he said, 'it's like this. Tomorrow you and I will go to see the judge who will make a decision about whether or not the police can keep you here.'

'I didn't kill Mrs Ruya! Not me!'

'Yes, Cengiz, I know that'

'The devil woman killed her, she did!'

'The devil woman you have, as yet failed to identify,' Avedykian said as he lit up one of his large cigars. And by God he needed it! So far, although it was evident to everyone concerned that Cengiz could not in any way have plotted to murder Ruya Urfa, the circumstances surrounding his abduction of the baby Merih were still confused. According to Cengiz, when he had walked out of his apartment and into the hall, the door to the Urfa's apartment had been ajar. Thinking that perhaps his friends were coming out of the apartment Cengiz had pushed the door open, which was when he had seen this supposedly 'devilish' blonde woman wearing a fur coat. Probably shocked at seeing him there she had then, in Cengiz's words, snarled at him, before disappearing out of the apartment and down the stairs. It was only then, when Cengiz went into the Urfas' kitchen, that he discovered the body of Ruya on the floor. He had not seen the devil woman with the body at any time. After trying in vain to revive Ruya, Cengiz then apparently heard the baby cry and went to her in her room. Still traumatised by the sight of the devil woman, Cengiz decided to take the baby to a place of safety, which to him was not a police station or a hospital but the arms of a prostitute with whom he was infatuated.

A fantastic story and one which, Sevan Avedykian would argue, someone like Cengiz could not have made up. However, there were still significant problems, not the least of which were Cengiz’ s fingerprints all over the body and the whole question of whether the devil woman actually existed. And even if she did, Avedykian could not help thinking, she had to be most profoundly stupid to leave a front door open while she was committing a murder. Giving little Merih Urfa over to a woman who, by Cengiz's own admission, lived with a drug addict did Avedykian's client no favours either. It was just a mercy that whoever had killed Ruya had not interfered with her sexually. With Cengiz's admittedly very old conviction for indecent behaviour, that would have been evidence which could, potentially, have buried him.

As Cengiz sat slumped, apparently looking at spots on the floor, Sevan Avedykian turned to Dr Halman's psychiatric evaluation document As he reached for this he purposefully pushed to one side, her letter of complaint regarding Cengiz's treatment in custody. Although well-written and almost certainly true, it did flag up the Irish woman's lack of knowledge of the more subtle workings of the judiciary. To antagonise the police at this stage would not be a good idea. That could be addressed later when or if his client's innocence was proven. For now the psychiatric assessment was much more pertinent With a mental age of just seven, Cengiz would, according to Dr Halman, see the world as fundamentally concrete and absolute and would be influenced less by inference, as in the adult world, and more by how things looked or seemed. In addition he would only be able to classify objects or people with a single attribute at a time. This meant, Avedykian deduced, that asking Cengiz for more details about the devil woman, beyond those already supplied, would be a waste of time. So discovering whether she was young or old, short or tall was going to be difficult. Unless the right question were asked, whatever that might be, or the right photograph shown, no progress could be made. Add to this the idea that Cengiz was also what Halman called egocentric and the picture clouded still further. Basically, Cengiz could see the world only in his own terms. If his concept of a devilish person did not concord with that of the rest of humanity, then tough. So the police could, in theory, be looking for Cengiz's individual concept of this woman and not a real person at all - if Avedykian understood this correctly.

With a sigh he put the document down and looked at his client again. Defending this man was not going to be easy. But then Mr and Mrs Temiz had not signed over vast swathes of their fortune to him to make his life easy. And besides, as he attempted to catch Cengiz's sad eyes with his own, he had to admit that he did feel pity for the man. Damaged and frightened, Cengiz had already experienced more ill fortune in his relatively young life than most. Although very different to his own son, the amount of misery in Cengiz's life was not-dissimilar to that in poor Avram's. Like Cengiz, Avram had lived much of his short life in a state of fear and he, too, had been misunderstood on so many levels.

Avedykian patted his client's hand and told him to have courage. Cengiz just stared back, his eyes glassy, his mouth drooling.

'Look, Suleyman,' Ìkmen said, reverting in his agitation to his old form of address, 'all I'm saying is that I don't want you to miss anything!'

'Which involves my having to believe that we are surrounded by devil worshippers?' Suleyman threw himself petulantly down into his chair. 'I wasn't aware that I'd suddenly stumbled into a scene from
TheExorcist?’

Ìkmen pulled a chair up towards Suleyman's desk and sat down. 'Just look at the facts, OK? Fact one,' he banged his fist down on the desk to emphasise his point, 'Urfa specifically appeals to Merih's abductors not to give her chicken or beans.'

'She has an allergy.'

'Yes, she may, I accept that But no doctor can, at her age, really make a judgement on that The child would be fed almost exclusively on milk at her age. How would Urfa, or anyone else for that matter, know?'

'Yes, but—'

'Then,' Ìkmen banged the desk once again, 'there is the disappearance of that man you tried to ID. He didn't want you to see his card.'

'Or he just wanted to get out of the way so he wouldn't crack under interrogation. I mean if Urfa wasn't with him—'

'And then there are the peacocks.'

'Ah.' They had been over this subject before and Suleyman was still not convinced. 'What you're asking me to believe,' he said, 'is that the whole lot of them belong to this sect and, further, that one of my officers may also!'

'Well, you must admit that Çöktin's sudden advocacy of Urfa's cause is a little odd. He's met Kurdish criminals before and he's never been like this. And besides, his knowing about eunuchs in other countries is a bit specialised, isn't it? Dr Halman has made a study of this sort of thing and—'

'But even if you are right, what bearing could this possibly have on Ruya Urfa's death?'

'I don't know!' Ìkmen paused briefly in order to swallow hard and gather his thoughts. 'All I know is that I distrust secrets and if these people have them then they need exposing!'

A knock at the door brought their discussion to a halt

'Come in,' Suleyman said with a heavy sigh.

Orhan Tepe smiled aimably into the room.

'Well?' Suleyman asked wearily.

'There's a young lady to see you, sir. She says she's a servant at Tansu Hanim's house.'

Ìkmen and Suleyman exchanged a look before the latter said, 'Well, bring her up then.'

'Yes, sir.'

As Tepe closed the door behind him, Ìkmen said, 'I wonder what she wants.'

'I have no idea although I doubt very much that it's about strange sects.'

Ignoring this jibe, Ìkmen said, 'So where is Çöktin at the moment?'

'At the Forensic Institute, looking at the uses and origins of cyanide.'

'So you're keeping him away from Urfa.'

'That was my intention, yes.'

: A moment of silence passed during which Suleyman wrestled with his tongue to make it instruct Ìkmen to leave. He knew he had the right and the old man's interference was beginning to get on his nerves. But for some reason he just couldn't do it and so when a small, almost child-like figure was escorted into his office, he introduced Ìkmen as if he were a currently serving officer involved in the Urfa case.

In a voice so small and soft as to be barely audible, the girl announced herself as Belkis Kasaba. She had been, she said, until the previous day, a maid at Tansu Hanim's house in Yeniköy. As she spoke she knitted her fingers nervously, a habit which only abated when she looked up briefly at Ìkmen who smiled back warmly at her.

'So what have you come to tell me then, Bellas?' Suleyman asked, attempting without success to look her in the eye.

Belkis licked her dry lips before answering. 'I do want you to know that I have always loved Tansu Hamm, sir. I have loved her music and her all of my life.' Then looking across at Ìkmen who, presumably, she saw as more of a father figure, she said, 'And even though she has wronged me, I still want to be like her one day. I can sing and dance and everything and Insallah, I will be an Arabesk myself one day.'

'I'm sure you shall,' Ìkmen said kindly, 'but for the moment, Belkis, you say that Tansu has wronged you. How did she do this?'

'Madame dismissed me just before Inspector Suleyman arrived yesterday.' She threw a short, shy glance at the younger man. 'She thought that Inspector Suleyman might be Mr Erol come back to her and when that wasn't so, she told me to go.'

'That seems particularly unfair,' Suleyman commented, 'Does no one else in her party object to this?'

'Miss Latife, Madame's sister, did, so I had hopes that she might change her mind. Miss Latife does so much for Madame that sometimes even in her rages she can make her do things.'

'But not on this occasion?'

Belkis started to snivel. 'No,' she said, 'Madame was too furious for that. Although Miss Latife did give me money to get home to Sivas with.' Then bursting into full-blown tears, she said, 'Not even Mr Yilmaz, Madame's brother, said goodbye and . . .'

Suleyman took his handkerchief out of his top pocket and handed it across to Belkis.

'Thank you, sir. Thank you.'

After a brief pause during which the girl attempted to get hold of her emotions, Suleyman said, 'Well, that's very bad indeed, Bellas, but I don't think that you came here, instead of presumably going back to your parents, just to tell me this sad story, did you?'

She looked at Ìkmen, who smiled yet again, before answering. 'No, sir.'

'And so

.'Well..-. . Look, Pm not saying all this because I am angry at Madame, you understand. I mean she is still the best star in all the world . . .'

'But?'

'But . . .But I know that Madame lied when she said that she was in the house on the night of Mrs Urfa's murder.'

Ìkmen gave Suleyman a look which spoke volumes about the value of the serving classes. Suleyman ignored this and went on with his questioning.

'So how do you know this, Belkis?'

The girl breathed in hard before launching into her tale. 'Miss Latife went to bed at about seven,' she said. 'She'd been out all day tending the plants with the gardening man. She likes the plants. She says it comes of being the daughter of a country girl.' She smiled. 'But anyway, that left Madame alone downstairs, sitting out on the veranda. Mr Galip was at that football match and Mr Yilmaz, well, he was upstairs too by then . . .'

'So what happened then?'

'Well, after making sure that everything was ready for the morning, I went out to Madame and asked her if she wanted anything else. She said that she didn't and that I could go to my room now if I wanted. She was quite pleasant to me.' Belkis suddenly seemed very nervous again, presumably because she was getting to the nub of the matter now. ‘I, er ...'

'Go on, Beikis,' Ìkmen said encouragingly, 'you're doing very well.'

'Yes, but I should have told you this before, should—'

'That's not important now,' Suleyman said earnestly.'So you did what?' 'I went upstairs.' 'To your room.'