Arabesk (24 page)

Tansu straightened her shoulders. 'And then, Allah forgive me, I parked up by Istiklal Caddesi, had a few more drinks and found a boy.'

Adnan Öz frowned down at the floor and then cleared his throat

'And who was this boy?' Ìkmen asked as he attempted to wrest his eyes from the livid colour of Mr Öz's cheeks.

The singer laughed, a rough, smoke-scarred rattle. 'How should I know!' she said. 'Such meetings don't involve an exchange of personal details. Besides, I'd had a few drinks as I said and so even if he did tell me his name, I wouldn't remember.'

'Do you know what he looked like? Was he in uniform or

'He was twenty something, I suppose, and pretty. What more can I say? We shared a few drinks, he put his arm around me . . .'

'Did he know who you were?' Ìkmen asked. 'If you can remember, that is? I mean your face is not exactly unknown, is it?'

She laughed again but this time with even less good humour than before. ‘Oh, come on!' she said as she pointed with both hands at her face. 'Does this look like the photographs in the newspapers or what?'

'Well, er .. .'

'I know you all think that I'm some dreadful plastic doll sort of woman, and I admit I am.' Her facial expression turned from bitter to grave.- 'Even I know I am not like that air-brushed odalisque in the magazines. No amount of surgery can possibly take away all the lines and creases. I always wear dark glasses ...'

'Were you wearing your fur coat?' Suleyman asked.

'One of them. But I left it in the car.'

'Where did you meet this boy?'

'In a bar. I don't remember which. Some place off istiklal.' She looked straight at both of the policemen, 'And yes, I know I must have been close to Erol's apartment, but.. . Anyway, the boy and I eventually left and ...' She hung her head in what looked like shame.

'Did you take him home or did you go back to his place?' Ìkmen inquired. 'It's important we know.'

A moment of stony silence passed during which Adnan Öz looked around the squalid room for something upon which to pin his attention.

'He took me down a side street to a shop doorway,' Tansu said softly. 'I pulled up my skirt. ..'

'You had sex in the street'

She shrugged. 'It's not something that I do every day but when I first came to this city I did things like it from time to time, to survive.' She smiled. 'For just a moment it was almost like being young again.'

Suleyman sighed. 'And afterwards?'

The smile still on her lips, she said, 'Afterwards he left as men always do and I went home. I drove with a lot of alcohol in my body, I freely admit but I did nothing else. I didn't murder anyone.'

Ìkmen nodded gravely as he looked at Suleyman and a few moments of silence passed as everyone in the room absorbed Tansu's story. Then picking up his pen from the table, Suleyman jotted down a few notes on the piece of paper in front of him. 'So,' he said, 'you're saying you went to an unnamed bar where you met a boy whose name you don't know.'

'Yes.'

'Did you tell any member of your family you were going to go and do this?'

She threw him a distincdy acid look. 'What do you think? I told my sister afterwards, in the morning. I felt so guilty that I had betrayed Erol, I had to tell someone.'

'Your story is not going to be easy to substantiate, Miss Emin,' Suleyman said gravely.

'Ah, but I am sure that with a little research ...’ Adnan Öz began.

'Assuming Miss Emin is telling the truth.'

‘I fucking am!'

The re-emergence of this rather more familiar incarnation of Tansu Hanim made Ìkmen, at least, smile. The part she had been playing of the softly contrite, damaged woman had suddenly slipped and although he accepted that this was not in itself a sign of guilt, it was far more a part of her real character than any other facet she had shown them here. But what of her story? Although all of Tansu's movements and associations on that fateful night were effectively, and some would say conveniently, anonymous, she might well be telling the truth. She was, after all, a very unhappy middle-aged woman who was besotted by a much younger, married man. Why shouldn't she have a quick fuck up against a wall if she could get one? The only real connection that could be made between Tansu and the scene of the crime was a few stray strands of fur - not an uncommon item in the wardrobes of Istanbul ladies (excepting Fatma, of course). And Cengiz Temiz had not managed to identify her from her photograph. But then

Ah. Ìkmen smiled still more broadly. Yes, now that was a thought, wasn't it? And most especially it was a thought that Tansu herself had inspired.

'May I have a word with you outside, please, Inspector?' he said to Suleyman.

Two uniformed officers sat with Tansu and her lawyer while Ìkmen and Suleyman repaired to another room which appeared to be empty but in fact contained a rather heavily smoking Ìsak Çöktin. Standing as his superiors entered, Çöktin looked unusually tense, leading Suleyman to wonder whether he had been overly severe with him. Not, of course, that he said as much.

'Ah, Çöktin,' he said. 'How did you get on at the Forensic Institute?'

'I found out that cyanide is used in the steel industry.' He took his notebook out of his pocket and read,

'Hydrocyanic acid, it's called. You can also distil cyanide from the stone of some fruits, but you do need special equipment'

‘I presume laboratory equipment or that used in the production of liquor,' Suleyman said as he gave Ìkmen a cigarette and lit up himself.

'Yes.' Çöktin perused his book for a little longer and then said, 'Domestically it's used to kill pests mainly. Rats and wasps, things like that'

'Mmm.' Suleyman looked up at Ìkmen. 'Bellas said that the Emin family have a gardener, didn't she?'

'Yes. Why?'

'I seem to recall something about wasps. Anyway, you wanted to talk to me, Çetin?'

Ìkmen looked first, briefly, at Cektin and then back at Suleyman.

'Ah,' Suleyman said, understanding immediately, 'yes. Çöktin, could you write me a full report on your researches at the institute, please? It may prove useful in time. Oh, and you might like to ask Miss Latife Emin the name of her gardener too. You'll find her outside with Tansu Hanim's manager and, I think, her brother.'

'Yes, sir.'

He left in the same manner as they had found him, miserably contemplating something other than the task at hand, Ìkmen and Suleyman, with some concern, watched him go.

When Çöktin had shut the door behind him, Ìkmen observed, 'He's very unhappy; isn't he?'

'Yes.' Suleyman sighed 'My little speech about not getting too close to Urfa did not go down very well.' 'Mmm.'

'Anyway, I don't suppose Çöktin was what you wanted to talk to me about, was it? Unless you're still chasing peacocks . ..'

'Do not mock!' Ìkmen said and held one warning finger aloft. 'They are still foremost in my mind, as I imagine gardeners are in yours. But no, that was not why I needed to speak to you.'

'So?'

Ìkmen sat down on one of the less greasy-looking chairs. 'It was Tansu herself who gave me the idea. She admitted she doesn't look much like her photographs. And. in view of the fact that Cengiz Temiz has only ever seen a photograph of her and not the woman in the flesh

Suleyman's eyes shone. 'You thought. . .'

'Exactly. If we could engineer a sighting for him -I assume he's still somewhere in the building.'

'Yes. Yes he is.' Suleyman joined Ìkmen on the chairs. 'And of course you're right.'

‘I can see no other way of quickly either proving or disproving Tansu's story about a drunken fuck up against a wall.'

Suleyman smiled. In spite of all his bluster, Ìkmen was about the most solid family man he knew. And although he had over the years dealt with much that was either distasteful or bizarre in the sexual arena, he still disapproved of both unfaithfulness and deception.

'I was thinking’ Ìkmen said, 'of something along the lines of escorting Tansu out of the building via the back entrance.'

'Past the cells.'

'Yes.' He smiled. 'And we could move Mr Temiz to rather more sanitary accommodation at the same time.'

'Yes.' Suleyman bit down thoughtfully on his lower lip. 'And if he doesn't ID her?'

'Then she must have been fucking instead of killing’ Ìkmen said with a shrug. 'But let us meet that eventuality if it arises’

'All right’ With a sudden rush of energy, Suleyman got to his feet. 'Come on, then’ he said, 'let's get on with it’

'You go ahead.' Ìkmen nodded towards the door. 'I'd better phone home and tell Fatma what I'm doing’

'Oh, yes’ Suleyman said. He reached the door and turned. 'You really should be there, shouldn't you?'

'Yes’ Ìkmen replied tartly, 'but I'm not, and so there it is.'

Quickly, before he lost his nerve, Ìkmen punched his home number into the telephone and then waited for that familiar, angry voice.

Erol Urfa paced restlessly back and forth across the floor of his living room. Just looking at him made

Ibrahim Aksoy, who had taken refuge in a large bottle of raki some hours before, feel dizzy.

'I don't know why you don't just settle for a bit,' the manager said from inside his anise-tinged haze. 'Ferhat Göktepe said that he'd call as soon as there was any news.'

'I should be there with her,' Erol said vehemently. 'I should go now!'

'Oh, and take Merih into a stinking police station, that's a good idea!' Aksoy said acidly.

'If you would look after her .... .'

'Now, you know I can't do that, Erol,'.Aksoy said as he poured himself yet another draught of the oily, transparent liquid. 'I can't possibly do all that stuff with the feeding and then the, er, the toilet business. And anyway, I'm really quite drunk. You know I'd gladly lay down my life for you but...'

'Ibrahim, she didn't do it!' Erol raked one shaking hand through the thickness of his hair. 'Tansu did not kill my wife!'

'You don't know that, Erol.'

‘I do!' .

'Oh, so who did kill her then?' Aksoy's face, though drunk, was. full of challenge.

Erol flung both arms into the air in a gesture of hopelessness. ‘I don't know!' he said.

'Right,' Aksoy replied. 'You don't know, so it could be anybody, including Tansu. I mean, with Ruya out of the way, she probably thought that you might marry her.' Then under his breath he muttered, 'Silly old...'

'But if that is the case, it is I who have brought Tansu to this trouble and it is also I who, indirectly, have killed my own wife and unborn child!'

'Nonsense!'

Erol put his hands up to his face and then sat down beside his manager. Although it was hot, he knew that the palms of his hands were sweating far more than they usually did. He also knew, or rather felt, that perhaps now was the time to confess to those most close to him - in this case, Ibrahim Aksoy.

'Ibrahim,' he began and then faltered. 'Ibrahim, much as I may wish to marry Tansu, that can never be.'

'Well, of course not, she's old enough to be your mother!'

'Yes, but that is not the reason why I cannot marry her.'

Aksoy peered out from deep inside his alcoholic mist and leered. 'Oh, is there another—'

'No!' Erol put his head down and stared at the rug on the floor. He would need to look at something while he said this, something other than Ibrahim's face. Since coming to the city, there was only one other person he had told his secret to and that was because that person had known - it was a secret they shared.

'Ibrahim,' he said slowly, 'I am not the man you think I am.' Then looking up sharply into that raki-sodden face, he added, 'Everything you think you know about me is a complete and utter lie.'

Sergeant Orhan Tepe was given the task of moving Cengiz Temiz from his current abode to another cell a few metres away. Why Inspector Suleyman wanted this done, he didn't know; in all likelihood Temiz would be released within twenty-four hours and so, to Tepe, it all seemed a bit pointless. However, something had to be up on account of the fact that the inspector had told him to watch Temiz very closely during the next few minutes. He didn't know what he was supposed to be looking for or why, although he did gain an inkling when he saw the inspector, Tansu Hanim, someone who could be one of her brothers, and her lawyer, Mr Öz, walking down the corridor towards Temiz and himself. Behind, at some distance, he could just make out the slight form of old Inspector Ìkmen.

'Well, Cengiz,' Tepe said into Temiz's large, red-tinged ear, 'here is a little present for you. A real life superstar.’ In order to direct Cengiz's eyes to the star, he waved one hand in Tansu's direction. 'Look, there.'

The first indication that something was seriously amiss came in the form of a sharp intake of breath. Cengiz gasped and then, looking up at Tepe, the officer immediately noticed the fear that had suddenly settled in his eyes.

'Cengiz

Still fixated on Tepe's face, Cengiz Temiz simply whimpered.

'It's only a lady, Cengiz,' and then physically turning the man's head to watch the progress of the party toward them, Tepe said, 'Nothing to be frightened of.'

With small but obviously terrified noises of protest, Cengiz tried to resist Tepe's hand, but without success. For a moment he simply stood looking at Tansu with an expression of frozen horror on his face. At this point, Tepe observed, Suleyman turned round and looked at Ìkmen.

But then suddenly there was a change. At first Tepe felt this rather than saw it for it came in the form of a slackening that shot through the whole of Cengiz's body like an arrow. Initially, imagining that his charge was about to faint, Tepe moved closer to him in order to offer some sort of support. When Cengiz didn't fall, he turned to look at him again. What he found was a very winning, if child-like, smile upon his face. And as Tansu, Suleyman and party passed by without a word or a look, Cengiz made several small grunts and gestures of approval.

'Cengiz...'

‘I thought it was her, but it isn't,' he said and giggled with what might have been mirth or relief or both. 'It isn't who, Cengiz?'

'The demon who killed Mrs Ruya,' he said in a voice that boomed towards the rafters with glee. 'That lady isn't her!'