Dance with Death (31 page)

Jak Cohen, Balthazar’s older brother, was a very successful night-club owner. He had married and then divorced a British woman, and operated a series of gentleman’s clubs across London. It was an occupation that had enabled him to put his son through Cambridge University and buy a lot of property including a picturesque, unrenovated house in Fener for Balthazar’s son Berekiah and his family.

‘Do you think that Jak will help Berekiah to finish renovating his house?’ Mehmet asked as Estelle wordlessly passed him a glass of tea from the huge samovar that stood on the floor over by the window.

‘I don’t know,’ Balthazar shrugged. ‘Who can say? Jak is worried about us . . .’

‘To be honest, we are all hoping that Jak will make the place habitable so that we can all live there for a while,’ Estelle said as she sat down next to Mehmet with her tea.

Her husband lit a cigarette and then sighed. ‘It’s true,’ he said. ‘It’s a big place and if we could all live there . . .’

‘Not for ever,’ Estelle interrupted, ‘but until the apartment has been repaired.’

‘If it is ever repaired . . .’

What they had all been through, coupled with the now nebulous nature of the Cohens’ old apartment, temporarily silenced them all. Hulya and the baby were safely ensconced at the İkmen apartment which was where Berekiah would probably go when he was released from the hospital. At least that was were Mehmet hoped he would go. The broken furniture, the reek of alcohol and just the fact of being around an alcoholic as profoundly addicted as Leon, would certainly not help the young man’s recovery. But after several minutes had passed Mehmet knew that he couldn’t think about any of that any more. He’d come to visit the Cohens for his own reasons and time was moving forward. In the morning Abdullah Aydın would be transferred out of the city.

‘Look,’ he said, ‘I need your help, both of you.’

Balthazar frowned. ‘Then ask. Whatever it is, it will be given to you. You know that, Mehmet.’

He took a deep breath. ‘I can’t tell you why but I need a legitimate excuse to go to the Taksim Hospital tonight.’

‘What?’

‘I need to speak to someone in there, a patient,’ he continued.

‘So why don’t you just . . .’

‘I’m not supposed to speak to this person,’ Mehmet said. ‘Ardıç has forbidden me to do so.’ He looked across at Estelle. ‘But I must.’

‘Is this for yourself? Or is it business?’ Balthazar enquired.

‘Oh, it’s business,’ the younger man replied. ‘Life and death. If it was only for myself I would deal with it myself, as you know.’

A terrible jangle of bed springs from the other room signalled that Leon Cohen was either shifting his position or getting up. Estelle looked across at the door with an anxious expression on her face.

‘All right, whatever it is, we’ll help you, Mehmet,’ Balthazar said. ‘Because it’s you.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Just, in return, encourage my wife to take the tranquillisers the doctor at the Italian hospital gave her yesterday. Her nerves need to rest, they’re stretched like piano wire.’

But before Mehmet could answer, a terrible, rakı-scented presence entered the room wearing nothing but a stained pair of pyjama trousers.

‘Who the hell is that?’ Leon Cohen asked as he stared, red-eyed, down at Mehmet Süleyman.

‘You know I’ve always wanted to do this,’ İkmen said to Altay Salman as the two men walked up the stairs towards Menşure Tokatlı’s restaurant. ‘My father was very fond of Agatha Christie books. I’d read most of them before I was sixteen. In English, too. I think maybe I’ve been influenced at a very deep level. What do you think?’

‘I don’t think anything,’ the captain responded darkly. ‘All I know is that if any of the civilians in that restaurant want to leave, I have no reason or means to stop them. You could end up playing Hercule Poirot to an audience of police officers, your cousin and that dreadful cat of hers.’

‘Oh, Arto, Atom and Tom will be there,’ İkmen said. ‘I’ve told them something of what I believe.’

‘I can’t arrest the entire village,’ Altay said, pausing just below the level of the restaurant for a moment.

‘Oh, I’m sure that won’t be necessary,’ İkmen responded with a smile. ‘By the way, did you manage to speak to someone at the mortuary?’

‘Yes.’

‘And was it as I suspected?’ İkmen asked.

‘It would appear so,’ his companion said, but with some sadness in his voice.

‘I see.’

The sun had not yet set over Muratpaşa and so not everyone present was taking advantage of the free tea and coffee that Menşure Tokatlı was providing. Everyone had, however, stayed around to see what was about to happen. After all, the policeman from İstanbul had been found, alive, and in company with, it was said, some very gruesome human remains. Even some of those who hadn’t been involved in the search had turned up to see what was going on. One of these, İkmen noticed, was Nazlı Kahraman.

As he walked past the Lemon Queen, İkmen smiled and said, ‘I’m surprised that Baha was out with Turgut Senar, looking for me. I’m flattered that he should be so concerned.’

‘I sent Baha,’ the elderly woman snapped. ‘I wanted him to see what Turgut Senar was up to.’ She looked briefly across at the object of her hatred and said, ‘I don’t trust Senar. I thought he might have hurt you, Inspector.’

Turgut Senar just curled his lip in response.

‘But now I can see that he has not, I am content,’ Nazlı Kahraman continued. ‘But it is my fault that Baha got into that fight, Inspector. I put him in that position. You must not think badly of him.’

İkmen noted that Baha Ermis still continued to hang his head in what looked very much like shame, in spite of his employer’s supportive words.

İkmen made his way over to a row of padded seats beside the table upon which bubbled both the samovar and the coffee percolator. After he had helped himself to tea, an unusually large amount of sugar and, of course, a cigarette, İkmen called for silence.

Everyone in the room immediately stopped whatever they were doing and looked at him.

Of course Balthazar Cohen had been very ready and willing to indulge in a little off-the-record police assistance, but the logistics of getting him away from Leon’s and over to the hospital were not that simple. The apartment lift was broken and Leon was totally useless when it came to assisting with the lifting and carrying of his brother. Though not quite so willing, Estelle Cohen agreed to help Mehmet Süleyman in his mysterious quest at the Taksim hospital. She wasn’t entirely certain that she could create a diversion for him, however.

‘If you want to go away from the waiting area and into the hospital, why don’t you just go?’ she said as she sat beside him in the car.

‘I’m not supposed to go into the Taksim,’ he said, patiently reiterating what he had already gone over with her several times now. ‘Somebody doesn’t want me to talk to one of the patients in there. But that is exactly what I have to do. Hence my need for your help, Estelle and that of,’ he looked up at the shabby wooden building that the car was parked in front of and sighed, ‘İbrahim.’

Just at that moment a dark, lanky young man wearing way too much jewellery about his person came out of the shabby house and smiled at the occupants of the car. İbrahim İnçesu had been Berekiah Cohen’s best friend ever since they had played together in the streets of Karaköy as little boys. Even when the İnçesu family moved away to Hasköy, Berekiah and İbrahim remained close. Not even İbrahim’s more latterly developed tastes for drinking, fighting and generally breaking his poor mother’s heart could do any more than occasionally shake their friendship. So when Berekiah’s ‘big brother’ Mehmet Süleyman had called İbrahim to ask whether he would like to do him a favour, the twenty-six-year-old had responded immediately.

‘Does it involve any danger?’ had been his first question.

Süleyman replied that danger was possible and, what was more, shouting and general obnoxiousness was required in some quantity. İbrahim had agreed to do whatever the policeman wanted immediately. It was worrying: İbrahim was what many people would have called unhinged. Just his voice, when shouting, could chill the blood. But then what Süleyman needed – someone to create a diversion for him – did of necessity require a high level of noise and general bad behaviour. Balthazar, of course, could have created exactly the same effect just by sobbing at the top of his voice. The sight of a man with no legs weeping is difficult for even the most hard-hearted bystander to ignore. But Balthazar was not with them and İbrahim was.

As soon as the young man got into Süleyman’s white BMW, they headed off towards the Taksim Hospital. The sky was beginning to darken now and in just over an hour it would be iftar. Süleyman, aware of just how erratic the driving of those anxious to get home to eat can become, drove rather more carefully than usual. After all, Abdullah Aydın wasn’t due to be moved from the Taksim until the following morning and so theoretically Süleyman could have the entire night at his disposal. That was of course provided his ‘Auntie’ Estelle wasn’t either seen by a doctor immediately or failed in her task of pretending to be in pain. The latter case was possible but that the former was almost laughable was underwritten powerfully as Süleyman, Estelle and İbrahim entered the hospital waiting area.

‘What do you want?’ a small, but staggeringly hard-faced nurse asked them as they approached the great mass of moaning and grimacing people waiting for some sort of medical attention.

‘My aunt was injured in the Karaköy bombing,’ Süleyman said as he looked affectionately at Estelle. ‘She was taken to the Italian Hospital at the time . . .’

‘They were very kind,’ Estelle said by way of explanation.

‘But now she is having pain again, in her arm,’ Süleyman said.

‘Well, what is she doing here?’ the nurse enquired. ‘Take her back to the Italian Hospital.’

‘I can’t,’ Süleyman looked, he hoped, with dewy eyes at the nurse in front of him. Then moving in more closely to her he dropped his voice. ‘My aunt is poor,’ he said. ‘My brother and I have brought her because we don’t want her to suffer. But we cannot afford medical bills for our entire family. We have parents, wives . . .’

‘Well, we’ll need to have photocopies of her papers first,’ the nurse said as she gestured limply towards an endless line of people. ‘Over there.’

‘I presume it’s my job to get in line for Auntie,’ İbrahim said as he helped Süleyman lead Estelle towards a group of five elderly ladies who immediately made room for her on the three small chairs that they shared.

‘Yes, please, my dear brother. Auntie can’t possibly stand in her condition.’

As she sat down Süleyman noticed that his ‘aunt’ winced with pain in a very convincing manner. Estelle Cohen was an amazing woman. After all the shocks and traumas she’d been through – both recently and in the past – she was still giving this latest little adventure her all.

‘Dear Auntie,’ he said as he took her documents from her then planted a kiss on her cheek and straightened up. He then went with İbrahim over to the disgruntled line of people waiting to photocopy their documents.

‘So when do I start screaming?’ the younger man asked with rather more relish in his voice than Süleyman would have liked.

‘When I tell you.’

‘Which . . .’

‘I’m going to go and find the toilet now,’ Süleyman said as he looked around in order to get his bearings. ‘You stay here in the line with Auntie’s documents and no noises until I say so. OK?’

‘If that’s the deal, that’s the deal,’ İbrahim responded breezily.

‘That’s the deal, İbrahim.’

And stepping carefully over those patients who had probably lost hope long ago and were now lying asleep on the floor, Süleyman began to make his way to the front of the waiting area and the corridor which, he knew, eventually, led to the back of the premises and Abdullah Aydın’s police-guarded room.

İkmen first looked out of the window towards the darkening, snow-blizzarded Fairy Chimneys opposite before he spoke. Soon the muezzin would call the faithful to prayer and the Ramazan fast would be broken. But as he looked at the assembled company around him in Menşure’s restaurant, he couldn’t imagine any of them rushing home to eat on this particular occasion. With just one more glance towards an anxious-looking Altay Salman, he said, ‘Before we start I should just tell you all that I know who kidnapped and attempted to kill me and who killed Aysu Alkaya twenty years ago.’

There wasn’t so much as a sharp intake of breath. Only the sound of Arto Sarkissian’s muted English translation of his words – for Tom’s and Atom’s benefit – made any impact upon the almost corporeal silence in that room. If he had dropped what remained of Aysu Alkaya, which the captain’s recruits had now transported back to the village, on to one of the dining tables in front of them all he could not have stunned or shocked them more. Almost a minute had passed before the only person capable of speaking did so.

‘Then give us the names, Inspector,’ Dr Ali said in that elderly, almost casual tone of his.

İkmen smiled. ‘I will,’ he said. ‘But not before we’ve all gone on a journey – into both the distant and the recent past history of this lovely village of Muratpaşa.’

Menşure Tokatlı, upon whom the irony of İkmen’s words were not lost, cleared her throat and then she busied her hands rearranging the cat Kismet on her lap. He started purring into the silence which was eventually only brought to an end by Çetin İkmen.

‘All right,’ he said as he surveyed both Nazlı Kahraman and the small figure of Haldun Alkaya who had come in with one of the jandarma at the back of the room. ‘Let us get some things out in the open in this village of secrets, shall we? Ziya Kahraman paid Nalan Senar to object to a match between Kemalettin and Aysu Alkaya.’ He looked round the room to see whether Nalan was present, but she wasn’t. Turgut, however, sat gloomily beside his erstwhile adversary, Baha Ermis. ‘He wanted the girl because he believed her to be without either genetic taint or deformity. But, sadly for Ziya Bey, he was duped by Haldun Alkaya because Aysu was deformed and he was not happy.’