Dance with Death (5 page)

‘My cousin Menşure called to tell me that the local jandarma have found what they call a female “mummy” in one of the Fairy Chimneys,’ İkmen continued. ‘I don’t know any more about it than that. But just the possibility it might be her . . .’

‘Of course you have to go,’ Süleyman said firmly. ‘Has Ardıç given permission?’

‘Yes.’ İkmen looked down as if embarrassed. ‘I go tonight.’

‘I see. Does Fatma . . .’

‘No,’ İkmen frowned. He wasn’t accustomed to keeping things from his beloved Fatma, but in view of the subject matter he felt that it was for the best. ‘As far as she’s concerned there’s a body out there I might have some knowledge about – no names or anything. I also told her I’m going to help Menşure with some business problems too. Fatma either doesn’t remember or chooses not to think about the fact that Menşure is the very last person who would need help with anything. Her mother, Auntie Şerefe, was exactly the same, as strong and determined as a lion. But then I told Ardıç basically nothing, only you, my dear friend, know the whole truth.’

Süleyman placed a hand on his mentor’s shoulder. ‘I’m, as ever, honoured that you should trust me with this, Çetin.’

The older man shrugged. ‘You are my friend,’ he said simply. ‘I like working with you. I’m so sorry that I have to go. But I do have to.’

‘I understand.’

And then they embraced again before İkmen left. Alone, briefly, with just the sound of the monitors bleeping rhythmically from Abdullah Aydın’s room, Süleyman wondered whether the Cappadocian body was really this Alison or not. In addition he wondered what İkmen would do if it were not her and also what he would do if it were. Old infatuations and loves were very powerful things as he well knew. His trip out to a club with his brother had ended in his returning home almost as soon as he’d arrived. Somehow he just hadn’t been able to get his ex-wife’s face out of his mind.

The literal meaning of the word ‘Cappadocia’, which is of Persian origin, is ‘Land of Beautiful Horses’. Quite why the Persians had, apparently, overlooked its other delights, which even in ancient times had been around for about thirty million years, is puzzling. But then maybe the Persians were just simply knocked out by the bloodstock they came across in the area, either that or they didn’t feel confident enough to allude to what can be extremely rude-looking rock formations. For every cone-shaped column of tufa topped by a precarious-looking lump of volcanic rock there are, in some parts of the region at least, three that are exactly the image of an erect penis. In some cases there are entire valleys populated by ‘Fairy Chimneys’ of this shape.

Lunar in character and deeply weird in more than a few places, the landscape of Cappadocia was formed by the collision of two tectonic plates and by the eruption of the now extinct volcanoes of Mounts Erciyes and Hasan. These eruptions caused the whole region to be blanketed in ash that eventually solidified into tufa, which in turn eroded into the odd shapes that the region is famous for. Spooky and barren, even from the earliest times, Cappadocia has a reputation for being haunted not only by ghosts from its Hittite and Byzantine past, but also by the peris or fairies for whom, some would say, a higher power had especially created the chimneys.

Not that much of this was on Çetin İkmen’s mind as his bus pulled in to the bus station of the regional capital, Nevşehir. It was now eleven hours since he’d left Esenler bus station in İstanbul; he was exhausted and still irritated by the sight of the enormous bag of food Fatma had given him for the journey. It was so excessive. Even if he hadn’t been travelling overnight, he wouldn’t have wanted to stuff himself with the piles of börek, bread and tubs of cacık and patlıcan salatası that his wife had given him. He had wanted to smoke, but now that smoking was forbidden on buses, that had only been possible during the regulation stops at roadside service areas. So he hadn’t slept at all and was therefore in no mood for what happened next.

‘All right, this is it, end of the journey, everyone off!’ the bus driver yelled down the bus waving his arms as if physically ushering his passengers into Nevşehir.

The young English student who had spent much of the night talking to İkmen about his plans to be an ancient historian, as well as eating a lot of Fatma’s food, turned to the policeman and said, ‘What’s this?’

İkmen put his hand on the young man’s shoulder and said, in English, ‘Don’t worry, it’s nothing.’

Then, pushing past several ranks of barely roused passengers, both foreign and domestic, he made his way up to the front of the bus. The driver who, to İkmen’s way of thinking, was smoking on board just to annoy HIM, leaned lazily across his steering wheel and only looked at the policeman when he tapped him on the shoulder.

‘What do you mean, “everyone off”? Some of us have tickets through to Muratpaşa.’

‘You have to change here for Muratpaşa,’ the driver said with a shrug. ‘There are minibuses.’

‘Yes, but I and some of your other passengers bought tickets through to Muratpaşa.’

An attractive, Asian-looking woman who, İkmen reckoned from her accent, was probably American, made as if to get off the bus with her luggage.

‘Do you have a ticket through to Muratpaşa, Miss?’ İkmen asked, again in the English that was second nature to him.

‘Oh, yes,’ the woman said, ‘but if the bus is stopping here . . .’

‘You go and sit down,’ İkmen said, ‘I’ll make sure we all get to Muratpaşa.’

‘Oh, right. Thanks.’

As the woman made her way back to her seat the bus driver said, ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

‘I’ve heard about this ticket scam before,’ İkmen said angrily.

‘What scam?’

‘The one about paying through to Muratpaşa and getting dropped in Nevşehir,’ İkmen continued. ‘What is it? Being paid by the minibus company, are you?’

‘No.’

‘So, then, take . . .’

‘No!’ the bus driver waved his cigarette in İkmen’s general direction and said, ‘Fuck off! Get off my bus! Who do you think you are, anyway?’

İkmen put his hand into his jacket pocket and took something out which completely changed the driver’s perspective.

When he went back to his seat, the young English student looked at him with admiration. ‘How did you do that?’ he said. ‘That was so cool.’

And then İkmen showed him his police ID, which made the young man laugh rather nervously.

On the basis that she, as a hotel and tour company owner, was doing them a favour by providing them with accommodation, Menşure Tokatlı was not in the habit of meeting her guests at Muratpaşa bus station. It was the sort of thing that everyone in this village of but two thousand souls knew well and so any deviation from this norm was cause for comment.

‘I wonder who she’s waiting for?’ the tall, blonde woman said in Australian English to her smaller, older companion.

‘Who knows?’ the other replied, also in English. ‘Maybe we should ask her.’

‘Are you serious?’ the blonde said. ‘Christ, Marion, if I got too close to her, she’d turn me to stone!’

‘She’s just a woman, Rachelle,’ Marion said in what was very obviously a British accent and then she sat down on one of the bus station benches, one hand in the small of her back. ‘Working in that bloody café will be the death of me.’

‘Menşure Tokatlı is a scary woman,’ Rachelle cut in as she sat down next to her friend and lit a cigarette. ‘You know that when I was married to Kenan she was forever looking over the wall to see what we were doing. I swear to God she was around when Ali was conceived.’

Marion laughed. ‘Oh, Rachelle, Kenan had the pansiyon next door to her place. Listen, you’ve been in Turkey a long time now, you should know that for Turks it is important what the neighbours are doing, especially in a village. You should also know that smoking in public in Ramazan is not really very respectful.’

‘Yeah, I know. I’m a bad, bad person,’ her friend replied, but without extinguishing the offending cigarette. Then, suddenly animated by something across the station forecourt, she said, ‘God! I think she’s coming over!’

Marion looked in the same direction as Rachelle where the slim and sensibly shod figure of Menşure Tokatlı was marching towards them at what appeared to be an alarming pace.

‘God!’ Rachelle reiterated. ‘What the fuck can she want?’

Although what she uttered was in English, Menşure Tokatlı had understood completely what the Australian had said and so she waded straight in. ‘I want nothing, Rachelle Jones, except to put an end to your and Marion Hanım’s endless speculation.’

‘Yes, but . . .’

‘I’m awaiting the arrival of my cousin, Çetin, from İstanbul,’ Menşure said. ‘I called him in light of this ghastly body which I thought he might have some interest in. But now that we know it’s all about that Alkaya business I should just feed him and then send him back to İstanbul. He’s very busy. Should have telephoned him to tell him yesterday really, but . . .’

‘Hanım?’

Menşure wasn’t making much sense. The ‘Alkaya business’ to which she referred, however, was easy enough to decipher. The body Captain Salman’s daughter and her cousin had discovered out in the Valley of the Saints had, the village had discovered the previous afternoon, turned out to be that of a local girl called Aysu Alkaya. She’d gone missing from the village just over twenty years before and had finally been identified by her ageing father. What all of that had to do with Menşure Tokatlı’s cousin from İstanbul and his ‘interest’ was a mystery. But then again, from what Menşure had just said, perhaps his concern was actually with something else.

‘I want him to stay. He’s honest and impartial,’ the older woman said as if to herself. And then, turning back to the two women on the bench, she continued, ‘Çetin is a senior İstanbul police inspector. Maybe he’ll find the Alkaya situation diverting. Yes.’

And then, as if completely ignorant of the other women’s presence, she made her way smartly back towards the bus company offices which formed a solid wall of commerce at the back of the forecourt.

Rachelle pulled her thick jumper tightly about her body and said, ‘Bloody hell, more police! That’s all we need!’

Marion smiled. ‘I don’t hear you complaining about the new training school for the police horsemen.’

‘Ah, but that’s different,’ Rachelle said with a flick of her cigarette-toting hand. ‘I can forgive a man in tight jodhpurs and with rock-hard buns almost anything – including being in the police.’

‘Oh, Rachelle,’ Marion shook her head and laughed. ‘You are so naughty!’

‘I am so bloody bored is what I am,’ Rachelle replied. ‘Ali’s a great kid, don’t get me wrong, and I like running the Tasmanian Devil, but I could do with some company, if you know what I mean.’

‘You know that in Ramazan people are encouraged to think cleanly,’ Marion said seriously.

Rachelle put her cigarette out and then lit another.

‘Yes, I do. But that’s got nothing to do with me or you. We’re foreigners, we don’t get involved. Anyway, what do you want to do, Marion, give me the glooms?’

Rachelle Jones had lived in Muratpaşa for over twenty years. She’d come to Turkey as a bog-standard Australian backpacker but, unlike most girls from Sydney, she’d met a local man and not only had sex with him but married him, too. Now that marriage was at an end she worked with her nineteen-year-old son, Ali, in her own pansiyon, which was called the Tasmanian Devil. However, twenty years or no twenty years, some things were still hard at times. Finding a suitable male companion was one, and Ramazan, when she had to think where she was every time she lit up, was another. Marion, too, had been in Turkey for many years and was married to a local man called Adem. Together they ran a café called the Cappudocia Coffee Bean. Marion was very happy to be out of Britain and loved living in Muratpaşa. She could, however, very easily understand some of Rachelle’s frustrations.

A blue and white intercity bus swept into the forecourt, just briefly rousing a group of overcoat-clad local men outside the Tourist Information Office from their tea and tavla session. If there were any tourists on board, there wouldn’t be many and, as all the men would know only too well, with Menşure Tokatlı meeting the bus, odd as that was, their businesses, whatever they were, didn’t stand a chance. Rachelle squinted to see who was getting off and said, ‘I suppose if the cousin is from İstanbul he can’t be that bad. I mean at least he won’t smell of goat, will he?’

Marion laughed. ‘Oh, there are some fantastic people in this village, Rachelle, and you know it,’ she said.

‘Yeah, I do. I know how lovely the place is too, but . . .’ She shrugged. She didn’t need to go any further, Marion knew exactly what she meant.

The two women watched as first a couple of obviously European girls, an Asian woman and a headscarfed lady with multiple bundles, alighted on to the forecourt. Then there was a pause. Menşure Tokalı peered anxiously into the bus and for a moment Rachelle, at least, wondered whether this cousin had in fact arrived. But then a small, dark man who was accompanied by a much taller, pale boy got off and Menşure took the man by the hand with a smile. Fifty-something, the man was thin and a little shabby with his cheap shoes and cigarette hanging from one corner of his mouth.

‘Well, if that’s the best that İstanbul can do,’ Rachelle said as she surveyed Çetin İkmen with some amusement. ‘God!’

‘Not as good as the men at the riding school,’ Marion said with a twinkle in her eye.

‘Are you kidding?’ Rachelle laughed. ‘They are hot! And that Captain Salman . . . Well, he can ride my pony any time he likes!’

‘Rachelle!’

But the Australian was already on her feet and on her way back to her pansiyon. Menşure Tokatlı had come down from her vast complex of Fairy Chimneys to meet a coach, a new cop from İstanbul was in town as well as a sprinkling of tourists – it was just about as much excitement as Muratpaşa could take during autumn. Marion stayed and watched for a while as Menşure Tokatlı dragooned her cousin and all of the tourists into her Land Rover and took off at some speed up into the hills. She drove like a lunatic but then, with this little traffic, why shouldn’t she? Marion pushed herself up off the bench and made her way back to the Cappudocia Coffee Bean and more table moving. Adem was constantly changing the café’s image in an attempt to attract more custom. Quite why, Marion didn’t know. The Coffee Bean almost alone amongst local businesses was holding its own out of season. But then every foreigner in town knew it was a safe bet for food and drink any time of the day, Ramazan or no Ramazan.