Deep Waters (14 page)

‘Yes,’ Suleyman replied. ‘But not until I’ve spoken to Inspector İkmen. It is, after all, his case and he may have different ideas in light of this evidence.’

‘Sure.’

‘Inspector İkmen went to see the old Vlora woman last night,’ Tepe said.

‘What, alone?’ Suleyman asked, frowning.

‘Aliya Berisha admitted there was bad blood between the two families and so the Inspector thought it might be an idea to speak to those on the other side of the dispute.’

‘The Vlora men wouldn’t have been happy to see him.’

‘The Inspector reasoned that after Yıldız and I went in, the Vlora men would make themselves invisible for a time,’ Tepe said. ‘Since the Inspector is part Albanian himself, he must know what he’s talking about. And besides, when he started on about werewolves and vampires I admit that I got a bit lost.’

‘Werewolves and vampires?’ Çöktin inquired. ‘What about werewolves and vampires?’

‘Because he and the Vloras and the rest of them are from eastern European backgrounds, Inspector İkmen reckons that these things are familiar to them,’ Tepe answered with a smile. ‘As a full-blooded Turk he reasoned I’d find it difficult to cope should the old woman turn into something revolting.’

‘In other words, he wanted to go there alone,’ Suleyman said, laughing in spite of himself.

‘Perhaps you should suggest to the Inspector,’ said Çöktin as he rose unsteadily from his seat and walked towards Tepe, ‘that from now on silver bullets should be issued as standard.’

‘Eh?’

Both Suleyman and Çöktin laughed at Tepe’s obvious confusion.

‘I think you should perhaps get out to the movies a little more often,’ Suleyman said as he stubbed his cigarette out and rose to leave. ‘In the meantime, I think I should get back to my work and Çöktin should go home.’

‘Oh, but—’

‘Your mother’s potions may not always cure you, İsak, but neither will they harm you,’ Suleyman said. ‘You are fortunate to have a mother who cares so deeply for you.’ He looked a little sad. ‘Value her.’

İkmen’s interview with the Vlora brothers, Mehmet, Aryan and Mehti, did not last very long. The ‘boys’, particularly Mehmet, were not exactly happy to be in his presence but, they did accede to his demands. As well as taking possession of a knife that Mehmet said was his, İkmen wanted forensic to inspect their apartment, with the boys’ consent. He was certain that neither Mehmet nor Mehti really understood the true import of this, but he thought Aryan probably did; he asked what substances would be used to expose suspect stains. All the more encouraging then that the boys agreed so gracefully – and far more convincing than their predictable story regarding having been together all the time on the night of the murder.

İkmen did, however, wonder just how much Aryan Vlora really knew. He was, after all, only an unemployed immigrant. Clothes, carpets and walls that had been washed entirely clean of blood could yield damning evidence these days. Once in contact with almost any other substance, blood, it would seem, stuck. Rather like the Albanians’ feuding rituals, it never really went away.

Before the interview with the Vloras, Tepe had passed İkmen some information Suleyman had uncovered regarding a car that had apparently belonged to Rifat Berisha. This, together with some postcards and tickets from London, were what Tepe considered to be the most significant pieces of physical evidence, apart from the body itself, so far. However, whilst acknowledging that the car was indeed important, İkmen was less certain about the London artefacts. After all, someone could have given him the postcards and, he thought cynically, he could have obtained the tickets whilst picking tourists’ pockets. True, they indicated that Rifat could have travelled to London, but even if he had, whether he had sold his kidney there was unclear. And besides, in terms of Rifat’s death, there was nothing to connect the sale of his kidney with his murder. What İkmen needed to do now was to sift through Rifat’s possessions himself. Perhaps his take on their importance would be different to Tepe’s. As far as the papers relating to Rifat’s car were concerned, he would put money on it that Rifat’s documents were forgeries. He held the same opinion about the victim’s mysteriously absent passport – opinions that, he knew, many would condemn as unnecessarily harsh and unfairly stereotypical. And indeed perhaps if Angeliki Vlora hadn’t brought up the subject of his mother, if Mehmet Vlora hadn’t victimised Samsun, he might have been rather more open-minded. But these things had happened and, yes, he was prejudiced.

When his telephone rang, İkmen’s hand sprang out nervously to grab it.

‘Hello, İkmen.’

‘Hello, Çetin, it’s Arto. I’ve got that toxicology on Rifat Berisha for you.’

‘And?’

‘Nothing beyond the ubiquitous nicotine,’ he said with a sigh. ‘As far as I can tell, he was a very healthy young man whose one remaining kidney was working most efficiently. Did you ask his parents about hospital admissions?’

‘They said they knew nothing about either hospital admissions or trips abroad, although his ownership of a very nice car plus a few artefacts from England does make me wonder,’ İkmen replied. ‘Apparently, Rifat would sometimes be absent from the family home for weeks at a time, doing what his mother described as “men’s business”.’

‘Did they say whether their son had been ill?’

‘Rifat was apparently, as you have indicated, a very healthy young man.’

‘Which all seems to make the kidney for sale hypothesis more likely,’ the doctor said.

‘Yes,’ İkmen agreed. ‘Although we don’t know whether that transaction has any bearing upon his death.’

‘Anything that morally bankrupt has to be suspect surely.’

İkmen shrugged. ‘Possibly.’

A short pause ensued, after which Arto Sarkissian asked, a little tentatively, ‘And this blood feud thing . . .’

‘I’m still pursuing that, yes.’

‘You know, Çetin,’ the doctor began, ‘what we were talking about last night . . .’

‘Yes?’ His voice was now eager.

‘I will, as I promised, sort through Father’s papers tonight. However, I think that in the meantime you should attempt to put this thing about your mother from your mind, Çetin. It was all a very long time ago.’

‘But the woman said that Mother was murdered, Arto!’ İkmen exclaimed, shocked by his friend’s seemingly calm stance on the matter.

‘Yes, forty years ago, Çetin! Too long ago even for you to find her killer now – if indeed there was a killer, which I doubt.’

‘Yes, but don’t you see, I must be sure?’

It was said with such a plaintive tone that Arto’s unease about İkmen’s seeming irrationality left him. Of course if one thought one’s parent had been murdered one would have to act. Twenty minutes or forty years before, it didn’t really make any difference. One’s blood was one’s blood and that was that – though clearly it wasn’t compelling enough to make İkmen go and see his brother. Although Çetin was sometimes quite openly aggravated by his older sibling, when it came to that event forty years ago, Halil was both an heroic and a sacrosanct figure. And in any event, hadn’t the thirteen-year-old who discovered his mother’s body on that balmy May afternoon suffered enough?

‘I can see what you mean, of course I can, Çetin,’ Arto said.

‘Then all I ask is that if you find something – anything – amongst Uncle Vahan’s papers, you will be absolutely truthful with me.’

‘Of course,’ Arto Sarkissian replied. ‘Do we not love each other as true brothers?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then I will do everything I can to help you as I know you would assist me if this sad matter belonged to my family.’

İkmen smiled. ‘Thank you, Arto. I appreciate this.’

‘It’s nothing,’ the doctor said. ‘Now I really do need to get on with my paperwork. Perhaps you could assist me by telling Mehmet Suleyman that comparative tests between Rifat Berisha’s blood and that found in the car are under way.’

‘Of course,’ İkmen said. ‘I’ll go and see him now.’

‘Thank you.’

‘So I will speak to you later then, Arto?’

Noting, yet again, the neediness in İkmen’s voice, Arto Sarkissian said a very firm, ‘Yes,’ followed quickly by, ‘Goodbye, Çetin.’

‘Goodbye, Arto.’

As İkmen rose from his chair to go and see Suleyman, he reflected that although he trusted his oldest friend to keep his word and look through his father’s papers, he wasn’t sure that he would indeed be entirely honest about what he found there. After all, Arto Sarkissian was a doctor and they did not always, as everybody knew, tell people everything they thought they needed to hear. Doctors sometimes tried to protect people, even if that was against the knowledge of the ravages of time and their own biology. Still, there was nothing İkmen could do about this. He would just have to take Arto’s word for whatever he found. It was either that or insult him and risk their friendship, and that was something he certainly didn’t want to do.

Although in recent days the residents of Kutucular Caddesi had become rather more accustomed to the appearance of unfamiliar people entering number 32, they had not reckoned on the sight of this huge vehicle blocking their street. Gold in colour and as Mimoza’s husband Dilek the landlord would say to his coffeehouse friends later, upholstered in the finest leather, the Rolls-Royce represented a lifestyle completely unknown to Kutucular’s residents. In spite of the best efforts of the chauffeur who stayed with the vehicle after the young lady had gone into number 32, the crowd that gathered around the Rolls was male and envious. Even discreetly fingering the small pistol Mr Evren had given him with orders to protect his children at all costs did not make Hassan the chauffeur feel any more secure.

Inside number 32, however, things were calmer than in the street, if no less strained. The girl, or rather woman as became apparent if one stood close to her, had entered asking to see ‘Rifat’s family’. Her tiny, twisted frame was swathed in black from head to toe and she spoke in the same halting fashion as the Berishas themselves, as if she, too, were not native to the Turkish Republic.

Aliya Berisha, predictably, had been hostile towards this unknown and ugly-looking person.

‘What do you want with Rifat’s family?’ she had asked. ‘Who are you?’

‘My name is Felicity Evren,’ the woman replied, her voice soft and quite deep. ‘I was a good friend of Rifat’s. His sister telephoned yesterday with the terrible news of his death. I said that I would come.’

‘What? Engelushjia?’ Aliya looked nervously at her daughter.

‘Yes, Mum, I invited her,’ the youngster explained as she moved forward to solemnly shake hands with the stranger. ‘I had a number for Miss Evren. Rifat gave it to me some time ago.’

‘Gave it to you!’ her mother cried, slipping back into Albanian in her agitation. ‘Why did I not know of this – relationship?’

‘There were lots of things you didn’t know about Rifat,’ Engelushjia said, stoically speaking in Turkish. And then taking this odd and, at close quarters, facially disfigured woman by the hand, she led her into the living room and sat her down.

Following, Aliya and Rahman muttered agitatedly to one another.

Only Mimoza Özer smiled. ‘This must be one of Rifat’s conquests,’ she whispered into Aliya’s ear. ‘One with money, by the look of it, cousin.’

‘I have come to pay my respects,’ Felicity Evren said. ‘It is all I can do for beloved Rifat now.’ And then she burst into tears, her tiny frame threatening to fall apart with every miserable convulsion. ‘I’m sorry!’

The Berishas, admittedly with half an eye on the great golden car outside, sat down beside her, with the exception of Engelushjia who went to the kitchen to prepare tea. The older Berishas sat and watched the stranger cry for quite some time.

‘Do you think she wants something?’ Rahman asked his wife in the Albanian they spoke when addressing each other, trying, as he did so, to work out whether this odd stranger had lumps on her face or whether parts of it were paralysed.

‘If Rifat had sex with this one then I think that the mystery about those trips he took and where he got his car from are solved,’ Mimoza commented acidly. ‘A man would have to close his eyes and think only of money in order to pleasure such a thing without vomiting.’

‘Oh, please do not speak of that cursed car again!’ Aliya said. ‘When that policeman told me they’d found it out in Ortaköy and I, in this grief, had to act as if I knew nothing about it . . . A car, full of my son’s blood . . .’

‘We don’t know that it was Rifat’s blood,’ Rahman said gravely. ‘It—’

‘Rifat took me to some beautiful places,’ the strange woman cut in. The Albanians stared at her. ‘Even though he was a foreigner too, he’d lived here a lot longer than I have, so he knew where to go. Monuments, parks and restaurants were quite unknown to me until I met Rifat.’

‘Which is why that boy gained so much weight lately, I suppose,’ Mimoza mouthed into Rahman’s ear.

‘You’re not carrying his child?’ Aliya asked her guest with a directness that caused Engelushjia who was now entering with the tea glasses to nearly drop her burden.

‘If only I was,’ Felicity Evren said with a sad little shrug, ‘then at least there would be something left of Rifat. But that was never – couldn’t be – possible.’ And then she started crying again.

‘I expect she’s too old and dry for motherhood,’ Aliya said as she turned towards her cousin.

‘Must be older than you,’ Mimoza answered knowingly, then added, amazed, ‘What can your Rifat have been thinking of?’

‘Perhaps he just enjoyed the lady’s company,’ Engelushjia snapped at the older women. Then, turning to the weeping stranger, she said, ‘I have made you some tea, miss.’

‘Oh, that’s very kind of you,’ Felicity said and attempted to compose herself enough to dry her eyes. ‘Thank you. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry!’

As she solemnly handed a small glass of tea to their guest, Engelushjia reminded her Albanian audience of their obligations vis-à-vis a guest – any guest. Using the words of the despised Lek Dukagjini – a man’s house belongs to Allah and the guest – she effectively brought to a close her family’s more offensive and prurient questioning of this stranger in their midst. She also obtained some satisfaction from using their own code of conduct against them.