Deep Waters (30 page)

‘Well . . .’

‘Come on, Flick,’ he said as he held one hand out towards her. ‘You’ve paid to come in, so come in.’

And she did. Walking unevenly in front of her brother she, too, observed the nave with awestruck eyes. What she did not do was burst into flames or crumble to dust. Ali’s face was pale as he watched her. He had built his world around a sick woman’s lies. He had become what he had strived so hard to become only to discover that he was now entirely alone. His sister, his love – she was just a lie.

‘Why don’t I take you up to the gallery?’ he said breathlessly and took hold of her thin arm. ‘You’ll get a better view up there.’

‘If you like,’ she said with a smile, ‘just so long as we don’t have to talk about vampires any more. I hope that finished with Rifat.’

‘Yes. You know it did.’ He ushered her forward towards the door at the end of the narthex, which led to the famous Aya Sofya cobbled ramp. ‘Now that he’s gone, you’re mine again, so that’s OK.’

The fact that there are no actual stairs to the upper galleries of Aya Sofya speaks eloquently of Byzantine social mores. Unlike the traditional western European idea of Christian women, Byzantine ladies of high status were frequently veiled. Indeed, it is said that the Ottomans conceived the idea of the harem from the Byzantines. As in life, so in religion women and men were kept separate – the body of the church for the men, the gallery for the women. However, in view of the fact that these were noble women, the wives and daughters of emperors, they weren’t expected to walk. Instead, they were taken up to the gallery in heavily curtained litters – presumably, so Felicity Evren thought as she puffed and struggled up the unevenly surfaced ramp, carried by armies of poor slaves who probably wished they were dead. At the top of the ramp she stopped for some time to catch her breath. Her brother, who had preceded her, was also panting heavily, which indicated a lack of fitness that gave Felicity a moment of concern.

But then as he ushered her forward to look at the view of the nave from the gallery rail, her concern turned to delight as she beheld the vastness of the space both above and below.

İkmen had been mildly surprised when he discovered that the person calling him from the British Consulate was actually the consul himself. Usually it was an underling who was given such tasks, but not in this case.

‘İlhan Evren doesn’t, officially, have a police record,’ the consul said smoothly.

‘Really?’ İkmen, who already knew that Evren did have a police record, was puzzled.

‘But there is what is now a spent conviction from nearly twenty years ago.’

Oh, so that explained it. ‘What was it for, sir?’

‘Fraud. Basically it involved arranging fake marriages for illegal immigrants. Evren himself is a legitimate UK subject of Cypriot origin. Apparently he used other Cypriot UK passport holders to act as brides and bridegrooms.’

‘And his connections with the art world?’

‘They are more recent,’ the consul replied, ‘and seemingly legitimate. He lives here on a residence permit, as I expect you know, Inspector. He made a lot of money back home in England and, I believe, has powerful friends there.’

İkmen frowned. ‘Powerful friends, sir?’

‘Art lovers, Inspector. Prominent doctors, lawyers, actors – people like that.’

Including, as Suleyman had told him, the doctor who performed the kidney transplant from Rifat to Evren’s daughter. It made İkmen wonder whether in fact Evren had paid for the operation at all. Had it been a favour owed for maybe providing the doctor with some particularly fine Selcuk silver? It was a sobering possibility.

‘Evren has been back to the UK a few times since he came to live here,’ the consul cut into İkmen’s thoughts. ‘He also, as you suspected, made a visa application for an Albanian national.’

‘Rifat Berisha?’

‘Yes.’

‘Which you allowed.’

‘Yes.’ İkmen heard the consul smile. ‘We do occasionally, Inspector,’ he said, ‘especially if that person can be vouched for by a UK national and we have a firm departure date.’

‘This was given to you?’ İkmen asked.

‘Yes indeed, as was an address in London which is I believe the family’s UK base.’ İkmen heard him smile again. ‘It’s in Holland Park,’ he said and then expanded, ‘It’s the sort of place where a million pounds will just about buy you a garage – the apartment will cost you considerably more.’

‘Oh, I see.’

The consul couldn’t give him anything more. In Britain, Evren was, it seemed, clean in the eyes of the law with regard to his art dealing. With most artefacts in the former eastern bloc as well as the jewels of the old Turkish aristocracy apparently legally up for grabs, Evren was free to do business with whoever he liked. And if this included leather-jacketed men with Russian names, that was his affair.

What was of interest to İkmen was the apparent scale of Evren’s wealth. In UK sterling terms he was a millionaire, which meant that he was a very rich man indeed. He could have given Rifat several hundred million lire and not even noticed. So why hadn’t he? wondered İkmen. Perhaps he didn’t want to set a precedent for future extortion, or maybe money wasn’t the issue at all. Had Rifat wanted to be paid off for something other than donating his kidney to Felicity? Perhaps, İkmen thought with a shudder, he had given the strangely deformed woman something no man had yet been able to face?

‘So,’ Suleyman said as he looked down at Mehti Vlora’s statement, ‘you say here that you arrived at the house of Rifat’s girlfriend at about ten p.m.’

‘I thought we’d done this,’ Mehti said as his eyes, unbidden, flashed across to the grinning face of İsak Çöktin. ‘We’ve done this now, I’ve put it there!’

‘Yes,’ Suleyman said and then frowned. ‘Unfortunately there appear to be some inconsistencies.’

‘Oh, not the Fiat.’

‘Not
only
the Fiat is actually more to the point, Mr Vlora.’

‘Only?’

‘Perhaps if we run through the sequence of events again things will become clearer to me,’ Suleyman said.

‘But . . .’

‘You say that you stole the green Fiat from outside a jeweller’s on Babıali Caddesi at around about four p.m.’

‘Yes.’

‘What did you do with this vehicle before you followed Rifat Berisha to Bebek later that evening?’

Mehti shrugged. ‘I drove. I picked up a girl . . .’

‘Was she European, this girl?’ Çöktin, who had until this point been silent, asked.

Mehti briefly looked at the person who had become for him the principal object of his fears and muttered, ‘Yes.’

‘Did you fuck her?’

Mehti just sat there with his mouth open.

‘Is that question really necessary, Sergeant?’ Suleyman inquired, frowning.

‘It would mean that we might be able to track down someone else apart from Mr Vlora who actually saw this Fiat, sir.’

‘But then I took it home,’ Mehti said. ‘My brothers—’

‘Oh, so your brothers saw it, did they?’ Suleyman asked. ‘That’s new.’

‘Yeah, I showed it to Mehmet and—’

‘But not to Aryan?’

‘He was out. He didn’t come back until it was time to eat.’

‘Strange that Mehmet hasn’t mentioned seeing this vehicle, don’t you think, Mehti?’ Suleyman said.

‘Well, I often go and get cars. I can’t afford one of my own. And anyway, Mehmet’s trying to protect me.’

‘Or you’re protecting him,’ Çöktin said with a sneer.

‘That’s not true! I’ve confessed to it, me! What more do you want?’

Suleyman leaned forward across the interview table. ‘We want to make sure,’ he said, ‘that we have the right man. Because the person who killed Rifat Berisha will spend the rest of his life in jail. That will mean no women, unpleasant food, no chance of escape and, even though they try their hardest, no guarantee that the prison authorities will be able to protect you from some of their more brutal inmates.’

‘But I did it!’

‘Oh, well, if you did then that’s OK,’ Suleyman said. ‘You deserve everything you’re going to get.’

Çöktin’s silent laugh was not lost on Mehti Vlora.

‘So, moving forward in time,’ Suleyman said, ‘you followed Rifat Berisha to Bebek at about eight thirty.’

‘Yes.’

‘And once he had gone inside Mr Evren’s house . . .’

‘I let myself in the back of his car.’

‘How?’

Mehti Vlora looked blank.

Suleyman cleared his throat. ‘What I’m trying to get at, Mehti, is that at your original interrogation you said that you jemmied one of the back doors open. However, when it was pointed out to you that none of the back doors had been tampered with, you said that the door must have been unlocked. Which version am I to believe?’

With a shrug of his shoulders Mehti said, ‘The door was open. I let myself in.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Yes.’

‘OK.’ Suleyman wrote this down on a piece of paper he intended to add to the original statement. ‘You will get an opportunity to read this,’ he explained to Mehti, ‘and sign it if you agree with its contents.’

The Albanian didn’t answer, seemingly fixated on Çöktin.

‘Now,’ Suleyman continued, ‘you say in your statement that you waited for Rifat Berisha in the back of his car. Is that correct?’

‘Yes.’

Suleyman smiled. ‘So perhaps you’d like to tell me why it is that despite an exhaustive search of Rifat’s car our forensic colleagues have been unable to identify even one fingerprint that matches yours?’

‘Well, I was wearing gloves,’ Mehti said. ‘It was cold.’

‘You didn’t mention gloves in your statement, Mr Vlora. Would you like me to addend gloves to your original version?’

Mehti shrugged again. ‘Well, yeah.’

While Suleyman wrote this on the addendum sheet, Çöktin fixed his eyes firmly on Mehti’s face. Then he smiled. The Albanian looked away.

Suleyman put his pen down on the table. ‘Forensics have gleaned numerous fibres, hairs and fluids from the vehicle that will be subjected to genetic testing which is totally accurate. If you remember, we asked you for a sample for this purpose, from your mouth.’

Mehti first scratched his head and then rubbed his face with one of his cuffed hands.

‘So if that stuff doesn’t match my genetic stuff . . .’

‘Then you were never in that car, Mr Vlora,’ Suleyman said. ‘It’s that simple.’

In view of the snowy conditions, Miss Flick had given him the rest of the day off.

‘Ali and I can make our own way back,’ she’d said as she’d got out of the car in Sultan Ahmet Square. ‘Get home now, Hassan, before this snow gets any worse.’

‘What about your father?’ he’d asked.

‘Oh, I don’t think he’ll be going anywhere today,’ she replied as she shivered on the pavement. ‘He’s far too old for weather like this. Just leave the car in the drive and go home. I’ll take my father out if he needs to go anywhere.’

But Hassan had been unsure. Knowing from experience that if Mr Evren wanted something and didn’t get it people tended to suffer, he resolved to check with him first. He had to take the car back to the house anyway, so he might as well go in.

He parked the car out in front of the house and was about to let himself in when a man came running towards him from across the road. It was one of Mr Evren’s Russian friends, Dimitri something or other.

‘Hey, you!’ he called as he approached, his leather jacket flapping against the snow. ‘Is your master with you?’

‘No, I think Mr Evren is in the house,’ Hassan replied and took his door keys out of his pocket.

‘No he isn’t!’ the man snarled. ‘I’ve knocked and knocked and there’s nobody in. I’m supposed to be having a meeting with him at ten thirty.’

Hassan shrugged. ‘Maybe he’s gone out to get something,’ he said, although not with any conviction. Evren rarely if ever went out without the car, as Hassan well knew.

‘I’d better come in and wait then,’ the man said.

Hassan felt that it probably didn’t matter. This man was, after all, a known associate of his employer. Not that he had a choice anyway because as soon as he unlocked the door the man pushed into the house and made his way to Mr Evren’s living room.

Hassan headed for the kitchen. If Mr Evren did have an appointment with this man, he’d be back soon. He could then ask him whether or not he needed the car and tell him about Miss Flick’s plans – Mr Evren liked to know about those. In fact the various activities of his children was always the first thing Mr Evren asked about when Hassan returned from taking them somewhere in the car – which made his absence now all the more noticeable and strange. But like other mortals Mr Evren was subject to shifting circumstance. For some reason he’d had to go and that was that.

In the kitchen, Hassan went straight for the refrigerator. There was a bottle of real Scotch whisky in there which, provided he didn’t take too much, served to supplement his meagre wages. Topped up with Coca-Cola it was pleasant and warming. Hassan started to relax after his stressful drive through the snow and swung his feet up onto the kitchen table.

Although later he claimed to be unable to recall the sound of Dimitri’s footsteps running towards the kitchen, Hassan had no trouble remembering what the Russian’s hands had looked and smelt like. Thrust under his nose like horrific trophies, they smelt strangely of musty iron and were as red as the deepest arterial blood – which was what they were smothered with.

She was, he thought as he watched her gaze across at the great tower of scaffolding that clung, spider-like, to the other side of the nave, disturbingly fit. Unlike his own breathing, hers was steady and although sad around her eyes, she didn’t appear to be very distressed any more. She had been very fond of Rifat but he had never given her real love, only fucking, and he had been a most greedy young man, so she was better off without him. It would have been nice to believe that she had no heart, but he didn’t. Ali scowled. Her calm demeanour made him feel angry, cheated and, most importantly, alone. It was, he felt, somewhere he shouldn’t be, somewhere he had never been before, except that he had because Felicity had lied. Oh, she’d told him the truth after Rifat’s death, but he hadn’t really believed her until now. It was too big and too scary a concept to take in. Death – she could die. And now he alone was this thing . . .