Divorce Turkish Style (29 page)

I now knew that to be true. In my mind, life with Selim was untainted by any trace of a single bad moment. It was as if a large broom had swept my heart clean of any unpleasant recollections, leaving only my love for him and other good memories.

“You look a million miles away,” said a male voice.

I was so lost in my thoughts that I hadn't even noticed the door open. It was Batuhan. I looked at him, blinking away tears and wondering if I was dreaming or mistaken. He certainly wasn't the person I'd been waiting for.

“I had work to do around here, so I thought I'd look in on you,” he said.

“I'm glad you did,” I replied, not feeling the slightest bit glad, and fearing he might bump into Sinan. “Shall we go out? There's a nice café near here, and I haven't eaten anything since morning.”

“Why don't we go to a kebab house? It's on me,” said Batuhan.

“Let's wait for the rush-hour traffic to subside. How about a coffee first?” I said, grabbing my bag and closing the computer because I wanted to leave immediately.

“Where's this café?”

“At Tünel.”

“In that case, I'll leave my car here.”

“Might as well,” I said, letting him help me lower the shutters on the shop window.

Deciding that İstiklal Street had too many potholes for us, we decided to turn off into Asmalımescit Street.

“This area's changed a lot over the last few years,” said Batuhan.

“I love it. The taverns are great,” I said. “Why don't we go to a fish restaurant instead of a kebab house? Bluefish is in season.”

“You know I don't understand fish. I'm a meat man. Still, you decide.”

“In that case, we'll eat fish for a change, but coffee first. Come on,” I said positively, and led him into Şimdi Café.

“I have a favour to ask,” he said as we sat down. “I'm going to ask you to do something, and then we won't talk shop again this evening.”

“Go on,” I said.

“After talking to you, I sent some of my lads to talk to Sani's neighbours, and I also did a bit of research myself. Apparently, Orhan Soner was the architect of Sani's house and he'd personally sorted out her lease. There'd been some sort of problem between Boğaziçi Construction and the estate freeholder, because the houses were intended for sale rather than the rental market. A
court case ensued and the houses were being kept vacant until a verdict was reached. You must have noticed that most of the houses were empty.”

“So Orhan Bey became an agent for his ex-girlfriend,” I said.

“He did it to make sure that he had Sani well under control.”

What an ugly thing to say. What was I doing having coffee with a policeman, anyway? Even if it was Batuhan.

“Or rather, that he could keep her close by,” he said, realizing that I didn't like his choice of words.

Yes, that was better.

“Do you think they'd started seeing each other again?” I asked. My dear readers already know the way my mind was working.

“That's exactly what I'm thinking,” said Batuhan. “Anyway, he was far too smooth-talking for my lads, who couldn't get anything out of him apart from a look at his passport, which contained stamps showing he'd been abroad on a ten-day business trip when Sani died. I obtained the flight lists from the airline company and they confirmed the dates he gave. However, as I said, he was playing games with my boys, and I think he knows a lot more than he's letting on.”

“Do the Turkish police get foreign assistance?” I asked.

“Foreign assistance? We prefer any assistance we get to be local,” said Batuhan, patting my arm and smiling.

“Now, now! It's time we went to the restaurant,” I said, smiling. “Do you suspect Orhan Soner?”

“Not exactly, but… You know that sperm was found in Sani's underwear, don't you?”

“Which you can have DNA-tested,” I said.

“Without any evidence against him, I have no grounds to ask for a DNA test. The attorney has to be persuaded. It can't just happen on my say-so.”

“What if there was a witness?”

“But who? We know of two people who were previously in a relationship with her, but that was a long time ago,” said Batuhan. “And Soner hasn't admitted that he was seeing Sani. Why's that?”

“Because he's married, of course, why else? He wouldn't have wanted everyone knowing about it, would he?” I said.

“Don't you think his wife has any idea? Surely she must have wondered what was going on when her husband's former lover suddenly moved into the house directly opposite.”

“Maybe she didn't know about Sani,” I said.

“Why don't you go and find out?” said Batuhan. “We'll discuss it later.”

“Of course,” I said.

“But no more talk about this tonight. My whole life seems to revolve around work at the moment.”

“In that case, I shan't tell you what I've just learned,” I said.

“Kati, please. My mind needs a rest this evening,” said Batuhan wearily. “After all, murders don't disappear.”

“Murders don't, but murderers do,” I said.

Our suspect, if not a murderer, was certainly eluding us. Everyone I'd had suspicions about in this case had proved impossible to nail down: the Thrace industrialists, the TLF, Cem, Naz, Orhan Soner, Tamaşa, Jasmin Gil, Sinan. Potentially, they'd all had reasons to want Sani dead.

I woke up the next morning wondering who was stroking my hair. It was of course Fofo.

“What time did you get back last night? I didn't hear you come in,” he said.

“It was late.”

“How was your evening? Did you have a good time?” asked Fofo.

Did we have a good time?

“Not bad. We ate fish and then went dancing,” I said, burying my face in the pillow.

“Come on, get up,” said Fofo, opening the curtains. “You can have a lie-in when the case is solved.”

“No, I want to sleep now,” I grumbled.

“That youngster obviously sapped all your energy. I thought it would have been the other way round.”

“Which youngster?” Batuhan was younger than me, but hardly a youngster! No, Sinan was a youngster. Then I suddenly realized that Fofo thought I'd been out with Sinan.

“Sinan didn't turn up. He didn't even phone,” I said.

“So who did you go out for dinner with?” asked Fofo.

“Batuhan called in at the shop and we went to eat in Asmalımescit Street,” I said.

“I phoned you at about eleven to ask if I should spend the night somewhere else, but you didn't pick up.”

“I didn't hear you call. It was very noisy.”

“Maybe Sinan also called and you didn't hear,” said Fofo.

“Are you trying to put Sinan back in my good books?”

He wasn't, of course. Darling Fofo was just trying to make me feel better about being stood up.

“I was just stating the facts,” he said, as he shuffled away in his slippers. “Where's your bag?”

“In the sitting room, I expect. How should I know?”

He came back with it, saying, “Let's see how many unanswered calls you have on your mobile.”

Noticing that my mobile was not in its usual place, I tipped everything out: notebook, two pens, lip balm, hand cream, purse and more.

“My mobile's not there,” I said. “Do you think it's been stolen?”

“What's this?” asked Fofo, peering at a yellow metal thing he had in his hand.

What was it indeed?

“Where did that come from?” I asked.

“It fell out of your bag. Where else?”

“I've no idea how that got there,” I said.

“It smells strongly of perfume,” said Fofo.

Strong perfume?

“Now I remember where it came from,” I said with a groan because my head was beginning to throb. “We found it at Sani's house. Or rather, Naz found it on the floor.” In our rush to leave Sani's house that day, I must have thrown it into my bag.

“It looks like the lid of a bottle,” said Fofo.

“That's what I thought. Where on earth is my mobile?”

“I'll call your number,” said Fofo.

The call was answered immediately. After a brief conversation, Fofo turned to me and said, “You left your mobile at the shop yesterday. You have seven unanswered calls, but I didn't ask Pelin to look and see who they were from.”

“Thanks, you did the right thing,” I said. “Can you bring me an Alka-Seltzer?”

“What were you drinking last night?” asked Fofo.

“
Rakı. Rakı. Rakı. Rakı
. Whisky. Whisky. Tequila.”

“Four
rakı
s, two whiskies and a tequila?”

“I think so.”

“You'd better go and have a shower.”

“I think I'd rather get some sleep.”

“Come on, get up,” ordered Fofo, throwing my arm over his shoulder and trying to drag me to my feet. If only I'd been light enough for him to pick me up in his arms – it would have meant I was a size eight. However, it would have lowered my chances with Turkish men who like their women more rounded, which, since I was still living in Istanbul, was an aspect that had to be considered.

“You're going to break my arm!” I cried.

“You've got to sober up. We have lots to talk about. My friends knew all about Cem being gay.”

“Leave me alone,” I said.

Fofo won. I went into the shower and, after drinking a thick black coffee, a grapefruit juice and an Alka-Seltzer, I curled up at one end of the sofa, my stomach churning as if I had an ocean inside me.

“You'd better eat something,” said Fofo, standing over me with a plate in his hand.

“I'm not hungry.”

“Maybe not, but you have to eat. We need to get the alcohol out of your bloodstream as quickly as possible.”

Where does one learn something like how to get alcohol out of the bloodstream? I wondered if I should start reading the papers more.

“What's on the plate?” I asked.

“Bread and cheese.”

“Bread and cheese,” I repeated, which for some reason sounded ridiculous to me.

I started laughing. Fofo also laughed, not at what I'd said but at my predicament. I laughed so hard that I snorted some of the contents of my stomach out through my nose, which shut me up. I realized that my situation was bad and likely to end in tears. It had been a long time since I'd drunk so much. I had the occasional double whisky or a few glasses of red wine with a meal, but clearly my alcohol tolerance had dropped significantly. I felt bad, really bad.

“I'm going back to bed, Fofo,” I said.

“In that case, I'll go to the shop. The best thing for you is to sleep it off,” said Fofo, realizing that I was unable to function in my current state.

I dreamt that I was with Selim, eating fillet steak and chilli
sauce. There was no cutlery on the table, so Selim called the waiter over, who turned out to be Sinan.

“What kind of restaurant is this?” complained Selim.

Sinan was wearing an apron with large pockets, from which he took handfuls of knives and forks and threw them on the table. He said that people in the Middle East used their hands to tear meat apart, which some might find repulsive but was not as barbaric as using knives at the table as Westerners did. I could hear a woman shouting “Barbarians, barbarians!” from a far table.

“This is sirloin. We asked for fillet,” said Selim, as he tried, unsuccessfully, to cut up his meat.

“I can bring you a T-bone steak if you like, but not fillet,” said Sinan, looking at me with a knowing smile. “We don't serve fillet steak to couples who've been together for more than three years.”

Hearing these words made me sob. They were so close to my claim that long-term relationships lacked seasoning and spice and were comparable to tasteless, chewy steak. I then lied, saying that I used to have such thoughts until I met Selim, and felt enormously guilty for the horrible comparison.

I woke up feeling remorseful about everything. Remorse that I was no longer with Selim, that I'd met Sinan, even that I'd started trying to solve another crime. My limbs felt weak and my throat sore, possibly the result of catching a chill after cavorting around the previous evening, so I decided to ask Fofo to come back home. I went into the sitting room for my phone and found him there sitting on the sofa.

“So you're awake. How are you now?” he asked.

“I've got a fever,” I said.

Even if I hadn't, I thought that he'd pay more attention to me if he thought I had. My only desire at that moment was to have his undivided care and attention.