Harem (21 page)

‘Oh, did he?’

‘Yes.’

Before anything else could be discussed, the door to İkmen’s office opened and Orhan Tepe stepped over the threshold. Although rather tired-looking around the eyes, he was nevertheless smiling. İkmen could see instantly that he hadn’t been home to change his clothes. He’d obviously slept elsewhere, hence the smile on his face. It wouldn’t take İkmen long to wipe that off.

He waited until the doctor, Süleyman and Yıldız had left before he began.

‘Why didn’t you tell me that Hassan Şeker was mixed up with the Müren brothers?’ İkmen said in the controlled tone he always used prior to exploding.

Tepe smiled. ‘Because he’s not,’ he said calmly. ‘Who says—’

‘Hikmet Yıldız has just told me what happened when you visited the pastane for the second time, Tepe,’ İkmen said. ‘About how he saw the Mürens talking to a fearful looking Mrs Şeker.’

‘Well, I didn’t.’

‘I don’t care whether you saw it or not!’ İkmen roared. ‘When Yıldız told you what he had seen, it should have set off sirens in your head!’

‘I—’

‘What possessed you to tell the boy that seeing the Mürens at the scene was unimportant? Family are always important! If you paid as much attention to your work as you do to your sex life . . .’

‘Sir!’

‘Oh, don’t get offended with me!’ İkmen growled. ‘Don’t—’

He was interrupted by his telephone. İkmen pointed Tepe towards his own desk. ‘Don’t go anywhere,’ he said. ‘I haven’t finished with you.’

He picked up the receiver. ‘İkmen.’

‘It’s İskender.’ The voice at the other end of the line sounded uncharacteristically nervous.

İkmen’s eyes were still disapprovingly on Tepe. ‘Yes?’ he said into the phone.

‘Vedat Sivas has gone missing.’

İkmen sat down, his face white. ‘Tell me this is a joke, İskender,’ he said softly.

‘It isn’t. I wish it were. Men disappearing without trace, gruesome boxes appearing from nowhere – am I going fucking mad or—’

‘Look, try and hold yourself together until I get there,’ İkmen said, interpreting İskender’s uncharacteristic use of swear words as well as the obvious nervousness in his voice as signals to get over to the Sivas house very quickly. ‘Does Ardıç know?’

‘No.’ İskender sighed. ‘He stayed here until after midnight last night. I don’t suppose he’s in yet, is he?’

‘Not yet,’ İkmen said as he cast a nervous eye towards the door lest his superior be lurking somewhere outside. ‘I presume you have Miss Hale Sivas with you.’

‘Yes. Yes, I haven’t managed to lose her yet,’ İskender replied wearily.

‘Well, just keep hold of her until I get there.’ İkmen grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair and started to put it on. ‘She doesn’t even get to go to the toilet on her own, do you understand?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m on my way,’ İkmen said and then without another word he replaced the receiver and threw a set of car keys across to Tepe. After all the shocks he’d had in the last twelve hours, he felt driving was far too stressful for his nerves. ‘You drive,’ he said. ‘To the Sivas place.’

Tepe stood, ‘But sir . . .’

‘Oh, don’t worry that I’ve finished berating you, Orhan.’ İkmen checked his pockets for smoking requisites. ‘I’ll carry on when we get in the car.’

‘Sir . . .’

‘You drive, I’ll shout, but when we get to the Sivas place we act like professionals. Apparently Vedat has gone missing too, Allah alone knows where.’

‘Vedat Sivas? The brother?’

‘Yes, Tepe.’ İkmen shook his head in disbelief. ‘First Hikmet, now Vedat . . . All this on top of Hassan Şeker.’

Tepe frowned. ‘Hassan Şeker? What do you mean?’

There hadn’t been time to tell Tepe why Süleyman, Yıldız and the doctor had been in his office that morning. İkmen had intended to tell him when he was interrupted by İskender’s call. After all Şeker’s death was entirely germane to the argument he had put forward to Tepe regarding the Müren brothers. Had he known of their involvement he could have got them off the street and away from Şeker, which might have prevented their leaning on him for money or whatever else had caused Şeker to end his life. It occurred to İkmen that Hassan Şeker may have killed himself and left that incriminating note in order to remove all suspicion of family involvement in Hatice’s death, because of threats against his wife and children. Nasty and violent as they were, Ekrem and Celal Müren were hardly godfathers; that honour belonged to their father, Ali. But they could certainly frighten someone like Hassan Şeker, and bugger little Hatice İpek. Once he’d dealt with İskender’s latest incompetence, İkmen intended to go looking for them.

‘Hassan Şeker is dead,’ he told Tepe baldly. ‘He committed suicide yesterday evening. And before we leave here I’m going to ask Inspector Süleyman to speak to the widow about the Müren brothers.’

Tepe’s face drained of all colour and İkmen noticed that his hands had started to shake.

Although large, Hikmet Sivas’s Kandıllı mansion didn’t possess any exits that couldn’t be easily observed. The front door had been under guard ever since the police had gone to the house with the movie star in the wake of Kaycee’s abduction. Men had been stationed in both the house and the garden day and night. And although the back of the property faced directly onto the Bosphorus, neither the boathouse beneath the yalı or indeed the craft within it had been roused from their dust-encrusted torpor for some long time. Unless Hikmet and Vedat had swum away . . .

‘A person would have to know this bit of Bosphorus very well,’ İsak Çöktin observed when İkmen put this possibility to him. ‘As I understand it, it’s easy to get pulled all over the place even in a boat. The currents are complex and very dangerous. If one or both of the men swam out, even close to the shore, they’re probably dead by now.’

‘You observed nothing untoward during the night?’ İkmen asked as he sat down in one of the richly upholstered chairs that commanded stunning views of the Bosphorus. The water lapped and gurgled underneath the open window before him.

‘No. Even the commissioner was here until one o’clock.’

‘Mmm.’ İkmen looked across at the face of the elderly woman sitting next to him and sighed. ‘Well, Miss Sivas,’ he said, ‘it would seem that your brothers have disappeared via magical means.’

Hale Sivas leaned her weary head back and then closed her eyes. ‘Such things are possible,’ she said. ‘As I know you know.’

İkmen frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I was born in Haydarpaşa district,’ Hale said, opening her eyes which she trained upon İkmen with great intensity. ‘Close enough to Üsküdar for me to have knowledge of the witch Ayşe İkmen.’

‘Yes.’ İkmen nodded. ‘Sad, isn’t it, that even with such a famous woman for a mother I am still a poor man. But with all due respect to my mother, I don’t believe your brothers just melted through the walls of this yalı, Miss Sivas.’

‘No?’

‘No. I think that they left via a method we don’t as yet understand. I think also,’ he paused briefly in order to light a cigarette, ‘that you know more about their motives for doing so than you are telling us.’

‘What do you mean?’

İkmen looked up at Çöktin, indicating that he wanted him to leave them alone. When the Kurd had gone, İkmen said, ‘Your brother’s wife was not abducted and murdered for no reason. The appearance of her head in this house tells me that someone was sending a message to your brother Hikmet, a threat or a warning.’

‘An American,’ Hale said firmly, her lips pursed in disgust around the word.

‘Possibly.’

‘I know nothing of Hikmet’s life in America.’

‘Oh? When I was here before you appeared to know quite a lot about how he runs around with women and works for Jews.’ She turned her eyes away from him and so İkmen moved on to another tack. ‘You know about your brother Vedat’s life, though, don’t you?’

She shrugged. ‘Vedat works at hotels, palaces. We live here together.’

‘And very comfortably too,’ İkmen said as he looked around the large, tasteful salon approvingly.

‘We are family. I have never married. Hikmet loves us.’

‘I’m sure he does,’ İkmen replied with a smile. ‘Which is why it strikes me as somewhat odd that Vedat still lives the life of a poor man.’

‘He doesn’t,’ she snapped.

‘What I mean is, he’s widowed but has not remarried, and he works in humble employment.’

‘He chooses to.’

İkmen flicked the ash from his cigarette into an ashtray made of solid gold. ‘Yes. Although of course none of this explains why Vedat, according to the young officer who was at the scene when your sister-in-law was taken, was so very anxious for Hikmet not to involve us in the crime. Why was that?’

Hale Sivas’ face didn’t show any sort of emotion as she shrugged once again. ‘Vedat, like everyone, doesn’t trust the police.’

‘Is that so?’ İkmen smiled and rose to his feet. ‘You know, criminals are always saying that to me. Isn’t it odd?’ He straightened up and moved towards the centre of the room. ‘But maybe you’re wrong about Vedat. After all, he isn’t a criminal, is he? Nevertheless, neither Inspector İskender nor myself got the impression that either of your brothers was telling the whole truth when we spoke to them.’

And then without another word he left the salon and made his way into the large, airy entrance hall. Metin İskender, his eyes red from lack of sleep, was leaning against a kilim which hung on one of the rose-coloured walls.

‘I just needed a moment,’ he said as İkmen approached. ‘Can’t seem to sleep when I’m here at night.’

The sound of many people exploring many rooms floated to them from every part of the building.

‘Nothing unusual as yet?’ İkmen asked after he had stubbed his cigarette out in the golden ashtray he had carried with him from the salon.

‘No. But we’re working on it. Some in a rather more fanciful way than others.’

‘What do you mean?’ İkmen asked.

‘Hikmet Yıldız is convinced there’s a secret passage somewhere in the house. He keeps tapping the walls.’

‘He may well have a point,’ İkmen said with a shrug. ‘It could explain how a large box materialised in an upstairs bedroom and how two grown men disappeared without trace.’

‘Well, yes, but we’re not exploring the interior of a Rhineland castle here.’ İskender wiped the sweat that had gathered on his forehead with the back of his hand. ‘You’ve spoken to Miss Hale?’

İkmen lit up another cigarette. ‘For all the good it did me. By the way, why haven’t we got a female officer on site? We should have.’

‘Farsakoǧlu was due to relieve Gün at eight,’ İskender replied, ‘but she’s sick.’

‘Oh?’ Tepe, or so it had appeared to İkmen, had been somewhere he shouldn’t last night. Could it be the lady was ‘recovering’?

İskender shrugged. ‘That’s all I know,’ he said. ‘I hear that confectioner you persisted in pursuing killed himself yesterday.’

Angered both by the implication that he bore some responsibility for Hassan Şeker’s death and by İskender’s casual attitude towards it, İkmen said, ‘Yes, he did, Metin. But I don’t think it had anything to do with me. I would tell you what my suspicions are with regard to that situation but since I’m not yet ready to have Commissioner Ardıç privy to my thoughts, I’ll keep them to myself for the moment.’

‘Çetin . . .’

‘Well, somebody told Ardıç I was still making inquiries about Hatice İpek’s death!’

‘And you think I did?’ İskender shook his head in disbelief and lit one of his own cigarettes before answering. ‘Now look, Çetin, whilst acknowledging that you and I are very different men, I think that we concur in the professional respect we have for each other. I don’t like you as a person, I could never be your friend, but I have to respect the decisions you make in a case that I am not involved with and have no knowledge of. We’ve all been in the position you are in at one time or another.’

İkmen frowned.

‘You wanted to continue your investigation,’ İskender said and then lowering his voice he went on, ‘Ardıç who is so very far from the ground and, let us face it, knows so little takes you away. Of course I guessed what you were doing. But on my honour and with my hand metaphorically on the Koran, I swear to you that Ardıç did not learn what you were doing from my lips!’

In spite of İskender’s rather pompous statement about how they were supposed to have professional respect for each other, İkmen believed him. He was ambitious, inclined to be headstrong and lacked charm, but Metin İskender was not known to be dishonest. His manner made him difficult to warm to, but that was all. İkmen had looked at him closely as he gave his little speech and he was sure that Metin was not dissembling. And so for once İkmen actually apologised, albeit very quickly and without waiting around for any sort of acknowledgement.

‘I’m very sorry, Metin,’ he said, ‘I misjudged you,’ and he walked towards the open front door of the yalı.

He went out into Hikmet Sivas’s lush, green garden and stared at the large fountain which stood in the middle of the driveway. Adorned with poorly executed plaster swans, it was a very bad copy of the magnificent fountain which stands before the entrance to the Dolmabahçe Palace. Perhaps Hikmet Sivas possessed regal pretensions. İkmen smiled briefly at the thought. Art imitating life or, in view of Sivas’s fantastic riches, life imitating art?

İkmen glanced up at the house and spotted movement near a window. It was Tepe busying himself in one of the bedrooms. İkmen could just see the greyness of his face, studded with those sealed-in eyes of his. In the normal course of events İkmen would have sent Tepe to question Mrs Şeker, but given his earlier omission with regard to the Mürens, İkmen didn’t want him anywhere near the İpek case again. Mehmet Süleyman, although still officially on leave, had readily agreed to go and see the confectioner’s wife. He must have spoken to her by now.