The Prophet Murders (18 page)

“I see you’ve really got involved,” he said. “You seem to call every day. When you haven’t got any questions you don’t bother to phone. Not even to check in.”

“Please don’t,” I said. “You know a lot better than me how the police approach cases like this. No evidence of any kind has been collected and there hasn’t been a proper investigation. They just see another dead transvestite and close the file. I’m a bit sensitive about things like that.”

“I understand,” he said.

I ticked off the things I’d learned from Gönül.

“Why isn’t any of this on record?” I asked. “And it really is odd, isn’t it, that the girl, I mean Yusuf, didn’t leave a single thing behind. Where’s her handbag, her clothes?”

“Look, you’re right. It doesn’t make any sense to me either.

I’ll have to ask around. I’ve got a bit of clout with some of the guys in the department. I’ll do what I can and get back to you.”

“I’ll be at the office,” I said, and gave him my number.

“By the way, what are the results of the DNA tests?”

“Still too early,” he said. “We won’t get results for a week, ten days.”

“Bureaucracy,” I grumbled.

“Don’t say that,” he said. “I can’t really defend the investigation, but we’ve got a lot of work and not many experts. Unless someone’s there tightening the screws nothing really gets done.”

“Sure,” I said. “And when it’s a dead transvestite no one wants to crack the whip. They’re afraid of what people will think.”

“Don’t exaggerate. Look, I’m doing all I can, aren’t I? I don’t care what anyone thinks.”

I recalled that he’d said the opposite just the other day, but knew that reminding him now wouldn’t help.

“Fine,” I said. “I wonder if you could get a policeman to go with me to investigate further. We could at least have a look at the house in Kü
ukyali, the cistern and the garden . . . ”

“Are you out of your mind! Do you really think they’d agree?”

“Then I’ll do it myself,” I said.

“I can’t stop you. And I can’t promise to help you if you get into trouble.”

After I hung up I asked Figen, whose hair was looking frumpier than ever despite her lunch break visit to the coiffeur, to inform me immediately if anyone called from the police department.

The phone rang the moment I stepped back into my office. It was Selçuk.

“There’s something I forgot to tell you,” he said. “They found another body. It had been decomposing in the water for a long time. It was a male with silicon breast implants.”

The wind was knocked out of me. I’d been hoping that she would turn up safe and sound one day.

“Funda,” I said. “Her real name must be Yunus. I can’t remember her last name. I’ll find out for you if you like.”

“That’d be great,” he said. “It’ll be a real help to the guys here.”

Funda Yunus. She’d ended up as fish food just like the Prophet Yunus. But the whale that swallowed the Prophet hadn’t touched our girl. In any case, according to the Holy Book, Yunus lived for years inside the giant fish, then emerged and went on with his life. Our Yunus wouldn’t have that chance.

I began a rough calculation of how long she’d been missing. That is, how long her body had been floating in the sea. It was months since the beginning of summer when Funda had gone missing. Her body would have decomposed by now. It’s true that salt water has a pickling effect, but, in the end, a body is composed of water and flesh and can withstand only so much.

There was something fishy going on.

I’d promised Selçuk that I would find out Funda-Yunus’s surname. Hasan would be the best person to handle this.

What’s more, I hadn’t had a chance to tell him about Adem Yildiz’s sexual tastes.

He answered on the first ring. I told him about the discovery of the body I suspected belongs to Funda. He’d heard about it.

“But why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.

“Like there’s any way to reach you. I left at least five messages with Ponpon. I called your office, but the secretary wouldn’t put me through or take a message. It’s high time you got yourself a cell phone,” he scolded.

“So what happened?”

“It may or may not be Funda. There’s no way to identify the body.”

“But it had breasts,” I said.

“That’s right. Silicon doesn’t rot or dissolve,” he pointed out. “That’s why the police phoned our girls. To ask if anyone could identify the body.”

“Then what happened?”

“They picked up the first two girls they saw working the street and took them to the coroner’s. One of them fainted when she saw the body. It was that bad. They told the police they couldn’t help.”

“Hasan,” I asked, “Could you find out what the last name of Funda, that is, Yunus?”

“So, you’ve moved on from first names to last names, have you?”

“This is important,” I informed him. “I owe someone a favour.”

“The police.”

“Bingo. That’s right. I promised a police friend of mine.”

“I’ll look into it. But I just want to say something. There’s no way a body could have stayed preserved in the sea for that long. The police said so too. It may not be Funda. But don’t get your hopes up too high either.”

“That is, unless they kept the body somewhere else, then threw it into the sea,” I pointed out.

“You mean they refrigerated the corpse somewhere?”

“It’s certainly possible . . . ”

As I hung up the phone I pondered what I’d just suggested. They wouldn’t even need a full-size meat locker. A largish deep freeze would do. They could have kept the body there awhile, then tossed it into the sea. It would, of course, take longer for a frozen body to thaw out and putrefy.

And where are there large refrigeration units and coolers? In the food business. What business was Adem Yildiz in? Cakes and pastries. Once again, everything was pointing to him.

Once again, I didn’t have a shred of evidence.

I needed to think, but I couldn’t concentrate. Images of violent murders flashed before my eyes. Adem Yildiz was killing off our girls, one by one, more methodically than any horror flick villain.

At least Dolly Vuslat had escaped in one piece. I’d have to warn her. It would be foolish to take chances. It might also be foolish to assume that the name Dursun meant she was safe.

There had to be a way. This Adem Yildiz of ours must have left incriminating evidence of some kind behind. I didn’t have much faith in the DNA tests, but they could be the evidence I was looking for. How could I possibly accuse him? He was a pillar of the community. There was no way the police would conduct a DNA test based just on my suspicions. I couldn’t expect every man around to be tested just on the odd chance he was guilty.

There was no point in sitting here with these thoughts spinning around my head. The files from Jihad2000 hadn’t led to anything Or maybe I was in no condition to see what was staring me in the face.

I decided to go to the gym. A bit of physical exercise would do me good. And I’d burn off some off those extra calories and clear my conscience.

What did I most need? Hard evidence. I had none. Since it was proving so difficult to find, I would have to create my own.

In a sense, it meant entering the lair of the beast.

What turned the man on? Young transvestites. Would I fit the ticket? No. First, I had to find a fresh girl. As bait. I needed a girl that I could send to him, one prepared to face danger and whose every step I would have to monitor. Preferably, a girl named after a prophet.

I ran through the names of various prophets, trying to find a prophet whose namesake had not yet been murdered. The list. began with Isa, Nuh, Lut, Bunyamin, Zekeriya, Yahya, Yakup, Davut . . . Those were the first names that sprang to mind. That would be more than enough.

The most foolproof names were most likely Isa and Nuh.

A potential sticking point was the willingness of the girl to go along with my scheme, but I tried not to think about that. Anyone with a lick of sense would refuse to get involved, but there were two things working in my favour.

First, it would be an insult to refer to any of the girls as intelligent. In the commonly used sensed of the word, none of them were what you might call bright. It seemed to me that common sense and intelligence were not attributes any of them chose to cultivate. Choosing to walk on the wild side, defiantly turning a blind eye to risks, gave us the freedom to behave in an unorthodox way.

I would certainly be able to find someone as mad as me. I had even begun matching names to some of the girls I knew.

The second point working for me, and one that carried with it certain inherent risks, was that the girl did not necessarily have to know that she was being used as bait. It would be dangerous. Some would even regard it as treachery. But I did fully intend to remain at the side of whoever I recruited in order to reduce the danger to a minimum.

Adem Yildiz was not my type, but many of the girls would find him irresistibly attractive. He wasn’t particularly tall, but his long, thin face made him seem taller. He had a honey-brown complexion that had looked almost pale under the lights at the club. It contrasted nicely with his dark hair and closely clipped beard. I prefer men with pert, rounded bottoms. Adem Yildiz didn’t have one. In fact, his was rather large.

He had expensive taste in clothes. I hadn’t looked closely, but he might even sport a Rolex. That alone would do the trick for any number of girls.

Owing to the early hour, I had been unable to find a partner at the Hilton squash court. I contented myself with batting the ball against the wall while I formulated a plan. Tossing out one of the girls as bait could well mean putting her life in danger. . .

As I envisioned the familiar faces at the club, my own plan horrified me. And the only girls I really knew were those at the club. I couldn’t say I was familiar with the ones who worked the streets or hung out at other clubs. The person most likely to be able to help me was Hasan. There was also
ükrü, whose penchant for young girls I’d only recently learned about.

I remained in the sports salon until I was certain I had burned all the calories from that day’s meals. As I headed for the showers, I noticed that the salon was getting busier. I decided to look over the new arrivals before taking a shower. I hoped someone attractive had arrived. If nothing else, I’d get an eyeful of something nice. I might even go further.

I loitered in the changing room until I’d finished a bottle of sparkling water. Only two people arrived in the interval. One was definitely not my type. He was far too tubby. He immediately knew where I was coming from. The other was at least as feminine as me. If he thought I wasn’t on to him, he was wrong. There was no flying under my gaydar. As he passed, he looked me over as though sizing up a rival. I nodded a silent greeting.

I decided not to waste any more time, and went straight to the shower room. Waiting for me there was Mr Tubby, who was lathering his loins and lardy stomach behind a half-open shower curtain. The timidity in his eyes was belied by the turgidity of his nether regions. I couldn’t resist a peek out of the corner of my eye: he was what they refer to as “majestic”. Thick with a mushroom head. But he still wasn’t my type. He looked at me invitingly, lips puckered into a kiss. I gave him a withering glance and proceeded to a stall as far away as possible. I snapped the curtain shut and stood under the shower head.

When I left he was till lathering himself up. And the curtain was still partly open. He resumed sending me what he no doubt imagined were erotic air kisses.

I could stop and give him a good scolding. Or I could call the vacant-eyed attendant in the changing room. But why bother? I had no time for such nonsense. I still had to find a.

young girl, preferably named Isa or Musa.

Feeling like indulging in a bit of a tease, I blew him a kiss.

“See you later, hubby,” I cooed.

That was it. It was enough to push him over the edge. If there is such as thing as coming over a single word, that was it. He immediately snapped the curtain shut.