‘Some nice boy came and gave me a glass of tea and a packet of cigarettes,’ she said as he sat down beside her in the little room she’d been given to wait in. Then she frowned and said, ‘How’s Gonca?’
‘Still in surgery.’ He looked down at his hands, then fished in his pockets for his packet of cigarettes and his lighter. ‘She’ll fight.’
‘Of course she will,’ the old woman said. ‘That’s how she is.’ She watched him light his cigarette and then lit up one of her own. She said, ‘She fought to keep you, didn’t she? Then her family took a hand.’
He looked up sharply at her. She smiled.
‘Balat is a village, Inspector,’ she said. ‘Different races and faiths we may be, but we all know each other. Something you should know . . .’ She’d thought about what she was about to say at some length that night and decided that whatever happened, it needed saying. ‘Gonca’s family wanted you gone because the Queen of the Gypsies, as I call her, loves you. Everyone knows it.’
He was truly shocked. He put his cigarette into his mouth to stop himself from screaming.
She
loved
him
.
‘They can’t have that, the gypsies. Not love, or worse still, marriage, between one of them and one of us, whoever we are.’ She laughed. ‘They are tighter than the Jews in that respect.’ She looked at his face. ‘You didn’t know? Well, she would never have told you. But I think that you should know now.’
She fell silent and they both smoked while he chastised himself bitterly for never having told Gonca that he loved her. Now it could quite possibly be too late. Izabella Madrid had known that when she’d told him what was now tearing at his soul. Gonca loved him!
The old woman, at least, knew better than to leave him with that knowledge with nowhere for his mind to go. ‘What of little Murad Emin?’ she asked. ‘Has he spoken to you?’
Süleyman cleared his throat, dragged a tired hand through his hair and smiled at her. ‘Miss Madrid,’ he said, ‘I need to know how Murad came to be at your apartment earlier this evening. How did he get from being your pupil to being your jailer?’
She told him how she had found Murad, upset and frightened, in the derelict houses at the top of the hill. ‘He said his father was raging because he couldn’t get his fix. He was frightened. I said he could come home with me,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t happy about it, but . . .’
‘Why not? Murad was a good pupil, wasn’t he?’
‘Yes, but as I told Sergeant Melik,’ she said, ‘all that radical religious stuff he was coming out with, I didn’t appreciate it.’
She looked at him accusingly, or maybe he just thought that she had because he felt so guilty. He should have listened to İzzet when he talked about Murad Emin! But of course he had been too caught up in trying to prevent anyone from finding out about Gonca. Idiot.
‘He only picked up the gun and put it to my head when he saw you and Melik running down the street towards my apartment,’ she said. ‘He looked out the window, and next thing I knew I was a hostage!’
‘So he just planned to stay . . .’
‘Until the morning, yes,’ she said. ‘Then he’d go back home. That was what he told me.’
‘Did he try to telephone home, do you know?’
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t know Mr Emin that well, but I do know junkies, and I knew that if he was raging, he wouldn’t even be aware whether the boy was in or out. The mother?’ She shrugged. ‘Does she know what year it is? Poor bitch is either being screwed or sticking needles into herself. What does she know?’
She had remembered him, Süleyman thought gloomily. She’d remembered him because he’d been so clean! What other terrible degraded creatures did she provide relief for? He really dreaded to think. And now was not the time.
‘Murad possessed violent jihadist DVDs and still images,’ he said. ‘Really disgusting things.’
‘Such things can be bought on the streets. Has he done anything else?’
‘I don’t know,’ Süleyman replied.
She put her cigarette out and then lit up another. ‘Do you think he had anything to do with Hamid İdiz’s death? Do you think Murad could have done such a terrible thing?’
‘I don’t know,’ Süleyman said. He finished his cigarette and got up to go. ‘I’ll have to interview you formally at some point. But I just wanted to make sure that you were all right.’
She smiled. ‘I’m an old soldier, Inspector. Don’t worry about me. Interview me whenever you want. I’m not going home. Can’t really face it. And anyway, if I’m here, hopefully someone will tell me what happens to Gonca.’
‘Of course.’
‘She’s a wild and sometimes difficult character, but I like her,’ she said.
Süleyman left. As he closed the door of the interview room behind him, he saw a constable leading Ali Reza Zafir, in handcuffs, along the corridor. Dr Zafir, his father, was following, and he was crying.
Chapter 31
Because both Ali Reza Zafir and Murad Emin were under-age, the decision was taken to send them, under separate transport, to the Juvenile Police Directorate in Üsküdar. Neither boy had spoken a word since being brought into the station and it was now going to be up to the psychologists at the directorate to try and find out what they could. Süleyman prepared to take Murad to a waiting area at the back of the building to await transport. Ayşe Farsakoğlu, much happier since she had been told that Süleyman was alive, was given the job of escorting Ali Reza. She didn’t know anything about him, apart from the fact that he had been charged with the murder of his own mother.
Süleyman cuffed Murad in the interview room and then, escorted by a constable, took him out into the corridor. Çetin İkmen was out there with a middle-aged woman and a young man. Saadet and Lokman Seyhan. As the two officers’ eyes met, they smiled briefly at each other. It had been a very busy and terrible night.
‘If you don’t recognise our suspect then you don’t recognise him,’ İkmen said to Saadet Seyhan, who looked downcast and disappointed. ‘It is no good to anyone if I try and convict someone who is innocent.’
‘No. I’m sorry, Çetin Bey, I just didn’t know the man.’
‘It’s OK.’
Süleyman turned Murad Emin around to face him and then straightened the boy’s shirt. He was tired and sweaty and looked more like an abused child than someone who had just shot a defenceless woman.
‘But Çetin Bey,’ Saadet said to İkmen, ‘are you still going to bring my husband in for questioning?’
‘Of course,’ İkmen replied. ‘But I do have to warn you that—’
‘That’s him!’ She shouted it so loudly that Süleyman looked up from what he was doing and stared at her.
Saadet Seyhan was pointing in his direction. Her face purple with rage, she screamed, ‘I’d know him anywhere! Bastard!’
‘But that is Inspector Süleyman,’ İkmen began, ‘you know him . . .’
‘I know the young man too!’ Saadet screamed. ‘That young man there! He killed my daughter Gözde, may his soul be damned to hell!’
Süleyman looked at Murad, who for the first time since he’d been in the station smiled and then spoke. ‘She’s mad,’ he said simply. ‘Poor old madwoman.’
İkmen looked at Saadet Seyhan and said, ‘Are you sure? Would you be willing to sign a statement . . .’
‘It’s him!’ she said. She tried to fling herself across the corridor at the boy, but her son caught her and pulled her back. ‘It’s you!’ she yelled at Murad Emin. ‘Bastard! You know what you’ve done! You know what my husband paid you blood money to do! Where are you taking him?’ she asked İkmen. ‘Where is he going?’
İkmen assured her that he would tell her what was going on just as soon as she went back into the interview room with her son.
‘I want to make a statement!’ she said. ‘About him! That boy!’
‘And you will,’ İkmen said as he hustled the pair back into the interview room and shut the door behind them.
He came over to Süleyman and the boy. ‘So this is . . .’
‘Murad Emin,’ Süleyman said. ‘The Balat gunman.’
İkmen looked the boy up and down for a moment, then said, ‘It must be a night for juveniles.’
‘I’m taking this one down to be transported to Üsküdar,’ Süleyman said.
‘Well there’s another one down there too,’ İkmen replied. ‘With Sergeant Farsakoğlu. I’ve no idea what it’s about. I’ll get as much as I can from the Seyhans and then—’
‘I didn’t kill their daughter. Why should I?’ the boy said.
‘I’m not speaking to you,’ İkmen said and turned to Süleyman. ‘Everyone all right? The Balat incident . . .’
‘No officers hurt. One civilian woman injured,’ Süleyman replied. He didn’t say who. Now was not the time.
İkmen nodded, then turned away and walked back towards the interview room. Süleyman pulled Murad Emin beside him and told him to get walking. As he moved, he watched the boy closely for any signs of guilt or panic. But there weren’t any.
Ayşe tried not to smile when Süleyman came into the room, but it wasn’t easy. She was glad he was alive, even if he had not been interested in her for a number of years. It was said that the person who had been shot over in Balat was his gypsy lover, that outrageous artist who Ayşe envied so very much. But she still hoped that the gypsy lived, in spite of that.
‘Inspector . . .’
Süleyman turned Murad Emin around in order to sit him down. He and the boy were directly opposite Ayşe Farsakoğlu and her charge, Ali Reza Zafir. It took Süleyman a moment to recognise the other boy, but when he did, he said, ‘This is the boy?’
‘Charged with killing his own mother,’ Ayşe said.
He was about to say something in response to this when the boy at his side said, ‘You killed your mum! Why?’ In spite of the fact that it was a chilly early morning, Murad Emin was sweating. ‘You lunatic!’ he said. ‘Why?’
Ayşe Farsakoğlu said, ‘These kids know each other?’
‘Oh, yes,’ Süleyman said. ‘These two certainly know each other.’
He wanted to ask Ayşe how and why Ali Reza had come to kill his own mother, but he suspected that she was just an escort and so wouldn’t know. The boy was nothing to her. His sudden, almost hysterical laughter, though, spooked everyone. In that cold little concrete room with only darkness outside, it sounded like something from a madhouse.
Süleyman felt Murad Emin’s body shake beside him. He put a hand on his shoulder as if to steady him, but the boy was beside himself. ‘What have you done?’ he screamed at Ali Reza. ‘You would have been all right! You . . .’
‘And you,’ the other boy said very, very calmly, ‘what are you doing here, Murad? Violent DVDs, is it? Not very clever, that. Not very bright. We didn’t need that rubbish. You should have listened.’
‘That’ll be enough.’ Süleyman looked at both boys when he spoke. ‘Save it for the psychologist.’
A truck pulled up outside and Ayşe waited until the officer driving it and his escort got out. ‘This is for us,’ she said to Ali Reza as she pulled him to his feet. ‘Come on.’
One of the officers outside opened the door and told Ali Reza to walk towards him. Before he did, Ali Reza looked at Murad Emin and smiled. ‘It’s all going to come unravelled now,’ he said, then he laughed his spooky mad laugh again, touched his nose conspiratorially and said, ‘Leopold and Loeb, baby, Leopold and Loeb!’
Murad Emin, his previous calm demeanour now totally exploded, screamed, ‘No! No, it wasn’t like that! Not for me! It was never like that for me!’
Gonca survived the surgery to remove the bullet from her abdomen. But the surgeon who had performed the operation did not give her a very high chance of survival. She’d lost a huge amount of blood and her stomach, liver and spleen were all badly damaged. When Süleyman, now accompanied by İkmen, did manage to get to see her, she was in a coma and attached to a life support system.
İkmen now knew the circumstances of the shooting, although he could not agree with his colleague about the apportionment of blame. ‘She came after you,’ he said as he put a hand up to his much taller friend’s shoulder. They both looked down with grave faces at the immobile woman in the bed. ‘It was the boy who shot her, not you.’
They didn’t stay long. The gypsies were now camped outside the hospital, and neither of the officers wanted to give the medical staff any more problems. As the two men left, Gonca’s brother Şukru came up to Süleyman and said, ‘If she dies, you will need to explain yourself. If she doesn’t, you will keep away from my family.’
Süleyman wanted to tell him that Gonca loved him, and that Şukru didn’t understand. But instead he just nodded his head and said nothing. İzzet Melik had told him that the gypsies wanted explanations. And who could blame them? Now was just not the time.
When they got back to İkmen’s car, he lit up cigarettes for both of them and passed one over to Süleyman. ‘I’ve managed to charge Cem Koç with attempting to procure the services of a paid assassin,’ he said. ‘Not exactly how Constable Yıldız’s brother would describe himself, I don’t suppose.’
Süleyman said nothing. Gonca in a coma had looked like a person he barely knew. Scrubbed of make-up, dressed in white, her amazing hair rammed into a paper surgical cap, she had looked alien, frightening and old.
İkmen put the car into gear and began to drive off. ‘I expect it will be said that we set Koç up, but whatever happens he will be put out of business and at least the girl he tried to kill is safe.’
‘What about her parents?’ Süleyman said in a dead voice, thick with anxiety and lack of sleep.
‘When they came back to the apartment, they were of course shocked and horrified for all the world to see,’ İkmen said. ‘There’s nothing on paper to connect them to Koç.’
‘What about the money?’
‘The money Koç gave to İsmail Yıldız was taken from his own account,’ İkmen said. ‘The family had not yet paid. Maybe I should have given them the time to do that.’
‘But then Koç might have slipped through your fingers.’
‘He may yet do so.’ They drove from the hospital and over the Golden Horn on the Atatürk Bridge. It was a fine day, with lots of gulls hovering over the bright, clear waterway. But neither man noticed the day too much. Neither of them had slept for over twenty-four hours, and now they were obliged to attend the Juvenile Police Directorate over the Bosphorus in Üsküdar.