'I said in my statement that my wife had no enemies I was aware of,' Erol said with just a slight edge to his voice.
'Yes, although I can't help feeling that Tansu—'
'Tansu has always accepted the situation with Ruya.'
'You did, I believe, marry your wife after you met Tansu Hamm. Is that correct?'
Erol moved his hands down into his lap and looked at the floor. 'Yes.'
A brief hiatus followed during which the elderly çayci came in and placed large glasses of tea on Suleyman's desk.
As he gently plopped two small sugar cubes into his tea, Suleyman began his questioning once again. 'Forgive me if I am wrong,' he said, 'but I cannot imagine that a lady like Tansu Hanim would be happy about the idea of her new young lover, er, sleeping with another woman’
'Things are different where we come from!' The look on Erol's face now was both bitter and deeply offended. With a dramatic flick of the wrist, he pushed his tea violently to one side. Suleyman, to the singer's obvious annoyance, did not react.
'Indeed,' he said. 'So tell me about that.'
'A man must produce children.'
'Yes.' Unbeknown to Erol, Suleyman was in a not dissimilar position, or at least he had been until Zelfa had stormed out in the wake of her anger over Cengiz Temiz. Not, he imagined, in the same league as this country boy, however..To men from his part of the world, children were utterly crucial, whereas to him, well, he still wasn't quite sure how he felt about babies. His brother had one who was completely charming but then Suleyman himself did not have to get up in the night to attend to her so what did he know? 'So your need for children plus your honourable fulfilment of your betrothal forced you into marriage?'
'No. I did love Ruya.' He turned his head to one side, his eyes now brimming with tears. 'It's . . .'
'A man may love more than one woman?'
Erol nodded. 'Yes.'
Outside in the street the sound of heavy tourist buses bouncing over the tram lines mingled harshly with the cries of street vendors and the heaviness of the thick, summer heat Suleyman was feeling, if not looking, very soporific. In an attempt to rouse himself, he pulled himself up straight in his chair and then sipped determinedly at his tea.
'Mr Aksoy was not I take it, too happy about your marriage’ he said as he put his cigarette out in one of the ashtrays.
'No. He said it would be bad for my image’ the singer replied as if reading the words he spoke from a book or autocue. 'But I did it anyway’
'Was it Mr Aksoy's idea to keep your marriage a secret?'
'Ibrahim has always presented me as a star for the young girls, you know?'
Suleyman muttered his agreement to this self-evident fact.
Erol shrugged. 'So marriage would not be good publicity. But then I didn't want a lot of people to know either.'
'Why?'
'Because it is important to keep your private life to yourself.'
'You don't do that with Tansu Hanim though, do you?'
'No.' Like a rather harshly scolded schoolboy, Erol looked down at the floor, his bottom lip quivering slightly with pique. 'But Tansu is different, you know? It started with her to help my career. Ibrahim introduced us.' And then looking up sharply, he added, 'But I do love her now, you know. She is a wonderful lady, Tansu. I know that some people laugh and say bad things, especially now. But I will not desert Tansu. I will do right by Ruya, but. . .'
'But you will stay with Tansu, possibly eventually marry.'
'Oh, no.' Erol was adamant. 'I will marry another woman from my village. I must have a son.'
'But you've just said that you will stay with Tansu Hanim.'
'Yes.'
'So it will be as before with . . .'
'Oh yes,' Erol said with-what to Suleyman seemed like staggering simplicity. 'Do you have any idea who killed Ruya yet, Inspector?'
But before Suleyman could answer, there was a knock at the door.
'Come in,' he called as he lit another cigarette.
Ann Kavur's face was a flushed as she put her head a little nervously round the side of the door. 'Oh, Inspector, you're with somebody.'
'Yes? And?'
'Ah...'
Seeing what amounted to an unaccustomed reticence in her expression, Suleyman got up from his desk and walked over to her.
'What is it?' he asked quietly as he took her elbow in his hand and moved her out into the corridor.
'It's Commissioner Ardiç,' she said. 'He wants to see you.'
'All right, when I've finished.'
'No, now, Inspector,' she said and then turning her head to make sure that nobody else was about to hear what passed between them she added, 'It's about those two Ertürk girls.'
Suleyman smiled. 'Ah, the obsessed fans.'
'Their brother has complained about their being detained.'
Suleyman muttered angrily, 'Oh has he? It was Mr Kemal Ertürk who told me to hold on to them!' 'Yes, well
'And until you went around to the house and spoke to the gardener, what choice did I have? The stupid children just came out with cyanide ... And the gardener did indeed have some, didn't he? None was, so far as he could tell, missing but. ..'
Kavur shrugged. 'He wants to see you anyway.'
'Well, when I'm done with Mr Urfa, I'll be along.'
'Mmm.' She looked nervous and unsure - common reactions amongst Ardiç’s inferiors.
Suleyman sighed and then smiled weakly. 'I'm expecting the Temiz's lawyer, Mr Avedykian, here at any minute,' he said. 'If you can go and greet him for me, I'll finish with Mr Urfa and then telephone Ardiç..'
'Yes, but—'
'If you are with Avedykian, Ardiç, will not bother you.' He put one hand encouragingly on her shoulder. 'Have courage and keep out of sight. Oh, and when Mr Avedykian does appear, get hold of Sergeant Çöktin. I know he's in this building somewhere; I'll need him for the Temiz interview.' 'Does he know that?'
'Yes.' And then with a small bow Suleyman took his leave of Kavur and re-entered his office.
As he resumed his seat and apologised to the singer for his absence, he made a mental note to ask Erol about the officer he had just been speaking of with Kavur. Ìsak Çöktin had worked over and above his duty hours after Erol's broadcast and when he and the singer's entourage had entered the station the previous evening, they had looked extremely comfortable in each other's company. Perhaps too much so. There was also the issue of the apparently illiterate Ruya's possession of a pen - covered in her prints. That was strange. Suleyman commenced this new line of questioning in a spirit of inquiry, but also aware it was a way of postponing the evil moment when he would have to talk to Ardiç,.
Chapter 9
Like Ìkmen, Cohen was not overly fond of physical exertion and so as a group of younger officers began digging up Madame Kleopatra's rig tree, both the inspector and the perennial constable sat in comfortable wicker chairs with the old woman's doctor. The undertaker who had called to collect Madame's body some hours ago had lingered in order to reminisce about the glory days of the Ìskender Hamam, but now he had gone, leaving only those who needed to be in the garden for the purposes of what could be grim work ahead. One of the neighbour women had occasionally looked out of her window and into the garden, but a couple of sharp ripostes from Ìkmen had, seemingly, brought her inquisitiveness to a halt.
'So did you know Madame's husband, Doctor?' Ìkmen asked after he had taken a deep draught from his water bottle.
'Yes,' Katsoulis replied, 'I did. He was a miserable bastard.'
'I only ever remember her being alone,' Cohen observed as through half-closed eyes he watched the young men dig.
'Well, you're both somewhat younger than myself,’ the doctor said, 'although Mr Kleopatra must have taken his leave during your lifetimes.'
Ìkmen turned and faced the doctor with a frown upon his face. 'Do you remember my mother, Doctor? She used to see a lot of Madame when I was a child. Ayse Ìkmen?'
Katsoulis laughed. 'As if I could forget!' Then leaning forward towards Ìkmen, he said, 'Forgive me, Inspector, but your mother was a most notable woman. Everybody knew that the gift of sorcery was most finely perfected in her. If one wanted to know one's fate in life one had only to go to Ayse Ìkmen and it would all become clear. There were many said she was in league with Shaitan, she was so accurate!'
'Perhaps she was,' Ìkmen said as the cloud that was the manner of his mother's early death passed across his face.
'Oh, don't say that!' Katsoulis cried, crossing himself several times as he spoke.
Ìkmen laughed. 'I'm only joking. Besides, she was always far too fond of chicken to be a true believer.'
'Oh, that is appalling!' Katsoulis laughed. 'She was Albanian, wasn't she, your mother?'
'Yes.'
The doctor mopped his brow with his handkerchief. 'She'd be in good company now with all these Kosovans in the country.'
Cohen, who had been puzzling over an earlier remark of Ìkmen's, said, 'What do you mean, she was far too fond of chicken to be a true believer?'
'The so-called Shaitan worshippers, or Yezidis—'
'A sect from the east somewhere, I believe,' the doctor put in.
'Yes,' Ìkmen said, 'well, they have some strange habits which accord, apparently, with their beliefs, one of which is not eating chicken.'
‘Oh, I see,' Cohen said. 'I didn't know that.'
'Yes, it is one of those—' Suddenly Ìkmen stopped mid-sentence, as if a thought of some sort had occurred to him. But just at that moment he was unable to articulate it because with a loud whoop of victory, one of the young diggers signalled that the party had indeed found something.
'Is it what we're looking for?' Cohen asked as he rose out of both his stupor and his chair.
'Looks like it,' the young man said as he leaned heavily across the handle of his spade.
'Come on, let's go and have a look,' Ìkmen said. He took hold of Katsoulis's arm and pulled the elderly man to his feet.
The thing the young officers had exposed was not directly under the tree but just in front of it As they approached, Ìkmen, Katsoulis and Cohen could see what appeared to be a very stained and rotted piece of cloth which, as they drew nearer, seemed to be caught under something long and thin. One of the youngsters had jumped down into the hole containing what was, presumably, a skeleton and, as the three men reached the site, he was bending down to examine it more closely.
'This'll have to go to forensics now, I suppose’ he said as Ìkmen staggered down to join him in the pit.
'If you'll help me down, I should be able to give you a positive identification,' the doctor said as he wavered nervously on the side of the pit.
Ìkmen frowned. 'Well, I know you knew him, Doctor, but he is a bit, well, desiccated.'
'That's all right,' Katsoulis said with some confidence, 'I will know.'
With Ìkmen and the young officer pulling from below and Cohen pushing from up top, it was slow work manoeuvring the elderly man into position but after a bit of effort and a lot of sweating they eventually managed to achieve their aim. Once in the hole, Katsoulis looked down at the long, stick-like things before him and then sucked thoughtfully on his lip.
'Now the head is ...'
'It's there, sir,' the young officer said as he pointed to a round protuberance at the far end of the pit 'Ah.'
As the doctor made his way shakily towards his goal, some of the tired young men up above shared amused glances, Ìkmen, who declined to comment on their behaviour, consoled himself with the grim thought that one day these well-muscled young men would be as Katsoulis was now. It made him smile.
The doctor bent down low in order to look at the dirt-caked skull. Had he been younger and fitter he would probably have got down on his haunches to examine the remains, but as it was he could only peer down at something that looked more like a clod of earth than a face.
'Would you be kind enough to clear some of the dirt away from the face, please, Inspector,' he said. 'I would do it myself, but...'
'Yes, of course,' Ìkmen replied. 'You know I'm not practised in this, don't you, Doctor?' he said. 'I wouldn't want to damage anything.'
'If you move the soil out of the mouth that will be sufficient,' Katsoulis said as he placed a pair of half-moon spectacles on his nose.
Quite why the mouth was of such great significance, Ìkmen didn't know. However, when he saw the first small glints of metal, he realised, or at least he thought he did.
'There are gold teeth here, lots of them,' he said. 'I do believe Madame was playing us for fools.'
'If there's gold teeth, then that's Murad Aga, the old eunuch,' Cohen, who had been observing proceedings from above, said with a laugh in his voice. 'Well, the old witch!'
Dr Katsoulis, who was now moving various items around on the face with the end of his cigarette holder, frowned. 'What do you mean, Inspector, playing us for fools?' he asked.
'Well, Doctor, it could mean that Madame killed Murad Aga and not her husband. Or she killed Murad and her husband and then buried her husband somewhere else in this garden. Or she killed nobody and the eunuch just wanted to be put here when he died. Or maybe the morphine had sent her quite mad.' He shrugged helplessly as he stood up in order to relieve the strain on his calves. 'I'm hoping you can enlighten us.'
'Well, I can,' Katsoulis said as he, too, straightened his back for comfort, 'although I find it hard to believe you don't know.'
'Don't know what?' Cohen asked.
Katsoulis sighed. 'That the discovery of this body means that Madame buried both her husband and Murad Aga beside this tree.'
'Eh?'
'Murad and Madame's husband were one and the same. Kleopatra was joined in matrimony to a eunuch.'
Sevan Avedykian looked across at the heavily swearing heap that was his client and said, 'Mr Temiz would, I believe, appreciate a glass of water.'
Wordlessly, Suleyman signalled to Çöktin that he should comply with this request As the younger man left the room in order to get the water Suleyman settled back to take a long, hard look at Temiz.