Dance with Death (3 page)

‘When grandfather was still alive, yes,’ Mehmet replied with a sigh.

When Murad had gone, the old man turned to his younger son and said, ‘You know you should go out with your brother once in a while, Mehmet, if only to indulge him.’

‘I know.’ Mehmet first sighed and then leaned back into his lounger.

‘And anyway you wouldn’t make fools of yourselves, if that’s what you think,’ said Muhammed, smiling now, and adjusting his tie around his thin old neck until it felt just perfect. ‘You are both stunning men. You are handsome, cultured and kind. You are my sons.’

Mehmet, amused, took off his sunglasses and looked at the old man with a twinkle in his eye. ‘Yes, Father, of course.’

‘Good.’

The sound of more than one set of footsteps emanating from the house caused Mehmet to look around for something to cover himself up with. However, before he could find anything, he found himself suddenly with his arms around what appeared to be a small human rocket.

‘Daddy!’

‘Yusuf!’

He was only two and a half but already he could run like a wild animal. Mehmet folded his arms around the child and covered him in kisses. Only when Murad cleared his throat did Mehmet look up to see his wife staring down at him.

‘We were passing,’ she said. ‘I thought it would be nice.’

‘Well, yes, thank you.’

His wife then walked over to his father and, taking one of his hands in hers, kissed it and said, ‘Muhammed Bey.’

‘Zelfa, dear, how nice it is to see you,’ the old man said. ‘I trust your charming father is well?’

‘Yes, he is, thank you.’ And then she walked back over towards her son.

Mehmet straightened up a little and after planting a few more kisses on his son’s face, he looked at his wife who, he suddenly realised, had lost a considerable amount of weight. Somewhat older than him anyway, it made her look a little haggard. He automatically frowned with concern.

‘What is it?’ she asked as she too frowned at him.

‘Oh, nothing,’ he smiled. ‘How are you?’

‘Would you like some tea, Zelfa?’ Murad asked before she could even begin to reply to Mehmet’s question. Turkish hospitality must, after all, be performed before anything else. ‘Assuming you’re not keeping Ramazan, that is . . . ?’

‘No, no I’m not. And yes, thank you, Murad, tea would be nice.’

‘Father?’

‘Oh, yes, Murad, tea would be . . .’

‘No, I mean would you like to come indoors and help me?’ Murad said as he attempted to indicate with his eyes that his brother and his family should be left in peace.

‘Oh, yes, right . . .’

After they had gone, Mehmet put his son down on to the grass. The youngster had a passion for the family cat Aslan who would let Yusuf do just about anything he wanted with him. He then offered Zelfa Murad’s lounger and then leaned back and looked up at the sun.

Zelfa, whose mother had been Irish, came straight to the point. Speaking in English, she said, ‘I think we should get a divorce. I think we should discuss it.’

Mehmet turned to look at her, suddenly both hurt and humiliated. It came out as anger. ‘Is there someone else?’ he said. ‘Is that what the weight loss is about?’

‘No!’ she said, her face red with anger. ‘Christ, Mehmet, can you be any more chauvinistic or what!’

‘Well . . .’

‘I’ve lost weight because I’ve been under pressure at work and because I’ve been smoking like a trooper,’ she said and then, as if to prove her point, she dug into her handbag for a cigarette. ‘Dad’s going to be out of town this week and so I thought that, if it’s convenient for you, you could come over and we could talk about it one evening.’

‘What about him?’ Mehmet said as he tipped his head towards the child throwing a ball for the cat in the flower beds.

‘I thought that maybe you’d like to put him to bed and then we’d talk.’

Mehmet shrugged. ‘If that’s what you want.’

He could be such an arrogant bastard! And yet it had been Mehmet who had provoked this situation, Mehmet who’d gone off and screwed with a whore, been unfaithful to her! And yet, in spite of it all, Zelfa, who was after all a psychiatrist by profession, knew that she didn’t really want to divorce him at all. What she really wanted, right at that moment, was to lick every centimetre of his body.

‘I can’t go back, in my mind,’ Zelfa said. ‘I can’t trust you. And if I can’t do that, what’s the point?’

He first sighed, lit a cigarette, and then said, ‘Is Wednesday convenient for you?’

‘Wednesday’s fine.’

‘OK.’

And then he turned away to watch his son play with his cat and nothing more was said.

Later, when Zelfa and Yusuf had left, Mehmet told his brother that he thought the idea of going out to a club was an excellent one.

Menşure Tokatlı was not a woman to be trifled with. A soberly dressed old republican-style spinster, she was also the daughter of the late Faruk Tokatlı who had been something ‘big’ in the early tourist industry. Faruk, it was said, had been responsible for pushing tourism out into some of the more remote valleys as well as constructing several pansiyons and one hotel from existing fairy chimneys in Muratpaşa. Now Menşure, fifty-something and very determined, was in charge of the lot. Captain Salman of the Nevşehir police riding centre was openly afraid of her.

‘It’s about your daughter, Hande,’ she said without preamble as she accosted the captain outside the Fairy Chimneys Carpet Emporium.

Captain Salman dropped what was left of his cigarette to the ground and very quickly brought one hand up to his cap in salute. ‘Menşure Hanım.’

‘She was with the boy, wasn’t she, her cousin, when he discovered the body out in the Valley of the Saints?’

‘Yes, Hanım, unfortunately . . .’

‘Well, what I want to know is whether she saw it at all. They’re not telling us whether it’s male or female and I really . . .’

‘Hanım, I think that you probably need to talk to the jandarma . . .’

‘I’ve tried that,’ the woman replied tetchily, ‘but they’re as obtuse as they can be. No, Captain, I need to get my information elsewhere, which is why I thought of Hande, or indeed yourself, because presumably as her father you will know what she knows.’

‘Yes.’ Captain Salman rocked backwards and forwards on the heels of his very shiny riding boots. ‘Hanım, why, may I ask, is this of interest to you?’

‘It isn’t,’ Menşure responded simply. ‘But a member of my family may have an interest and if he does, it is important that he gets here and away as quickly as possible. I can’t afford to have him around for too long during Ramazan.’

‘Why is that?’ Captain Salman asked. ‘Is he foreign or . . .’

‘No, he’s from İstanbul where he smokes openly, as I see you do, in the day during Ramazan. But that is all right there, as you know. Here things are different and I really do not want him outraging my neighbours. You’d take note of that yourself if you have any sense. Now, Captain, can you help me or can’t you?’

‘Hanım, if I knew why your relative needs to know this . . .’

‘I can’t tell you that, Captain,’ Menşure said shortly. ‘That’s his business. But if I tell you his name then, as an İstanbul police officer yourself, maybe that will change things?’

Captain Salman frowned. She was, it seemed, trying to dazzle him with ‘big’ names. Who was it to be? The Commissioner? The Director himself, maybe? Captain Salman’s mind went, temporarily, wild with possibilities.

‘Well, Hanım,’ he said, ‘you can try.’

And so she told him the name; Captain Salman smiled very broadly and then immediately told her what she wanted to know.

‘Oh, he’s such a big boy! He’s such a hero!’

Strangely, when his pretty young mother considered how high in the air he was, little baby Timur was nowhere near to tears. But then he was in the hands of his grandfather who, whenever the baby was near to him, assumed the consistency of jelly and an IQ of 20.

‘Dad, you’ll make him dizzy,’ Hulya said as she watched her father, Çetin İkmen, dance around the room with her infant.

‘No, no, he’s fine, aren’t you, my little pigeon?’ Çetin İkmen said, more to the baby than to his daughter. Little Timur just gurgled.

An older, plumper woman with her hair pulled behind her ears by a headscarf came into the room and tutted, albeit good- naturedly, at what she saw.

‘I don’t know who is the more childlike, the baby or your father,’ Fatma İkmen said to her daughter.

‘I think it’s Dad,’ Hulya said with a smile.

‘I think you’re right.’

Both of the women laughed, mainly because seeing the middle-aged Çetin İkmen so besotted was very amusing. He and Fatma had raised nine children of their own, but Timur was the first grandchild, named for Çetin’s own father, and therefore very special indeed.

‘Berekiah’s father isn’t quite as silly as Dad, but he has revealed a softer side in the weeks since we’ve had Timur,’ Hulya said referring to the father of her husband with whom the couple and their baby currently resided. ‘But then he isn’t well, is he?’

‘Mmm, Allah tests us all,’ Fatma said. She didn’t find it easy feeling sorry for her daughter’s father-in-law, Balthazar Cohen. Although he had never risen through the ranks of the police as Çetin had done, Balthazar had been far more successful with women. In fact, for years he had made his wife’s, Fatma’s friend Estelle, life a misery. But all of that had stopped in the wake of the great earthquake of 1999 when Balthazar, trapped under the apartment building of his latest mistress, had lost both his legs. And now his son Berekiah had married outside the Jewish faith and Balthazar’s grandson was to be a Muslim. Allah was, Fatma thought again, really testing Balthazar Cohen. But then the phone rang in the hall and Fatma left the room to answer it.

Once she had gone, Hulya said, ‘So, Dad, are you busy?’

Inspector Çetin İkmen hugged the small baby to his thin chest and said, ‘Not really. I suppose I should be glad, no one’s killing anyone. I’m helping Mehmet Süleyman out with something, but . . . He’s got another new deputy who may or may not work out.’ And then he changed the subject. ‘How is your house coming on?’

‘Oh, slowly.’ Hulya sighed. One of Berekiah’s uncles had bought them a house up in the old Greek quarter of Fener on the Golden Horn. Almost derelict, the place needed a lot of work, which was what Hulya’s husband was spending so much time doing.

‘Too slowly, eh?’ İkmen asked, knowing what the answer would be.

‘Yes.’

Balthazar Cohen, as well as being very ill, was also very difficult to live with. He didn’t like the fact that his grandson was to be brought up a Muslim and he didn’t like the fact that his own sexual adventures were at an end. İkmen himself wasn’t crazy about any of his relatives having any sort of contact with religion – he couldn’t understand why his wife insisted on keeping the fast during Ramazan – but, like the rational secularist he was, he just lived with it.

‘Çetin, it’s your cousin Menşure,’ Fatma said as she came back into the room and took the baby from her husband’s arms.

‘For me?’

‘Well, of course for you,’ Fatma said.

İkmen picked up his ever-present packet of Maltepe cigar-ettes and a lighter from the coffee table and went out to the hall.

‘Is cousin Menşure the one who owns all of those fairy chimneys in Göreme?’ Hulya asked, once her father had left the room.

‘She owns fairy chimneys, but not in Göreme, in Muratpaşa, which is much smaller,’ her mother corrected. ‘Her father, Uncle Faruk, married your grandfather Timur’s sister, Şerefe. They were both very business-minded, made a lot of money. Menşure owns pansiyons and tour companies and lots of things. She never married. I wonder what she wants with your father?’

They both sat in silence until İkmen, puffing hard on a Maltepe, came back into the living room.

‘Fatma,’ he said as he braced himself against the side of a very old and threadbare settee, ‘how would you feel about my spending some time in Muratpaşa?’

‘Why? Has Menşure asked you to go for a little working holiday?’ Fatma said with more than a touch of acid in her voice. Apart from Çetin’s brother Halıl, his wider family rarely made contact. When they did, however, it was usually because they wanted something from him – generally time or information. Fatma rarely saw her hard-pressed husband herself and was, as a consequence, unamused by his seeming desire to go off into the wilds of Cappadocia.

‘No,’ İkmen replied evenly, ‘not exactly. Menşure has a few problems . . .’

‘So why don’t you and Mum go for a holiday together,’ Hulya said excitedly. ‘Berekiah and I could come and look after Gül and Kemal. You’d have a great time!’

‘Well . . .’

‘I think that your father would prefer to go to Cappadocia alone,’ Fatma said. ‘I expect this is business, or rather . . .’

‘No, well, it . . .’

‘Well? What?’

İkmen swallowed hard and then puffed furiously on his cigarette before saying, ‘It’s . . . well, yes, it is also a professional matter, Fatma. They’ve found a body . . .’

‘Oh, so the local jandarma call you in, of course, Çetin,’ she said with a huge ladle of irony in her voice. ‘They can’t possibly manage without you!’

‘Fatma, it’s an old body,’ he said. ‘It could be someone that I knew.’

‘From your many holidays with Auntie Şerefe. How many times was it, two? Or did your brother go twice and . . .’

‘If I can take a week’s leave then I’m going!’ İkmen said as he raised one silencing hand up in the air. ‘It’s just something that I have to do!’

And then he walked out on to the balcony, pausing only to coo at little Timur for a few seconds as he went.

Once he had gone, Hulya reached out to her mother and said, ‘Don’t worry, Mum, Dad won’t do anything bad, he isn’t like that. I’m sure it’s all right.’

‘Oh, so am I,’ her mother said as she briefly dabbed her eyes with one corner of her headscarf. She was crying with frustration and anger as opposed to actual upset. ‘Cousin Menşure has all the appeal of a bundle of twigs. No, I just worry about your father getting into trouble. You know what he’s like when he becomes involved in something. Shooting his mouth off and upsetting people, putting himself in danger . . .’