Deep Waters (21 page)

For the first time Suleyman managed to detect something approaching pain in this man’s face. It made him feel a modicum of sympathy.

‘Your daughter’s version of these events was, according to my colleague, Inspector İkmen, somewhat vexed,’ he said. ‘She was at first most reluctant to admit to the kidney transplant and seemed a little, shall we say, optimistic with regard to her physical attractiveness to men.’

‘Felicity lives in a fantasy world.’

As if by reflex, Suleyman looked behind him.

‘Oh, you don’t have to worry, Inspector,’ Evren said. ‘My daughter is out spending my money at the moment.’

‘Oh.’

‘Not that I have ever discouraged my daughter’s fantasies,’ he continued. ‘In fact I frequently promote them myself – tell her that she’s beautiful, you know. Felicity needs her delusions in order to survive. Just don’t believe too much of what comes out of her mouth is all I will say to you.’

‘Where was your daughter when Rifat Berisha came to call, Mr Evren?’

‘She’d gone to bed, as had my son.’ He puffed on his cigar before adding, ‘He takes pills to make him sleep. I let the boy in. We had a conversation in this room, it was about ten o’clock, and then I threw him out.’

‘Did you actually see Rifat get into his car?’ Suleyman asked.

‘No, but I heard him drive off. Then I went upstairs to bed.’

‘You didn’t hear any other cars drive up around the time Rifat arrived?’

Evren shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Not that I remember.’

‘What about cars abandoned in the street the day after Rifat’s death?’

‘None that I noticed. But then we are quite a way back from the street here.’ A walled drive led up to his house. ‘Why?’

Suleyman smiled his particular closed, professional smile. ‘Just a line of inquiry, sir,’ he said.

Hopefully the uniformed officers who were currently doing house-to-house inquires in the rest of the street would discover someone rather more observant than Mr Evren. Although these properties were not as select as those that actually fronted the Bosphorus, they were still highly desirable places where the residents generally kept their cars on their drives. A dumped vehicle, particularly a scruffy green Fiat like the one that Mehti Vlora had described, would be very noticeable. And if the Traffic Division came up with something also . . .

‘What do you do for a living, Mr Evren?’ Suleyman asked, changing tack to a subject which, given the external splendour of the house in contrast to the cheap, almost greasy interior, was one that he found interesting.

Evren’s darkly sagging eyes narrowed. ‘Why?’

As if on cue a big, gold-coloured Rolls-Royce pulled up underneath the window of the living room. ‘Because whatever it is that you do, Mr Evren, seems to afford you a comfortable living. And you did mention that you had done work for the surgeon who performed your daughter’s operation.’

‘I’m a legitimate businessman,’ Evren said as he stubbed his cigar out in his ashtray. ‘I deal in works of art. I obtained several items for Mr Collins. I only handle good pieces . . .’ Someone turned a key in the front door of the house and let themselves in. Just briefly a shade of nervousness seemed to cross Evren’s face before he continued, ‘. . . aimed at the western European market. I import them.’

‘From eastern Europe?’ Acknowledging the question in Evren’s expression, Suleyman explained, with a hint of İkmen-ism, ‘You called your friend Alexei which, I believe, is a Slavic name. Rightly or wrongly, I made a connection.’ He smiled. ‘The state pays us to do that.’

‘I deal with the Russians, yes,’ Evren said, shrugging his stiff, fat shoulders, ‘but it’s all quite legitimate. I’m not one of those who sends gangsters into small village churches to pillage their icons. If people want to sell to my agents – who, by the way, always give them a fair price – then that’s up to them.’

‘Quite.’

‘And anyway,’ Evren said, continuing to justify what Suleyman was beginning to regard as a rather dubious operation, ‘we’re not talking about very valuable works. The Russian government grabbed all that from their aristocrats years ago. In fact I buy the really valuable stuff here.’ He gave an odd grim little smile. ‘You’d be surprised at how many of our own ex-imperial family still have enough good jewellery to put their kids through university.’

‘Would I?’ Suleyman replied, wrestling with the bitterness he knew was in his voice. Although it was doubtful that Evren had ever had dealings with his own family, somebody like him had purchased his grandfather’s precious collection of jewelled cigarette cases. Somebody like him who had not given his, at the time, desperate father anything like ‘a fair price’.

He was just about to ask Evren whether this antique Turkish jewellery as well as the icons went across to western Europe when the door behind him opened. Seeing her reflection in the large mirror that hung directly in front of him, Suleyman recognised Felicity immediately. Although he had only caught a glimpse of her outside İkmen’s office the previous afternoon, Felicity Evren’s appearance was so disturbingly startling that it was not one a person easily forgot.

‘Daddy, there are lots of policemen in the street,’ she said, using what Suleyman recognised was probably more comfortable for this essentially English woman, her own language. Spotting the policeman in her own house, she smiled with something like pleased recognition.

‘Inspector . . .’ Evren snorted as he struggled to remember Suleyman’s name.

‘Suleyman,’ the policeman offered.

‘Yes,’ Evren said, his speech now in English, his eye distinctly jaundiced with regard to his ‘guest’, ‘Inspector Suleyman has come to ask questions about your friend Rifat.’

‘Oh.’ She smiled and then moved to the plastic covered window seat which placed her directly between the two men. ‘I thought I told Inspector İkmen everything that I know yesterday,’ she said mildly, ‘but if there is anything more, Inspector Suleyman . . .’

‘I told him about Rifat giving you his kidney,’ Evren said quickly and, seemingly, harshly.

Although she didn’t display any sort of reaction to her father’s words, Felicity Evren remained silent for a few moments following his statement. It was not the sort of silence, Suleyman felt, that anyone but Felicity should break.

When she did finally speak, her words were slow and deeply sad.

‘I loved Rifat. There is a hole in my life where he once was.’

‘There will be other young men, my precious angel,’ her father replied, and then added an observation that Suleyman felt was wildly at odds with reality. ‘After all, who could not love you, my beautiful little soul?’

‘Indeed.’

Felicity Evren then looked across at Suleyman, her twisted face forcing her eccentric collection of muscles into a smile.

Only Engelushjia and Rahman Berisha were in the apartment when İkmen and Tepe arrived, Aliya having gone next door to tell Mimoza the dreadful thing Rifat had done to his body for that foreign hag. When it became apparent that İkmen had come to question Rahman, Engelushjia left too. And, although the hard, grey sky of winter was pouring copious amounts of rain onto the city, Engelushjia did not go to join her mother. Instead she took herself up to the flimsy awning on the roof which, in summer, the family used as a way of escaping from the stifling heat indoors. There, pulling her barely adequate cardigan across her thin chest, she watched as the tough city pigeons squawked and jostled for supremacy over the crumbling Eminönü skyline. The greyness and with the animals’ aggression combined to underline the feeling of foreboding that mention of that one awful name had sparked inside her mind. As she’d been closing the door on her father and the policemen, she’d heard the older officer say the words ‘Dhori Vlora’, and there on the landing she had felt her heart beat so hard she thought she might die. Her father had killed Dhori Vlora, taken his blood for Egrem’s. Everybody – well, everybody who was Albanian – knew it. The police had probably learned of it through that Bajraktar creature, although what they could do about it without Dhori’s body, Engelushjia couldn’t imagine. Perhaps there were ways, maybe even cruel, painful ways, in which they could ‘persuade’ Rahman to give up his knowledge regarding Dhori’s whereabouts.

Engelushjia herself didn’t have a clue, either about where Dhori was or why her father had concealed his body. All she knew was that after Egrem’s murder, as she looked down into that hastily dug hole on some rough ground out by the airport – waste land where her family’s poverty had obliged them to inter her beloved brother – her father had sworn to take Vlora blood. When, sometime later – she didn’t remember now how long afterwards – Dhori Vlora had disappeared, word naturally went around that her father had killed him. And indeed Rahman, although never offering any information on that subject himself, had seemed calmer and almost more fulfilled afterwards. Until, that was, Rifat joined Egrem in death.

How long she sat up on the roof, Engelushjia didn’t know. But when she did finally see the two policemen, the old one and the nice, clean young one, step out into the street again, her hands and her feet had turned blue. Swaying just a little at first on her numb and woolly feet, Engelushjia made her way back inside, slowly climbing down the ladder onto the landing.

Her father was still in the kitchen where she’d left him. And although his head was propped wearily between his hands as he leaned forward on the table, his face was not overtly anxious.

Slipping quietly into the chair opposite him, Engelushjia watched him light the cigarette that hung between his lips and then, coming straight to the point, she said, ‘They asked you about Dhori Vlora, didn’t they?’

Rahman tipped his head almost reflexively to one side. ‘Yes.’

‘What did you say, Father? What did you tell them?’

‘All that I know.’

Engelushjia threw a hand up to her mouth in an attempt to stifle the scream that was aching for release. At the same time, the pounding in her chest started again and tears sprang into her eyes. If her father had indeed told them ‘everything’ . . .

But Rahman, even in the face of her obvious distress, just smiled.

‘Father . . .’

‘I told them I know nothing about Dhori Vlora’s death.’

‘So you lied!’ Placing one calming hand across her chest, Engelushjia closed her eyes, muttering, ‘Praise be to Allah.’

Rahman looked at his daughter. ‘No,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘No, I didn’t lie to the policemen.’ He watched the threads of confusion knit themselves across his daughter’s face. ‘I told the police the truth. Much as I would have liked to have killed Dhori Vlora, I didn’t do it. I’ve never actually killed anyone in my life, Engelushjia.’ He rose slowly from his chair. ‘I don’t have the courage.’

‘So who did?’

‘I have no idea who killed Dhori Vlora,’ Rahman said, pushing his chair back against the table, ‘or where his body is.’ And then he left the room.

Engelushjia, for whom the last hour or so had been an enormous strain, burst into tears.

By the time İkmen returned to his apartment that evening, he knew that the only person who could categorically state that a green Fiat had been abandoned outside the Evrens’ Bebek home was Mehti Vlora. The car certainly wasn’t there now, having seemingly become as invisible as Dhori Vlora’s missing corpse – if indeed that young man was a corpse. That he had disappeared was indisputable but the manner of his disappearance remained unproven, as did the identity of Egrem Berisha’s killers. The fact and manner of Egrem’s death could, in theory, be established, but in practice there were problems. Yeşilköy, which is where Berisha had said he had buried Egrem, had been one of the areas most violently devastated by the earthquake. With so much rubble removed from that area, not to mention bodies taken away for burial, the chances of actually locating Egrem were thin. And even then his identity would have to be proved somehow. İkmen knew from experience how problematic that could be.

In the meantime, and against Mehti Vlora’s expectations, his drug-dealing brother and mother remained in İkmen’s cells. And, on the face of it, the investigation into Rifat Berisha’s death was over. Mehti had admitted to the crime, had provided details that were consistent with most of the facts. True, the issue of the green Fiat still nagged at him, as did Mehti’s omission regarding the wrapping up of Rifat’s body. But then perhaps he had simply forgotten – such things were not unknown even in those who had actually been seen committing a crime. But Mehti had also failed to mention, or explain, the fragments of coloured glass found in Rifat’s face. On reflection, perhaps a further talk with Samsun about the Vlora brothers might prove instructive. It would also give him the opportunity to talk to his Uncle Ahmet, Samsun’s father, who was due to arrive from İzmir sometime in the morning. Anxious to see his wounded child, the old man probably wouldn’t be happy talking about the circumstances surrounding his sister’s death but, selfish or not, İkmen was going to ask. Angeliki Vlora had said that Ahmet ‘knew the truth’ and İkmen intended to confront him outright and hope that if Ahmet attempted to lie, he would know.

Fatma poured some water into her husband’s glass and then placed his meal on the table in front of him. As ever she had cooked far too much and, although pide with egg was one of his favourites, the sheer quantity was off-putting. Not, of course, that he could tell her that.

Busying herself with various small cleaning tasks, Fatma watched her husband slowly begin his meal and then said, ‘Hulya said that the girls’ bedroom shook for a few seconds last night.’

‘It was only four point four,’ İkmen replied. He hadn’t noticed the small tremor the previous night but it had been widely reported in the media.

‘There were little ones like that last time,’ Fatma said.

Deducing from the strained expression on her face that his wife was yet again entering a state of extreme earthquake anxiety, İkmen first took a large bite out of his pide, chewed and swallowed, and then said, ‘So did you get another hamster?’