Harem (20 page)

When he’d phoned her, Tepe had asked Ayşe to wear something special for their date. Where they were going people only wore good clothes and ate good food. For once, he had enough cash and access to more should he need it later. It was nice to be in control, of his money and entertainment like this, he thought. And as he saw her walk purposefully towards the car, her long dark hair swinging provocatively across her naked shoulders, he hid the rather more troubling thoughts that lay at the back of his good fortune behind a winning smile.

Although her dress was revealing at the top, the red circular skirt covered the length of her fine legs. It was something that she wore often, but he liked it. As she got into the car she had to gather up the full material and pull it inside lest it catch in the door.

‘So where are we going?’ she asked as she finally shut the car door and turned towards him.

‘Well, I thought we’d start with a meal at Rejans,’ he said, slipping the car into gear and moving off into the stream of traffic.

‘Rejans!’

As well as being expensive, Rejans Restaurant is one of the oldest in İstanbul. Established in the 1920s by White Russian émigrés, it has been favoured by the city’s elite for many years. It is and was not the sort of place where an ordinary policeman and his mistress might be found – unless of course that policeman happened to be Mehmet Süleyman. Ayşe Farsakoǧlu, only too aware of this, said, ‘But what about Süleyman? What if—’

‘His wife is still in hospital,’ her lover replied, smiling. ‘He won’t be there. His family might be, but we don’t know each other.’

‘But it’s so expensive!’

‘Think of it as an early birthday gift,’ he said, turning back up towards Taksim and then on to Galatasaray.

‘You said we were going out to Tarabya.’

He shrugged. ‘We can still do that. After all, my wife and her family are no more likely to be in Rejans than in Tarabya.’

‘But the money! How . . .’

‘I just reorganised my finances.’ He laughed. ‘It was easy enough.’ He looked across at her, feeling as he did so that familiar rush of passion to his loins that she so often evoked in him. ‘I wanted to please you.’

She smiled. ‘Well, you have.’

‘Good.’ He turned his attention back to the road. After a short silence he said, ‘And then afterwards we can go to the apartment. I’ve told Aysel I’m working tonight. We can fuck until morning. Get in practice for how it will be when we’re married,’ he said with a smile.

‘We will be married, won’t we, Orhan?’ she said, happy but still touched with anxiety. ‘You mean it?’

‘Yes, I’ve told you before. I want a woman, not a child.’ He looked across at her again. ‘Someone who likes sex as much as I do.’ He paused. Still looking at her. ‘Did Süleyman like sex as much as I do?’

She turned away, stung by his question. ‘Orhan!’

‘Well?’

‘I, I don’t . . .’ she stammered, both embarrassed and hurt by his question about a man she still had feelings for.

‘Not as big as me, though, is he?’ Orhan said. ‘Not many men are.’ He took one of her hands in his and pushed it down onto his crotch. Just thinking about it had made a large organ even bigger. ‘When we’re married that will be yours whenever you want it,’ he said. ‘But tonight we’ll eat at Rejans and drink champagne. Then I’ll make love to you. You can be my odalisque, if you like.’ He laughed again. ‘Pleasuring your very grateful Sultan – your husband to be!’

His words and the feel of him under her hand inflamed her. With trembling, eager fingers she unzipped his fly and then took him in her hand.

‘Oh, that’s good,’ he said, as she moved her hand up and down the shaft of his penis.

‘You do love me, don’t you, Orhan?’ she asked as he quickly drove the car into a deserted side street.

‘Yes,’ he answered thickly. He turned the engine off and reached across to massage her breasts. ‘Sorry, Ayşe, I can’t wait.’

‘And we will be married?’

‘Yes, we will,’ he gasped. ‘I promise. Your mouth, quickly.’

Ayşe lowered her head and Orhan dug his fingers hard into the back of her neck as he climaxed. This hurt Ayşe but she didn’t mind. It was just another demonstration of how much he needed her.

And later, at the restaurant, he showed that he loved her in another way, with beautiful gifts and a meal she calculated cost him a week’s salary. He counted the banknotes out in front of her so that she could see how much he cared.

They left Rejans at ten and he took her to Pertevpaşa Sokak, which was just a few minutes’ walk from the apartment. It was unwise for them to be seen entering the place together and so she agreed to walk from there.

Ayşe Farsakoǧlu liked the dress she was wearing. It flattered both her tan and her large, full breasts and she knew it. Ostensibly for Orhan Tepe’s benefit, this dress had originally been purchased with the intention of pursuing Mehmet Süleyman again – she’d even worn it to his wedding. But it had had no effect. The proud Ottoman had married his doctor and now he had a child and there was an end to it, except of course in Ayşe’s head. When she had sex with Orhan, even when he talked of marriage as he had done earlier, she usually fantasised about Mehmet. Later, in Orhan’s brother’s apartment, she’d make him fuck her while she wore the dress. Just thinking about it made her hasten to get to the apartment in Çemberlitaş.

She was just crossing from Pertevpaşa Sokak onto Piyerloti Caddesi when the distinctive sound of an appreciative male hiss reached her ears. Looking as she did, it was not the first time she had provoked such a reaction. And usually she just ignored whatever was hissed or said to her. But on this occasion, possibly because she was feeling so very sexual, after a short tantalising pause she looked round to see who was appreciating her. Unfortunately the men involved were not to her taste. But they were known to her.

Celal Müren, though little more than a child, was an unpleasant individual. He’d spent more time than she suspected he had liked in police custody. On one occasion she had actually arrested him herself – for brawling. And although none of the offences he’d committed were serious in themselves, Ayşe knew that it was only a question of time before he did something really big. After all, with an elder brother like Ekrem, who was standing, smirking, next to him, it was almost a foregone conclusion. Ekrem Müren, like his father, was a gangster. And like his father, Ekrem didn’t just confine himself to one kind of illegal trade. During the course of his short life he had been implicated in prostitution and protection rackets, drugs and, it was rumoured, contract killing.

Celal, whose tongue was now literally lolling from his mouth, didn’t recognise Ayşe, which was really quite delicious. Everyone knew what the Müren family were even if little could be proved against them – dead people don’t give evidence – and so it would be nice to shock Celal and Ekrem just a little. Ayşe Farsakoǧlu walked over to them, her long legs now moving casually in lazy, provocative strides. As she came to a halt in front of them, Ekrem ran a hand through his thick waxed hair, licking his lips in appreciation of her.

Smiling, she turned her attention on Ekrem’s brother. ‘Hello, Celal,’ she said. ‘I haven’t seen you for quite a while. What have you been doing?’

Taken entirely by surprise, Celal just stared.

Ekrem moved forward, in front of his brother. His eyes were level with the top of Ayşe’s breasts. He put his hands out towards them, his fingers stopping just short of actually touching.

‘And how does a beautiful bird like you know my brother?’ he said. ‘He’s just a boy.’

‘Oh, I arrested your brother last year,’ Ayşe said, enjoying the sight of the blood running out of Ekrem Müren’s face.

‘
You
are a policewoman?’

‘Yes, that’s right, Mr Müren,’ a deeper, male voice answered.

Ayşe Farsakoǧlu turned and saw Orhan Tepe standing behind her. His face, even through the darkness, looked flushed with fury.

‘She’s a sergeant,’ he continued, his eyes fixed on Ekrem Müren’s hands which were now moving quickly away from Ayşe’s breasts.

Celal Müren looked at his brother with fearful eyes. ‘I don’t remember her,’ he said. ‘I would have remembered her, Ekrem.’

‘Shut up.’

‘On your way,’ Tepe said coldly and then added, ‘boys.’

‘We weren’t doing anything,
officer
 . . .’

‘No, but you’re scum,’ Tepe said and waved the brothers away from the perfumed orbit of his lover.

With one sideways smirk which Ekrem shot at Tepe, the brothers moved off in the direction of the main Okçularbaşı Caddesi. Returning, or so Farsakoǧlu at least felt, to their father’s apartment in Beyazıt, the family’s base.

When they had gone she looked at Tepe, a smile breaking across her face.

‘Did you come back to follow me, Orhan?’ she said, pleased at the prospect.

‘No.’ But he looked away from her as he said it.

As a rule they didn’t meet in the street. He approached his brother’s apartment, or wherever they had agreed to meet, via one route and she via another. It had always been that way. Meetings outdoors could be dangerous – Orhan’s wife had many friends and relations – and they, or rather Orhan, always wanted to avoid that eventuality. That they had now come across each other just when she had decided to have a little fun with the Müren brothers was unusual and, Ayşe felt, extremely amusing too. If he had indeed followed her, perhaps he was jealous.

‘The Mürens are dangerous,’ he said as they began to walk. ‘You should keep away from them.’

‘I arrested Celal last year,’ she said. ‘He’s a nasty boy, I admit, but—’

‘Keep away from them!’ He turned quickly and grabbed the tops of her arms.

‘Orhan!’

‘They’re scum and I won’t have scum looking at you like that!’

‘But Orhan, I was only having a joke with them.’

‘Well, it wasn’t very funny,’ he said through his teeth. ‘And you will not do anything like that again, not with any man.’ And then, taking one of her hands in his, he pulled her towards him so that his face was level with hers.

‘Get in the car. I don’t care who sees us tonight. I want you now. I have everything you’ll ever need.’

And although she had felt passion for Orhan before, this time it was overwhelming, this time it blanked out Mehmet Süleyman from her mind completely.

‘It was definitely suicide.’

İkmen looked his old friend hard in the eyes, not because he disbelieved him, but because he wanted to make sure that Arto himself harboured absolutely no doubts.

‘Not just because of the note that he left,’ Arto continued. ‘Everything about the scene, not least the fact that the room possesses only one entrance, tells me that suicide has to be the only explanation.’

Mehmet Süleyman sighed. Because he had been the one who had actually found Şeker’s body the previous evening, he had joined their early morning conference.

‘But if he did, as the note says, kill Hatice İpek,’ he said, ‘then—’

‘Nobody actually killed the girl,’ İkmen cut in quickly. ‘She died during or just after sex acts were performed on her by several men.’

‘One of the chambers of her heart became blocked. Her death was entirely natural,’ Arto added.

‘Which means that, when Şeker took responsibility for her death in his note, he had to be lying,’ İkmen said.

‘Or else he just felt responsible because he was one of the men who assaulted her,’ Arto offered. ‘I mean, was he ever told that her death was natural?’

İkmen shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I told my daughter and the girl’s mother of course, but unless they told him . . .’

‘We never did get a semen sample from him when he was alive, did we?’ Arto said. ‘Perhaps he was afraid of that after all. Time will tell.’

They all passed several minutes in silence, the doctor, the two inspectors and the young constable, Yıldız, who had been first on the scene to assist Süleyman the previous evening. İkmen particularly was troubled. In view of the note Şeker had left admitting to having been responsible for Hatice’s death, there was now no hope at all that Ardıç would allow any further work to be carried out on the İpek case. And yet İkmen was still very unsure. Not just because Hassan Şeker, for all his faults, didn’t seem to be that kind of man, but also because he had no reason at all to do this. More than one person had seen him go home that night, after Hatice had left.

‘Of course there could be another explanation for his death,’ said Yıldız, who had been quietly smoking in the corner.

They all turned to look at him.

‘And what’s that Constable?’ İkmen asked, frowning.

‘Well, there was some sort of connection with the Müren brothers.’

‘Celal and Ekrem Müren?’

‘Yes.’

İkmen blanched. ‘But they’re family, Yıldız! What do you mean, a connection?’

Yıldız shrugged. ‘I don’t rightly know, sir,’ he said innocently. ‘All I do know is that when we went to the pastane the second time, the Mürens and some other lad were talking to Mrs Şeker in a rather, well, serious fashion. I mean, Mrs Şeker didn’t look happy. She looked across at her husband’s office door sort of furtively before she spoke to them, like she wanted them to go away quickly. Sergeant Tepe was in there with Mr Şeker.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’ İkmen yelled. ‘If the Mürens wanted Şeker then money must have been involved.’

‘Or drugs or prostitution or contract killing,’ Süleyman added, completing the set of likely Müren family crimes.

‘Absolutely.’ İkmen turned back to Yıldız. ‘Well?’

The young man looked down at the floor before speaking, ‘Sergeant Tepe told me to forget it, sir, the Müren thing.’

All three of the other men in the room exchanged glances before İkmen looked back at Yıldız and asked, ‘Why?’

‘Because he said it wasn’t important,’ Yıldız said.