Harem (25 page)

Wearied by the heat, which wasn’t tempered by even the lightest breeze from the Sea of Marmara, Muazzez leaned back against the wall of the underpass. She was too old to stand around for long periods in strange places. Where was he? Heavy vibrations in the concrete wall of the underpass told her that a train had just arrived at Cankurturan station. Outside of commuter times not many people opted to travel to the city by train and so there was no great flurry of activity around the train’s arrival. Just more heat and a quietness punctuated by the distant voices of children at play in the shabby streets of Cankurturan district. Muazzez smiled. At night this place had a reputation as a haunt for robbers, prostitutes and drunks. But by day it was all right, or at least she thought it was.

The train started to pull out of the station and rolled across the underpass. The car which had been stationary two hundred metres up on İshak Paşa Caddesi came to life and moved forward. Gathering momentum in line with the departing train, the white Volvo estate was travelling at quite a speed as it rounded the bend into the underpass.

Muazzez, who was concentrating on the sound of the train above her head, didn’t hear the car until it was too late. Even when its heavy metal bonnet smashed into her legs, she didn’t for a second imagine that what had happened was anything other than an accident. But when the car reversed and then, still under cover of the noise from the train up above, came at her one last fatal time, she knew she was meant to die. And as the reality of impending death engulfed her she was saddened that after all these years he had felt he had to do this in order to silence her. He should have known there was no need.

As the car disappeared down Kennedy Caddesi at high speed, Muazzez Heper died on the ground, alone.

Sometimes, even with the greatest of one’s friends, certain things are hidden. You know it from the way the friend behaves, from the atmosphere inside the room, house or apartment. Like an intrusive odour, it lingers, weighing down the most ordinary conversation with its spaces full of silent questions.

İkmen knew that there was something odd happening in Süleyman’s house as soon as he crossed the threshold. Not only did Mehmet look uncharacteristically unkempt, he had a very unpleasant scratch on his face as well. İkmen did not mention this even though he noticed old Dr Halman, who entered the salon carrying the baby Yusuf İzzeddin, look at the wound with undisguised concern. And then there was their visitor. İkmen couldn’t recall his name but when the young man descended from the bedrooms upstairs, İkmen recognised him as one of Zelfa’s psychiatrist colleagues. Babur Halman went to meet him. And even though Mehmet closed the door after his father-in-law had left the room, İkmen could hear the sound of their voices talking quietly for a long time afterwards.

But then Mehmet was an Ottoman and kept his home life private. It was his prerogative and his choice and so İkmen ignored the strangeness around him and launched into the background to his recent dismissal from active duty.

‘Ardıç has been
told
to remove me from the Sivas case. I know it!’ he said, leaning back into Babur’s faded wing chair and lighting a cigarette. ‘He went to Ankara to see his superiors. Things must have been said.’

‘Sivas is a Hollywood star, Çetin,’ Mehmet said gently. ‘You and I both know how things are with Americans.’

‘You mean that the world bows down to them.’

‘Because most of the world owes them either money or gratitude, yes.’ Süleyman smiled. ‘They probably want someone stupidly youthful who doesn’t smoke.’

‘Metin İskender smokes!’ İkmen retorted.

‘Yes, which means that they may make him work under somebody else,’ Süleyman said. ‘A man from Ankara maybe.’

‘A Turk who doesn’t smoke?’ İkmen shook his head in disbelief. ‘Apart from you when you were young, I’ve never met such a creature. It’s ridiculous!’

Süleyman shrugged. ‘Whatever the rights and wrongs of it, that is how it is, Çetin.’

‘I mean, if I’d just been allowed to speak to the Americans . . .’

‘Yes, but Ardıç didn’t let you, did he?’ Süleyman rubbed his forehead with a very tired hand, ‘And anyway, if Sivas does have Mafia connections, that’s for the Americans to deal with, isn’t it? We have enough trouble with our own families without importing murderers from New York and Chicago or wherever.’

İkmen, temporarily drained of all energy, closed his eyes. He knew he should be back at the station now writing that report on the Sivas case for Ardıç. After all, what he had discovered had to be valuable to Ardıç and/or whoever came after him. Secret tunnels, whispers of Mafiosi, the strange and rapid rise to stardom of a young boy from İstanbul, in a country where seemingly nobody likes Turks . . .

‘So Suzan Şeker told you that her husband was paying the Müren brothers,’ İkmen said, abruptly changing the subject to his other previous case. His mind did, after all, have to do something if it couldn’t busy itself with Hikmet and Vedat Sivas.

‘She isn’t prepared to go on record though,’ Süleyman replied darkly. ‘She was, very brave and determined at first but she changed her mind. She phoned me. I said that you had an interest in talking to the Mürens but she wasn’t impressed. I think that Mrs Şeker will carry on where her husband left off. The reality is that she has little choice.’

İkmen sighed. ‘You know, unless we’re prepared to take on organised crime in this city we’re going to lose control.’

‘Oh, and we do that by starting a war with the Müren family, do we?’ Süleyman stood up and walked agitatedly up and down for a few moments. ‘Çetin, we don’t know that the Müren family were involved in what happened to Hatice İpek.’

‘Rat told me that family were behind a prostitution racket.’

‘Rat!’ Süleyman took a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket and lit up. ‘He’s insane!’

‘He also told me that two seamstresses from my old district, the Heper sisters, knew all about this high-class prostitution thing.’

‘And did they?’

İkmen shrugged. ‘What they didn’t or wouldn’t say suggested to me that they probably did.’

Süleyman sat down again. Although far from convinced that the notoriously unreliable informant known as the Sultanahmet Rat did indeed know anything of value about the İpek case, he didn’t doubt what İkmen had experienced with the Heper sisters. Employed over many years and in numerous cases, İkmen’s instincts were only ever questioned by Ardıç, who generally lived to regret his scepticism.

‘How do you think these sisters might be involved?’ Süleyman asked.

‘They definitely made that dress I told you about,’ İkmen said. ‘The one Hatice was dressed in when she died.’

‘But they didn’t or wouldn’t say that they had made this dress?’

‘No. Which suggests to me that they know more about or have greater involvement in this,’ he shrugged, ‘I don’t know what to call it. This trade in prettily dressed girls which has recently been taken over by families, according to Rat.’

‘According to Rat. Mmm.’ Süleyman looked at İkmen with a jaded eye. ‘That for me, I must say, Çetin, has to be the flaw in all of this.’

‘Rat?’

‘Yes. He’s both unreliable and stupid.’

‘Well, I can’t argue with you about that,’ İkmen said. ‘Usually Rat is a waste of time. But he was scared on this occasion.’ He frowned at the memory of it. ‘OK, he wanted money as usual, but that doesn’t detract from the risk that he took, in my opinion.’

‘So this prostitution . . .’

‘My understanding of it is,’ İkmen said, ‘that someone has for a long time provided odalisques for men with a taste for the old days. Rat said it had been operating for years. But now one of the families has taken it over and people, maybe not just Hatice, are getting hurt.’

‘Well I suppose that having a woman totally subservient to one’s every whim or, in some cases perversion, can be compelling,’ Süleyman observed. ‘Traditionally, odalisques were female servants who attended to the Sultan’s needs both in bed and as domestics and entertainers. An odalisque, as well as learning sexual submission, would be trained to dress beautifully, sing, play an instrument and wash clothes. She also had to be perfect.’ He smiled. ‘Allah’s Shadow on Earth could not be subjected to the sight of physical defect.’

‘So perhaps the families are now cashing in on the fantasies of deviants,’ İkmen said. ‘Although if the Heper sisters made the gowns for these modern sex slaves, the service can’t have come cheaply. Rich weirdos—’

‘Now possibly paying one of the families?’

‘Ah, but which family?’ İkmen raised his hands as if inviting an answer which Süleyman couldn’t supply. ‘The only family connection to any of this is the Mürens’ connection with Hassan Şeker who was having an affair with Hatice İpek and who in his suicide note claimed to have taken her life. I still don’t believe that. The Mürens could have had sex with her, yes. But to take over something as, well, classy, sophisticated, well-researched as this seems unlikely. Ali Müren is as scummy as his sons, he’s basically just a thug. No. They’re too stupid to get involved in what sounds like a labour-intensive operation. If we were talking about the Galikos or the Edips, I would say yes, but not the Mürens.’

‘Then perhaps another family lies behind the Mürens,’ Süleyman said. ‘The Galikos maybe. Perhaps even the Bulgarian.’

‘I thought he was dead.’

‘Apparently not.’ Süleyman let his tired head droop down towards the floor. ‘He’s alive and kicking, so I’ve heard.’ He looked up and waved his cigarette in İkmen’s direction. ‘Now he is dangerous,’ he said. ‘Metin İskender tried to get him a few years ago. He and his team, which I believe included Tepe, worked hard for nearly six months on Zhivkov and his gang. Then when they raided his place they found it empty save. for the impaled head of the Bulgarian’s wife, Nina – İskender’s informant.’

‘Metin still has problems with that. He reacted very badly to what we found in Hikmet Sivas’s bedroom. But is Zhivkov associated with the Müren brothers?’

Süleyman shrugged. ‘I don’t know, but it’s possible. Like all of these people, the Mürens are difficult to find when you want them but you could try having them followed. Or you could just ask them of course.’

İkmen shook his head in disbelief and lit up another cigarette. ‘This is no time for levity, Mehmet.’

‘No, I’m serious,’ Süleyman, who was generally serious, responded. ‘If you can get them in, or rather if you can use the right incentive to get them in, then I think they might be persuaded.’ Seeing the confused look on İkmen’s face, Süleyman amplified. ‘I’m talking about Alev Müren, Çetin. The little sister from hell?’

‘Oh.’

Süleyman smiled at İkmen’s expression. ‘Bring Alev in and the boys will follow. It won’t be difficult, she’s incapable of shopping without stealing at least half of her purchases.’

‘So I just have to lurk around in shopping malls, do I?’

‘Get one of the younger men to follow her to Galeria or Akmerkez,’ Süleyman said, naming two of the city’s new and popular American-style shopping malls. ‘Alev Müren is a fashion diva, she shops from dawn till dusk. Daddy gives her money to shop every day. But when that runs out she steals. She’s stolen from shops all over the city. You can bring her in on her reputation alone.’

‘And then?’ İkmen asked.

‘As soon as the boys know she’s in custody, they’ll come,’ Süleyman said. ‘They’ll try and buy every officer they bump into on the way. But when they get to you, make it clear that you’re going to keep hold of Alev this time. You might even intimate that you like her.’

‘What a distasteful thought that is,’ İkmen said, recalling the plump, self-satisfied features of Alev Müren.

‘If they think that Alev’s honour might be in danger, they may talk,’ Süleyman said. ‘Old Ali Müren would certainly kill both of them if he thought they had allowed his little girl to be violated. Then you can ask them about other families.’

‘You think that they would inform on the Bulgarian?’ İkmen asked doubtfully.

Süleyman shrugged. ‘I don’t think it’s impossible. If anything is their collective Achilles heel, it is that dreadful girl. Anyway, Çetin, what else have we got?’

There wasn’t much. There was, in truth, little beyond rumours, suggestions and feelings. The only concrete fact was that a girl had been horribly violated and her body dumped in a minor cistern, and now her mother and her sister cried ceaselessly in her memory. İkmen felt his eyes start to sting again.

‘The problem is, I’m supposed to be on holiday now,’ he said as he looked questioningly into Süleyman’s face.

‘Oh, I’m having to take a little more leave myself, Çetin,’ the younger man replied as he held his hands aloft to signify his detachment, ‘Zelfa still needs, er, she isn’t, uh . . .’

İkmen smiled. So Zelfa was having a few problems. Some women did. Inşallah whatever the problem was would pass quickly. ‘That’s OK,’ he said. ‘You take care of your family.’

‘Çetin, I’m sorry . . .’ Süleyman looked away.

‘Well, don’t be.’ İkmen leaned across and placed a small dry hand on Süleyman’s shoulder. ‘Take care of the living, your wife and your son.’ He put his other hand into his jacket pocket and retrieved a small, shiny box. ‘Give this to him,’ he said and rose to leave. ‘I’ll deal with the dead people.’ Then he left.

Süleyman, who was in reality exhausted from Zelfa’s accusations and delusions, simply sat and felt inadequate. Later he opened the little box and found inside a moderately sized gold coin dating from the reign of Sultan Abdul Mecit whose blood ran in his veins and those of his son. How İkmen could possibly afford such a thing he didn’t know but he smiled anyway.

The sun had set by the time İkmen got back to the police station. He’d been vaguely aware of the sunset call to prayer as he berated his teenage children for the appalling state of the apartment. But then he’d gone out, leaving the place as messy as he’d found it – to do Ardıç’s bidding and try to think about what he might do now about his ‘holiday’ and how he could further his investigations into the ‘dead’ İpek case. He could hardly carry on alone but he didn’t want Tepe with him. The man, at best, had exhibited sloppy thinking with regard to the Mürens and their involvement with Hassan Şeker. At worst, well . . . Perhaps it was best not to ponder upon how many and who amongst the officers that he had known over the years had had some financial link to members of the underworld. Besides, Tepe seemed to be working directly for Ardıç now. Maybe the commissioner wanted to keep him close in order to watch him. Ardıç was, after all, nobody’s fool even if he was currently having his mouth moved for him by faceless creatures in Ankara – or maybe Washington.