Hotel Bosphorus (11 page)

“You mean if you put your finger into an electric socket…”

He carried on as if he hadn't heard what I said:

“In water… because water is a good conductor… Death takes place because the heart stops.” It seemed to me that he didn't know much about this either.

“Hmm,” I said again. Actually, I was more interested in the state of the hair-dryer than the body. “I want to ask you something else.”

“Ask away.”

“About the hair-dryer. In hotels, hair-dryers are usually made so that they won't work unless you keep pressing the button down, as a safety measure. Anyway, I won't generalize, but the hair-dryers in that hotel worked on that basis. Did the murderer put the dryer into the water while pressing the button?”

He nodded at me approvingly. “Did you check the hair-dryers at the hotel?” he asked.

“I looked at the one in Petra's room and assumed they all worked the same way.” I hadn't only been studying the instructions and ingredients of anti-wrinkle creams while I was in Petra's bathroom that morning.

“You're right,” he said. “They're the same in all the rooms, including Müller's. You have to keep the button pressed for it to work. But the murderer didn't use the hotel hair-dryer.”

“What!” I exclaimed.

“It was a cheap and simple model, produced by Philips about four years ago and no longer on the market. The company made those products in Taiwan. They made millions of them and sold them all over the world… Unfortunately, the same model was on sale in Turkey and Germany. We've been unable to get anywhere along that trail.”

“And that model had a very long electric cord…” I said. He looked at me so strangely, I felt obliged to explain why I had said such a thing:

“As you know, Petra was staying in a suite. In that suite, the bathroom alone was almost the size of my living room.” As I said this, Batuhan let his eyes wander round the living room as if trying to measure its size. I continued to explain my theory:

“I don't actually know where the socket was in the bathroom, but if we assume that, like most sockets, it was near the washbasin, there was quite a distance between the socket and the bath.” I was tired of repeating the word “socket”.

I considered whether or not my words made sense, and added, “That is if the suites are all the same size.”

“They are the same size,” he said, nodding his head. “You've actually thought things through very well. But you're not the only one to think of that; the murderer also thought about it because he or she brought along some extension leads. Three cables, two metres long each… Two were attached to each other, the other was unused.”

“You mean that the murderer was standing there fixing extension leads together while Müller was drinking whisky in the bath? Oh, that's just rubbish!”

“They probably weren't fixed together in the bathroom. It's most likely that he or she prepared them in the living room while Müller was in the bath. We found the unused cable on the table in the living room.”

“Hmm,” I said. “And there weren't any fingerprints on the cables?”

“None,” he said, with a sigh. He had clearly hoped there would be, until the results of the laboratory analysis arrived. “It's pointless looking for fingerprints in hotel rooms so we don't usually bother about them.
However, this time, we checked the whisky bottle, the socket and the cables. It's as if the murderer wore gloves, which is ridiculous. The murder victim would obviously have been suspicious of someone wandering around wearing gloves. But there wasn't a single fingerprint on the extension leads.”

“Maybe the murder victim didn't have time to get suspicious,” I said.

“Unlikely. The murderer would have opened the door quietly, entered and fixed the leads together while Müller was in the bath… Anyway, how did the murderer know that Müller would be in the bath? What made him or her think of entering the room to commit a murder with a hair-dryer? Also, there was no sign of the door being forced.”

“The fact that the murder weapon was a hair-dryer complicates things, doesn't it? If Müller had been killed by a gun like everyone else, we wouldn't be thinking about all this,” I said. There was a short silence. I sat smoking and making smoke rings. I realized my face looked ridiculous as I did it but, as you will appreciate, I was way past the age of worrying about such things.

“Even if it wasn't Petra, I think the murderer was a woman,” he said, looking at my funny expression out of the corner of his eye.

“That's because everything bad in the world is brought about by women, isn't it?” I exclaimed. I had of course noticed the previous night that he was a bit hesitant about Petra being the murderer.

Batuhan leaned over and looked at me. What I saw was a picture of an aggrieved-looking policeman.

“I'll tell you why I think that. What keeps bothering me is that Müller undressed and got into the bath while
someone was there. If it had been a man, he wouldn't have undressed and got into the bath, would he?” He stopped and then answered the question that was forming in his mind.

“All right, he might have been gay, but we're not at all sure about that. One of his closest friends was in the film crew, and from his statements…” He wasn't satisfied with what he had just said, but I didn't pursue it.

“I think there was a woman in the room and that Müller was having a relationship with her,” he continued eagerly. “He probably didn't have sexual relations with a woman that night, because there was no trace of it. The bed wasn't disturbed and, well, we didn't find any used condoms… But as I said, if he was naked in the presence of another man…”

I interrupted him, saying, “I've heard that Turkish men show each other their penises and measure them with a ruler. Is that a lie?”

“We're not talking about young boys here,” he said, as if young boys didn't one day turn into grown men.

If I hadn't spent the first seven and last thirteen years of my life in Istanbul, I would never have been able to understand the meaning that lay behind what he said. Batuhan was a product of a community in which men roam around a male
hamam
in loincloths, and women wear knickers in theirs; they do not take them off even to wash. Müller, on the other hand, came from Germany, where people wander naked at mixed-sex saunas, naturist beaches and swimming pools – facilities that exist nowhere else in the world apart from a few northern countries. I'd never met Müller, but I guessed it was not only when he was little that he showed his penis to male friends.

“What you said might be valid for Turks, but there's no such taboo about nudity in Germany. What I mean is that people don't only undress for sex or when they're with people they're having sex with. If someone opens the door to the postman with nothing on, that postman doesn't immediately think they're offering themselves to him. There are even nude sunbathing sections at public swimming pools in some neighbourhoods. It's a cultural difference.”

He gaped at me, saying, “Are you serious? Do you mean a grown man, who's not homosexual, would strip and get into a bath in front of another man?”

“Of course he would, no doubt about it.”

Batuhan looked at me despairingly. If the clues that made them think Petra or some other woman had committed the murder were so flaky, then he and his colleagues really had their work cut out.

“Yesterday, Ayla Özdal announced at a press conference that she was to be given Petra's part,” I said. There was nothing exclusive about the information I'd been given the previous night.

He pursed his lips. “I'm not sure if what Ayla said last night was true. We took her statement today and I think she's been telling blatant lies. Something may have been going on between Müller and this Ayla, or she may just have been after a bit of self-publicity.”

Again, there was silence. We were both deep in thought.

“There's something I'd really like to ask you,” I said in my most appealing voice.

“Go ahead.”

“Didn't the electricity cut out when the hair-dryer was thrown into the bath? I mean, wouldn't the fuses have blown?”

“They would and they did.”

“Did the murderer bring a flashlight? How did he or she find the way down the corridor?”

“The rooms have separate fuses. It's true, the fuse in Müller's suite did blow. But that means nothing. The corridor lights were on when the murderer left the suite. Even if he or she had taken a light, it would only have been used as far as the door of the suite. If the fuses for the whole floor or the whole hotel had blown, the murder might have been discovered earlier.”

“OK, but who told you that Petra and Müller were having a relationship?”

“Ask me who didn't say that. Just about everyone in the film crew knew. It was the first thing they said when they made their statements. There was just one woman in the film crew who said it couldn't have been happening. Apart from her, everyone was certain about it.”

“Did you ask Petra if they were having a relationship?”

“I asked her yesterday when she came into the police station. She said ‘definitely not'. And this afternoon when I questioned her, she said the whole idea was rubbish and there was definitely nothing going on.”

Batuhan continued his explanation.

“The film crew talked about a big stormy love affair. So it was strange that Petra denied it so vehemently.” He ran his hand through his hair. “We haven't uncovered any real motive. Yet, when you think about it, who would Müller open the door to so late at night when he was due to get up very early the next morning? Who would he miss out on sleep for?…”

“Only for his lover,” I said.

We sat for a while without saying anything. I thought about what we'd discussed, then suddenly snapped my fingers as I had an idea.

“I've got it,” I said. “Have you checked on the extension lead that was attached to the dryer? Where were the leads bought?”

“Bravo. You didn't even miss that,” he said, half teasingly, half admiringly. I couldn't work out which way he was most inclined.

“Well?” I said, waiting for a response.

“The leads were better quality than those produced in Turkey. But although they weren't Turkish-made, leads of that quality are found in several shops here.”

“So the leads don't get us anywhere then.”

He shook his head.

“I can see the bottom of the wine bottle,” he said. “I'll open the other one.”

“Let's go out, if you feel like it. I'm hungry. We could eat toasted cheese at the Bambi
Büfe
. At this hour…” – I looked at the clock – “It's ten past ten. We've got time to digest it before bedtime.”

“Fine.”

“In that case, I'll just change,” I said, setting off towards the bedroom in my 1,600-square-foot apartment.

As I was opening the wardrobe door, I realized it was the first time in ages that I wasn't feeling uncomfortable in the heat that night. It wasn't because the evenings had got cooler, although it would have been a blessing if they had. My mind was so busy with the murder that I wasn't bothered by the weather. I hadn't even thought about Fofo for the last two days. Realizing that, I felt a pang. How could I ever forget about Fofo?

As my anger at and love for Fofo battled with each other in my heart, I felt a sudden need to take care of myself, to make up for the way I treated my poor body: I would wear something smart.

I have to admit that my reasons for dressing up were not merely to reward myself.

I put on my favourite tight-fitting green skirt and a grey shirt that buttoned down the front. These were complemented with a pair of flat sandals decorated with large metal rings on top, and a dab of perfume. My hair adorned my head like a masterfully crafted crown of rare jewels: I was satisfied with my reflection in the mirror.

So was Batuhan.

I was just as aware as you, my dear readers, that it was not the most appropriate outfit for eating toasted cheese sandwiches at a stand-up eatery, but I couldn't have cared less.

After we'd eaten our toast, we went to a club on the Bosphorus where the underclasses wiggle their hips and wave their arms, belly-dancing until dawn to throbbing Turkish music. Before long, I felt as if my head was about to explode from the noise and my eyes would never again see the beauty of the Bosphorus, so I suggested we leave. Batuhan insisted on dropping me off at home as his car was parked close to my apartment.

When we reached the door of the apartment block, I invited him in for coffee out of politeness.

“I have to come in anyway because I left my bag at your place,” he said brazenly. I hadn't noticed the absence of that awful briefcase, either when we were eating toast or afterwards. That's why I was first surprised and
then angry that his bag was lying on my sofa. He'd left it there so that he would have an excuse to come up if I didn't invite him in. Typical eastern cunning. I suddenly wanted to say, “No need to come up. I'll lower it down from the window in the shopping basket.”

Yet, he didn't deserve that… He hadn't really done anything so awful.

We went up together.

 

He was trying to stretch my skirt and get his leg in between my legs. The skirt was very tight. My body was pressed against his and, as he started to stroke my hip, I let out an involuntary squeal of desire.

“Disgraceful… Having sex with a policeman, it's disgraceful!” I thought. Furthermore, I felt I was betraying my mother. The only thing we shared in life as mother and daughter was a hatred of the police…