Petrified (21 page)

‘Yes, but—’

‘Come back later,’ Arto said as he attempted to close the door behind him.

‘When?’

‘I don’t know! Oh, in three hours, maybe,’ the Armenian responded tetchily, pulling a time out of the air. He then shut the door behind him, leaving the Spaniard outside.

A few moments later, the person who had been lurking at the other end of the corridor during the course of his conversation, caught up with him.

‘So what did he say?’ Yeşim Keyder asked coldly.

Señor Orontes lowered his eyes, as if in deference. ‘He said he can’t do anything now, but if we come back in about three hours—’

‘That will do,’ the old woman replied and turned to make her way back down the corridor once again.

Orontes, at her heels, looked like a small, dark ape.

Judging by the state of the ashtrays as well as the overpowering smell of sweat in the place, Interview Room No. 4 had seen a lot of action during the course of the day. And even though it was now dusk outside, the room had not yet even started to cool down. Ayşe Farsakoǧlu caught a rivulet of perspiration as it rolled down her forehead, and wiped it away with a tissue. Her eye make-up had all but melted in the heat but there was no point in making it any worse. Steadily, almost as a form of meditation, she stared at the clammy, bloodless face before her. Reşad Kuran, like her and the constable over by the door, waited for İkmen in perfect silence.

Casually, Ayşe wondered what Melih Akdeniz’s brother-in-law might be thinking. Was he regretting having left the city after his van was taken away for analysis? Was he, as an innocent party, angry at having been dragged back to İstanbul against his will? Were images of his ‘old’ crimes, fiddling with a nine-year-old girl in a cinema and then hassling another youngster to masturbate him in Gülhane Park, coming back to haunt him? It was difficult to tell from a face as expressionless as Reşad’s. And yet, if İkmen were convinced he was a possible contender for the abduction of the Akdeniz children . . .

A knock at the door heralded the arrival of the inspector who, once the usual preamble was over, went straight to the point.

‘Why did you leave İstanbul, Mr Kuran?’ he asked. ‘I distinctly remember telling you not to do so.’

‘I had business in Bursa,’ Kuran replied.

‘Then why didn’t you tell me that when we spoke originally?’

‘Something came up . . .’

‘Rather sudden, wasn’t it?’ İkmen said. ‘Rather odd too, considering that you told me your profession was delivery driver. Working, without your van, can’t have been easy. What did you do, Mr Kuran, carry the goods hamal-style on your back?’

Reşad Kuran looked down at the floor. ‘If you are arresting me—’

‘No.’ İkmen suddenly and, Ayşe always thought, dazzlingly smiled. ‘No, I’m not ready to do that,’ he said, ‘I just want to know why you left the city.’

‘I told you.’

‘Yes. But I do need a few more details, Mr Kuran, before I let your sister and brother-in-law take you home.’

Kuran looked up, frowning. ‘Eren and Melih?’

‘Yes, they’re here, Mr Kuran,’ İkmen said and paused briefly in order to light a cigarette. ‘Once we had established your location, I felt I had to go round to tell them. After all they had indirectly helped us to do that – or rather your sister, via her long telephone conversation to you, had.’

Reşad Kuran had in the time it had taken for the Bursa police to transfer him across to İstanbul, learned rather more than he’d ever wanted to about the lack of security surrounding the use of mobile telephones.

Ayşe Farsakoǧlu emptied the ashtray to stop the ash from İkmen’s cigarette destabilising the already towering pyramid of butts.

As she sat down again, Kuran began speaking. ‘Look,’ he said, illustrating his speech with heavy, measured hand gestures, ‘I lied, all right? I . . . look, I have this woman friend in Bursa, she lives in Muradiye district . . .’

‘Woman or girl?’ İkmen asked.

‘What?’

‘Two incidents,’ Ayşe Farsakoǧlu interjected, ‘from the nineteen eighties, two young under-age girls.’

Kuran closed his eyes and sighed. ‘That was a long time ago,’ he said wearily. ‘I don’t do that now. It was a mistake then . . .’ He opened his eyes again and said, ‘Look, my friend, this woman, she’s thirty-seven.’

‘Name?’

‘What?’

‘Her name, your friend,’ İkmen said tartly. ‘The Bursa police picked you up in a khavehane. I want to know that this woman, this thirty-seven-year old exists.’

‘She’s married . . .’

‘I don’t care,’ İkmen shrugged. ‘All I’m interested in is whether or not you’re telling me the truth, Mr Kuran.’ He leaned forward across the table. ‘Your van is currently being analysed for traces of material that might have come from your nephew and niece.’

‘But—’

‘You were at the Akdeniz house late on the Friday night . . .’

‘Picking up some art work for one of Melih’s clients.’

‘Yes.’ İkmen leaned back in his seat and smiled once again. ‘Someone whose name appears to have completely slipped Mr Akdeniz’s mind. In view of what has happened to him of late maybe I can understand that. But you?’

‘What?’

‘I asked you before and I’ll ask you again, who did you deliver the art work to, Mr Kuran? Where did you take it?’

Reşad Kuran threw his arms petulantly into the air. ‘I don’t know! I can’t remember!’

‘You must be able to!’ İkmen shouted. ‘You’re not a fucking idiot, are you?’

‘No!’

‘If any of the samples inside your van match the children’s DNA we’ve gathered from the Akdeniz house, then you are looking at a lot of trouble. As you told us yourself, Mr Kuran, they’ve never ever been in your van, have they?’ İkmen said menacingly. ‘Now you told us that you took that work of art out to Yeniköy. Where in Yeniköy?’

Kuran lowered his head. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, ‘some wealthy place.’

‘What do you mean, “wealthy place”?’ İkmen, who was becoming increasingly impatient with this man, snapped, ‘A palace? A yalı? A yacht, perhaps? What?’

‘I don’t know!’

‘You keep on saying that, but you do, Mr Kuran,’ Ayşe Farsakoǧlu said. Taking one very calm breath she continued, ‘It’s very simple. You took this art work from Balat to . . . ?’

‘What’s Melih’s art work got to do with the children? What does it matter where I took it?’

‘It matters, Mr Kuran,’ İkmen said emphatically, ‘because if Yaşar and Nuray, with or without your knowledge, were in your van at the time—’

‘But they weren’t!’

‘How do you know?’ Ayşe Farsakoǧlu asked. ‘If you don’t know where you went then how can you be certain about what you were carrying?’

Reşad Kuran put his head down into his hands.

‘You must have been drunk or on drugs,’ İkmen said with what sounded to Kuran like an iron certainty.

‘No! I’m clean, I never . . .’ Realising, suddenly, what the implications of what he’d just said were, Reşd Kuran looked up.

‘So if you’re so clean, why can’t you remember, Mr Kuran?’ İkmen said. ‘Do you perhaps have some sort of medical condition that affects your memory?’

Reşad Kuran, who was now sweating even more heavily than he had been before, cleared his throat. ‘I want a lawyer,’ he said.

İkmen nodded his assent. ‘Very well.’ As he rose to leave the room, he added, ‘I’ll tell your sister and her husband to go home. I think that might be for the best.’

The guard opened the door to allow İkmen to leave.

C
HAPTER
13

‘I don’t know why Çetin recommended you come to me,’ Arto Sarkissian said as he folded his white-coated arms across his chest. ‘It’s my brother you really need to see.’

Suleyman sighed. ‘Perhaps our friend, quite correctly, assumed that because I don’t really know your brother, I might be more comfortable approaching you first, Doctor.’

The younger man’s face was, the Armenian noticed, quite grey with tension. That wasn’t surprising, given what he had just told him. To admit to infidelity was bad enough, but to further admit to unprotected sex with a prostitute – that was something else.

‘The best thing to do would be for me to call Krikor and make you an appointment at the clinic,’ Arto said as he reached across his desk to retrieve his telephone.

‘Yes, but . . .’

‘What?’

Suleyman lowered his gaze. ‘But I mean I don’t want my employers to know.’

‘My brother is the soul of discretion, I can assure you,’ the Armenian responded kindly and, seeing that Suleyman wasn’t quite ready to hear himself discussed on the telephone, he put it down again. ‘Look, Mehmet,’ he said using, unusually for him, the policeman’s first name, ‘you can be tested for hepatitis B now. The result, whatever that might be, will be conclusive.’

‘And Aids?’ The word flashed fear into his eyes.

Arto sighed. ‘Krikor will, of course, go into more detail than I can,’ he said. ‘Addiction and diseases of addiction are his speciality. But what I do know is that early testing for HIV, just after sexual or blood contact, isn’t conclusive. If you take a test now, you’ll have to have another one in three months and, maybe, I’m not sure, another one after that.’

Suleyman rubbed his face wearily with his hands. ‘I can’t believe I’ve been so stupid!’

Arto too found it difficult to credit. He’d been aware of Mehmet Suleyman for, he reckoned, fifteen years. He’d known him well for ten of those. To him, Suleyman was an honest and honourable man. Not that that had changed. A dishonourable man wouldn’t be this mortified. Because of the personal risk to his health and also because of the guilt and shame that he was exhibiting.

The Armenian reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘You’ll get through this,’ he said.

‘Will I?’

‘Yes.’

Suleyman stood up and raked his hands nervously through his hair. ‘With my life and my marriage intact?’

‘That I don’t know,’ Arto replied, ‘but I know I don’t have to tell you that you must protect Zelfa now.’

‘I must tell her! Although, how . . .’

‘That I can’t help you with, I’m afraid,’ Arto replied. ‘That’s something I suggest you discuss with Krikor.’

‘Yes. Yes.’

Suleyman sat down again and lit a cigarette.

‘I’ll call him now,’ Arto said as he once again took hold of his telephone, ‘make that appointment as soon as possible.’

‘Yes.’

Once everything was settled, Arto led his guest out into the corridor. It had been a very tiring evening; first that bloated drowning victim, now this dreadful situation with poor Mehmet Suleyman. How awful and how dangerous desire could be.

‘Dr Sarkissian!’

Oh, yes, and of course there was also Señor Orontes.

Arto sighed. ‘Yes?’

‘You said that Dr Keyder might be permitted to view your unknown boy.’

‘I should really ask Sergeant Çöktin first,’ Arto interrupted. ‘That boy is, after all, his responsibility at the present time.’

The severe woman at Orontes’ side sniffed unpleasantly.

‘I take it you are Dr Keyder,’ Suleyman said to her with a smile. So this was the woman who may or may not be Çöktin’s embalmer. Obviously the Kurd hadn’t managed to speak to her yet. This could be interesting.

But Suleyman’s charm, which was legendary amongst most women he came into contact with, didn’t have the slightest effect upon Yeşim Keyder. ‘Yes,’ she responded coldly, ‘I am. And you are?’

‘I am Inspector Mehmet Suleyman,’ he said. ‘Sergeant Çöktin is my deputy.’

‘You know about my deceased sister-in-law?’

‘Mrs Rosita Keyder. Yes. May your head be alive, Dr Keyder,’ Suleyman said, repeating the old formulaic response to one recently bereaved. ‘I have been working on something else myself, but I am aware of some of what Sergeant Çöktin has been doing.’

‘It might, we thought, be a good idea for Dr Keyder to see our boy,’ Orontes said as he turned his attention entirely on to Suleyman. ‘She might recognise him.’

‘Sergeant Çöktin was under the impression that you knew of no young man who had any involvement in Mrs Keyder’s life,’ Suleyman said to the woman.

Yeşim Keyder failed to respond.

‘So, can we see him?’ Orontes began.

‘I don’t—’ Arto began.

‘It’s all right, Doctor,’ Suleyman said as he turned to the Armenian with a smile. ‘I’ll take responsibility on behalf of Sergeant Çöktin.’

‘If you think it will be all right . . .’

‘Yes.’

Arto started to make his way back into his office, followed by Suleyman and the others. Pandering to Orontes’ unnatural interest in the Kuloǧlu boy’s body seemed to him wrong. Yet it wasn’t Orontes that interested Suleyman, but Dr Yeşim Keyder. This woman was the only connection they had to the embalmer. It would be interesting to see what her response to the corpse, which Çöktin had said she had to know, would be. As he put on the white coat Dr Sarkissian gave to him prior to entry into the laboratory, Suleyman, now temporarily distracted from his own problems, began to frown.

‘What do you think your brother might say?’

Eren Akdeniz stared into the darkened garden outside the window, her eyes fixed and empty. ‘I don’t know,’ she replied. ‘I’ve no idea.’

Melih stopped applying paint to the piece of canvas in front of him and wiped away the sweat on his brow with his forearm. ‘I must finish,’ he said breathlessly. ‘If I don’t it’s all been for nothing. The work is the only thing now.’

Eren turned to look at him. ‘And if the police come?’

‘I will deny everything!’ He took his medicine bottle out of his pocket and took a long draught from its neck. When he’d finished he wiped his hand across his mouth and placed the bottle down beside his canvas. ‘They’ve searched the house several times. If we get Yaşar and Nuray back here now—’

‘But they’re not ready!’ Eren said, tears of frustration springing into her eyes. ‘They won’t be ready yet!’ She moved across to where her husband was standing and stood in front of him. ‘I won’t have my babies mistreated like this! I want what’s best for them!’