A bemused İzzet Melik sat down opposite his superior and surveyed his opulent surroundings. Although the extravagant Art Nouveau grandeur of the Patisserie Markiz, not to mention the glamorous waiting staff, were completely in accord with what Melik felt Süleyman would find attractive, the inspector’s demeanour was paranoid in the extreme. A young man with porcelain skin who came over and asked whether the gentlemen were ready to order was told by a tight-lipped Süleyman, ‘Not yet. Leave us.’
Apart from two elderly ladies who sat conversing happily over by the front window, Patisserie Markiz was empty. Watching the door all the time as he spoke, Süleyman lowered his voice and said, ‘İzzet, what I am about to tell you must remain secret between us and only us. I can’t adequately express the seriousness of this except to say that if you break this confidence you and I are dead men. Do you swear to keep what I’m about to tell you only to yourself?’
There didn’t seem to be too much choice. ‘Yes . . .’
Ever since he had discovered that the call from Hakkari had in fact originated from that city’s jandarma station, Süleyman had believed that someone, Melik in all probability, needed to go out there to find out what was going on. But he couldn’t send him out there knowing nothing. If the man who was the peeper knew that Cabbar Soylu had killed his stepson – if indeed that were true – then it was very possible that was why Cabbar had been selected from so many gangsters for death. Mürsel had said that the peeper was on some sort of moral crusade and the murder of a defenceless and innocent mad boy was about as amoral as it got. Not that he had arrived at his decision to tell his deputy some of what he knew lightly. Right from the start, Mürsel had told Süleyman he would kill him and anyone he told if he ever divulged anything about the peeper’s status to anyone apart from Commissioner Ardıç. And so far he hadn’t. But now he was about to do so before whatever creature Mürsel had detailed off to pursue him this time came in to Markiz and sat down beside them.
‘İzzet,’ he whispered gently, with a smile on his face, as if to a lover.
‘Sir.’
‘The criminal we call the peeper, is not what he seems. He is an agent of the security services . . .’
‘MIT?’
‘No . . . yes,’ he stuttered over what he really didn’t fully know or understand. ‘I don’t know, something like that. But . . . he’s gone insane or something, this person, and his own people are trying to find him. Ardıç but only Ardıç knows. We have to investigate or look as if we’re investigating. They, his people, follow me. You must go out to Hakkari to look into whether Cabbar Soylu did indeed kill Deniz Koç.’
‘Yes, but sir, if we’re only pretending to look for this peeper . . .’
‘The peeper is on some sort of moral crusade.’ Süleyman put his hand over Melik’s which was laid out across the table. The sergeant flinched but the waiter smiled and changed his mind about trying to get an order from the two gay gentlemen just yet. ‘I think he’s targeting people who are not just bad but amoral too. I mean, look at the young boys he attacked last year.’
‘The queers?’
‘Yes. A number of those boys used the Saray Hamam in Karaköy which is a notorious haunt of very promiscuous gay men.’
‘Yes, but sir,’ İzzet whispered back, ‘not all of those boys went there, did they?’
‘No, and so I’m going to interview them again. If I’m right, there will be something else that marks them out, something wrong that—’ He stopped talking as soon as a tall, elderly man came into the patisserie and sat down at a table opposite their own. ‘So what would you like to drink, İzzet?’ he said as he beckoned the perfect waiter over to their table.
İzzet Melik, still stunned from the onslaught of the madness Süleyman had seemingly descended into, finally looked down at the tasteful little menu in the middle of his place setting. ‘Er . . .’
‘I think I’ll have tea myself,’ Süleyman said. And then, looking up with a smile at the waiter, he added, ‘And a slice of apple strudel too. İzzet?’
‘Oh, er, I think I’ll have an espresso and, er, yes, I will have apple strudel too, sir, er Mehmet, thank you.’
The waiter bowed. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, and went on his way to the enormous glass cake cabinet at the back of the shop. Filled with sweet things that were not just tasty but fabulous to look at too, İzzet Melik under normal circumstances would be entranced. But not now. Now he was confused and worried because Süleyman was behaving very, very oddly. All the wisdom of criminology was against the idea that Cabbar Soylu could be a peeper victim and yet Süleyman had named him as just that. Süleyman wasn’t stupid and so it was possible that someone else was telling him how to think and what to do. But whether that person was a spy . . . There was, however, one thing that did give İzzet Melik much pause and that was the issue of forensics. Someone had tampered with evidence into the death of that male prostitute last year. He, Dr Mardin, Dr Sarkissian and Süleyman had known about it, even if the latter had very quickly dropped the subject. Now, again with Cabbar Soylu, there was evidence of tampering with forensic material. Dr Sarkissian would almost certainly have told Ardıç about any suspicions he might have and yet there had been nothing forthcoming from that quarter so far. Even the suspicion of evidence-tampering signalled a full-scale investigation. Usually. But then those involved in the dark arts of national security were not usually involved.
İzzet Melik put one large, rough hand up to his now aching head just as his apple strudel was set down in front of him by a very elegant, perfumed hand.
Chapter 6
* * *
Mary Doyle was annoyed and she didn’t care who knew it. Doris Klaassen, in her quiet, Dutch way, felt that Mary was behaving like a caricature of a ball-breaking American woman. She knew that her husband Wim, the English couple, Peter Melly and his wife, as well as the Israeli Pinhas Rabin, were all thinking just about the same thing. But trapped with her inside Wim’s Toyota people carrier there really was no escape. Doris looked out of the window just as Mary started again.
‘Who the hell does he think he is?’ she said. ‘Telling – ordering – us to come to him?’
‘Mary, it is quite normal for police to ask people to come into police stations to give evidence after a crime has been committed,’ Wim said gravely. ‘Inspector İkmen is not doing anything out of the ordinary.’
‘He could have come to our homes,’ Mary Doyle continued. ‘I mean, it’s George who works at the consulate, not me. I don’t need to come into the city. It would have been better for me if this Turkish inspector had come to my house.’
‘But I’m driving you, aren’t I, Mary?’ Wim said. ‘And so there really is no problem, is there?’
‘No, but . . .’ Mary Doyle had never had any children. At fifty-five she was bored with her overworked diplomat husband. All she could bring herself to like about poor old George Doyle in recent years was his bank balance. If Mary had any passion in her life it was for gazing at and buying vast quantities of oriental carpets. ‘I only came in to the carpet show towards the end. I missed that fabulous Van kilim that you bought, Wim. Goddammit! I’d had to go to that God-awful reception with George. I didn’t get away until after ten.’
‘But you saw Yaşar,’ Wim Klaassen said. ‘And that is the point. Everyone present at the show must give a statement to the police. Mary, you know that some people were only with us for an hour because they went to the same reception that you did. But the inspector must see all of these people too.’
‘I know, but . . .’ She carried on, to the amusement of most in the car, but to the annoyance of Peter Melly. Mary bloody Doyle was grating on his nerves which were already strung out like piano wires over this Yaşar Uzun affair. All the loud-mouthed American had to do was make a statement about her uninteresting life to the police. He had a priceless carpet to somehow find and get back to the UK! Matilda didn’t know about the one hundred and twenty grand he’d already spent on the Lawrence carpet, but he couldn’t keep in
formation like that from her for ever – thank God the only friends who did know, Wim and Doris, were good at keeping schtum. Thank God also that Matilda hadn’t been at the show the night Yaşar died, so the police didn’t want to see her. She’d hitched a ride into the city to get more bloody wool or some such nonsense.
‘Oh, Wim, do you have to smoke?’ Mary Doyle whined as soon as the Dutchman put an unlit cigar in his mouth.
‘No, Mary, of course not. I am sorry.’
The Israeli, Pinhas Rabin, who was the only other person in the car apart from the Klaassens who could speak Dutch, said to Doris, ‘Does that woman ever shut up?’
Both Wim and Doris smiled.
It was nine-thirty and at ten he was due to interview all the people who had attended Yaşar Uzun’s carpet show in Peri. Being mainly westerners they were bound to be horribly punctual, but İkmen felt he had to make at least a little time for this poor distressed man sitting in front of him with his baby in his arms. Abdullah Ergin didn’t really look like much of a sergeant even in the Tourism Police just at that moment. His eyes were still wet with tears but then his wife had still not been located.
‘Tell me about Handan,’ İkmen said and then made a funny face at Ergin’s very contented baby Ali, who smiled back at him broadly.
The Tourism policeman shrugged. ‘Well, she has black hair and green eyes, she’s thirty . . .’
‘No, no, no,’ İkmen said, ‘you’ve given us a photograph of Handan and we know how tall she is and all of that. No, I mean what does she do, what type of person is she?’
‘What does she do? She looks after me and Ali and our apartment on Professor Kazim İsmail Gürkan Caddesi.’
‘You live very close to the job.’ Professor Kazim İsmail Gürkan Caddesi is an extension of Yerebatan Caddesi where the Tourism police station is situated.
‘Yes, Allah has been kind to us,’ Abdullah Ergin replied. ‘Handan goes shopping in Tahtakale most days for meat and vegetables and rice. Sometimes while she’s down there she’ll go into the Mısır Çarşı just to look at all the expensive sweets and spices.’
İkmen nodded. His wife Fatma, like a lot of women in and around the Sultanahmet area, did much the same. Although Fatma usually went with her daughter Hulya and grandson Timür and was in no way shy about buying sweets if not spices and herbs from the Mısır Çarşı.
‘On Wednesdays she’ll usually go over to the Akbıyık Caddesi market. Her parents live over there in Cankurtaran and so she goes to see them at the same time. Handan is a housewife.’
‘She does nothing else?’ Ergin was a humble, poorly paid Tourism policeman, what else would his wife do? But İkmen had to ask. His question bore fruit. Abdullah Ergin’s face darkened.
‘Sergeant Ergin?’
The sergeant breathed in deeply, then out in a long, slow stream. ‘Some time ago she said that she wanted to learn to speak English,’ he said. ‘She said that maybe if she can do that she can get a job in one of the tourist shops or restaurants. I don’t know about that, but I offered to teach her a little, you know how it is.’
İkmen imagined that he probably did. He’d seen it many times before. Men teaching their wives the odd word or phrase when they felt like it. He wasn’t impressed, although he tried hard not to show it.
‘But then she found there is a class for English,’ Ergin continued. ‘It’s free, it’s just for women, and children can go along too. Every Tuesday morning at an office above a pide salonu on İncili Çavuş Sokak.’ In Sultanahmet, just around the corner from İkmen’s apartment. ‘So I took her,’ Ergin said. ‘There were about six women there, just like Handan, and it was run by three western ladies, one I know was Canadian.’
Ergin looked down at the floor with furious eyes.
‘Did Handan enjoy her classes?’ İkmen asked.
‘Oh, yes,’ he looked up. ‘She did well. Started talking about getting a job. These women were encouraging her to do that. But I said no, maybe later, maybe when our family is complete. It was then she told me she didn’t want any more children. She talked about fulfilling herself.’
‘What did you do?’ İkmen asked.
Ergin looked down at his son with sad eyes. ‘I forbade her to go back.’
‘And what did she do?’
‘She disobeyed her husband.’
‘You know this for a fact?’
‘Yes.’
İkmen sighed. He’d been up nearly all night looking, fruitlessly, for the Lawrence Kerman and now here he was talking to a man whose wife had left him because he didn’t want her to learn English. Uncharitably, İkmen imagined him beating her. So many men still felt it was their right.
‘How do you know that she disobeyed you, Sergeant Ergin? Did she go back to her class?’
‘The Canadian woman, Mrs Monroe, she told me she hadn’t seen Handan for months. Everyone at that class said the same thing. But I don’t believe them. I think that she carried on going to classes, that they put ideas in her head, and that now she’s gone off to “fulfil” herself!’
İkmen thought about lighting up a cigarette but then, remembering that there was a baby in the room, he decided against it. Even his own daughter could be funny about smoking around children now. When his lot were babies everyone had smoked and nobody had ever said anything.
‘This Canadian woman,’ İkmen said, ‘is she a teacher or . . .’
‘Her husband works for the Canadian Consulate,’ Ergin said.
‘I see.’
İkmen glanced down at the list of diplomatic officials he was shortly about to interview and quickly spotted the name ‘Mark Monroe – Canada’.
‘Would you like me to speak to these ladies?’ İkmen asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Very well. Now is there anything else you can think of that may give a clue as to where your wife might be?’
He shrugged. ‘No, I . . . Listen, Çetin Bey, you know how it is to be a hard-working man. Handan, well, Handan and I, we don’t talk, you know. I come home from work, I eat, maybe watch a little television, and then I go to bed. Life is hard.’
‘Mmm.’ İkmen knew what he was talking about. He’d been working hard, and harder, for twice as many years as this man. The difference being that he and his wife did, in spite of everything, still talk. They often rowed, but not talking with Fatma had never been an option. But then Fatma had never been afraid of her husband. She’d never had any cause to be. Handan Ergin was not so fortunate, İkmen felt.
‘We are actively looking for your wife now and I will arrange to speak to the ladies at her class, sergeant,’ İkmen said. ‘I am working on another case at the moment, but I will do whatever I can for you and I will delegate what I cannot to my inferiors.’
Abdullah Ergin nodded his approval and then gently kissed his gurgling baby on the head.
After gaining the reluctant approval of his boss, Commissioner Ardıç, to allow İzzet Melik to travel to Hakkari, Mehmet Süleyman set off in the direction of the district of Sirkeci. This is a largely commercial area of the old city down by the waterfront, dominated by Sirkeci Railway Station, which was once the terminus for the Orient Express. Süleyman, who needed to visit an apartment above a car showroom on Muradiye Caddesi, bade farewell to his sergeant at this point and then watched for a moment as İzzet Melik drove off in the direction of the Golden Horn. He lived in Zeyrek with, Süleyman had recently discovered, his younger brother who was also divorced. On the surface, a bluff and at times misogynistic individual, İzzet was nevertheless a diligent officer and had proved himself a person his superior could trust. Süleyman hoped he would be all right out in the dry-baked wilds of Hakkari. The spy, Mürsel, had considered the entire enterprise utterly without merit. But Süleyman wasn’t so sure. However, as soon as İzzet had gone, he turned to the job in hand which involved re-interviewing a boy called Esad Benmayor.
Esad, who was the youngest child of a middle-class secular Jewish family, had been one of the peeper’s earliest victims. Like a
lot of those early victims Esad was young and attractive and had woken in the middle of the night to see the masked man masturbating at the end of his bed. Esad, who was not a timid boy by any means, had screamed long and loud and the peeper had responded by escaping through the same window by which he had entered. Like the majority of old city flats, the Benmayors’ place looked out over and was overlooked by countless higgledy-piggledy rooftops of all different vintages. İstanbul has always been a city of rooftops. But as pressure mounted, particularly upon hotels and pansiyons, to obtain even the merest glimpse of one of the city’s three great waterways, building upwards had been on the increase. The peeper, above all, was known to use this labyrinthine rooftop world both as a way into and way out from the majority of his victims.
The boy, whom Süleyman had telephoned in advance of his visit, was alone when he arrived.
‘Dad works in the Audi dealership downstairs,’ he said as he ushered Süleyman towards a large pale settee in the middle of what was a considerably large living room.
‘Yes, I remember,’ Süleyman replied as he sat down. ‘And your mother and sister work at Sirkeci Station, don’t they?’
Esad smiled. ‘You remembered.’
It had been six months since Süleyman had interviewed Esad after his night-time encounter with the peeper. He had been one of the few boys the policeman was pretty sure was not homosexual. Indeed, apart from the fact that he was ‘pretty’, Esad, like Cabbar Soylu, was an unusual peeper victim. An enthusiastic runner, he neither smoked nor drank and was a grade ‘A’ student on the language course he was taking at university.
‘Yes,’ Süleyman responded. ‘I’m sorry that I have to bother you with this peeper thing again, Esad . . .’
‘One boy died, didn’t he?’ Esad’s face darkened. ‘And another one was almost killed?’
‘Yes.’ The male prostitute, Nizan Tapan, had been killed the previous October, just after Abdullah Aydın had been stabbed and only just survived. Because he alone had seen the peeper’s face, Aydın, who also claimed not to be homosexual, was currently under guard by Mürsel’s people and therefore unavailable to Süleyman.
A Passion for Killing Page 9