A Passion for Killing

by Barbara Nadel

  Hotels and pansiyons in Turkey are obliged by law to take passport details from foreign nationals who wish to stay at their premises. In some establishments, but not all, this is computerised. Where it was not, rather laborious records were kept on paper. Fond of computers, though he claimed not to be, Çetin İkmen was, now that he had checked the guest lists of most of the hotels and pansiyons which were computerised, flinching at the thought of his officers having to wade through the mountains of handwritten papers that were still normal in many places. In such establishments time, and sometimes, the entire concept of haste had long been forgotten.

  ‘Mr Melly,’ he said as he leaned across his desk towards the white-faced Englishman in front of him, ‘are you sure you have no idea where your wife might be staying?’

  ‘I’ve told you no,’ Peter Melly said as he contemplated an office far smaller and shabbier than his own. ‘And anyway, İkmen, I don’t really see why you are so insistent upon finding Matilda.’

  ‘As I told you, Mr Melly, it is because she lied,’ İkmen said. ‘When I interviewed her, Mrs Melly told me that “we” – I quote – “sleep at the front of the house”. We. You and her.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t exactly . . .’

  ‘You both provided alibis for each other,’ İkmen said. ‘And yet you have separate rooms!’

  ‘Well, maybe that night we decided to . . .’

  ‘Oh, come, come, Mr Melly,’ İkmen said, ‘do not insult my intelligence! You and your wife either sleep together or you do not! You told me that you saw your wife on the night that Mr Uzun died and yet if you do not sleep together there is no way that could have happened. So what is it to be? Did you or did you not sleep with your wife on the night that Yaşar Uzun died?’

  Between his favourite bar, the Balık Pazar for a little shopping and, bafflingly, the UFO Museum on Büyükparmakkapı Sokak, Mr Peter Melly had been a difficult man to find outside the strictures of the British Consulate. On top of that, pinning him down about the state of his obviously deceased marriage was still not proving easy. But İkmen had had the bit between his teeth for hours now, ever since that casual remark that Kim Monroe had made about the Mellys’ bedrooms.

  ‘Well, Mr Melly?’

  The Englishman sighed and then said, ‘Well, no, I didn’t. Things haven’t been right since that posting to Paris five years ago. There was a Frenchwoman, as there tends to be . . .’

  ‘So you did not see your wife until the following morning?’ İkmen said.

  ‘Well, I may have done, but . . .’

  ‘So it is possible that she could have been out when you arrived home from Mr and Mrs Klaassen’s carpet party?’

  ‘Well . . . Yes, I suppose that physically . . .’ He looked up. ‘But why would my wife want to kill Yaşar Uzun?’ he said. ‘She hardly knew him.’

  İkmen looked across at Ayşe Farsakoğlu and said, ‘Sergeant, can you please organise for some officers to get into the back streets of Sultanahmet. Check the records of every little hippy hostel you can find. Almost all paper in those places, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Sir, Mrs Melly is fifty-two.’

  ‘Ayşe, those places don’t discriminate. Anybody’s money is good enough for them.’

  ‘Sir.’ With a sigh she left the room.

  İkmen turned back to Peter Melly and said, ‘But are you sure your wife didn’t know Yaşar Uzun?’

  ‘Yes! Why would she? Matilda has no interest in carpets!’

  ‘Maybe not, but what about carpet dealers?’ İkmen said.

  The Englishman’s face darkened. ‘If you’re suggesting . . .’

  ‘I am not suggesting anything,’ İkmen replied. ‘Others have suggested to me that perhaps your own infidelity might have been repaid by your wife.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous! Matilda would never have cuckolded me!’ He crossed his arms awkwardly across his chest and then said, ‘If that’s that bloody Kim Monroe . . .’

  ‘Not only Mrs Monroe, Mr Melly,’ İkmen said. ‘Your wife has been seen with other men. Whether any wrongdoing took place I do not know. But Yaşar Uzun was a ladies’ man and some of his ladies were foreigners. In addition, we know that Mrs Melly did have a certain interest in common with Mr Uzun outside the carpet business. Maybe your wife and Mr Uzun had a, what do you call it, a lovers’ tiff out on the Peri road.’

  ‘What “interest”? What do you mean?’

  ‘You don’t believe your wife capable of an affair? Anyone is capable of an affair,’ İkmen said, knowing down to the bottom of his soul that he was probably the one exception to this rule. ‘But then maybe she killed Yaşar Uzun because she was so angry about the Kerman. Perhaps she was trying to get some of your money back, some of her future.’

  ‘Matilda didn’t know anything about the money until after Yaşar’s death,’ Peter Melly replied.

  ‘Or so you think.’

  ‘So I know!’

  ‘Then why did your wife effectively use you as an alibi for the night when Yaşar was killed?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know I . . .’

  ‘You complied with her deception!’ İkmen said. ‘You would have had us believe that you slept with her that night! Why was that, Mr Melly?’

  ‘Well, er . . .’

  ‘Was it because you were covering for her, or was she covering for you?’

  ‘What do you mean, that I killed Yaşar? Why would I do that? Christ, Inspector, I wanted that bloody carpet and as you must have noticed after Yaşar died, I didn’t have a clue as to its whereabouts. If I had, I’ll be honest, I would have taken it. I would have stolen – that I would have done!’

  ‘But then if you did not deceive me in order to cover for your wife or yourself then you must have done so in order to cover for both of you. You both killed Yaşar Uzun . . .’

  ‘Fucking hell, I didn’t kill Uzun!’ Peter Melly yelled. ‘Either with or without Matilda!’

  ‘So, then, why did you say that you saw your wife in your bed on the night that Uzun died?’

  There was a pause during which Peter Melly first looked down at his hands and then back up at İkmen’s face once again. He sighed. ‘Well, it’s weird, isn’t it? Not sleeping with one’s own spouse. I mean, I know that Matilda is hardly Nicole Kidman but . . .’

  ‘Mr Melly, are you telling me that you misled my investigation in order to save face?’

  ‘Um, er . . .’ He looked down and then up again very quickly. ‘You’re a Turk, you understand “honour” and . . .’

  İkmen rolled his eyes. ‘Mr Melly, one’s nationality is entirely irrelevant here. Your wife, we now know, could have killed Yaşar Uzun. It is a possibility.’

  ‘But why? Why . . .’

  ‘That we have to find out,’ İkmen said. ‘But the fact is, Mr Melly, that your wife, who may or may not be a murderer, is somewhere so far unknown to us in this city. As one who has some responsibility for such things, I find that frightening.’

  ‘Well, I still don’t know quite why you’re looking for her tonight,’ Peter Melly said. ‘You have her flight details. Pick her up at the airport tomorrow.’

  İkmen who was now both tired and exasperated, lit yet another cigarette before he said, ‘Oh, and what if your wife chooses not to take that flight? It is possible she left the Monroes’ house because she was worried about the allegations of sexual impropriety which Mrs Monroe admitted to your wife she had told us about. If that is the case, she may take another booking, or even perhaps leave the country by some other means!’

  ‘Oh, I . . .’

  ‘Mr Melly, forgive me,’ İkmen said, ‘but for a diplomat, you seem to me to exhibit very little imagination. You are British, you live in a place where people make illegal entry on to your land every day. You must have to try to anticipate their various strategies. We do here in the city.’

  Peter Melly first snorted and then shook his head. ‘Not all of us are involved in immigration, Inspector,’ he said. ‘There are other things that diplomats do. Besides, I don�
��t live in the UK any more and now that I’m broke I probably never will again!’

  He then sank down into his seat and folded himself into a large, thin miserable heap.

  It was a hideous thought, but once it was lodged inside Süleyman’s mind, it wouldn’t go. The four boys who had raped Emine Soylu, the four friends of her brother Nuri, had been called Emir, Berdan, Meli and Gazi. There was no mention of any Mürsel. But then, as Mehmet Süleyman knew only too well, that was not the spy’s real name. That could be anything. Emir, Berdan, Meli, Gazi . . . All the same age as Nuri, they’d gone off to do their military service together – just as Mürsel had told him – with the exception of naming anyone apart from Nuri Soylu.

  Had Cabbar Soylu ordered the death of Mürsel’s other child, the one he may or may not have known about? Of course it was all academic now. Emine Soylu didn’t know and he himself would never see Mürsel again. He doubted whether anyone outside of some almost, happily, unimaginable prison ever would.

  His wife Zelfa came over and just very lightly touched his arm in order to rouse him from his reverie. He flinched just a little at her touch. To have even considered a sexual adventure, albeit with another man, outside of his marriage had been so unthinking of him. He loved her. ‘Your father’s here,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry, Mehmet.’

  It was late and she knew that he was tired. But he smiled anyway and said, ‘It’s not your fault. Do you know what he wants, by any chance?’

  ‘I think he wants to talk about that carpet that belonged to his aunt,’ Zelfa replied visibly cringing inside.

  Mehmet Süleyman put a hand up to his head. ‘Allah.’

  ‘I know,’ Zelfa said, this time in English, ‘but he’s all of a what-have-you about it and I don’t know what to do.’

  He didn’t exactly know what being ‘all of a what-have-you’ meant, but he gathered that his father was agitated and he was not proved wrong.

  ‘I thought that Raşit Bey could be relied upon to come to an honourable price,’ Muhammed Süleyman complained bitterly as his son leaned forward in order to light his father’s cigarette with his one good hand. ‘Carpets that have belonged to prominent people are always valuable. I have heard it from Raşit Bey’s own lips. My carpet belonged to my aunt, the Princess Gözde. A princess. That is almost as prominent as one can get, is it not?’

  ‘In a sense, yes,’ his son responded diplomatically. ‘But Father, the Princess Gözde wasn’t famous, was she? Famous, if my understanding is correct, would be someone who is brilliant or revered or mysterious. A carpet that belonged to Atatürk . . .’

  ‘My aunt was very mysterious,’ Muhammed Süleyman said gloomily. ‘I remember being taken to see her as a child. All by herself in that mansion, she sat in that high-backed chair of hers like an empress. Always covered and in black, her eyes were always wet for her lost sweetheart.’

  In spite of his tiredness, Mehmet had always been mildly intrigued by this admittedly very mysterious ancestor. ‘How did the sweetheart die?’ he asked.

  ‘How did any of them die back then?’ his father replied. ‘In the Great War.’

  ‘Yes, I know that, but . . .’

  ‘I don’t know who he was, of course, but he came from a very good family. The Princess Gözde always said that he was with Djemal Paşa’s 4th army. Of course it was all very muddle-headed. But then the sultan, her uncle, was only a puppet by that time.’ He shook his head. ‘It was the time of the Young Turks, Djemal, Enver and Talaat Paşas and that mad alliance they made with the Germans. Ruined this country for years.’

  ‘Yes, but Atatürk put it right in the end, didn’t he.’ It was to Mehmet a statement of fact.

  His father frowned. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘To have retained the sultanate would have been, well . . . But it didn’t happen and life proceeds. İnşallah tomorrow will bring food, light and warmth. We must give thanks for what we have and practise acceptance.’

  His father had always had problems with money, all his life. Dependent upon what he did, sold, begged or borrowed, his fortunes were either up, down or just about managing. This time, however, things were bad. He’d said nothing, of course, but Mehmet knew that his parents had recently had to pay some rather large medical bills. His mother had developed diabetes and there was also the perennial problem of his father’s arthritic knees. His brother, he knew, helped out in any way that he could. But Murad wasn’t rich and he had a daughter to bring up, look after and school, all on his own.

  ‘Father, if there is anything I can help you with . . .’

  The old man patted his son on the knee and then said, ‘No, no. It will be fine.’ And then his eyes filled with tears and he said, ‘But you’re a good boy for asking. I am so fortunate to have such fine sons.’

  He cried. Mehmet had seen his father upset many times before, but to actually see him cry was a new and alarming experience. But then, although he sometimes tried not to think about it, Mehmet had to accept that his father was old. Thin and slow-moving, his cheeks were beginning to sink into his skull and he even trembled on occasion when he was tired. And he was poor. If something didn’t change soon, Mehmet could see himself and his family moving back to the house in Arnavutköy in order to contribute to his parents’ expenses. Zelfa wouldn’t like leaving her father’s house in Ortaköy, but at least her father was solvent, fit and capable of taking care of himself. His own parents were, well, crumbling. Gently, so as not to hurt or alarm him, Mehmet put his one good arm around his father’s shoulders.

  It was one o’clock in the morning when Ayşe Farsakoğlu stepped back into İkmen’s office. He could tell by the expression on her face that she had nothing positive to tell him.

  ‘No Mrs Melly, I assume,’ he said, waking the slumped figure of Peter Melly still sitting in front of him as he did so.

  ‘No, sir,’ Ayşe replied. ‘We’re down to places that look like holes in the ground and which charge junkies by the hour.’

  ‘I don’t think that Mrs Melly, however desperate, would even be able to find one of those.’ İkmen then turned to the woman’s husband and said in English, ‘I know I asked you this about four hours ago, Mr Melly, but could your wife be with a friend somewhere in the city?’

  Peter Melly yawned. ‘As I told you before, Inspector, I don’t know,’ he said. ‘As far as I’m aware she doesn’t have any friends in the city. Why don’t you ask the gossips who told you about her “infidelities”? Maybe they know where some of these young studs Matilda is supposed to have serviced live?’

  ‘No, sir, these were unknown men, as I think we have discussed.’

  Peter Melly, an avowed adulterer himself, was filled with bitterness and spite about what his wife may or may not have done with other men. He clearly felt betrayed. It was something that was flabbergasting İkmen on a minute-to-minute basis. What, he wondered, would Melly have done had he found his wife with one of these men? He assumed he would have become very outraged and very moral. It was all, to him, extremely hypocritical. But then to İkmen infidelity was a frightening and very much closed book. He loved his wife, she loved him, and the lack of confusion that this produced was appreciated by both of them.

  ‘So what we do now, sir?’ Ayşe asked in English so that their ‘guest’ could understand what she was saying.

  ‘What time in the morning does Mrs Melly’s flight leave for London?’

  Ayşe looked down at a piece of paper on her desk. ‘Eight o’clock. And sir, I must pick Mr Roberts up from the airport at eleven.’

  ‘Roberts?’ Peter Melly sat up straight and ran his fingers quickly through his tangled hair. ‘Roberts as in my Lawrence carpet Roberts?’

  İkmen sighed and then said, ‘Yes. Mr Roberts, who your police are sure is a relative of the servant of T. E. Lawrence.’

  ‘So you’re going to give him the carpet, are you?’ His face was white with tiredness and also with a fury that was visibly gathering inside him. ‘Just like that?’

  İkmen turned to Ayşe and said in
Turkish, ‘Not a good idea to mention anything to do with that carpet with him in the room.’

  ‘Sorry, sir.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Peter Melly looked from one officer to the other with a real look of wildness in his eyes. ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘Mr Melly, I will not just give Mr Roberts the Lawrence carpet. I will need to be satisfied that he is the rightful owner and his account of the carpet’s past will need to concur with that told by the Uzun family. The Uzuns, I should tell you, want nothing to do with the carpet. They don’t want the thing itself or any money for it.’

  ‘Good. But’, Peter Melly said, ‘that doesn’t help me with my finances, does it? I’m still down by a hundred and twenty thousand pounds!’

  İkmen put his head in his hands. ‘Some of which, as I have told you before, Mr Melly, may be recoverable from Yaşar Uzun’s estate. But first, before any of that can happen, and to go back a long way in this conversation, we have to find your wife.’ He looked across at Ayşe and said, ‘I’m going to call off the search tonight. We must assume that Mrs Melly is going to catch that flight in the morning. You go home and get some sleep, Ayşe.’

  ‘But sir, what if she does not come?’ Ayşe replied in English.

  ‘The ports and border guards have already been issued with her description,’ İkmen said. ‘There’s nothing more that I can do.’

  ‘We don’t even know that Matilda has done anything wrong anyway,’ Peter Melly said. ‘So do I get to go home or . . .’

  ‘I will take you back to the consulate,’ İkmen said. ‘I would prefer it if you stayed there tonight.’

  ‘Where you can keep an eye on me?’ he asked challengingly.

  ‘Yes,’ İkmen responded simply. ‘Exactly. I will come and collect you at five this morning and we will all go out to the airport together.’

  ‘Five!’

  ‘Your wife’s flight is at eight,’ İkmen explained. ‘So she is required to be at the airport two hours beforehand, at six. She may come early and so we will be there in the event that she does.’

  Peter Melly put his head down. ‘I see.’