“Leonid moves with the Bolsheviki, yes!” She smiled sweetly. “It was ever so with the men in that times.”
“I see.”
“Like some boys from the shtetl, Leonid moves to the armies of the Commissars. You see?”
Ikmen, his eyebrows raised, turned to Cohen for clarification. “Shtetl?”
“It’s a settlement of Jews, sir. Sort of a ghetto.”
“Right.” He turned back toward the smiling little woman again. “So, what you are saying, Mrs. Blatsky, is that Leonid Meyer was actually a communist who, if I understand you correctly, also fought with the Bolsheviks during the Revolution.”
“Exactly, yes.”
“Right.” Here he paused for just a second in order to collect his thoughts. It was most important now that she understand him fully. “OK, Mrs. Blatsky, now I want you to think very carefully about what I am going to say and then give me as honest an answer as you can.”
Her smile remained static as she nodded enthusiastically.
“Now, Mrs. Blatsky, did Leonid Meyer ever tell you anything about how he killed people back in Russia?”
“Oh, yes!”
Considering the morbidity inherent in the subject it seemed somewhat incongruous that the old woman appeared so cheerful about it all. But then, Ikmen reasoned, that was obviously just how Mrs. Blatsky was.
Gently, but persistently, Ikmen pushed the thing forward. “Could you then perhaps tell us about that, Mrs. Blatsky?”
“Oh, yes!”
He leaned forward slightly and, although this movement was almost entirely involuntary, motioned her onward with his hands. “And?”
“Pigs of the bourgeoisie is what they say. Leonid and other boys shooting, bang! bang! Lots of money, pigs of the bourgeoisie, as they say.”
“So he killed some people, people with money?”
“As I say, yes.”
“And then?”
Here for the first time her face dropped, and Ikmen suddenly saw just how very ancient this woman was. “Leonid is afraid.”
“Afraid?” Ikmen sighed and sat back slightly in his small grease-stained chair. “What was he afraid of, Mrs. Blatsky? It sounds to me as if he had done his duty as a good Bolshevik. What do you mean?”
She shrugged. “Maybe this, maybe that. But Leonid is always afraid since then, I see.”
“But you don’t know why, is that right?”
“As I say, yes. Leonid don’t speak proper when he is in drink.”
Although addressing Cohen, Ikmen let his head fall back, gazing at the smut-smeared ceiling as he spoke. “So now we have got Meyer the Bolshevik, have we? How interesting. Meyer the Bolshevik who, in addition, did his duty and then promptly ran away to live in a country that was still officially at war with his own.”
“The 1914-18 war that would be, sir?”
“Yes, Cohen, as you say. The war during which the old Ottoman Empire finally died and Leonid Meyer and Maria Gulcu left their respective Slavic homes and came to live with us. The war during which, also I should imagine, our friend Meyer developed his taste for strong liquor.”
“Oh, liquor, yes!”
Ikmen lowered his head to look at the old woman again. Once more, she was smiling.
“Yes, Mrs. Blatsky? Is there something else?”
“Oh, yes, liquor, yes!”
“Yes, liquor, we’ve both said the word several times now, what about it?”
“Well, for Leonid, it makes sleep when fears of the other come to him.”
Ikmen looked at Cohen who shrugged his own lack of understanding. “The other, madam?”
“The one who knows he bang! bang! at the rich pigs. The one who sees.” Her smile then broadened considerably before she concluded. “The one that still lives.”
“Lives? Lives where?”
The old woman, still smiling, pointed to the ground beneath her feet.
* * *
She disengaged herself from him and wandered naked toward the wide-open balcony doors. Robert marveled at how sublimely unselfconscious she was about her body. The whole district of Beşiktaş was going about its business under those huge round breasts of hers. That she could be seen was certain, but she didn’t give a damn. Natalia liked herself. She knew that the sight of her body could only provoke two emotions. Desire or envy. Either way it was OK with her.
Robert did up his shirt and pulled himself back into his trousers and pants. He felt exhausted.
Sex with Natalia was a puzzle. It was like she was playing with a doll. She did everything, all he was required to do was lie, sit or stand as the case may be, and enjoy. He had never actually “taken” her once. And yet she always seemed satisfied. She was! It was just that orgasm had a different effect upon her. It seemed to invigorate her. As if she took the strength from his climax, incorporated it into her own body and recycled it. The process shattered him. He loved it, of course, but he felt very wasted afterward, as if he’d just had a bad case of flu and needed building up.
Despite the heat, Robert felt cold and bloodless. She’d kept him going for a long time, her skilful fingers, mouth and genitals bringing him just so far and then stopping. A teasing look into his eyes and then another part of his body would be attacked for a while: an ear, his throat, a single nipple. Then back again, lowering herself on to his penis, so sensitive he cried out in pain. She liked vocal sex; words, cries, excited her. As he came up to his climax, she would shout encouragement. “Tell me to fuck, Robert! Fuck!”
He screamed, pain and pleasure finally coming together, and she was off. She always got off immediately. No post-coital kissing and caressing, just a lot of rather active parading about the room. Looking at her exaggerated profile in window-panes, mirrors, the shine on the coffee table. Pleased with her performance. It made him feel hollow and cheap, as if he were spying on her. Maybe if she cuddled him afterward, he would not feel so bad, so jaded.
Robert lit a cigarette. “Would you like some coffee, Natalia?” He knew better than to talk of love to her just after sex.
She walked out on to the small balcony and smiled down into the busy street below.
“No.”
Robert got up from the sofa and staggered into the kitchen. His legs felt weak and he was still seeing stars—the fallout from heightened blood-pressure. He poured some thick, dark coffee from the percolator into a cup and leaned against the side of the fridge to drink. His icy veins responded well to the hot liquid, and as he drank, he started to feel at least some life returning to his body.
He watched her through the open kitchen door. She was pointing down into the street and laughing. Some passer-by had seen her. She liked to shock. A favorite diversion was to walk the streets in a dress slashed almost to the waist, parading yards of breast before the general public. He would have needed to carry a submachine-gun to protect her against the jeers, the leers and the groping that went on every time that particular demon entered her soul. He hated that incarnation. The whore.
But Robert had other business with Natalia apart from her sexuality. She was so cocksure! Did she really think that he had forgotten? Did she honestly believe that even her brand of sex could wrench his mind away from the events of the previous evening? Now he had to talk to her. Now they were alone. The perfect opportunity.
He went back into the living room and collapsed on the sofa. Natalia came in from the balcony and stood, statuesque, hands on slim hips, smiling at him.
“Do you enjoy that fucking, Robert?” It was arrogant. Not a question at all. She knew he’d enjoyed it. He always did.
But for the first time he ignored her haughty inquiry. His voice even but cold, he went straight to the heart of the matter. “What was going on last night, Natalia?”
Her face clouded slightly and she moved forward as if making to leave the room. She made no attempt to answer and, as she sashayed past, she looked at him like he was nothing, her face devoid of any tenderness. She made it quite obvious that one such as Robert did not deserve a
reply. Robert felt a sudden angry heat take him. He loved this woman. He’d just given his all to her, for Christ’s sake, and she couldn’t even give him a straight answer to a straight question! He looked at her big, livid breasts jiggling arrogantly in front of his face and his temper and his passion flared. As she passed him he grabbed her wrist, hard.
She cried out in pain and a look of fury whipped across her face like a slap. “You hurt me!”
But this time she wasn’t going to get away! Not like in Balat. He ignored her claim to pain and tightened his grip. He lowered his voice to almost a whisper. “I’m asking you about the game you and your family were playing last night.” He looked into her face. “The one the police interrupted.”
For a second it was just as if she had been turned to stone. Not a muscle moved on her, not so much as a twitch. There was no warning as she brought her free hand back as if to strike him. But he was too quick for her and caught it in mid-air. Amid her angry screams of protest he pulled her roughly down next to him on the couch.
“All that clumsy shit from your uncles about you being at work on Monday. It must have been really galling for you when the police turned up. The fucking Murder Squad!” His voice rose, ugly and rasping. He flinched from it. His vehemence, his violence was alarming. But he couldn’t stop now. “What did they want Natalia? You?”
She squirmed. “Robert!”
“What happened, Natalia? You and one of your boyfriends decide to get a few extra kicks with some poor half-dead old pensioner! What did you do? Rip off his money? Well!”
She screamed and tried to kick him, but he pushed her flying leg roughly aside with his foot. The bitch wasn’t going to hurt him! The slag, the whore, the bloody Istanbul bike! The words in his mind excited him.
His anger was making him hard again. He swung a leg across her lap and ground his genitals against her writhing pubis. The rough cloth of his trousers grazed her naked body and made her cry out. This wasn’t what was supposed to happen! A man on her? No, wrong, it was wrong!
He pinned her arms against the wall behind and kissed her roughly on the mouth. He was going to take her! For the first time ever, he was going to take her! His head swam with excitement—the anticipation of rape.
“I bloody saw you, Natalia! I lied for you, you whore!”
She screamed again, her eyes filled with tears and what looked like terror. Robert felt powerful. He bit her hard on the shoulder as his aching erection battered against her, bruising her flesh. He took one hand away from her and unzipped his fly. His penis felt hot and angry in his trembling hand. He pushed it hard up against her, loving the feel of her shaking flesh against his. He was going to fuck her! Oh yes, he was!
“Don’t play with me, Natalia!” He shook her hard by the wrists. “Tell me the truth!”
He pulled her legs apart and prepared to enter her body.
Her eyes went hard for a second, almost sexual, but then she was crying, deep and plaintive sobs, like a child’s. She dropped her head on to her chest and her face screwed up into a crumple of lines and soft folds. She said a few words in a language Robert didn’t understand and then she moved her pelvis toward him. Surrendering.
The heat within him had not gone, but as he looked at her Robert knew that he couldn’t take her. Not willingly passive. Not broken. That wasn’t what he’d wanted. Robert released his grip upon her arms very slightly and pulled his pelvis away from her body. He felt a slight softening in his penis. “Well?”
It ripped from her throat, a torn, bleeding thing. “You do see me in Balat! It was me!”
The relief washed over him like a hot shower and he felt his whole body relax and go limp. He hadn’t been seeing things, he hadn’t! Thank God! He released her hands and pushed himself away from her lap. She put her face in her hands and gave way to what looked like grief. Copious tears ran between her fingers and splashed down on to her thighs. Robert’s breathing eased. He felt like he’d just woken up. But if she had been in Balat … He felt sick. What had he woken up to? He raked his fingers through his damp, thick hair and waited for her to stop crying.
Chapter 8
“Ikmen!”
He turned and saw the Commissioner’s familiar angry face sticking out from behind his door. He smiled and sauntered casually over to him, a long-dead cigarette end hanging from his lip.
“I’ve just been talking to the Israeli Consul about the Meyer case.” Ardiç’s tone was accusatory rather than informative.
“That must have been pleasant for you, sir.” It wasn’t downright impertinence, but almost.
The Commissioner, puce to the ears, ushered Ikmen into his office. He sat down at his desk and relit a thick cigar sitting in his ashtray. Then he twirled his mustache nervously. “It was hideously embarrassing! I had to make up excuses for you.”
Ikmen sat down and flicked the end of his cigarette on to the floor. Ardiç didn’t deserve good manners, he was too stupid. “I should have thought the Consul would have been pleased that I was out working on a case in which he has so much interest.”
“It’s not the point!” Ardiç roared. “You’re supposed to be in charge of this case! It’s you everybody wants to see: the Israelis, those bastards from the press—”
“I’m sure you handled it, sir.”
The Commissioner took off his glasses and threw them petulantly on to his desk. “Look, Ikmen, like it or not, you have a certain—I won’t say fame, but notoriety. I didn’t want you on this case as it is, but while you are on it, you should play by the rules!” He flung his hand out in the direction of the corridor. “I’ve given you men to do the job with! You’ve a sergeant sits about on his arse all day looking like some sort of male model! You are based here, Ikmen, and you should be here. Get them to do the work! You’re the fucking boss, or supposed to be.”
Ikmen lit a cigarette and turned a hard eye on his superior. If Ardiç was going to go straight in with heavy boots on, then so was he! He’d had enough of this fat, strutting little desk rider! What did he know about the job? “Now look here, sir, it’s the way I work. You know that! Secondhand reports from pimply constables may be good enough for people like Yalçin, but I earn my money! A case in point”—he stood up and started pacing, lionlike, in front of the Commissioner’s desk—“yesterday evening I interviewed an acquaintance of the murdered man. Now what the woman in question had to say was, on the face of it, of scant importance. If I had not been possessed of a little knowledge about her country and its history, her conversation would not have meant much to me. Also, how she answered me, what her mood was like, what her body did were”—he struggled for the right word—“interesting. If I hadn’t been there I would have experienced none of this! Her ambience, if you like, alerted me to something, I still don’t know what it is, but what I have learned from other sources today has only proved to underscore my unease about this woman!”
“What things?” Ardiç emphasized the last word with a coating of pure contempt.
“Meyer was involved in some sort of purge against the bourgeoisie back in his own country, Russia. He killed people. The subsequent guilt tortured him all his life. Guilt or fear, I don’t know which. Now this woman I met last night claimed that in Russia she was his lover and that she and Meyer, at some point, left the country together.”
“So?”
“Meyer murdered people like her! May even have killed people in front of her! And if she did know anything about that, it could well mean that she had considerable power over him. She, or if not her, then someone else obviously had to have had some influence in order to persuade Meyer to leave Russia. Nice little Jewish Bolsheviks like him had the world at their feet. It was people like this Maria Gulcu who had to leave the country then, not Meyer. Even given the guilt attendant upon his act, he would have to have been absolutely mad to leave. I mean, guilt is one thing, but to jeopardize your new, powerful life in the Jew-favoring Soviet Republic is quite another. It makes no sense historically. It was 1918! The beginn
ing of the new dawn! The slaves will always turn and when they do—”
“Oh, for the love of Allah, Ikmen, will you shut up about this nonsense before I really lose my temper!”
Ikmen passed a shaking hand across his forehead and sat down.
Ardiç pointed an accusatory finger toward him. “Now listen, Ikmen, from what your little girly-boy sergeant tells me you’ve got something of a lead with this Smits character.”
“As yet we’ve no proof that he—”
“If this Smits is or was a Nazi sympathizer, I want to know about it and so does the Consul. And if he was, I want him in here giving a fucking account of himself!”
“Well, yes, I agree, sir. But I will need time in order to see what Smits does from now on and—”
The Commissioner screamed, “With one dead Jew lying under a fucking two-meter swastika, time is not what we have, Ikmen! We all know about your famous intuition, but forget it. Throw your confounded biographies into the waste bin and put some real pressure on this Smits man before anything like this happens again. I do not want this city crawling with Mossad agents. What I do want, however, is to please the Israeli Consul who, unless you’ve been in an alternate reality for the last few days, you will know is a very important man!”
Ikmen looked down at the floor in silence. Knowing that Ardiç was under intense pressure to secure an arrest, any arrest, as soon as possible was of little comfort to him.
Ardiç took a deep breath and calmed himself. Ikmen was, at least temporarily, brought to heel. “Now,” he said, “the press don’t know the more revolting details of this case and that is to your credit, but they still want to see you. The man was a Jew and there’s a lot of panic about Moslem fundamentalism in this country at the moment. So I want you to see representatives from the press tomorrow and reassure them. Make certain that the bastards don’t go crawling around Balat. Tell them we’re preparing to make an arrest, pursuing fertile lines of inquiry—”
“Lie.”
Ardiç flared once again. “Yes, lie! What do you want our wealthy Jews in Yeniköy and Bebek to do? Pack up all their money and fuck off to Israel?”
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