Ikmen 16 - Body Count

by Barbara Nadel

  In the days since he’d talked to Professor Atay and Dr Santa Ana from METU, İkmen had read bits and pieces about the ancient Mayans on the Internet. They had undoubtedly been brutal to their enemies. They had also practised some extreme forms of self-mutilation. But these acts had been performed for practical reasons, in order to propitiate the gods that they believed in, to encourage them to bless the Mayans with healthy crops or rain or whatever it was that they needed. But this modern Mayan he was trying to apprehend, if indeed such a person actually existed, had another agenda. It had been the academics’ contention that the individual who could be killing all these people in İstanbul was doing so in order to affect the end of the current Mayan time cycle in some way. And that might indeed be the case. But İkmen also felt that there was something more personal in the horrors that had been inflicted upon these people. As he imagined someone he didn’t know smearing Rafik Efendi’s blood on some fat-tongued idol, he felt a hatred there too that made him shiver. In time with his spasm, he saw Sezen İpek shudder just a little also, and he wondered what she’d either seen or what had just passed through her mind.

  Time ticked and the hour of four became five and then six, and then darkness began to fall over Yıldız Park and eventually İkmen took Sezen İpek home. The rest of the team stood down.

  Chapter 17

  Her daughter gave birth on the night of Hıdırellez, and so Gonca didn’t think about Şukru until the festival was over. As soon as the child, Hızır, had been born, Gonca had taken him into the garden and danced with her daughters around the mulberry bush to which they had all tied their wishes. The baby’s mother, her unmarried daughter Hürrem, had stayed in the house drinking mint tea. Her mother had shown the child her one wish, a red ribbon with the name Mehmet Süleyman written on it.

  But once the festival was over and little Hızır was feeding contentedly from his mother, Gonca began to look around at her world, and when her father telephoned to ask after her brother, she realised that Şukru was missing. To begin with she consulted the cards, but they were unclear. The reading was confused, and although she wouldn’t always interpret an unclear reading with misfortune, this made her feel uneasy. She told Hürrem she was going to call Mehmet Süleyman.

  Her daughter was contemptuous. ‘Why? Uncle Şukru is always going here and there. Why are you worried now? If you want Süleyman to come and have sex with you, then why not just ask him? He’ll come.’

  Hürrem, like the rest of Gonca’s family, didn’t like Süleyman or any other kind of police officer. But Gonca ignored her. She called Süleyman, who said that he’d be with her as soon as he was able. Gonca went out into her garden and looked at his name written on the ribbon tied to her mulberry bush, and she hoped that the sick feeling she was experiencing was just a little bit of food poisoning.

  ‘I’ll need to take photocopies or scans,’ Çetin İkmen said as he waded through the stack of papers that constituted the Osmanoğlu family trees in the possession of Boğaziçi University.

  ‘Of course.’ Professor Atay smiled. ‘Anything the university can do to assist you, Inspector. However, given the size of the problem …’

  İkmen looked up. ‘Oh, I can’t hope to protect all these people, Professor,’ he said. ‘I will have to think carefully before I even warn them. Those closest to the victims we already have are only too aware that a pattern could be emerging. Do those relatives oblivious of a connection to the deceased need to know? I’m not sure. But I need to know who they are.’

  Professor Atay picked up his phone. ‘I’ll ask one of our students to scan them for you.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. I appreciate your seeing me like this. To be honest, given the size of this family, coupled with your noted expertise, I didn’t know where else to go.’

  ‘It’s no problem.’

  While the academic organised the scanning of the family trees, İkmen sat down and considered the professor’s office. Boğaziçi University, formally the American-run Robert College, was housed in a group of elegant turn-of-the-twentieth-century buildings in the fashionable Bosphorus village of Bebek. A highly respected institution, it had produced a slew of famous alumni, including government ministers, artists, writers and of course some celebrity academics such as Cem Atay.

  While the professor was on the phone, İkmen let his eyes wander around what was a very diverting room. There were some fantastic terracotta pots which looked as if they probably came from Italy, a framed print of one of the bulbous mother goddess idols from the ancient Anatolian site of Çatalhöyük and a large wooden panel that, to İkmen, looked like something the Mayans or the Aztecs might have produced. When Atay had finished his call, he said to İkmen, ‘It’s a copy of a sarcophagus lid from Palenque in southern Mexico. It shows King Pakal the Great descending through fleshless jaws into the Underworld. Above him is a bird god or monster, I’m not sure which. But he is passing from this life and into another, which to my way of thinking doesn’t look too comfortable.’

  ‘The Mayan way of life doesn’t seem to me to be comfortable full stop,’ İkmen said.

  The professor sat down behind his desk. ‘Do I detect that you’ve been doing some reading around the subject, Inspector?’

  ‘A little.’ İkmen smiled. ‘A catalogue of anxiety over crops and weather conditions and some really most spectacular self-harm.’

  ‘Ah, yes, the thorn through the penis ritual.’

  ‘Made my skin crawl.’

  ‘And yet,’ the professor said, ‘is that any better or worse than the self-flagellation practices that the Spaniards brought with them when they let their Catholic clerics loose on the Maya? We tend to think that anything that is not a monotheistic religion is by definition barbaric. But think about what the “civilised” Spaniards did in the New World. Plundered its gold and forcibly converted its people to Christianity.’

  İkmen shrugged.

  ‘I’m not excusing the Maya,’ Atay said. ‘They were undoubtedly cruel and barbaric, but if you speak to their descendants, you get a sense of a whole lost perspective on the world. We – as in the monotheistic empires of Europe – just cut them out like a malignant growth. And who were we to do that?’

  ‘They had gold.’

  ‘Absolutely!’ he said. ‘That’s the thesis of my book and what will be my television programme.’

  ‘Gold?’

  ‘When the Ottomans fought the Spaniards for supremacy in the Mediterranean, it wasn’t just about Muslims versus Christians or one empire against another; it was ourselves and the Spaniards fighting over South American gold. Civilisations that for all we know held the key to curing some of the world’s most virulent bodily ills were sacrificed so that greedy Western empires could have more jewellery.’

  ‘When you put it like that …’

  Atay smiled. ‘Ah, you have to go there to appreciate it,’ he said. ‘And of course the outfall from empire-building can be seen all over the world, can’t it? I don’t know what you think about the Middle East situation, but as an historian, I can’t help but lay the blame for the current mess firmly at the feet of the Ottomans who once controlled it and the British and the French who wrested it from them and then attempted to take it over. But I’m going on, I’m sorry.’

  ‘No,’ İkmen said, ‘it’s very interesting, sir.’

  ‘But you have crimes to solve. Real events in a real present. Academia doesn’t bother itself with too much of that.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ İkmen said. ‘If what you’ve told me or pointed me towards with regard to the Mayan Long Count calendar turns out to be irrelevant to these offences, then that is something that I will accept with no ill will towards you, Professor. Exploring theories that might explain a crime is all part of our process, and even if such theories are wrong, we can at the very least discount them.’

  ‘True. And have you discounted the Mayan connection yet, Inspector?’

  ‘No,’ he said. Then he smiled. ‘I’m just having some trouble putting
what is happening in a modern context. Maybe it’s easier if one is religious or believes in things like astrology or homeopathy.’

  ‘You don’t have a faith or …’

  ‘No, sir,’ İkmen said. The fact that he had always believed in magic as practised by his mother – and, via the tingling in his spine that sometimes told him when a significant event was happening in his life, his own magic too – wasn’t something he discussed with those he didn’t know well.

  The professor stood up. ‘Well, Inspector,’ he said, ‘I imagine that by the time you get back to your desk, my student will have emailed those family trees to you.’

  İkmen stood too. Of course this very busy man had things to do.

  They shook hands.

  ‘And if you need my help again, for any reason, please do ask,’ Atay said. ‘Although this has not had a direct effect upon my family, I am in daily contact with my brother-in-law Faruk, who continues to suffer.’

  ‘I am sorry about that, sir, truly,’ İkmen said. ‘I will work as hard as I can to bring this offender to justice and I will study the family trees you have so kindly given me, minutely.’ And then he left.

  Sezen İpek was aware of the fact as she scanned through all the online editions of the national dailies that her breathing was ragged. What if her blackmailer had realised that she had been surrounded by police up at the Malta Kiosk and had decided just to go ahead and smear Rafik Efendi anyway? And what kind of proof, if any, did he have? He’d never said.

  But the newspapers were devoid of references to elderly paedophiles and so Sezen felt herself begin to relax again. She made herself some tea and even had a croissant once she felt her stomach muscles unknot. Then, after a pause, she made a phone call. It was to someone she should have contacted a long time ago, someone she had known many years before. She waited for him to answer and then she said, ‘Abdurrahman Efendi?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It’s Sezen İpek. I heard about your loss …’

  ‘What loss?’ He sounded old. But then he was old, as was she.

  ‘Your nephew? The—’

  ‘I never knew him. What would he have been to me?’ he said. ‘He was a foreigner.’

  ‘I understand, but I call you out of courtesy, as one from the same background and a … a friend, long ago.’

  There was a pause then, and she wondered what he was going to say next. His first utterances had been aggressive. How was he going to take her reference to the short liaison they’d had many years ago, before Leyla had been born?

  When he did speak, he sounded deflated. ‘Oh, Sezen Hanım, you must not mind me,’ he said. ‘I’m an old, sick man and my life is more of a burden than a pleasure to me these days. It is I who should have called you, when Leyla …’

  ‘Oh, Abdurrahman, you don’t need to …’

  ‘And then your uncle. What can I say, Sezen? Such terrible things! What have any of us done to deserve such evil in our lives?’

  She didn’t even let herself think about her uncle and what he had done. Or Leyla. But what had Abdurrahman’s nephew done to deserve the death that had come to him on 21 March? Was it just because he was who and what he was in the same way that Rafik and Leyla had been? ‘It’s who we are,’ she said. ‘That’s why we’re dying. People don’t like us really, Abdurrahman Efendi, it’s all just lies.’

  She heard him sigh. ‘Do you really believe that?’ he said. ‘You know, Sezen, in the last few days I have come to realise that maybe what we are doesn’t matter any more.’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘Hear me out,’ he said. ‘We hear about these people nowadays, don’t we, people who want us to be caliphs, heads of Islam, figureheads to lead their jihad. But how can we do that and why would we want to? Most of the principal members of the family live abroad, and those of us who don’t, well, we don’t fit with these new Ottomans, do we? We drink and we smoke and we wear collars and ties on our shirts. It’s just an illusion.’

  For a moment she was speechless. As a young man, Abdurrahman had been an almost dangerously vocal advocate for a return to Ottoman rule. What had changed his mind? What had made him so cynical? Suddenly she wanted and needed to see him, and she told him so immediately.

  His response was unexpected and harsh. ‘But I don’t want to see you, Sezen Hanım,’ he said. ‘All I want in life is to be left alone.’ And he put the phone down on her.

  Sezen Hanım cried. In spite of all those female cousins and nieces, distant relatives and hangers-on, she had no one. She was alone in a city that contained someone who was killing people like her, and she was afraid.

  ‘Do you know where he was going?’ Süleyman asked.

  Gonca shook her head. ‘No. He travelled from Edirne with a group of gypsies.’

  ‘Do you know who?’

  ‘Some of the Edirne people come up to İstanbul for Hıdırellez because they think they can make more money here.’

  ‘What was Şukru doing in Edirne?’ Süleyman asked.

  ‘Our father’s sisters live there,’ she said. ‘He’d gone to visit them.’

  He sat back in his chair and drew on his cigarette. All the time he looked her in the eyes. ‘You didn’t tell me,’ he said.

  ‘I was going to.’

  ‘That’s easy to say.’ He leaned towards her. ‘I won’t be used just when it suits you, Gonca,’ he said. ‘Don’t manipulate my love for you, because I can cut that off in a heartbeat.’

  Suddenly she felt sicker than she had done when she’d realised that Şukru was missing. Having only just reconnected with the love of her life, was she going to lose him again? She said, ‘I was wrong not to tell you, and yes, I do need you now, but Mehmet, I am so afraid for Şukru. He phoned and told me that as soon as he’d finished some business he’d come and see me. But he didn’t.’

  ‘Do you know where he was when he phoned you?’

  ‘My father has spoken to my aunts. They asked the people he travelled with from Edirne where they last saw him. It was in Ortaköy.’

  ‘Do you know anyone in Ortaköy? Does your brother?’

  ‘Not that I know of,’ she said. ‘You know, Mehmet, Şukru does go missing sometimes for long periods, but both my father and I have a bad feeling about this time. I tried to read the cards, but they were confused and I don’t know what to think.’

  ‘What else did Şukru talk to you about when he called you from Ortaköy?’

  ‘Oh, he was still mad that I was seeing you,’ she said. She watched his face for any sort of reaction, but there was nothing. She looked away so that she could concentrate on her memories of her last conversation with Şukru. ‘He said that he was going to move his family and my father away from Tarlabaşı.’

  ‘To where?’

  ‘He didn’t say. Somewhere in the city. He’d talked to my father about somewhere on the Bosphorus,’ she said. ‘Şukru has money, but not lots. If he was going to move the family on to somewhere in the city, especially by the Bosphorus, then he’d need to get more business.’

  ‘Business? What do you mean?’

  She looked away from him. ‘You know what Şukru does, Mehmet.’

  There was no need for her to say any more. Mehmet knew that Şukru provided kids to pickpocketing rings, that he distilled illegal liquor and ran questionable cigarettes into Turkey from Eastern Europe. He was an unemployed bear man who had lost the home his family had owned for hundreds of years; what else was he supposed to do?

  She watched him think, and then he said, ‘I’ll need to speak to your family in Tarlabaşı; they’ll have to give me access to Şukru’s friends and associates.’

  She was about to say that that would be impossible, but he silenced her. ‘No ifs or buts,’ he said. ‘I won’t arrest anyone for pocket-diving, prostitution or even illegal brewing. All I want to know is where your brother is.’

  And then Gonca said the unspoken thing that had been in her mind ever since her brother had failed to visit her. ‘Because people are being mur
dered in the city?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said simply. ‘Nothing but that matters now.’

  Chapter 18

  Fires happened on waste ground for all sorts of reasons. Discarded cigarette ends, kids messing around with magnifying glasses; sometimes in the summer everything was just so dry a spark from a passing car could set one off, but sometimes it was arson. Bedrettin Balbay hadn’t been a gardener up at Yıldız Park for long, but he knew that this fire, which stank like something he half recognised but didn’t dare give a name to, was a bad one. This fire however was not in the park, but across from his two-roomed apartment in Aksaray.

  Once, long ago, the place where the smoke was coming from had been an office block. But that had been torn down at least ten years before, and now the area was just a tangle of thick bushes, old clumps of barbed wire and junkies’ needles. Sometimes the Eastern European prostitutes who plied their trade all over Aksaray took their customers there to have sex. But they didn’t, or so Bedrettin thought, usually light fires.

  His wife, as she generally did whenever there was any sort of local trouble, told him to ignore it and just go to work. But he couldn’t. Working in the park had taught him that fire, if not quickly brought under control, could spread rapidly. Bedrettin called the fire brigade and then made his way out of his apartment block and over the road to where he could see both smoke and flames.