‘Not on that day, no,’ İkmen said.
‘What, you mean …’
‘Mehmet, my dear boy, we’re clearly dealing with an offender who is very clever,’ İkmen said. ‘He or she comes and goes from these people’s lives apparently at will and with a level of invisibility that conceals him from us. But I am beginning to wonder whether we’re asking those witnesses that we have the right questions. For instance, do we have any idea about who might have visited John Regan the day before he died?’
‘No.’
‘Then maybe we should find out,’ İkmen said.
Süleyman narrowed his eyes. ‘You think that he could have secreted himself in the building?’
‘Why not?’
‘For over twenty-four hours?’
‘Why not? With the exception of Levent Devrim, all of our victims lived in either considerable apartment blocks or, in Rafık Efendi’s case, a big house.’
‘Leyla Ablak was murdered at the spa.’
‘Yes, and how difficult would it be to hide out at a spa, especially one attached to a hotel?’
‘We interviewed all the staff and the guests at the hotel.’
‘We also interviewed the manager of the spa, Faruk Genç, who was Leyla Ablak’s lover. We know he wasn’t there when she died. But do we know whether he let someone else in before he left to return home?’
‘Why would he do that?’
‘I don’t know,’ İkmen said.
‘You’re implying that Faruk Genç orchestrated Leyla Ablak’s murder via a third party. You’re also implying that Genç wanted his lover dead. Why would that be?’
‘I don’t know,’ İkmen said. ‘I’m just speculating. But I think I’m speculating constructively. We now have five unsolved murders; six if you include what may or may not be Şukru Şekeroğlu. Why haven’t we made an arrest?’
‘Who would we have arrested? No one has seen anything or anyone when these people have been killed, and so far the common factors between our victims have only worked up to a point.’
‘But there is the Mayan connection,’ İkmen said. ‘In terms of the dates of the murders, that is holding firm. Also, we do seem to be in a pattern now of heart removal …’
‘With the exception of the Aksaray body.’
‘If indeed that is connected to these killings at all,’ İkmen said. He paused and shook his head. ‘Four of our victims come from the former Imperial family, and if Professor Atay and Dr Santa Ana are correct, then their royal blood would be interesting to a person who is obsessed with the Mayan 2012 belief system. The fact that Levent Devrim’s death doesn’t conform to that pattern says to me that either it was just a fluke, or he is connected in ways that we don’t yet understand. Did he know people who knew the others? Did he perhaps have acquaintances he met at the Ada bookshop, other people interested in the occult who in turn knew Leyla Ablak, John Regan, Rafik Efendi and Abdurrahman Şafak?’
‘Levent Devrim kept himself to himself,’ Süleyman said. ‘With the exception of the old Kurdish prostitute, Sugar.’
‘Maybe. But the more I think about it, the more I wonder whether Levent Devrim is the key. Of all our victims, he was the only one where the killer was, possibly, seen.’
‘Disguised.’
‘Maybe,’ İkmen said. ‘But a figure was seen, and however outlandish it was, we need to know more about it.’
‘The gypsy boy Hamid saw it, and possibly Şukru Şekeroğlu.’
‘Which may explain why Şukru, if that body is his, is now no more,’ İkmen said. ‘You’ve questioned that boy before, haven’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘So question him again,’ İkmen said. ‘And while you’re doing that, I think I might have a look at our victims’ address books, get the sad techies to do whatever one does to access their Facebook pages. This offender got to these people too easily for me to think that he doesn’t know them personally.’
Chapter 20
Predictably, the old man had only used paper records. There wasn’t even a computer in the apartment. But the small diary he had kept in an old roll-top desk was neat and appeared to be up to date. What didn’t help was the fact that when Abdurrahman Şafak had made a note of an appointment with a person, he had always omitted, after the old Ottoman custom, to record their surnames. So Arthur Regan was recorded as ‘Arthur Bey’, and even his doctor was expressed as ‘Cemal Bey’.
İkmen, bleary-eyed from the frantic activities of the previous day, looked up from the diary at the girl, Suzan, who had brought him a very welcome morning glass of tea. He smiled at her and she looked a little shocked by it. Her own face was still covered with tears. He said, ‘Suzan, your master’s diary is blank with regard to appointments for the two days before his death. Did he perhaps receive an unexpected visitor in that time, do you remember?’
She thought for a moment, sniffed, and then said, ‘No, sir. Not that I know of.’
‘Were you in the apartment the whole time during the course of those two days?’
‘No. I went shopping for maybe two hours for Efendi, the day before he died.’
‘Shopping for what?’ İkmen asked.
‘Groceries,’ she said. ‘And also I had to go and have his prescription made up at the pharmacy on Ihlamur Yolu. I had to wait, which was why it took me so long.’
‘What time was this?’
She thought for a moment. Then she said, ‘About midday. When I went out.’
‘So you returned at approximately two,’ İkmen said.
‘Yes.’
‘Suzan,’ he said, ‘I have to ask, but …’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Your staying on in this apartment. Are you all right with that? I mean, after …’
‘I have nowhere else to go, sir,’ she said. ‘I came to this city to work for Efendi, I know no one. I am grateful that his family have said I can stay here. And the room where Efendi … where he died, it’s locked.’
The forensic team had taken everything they needed from the old man’s living room, which nevertheless still left a very large apartment.
He smiled at her and said, ‘Yes, yes it is. Thank you, Suzan.’ When he turned back to the desk again, he heard her sob.
‘Enjoy your tea, sir,’ she said, and then she left to go about her business.
İkmen had thought it was odd that the only other bed in the apartment apart from Abdurrahman Şafak’s was an ornate, clearly unused gilded confection that had apparently once belonged to the Efendi’s parents. He hadn’t known where Suzan slept until she’d told him that her ‘bed’ was in fact a large wooden chest outside the kitchen. İkmen had been disgusted, but he had also been intrigued. People who retained servants had generally moved on from such barbaric practices. But then the old man had been locked in the kind of past that did not permit the modern world. He hadn’t even had a television.
And yet Suzan had cried for the old man. A lot. Was she just putting that on because she thought she had to? Or had the old man in fact possessed a softer side to his nature that she had come to appreciate in some way?
‘It was a monster!’ the boy reiterated.
His mother, Şeftali the prostitute, looked up at Süleyman and said, ‘That’s all he knows, now leave him alone!’
But to Süleyman it was all just so much superstition. That these people believed in such, to him, patent nonsense was infuriating. He said, ‘Hanım, there are no monsters. There’s no such thing. There are just people and things that evolve in people’s minds to look like the supernatural.’ He looked at the boy again. ‘Hamid, I need to know exactly what you saw on the morning of the twenty-first of January and what, if any, involvement Şukru Şekeroğlu had in what you saw.’
‘He told me to run away,’ the boy said.
Late the previous evening Süleyman had been to see Gonca, who had told him that Şukru could not have been collecting wood on the morning of Levent Devrim’s death. She’d had no idea what he’d been doing, but it hadn’
t been that.
‘Şukru Bey is missing,’ Süleyman said now to Hamid.
‘Yeah, I saw it on the TV.’
‘So he isn’t here to tell you what to say.’
The boy looked around at his mother and Süleyman felt his heart sink. Was she now going to control what he said?
But it was Şeftali who spoke next. ‘Şukru spent the night with me,’ she said.
‘When?’
‘The night that Levent Devrim died,’ she said. She tipped her head at her son. ‘He went out. He always went out when Şukru visited.’
Süleyman looked at the boy. ‘Where did you go, Hamid?’ he asked. ‘It was snowing.’ Then he looked at Şeftali again. ‘Why did you let him leave in the snow? What were you thinking?’
But it was the boy who answered. ‘When Şukru Bey visits, I always go to the old houses where people say the Armenians used to live.’
Süleyman thought he knew where the boy meant, but he asked, ‘Where the demolition has just started?’
‘Where I found Levent Bey, yes.’
‘How soon after leaving your mother’s apartment did you find Levent Bey’s body?’
He shrugged. ‘Some hours.’
‘Some hours.’
‘Two or three. It was cold. I made a fire in the house with the Elvis Presley picture on the wall. I was tired. I went to sleep.’
Süleyman knew where the boy meant; it was three derelict piles down from what remained of the house where Levent Devrim’s body had been found.
‘What woke you up?’ Süleyman asked.
‘I don’t know. Nothing I remember,’ the boy said.
‘So what made you move from your fire?’
‘It’d gone out and I needed a piss. Where Levent Bey … where he was, that house has a bit more shelter than the others and the wind was blowing. I didn’t want to get piss all over my clothes.’
‘So then you saw your monster and you saw Levent Bey,’ Süleyman said.
‘Yes.’
‘Did you see anyone else?’
‘Until Şukru Bey came? No,’ he said.
‘Şukru Bey arrived after your monster had gone?’
‘Yeah.’
‘How long after?’
‘I dunno. Five minutes. I was looking to see whether Levent Bey was still alive …’
‘Poking him with a stick,’ Süleyman said. He turned to the boy’s mother. ‘And what about Şukru Şekeroğlu?’ he asked her.
‘What about him?’
‘When, in relation to your son’s departure, did he leave your apartment? Was it one hour later? Two? More?’
Although she was a prostitute by trade, Şeftali still experienced what looked to Süleyman like a level of shame. She lowered her eyes. ‘It was probably an hour,’ she said.
‘Only that?’
‘He usually stayed longer,’ she said. ‘But he said he had to meet someone.’
‘In the early hours of the morning?’
She shrugged.
‘Did he say who?’
‘I didn’t ask.’
He understood this and he believed her. Şukru Şekeroğlu was a powerful force amongst Tarlabaşı’s gypsies. Süleyman himself knew only too well that Gonca’s brother could have power over life and death in the quarter.
Süleyman steepled his fingers underneath his chin. ‘So Şukru Şekeroğlu went out after Hamid. Assuming that the boy found Levent Bey two hours after he left the apartment, then Şukru was out and about at the same time that the murder was being committed.’ He looked at Şeftali. ‘You know that Şukru told us that he was collecting wood that morning?’
‘He wasn’t.’
‘I know, but why didn’t you tell us that he was with you and then at some meeting?’
Şeftali shook her head. ‘He is Şukru Şekeroğlu,’ she said.
‘And he told you not to tell us?’
‘He didn’t have to.’ She looked up at him. ‘You’re the police.’
This time he shook his head in frustration. With the city authorities in open conflict with the gypsies, it was, of course, the police who took the blame and paid the price.
‘Şukru looked out for my son when that sergeant of yours came scratching around about his pocket-diving – supposedly. I knew that someone had blabbed about my Hamid finding Levent Bey’s body and Şukru got him out of Tarlabaşı for me.’
‘Yes, to Beyoğlu to work stealing tourists’ cash for a Bulgarian called Marko,’ said Süleyman. He looked at the boy. ‘Tell me about it, Hamid.’
But the boy turned away from him and looked at the wall. Even with Şukru Şekeroğlu possibly dead, he still wouldn’t say anything. It was amazing that Süleyman had got as much out of Şeftali as he had, and it was significant. Because if Şukru Şekeroğlu had gone to meet someone in the early hours of the morning when Levent Devrim had died, that meant that he could have been involved in his death. Maybe Şukru had met Levent and then left him to go on his way, but what if he hadn’t? What if he’d either killed Devrim himself – which was unlikely given the description the boy had supplied of the probable killer – or assisted Hamid’s ‘monster’ in some way?
Süleyman asked the boy one more time, ‘Hamid, did you really see a monster with Levent Devrim’s body?’
‘Yes.’
‘It definitely wasn’t Şukru Bey?’
‘No, it wasn’t,’ he said. ‘Şukru Bey came later, I swear it.’
They all met up at midnight in a bar that İkmen knew well. Because it was in the back streets of Sultanahmet, it was a little squalid, in Süleyman’s opinion, while Arto Sarkissian just found it odd.
‘I thought that Fatih council wanted to close down all the bars in Sultanahmet,’ he said as he drank deeply from his glass of gin and tonic.
‘They want to,’ İkmen said, ‘but as we both know, Arto, the human spirit has a way of surviving religion, just as it can often get through war.’
The waiter brought him his second brandy of the evening, while Süleyman sipped at a glass of red wine. When the waiter had gone, İkmen said, ‘So what have we learned today?’
‘Not a lot,’ Arto said. ‘My DNA results will take a few days, if not a week, to come back from the lab, although I can tell you that I now know that Abdurrahman Şafak – mercifully for him – died of a cardiac arrest prior to the removal of his heart. When I got to him I estimate he’d been dead for about two hours – the heat in that place notwithstanding.’
‘Mmm. But it’s spiteful, isn’t it?’ İkmen said.
‘What is?’
‘I feel spite in these crimes. Contrary to what Professor Atay and his academic colleagues have told us about the Mayans, and the notion that our offender may well be emulating their methods of execution in line with some sort of disordered belief in the imminent end of the world, I feel very strongly that our victims have been selected for reasons we don’t yet fully understand.’
‘Beyond the fact that, with the exception of Levent Devrim, they were all members of my extended family,’ Süleyman said.
İkmen frowned. ‘I think so,’ he said. One of the barmen put some quirky music on the DVD player. It was ‘This Charming Man’ by the 1980s British band The Smiths. For a moment it caught İkmen unawares and he said, ‘Morrissey? How odd. Like it, but … Anyway, yes, for example all of our victims, in one way or another, have transgressed in some way.’
‘Who has not?’
‘I know what you mean, Arto,’ İkmen said, ‘but I sense a moral judgement at play here.’
‘In what way?’
‘Well think about it like this: Levent Devrim was an eccentric who didn’t work, who smoked cannabis and who sponged off first his father and then his brother. Not a bad person, but lazy and possibly indulged. Then we have Leyla Ablak, a spoilt adulteress; John Regan, homosexual – apparently harmless, but homosexual nonetheless and so repellent to some religious people and those of an intolerant nature. Rafik Efendi was, as we now know, a monstrous paedophile, and even po
or dying Abdurrahman Şafak was an unpleasant man who had disowned his own sister and was unkind to his maid. With the exception of Dr Regan, I would not have liked to have been friends with any of them.’
‘What about our burning man in Aksaray?’ Süleyman asked.
‘I have found signs of decay on him, underneath the carbonisation,’ Arto Sarkissian said. ‘This tells me that he died some time before he was cremated.’
‘So someone kept his body somewhere?’ Süleyman said.
‘Must’ve done.’
‘But until we know who he is, we can’t make any sort of judgement about him,’ İkmen said. ‘However, if we look at all our twenty-first of the month victims, then …’
‘You think they weren’t so much killed because of the end of the world but rather that whoever murdered them did so for his own reasons of dislike, outrage or hatred,’ Arto said. ‘So why can’t we find him, Çetin? Someone so full of spite that he can steel himself to cut out another person’s heart is a most unique individual.’
‘I agree. And the fact that he or she is such an unusual person is exactly the reason why we can’t catch them,’ İkmen said. He turned to Süleyman. ‘Mehmet, you remember we discussed the possibility of our offender hiding out in his victims’ properties before he struck?’
‘Yes. I think it’s a little—’
‘It’s a theory, only,’ İkmen said. ‘But what I don’t think is a theory so much as a fact is that our offender is hiding in plain sight. He or she enters these people’s lives, enters their properties, is seen by others, up to and beyond gypsy children who may or may not be deluded, and then moves along, again in full view, as if nothing has happened.’
Arto sipped his gin. ‘Wasn’t there something about a gypsy lurking outside John Regan’s apartment in Karaköy?’ he said.
‘Yes, a very obvious one,’ İkmen said. ‘I mean, ask yourself, who wouldn’t suspect a heavily set foreign Roma man in a leather jacket? Even if we found that man, it’s my contention that his hands would be clean. Now he may or may not have been asked or paid to be in that place at that time …’
‘Then surely if we found that man …’
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