‘Well, Mrs Süleyman, could it be that the inspector has maybe gone shopping, or perhaps he’s visiting a friend.’
‘For hours at a stretch?’ she snorted disgustedly. ‘He comes here to visit us, whoever you are. His father saw the car draw up hours ago. I asked the girl to put on the tea and then – nothing. Now we have a guest and I don’t know what to do. Do I wait for him or don’t I? Where is he?’
‘I will find him, Mrs Süleyman,’ Ömer said.
‘You’d better,’ she said. ‘We have a guest, a princess, and his father, having seen his car, is now expecting him for tea. His father is a prince. He isn’t accustomed to people letting him down.’ She rang off.
Ömer looked at the telephone receiver and then replaced it on its cradle. ‘She seems to think that the inspector’s father was expecting him for tea,’ he said.
Ayşe shook her head. ‘Ömer, the inspector’s father has dementia.’
‘Oh.’
‘Didn’t you know?’
‘No. Still, his mother says that his car is outside their house.’
‘Which is in Arnavutköy.’
‘Of course! Maybe he left it there when he went to the professor’s? This is mad, we need to find out if he’s still there.’
He dialled the number on Süleyman’s screen and waited for an answer. It took some time to come, but when it did, that smooth, rather soothing voice that Atay had cultivated over the years almost made Ömer smile.
‘Professor Atay,’ he said, ‘it’s Sergeant Mungan from the police, Inspector Süleyman’s deputy. I’ve been trying to get hold of the inspector but I don’t seem to be able to do so. I know that he was planning to see you this afternoon. Is he still with you?’
‘No, Sergeant, he isn’t,’ the professor said.
‘When did he leave?’
‘Oh, it must be about an hour and a half ago,’ he said.
‘Do you know where he was going, sir? Did he say?’
‘No, he didn’t. I presume you’ve tried his mobile phone.’
‘It’s switched to silent,’ Ömer said.
‘He must be driving, then.’
‘Yes, that is a possibility. Thank you,’ Ömer said.
‘Sorry I can’t be more helpful,’ the professor said. ‘I do hope that everything is all right.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ Ömer said and put the phone down.
‘He’s not there,’ Ayşe said.
‘No. Left an hour and a half ago.’
‘So where is he now?’
Ömer shrugged. ‘Do we carry on ringing his mobile? What do we do?’
Ayşe shook her head and looked back at the frozen image of Şukru Şekeroğlu and Professor Cem Atay on the laptop screen. ‘I’ve a bad feeling,’ she said.
‘Should we call Ardıç?’ Ömer asked.
‘No,’ Ayşe said. ‘But we should call my boss.’
‘Isn’t he at home?’
‘Yes. But if we don’t call him and this does turn out to be something bad, he will kill us both. Mehmet Bey is like the younger brother Inspector İkmen never had. He loves him.’
Chapter 30
Gonca looked grotesque. With that hideous mask on her face, she was leaping around naked except for a cloak that wasn’t hers. At her feet the boy Hamid laughed and Mehmet heard him say that soon they’d all have to leave here too. Whatever it meant, which he couldn’t fathom, was frightening and made him feel as if he should be doing something. But he didn’t know what. For some reason he couldn’t locate his body, and so for the moment he was just a free-floating mind, which was useless. And when he did feel again, and had some notion of his physicality, something pierced the skin on his arm. Mehmet Süleyman briefly roused from his nightmare and screamed.
Whenever Çetin İkmen was particularly worried about something, he broke rules. He walked into Süleyman’s office with a lit cigarette hanging out of his mouth and nobody dared tell him to put it out.
Throwing himself down in Süleyman’s chair, he turned to Ayşe and Ömer and said, ‘Tell me everything you know.’
They told him, they showed him Şukru Şekeroğlu and Professor Atay on film, and then he said, ‘Have you called his apartment?’
‘No. But he would have told us if he was going home,’ Ömer said.
Since the previous December, Süleyman had rented a small apartment in Cihangir. İkmen brought the number up on his phone and called it. ‘I don’t know, maybe he’s had a nervous breakdown,’ he said. ‘Nothing would surprise me.’ He put his cigarette out in an old saucer that Ömer had hastily found for him and then lit up another. He got no response from Süleyman’s home phone and so he cut the connection.
He looked at the two sergeants again. ‘So what do we think?’
‘About?’
‘About what may have happened to Inspector Süleyman,’ he said. ‘What are our theories or fantasies about that?’
‘Well, he’s missing,’ Ömer said.
‘Yes, and why is that?’ İkmen asked.
‘Er …’
‘We don’t know,’ he continued. ‘Do we? No. His car is at his parents’ house, he can’t be reached on his mobile and the last person he was known to be with, we think, is Professor Cem Atay.’
‘Yes.’
‘So,’ İkmen said, ‘with my straightforward, entirely practical face on, it seems logical to me that we go and talk to Professor Atay.’ Before either of the others could speak, he raised a hand to silence them. ‘Minus a warrant, I would suggest at this stage. But let’s get in there if we can and see what we can find.’
‘Sir, the inspector had his suspicions about Atay,’ Ömer said.
‘As do I,’ İkmen answered. ‘But we do not, as yet, have any actual physical evidence to connect this man to any crime in this city or anywhere else. Cem Atay has a high profile; we must be careful.’
They all looked at each other. Even potential high-profile arrests could be problematic. They were normally the preserve of those who worked in state security and counter-terrorism; ordinary cops didn’t like them.
‘I’ll go and speak to Ardıç,’ İkmen said, ‘and then we’ll pick up a clutch of uniforms and get over to Arnavutköy.’
Visiting her cousin Muhammed was always a trial. He had started to dement a few years ago; sometimes he would talk as if he were still at home in his father’s house, while other times it was just nonsense. But he was generally calm and quiet about it, which was in stark contrast to the real problem that existed in the Süleyman household: Muhammed’s wife, Nur. Sezen İpek had never liked her. Right from the start she had come across as a common social climber and she hadn’t changed in the fifty-plus years since Sezen had first met her. She was cruel, too. When Leyla had had her bit of trouble when she was a student, Nur Süleyman had whispered whatever details she came across into ears that she shouldn’t have. Now suddenly Nur was in trouble, and Sezen felt a small glow of something like pleasure. A routine social visit had turned into a drama because the favoured, handsome Süleyman son, Mehmet Bey, appeared to be missing.
‘I always said that job was beneath him,’ Nur said as she walked backwards and forwards across the living room. ‘If you mix with criminals they will hurt you.’
‘I’d really like to take tea now,’ Muhammed Süleyman said. He sat in a corner beside the television, a shattered stick of a man in too large flannel trousers and a green home-knit jumper. ‘My father will be very angry if you don’t serve it soon.’
Nur heard him, but she didn’t respond. Instead she said to Sezen, ‘I can’t apologise enough for all this. What must you think of us?’
Sezen nodded her head graciously. ‘I know only too well the worry of having a child,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry at all, Nur dear. We can wait for tea if that is what you want.’
She was parched. But to say so would have seemed like insensitivity, and, like her or loathe her, Nur had been there for Sezen when Leyla had been found dead. Of course she hoped that Mehmet Bey would be found
alive and well, although she did also hope that Nur would be made to wait a little longer.
What Nur Süleyman had said about Leyla when she’d been, after all, just a silly student had got back to Sezen via her cousin Muhammed’s older sister, Esma. Nur had apparently told Esma that in her opinion Leyla needed a firmer hand than Sezen was giving her. She had also said that the boy involved needed a damn good thrashing. But then that had been true. Sadly, Sezen mused upon where he was at that moment and where her daughter now resided. Had he not ruined her all those years ago, Leyla would never have had to marry a man she didn’t love, she wouldn’t have had that affair with that spa man and she wouldn’t be dead.
‘I’m going to take you to the hospital.’
Süleyman’s head felt as if it had been smashed repeatedly against a wall, while his eyes trembled at the small amount of light from the bulb that swung over his head. Occasionally this was obscured by Professor Atay’s face, which always seemed to be smiling at him. He wanted, and yet at the same time didn’t want, to say something to the academic about what he’d seen in his wardrobe. But if he spoke and the man was in fact a killer, then he’d kill him; and if he wasn’t, he’d be offended and maybe complain to Ardıç. But there was fear at the back of all that and so he knew what he really believed, even though he didn’t like it. And now he was ill, and as such, he was at this man’s mercy.
‘Call the station,’ he said. His tongue felt too big for his mouth and he was disgusted to realise that he was dribbling.
‘I’ll call them once I’ve got you to hospital,’ the professor said. ‘But you’ll have to help me.’
‘Help you?’
‘The car’s in the back garden. I just need to get you up a few steps, but I can’t carry you, you’ll have to help me.’
He felt himself being lifted by his shoulders into a sitting position.
‘We need to find out what’s wrong with you,’ Atay said. He slipped an arm around his waist, and Süleyman felt himself rise to his feet on distinctly shaky legs.
‘What is wrong with me?’
‘You collapsed,’ the academic puffed. ‘Started raving.’
Süleyman put one foot in front of the other, watching fascinated when one of his ankles collapsed. The professor took his weight. Süleyman turned his attention to Atay’s face, which was contorted with effort, and wondered whether he should ask him if he was going to kill him. He decided against it. Another half-step, and then a knock at the door caused all movement to stop. Süleyman began to feel the professor’s legs tremble as he strained to keep them both upright.
Another knock followed the first one, and then a voice that was almost as familiar as Süleyman’s own shouted, ‘Professor Atay, it’s Inspector İkmen. I need to speak to you.’
‘You can let Çetin take it from here,’ Süleyman said.
But the professor didn’t move, and when İkmen knocked on the front door again, he put a hand over Süleyman’s mouth. Any doubts the policeman might have had about this man’s intentions evaporated now, and even though his brain and his movements were almost impossibly difficult and slow, he did manage to get one of the professor’s fingers into his mouth and bit it as hard as he could.
He could see that Atay had to use every bit of self-control he possessed to stop himself yelping in pain, but he also felt the full force of his wrath when he took his other arm away from Süleyman’s back, let him drop to the hard, cold floor and then punched him in the face until he felt his nose crack. The professor’s bitten finger, which was bleeding now, was, Süleyman thought, quite wrong.
‘Can’t see anyone,’ Ömer Mungan said. ‘But there is a car in the back garden.’
Çetin İkmen stopped trying to ring the professor’s mobile phone and moved away from the front door. ‘A car?’ he said. ‘How did that get there?’ The house backed on to a Greek church and there was no side entrance.
‘There’s a gate in the wall at the back of the church,’ Ömer said. ‘He must have some sort of access arrangement whereby he drives through the church property. Back door’s shut.’
‘But there was a table with a samovar and tea glasses under a tree,’ a young uniformed officer said.
İkmen shrugged. ‘The professor never denied that Inspector Süleyman had been to see him. So if he offered him tea, that is perfectly understandable.’
‘What do we do now?’
‘You mean apart from carrying on calling his mobile every five minutes?’
‘I think he’s turned it to silent, like the inspector,’ Ömer said.
‘Has he?’ İkmen sighed. ‘Well then, if Professor Atay has gone out on foot, which seems likely, there’s a chance he’s only gone out for a short while. Ömer, see if you can raise the church caretaker or find a priest or someone who might know about the arrangement between themselves and the professor regarding the car.’
‘Yes, sir.’
İkmen looked at Ayşe Farsakoğlu, who said, ‘You don’t think we should just …’
‘I think, Sergeant, that we should move away from this house now,’ İkmen said. Arnavutköy was a smart suburb, but groups of street kids had started to gather, albeit at a distance from the police cars. ‘I think we should pay a call on Mr and Mrs Süleyman.’
Ayşe winced.
İkmen walked over to the first of the two squad cars and said to the driver, ‘We’re moving into the next street, other side of the church. I’m going to visit Inspector Süleyman’s parents. You park up at the local station and ask about Professor Atay.’
‘Yes, sir.’
He went to the second car and said, ‘Follow me.’
As he walked past the professor’s house, İkmen looked in every one of its windows very carefully, but he couldn’t see anything. And yet something had happened and it wasn’t something good. Even when he was sneaking off to see Gonca, Mehmet Süleyman did not disappear; he just didn’t.
He was about to turn into the street on the other side of the church when Ömer Mungan ran up beside him and said, ‘Caretaker says that the professor has been paying them to let him bring the car through their garden for years. It’s nothing new. But what he did say that was interesting was that the car was outside the church until about an hour ago.’
‘So an hour ago the professor brought his car into his garden and then went out,’ İkmen said.
‘So it would seem, sir.’
İkmen frowned. ‘I wonder why he did that?’ he said.
‘Caretaker didn’t say, sir,’ Ömer said. ‘But he didn’t think there was anything odd about it. Professor Atay’s in and out with his car all the time, it seems.’
They walked up to the front of the Süleyman house, where they were joined by Ayşe Farsakoğlu. The second squad car pulled up behind Süleyman’s white BMW and İkmen called over to the uniforms inside to wait where they were. They all lit up cigarettes almost in unison.
İkmen turned to the two sergeants, ‘Now, Ömer, I’d like you to go back and watch the professor’s house from the front. There’s a café almost opposite.’ He put his hand in his pocket and took out a twenty-lira note, which he gave to Mungan. ‘Buy yourself a drink and keep your eyes on the house and the exit from the church. And call the professor’s mobile phone – just in case.’ He looked at the car full of uniformed officers again and shook his head. ‘If this is going to be some sort of long game, then I need them like a bullet wound to the leg.’
‘Why don’t I watch the house from the back?’ Ayşe Farsakoğlu said. ‘I mean, sir, you don’t need me to be with you when you speak to Mr and Mrs Süleyman, do you?’
He shrugged. ‘No, I suppose not.’ Then he said, ‘Actually, a woman lurking in a church garden on her own could attract unwanted attention. Ayşe, you go for coffee.’ He took the twenty-lira note out of Ömer Mungan’s hand and gave it to his sergeant. ‘Ömer, sorry, boy, you’ll have to do without.’
When he came round, all he could see was the professor’s face looking at his and all he could smell
was blood. Breathing was difficult.
‘They’ve gone away now, your colleagues,’ the professor said. ‘And so I am left with the problem that you are on a time limit I have no real knowledge about.’
There was nothing to say. His body was quite inert, and although his face hurt, it didn’t hurt enough to rouse him from his stupor.
‘When it’s dark, I’ll take you to the car,’ the academic said.
Time was no longer fixed. When he closed his eyes, Süleyman couldn’t tell whether an hour had passed or a minute. The only thing he could liken it to was when once, years ago, he’d had a general anaesthetic when he’d broken his collarbone.
The next time he opened his eyes, he looked down at his body but saw something that looked like a grey sack. He couldn’t relate to it in any way. The professor looked into his eyes, then pulled one of his eyelids up and shook his head. ‘I’ve so little knowledge about this stuff.’
What stuff?
Süleyman felt a sharp pain in his left bicep, and after that he really didn’t care. After that, for some reason, he was in a moving version of a woodcut of Hell he’d seen as a teenager when he’d been studying Dante. He’d never believed in the existence of Hell – then. Now he wasn’t so sure.
Chapter 31
She’d dialled his number a hundred times and still he didn’t answer! It just rang out. Infuriated, Gonca threw her phone across the room, where it hit the wall and smashed to pieces across her father’s sofa. The old man shook his head. ‘Is that any way to behave?’ he said. ‘What were you thinking?’
She put her head in her hands. At least ten pairs of eyes watched her from around the room and none of them were impressed. ‘Mehmet Bey said he’d come tonight,’ she said. ‘Now he doesn’t answer his phone!’
‘Well he’s a policeman, these people get busy,’ her father said.
Gonca, crying now, felt hands on her shoulders and looked up to see her eldest son, Erdem. He took her in his arms and hugged her. Just over forty and entirely integrated into mainstream Turkish life, Erdem was nevertheless still her little boy who loved his mother unconditionally.
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