A Noble Killing

by Barbara Nadel

  Chapter 13

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  ‘How would I know what Tayfun Ergin is doing in Fatih?’ Hikmet Yıldız’s brother İsmail said. ‘Do I look like a man who indulges in criminal activity?’

  Hikmet did think about possibly just slipping in his brother’s brief foray into shoplifting when he was a teenager, but then thought better of it.

  ‘Ergin was in conversation with some very obviously religious men in Abdullah’s Coffee House,’ he said. ‘I get the impression they didn’t really appreciate his presence.’

  ‘Well they wouldn’t.’ İsmail said. ‘Ergin is a criminal and an unbeliever. Why would good men want anything to do with him?’

  ‘They didn’t,’ Hikmet replied. ‘That was just it. They were, I think, telling him to go away.’

  ‘You should have asked the brothers if they needed help.’

  Hikmet laughed. ‘What, me? İsmail, men like that turn their faces away from the police. Even you must realise that.’

  ‘Well, Abdullah—’

  ‘Abdullah is far too busy trying to buy me with free drinks and obsequious behaviour to be of any use to me as an informant. Besides, I am under no illusion that he actually likes me. He can’t stand the police any more than anyone else who patronises his place. He wouldn’t tell me what Tayfun Ergin was doing if his life depended upon it!’

  İsmail Yıldız continued washing up the breakfast crockery, then said, ‘Well I don’t know anything, and so . . .’

  Hikmet, still sitting at the kitchen table, lit up a cigarette and sighed. He wanted to ask his brother to keep his ears open for any gossip that might come his way about one of İstanbul’s most famous gangsters. İsmail, though, just like the men in the coffee house, just like the owner, Abdullah, was not open to the idea of telling the police anything. But then in the normal course of events, why should they? They were pious, law-abiding people who enjoyed living quietly. It wasn’t their fault that post 9/11, everyone and anyone of a religious bent was of interest to the forces of law and order, not only in Turkey but across the globe. They were just trying to get through the day like anyone else.

  But Hikmet was still disquieted by what he had seen the previous day and was resolved to tell Çetin İkmen about it. As he left the kitchen on his way to put on his boots in the hall, he heard his brother mutter, if slightly resentfully, ‘I’ll see what I can find out.’

  Hikmet smiled. Religious he might be, but İsmail still had the interests of his unbelieving brother at heart.

  Mr Burhan Öz was sitting in exactly the same place he had occupied last time İkmen had seen him: the foreign exchange desk at the Garanti Bank in Nişantaşı. While this was slightly unsettling for the policeman, it appeared to be truly terrifying for Mr Öz whose face went a deep shade of grey.

  ‘What?’

  İkmen walked over to the desk and smiled at the thin, mustachioed man. ‘Don’t worry, sir,’ he said. ‘I do not come bearing bad news. Just a few questions.’

  ‘About Suzan?’

  Suzan Öz, Burhan’s eldest daughter, had apparently ingested a bottle of weedkiller while her family were out. This had happened only eight months earlier, and so İkmen was not surprised that the father appeared to still be so raw.

  ‘Not directly,’ he said. ‘Could you please go and tell your manager that the police need to speak to you?’

  The bank allowed İkmen to use a small office at the back of the building. Mr Öz, his hand shaking around a hastily lit cigarette, sat down and looked across an empty desk at the man who had quizzed him at great length eight months earlier.

  ‘My daughter is dead. She took her own life. There is nothing more to say,’ Öz said.

  ‘I know.’ İkmen smiled. ‘But Mr Öz we do have some outstanding issues. Things we have to clear up before we can indeed close the case of your daughter once and for all.’

  ‘Like what?’ His eyes shifted nervously. Because İkmen remained convinced of this man’s guilt, his discomfort pleased him.

  ‘Your finances,’ he said.

  ‘That’s none of your business!’ Öz said. ‘My finances have nothing to do with Suzan’s death!’

  ‘Mr Öz, when Suzan died,’ İkmen said, ‘you and your family were living in a small but smart apartment in Levent. Within days of your daughter’s death you had decamped to a much less prestigious apartment in Fener. I am also aware of the fact that your son dropped out of Boğaziçi University.’

  ‘History didn’t suit him,’ the other man snapped.

  ‘Then why didn’t he just change courses?’

  Burhan Öz put his head on one side. ‘My family had problems,’ he said. ‘After our daughter’s death.’

  ‘Of course, but for your circumstances to reduce so dramatically . . . I believe you had a car?’

  ‘My financial situation is my own affair!’ Burhan Öz exploded. He ground his cigarette out violently in the ashtray on the desk. ‘It has nothing to do with Suzan! Why should it? Why do you want to know about my money?’

  It was a fair question, but not one that İkmen could easily answer. That two other families whose daughters had died in what had at first been deemed to be suspicious circumstances were also currently financially embarrassed was not something he could disclose. Suzan Öz’s death had been declared a suicide and the case was officially at an end. Basically he was in Öz’s hands to tell or not tell him the truth, or even tell him nothing. Burhan Öz, now tight-lipped and guarded, chose the latter course of action.

  But İkmen didn’t give in to defeat easily. When he got back to his car, he was joined by Ayşe Farsakoğlu, who had been speaking to a few of the Öz family’s old neighbours in nearby Levent.

  ‘The rumour is that the father fell on hard times due to a family obligation back in his native Kars,’ she said. ‘Although whether that information came directly from the family or not, no one could tell me.’

  ‘And yet if that story is true, why did Mr Öz just flatly refuse to tell me anything?’ İkmen replied. ‘Family obligations are something everyone can understand. Why keep that information from me?’

  Ayşe shrugged.

  ‘I don’t even know what these families being in reduced circumstances might mean,’ İkmen continued. ‘All were originally suspected of honour killing, all were subsequently exonerated due to lack of evidence. But then . . .’

  ‘Sir, if you are implying that these families may have paid someone to kill their daughters, surely that doesn’t work in terms of satisfying honour,’ Ayşe said. ‘Surely for honour to be restored, the family themselves have to kill the recalcitrant girl?’

  ‘I agree,’ İkmen replied. ‘But Ayşe, remember that things have changed in this country in recent years. It used to be that an under-age son could be detailed to kill his sister or his mother and then, if caught, receive a reduced prison sentence because of his age. That doesn’t happen any more. Now we have life sentences for this sort of offence. The stakes, and the risks, are high. Anyway, provided that those people who matter to the family in question believe that they did in fact kill the errant daughter, mother or whatever, where is the harm? If no one really knows who pulled the trigger or set the fire, lies can be told and honour can be satisfied.’

  Ayşe frowned. ‘But who would do such a thing?’

  ‘Money is a very powerful persuader,’ İkmen said.

  ‘In the east, girls are locked in rooms with guns or rat poison and encouraged to take their own lives, poor things.’

  ‘Here in the city it’s difficult to lock people in rooms for days or weeks on end without attracting unwanted attention,’ İkmen said. ‘But given the lack of evidence in the Seyhan case, as well as in these older examples like that of Suzan Öz where the families concerned seem to have suddenly hit hard times, I have to wonder whether money is changing hands for murder.’ He put his key in the car’s ignition and then glanced across at Ayşe, who looked incredulous. ‘I know it’s a terrible notion, for which I have no evidence. But I haven’t got
anything else,’ he said. ‘Osman Yavuz, Gözde Seyhan’s boyfriend or whatever, is still missing, and so far we only have a few anecdotes about him from the internet café he frequented. Nothing places any of Gözde’s family in that apartment at the time of her death, and yet who but her family would want to kill her? Really?’

  ‘I . . .’

  ‘Ayşe, I’d like you to check out Burhan Öz’s story about supposed obligations in Kars. Try and discover what those obligations are or were.’ He put the car into first gear and began to move off. ‘If he was lying, then we’ll look into the Seyhans’ finances, and those of the other families.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘If you remember correctly, the Seyhans came originally from a village near Kars. Maybe that could be significant.’

  The old Mercedes pulled smoothly out into the teeming Nişantaşı traffic to the sound of only a very few, very high-end car horns.

  ‘I had to come and see you. I’ve been feeling so guilty!’

  Tiny Jane Ford, the American woman and wife of Richard from the Mersin Apartments in Beşiktas, wrung her hands dramatically. Even though İzzet Melik, who had been down at the front desk when Mrs Ford arrived, had explained to her that Inspector Süleyman was no longer involved with the Gözde Seyhan case, she had insisted upon seeing him as opposed to waiting for Çetin İkmen. As he led her up the stairs and along the corridor towards Süleyman’s office, İzzet pondered miserably upon the possibility that the American woman rather fancied his boss. Most women did. İzzet knew that the enforced celibacy that he endured year after dismal year was very far from being the lot of his superior. What a flat stomach, a perfect nose and gorgeous manners could do!

  But this time, İzzet was wrong. The American woman sat down in front of Süleyman and, without so much as a seductive smile, said, ‘It’s about Gözde Seyhan. I lied.’

  Süleyman put a cigarette into his mouth and then lit up. ‘You lied? How?’

  Jane Ford took a deep breath and said, ‘I told you about my website.’

  He recalled it. Tour details, property, restaurant guides, lonely hearts. ‘Make the Most of İstanbul.’

  ‘Yes, well there are discussion groups on the site. I take part in some of them myself,’ she said. ‘They’re fun and . . . I got to know Gözde a little bit. As I told you when you came to the apartment, I sometimes saw her out with the washing in the yard, taking trash in and out.’ She sighed. ‘There was a boy. A geeky kid who lived in a block just down the street.’

  As Süleyman recalled, İkmen had discovered that Gözde had been sending naked pictures of herself to a local geeky boy called Osman Yavuz. He was currently missing. ‘Go on.’

  Jane Ford waved the policeman’s smoke away from her face with her hand but without any comment. ‘I saw how she looked at him and how he looked at her,’ she said. ‘I got on the forums about it. That girl all cloistered away like that. It bothered me!’

  ‘And what did your correspondents on the forums suggest?’ Süleyman asked, knowing via the terrible sinking feeling in this stomach what was about to come next.

  ‘Well, that I intervene,’ she said.

  ‘In the face of what I remember you describing as your love for the authenticity of Turkish village life? Wasn’t that somewhat hypocritical on your part?’

  ‘But I wanted to . . .’ Seeing that neither of the men she was speaking to was looking at her with any degree of sympathy, Jane Ford became quiet.

  ‘What did you do?’ Süleyman asked.

  She took another deep breath and said, ‘I helped them exchange cell phone numbers. I gave hers to him, his to her.’

  İzzet Melik, standing beside Süleyman’s desk, looked down at his boss and raised his eyebrows. Süleyman, he could see, was furious, if very, very controlled.

  ‘You didn’t think that interfering might not be a good idea?’ he asked.

  ‘They were in love. I could tell,’ she said. ‘It—’

  ‘Mrs Ford,’ Süleyman interrupted, ‘Gözde Seyhan has died in a manner my colleague Inspector İkmen still believes may be of a type known as an honour killing. Now—’

  ‘I know what an honour killing is!’ Jane Ford said contemptuously. But her eyes were filled with fear. ‘You don’t think . . .’

  ‘But surely you came here because you think that Gözde may have been killed by her family after you put her in direct touch with a boy?’ Süleyman said. ‘Mrs Ford, you interfered. The girl is dead; the boy, an Osman Yavuz . . .’

  ‘That’s him.’

  ‘. . . is missing,’ the policeman continued. ‘Did your husband know about this?’

  There was a moment of hesitation, which told Süleyman that Richard Ford probably had known about, if not approved of, his wife’s matchmaking attempt. But Jane Ford denied any involvement from her husband.

  ‘I don’t know where Osman is,’ she said. ‘I swear.’

  ‘I hope not,’ Süleyman said gravely. ‘Because if you do and you conceal that information from us, we will take action against you. You must tell us immediately if he contacts you.’ And then suddenly and violently he snapped. ‘You stupid woman! How can you possibly tell anyone about Turkish life and culture when you don’t have any idea about how this society works? You are utterly ridiculous!’

  Kenan Seyhan was buried in a far corner of the great Karaca Ahmet Cemetery in Üsküdar. In common with many migrants from the countryside, the Seyhan family wanted their son buried on Anatolian soil.

  Only the men of the family attended: Cahit and Lokman Seyhan, Aykan Akol, as well as a distant great-uncle who lived in Ümraniye. In this, as in so many other aspects of their lives, the Seyhan family conformed to the norms that had applied back in their village. The women, Saadet Seyhan, Feray Akol and her daughter Nesrin, remained in the Fatih apartment with the windows closed.

  For a long time they sat in overheated, stuffy silence until the young girl, Nesrin, said, ‘It’s so hot, can’t we—’

  ‘Grief can weaken,’ her mother Feray cut in sternly. ‘An open window can bring chills, influenza and death.’

  ‘We’ve had enough death,’ Saadet said softly underneath her breath.

  ‘But I’m hot!’

  The girl was fat and red, not unlike her greasy great lump of a brother. Saadet looked at her with contempt. She had never wanted to allow her son to marry Nesrin. She was doughy, lazy and uneducated, and Lokman would soon tire of her. As soon as he got her pregnant, he’d be off on other romantic adventures. He would be bitter; Nesrin, neglected, unhappy, would probably get still more fat and lazy. Saadet had never wanted it. Lokman and Nesrin had been Cahit’s project, and look what he had done to make sure the intended wedding went ahead! She felt tears come into her eyes, which she held back with some difficulty.

  Feray Akol put a gnarled, calming hand on her daughter’s neck and said, ‘The heat will pass, my soul. One must endure, there is no choice.’ Then she looked across at Saadet and frowned. ‘Do you know yet when you might claim your daughter’s body?’

  Saadet shrugged. ‘No.’ Her sister-in-law couldn’t even bring herself to say Gözde’s name. Bitch! ‘The police want to keep it while they investigate,’ she said. ‘Because they say that Gözde died suspiciously.’

  Feray scowled. ‘Sons of whores! What do they know? What evidence do they have to say the girl died suspiciously?’

  ‘They have . . .’ Saadet stopped. She knew the police couldn’t have much physical evidence, certainly not against her or her family. But she also knew that Inspector İkmen, if no one else, was not letting go of the notion that the family were somehow involved. When she looked at Feray and Nesrin and even at Cahit, her own husband, that knowledge made her feel better in a strange, painful sort of way. Only Lokman was exempt, but then he was her son and she loved him, her last surviving beloved child.

  ‘They have nothing!’ Feray said.

  Saadet, silent again, knew what nothing felt like and found herself almost feeling sorry for İkmen and his colleagues
.

  Chapter 14

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  A long, languorous puff on a nargile water pipe was a very pleasnt way to spend time after work and before going home. From the interview that Süleyman had conducted with Murad Emin and his father back at the station, İzzet Melik had discovered that the boy worked at the Tulip Nargile Salon in Tophane five nights a week. There, as well as serving customers with pipes and drinks, the boy also used the resident piano to practise. He was, according to everyone they had spoken to who knew the boy, very gifted.

  But İzzet didn’t go to the Tulip for either the music or even the water pipes. Not really. He went to observe the boy, because if he didn’t, no one else would. Süleyman was convinced that Murad Emin had nothing to do with the death of his old teacher, Hamid İdiz, but İzzet wasn’t so sure. The boy had come across to him as a very different creature from his liberal parents. There was something stiff and puritanical that did not, to İzzet, totally chime with what could be just normal teenage piety. Back in his home city of İzmir, he’d come across the odd youngster who had been either heavily politicised in a right-wing nationalistic fashion or indoctrinated into fundamentalist Islam. İzmir was a pretty liberal place and so he hadn’t encountered that many. But what he had experienced there had stuck, and Murad Emin was striking familiar chords with him. How Süleyman couldn’t see that too, İzzet didn’t know. Apparently he was taken up with the notion of İdiz’s many lovers, including the deceased Kenan Seyhan and his family, as possible murderers of the piano teacher. He had almost entirely forgotten about Murad. It was strange for him to be so fixated on one line of investigation. İkmen, who had been instrumental in discovering Kenan Seyhan’s suicide, was very sceptical about Kenan’s contention that his own family had killed İdiz. He was of the opinion that Kenan had been lost in both his grief and his bitterness when he wrote the suicide note to that effect. The Seyhans had not apparently approved of either their homosexual son or his well-heeled lover, but there was no evidence to connect them to his death.