Quite what Ibrahim Aksoy had been expecting as he made his way to the Ìzzet Pasa Apartments, he could not now recall. That it included neither clusters of armed policemen nor an earlier, almost surreal encounter with a peculiar man who claimed to be a neighbour of Eroi's was pretty certain. If asked, Aksoy would probably have described the peculiar man as retarded. This man had, unbidden, approached the corpulent manager as the latter puffed his way past the old French consulate at the Taksim end of Ìstiklal Caddesi.
Barrelling out from Zambak Sokak on the right and lumbering rather more closely to Aksoy than the latter found comfortable, the man simply said, 'Mrs Ruya is dead.'
Aksoy knew that Ruya was the name of the contentious country wife his client insisted upon keeping.
'Mrs Ruya who? he asked, anxious as one in his position would be to clarify matters.
'Mrs Ruya across the hallway.'
'Across the hallway? Across the hallway where?'
'From my apartment' Spoken through a long, thin strand of drool, the man's words smelt as well as sounded. Aksoy took a handkerchief out of his pocket and placed it delicately across his outraged nose.
'And your apartment is where?' he inquired.
'Mine is Ìzzet Pasa Apartments 3/10,' he said.
Aksoy's lipid-encmsted heart, aware just like his brain that Erol's address was Ìzzet Pasa 3’12, did not know whether to jump for joy or sorrow. If this congenital idiot was correct, then the inconvenient child bride was now no more. Just to make certain, however, he asked,'You do mean Mrs Ruya Urfa, I—'
'Didn't do it myself!'
'Eh?'
Quite suddenly this extraordinary creature had, for some reason, taken fright. Why, Aksoy could not imagine. He had, as far as he was aware, been quite polite to the fool, or at least he thought he had. For a few moments he stopped and watched as the man, the fat on his back wobbling over the creases in his shirt, retreated down the road, muttering things that Aksoy could not catch.
Later, as he approached what turned out to be a knot of policemen standing in front of the entrance to the apartments, Aksoy prepared himself for the fact that what the 'idiot’ had just told him might actually be true. He also readied himself to use that information if necessary.
Aksoy was intercepted by a tall, uniformed man. 'Yes, sir,' he said, 'may I help you?'
'I have come to see my client, Mr Urfa,' Aksoy said with a smile. 'I am his manager, Ibrahim Aksoy. You may have heard—'
'Nobody is permitted to visit Mr Urfa at the present time, sir.'
'Oh. Is he in trouble then, or unwell?' Aksoy, whose mind was in reality exploring all the possibilities that would now exist for Erol if Ruya really were dead, placed a concerned expression upon his face, hoping it might just belie the loudness of his shirt.
The officer remained coldly impassive. 'I cannot comment, sir.'
'Oh.' With a twirl of his moustache Aksoy feigned moving away and then, thoughtfully, twisted round to speak to the officer again. 'It isn't anything to do with his wife, is it?' He watched the policeman's eyes narrow. 'Little Ruya?'
'Why would you think that?' The 'sir' bit had quite gone from the officer's speech now.
'Oh, just a passing comment somebody made to me.'
'What do you mean? Who?' Both the policeman and his gun leaned down menacingly towards Aksoy who felt himself go just a little bit pale.
'Well, it was a man.' Then looking quickly from side to side to ensure that no one else was listening, Aksoy added, 'An idiot type actually. Said he lived here at the apartments.'
'Yes.'
'Just mentioned that Mrs Urfa, Ruya, may have, well, er, may have sort of died and—' 'This man was a neighbour?' 'So he said.'
The expression on the policeman's face was, for just a moment, almost indecipherable. A mixture of what could have been suspicion coupled with stone-faced gravity. Ibrahim Aksoy found it, whatever its composition, really rather frightening. He quickly changed the subject back to one that directly impacted upon himself.
'So,' he said, 'can I see Mr Urfa now? Offer him comfort, the loving shoulder of a true friend . . .'
Although it seemed like so much more, probably only a second or two elapsed before the policeman replied.
'No,' he said, and grabbed hold of the manager's shirtsleeve, pinching just a little of the plump man's skin between his fingers. 'But you can come and see the inspector. He'll be very interested in your idiot.' Then turning to one of his colleagues he suddenly smiled and said, 'Did you see the match last night?'
Leaving Çöktin to sit with the now conscious Urfa,
Suleyman quietly took hold of Dr Sarkissian's elbow and led him out into the opulently mirrored hall.
'What I don't understand.' he said as he tried, but failed, to avoid observing his own figure in the glass, 'is why Erol Urfa didn't tell us his daughter was missing in the first instance. I mean, surely as soon as he could see that his wife was dead his first thought must have been for his child.'
The doctor, who had managed to position himself so that he could not see any part of his own body in the numerous mirrors, sighed heavily. 'In theory you are right However, shock can do very peculiar things to people. Finding one's wife dead, although I cannot speak from my own experience, could I believe temporarily rob a man of his everyday wits.'
'Yes, but even so, with a child involved . . .'
'More of a baby than a child. Ten weeks old. It's very new and Urfa does not even live here in the accepted sense.' He paused briefly and shook his head. 'But then perhaps we are not the best of men to be considering whether or not a man may easily forget his newborn infant. Although, as you lot say, Insallah you will know the joy of parenthood one day, my dear Suleyman, even if I may not.'
Not a little embarrassed by what the much older and rather regretful man had said, Suleyman smiled briefly before changing the subject. 'So what we have then is a possibly murdered woman and a missing child.'
'Who may,' Sarkissian said, raising one finger to make his point, 'be the key to the mother's death. Somebody may have killed Mrs Urfa not out of desire for the woman's husband but in order to possess the child.' Then clapping one hand affectionately across Suleyman's back, he added, 'Could be awfully melodramatic this, you know.’
'Not a little like the music Mr Urfa makes.'
Sarkissian indulged in a muted laugh. 'Quite so! Çetin Ìkmen, as I know you must appreciate, will be thrilled.'
Although Suleyman, for whom the subject of Ìkmen was delicate on all sorts of levels, did not immediately answer the doctor, it was not his silence that caused the latter to suddenly wrinkle his brow into a frown. Something which seemed to be behind Suleyman's shoulder appeared to be the culprit As soon as Suleyman turned and followed the line of Sarkissian's gaze, he knew exactly what had given the medic pause.
He revealed his amusement via the tiniest of smiles. 'It really is a very awful shirt.'
'Awful doesn't express fully what I feel about it,' the doctor replied with some vehemence. Then thrusting one hand forward in order to indicate the figure now lurking alone in Urfa's dining room, he inquired, 'Who is that man anyway?'
'He's Urfa's manager, Ibrahim Aksoy.'
'What's he doing here?'
'He came here wanting to see Urfa. He also reckons that somebody he describes as a "retard" told him Ruya Urfa was dead even before he reached these apartments. This "idiot" told Aksoy he was a neighbour.'
'But nobody knows that Ruya Urfa is dead except ourselves, Urfa himself and—'
'And, the person who committed the act, if this is indeed murder. Yes, Doctor. The men are in the process of visiting all the other apartments in the block now.'
'And Aksoy? What of this grotesque in pink?'
Suleyman smiled. 'Disarmed and alone, he is, I think, frightened enough to be telling us something approximating to the truth.'
The doctor, his eyes wide with surprise, inquired, 'You mean he came in here carrying a weapon?'
'No,' Suleyma
n said. He slipped his hand into his jacket pocket and pulled out a very small mobile telephone.'Only this.'
Sarkissian's face rearranged itself into a picture of recognition. 'Which, had he used it to call the press corps—'
'Would have been like placing a bomb under this investigation before it has even begun,' Suleyman concluded.
As both the doctor and the policeman stood looking at Aksoy as if he were an exhibit in one of the glass cases at the Topkapi Museum, the manager turned slowly to return their gaze. His eyes reflected a deep, almost hysterical fear.
‘ ‘ ‘
Unlike Ibrahim Aksoy, Kenan and Semahat Temiz were, as they always had been, very calm around policemen. Secure in their habitual law-abiding innocence and cushioned by their not inconsiderable fortune, Mr and Mrs Temiz were not even mildly fazed when a young and to them rather abrupt policeman came to the door of their apartment They had of course overheard all the commotion from that strange young woman's apartment across the hall for some time and had even spoken briefly about it between themselves. Their son Cengiz was wont to say from time to time that the young man who sometimes came to visit the girl was some sort of popular music star, but then Cengiz did make things up. It was therefore fortuitous, or so the old couple thought at the time, that Cengiz was out when the policeman called.
"Good morning, officer,' Kenan said as he opened the door, as was his wont, just a crack first and then the whole way once he had identified the caller. 'Is there a problem? Can we help you at all?'
'You might, yes.'
Semahat, who had now joined her husband at the door, smiled at the officer through a haze of her beloved Angora cat's fur. This animal, whose name was Rosebud, went everywhere with her mistress except outside the apartment
'Well, show the officer in then, Kenan,' she said to her husband as she turned to go back into her drawing room.
'Oh, yes, but of course. Please come inside.' Kenan, his old, lined face just touched by the thinnest blush of red, ushered the officer into the hall and then, following his wife, into the drawing room.
Without even pretending to the usual niceties that normally predate any sort of Turkish conversation, the officer launched into his reason for being in the Temiz family apartment The quantity of lovingly tended high-quality Ottoman copper artefacts it contained was quite lost on him.
'I understand from other residents that you have a son,' he said, addressing his remarks only to Kenan.
'Yes,' the old man replied. 'Cengiz.'
'Is he in?'
'No. He went out some time ago.'
'It is his custom,' Semahat expanded, 'to take food to the cats of Karaköy and other locally deprived areas.' Tucking Rosebud's tail underneath the cat's behind, Semahat lowered herself gently down onto a silk-covered divan. 'We are, officer, as you can see, great lovers of our beloved Prophet's most faithful animal friends.'
Taking a notebook and pen out of the pocket of his shirt, the policeman continued, 'Large, is he, your son?'
'He's a big man, yes,' Kenan said and then, stuttering a little as a slight unease overtook him, he added, 'Er, just, um, what is this about, officer?'
'A bit simple too.'
Semahat, her cat still in her hands, sprang from her seat like a panther. 'I beg your pardon!'
Looking at her properly for the first time and seeing, for his pains, the face of an elegant but outraged elderly lady, the policeman cleared his throat and then mumbled a very brief and barely audible apology.
'If,' Semahat declaimed, her eyes most definitely, if metaphorically, looking down upon the officer, 'you mean that my son suffers from Down's syndrome then that is indeed true. Though chronologically our son is now forty-five years old, his mind is that of a child.'
'Not an easy thing to bear,' her husband added, his face now slightly turned away from the hub of the conversation. 'Even if he is a good boy.'
'At what time did your son leave this morning?'
'At about seven, as is his custom,' Semahat replied.
'Mmm.' The officer paused to look around the room for a moment 'Do you know which exit he used?'
'Which exit?'
'It would be helpful,' Semahat enunciated with not a little acid in her voice, 'if you could, officer, tell us what all this is about. My husband and I are accustomed to rather more consideration from the police than you are currently exhibiting. Not that we have had that many dealings with you fellows before, of course.'
'If you could just answer the question, madam.' A moment of impasse hung briefly between the old woman and the young policeman. Neither was accustomed to being talked down to by others. Kenan in his own, faltering fashion eventually broke the spell.
'My son always uses the, er, the fire escape,' he said. 'It saves taking the food for the cats from the kitchen and into the living areas. It also,' and here he briefly lowered his eyes, 'um, means that not so many, ah, people, um, see him go, if you know what. ..'
'I see.' The policeman wrote something down on his notepad. Details, the couple assumed, about their son.
As he finished his small paper exposition, Semahat cleared her throat. 'Before we go any further, officer,' she said, 'I think I would like to speak to your superior. In fact I think I will insist upon that, if you don't mind.'
The officer looked up sharply. 'You want me to go and get Inspector Suleyman?'
'If he is your superior, yes.'
'Oh, right' Slowly and, Semahat observed, rather thoughtfully, the officer put his notebook back in the pocket of his shirt and then rubbed his face somewhat nervously with his hand.
'Now would be best,' she pressed.
'Oh, right.' As he walked out of the room, Semahat got the impression that the policeman was leaving with his tail, metaphorically, tucked between his legs. This Inspector Suleyman was obviously a person who frightened the young man quite a lot. Not, of course, that she, even despite her white-faced nervousness, had any intention of being over-awed by this character.
Kenan, his legs now giving way to the shaking that had afflicted other parts of his body much earlier, sat down. 'I wonder what he's done,' he said to his wife without looking at her.
'Cengiz? He's done nothing,' she stated simply. 'He is a child.'
'Not in every way,' her husband said softly. 'Not with girls . . .'
'Yes, he is!' She followed this with some furious stroking of Rosebud. Then cooing into the animal's delicate ear she whispered, 'He doesn't like naughty girlies, does he, Rosa? Not Daddy Cengiz. No.'
'Semahat—'
'No!'
'Mr and Mrs Temiz?'
The man who now stood in the doorway to their drawing room was, obviously, older than the young policeman they had spoken to earlier. He was also, by his gravely appropriate smile, his good clothes and handsomely confident demeanour, of quite a different order socially. For a moment Semahat found herself wondering what this charming stranger could possibly want with them.
'I am Inspector Suleyman,' he said and moved forward to take Kenan's hand in his own and then gently bow respectfully across the old man's wrist. 'My officer thinks it more appropriate that I speak to you.'
'He was most rude,' a still angry but nevertheless slightly mollified Semahat said from behind Rosebud's not inconsiderable fur.
Inspector Suleyman's chiselled features became grave. 'I am very sorry if he caused offence to you, madam,' he said. 'Please be assured that I will personally reprimand my man for—'
'Yes, yes, thank you.' Kenan, who was now on his feet again, agitatedly paced across the floor. 'But what of Cengiz, Inspector? What of my son?'
Suleyman placed both his hands together in front of his mouth before removing them and speaking. 'The situation is this, Mr Temiz,' he began, and then suddenly changing tack completely he said, 'Could we all sit down?’
'Oh, yes! Yes, where are my manners!' the old woman said, giggling slightly and nervously at the back of her throat, like a girl.
They all sat down. The elderly couple
watched and waited expectantly for what words would drop from the lips of a man who was at least their equal.
'My officer tells me that your son left this apartment at seven o'clock this morning via the fire escape exit. Is that correct?'
'Yes,' Kenan said, 'it is what we told the boy. True.'
'So when my men arrived at these apartments at seven forty-five, your son was out?' 'Yes.'
Suleyman looked down briefly, thinking, before he continued, 'You must know by now that my men and I have been across the hallway in the apartment of the family opposite’
'Yes.' Semahat, almost in spite of herself, frowned. The young woman and the baby. The people Cengiz talked of sometimes, at moments when he felt. . .
'One party from that apartment has this morning been found dead,' Suleyman said.
'Oh!'
'Allah,' Kenan exclaimed. 'What, er. . .'
'Whether the circumstances surrounding this person's death are suspicious or not we do not yet know for certain,' Suleyman continued smoothly. 'However, what we do know, from the testimony of a friend who came to visit the family this morning, is that a man answering the description of your son and claiming, further, to originate from these apartments knew about this event and talked to him of it before we did.'
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