Harem

by Barbara Nadel

  Shaking his head at the dire state of the roads, Hikmet was just about to say something about how the local authority was neglecting its duty when the front passenger door sprang open. At first he thought that his wife had lost either her patience with Vedat’s laboured driving or her nerve over the steepness of the drop behind them. When, however, dark, unknown arms plunged into the body of the car and either just before or just after he heard Kaycee scream, he realised that she was not leaving the vehicle of her own volition.

  He lunged forward, attempting to grab something of her. ‘Kaycee!’

  But she was gone, into a thick knot of men and then, apart from the sound of her voice which called his name over and over, seemingly into thin air.

  Hikmet flung the car door open and threw himself onto the pavement. As he did so, dark men and groups of blonde, cheaply dressed women gathered about him. He looked wildly around, at blank faces wet from the heat, Kaycee’s voice still faintly reaching his ears. His brother had now also left the car and called across to him – a rattle of, to Hikmet in his distress, unintelligible Turkish.

  And then he was pushing against the press of faces, elbows and bodies that hemmed him in. They gave way easily, but still he flung them roughly aside as he half ran, half shuffled towards the place he thought Kaycee had disappeared into. Screaming her name he elbowed his way into the leather shop where he yelled at the shocked proprietor about a beautiful blonde woman the man had patently never seen. Plunging out into the street again, Hikmet ran headlong into the back of a young policeman who turned and stared at the flushed face of the star with hard eyes.

  Hikmet heard Vedat shout ‘No!’ just before he launched into his account of what had happened, but he ignored it. The policeman listened dispassionately as Hikmet’s short account degenerated into floods of tears. He then called the incident in on his radio and asked for assistance.

  Chapter 7

  * * *

  Though stylish, the jacket Nur Süleyman had taken from her wardrobe was a rather strong yellow and so, despite the extreme heat, she swapped it for a more conventionally elegant black one. Slim and attractive if in a somewhat joyless way, Nur’s expensively preserved visage defied her sixty-five years. She would, she thought, as she smiled at the carefully engineered image of herself in the mirror, provide an interesting contrast to that fat, loud-mouthed baggage her younger son had married. What had possessed her beautiful Mehmet to even consider such an elderly and common woman she couldn’t imagine. But then her boys both seemed to be prone to unsuitable matches; Mehmet with this strange, foreign intellectual and Murad with a Greek grocer’s daughter who, though now unfortunately dead, still exerted some influence over him in the form of his rackety Greek in-laws. It was sad really that such well-bred boys should waste themselves like this.

  However, one could at least enjoy the children; Murad’s daughter Edibe was a very pretty and engaging little thing and the baby Yusuf İzzeddin was going to be just perfect – in spite of his mother. She would fight her stupid, ungrateful sons for the sake of her grandchildren and make sure that the children married both money and class. Muhammed, her husband, who was far more easy-going about such matters, would naturally oppose such meddling. But then he was just a stupid aristocrat and therefore easily dealt with. After all, hadn’t he just sat back and said nothing when Mehmet married his first, perfect wife, his cousin, Zuleika? Oh, he’d mumbled something about the boy being unhappy about the match, but he hadn’t done anything – beyond pointing out Nur’s error when that marriage failed.

  No, aristocrats were almost exclusively limp, in Nur’s opinion. Had Muhammed been born to the harshness of central Anatolia, as she had, he would know the value of the ambition that had carried her to the mansion of a prince, as her home had been in the early days of her marriage. It had all now disappeared but that was not her fault. Yes, she had spent money but that had not been what had caused the real damage to the family fortunes. That had come about via the numerous elderly relatives Muhammed had attempted to support. Old princes who couldn’t even put their own boots on without assistance and whose idea of getting a job began and ended with occasionally selling some jewellery or antiques. Her husband was exactly the same, which was why the whole thing had failed. But her grandchildren, Nur thought with a smile, would be different. Bourgeois fathers and unsuitable mothers aside, the children still possessed rich Ottoman blood in their veins – something she was not going to let them or anyone else forget.

  Nur placed a small, pill-box hat on top of her thick, richly coloured hair and then picked up the brightly wrapped parcel from the top of her dressing table. Her own little present for her grandson, from the Carousel Mall in Bakirköy – nice, tasteful, expensive clothes. Together with the largest gold coin money could possibly buy, which Muhammed had purchased via his usual dubious line of credit, these clothes represented little Yusuf İzzeddin’s future which would be full of beautiful people and things. Even if his father was a policeman.

  With yet another brief smile at her image in the mirror, Nur left her bedroom and walked downstairs. Her once lovely, now hollow-eyed son Mehmet stood in the hall, nervously jangling his car keys in his hands, anxious to get back to his newborn son at the hospital. As she drew level with him, Nur placed a gloved hand on his cheek. What a terrible, terrible waste!

  Just before he left to go and get his daughter, İkmen received a troubling telephone call. Although his investigations into the cause and manner of Hatice İpek’s death were not yet complete, Arto Sarkissian had come to some conclusions.

  ‘Cause of death was myocardial infarction,’ he said. ‘Unless I can find some indication of narcotic involvement, this would seem to be natural.’

  İkmen wrinkled his brow. ‘What do you mean, natural?’ he asked. ‘The girl had been raped, buggered and cut!’

  ‘Yes, but I believe that her actual death was unconnected with that,’ the Armenian replied. ‘What I think happened was that a small clot blocked blood flow within the heart. This caused tissue death in that area which resulted in a heart attack.’

  ‘But something must have caused the clot.’

  ‘Well, obviously, but it need not have been of a sinister nature. All the cuts the body sustained happened post mortem. True, she was held down, raped and sustained bruising during the course of her ordeal prior to death. But I can’t say that the attack killed her. This type of sudden death is more common than you think. It is also unconnected with lifestyle factors, like state of health or age, or accidental damage. It just happens and if I can rule out narcotics, I will have to declare that her death was due to natural causes.’

  ‘But she was obviously placed in that cistern, Arto,’ Çetin said as he checked his pockets for cigarettes he knew were not there.

  ‘I admit that her death could have occurred during the course of her sexual ordeal, but if so that was just a coincidence, Çetin. These things can happen at any time. It’s possible that Miss İpek’s attackers thought that they had killed her and so they decided to dump her body.’

  İkmen, unsettled by this news as well as tetchy due to lack of nicotine, sat back down at his desk. ‘Without murder and in light of the fact that the girl wasn’t a virgin, it will be difficult to persuade my superiors that this was even rape. If what you say is correct, all I’m left with is physical assault and illegal disposal of the body.’

  ‘I know. But I can’t change the facts, however galling that may be,’ Arto said. ‘We have collected samples of seminal fluid which may be of use when matched against known offenders.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Çetin.’

  İkmen sighed. ‘It’s not your fault,’ he said and then he replaced the telephone receiver.

  As he walked back towards his apartment, after stopping briefly at a kiosk to buy cigarettes, İkmen thought about what, if anything, he was going to say to the İpek family and to his own daughter. Rape of somebody with a ‘reputation’ was notoriously difficult to prove and if
the assailant didn’t kill the victim, well . . .

  Arto, İkmen knew, wouldn’t present his findings to Commissioner Ardıç until he was absolutely sure of the facts. And İkmen’s boss was not interested enough to pursue the pathologist himself. So really, it was business as usual even if his confidence in reaching a satisfactory conclusion had been shaken.

  The Hulya he took with him to the gold bazaar was quite different from the usual jean-wearing girl İkmen knew so well. Wearing a crisp white blouse and elegant pencil skirt, she looked more like someone going for a job interview than the relatively carefree teenager that she was. Not that İkmen commented upon this. The poor child would have enough trouble stopping herself from blushing when she saw Berekiah Cohen without him adding to her embarrassment.

  When they entered the shop of Lazar the Jew, they were warmly welcomed by that elderly gentleman who immediately stopped what he was doing to encompass İkmen in his frail, trembling embrace.

  ‘Oh, Çetin Bey, you have bestowed honour on our poverty-stricken house,’ he said, resorting, as was his custom, to Ottoman forms of address.

  İkmen, returning his embrace, smiled at the obvious mismatch between the phraseology and the expensive glittering reality around them. But then that was Lazar.

  ‘You will of course take tea with us,’ the old man continued.

  ‘Of course.’

  Lazar called for ‘the boy’ – his youngest apprentice and one of his grandsons – to go out and purchase tea as well as a box of Haci Bekir lokum. This latter was for Hulya who as the female relative of an honoured guest warranted only the finest brand of Turkish delight. That Hulya was, quite without reason, weight conscious, was something Lazar didn’t know. As the old man led the İkmens through to his private room at the back of the shop, Çetin whispered to his daughter that she should perhaps forget her diet in favour of not causing offence. The girl scowled briefly before bowing to the inevitable.

  The room they found themselves in was decorated in red – red carpets, red couches and curtains. All very comfortable, if rather hot in the current conditions. İkmen settled himself down, removing his jacket as he sat. A young man with slightly sad eyes entered from one of the workrooms, carrying a tray covered with many differently sized gold coins. Briefly his eyes met hers and Hulya blushed.

  ‘Good evening, Berekiah,’ İkmen said. ‘I see that you have anticipated my needs.’

  Berekiah Cohen smiled.

  ‘The birth of the Süleyman child has been celebrated many times in this humble place today,’ Lazar said as he ushered Berekiah out of the room and back to his work.

  İkmen smiled. ‘Good fortune then for you, Lazar,’ he said. ‘Babies are excellent business.’

  ‘That the child is healthy and a male is my only concern. The family needed an heir.’ The old man held the tray of coins up for İkmen to inspect. He pointed to one particularly large coin. ‘This comes from the reign of Sultan Abdul Mecit. Muhammed Süleyman Effendi is one of his direct descendants. It is therefore very appropriate.’

  ‘Yes.’ İkmen raised a wry eyebrow. ‘It is also extremely expensive.’

  ‘Ah, but Çetin Bey . . .’

  ‘I’m just a policeman, Lazar. I mean, I want to do the very best that I can for the child, but . . .’

  If there was one thing that really bored Hulya, it was haggling. And because her father was so very good at it, she knew that it could take an extremely long, tea-and-lokum laced time. She could, therefore, slip away for a while. So she did.

  ‘Hello, Berekiah,’ she said as she entered the workroom.

  The young man looked up from his current piece of work which involved setting diamonds into a ring. ‘Hello, Hulya. How are you?’

  ‘I’m well, thank you.’ She moved towards him, noticing as the light crossed his face that he had a thin smattering of gold dust across his nose. ‘What are you making?’

  ‘I’m setting a ring for a lady who is shortly to be married,’ and then tipping his head in the direction of a mannequin which stood in the shadows at the corner of the room he said, ‘Everything must be in keeping with that dress she is going to wear.’

  Having only just gained access to Berekiah, Hulya didn’t really want to move away from him. But since he seemed very interested in his current assignment she felt bound to at least take a look at the dress. When she got close and Berekiah had switched on the light above the mannequin, she was glad she had made the effort.

  The full-length dress was made of a thick, white satin. It had long, elaborately decorated sleeves, made of lace. Small white roses covered the skirt and the tiny waist was shown off to marvellous effect by a thick, metal belt.

  ‘It’s real gold,’ Berekiah said in answer to Hulya’s unspoken question about the belt.

  ‘Really?’

  He smiled. ‘The lady’s father is a very wealthy man.’

  Hulya ran her fingers gently around the plunging lace-edged neckline of the dress and sighed. ‘Oh, what it must be like to get married in a dress like this!’

  ‘Well, you’ll never know, will you?’ Her father’s voice was as harsh as it was unexpected.

  ‘Dad!’

  İkmen moved with what was for him unaccustomed rapidity. ‘Get away from that thing,’ he said as he roughly pulled his daughter away from the mannequin, his face grey with what looked like fury.

  ‘Where did this come from?’ İkmen asked a shocked Lazar who had entered the room behind him.

  ‘The dress?’

  ‘Yes. Where did you get it? Who does it belong to? What—’

  ‘Çetin Bey!’ Lazar held up his hand to silence this man who appeared for some reason to be raving. ‘I don’t know what all this is about but from the look on your daughter’s face you have upset her considerably. The girl was doing no harm to the dress.’

  ‘She didn’t touch it, Çetin Bey,’ Berekiah said. ‘She was only looking.’

  Hulya, who did indeed have a shocked expression on her face, smiled inside. Berekiah had, in a very minor way, deceived her father for her. What joy!

  İkmen, his seeming fury now spent, slumped as he continued to look at the dress.

  ‘I’m sorry, Lazar,’ he said as he shook his head slowly from side to side, ‘it just came as a bit of a shock.’

  ‘What did?’

  İkmen thrust a hand out towards the mannequin. ‘This,’ he said. ‘The design and even some of the details are almost exactly the same as a dress I recently saw on a dead woman – a victim.’

  ‘Ah, the İpek child . . .’

  Not really knowing why he even attempted to keep his work confidential in this city of twelve million insatiable gossips, İkmen just shrugged his agreement and then placed a hand briefly on his daughter’s shoulder. Mention of Hatice had once again made her eyes moist.

  ‘Can you tell me anything about the dress?’ İkmen asked Lazar.

  ‘The design is Ottoman,’ the old man said as he moved up to the mannequin and took one of the delicate sleeves between his fingers. ‘This one is based on a nineteenth-century wedding gown worn, I should imagine, by a royal or noble lady of some description. We are making jewellery in the same style for a wealthy lady who wishes to look like an Ottoman princess at her wedding.’

  ‘Do you know where she purchased the gown?’

  Lazar gave a slow, crafty smile. ‘Yes. As I expect you do also, Çetin Bey, coming as you do from Üsküdar.’

  At first İkmen frowned. What had such a magnificent gown to do with the working-class district where he had been raised? People there were more likely to require cheap suits or overalls than magnificent gowns made of expensive fabric. But then as he continued to look into Lazar’s clever, amused little eyes, it came to him.

  ‘Are we talking about the Heper sisters?’ he asked.

  Lazar smiled even more broadly. ‘The daughters of General Heper are indeed without equal,’ he said. ‘Miss Muazzez’s blindness does not seem to affect the quality of her stitching which still looks
as if it has been performed by a machine. Those women are truly miraculous.’

  ‘And although I know they would never admit it, they are of course products of the old Ottoman ways themselves, aren’t they?’ İkmen sighed. ‘I should have thought of them before.’

  ‘But your head was full of golden coins and little princes and all sorts of other unfinished business.’ Lazar placed an arm round İkmen’s shoulders and steered him back towards his private room. ‘The Heper sisters are old and can therefore go nowhere, Çetin Bey. My exquisite coins, however . . .’

  The two young people watched as the men left the workroom. Hulya wiped a hand across her face to remove any stray tears. Then she looked down at the floor.

  ‘I imagine,’ Berekiah said as he moved a little bit closer to her, ‘that Miss İpek was someone you knew.’

  ‘She was my best friend.’

  He reached across and took just the end of her fingers in his hand. ‘I’m sorry, Hulya,’ he said. ‘Really.’

  She smiled as the cacophonous sound of numerous police sirens made further conversation impossible.

  Metin İskender was not the sort of officer who was easily impressed by celebrity. He had been promoted to inspector at a young age and although still only twenty-nine had dealt with quite a few rich and famous people in his time. Having a wife with a high-profile career in publishing also helped – Belkis İskender was the sort of woman who liked to entertain her clients, and her husband, at extremely smart restaurants. And so when he sat down with Hikmet Sivas and his brother Vedat, İskender behaved rather more ‘normally’ than the movie star might have expected.

  ‘Apart from yourself, did your wife have any other contacts in Turkey?’ he asked, fascinated by the look of horror on Hikmet’s face as he surveyed the dismal state of the interview room.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did anyone apart from your brother know that you were visiting the Republic?’