Dance with Death

by Barbara Nadel

  ‘Only if I can have a double,’ İkmen replied.

  As if to symbolise his split from his troubled past, Turgut Senar had chosen to live in a modern apartment on the edge of the village as opposed to one of the chimney properties up on the hill. It hadn’t always been so. When his father was still alive he had been happy to live with his wife and daughter at home in his parents’ chimney. But when his father died at the same time as all the trouble over Kemalettin and the Alkaya girl, Turgut decided to move his own family out to a new apartment at the bottom of the valley, to a less oppressive atmosphere. Of course his ‘new’ property was not as picturesque as his parents’ place, but it was more convenient for the bus station and the tourist office and it also meant that his daughter Zara was protected from her strange uncle Kemalettin’s offensive behaviour. Though of course the girl could still see him out and about in the village just like everyone else, as Turgut was doing now.

  Lurking in the doorway of the now defunct Bellydance Bar, which was almost opposite the Red Dragon, Kemalettin Senar was smoking a cigarette with one shaking hand whilst stroking his penis with the other. Turgut, still angry at Baha Ermis as well as the world in general, walked over to him and ripped his hand from his member with some ferocity.

  ‘Put yourself away, you disgusting animal!’ he said as he roughly zipped his brother back into his trousers.

  ‘But now that Aysu has gone I have to pleasure myself,’ Kemalettin said as his eyes began to water with tears. ‘I like sex . . .’

  ‘Then why don’t you go to one of the whores at the Anadolu Pansiyon?’ Turgut replied, naming one of the very thinly disguised brothels at the western end of the village.

  ‘They’re Bulgarian,’ Kemalettin began.

  ‘So? If it’s money you’re worried about . . .’

  ‘No. No, I just want Aysu,’ he said. ‘I want to feel myself inside her body.’ Kemalettin began to cry.

  Turgut leaned in closely to him. ‘But Kemalettin, it’s all in your head, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘You never had sex with Aysu.’

  ‘Yes, I did! We had sex in the cave with the mummy on the wall. You know that, Turgut. We always had sex there!’

  ‘No you didn’t!’ his brother insisted. ‘And even if you had, you never own up to it. Not to the police, not to the Alkayas, the Kahramans, not even to me.’

  ‘I told Father.’

  ‘Father is dead,’ Turgut said. ‘Just like Aysu. Dead! You must forget about her, brother!’

  ‘I didn’t kill her, Turgut!’ Kemalettin, his nose dripping with snot, wept.

  ‘Of course you didn’t!’ Briefly, Turgut looked around to see whether anyone was looking. Then fixing his eyes on his brother once again he said, ‘We were together that night, weren’t we? You and me, together.’

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘All night, just as we told the police then, just as we will tell them now.’ Turgut leaned in closer to his brother’s ear. ‘Not part of that night, not most of it, all of it.’

  ‘Turgut . . .’

  ‘On the life of our mother!’ Turgut stood back and held one of his hands out to Kemalettin as if in offering. ‘Imagine my hand is Mother’s life, Kemalettin.’

  ‘Yes?’ He didn’t have any idea where this might be going but he followed, slack-jawed, what his brother was saying anyway.

  ‘Swear on Mother’s life, Kemalettin!’

  ‘Swear what? What?’

  ‘Swear to me,’ Turgut whispered, ‘your brother, that you will tell anyone who asks, anyone, that you and me, that all of our family, were together all night the night that Aysu disappeared.’

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘Swear!’

  ‘I . . .’

  Turgut thrust his hand under his brother’s long, dripping nose and said, ‘Swear, you retard!’

  Kemalettin Senar took his brother’s hand limply between his cold, damp fingers.

  ‘So what do you do?’ the man, whose name Süleyman now knew was Mürsel, said.

  ‘I work for a hotel chain,’ Süleyman said without a flicker.

  He had followed Mürsel to the bar of the Büyük Londra Hotel on Meşrutiyet Caddesi. Vaguely shabby in that old Ottoman way that the smarter Pera Palas Hotel does rather more stylishly, the Büyük Londra attracted an eclectic clientele fond of caged songbirds, enormous chandeliers, 78 rpm records and gin slings. Surrounded by fey, generally middle-aged European women, several middle-aged, Turkish men of a certain type, including Mürsel, were in attendance. Flopped into comfortable, if somewhat threadbare armchairs, Mürsel and the others regarded each other and Süleyman with soft, but hungry, eyes.

  ‘So is it Inter-Continental, Kempinski . . .’

  ‘It’s a large chain,’ Süleyman said with a smile, imagining as he did so the lush gardens of the Çırağan Palace Hotel where his brother Murad worked.

  Mürsel raised his elegant manicured hands into the air and said, ‘Well, if you’d rather be elusive . . .’

  Süleyman, still smiling, lit a cigarette. He quite enjoyed the company of this educated, attractive, obviously very smitten homosexual. It wasn’t an entirely uncomfortable experience.

  ‘Of course you are married with children,’ Mürsel said as he first sipped and then gulped at his gin and tonic.

  ‘Why do you think that?’

  Mürsel smiled. ‘Well, you’re not exactly a child, are you?’ he said. ‘And looking like you do, your mother is bound to have married you off to the highest bidder. Some very pretty, fertile girl who has furnished you with two perfect children. That’s what happened to me.’

  He raised his glass up to the barman who, trapped behind his minuscule bar in the corner of the salon, set to making another gin and tonic with a will.

  ‘Join me?’ Mürsel said while he still had the barman’s eye.

  ‘No, thank you,’ Süleyman replied, placing one hand over his heart as he did so.

  ‘Got to get back to the wife and children?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  One of the other men rose from his seat and went to sit down beside a particularly nervous-looking European woman. She spoke to him, Süleyman noted, in French.

  ‘Well, you’d better be careful out there at night on your own,’ Mürsel said darkly. ‘Men are at a considerable risk in this city these days.’

  Süleyman settled back a little into his chair. ‘You’re talking about the recent attacks?’

  ‘I understand this criminal’s penchant is for rather attractive men not averse, as it were, to the intimate company of their fellows. Or so it is said in some circles.’

  The elusive, somewhat archaic language was, he had heard, typical of homosexuals of a certain age. ‘Yes, but I am married . . .’

  ‘And so am I,’ Mürsel said with a straight, rather humourless face. Then leaning forward he whispered, ‘But when someone wants you badly enough, that doesn’t really matter.’

  ‘Yes, but . . .’

  ‘Maybe he, this criminal, is just a man of great passion. Maybe he just refuses to allow conventional morality to stand in his way. Maybe he just takes what he lusts for, what we would all have if we could.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  Süleyman’s blood was quite cold now. Whether it was because of what had actually been said or because of the seriousness inherent in Mürsel’s words, he wasn’t sure. Here, however, was a man who was going to be worth watching. Süleyman suddenly gave him a brilliant smile.

  ‘So what do you do?’ he asked as he replaced his packet of cigarettes in his pocket. ‘You never did say.’

  ‘Oh, I trade,’ Mürsel replied.

  ‘In?’

  ‘Oh, many things,’ he said, smiling too.

  ‘What? Carpets? Textiles?’

  ‘Many things,’ Mürsel reiterated.

  ‘You’re very . . .’

  ‘Guarded? Yes, I am,’ Mürsel continued. ‘Some men have to be as we both know.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Before he brought Mürsel his
drink the barman wound up the ancient gramophone on a table over by the window and the beautifully tortured voice of Billie Holliday rippled across the salon. Mürsel, responding to its plaintiveness, smiled.

  ‘Oh, well, I must be going,’ Süleyman said as he rose to his feet with one nervous spring. He had gained some small insight into this man’s thinking with regard to the peeper but that was very far from having any notion that he had been following the policeman since their first encounter on Monday evening. Mürsel obviously liked him and, although it was tempting to string him along in the hope that he knew – or let slip – something as yet unknown about the peeper or his victims, he was extremely guarded as well as being unnerving.

  ‘Goodnight,’ Mürsel said as he left.

  Once out in the street, Süleyman stood in front of the ornate nineteenth-century hotel façade and sighed. Going off on his own, pursuing what were in reality only gut feelings, wasn’t really on. He’d have to mount proper surveillance on the baths and other places the peeper’s victims had mentioned. Following Mürsel had been a reflex, reckless and probably ultimately fruitless, too. He was just a rather predatory man who fancied him, that was all. But Süleyman shuddered all the same; he still had the feeling that he was somehow being watched. He took his mobile out of his pocket in order to call Zelfa. They hadn’t spoken since they’d slept together the previous night.

  ‘Oh, Sunel Bey . . .’

  He’d called himself Sunel for no particular reason, it had just simply been the first name to come into his head.

  Süleyman turned to find Mürsel right behind him. ‘Yes?’

  ‘You left your lighter behind,’ Mürsel said as he placed it into Süleyman’s hand. ‘There.’

  ‘Oh, thank you,’ Süleyman said. ‘That’s . . .’

  ‘You’re very welcome.’ In one lightning move, Mürsel pulled Süleyman’s head towards his own and kissed him full on the lips. ‘I’ve seen you naked,’ Mürsel breathed once he had detached his lips from Süleyman’s. ‘You can do with me what you will!’

  Chapter 9

  * * *

  Although vaguely aware of someone coming into his room through the darkness, İkmen thought that it could only be Fatma and turned over to get some more sleep. When the light went on, however, he knew that he had to be mistaken.

  ‘What . . .’

  ‘It’s three o’clock,’ Menşure said briskly. ‘Ferdinand Mueller is coming to pick you up at four.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘For your balloon flight,’ Menşure said tetchily as she banged a small tea glass down by the side of İkmen’s bed. ‘Have a drink and wake up.’

  He saw her, dressed and immaculate even at that early hour of the morning, through a sort of damp, sick fog. Businesslike and bustling, she was neither sympathetic nor alone.

  ‘Ah!’ İkmen, now that he could fully appreciate who it was, jumped to the head of his bed in one panicky movement. ‘Why have you brought him?’

  ‘Kismet?’ Menşure looked down at the enormous ginger and grey cat at her feet and smiled. ‘I knew that if anyone could get you up it would be him.’

  ‘Just don’t let him near me!’ İkmen said as he reached across to his jacket and took out his cigarettes.

  Menşure smiled. ‘Afraid of a little cat? Shame upon you, Çetin İkmen!’

  ‘He isn’t a cat, I have a cat, Marlboro; he sits on my lap at night and purrs. He, this you have here, is a demon crossed with a fighting machine!’ İkmen said. ‘You said yourself he’s part lion! I don’t care if he’s thirty or whatever he is, his father or his grandfather or whatever took a lump out of my brother’s leg.’

  ‘Forty-five years ago.’

  ‘Seems like only yesterday,’ İkmen said as he surveyed the enormously scarred head of the growling animal at the foot of his bed.

  But even when Menşure and the cat left a few minutes later, İkmen knew that the animal had achieved his mistress’s purpose. He was awake, shaking, and ready to get out of the hotel as quickly as possible.

  Zelfa Halman Süleyman was barely conscious when her husband woke her up to make love yet again in the early hours of the morning. But he was so passionate as well as being so gloriously masculine that she could hardly refuse him. Usually far too cynical to be impressed by such blatant masculinity, Zelfa felt as if, on this occasion, she had just simply been swept along in the wake of his unstoppable desire. Maybe, she thought, as he kissed her mouth, he really does want to make our relationship real once again. Maybe she could just throw all of her legal papers away and, as she had dreamed so many times before, lick every centimetre of his body.

  Mehmet Süleyman, it was true, wanted his wife badly. He also needed her body to cover up what had happened earlier that evening with Mürsel. The kiss, that terrifyingly comfortable kiss followed by the admission that had almost caused the policeman to scream. ‘I’ve seen you naked,’ he’d said. Only after offering his body to Süleyman had he added that he’d seen him naked ‘in my dreams’.

  But was he telling the truth or was he lying? Whether or not he was the peeper, had this man followed Süleyman back to Zelfa’s house in Ortaköy on Monday night, gripped by a burning desire to see a man he had spoken but a few sentences to in the street? Homosexual life in the city could be, Süleyman knew, furtive, opportunistic and desperate, even in the twenty-first century. Then again was he – had he – seemed that available to this man? And what of Mürsel’s take upon the peeper? There had been almost admiration in his voice when he had spoken about this criminal. Hardly the fear that İskender’s informant had said was spreading in the homosexual community.

  He entered his wife’s body with a sigh, whispering in her ears that he loved her as he did so.

  ‘Mehmet,’ she murmured as he began to move inside her.

  Then his mobile phone began to ring.

  For some reason he spoke in English as he withdrew from her, kissing her head as he did so, and picked up the ghastly instrument with his free hand.

  ‘Sorry, sorry, Zelfa,’ he said and then with less than good humour he flicked the mouthpiece of the telephone down. ‘Süleyman.’

  ‘Sir’ – it was a female voice, a little nervous, probably due to the lateness of the hour – ‘sir, it’s Ayşe.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Sir, I’m sorry, but . . . Sir, I’m at Taksim Hospital. Abdullah Aydın came out of his coma about five minutes ago.’

  Within fifteen minutes Mehmet Süleyman was washed, dressed and in his car en route to Ayşe Farsakoğlu and whatever was left of Abdullah Aydın.

  Two of them, İkmen included, had been required to get into the balloon basket while it was still lying on its side on the ground. The balloon itself wasn’t yet inflated and so they slotted themselves into their individual wicker segments while the noise and heat from the gas jets above roared into the enormous red and gold bag. İkmen, disgruntled beyond belief that they were not allowed to smoke on the flight, eased himself painfully into his section, cursing the arthritis which recently seemed to be afflicting his joints. But then his father had suffered from it, and so why not he?

  ‘This is fun, isn’t it, Inspector?’ his companion said. He was Tom, the young Englishman he’d met on the bus.

  ‘At this precise moment, no, it is not,’ İkmen said. ‘I just hope that once we are in the air it all becomes worth the effort.’

  Once the basket was upright they were joined by the other passengers who included Dolores Lavell and Turgut Senar who, İkmen had thought, they would be meeting up in the valley. Four young Korean boys, the rather attractive Asian/American woman İkmen had also met on the bus, and the pilot, Ferdinand Mueller, completed the party.

  Taking off into the silence of the dawn was an exhilarating experience. The weather was perfect for ballooning. It was cold but bright and as they rose above the flat plain to the east of the village, they saw tiny lights come on inside structures that looked like things elves and trolls should live in. İkmen, who had foolishly refus
ed the offer of the thick woollen poncho Ferdinand had given to all of his other passengers, breathed heavily on to his rapidly purpling hands.

  Someone nudged his arm. ‘Here, put these on.’

  Dolores Lavell held out a pair of thick, fake leopard-skin gloves.

  ‘No, Miss, er . . .’

  ‘I know they’re not exactly masculine, but the colour of your hands is giving me the horrors,’ the American said. ‘Please . . .’

  İkmen shrugged and then with a small bow he took the gloves from her and put them on. It was, even he had to admit, a considerable relief.

  İkmen, in common with the other passengers, had imagined a balloon flight to consist of rising to a certain height and then sailing along admiring the valleys, villages and small monastic settlements from above. As dawn began to burn into full daylight, the sky was an intense and, in places, almost lilac-blue, and he felt the urge to get even further into this soothing infinity of colour. But instead of going up, the German took the balloon down into one of the most famous valleys of the fairy chimneys, Beehive Valley.

  ‘The early Christians were well known for their cultivation of bees,’ Ferdinand said as he pointed to a large escarpment dotted with what looked like sightless windows. ‘This place here was a monastery,’ he continued, ‘but look, you can see that modern farmers have placed hives in front of it. It is a tradition here.’

  What was also traditional was the collection of guano or, as Ferdinand put it, ‘pigeon shit’. Dove and pigeon cotes dug out from tufa had been constructed and also decorated by the now nameless former inhabitants of Cappadocia. That guano was still collected from these elaborate bird houses and used to fertilise the vineyards was another example of how things continued and persisted in this ancient place. İkmen felt it was a privilege to be able to get so close to the upper reaches of these ancient escarpments and chimneys. Unless one climbed, which was laughable even to consider, then this was the only way that close-up views of the dovecotes and the amazing geometrical decoration that adorned them could be seen. That the basket scraped along the tops of a couple of the larger trees was somewhat disconcerting, but neither the German nor Turgut Senar looked at all concerned about this. The latter was, in fact, apparently far too lost in his thoughts to be concerned about much that was outside his head. İkmen, intrigued by this dour brother of the strange Kemalettin, attempted to engage him in conversation.