‘It’s good to meet you under rather more convivial circumstances, Mr Senar,’ he said as the balloon began to gain height over the valley below.
‘I don’t like it when people question the integrity of my family,’ Turgut Senar replied tightly. ‘The night that Aysu Alkaya disappeared my brother Kemalettin was with me, all night.’ He looked up, challengingly. ‘You can check with the police in Nevşehir if you don’t believe me.’
‘Right.’ He was very vehement about it, İkmen felt, but he smiled anyway and said, ‘Well, soon, İnşallah, you will be able to gain some comfort from the forensic tests our doctor in İstanbul is arranging. Maybe the results from those will allow Muratpaşa to finally arrive at peace with regard to this matter.’
‘İnşallah,’ Turgut Senar repeated, then turned towards the American Dolores Lavell who was pointing down to the plain now so rapidly and amazingly far away from the balloon and its basket.
‘Look at that!’ she said as she pointed downwards, her eyes sparkling with amazement. ‘God, isn’t that just wonderful!’
İkmen looked down and saw a large troop of horses and their riders galloping wildly across the plain. Even from what Ferdinand said was nearly three hundred metres he could see that it was Altay Salman and his cadets roaring across the ground like their wild nomadic ancestors. Fulfilling the Turks’ destiny as unparalleled horsemen, they looked so free and made such a romantic sight that all around him İkmen heard the click of cameras as the Americans, the Englishman and the Koreans attempted to capture that which cannot be tamed.
After first looking at İkmen for a moment, Turgut Senar leaned over to speak to Dolores Lavell and to join in her almost childish delight.
‘Young Mr Aydın is very fortunate,’ the doctor said as she led Süleyman and Ayşe Farsakoğlu down the corridor towards the guarded room of Abdullah Aydın. ‘He’s young and fit and, apart from the scar on his chest, physically, he should recover.’
‘So you mean that psychologically . . .’
‘I have no expertise in that area, Inspector,’ Dr Arkın said shortly. ‘All I know is that Mr Aydın’s first words upon emerging from his coma concerned his desire to speak to the police. And now that I have examined him, I am satisfied that he is capable of doing so without incurring any ill effects.’
It had been nearly three hours since Süleyman had taken the call from Ayşe Farsakoğlu concerning Abdullah Aydın. Three hours during which the young man’s doctors had tested his responses and measured his vital signs and reactions for traces of remaining physical trauma. Now, just after dawn, it seemed that they were satisfied he could talk to Süleyman. The doctors told him the young man was most anxious to do so.
As they drew level with the door, the police guard who had been outside the room all that night moved aside.
‘Now look,’ Dr Arkın said as she placed her hand on the still-closed door. ‘I think that only you should enter, Inspector. Apart from anything else, Mr Aydın’s voice is still very weak and so no one beyond a person leaning over him will be able to hear anyway. Also I must insist that I be present. If I detect any agitation in his condition I will ask you to leave.’
‘Agreed.’
And so Ayşe Farsakoğlu sat outside while her superior entered the strange world of drips, monitors and catheters that was Abdullah Aydın’s temporary reality. Inside the room the light was subdued and as soon as he entered, the nurse who had been sitting at the side of the young man’s bed moved soundlessly to one side. There was an aura of contemplative calm in this spare, white place, almost like that encountered in a mosque.
At Dr Arkın’s behest, Süleyman sat down next to the small figure of the very pale man in the bed. There was some sort of tube, green in colour for some reason, attached to his nose while both arms were riddled with needles, cuffs and pads that both invaded and monitored his body. Under the bed there was a bag of something that looked very unpleasant and which Süleyman was careful to step over as he sat down. Zelfa would have been instantly at home in this environment, but to him hospitals were and probably always would be places of fear and horror.
As he leaned in towards the man on the bed, Abdullah Aydın opened his eyes. All around him monitors beeped and flashed in time to the inner workings of his body. He had great dark brown eyes, like a tired faun. He was very young. Süleyman took one of his hands in his. ‘The doctor has told me you want to speak to the police,’ he said. ‘My name is Inspector Süleyman. I work in homicide.’
‘He didn’t kill me, Inspector,’ a small, rasping voice said.
‘No, because you’re far too tough,’ Süleyman replied. Looking across at the doctor, he said, ‘His throat sounds so dry. Can’t he have some water?’
‘Mr Aydın has had all the water he is allowed for the moment,’ the doctor said.
A vague scrabbling near his wrist indicated to Süleyman that the young man wanted to speak once again. He leaned in still further in order to hear him.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘Just listen.’
‘Yes?’
Abdullah Aydın took a deep breath and then said, ‘The man who stabbed me.’
‘Yes?’
‘I saw his face.’
‘How?’ The peeper, so far, had always covered his face.
‘I pulled it off,’ the boy said.
‘The mask?’
‘Yes.’
‘Abdullah, do you think that you could describe this man for us?’
He coughed, loudly, his throat straining against dryness.
‘I think that’s enough for now,’ Dr Arkın said as she inserted a hand between Süleyman and the boy.
‘Yes, but . . .’
‘Inspector, he’s had enough,’ she said sternly. ‘Come back in a few hours and things will be very different.’
The boy coughed while Süleyman, unmoving, continued to stare at him.
‘Inspector, I must insist.’
‘Right. Yes.’
He got up and moved aside. The nurse, who had been waiting for him to get out of the way, held a bowl under Abdullah Aydın’s chin. The boy, red in the face now, looked at Süleyman as if he were again trying to speak as the latter left the room.
Once outside Süleyman sat down next to Ayşe Farsakoğlu and said, ‘He says he saw the peeper’s face.’
‘That’s good.’
‘I don’t know whether he’ll be able to give us a description. We didn’t get that far. But I’d like you to contact Mrs Taşkiran just in case.’
Ayşe Farsakoğlu widened her eyes in surprise. ‘Really?’
‘Well, Inspector İkmen still uses her,’ Süleyman said. ‘Although whether he does so because she’s a brilliant artist or because he just enjoys her eccentricities, I don’t know.’
‘No.’
‘But contact her anyway, will you? Tell her I may have a job for her.’
‘Yes, sir. You do remember we’re bringing in those known offenders for interview this morning?’
‘Mmm.’ He had in truth quite forgotten but he bluffed his way through as was his custom. ‘Yes, well, we’ll go ahead with that, anyway. I mean who knows what it may yield?’
They both returned to the station, then, Süleyman’s mind at least partly focused upon the subject of the police artist Dorotka Taşkiran. The daughter of Polish refugees, Dorotka Taşkiran had married into considerable Turkish Republican money, which had allowed her to indulge her passion and talent for art. Although an excellent portraitist – on which her attachment to the police department was founded – Dorotka was also a very experimental artist who had been known in the past to mummify small animals and take castes of gross human deformities. Now in her eighties she was still working on and off for Çetin İkmen, who had always maintained that she was the best police artist in the business. Süleyman, although not as tolerant of Dorotka’s strange habit of talking to her dead ‘sitters’ and usually frightening live witnesses a little, nevertheless felt that she would be the perfect choice of arti
st to work with Abdullah Aydın. Young people often responded well and with interest to her oddness and besides, if the Aydın boy did conform to the peeper’s type, he was almost certainly homosexual. Gay boys and old women. Guilty at his readiness to stereotype, Süleyman nevertheless felt that it was a match probably made in heaven.
The Asian/American lady’s name was Emily, İkmen discovered. She came from Los Angeles but was half Japanese. She and Dolores Lavell had been so thrilled by the sight of Altay Salman and his recruits that they had talked animatedly about them for some time. Turgut Senar had then told them about the traditions of horsemanship that were native to the district while both women marvelled at the vast antiquity of such practices.
‘Seeing all of this fabulous scenery from above is such a privilege,’ Dolores said as she turned round to take in the full sweep of the lilac-blue sky, glimpsing the snow-capped peak of Mount Erciyes floating like an airborne island in the azure distance. ‘I wish my dad could’ve seen this.’
‘But I thought you said he came here?’ Emily replied.
‘I mean from up here in a balloon,’ Dolores said. ‘They didn’t have all this back in the fifties and sixties when Daddy came here. Leastways, I don’t think that they did.’
Turgut Senar, who could possibly have answered this question, merely stared out into the vastness of the sky.
‘Your dad didn’t mention it at all?’ Emily asked.
Dolores sighed. ‘Daddy was none too well for some years before he died. He didn’t talk too much, you know.’
Emily took her long black hair down from out of the comb that held it behind her head and then pinned it straight back up again. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s OK.’ Dolores smiled. ‘Daddy, God bless his soul, wasn’t himself towards the end.’ She spent a few moments riffling in her handbag before producing a small photograph, which she handed to Emily. ‘That’s Daddy in his prime. He was a sergeant in the military.’
‘Oh, er . . . He was a good-looking guy,’ the other woman said.
‘Yes, he was.’
Turgut Senar, now back from his reverie, looked over the Californian’s shoulder at the photograph and said, ‘Who?’
‘My father,’ Dolores replied.
He frowned. ‘Really?’
‘Yes.’
‘I see.’
‘That was before his illness came on him, poor sweetheart.’
‘Illness?’ the guide asked. ‘What . . .’
‘It’s called St Vitus’s Disease, it’s . . .’ She looked up and smiled. ‘It’s not important now. Gone and forgotten.’ She put the photograph away again in some haste.
İkmen, who hadn’t been close enough to the group to see the photograph, nevertheless noted that both Emily and Turgut Senar appeared a little embarrassed, or at least uncomfortable, about it. It was, he thought, probably one of those instances where a person shows you a picture of a relative they, and only they, find attractive.
‘In a few minutes we’re going to be landing at the head of the White Valley,’ Ferdinand said as he abruptly brought the women’s conversation to a close. ‘Then I will hand you over to Turgut for your hike. You have a very lovely day for it, I must say.’
İkmen didn’t think that any day could be considered nice if that day involved a lot of walking. But at least down on the ground he would be able to smoke – even if his lungs gave out and his feet collapsed beneath him. The altitude of Cappadocia, over one thousand metres above sea level, isn’t easy for those visiting the area who are fit – much less someone like Çetin İkmen. That and the dust from the tufa in the air made his chest wheeze. Stiff and tired before he had even begun the wretched walk, it took İkmen some time to get out of the basket once they had landed. When he finally emerged, he noticed that Turgut Senar had insinuated himself amongst the American women again and was looking at some photographs Emily was now showing and smiling very broadly. Amazing how such a dour character could change around women, he thought. But then there was currently some interest in foreign women in and around the village. Mainly young gigolos from the coast who found it easy to home in on these lonely, generally middle-aged foreigners, like Emily and Dolores. İkmen wouldn’t have taken Turgut Senar, middle-aged himself, for one of them, but then nothing in life, as İkmen knew only too well, was as straightforward as most people would like to think. Maybe Turgut’s wife was no longer interested in him? Or maybe he had just simply been smitten by Dolores and Emily? Anything was possible.
‘So this is the White Valley,’ Turgut said in English. ‘It is called the White Valley because as you can see all of the fairy chimneys in this area are very white. We will walk through the valley now and will pass some rock churches on the way. The first one on the left will be the Church of Mary the Madonna . . .’
Allah protect me, İkmen thought as he watched the seemingly endless whiteness of the valley stretch before him. The Valley of the Saints, their final destination, wasn’t even on the horizon, and Turgut Senar hadn’t so much as mentioned its existence. He looked down at his cheap, plastic shoes and tried not to imagine the colour or condition of the frozen feet inside.
Chapter 10
* * *
‘Inspector Süleyman!’
Commissioner Ardıç didn’t usually come out of his office unless it was to formally brief his men or meet some sort of dignitary. He certainly didn’t come and get people himself, in the corridor. He had a telephone and minions to do that sort of thing for him. But on this occasion he seemed to be making an exception. Süleyman turned and smiled at the large, ravenously hungry figure behind him.
‘Sir?’ He’d just spent a fruitless hour with a man who, as well as frequently assaulting his own children, was known to have beaten up several homosexual men. But he hadn’t been anywhere near any of the peeper’s victims at the relevant times – he’d been getting drunk in quite different parts of the city.
‘I need to talk to you, now,’ Ardıç said.
And so Süleyman followed him into his office, noting the usual signs that Ardıç was fasting – unlit cigar, empty cups – as he did so.
‘One of your people has called Dorotka Taşkiran,’ he said without preamble as he eased his large behind down into his chair.
‘Yes, Sergeant Farsakoğlu.’ Ardıç rarely could remember names below the rank of inspector. ‘Why?’
‘The boy Aydın’s physician, Dr Arkın, feels that further questioning of the lad is not advisable at this time,’ Ardıç replied.
Süleyman frowned. Dr Arkın had been of the opinion when he’d been at the hospital that Abdullah Aydın would be fit enough to answer more questions that very same day. And so he told his superior this.
‘Perhaps the boy has deteriorated,’ Ardıç said. ‘But, anyway, I have cancelled the mad Polish woman.’
‘Sir, I hadn’t given Mrs Taşkiran a date,’ Süleyman said. ‘I was simply lining her up . . .’
‘Well, for the immediate future, there will be no need.’
‘Sir, with respect, Abdullah Aydın claims to have seen the peeper’s face.’
‘Yes, I know,’ Ardıç replied. ‘It is most frustrating, but if Dr Arkın has said that Aydın cannot be questioned safely then we cannot proceed.’
‘But Abdullah was, or seemed, so much better . . .’
Ardıç shrugged.
Süleyman shook his head. True, the boy had been suffering from a terrible cough when he had left him, but having just come out of a coma that was to be expected. When the throat isn’t used it becomes dry and sore. Something else must have happened since Süleyman and Farsakoğlu had left the hospital – something of some seriousness. After all, how often was it that people like the commissioner paid heed to doctors? Usually if information was required and needed from a suspect or a witness in hospital it made little difference what the attending doctor had to say on the matter.
‘So did Dr Arkın say when I might have access to Abdullah Aydın?’ Süleyman asked.
Ardıç look
ed down at his desk. ‘No. But I will inform you as to when you may visit the hospital in the future.’
‘She’ll telephone you?’
‘Yes.’ Ardıç looked up sharply. ‘Do you have a problem with that?’
‘No, sir, except that I can’t really understand why Dr Arkın didn’t contact me herself. Why she went through you . . .’
‘Well, there’s no mystery to it, Süleyman! I am your superior. You take your orders from me and I am ordering you not to bother that boy with your questions for the time being.’
‘Yes, but . . .’
‘İnşallah, the boy will soon be well again and you will be able to question him,’ Ardıç responded tightly. And then, smiling, he continued, ‘But in the meantime you will not go anywhere near him. Do you understand?’
‘Sir, I . . .’
‘I’m sure that you have other lines of inquiry in this investigation, Süleyman.’ Ardıç rose from his chair with some difficulty. ‘I would suggest that in the meantime you pursue those.’
Süleyman, standing as his boss stood, bowed his head. ‘Sir.’
‘I am confident the boy will recover soon,’ Ardıç said, and then with a wave of his hand he signalled for Süleyman to go.
‘Sir.’
Dance with Death Page 13