Dance with Death

by Barbara Nadel

Süleyman made İbrahim wait ten minutes before he allowed him to set off for the lavatory along the corridor. Following at a distance, the older man just hoped that his young protégé didn’t go too far over the top with his unreasoning crazy person act.

  In view of the distance involved, from the waiting area to Abdullah Aydın’s room, Süleyman had decided that a rather more local diversion was what was needed. So, if İbrahim could pick a fight with one of the men in the lavatory across the corridor, the officer on guard was much more likely to become involved with it. After all, he was a young man and, important assignment or no important assignment, it was unlikely he’d be able to resist the opportunity of a good brawl. Süleyman followed his friend as far as the bend in the corridor just before the private room and the lavatories. He then leaned back against the sickly green paintwork, sweating. İbrahim was, he knew, a real force to be reckoned with once he got into a fight. But the officer was armed and, although he desperately wanted and needed to know what Abdullah Aydın might know about the peeper, Süleyman was also quite nervous about what might happen next. For some time there was only silence.

  At first it wasn’t İbrahim who broke the silence, but the sunset call to prayer. The police officer first sighed and then took a large simit roll out of his jacket pocket and bit into it. Only when he was halfway through his supper did things in the lavatory begin to kick off.

  At first it was impossible to make out what was being shouted or by whom. A rumble of male voices tumbled out on to the corridor, eliciting only one fleeting glance from the police officer. He, like Süleyman, knew that things can get heated in hospitals and that more often than not disputes between patients or patients and staff blow over quickly. This, however, went on. Over a minute passed and then Süleyman distinctly heard İbrahim’s furious voice.

  ‘You did it on purpose, you filthy pig!’ İbrahim screeched.

  The other man or men involved said something to which the boy replied, ‘You can get AIDS from blood! If you’ve given me AIDS . . .’

  The police officer looked up from his simit.

  ‘I haven’t got AIDS!’ A huge and furious voice boomed from inside the toilet. ‘Only queers get AIDS!’

  ‘Well, maybe you are queer!’

  Allah, but when İbrahim did something he really did it thoroughly! Süleyman had no idea about the size or appearance of the man he had obviously accused of getting his blood on him somehow. But if he sounded as big as his voice then İbrahim could be in trouble.

  ‘Queer!’

  ‘Bastard!’

  Someone or something fell to the ground and the police officer got off his squat hospital chair and took his baton from out of its holster. For a moment he just stood outside the toilet listening to the noises of heads and elbows hitting the hard, concrete floor. Süleyman, wincing at what sounded like İbrahim’s pain, held his breath as he waited for the officer to go inside the lavatory. Just go in, he thought as he watched the officer first look at the lavatory door and then back at Abdullah Aydın’s room. He had obviously been told not to leave his post under any circumstances, but would he obey? Süleyman could almost see the arguments and counterarguments pass across the poor man’s brain until suddenly, at the moment when it seemed most likely he would return to his post, he opened the lavatory door and went inside.

  ‘What is all this?’ he yelled. ‘Are you mad?’

  Checking quickly that no one else was about to see him, Süleyman ran from his hiding place and, barely daring to breathe, he stood in front of Abdullah Aydın’s door.

  ‘If you hit me again . . .’ he heard İbrahim scream as he let himself inside the dimly lit room and then took a moment to catch his breath.

  The boy, Abdullah Aydın, appeared to be asleep on the bed. Lying on his side facing away from the door he breathed evenly and without noise. None of the machines that Süleyman had seen inside that room on his first visit seemed to be either attached to anything or working. Abdullah did not, it seemed, need any help from outside sources any longer. The men in the toilet were still screaming and so Süleyman moved quietly towards the bed and the boy inside it.

  ‘Abdullah,’ he whispered.

  The pain as his arm was pushed way beyond where it should go up his back was so intense that it momentarily rendered him speechless.

  ‘Ah, Sunel Bey,’ an eerily familiar voice said, ‘we’ve been expecting you.’

  Chapter 20

  * * *

  İkmen smiled. ‘Well, now that most of those who I think should be here are here, let us continue.’

  Both Turgut and Nalan Senar looked down at the floor while Kemalettin stared, as usual, into space. Everyone including the Senars expected İkmen to now question Nalan and her family, but he didn’t.

  ‘Inspector Erten.’ İkmen looked at the Nevşehir man and beckoned him forwards.

  ‘Yes?’ He shuffled out of his seat and went towards İkmen with a smile.

  ‘Would you like to tell us how Aysu Alkaya’s body came to be missing from the mortuary in Nevşehir?’

  ‘Well, I don’t . . .’

  ‘Please sit,’ İkmen said as he made room for Erten beside him. ‘When did it go missing, exactly?’

  ‘On Saturday,’ he began. ‘I saw it on Saturday morning, just prior to coming out here . . .’

  ‘But why did you come out here?’ İkmen asked. ‘Dr Sarkissian and myself had agreed to meet you with the body in Nevşehir.’

  ‘Well, as I told you at the time, Inspector, I felt I should at least ask about the possibility of taking DNA samples from the villagers . . .’

  ‘Yes, but you didn’t have to do it then, did you?’

  ‘I thought that Dr Sarkissian might have those swabs they use with him . . .’

  ‘You went to the mortuary at six a.m. on Saturday morning,’ İkmen said. ‘We’ve checked.’

  Erten looked up, confused. ‘Checked? With whom?’

  ‘With the authorities at the mortuary. One of the guards was coming to the end of his shift when you arrived. His replacement wasn’t due to take over from him until six thirty a.m. You told the first man to go. You said that you would cover for him until his replacement arrived.’

  ‘Which I did.’

  ‘Yes, indeed.’

  ‘It was the last time I saw Aysu Alkaya’s body. I went to make sure that everything was in order.’

  ‘No, I don’t think that’s entirely true,’ İkmen said.

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘I think that you went to steal Aysu Alkaya’s body, Inspector Erten,’ İkmen said. ‘I think you then drove it over here and deposited it with someone for future disposal.’

  The country policeman’s face, though white, did not appear to be ruffled. ‘And why would I do that?’

  ‘Because somebody gave you the two things I believe you most crave in this world, Inspector,’ İkmen said.

  ‘And what are they?’

  ‘Knowledge of who committed the crime that has haunted you for most of your professional life, and money. I think that you were paid to make sure that Aysu Alkaya’s body never reached İstanbul and I know, Inspector Erten, that you were instrumental in abducting me.’

  Various people around and about turned to look at each other with confusion on their faces.

  Erten, shaking now in his thin grey raincoat, said, ‘How? How do you know or think that you do?’

  İkmen looked down at Erten’s feet and said, ‘Your shoes really are an outrage, Inspector. They’re even worse than mine. Even by deprived rural standards, they are appalling. You don’t forget shoes like that in a hurry and I got to have quite a close-up view of them when someone was smacking me around the head in that vehicle. It took a while for my poor old brain to recall . . .’

  ‘That proves nothing and you know it!’

  ‘Do you want to take the risk of your DNA evidence turning up on either my clothes or what remains of that body?’ İkmen said.

  ‘But we have been round one another, Inspector . . .’


  ‘But you haven’t been round that body without gloves, have you?’ İkmen said. ‘Unless of course you carried it out to your car. Leaning over it with bits of your hair dropping down on to its face, fragments of your skin falling on to the clothes it was wearing. The head, Inspector, is intact, as are some limbs, some tapestry, some other human remains I pulled from the fire . . .’

  ‘All right!’ He put his head in his hands and for a moment appeared to be weeping. But when he lifted his head again his eyes were dry.

  ‘Somebody,’ İkmen said, ‘had to get that body over to those abandoned caves from Nevşehir. You were, according to the log, the last person to enter that mortuary before Aysu’s body was reported missing, by you, on Sunday morning. No one went in or came out. Do you know what I think?’

  Erten stared at him dumbly.

  ‘I think that Dr Sarkissian and I were meant to find that Aysu’s body was missing on the Saturday morning when we accompanied you back to the mortuary. I think you had a nice little story ready about giving us all a lift into town. But when you realised that the doctor wasn’t going to be able to make it until Sunday you had to change your plans which was why we went off on that fruitless quest to see the Senar family.’ He coughed. ‘Now I’m not saying you had anything to do with it but that terrorist attack in İstanbul certainly helped you, didn’t it? I might have thought a bit more critically about what was happening if that hadn’t happened. Now are you prepared to take the risk of forensic evidence further condemning you or are you going to tell me who paid you to take part in this little enterprise?’

  Erten first looked at İkmen, then at the Senar family, then at Nazlı Kahraman.

  ‘Well?’

  There were three men in the room with him apart from Abdullah Aydın. But even before Süleyman was turned round to look into Mürsel Bey’s hard and unamused eyes, the third man had taken the boy away into another room.

  The elegant homosexual moved over to the now-vacant bed and sat down. ‘Let his arms down just a little, will you, Haydar,’ he said to the man who was holding Süleyman so hard it took his breath away. ‘Bring him over here.’

  Whilst pushing him from behind, the man holding Süleyman slackened his grip upon his arm just a little.

  ‘Now, Inspector Süleyman,’ Mürsel said as he took the policeman surprisingly gently from his previous captor, ‘I must ask you not to even think about trying to get away from us. I don’t want to have to ask Haydar to kill you.’

  There was every reason to suppose that he meant every word of it.

  Süleyman looked up at him and said, ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Someone who is a lot better at concealing his identity than you,’ the man replied. ‘Now you will listen and I will talk and when I have done you will give me your word that nothing I have told you will go any further. If you can’t do that I will kill you. If you break your word I will kill you and anyone you have shared this information with. Is that clear?’

  ‘Who are you?’ Süleyman reiterated.

  The man he knew as Mürsel took a gun out of his jacket pocket and held it against Süleyman’s head. ‘Is that clear?’

  ‘Yes . . .’

  He smiled again. ‘Good. If you go to the hamam, dear boy, you have to be ready to sweat as the saying goes.’ He put the weapon away. ‘Now, Mehmet,’ he said, ‘what you must understand is that I am a man who loves his country. I love it so much, I would deem it an honour to give my life for it. In fact almost my entire adult life so far has been dedicated to the protection and care of my country.’

  ‘So . . .’

  ‘I’m talking, Mehmet.’ He put one large finger across the policeman’s lips. ‘You are listening. Now, like most people, I do not work in isolation. Haydar here, for instance, works and has worked with me for many years.’

  Süleyman looked up at the tall, rather spare man who was now blocking his path towards the door. There was something familiar about him.

  ‘There are many people like us both inside and outside the country.’

  What he was saying was obvious. He worked for MIT. Süleyman shuddered. The CIA, Mossad, MIT, those sorts of people might have a different name in every country across the globe, but what they did was chillingly uniform.

  ‘Now it is a well-known fact,’ the man continued, ‘that from time to time somebody like me finds what we do rather too much to cope with. Caring for the nation is a tremendous strain. Usually, Mehmet, such people are informed of their lack of fitness, shall we say, long before their condition may become problematic for the rest of us. However, sometimes when one has been working abroad, particularly in an area of, let us say, tension and for a considerable amount of time, certain early warning signs may be overlooked. Sadly, this has happened in what is becoming one spectacular case.’

  Süleyman swallowed hard.

  ‘You know what comes next, don’t you, Mehmet? You know because suddenly your investigation into the person you call the peeper seems to have hit a brick wall. That is me, Mürsel, otherwise called that nice Inspector Doğan who has been so kind to the Aydın family.’ He smiled. ‘Poor Commissioner Ardıç tried his best to stop your meddling and I haven’t lost sight of you for days but you would persist. I blame Çetin İkmen.’

  ‘How do you know . . .’

  ‘Don’t talk!’ He slapped him once, hard, around the face. It stung like hell. ‘Now although we were not a hundred per cent certain that your peeper was one of ours, young Abdullah’s description of his assailant would seem to confirm our fears. This is a very dangerous, as well as a very disordered individual. He has been taught to eliminate those who pose a threat by those who, let us say, know more about the ways in which a person may die than most. Make no mistake, you will not catch him. He will kill others and he will kill you. Haydar and myself together with our other colleague have been given the task of neutralising this individual, which we will do. We have, after all, been trained in the same school as this person. However, because of the nature of this person’s activities and the fear that he has engendered in the public it is important that a police input is maintained. After all, people like Haydar and myself, like our friend who has lost his sense of proportion, do not usually interact professionally with the ordinary man or woman in the street. Mürsel Bey goes to work at his import-export business on a daily basis. He even has a wife, although no children; I lied to you about that.’ And then suddenly he smiled again and said, ‘Now you can speak.’

  Nazlı Kahraman began to cry. ‘I don’t know why you’re looking at me!’ she said to Erten. ‘I didn’t steal any corpse! I asked that idiot Baha Ermis if he did and he told me no.’

  ‘I didn’t kill Aysu.’ Kemalettin Senar shook his head while his mother and brother looked at him, their eyes full of fear. ‘I did meet her outside Ziya Bey’s house and I did take her to the chimney with the picture of the mummy on the wall, but . . .’

  ‘Kemalettin!’

  ‘I told you that I saw him outside Ziya Bey’s house that night and you didn’t believe me, did you?’ Baha Ermis said as he pointed an accusatory finger at Inspector Erten.

  Kemalettin Senar turned to his mother and said, ‘But then she disappeared.’

  İkmen, his attention now caught by the strange snow-covered individual in front of him, said, ‘Kemalettin, I believe you. I don’t think that you killed Aysu; you loved her, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’ He put his head down then and murmured, ‘She was having a baby.’

  ‘Was it your baby, Kemalettin?’

  ‘You have no right to ask him that!’ Nalan Senar said as she jumped to her feet. ‘My poor son is an idiot, like my father. He doesn’t know what he’s saying!’

  ‘Let me be the judge of that, Nalan Hanım,’ İkmen replied and then turning back to her son he said, ‘Well?’

  ‘Aysu said that it was mine.’

  Several people amongst those present gasped. Menşure Tokatlı shook her head sadly while one elderly matron said, ‘Shame!’r />
  ‘We were going to run away together,’ Kemalettin continued. ‘Aysu was so unhappy with Ziya Bey.’

  ‘And so you went out the night that she disappeared and you took her to this cave with the mummy which was special to you.’

  ‘Yes. It was a secret between Aysu and me. We went to the cave with the mummy. I left her there with food and drink.’

  ‘And what happened then?’ İkmen asked.

  ‘I went home and went to bed,’ Kemalettin said. ‘Then in the morning when I went back to go with her – we were going to go to İstanbul – she was gone.’

  Which meant that whoever had killed Aysu had moved her body to another chimney, one without the picture of the mummy on the wall.

  İkmen turned to Inspector Erten who was still sitting, shamed, at his side. ‘I assume you know who killed Aysu Alkaya, Inspector. I don’t think that Kemalettin has a clue. Would you care to enlighten him?’

  The policeman passed his tired gaze around the room once again and then said, ‘Inspector İkmen, you must understand . . .’

  ‘Did Ziya Kahraman follow his wife and her lover out to the Valley of the Saints, or was someone else involved?’

  ‘My father didn’t leave our house all night!’ Nazlı Kahraman yelled. ‘How dare you make such an accusation against a dead man!’

  İkmen looked across at Erten and said, ‘Well? We’re going to find out anyway, Inspector. You might as well do yourself a favour and tell us. The rift that crosses this village has to be healed some time. Who killed Aysu Alkaya?’

  Inspector Erten sighed. But before he could actually speak another voice, that of a woman, interjected, ‘It was me.’

  ‘It was Kemalettin’s mother,’ Arto Sarkissian translated for Tom and Atom. ‘Good God!’

  ‘So what you’re saying,’ Süleyman began, ‘is that MIT . . .’

  ‘I didn’t say that I was with MIT, did I?’ the man cut in gravely and looking up at his colleague, he said, ‘Haydar, did I ever say that we worked for MIT?’

  ‘No, Mürsel Bey.’

  ‘No.’ He turned back to Süleyman. ‘We are patriots who get paid for being patriotic, Inspector. Let us not name names we do not understand.’