‘Even when he went with other women?’
Suleyman looked across at İkmen and noted that his face possessed that taut quality it assumed when he was really, truly furious.
‘Yes,’ she smiled.
‘How?’
‘Because my husband was always working,’ she said, ‘having sex, taking drugs – it was all an act of creation. He taught me that. He taught me that observation could be creative in itself, that jealousy has an artistic purpose. He was a magician, you know.’
‘He conned you into believing that everything he did was a statement.’
‘No,’ she paused to look İkmen deeply in the eyes once again, ‘because everything that he did was a statement.’
‘And you just came to that conclusion?’
‘No. No, over time as I learned more.’
‘As Melih desensitised you to the unacceptable,’ İkmen snapped, ‘as he made you into something that could take the lives of your own children.’
Suleyman, in line with previous instructions, placed what he hoped was a calming hand on İkmen’s arm.
‘I’d like to know, Mrs Akdeniz,’ he said, ‘how Dr Keyder entered into your husband’s plans.’
Temporarily mollified, İkmen just sat quietly with his head down.
‘Dr Keyder had always admired Melih’s work,’ Eren said. ‘She and her brother were originally from Balat. She’s a very clever woman, Dr Keyder.’ She dropped her gaze. ‘She understood all the Kabbalistic stuff that lies at the heart of Melih’s work. I never really did. Melih was far above me. She could talk to him for hours about what it all meant.’
‘When did they first meet?’
‘A couple of years ago. My brother Reşad works for Dr Keyder, transporting subjects.’
‘Do you know why your brother would want to perform such a grisly task?’ İkmen asked.
Eren very pointedly looked away.
‘Was it possible,’ İkmen said, ‘because corpses, like little girls, are essentially helpless?’
Once again, Eren did not reply.
‘You know one of my colleagues spoke to this Bursa woman Reşad is friends with?’ İkmen continued. ‘Very interesting. They met only recently and she is very taken with him. It’s very sad for her that your brother can’t get an erection when he’s with her.’
‘I don’t want to hear this!’
‘As you wish. And so how did,’ İkmen, raising his head, said acidly, ‘the idea to murder and embalm your children evolve? It is not, after all, something that occurs to most people.’
Ignoring his tone entirely, she said, ‘Melih was impressed and fascinated by Dr Keyder’s work. Her connection through Pedro Ara to Eva Peron was he felt, a work of art in its own right. When he first discovered, last year, that he had cancer, he asked Dr Keyder to embalm him. She said that she’d do it but that she couldn’t guarantee to get a good result. Even without all the cancer treatment, he’d already messed his body up with drugs. Melih felt that it could stand as a work of art anyway, but Dr Keyder wasn’t happy.’
‘So was it Dr Keyder who suggested the use of your pristine little children?’
Eren frowned. ‘Not exactly.’
‘What do you mean?’
She looked up. ‘I mean that Melih was already wondering how he was going to do without the children when Dr Keyder suggested a way in which he could take them with him and create the most challenging piece of art in the world.’
‘By doing without the children,’ İkmen said, ‘I take it you mean—’
‘Dying without them, yes.’ She smiled. ‘He couldn’t bear it. But then if he could incorporate them into his own death, as art, well . . .’
‘What do you mean “as art”?’ said Suleyman, who was also, he now felt, beginning to experience considerable barely controlled anger.
‘I mean that Melih, as you saw yourselves, finally achieved it all,’ she said, ‘the ultimate statement featuring multiple ultimate taboos – infanticide, suicide, the petrification of the flesh that is so well preserved one can actually see the soul pinned to the skin. That he expressed this in what is an essentially Turkish form, Karagöz, is consistent with what he has been producing for the whole of his life. It all fits. You know that all the greatest Karagöz masters were either gypsies or Jews – just like Melih. Karagöz therefore concluded his work in a cohesive—’
‘Your husband poisoned your children!’
‘Yes, but—’
‘No “buts”.’ İkmen held a warning finger up to Eren’s face. ‘Your husband killed them with your own and Dr Keyder’s knowledge.’
‘But they, like he,’ Eren said, her eyes now bright with what could have either been tears or emotion, ‘still exist within the moving shadows of Karagöz. The show is, Melih always said, littered with Kabbalistic references, these universal archetypes as exemplified by Karagöz and, by extension, through Melih, don’t die. My family is immortal.’
‘Except for you, and your brother,’ İkmen said, ‘who remain to take the punishment the state deems appropriate to the crimes your husband committed in the name of art.’
Eren leaned across the table at the two men, ‘Which, just like all of the reporting around our event, all of the photographs taken by you of the exhibit, is just a continuation of the performance. I spoke of these things to Sergeant Farsakoǧlu,’ she said, as she shot one of her now customary smiles at the female officer. ‘The performance began the second Melih was conceived – it will continue for as long as our event lives in the memories and the archives of people across the world. It is immortal and because Reşad and myself are part of it, we are immortal too. Art cannot be killed.’
‘I’ve ordered post-mortem examinations on both your children and your husband,’ İkmen said. ‘This means, Mrs Akdeniz, that your relatives will be cut up in order to establish cause of death. In the case of your children, the maintenance programme that follows embalming will be curtailed and once our doctor’s investigations are at an end, the bodies will be released to your mother for burial.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘What I’m saying, Mrs Akdeniz,’ İkmen said tightly, ‘is that I am finishing your “performance”.’ He cleared his throat before continuing, ‘You and your brother, who claims your husband blackmailed him into this, and Dr Keyder will eventually be sent for trial. Then when the bodies of your husband and your children are buried and you and your cohorts are safely in prison the world will move on.’
‘No . . .’
‘Oh, yes,’ İkmen said, ‘it will, Mrs Akdeniz.’ He leaned across the table towards her. ‘And do you know why that is, Eren? It’s because everything dies: people, animals, ideologies, faith, even art. Everything has its time in the sun and then,’ he clapped his hands together, making Eren jump in the process, ‘like Karagöz shows, like the midgets and mimes who used to entertain our old Ottoman rulers, things go. Things give way to other things, it’s called progress.’
‘Yes, but some things are immortal, like the architectural work of the great Sınan. I mean everyone still admires the Süleymaniye, the Sokollu Mehmet Paşa Mosque . . .’
‘Yes,’ İkmen agreed, ‘they do. And do you know why that is, Mrs Akdeniz?’
Before she could even draw breath, Suleyman who could now see very clearly where this conversation was going, put in, ‘It’s because the work of great artists needs no explanation,’ he said. ‘Whatever one may think of either the religion or the monarchy that patronised Sınan’s work, there is no denying the beauty and artistry inherent in his buildings. His skill and the loveliness of his creations speak directly to our senses. They help us to experience the higher emotions of spirituality, the glory of Allah . . .’
‘My husband’s work reached the divine in a far more profound way!’ Eren stood up. İkmen too rose from his chair. ‘Your husband’s “work” will live in the annals of crime! Your husband was a monster! Your husband created only ugliness! I know your children were beautiful, Mrs Akdeniz, but when Meli
h killed them and then gave them over for embalming, he didn’t have their spirits nailed to their bodies, he robbed them of everything! Of life, of choice, of dignity. He left their poor spirits untended, ugly and uncared for . . .’
‘That old Turkish nonsense!’
‘Which, whether you believe it or not, does give the dead some dignity!’ İkmen said. ‘I too, Mrs Akdeniz, have some if you like magical knowledge. I’ve seen the torment he subjected your children to. Even now they are not at peace. How can you condone that? Bury a man soon and give that man, and his family, some peace!’
‘Oh, if you choose to believe that, yes,’ she replied, ‘but that isn’t the case with Melih. Melih’s just going on and on,’ she smiled, ‘continuing the performance. The work is complete but the performance continues.’ She raised her arms high in the air, artfully like an actress, as she looked at the two men and one woman before her. ‘When one is an artist, even when one just simply lives and loves with an artist, the creation, the magic never stops. Even in prison I will continue to evolve, the work will always and forever endure . . .’
İkmen looked across at Suleyman and then, seeing the same lack of connection to this woman in his eyes, he shook his head. Whatever she might have been prior to Melih’s death – wife, acolyte, humiliated slave, even a concerned mother at one time – she was something quite different now. Now she was the artist – finally and seemingly joyously the inheritor of her husband’s artistic legacy.
CHAPTER 21
Talaat Erteǧrül died later that afternoon. Two of his sisters, one of whom was Fatma İkmen, were with him when he took his last breath. Almost unrecognisable from the man he had been even at the beginning of the week, Talaat’s corpse looked so small and pathetic as Fatma bade him a last, tearful farewell. Not that she could allow herself the luxury of mourning for very long. Although not pious himself, Talaat had been part of what was largely a religious family and so a speedy funeral was essential. For a while Fatma and everyone around her existed in a kind of whirling vortex of tear-soaked activity. When the funeral did start, it almost, as is common with the hastily organised Muslim rite, came as a shock to those who had been most intimately involved with it. This, fortunately, didn’t include İkmen.
Although, especially towards the end of his life, İkmen had developed an affection for Talaat, his death only really touched him in relation to how it made Fatma and the children feel. He helped where he could; making arrangements, informing relatives who lived out of town and, of course, comforting his wife when she wanted to be soothed. But there was little he could do beyond that. Fatma’s family were a little too pious for his taste, and so the sight of two of his wife’s nieces wearing headscarves was all the excuse he needed to get away from the family Erteǧrül and head for a quite other type of ceremony.
‘It’s very good of you to come,’ Father Giovanni Vetra said as he shook hands with İkmen and Çöktin at the graveside.
‘It’s nothing,’ the older man replied with a shrug.
All of Rosita Keyder’s friends had gone from the site some time ago. All, without exception, elderly people, it had been difficult for the priest to try and explain to them why she was not being buried alone.
Father Giovanni took a handful of sandy soil between his fingers and threw it down on to the top of the coffin, that of Miguel Arancibia.
‘You know when I was preparing for this service last night,’ the priest said, ‘I thought how dreadful and bizarre it must have been, living with this corpse for so long. That Veli Keyder allowed it . . .’ He shrugged. ‘But then my mind drifted from this situation to the holy relics phenomenon and, you know, the more I thought about those the more I could appreciate the preservation of Miguel Arancibia. After all, he was young, his death was cruel and he was beautiful. Just like Evita Peron,’ he smiled. ‘And so we make saints from the young, beautiful dead because we cannot and will not let them go.’
‘My understanding of Catholicism is that that’s OK,’ İkmen said. ‘Forgive me if I’m wrong, Father, but from what I have observed, some elements of your worship are very dependent upon physical images.’
Father Giovanni smiled. ‘You must think us heathens when you see us standing and praying in front of statues and pictures.’
‘Oh, I don’t think anything myself, Father,’ İkmen replied with a smile. ‘I espouse no religion.’
‘Oh?’
‘No, I have my own ideas, if you know what I mean.’
‘Do you, Inspector, subscribe to the Turkish belief that the dead are in torment until their bodies are buried?’ the priest asked as he moved to one side in order to allow the grave diggers to begin their job of filling the site.
‘Yes,’ he answered simply, ‘and I do feel easier now that Mrs Keyder and her brother are in their graves.’
‘Such a strange business with Rosita’s sister-in-law,’ Father Giovanni said, as he shook his head at the memory of what he had been told about the affair. ‘And to actually kill those poor children . . .’
‘Sir . . .’ Çöktin reached across in front of the priest to touch İkmen lightly on the arm.
‘What?’
‘Over there,’ the young man said as he tilted his head in the direction of a particularly gnarled cypress tree at the far end of the small cemetery.
İkmen narrowed his eyes against both the high mid-afternoon sun and his own occasionally blurry eyesight. When the figure in front of the tree did eventually come into focus it was instantly familiar. Unfortunately.
After giving instructions to Çöktin and the priest about keeping back from what was about to take place, İkmen first lit up a cigarette and then approached the man.
‘Señor Orontes?’
The little man turned sharply and with a gasp.
‘What are you doing here, Señor?’ İkmen asked.
‘I am, er . . .’
‘Because if you’ve come to disturb or in any way desecrate the last resting place of Miguel Arancibia then I think you should know that we bury them very deep here in the Republic. As well as needing to hire some quite serious digging equipment,’ İkmen smiled, ‘you will also need to get past my officers, who will be guarding this site.’
Orontes, seemingly offended, pulled himself up to his full, small height. ‘I came here only out of respect,’ he said, ‘for the young man and for the artistry that went into his preservation.’
‘Not because you thought you might salvage something of what remains of Dr Ara’s work?’ İkmen said as he placed a firm hand on to the Spaniard’s shoulder. ‘Not because Dr Keyder promised him to you – or rather she wanted you to keep him for her.’
‘No!’
‘Well, that’s very good,’ İkmen said, ‘very good. Because I would hate to think that your devotion to your craft might be leading you into committing an offence.’
‘No.’ Orontes looked down at the ground. ‘Even if I sincerely believe that to bury such beauty, such exquisite art is—’
‘Natural, right and respectful,’ İkmen interrupted, ‘qualities, I am sure that you possess, Señor Orontes.’
The Spaniard looked up with such an expression of hatred on his face that İkmen, for a moment, was entirely lost for words. When he did finally get around to speaking it was with an entirely different tone. He moved his hand up the Spaniard’s back, towards his neck, moving the little man away from Father Giovanni and Çöktin’s line of sight as he did so.
‘Now listen to me, you little shit,’ he said. ‘If a dog so much as sniffs around the edge of Miguel Arancibia’s grave, I will come for you.’
‘But—’
‘You want the secret of Dr Ara’s balm, you go and dig him up,’ İkmen sneered, ‘or, better still, why don’t you go and visit Dr Keyder in her cell? Once she’s been inside for a few years, she’ll tell you her secret. She’ll probably also tell you where the djinn who torment her nightly come from too.’
‘You shouldn’t be incarcerating a woman like Dr Keyder!’
‘I agree,’ İkmen said, now no longer smiling. ‘Quite right, Señor Orontes. We should be executing her,’ İkmen said. ‘Even though I don’t believe in capital punishment myself, it’s what we should be doing.’ He bent down low in order to whisper into the other man’s ear. ‘She colluded in the killing of children,’ he said, ‘an inhuman act – an offence beyond mercy.’
‘She is a genius!’
İkmen, shaking his head in disbelief, let go of the Spaniard’s neck and started to walk up towards Çöktin and the priest. He didn’t look back at Orontes as he left although he did speak to him once more before he’d finished.
‘I will ask Father Giovanni to pray for you, Señor Orontes,’ he said. ‘Such a good man may have some influence with your God. Your twisted soul will need all the help it can get.’
She was a good-looking woman in the same way that his wife was a good-looking woman. Large-boned and luscious, she was a lot darker than Zelfa, probably a few years younger and definitely, by her style of dress and demeanour, a gypsy. Not that Mehmet Suleyman had come to spy on Gonca the gypsy artist – he didn’t even know her. What had made him drift back to Balat he didn’t really know. Years before, when he was İkmen’s sergeant, the two of them had worked a very complicated case in the district, which was when he had first become familiar with the place. But it wasn’t memories of that time that had called him back. No, it was more to do with what he and his colleagues had all too recently been through, namely Melih Akdeniz and his now empty great ochre house of death. Suleyman looked up into its blank windows and frowned. A place, he recalled, that had once, together with so many other properties in this area, served as a safe haven to those persecuted for their race and religion. So awful that this particular example had been despoiled by Melih and his artistic insanity. But maybe that sense of difference that Balat could bring had contributed to the artist’s descent into darkness. Maybe the majority, by their lack of understanding, did indeed set small groups up to be odd, different and even dysfunctional?
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