Land of the Blind

by Barbara Nadel

  They sat in silence, looking at each other. In spite of the grim subject matter, Süleyman had missed conversations like this. He’d missed İkmen.

  ‘Oh, and another thing,’ İkmen said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘One of the rubbish pickers Ariadne Savva was trying to help claims she knew that Ahmet Öden had a mistress. He didn’t know who she was or where she lived but he did describe her as a prostitute.’

  ‘Some would describe Ayşel Ocal so.’

  İkmen shrugged. ‘Don’t know if it’s true or if it will be of any use to you.’

  ‘Intelligence is always useful,’ Süleyman said. ‘Particularly from you.’

  ‘Right.’ İkmen was embarrassed. ‘I have to go.’ He stood up.

  ‘Do you?’

  Süleyman imagined the needy look on his own face and felt as if he should be ashamed but he wasn’t. ‘Çetin, I have missed you,’ he said.

  İkmen looked down at him and shook his head. ‘I can’t take it any more, Mehmet,’ he said. ‘I saw Gonca. Did she tell you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘She begged me to make peace with you because you are so unhappy. She said you’d never come to me—’

  ‘I—’

  ‘Mehmet, no,’ İkmen said. ‘I am just not ready to do that. I know you. I know what’s happening. You’re unhappy and you’re making Gonca unhappy and so your eyes are wandering in the direction of other women. I’ve known you for over twenty years. But when you did it to Sergeant Farsakoğlu you crossed a line and it’s going to take me a long time to forgive you.’

  He walked towards the office door.

  Süleyman put his head in his hands.

  ‘Just don’t compound what you’ve already done by breaking Gonca’s heart,’ İkmen said. ‘She loves you and she’s a good woman. Throw her away and you’ll be setting yourself up for a very lonely and miserable old age. You may be a handsome prince but nobody will care when you’re sixty-five unless you have money. Now let’s keep each other informed regarding Ahmet Öden.’

  ‘Yes, Çetin Bey.’

  İkmen left.

  Mehmet Süleyman, alone at his desk, felt as if he’d just been told off by his old class teacher back at the Lise.

  ‘Mr Öden.’

  He was just about to leave and get over to the Negroponte House. What did Mary want now? They’d already spoken about what had happened with the police.

  ‘Can I have a word with you, please?’ she said.

  ‘What about?’

  ‘About the police. About something that happened the night before last, something I haven’t told you.’

  He took her into his office.

  ‘What?’ he said.

  He hadn’t even offered her a seat.

  ‘When the police came last night, I lied to them about something,’ Mary said.

  He was unable to fathom this woman. Maybe it was because she was a foreigner or maybe it was just her. He didn’t know and hadn’t cared, because he’d always intended to replace her with a cheaper Turkish version as soon as he could.

  Mary, without being asked, sat down.

  Unnerved by her boldness, Ahmet said, ‘I have a lot to do. I can’t—’

  ‘You went out the night that woman in Moda died,’ Mary said. ‘I heard you leave Kelime’s room and then I looked out of my window and saw you get into the MX5. She slept the whole time but I didn’t take a sleeping pill; I stayed awake in case she needed help. You came back at just gone three.’

  Ahmet Öden pulled his chair out from behind his desk and sat down.

  ‘How could you leave her like that, Mr Öden? After you’d promised her you’d stay with her?’

  He didn’t answer because there was no answer.

  ‘Did you think that I’d just take a sleeping pill when I knew that Kelime was ill?’

  ‘You generally do,’ he said. ‘Take pills, I mean.’

  ‘Not when I know I can’t.’

  He lowered his gaze from her eyes.

  ‘So what did you tell the police, Mary?’

  ‘What I told you I told them, Mr Öden,’ she said. ‘That I was awake all night and heard no one leave the house. I told them you didn’t know that sometimes I took sleeping tablets but that I would tell you in due course.’

  ‘But I know you take tablets.’

  ‘Yes, and I imagine you thought I’d taken one the night before last, didn’t you?’

  ‘Until I learned you had been awake, yes . . .’

  ‘Now I know that you didn’t kill that woman because you are a good man, Mr Öden. Which was why I withheld that information from the police.’

  ‘Your confidence in me is very pleasing,’ he said.

  ‘But I knew the police wouldn’t see it that way,’ she said. ‘Which was why I lied. That said, I do feel, Mr Öden, sir, that in order to feel right with myself, I do need to know where you did go.’

  She looked at him very steadily, which was unnerving. Apart from knowing where he went, what else did she want? She had to want something for herself. Otherwise why lie to the police?

  ‘I went to look at a new site I’m considering developing in the Belgrade Forest,’ he said.

  ‘Oh.’

  She didn’t believe him.

  He embellished. ‘You have to look at prospective investments at night as well as in the day. I wanted to see what could be seen of the cityscape from that vantage point and also whether the area is used by vagrants or drug addicts. I have to think of the security of my men when I purchase a new site.’

  ‘Of course.’

  The Belgrade Forest wasn’t far from Bebek. He knew she knew this. He also knew she’d be wondering what he’d been doing there for four plus hours. He had no words.

  But then Mary spoke. ‘Mr Öden, all I’ve ever wanted from this job has been security. I love Kelime and I do hope that you will be able to continue to employ me as her companion for many years to come. I require neither big pay rises nor long holidays. Just stability.’

  So that was it. Ahmet tried to remember whether he’d talked about getting rid of the nanny to anyone, talk she could have overheard. He’d mentioned it to Semih several times. It was possible. But was it also possible that was all Mary Cox really wanted to buy her silence?

  Ahmet Öden looked at her and forced himself to smile.

  ‘She was strangled?’

  Ömer Mungun put the doctor’s report back on his desk.

  ‘Yes,’ Arto Sarkissian said.

  ‘I don’t remember any marks on her neck.’

  ‘There aren’t always any. And she’d been submerged in water for some hours, which had discoloured and deformed the tissues.’

  ‘So it was strangulation that killed her?’

  ‘Yes and no,’ the doctor said. ‘She was strangled from behind and I would say with hands or in the crook of an arm, crushing the larynx as pressure was exerted. Whoever killed Ayşel Ocal wanted it to look like suicide. He didn’t realise that once dead, blood-letting isn’t possible. As I said to Inspector Süleyman when I first saw her, I think that she was still just alive when she entered the water. But then she very quickly drowned, leading to the minimal loss of blood I recorded at the crime scene.’

  ‘She was strangled and drowned.’

  ‘Yes. A total botch, in my opinion,’ the doctor said. ‘If the intention was to make Mrs Ocal’s death look like suicide, whoever did it knew very little about the subtleties and mechanics of death. Have you managed to contact any family members?’

  ‘A brother, but he lives in Germany,’ Ömer said. ‘When the family were pushed out of Sulukule, they scattered. Like a lot of them. The brother told me that Ayşel was always a bit on the wild side. Parents are dead. The brother, Ali, has got no idea where their other siblings are. He was quite interested when I told him his sister owned her own apartment.’

  ‘Does he know how she got it?’

  ‘He says not.’

  ‘Mmm.’ Arto Sarkissian nodded his head. ‘Who
would have thought taking one’s clothes off could be so lucrative?’

  Ömer smiled.

  ‘But then we know there is a man behind this, don’t we?’

  ‘Yes,’ Ömer said. He didn’t use Ahmet Öden’s name. Süleyman had told him they had to be careful who they shared that information with, even within the department and its supporting organisations.

  ‘Forensic have retrieved various samples from the apartment that may belong to people other than Mrs Ocal,’ the doctor said. ‘From my point of view, I can tell you that Mrs Ocal’s stomach was not full when she died, but she had recently snacked on sour plums, ayran and a very small amount of cognac. She was a smoker and she wasn’t a virgin, although she hadn’t had sex anytime close to her death.’

  ‘Her assailant didn’t sexually abuse her.’

  ‘No. In my opinion she was first strangled from behind, then her wrists were slit, then she was drowned in the bath. Forensic tell me there was no sign of forced entry into the apartment, so she may well have known her attacker. Did the neighbours see or hear anything?’

  ‘They say not,’ Ömer said. ‘And what with the kapıcı being over at Gezi Park . . .’ He sighed. ‘He’s still missing.’

  ‘Which has to put him on whatever list of suspects you have,’ Arto said.

  Kapıcıs always had keys to all the apartments under their care, so Cafer Ayan, the kapıcı of the dead woman’s block, could have let himself into her apartment at any time. There was no reason to suppose he had killed her – Ayan was, according to the neighbours, an almost silent man who clearly hated his job and took very little notice of the residents. But Ömer knew that appearances could be deceptive.

  When he left the doctor’s office he walked up to Gezi Park and looked at the tens of thousands gathered in the sunshine.

  ‘Look.’

  Yiannis handed Hakkı the document that Ahmet Öden had flung on to his front path, and then he sat down. Looking at it had exhausted him. He wasn’t sleeping any more and so it didn’t take much.

  Hakkı registered the vast figure at the bottom of the document. ‘That’s a huge amount of money.’

  ‘A thirty per cent increase.’ Yiannis shrugged. ‘Meaningless! It could be a million times that, I still wouldn’t sell.’

  ‘I’ve told you before, ignore it,’ Hakkı said. He gave it back.

  ‘How can I?’

  ‘He’s getting desperate. At the moment you have the whip hand.’

  ‘Oh, and if Öden uses his influence to go for compulsory purchase? This area is littered with the rubble of buildings that have been bought and knocked down.’

  ‘This isn’t a slum and it’s an historic building,’ Hakkı said.

  ‘The others weren’t slums either!’

  Hakkı let him fulminate impotently. He was good at that. Then he said, ‘If the Gezi people win then people like Öden will become a thing of the past.’

  ‘Oh, and how realistic—’

  ‘I know it’s not likely, but even if they don’t win, Öden is desperate and in his desperation he will make a mistake. He may have already made one,’ Hakkı said. ‘You said yourself that a woman who may be his mistress has been found dead in Moda.’

  ‘I don’t know for certain it’s her.’

  ‘Maybe, maybe not,’ Hakkı said. ‘But whatever is happening, you need to calm down. You’ve got no self-control! A man your age should be able to master his emotions. I know he’s out there now and it is unpleasant but, as Çetin Bey said, it’s only a game. There is nothing he can do at this point. He—’

  ‘I should show him round the house,’ Yiannis said. ‘Everywhere.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I know and you know I’ll be able to control it,’ Yiannis said.

  ‘When you can’t even control yourself! Don’t be ridiculous!’

  ‘Yes. It’s what I do!’ Yiannis said. ‘Prove to him that what he thinks is here, isn’t. That is why he wants this house. He wants to please his God by destroying the trappings of a past he envies. That’s what fanatics do.’

  ‘Yes, and you are being just as much of a fanatic as Öden,’ Hakkı said.

  ‘No, I’m not!’

  ‘Yes, you are. You want to prove that you can master him, outwit him and prove him wrong. Who do you think you are, eh? And what if you fail?’

  ‘I . . .’

  ‘You may.’ Hakkı held up a warning finger. ‘You are not invincible. And you don’t need to do this. Do nothing. Öden is sweating, leave him in his filth. Let him sit out there day after day adding yet more noughts to that figure and forget about him. I know it’s hard, but Madam gets distressed every time there is a commotion or a bad atmosphere in the house. We must think of her health. You know I don’t give a damn about you. But we both care about her. She is all that matters.’

  ‘I know.’

  They sat in silence for a while. It was very pleasant and shady in the plant-filled garden and under normal circumstances they would both have enjoyed just drinking lemonade and smoking. But Yiannis could see Ahmet Öden’s car from where he was sitting and it stuck in his brain like a splinter.

  Eventually, unable to contain himself any longer, he said, ‘No, I’ll end this.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ll invite him in, tomorrow. That should give me enough time to prepare.’ And then, seeing that Hakkı was about to speak again, he held up a hand. ‘I don’t want to know what you think. My mind is made up. The only way that Öden and anyone else who may have theories about this house is going to go away is if I prove them wrong. And I know I can do it. And so do you.’

  Gezi was creating such odd bedfellows. Peri Mungun hadn’t had an easy time getting into the park that afternoon. The police were getting rough again and were preventing people from entering by force. Even those in nurses’ uniforms. But luckily for Peri a very tall, slim transsexual had come to her aid.

  When an officer had pushed Peri, she’d raced out of the park and said, ‘Hey! You! Leave that woman alone! She’s a nurse!’

  He’d said something not too complimentary under his breath.

  ‘Ah don’t swear at me, boy!’ the transsexual had said. And then she’d pulled Peri towards her and they’d run together back to the park.

  Peri had thanked her rescuer, who she discovered was called Pembe, and had joined her and her friends, who were making tea on a small camping stove. They were an odd little group. There was one other transsexual, called Madame Edith, who apparently had a cabaret act based on the songs of the legendary Edith Piaf. Then there were two young girls and a baby. Completely covered, the girls were part of the Muslims against Capitalism group.

  ‘Now who would like tea?’ Madame Edith asked.

  Pembe declined in favour of another cigarette, while the girls said yes, and Peri was very glad of a glass. She’d had to pander to the whims of a woman who’d had an elective caesarean section for most of the day and she was tired. As soon as the woman’s baby had arrived she’d lost interest in it. Unlike these two girls. She asked them what the baby’s name was and there was a slight and rather awkward pause before one of them said, ‘Ali.’

  ‘Is he your little brother?’ Peri asked.

  This time they both spoke at once.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We’re looking after him for a friend.’

  Peri looked at Pembe and Madame Edith, neither of whom seemed perturbed by what the girls had said. Madame Edith, still on the tea, said, ‘So does the baby want some tea? I don’t know about these things. Do babies drink tea?’

  ‘No,’ one of the girls said. She took a bottle out of a bag. ‘I’ve got milk.’

  ‘OK.’

  She fed the baby, whose clothes were – unlike the girls’ clothes – dirty. There were new and used nappies in the bag the girls had brought with them but they didn’t once put a new vest on him even when he dribbled milk down his front.

  Once Madame Edith had finished her tea she lay down for a nap in the sunshin
e. Pembe looked at her and shook her head. ‘Napping like a grandma! I’m going to find some food.’

  She left. Madame Edith snored and Peri looked at the baby. Not newborn, although not far off, he was a fractious little thing who nevertheless drank his milk. But his limbs were thin. Peri put her fingers around the top of one of his arms and she could feel his bones.

  ‘This is a friend’s baby?’ she said.

  Both girls’ eyes were big, but they both said, ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where is she? Your friend?’

  ‘Working,’ the girl on the left said.

  Her companion nodded.

  ‘Oh. What does she do?’

  ‘She—’

  ‘Why do you want to know?’ the girl on the right said. ‘What’s it to you?’

  Pembe knew she’d have to proceed carefully. She wasn’t convinced of their story. How could she be when they hadn’t initially agreed on the child’s identity?

  She said, ‘I’m a nurse and so I can’t help noticing when things aren’t right, especially with children. Little Ali is very thin.’

  ‘His mother’s poor,’ the girl on the right said. ‘That’s why she works.’

  ‘I accept that,’ Peri said. ‘And I’m sure she’s doing the best that she can for him.’

  ‘Her husband ran away.’

  ‘That’s really unfortunate,’ Peri said. ‘But the little one’s clothes are very dirty. I’m sure she could wash them from time to time. I see she’s given you lots of nappies and so she must have some money.’

  Neither of the girls said anything, but their eyes wouldn’t meet hers. With Madame Edith asleep and Pembe off who knew where, Peri knew she only had a limited amount of time on her own with the girls. At any moment they could disappear off into the Gezi crowds and be lost forever and, although she didn’t know that they’d done anything wrong, she knew she couldn’t live with herself if they had and she’d done nothing.

  She glanced around to see if anyone was watching. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘you’re bright girls. You’ve got your own opinions on what is going on in the world and you keep yourselves informed. You must know about this baby that’s missing—’