The House of Four

by Barbara Nadel

  ‘He did kill himself?’ she said.

  ‘Oh yes, no foul play there,’ İkmen said. ‘But why? What, if anything, did he know over and above what was told to Yiannis Apion?’

  ‘Does Apion think he knew more?’

  ‘Yes,’ İkmen said. ‘He’s no idea what, so he says. And I don’t think he is trying to point the finger at the priest for the murders. Although that said, I really don’t know.’

  Mehmet Süleyman had gone to his apartment in Cihangir and fallen asleep on his bed immediately. Had he returned to Gonca’s house in Balat, the noise from all her many relatives would have kept him awake. And Gonca herself would have wanted attention. The older she got, the worse it was becoming. His mother said that the gypsy had bewitched him, and although he was an otherwise rational man, he could believe it. She was beautiful, strong and very, very good in bed, but he’d had a great many beautiful women over the years, and none of them had affected him like Gonca. None of his women had ever made him afraid.

  When he finally woke up, just as the heat of the day was diminishing, he remembered what İkmen had said about his trip to Ireland. He’d have to tell Gonca that he’d miss her birthday. She wouldn’t kill him. In fact she wouldn’t do anything to him. He had always had the upper hand in their relationship, and she knew it. Not only was he over fifteen years her junior, he was a police officer from a good family. She, for her part, was a respected artist, but she had no power beyond that bestowed by her enormous extended family. And even they weren’t everywhere.

  Before he’d left his office to accompany İkmen to Beşiktaş the previous evening, he thought he’d seen Ömer Mungun leave with Constable Demirtaş. He hoped they’d just gone for a drink and nothing more. Not that he was jealous. Barçın Demirtaş was a good-looking woman with more than a touch of wildness in her soul – the motorbike was testament to that – but Süleyman told himself that his concern was purely paternal. Ömer was a young man who was shy with women and he didn’t want him to get hurt. But was that the truth?

  He pictured her young, firm-breasted body and it made him feel horny. If Barçın Demirtaş offered herself to him, he would take her, and he knew it.

  Chapter 20

  It was late by the time Erdal Bey of Kenter and Kenter returned Çetin İkmen’s call. He had been in a meeting. Also, by his own admission, he’d had to spend a little time collecting relevant pieces of information before he called the policeman.

  ‘I inherited the Rudolfoğlu business from my father,’ he told İkmen. ‘I went to see Miss Fatima once, when I took over the practice in 1979. She was old then, and far from the world’s most gracious hostess. I remember that her housekeeper, or whatever she was, made the worst tea I can recall outside of my old school, which is saying something.’

  İkmen wondered whether, like Süleyman, Erdal Bey had been to the prestigious Galatasaray Lisesi.

  ‘Did you know about her son when you went to visit her, Erdal Bey?’

  ‘My father had mentioned him,’ he said. ‘Not that he had any more idea about who he might be than I did. In fact, over the years, I must say I have wondered whether he was some figment of her imagination. My wife had a spinster aunt who constantly fantasised about non-existent lovers and chimerical children. But, as you saw in my letter to Miss Fatima, I felt compelled to advise caution with regard to her will.’

  ‘Would a child have a claim on the property?’ İkmen asked.

  ‘Provided he could prove his identity, yes. Miss Fatima gave no instructions for her body to be buried complete and intact, and so samples could be taken for DNA comparison. But as no one has yet come forward, I am at the moment inclined to believe that it was possibly a fantasy. That said, at the time, I had to take what she told me seriously.’

  ‘Do you have any idea about who may have fathered this child?’

  ‘Not really, no. My father did tell me there were rumours that Rudolf Paşa had had relations with his daughter, but Fatima would have been a child at the time and so the production of issue would have been a remote possibility. I think it much more likely that she became pregnant after the death of her mother.’

  ‘Yes, but by whom? I have been led to believe that once the family locked themselves away, they had few visitors.’

  ‘Few, but not none,’ Erdal Bey said. ‘Or maybe it was one of the brothers . . .’

  Maybe it was. Maybe that was what all the spite had been about all along. One of the boys had crept into her bed . . . or perhaps been invited. However . . .

  ‘If it was one of the brothers, then surely they would have kept the child?’ İkmen said.

  Erdal Bey sighed. ‘Sadly, Çetin Bey, that would not necessarily follow. The Rudolfoğlus were Ottomans, remember.’

  Too proud to acknowledge such things as illegitimacy or incest even if it was their own fault. Even if it caused them pain.

  ‘I know,’ İkmen said. ‘What about these occasional visitors? Any ideas?’

  ‘Apart from my father, no,’ he said. ‘And let me reassure you right now, it wasn’t him.’

  ‘I didn’t—’

  ‘I know you weren’t implying anything,’ Erdal Bey said. ‘But just to clear this up, my father was a lot younger than Fatima Hanım, he was wealthy, and he had a vast stable of young, pretty mistresses. I’ve no idea who else may have visited that house. But if you can track down the servant who attended the old woman when I visited in 1979, she might know. Inappropriately, to my mind, she was at her mistress’s side the whole time I was there. Even when I was discussing matters of personal finance. Even, as I recall, when I first brought up the subject of Miss Fatima’s son.’

  Sinem was ill again, and the Gürsel household revolved around her pain. Pembe Hanım was an uncomplaining carer, but she’d enlisted the help of some woman from an LGBT pressure group who didn’t approve of the police. So Kerim was not welcome while she was around.

  Kerim and his wife Sinem had grown up together. When they were kids, everyone had assumed that they’d marry. But then Sinem had developed arthritis and Kerim’s family had discouraged their friendship. What they hadn’t known, and still didn’t, was that Kerim and Sinem had both been aware from an early age that they were gay. No one could understand why clever, handsome Kerim had insisted upon marrying a cripple. But not only had it been the perfect cover for both of them, it also meant that as best friends they would never be alone. And even when Kerim had fallen in love with the transsexual Pembe Hanım, nothing had changed between him and Sinem. In fact Pembe was a lifesaver for Sinem, whose condition was deteriorating. Only this woman, who meant well but whose name Kerim didn’t even know, had altered the dynamics of the Gürsel apartment.

  So Kerim kept out of the way. He’d spent almost all day at the Teufel Ev, after which he had taken himself off to the Koço via the ayazma of St Katherine. He’d spent a long time looking at the floor, which was covered in what looked like ancient stone flags. He wondered how whoever had buried Perihan Hanım’s child had got them up. He had to have been strong. A manual labourer, maybe? A gardener, like the baby’s father, Konstantinos Apion? Soon, İkmen had told him, on Teker’s orders, the stones would be lifted.

  After the ayazma, he’d gone up into the Koço and ordered a vodka and tonic. A nice long alcoholic drink after yet another grim day’s work.

  The Koço was much livelier in the evenings. Some of the largely elderly daytime crowd were in evidence, including Rauf Bey, who smiled at him before returning to his newspaper. Fortunately he didn’t seem to want to talk, which suited Kerim. The old man had been very useful at the beginning of the Teufel Ev investigation. But the feeling Kerim had got from him, that maybe he had a personal interest in him too, made the policeman want to avoid the elderly lawyer. The last thing he needed was an admirer, especially one who lived with a fish. His life was already way more complicated than it should be. But then at least he wasn’t like Ömer Mungun, who, he suspected, had started seeing Constable Demirtaş.

  Kerim had only spe
nt a very short time at headquarters that morning before heading out to Moda, but he’d seen Ömer, starry-eyed and slightly dishevelled, sneaking sly peeks at the Ottoman script transcriber and then smiling. He wished the younger man well. But he feared for him too. Süleyman, Kerim had observed over the years, rarely took kindly to other men courting attractive women of his acquaintance. There could only be one peacock in his yard, and it had to be him.

  He finished his drink and ordered another. It had just arrived when İkmen called him.

  There was Moda, and there was Moda. The İnce family lived in what was a fast-disappearing part of the district, i.e., affordable Moda. Not for them the Ottoman villas, venerable mid-twentieth-century housing, or steel-and-glass apartment towers with views of the sea.

  Çetin İkmen had visited the tatty, garlic-scented apartment before, when he’d managed to get Bilal İnce to admit his theft of an expensive boncuk from the Teufel Ev. This time it was his wife he wanted to see.

  ‘My husband is out with the children at some political meeting,’ Selin said as she showed İkmen and Kerim Gürsel into her sitting room. ‘I can’t tell you how furious I was with him over that boncuk. How stupid can you get?’

  The two men sat down.

  İkmen said, ‘Well actually it is you we’ve come to see, Selin Hanım.’

  ‘Me?’ She too sat. ‘About Fatima Hanım again? I’ve told you everything I know.’

  ‘Possibly,’ İkmen said. ‘Mrs İnce, may I ask whether your mother is still alive?’

  ‘No. She died five years ago. Why?’

  ‘Your mother worked at the Teufel Ev before you.’

  ‘Yes, I told you that,’ she said. ‘And my grandmother.’

  ‘Information has come to us about a child born to Fatima Hanım . . .’

  ‘Well that’s a lie!’ she said. ‘She never had any children; she was a spinster.’

  ‘Spinster she may have been,’ İkmen said. ‘But virgin she was not, I’m afraid, Selin Hanım. During the course of his examination of Fatima Hanım’s body, our pathologist discovered that she had given birth to a child by Caesarean section. Now the Rudolfoğlu family lawyer has informed me that this child may have survived. He also told me that back in 1979, when he visited Miss Fatima, a female servant was present. I assume that was your mother.’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘Well, do you know whether Fatima Hanım ever had any other servants?’

  ‘Not that I know of.’

  ‘Then it seems it had to be your mother, doesn’t it?’

  She shrugged. Her manner was studiedly offhand. Both İkmen and Gürsel had seen suspects in interview use that method of attempted concealment hundreds of times.

  ‘And assuming it was your mother, then according to Erdal Bey of Kenter and Kenter, she was present when he and Fatima Hanım were discussing this child, a boy. Or rather a man . . .’

  ‘Don’t know anything about it,’ she said. ‘Before my time.’

  She’d become very pale, and when she went to take a cigarette out of a packet, İkmen noticed that her hand shook.

  ‘Yes, but I doubt your mother would have let you take over her job blind,’ Kerim said. ‘She must have told you things . . .’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Some of them intimate,’ İkmen said.

  She said nothing.

  ‘Hanım,’ İkmen said. ‘I know you know something. Believe me, everything about your demeanour at the moment screams that you know something. Also, why would Erdal Bey lie?’

  ‘I don’t know!’

  ‘He wouldn’t, and I’m struggling to understand why you are. Selin Hanım, your husband has already admitted stealing from Fatima Hanım’s apartment. How do we know that you didn’t kill her and her brothers in order to silence them about that theft?’

  Knowing that the kapıcı was almost certainly listening out for her, Barçın Demirtaş tiptoed up the stairs to her apartment in bare feet. She’d taken her shoes off at the front door of the building, even though she hadn’t been able to see or hear him. When she was halfway up the stairs, he’d loomed out of a broom cupboard. She’d said ‘Good evening, Serkan Bey,’ and he had returned the greeting but his eyes had betrayed his disgust.

  She’d heard other tenants talk about how he listened at doors. He must have heard Ömer making love to her, especially when he’d done it against her apartment door. They’d never be able to do that again. But then would they anyway?

  Fortunately Barçın had been busy all day. In spite of her tiredness, she’d made a considerable breakthrough with the legal documents she’d found. İkmen had been pleased and had let her leave early. Then she’d gone shopping. However, while she was at work, she had noticed that Ömer kept coming into her office and looking at her from the corridor. It had been unnerving, and although she’d had fun with him the previous night, she was beginning to wonder whether seeing him again was a good idea.

  The sex had been enthusiastic and sensual. Unlike a tragically large cohort of men, he knew his way around a woman’s body. But could she continue seeing him just for sex if he was going to turn creepy and obsessive on her? She’d been there before. And anyway, he wasn’t strictly her type . . .

  ‘My grandmother Muazzaz was an evil bitch,’ Selin said.

  It wasn’t every day that İkmen heard a woman speak with such lack of respect about her own grandmother.

  ‘When Fatima Hanım and her brothers killed their mother’s baby, she said she wasn’t there. But I’ve always wondered. She was a racist, a bigot; she thought that women who didn’t cover were whores, and she treated my mother like dirt. All she cared about were her ladies, Perihan and Fatima Hanım. But she was also scared of Fatima. She once told my mother that Fatima wasn’t even Perihan Hanım’s child. Rudolf Paşa, she said, had mated with a female devil. She blamed him for all of it, probably because he was a foreigner. But she didn’t like it when Perihan had an affair with the Greek gardener. It was my grandmother who gave Konstantinos Apion the child’s body to dispose of. She was vile and frightening. But as I say, she was scared of Fatima Hanım.’

  ‘And so was your mother?’ İkmen asked. ‘And you?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said. Then she laughed nervously. ‘She was the Devil.’

  ‘Really? So why are you protecting her? You seem to me to be a rational woman. Fatima Hanım is dead.’

  Selin shook her head. ‘Is she?’

  ‘You know she is; you found her.’

  ‘Can the Devil die?’ she said. She shook her head again. ‘Yes, of course I know about her pregnancy. My mother told me. But I can’t tell you anything about it.’

  ‘Can’t, or won’t?’ İkmen said.

  ‘I can’t,’ she said.

  ‘Because you’re still frightened of her?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  İkmen sighed. ‘So if I were to ask you whether you know who the father of the child was . . .’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘And that’s the truth.’

  ‘You knew the child survived?’

  She said nothing.

  ‘I see. What about when it was born? Do you know that?’

  Again she said nothing.

  ‘You do know that I can very easily connect you to your husband’s theft charge,’ İkmen said. ‘In fact I’m not sure that I actually believe you didn’t know what he’d done.’

  She looked at him and held his gaze.

  ‘What did Miss Fatima do to you, Selin?’ he said. ‘Did she say she’d reach out from beyond the grave and harm your family if you told the truth? You know that’s not possible, don’t you? Your husband may buy into all that, but I can’t believe that you really do.’

  ‘How do you know?’ she asked. ‘It’s said you don’t believe in anything.’

  ‘Ah, but that isn’t strictly true. Not that I’m material to this conversation,’ he added. ‘We are working on the theory that the child Miss Fatima gave birth to was born sometime around 1928. We have arrived at this d
ate purely on the assumption that Rudolf was the father. That was the year he died. Fatima was nine. This would make her son almost ninety, were he still alive. Now if you can confirm or deny this date, it would be very useful to us.’

  She shifted in her chair. Her mobile phone rang; she ignored it.

  ‘As you say,’ she said, ‘I’m not a foolish woman, but I am superstitious. I admit that. Also I know what she was like, the awful things she said, the way she used to pinch me underneath my arms when I tried to bathe her. She’d hang on until I bled sometimes. She used to beat my mother.’

  ‘So why did your mother allow you to work at the Teufel Ev?’

  ‘That goes back to Granny Muazzaz,’ she said. ‘Perihan Hanım died because of complications after the birth of her little girl. But Fatima told Granny that if she ever left her, she’d tell the police that she’d killed her mother. She said our families were tied to each other forever. That if one of us told what had happened in that house, we’d all hang.’

  ‘But that can’t happen now,’ İkmen said.

  ‘Provided you believe me.’

  ‘Well convince me,’ he said. ‘Whatever happens, you won’t hang, will you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So . . .’

  She took a breath. ‘Mum told me that the baby was born in 1939. She didn’t know who took it – or she didn’t tell me, and that is the truth.’

  ‘And it was a boy?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did your mother know whether it was given a name?’

  She bit her lip.

  İkmen leaned forward. ‘Come on, Selin, you’ve got this far.’

  She began to cry. ‘I said I’d never tell! I said . . .’

  ‘Come on,’ İkmen said. ‘Fatima Rudolfoğlu wasn’t kind to you; you owe her nothing.’

  ‘Yes, but she’ll—’

  ‘No she won’t!’ He took one of her hands. ‘Fatima is dead. And unpleasant though she was, she wasn’t the Devil and she can’t hurt you. I promise you that on the lives of my precious grandchildren.’