Belshazzar's Daughter (17 page)

‘Unless,’ ikmen, suddenly animated again, interjected, ‘unless you include idle speculation under the heading of reason.’

Smits raised his eyebrows. ‘I might.’

‘Well,’ ikmen continued, ‘there is one theory that you may have dismissed him for drunkenness at work.’

‘Yes?’

‘And there is another’ - here ikmen smiled, rather too pointedly for Suleyman’s nerves - ‘that you dismissed Mr Meyer because he was a Jew.’

It was at this point that the butler returned with the tea, which was just as well considering that Smits’s deep tan had now turned an alarming shade of grey. Not for the first time, Suleyman wondered whether his boss had gone too far too soon.

As the butler placed the tray down on to the coffee table he asked his master whether he should pour and received an affirmative reply. As the menial performed his task, Smits reminded him that he should make it lAu lait, after your usual fashion, Wilkinson.’

The china was, as would have been expected, of the finest quality. A delicate, almost transparent cup and saucer were handed to Suleyman; the cup’s little handle was so small that it was impossible for him to slot his finger through it with any degree of comfort. But then that wasn’t its purpose. Suleyman observed how Smits drank, keeping his little finger aloft as he tilted the cup to his mouth. Unnatural, affected and obviously quite correct. Amid great discomfort he attempted to copy Smits’s method, the foul taste of the beverage only adding to his misery. Smits, who had been keenly observing Suleyman’s struggles, acknowledged the young man with a small nod.

But when the butler had gone, the atmosphere changed quickly. Smits turned to ikmen and, with all vestiges of politeness gone, made his position quite clear. ‘You can’t imagine how thoroughly sick one becomes of slights upon one’s character due to no fault of one’s own. Your assumption that I dismissed this Meyer character because he was a Jew can only be connected to the fact that my father was German - a leap of so-called “logic” that I resent deeply!’

‘The assumption is not mine, sir,’ ikmen put in, ‘it is—’

fit

‘The idea that the words “German” and “Nazi” are

somehow synonymous is wounding in the extreme! I neither recall nor do I currently have any interest in this Meyer fellow and the fact that he was a Jew is, I believe, immaterial to anyone but him!’

‘I—’

‘I don’t know where you received your information from, but I would suggest that you put those persons right about the fact that my involvement with the deceased was, if indeed it happened at all, of a totally benign nature.

Furthermore, if any more stories of this nature were to come to my attention I could, as you can imagine, access enough legal expertise to both exonerate myself and destroy those who speak against me!’

His anger temporarily spent, Smits retreated, trembling, behind his now shaking cup and saucer, ikmen, for his part, took a little time out too, time during which he also drank (with revulsion) and thought.

Strangely, or so Suleyman thought at the time, when ikmen did speak, his tone was both gentle and conciliatory.

‘I do apologise if my words have offended you, Mr Smits,’ he said, ‘but with this being a murder investigation you can, I hope, appreciate that I have to explore every angle.’

Smits, rather than reply, simply sulked further back down behind his cup.

‘I would not,’ ikmen continued smoothly, ‘for one moment suggest that you possess anti-Semitic views. I know very little about you and, anyway, I would not simply take the unsubstantiated word of others against you.’

‘Well

‘If, however, you could check through your past records and see whether this man did ever work for you, I would be grateful. I realise that it was all a very long time ago, but …’

Smits shrugged. ‘I will do as you ask, although I hold out little hope of success. As you said, Inspector’ - and here he paused for just a moment, his eyes twinkling in the reflected glow from the gold-rimmed cup - ‘it was a very long time ago.’

Ikmen smiled and then put his not even half-finished teacup down upon the table. ‘Very well then, Mr Smits, I will leave that with you.’

He looked across at Suleyman who was attempting to pour the last of the liquid down his unwilling throat. ‘Sergeant Suleyman and I have things to do, as, I am sure, do you.’

‘Yes.’ Smits moved to ring the bell to summon the butler, but Ikmen stopped him.

‘We’ll see ourselves out, sir, thank you.’ He bowed slightly as he stood. ‘Goodbye, Mr Smits.’

‘Goodbye Inspector.’ His face, which until that moment had been set and grave, suddenly broke out into an uncontrollable, wide sun-ray smile. ‘And goodbye to you too,

Sergeant. You take care out there now, won’t you?’

‘Goodbye, sir,’ Suleyman replied, bowing very slightly prior to exiting.

It wasn’t until the two men had left that Smits allowed the smile to drop from his face. As he heard the front door close behind them, he rang the bell to summon the butler once again. In the minute that it took Wilkinson to return, Smits wiped his hands across his brow several times and shuffled in his chair as if seeking, but not finding, some sort of comfort.

When Wilkinson did finally knock and gain admittance, Smits’s tone told him all he needed to know about his master’s mood.

‘Get my address book and look up the number for

Demidova.’

‘Yes, sir.’ He made a move to walk further into the room - an action that was quickly cut short by Smits’s voice.

I mean now, Wilkinson!’

‘Yes, sir, but the tea—’

‘Just leave the bastard tea things and do as I have asked!’

‘Er, yes, sir, er …’ He scuttled out far more rapidly than he had arrived. This type of mood that his master was exhibiting, though uncommon, was not unknown to the butler.

Smits, now alone once more, looked into the middle

distance, an expression of blind fury playing upon his taut, aged features.

Under ikmen’s direction, Suleyman brought the car to a halt just outside the entrance to Reinhold Smits’s drive.

As soon as the engine had been switched off, Ikmen

began to speak. ‘So what did you make of Mr Smits,

Suleyman?’

‘Well, I suppose his reactions to the questions were understandable. Whatever his connections may or may not have been with Meyer, they happened a long time ago. And the contention that he dismissed Meyer because he was a Jew came rather rapidly and—’

‘You think I handled that part ineptly?’ It was said with a twinkle in his eye which Suleyman, nevertheless, missed entirely.

‘Oh, no, I don’t think that you—’

Ikmen laughed. ‘It’s all right, Suleyman, you can criticise me - provided’ - here he scowled in a most overt and theatrical manner - ‘you don’t do it too often.’

Suleyman smiled, if a little weakly. ‘I just thought that you launched into that particular subject a little hastily. I wasn’t sure about forcing his antagonism at that point.’

‘Oh, but I was, you see.’ Ikmen raised a finger in order to stress his point. ‘My reasoning being that if Smits did know Meyer, whose name originally you may have noticed elicited absolutely no reaction, and if he did indeed dismiss him because he was a Jew, he is probably quite a worried man now.’

‘Which of course we want him to be?’

‘Absolutely. How Smits behaves from now on and whether or not he “discovers” whether Meyer worked for him all those years ago could give us some useful pointers to his alleged anti-Semitism.’

‘Without, of course,’ Suleyman added, ‘giving us any clues as to whether Smits may have murdered Meyer.’

‘No.’ ikmen’s face dropped slightly again and he sighed.

‘No, even if Smits did dismiss him for that reason there is still nothing, as yet, to connect him to the murder. And even if Smits is involved there has to be more to it than simply Jew-baiting. I mean, if he’d wanted to kill Meyer because of what may or may not have occurred in the 1940s, he would have done it long ago, wouldn’t he?’

‘Yes.’

‘And besides’ - he paused briefly to light up a cigarette - ‘I don’t think that Mr Smits is the only person in the frame.’

‘No?’

‘No. I can’t tell you why, but I feel that those Gulcu people could be involved too. It may be that I am being led astray by the appearance of Mr Cornelius in their home, but—’

‘Ah!’ Suleyman, suddenly remembering, turned quickly towards ikmen. ‘Yes. I telephoned London about him.

Inspector Lloyd said he’d get back when he had some news.’

‘Good.’ Not that ikmen had really heard, in the fullest sense, what his deputy had just said. His mind, as had happened before when he thought about the Gulcus, was fully on that family and their strangeness. ‘You don’t think I’m being a bit irrational about those people, do you, Suleyman?’

‘Well …’ He did and he didn’t, it was hard. ‘Well, yes and no, I … They were very strange and it was odd that Cornelius should be with them at the time of our visit. But … from what the old woman said it would seem that she had at least some affection for Meyer. I mean, to kill him would be - well, really rather nonsensical. It …’

‘A bit like Smits killing him after all this time, I suppose.

Yes, I see what you mean, Suleyman.’

The younger man eyed the older one narrowly. ‘You’re not convinced though, are you, sir?’

ikmen smiled. ‘Oh, I don’t know, Suleyman. Mind you, whichever way you look at it, it’s doubtful whether any of the extraordinarily elderly people we’ve seen so far could actually have perpetrated the crime themselves.’

‘No,’ Suleyman agreed, ‘I think they would have to have had some help.’

‘Oh, yes indeed. Someone young and fit. Perhaps, in Smits’s case, someone typically Aryan too …’

Suleyman smiled. ‘Someone like Cornelius?’

ikmen laughed, a short, sharp retort. ‘Perhaps. Although I think that that particular mixture might just be a little too rich for my stomach.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning that it is quite exotic enough having the Englishman “involved” with the lovely Gulcu girl without throwing the disturbing Mr Smits into the equation too. Let’s not get too carried away, eh?’

‘No.’

‘Anyway’ - ikmen, laughing, banged his hand down hard against the dashboard - ‘let’s get back to the station. I must find Cohen and then get out to see the Blatsky woman and some of those derelicts. She has, in my opinion, waited quite long enough for a slice of our attention.’

They met, as they usually did on their shared short day, at the bus-stands on Taksim Square. In spite of the fact that he had left his school at twelve and she her shop just thirty minutes later, both of them looked and indeed were quite tired. Although very little had happened to either of them since their last meeting, internally they had both been very busy with their own thoughts. Robert, in particular, looked pale and strained - not, of course, that his beautiful companion seemed to notice. When the bus arrived she simply got on board and sat down without either proffering a ticket to the driver or speaking so much as a word. Gallantly, but typically, Robert found himself paying for her transport. Then, as if to compound his burgeoning isolation, Natalia didn’t speak a word to him during the entire course of their journey across the city. In an attempt to distract himself from her coldness, Robert looked out of the window and tried to enjoy the view. The route back to his apartment took them right along the edge of the Bosporus. The broad seaway sparkled in the sunlight; ferries ploughing and criss-crossing their way between Europe and Asia left glittering trails of thick white foam in their wake, like great, fast-moving snails.

Although next to Natalia, he wasn’t happy. His hands clenched and unclenched nervously as he desperately tried to think of something to say. But nothing would come. Not even the kind of mindless trivia the English are supposed to be so good at. Talk of the weather, the iniquities of politicians, the price of food.

Looking at her was bad. It made him want to fall on her, bury himself between her hair and her massive breasts. But if he turned away from her it allowed his mind to think.

Here was a person he loved without understanding, a woman at whose capabilities and motives he could only guess. Logically the object of a person’s desire was no less prone to unspeakable acts than any other mortal. But logic had never been Robert’s strong suit. Some things defied it and yet still seemed to make perfect sense. Like Billy Smith, his bane, his bete noir, the wicked boy. London. He could see the child. Twelve years old, thin, red hair and freckles.

He looked mischievous and self-satisfied, every child with red hair seemed to. It had been stupid to dislike him just because of his appearance. Unfortunately he had made no secret of it either. His colleagues had criticised him. But he had been right. It was Billy who extorted money from the smaller children, Billy who disrupted his class and called him ‘Blondie’ to his face, Billy and the Norris twins who were caught with the cat in the playground. The poor cat.

Its fur, black, silky, caked with its own thick blood. The memory even two thousand miles away in Turkey made

the acid in his stomach rise. Little bastards! What he hadn’t wanted to do to them! And yet, despite the poor cat’s pain, the incident had given him some satisfaction.

It had vindicated him. For a short while afterwards the other teachers had understood. But only for a short while, just until Billy and the twins got going again. Then things had changed. Robert looked down at his hands and sighed deeply. It was so hot. That was the worst thing about istanbul really, the awful, stifling, humid heat.

He turned to look at Natalia again. Her face was still cold, as cold as it had been when they had met. She hadn’t wanted to go with him. It was ‘their’ Thursday afternoon, a regular and, on his part, much treasured weekly event in their lives. But this time she hadn’t wanted to go. Perhaps she thought that the little pantomime he had witnessed at her house was enough? That now he would just go away, dissolve silently into the background? But all this was based upon the assumption that she didn’t care for him and he knew that that was just not true. If he meant nothing to her, why had she stayed with him for so long? How could she have loved him with such perfect passion? Oh, she cared. Something was very wrong, but she still cared.