Belshazzar's Daughter (35 page)

‘Keep all these books for me will you, Timtir? I’ll be back.’

‘All right.’

ikmen got up from his seat and followed the strange little man as he padded gently across the library.

The sun had only just risen when they arrived at Karadeniz Sokak. They were, however, both extremely wide awake and, in ikmen’s case, rather grave also.

As they entered her apartment, Maria Gulcu waved a

greeting and then, smiling, added, ‘So here you are again, Inspector. And your pretty friend.’

‘Perhaps I just covet your fine ikons, Mrs Gulcu,’ ikmen replied.

She hauled herself painfully towards the headboard. ‘You must excuse my nearly always being in this bed when you come, but age is so … limiting. Serge?’

She held her hand out to a small twisted man who sat in the chair beside her bed. ikmen thought he looked about sixty, although it wasn’t easy to tell. Whatever his condition was it had so warped his body that getting a clear view of his face was not easy. He took the old woman’s hand in both of his and kissed it. ‘Mama?’

‘Serge, these two gentlemen are from the police. We will speak English while they are here and you will be nice.’

She fixed him with a stern gaze and then turned to ikmen.

‘Gentlemen, my younger son, Sergei.’

Ikmen inclined his head. ‘Mr Gulcu.’

He muttered something in reply, but ikmen couldn’t hear what it was.

She lit a cigarette. ‘Please sit down, gentlemen.’

ikmen smiled and lowered himself on to the edge of her bed. Suleyman, as usual, remained standing. He liked to have a clear view of the door in this house. It made him feel more comfortable.

‘Well, Inspector, what can we do for you this time? I feel we are quite old friends, you and I.’

The door opened and the granddaughter Natalia tiptoed quietly across the room and then sank into one of the chairs over by the curtained window. No servant today. For a few seconds she shuffled, getting her long bare legs comfortable.

She crossed one over the other in a movement that could only be described as pornographic. But once settled she was silent.

ikmen knitted his fingers together under his chin and turned to the old woman. ‘Just a couple more questions, Mrs Gulcu, nothing painful.’

She smiled and licked her dry lips. ‘Good. Painless is good. I do not like pain, Inspector, I am too old for it.’

‘It is not one of my particular pleasures either, madam.’

She laughed. ‘I like you,’ she said. ‘You are little, you dress badly and you’re ugly, but I like you.’

‘A compliment policemen very rarely get, madam, thank you.’

The little cripple Sergei shifted painfully in his seat. His feet dangled uselessly before him, the toes turned inwards and back, a helix, ikmen noticed that Suleyman could hardly take his eyes off them.

He cleared his throat. ‘Mrs Gulcu, I need to ask you about your background.’

She narrowed her eyes. ‘Why?’

‘If you could just answer my questions, madam, I will make clear the reasons behind this later.’

She sniffed. ‘If I must.’

‘Good. Now.’ ikmen brought his hands up to his cheeks and pouted. ‘I understand, Mrs Gulcu, that you also go under the name of Demidova, is that right?’

‘My maiden name, yes.’ Although she didn’t flinch or register any discomfort, the little man beside her bed turned away. ‘How did you discover that, Inspector?’

He smiled. ‘We will talk of that later, if we may, Mrs Gulcu. What I am interested in at the moment is where the name Demidova comes from.’

‘Well, my father—’

‘No, no, let me rephrase that, madam. What I am looking for here is a specific Demidova; one in fact I discovered in a very interesting book about your country’s history yesterday.

One who was, I understand, a maid in the employ of the Tsarina Alexandra.’

‘Oh.’

For a moment there was pure silence in that room. A silence, however, during which ikmen felt all eyes present fall upon him.

The old woman cleared her throat before replying. ‘No, Inspector, quite a different family, I can assure you.’

‘Can you prove that?’

Her eyes narrowed and ikmen felt she was just about to reply when the little cripple suddenly started laughing.

‘Inspector, my mother you cannot expect to—’

‘Serge!’ Her voice was raised but quite cold, as if she were talking to a recalcitrant child. She turned her eyes on to ikmen’s face. He looked away and lit a cigarette.

‘I may be missing something here, Inspector, but what bearing does this have upon your investigation?’

‘It is of significance, or so I believe, madam,’ he said.

‘So can you prove whether or not you are related to this maid?’

‘No, I cannot,’ she replied and then looking up defiantly, ‘but you can take my word for the fact that this lady’s family and my own are not one and the same.’

ikmen drew deeply on his cigarette. ‘And why should I do that?’

She moved herself slightly in her bed, pulling her neck up to its full height. ‘Because I give you my word and because the lady of whom you speak, Anna Demidova, did not have any relatives when she died.’

‘You seem to know quite a bit about the subject, madam.’

‘Most old Russians do, Inspector. But if you do not believe me about Anna Demidova, then look it up yourself.

You seem to be possessed of numerous sources on this subject.’

‘Oh, I am,’ he smiled, ‘and believe me I will, Mrs

Gulcu; as soon as I get back to my car I will do just that.

Thank you.’

‘And when you do indeed discover that Anna Demidova and myself are not related, perhaps, Inspector,’ she said archly, ‘you will tell me what all this might be about.’

“I will tell you that now, madam.’ He ground his

half-finished cigarette out in her ashtray and then instantly lit another. ‘Not, of course, that I am entirely sure about it myself, but … It seems to be becoming apparent that there is some sort of connection between what

Leonid Meyer did back in Russia and what so recently happened here.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes. By your own admission he was a Bolshevik and, for those who were damaged or persecuted by that faction, there may, it occurs to me, be some sort of satisfaction to be gained by the death of one of their number.’

She laughed. ‘At this distance in time, Inspector, surely …’

‘Without wishing to give offence, Mrs Gulcu, if I were dealing perhaps with my own people, I would say not. But it is well known that Russians have long memories and—’

‘And you thought that if I were related to Anna Demidova I may have taken it into my head …’ Here she paused, visibly scoffing at his suggestion. ‘But Leonid was a friend, Inspector ikmen - a friend who, furthermore, helped to remove me from the horrors of that time.’

‘And himself from his own rather more criminal situation?’

She

moved awkwardly in her bed now, casting about

impatiently as if imprisoned. ‘Oh, I know nothing of that, Inspector! As I have told you. And with Leonid dead and gone I would suggest that your chances of ever discovering the truth behind that are most slim.’

‘Maybe. Maybe. But from what my forensics experts tell me there is a possibility that our Mr Meyer was involved in the composition of a firing squad. Perhaps like the one that killed your late Tsar, madam?’

‘Oh, really.’ Her eyes were dead now, almost he fancied studiedly so.

‘Yes, and if I find no evidence to suggest that Anna Demidova was indeed alone in the world I will come back and talk to you about this again.’

She shrugged. ‘As you wish. If you want to spend your time chasing fanciful historical theories for the glory, no doubt, of your own career, that is up to you.’

‘Very well.’ He looked briefly across at Suleyman before continuing and noticed that the young man looked very strained. Ikmen knew how he felt - this was not proving either easy or pleasant. When he spoke again, he changed the subject. ‘All right, Mrs Gulcu,’ he said, ‘so what about the illegal status of yourself and your relatives in this country?’

‘Illegal status?’

‘Yes. We discovered the name Demidova in connection with your telephone number when we were checking up on the background of Gulcu family members in this city. With the exception of your late husband, we found absolutely nothing. Can you explain that, please?’

She let a moment pass before replying and when she did she spoke in such a logical and ordered fashion that ikmen could, had he not known better, have been led to believe that what she was saying was quite reasonable.

‘When I first came to this country,’ she said, ‘nobody knew or even cared whether one had “papers” or not. It is like that after a war. Dear old Mehmet Gulcu looked after me and I, in return, gave him the children he so craved. But again nothing official happened - Christians and Moslems didn’t marry back in those days, it was too complicated.

And even when Mehmet died there was no trouble, he had no family and so his money and property became my own.

It was like that then and it suited me and—’

‘But your children? What about them - and your granddaughter for that matter? They have right of Turkish citizenship through Mr Gulcu. Why were they not registered?’

She sighed. ‘For you to understand, Inspector, you would have to be Russian and so what I am about to say will sound ludicrous to you. But’ - she paused to light a cigarette and, as she exhaled, she continued - ‘when the sacred blood of Mother Russia flows through your veins, you are inclined to view the world rather differently. I was born a Russian and I have always wished to die a Russian too. As for my family?’

She smiled. ‘They do as I do. We live, inasmuch as we can, the lifestyle of Russians before the cataclysm in 1918.

Mehmet understood and indulged all this and when he died he left me enough money to fund my eccentricities.’

Suleyman, who had been quietly listening and observing all of this, suddenly had to speak. ‘But … but, I mean, do you all like to live like this?’

Maria Gulcu turned to her son and raised an eyebrow.

‘Serge?’

‘We have always lived like this,’ he said simply. ‘It is only Natalia who does not. She works for an old friend of my father’s, but that is her choice.’

The old woman eyed Suleyman appreciatively. ‘I am no gaoler, young man. All are free to follow their own paths.

Natalia works and my son Nicholas can and does leave this house on occasion.’

ikmen cleared his throat, calling Maria Gulcu’s attention back to him.

‘Odd we may be and I am undoubtedly a breaker of your laws, but we are not wicked people. As I have told you before, Inspector,’ she said, ‘there are others out there in the world who have or had reason to want Leonid dead.’

Her great care in not actually naming anyone made him smile. ‘Oh yes, your old pursuer Reinhold Smits.’

‘Pursuer?’

‘Yes,’ said ikmen. ‘We have actually received information from another source which suggests that Meyer

and Smits may have, at some time, argued over your

favours.’

‘Oh yes?’

‘Yes.’

She smiled. ‘And have you inquired of Reinhold …’

‘Oh, Mr Smits has substantiated this story, yes. Although he did say a few other things of concern to us before he finally faltered under interrogation.’

It was here that her face changed and for the first time, ikmen thought - or fancied, he didn’t know which - that he saw real fear in her eyes.

‘But for the moment,’ ikmen continued, ‘we cannot

question Mr Smits because he is indisposed.’

She nodded, as if on automatic and then said, quietly, ‘He has cancer.’

‘Yes, he does,’ ikmen replied, ‘although we, unfortunately, did not know that when we brought him in for

questioning. Had I realised that you were aware of such recent developments in Mr Smits’s life, I would have consulted you before.’

He thought, although he could hardly be certain because of the thickness of her make-up, that her face blanched.

‘However, just before Mr Smits fell ill, he did tell my sergeant here that you, to use his own words, “had something” on Mr Meyer and further that you are the one who can provide us with the “truth” about him.’

‘Reinhold Smits said that?’

‘Yes.’

She cleared her throat and almost magically she also, or so it seemed, cleared her previous unsure and frightened countenance too. ‘Then,’ she said, ‘I would suggest that Reinhold Smits is lying.’

‘Well,’ ikmen countered, ‘while you are both accusing each other of, I must say, really rather vague “things”, how can I possibly know whether he is lying or you?’

‘Well, you can’t, can—’

‘No, I can’t, Mrs Gulcu. Moreover, I get the distinct feeling that this impasse is exactly where you both want me to be right now.’

She laughed. ‘Oh, Inspector!’

But ikmen was not amused. He was extremely and almost furiously frustrated. But despite that he controlled that particular emotion now. He put his cigarette out in the ashtray, then leant forward and looked her straight in the eyes. ‘You want to know what I think, madam? I think that all three of you “had things” on each other. Meyer had far too much money for an old derelict and I think that both you and Smits know exactly what happened in that stinking room in Balat and why. And furthermore, I think that you fed his guilt over his old “crime” in Russia for many, many years. After all, to have in your possession a broken-down, defeated old Bolshevik must have been quite exhilarating in a grim sort of way, especially in view of the fact that Leonid came from Perm, just a few kilometres from Ekaterinburg, where your Tsar was murdered.’

For almost a minute there was not so much as a breath in that room. Although none of those present so much as flickered recognition of what had just been said, the leadenness of the air spoke far more loudly than either words or expressions. Even ikmen hardly dared to breathe until Maria Gulcu finally broke the silence.

‘None of these things that you are saying make any

sense to me at all, Inspector ikmen. And I am therefore inevitably led to the conclusion that, given my admitted lack of knowledge, I am now of little further use to you.’