Belshazzar's Daughter (6 page)

It was an unconventional partnership. Suleyman, young, unmarried, clean-living and quiet, was an odd fish to find in the same pool with ikmen. But unlike all the other sergeants the Inspector had worked with before, Suleyman pleased him. ikmen could trust him. There was nothing underhand, sly or competitive about the man. None of that awful trying to score points off the boss and make him look stupid that seemed to be the overriding obsession of most young sergeants in the station. Suleyman, for his part, knew that he was valued and it pleased him. His pay was low and the conditions of the job were often dreadful, but working with ikmen more than made up for all that, ikmen taught him about life, ‘the raw material of homicide’, as he put it.

There were so many elements. Even a simple thing, like sex, could be so involved. Since working with ikmen, Suleyman had come to see that life was a lot more complicated than he had originally thought.

The office door flew open and smashed against the corner of the sergeant’s desk. A bony hand clutching a large bottle and an overpowering smell of stale cigarettes preceded the visitor into the room.

‘Hello, sir.’ Suleyman stood up.

ikmen headed straight for the table wedged between the two desks and placed his bottle on it. He delicately fingered each small plastic bag, peering red-and watery-eyed at their contents.

‘This is Meyer’s stuff, I take it.’

‘Yes, sir.’

ikmen motioned for Suleyman to resume his seat and

grabbed a small handful of bags. He squeezed behind the bulk of his desk and sat down. A skyscraper of cardboard files obscured Suleyman’s view of ikmen almost

completely.

“I found our tall foreign witness at the school,’ said a disembodied voice. ‘An Englishman, a Mr Cornelius. He was having a rest and a cigarette on that corner at about four-thirty yesterday. Said he saw and heard nothing, but I wonder.’

‘What makes you think that, sir?’

‘Unsteady, nervous eyes. Not quite right, Mr Cornelius.

Don’t ask me how!’ He paused. ‘Hesitation too. Seemed to take him an awful long time to decide that he hadn’t seen or heard anything.’

‘Perhaps he was just considering. Searching through his mind to make sure he didn’t miss some minor detail that might be of use to us.’

‘You’re too trusting.’ ikmen sighed deeply. ‘Come over here will you, Suleyman. Help me look through this lot.’

Suleyman got up from his seat and, squeezing round

the evidence table, made his way to the ‘business’ side of ikmen’s desk.

‘One Turkish passport.’ ikmen held a small, flat, green thing up to the light. He screwed his eyes up against the hot glare from outside the window and grunted impatiently.

‘Suleyman, do you think we can have that window shut, please? There’s dust blowing all over me and it’s not helping.’

The dust which in the summer billowed up continually from the road below was indeed unpleasant. Suleyman, however, found it infinitely preferable to ikmen’s cigarette smoke. The window and its degree of openness was a

constant bone of contention between them.

‘But, sir!’

‘Just do it, will you? If you die from passive smoking I promise to support your aged parents.’

Suleyman stretched behind ikmen’s back and pulled the edge of the rotted window-frame downwards. Dust and grit already in the room fell and settled on every surface as the gentle breeze that kept it aloft was extinguished. The smoke from ikmen’s cigarette wafted straight into his face.

He grimaced and fanned it timorously with his hand.

‘What’s this?’ said ikmen, holding up a small plastic covered volume. ‘Address book.’

He unwrapped the item and started carefully flicking through its yellowing pages. Suleyman craned his head down over ikmen’s shoulder to get a better view. At first glance the book appeared to be empty. Page after page of blank sheets appeared before the policemen’s eyes.

‘Not exactly a socialite, was he, sir?’

ikmen ignored, on principle, all and any of his sergeant’s rudimentary attempts at wit and so continued to work his way methodically towards the end of the volume. It was only when he reached the very last page that his efforts were rewarded. Suleyman looked at the four separate blocks of black, spidery script and frowned.

‘What kind of writing is that?’

ikmen held the page very close to his face. The effort of trying to decipher the characters caused him to screw his face up and squint.

‘Cyrillic,’ he said after a pause. He rubbed his unshaven chin with his hand. “I think so anyway.’

‘Cyrillic?’

ikmen twisted his head around and looked hard into

Suleyman’s face. Whatever the state was teaching young people in schools and colleges obviously did not extend to providing them with enough pointless trivia.

‘Cyrillic script,’ he expounded with great patience, ‘is that used by people belonging to the Slavic ethnic group.

Russians, Poles, Bulgarians …’

‘Ah.’

‘Logical really. Neighbours seemed to think he was a Russian emigre, didn’t they?’ He stared down at the strange characters. ‘By the way, Suleyman, what happened at the Museum?’

‘Nothing. Saw nothing, heard nothing.’

‘Like my Mr Cornelius. Did you contact the hospital?’

He took his eyes away from the address book and looked into his cigarette packet. His face whitened. He looked up sharply. ‘Oh no, I’m out of cigarettes!’

It was a violent, but at the same time plaintive outburst.

A cry for help. Suleyman chose to ignore it. A small revenge for the closure of the window.

‘Miss Delmonte is still too traumatised to be interviewed, sir. You can take it up with her doctor if you

like, but …’

ikmen wasn’t listening. A real crisis had occurred. The worst. He threw the empty cigarette packet down on

the floor and put his head in his hands. The sort of tantrum Suleyman had feared earlier threatened, ikmen was overtired and something like this, a lack of cigarettes, was all that was needed to set him off. The young man knew that he had to be very careful.

“I can’t function like this!’ ikmen raised his head again and snapped out an order. ‘Go and ask Cohen for some cigarettes.’

Suleyman clambered his way towards the door. No progress could be made while ikmen was craving nicotine.

‘Oh, and while you’re at it, ask that lot if any of them can read Cyrillic script. It’s unlikely, half of them have trouble with Turkish, but you may as well ask.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Suleyman left, pulling the door shut behind him as he went, ikmen looked down at the little address book again.

If the Department was, as he had always suspected, full of half-educated morons, it didn’t really matter. He knew a man who could decipher strange and exotic alphabets of almost any sort with no problem. The cigarette crisis, however, was quite another matter. If that one wasn’t resolved in the very near future there was going to be a tantrum of catastrophic proportions. He had been without nicotine for more than five minutes, ikmen’s Law clearly stated that the maximum time between each cigarette should be no greater than three minutes, barring sleep and death. His fingers twitched nervously, aching for something carcinogenic to hang on to.

Ikmen’s telephone rang. He scrabbled wildly amid the confusion of heaped upon his desk as he attempted to locate it. Pens, paper, ash and dust flew everywhere. He narrowly missed tipping an ashtray into his own lap. Then with a creak, a groan and a loud slap as cardboard hit linoleum, a great pile of files avalanched to the floor and revealed, at last, the offending article, ikmen picked up the receiver and scowled. The fingers of his left hand ached.

He hoped that Suleyman wouldn’t be long. He spoke into the phone.

‘ikmen.’ What now? he thought gloomily.

The tumultuous silence at the other end of the line left ikmen in no doubt as to the identity of his caller. Only one person ever really made him sweat for an answer.

He groaned. ‘Hello, Fatma.’

Her voice was deep, soft and tired rather than angry.

‘Just one question, Cetin. How do you expect me to feed us all on two hundred lira?’

ikmen shut his eyes for a second and ground his teeth angrily. Stupid! He could have left a few notes for her on the kitchen table, but he hadn’t. He checked quickly inside his jacket pocket for the bulging wallet he knew already was there, and groaned again.

‘Oh, no! I’m sorry, Fatma. I got called late last night and in the rush—’

She remained frighteningly calm. ‘It’s all right. We’ve all had bread for lunch. Just …’ It wasn’t all right and her voice broke. Fatma’s battle with her anger was over. Her composure snapped. ‘Just don’t bother to come home at all!’

T—’

‘There is not so much as a tomato in the refrigerator!

Of course we have enough brandy for the combined armed forces of NATO

Suleyman came back into the office and threw a full packet of cigarettes on to ikmen’s desk. The Inspector was on them like a starved hyena. He even smiled, weakly.

‘… have eight children and yet you still behave as if you were a single …’

Fatma’s voice was getting even louder. But ikmen was on his way to personal sanity again. He excused himself to her.

‘Just a minute, Fatma.’ He put his hand over the shouting receiver and lit up immediately. ‘Thanks, Suleyman. Any Russian speakers on the force?’

‘Not one, sir.’

He took his hand away from the telephone and spoke

to his wife once again. This time he was more collected, less afraid, as if tar and nicotine had invested him with courage.

‘Sorry, Fatma. Look, I’ll send a man round with some money right now. Is Timur there?’

‘Unfortunately.’

‘Can I speak to him?’

‘If you want. Just get that money to me!’

She banged the receiver down and he heard the sound of her slow, heavy footsteps, padding laboriously down the apartment hall. He looked across at Suleyman. ‘There’s something I want you to do.’

‘Sir?’

He put his hand in the pocket of his jacket and drew out a bunch of keys. ‘Here are my car keys. Drive round to my apartment and’ - he pulled a large wad of notes out of his wallet and placed them in Suleyman’s hand - ‘give my wife this.’

‘Your car, sir?’

‘Yes!’

Suleyman made as if to go but ikmen held up a hand

to stop him. ‘And that’s not all. Pick my father up while you’re there.’

‘Sir?’

‘My father can speak Russian.’ He gestured towards

Meyer’s tiny address book lying open on his desk. ‘He can decipher this for us.’

‘Bring him here, sir?’

‘What do you think!’

The silence at the other end of the phone ended with the arrival of a dry and querulous voice. ‘Cetin?’

Suleyman put ikmen’s keys and money into his trouser pocket and left the office. ‘Hello, Timur. Sorry to bother you, but … I’ve got something here I don’t understand and I need your help …’

Robert Cornelius had reckoned without his conscience. He didn’t like lying. It made him feel bad. There was that previous experience of course, which had, against his expectations, been resolved in his favour. But this he felt was

different. This was, somewhere along the line, going to rebound upon him when he least expected it. He was convinced.

Perhaps it was a function of having attended public school that made him think like this? Seven very impressionable years of being told you cannot expect to get away with anything has a lasting effect. His masters had in the main been right too. Robert had rarely got away with anything.

Barring that one exception. Or rather two? Those out-of character explosions of violence that had led to so many lies, so much guilt.

It made him feel quite bitter sometimes - often. Child and man he had always, like it or not, paid his dues. It was the whole reason why he was so nice, so easy to get on with. Unpleasant acts came back upon a person.

Pleasantness and honesty, however insincere, were merely tools, aids to self-preservation. Common sense.

He looked at the faces of the students sitting before him. Two were diligently working their way through the exercise on page nine. A minor but nevertheless satisfying victory for academia. There were ten in this set and the usual form was for him to set work and then watch the whole class stare out of the window for the next half-hour.

The two who were working, Turkish boys, had obviously either taken fright at the notion of the impending exams, or been bullied into it by their parents. There could be no other reason. Robert knew how the minds of adolescents worked better than most. Eight years teaching at an inner London comprehensive had given him tremendous insight.

He shuddered. Even five years on, the merest thought of Rosebury Downs School made him cold, his mouth

dry and parched. He could still see their faces: Billy Smith, the Norris twins, that little blond bastard who always sat by the radiator. Robert pulled his mind away quickly.

He looked at his watch. Thank God! Only five more

minutes of this class and then break time. Coffee, fags, the comparative safety of the staff room. There were other people to talk to in there. Fellow teachers - inane, boring, often downright annoying, but they provided what he desperately needed. Distraction from his own thoughts. That

nagging and persistent desire to do something very unwise.

And pointless. What good would questioning Natalia do?

The damage, the concealment was done. Whether or not she was in Balat was surely academic now? Anyway, maybe she had gone there in connection with her work? It was unlikely, but then anything was possible, wasn’t it?

But still his mind refused to let him rest. Natalia had always emphasised the fact that their relationship had to be built upon mutual trust. How would it look if now, after just over a year of (admittedly uneasy) peace, he started putting her through the third degree? Knowing Natalia as he did it would almost certainly mean the termination of their affair.

But the doubts remained. That she had nothing to do with the murder, he was certain. But what had she been doing there? That afternoon stroll had a definite dreamlike quality, both at the time and in retrospect. Perhaps it was the archaic nature of the quarter? A district of the city that had got caught up and detained somewhere halfway along its journey towards the present. A place of ghosts. It had been hot too, very, very hot. His head bare; the heat haze; dizziness; a recovering but nevertheless untreated gippy stomach …