Divorce Turkish Style (7 page)

“I only mentioned it as a possibility. It's not even certain that Sani Hanım was killed.”

“A possibility all the same,” said Sevim, rolling her eyes. “But why were the police like that yesterday? I phoned them to report a burglary, and the murder squad turned up. What was the name of your policeman friend?”

“Batuhan.”

“Yes, Batuhan. I suppose you're old friends. I sensed a closeness between you. I have powerful intuition, being a Pisces. Are you interested in astrology?”

“Not really, but I know my star sign.”

“Don't tell me. Let me guess,” said Sevim eagerly. Then, pointing her forefinger at me as she thought for a moment and said, “You're Aquarius.”

“Not bad at all. My rising star is Aquarius, but I'm actually Scorpio.”

“Sani Hanım was Scorpio too,” she said, withdrawing her finger as if I was going to bite it. “But Aquarius balances you
out because its rising star is Scorpio. It's a very dangerous sign. Scorpios end up in trouble, as you know.”

Since I didn't know what to say, I broke a piece off the orange cookie and put it into my mouth.

“If Sani Hanım was killed, then of course you'll have to investigate her private life,” said Sevim.

“What private life?”

“You know, her private life. Lovers and so on.”

Lover
s
? I hadn't managed to even find one so far. Did Sani have a collection of lovers?

“Kati, it couldn't be anyone other than a lover,” Sevim blurted out.

I choked on the cookie I was chewing, and started coughing.

“Which lover?” I asked, when I was able to speak again.

“Your face is all red,” she said, looking pleased.

“It's just from choking. You didn't tell me who her lover was.”

“Sani Hanım's lover? Well, you didn't hear this from me, but there was someone else in her life.”

“Do you know who it was?”

“Sinan. He's the vocalist in a group called Sniff.”

It was the first time I'd heard of this group, or Sinan, which of course said nothing about the fame or quality of him or his group. But what would I know, since I listened to nothing but classical music?

“What kind of music do they play?”

“Rock music. My sister goes to all their concerts. She's mad about them, especially Sinan. Even
I
've been to one of their concerts.”

We sat in silence for a while. A multitude of thoughts were going through my mind. Given the situation, Cem might have killed his wife out of jealousy. He certainly hadn't been taken off my list of suspects just because of Sevim's claim that he wouldn't hurt a fly.

Or maybe Sinan pushed Sani down the stairs during a row.

“You just said that Sani fell while she was at home. Did she fall down the stairs?” I asked.

“Does her house have any stairs?” asked Sevim.

How come this woman knew about Sani's lover, yet didn't even know if there were stairs in her house?

“Who knows about Sinan apart from you?” I asked.

“No one.”

“Aylin Hanım is a close friend, isn't she?”

“Yes, but she doesn't know.”

“How do you know she doesn't know?”

“I just know. What do you think I am?”

Not again! I obviously didn't have a clue about my fellow humans. However, I still thought I'd much rather share a secret with my closest friend than with my secretary.

“I wondered why she told you about her lover and not Aylin Hanım. That's all.”

“She didn't tell me. But when you work with someone from morning till night, you can't help picking up certain things.”

Sevim suddenly started crying, as if a button had been pressed, just like the previous day. Was it only nerves?

“I didn't mean to tell you that,” she sniffed.

“You did the right thing,” I said. “You're clearly in no fit state to talk to the police, but you needed to tell someone.”

“That's what I thought. But when you treat me as if I'm to blame—”

“Why should I blame you? We're just talking.”

I placed my hand over her stubby fingers as a gesture of sympathy and in the hope of getting her to say a little more.

“She may have told someone else other than Aylin Hanım,” I ventured.

“Sani Hanım said no one knew about Sinan except me, and I
didn't tell anyone,” said Sevim, taking a tissue out of her handbag and wiping her nose.

“Not even your sister?”

“I swear I didn't. Sani Hanım made me promise not to tell anyone. But my sister… Well, she found out I knew Sinan and—”

“Knew him?” I interrupted.

“That's how I found out that something was going on.”

“How did you find out?”

“One evening, I realized I'd left my mobile at work, and had to go all the way back to the office. When I opened the door, I saw… Well, I suppose they had to meet there because they had nowhere else to go. Sani Hanım was terrified that her husband would hear about it, so I promised not to tell anyone. I gave her my word, but now that she's dead… And Sinan didn't even come to the funeral. That's shameful, isn't it? He broke up her marriage and then didn't come to her funeral. Men – they have their way with you, and then it's over. We definitely live in a man's world.”

“Tell me about Aylin Hanım.”

I sensed that she would have preferred to carry on discussing relationships and how men use and discard women like dirty linen, as she probably did with her sister. However, she began talking about Aylin without any further encouragement.

“What can I say? She's a society type. She squeezes in visits to the association when she has time between shopping sprees. Her father used to be the Turkish ambassador to America, and it was at one of his receptions that Cem Bey was introduced to Sani Hanım. Aylin Hanım isn't beautiful like Sani Hanım, but she takes good care of herself. She buys all her clothes abroad, which of course you can if you have the money.”

“I didn't write down Aylin Hanım's phone number when you gave it to Batuhan yesterday. Would you give it to me?”

“I wonder when Aylin Hanım will be back from her trip,” pondered Sevim. “She has bad migraines and goes to see a doctor about them every month.”

“What a coincidence,” I said. “I have a migraine starting now.”

Which was true.

It was not every day that I ventured outside the city, so I was excited when we set out the next morning. Most of the route consisted of a lovely broad motorway, lined on both sides with fields of sunflowers. We reached Lüleburgaz after two hours and parked opposite the town hall. I immediately started looking for a place to eat. It's strange, but I only have to travel out of the city for half an hour before visions of food start floating before my eyes, yet a journey within Istanbul can take two hours and I don't have a single pang of hunger.

Lüleburgaz was full of small cafés specializing in tripe soup, obviously a local delicacy. Tripe soup was a favourite of mine, but I refrained from even tasting it. Nor would I let Fofo have any, because I didn't want us to be breathing out garlic fumes when talking to Sani's grieving family. We took the advice of an old man drinking tea in a run-down café and ate braised lamb at what was probably the poshest restaurant in town, before setting off on the road to Kayacık.

What first caught our attention was that everyone was able to give us directions. Anyone who has got lost trying to venture out of Istanbul's suburbs would understand. It was easy enough getting someone to sit next to you as far as the main road, but almost impossible to find anyone with the wit to give plain instructions like “Straight ahead, turn right before the lights, then left after fifty metres”. However, thanks to Lüleburgaz locals, we found the road that led out of the city without difficulty
and were soon on our way to Kayacık, enjoying the Turkish countryside.

“We've got it all wrong,” said Fofo. “We're much too stuck in Istanbul.”

“I've never even been to Ürgüp or Pamukkale,” I said.

“And I haven't seen Izmir yet.”

“If Pelin were to become a tour guide, she could take us to all Turkey's—” I suddenly broke off and held my nose because of a terrible stench. “Can you smell that?”

“Impossible not to,” said Fofo, also holding his nose.

“What is it? Is that the notorious Ergene Basin?”

I took a right turn. The narrow asphalt road was completely empty apart from some miserable-looking storks and crows floundering in the mud by a pitiful stream. We got out of the car. The stench was hard to describe. Imagine the smell after thousands of rotten eggs and animal corpses have been thrown into a cesspool and left in the sun for months on end. Well, this smell was even worse than that.

The stench pursued us for the twenty minutes it took to reach the village. I slowed down as we passed some dilapidated tents just outside the village.

“What's this? A refugee camp?” asked Fofo.

“I don't know. Maybe they've come to work in the fields.”

We sat down in the most central of the three cafés overlooking the village square. After a few minutes, the owner came up to us.

“Welcome,” he said. “Are you looking for someone?”

Clearly this wasn't a village that attracted tourists.

“Your village headman's surname is Kaya, is that right?” I asked.

“Are you looking for Rıfat Bey? I'll get him for you.”

“And we'll have two teas,” I added.

After a while, a skinny man wearing a cap approached us.
I noticed that his cheeks were hollow and his face was etched with lines of sadness.

“Welcome. You were asking for me.”

“We've come from Istanbul. We'd been thinking of launching a project with Sani Hanım against the pollution at Ergene and, since we were in the area today, decided to call on you.”

Sometimes I amaze even myself at the ease with which I'm able to tell lies.

“Oh yes,” said the poor man.

“My condolences,” I said, shaking his hand.

“Thank you. May she rest in peace. It's true that there's no pain like that of losing a child. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.”

“They say it was an accident,” I said.

“They do indeed say it was an accident,” repeated the poor man. “Yes, just an accident.”

I studied his face as carefully as I could, which wasn't easy because he kept his head bowed over his clasped hands even while talking to me. Did he suspect something, I wondered?

“The police are looking into it,” I said.

He nodded, without altering his expression or stance. Rıfat had no interest in either the police or their investigation. He was just a father overwhelmed by grief, and in no state to have suspicions about anything.

At that point, a few people sitting at nearby tables pulled up their chairs to join us. All men, of course. There wasn't a woman to be seen.

“Welcome. It's a pleasure to have you here,” said a plump, blond man. “I hope there's nothing wrong.”

He had a way of swallowing his h's and spoke with a Thrace accent, which I found rather attractive.

“We're doing some research into the pollution at Ergene,” I said.

Fofo had fallen silent again, as was his way when he was with people unlike those in his immediate circle.

“Are you a journalist?” asked the blond man. “We've given countless statements to journalists, but nothing's been done. I wish them well, but they don't do anything.”

“We're not journalists, we're environmentalists,” I said.

“A lot of environmentalists have been here too. But nobody seems to have enough clout,” said another man.

“Sani, God rest her soul, did everything she could to find a solution to this problem,” said the blond man.

“How many years have we put up with this terrible smell?” said Rıfat, his eyes welling up.

“I'm affected more than anyone,” said the café owner, coming over to our table. “I open up at five in the morning, when the smell is at its worst. The factories let their dirty water out into the stream at night when there are no patrols about.”

“Can you smell it now?” asked the blond man.

“Can't smell a thing, thank God,” said the other.

“We're so used to the stench we don't smell it any more,” said the blond man.

“Which is why the report says ‘the smell is at an acceptable level'. It's just that the people who live here have got used to it,” said a man, seating himself at a table just near enough for him to be able to hear everything that was being said.