Ikmen 16 - Body Count (43 page)

‘I always said that job was beneath him,’ Nur said as she walked backwards and forwards across the living room. ‘If you mix with criminals they will hurt you.’

‘I’d really like to take tea now,’ Muhammed Süleyman said. He sat in a corner beside the television, a shattered stick of a man in too large flannel trousers and a green home-knit jumper. ‘My father will be very angry if you don’t serve it soon.’

Nur heard him, but she didn’t respond. Instead she said to Sezen, ‘I can’t apologise enough for all this. What must you think of us?’

Sezen nodded her head graciously. ‘I know only too well the worry of having a child,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry at all, Nur dear. We can wait for tea if that is what you want.’

She was parched. But to say so would have seemed like insensitivity, and, like her or loathe her, Nur had been there for Sezen when Leyla had been found dead. Of course she hoped that Mehmet Bey would be found alive and well, although she did also hope that Nur would be made to wait a little longer.

What Nur Süleyman had said about Leyla when she’d been, after all, just a silly student had got back to Sezen via her cousin Muhammed’s older sister, Esma. Nur had apparently told Esma that in her opinion Leyla needed a firmer hand than Sezen was giving her. She had also said that the boy involved needed a damn good thrashing. But then that had been true. Sadly, Sezen mused upon where he was at that moment and where her daughter now resided. Had he not ruined her all those years ago, Leyla would never have had to marry a man she didn’t love, she wouldn’t have had that affair with that spa man and she wouldn’t be dead.

‘I’m going to take you to the hospital.’

Süleyman’s head felt as if it had been smashed repeatedly against a wall, while his eyes trembled at the small amount of light from the bulb that swung over his head. Occasionally this was obscured by Professor Atay’s face, which always seemed to be smiling at him. He wanted, and yet at the same time didn’t want, to say something to the academic about what he’d seen in his wardrobe. But if he spoke and the man was in fact a killer, then he’d kill him; and if he wasn’t, he’d be offended and maybe complain to Ard
ı
ç. But there was fear at the back of all that and so he knew what he really believed, even though he didn’t like it. And now he was ill, and as such, he was at this man’s mercy.

‘Call the station,’ he said. His tongue felt too big for his mouth and he was disgusted to realise that he was dribbling.

‘I’ll call them once I’ve got you to hospital,’ the professor said. ‘But you’ll have to help me.’

‘Help you?’

‘The car’s in the back garden. I just need to get you up a few steps, but I can’t carry you, you’ll have to help me.’

He felt himself being lifted by his shoulders into a sitting position.

‘We need to find out what’s wrong with you,’ Atay said. He slipped an arm around his waist, and Süleyman felt himself rise to his feet on distinctly shaky legs.

‘What
is
wrong with me?’

‘You collapsed,’ the academic puffed. ‘Started raving.’

Süleyman put one foot in front of the other, watching fascinated when one of his ankles collapsed. The professor took his weight. Süleyman turned his attention to Atay’s face, which was contorted with effort, and wondered whether he should ask him if he was going to kill him. He decided against it. Another half-step, and then a knock at the door caused all movement to stop. Süleyman began to feel the professor’s legs tremble as he strained to keep them both upright.

Another knock followed the first one, and then a voice that was almost as familiar as Süleyman’s own shouted, ‘Professor Atay, it’s Inspector
İ
kmen. I need to speak to you.’

‘You can let Çetin take it from here,’ Süleyman said.

But the professor didn’t move, and when
İ
kmen knocked on the front door again, he put a hand over Süleyman’s mouth. Any doubts the policeman might have had about this man’s intentions evaporated now, and even though his brain and his movements were almost impossibly difficult and slow, he did manage to get one of the professor’s fingers into his mouth and bit it as hard as he could.

He could see that Atay had to use every bit of self-control he possessed to stop himself yelping in pain, but he also felt the full force of his wrath when he took his other arm away from Süleyman’s back, let him drop to the hard, cold floor and then punched him in the face until he felt his nose crack. The professor’s bitten finger, which was bleeding now, was, Süleyman thought, quite wrong.

‘Can’t see anyone,’ Ömer Mungan said. ‘But there is a car in the back garden.’

Çetin
İ
kmen stopped trying to ring the professor’s mobile phone and moved away from the front door. ‘A car?’ he said. ‘How did that get there?’ The house backed on to a Greek church and there was no side entrance.

‘There’s a gate in the wall at the back of the church,’ Ömer said. ‘He must have some sort of access arrangement whereby he drives through the church property. Back door’s shut.’

‘But there was a table with a samovar and tea glasses under a tree,’ a young uniformed officer said.

İ
kmen shrugged. ‘The professor never denied that Inspector Süleyman had been to see him. So if he offered him tea, that is perfectly understandable.’

‘What do we do now?’

‘You mean apart from carrying on calling his mobile every five minutes?’

‘I think he’s turned it to silent, like the inspector,’ Ömer said.

‘Has he?’
İ
kmen sighed. ‘Well then, if Professor Atay has gone out on foot, which seems likely, there’s a chance he’s only gone out for a short while. Ömer, see if you can raise the church caretaker or find a priest or someone who might know about the arrangement between themselves and the professor regarding the car.’

‘Yes, sir.’

İ
kmen looked at Ay
ş
e Farsako
ğ
lu, who said, ‘You don’t think we should just …’

‘I think, Sergeant, that we should move away from this house now,’
İ
kmen said. Arnavutköy was a smart suburb, but groups of street kids had started to gather, albeit at a distance from the police cars. ‘I think we should pay a call on Mr and Mrs Süleyman.’

Ay
ş
e winced.

İ
kmen walked over to the first of the two squad cars and said to the driver, ‘We’re moving into the next street, other side of the church. I’m going to visit Inspector Süleyman’s parents. You park up at the local station and ask about Professor Atay.’

‘Yes, sir.’

He went to the second car and said, ‘Follow me.’

As he walked past the professor’s house,
İ
kmen looked in every one of its windows very carefully, but he couldn’t see anything. And yet something had happened and it wasn’t something good. Even when he was sneaking off to see Gonca, Mehmet Süleyman did not disappear; he just didn’t.

He was about to turn into the street on the other side of the church when Ömer Mungan ran up beside him and said, ‘Caretaker says that the professor has been paying them to let him bring the car through their garden for years. It’s nothing new. But what he did say that was interesting was that the car was outside the church until about an hour ago.’

‘So an hour ago the professor brought his car into his garden and then went out,’
İ
kmen said.

‘So it would seem, sir.’

İ
kmen frowned. ‘I wonder why he did that?’ he said.

‘Caretaker didn’t say, sir,’ Ömer said. ‘But he didn’t think there was anything odd about it. Professor Atay’s in and out with his car all the time, it seems.’

They walked up to the front of the Süleyman house, where they were joined by Ay
ş
e Farsako
ğ
lu. The second squad car pulled up behind Süleyman’s white BMW and
İ
kmen called over to the uniforms inside to wait where they were. They all lit up cigarettes almost in unison.

İ
kmen turned to the two sergeants, ‘Now, Ömer, I’d like you to go back and watch the professor’s house from the front. There’s a café almost opposite.’ He put his hand in his pocket and took out a twenty-lira note, which he gave to Mungan. ‘Buy yourself a drink and keep your eyes on the house and the exit from the church. And call the professor’s mobile phone – just in case.’ He looked at the car full of uniformed officers again and shook his head. ‘If this is going to be some sort of long game, then I need them like a bullet wound to the leg.’

‘Why don’t I watch the house from the back?’ Ay
ş
e Farsako
ğ
lu said. ‘I mean, sir, you don’t need me to be with you when you speak to Mr and Mrs Süleyman, do you?’

He shrugged. ‘No, I suppose not.’ Then he said, ‘Actually, a woman lurking in a church garden on her own could attract unwanted attention. Ay
ş
e, you go for coffee.’ He took the twenty-lira note out of Ömer Mungan’s hand and gave it to his sergeant. ‘Ömer, sorry, boy, you’ll have to do without.’

When he came round, all he could see was the professor’s face looking at his and all he could smell was blood. Breathing was difficult.

‘They’ve gone away now, your colleagues,’ the professor said. ‘And so I am left with the problem that you are on a time limit I have no real knowledge about.’

There was nothing to say. His body was quite inert, and although his face hurt, it didn’t hurt enough to rouse him from his stupor.

‘When it’s dark, I’ll take you to the car,’ the academic said.

Time was no longer fixed. When he closed his eyes, Süleyman couldn’t tell whether an hour had passed or a minute. The only thing he could liken it to was when once, years ago, he’d had a general anaesthetic when he’d broken his collarbone.

The next time he opened his eyes, he looked down at his body but saw something that looked like a grey sack. He couldn’t relate to it in any way. The professor looked into his eyes, then pulled one of his eyelids up and shook his head. ‘I’ve so little knowledge about this stuff.’

What stuff?

Süleyman felt a sharp pain in his left bicep, and after that he really didn’t care. After that, for some reason, he was in a moving version of a woodcut of Hell he’d seen as a teenager when he’d been studying Dante. He’d never believed in the existence of Hell – then. Now he wasn’t so sure.

She’d dialled his number a hundred times and still he didn’t answer! It just rang out. Infuriated, Gonca threw her phone across the room, where it hit the wall and smashed to pieces across her father’s sofa. The old man shook his head. ‘Is that any way to behave?’ he said. ‘What were you thinking?’

She put her head in her hands. At least ten pairs of eyes watched her from around the room and none of them were impressed. ‘Mehmet Bey said he’d come tonight,’ she said. ‘Now he doesn’t answer his phone!’

‘Well he’s a policeman, these people get busy,’ her father said.

Gonca, crying now, felt hands on her shoulders and looked up to see her eldest son, Erdem. He took her in his arms and hugged her. Just over forty and entirely integrated into mainstream Turkish life, Erdem was nevertheless still her little boy who loved his mother unconditionally.

‘And I’ve broken my phone!’ Gonca said.

‘I’ll get you another one,’ Erdem said.

‘Well someone needs to clear my sofa,’ the old man said. ‘How can I lie down now and not get glass in my backside!’

Two of Gonca’s sisters, tutting with irritation as they did so, took the covers off their father’s sofa and brushed what remained of the mobile phone on to the floor. Calmer and chastened now, Gonca allowed her son to lead her to the chair next to her father’s pile of cushions by the fire and she sat down. After a moment she took the old man’s hand in hers. ‘I’m so sorry, Baba.’

‘Oh, it’s a harsh time,’ the old man said. He squeezed her hand back. ‘Tomorrow I bury my son and you bury your brother.’

‘When I saw Mehmet, he said he’d come and bring halva and pay his respects,’ his daughter said.

‘He’s paid his respects already.’

She looked at him.

‘You want the support of the man you love,’ the old man said. ‘But Gonca, you know maybe he is catching whoever killed
Ş
ukru now. You want him to do that, don’t you?’

‘More than anything!’

‘Well then, give him a chance. I no longer object to this love you have that I don’t understand. It has endured over the years for reasons I …’ He shrugged. ‘
Ş
ukru and I, we wanted to kill him and we would have done. But that’s in the past. Now I accept this man, but you must be realistic about him.’

Erdem, who had been listening to what his grandfather had been saying, said, ‘He has his life and you have yours. They’re different. Unless you want to become a policeman’s wife …’

‘No!’

‘Well then you must accept that he will not always be available to you.’

‘Why are we talking about that policeman again?’

They turned to look at the furious face of
Ş
ukru’s widow, Bulbul
Ş
ekero
ğ
lu. ‘Tonight is about my husband,’ she said. ‘Tomorrow we will bury him and my children will be fatherless.’ She pointed at Gonca and spat. ‘Everyone always takes care to make sure that she is all right! The world itself revolves around her!’

Erdem stood up and placed himself between his aunt and his mother. ‘Auntie Bulbul,’ he said. ‘We are all upset, including my mother. She meant no—’

‘The man is younger than you are!’ Bulbul screeched. ‘She’s a whore and a witch and she—’

‘Hold your tongue, Bulbul Han
ı
m,’ the old man said. ‘We are all grieving and we should not say things that make each other hurt more than we do. You will be cared for and so will your children, because this family does not reject its own.’

For a moment, Bulbul looked as if she might start shouting at Gonca again. She’d never liked her, had always been jealous of her success both as an artist and with men. But instead she burst into tears, and when Erdem took her into his arms she let him hug her while her own youngest children clustered around her legs.