Petrified (7 page)

‘What about the man?’ Yıldız asked. ‘What did he die of? When did he die?’

‘I don’t know,’ Çöktin replied as he stared intently at the start-up sequence of his machine. ‘Dr Sarkissian has yet to get back to me.’

‘Why?’

‘What do you mean?’ Çöktin looked up into a face that was obviously more than a little troubled.

Yıldız shrugged. ‘I mean why if he knows what killed the lady doesn’t the doctor know what killed the man. They were found together, at the same time.’

‘I really don’t know, Constable,’ Çöktin said with a sigh. ‘Perhaps he just hasn’t got around to the man yet. Dr Sarkissian’s always so busy.’

‘Sergeant . . .’ Yıldız sat down in the chair opposite Çöktin’s desk and removed his cap. It was very hot and his brow was sweating heavily underneath his headgear.

‘Yes?’

Yıldız wiped his face with his smooth, brown forearm. ‘Did you think there was anything odd about that man’s body?’

Çöktin, who had found unsettling the fact that the body had two glass eyes that were also the most vivid purple, just simply grunted. Odd or not, there were no facts known about the corpse at the present time and so to ascribe strangeness to something that could be most ordinary was not a thing he wanted to do. It certainly wasn’t what Suleyman would do, or rather did. Always measured in his responses, the proud Ottoman could be counted upon to explore each and every possibility – when he was around. Ever since he had taken upon himself the task of bringing a small group of men suspected of involvement in organised crime to justice, Suleyman had become a distant, almost shadowy figure. One that his deputy was finding increasingly hard to reach.

‘The man was blind – it’s what we’ve told the press – what of it?’ Çöktin said.

‘Well, yes, but . . . not that, exactly . . .’

‘So what then?’

Yıldız sighed. ‘I have a feeling, an uneasy feeling.’

‘Inspector İkmen has those,’ Çöktin said with a smile. ‘His generally prove valuable.’

‘Yes, I know. His mother was a witch.’

‘Perhaps you should talk to him about this then, Hikmet. Maybe he might be able to help you put what you’re experiencing into words.’

‘Mmm.’

The ringing of Çöktin’s telephone brought their conversation to a halt. He picked up the receiver and stated his name. Yıldız stood up and made ready to leave.

‘Ah, Doctor,’ Çöktin said as he waved the younger man back into his seat. ‘Yes, I’ve just been talking about that with Constable Yıldız . . . Yes . . .’ As he listened his face, which at the beginning of the conversation had been relaxed, resolved into a frown.

‘Are you sure?’ Çöktin asked. ‘I mean . . . Well, yes, of course I have to bow to your medical knowledge, Doctor, but . . .’

Yıldız, who had been watching Çöktin ever since the call came in, began to feel slightly sick. Whether it was as a result of the grave expression that was now etched on the sergeant’s face or whether something else was at play here, he didn’t know. But he felt what he could only describe later as ‘tingly’, as if all the hairs on his head and body had suddenly stood up straight.

‘OK,’ Çöktin said on a sigh, ‘I’ll be over straight away. I still can’t believe . . .’ He shrugged. ‘OK, Doctor, I’ll be there. Yes.’

His conversation over, Çöktin replaced the receiver and then rubbed his face with his hands.

‘Inspector İkmen will be very proud of you, Hikmet,’ he said as he took his jacket off the back of his chair and then rose slowly to his feet. ‘Seems your feeling was right.’

‘Oh?’ Yıldız, aware that the more senior man was now on his way out, also stood up. ‘So was that man murdered?’

‘No.’ Çöktin made his way over to his office door and opened it. ‘It’s far stranger than that, Hikmet,’ he said. ‘Murder I can kind of understand but this . . .’ He shrugged.

‘What?’

‘Why don’t you come with me over to the mortuary and find out?’ Çöktin said. ‘You were the one who, after all, kind of anticipated this.’

‘What?’

‘I’ll have to let Dr Sarkissian explain,’ Çöktin said as he made his way out into the corridor, ‘because I’m afraid, Hikmet, that I just can’t.’

He then made his way towards the stairs, bearing a young man who felt very ‘tingly’ again in his wake.

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‘I think he was probably about twenty when he died,’ Arto Sarkissian said as he pulled the sheet back to reveal the unknown man’s head and shoulders.

‘But, let me get this right, you don’t know when that might have happened?’ Çöktin asked.

‘No.’

Briefly the two men stared into each other’s eyes.

‘As I told you on the phone, Sergeant,’ Sarkissian continued, ‘this body has been embalmed.’

Yıldız, who had been watching the proceedings from behind Çöktin’s shoulder, looked confused.

‘An embalmed body is one that has been treated and preserved,’ Sarkissian expounded. ‘It’s something that Muslims don’t do,’ he smiled. ‘You’re in the ground within twenty-four hours, but to some extent Christian bodies are preserved. Not like this but—’

‘What do you mean?’

The Armenian sighed. Although just as distressed by death as their Christian and Jewish neighbours, Muslims were, in Sarkissian’s opinion, much more pragmatic and practical about it. People died, you buried them and then, after all the frenetic activity around the funeral was over, you mourned. Debates about the immortality or not of the soul didn’t impinge until the body was in the ground. That was and always had been important.

‘Christians wait to bury their dead,’ the doctor explained. ‘Even in very modern countries, like the USA where most bodies are now cremated, there is a delay. There are numerous reasons for this. In some countries, especially Eastern European and Latin states, there exists a traditional anxiety with regard to premature burial.’ He looked up into two horrified faces. ‘Oh, it used to happen,’ he said, ‘and although it shouldn’t happen these days some people are still anxious about it. As well as that, Christians do like to view their dead.’

‘You mean like when the Greeks carry their priests through the streets after they’ve died?’ Yıldız asked.

‘Yes. The body is displayed and people come to pay their respects to it. But there is, of course, a theological reason too.’

Çöktin frowned.

‘We, or rather Christians,’ Sarkissian said with a smile, ‘believe that when Christ comes again to redeem the world the dead will rise from their graves. Embalming keeps them in a condition to render this possible.’

‘Yes, but surely if they’re in the ground,’ Çöktin began, ‘with all the worms and the bugs . . .’

‘Oh, it’s far more of a tradition and a cosmetic exercise than a practicality,’ the doctor said as he looked down at the corpse, ‘in most cases.’

Yıldız, who was once again experiencing an unpleasant feeling, shuddered.

Sarkissian took the dead man’s head in his hands and moved it gently to one side.

‘But not this one,’ he said gravely. ‘This one is different.’

‘What do you mean, Doctor?’ Çöktin asked. ‘Different in what way?’

‘This one, I believe, has been subjected to a far more sophisticated version of the embalmer’s art.’ He moved the head again. ‘It has movement, suppleness and it is as far as I can see only just now starting to degrade.’ He looked up sharply. ‘What I mean is that he is almost totally preserved, even down to the remnants of the tumour that killed him. I’ve never seen anything like it.’

They all stood in silence for a few moments until the doctor, suddenly mindful of the unknown man’s dignity, covered his head and shoulders with the sheet once again.

‘But he died naturally?’ Çöktin said as soon as the three of them started to move away from the corpse.

‘Yes,’ Sarkissian replied, ‘cancer. Nothing I can see of a suspicious nature – except, of course, the fact that I can’t even guess at when he died.’

‘Why not?’

Sarkissian stopped and then leaned against one of his long steel benches.

‘Because I think this body might have been what morticians call maintained,’ he said and then, in response to the policemen’s confused expressions he added, ‘This man’s body is, if you like, in a state similar to that of Lenin in his mausoleum in Moscow. Maintained – I think – to keep it looking fresh. I’ve found some evidence of the skin having been treated with an emollient, but I’ve got to take advice on this, and so I’ve left a message for Yiannis Livadanios, who is an undertaker.’

‘And so this Mr Livadanios—’

‘Will be able to tell me whether my assumption is correct and also who might be performing this task.’ Sarkissian made his way out of the laboratory and back into his office. ‘Yiannis employs embalmers himself. And so if one of them is keeping the young man fresh, he will presumably know who our mystery man is, which will allow you, Sergeant, to bring this bizarre affair to an end.’

The doctor sat down behind his desk, offering seats to the two policemen as he did so.

‘Mrs Keyder’s body can now be removed,’ he said, ‘provided there is someone to do that.’

‘There is a sister-in-law we now know lives out at Sarıyer,’ Çöktin replied. ‘I sent Constable Roditi out there first thing this morning but apparently, so her neighbours say, Miss Keyder is away at the moment and isn’t due back home until tomorrow. They don’t know where she is.’

‘I see.’

‘I’ve also been in contact with the Argentine Consulate, although what that might yield I don’t know,’ Çöktin sighed.

‘Why?’

‘Rosita Keyder changed her nationality back in the fifties. The Consulate didn’t know of her. I’m hoping that her sister-in-law will be able to tell us what her maiden name was so that we can at least give the Argentines some sort of lead. It will, unfortunately, Doctor, take some time.’

Sarkissian shrugged. ‘Oh, well,’ he said, sinking comfortably back into the grim humour so common to those in his profession, ‘she at least won’t need embalming while she’s in my refrigerator.’

‘No . . .’

Constable Yıldız, who had, up until this time, been really very quiet, spoke.

‘But, Doctor,’ he said, ‘what I don’t understand is why this old woman had that man’s body in her apartment.’

‘Neither do I,’ Sarkissian replied. ‘I haven’t a clue.’

After that the three of them sat in silence for a few moments as some of the implications of what they had been discussing began to sink in.

It wasn’t the extent so much as the blatancy of their wealth that so sickened him. The men, Russians, Chechens, Azerbaijanis, all dressed in the ‘mobster’ uniform – leather jackets, whatever the weather, and far, far too much gold. Their bottle-blonde women, in their ill-fitting designer dresses and, again, mountains of gold, complemented them perfectly. When, Mehmet Suleyman wondered as he strolled between the closely packed booths that made up the central area of the Grand Bazaar, the İç Bedesten, had this become ‘normal’?

There had always been gangsters in the city, there always would be. But the disintegration of the old Soviet Union had unleashed what seemed to be a flood of totally amoral people on to the streets. Instead of concentrating on just one or two ‘businesses’, for example, drugs and prostitution, these men did everything – including contract killing. Without feelings or conscience, they pleasured themselves with drugs, hard-faced women and with spending their considerable fortunes. They were doing that now, in the İç Bedesten, where the most precious items of jewellery, both modern and antique, were sold.

As he threaded his way through the knots of tourists that gathered around every glittering, antique-stacked window, Suleyman was careful to keep Rostov, two of his heavies and the small dark Central Asian-looking man that accompanied them at a distance. Although he and Rostov had never actually met, Suleyman knew that the gangster, one of whose women was the lovely Masha, knew him. Rostov was not the first and certainly wouldn’t be the last mobster to ‘buy’ one of Suleyman’s colleagues. Indeed, it was still less than a year ago that Çetin İkmen’s former deputy, Orhan Tepe, had fallen for the promises of Zhivkov the Bulgarian. Tepe had paid for that mistake with his life.

Whilst watching to see what Rostov did and where he went, Suleyman found that his eyes were drawn to the booths of the İç Bedesten. Ottoman military medals, inscribed in the old Arabic script few could now decipher, sat next to fabulous examples of art deco jewellery from the nineteen thirties. One booth even had a crown, a small one admittedly, which, so Suleyman felt, had to be made from paste rather than real jewels – but it had probably been a treasure to the family that once owned it. Such a thing would be meaningless to a person like Rostov, who would just buy it to sell on. Ostensibly an antiques dealer, Rostov knew as much about history as Suleyman did about childbirth.

But then Suleyman knew that he had a personal interest in what happened in this particular part of the bazaar. His father, Muhammed, frequently sold things to the dealers in the İç Bedesten – when he couldn’t pay a utility bill or when he had a suit made that he couldn’t afford. Muhammed Suleyman or ‘Prince’ Muhammed, as some called him, came from an aristocratic family related to the Ottoman sultans. His two sons both worked and regarded themselves as ordinary men, but the old prince still lived an entirely other kind of life. Even though his palace on the Bosphorus had been sold many years before, Muhammed’s existence was punctuated by dinners at expensive restaurants, bespoke suits and quality cars. Now devoid of money and too old to work, he supported himself and his wife by selling off what remained of his inheritance. It was why Mehmet tried not to look too closely at their wares for fear of recognising some of them.

Why Rostov couldn’t buy the ordinary glittery baubles they sold on Kuyumcular Caddesi, Suleyman didn’t know. The type of customer he attracted wouldn’t know the difference. Perhaps someone had told Rostov that Ottoman antique goods were now in vogue. Perhaps he’d even worked it out for himself. He was obviously a clever man – he had to be because he was still walking free. Even with, possibly, police ‘protection’, knowing what he was involved with, that was quite a feat.