A Passion for Killing (17 page)

‘Which means that much of the missing sixty thousand pounds is still unaccounted for,’ İkmen said. ‘I wonder why that is? Gambling, maybe? He smoked a bit of cannabis. But we know he didn’t have a cocaine habit or . . .’

‘Well, sir, there is this,’ Ayşe said as she reached back to her own desk to retrieve a leather-bound book. ‘This is an appointment diary which belonged to Mr Uzun.’ She placed it on İkmen’s desk and opened it up at 3 March. ‘Here in his handwriting you will see a name, Nikolai, an İstanbul telephone number, and a time – three o’clock.’

İkmen peered down at the diary through the film of water that covered his raw, exhausted eyes.

‘That number belongs to Nikolai Stoev,’ she said.

İkmen looked up and then let out a long and impressive breath. ‘So our carpet man had dealings with the Bulgarian Mafia.’

‘On some basis it would seem so, yes, sir,’ Ayşe said.

‘Which means, I suppose,’ İkmen said, ‘that I will have to go over to Laleli and see Mr Stoev and, no doubt, several of his retarded, broken-nosed henchmen too. I wonder how many uniforms I can get to take with me?’

‘Oh, that reminds me, sir,’ Ayşe said, ‘your Beretta is ready for collection at the ballistics lab.’

‘Oh, so I’m innocent of Mr Uzun’s murder, am I?’ İkmen said wearily. ‘How wonderful. You know, Ayşe, I know that we have to go through this exercise in order to rule out officers with this weapon, but when half the bad men have Berettas too . . .’

His telephone rang again.

‘If that is my wife, I am still out,’ İkmen said.

Ayşe picked up the receiver, stated her name and then for what seemed like a very long time stared fixedly down at İkmen’s desk. At the end of the conversation she put the handset down on to its cradle and said, ‘Change of plan, I think, sir, with regard to Nikolai Stoev.’ She took her jacket from the back of her chair and put it on. ‘Constables Yıldız and Roditi and Inspector İskender are waiting for us downstairs.’

Then in answer to her superior’s blank expression she added, ‘I’ll explain as we go, sir.’

Metin İskender was wearing the expression of slightly mocking disbelief that he usually employed when interviewing a suspect. İkmen had thought that with one of their ‘own’ Metin might exhibit a little more warmth. But that was not to be so. The interview room at the ornate little Tourism police station on Yerebatan Caddesi was almost homely compared to what they had back at headquarters, but Metin was obviously not letting that affect his interrogation of Sergeant Abdullah Ergin. He was going for the jugular.

‘Your Beretta 92 was used to kill the carpet dealer Yaşar Uzun,’ he said baldly. ‘Ballistics have confirmed this beyond question. I want you to tell me about it.’

Abdullah Ergin, who only ten minutes previously had been helping a group of Japanese tourists locate the underground cistern, was still in shock. His face was white and, as he raised his cigarette up to his lips, his fingers visibly shook.

‘Where were you and what were you doing on the evening of Monday, 5 April?’

‘I was, er, I finished my shift at six . . .’

‘And then what?’

İkmen didn’t really like the intensive interrogation style that Metin employed. He felt that, as well as sometimes getting to the truth, it could also on occasion lead suspects to say things they had not meant to say out of panic. He tried to catch Metin’s eye in order to indicate that he should tone it down a bit, but to no avail.

‘Sergeant Ergin, I am asking you a question,’ Metin İskender said menacingly. ‘Answer me!’

‘Well, I, um, I went home to my apartment on Professor Kazim İsmail Gürkan Caddesi and I had my dinner, my wife . . .’

‘What did your wife cook for your dinner, sergeant?’

Ergin looked up with a shocked expression on his face. ‘I don’t know!’ he said. ‘How can I remember that?’

‘I know you only work with tourists, sergeant, but even you must know that details like the constituents of a meal are used by us to test a suspect’s alibi.’ It was said with such arrogance that, had İkmen not known that he was using a tried and trusted interrogation technique, he would have been inclined to pull Metin up on it.

‘Look,’ Ergin said, ‘Handan cooked me a meal of some sort and then I went out.’

‘Where?’

‘To my brother’s apartment in Kumkapı.’

‘What for?’

Now Abdullah Ergin lost his temper. ‘Because I love my brother! Because we like to visit one another from time to time!’

Unaffected by this outburst, İskender said, ‘How long were you at your brother’s apartment?’

There was a pause during which İkmen found himself looking quizzically into Ergin’s eyes. ‘Sergeant?’

‘I stayed all night,’ Ergin said and then put his head down on to his chest.

‘Why? You have a wife and child. Kumkapı is not far from where you live . . .’

‘Handan and I, we had an argument,’ Ergin said. ‘She provoked me!’ He looked at İkmen. ‘About that wanting to learn English business again that I told you about, Çetin Bey. All the time I was trying to eat she went on and on and on about it. I went to my brother’s to get some peace! It is not the first time I have stayed all night at his apartment. Handan tests me sometimes . . .’

İkmen leaned across to İskender and said, ‘Sergeant Ergin’s wife is the missing Handan Ergin . . .’

‘Yes, I know,’ his colleague said dismissively. Ayşe Farsakoğlu, who was also in the room, raised an eyebrow at her boss. Metin İskender was way, way too abrasive for her taste.

‘So, to recap,’ İskender continued. ‘You went home when your shift finished at six, you ate your dinner – whilst rowing with your wife – and then you went to your brother’s apartment where you stayed all night.’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you change your clothes when you got home from work?’

‘Of course! Nobody should wear his uniform when he is off duty.’

‘Did you take your gun home?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you take it with you to your brother’s apartment?’

‘No!’ Ergin shook his head. ‘Why would I do such a thing? I left it in the top drawer of the bureau in my bedroom where I always leave it.’

‘Was the weapon locked inside the drawer?’ İkmen asked.

‘Yes. I’ve a family, of course I lock such a thing away!’

‘Presumably you were on duty the next morning?’ İskender said.

‘Yes.’

‘So you went home, changed into your uniform, and took your gun out of the drawer?’

‘Where it had been all night undisturbed,’ Ergin said.

‘Except that it hadn’t and could not have been,’ İskender replied. ‘Your Beretta 92 was fired on the night of 5 April and it killed the carpet dealer Yaşar Uzun. It has only your own fingerprints on it. Your wife is missing and so far as I can tell we only have the word of your own brother that you were in Kumkapı on that occasion.’

‘Well, my neighbours may have seen me leave . . .’

‘Yes, we will speak to them,’ İskender interrupted. ‘Although that will prove little beyond the fact that you left your apartment building. You could have had your gun with you for all your neighbours would know.’ He then looked across at İkmen and said, ‘Do we have any lead at all on the wife?’

‘No,’ İkmen responded. ‘Not as yet.’

İskender turned to Ergin and said, ‘The next step, sergeant, is for our officers to search your locker here at the station and your apartment.’

‘But I didn’t do it!’ Ergin said, a look of real confusion on his face.

‘Didn’t do what?’ İskender said as he rose smartly from his seat. ‘Kill the carpet dealer? Kill your wife? Or both?’

‘I don’t know anyone called Yaşar Uzun!’ Abdullah Ergin cried. ‘You say he worked in the Kapalı Çarşı, but I don’t know every carpet dealer in there. I’m a Tourism officer, not a pimp for the carpet men or the leather men or—’

‘All right! All right!’ İkmen held up his hand to silence him and then turned to Metin İskender. ‘Can I speak to you for a moment outside?’

They called Roditi in to sit with Ayşe Farsakoğlu and Abdullah Ergin while they went outside into the corridor and lit up cigarettes immediately.

‘Allah, but it’s so clean in this place, I feel almost shamed into not smoking,’ İkmen said as he looked around at the really very tastefully painted corridor. ‘Ashtray?’

Metin İskender eventually found one on a windowsill. ‘What’s on your mind, Inspector?’ he said as he held the ceramic bowl underneath his own and İkmen’s cigarettes.

‘Sergeant Ergin’s lack of motive,’ İkmen said.

‘His gun, with his prints on it, killed Uzun. There can’t be any question about that,’ İskender replied.

‘Yes, I know and I accept that. But whether he actually fired it is another matter. There are such things as gloves.’

‘True. But we know that Uzun was shot after he had brought his car to a halt. An officer, even one like Ergin, could so easily pull a car over, as we know.’

‘Yes, but when his wife went missing he came to us. I know that the guilty do do such things, but . . . I don’t think that he killed Uzun. I really don’t.’

‘But then if he didn’t kill him . . .’

‘First of all, Sergeant Farsakoğlu has recently discovered a possible link between Uzun and Nikolai Stoev.’

‘The current Bulgarian Godfather?’

‘The same.’ İkmen coughed. ‘Also, if Ergin didn’t shoot Uzun, then maybe his conveniently missing wife did. He said he left his Beretta at home when he went to visit his brother. She had to know he kept his gun in that bureau. She probably had a key herself or knew where her husband kept his. I’d like to see whether there’s any connection between Mrs Ergin and Uzun.’

İskender sighed. ‘You think she might have been having an affair?’

‘I don’t know. Uzun was young and attractive but without, so far, any sign of a lady friend. However, you know as well as I do how these carpet dealers are, don’t you, Metin? Other people’s wives are often very attractive to them.’

‘Yes.’ İskender ground his cigarette out in the ashtray and said, ‘So do I take it you will check up on Nikolai Stoev?’

‘I know him, it makes sense that I do.’

‘All right then, I will search Ergin’s apartment,’ İskender replied. ‘Guilty or not, he has to remain in custody for the moment. His 92 silently damns him.’

The two men shared a brief, grim smile.

If he knew one thing about Mürsel it was that there was no way he was going to believe a complete change of heart on Süleyman’s part. If the policeman was indeed going to try and seduce information out of the spy, the impetus had to come from Mürsel. But now that the autopsy, if not the toxicology, on the body of Leyla Saban was complete, Mürsel had done what he usually did just after a peeper killing and was making himself scarce. Whatever his feelings on the matter, which were mixed to say the least, Süleyman had to be patient. And there was some comfort to be had in not being subject to Mürsel’s leering caresses. But only some. There was curiosity too. If he were honest with himself, there always had been. Even as a boy he had wondered – about men – and Mürsel, well, he was a very attractive man . . . He had just finished shuddering, more at his own thoughts than anything else, when his office phone began to ring.

‘Süleyman.’

‘Hello, Inspector,’ a familiar voice replied.

‘İzzet! How are you? What’s going on?’

‘Oh, the boys at the jandarma station here are looking after me,’ İzzet Melik said. ‘In fact, I had a meal with several of them at a little lokanta yesterday evening. I threw up all night . . .’

‘Eastern food,’ Süleyman said by way of explanation.

‘Eastern food, a western stomach unaccustomed to eastern food and bacteria, and no alcohol,’ İzzet replied and then said stoically, ‘But it was written, kismet, what can you do? Inspector, no one seems to know, or won’t admit to knowing, who telephoned our office from the station here in Hakkari.’

Süleyman groaned.

‘I’ve had to deal with some very weird accents and, to be honest, I was beginning to lose hope until just after that meal last night, before I threw up . . .’

‘What happened?’

‘We were talking, the jandarma and me, about how they work, how I work. I told them how when old Ali died, the Commissioner made us get rid of the çay ocaği so now we have to get tea brought in. The jandarma were horrified. One of the men told me that their cleaner, a local woman, makes tea for them. Then another of the lads remembered something; this cleaner’s husband works at the mental hospital in Van where Deniz Koç died.’

‘Good. Are you going to interview this woman?’

‘No, but one of the patrols is taking me over to Van this afternoon and I’m going to try to speak directly to the husband.’

‘Well, proceed carefully, İzzet,’ Süleyman said. ‘If Cabbar Soylu did indeed order his stepson’s death then those who perpetrated the act will not have any love for you. But get as much as you can and then perhaps I can talk to the authorities out there about exhuming the body – if our suspicions become strong enough.’

‘Yes, Inspector.’

‘Don’t lose sight of our peeper in all of this either, İzzet. If we are right, then he somehow found out that Soylu had ordered the death of Deniz and I can’t see how he would have discovered that in İstanbul. They may not know it, but someone in that hospital, or connected to it, possibly knows who the peeper is. Be careful.’

‘I will. What’s happening there, Inspector?’

Süleyman told him about Leyla Saban, but not about Haydar. There was no need for İzzet to know about the death of the spy’s best friend. But İzzet did want to know what Süleyman intended doing next and so the senior man was forced to tell him. It was all quite above board – questioning residents local to the Zulfaris synagogue, reviewing the evidence provided by the Forensic Institute and Dr Sarkissian . . . He didn’t tell him what he had in mind with regard to Mürsel. He wouldn’t tell anyone about that.