Arabesk (5 page)

The woman who was now teetering noisily across her brilliantly polished parquet flooring was, in spite of her young lover's universally acknowledged obsession with her, something of an old joke. Tansu's official line on her own life was that she had come to Istanbul from her home city of Adana in 1970 at the tender age of sixteen. That she left a child who was already ten years old behind her was something Tansu never mentioned. And when the child, now a man of nearly forty, had spoken to a reporter from
Hurriyet
back in Tansu's darkest days, in the late 1980s, it had caused her to disown her son completely and nearly ruined her career to boot Had Erol Urfa not come into her life three years previously and helped her rebuild both her career and her self-esteem she would now, she knew, be as wrinkled and as unemployable as the numerous fifties European film stars upon whom she had once modelled herself.

Struggling both with shoes that were too high for her and with barely contained anxiety, Tansu reached for the bottle of pills on the coffee table.

'If only he would phone me himself I could rest,’ she said as she attempted to take the lid off the bottle.

Her companion, a woman who looked like a slightly younger, more relaxed and considerably more sensibly shod version of Tansu, calmly reached out and took the bottle from the latter's shaking hands. 'Erol will call as soon as he is able,' she said. 'You will be the first to know if it is anything serious.'

With a petulant flick of her long platinum hair, Tansu threw herself down onto one of her chintz sofas and then let her hands fall heavily between her thin, brown knees. 'That man I spoke to could have been something to do with the bitch,' she growled, her eyes suddenly hard and full of spite.

The other woman, taking Tansu's hand in hers, placed two pills in her palm. 'Here, take these, they'll make you feel better.'

'Could even be her brother.'

'Except that you said his voice was posh,' the other replied, her tone slightly amused. 'Ruya is a village girl, remember, about as posh as your Erol.'

'My Erol is perfect and don't you forget it!'

'That is not quite what you were saying last night, dear,' the other replied as she pawed a little obviously at the small book at her side.

'Why you—'

'Oh, for the love of Allah,' the other woman cried, her patience snapping, 'take your tranquillisers, Tansu, and shut up!'

For a moment Tansu looked as if she might object to what had been said, but then she took the pills and when they had gone placed her hand across her large, heaving breast in a gesture of relief.

The other woman raised an eyebrow. 'Better?' she inquired.

Tansu sighed heavily and then flicked her sunglasses down from her head to cover her eyes. 'You know that the bitch is also a witch, don't you?' she said as she moved her attention from pills to cigarettes.

'No, she isn't,' the other woman said, expressing just enough obvious 'patience' in her voice to give it an edge. 'She is, as I have said before, just an ordinary girl from Erol's village. He married her because he was long ago betrothed. It's village stuff, Tansu. You know the score.'

'No, I don't! I come from a city!'

'Yes, you do, as do I and our brothers. But Mum and Dad came from Peri which, as we all know, is not shown on all maps.'

'Oh, shut the fuck up, Latife!' As she spoke, Tansu dropped her heavy onyx table lighter onto the floor. Its weight shattered one of the wooden parquet panels.

A veteran of many similar scenes, Latife bowed her platinum head just slightly towards the floor, averting her eyes from those of her sister. 'I'd be careful of the floor, Tansu,' she said calmly.

'Oh,-fuck the fucking floor!' shouted Tansu, now up and prowling once again. 'I can always get another fucking floor!' She threw both arms dramatically into the air. 'What I want is my love! I want him to come here to my bed! I want to know that his "indisposition" doesn't mean screwing that flat-chested little bitch!'

'But you have done all you can, Tansu. You telephoned Aksoy Bey—'

'Who has not bothered to return my call! Who has switched his mobile telephone off so he doesn't have to speak to me!'

'Well, if you're that worried, why don't you and I go up to Ìstiklal—'

Her speech was swiftly and effectively cut short by the smart slap Tansu delivered to the side of her sister's face.

'I have to attend a lunch at the officers' club in less than an hour, you stupid whore!' Then gathering her breath and her composure as comprehensively as Tansu ever could, she continued more calmly, 'I cannot let our soldier boys down. If I let them down then I let Turkey down.'

'And you are all of Turkey's darling.' It was said without irony. But had Tansu turned away from dramatically staling at the ceiling (and at scenes from her own legend depicted thereon) she would have noticed that Latife was smiling just a little.

'Yes, I am,' Tansu said and for a moment she held onto the heroic pose before, with a small whimper, she threw herself back onto the couch. 'But how will I endure it without knowing where my darling is?'

'You'll just have to be strong, won't you?'

'Yes. Yes, I will.' Tansu drew heavily on her cigarette and then sat up. Her face, now heavily stained with tear-sodden make-up, was attempting to resolve itself into a mask of passion. 'For Turkey.’

'Yes. For Turkey,' her sister said as if doing something awfully mundane like reading a shopping list. She picked up her book and rose to leave the room. But as she passed the rapt Tansu, she bent down towards her and said, 'You want me to get your favourite columnists there just before or just after you arrive?'

.Without altering her melodramatic pose, Tansu replied, 'Before.'

'And will you be happy brave or choking back the tears brave?'

'I think that military men would prefer real sacrifice,' Tansu said quietly. 'They will want, I feel, to know that I still love them even in the midst of personal crisis. It mirrors their unselfish bravery for the motherland.'

Latife, who was now standing by one of the rose-painted doors, looked down at her-sister and suddenly, with almost overwhelming affection, said, 'Whatever you want, my dove.'

By the time the news about Tansu Hanim's emotional breakdown at the officers' club and the subsequent press dash to the supposedly dying Erol Urfa's Ìstiklal Caddesi apartment had reached the ears of Çetin Ìkmen, Mehmet Suleyman was already on his way to his former superior's Sultan Ahmet apartment With Urfa now being looked after by his manager and forensic all over the apartment, he needed a few minutes at least away from the press corps in order to collect his thoughts. Çöktin, who had not as yet come into contact with the press, was out looking for the elusive Cengiz Temiz as well as co-ordinating activities with regard to Urfa's still missing daughter. The man that reporters were already describing as 'the dashing investigating officer' literally fell across the toy-strewn entrance to the Ìkmen family home.

'If you continue to steal Tansu Hamm's air time she'll pull your face off,' the older man grinned as he warmly embraced his colleague.

Suleyman smiled, if a little weakly. 'I'm absolutely exhausted.'

'Then let's go to my office,' Ìkmen said, reaching up to put his arm around his friend's shoulders’

'Your office? I didn't know you had an office at home.'

'I mean the balcony actually, Suleyman. Fate has not, as you know, seen fit to enhance my financial status for some time. But if, like me, you don't mind street dust or the odd exchange with the demented old man next door, then it serves.' As they passed by the door of the kitchen, Ìkmen called out, 'Two teas for the balcony, Fatma, please.'

The female voice that replied was well laced with acid. 'When I'm good and ready, Çetin, and not before.'

'I do have Mehmet with me, my sweet soul’ he added, a look of pure mischief curling across his face.

And his efforts were rewarded.

‘I’ll do it right away,' the same, slightly sweeter, female voice replied.

'You know,' Ìkmen said as he led Suleyman out onto the balcony and then slowly sat down in his chair, 'if you could capture that special something you do to women and then sell it, you could give up policing for ever.'

'At the moment that looks quite appealing actually, sir-'

Both men shared a knowing smile, Ìkmen took his cigarettes out of his pocket and threw one at Suleyman before lighting up himself. Then he settled back in his chair and looked quizzically at his one-time subordinate.

'So Mr-smoking-again-because-now-I'm-a-bigshot, what, apart from the bastard press, the dead woman and the absent child, is on your mind?'

Suleyman sighed before lighting up in what to Ìkmen was a worryingly enthusiastic fashion. 'So you know about Urfa, Urfa's wife, the missing child ...'

'Like other mortals, I listen to the radio and I have my sources,' Ìkmen said with a knowing smile. 'Any ransom demands?'

'No. Not yet.'

'Doesn't mean there won't be. Just because a note wasn't found in the apartment, if indeed that is so, doesn't mean that the child hasn't been abducted. If the perpetrator gets off on publicity, a hiatus forcing something like an appearance from Urfa on television could be just what he wants.'

'Or her.' Suleyman smiled.

Ìkmen in response raised his eyes briefly towards the aqua blue sky. 'May Allah strike me down if I forget the women!' Then looking again at Suleyman he asked, 'Is that, seriously, a real possibility?'

'Urfa is, for want of a better term, a sex symbol,' Suleyman said as he drew long and hard upon his cigarette. 'Women want to get near to him, they desire him--'

'Here are your glasses of tea.' Fatma Ìkmen set the small silver tray down in front of the two men. Suleyman was unaware of such things but Fatma, who had recently lost five kilos of fat since her, never mentioned, 'female' operation, was wearing quite a thick coating of recently applied lipstick.

She stood back to look at Çetin's old partner and sighed. 'Ah, but you look so smart!' she said. 'Your mother must be so proud!'

'I'm glad you approve of the suit, Mrs Ìkmen,' Suleyman replied, skating over the issue of his mother's opinions. He had not seen her who had given him life since he had left his wife the previous October. 'It's good to see you again.'

'And you, Mehmet,' she said and then, with a sharp glance at her husband, she added, 'I can't tell you how grateful we all are to have you here—'

'Yes, thank you, Fatma,' Ìkmen interjected and smiled at her through clenched teeth. 'You just go and enjoy the kitchen again for a bit'

The two men left off their conversation for a few moments after Fatma retreated. Quietly they enjoyed their tea, their cigarettes and the unrivalled view Ìkmen's tatty old balcony afforded of the great Sultan Ahmet Mosque, its gardens and its sad royal child-filled tombs.

'Also, Ruya Urfa died by cyanide poisoning,' said Suleyman when the time finally seemed right. 'Forensic are right now exploring the possibility of death by misadventure. But there were no bottles immediately evident that contained such a substance or derivatives thereof and with no suicide note—'

'We are probably looking at a homicide which,' Ìkmen said with a sharp raising of one finger, 'Dr Sarkissian probably feels is particularly ''feminine" in character?'

Suleyman smiled. 'Yes. Have you spoken to him?'

Ìkmen's failure to reply to this was pointed. 'Which is why my earlier discounting of women was so erroneous,'.he said. 'Poison is considered by some, including the dear doctor, to be a particularly feminine mode of despatch. That coupled with copious amounts of envy . . .'

'You are thinking of Tansu Hamm?'

'Along with the rest of the nation probably, yes,' Ìkmen said. 'Although the missing child adds rather a different dimension, don't you think?'

'Yes.'

'Bitter childless women . . .' 'Obsessed devotees of Erol's music,' Suleyman added.

'Psychopaths.' Ìkmen drew hard upon his cigarette and then scrunched the butt out in the ashtray. 'Anyone else?'

'We're actually looking for one of the neighbours at the moment,' Suleyman said as he watched two Oriental tourists struggle with their phrase book in the street below. 'Erol's manager claims this man told him about Ruya Urfa's death before he reached the apartment this morning. The neighbour's knowledge could possibly precede both Mr Urfa's discovery of the body and our arrival at the scene. Of course, he could simply have witnessed the aftermath of Erol Urfa's discovery of the body and then drawn certain conclusions from that But until we interview him we won't know.'

'Is this manager person reliable? In your opinion?'

Suleyman put his cigarette out in the ashtray. 'He's loud, theatrical and given to offensively dreadful shirts. But I don't think he would lie about such a thing. I mean, it wouldn't profit him in any way to do so.'

'Mmm. Unless, of course, he's protecting his human investment’ Ìkmen sipped his tea thoughtfully. 'And the neighbour? What of him?'

'According to his parents, Cengiz Temiz is forty-five years old and has Down's syndrome. He has been known to enter the Urfas' apartment from time to time. He is, apparently, rather fond of the baby. When he saw Temiz this morning, Urfa's manager, Ibrahim Aksoy, thinks he may have taken fright for some reason. Çöktin is out looking for him now.'

'If he is Down's you do know that you may have some real problems interrogating him, don't you?'

Suleyman sighed. 'It won't be easy, no.'

'In my experience, which is only small,' Ìkmen said, lighting yet another cigarette and then rubbing his stomach as if experiencing some pain there, 'he's going to be very frightened and very suggestible.'

'Yes.' And then leaning across to look at Ìkmen more closely, Suleyman said, 'Are you all right, sir? I'm not tiring you, am I?'

Ìkmen gave him the sort of look that, unchecked, could possibly curdle milk. 'I'm actually better doing this, as well you know, Suleyman,' he said and then rapidly changed the subject back to something that interested him. 'He'll probably, if my experience is anything to go by, confess immediately. However, if you do need help with that there is always Dr Halman.'