Deep Waters (29 page)

‘I’m sorry,’ Mehmet Suleyman replied, still with, she noticed, some weariness in his voice. ‘As it happened, I had to work late. And then when I got home Cohen wanted to talk – you know how it can be.’

‘Yes.’

‘We’re both very busy people,’ he continued with a sigh, ‘but things will get better when we’re living together. Then we’ll at least meet up occasionally in your father’s kitchen.’

Zelfa laughed. To be like an old married couple was a strange concept for her; she had never lived with any man except her father.

She came to the main point of her call. Trying to sound as casual as she could, she said, ‘So, you spent some time at the Evrens’ home yesterday . . .’

‘Yes.’ A pause followed.

‘And?’

‘Don’t try to lead me where you know I cannot go, Zelfa,’ he responded sternly. ‘You haven’t been asked to consult on this case and just because a member or members of the family are your patients doesn’t mean I can discuss them with you.’

‘Mehmet, I only ask in order to get a clearer picture of the home situation of my patient.’

‘Would you give me information about this patient if I asked for it?’ he asked. ‘No, you wouldn’t, would you? You respect your patients’ right to confidentiality.’

‘Yes, but you know I would have to break that rule if there was a safety or legal issue involved,’ she countered.

‘Is that the case with this patient then, Zelfa?’ Mehmet asked.

Realising that she had effectively boxed herself into a corner, Zelfa retreated. ‘No, there’s no safety issue involved,’ she admitted.

‘Good,’ he said, and changed the subject. ‘Since you’ve called, can I take you to lunch? How does Pandeli’s sound – at about one?’

‘It sounds like you’re spending the money for our wedding,’ she said lightly, ‘but what the hell! I’m a psychiatrist and you’re an aristocrat, between the two of us we can probably manage an entrée plus coffee – provided we share.’

Mehmet laughed. ‘I’ll ring you at twelve thirty, just in case something comes up – for either of us.’

‘You have a date.’

She put the phone down and, still smiling, turned to the stack of files on her desk. Mr Gürel, paranoid delusions, was her next patient. Persuading him that his apartment wasn’t bugged was a rather more modern problem than the gothic ramblings of Ali Evren. But then perhaps Ali’s delusions simply reflected his British background – after all, it would be unusual for a Turk to be taken with stereotypical vampire images, an essentially European/Christian phenomenon. Nor would an Albanian; the Albanians, like the Turks, were, in the main Muslims. But then the Balkans were another matter altogether. Zelfa had been there once, many years ago – a holiday in sunny Yugoslavia – Dubrovnik. A place now scarred by years of ethnic violence. She’d sunbathed on the beach and got drunk in the bars when she was there. Uncle Frank had shared that holiday. Poor old man, she’d been far too hard on him . . .

Although Fatma İkmen was not in the habit of getting too involved in the lives of her husband’s family, she had noticed that Ahmet Bajraktar had not been himself when he came in for breakfast that morning. He’d been quiet, which was not his usual way, and had looked sad. She’d never had a great deal of time for these odd foreign relatives, but this made Fatma feel for him. She assumed that Çetin must have told him the truth about Ayşe’s death. It must have come as a shock; after all, even in the twenty-first century suicide still carried a stigma. All well and good to die fighting for Islam but lonely acts of self-violence committed in darkened rooms were considered unholy and unnatural. It was something the Bajraktars and the İkmens would have to learn to live with.

‘Would you like another egg, Uncle?’ Fatma said as she placed some more food on her own plate.

‘No thank you, Fatma dear,’ the old man replied. ‘I don’t really have the time.’

‘Oh?’ She sat down opposite him. ‘Are you going to the hospital?’

Ahmet sighed. ‘Mustafa can go home today. Although quite where that is I don’t think even he really knows.’

‘Well, he has an apartment up by the Kapalı Çarşı,’ Fatma said, without thinking.

‘Yes,’ Ahmet replied drily, ‘so he does. But it isn’t his, is it? It belongs to this, er, this other character who was a wrestler . . .’

‘Oh, yes.’ Fatma lowered her gaze to the table, ‘A younger man, I believe.’

‘Well, anyway, whatever the situation, I must take my son somewhere,’ the old man said as he pushed himself up from his chair, ‘even if that has to be back to İzmir with me.’

‘I’ll get your hat and coat,’ Fatma said, rising from her chair and moving past the old man into the hall. ‘It’s started snowing so please do be careful on the pavements, won’t you, Uncle?’

‘If Allah wills I shall arrive at the hospital whole,’ he said.

Holding the coat up for him, Fatma helped the old man slot his thin arms into the garment and then she gave him his hat.

‘Will you be staying with us again tonight, Uncle?’

‘It all depends upon my son,’ Ahmet replied with a shrug. ‘But if it is not a trouble, I will return. I need to speak to Çetin again before I go.’

‘Of course.’ She smiled. ‘Your being here has been a comfort to him.’

Ahmet raised a wry eyebrow. ‘Has it?’ he said. ‘I wonder.’

Fatma looked at him questioningly. But when nothing was forthcoming, she opened the front door.

‘May Allah reunite,’ she said as he walked slowly across the threshold.

‘If it is His will,’ the old man responded.

Fatma watched him until he reached the door at the bottom of the stairs which, when he opened it, allowed the snow that had been building up against it to spill into the lobby. Fatma hated that – sloppy wetness everywhere, people slipping and sliding about all over the floor. The younger children would love it of course, but the older ones wouldn’t be so impressed. Hopefully that lazy dog Aziz, the kapıcı, would clear it away from the building pretty soon. If he didn’t, she and some of the other women in the block would have to do it. If Çetin slipped in the lobby she’d never hear the end of it, particularly in his present mood. She wondered whether he and his uncle had argued. Maybe Ahmet had problems believing what Arto Sarkissian had discovered. As far as she knew, her brother-in-law Halil had not yet been told about the suicide. She could understand this. As Arto had said, because Halil had discovered Ayşe’s body all those years ago, telling him had to be handled carefully. Perhaps Ahmet and Çetin had disagreed about this.

All she did know was that life at present was even harder than usual. What with Çetin being so upset, various children catching colds, Uncle Ahmet’s appearance plus the occasional visit from Samsun, there seemed to be no immediate end to her problems. Not, of course, that she could afford to dwell upon such things, not now that the snow had come. Diving briefly back into the apartment, Fatma covered her head with a scarf and grabbed a broom from the kitchen. OK, she was doing somebody else’s job, but if she hung around for Aziz to do it she would only spend the rest of the morning worrying about it.

‘Do you want me to pick you up?’ Mehmet Suleyman said into his mobile telephone. Down here in the cells it was much colder than up in the main body of the station. Now that it was snowing, his mind naturally drifted towards thoughts of warm, comforting things.

‘Well, I know you enjoy their lemon vodka, Father,’ he said, ‘and it’s no trouble to me.’

A key-swinging constable passed him in the corridor and saluted. Suleyman returned the gesture.

‘All right then, Father,’ he said and smiled into the instrument, ‘I’ll see you at Rejan’s at eight . . . Yes, Mrs Papas is picking Edibe up at six so Murad will come to my place first . . . Yes . . .’ Spotting Çöktin leaning against the wall at the end of the corridor, he gestured for him to come and join him. ‘All right, Father,’ he said into the telephone again. ‘Look, I must go now. I’ll see you this evening.’

As Çöktin drew level with him, Suleyman switched his phone off and put it back into his pocket.

‘So, how did you leave him?’ he asked his younger colleague as they simultaneously rubbed their hands against the encroaching cold.

‘Well, I know he was confused,’ Çöktin said. ‘I wasn’t with him for very long. I think if you go on and on planting suggestions into someone’s mind they eventually become inured to them.’

‘You’re probably right.’ Suleyman offered Çöktin a cigarette, which the Kurd declined.

‘I gave him the impression that he wasn’t safe with me,’ Çöktin continued as the two men started walking in the direction of Mehti Vlora’s cell. ‘Some of the suggestions I made were quite nasty.’

‘I don’t think I really want to know,’ Suleyman said.

‘No, sir.’

‘I think that if you and I now go over Mehti’s statement with him, the seeds you have planted might bear fruit.’

‘How do you want to play it then, sir?’ Çöktin asked.

‘Interview Room Three is empty. Have him brought up there and set the tape. I’ll ask the questions while you,’ he smiled, ‘just sit next to me looking sinister.’

Çöktin scowled. ‘Very well, sir.’

Laughing now, Suleyman said, ‘You do it so well, Isak. Look upon it as a gift.’

‘Yes, sir.’

As they passed Mehti’s cell they were silent. Although they knew he couldn’t possibly hear what they were saying, they both felt uncomfortable – outnumbered. The two cells directly opposite Mehti’s contained his brother Mehmet and mother Angeliki. An Albanian invasion seemed, at times, to be in progress.

When the officers reached the guardroom, they were offered tea by the duty officer, which they both accepted. They then acquainted the guards with what their plans were vis-à-vis Mehti Vlora. It was decided that the same guard who had been in with Vlora when Çöktin had spoken to him earlier would be present this time too. Hopefully, Mehti would interpret this in the way they wanted him to.

The Church of the Holy Wisdom, Aya Sofya, has always been one of the most violently disputed buildings on earth. But, despite the fact that only a minority of its visitors have a clearly defined faith, reports of spiritual uplift among those who pass through its doors are common. The place is now a museum, and though dark inside, the luminous quality, some say, of the representational mosaics filter through the thin light like visitors from another dimension. Across vast ranges of time and space, strange imperious figures, crusted with priceless jewels, commune with images of a dusky Greek divinity. Old world in the extreme, this is Christianity with an opulent, almost pagan face. And looking upwards towards the high arched windows and then beyond into the heaven-like distance of the dome, one can be forgiven for imagining that one sees the smoke and smells the perfume of incense. Even for the most cynical the pressure exerted by over one thousand five hundred years of often fanatical devotion is undeniable. And Ali Evren, for one, was of their number.

Now, with the snow falling heavily across the great, soaring dome, Aya Sofya looked more Russian than Turkish to Ali. But then hadn’t the Russians taken both their religion and aspects of their architecture from the Byzantines? Nothing was, after all, new in this world even if this place was, as yet, unfamiliar to the boy’s sister. But it would not be so for long and, once she was inside this most holy of structures, he would know for certain what she was. He would know whether or not she had been lying to him. After all, those who disappeared from mirrors died in churches and as Dr Halman had told him only the day before, the only way that he could be really certain that Felicity was truly what he thought and wanted her to be was to take her to a church. And now it was very important that he know the truth. Why hadn’t he thought of it before? He would, of course, have to bear his own increasing discomfort in this place, but it would be worth it in the end. If she died he would know and if she didn’t he would also know. And much as he loved her, that knowledge was far more important to him now than she was. As Felicity herself knew, he had gone way beyond her power or control.

Walking through the almost entirely white gardens, both Ali and Felicity hurried to get out of the cold. Stepping first into the exonarthex and then into the narthex, Ali shook snow from his coat onto the floor. Then entering via the Imperial Gate, he paused to appreciate the swathes of space, rendered crystalline by the snowy light from outside. It was amazing. The scaffolding erected up into the dome by the academics and artisans who were currently restoring the frescoes looked like a modern-day Tower of Babel, attempting but not quite succeeding in reaching up to unknowable heaven. But already his breathing was coming hard as the place exerted its strange, toxic hold over him. Looking back to where Felicity was still standing beyond the main door out in the snow, he beckoned her towards him.

‘Come in,’ he gasped, attempting an encouraging smile. ‘It’s really very impressive.’

But she just shook her head in that eccentrically deformed way of hers and continued to stand out in the snow.

That, to Ali, was encouraging. But for him to really see what was what, she had to come inside. He walked back towards her, his head clearing a little as he approached the outside world.

‘What’s the matter?’ he said. ‘Are you afraid that something might happen to you in here?’

‘No,’ she answered simply. ‘As I told you after Rifat died, David, that was all a game I created around something that’s happened to me, something I can’t explain. It doesn’t affect how we feel about . . . each other.’ She looked down sadly at the ground and then said, ‘I just feel that after what has happened, I shouldn’t be in a place like this. And anyway, you should be at school.’

‘Oh, come in for just a moment, Flick,’ he pleaded. ‘It’s really very wonderful. And besides,’ he added, his voice hardening with what sounded like rising anger, ‘Dad and I have always protected you and so why should I not do that now?’