Divorce Turkish Style (13 page)

I called out, “Charger, charger” just in case, but of course there wasn't a squeak. If only I'd had the foresight to write down Naz's number, I could have called her from the landline. Something would certainly have to be done if we continued to live in black holes that swallowed everything up. Numbers should always be written down.

“Why are you yelling? And why are you hopping about like a chicken with burnt toes?” Pelin called out.

“The expression is ‘a bitch with burnt toes', not a chicken,” I said curtly.

“I don't like to refer to you as a bitch, so I said chicken.”

“Well, instead of overdoing the politeness, why don't you help me look for the charger?” I grumbled.

“Oh! Are you looking for the charger? I borrowed it to charge my phone. It's plugged in behind the TV.”

I felt like exploding. However, I managed to contain myself, with great difficulty, and finally succeeded in phoning Naz.

*

“I couldn't reach you because your phone was off,” said Naz predictably.

“The battery went flat,” I said. “Where are you?”

“I stayed to have a drink after work with a friend from forensics. I'm in Beyoğlu.”

“Great. Can you come and see me? Did you get the report?”

“Yes. Did you speak to the police?”

“Yes,” I said, remembering that although I'd spoken to Batuhan we didn't get very far.

“In that case, I'll come round,” said Naz. “What number is it?”

“Number twenty-two. It's the first building after you turn the corner. Take care as you go down the slope. There are sometimes pickpockets waiting to ambush you.”

“Will do.”

Galip Dede Street was deserted at night because all the shops were closed. The previous year, a vagrant crouched in a supermarket doorway had tried to steal my Swiss friend Liz's handbag. He didn't succeed, but made the poor woman fall and fracture her hip. She was taken to hospital for an emergency operation and had only started walking again after months of rehabilitation in a Swiss clinic. I'd advised her to find somewhere else to spend her retirement, so she returned to her lovely house in the country as soon as her treatment ended.

When Naz arrived, I told Pelin to switch off the TV and go to my study.

“I won't make a sound if you let me stay in here,” she protested.

I looked at Naz, thinking that she'd be uneasy about someone else hearing our conversation.

“Don't worry on my account,” said Naz, shrugging her shoulders.

“All right, Pelin, but one word and you go to my study. Understood?” I said, realizing that my threat was utterly pointless, as it soon proved to be.

“What happened at forensics?” I asked.

“They can't get rid of Naz with the findings in the file.”

What did she mean, for heaven's sake? Was it some sort of doctors' code language?

“What do you mean, ‘they can't get rid of Naz'?”

Naz went to fetch her bag from the hall stand, took out some papers and handed them to me.

“Here. Read the last paragraph.”

The report was as follows:

Chemical Analysis Specialist Department report number 8334 of 21 September 2006 states that the blood and urine samples contained no traces of alcohol, narcotic substances or any of the poisonous substances listed in the report attachment, that pathological examinations of samples of the brain, spinal cord, heart, kidneys, liver and lungs showed no lesions, and that there was evidence of autolysis in the pancreas.

Biological Specialist Department report number 6879 of 21 September 2006 states that sperm was found in samples 1 and 2 taken from the deceased's underwear.

An external examination of the body showed that the superficial abrasions found in the autopsy, including 1 × 1 cm on the right elbow, 0.5 × 1 cm on the left elbow and 1 × 2 cm on the right knee, the needle puncture marks on the left forearm near the fold of the elbow, and a bleed measurıng 7 × 10 cm beneath the right parietal section of the scalp cannot be established as the cause of death. This report finds that, in order to establish the exact cause of death, this department must be provided with full medical records so that the deceased's state of health at the time of death can be determined.

“Apparently, she hit the right side of her head when she fell, but it wasn't enough to kill her,” said Naz.

“And the needle marks?”

“Yes, there were needle marks on her arm, but no narcotics or poison in her blood.”

“Do you think she used drugs?”

“I've no idea how those needle marks got there,” said Naz.

We looked at each other anxiously.

“She was obviously with a man. But who was it?” I murmured, glancing over the first page of the report again. “I see there was some brown leather dye under her fingernails. What does that signify?”

“It could have been from her bag, her shoes or the armchair. Leather dye is everywhere. It might not mean anything.”

“Or it might have huge significance and we haven't recognized it yet,” I said, putting the report down on the coffee table.

Pelin snatched up the report, gave it a cursory glance and said, “She wasn't murdered.”

“No, she wasn't murdered, and there's no clear cause of death,” said Naz. “Her head wound wasn't fatal, she didn't have a heart attack, and nor was she strangled or poisoned – yet still she died.”

I'd read thousands of crime mysteries, at least one a week since I was fifteen, but I'd never read about a death like this. No sign of drugs or poisoning, yet there were needle marks in her arm. It wasn't caused by the bang to her head. As far as I could recall, none of the books I'd read had featured a person dying of natural causes like this.

Why had no crime author made a victim's murder look as if it were due to natural causes? Why didn't any of the novels give me a clue? The answer, of course, was simple: people who die of natural causes aren't the stock-in-trade of the genre. Without a murder to solve, crime fiction wouldn't exist.

In the fictional world of crime, everything is rational and logical with no irrelevant details, no confusion and no misdirection. Everything happens with perfect timing, even if events are frequently dictated by the undesirable outcomes of fate, destiny and chance and characters display unconvincing inconsistencies, contradictions and complexes. However, in real life it's possible for an amateur sleuth and friend to pursue a mystery case.

“There was someone at her apartment when she died,” I said.

“How do you know?” asked Naz. “Did the police tell you?”

“Yes. They're convinced someone was there.”

“How can they be so sure?”

“That I don't know. But we need to find out who it was.”

“If someone was there, they should have got help when Sani fell.”

“Exactly. The fact that no call was made meant that someone didn't want his or her presence there to be known. Someone from your TLF, maybe?” I said.

“What's the TLF?” asked Pelin.

We ignored her.

“Or,” I continued, “maybe someone hired by the industrialists came to the house to kill Sani, but decided to leave after she fell, thinking that she was going to die anyway.”

“But why?” asked Pelin.

“If we can establish the reason, it'll be easy to work out who it was,” I said.

“Have the police seen this autopsy report?” asked Pelin.

“Of course,” said Naz. “The district attorney asked for an autopsy the same day. The police went to the autopsy room at four-thirty that afternoon and spoke to the pathologists without even waiting for the report.”

“Why did the press report it as an accident? Was it just to confuse people?” asked Pelin.

“Apparently, when the district attorney visited the scene of the incident, he was accompanied by a general practitioner from the Paşabahçe health centre. And that doctor said something to the press, probably without thinking,” said Naz.

“If they took a doctor with them, the district attorney must have had suspicions right from the start.”

“My friend in forensics said that the death of a young woman in her own home is always regarded as suspicious. Even if the death is assumed to be an accident, it has to be proven. When the police hear about such an incident, they immediately inform the district attorney, whose permission is needed to start any preliminary investigations, and they take someone from forensics with them. That's normal procedure. Every district in Istanbul has a forensic pathologist, even Paşabahçe. But the day this happened, the local pathologist had been called away elsewhere, which is why the doctor from the health centre went along.”

“I understand that the district attorney has to be accompanied by a forensic pathologist when someone dies unexpectedly at home, but do they always do an autopsy?” I asked.

“An autopsy is performed to establish the cause of death if no medication or treatment for a fatal illness is found on the premises and if there are no reliable witnesses. If the deceased is a member of a well-known family like the Ankaralıgils, then an autopsy is carried out anyway, whatever the person's age or medical history.”

“If you remember, they did an autopsy on the author Aziz Nesin,” said Pelin, “So it's not only the rich. Aziz Nesin was old and sick, and there were friends with him when he died. Nobody suspected that he'd been murdered, yet they still did an autopsy.”

“Stop interrupting!” I cried. “You promised!”

“But she's right,” said Naz. “Why are you so obsessed with the autopsy? There's nothing unusual about an autopsy being performed.”

“I'm trying to fit the pieces together: accident, autopsy, death from natural causes, industrialists, TLF…” I said. “It's all very confusing, and I think the best thing I can do is make some green tea,” I said, getting up to go to the kitchen.

When I returned, Naz and Pelin were watching TV.

“I needed to switch off for a while,” said Naz.

We all settled down to watch a film about a robbery, even though we'd missed the beginning.

6

“Aren't we going out this evening?”

“You're late again, Fofo. Twenty-five minutes late,” I retorted. “The gig's already started, and we're still here.”

I'd never wanted him to develop Germanic punctuality, but I found it extremely irritating that he was always late for everything. You'd think he could be on time just once, even accidentally. But no.

“I couldn't get away any earlier. What time does the gig start?”

“It's already started. And I wanted to be there early,” I said.

I wasn't interested in the music, but I'd hoped to have a few words with Sinan before the show.

“Do you know the group?” I asked.

“Well, the girls go mad for them. Their music's not bad, actually. Not bad at all,” said Fofo.

“Come on, then,” I said, getting to my feet just as Fofo sank into an armchair.

“I really need a drink,” he moaned.

“You can have a drink there. Anyway, you've just had a meal, haven't you?”

“I was going to have some coffee.”

“You can have coffee there. Come on, get up!”

“But it'll be horrible there,” Fofo complained, getting reluctantly to his feet.

However, I wasn't in the mood to give in after being made to wait so long.

*

The Kara Bar was in a basement in Sıraselviler, and was one of those places with bouncers scrutinizing everyone going in or out of the building. I made Fofo pay the entrance fee. It was the least he could do.

Inside there wasn't room to breathe, let alone move. I retreated to a corner by the door. It was impossible to see the individual members of the group properly at that distance, which didn't matter to me. However, I was curious to see what sort of person Sinan was, and I hadn't thought of looking him up on Google Images.

Fofo was already lost in the music and making strange attempts at dance movements. I had to admire the boy's energy. Sniff played well, actually. I wouldn't have played their CDs at home, but it was good music.

At the interval, I tried to push my way through the crowd to the backstage area, which was impossible, of course. The solid mass of flesh in front of me and the smell of cigarette smoke combined with perfume and sweat made me feel quite nauseous.

“What are you doing?” Fofo shouted in my ear, as if it wasn't noisy enough in there.

“I'm going backstage,” I said.

“Why?”

“I want to talk to the lead singer.”

“That's all we need! Why do you have to be so adolescent? And why didn't you tell me this before?” said poor Fofo, obviously under the impression that I'd taken a liking to the singer.