Baksheesh (11 page)

“Did he always carry a gun?”

“No way, miss. My uncle's pathetic. We keep an eye on him. But he's no good. Osman's given him jobs at several places, but he always picks a fight with someone within a couple of days. He makes any street thug seem like a gentleman. We only put up with him for my poor dead father's sake.”

“But if he didn't have a gun, what did he shoot with?”

Özcan looked at me as if I were some species of extinct panda.

“Miss, where do you think you're living? This is Turkey,” he said. “Getting hold of a gun is no problem if you have the bucks. Show me the cash and I'll have it for you in half an hour. Only the best, what's more.”

“What business are you in?” I asked.

“We don't deal in guns. I said I could get you one, not sell you one of ours.”

“That's not why I asked. What other business are you in, apart from car parks?”

“All kinds of things.”

“How many car parks do you have?”

“Let me see,” he replied, and started counting aloud using his fingers. “Two streets in Beyoğlu are completely ours. And Tarlabaşı. You already know the one in Kuledibi. And we have a large one in Cihangir.”

“When streets get closed to traffic, they're turned into car parks. Is that how you got yours in Beyoğlu?”

“Yeah, that's right. We have the whole of Ä°mam Adnan Street and Büyükparmakkapı Street.”

“Where do you get permission to turn streets into car parks?” I asked out of curiosity.

“From the council. We pay our taxes, down to the last penny. We're doing people a service. What would they do if we didn't operate car parks there? Where would they leave their cars? Do you have a car, miss?”

“I do,” I said.

“Well, if you went for a night out in Beyoğlu, where would you park? You wouldn't want to leave your car just anywhere. There are tramps, thieves and glue-sniffers all over the place. They get high on those thinners, take hold of a nail as long as your arm and scratch along the sides of cars, one end to the other. Who's going to keep an eye on that scum? The police can't be chasing after them twenty-four hours a day. Tell me miss, would you leave a brand new car parked in the road these days while you go out drinking?”

I couldn't understand why Turks always seemed to think I was an idiot. Because I was German? Because of my orange hair? Anyone living in Istanbul knew about the scam of scratching cars and breaking off side mirrors to force people into using car parks.

“What do you do apart from running car parks?”

“All kinds of things,” he repeated, clearly not wanting to elaborate further.

“Did Osman have a café?” I asked.

He looked at the floor and replied, “It was after the café that he went into the car park business. The first car park he bought was in Tarlabaşı and things gradually grew from there.”

“And what's your job?”

“I go round the car parks. It's hard work getting people to do their job. You have to watch them twenty-four hours a day, otherwise things get out of hand. Musa looks after the one in Kuledibi, and I take care of the others. I'm on the go day and night.”

“Who was the first person to find Osman?”

“Miss, you sound like the police with all your questions,” he said, taking some black worry beads out of his jacket pocket and fiddling with them nervously.

“I'll go and make some coffee,” said Ä°nci.

“Don't bother,” Özcan said, rising from his chair when Ä°nci got up. “We're just talking, there's no need for coffee.” He sat down again as Ä°nci went into the kitchen.

“See, she's left carrying my brother's child in her belly,” he said, and he put out his tongue to make a noise, as if spitting into the middle of the room. “Bastard! Excuse me miss, but it makes me mad just thinking about it. I can't help it. I grew up without a father. Osman was like a father for me. Now, God willing, I'll be the same for his child. My brother's woman won't want for anything.”

I stroked the end of my nose with a finger, thinking that Özcan's fantasies might not fit in with İnci's plans.

“Where does your family come from, Özcan?”

“We're
Vanlı
, miss.”

“Lake Van,” I murmured to myself. The only thing I knew about Van was that Turkey's largest lake was there. “Are you Kurdish?”

“Yes, miss, we're Kurds.”

“Do you speak Kurdish?”

“No, miss. I was born and brought up in Istanbul. I understand when I hear it, but I can't speak it properly. My brother Osman could. My mother picked up Turkish from watching TV and I swear her Turkish is as good as mine. She's a clever woman. I always say if she'd been educated, she could have been Prime Minister. She'd have done a better job than the present lot.”

“You know they're allowing Kurdish courses to start up now, don't you?” I said. That summer, parliament had passed a reform package to comply with EU Legal Harmonization, which meant it was now legal to run Kurdish language courses.

“Yes, I heard that. But I want to learn English, miss. Knowing English would really open up the world for me.”

“What would you do if the world opened up?” Was that an odd question, I wondered?

“Ever yone needs English, miss. If you go on the Internet, it's all in English. These days, you're only half a man if you don't know English. Kurdish is our mother tongue and I'm all for it… But it's like Turkish. Useless, the moment you leave Turkey.”

“Do you want to live abroad?”

“No, miss. I'm happy here. What would I do abroad? Of course, it would be different if I was going off travelling. We have lots of folk in Germany – two of my uncles are there. They keep telling me to go out, but I won't go to Germany. Why go somewhere full of Kurds and Turks? We have them here in Istanbul, don't we, miss? Germans too,” he said, pointing at me. “Why should I go to Germany?”

“I agree with you. So where would you like to go?”

“I want to go to America. To see what it's like. They rule the world, don't they? They must know a thing or two.”

“Have you started learning English?”

“I would've signed up for a course this month if all this hadn't happened. But that's unlikely now because I'll be taking over the business. My brothers aren't bothered about the family.”

“How old are you?”

“Seventeen. But I look older, don't I, miss?”

“Yes,” I said. What else could I say?

“People grow up fast when they have responsibilities.”

“How many brothers and sisters do you have?”

“Five brothers and seven sisters. I'm the youngest. The others are all married. That's village mentality for you – my mother married them off early. She wanted the same for me, but I refused. It's not like the old days. There's no way I'd get married without meeting the bride first. All my brothers are married to cousins. I've never once seen them take their wives to the cinema. They just sit at home saying nothing, except maybe, ‘Dinner's ready. Are you hungry?' I want to marry a girl who goes out to work and meets her friends instead of spending all day at home watching TV.”

İnci brought in the coffee. Özcan jumped to his feet again at seeing İnci. This was presumably out of respect. İnci held out the tray to me first. It was my third coffee of the day, but, yet again, I couldn't refuse.

“You were just saying that your brothers aren't bothered about the family. Why is that, do you think?” I asked, hoping that Ä°nci's presence wouldn't inhibit our conversation.

“Everybody's gone their own way, miss,” replied Özcan, blushing slightly at being caught revealing family matters in front of Ä°nci.

“Kati is a very good friend of mine, Özcan,” said Ä°nci, winking at me. “You can talk freely to her. Anything you say here stays within these walls.”

“Did you know each other before?” said Özcan, looking in astonishment from Ä°nci to me.

“Of course. I knew Kati before I met Osman,” Ä°nci said, and, turning to me, asked, “How many years is it?”

“Must be seven years now,” I said. “You were still at high school.”

Özcan was no more likely to buy that than I was to believe he was seventeen.

“Why didn't you say so?” he said, slapping his knee.

He jumped up and was about to lunge at me and attempt to kiss my hand again, but checked himself this time.

“I'm sorry, miss, but how was I to know?” he said, sitting down again. “Did my brother know?”

“No, he didn't,” said Ä°nci. “As you know, he didn't want me to see anyone. I lost contact with all my friends.”

That much was true. İnci didn't have a single friend other than her daily help, Hafize Hanım, which was why she was clinging to me as if I were a lifebelt.

“You're German, aren't you, miss?”

“Yes I am.”

“Why are you in Turkey?”

“In Istanbul,” I corrected him, because I felt myself to be an
Ä°stanbullu
. “I like it here.”

“But miss, what do you like about it? The noise? The crowds?”

I didn't answer. How could I explain to this young lad that I loved the underground cistern, Sülemaniye mosque, the Galata Tower, Tahtakale, and the talkative, friendly Turks and Kurds?

“You said Musa was the first person to find Osman, didn't you?” asked Ä°nci.

“Yes, Musa found him. Osman hadn't come home the night before. We all live in the same place. Osman built it for us. There's a floor for each brother. My mother and uncle are living on my floor until I get married.”

“That's normal for them,” said Ä°nci. “When a woman's husband dies young, they marry her off to a brother of the husband. That's how mothers come to be married to uncles. But the uncle he's
talking about is roughly the same age as Osman. About thirty, isn't he, Özcan? Young enough to be her son.”

“It wouldn't happen nowadays. Our folk had only just arrived in Istanbul then. They brought their village traditions with them.”

“Don't you also have a tradition out there that you have to find your brother's murderer and kill him?” I asked. I wasn't being serious, but realized I'd said the wrong thing when I saw Özcan's face turn bright red.

“Don't go into that, miss. You're talking about blood feuds and there's no end to that business. But this isn't the Wild West. This country has police, gendarmes and courts. It's up to them who gets punished and how,” he said, still playing nervously with his worry beads.

“Of course. Nothing like that will happen here,” said Ä°nci.

Just then, my mobile rang. It was Pelin.

“Where are you?” she asked.

“I'm at a friend's place. What's the matter?”

“Batuhan's been calling you since yesterday. Batuhan is that policeman, isn't he? I forgot to leave you a note when I went out yesterday, so I thought I'd better let you know he'd been calling, in case it's something important. I don't think he has your mobile number and I didn't want to give it out without asking you. If he calls again, shall I give it to him?”

“No, don't,” I said. “Take his number and I'll call him back. I used to have it, but it might have changed, so write it down. Has anyone else phoned?”

“Yilmaz and Lale phoned, but they said it was nothing important. They just rang on the off-chance.”

Selim was still holding out then. So was I.

As I put my mobile in my bag, Özcan looked at his watch.

“I have to go, miss. I came round because Ä°nci asked me to, but I left the business without anyone in charge.”

“Wait,” I said. “Tell me, how did you find Osman?”

“It was Musa who found him. We suspected something when Osman didn't come home that night. He wasn't answering his mobile, so we called Ä°nci,” he said, lowering his eyes for a moment and blushing slightly. “He wasn't with her. Then when Musa went to the office in the morning, he found Osman lying on the floor by the door. He told my brother Nevruz and me to get round there. Then the police came a bit later. They took photos and roped the area off. They were going to do a post-mortem to see if he really died from a bullet wound, but they haven't told us anything yet.”

“Did you tell the police that I did it?”

“No, miss. When the police asked if he had any enemies, we said he'd had a quarrel the day before with a local woman shopkeeper and maybe she had some sort of grudge against him. There was nothing wrong with that, miss. We just said what happened. In any case, his ear was all covered in blood. It was still like that when he was buried. We couldn't just say nothing about it, could we?”

“Did you say your uncle stole the money?”

“He admitted it yesterday, when the police started getting heavy with him. Then they asked me and Nevruz if it was true, and we said it was. There's nothing for you to be worried about, miss. You're in the clear.”

 

I phoned Batuhan as soon as I got home. I'd used up an awful lot of time and energy before managing to escape Ä°nci's clutches.

“I've been calling you since yesterday,” he said.

“A friend's staying with me and she's only just thought of letting me know you'd rung,” I said.

“I rang to say you're off the hook. We have a very strong suspect. You're more or less in the clear.”

“Did you really think I could have killed someone?”

“You've no idea the things we see. People aren't like melons, you can't tell what they're like inside just by smelling them.”