Deep Waters (28 page)

‘So what do you think then?’ İkmen said through the lattice of fingers across his face.

Suleyman first put the dying cigarette out in one of the ashtrays and then lit up one of his own. ‘I think that Evren is not the sort of man who is accustomed to controlling his anger. I also feel that he is very protective of his daughter.’

‘Isn’t killing a somewhat excessive reaction to what was probably a very clumsy attempt at extortion? And anyway, why even admit that Rifat was there that night? We only suggested we had information that he had been there. Evren could easily have denied that.’

Looking now into a fully exposed if slightly reddened face, Suleyman put his head on one side as he considered these points. ‘Perhaps Evren felt, in light of the fact that he didn’t know who had given us the information, that to deny that Rifat had been there might be risky. After all, he could have been to the house, left and then met with his killer later on. Both Evren and Mehti place themselves near Rifat at ten o’clock. From then until the time of death, which Dr Sarkissian reckons was between midnight and two a.m. is a long time.’

‘Indeed.’ İkmen lit up a fresh cigarette. ‘I can’t see Evren spending all that time wrangling over money he never intended to give the boy, can you?’

‘I can see him calling on a group of thugs to do it for him,’ Suleyman said. ‘The art world at his level seems to make frequent use of such contingents.’

Remembering what an outraged Suleyman had told him about Mr Evren’s dealings with, amongst others, the former Turkish aristocracy, İkmen smiled.

‘If Evren is in league with eastern European heavies, they would surely have had a bit of fun with him before they killed him? I know his body was bruised but most of that occurred post mortem. And that glass in his face suggests a woman to me.’

‘Possibly.’ Suleyman shrugged.

‘So what’s happening with Mehti Vlora?’

‘He’ll have to appear before a judge tomorrow.’ Suleyman eased himself off the edge of the desk and stood up. ‘As you suggested, I have arranged for Çöktin to go over his story yet again this morning.’

‘You have, I trust,’ İkmen said some grim humour in his voice, ‘emphasised the urgency of some sort of conclusion to Çöktin.’

‘I’ve told him that provided nothing physical occurs he can do whatever he thinks fit in order to obtain the truth.’

İkmen smiled, but not with pleasure. Although in reality a naturally passive individual, İsak Çöktin had during his time with Suleyman proved himself invaluable as a hunter of truth. His methods were hardly subtle but they were never physically cruel even if they did at times overstep the boundaries of psychological harm. Neither İkmen nor Suleyman felt comfortable about that but sometimes, despite İkmen’s lifelong battle against police brutality, someone like Çöktin was necessary. Like now when they were running out of time – and when Mehti Vlora could very well be condemning himself to life imprisonment for something he only wished he’d done. After all, İkmen thought grimly, with these Albanians one had to remember that the honour of the
fis
was paramount. For his mother, apparently, it had been stronger even than her love for her husband and children. She had laid down her life for something he for one didn’t even begin to understand.

‘Who was that ringing so early in the morning?’ Balthazar Cohen said tetchily as his son replaced the receiver.

‘It was Zelfa for Mehmet,’ Berekiah replied. ‘I told her he’s already gone to work.’

‘Yes, which is where you should be if you don’t want Lazar to start complaining.’

In an attempt to try to find a comfortable position for what was left of his legs, Balthazar began to wrestle with one of the cushions underneath his backside. As he did so he muttered angrily between gasps of pain.

Unable to tolerate witnessing this struggle, Berekiah moved across the room towards his father. ‘Dad, if you’ll just let me—’

‘No!’

‘But—’

‘No!’ Balthazar repeated with even more vehemence. ‘Keep away! If I want your help I will ask for it!’

‘But Dad, you allow Mehmet to help.’

‘Mehmet is my friend and he is a man!’ his father said as he finally managed to remove the offending cushion.

‘Yes, but I’m your son!’

Balthazar threw the cushion onto the floor, presumably for either his wife or his son to pick up at some point.

‘Dad?’

Balthazar looked up sharply and without any apparent affection in his expression. ‘While you do the work of a child, you cannot be a man,’ he said harshly. ‘Get yourself a man’s job and then perhaps we can talk as equals.’

Cut to the bone by this brutal judgement upon his current employment, Berekiah turned away from his father’s hard gaze. So here they were, talking about joining the police again. Ever since Berekiah had visited İkmen and talked to both him and Mehmet Suleyman about police work, his father hadn’t stopped. To both Berekiah and his mother’s embarrassment, it had even come up when Zelfa and Mehmet had announced their intention to marry. And although Berekiah was now quite close to having made up his mind about his future, he was not going to be pushed into a hasty decision – not even by his sick father. So he did as he so often had to do in these days of bad moods and tearful nights and just smiled at Balthazar, saying, ‘Well, Dad, as you said, I’d better go now if I don’t want to be late.’

‘Perhaps you should speak to Mehmet again when you get home tonight.’

‘Maybe,’ Berekiah smiled. ‘In the meantime, I’ve got to take some more leaf over to the Aya Sofya today.’

Although not really interested, Balthazar managed a muttered, ‘Why?’

Berekiah took his coat off the back of his chair and put it on. ‘For the restoration work,’ he said. ‘Professor Apa and his team are working on the mosaics in the dome. We provide the gold for the project.’

‘Images of false messiahs!’ Balthazar raged.

Berekiah finally lost patience with his father. ‘Since when were you so religious?’ he snapped. ‘God, I’ve never heard anything so hypocritical in my life! I think I preferred you when you were running around after cheap women half your age!’

‘Oh, yes!’ Balthazar countered bitterly. ‘Go ahead and remind me about being stuck in this chair.’

Berekiah shrugged. ‘You don’t need me to do that,’ he said, moving towards the door. ‘You’re quite capable of doing that for yourself.’

‘Berekiah!’

But all he received by way of reply was the sound of the door slamming in the wake of his furious son. The boy would, as was his custom, calm down during the course of the day. In the meantime, all Balthazar could hope was that Estelle, who he thought must be in the kitchen, hadn’t heard. But as the door to the living room opened sharply once again, he felt his hope fade. Standing in the doorway with her hands on her hips, Estelle Cohen was clearly once again about to give him a piece of her mind about his treatment of her unhappy son.

Hassan Cıva hadn’t expected Miss Flick to get into the car with her brother. Not known to be an early riser, she didn’t usually join the boy on his journey to school in the morning. She had the look of one who had scarcely slept the previous night. Her face looked positively grey.

But perhaps that was only to be expected, thought Hassan as the boy and the woman climbed into the great gold Rolls. Mr Evren had telephoned him the previous night to tell him the police had been to the house and to warn him about their imminent appearance at his apartment. But unfortunately his call had come too late. Some ugly, fat cop had already asked him all sorts of weird questions that Hassan hoped he had answered the way Mr Evren would have liked. Not that the questions seemed to pertain to anything sensible – after all, what possible use could information about Miss Flick’s shopping habits be to anyone? So she’d bought some material. He hadn’t known what it was for even though he’d agreed with whatever ideas the cop had put forward. Who cared?

As far as he could tell, all of this police activity was somehow connected to the death of that Albanian Miss Flick had been so keen on. The police had the idea that this man had been at the Evren house on the night that he died. Hassan had no idea about that. He didn’t lodge with the Evren family and, although they did undoubtedly live in some style, he was quite pleased about that. The boy Ali was weird and nervous and Miss Flick, though obviously considerate of and loving to her brother, had a peculiar relationship with both him and her father. It was almost as if, Hassan sometimes thought, she controlled the men as opposed to them controlling her. It was only Miss Flick who could interrupt her father when he was in one of his business meetings with men from overseas – hard, frightening men. This wouldn’t have suited Hassan. When his daughter grew up she would obey him, she wouldn’t run around with Albanians, oh no.

‘I’d like you to take us to Sultan Ahmet, please, Hassan,’ Mr Ali said when he had settled himself into the back of the car.

Before Hassan could answer the boy, Miss Flick spoke in a low but agitated fashion to her brother – in English as usual.

When she’d finished, Mr Ali turned back to Hassan and said softly, ‘Did you hear me?’

‘Er, yes, Mr Ali. Sultan Ahmet.’

‘That’s right,’ he answered. ‘Sultan Ahmet.’

‘Not the school?’

‘No, I’m not going to school today.’ Mr Ali sat back in his seat. ‘Please drive now.’

And so Hassan did. Occasionally, he glanced at his mirror to see what the two of them might be doing behind him. But he saw only frozen silent faces, looking not at each other but at the snow that had just started to fall across the city. The Evren children were obviously preoccupied with their own thoughts. Hassan comforted himself with the fact that beyond driving and protecting these two, their problems were none of his business.

‘Do you know what an F-type prison is, Mehti?’

To Mehti Vlora it was not only the man’s tone but also his look that was threatening. Red-haired and yet possessed of such dark, slanted eyes – the man obviously came from the east of this wretched country, the place where everyone said there was always trouble. With İkmen and even with that tall, rich-looking detective, Mehti felt that he was in touch with some sort of humanity, if of a hostile nature. But alone with this man plus the blank-looking guard over by the door, he felt as if he was facing a whole new set of risks.

Having failed to elicit any sort of response from Mehti, Sergeant Çöktin proceeded to answer his own question.

‘An F-type prison is one where men are kept in cells of two or three people. Unlike the old wards, the new arrangement doesn’t allow for the formation of the sort of gangs we used to have at Bayrampaşa, which we destroyed. In other words, it is unlikely you’ll be able to find anyone willing to protect you, particularly if we put you into a cell with people like yourself.’

Mehti looked up. ‘Albanians?’

Çöktin smiled. ‘No. I mean soft men. Men who have to offer their arses to the more punitive prisoners – if they want to stay alive.’

Mehti moved forward in his seat, his eyes blazing with anger. ‘You—’

The heavy hand of the guard flashed forward and pulled the Albanian back.

‘Have you ever been forcibly buggered, Mehti?’ Çöktin looked briefly into the Albanian’s eyes and then continued, ‘It’s really very painful and if the other man is big, it can damage a person for life. Even if you are incarcerated with your brother, I doubt very much whether he would be able to help you. We’ve got people in our jails who make Mehmet look like a saint.’

Realising finally, through the fug of his slow-moving mental powers, that he was being deliberately wound up, Mehti narrowed his eyes.

‘What do you want from me?’ he said.

Çöktin shrugged. ‘I don’t know yet. But with no tape in the machine I can do just about whatever I feel like.’ He looked up at the guard. ‘Is that not so, constable?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I could gain some satisfaction from beating you senseless . . .’

‘You’re not supposed to do that!’ Mehti cried. ‘What about all that stuff about police station walls being made of glass now?’

‘Empty rhetoric, I think you’ll find.’ Çöktin leaned forward until his nose almost touched that of his victim. ‘After all, we are Turks, your enemies. You know how cruel and ruthless we are.’

Mehti’s eyes were filled with real fear now. If this man didn’t, as he said, want anything tangible from him, then what exactly was he doing here? Was it, as he said, to enjoy beating him up? Or maybe all that talk about buggery hadn’t been just some sort of ploy to get him to say something he didn’t want to say. Perhaps this Turk wanted to bugger him. Maybe the guard would hold him downand . . .

‘Take him back to his cell.’

In his panic, Mehti hadn’t noticed that Çöktin had stood up and was standing with his back against the wall of the interview room.

With rough alacrity, the guard grabbed Mehti by his cuffed hands and dragged him towards the door.

Stunned by the speed and apparent senselessness of the whole procedure, Mehti could only gape helplessly as he was pulled out of the room. The last thing he saw was that sinister, red-haired ape grinning at him.

As soon as Mehti Vlora had gone, the smile on Çöktin’s lips faded and he lowered himself slowly into his seat again. Although very good at playing the part of the sadistic, pervert cop, he did sometimes wonder whether he went too far. His ‘character’ was like something out of the movies or, more sinisterly, like those engaged in organised crime. Something deep inside Çöktin shuddered.

But then he pulled himself together. He looked at his watch and decided to give Mehti Vlora an hour. Then maybe, if they were lucky, terror would lay bare the truth of the matter – if indeed anything could.

Zelfa made the call just after her first patient had left.

‘Hello, darling,’ she said when she heard the familiar sound of his voice on the line. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t call you last night. I was very tired and then Uncle Frank called. We argued – I’ll have to call him to put things right. He’s an old man now . . .’