Deep Waters (31 page)

‘I actually don’t feel that bad now I’m here,’ she said, turning her twisted face towards him. ‘I thought I might feel guilty.’

‘What for?’ He put his arms round her shoulders and smiled. ‘You didn’t do anything, did you?’

She looked down at the floor, the hard grey marble squares so far below.

‘Not to Rifat, no,’ she said quietly, ‘but I do nevertheless feel responsible. I mean “vampire” was just a way for me to express what is really inexpressible, David.’

‘Mother was reading
Dracula
when you were born.’

‘That’s irrelevant,’ Felicity said, turning to look into her brother’s eyes. ‘You shouldn’t make so much of it, David. Christ, you still don’t believe me, do you! Mother was ill and I, well, to me it was, as I’ve said, it was a way I could express what I was experiencing to you. You were, after all, very young.’

‘But it was still a deliberate lie, wasn’t it?’ He tightened his grip on her shoulders. ‘After all, Flick, it was you who encouraged me to stay up all night with you.’

‘I was lonely. You’ve always been so good for such a young boy,’ she said as she looked across the nave once again. ‘I’ve always had problems sleeping, especially when I’ve been in pain. Your precious love, my sweetheart, helped me pass the time.’

‘You who said that perhaps in time I would become a vampire too and together we would live for ever. No death, Flick, not for us.’

One of the men on the scaffolding opposite smiled at her as he began to descend towards the floor. Felicity nervously returned the smile.

‘Until . . .’ Her throat was dry, she swallowed hard. ‘Until Rifat . . . I didn’t know that you were . . .’

‘Serious? Obsessed with you?’ He laughed. ‘I told you I’d all but given up eating, and why! I was already going to that doctor Dad insists on sending me to! But it was OK because all I could think of was you.’

‘David . . .’

‘I loved you, but first you betrayed me with that Albanian and now I find that you’re this . . . nothing! A lie! I suppose that next you’re going to tell me that you only realised what I was doing when you saw me lick up Rifat’s blood!’ he said as he moved one of his hands slowly and sensuously up her back and towards her neck. ‘Liar!’ Suddenly he pinched her skin between his fingers, causing her to shriek.

‘David!’

The man Felicity had smiled at on the scaffolding turned to look. Felicity hoped he could see the expression on her face, which was now one of frozen fear. But as she watched, the man simply turned his head and moved on down the scaffolding.

‘What you have to understand, Mehti,’ Suleyman said, ‘is that Mehmet is going to be tried for murder whether you like it or not.’

‘But I told you that it was me and not Mehmet who—’

‘Oh, I’m not talking about Rifat Berisha now,’ Suleyman cut in. ‘I’m talking about his brother Egrem.’ He leaned forward to emphasise his point. ‘You know, the one Mehmet killed in your apartment. The murder you watched.’

‘Ah, but he didn’t though, did he, sir?’ Çöktin interjected with a smile.

‘Oh, no, of course not!’ Suleyman said. ‘No, you were huddled on your bed in the next room at the time, weren’t you, Mehti? Screaming.’

‘No!’ But his eyes, which were now huge with fear, told another story.

‘Oh, yes.’

‘No, that’s a fucking lie!’

‘Your brother Aryan came to see us. It was most illuminating.’

At the mention of his brother’s name, Mehti Vlora first looked confused and then, once he had fully taken in what Suleyman had said, furious.

He tried to rise to his feet, but after being pushed back down again by the guard he just fumed, his face dark with rage.

‘You’re a fucking liar!’ he spat at Suleyman. ‘Blood would never talk to the police about blood.’

‘Oh, no?’ Çöktin sneered as he watched his superior calmly wipe Albanian spittle from his jacket lapel. ‘So how do we know, Mehti?’

‘Know what?’ the Albanian shouted. ‘Lies!’

‘Oh, it could be, I grant you.’ Suleyman replaced his handkerchief in his pocket. ‘But you will know whether this story is true or not, won’t you? You hardly need us to tell you.’

‘Lies!’ His eyes had started to water now, making him look as if he was crying.

‘Yes, so you keep saying,’ Suleyman observed, ‘although whether that is for our benefit or whether you are just attempting to convince yourself I really don’t know.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with being disgusted by murder,’ Çöktin said with a smile. ‘Unless, of course, if you’re supposed to enjoy it.’

‘Which Aryan thinks that you don’t,’ Suleyman added. ‘But then that always has been your problem, hasn’t it, Mehti? You want to do what your family dictate but the reality is that you just can’t stomach it.’

‘I killed Rifat Berisha!’ Snot and spittle sprayed as he attempted to communicate through his anger and his misery. ‘Blood demanded blood and I was there!’

‘So tell me everything about it then.’

‘Wh . . .’

‘Tell me what he looked like, how you felt, what you did!’ Suleyman leaned forward. ‘Come on! Tell me!’

Through choking sounds that he would have been loath to admit were sobs, Mehti Vlora said, ‘Well, he was in the car . . . he . . . I put my hand on his shoulder . . .’

‘And his face? What about his face?’ Suleyman demanded. ‘What was that like? Was he afraid?’

‘Yes!’

‘And? What else? What did he do, this frightened man you were about to kill? Did he plead? Did he blubber? Well?’

‘Well, no . . . yes, he was . . .’ Mehti shrugged. ‘He was scared . . .’

‘Yes?’

‘It’s in my statement.’

‘Was he well-groomed?’ Çöktin put in. ‘Or was he rough and hard-looking? We’ve only seen Rifat’s corpse, Mehti. Tell us.’

‘Well, he was like he always was!’ It came out in a rush, without thought or order. ‘Pretty, like a girl. Scared of me, his eyes sort of black with it and . . . But when I cut him that put a stop to that, that made him ugly and I liked that! When blood splashes all over the face . . .’

‘So he didn’t have any blood on his face before you cut him?’

‘Well, no, of course he didn’t, why should he?’

‘Rifat’s dead face,’ Çöktin explained, ‘was covered with lots of small cuts, many of which had bits of glass in them. If you recall, Inspector İkmen did ask you about coloured glass before.’

‘Yeah, so?’

‘So his face was damaged prior to his death, Mehti. Quite a mess. Odd you didn’t notice. Odd you didn’t respond when you were asked about this. You see, whoever killed Rifat would have known about it.’

The colour had left Mehti’s face. He opened his mouth to speak but seemed incapable of forming the words.

‘Well then,’ Suleyman said and turned to face his red-headed colleague. ‘Just possession of cannabis and assault on Mr Bajraktar then, Sergeant Çöktin.’

‘But . . .’

‘Hardly worth a tape for just that, sir,’ Çöktin said as he pressed the eject button on the tape recorder.

‘No,’ Suleyman said and then rose to his feet and without another word left the room.

Çöktin, smiling, looked down at the man who was now a very low-grade prisoner.

‘You see, Mehti,’ he said as he shoved the tape into one of his pockets, ‘we didn’t dig too deeply into your confession until Aryan came to see us. But after that, the little details that had simply niggled before turned into very big issues indeed.’ Shrugging theatrically he added, ‘Families, eh? You try your best to impress them and they just go and piss on you!’

When he reached the floor, Berekiah Cohen looked up to where he’d seen the strange woman and the boy. They were still there, pressed against the side of the guard rail. Too far away now to be able to see the expression on the woman’s face, he was nevertheless uneasy about her. For some reason she had shrieked in panic and, for just a second, he thought he had seen real fear on her face. No one else had responded to the cry, but then Professor Apa and his colleagues were always so absorbed in what they were doing. Even when he’d handed over the gold leaf the professor had done little more than mutter his thanks. Berekiah understood why. It was so fabulous up there inside the dome, suspended as it were with the angels. Indeed the mosaics upon which the team were currently engaged depicted Michael and Gabriel, their faces unearthly and serene, their wings spread against the great expanse of gold that enveloped their figures. It was, he thought as he made his way towards the guard who stood by the exit, a privilege just to be able to deliver gold to such a place. It was something he wanted to do more of, whatever his stupid father might think. History was interesting and as Professor Apa had told him when they’d first met, it was alive too. A great empire like that of Byzantium didn’t just disappear, it echoed relentlessly down the centuries, in the faces of modern İstanbulis, in the city’s architecture, in the almost live quality of these pictures of faith, these mosaics. Berekiah felt invigorated just being in the building.

He turned his thoughts back to the woman. She hadn’t made a sound since that first shriek but he still wasn’t entirely happy about what might be taking place in the gallery.

‘There’s a boy and a woman up in the gallery,’ he said to the cold-looking guard by the open door. ‘I think they might be having an argument.’

The guard, a thickset man with a bored expression, shrugged. ‘So?’

‘I think the woman might be in trouble!’ Berekiah said with some passion.

The guard first suppressed a yawn and then shuffled his no doubt cold feet. ‘Which part of the gallery are they in?’ he said. ‘It’s a big place.’

‘Just above us, actually.’ Berekiah pointed towards the roof of the narthex. ‘In the Gynekoion.’

‘The women’s gallery, typical,’ the guard said and moved slowly towards the cobbled ramp. ‘I expect this woman’s just nagged the poor boy half to death. Wanting to see everything, asking stupid questions all the time, not listening. I see it every day – foreigners, our own people. Always the same.’

‘Do you want me to come with you?’ Berekiah asked, watching the man’s slow progress forwards.

‘No, you stay here,’ he said with a sigh of resignation. ‘I’ll do it. I’ll sort it out. I always do.’ And with yet another sigh, he mounted the step up to the ramp and began his no doubt slow ascent to the upper gallery.

Berekiah, now alone save for the thin smattering of tourists entering the narthex, leaned back against one of the porphyry-dressed walls and closed his eyes. Porphyry, he knew, came from Egypt. Mr Lazar, his tiny fox-faced employer, had once remarked that the stone had in all probability been hewn by the ancient Israelites, erstwhile slaves of the great Egyptian dynasties. With a laugh, Lazar had then said that by rights the Jews should have at least some of this now very valuable material and that perhaps Berekiah might like to try and lift some off with a knife one day when no one was looking. Mr Lazar said that the dark purple stone would look stunning in a white gold or even platinum setting. Berekiah smiled. Lazar might be old but at least he was still amusingly anarchic, not unlike the old communist antique dealer he knew in Beyoǧlu. Still wearing that ‘uniform’ of the 1950s, a beret and black jumper, Mr Orga even had a painting of himself in full Che Guevara kit over the entrance to his tiny, dusty empire. It had been there even during the Cold War years. He was tenacious, funny and challenging, just as Berekiah’s father had once been – before the earthquake, before Berekiah’s brother Yusuf’s mind splintered into fragments in a place very far from home. A place Berekiah didn’t want to remember.

He opened his eyes just as the guard, now in rather more of a hurry than he had been, emerged at the bottom of the ramp.

‘So was it all right?’ Berekiah asked him.

‘We’re going to have to clear the building,’ the guard said in a voice that was not a great deal above a whisper. ‘But now I must call the police.’

Berekiah’s face creased with concern. ‘Why? What’s going on? Is the lady hurt?’

The guard turned. ‘You’ll have to go back up the scaffolding and tell the professor and the team to come down,’ he said and then shaking his head in disbelief he added, ‘We can’t take the risk of anyone doing anything to upset that boy up there.’ And then he hurried forward again, muttering, ‘I’ll have to get the police . . .’

Berekiah laid a hand on the guard’s retreating shoulder. ‘What’s wrong? Please tell me.’

The guard turned again, his wide eyes expressing what he felt about what he had just seen. ‘The kid has a knife’, he mouthed. ‘OK?’

‘Right.’ Berekiah took a deep breath and quickly made his way back into the nave and up the scaffolding.

He made a point as he climbed not to look at the Gynekoion. By the prickling on the back of his neck, he knew with every step precisely where the women’s gallery and its occupants were.

İkmen had to bend down and turn his head to see İlhan Evren’s face. Twisted to one side, the art dealer’s head lay on a small stack of his personal stationery on top of his desk. Slackened by death, his jowls spread limply across paper and pens, all of which were covered with his blood.

İkmen straightened and looked once more at the scissors that stuck out of Evren’s back. They would, he imagined, have to be long in order to have killed someone of Evren’s bulk. But unless Arto Sarkissian found another more subtle cause of death, it was the scissors that had killed İlhan Evren – or rather, more precisely, the person wielding the scissors.

‘I don’t suppose the chauffeur has any idea where this Dimitri character may have gone,’ İkmen said to Tepe who was, for some reason, regarding his own profile in what remained of the smashed mirror over the fireplace.

‘No. Apparently he just cleaned his hands on a towel and left.’

‘Do we have the towel?’

‘Yes.’ Tepe turned away from his image and looked at İkmen. ‘And I’ve taken quite a good description from Hassan. The Russian did regular business with Evren so there could be correspondence or financial details pertaining to him.’ And then frowning he said, ‘I wonder why only the mirror is damaged. Nothing else is broken.’