Ikmen 16 - Body Count (15 page)

‘Nothing!’ Hamid put his arms across his head to try and help deflect
Ş
ukru’s blows. But they just kept on coming. ‘Anyway, I got away from him, didn’t I? I never led him to Marko, did I?’

Ş
ukru, panting now, stopped hitting him. ‘No, but he doesn’t want you if you’re marked by the police. Why did he chase you, this policeman?’

‘I dunno! I was leaving Tünel, I walked down Galipdede, peeled off down some little road to the Galata Tower and then I heard footsteps behind me. So I looked and there he was. I recognised him. He was that copper that speaks Syriani. He was always over here when Levent Bey got topped. But he never knew me, I swear it!’

‘Well he had to be running after you for a reason!’

‘I’d just dipped some old man’s pocket.’

‘Then if he was just going after you for dipping, why didn’t he call for help, eh? That’s what they do usually, isn’t it, call for assistance. You said he just chased you until you lost him.’

‘Yeah.’

Ş
ukru shook his head. ‘I don’t like it,’ he said. Then he turned on the boy again, this time kicking him. ‘Why the fuck didn’t you tell me you’d seen someone with Levent Bey?’

‘Ow!’ the boy screamed, and then, ‘Because I never saw no one killing him, I saw a monster with feathers and a face like—’

‘You said you saw it killing him!’

‘Yeah, well, maybe it … No … Yes, I did, but …’

Ş
ukru kicked him again and then, exhausted, stopped. ‘I can’t work out whether you’re a mad kid or you’ve been smoking your mother’s crack,’ he said. ‘There are no fucking monsters.’

‘There are, I’ve seen one, when I saw Levent Bey.’

Ş
ukru sat down and put his head in his hands. The kid could probably be coached to go to the police and tell his monster story, leaving
Ş
ukru out. But his mother,
Ş
eftali the whore, had been getting free childcare out of
Ş
ukru while the boy was with the Bulgarian, and she wouldn’t want to give that up without some persuasion.
Ş
ukru was not a naturally violent man, but there were times when it was necessary, and this was probably one of them.

It was a nice photograph of John Regan; he was smiling and looked healthy, fresh and a lot younger than his forty-six years. The man sitting next to Çetin
İ
kmen took it from him and sucked contentedly on his nargile while he looked at it. As the rose-scented tobacco snaked its way out of his mouth and nostrils he said, ‘Nice.’

İ
kmen, who was smoking an altogether less floral tobacco, said, ‘You know him?’

He’d come to the Tulip Nargile Café in Tophane, the centre of water-pipe smoking in
İ
stanbul, to meet a man he’d been acquainted with for many years but whose real name he didn’t know. To many, including
İ
kmen, he was simply Pomegranate.

‘No,’ Pomegranate said, ‘but if you’d like to introduce me …’

‘He’s dead,’
İ
kmen said.

‘Oh.’

‘You should try reading the papers, or rather the ones that are worth reading, sometime,’
İ
kmen said. ‘His face has been all over them.’

Pomegranate shrugged.

‘Anyway, look,’
İ
kmen said, ‘this man, an Englishman called Dr John Regan, forty-six, has been murdered and in a way that would give you nightmares. I won’t go into detail. In short, he was living in Karaköy on Büyük Hendek Caddesi, he was writing an historical novel and he was gay.’

Pomegranate looked at John Regan’s photograph again and said, ‘What a waste.’

‘Absolutely. We’ve got his aged father staying on in the city on the off chance that we manage to catch this lunatic …’

‘You’ve not caught more than a cold lately, have you?’ Pomegranate said archly.

İ
kmen could allude to the
İ
stanbul police department’s lack of success regarding recent murders in the city, but he didn’t like it when others did so. He pointedly ignored Pomegranate’s comment. ‘His father has told us that his son was effectively outside of the gay scene back in the UK. But he doesn’t know whether he was still keeping himself to himself here. When he was younger, he was apparently partial to casual pick-ups.’

‘Did he know the city well?’

‘No. Spoke minimal Turkish and he only arrived in January. His mother was Turkish, but she died when he was a kid. He’s been fascinated by all things Turkish ever since.’

Pomegranate looked at the photograph again. ‘Mmm. Know what his preferences were? Did he do chicks with dicks?’

Tall, slim, groomed and with the most chiselled jaw
İ
kmen could imagine, Pomegranate had been involved in
İ
stanbul’s gay scene for almost four decades. He’d started out in the 1970s with one tiny, very closeted café in Beyo
ğ
lu and built up to the two clubs, one gay and one transsexual, that he owned now.

‘I believe he liked men to be men,’
İ
kmen said. ‘But in this city, who knows?’

‘Well we do have the best trannies in the world,’ Pomegranate said, ‘even if I do say so myself.’

‘We certainly have a lot of them,’
İ
kmen said. One of them was his own cousin, Samsun. ‘But look, Pomegranate, I need to know whether this John Regan was on the scene in any capacity. If he was, I want to know with whom and for what.’

‘Well, sex …’

‘Maybe, maybe not,’
İ
kmen said. ‘I’m not sure. But what I am sure about is that I don’t want to come stamping into your clubs, or anyone else’s, with a load of knuckle-dragging constables in tow. You people get enough of that.’

‘Oh,
İ
kmen, you are so gay-friendly!’

Again the inspector ignored the acid dripping from Pomegranate’s voice. ‘Look, there’ll be money in it and you can feel all nice and warm and fluffy having done your civic duty.’

Pomegranate puffed on his nargile and then said, ‘How can I resist?’

This time
İ
kmen couldn’t ignore his tone. He liked Pomegranate and he respected him, but the whole arch atmosphere just wasn’t appropriate. He leaned across so that he could whisper in Pomegranate’s ear. ‘This man, John Regan,’ he said, ‘somebody tried to cut his heart out.’

And then he watched as Pomegranate’s mouth fell open and his face went white.

Most of the national dailies were unimpressed by the
İ
stanbul police department’s response to first two and now three unsolved murders. Faruk Genç had spread the papers out on his desk and was looking at them with both confusion and the obsessive type of interest that can only come from being involved in something. To make up for the paucity of gory details from the police, some of the more hysterical publications were making a big thing out of the fact that all three victims had been killed on the twenty-first of the month; one of them had even dubbed the supposed single murderer ‘the Twenty-First Killer’.

Faruk Genç was not a man given to superstition in any form, and so he found the whole notion of the Twenty-First Killer ridiculous. He imagined that Inspector Çetin
İ
kmen did too. A knock at his office door took Faruk away from his papers. ‘Come in.’

The door opened. It was Suzy Greenwood, the English homeopath.

‘Oh, Mr Genç,’ she said, ‘could I have a word?’

She stood in that way that English people did sometimes when they would really rather not be doing what they were doing and so felt the need to apologise in some way for it. Suzy, with her skin the colour of porridge and her habit of endlessly popping her own homeopathic pills, was a bit of a tragic case.

‘Of course. Please sit down, Miss Greenwood,’ Faruk said.

She sat, but only on the very edge of the chair.

‘How can I help?’ Faruk asked.

‘Oh, well I know that it’s very soon and everything and that you probably don’t want anything to do with anything connected to the horrible events of the last few weeks, but …’

‘But?’

She bit her lip. It was hugely irritating. Faruk Genç reiterated, ‘But?’

‘But Mr Genç, when Mrs Ablak died, she had an outstanding bill.’

‘To you?’

‘Yes.’

Most of the therapists worked for themselves, paying the spa for the office space and other facilities that they used. Most of them invoiced their regular customers either after each treatment or on completion of a course.

‘How much did she owe you?’

‘Well, I was treating Mrs Ablak for depression,’ she said. ‘That’s a long course and so I would invoice her once a month.’

He tried not to let his feelings show on his face. The only reason why Leyla had been depressed was because she was worried about her husband being accused of treason, or rather she was concerned about how that would affect his finances. Also she had become nervous about her infidelity in the last few months of her life. Although her husband might be a traitor, she didn’t want to be branded a scarlet woman. It was nothing to do with falling in love with Faruk or anything like that; she hadn’t loved him and he knew it.

‘So how much did she owe?’

He saw her cringe. She was one of those English people who didn’t like to talk about money. How ridiculous!

‘Two hundred euros,’ she said. ‘And you see, with Mrs Ablak dead and her husband dead too, I don’t know who to recover the money from.’

‘No, of course you don’t.’

‘I mean, it is a lot of money, Mr Genç, and I could really do with it. Do you think the police would know how I could get it back? Or is there maybe a lawyer or somebody?’

For someone who was so nervous about talking money, Suzy Greenwood was a very anxious creditor.

‘You see, Mr Genç, although I know you’ve just been through a terrible time, what with Mrs Ablak’s death and then your dear wife …’ Like all the spa staff, Suzy Greenwood knew that he’d been having an affair with Leyla Ablak. Everyone in Turkey knew that the general’s wife had died after having illicit sex. She was being, as she could be, consciously obsequious. ‘… I know I can trust you to help me,’ she added.

Not for the first time, Faruk Genç was aware of the way that Suzy Greenwood made his skin crawl. He bit down on his revulsion and said, ‘Of course, Miss Greenwood, I will do everything I can to help you recover your money. I will speak to the police.’

‘Oh, would you? That would be so kind!’

‘It is my pleasure,’ he said.

She giggled a little and for a moment they both sat in silence looking at each other. He wanted her to go but she, apparently, wanted to stay where she was. Eventually he said, ‘Was there anything else?’

‘Oh, no, sorry,’ she said. She stood up. ‘I shouldn’t take up your time.’

‘It is no problem.’ He smiled.

‘That’s very kind.’ She moved towards his office door and opened it, then turned back to look at him once again, ‘You know, Mr Genç, if there is anything I can do for you, you only have to ask,’ she said.

As she closed the door behind her, Faruk Genç felt a shiver run down his back. Was he only imagining it, or had she had a playful glint in her eyes when she’d offered to do ‘anything’ for him? Ugh, it was a terrible thought, but it was not the first time he’d had it.
İ
kmen had asked him whether any members of staff at the spa had nursed a passion for him, and of course there had been, from the start, the unwelcome flirting of Suzy Greenwood.

The informant, Necati Hallaç, had already told Süleyman that the boy Hamid had been seen at his mother’s flat in Tarlaba
ş
ı
with
Ş
ukru
Ş
ekero
ğ
lu. When the gypsy brought the boy in to the police station, Hamid was dirty and covered with bruises, but he was definitely the same boy that Ömer Mungan had chased the previous day.

Ş
ukru
Ş
ekero
ğ
lu pushed him in front of Süleyman and Ömer and barked at him, ‘Tell them what you told me.’

The child looked cowed and Süleyman noticed that he flinched every time
Ş
ukru moved towards him.

‘Just speak,’ Ömer said. ‘Tell the truth.’

The child looked up at
Ş
ukru, which was not an encouraging start, and then he said, ‘I saw something standing over Levent Bey back in the winter.’

‘That is Levent Devrim,’ Süleyman said.

‘Yeah.’

Süleyman frowned; he was interested in the boy’s use of the word ‘something’ as opposed to ‘someone’. But he didn’t prompt the child in any way. He told him to sit down and then he said, ‘Tell me everything.’

The boy looked at
Ş
ukru
Ş
ekero
ğ
lu, who nodded his head.

‘It was proper early in the morning,’ Hamid said.

‘What were you doing away from home at such a time?’ Süleyman asked.

‘Collecting firewood.’

Ş
ukru
Ş
ekero
ğ
lu had given exactly the same reason for being out on the streets when he’d found Levent Devrim. But then of course it had been snowing.

‘Tell us what you saw, Hamid.’

The boy took a moment to apparently compose himself, and then he said, ‘I went to where they’re pulling down the buildings because there’s always wood there. They just knock it out and then chuck it about so you can get hold of it easy. But ’cause it’d been snowing, all the stuff outside was wet and so I went inside.’

‘Inside?’

‘One of the old broken houses. I went inside to get wood.’

There was a pause, and then Süleyman said, ‘What happened next?’

Hamid looked at
Ş
ukru again, and this time Süleyman said, ‘Don’t look at him!’

The boy snapped his head around to the policemen. ‘I saw it through a doorway in the old house,’ he said.

‘Saw what?’

‘The monster.’

‘Monster?’ This time Süleyman looked up at
Ş
ukru
Ş
ekero
ğ
lu. ‘What’s this? Some kind of joke?’

The gypsy shrugged. ‘The boy came to me with something he wanted to get off his conscience. I don’t know, I just brought him. Maybe he’s mad.’