Ikmen 16 - Body Count (37 page)

Although he was quite happy being alone with his thoughts, he wasn’t able to stay that way for very long. Although he could ignore the odd nicotine-starved constable, he couldn’t cut his deputy, Ay
ş
e Farsako
ğ
lu, who walked towards him from her car.

‘I couldn’t sleep,’ she said, ‘so I thought I might as well come back and find out what was going on here.’

She didn’t have anything much to go to her apartment for now that her brother had moved out and since all romantic contact with Mehmet Süleyman had ceased. But then
İ
kmen had held out hopes for a long time that she would devote most of her time, if not her life, to her job. She was a good officer, and if he could, he wanted to make sure that she at least expressed an interest in taking over from him when he retired. Retired. Just the sound of the word depressed him.

‘Ay
ş
e,’ he said, ‘I am always glad of your company.’

‘Suzan needs to weigh up whether she’s more afraid of us or of whoever I’m pretty sure is threatening her,’ she said.

‘Yes.’

She lit a cigarette. ‘Do you know anything about the death of Mrs Devrim?’ she asked.

‘I know that Inspector Süleyman is interviewing Professor Atay right now,’
İ
kmen said.

‘He was her lover. Did he kill her?’

‘I don’t know,’
İ
kmen said. ‘I’ve not had a chance to speak to the inspector or to Dr Sarkissian about it. For all I know the woman killed herself.’

‘Mmm.’

And then the sound of a furious alcoholic who had just been brought in to dry out in the cells ripped into the night and silenced them both.

In spite of the screams from the drunk in the next cell, Suzan could hear the custody officers talking and sometimes laughing. Mainly young men, they all had homes to go to at the end of their shifts and families to take care of them. Why should they worry too much about whoever they had in their cells?

Suzan thought about her father and how he and her sick mother had to be feeling. The police had called them to confirm Suzan’s story about her mother’s illness and to try to discover what they knew about the five thousand lira. But beyond the existence of the money she hadn’t told them anything, and they had never asked. They’d told the police nothing because they knew nothing.

Her mother was in pain all the time now. Her father and her brothers had told her that Suzan had been arrested. Her cancer was bad and that was why she would need aftercare and why those earrings would have been such a good idea if Suzan hadn’t got caught. Being locked in a police cell was not something she had anticipated, although she had to admit, if only to herself, that where she was now was appropriate, even if she hadn’t sought out the evil that she had done. Everything that had led her to this place was vile and wrong and even though she’d done it primarily to make money for her mother, it had been an act of vengeance too. Not that any of that mattered now.

Now her priority had to be to get that money to her parents, and if that meant dying herself, then that was how it was going to have to be. The threats that had been attached to the money could only, after all, be put into practice outside the confines of a police station or a prison, and she was going to go to one of those for certain. But if she did come clean, would the police give the money to her parents? They hadn’t said and she didn’t know. And if she didn’t test it out, she never would know.

As soon as the drunk in the next cell had quietened down, she walked over to her cell door and stood for a moment in front of it, breathing hard. It was a big step. Her life had been threatened. But it was the middle of the night, her mother was in pain; what choice did she have? Suzan banged on the door with the heel of her hand and yelled, ‘Hey! You out there! I want to speak to Inspector Çetin
İ
kmen! Now!’

Süleyman held up the small knife, which was enclosed in a plastic evidence bag, for the professor to see. ‘I don’t suppose I have to tell you what this is, do I?’ he asked.

Cem Atay nodded his head gravely. ‘I imagine we both know what it is, Inspector Süleyman.’

‘Yes, sir, but if you would just tell me …’

‘It’s an Ottoman knife, nineteenth century, given to an Imperial princess by her father, the sultan. I can’t tell you which one; these artefacts were somewhat similar in character across the Ottoman centuries. I am sure, being an Osmano
ğ
lu yourself, you are well aware of that fact!’

‘Well this knife was used to kill Mrs Devrim,’ Süleyman said. ‘Professor, in your capacity as an Ottoman historian, and as, by your own admission, Mrs Devrim’s lover, do you know whether she or her husband possessed such an item?’

He said nothing and so Süleyman said, ‘Do you perhaps own such an item yourself? I understand you are a collector of artefacts both Ottoman and—’

‘I don’t own such a thing myself, Inspector,’ he said. ‘And I don’t know if either Hatice or Selçuk owned one. But I think it more likely that it was Hatice’s.’

‘Why?’

‘Well because, albeit distantly, through her mother, Hatice was related to the Osmano
ğ
lu family.’

‘Hatice Öz?’

‘Her mother is a
Ş
afak,’ he said. ‘A cousin, I understand, of the old man who was recently murdered in
Ş
i
ş
li.’

‘I see.’

‘Have you told Hatice’s parents? About her death?’

‘My sergeant has been to see them, yes.’

‘Unfortunately, Inspector, the extended Osmano
ğ
lu family is so vast it is almost impossible to trace every last relative. Over the years I have compiled family trees …’

‘Yes.’ Either the professor had forgotten about the copies he had given to Çetin
İ
kmen or he had chosen not to allude to them. ‘Professor, what are your feelings about the fact that Hatice Devrim was killed with this knife?’

‘I’m horrified.’ He looked drawn and exhausted and there was the familiar dullness of shock in his eyes. ‘For something so personal to be used …’ He shook his head. ‘Hatice wasn’t open about her background, Inspector. In spite of the fact that the Ottoman world is currently under some reappraisal, she didn’t like what it represented and neither did her husband.’

‘Did Selçuk Devrim know about his wife’s ancestry?’

‘I don’t know,’ the professor answered. ‘Hatice never told me very much about him. All I can tell you, all that Hatice told me, is that Selçuk came from a military family. All very Atatürkist …’

‘I see.’

‘So if he did kill her with that knife, I doubt very much whether he would have fully appreciated the affront that represented.’

‘To her family.’

‘Of course! Those knives were given to the princesses by the sultan as a way of keeping their husbands in line. A princess could kill a damat, a royal son-in-law, if she so wished, if he cheated on or displeased her.’

Had Selçuk Devrim come home, apparently at his wife’s request, to talk, and then killed her with a family heirloom? If the professor was right and Hatice Devrim kept her background quiet, then how had her husband lighted apparently so easily upon that object? Whatever he had or hadn’t done, he was now in hospital in a state of fugue from which, so far, he had not emerged, and so asking him wasn’t as yet an option. Material for forensic analysis had been taken from both Selçuk and the professor, and so in time, other elements might come to light pointing towards one or other of the men. What was indisputable was that Selçuk Devrim had been covered in his wife’s blood and Professor Atay had not. Selçuk Devrim’s mobile phone had been broken somehow, while the academic’s had remained intact. But then Süleyman also had to take into account what Arto Sarkissian had told him about the murder. The killer had cut Hatice Devrim’s throat from behind, which meant that he wouldn’t have come into contact with her blood except, possibly, as it sprayed over his hand. The woman’s husband, on finding her, could have attempted to revive her by applying CPR or just hugging her body to his. Until Devrim could be spoken to, there was no way of knowing.

‘Professor, what were you doing prior to your arrival at the Devrim house in Bebek?’ Süleyman asked.

‘I was at home,’ he said.

‘Can anyone verify that?’

‘No. I live alone.’

‘Did Mrs Devrim call you from her home in the same way that she summoned her husband?’

‘No,’ he said. He leaned forward on the table between them. ‘Inspector, Hatice was at my house this morning. This sudden knowledge she’d come upon that her husband had known about her infidelity for some time was a shock to her. She’d always wanted to protect him against that knowledge.’

‘She loved him?’

‘As one might love a brother, yes, but any more than that …’ He shrugged. ‘Hatice wanted to tell Selçuk, in my presence, that their relationship was over. She asked me to meet her and Selçuk at their home in Bebek at six. I was a few minutes late because of the traffic.’

‘When did she ask you to do this?’

‘This morning.’

‘And yet from looking at Mrs Devrim’s mobile phone records, we can see that she didn’t call her husband today until just gone four thirty this afternoon.’

He shrugged. ‘I don’t know how to explain that,’ he said. ‘She asked me to meet her at her house at six. She said she’d make sure Selçuk got home in time. Maybe she couldn’t get through to him until four thirty?’

‘Maybe. So what did you do when Mrs Devrim’s visit to your house in Arnavutköy came to an end? Did you take her home?’

‘Yes. I drove her to Bebek at about one.’

‘You didn’t stay with her?’

‘No, I had some book proofs to read. I’ve a new book coming out in the autumn; I mentioned it to Inspector
İ
kmen.’

‘This is about the Ottoman Empire’s rivalry with the Spanish Empire.’

‘Indeed.’

‘Yes, of course, your very interesting theories regarding the Mayan Long Count calendar that so fascinated the brother-in-law of your lover Mrs Devrim,’ said Süleyman. ‘Professor Atay, did you know Levent Devrim?’

‘No.’

‘Mmm. Just as you didn’t know Leyla Ablak, your brother-in-law Faruk Genç’s lover.’

‘No.’ He frowned. ‘What are you driving at, Inspector?’

‘I am driving, sir, at the fact that you appear to be indirectly connected to two of our victims and directly connected to a third.’

‘No. I didn’t know Levent Devrim or Leyla Ablak myself, and surely, if you look at just the date connections that exist, so I understand, across many of the other deaths that this city has sadly experienced in the last few months, you will see that Hatice’s murder doesn’t fit that pattern.’

‘If we take it as read that some sort of Mayan conspiracy lunatic is amongst us, yes,’ he said. ‘But Professor, that is your theory, which may or may not reflect reality. The fact remains that Mrs Hatice Devrim, your lover, a member of the Osmano
ğ
lu extended family by your own testimony, is dead, and so at the moment we have no choice but to add her name to our list of victims of a possible serial killer.’ He looked down at his notes. ‘You see, if she called her husband at four thirty and he arrived in Bebek in his car, according to a witness, at six, then someone could have killed her between that phone call and Selçuk Devrim’s arrival.’

‘Yes.’

He looked down at his notes again. ‘So if you went home after you took Mrs Devrim to Bebek at one, what time did you leave Arnavutköy to get to the Devrim house at six?’

Atay thought for a few moments. ‘I was late. It must have been about ten to six. I became engrossed.’

‘In spite of the seriousness of the meeting you were going to?’

‘I’m an academic; we—’

‘I see. And can you please tell me, sir, what was to be the outcome of this meeting between Mrs Devrim, her husband and yourself?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, was Mrs Devrim going to ask her husband for a divorce?’

‘Yes, she was,’ he said. ‘That was why she wanted me to be there.’

‘For support, or was she afraid of her husband?’ Süleyman asked.

‘For support, of course. As to whether she was afraid?’ he sighed. ‘I don’t know, Inspector. Hatice never said she feared him. But maybe she didn’t always tell me everything.’

‘And when that marriage was over, were you going to marry Mrs Devrim?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘
İ
n
ş
allah.’

‘I didn’t know what he was doing at first,’ Suzan said. The light in the interview room was inadequate and gave her slim face a yellowing tinge. ‘I knew what animals did because my parents keep sheep and goats. No one had ever spoken to me properly about anything like that; I just saw it,’ she continued. ‘But I do have brothers and they’d told me some things I didn’t know if I believed, whether I’d wanted to hear them or not.’

‘About sex?’ Ay
ş
e Farsako
ğ
lu asked.

‘Yes.’ She looked down and then quickly looked up again. ‘He just did it to me, the old man.’

‘Abdurrahman
Ş
afak.’

‘How could I stop him? He’d caught me with clothes I’d taken from Vakko and he was my employer; he could get rid of me if he wanted to.’

‘Do you shoplift often, Suzan?’
İ
kmen asked.

She shook her head. ‘No. Only that once.’

‘So why did you do it on that occasion?’ Ay
ş
e asked.

She shrugged. ‘Just two pretty dresses and a little bolero. The rich shop could afford it. I looked down at myself and the holes in my clothes, and knowing I had no choice but to spend all my money on food and on my family, I wanted something for myself. I wanted to look, if not pretty, then normal for this city. People stare down their noses when you look like me.’

‘How did Abdurrahman Efendi know you’d shoplifted?’

‘He found the clothes in my bag,’ Suzan said. ‘He asked me where I’d got them. He accused me of taking a lover who was paying for sex with me. I couldn’t have him thinking that, I just couldn’t!’

‘And so you told him.’

‘The truth! I know it was stupid, but it just came out. I couldn’t have him thinking I’d been with men. What if he’d told my family?’