Ikmen 16 - Body Count (39 page)

The boy turned quickly. ‘Right away, Mehmet Bey!’

Süleyman sat down. ‘So what have you been up to, Çetin?’ he asked.

İ
kmen told him about Suzan Arslan and the problem of the five thousand lira.

‘Well you can’t let her have that money,’ Süleyman said as he took the glass of beer from the boy. ‘That’s benefiting from if not the proceeds of crime, then an innocent person’s death.’

‘According to the girl, the old man raped her, made her pregnant,’
İ
kmen said.

‘Still didn’t deserve to die.’

‘No.’ He looked across the road at the baroque exterior of the Laleli mosque, lit by harsh street lamps and even harsher light from the neon that flashed on and off even above businesses that were closed for the night. He found that his moral compass was, as ever, a movable object. ‘But without that money, her mother, who is entirely innocent, will almost certainly die.’

Süleyman put a hand on
İ
kmen’s shoulder. ‘It isn’t your problem,’ he said. ‘We implement the law. That’s it. We do not provide social relief.’ He changed the subject. ‘So no idea what this mysterious woman’s real name is?’

‘No,’
İ
kmen said. ‘I’ve a description I’ll pass on to our artist …’ He shrugged. ‘What about you? I understand the wife of our first victim’s brother died earlier today.’

‘Yes.’ He relayed the story, including his recent interview with Professor Cem Atay.

İ
kmen nodded his head. ‘You’re right, the professor does seem to be involved in several of our victims’ lives, not to mention our own. But with regard to Hatice Devrim in particular, what would be his motive?’

‘He wouldn’t be the first man to want to get out of a relationship with a woman who has become too clingy,’ Süleyman said. ‘Such women can be a liability, and let’s face it, Çetin, someone like Cem Atay can have any woman he wants.’

‘Because he’s on TV.’

‘Because he’s a celebrity academic and he’s well off and handsome,’ Süleyman said. ‘On the other hand, Mrs Devrim, like every victim so far with the exception of Levent Devrim, is someone Professor Atay, in part, relies upon for his living.’

‘She’s an Osmano
ğ
lu?’

‘A distant one, yes. I’m quite amazed Atay has never turned up at my parents’ house, to be honest. He made it clear in his interview that he knows exactly who I am. What’s wrong with us?’

İ
kmen smiled.

‘But seriously, why destroy the main thing that defines your life? And why all the Mayan stuff? It can hold up, as a theory, but it doesn’t … if you see what I mean …’ He bit into his pide and then closed his eyes for a moment. After a whole day of no food, the cheese and the egg mixed with the soft, fresh bread was blissful. ‘Oh, Çetin, you should try this.’

İ
kmen wrinkled his nose and lit a cigarette. ‘No thank you, Mehmet, I’ll stick to what I know. If I start making contact with healthy things, who knows where it will end? Anyway, what about Hatice Devrim’s husband? He was at the scene …’

‘Under sedation at the Taksim Hospital. He went into shock, there was nothing I could do with him,’ Süleyman said. ‘As I told you, Atay’s story is that he found Selçuk Devrim with his wife’s body when he arrived. Selçuk was covered in blood, I observed that myself. However, the knife that Dr Sarkissian identified as the murder weapon was oddly free of fingerprints.’

‘Implying that it was not a crime committed spontaneously.’

‘Given the circumstances, a crime of passion could be expected, but that detail mitigates against it.’

‘Mmm, so it would seem.’
İ
kmen watched a dustcart lumber down Ordu Caddesi. ‘Did the professor mention his Mayans at all?’

‘Yes, he did,’ Süleyman said. ‘He was at pains to make it clear to me that Hatice Devrim’s death, in spite of her background, did not conform to the pattern so far established for Osmano
ğ
lu slayings.’

‘Oh. I suppose he would,’
İ
kmen said.

‘What do you mean? If he’d done it? Killed her?’

‘Whether he had or not,’
İ
kmen said. ‘You won’t get an academic to accept that anything outside of their own pet theory has any validity. But we should keep him in mind. I should, I will keep an eye …’

‘Absolutely,’ Süleyman said. ‘Not that we haven’t got enough to do …’ He took his mobile phone out of his pocket and waved his fingers across its technologically advanced screen until his text messages came into view. ‘Gonca wants to speak in the morning,’ he said. ‘Can’t speak now because she’s at her father’s house, but it’s important, blah, blah, blah …’

‘I take it she told her father about her brother.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Something else to do.’

İ
kmen drank his beer, draining his glass. ‘What happens if and when Selçuk Devrim wakes up from shock or fugue or whatever state he is in?’

‘Ömer is at the Taksim,’ Süleyman said. ‘His sister works as a nurse at the German Hospital opposite. He volunteered.’

‘He’s a good lad,’
İ
kmen said. ‘Fortunate for you that yet again you attract talent from the east. But I do think he may be a little homesick.’

‘You think?’

‘Yes. I’d put some praise his way if I were you, Mehmet, from time to time. It would be a shame to lose him.’

‘Yes.’ Süleyman smiled. His first sergeant had been from the east, a Kurd called Isak Çöktin, who he remembered with affection.

‘So what now, my friend?’
İ
kmen asked as he looked at his empty beer glass and lit a cigarette. ‘Do we order more beer and see the forty-eight hours round, or do we attempt to go home and catch an hour’s sleep?’

Süleyman shook his head. ‘I think we both know the answer to that, Çetin,’ he said. He called the waiter over again. ‘Hüsnü! Two more Efes over here when you’re ready.’

Suzan didn’t sleep. But when the custody officer came in with tea and bread she did manage to eat and drink. Inspector
İ
kmen had told her that now she had admitted to the offence of being an, albeit unwitting, accessory to murder as well as withholding information from the police, and had been formally arrested, what would happen to her next was out of his hands. She had asked to see a lawyer and
İ
kmen had said that he would arrange that for her. But nobody had come. She had thought that lawyers, particularly criminal lawyers, worked at night as well as in the day, but maybe she was wrong about that.

Shortly after breakfast, though, she did have a visitor.

‘Suzan, a gentleman called Murad Hasanzade is going to meet with you soon,’ Ay
ş
e Farsako
ğ
lu told her.

‘Is he my lawyer?’ Suzan asked.

‘Mr Hasanzade is a lawyer, yes,’ the policewoman said. She sat down next to Suzan on the side of her tiny cell bed with its scratchy grey blankets.

‘Have you managed to eat something?’ Ay
ş
e asked. She had a newspaper in her hands which she seemed to be half reading, so it wasn’t easy for Suzan to really talk to her.

‘I had some bread and tea,’ she said. ‘Sergeant Farsako
ğ
lu, what is going to happen to me? Will I be able to go home soon?’

She knew she’d been arrested, which probably meant prison, but she hadn’t deliberately hurt anyone, so perhaps it would only be for a few weeks. She didn’t know how it worked. None of her family had ever been to prison. She said, ‘Will you wait with me until the lawyer comes?’

‘I can,’ Sergeant Farsako
ğ
lu said. ‘But Suzan, you will have to speak to him on your own. That’s how it is. He’ll tell me to go away.’

‘Oh.’

The policewoman unfolded her newspaper so that the front cover was showing.

‘You mustn’t be scared, Suzan, Mr Hasanzade is coming to help you. And you must tell him everything, just like you told us.’

Although Suzan was looking right at the image on the front of the paper, it didn’t register immediately. To begin with she just thought it was a nice photo. Only when she really began to study it did she realise who it might be.

Ay
ş
e Farsako
ğ
lu must have seen the look of shock on her face because she said, ‘Suzan, are you all right?’

He didn’t bother to call Gonca before nine. Even when she wasn’t at her father’s place, surrounded by her extended family and exhausted by grief, she rarely rose before ten. But when Süleyman did call, her phone was off and so he left a message on her voicemail. Ömer Mungan hadn’t yet contacted him to say whether Selçuk Devrim was ready to talk or not, and so he busied himself with paperwork until a knock at his office door got him to his feet. A constable gave him a small package labelled ‘Hittite’. This was the film that he had ordered for Gonca, of her brother. Once alone in his office, Süleyman opened it. He’d just slipped the disc into his laptop when his phone rang. He picked it up.

‘Mehmet,’
İ
kmen said.

‘Çetin.’

As far as he was aware, his colleague was either on his way to or had arrived at the Great Palace Hotel’s Wellness Spa. He had decided very early on that morning that he wanted to quiz the manager, Faruk Genç, about his brother-in-law, Cem Atay.

‘Mehmet, dear boy, I’m at the spa now but I’ve just had a call from Ay
ş
e about Suzan Arslan.’

‘Abdurrahman Efendi’s servant.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It seems she has finally identified the woman who gave her the five thousand lira.’

‘Oh?’

‘From a picture on the front of today’s edition of
Cumhuriyet
.’

Süleyman couldn’t get the disc to play for some reason that he couldn’t fathom, so he ejected it. ‘Of?’

‘Hatice Devrim,’
İ
kmen said.

Süleyman felt a jolt through his chest. ‘Hatice Devrim is “Abla”.’

‘It would seem so, yes,’
İ
kmen said.

‘Abdurrahman
Ş
afak was her mother’s cousin,’ Süleyman said, ‘according to Professor Atay.’

‘Whose somewhat florid profile on the Bo
ğ
aziçi University’s website I’m just about to check out with Faruk Genç,’
İ
kmen said.

‘OK. Although I still don’t really get what motive the professor would have for killing either his mistress or any of our twenty-first of the month victims,’ Süleyman said.

‘Neither do I. But in the absence of anything else at the moment …’

‘Maybe Hatice Devrim killed them all,’ Süleyman said.

‘Maybe she did.’

‘Maybe whoever killed her knew.’

‘Possibly. Is her husband ready to be questioned yet?’

‘Not that I know …’ He was interrupted by the sound of another incoming call. ‘Just a minute.’ He moved the phone so that he could see its screen. ‘That’s Ömer now. Have to go.’

İ
kmen said, ‘I’ll speak to you later.’ Then he cut the call.

‘Ömer?’ Süleyman said.

‘Sir,’ the young man replied. ‘Mr Devrim is awake and he says that he wants to confess to his wife’s murder.’

‘My late wife’s mother comes originally from Adana, her father was a railway worker from Afyon,’ Faruk Genç said. ‘I don’t know when they came to the city, but it was before Cem was born.’

‘Cem Atay is the eldest sibling?’
İ
kmen asked.

‘Yes. There was Cem, my wife Hande and then the youngest, Nilüfer. The parents were typically working class. The father worked at Sirkeci Station, the mother cleaned rich people’s houses until her darling son became famous. Hande and Nilüfer were clever too and they both finished high school, but Cem was always the star of the show.’

‘He studied at the university where he now teaches?’

‘Yes. He just lectured for years, attracting little or no attention from anyone, until some female film director consulted him on something to do with the Ottomans for a documentary she was making. Then suddenly he was in it, the documentary.’ He leaned across his desk conspiratorially. ‘He has a way with women, if you know what I mean.’

İ
kmen did. He said, ‘When was this, and can you remember what the documentary was about?’

Faruk Genç sighed. ‘It has to be over ten years ago,’ he said. ‘I don’t know exactly when. But the documentary was about Süleyman the Lawgiver. Not Cem’s strongest suit, if I remember rightly, but his enthusiastic accounts of Süleyman’s various military campaigns, as well as his colourful personal life, made him a TV star. Have you not seen any of his programmes, Inspector?’

‘I’m afraid the TV just tends to be on in my apartment; we rarely actually watch anything,’
İ
kmen said. ‘Although I did read your brother-in-law’s excellent book about the end of the Empire.’ He paused, marshalling his thoughts. ‘He had a wife, I understand …’

‘Yes, Merve. She disappeared around the same time that Cem became famous.’

İ
kmen had read a summary of Merve Atay’s file, and although her husband had been a suspect early on in the investigation into her disappearance, no evidence had ever been discovered that might have led the police to believe he could have murdered her.

‘In fact,’ Faruk Genç continued, ‘it was his involvement with that film that got him through all that, I think. He loved Merve, even though he probably cheated on her right from the start of their marriage, not that I can take the moral high ground there.’ He lowered his head for a moment and then looked up again. ‘There have always been girls and women around Cem.’

‘Do you know any of them?’
İ
kmen asked.

‘Not wittingly, and I certainly didn’t know the poor woman who has just died.’

‘Hatice Devrim.’

‘Yes. My late wife wasn’t close to her brother. I think there was some jealousy there. He went to university, she got a job in the Sultanahmet tourist office. Sibling rivalry, you know. But putting that aside, Hande was sort of pleased for him too, in his career. And of course it all ramped up enormously for Cem after the death of that Ottoman prince in 2009 – you know, the one who had the massive state funeral at the Sultanahmet mosque.’