Ikmen 16 - Body Count (40 page)

‘Yes, I do,’
İ
kmen said. How could he forget? The funeral of Osman, Ertu
ğ
rul Osmano
ğ
lu Efendi, had attracted thousands of mourners as well as a smattering of high-profile cabinet ministers. The prime minister himself had even sent his condolences.
İ
kmen recalled it particularly clearly because Mehmet Süleyman’s mother had phoned her son from the funeral every five minutes. Such public as well as political approval for the ancient regime had given people like her hope.

‘It all went Ottoman mad,’ Faruk Genç said. ‘Cem seemed to be lecturing about it either somewhere abroad or on TV at home all the time. People started talking about the “New Ottomans”, as if somehow they were coming back to lead us all into some sort of powerful Imperial future. Leaders of the Middle East and all that rubbish.’

‘You don’t approve?’
İ
kmen asked.

‘Of neo-imperialism? No, I don’t,’ he said. ‘Turkey as some sort of leader of the Muslim world?’ He shook his head. ‘I think the Arabs had enough of us the last time, don’t you? Five hundred years or whatever it was under the Ottoman yoke. They wouldn’t want that again, and quite honestly, why would we bother? The Middle East is a nightmare. One thing I do know about Cem is that he was perturbed about that too.’

‘About neo-Ottomanism?’

‘Yes. He thought it was nonsense. Ask him. The Empire may be his subject and everything, but he recognises that it’s had its time, as most right-thinking people do.’ He frowned. ‘You know, come to think of it, that name, Hatice Devrim …’

‘Levent Devrim was found murdered in Tarlaba
ş
ı
in January,’
İ
kmen said. ‘He was Hatice Devrim’s brother-in-law.’

‘Oh, but that’s awful!’ Faruk Genç said. ‘Two victims in the same family.’ His eyes became wet. Not only had he lost his wife, he’d lost his mistress too. He remained raw. ‘How did my brother-in-law know this woman?’

‘She was, I believe, a one-time student of his.’

‘In the papers it said she was married,’ he said. ‘What about her husband?’

‘That investigation is ongoing, sir,’
İ
kmen said, neatly sidestepping any reference to who might or might not have killed Hatice Devrim.

‘You don’t think that Cem …’

‘I don’t think anything at the moment, Mr Genç,’
İ
kmen said. ‘I am merely checking out everyone who was in the vicinity when this crime occurred.’

‘Cem would never kill a woman, Inspector, he loves them too much.’

Çetin
İ
kmen smiled.

‘You know, Hande once told me that when Cem was a student, he got knocked back by some girl who was out of his league. But he still went around to her house and put flowers on her doorstep for her birthday.’

It was difficult for
İ
kmen to decide whether that was sweet or creepy.

The call from Gonca came just before Mehmet Süleyman went back in to Selçuk Devrim’s hospital room for a second time. Both he and Ömer Mungan had given the distraught man some space to think before they took any more information from him.

Gonca said, ‘My brother told the boy Hamid to lie to you.’

‘But he told you the truth?’

‘He swears on his mother’s life,’ she said. ‘The creature he saw, Hamid’s monster, not only saw
Ş
ukru, it growled at him.’

‘Did it run after him? Did he run after it?’

‘No, and clearly it didn’t kill him – then,’ she said.

‘Then?’

‘The kid thinks that it was the monster that burned my brother. He thinks it came after him later to silence him.’

‘Because of what he had seen?’

‘Yes.’

‘Does the boy have any evidence for this?’

‘No.’

Ömer Mungan tapped him on the shoulder. ‘Sir, we’d better …’

‘I have to go,’ he said to Gonca. ‘But I’ll need to speak to the boy. Can you secure him for me?’

‘I can bribe him,’ Gonca said, and cut the connection.

Süleyman put his phone in his pocket. ‘All right,’ he said to Ömer, ‘we go in there with the aim of shooting his story down.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Because even if Mr Devrim did kill his wife, he still needs to prove it to us. Just crying and claiming that he did it doesn’t do that.’

‘No, sir.’

They walked past the constable stationed outside Selçuk Devrim’s room and approached the bed in which the pale figure of the bereaved husband lay. He had a drip in his left arm and a monitor attached to his chest. Süleyman stood on one side of the bed while Ömer Mungan stood on the other.

‘So, Mr Devrim …’

‘I wanted to kill my wife, Hatice,’ he said. ‘I even tried to keep it from myself, but when I drove from my office to Bebek I knew that she was going to ask me for a divorce and I knew that I couldn’t bear it. She could have carried on with Atay and I would have allowed it, but I knew she didn’t want that. I’d known it ever since I’d told her I didn’t want a divorce and I saw the look of disappointment on her face.’ He turned his dark eyes up to Süleyman. ‘I went home to kill her.’

‘Yes, Mr Devrim,’ Süleyman said, ‘you told us about your motives last time. What we are interested in is
how
you killed her.’

‘I stabbed her.’

‘What with?’

For several seconds it almost seemed as if he was confused by the question.

‘What with?’ Süleyman reiterated. This had been the sticking point the first time they had spoken. He hadn’t known what he had stabbed her with.

‘You see, we know what was used to kill your wife,’ Süleyman began, ‘and—’

‘It was that knife,’ Devrim said. He looked up at them. ‘The one she thought I didn’t know she always carried.’

‘What knife?’

‘She was ashamed of it because it was so at odds with her politics,’ he said. ‘But one is what one is even if one doesn’t like it. She was an Ottoman, she had “Imperial” relatives, not that I ever met any of them, apart from her mother. But I knew she had one of those knives the sultans gave to their daughters to use on their husbands.’ His face fell into a sour grimace. ‘I wonder if he knew she had it. I wonder if she ever showed it to him.’

‘Who?’

‘The good professor,’ he said. ‘He collects things, doesn’t he? That’s what he says on his TV programmes.’

‘Mr Devrim, are you telling us that you killed your wife with a small-bladed Ottoman dagger?’ Ömer asked.

‘Yes.’

This represented progress on the last time they had spoken. But then Süleyman said, ‘
How
did you kill your wife, Mr Devrim?’

‘With the knife.’

‘Yes, I know that, however—’

‘I don’t remember,’ he said. ‘I just …’ He put a hand up to his head. ‘I was covered in her blood!’ he sobbed. ‘Covered!’

‘Yes, we know, Mr Devrim, but we need to know how that blood got there.’

‘I don’t remember!’ Tears were falling down his face like thick dew. ‘I just walked into the house and the next thing I knew …’ He shook his head. ‘There was the knife … She just sat there, like a rag doll.’

‘Because she was dead when you got there?’

‘I don’t know! How do I know? I wanted her dead. Now she is dead!’

‘But that doesn’t mean you killed her,’ Ömer said.

‘But if I didn’t, who did? The great professor arrived after me, I do remember that.’

Süleyman asked, ‘Are you sure there was no one else in the house when you arrived?’

‘No. Yes. No. I don’t know! I killed my wife, why won’t you believe me? Charge me with murder and have done with it!’

One of the monitors above his head started beeping. Süleyman said, ‘What’s that?’

‘I don’t know!’

It beeped still harder. Ömer looked at it and said, ‘I’d better get a nurse.’

‘OK.’

His sister was a nurse. Süleyman had seen her briefly earlier; she was one of those handsome, bony eastern women. She’d brought her little brother a chicken sandwich.

Ömer left the room, and in spite of the alarming beeping from the monitor, Süleyman bent down and said to Selçuk Devrim, ‘You may want to end your life now that your wife is dead, but you’re not going to do that at the expense of the truth, Mr Devrim. You can believe what you like, but I don’t believe you killed your wife.’

Selçuk Devrim stared at Süleyman with what looked like hatred in his eyes until a nurse arrived and told both of the policemen to leave.

Once outside the hospital, Süleyman lit up a cigarette. ‘That’s either the best double bluff I’ve ever seen in my life, or he’s on a crazy mission to punish himself.’

‘His prints were not on the knife, sir,’ Ömer reminded him. ‘I know he could have wiped them …’

‘Somebody else was there,’ Süleyman said.

‘Who?’

He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I don’t know. The Devrims’ neighbours only saw her go in at one o’clock with the professor. Two people saw him leave ten minutes later, and then – nothing until her husband.’

‘And then the professor.’

‘Yes, and then the professor,’ Süleyman said, ‘afterwards …’

There was nothing more that
İ
kmen could do for Suzan Arslan, even though her predicament, and that of her mother, bothered him enormously, so he went home to get some sleep. But in spite of the soothing light tea that Fatma had brewed for him, he couldn’t rest. After less than an hour he left his bed and walked into the living room, where his wife was dusting.

‘What are you doing up?’ she asked as he flopped down into a chair and lit a cigarette.

‘Things on my mind,’ he said.

Fatma
İ
kmen knew of old that ‘things on my mind’ could cover a multitude of sins. ‘What things? Work?’

‘In part,’ he said.

She carried on rubbing a copper coffee pot she had inherited from her mother. ‘Can you tell me about them?’

He looked up at her. She’d hated his job for over forty years and had said she couldn’t wait for him to retire, but she was also always willing to listen to him. And she was discreet. Fatma never gossiped. He launched straight into it. ‘I’ve got this kid,’ he said, ‘in custody. She’s done something bad but she did it unwittingly …’

‘She from the country?’ Fatma put her duster on the sideboard and sat down beside her husband.

‘What do you think?’ He smiled. ‘The fact is that she obtained some money via a crime that she didn’t commit but colluded in.’

‘So that’s gone.’

‘Yes, and so has any chance of her mother getting the surgery she needs for cancer. That’s why the girl did what she did. Five thousand lira.’

‘And you know that this is genuine?’

‘Yes. We’ve spoken to the family and the local cops and the woman will die unless she gets to hospital as soon as possible. I asked Ard
ı
ç if I could maybe collect money from members of the department, but he said that under the circumstances that wouldn’t be appropriate, which I can see.’ He shook his head. ‘I just feel so sorry for them: the girl, her mother. And it isn’t even a large amount of money. Five thousand lira …’

‘There’s nowhere else the family could get it?’ Fatma asked.

‘They were relying on the kid to get the cash, so I can’t imagine they have bank accounts,’ her husband replied. ‘The old man is some dirt farmer in the east.’

Fatma squeezed his arm and then kissed him on the cheek. ‘I know you want to help, but I can’t see there’s anything else you can do,’ she said. ‘Five thousand lira is a lot of money for ordinary people.’

‘Yes, but if a lot of people contributed …’

‘I know, but Ard
ı
ç has said no,’ Fatma said. ‘I’m sorry, Çetin. You’re a good man and I know that you care about this girl, but you’re going to have to let it go.’ She pushed herself up off the sofa and changed the subject. ‘I’ve had a think about the central heating and I’ve worked out that we can probably get away with five radiators for the whole apartment …’

It didn’t matter how many times he was asked or in how many ways, the boy Hamid didn’t have a clue as to the identity of his monster.

‘Hamid,
Ş
ukru Bey is dead, he can’t tell you what to say any more,’ Süleyman said to the child. ‘So if you know the identity of the monster …’

‘I don’t! I just seen him from the first house, where I had the fire; he never saw me.
Ş
ukru Bey never saw me neither. I never told him nothing. Then I started having dreams about my monster and I told people and then it come out what I’d seen.
Ş
ukru Bey got angry.’

The child’s mother was off her head in some far-flung corner of Tarlaba
ş
ı
and so Hamid was being supported by Gonca and old Sugar Bar
ı
ş
ı
k.

‘You said that when the monster was standing over Levent Bey’s body and he saw
Ş
ukru Bey, he growled at him,’ Ömer Mungan said. ‘What did
Ş
ukru Bey do when that happened, Hamid? Was he frightened? Did he run away?’

The boy shook his head. ‘He didn’t do anything,’ he said.

‘So he …’

‘He just looked at him and then he walked away.’

‘Did he look at Levent Bey at all?’ Süleyman asked.

‘No, only when he came back later, when he saw me.’

‘And what were you doing when he saw you?’

The boy shook his head. ‘I don’t know why I done it but I was … I wanted to know if he was really dead. I pushed a stick where he’d been cut …’

In spite of their past differences, usually involving Hamid picking her pocket, Sugar pulled the boy in close and hugged him. Gonca shook her head. ‘What was my brother doing?’ she muttered.

Hamid looked at Süleyman. ‘Mehmet Bey, if I knew who the monster was, I would tell you. Honest!’

‘Ever since Levent died, the developers have been using his death to promote their view of this place as a den of vice and danger,’ Sugar said. ‘We are stigmatised! Nobody wants to find out who did this terrible thing more than the people of Tarlaba
ş
ı
.’

Süleyman sat back in his chair and looked at the boy. ‘True. But we are under pressure with all these murders …’