Arabesk

Chapter 6

'And Mina is who?' Suleyman asked as he turned round to look at a very winded Cohen behind him. Because his colleague had shot out of his apartment so quickly after the Urfa broadcast, Suleyman was still missing certain vital details.

'She's a prostitute.' Cohen paused briefly in order to take in a bit more oxygen. Living on a hill did not, as Cohen knew, mean that one could necessarily deal with steep slopes. 'Her mother is Semra Arda who works for Madame at the hamam. I saw the baby with the shawl there.'

Suleyman stepped lightly to one side in order to avoid a large pothole in the road. It was full of old Coke bottles and newspaper. 'So Madame Kleopatra's is where we are going now?'

'Yes. And no.'

'Eh?'

'It was Mina who had the baby, Mehmet. I can't go back to Madame's now, she's dying and besides…' 'Besides what?'

Cohen shrugged. 'I promised Madame that I…

. Look, Mehmet, there are some problems around Madame. There are… things.'

Suleyman stopped in front of what looked like a tiny, deserted Greek church and then pulled Cohen into the overgrown garden that had once been a graveyard.

'What things?' he hissed, as he unconsciously conformed to his sombre surroundings. 'What do you mean?'

'I promised I'd only tell the inspector.'

'What? Ìkmen?'

'Yes. Which I've done now.'

'How does she know Ìkmen if she's been in bed for the last thirty years?'

Cohen smiled. 'The inspector knows everyone.'

Silently wondering whether he would ever attain the heights of simply being known as the inspector, Suleyman simply said, 'Oh.'

They stood in silence for a few moments. Cohen looked up as Suleyman, without thinking, spelt out the name of some long dead Greek which was carved into a fallen tombstone.

'Cohen, are you absolutely certain about this shawl?'

'Well, I was a bit in shock about what Madame had said to me at the time, but… I think so. It was very sort of gold, like the one on the television.' He frowned a little as he attempted to recall it in detail. 'It had a fringe like that… It… When I think about it now I think that Mina was a bit nervous. She grabbed the baby up quickly.'

'And it could not have been her own child?' 'She said she was looking after it for a friend.' 'Mmm.'

Two young green-clad conscripts passed by, arm in arm. They gave the two mature men in the graveyard puzzled looks.

'But Cohen,' Suleyman said on a now rather frustrated sigh, 'if we are to see this baby then we are going to have to go to Madame Kleopatra's.'

'No Mehmet, we need to go to Mina's.'

'So we just go marching into a brothel-'

'No. Mina works independently, like they all do round here now,' he paused to look over his shoulder, 'opposite Madame's. She might have the baby there but if she hasn't then her mother will have it at the hamam. Either way, if we can get Mina on her own then I think she'll probably tell us the truth. But we have to get past Mickey first'

Suleyman sat down on the small broken wall of the graveyard and put his head in his hands. 'And Mickey is?'he asked patiently.

'He's an English nippy. He's also Mina's pimp. And he takes heroin.'

Without lifting his head, Suleyman murmured, 'Fantastic'

'It's probably Mickey who took the baby. He's always looking for new ways to make drug money,' Cohen said as his voice rose in the excitement of the moment 'Perhaps he even killed Mrs Urfa too.'

'Unless Mina did, or Mina's mother or any number of other people up to and including the man forensic evidence has placed at the scene of the crime.' He stood up quickly and put his hand to his head. 'What am I doing here?'

Cohen, suddenly angry at being doubted by his friend, reached up and grasped Suleyman by the shoulders. 'Look, Mehmet,' he said, 'that picture on the television shocked me. I know I've seen that shawl and I know where. Can we afford to ignore that? I mean, you play this however you want to. If we have to go to Madame's, well then I suppose we have to do that. You're the boss, after all. But we need to check it out, don't we?'

Suleyman sighed. 'Yes, we do. I want to see this baby – if, indeed, it's still there.'

'And if it isn't?'

'We will meet that eventuality if and when it arises.'. He strode off back towards the road, 'Come on.'

Mickey Anderson threw his arm heavily around the young boy's shoulders and smiled. Behind him, clad only in a thin nylon negligee, his 'property' sneered at the back of his head before going to her room.

'So was that the best lay you've ever had or what?'

'Excuse me?' the boy replied as he attempted and failed to understand Mickey's colloquial English.

'Don't matter, kid,' Mickey said through several layers of food-encrusted beard, 'just give me the five million you owe me and you can get off home to your mum.'

The boy frowned doubtfully. 'Five million?' he said. 'But you say-'

'Ah, but this says seven million and rising,' Mickey said as he quickly pulled a knife out of his belt and held it up to the boy's head. 'Seven, kid,' and then resorting to one of the few Turkish words he knew he whispered, 'Yedi, to you,' into the boy's ear.

As the boy slowly put his hand into his pocket, Mickey smiled. 'There's a good boy.' He took the large wad of notes from the youngster's fingers and without counting it thrust it into his belt Then with a hard punch to the middle of the boy's back, Mickey said,'So now fuck off!'

The boy didn't need telling twice and as he ran into the street’ Mickey followed at a more leisurely pace, replacing his knife as he went

It was dark now, nearly midnight. The best time for his kind of business. Mickey grinned. Some of the bars had shut disgorging back into the city those in search of something a bit more exotic than alcohol. Soldiers, sailors, airmen, old men, impotent Russians – rich and curious boys usually came after the clubs had shut in the early hours. But not always. There were, he noticed, some rather noisy 'suits' garnered beside that shitty old hamam where Mina went sometimes. There'd been a bit of crying from over there earlier in the evening which had sounded weird and unnerved Mina with her first trick. But the place was in darkness now and as quiet as the grave. Mickey shoved a cigarette into his mouth and wandered towards the source of the laughter.

There were three of them. Two were youngish men, in their thirties, the third was probably about fifty. The fifty, who was for some reason wearing sunglasses, and the plainer of the two younger ones appeared to be taunting the tall, good-looking one who was laughing in that wobbly, drunken manner.

'Hello, boys,' Mickey said, putting on his best friendly smile. 'What's happening?'

The older man who could not, seemingly, speak English just shrugged. The young plain one said, 'Hello,' and then putting one hand on his drunken friend's chest he added, 'Tomorrow he is married!'

'Oh, is that so?' Mickey said. 'That's nice.'

'Yes!'

'So where have you been then, boys?' The tall handsome one stopped laughing just long enough to say, 'To drink and drink and drink!' 'Oh.'

'Yes,' the plain one said, 'it is the last time that my friend is a free man, you know?'

The older man said something in Turkish and they all laughed, including Mickey who said, 'Yes, freedom, right. So what are you doing now then?'

The plain one, who eventually gave his name as

Orhan, said. 1 don't know. Maybe look for some girls or… I don't know.' He laughed.

'Oh, some girls, eh? What, for all of you or just…'

Orhan laughed. 'I am married and so is Balthazar,' he said, indicating the older man who now stood in the shadows. 'No, for Mehmet only. It is his night.'

'Right'

Mehmet who was quite obviously heavily intoxicated, leaned against the side of a large, dark Mercedes and then giggled as his legs started to give way. Balthazar quickly ran to his aid.

Mickey wiped his moist brow against the back of his hand and then looked up at the star-filled sky. 'Well, if you want women,' he said, 'you've come to the right place.'

'You know some? Pretty ones?'

'Yeah,' Mickey shrugged. 'One or two.'

'They must be clean,' Orhan said, his face now quite set and serious. 'My friend cannot get a disease if he is to be married.'

'No. Course not' Mickey looked over his shoulder at the doorway of his apartment block and then cleared his throat 'Look, I may be able to help you out If you can give me a minute…'

Orhan looked doubtful but he assented anyway. As Balthazar strained to pick Mehmet up off the ground, Mickey sauntered back to the apartment As soon as he was inside the hall he took his mobile telephone out of his pocket

. ‘ ‘ ‘ It was only when she was standing outside Cengiz Temiz's cell that Zelfa Halman realised that she had omitted to put on any underwear. She looked down with horror at her unsupported breasts and groaned. But then this, or events like it, were not uncommon. Forgetting knickers or cigarettes or leaving the front door of the house open for burglars was all part of the being on call at night experience.

Although part of her work, from time to time, necessitated working with the police she did not have to come out to cells on a regular basis. Just being in the building made her shudder. It had never been this squalid in the cells operated by the Garda back in Dublin. The Irish half of her hated this hot, smelly squalor even if the Turkish portion did, on some level, understand it She had, in the past had many heated debates regarding treatment of prisoners in custody with the man who worked with this every day, the man whose prisoner she could hear screaming now. Quite where Mehmet Suleyman was at present she did not know and the rather oafish officers at her side either did not have that information or were not prepared to tell her. Perhaps they knew that their superior and this much older woman were lovers and were having a bit of a laugh, as it were, behind her back.

'Open the door’ she said to the heavily scarred individual to her left.

As he moved forward, keys in hand, the other two, a man and a hard-faced woman, removed their batons from their belts and held them up.

'You won't need those,' she said as she surveyed the scene around her with a jaundiced eye.

'He's raving, we might,' the woman replied shortly.

'If any of you do anything over and above restraint I'll make your boss's life hell and then you'll be sorry.'

The man with the keys opened the door and then stepped back smartly. 'Doctor.'

Probably since the dawn of time and certainly since what is known in Europe as the Dark Ages, reports have circulated regarding so-called wolf-men. Whether these creatures are transmogrified people such as in the werewolf legends or simply individuals who have either been raised by wolves or who have gone wild in some way depends in part upon where geographically these individuals have been found. In nineteenth-century Romania, for instance, a demonic or supernatural explanation would have been logical. In a police cell in the middle of Istanbul in the dying days of the twentieth century madness seemed the most likely explanation to those now observing Cengiz Temiz's bizarre, howling behaviour. When not screaming and hurling his now bloodied arms against the walls, Cengiz raised his shaggy head up to the ceiling and howled.

'How long has he been like this?' Zelfa asked as she attempted to make eye contact with the distressed man.

'Couple of hours.'

'A couple of hours!' She was furious and, although she didn't take her eyes off Cengiz for a second, she made her feelings very clear to the officers at her side. 'Why wasn't I called before? Too busy eating kebab and dribbling over girly magazines?'

'But, Doctor,' the female officer began, 'I am-'

'I include you in that too.' Zelfa's Irish directness was quite unaffected by what this woman obviously felt was a tremendous insult.

Cengiz screamed like a banshee, hurling his considerable bulk pogo-style into the air. Making certain one more time that one of the small syringes she had taken from the drug cabinet before she left the hospital was at the top of her bag, Zelfa turned to the man at her side and said, 'I want you and the others to restrain him while I talk to him.'

As she stepped into the cell, the stink from Cengiz's unwashed, sweaty body nearly knocked Zelfa flat Babbling and raving, Cengiz had wet himself more than once and had also, she noticed, thrown food and drink up the walls. Somewhere down the corridor the sound of another prisoner joining in with the screaming reached their ears.

Holding one open hand out in greeting, Zelfa moved forward. 'Hello, Cengiz, I am Dr Halman, I've come to help you.'

'Aaaahhh!'

Keeping her eyes on both Cengiz and the two officers who were now closing in on him, Zelfa also took in that the man was shaking. Whether this was from shock, fear or just sheer exhaustion she did not know. What she could see of his wounded arms indicated only superficial grazing.

As the first officer got a lock onto one of Cengiz's arms, the other one pulled him down to the floor. As his face hit the mess beneath him, Cengiz howled. Quickly, lest his breathing should be impaired, Zelfa moved forward and shifted his head to one side.

'It's all right, Cengiz,’ she said, 'I only want to talk to you and then try to make you more comfortable.'

'I want my mummy and daddy!'

'Yes, I know, and if you can be quiet for a while perhaps we can do something about that.' Then looking the officer directly in front of her straight in the eyes she said, 'This place is a fucking disgrace!'

'Inspector Suleyman said he should be put here,' a female voice from the other side of the room said caustically.

'In view of what happened to another disordered prisoner down here last year I doubt that Inspector Suleyman wanted you to let him harm himself!' She looked up into the woman's sneering face and added, 'Inspector Suleyman has the wit to know that when someone is bleeding he is usually injured!'

The woman said something which could have been

'Well, you should know' or words to that effect, but Zelfa chose to ignore it. The last thing she needed right now was a dissection of her private life.

Now a little quieter than before, Cengiz's eyes were full of sad tears. Zelfa sighed. Why Cengiz's fingerprints had been on Ruya Urfa's spectacles and jewellery she didn't know. More recently, a pair of his shoes had been found to match dusty footprints in the hall of the apartment as well. But looking at him now it was difficult to credit this man with a coldly calculating poisoning. In order to do something like that one would have to know many things: what cyanide was, that it could be disguised within almond halva, that it would work very quickly, that it was a good idea to do it while everyone was either at or watching on television a passionately anticipated football match. This had to be beyond someone like Cengiz. And for a moment, before she took hold of her emotions once again, Zelfa felt very angry with Mehmet for putting this poor creature through this terrible ordeal. Not that Mehmet, given the evidence, had any choice in the matter.

'You can sit him up,' she said as soon as she could see that Cengiz's breathing was becoming calmer.

The two officers grunted as they raised Cengiz onto his haunches. Their prisoner was a big man and he was also exhausted, quite unfit and therefore a dead weight.

'Now, I can give you some medicine-'

'No! No, not-'

'Ssshh! All right, all right,' she said as she gently placed her hands across his and looked up into his face. 'You don't have to have it. If you are a good, quiet boy and-'

'I hate it here!'

She smiled. 'Yes,' she said, 'so do I. But if I can get you moved to a cleaner place so you can get some sleep then we won't need to give you any medicine, will we?'

'Don't want medicine!'

'No,' she said, 'of course you don't and I will not give it to you provided you try to get some sleep.'

One of the officers holding Cengiz cleared his throat There was, Zelfa noticed, a look of extreme alarm upon his face. He, at least, had counted upon the medication to give him an easy shift. Well, fuck you! Zelfa thought as she smiled at Cengiz again.

And, almost as if he saw and understood her thoughts for himself, Cengiz started a long, slow grin back at this strange, pale little saviour.

Mickey made the two other men sit in the kitchen as he took their wobbly friend through to the bedroom.

'Help yourselves to raki if you like.' He pointed to a bottle on top of one of the greasy work surfaces. But the men did not answer, they just stood very straight-faced and quiet Now inside the apartment they were much more subdued, with the exception of Mehmet.

When Mickey opened the door, Mina was standing in front of the wardrobe mirror, studying her face. She turned, scowling, until she noticed that her client was considerably better looking and cleaner than her regulars.

'This is Mina,' Mickey said, a smirk spreading over his hairy features. 'All right?'

Seemingly drinking in every gram of Mina's considerable figure, Mehmet grunted his assent.

Mickey smiled. 'OK, mate,' he said, 'no violence or weird stuff and we'll all be friends.' Then clapping him firmly on the back he whispered, 'Enjoy yourself.'

As soon as Mickey had closed the door behind him, Mina pulled the straps of her negligee down to reveal her breasts. 'Hello,' she said, 'can I-'

But before Mina could articulate just what she was offering this unusually urbane new client, Mehmet Suleyman had his hand over her mouth and his gun to her head.