Dr Babur Halman looked across the table at his clever blonde daughter and nodded his head. Forty-six years old and possessed of, to him, a stubborn Irish mind, his girl was not one with whom frail old Turkish men were wont to argue. If nothing else; her kind but firm treatment of her demented patients was strong evidence for this. But she was still his daughter and knowing that she had recently experienced some turmoil with regard to the young man who had telephoned half an hour before, Babur did feel compelled to speak.
'So your going out is on police business, is it?' he asked as he placed his knife and fork down onto his plate.
'Yes.' Her turning away from him at that point, Babur knew was significant. 'So not…'
'Father, I do consult for them from time to time as well you know.'
Babur shrugged. 'Yes, well…'
She put her hands down on the table and leaned across towards the old man. 'The only thing stopping me from returning to Dublin is you,' she said vehemently, 'and only you.' 'But I would go if-'
'Oh, yes? And where would we live while I got myself another job, eh? Unless we sold this house, which I know you don't want to do, we'd have to lodge with Uncle Frank at least at first. And you know what that means, don't you?'
Babur sighed. 'Yes.'
'Nuns in and out all day. long, not to mention parishioners who'd look at you like you were the devil himself. And that housekeeper of his, well…'
Babur smiled. 'The lovely Mrs Reynolds.'
'Cooking up all sorts of horrors,' his daughter raved, flinging her arms expressively into the air. 'And she's a stranger to bleach or any other sort of cleaning material, for that matter!'
'What a colourful turn of phrase you have,' her father said with genuine appreciation. 'So obvious that you are of the soil that bore Yeats, Wilde and Behan.'
It had been said with such admiration and kindness that Zelfa, for a moment, felt quite deflated. With a sigh she sat back down at the table. 'And you are an astute man whom I shouldn't even attempt to dupe. I'd like nothing better than to go home now…'
'But?'
She smiled sadly. 'But as you know there is another consideration here.'
'A young man.' Babur reached out and took one of her hands in his.
'Too young for me,' she said and lowered her head in order to avoid her father's eyes.
'Maybe. But then we cannot chose who we love, can we? Many people said that I was foolish to marry your mother-'
'Well, you did end up getting divorced,' his daughter interjected.
'True. But at least your mother and I tried We were in love, we gave our love a chance and,' he shrugged, 'well, it didn't work, but had we not tried we would never have known that and I wouldn't now have you who is such a blessing.'
She leaned forward and kissed her father affectionately on his forehead. 'Oh, Father,' she said, 'how on earth can I be forty-six years old and still behave like a girl of sixteen?'
'You're the psychiatrist,’ her father said with a wry grin on his face. 'Perhaps your Catholic guilt made you a late starter in the romantic sphere or-'
A loud knock cut Babur's speech short which, from his daughter's point of view, was probably a good thing. Although completely untroubled by religious affiliations himself, Babur, Zelfa knew, had never been happy about her being educated within the convent system. It had been one of the nails that had sealed up the coffin that became her parents' marriage.
'I've got to go now,' she said. She picked up her medical bag, already packed with essential supplies, and stood up.
Babur first sighed and then smiled. 'Well, just be careful, won't you?' he said. 'In all sorts of ways.'
'I'm a big girl now,' his daughter replied as she walked out of the room, blowing her father a kiss as she went.
. Babur looked down at his plate and muttered, 'No, you're not,' and then with one last glance towards the place his daughter had vacated, took his eating utensils out into the kitchen.
Much as they may have welcomed the kudos that came with treating a major Arabesk star, the staff of the Alman Hospital, which is where Tansu and her sister should have been taken after the accident, were to be disappointed. Neither Tansu nor Latife would agree to any medical intervention. Instead, Tansu screamed at isak Çöktin to phone his 'friend' Erol Urfa for her.
'But madam,' the officer pleaded as he indicated the large gash on the singer's calf, 'you are bleeding.'
'Yes, and I will only stop bleeding when you get Erol for me!'
Tepe, who was standing behind his colleague, a far less involved expression on his face, added, 'But if you don't attend to it, the cut could become infected.'
'I don't care!'
'I could clean it up myself for the time-'
'If I wanted your dirty hands on me, I'd ask you!'
Tansu snapped as she shuffled herself deep into the corner of her settee. 'As you wish.'
Galip Emin who had earlier disappeared upstairs with his other sister, Latife, now re-entered the room, his face stern.
'What are they still doing here?' he said as he flicked his disgruntled head in the direction of Çöktin and Tepe.
'Well, unless this one,' Tansu stabbed a finger at Çöktin, 'calls Erol for me, then I really do not know!'
'Why you were outside our house in the first place is a mystery to me,' Galip said as he drew level with the much taller Tepe. 'As if my family haven't had enough of your incompetence already.' Turning from the stone-faced Tepe to Çöktin, Gakp sneered, 'And as for you, Kurdish brother-'
'So is Miss Latife all right now?' Tepe managed to interject before things took a turn for the worse.
'She'll live,' Galip answered. His eyes bore relentlessly into Çöktin's.
'I know that you know what Erol's new telephone number is!' Tansu yelled. 'And you call yourself a Kurdish-'
Çöktin suddenly and violently snapped. 'That's good coming from Turkey's only true darling who courts the forces that paint our villages red with our own blood!'
Turning away from Galip to glare at Tansu, Çöktin, or so it seemed to the anxious Tepe, briefly held the whole party in a tense silence. As the large antique French clock ticked ponderously in the background, Tepe wondered if he was alone in wondering whether Çöktin's own position within the police was about to be flung at him. It was something that he knew was a possibility even though he was struggling to understand its implications. Until the singer spoke again, Tepe meandered helplessly in what had suddenly, for him, become a foreign country.
Td like you to leave my house now,' Tansu said, her voice small and almost strangled by the control she was having to exert over it
Not taking his eyes from hers for a moment, Çöktin replied, 'But you need medical attention.'
'If I wish to die, that's my choice.'
'But-'
'Your report, should that happen, would make interesting reading, wouldn't it?'
Stung, Çöktin overreacted. 'Don't be so ridiculous! Dying in order to spite me would be-'
'Just perfect!' the woman screamed. And then hurling herself onto the floor in a flood of enraged tears she yelled, 'Without Erol I am dead anyway!'
Galip and the until now silent Yilmaz raced towards their sister.
'I th-think you'd b-better go now!' Yilmaz man said to the two policemen as he eased Tansu's head out from underneath the coffee table.
'Yes, but-'
'Come on, let's go,' Tepe said and placed one determined hand on Çöktin's shoulder. 'There's no point.'
With a sigh Çöktin turned and then almost as quickly turned back again. 'But-'
'Come on!’
Tepe took hold of Çöktin's arm and, despite some reluctance on the Kurd's part, led him out into the large rose and gold-coloured hall beyond. Once out of the Emin family's orbit, Qloktin allowed himself to be taken towards the front door without resistance. And although Tepe was tempted to ask him at this point just what he thought he'd been trying to prove with Tansu and the others, he resisted in favour of a quiet life,
But as he opened the front door of Tansu's house, two things happened to change that Suleyman, together with two other figures Tepe couldn't quite make out in the gathering darkness, were getting out of the former's distinctive white BMW and Latife Emin stepped out of one of the bathrooms and into the hall.
'Y-you r-really m-must try to be c-calm now, Tansu,' Yilmaz said as he wiped the edge of his handkerchief across his sister's heavily perspiring features.
'Have those dogs gone yet or-'
'Yes, yes yes!' an exasperated Galip said as he sat down next to Tansu and took her hand.
'They'll be back though, won't they?' the singer said darkly, reaching forward to take a cigarette from one of the boxes on the table. 'I mean why were they out there if they didn't know!’ 'I have no idea.'
'You never do!' she snapped at the now exhausted figure of her brother. 'You're useless!'
'Yes.' It was said with what, to an outsider, sounded like a practised lack of either resistance or hope.
'W-we d-do t-try, you know, Tansu.' Yilmaz for once seemed to be expressing his true feelings on the matter. 'W-we d-do-'
'If you have to try then you're no fucking use to me, are you!' the singer roared. And then in emulation, as was her custom, of her brother's infirmity, she added, 'If you c-can g-get Erol's t-telephone n-number for me -men you won't be q-quite so u-useless, Y-Yilmaz!' And then she laughed at him, which was also her custom.
'The sound of happy laughter,' an unfamiliar voice suddenly said, 'leads me, my dear Tansu Hanim, to hope that perhaps you are not badly injured after all.'
As one, Tansu, Galip and Yilmaz all turned towards the source of the unknown voice which had, apparently, come from the throat of a small, rather dishevelled-looking individual who was standing over by the recently opened door.
'Such a charming house,' Ìkmen lied, 'such a wonderful example of the Bauhaus style,' and then moving to one side to admit Suleyman, he said, 'Of course I don't have to introduce Inspector Suleyman, do I?'
'Who are you?' Galip, his eyes narrowed against the appearance of this stranger in their midst, inquired.
Ìkmen pulled an innocent grin. 'Oh, did I not introduce myself? How remiss of me. I am Inspector Ìkmen, a colleague of Inspector Suleyman.' He held his hand out to Galip in a friendly manner. 'And you are?'
'Galip Em-'
'I thought I made it clear I didn't want any more policemen!' an enraged Tansu cried. 'I've just thrown two of your men out of this house and-'
'Yes,' Ìkmen said as he moved towards the prone woman on the settee and took her hand in his, 'Sergeants Çöktin and Tepe. I am so sorry if they caused you pain. However, Inspector Suleyman and myself are here to alleviate your agonies, my dear Tansu Hanim.' He kissed her hand, feeling the revulsion that swept through her body as he did so. But her voice was calmer when next she spoke.
'Alleviate my agonies?'
Moving Galip a little roughly to one side, Ìkmen sat down. 'Sergeant Tepe informed us that you had refused hospital treatment'
Tansu eyed him suspiciously. 'Yes?'
'Well, as a responsible organisation, we could hardly countenance Turkey's brightest star taking such a risk,' he smiled. 'And so I have brought you one of our own doctors. As a devotee of everything you have ever done, madam, I could do no less.'
Fearing that perhaps Ìkmen had gone just slightly over the top, Suleyman nervously cleared his throat
Tansu's lizard-like gaze clung stonily to Ìkmen's face for several moments before it started to soften. 'You like my music?'
'I love it’ Ìkmen said enthusiastically and leaned forward to light the cigarette that still dangled from Tansu's fingers.
'What do you like about my music, then?' the singer asked suspiciously.
'I adore your passion,' Ìkmen said as he closed his eyes in imitation of one rapt with pleasure.
'My passion?'
'Oh, songs like "I Want None of You", "Hate Is My Only Friend"
"The Blue-green Bird Lies Bleeding" -I could go on and on!'
'Could you?'
'Yes.'
'So where's this doctor you say you've brought?'
All eyes now turned towards Galip who, resentful at having been pushed out of his place on the settee, was eyeing Ìkmen with some hostility.
'The doctor is washing up in your bathroom,' Ìkmen answered with a smile.
Galip's gaze narrowed into one of obvious suspicion. 'How does he know where our bathroom is?'
'Your sister, Miss Latife, actually directed the doctor to it' Suleyman said and then added, 'Oh, and the doctor is a she, actually, Mr Emin. Dr Halman.'
'We felt that a female doctor was far more appropriate for a lady patient, did we not, Inspector?' 'Oh, yes, absolutely.'
'B-but w-where is the d-doctor?' Yilmaz said, his face panicked.
Turning away briefly from Tansu's tear-ravaged face, Ìkmen said, smiling, 'As I said, Dr Halman is washing.'
'Have you any idea how clean a doctor's hands have to be before he or she touches a patient?' Suleyman added.
'I do,' Tansu snapped. 'I've had to have a lot of operations for, er, urn, problems, pain and bad things and… But neither of these,' she said as she loosely indicated her brothers, 'have ever been in hospital in their lives.'
'Yes, but-'
'You are just an ignorant peasant, Galip!' she shouted harshly. 'Doctors take a long time to prepare. I know, I've suffered, I've lived!'
'Indeed you have,' Ìkmen said as he mugged the falsest smile of his career, 'and as soon as the doctor has finished washing and has looked briefly at your sister she will attend to you.'
Tansu's face flushed. 'My sister…'
'Yes,' Ìkmen replied, 'she was, after all, also involved in the accident, wasn't she?'
'Yes.'
'Then a doctor is probably the best person for her to see at this point,' Ìkmen said with a smile. 'Nothing to worry about, I'm sure.'
Just as Tansu turned to look at her brothers the door to the room opened and then closed on a small, plump woman with blonde hair. Everyone looked up in her direction, Ìkmen and Suleyman both rose to their feet.
'Ah, Doctor!' the former said with enthusiasm, and then indicating Tansu, he added, 'Your exalted patient.'.
'Ah.'
The two men walked towards the doctor who, as Ìkmen passed her, murmured something into his ear. Although none of the Ernins could hear it, they eyed each other warily as they observed this exchange.
Ìkmen's face broke out into a broad smile.
'Shall we go, gentlemen?' Suleyman said, looking pointedly at the rather nervous pair of brothers.
'Well, it's only her leg,' Galip began.
'You think,' Dr Halman said as she moved in a very business-like fashion towards her patient, 'but I will have to check Miss Emin for internal trauma too and that,' she said pointedly, 'will necessitate her having to remove her clothes.'
Galip looked at Yilmaz and mouthed, 'I don't like this.' But his brother only shrugged as he rose slowly to his feet.
With a smile, Suleyman said again, 'Gentlemen?' Yilmaz walked slowly across the room, followed at an even slower pace by his brother.
'Now,' Dr Halman said as she sat down next to her patient, 'let me have a look at this leg.'