Neither Ìkmen nor Suleyman saw the sun rise over the sparkling waters of the Bosphorus that following morning as the older man helped the younger compose his report on the Emin affair. And as the heat of the day started to build, both of them from time to time spared some thought for the bitter woman who now sat somewhere far beneath their offices, down in the cells. A woman who, just like the odalisques of old to whom she frequently referred, was going to spend the rest of her life amongst other impotent, lonely women.
'We're burying Kleopatra Polycarpou today,' Ìkmen said as he wiped a tired hand across his features.
'Not the nicest thing to have to deal with after what we went through last night,' his equally exhausted colleague observed.
'No. I was going to ask Sinan to accompany me, but now I'm not so sure.' Ìkmen chewed thoughtfully on his bottom lip. 'In view of what we've learnt about the Emin sisters I'm wondering whether I ought to get Bulent scrubbed up and take him. Show him I know he exists.'
Suleyman smiled. Trying to prevent any nastiness between your two boys in the future perhaps?'
'If Zelfa Halman hadn't postulated such an idea some time ago I would have viewed the Emins as a one-off, but she did and it has made me think. Is she still around here somewhere, by the way?'
'Who? Dr Halman?'
'Yes.'
'No. But I'm meeting her for something to eat after I've spoken to Çöktin,' he looked at his watch, 'in about an hour. You're welcome to join us.'
'Thanks, but no,' Ìkmen said with a sigh. 'I really must wash and then find something to wear for this funeral'
A knock at the door interrupted their conversation.
'Come,' Suleyman called and the door opened to admit a very dishevelled isak (^oktin.
Upon seeing the young man, Ìkmen said, 'Ah, do you want me to-'
Suleyman held up a hand. 'No. Your input could be valuable here.' And then turning towards Çöktin, he said, 'Sit down.'
Çöktin took hold of a chair that had been leaning against the wall, placed it in front of Suleyman's desk and sat down, Ìkmen, who was sitting at what was usually Çöktin's desk, put his pen down and looked across at the young man.
'The events of last night,' Suleyman began gravely, 'have, as you know, thrown up some very difficult issues for some of the protagonists in this case.'
'Yes, sir.'
'Miss Emin, although she has now confessed to Ruya Urfa's murder, has raised certain points which her defence team will, no doubt, wish to bring to light in order to, to some extent, discredit those she has harmed.'
'Like what?' the white-faced young man asked, not for a moment raising his eyes from the floor.
'Like the fact that Mr Urfa and his late wife are Yezidis,' Ìkmen said with a bluntness Suleyman probably would not have employed.
Çöktin turned to look at "him. 'But why are you speaking to me about this, sir?'
'Oh, come on, Mickey!' Ìkmen said with a small if exasperated chuckle. 'You've never got as close to anyone as you got to Urfa. I won't even go into how you have knowledge about eunuchs in Arab countries but suffice to say, Dr Halman was the only other person I could find who knew about that, and she studies religion for fun. Come on!'
Çöktin lowered his head down even further on his chest and cleared his throat.
Suleyman looked across at Ìkmen and sighed. 'Listen, Çöktin,' he said, 'unless, somehow, Latife Emin knows about you then what passes between us here will go no further.'
'She knows nothing because there is nothing to know!' Çöktin suddenly became almost violently agitated. Then reaching into the pocket of his jacket he took out his identity card which he held up for bom men to see. 'Look here,' he cried. 'Religion: Muslim. Official, on my card. What more do you want?'
'Goktin-'
'Erol's bears exactly the same words,' Ìkmen said with a shrug. 'We all know how easy it is-' – 'If Mr Urfa says that his is false then that is his business,' Çöktin said, still holding his card up, 'but mine is not. And besides, quite why you would think that one of these devil worshippers would want to be in the police force, I can't imagine. If you worship Shaitan then you're an evil person quite at odds with the law.'
'On the surface, yes,' Ìkmen agreed, 'but if they are not evil but simply misunderstood…' He shrugged again. 'But your protestations are noted even if, as we all know, they are rather too vehement.'
'Believe it or not, we were just looking out for your interests, Çöktin,' Suleyman said.
'I couldn't care less what a man's religion might be,' Ìkmen added. 'I don't have one myself and so-'
'But most people do care.'
'You have an excellent record,' Suleyman said, looking the younger man in the eye, in so far as he could. 'There is no question of your being disciplined or dismissed. It was simply that if Latife Emin knew-'
'She knows nothing about me, I hardly spoke to her.'
'And Erol? Would he have spoken to her about you?'
Çöktin twisted nervously in his chair, knotting and unknotting his fingers as he moved. 'Well, not about my religion, obviously. Why would he, being what he is, want to speak to a Muslim woman about a Muslim man she barely knows?'
Ìkmen smiled. 'Well, that's all right then, isn't it?'
'Yes,' Suleyman agreed also with a smile, if forced, upon his face. 'I should, I imagine, let you go home and get some rest now. You must be exhausted.'
'Yes. Thank you, sir.' Çöktin rose quickly to his feet. It was obvious to all concerned that he was anxious to leave.
'I'll see you tomorrow, then,' Suleyman said as he watched ‹~!oktin move towards the door. 'Yes, sir.'
'Goodbye, Mickey Çöktin,' Ìkmen called out as the young man closed the door behind him.
And men there was silence, Ìkmen looked across at Suleyman who; although seemingly busy shuffling papers, was actually waiting for his colleague to open up some sort of debate on what had just passed, Ìkmen obliged.
He wiped the sweat from his brow onto the stained cuff of his shirt and said, 'Do you believe him?'
'I don't know,' Suleyman replied. 'Do you?'
'No. But men in view of the fact that Erol never actually told Latife Emin what he was, it is highly unlikely he would have mentioned Çöktin to her. And anyway, with aged parents and an unmarried sister to support, Mickey Çöktin probably made a rational decision when he came in here and lied to us. I mean, how would you feel if people thought you ran around naked at midnight and ate the flesh of newborn infants?'
Suleyman smiled. 'I wouldn't be very happy about it.'
'Mmm. Especially considering that the more lurid stories about the Yezidis are, in all probability, complete nonsense.'
'But prejudices against them still exist,' Suleyman said, throwing a cigarette across at Ìkmen and then lighting up himself. 'And I must admit that it does feel odd to actually have one on the force.'
'No stranger than having someone whose mother could see into the future,' Ìkmen said, wryly smiling at this dig at himself. 'Which reminds me, I must get away from here if I'm to see the last of my mother's clients bid farewell to this world.'
'Any idea how Madame might have killed the eunuch yet?' Suleyman asked.
'Dr Sarkissian thinks he may have been stabbed.' Ìkmen moved slowly to his feet and then stretched his arms above his head and yawned. 'Although quite why she would want to do such a thing to that poor emasculated creature we shall probably never know.'
'Perhaps the eunuch had some other woman in his sights,' Suleyman said with a smile.
'Well, I can't imagine why that would have bothered Kleopatra,' Ìkmen replied tartly.
Spreading his long fingers out across his desk in what appeared to be an attempt to distract himself from the topic, Suleyman said, 'You know that in the old households it was always said that a eunuch could often satisfy a woman like no normal man?'
'What?' Ìkmen, his face creased into sharp lines of confusion, attempted but failed to look into his colleagues now shifting gaze. 'What do…'
'To say anything more would cause me tremendous embarrassment, Çetin,' the younger man said as he moved uncomfortably in his seat 'If you think about it for a while I'm sure that the light of truth will eventually dawn:'.
'Oh, will it?' Ìkmen said. And then, as things did indeed come into focus, he reddened just a little and mumbled, 'Ah, yes, but of course, um…'
'So shall I see you later?' Suleyman inquired as he watched Ìkmen remove his jacket somewhat timidly from the back of Çöktin's chair.
'Yes, this afternoon.'
'Good,' Suleyman smiled. 'I couldn't have finished this case without you, you know.'
'Yes, you could,' Ìkmen said, moving towards the door of his colleague's office. 'It would have taken you longer, but you would have done it'
And then with a smile he was gone.
The Hippodrome Tea Garden was almost completely full when Zelfa Halman arrived for her, albeit flexible, appointment with Mehmet Suleyman. Dressed in a very eye-catching dress of red and black, the psychiatrist looked, to Orhan Tepe at least, like a woman who had been home and chosen her ensemble very carefully. He did not imagine she could have had very much sleep, and as she came towards him in response to his shout of recognition, he could see that her eyes were heavy with fatigue.
'I hate it when it's as hot as this,' she said as she slumped down opposite Tepe who was seated at a table facing the Hippodrome itself. 'I wonder where it's all going to end – when my blood's going to start to boil in my veins.'
'Miss Emin must be very uncomfortable down in the cells,' Tepe said as he beckoned one of the waiters towards him. 'What would you like to drink, Doctor?'
'Coke would be good.'
He ordered her drink plus another peach tea for himself before launching once again into the subject of Latife Emin. 'So, I mean, er, will you, um, have to see Miss Emin, professionally, Doctor, or…' Although he liked her, Tepe's memories of various of his dubious relatives always made him rather uncomfortable around Zelfa Halman.
'No.' She put a cigarette between her lips and lit it. 'Not from what I've seen of her. You don't have to be crazy to perform an act of spite.'
Tepe frowned. 'Yes, but most people don't usually kill innocent people out of spite, do they?'
'No, but I expect some of us would like to,' she said with a smile. 'And besides, I think she showed amazing restraint to have left it so long.'
'What do you mean?'
'I think that I would probably have stabbed the lovely Tansu and then hurled her into the Bosphorus years ago.'
'Oh.' Tepe laughed briefly before becoming grave once again. 'Well, yes, that I could understand. But to kill Ruya Urfa just to get at her sister…'
'Latife Emin is a clever woman,' the doctor said. She smiled up at the waiter who had arrived with their drinks. 'Erol is, was, whatever, probably Tansu's last chance with a younger man. So if Latife set her sister's mind against him then that might well have hurt Tansu for the rest of her life. After all, had Latife's crime gone undetected, then Tansu would never have understood why Erol couldn't marry her and that would have really stung.’
'She's still not going to be able to marry him though, is she? I mean,' he leaned forward in order to whisper, 'if he's one of those then…'
'No. Yezidis don't marry out This won't do a lot for Erol's career either.'
Orhan Tepe sniffed. 'Well, if he's one of those he doesn't deserve a career. They do disgusting things, those people.'
'Oh, bollocks,' Zelfa Halman exploded, briefly slipping back into her native tongue. 'Yezidis don't really rape everything in sight and eat their own young, you know! They're not evil or-'
'But they worship Shaitan!'
Zelfa Halman took a long gulp from her glass before she said, 'Their own conception of him, yes. But in their canon Shaitan has been restored to goodness by God and so the idea that they are evil is preposterous. Anyway, we don't know that people will hold it against him. I like to think the Turkish public are more intelligent than that.'
‘I still don't like it,' Tepe said darkly. 'It makes me feel uncomfortable.'
'Well, that's your problem,' the doctor replied. She leaned back in order to fan her hot face and caught sight of Suleyman. She waved to him.
As he walked towards the table, the tired young inspector smiled. ‘I hadn't realised it was quite so hot,' he said farming his body with the edges of his jacket.
Zelfa Halman passed her glass of Coke over to him with a ghost of a smile.
Tepe who like so many of his fellows possessed more than a sneaking suspicion as to what existed between this pair, started to move up and away from his chair.
'Oh, are you going?' Zelfa asked.
'I'd better,' Tepe said looking across at Suleyman. 'Sir.'
'You don't have to go, Tepe.' 'I think I'd better,' the younger man replied. 'Reports and…'
'Well, don't bother to pay when you go,' Zelfa said with a smile. 'I'll pay for your tea.' 'Oh, well, er, thank you, er…' 'It's OK.'
As Tepe threaded his way out of the tea garden, Suleyman slipped into what had been his seat. 'Hello,' he said to Zelfa sitting opposite him.
'Hello.'
Although weary, her face was set in an expression not without humour. Suleyman, consequently, smiled.
'I haven't come to beg,' he said, placing her glass carefully back in front of her, 'but if you have decided not to return to Ireland…'
Zelfa Halman leaned forward, a quizzical expression crossing her face. 'Yes?'
Suleyman sighed with what appeared to be some effort. 'Well, I would quite like to, sort of, well…'
'I'm not going to help you with this, Mehmet,' she said, just the tinge of a twinkle beginning in her eyes. 'If you want something from me, you're going to have to ask for it.'
'Well
'Yes?'
He leaned forward across the table and took one of her hands in his. She did not resist which, he thought, was a good sign.
‘Now that Cengiz Temiz has been returned to his family and-'
With, to Suleyman, quite frightening rapidity, Zelfa's expression changed and she pulled her hand roughly from his. 'If this is about that report-'
'No, no, no! No!' he said, almost desperately, 'this is about, well, it's about you and me and about how now that I, er…'
'Mehmet,' she said as she replaced her fingers slowly under his, 'if this is about your wanting to take me out for a meal accompanied by large amounts of alcohol and dancing…'
'Yes.'
She smiled, 'Well, I might think about it.'
'Oh.' As the register of his voice dropped, so did his gaze. Suleyman stared at the top of the table with deep and obvious disappointment.
Zelfa Halman viewed him wryly. What a child her dashing young prince could be at times. And how delicious it would be to string out her torture of him for just a little bit longer. But then, possibly because her name was Zelfa and not Latife, she could not allow her spite to have rein over her any longer.
'Oh, OK then, yes,' she said with a dismissive wave of one hand.
His head literally sprang up from his musings. 'You mean it?' he said, looking even more like a little boy than he had before.
She laughed. 'Yes, I mean it, I do!'
He reached over and, despite the crowds all around them, Mehmet Suleyman pulled Zelfa Halman's face towards his and kissed her hard upon the lips. When he did finally release her from his embrace he saw that she was smiling.
'So’ she said, after a somewhat breathless pause.
'To return to Cengiz Temiz…'
'Well, he's back with his family again, as I said. But he'll have to give evidence when the case comes to court,' Suleyman replied, a small frown now disrupting his previously ecstatic features. 'After all, he did technically take the Urfa baby unlawfully.'
'But then surely his lack of capacity to reason in the normal way will protect him from actual charges, won't it?' Zelfa asked.
Suleyman sighed. 'It should do, after all he didn't hurt Merih, did he? And with Sevan Avedykian on his side he shouldn't have any trouble. Although, as to whether his parents will ever let him out alone again, I think the future there may be less certain.'
Zelfa looked down at the table and murmured. 'Poor Cengiz. All he ever really wanted was a little love.' She looked up at him and smiled.
Suleyman smiled back. 'Lucky, aren't we?' he said softly.
She took one of his hands and squeezed it tight. 'Are you saying…'
'That I love you? Yes,' he said simply. 'Yes, I think I do. And you? What do you feel?'
Zelfa looked briefly at the other people around them before she said, 'Well, I think I've a lot more passion in my soul than any of this lot, don't you?'
'Yes, but that doesn't answer my question, does it, Zelfa?'
'No.'
Frowning now, he asked again, 'And you, your feelings? Well?'
She sighed and then, once again, slowly smiled. 'Oh, I love you right enough, Mehmet,' she said. 'Even though it scares me to death.'
And then, with uncharacteristic urgency, she took a handkerchief from the pocket of her dress and dabbed at the moisture that was collecting at the corners of her eyes.
Although Cohen left the confines of the Aya Triyada Kilisesi as soon as Kleopatra Polycarpou's funeral was at an end, Ìkmen, who was indeed accompanied by a moodily awkward Bulent, remained behind to talk to the old woman's priest, Father Yiannis.
'Kleopatra was never an easy woman, Mr Ìkmen,' the cleric said as he walked with the Turk and his son towards the front gate. 'And, in all honesty, I did know that she was having difficulties with Murad Aga prior to his disappearance all those years ago. Not, of course, that I ever imagined she might have killed him.'
'What sort of difficulties?' Ìkmen said, as he lit the cigarette that was dangling from his hps.
Father Yiannis sighed. 'Well, apparently, the eunuch or so she told me, was being unfaithful to her. I know that sounds extraordinary but-
Ìkmen smiled. 'Not quite as odd as you might think, Father.' And then lowering his voice in order to prevent his son from hearing, he said, 'A friend of mine who comes from an old Ottoman family assures me that some of these creatures were not unskilled, shall we say, in the bedroom.'
'Oh,' the priest reddened. 'Oh, I see, er… That would, I suppose, explain, in part-'
'Precisely.'
'Ah, well. But tragic anyway. And what with the poor man being so far from his native lands.' He sighed. 'There will not be a soul to claim his corpse now.'
Ìkmen frowned. 'But I thought that Murad was Turkish. At least I always took if for granted.
'No, actually,' the priest said gravely, 'he was of your mother's race. An Albanian. When he "left" all those years ago, I assumed it was to return to Albania.' And then he added, slightly bitterly, 'The old empire never emasculated its own, you know. Your Ottoman friend, at least, should know that.'
Ìkmen shrugged. 'I guess my mother would have known him then.'
'I should imagine so,' Father Yiannis replied. 'But it was all a very long time ago now, Mr Ìkmen.' Nodding in the direction of Bulent, he added, 'We must look to the future and, especially, to the young.'
Noticing that Bulent was now squinting in the harsh sunlight, Ìkmen wordlessly passed his sunglasses over to his son who put them on.
'Yes, that's true, Father,' Ìkmen said, smiling.
'You do know, of course, that the haman has been left to Mrs Arda?'
'Semra?' Ìkmen shrugged. 'Well, that's good. Whether she sells it or gets it going again, it means that the extra money will enable that daughter of hers to leave the streets.'
The priest frowned. ‘I understand that Mina is still in your cells right now though, Mr Ìkmen?'
'Yes,' Ìkmen said gravely. 'We cannot overlook attempted abduction charges. I mean she did intend to keep that child even after she discovered her identity. And there are drug charges too, involving her pimp who is a foreign national. It's complicated.'
'When she is released she will however have somewhere to go, though,' the priest said.
'Which is good, yes.' Ìkmen smiled.
'Yes,' Father Yiannis agreed. Then he shook hands with both Ìkmen and Bulent and returned to the confines of his church. The Ikmens, for their part, walked the short distance back up onto istiklal Caddesi and then turned left.
'Do you want some tea before we go home?' Ìkmen asked his son as they walked past a tram that was headed for Taksim Square.
'No, I want to get this suit off’ Bulent replied in his customary mumbling tone.
'It looks good on you. Smart,' his father observed. 'It's Orhan's.'
'Yes. But if you would like one of your own.. ‘
'Suits aren't really my style.'
This effectively killed the conversation and the two continued walking in silence, the tall son slouching along in front of his much shorter father, Ìkmen tried to divert himself from his son's mood by looking into the windows of shops and restaurants as he went but eventually he felt that he had to speak again, he had to try. In spite of the heat and his own lack of fitness, Ìkmen speeded up until he drew level with Bulent's bowed shoulders.
'What is your problem, Bulent?' he asked, attempting but failing to catch his son's eye.
'What do you mean?',
'I mean, why is it that you can behave so well with others, like you did in the church just now, and yet when it comes to myself and your mother and indeed anyone who has authority over you-'
'I don't want to talk about it'
'No, you never do.'
'Look,' the boy turned to face his father now, an almost violent expression crossing his eyes. 'You're not at work so don't try to come on to me like a policeman, OK?'
‘I’m not'
'You are.'
Resisting, for once, the urge to fly into a rage and men justify it with his authority over his son, tactics which so far had not worked, Ìkmen took a deep, calming breath before he spoke again.
'So is it my job? Does it bother you that I'm a policeman? Is it that I'm an establishment figure?'
The boy just shrugged.
'I mean that could explain your drinking and-' 'No.'
'Then is it your older brothers and sister?' Ìkmen asked, now quite desperate for some sort of explanation from his son. 'Are you jealous of their achievements? Do you feel that you have to try and live up to them?'
'What, be a doctor?' Bulent sneered. 'Not likely!' 'Well what than?'
1 don't want to talk about this any more.' Thrusting his hands deep into the pockets of his brother's suit, Bulent walked off rapidly.
'Bulent!’
Once again Ìkmen found himself chasing, breathlessly, after this miserable boy – a boy who, if he wasn't too careful, was going to cause his father to have a heart attack.
'Bulent!'
The boy stopped and then rounded on his father with an expression of such naked animosity that for a moment Ìkmen was rendered speechless.
'What?'
'Bulent…' And then he saw that a trickle of water was dripping from underneath the sunglasses he had given his son. 'Bulent, are you c-'
'No!' He turned away quickly in order, it was easy for Ìkmen to see, to wipe the tears from his eyes.
'Oh yes you are,' Ìkmen said and then quickly changing to a far older strategy, he firmly took hold of his son's arm and steered him into a small and shady side street.
'Now, what’s the matter, Bulent?' he said sternly. 'No more games, no more guessing. Just tell me what is going on in your brain and tell me now.'
'I can't.'
'Yes, you can’ his father said, watching all the time to check that the small group of headscarfed women opposite did not take too much notice of them.
'Why do you have a problem with authority? Why can't you keep the simplest job? You're not stupid! Why are you drinking?'
'Well, if I'm going to die in the very near future then why not!'
For a moment the world and everything in it came to a halt as Ìkmen attempted to come to terms with what his son had just said.
'Die?'
'Well, I'm going to the army soon, aren't I?' Bulent spat venomously. 'Same thing!' He dropped his voice. 'And if I don't get killed then I'll go mad like Yusuf
Cohen and that terrifies me. As soon as I heard about him I just lost it, you know: It's not that I'm afraid to fight because I'm not But I don't want to kill people: Some of my friends' families came from the east Why should I want to kill them?'
'Bulent, you don't even know where you'll be sent yet And anyway, it's not for a couple of years. You might not-'
'Dad, I'm not going in as an officer. Boys like me are just gun fodder.'
Ìkmen put his hand gently on his son's shoulder and led him over to a small table that stood in front of a tiny kebabci. 'Let's have some ayran and cool down a bit,' he said.
After settling Bulent into a seat, Ìkmen went up to the window and bought the drinks. When he returned, his son was looking disconsolately at the ground.
'Bulent,' Ìkmen said, sitting down opposite the boy, 'service is, I fear, just part of life. I did it, your brother Sinan has served…'
'Sinan went in as an officer.'
'Because he has a university degree, yes.'
Bulent downed his ayran in one gulp. 'Some boys get bought out and I did think of asking Uncle Halil to do that for me but then I thought that was unfair. He's always bankrolling this family. And anyway he would think I was a coward. Others disappear to other countries, but… but I couldn't do that because of your job. How would it look if a senior policeman's son ran away from his duty?'
Ìkmen sighed. So this was it, was it? All this trouble was about Bulent wanting to live a little before he died – if he died, Ìkmen could not even begin to think about an easy answer to Bulent's conundrum. The boy was right, if he deserted it would look bad for Ìkmen himself and with all the mouths he had to feed, that was not a prospect he wanted to face. Not that he would express this to his son. And then Bulent's thoughts about the action that was not really a war, that raged year in and year out in the eastern provinces, accorded with Ìkmen's own opinions. Although he would never have voiced his thoughts in public and despite the fact that Ìkmen believed that a lot of the PKK fighters were just common murderers, he knew some Kurdish nationals, liked many and was naturally averse to killing anyone or anything. But none of this was any help to his son.
If it's any comfort,' he said as. he placed his half-finished ayran back onto the table, 'I don't think that you're a coward. I think your aversion to killing people is commendable.' He smiled. 'I know I've never been a very good example to you with regard to bad habits, getting you to go and buy alcohol for me and… But your mother and I must have done something right to make you think like this. When you kill, even for the security of your country, you have to live with that knowledge for the rest of your life and that's not easy.'
For the first time that day, Bulent smiled. 'Thanks for understanding, Dad.'
'Not that I can help you at all,' Ìkmen said with a shrug. 'I can't'
'If I knew I was going to be drafted to Cyprus, I'd be OK,' Bulent said, frowning down at the ground once again.
'As you know, my son, I am not a religious man,' Ìkmen said, placing a warm hand on his son's shoulder, 'but perhaps just this once we should trust to Allah or whoever or whatever controls the universe. There is nothing we can do but wait and see and, as your mother would say, Insallah you will go to Cyprus.'
'Yes.' Bulent took his cigarettes out of his pocket and offered one to his father. 'Sinan says that as Turks we sit uneasily in this world. We live so much like the Europeans now, well in the city we do anyway, and yet we still need our women to be chaste, we still go out to fight in what Sinan calls a tribal war.'
Ìkmen, declining on principle his teenage son's cigarettes in favour of his own, lit up and smiled. 'Sinan is right and not so right at the same time. Even in civilised England, they engage in their own tribal war in Northern Ireland. Dr Halman can tell you something about that if you wish. But there are no absolutes anywhere, Bulent, absolutes are impossible.
In this so-called Turkish city of ours we live alongside a lot of anomalies. A so-called enemy can join and care about the forces of law, a Greek can marry a castrated relic of the old Ottoman system.' 'And then kill him.'
'For her own reasons, yes. But the human condition, whether one is Turkish, American, Greek or whatever, is nothing if not entirely idiosyncratic. And when your papers arrive to call you to arms, you and you alone will have to make a decision about that. And you will have to do that without reference to either me or your family or even your country. It's your life, Bulent, and whatever values inform your soul will be all that can and will count And whatever your decision, I will always love you, just as my father always loved me, even after I joined what he always liked to call the "fucking bastard" police.'
But Bulent didn't speak after that. Just a tiny breeze was blowing up from the Bosphorus now and he had closed his eyes in order to enjoy fully the coolness on his body and face. Responding to that which all humans share, the need for a moment of peace.
'Oh,' Mehmet Suleyman said as he approached his office door and saw the figure of Erol Urfa standing in front of it 'Tansu Hanim is downstairs, did you come-'
'Tansu is not too interested in seeing me right now,' the singer said with a sad smile.
'Ah. I understand.'
'No, you don't.' Erol shrugged. 'But then why should you.'
Embarrassed by what he now saw as a faux pas on his part, Suleyman opened the door and showed his guest into his office.
'I just came to assure you that as soon as I have buried Ruya, I will come back to the city.' He placed a small piece of paper covered in rather childish writing on Suleyman's desk. 'Here is my address.'
Suleyman took the paper and glanced at it 'You will have to report to the station in Hakkari. If you can let me know when you are going, I can inform them.'
'Yes.'
The cacophony of honking car horns from outside the window seemed to grow louder as the two men were silent for a few moments, until Erol said, 'When the trial is over I will take Merih, my parents and sisters to Germany.'
Suleyman frowned.
'I am told that Shaitan has a different shape there,' the singer continued. His tone was one of sadness rather than bitterness.
'Will you sing there?'
'I have made more money in three years than most men make in their whole lives and fame, for me, has become… difficult.'
'I see.'
'We are all leaving our traditional homes now,
Inspector, whether they're in this country, Iraq or Syria.' He got up and walked thoughtfully towards the window. 'My kind. We need to be where peacocks mean nothing to men, where people worship only money.'
'Do you not fear that you may become something of an oddity in those lands? Don't you think you might be even more misunderstood?'
Erol turned, the light from the window behind him throwing his face into a darkened pit of shadows. 'I live in hope that questions about a man's religion are questions that the Europeans do not ask.'
Suleyman looked doubtful. 'I think that they do, Mr Urfa. I think that despite what you might think you believe about their overt materialism, such fundamental differences do have meaning for them too. It was, after all, the Europeans who devised the Court of the Inquisition.'
Erol frowned 'The what?'
'Many centuries ago,' Suleyman explained, 'the Christians in Europe devised a special type of court to try anyone suspected of consorting with demons. They tortured, burnt and hung tens of thousands of people.'
'But not now. They don't do that now.'
'No.' Suleyman smiled. 'No, they don't But what Fm saying to you, Mr Urfa, is that they did. They have a history, just like us, of fear and prejudice against that which they do not understand. And just because they do not feel this way now, perhaps, that doesn't mean that they will not do so in the future. Things change.'
'You're saying I will never be safe, wherever I go?'
'With the cultural ground, metaphorically, shifting beneath our feet every minute of the day, who amongst us is safe?' Suleyman smiled. 'My family, Mr Urfa, once commanded vast armies. We were Ottomans, we ruled the rest of you.' He sighed. 'But now I am a Turk just like everybody else and, like a Turk, I must sometimes decide whether I am going to eat today or just simply smoke a few cigarettes. No one is safe from change, Mr Urfa, no one.'
Tansu Hamm stood in silence as Orhan Tepe noted the time, 3.15 p.m. and date, August 16th, of her entrance into the cells.
'Is Latife Hanim prepared?' he asked the duty officer who was, though responsive, almost dozing under the influence of the extreme heat.
'Yes.'
'Right' And then turning to the white-faced woman at his back he said, 'If you'd like to come this way, madam.'
Wordlessly the woman, who was now clad in a very simple black dress, her face almost devoid of all make-up, followed him. For his part, had Orhan Tepe not known that this visitor was indeed Turkey's own true darling, he would never have guessed. Not only was she dressed much more simply than she had been the previous night, she also looked older, much older.
There were two sets of locks to get through in order to gain entry to the festering concrete box in which Latife Emin was now incarcerated. After checking that his charge was ready for her visit via the observation flap in the door, Tepe opened first the top and then the bottom set of locks.
'I'll be outside,' he said as he ushered the woman in black into the presence of her counterpart in grey.
'That won't be necessary,' the singer said, her eyes fixed hard upon those of her sister.
Tepe closed the door on the two silent, standing women. The crackle of fury in the air was so tangible as to be almost audible. But Tepe left them anyway -stood outside with a cigarette and looked up and down at the grim cell walls.
Ten minutes later when he came to tell Tansu that her time was up, the two women were still standing exactly where they had been when he left them. Silent, stone-like, the only movement between them the monstrously developed feeling of fury that, Tepe felt, would utterly crush and destroy bom the women, and him if he didn't leave soon.
Quite what had passed between them neither Tepe nor anyone else would ever know. Or indeed want to know.