‘It’s a ridiculously inefficient vehicle to have in a city,’ İkmen said to the technician charged with guiding him around the mangled car. ‘Must cost a fortune to fill up the tank. Did you find much in it?’
‘A couple of packets of cigarettes and a copy of
Time Out İstanbul
.’
‘That’s all?’
‘That’s all.’
‘Çetin!’
He turned to find himself looking into the small, red face of Dr Adem Arslan, the leader of the forensic team working on the Yaşar Uzun case.
‘Dr Arslan.’ İkmen shook his outstretched hand.
‘If you want to have a look around the vehicle, feel free,’ the doctor said. ‘We’ve finished with it now.’
‘You’ve got everything you can from it?’
‘I hope so.’ Arslan dug into his lab coat pocket and removed a packet of cigarettes and a lighter. ‘You know I’m still amazed that whoever killed the carpet dealer bothered to brush over the tyre tracks leading down into the gorge from the road. The mob don’t usually bother to try and cover anything up.’
‘No. But then maybe we’ve got a new hit-man in town.’
‘A Beretta-wielding person with a broom. What a strange thought. By the way, have you turned your gun in to ballistics yet, Çetin?’
İkmen, walking around the large, twisted Jeep said, ‘No. But I will do.’
‘I know you didn’t kill the carpet dealer, but the weapon used was a Beretta which you lot do use. It is just possible that the victim did stop for some reason. Why not a police officer – the broom notwithstanding . . .’ He lit a cigarette while İkmen looked into the open hatch at the back of the vehicle. ‘This Jeep is called a Wrangler, by the way. A lot of money for not a great deal beyond style in my opinion.’
‘Four seats, but no boot space,’ İkmen said as he peered inside.
‘There’s a small gap behind the back seats which I suspect is supposed to be used for luggage,’ Arslan replied.
Talk of guns had made İkmen remember that he had promised Arto Sarkissian he would have a word with Mehmet Süleyman about the Armenian’s concerns about evidence. He was just mouthing this to himself so that he wouldn’t forget when he noticed something inside the car. He looked up at Adem Arslan and said, ‘This, behind the back seats here . . .’
‘Oh, that old rug? We took whatever samples we could get off it and then put it back. There’s a rotten old sandalwood box with it, too. Broke to bits in the crash, I imagine. Terrible stained old rug, that is. I can’t think why the carpet dealer would have wanted it.’
But İkmen knew or felt that he did. The central motif on what was indeed a very, very dirty rug was tree-like, unusual and familiar. He took his copy of the Lawrence carpet photograph out of his pocket and held it up against the poor, stained thing in the back of the Jeep. He knew he wasn’t mistaken, because he could hardly breathe. He felt his heart literally jump up and down in his chest.
‘Adem,’ he said once he had managed to calm himself down, ‘I’m going to have to take this off you.’
Chapter 7
Mehmet Süleyman stood in front of his boss’s considerable desk and said, ‘Sir, I believe this peeper is far more dangerous than even we first thought. His criteria for preying upon people are wider than I for one, first imagined.’
Commissioner Ardıç, Süleyman’s corpulent and perpetually tired superior, said, ‘Mürsel has told us that the peeper is on some sort of moral crusade. We know he doesn’t like gangsters or queers – although he does seem to have tendencies himself. What can you do? Sit down, will you, Süleyman? I can’t keep on looking up at you like this.’
Süleyman sat. ‘Esad Benmayor, a secular Jewish boy, was an early victim,’ he said. ‘The peeper didn’t hurt him but the boy had a nasty shock. I assumed that Esad was gay, if in denial, but he isn’t. He has a very pious Muslim girlfriend and last September, just before the attack, Esad converted to Islam.’
‘And you think that the boy’s interest in religion was what prompted the attack?’
‘I think that this man sees himself as some sort of rational cleansing system, if you like, rooting out the morally reprehensible and what he sees as the superstitious and the irrational. It’s a kind of Nietzschian superman sort of . . .’
‘The man is off his head,’ Ardıç said. ‘What his politics might be is of no concern to us.’
‘Sir, he’s targeting people at a very basic level,’ Süleyman continued. ‘Nizam Tapan was a rent boy and morally reprehensible. Most of the other boys actively cruised for men. Esad has gone from being a secular person to a committed follower of Islam. Cabbar Soylu may have ordered the murder of a defenceless hospital patient . . .’
‘Or not,’ Ardıç responded darkly. ‘As I’ve told you, Süleyman, I’m not happy about Melik being out among the jandarma in Hakkari. They know nothing about a murder at a mental hospital in Van.’
‘Well somebody does, as I told you, sir,’ Süleyman said. ‘Someone from the Hakkari station called here . . .’
‘Yes, yes.’ Ardıç reached across his desk and took a large black cigar out of a wooden box. ‘But you know as well as I do that we cannot actually arrest this peeper.’
‘No, sir.’
‘So what we do or do not know about him . . .’
‘Sir, I think that a wider section of the public may be at risk . . .’
‘Murderers and religious converts.’ Ardıç cleared his throat before lighting up his big cigar. ‘Forgive me if I don’t begin to weep.’
‘If the peeper is, in his eyes, cleaning up society, where will he stop, eh? Who will be his next victim? A female prostitute? A military draft dodger? A minister of religion?’
Ardıç’s face darkened.
‘Sir, I just work, where I can, with Mürsel. I don’t have access, as you do, to those who control him. This peeper is one of their people. They need to do something! I’ve spoken to Mürsel but he’s so casual . . .’
‘Maybe he gives that impression,’ Ardıç said. ‘But, look, when one of these sorts of people loses their mind or control or whatever you call it, it isn’t as simple as just picking up some gangster. This man has been trained to kill in ways we can’t even imagine. He is fitter than you and I have ever been, he knows more about breaking and entering, about making himself invisible . . .’ He wiped his now sweating brow with a handkerchief. ‘On top of that he is technically brilliant, I am told.’
‘And so if he decides to really let himself loose on members of the public he doesn’t like . . .’
‘We don’t know what we’re dealing with. We have to let Mürsel’s people take the lead on this.’
‘So when the peeper completely loses control, we look as if we just don’t care!’
‘Süleyman, there is nothing I can do!’ Ardıç thundered.
‘But sir, we don’t know who he’s going to take against next.’ Süleyman shook his head and continued, ‘It could be anyone. Sir, my wife is a psychiatrist, some people see them as little short of magicians, products of drug-crazed Freudian dreams . . .’
‘Now you’re letting your imagination run away with you!’ Ardıç said. ‘There is no reason to believe that your wife or mine or anyone we know is at risk. This man targets the morally reprehensible.’
‘Esad Benmayor isn’t morally reprehensible,’ Süleyman responded darkly. ‘He’s a very nice, personable boy.’
Ardıç sighed, looked up at the ceiling, and then said, ‘I am doing what I can. You must continue to do what you can.’ He then looked back at the younger man. ‘Have you handed your Beretta in to ballistics yet?’
‘For this carpet dealer business?’
‘Yes.’
‘No, not yet.’ Deflated now, Süleyman stood. ‘Sir, if that will . . .’
‘Süleyman, just remember that whenever one deals with Mürsel and his ilk, things are never what they may seem.’ He gave him what Süleyman felt was a significant look.
‘Sir?’
But then the look disappeared to be replaced by his usual stern and disapproving expression. ‘Hand your gun in to ballistics today,’ he said. ‘I want to clear all of our people as soon as I can.’
He then waved a dismissive hand towards Süleyman who left immediately. Outside in the corridor, he stood for a moment while he considered what had just been said. Obviously Ardıç knew more about the peeper and the investigation into his activities than he was prepared to admit to. The implication, however, could, Süleyman felt, mean that perhaps Mürsel’s people were further along in their inquiries than he had thought. He hoped that was the case. He hoped that what Ardıç had meant didn’t mean that he was just simply totally and utterly in the dark.
‘Do you recognise this?’ İkmen said as he spread the discoloured and stained rug carefully out on the floor. Filthy though it was, that delicate weeping tree, gently held inside the mihrab prayer niche, glowed incandescently up into the room. He looked away from it quickly, afraid he might be tempted to stare.
The young man pulled a face. ‘No. Why?’
İkmen looked at the elderly woman sitting next to him, her face turned towards the wall, and said, ‘Because, Mr Uzun, this carpet belonged to your brother Yaşar.’
‘Yaşar had a lot of carpets, Inspector,’ the young man responded harshly. ‘He was a carpet dealer, you know.’
‘Yes . . .’
Yaşar Uzun’s younger brother Ara and his mother Bülbül had arrived from Antalya early that afternoon. They had gone straight to Raşit Ulusan’s shop, which was where İkmen was talking to them now. In the little office at the back of the shop, he was displaying what he was certain – for he knew it down to the soles of his feet – was the Lawrence Kerman to the tired and visibly distressed pair.
‘Mrs Uzun? Could you look at the carpet please?’
She didn’t. Instead, seemingly ignoring İkmen, she said to her son, ‘Ara, Raşit Bey has kindly made some arrangements for your brother’s funeral. Will you please . . .’
‘Mrs Uzun,’ İkmen said, ‘we cannot yet release your son’s body . . .’
She stared at him pointedly whilst still speaking to her son, ‘Ara, go to Raşit Bey, there’s a good boy.’
‘Mother . . .’
‘Go!’
İkmen found himself looking into eyes that did not tolerate disobedience. They were not unlike his wife’s eyes when she was angry. Ara Uzun left without another word.
It wasn’t every day that İkmen found himself being stared down by an elderly woman in a headscarf. Bülbül Uzun had to be at least sixty-five and yet her eyes were as clear and as threatening as those of any spirited woman half her age. After a pause, during which İkmen knew she was listening to make sure that her son had gone, she said, ‘So you found the Kerman, Inspector. How did you know about it?’
İkmen told her about the Englishman Peter Melly and what her son had required him to pay for the rug so far.
‘It’s my job to first make sure that Mr Melly did give your son the money that he claims to have given him,’ İkmen said. ‘Second, I have to find out whether the Kerman is indeed worth what Yaşar claimed it was, and third, I have to establish who in fact owns the rug now that your son has sadly died. I need your help, Mrs Uzun.’
She sat impassively, studiously ignoring the carpet at her feet before she finally looked down and said, ‘It’s a long story.’
‘I have time,’ İkmen said as he lit up a cigarette and then leaned back into Raşit Ulusan’s big leather chair.
‘My husband’s brother came into possession of the carpet in the early 1980s,’ Bülbül Uzun began. ‘He worked on a gulet, the Blue Cruise, you know?’
‘Yes.’ İkmen knew, but he’d never been. The idea of the Blue Cruise was started by the writer and painter Cevat şakir Kabaağaç who sailed around the Aegean and Western Mediterranean in a traditional wooden yacht, called a gulet, back in the 1930s. In more recent years the Blue Cruise had become the preserve of mainly the wealthy and the foreign.
‘My brother-in-law was a deck hand,’ Bülbül Uzun continued. ‘In other words, a servant for the foreigners on the cruise. On this occasion the foreigners were English. I don’t know how many there were but there was an old man and his son. They had been in İstanbul before coming down to Fethiye for the cruise, and they came on board with many things including the Kerman rug.’
‘Do you know where they got it from?’ İkmen asked.
‘I’m coming to that!’ Bülbül Uzun said tetchily. ‘Allah! You are an impatient man! Kemal, my brother-in-law, he spoke very good English.’
‘He is deceased?’
‘Along with my husband, his brother, yes,’ she said. ‘Kemal carried the luggage on board for the old man and his son. One of the things that he noticed was a very ornate sandalwood box. He asked what it was and the younger man began to tell him something about it being an heirloom, when the older man told him to be quiet. Kemal was, of course, as you would be, very intrigued.’ She cleared her throat. ‘Well, one night when nearly all of the guests were up on deck, Kemal heard the younger man in conversation with another Englishman. They were both drunk and the one told the other that he had a box with a carpet inside that once belonged to the Englishman Lawrence of Arabia. He said that many years before, his father had been given the carpet by Lawrence’s own hands. But he, the father, had then given it to someone else. By chance it turned up in İstanbul where the old man first recognised the box and then bought both that and the rug inside from a dealer who, he said, had no idea what it really was. He boasted, this son, about what the carpet might be worth. He said that it was stained with the blood of young Turks that Lawrence had killed in the desert. He blew up our troop trains, this Lawrence, and he stole this carpet from one that he destroyed outside a place called Ma’an. It is, I think, in Arabia. Kemal wrote that name down on a piece of paper.’
İkmen stubbed out one cigarette and then lit another. ‘The sandalwood box you spoke of was destroyed when your son’s car crashed into the trees of the Belgrad forest,’ he said. ‘So . . .’
‘It is not my place to speak ill of the dead,’ Bülbül Uzun continued, ‘but my brother-in-law Kemal was not an honest man. When the gulet stopped at Kaş the following day, when all the passengers got off, he stole the sandalwood box from the cabin of the old man. He hid it in the house of a loose woman he had been seeing in Kaş for a few months so that when the police came, which he knew they would, they would find no box or carpet in his possession. When the cruise was over he came home to Antalya with the box and the carpet and he told my husband, Orhan, all about it.’