Hotel Bosphorus (7 page)

Yeşilköy is also on the coast of the Marmara Sea and is one of the outlying districts of Istanbul where you see some greenery, and houses with gardens. Of course, for that reason, house prices there used to be at a premium. I say “used to be” because that was the case until the Marmara earthquake. Although it hasn't been proved that the ground in that district has little resistance to earthquakes, anyone in a position to move away from Yeşilköy and the surrounding area has done so. Now, Yeşilköy consists of kebab restaurants trying to evoke memories of better days, and widows and pensioners who don't have enough money to move out.

 

We left the shop and Batuhan ran ahead to open the door of his red Renault. I thought this choice of car was rather colourful for a policeman, or at any rate for a murder detective.

We hardly spoke as we drove along the road from Kuledibi to Yeşilköy. I took advantage of not being the driver to think about the last four days. It was only four days since I had driven along this road – with completely different thoughts in my head.

The Saçıkara kebab restaurant in Yeşilköy was still standing, and it was open, thank God. I hadn't visited it for years, and now I couldn't even remember why I had gone there then.

The inside was like a vast hangar. Under the fluorescent ceiling lights, even rosy-cheeked Turks looked like pasty Scandinavians. For some reason I can't fathom, Turks really love fluorescent lighting. I've never liked its glaring brightness, or the restaurant's overweight middle-class regulars. The ventilation unit was working full pelt to cool all those strange people who eat kebabs in the heat of summer, myself included. At that moment, I didn't like the place at all, or perhaps I should just say I wasn't crazy about it.

I practically ran to the most distant table.

We ordered a couple of meze dishes, a kebab with aubergine, and
rakı
. I don't care much for kebabs made from fatty meat and, to be honest, I don't really like
rakı
either; the mere smell of it is enough to turn my stomach. For that reason, I spent the whole evening raising my glass and just pretending to drink.

Thinking that our conversation was not going to venture beyond types of kebab, detective stories, problems of the police profession, or Turkish politics, I raised my
rakı
glass once again and, feeling nausea in my throat, asked hoarsely, “Who do you think could have murdered Müller?” Just like that, out of the blue. “Earlier today at the shop, you said you suspected that Müller's main job was not that of film director, but…” All of a sudden, I couldn't decide how to finish the sentence. I didn't want to scare off Batuhan, yet I didn't know how to put the question indirectly. Perhaps my Turkish was not as good as I thought. Or? Or it was
simply a personal characteristic of mine? All my life, I've been a direct person. I wasn't going to change suddenly just because I wanted Batuhan to talk. In any case, this game of talking round the issue was beginning to get tiresome.

“Inspector,” I said. I slid my backside around on the chair, turned to the left and put my right elbow on the table with my hand under my chin. I thought I looked rather impressive, like a female columnist, as I gazed straight at the man sitting opposite me. “You're a fellow reader of crime fiction, so I think you'll understand me. Deep down, we all want to be a detective really…”

“Or a murderer,” said Batuhan.

“I must say, I've never heard of a crime-fiction reader who turns into a murderer,” I said. I smiled, adding, “Or am I on your list of suspects? Is it because I read detective stories?”

“Well you not only read them, you sell them too,” he said, laughing at his own joke.

“Wonderful. A female seller of crime fiction commits a murder. But why?”

“Because the murder victim had deserted the bookseller's close friend and was about to sack her.”

“What do you mean?” I said. I think we'd stopped playing games by then.

“According to what we've learnt, your friend Petra was in love with Müller. Just about everyone in the film crew knew that. Apparently, Müller and Petra had a row after they arrived in Istanbul and Müller decided to give the starring role to a Turkish actress called Ayla Özdal. In short, when Müller was killed, Petra was about to confront him on both these counts.”

It was no longer possible for me to maintain my female columnist pose. I now understood what Batuhan had meant when earlier that evening he had said, “I don't think we'll learn anything more of interest from the statements of the film crew.” They'd already obtained enough interesting material from those statements.

I reached out for a cigarette from the packet on the table and lit it with the lighter he held out for me. As I exhaled, I leaned my head slightly to the right, looked at him seriously and rather disdainfully, and said coldly:

“Do you think that is sufficient motive for a normal person to commit murder? I mean, the person we're talking about isn't a cold-blooded murderer; she's an ordinary person, like you or me. In fact she's someone with more to lose than either of us. She's a famous actress.” The extent of Petra's fame was perhaps questionable, but that was not our priority just then.

“As far as I'm concerned, what I said constitutes a very possible motive for murder. For someone famous, it's not insignificant to lose both a lover and a job at the same time.” He took a large gulp of his iced
rakı
. It wasn't a pretty sight.

“Anyway, I'm not saying that Miss Vogel committed the murder. We don't have sufficient evidence to prove that. As you know, everyone is innocent until proven guilty.” He uttered this last sentence somewhat arrogantly and took a mouthful of
rakı
. If he went on like this, he would very soon be drunk.

“Let's suppose that Kurt Müller intended to sack your friend. Mind you, I'm not saying he was, we're merely discussing possibilities. There may be nothing in it, we're still investigating.” He also lit a cigarette. “But if that is the case, Miss Vogel would have had more to
gain financially if Müller had been killed after he broke the contract.” He rubbed his fingers as if counting out banknotes.

If you ask me, Turks have started to take money matters more seriously since the latest economic crisis. He continued to bombard me with words without letting me get a word in edgeways.

“If Müller had been killed a few days later, the contract your friend signed would have been cancelled by the film company and, according to the conditions of the contract, Miss Vogel would have had full rights to compensation.” He stopped for a moment and grinned at me.

“Whichever way you look at it, it doesn't look good for Miss Vogel,” he said.

“And the police,” I thought, “there's something vulgar about them, even when they're handsome.”

“Is Petra the only person on your list of suspects?” I asked.

“No, no,” he replied unconvincingly.

“So who else is there?”

He shrugged his shoulders and muttered something.

“For instance, could this be a crime of passion?” I asked.

“The underlying motive for the murder might be love, money or revenge. But what mainly interests us is who committed the crime, not the reasons why. We leave it to lawyers to prove motives and establish what bearing they have on the crime,” he said. He looked at me as if to measure the effect of his grand words on me. His eyes had become bloodshot from the
rakı
. I realized then that I no longer found him attractive and that the situation had become serious. I was in a place that I only
knew about from going to the airport, and I was eating kebab and drinking
rakı
with a policeman who thought my friend Petra was a murderer.

When I awoke the next morning, the air had not yet started to heat up. I phoned the corner shop to give them my order. The shop owner Hamdi had noticed that I'd been buying all the papers for the last two days. As he filled the basket I'd lowered from my window, he grinned up at me and asked, “What's up, Kati? Keeping track of world events then?”

Please! I really don't need such a display of intimacy first thing in the morning. But I must be getting used to these Turkish ways because I just laughed it off.

A two-day-old murder was obviously stale news as far as the newspapers were concerned, because a photograph of film star Ayla Özdal showing her bum while playing tennis appeared to be more appealing than a passport photo of Müller's pock-marked face.

All the papers I bought gave plenty of space to what Ayla Özdal had said the previous day at a press conference with her manager. She had said mournfully that her great talent was not appreciated in Turkey, and that while she had all the qualities necessary for representing Turkish cinema abroad, this chance had been snatched from her at the last minute because of a crazy murder. Her manager spoke a bit more sense. He said it was true that, following the murder of the director, the future of the film was uncertain, but Ayla was Turkish cinema's greatest asset and she would undoubtedly receive new offers and represent her country abroad excellently.

After giving details of Ayla Özdal's press conference, the newspapers ended with a few lines saying that Müller's murderer had not yet been caught, but that
finding this person was definitely a top priority for the Istanbul police.

I immediately called Petra. I think I woke her up this time.

“The Turkish papers are full of news today that you were about to be sacked,” I said, instead of saying good morning. I was cross with Petra because of the things I'd heard from dubious sources which made her the number-one suspect, but not so cross that I wasn't prepared to ask her to her face whether or not she was Müller's lover.

“About to be sacked? Where did that come from?” she said. I don't think she was fully awake yet.

“That's what the papers are saying,” I said. For a moment we both remained silent, waiting for the other to speak. I didn't even consider telling Petra that I already knew this before reading about it in the papers. You only give as good as you get, or as the Turks say, I was prepared to “match her bread with an equal amount of
köfte
”, but no more.

“Was I going to be sacked?” she said. It was clear from her sleepy voice that she didn't believe it.

“Yes, apparently you were going to be sacked,” I said, thinking it would be better to speak to her when she wasn't so sleepy.

“If you like, we could meet in an hour's time in the hotel lobby, go for breakfast somewhere, and I'll translate what the Turkish papers are saying.”

After that, I immediately phoned Lale.

Lale was publishing director at Turkey's biggest newspaper,
Günebakan
. She therefore had access, and could get me access, to information from police and reporters. She was also my closest friend, as you know.
She promised to arrange for me to meet two reporters who had been writing about the murder for
Günebakan
over the last two days. Her secretary would phone in ten minutes to give me a time and place.

While waiting for the secretary to phone, I passed the time in front of the wardrobe trying to decide what to wear. Actually, it was a complete waste of time. I could wear anything because as soon as I left the house, I would be bathed in sweat. In the end, I put on an open-necked white cotton T-shirt and mauve linen trousers, and sat down at the dressing table. As I applied blue shadow to my right eye, the phone rang. It was Lale's secretary. Two reporters would be waiting for me in the Kuledibi café at four o'clock. What a great person Lale was. Despite being so busy, she'd taken the trouble to consider where might be the best place for me to have a meeting. No one else in her position as publishing director of the enormous
Günebakan
would have bothered.

I hastily finished applying shadow to my other eye. This time I didn't dither over whether to take the car or not; I hailed the first passing taxi.

The number of people taking taxis had fallen owing to the economic crisis, and it seemed to me that taxi drivers had calmed down. Twice in the last four days, I'd managed to get out of a taxi without having a row. It was unbelievable.

I was early for my meeting with Petra, so I took a short stroll through the streets near the hotel. I came across a jazz bar where a cleaner was vacuuming the cigarette ash from the night before and collecting up bottles. Finding a place to sit, I put my chin in my hands and looked out towards the beautiful Bosphorus, a sight I never tired of. But this time I was just staring vacantly,
thinking about what had been discussed the previous night. Batuhan suspected Petra of carrying out the murder. That was the situation, whether I liked it or not. However, his suspicion made no sense if, as he'd let slip in the shop, Müller was not really a film director.

 

I saw Petra waiting for me as I entered the hotel lobby through the main sliding doors.

We strolled along the tree-lined road, full of exhaust fumes, which led to the tea gardens in Ortaköy, chatting about German cinema, without any mention of the film or its director. With some
simits
from a street seller and mature
kaşar
cheese from a corner shop near the square in Ortaköy, we went to sit in the tea garden nearest to the sea. Ortaköy is an interesting district. The gulf between classes, which is glaringly obvious in Istanbul, is just as evident here but somehow doesn't oppress people. For instance, we were sitting in a fairly cheap municipal tea garden, yet just behind the garden we could see luxury chauffeured cars queuing up at the doors of the former Esma Sultan Palace for a society wedding. Ortaköy is one of several districts in Istanbul where the jet-set and ordinary people can live and enjoy themselves in close proximity.