A Passion for Killing (29 page)

‘I can’t believe that my friend Abdullah Ergin, you know, the Tourism . . .’

‘I know what Ergin does for a living, constable,’ Ayşe said as she tried to carefully rub her eyes without disturbing her make-up.

‘I can’t believe he’d kill anyone,’ Yıldız said as he raced the car across the normally choked Galata Bridge. ‘His parents live in the same apartment block as us. My dad and Abdullah’s dad and their families all originated in Kars. You know Abdullah and me, we both have Russian women way back in our families. Kars was a Russian city for a while, there was always fighting over Kars.’

He chattered on. Ayşe hadn’t a clue about whether Abdullah Ergin had killed the carpet dealer or not. The forensic evidence seemed unequivocal and he was still in custody awaiting court appearance. But there was still no motive, no actual provable connection between Ergin and Uzun. Maybe the policeman had just been clever. Although from what Ayşe had seen of him, he certainly didn’t come across that way.

After crossing the Galata Bridge, Yıldız steered the car through the steep, narrow streets of Sultanahmet and then down on to the broad Kennedy Caddesi dual carriageway that would take them, ultimately, to the airport. Even in Ayşe’s short lifetime this area had changed enormously. Bordering on the Sea of Marmara, districts like Kumkapı and Yedikule had once been poor places where large families with haunted eyes lived in cramped and frequently less than sanitary accommodation. In more recent years, however, this part of the city had been given a considerable face-lift and, although the poor had still not actually disappeared completely, they had moved on. Now many of them lived in high-rise blocks out by the airport like the family of Constable Yıldız and the parents of his friend Sergeant Ergin. Ayşe, although she said nothing to her driver of this, hated the area around the airport. Apparently back in the 1970s, when the airport had been called Yeşilköy after the now long-since absorbed village of that name, some of the outer suburbs near to the airport had been quite chic. Inspector İkmen could talk at length about the beach at the district of Ataköy, which they were now passing, where back in the 1960s he and his young friends had played at emulating Sean Connery’s James Bond. The great Scottish actor had just been in the city at that time making
From Russia with Love
. Now Ataköy was famous only for its shopping mall, Galleria, with its little internal skating rink. They drove on into the area where the most tower blocks were concentrated. Yıldız, pointing at one such faceless monolith, said, ‘I live there.’

Ayşe, who lived in a very pleasant low-rise apartment with her divorced brother, was tempted to commiserate with him. But Yıldız seemed happy enough. He was, in fact, a very happy, uncomplicated soul from what she had observed. Hardly as deep as the sea as some men could be, in fact probably only about as deep as some of the puddles in winter, but no less admirable because of that. She sometimes thought those with few complications and probably even fewer needs were really quite fortunate. With few wants and ambitions to gnaw at them they could just simply get on with their lives, which was really what existence was about.

With his ever-cheerful expression pinned firmly to his face, Constable Yıldız drove past the military, through the police checkpoint and into the confines of Atatürk International Airport. Just before they entered the international departures area, Ayşe received a call on her mobile. It was from a very agitated Çetin İkmen. The Bulgarian consulate had news of Matilda Melly.

He saw the woman place her bag on to the conveyor belt in front of the x-ray machine and then walk though the archway of the metal scanner. She was obviously a western European of some sort and the woman they had been instructed to look for was British, but she didn’t look much like the photograph he’d been shown of Mrs Matilda Melly. For a start this one was considerably more attractive.

Although the woman didn’t set off the metal detector, one of his female colleagues patted her down anyway. There was no harm to it and it just made sure that the person wasn’t carrying less obvious weapons like the pair of onyx knuckle-dusters one of his colleagues had found on some mild-looking Japanese man only the week before. The inventiveness of the criminally minded was a constant source of wonder to Constable Sesler and his other police colleagues who oversaw security at the airport on a daily basis. But today was slightly different, because today Inspector Çetin İkmen was in the airport looking, for some reason, for the wife of a British diplomat. She was due to get the first flight out to London, which was in just under two hours’ time now. İkmen was the city’s, if not the nation’s, most famous police officer and so whatever this woman had done had to be serious.

The woman’s luggage was still in the x-ray machine. The female officer looking at the screen had put the belt on hold and was now frowning.

‘What is it?’ he asked.

‘There.’ She pointed at two square objects that seemed to be in the middle of the suitcase. Dense and black, it was impossible to see what was in them.

‘So ask her to open her bag,’ Sesler said. ‘Where’s she going?’

The x-ray machine operator called over to the other female officer who had just finished searching the owner of the case and said, ‘Where’s she going?’

The officer asked the woman and then called back, ‘Heathrow.’

‘Have a look at her passport,’ Sesler called across to the search officer.

What appeared to be a small altercation then ensued between the female officer and the foreign woman. The latter now appeared to be shaking with anger. She had also become, Sesler could see, now that he was closer to her, very, very pale.

‘Is there a problem?’ he asked the search officer who was also very obviously far from content.

‘She won’t let me see her passport,’ she said. ‘She says she’ll show it at immigration.’

‘What is she?’

‘British, I think.’

He turned to look down gravely at the rather brassy middle-aged woman in front of him. ‘We need to see your passport now,’ he said. ‘You must always show your passport to a policeman. It is the law.’

‘Rather simplistically expressed but in essence it is the truth,’ a deep, very croaky voice said from just to the left of Sesler’s back. ‘Mrs Melly, I must say, you do look lovely this morning. Shall we go?’ İkmen said as he put his hand out towards the woman with a smile.

‘Go?’ she said. ‘Where?’

‘Back into the city. To the station,’ İkmen said. ‘I have news for you, Mrs Melly, about the other Mrs Melly who tried to leave Bulgaria on a bus yesterday morning. Did you know that the woman who had your passport was Turkish?’

Her eyes went blank. ‘What?’

‘Oh, but I think that we would be much more comfortable talking about this at the station,’ İkmen said. ‘There are far too many people here and I think that we are holding them up.’

‘I have to catch my flight.’

İkmen sighed. ‘No, I don’t think so, Mrs Melly,’ he said. ‘I need to speak to you and some suspicious articles in your suitcase have been illuminated by this x-ray machine. I would like to have a look at them. And of course your husband is over there . . .’ He pointed over to where a grey-faced and yawning Peter Melly leaned up against a flashing advertising board.

There was just a very small moment when she looked as if she might try to run away, but then Matilda Melly sighed deeply, pulled the long and silky hairpiece she’d put on the night before out of her own short mop, and took İkmen’s hand in hers with a tired sigh.

Ayşe Farsakoğlu accompanied İkmen, Mr and Mrs Melly and Constable Yıldız back to the station where she assisted in the search of the woman’s suitcase. It was an odd mixture of things especially in terms of clothes. They ranged from the borderline pornographic basque at the top of the case right down to some blue cardigans that could have belonged to a quiet woman of over eighty. On top of this there was a huge amount of make-up and then there was something else too; something that Ayşe told İkmen about just before he and Inspector İskender went in to interview the Englishwoman. Ayşe herself had, after all, to go back to the airport in order to meet Mr Lee Roberts, grandson of the rightful owner of the Lawrence Kerman carpet. In a way she was looking forward to it as, at the very least, a chance to practise her English. But she would also have liked to have been in with İkmen too – if only to see the expression on Matilda Melly’s face. İkmen, after all, had some very big news – if news it indeed was – for her. With a small wave of recognition in the direction of Ayşe, İkmen closed the door behind İskender, Mrs Melly and himself and the interview began.

‘Mrs Melly,’ he said as he sat down in one of the two chairs opposite the Englishwoman, ‘we have it on record that you know a Turkish woman called Handan Ergin.’

‘Yes. As you know, I taught her some English. A while ago.’

‘So you haven’t seen Mrs Ergin . . .’

‘For months! No!’ She laughed but it was a nervous sound that İkmen felt had little to do with any genuine mirth.

‘I see.’ He looked across at Metin İskender who shrugged. Until the ‘other’ Matilda Melly was back in Turkey nothing could be certain, mainly because the woman was refusing to tell the Bulgarians anything about herself. But they were sending her back from Sofia later on that afternoon and then they would see.

‘Mrs Melly,’ İkmen continued, ‘my officers have found a considerable amount of money in your suitcase. I am told it is in pounds sterling. Would you care to tell me about it?’

‘It’s English money. I am English. It’s my money.’

‘How much is there? In the suitcase?’

She shrugged. ‘I’m not entirely sure. Maybe about fifty-seven, fifty-eight thousand . . .’

‘Not sixty thousand?’

She frowned. ‘No . . .’

‘Because you see,’ İkmen said, ‘we know your husband gave one hundred and twenty thousand pounds in cash to the carpet dealer Yaşar Uzun. Approximately half of that sum we can account for due to payments made by Mr Uzun to various people. But sixty thousand pounds is still missing. My officers are counting the cash in your suitcase right now, Mrs Melly. Is there anything you would like to tell us about it?’

‘No.’

‘So it is your money, as opposed to that of your husband?’

‘Yes.’

He sat tight against the back of his chair and then lit a cigarette. ‘The money is yours, from your bank?’

‘Yes, my savings.’ She was beginning to look bewildered. ‘What . . .’

‘Because your husband, Mrs Melly, seems to think that you and he are not particularly well off.’ He smiled. ‘I mean, I know that he was in the process of buying the Lawrence carpet without your knowledge or permission, but with over fifty thousand pounds in the bank, surely your worries about mortgages raised on your house in England are not as serious . . .’

‘Peter doesn’t know about my money,’ Matilda Melly put in sharply. ‘It’s mine. My savings.’

‘Savings?’ İkmen frowned. ‘You mean from a job or investments . . .’

‘Inheritance,’ she said as she looked up and smiled full-faced into İkmen’s eyes. ‘From a deceased aunt.’

‘About which your husband didn’t know?’

Metin İskender raised one elegant and sceptical eyebrow.

‘No,’ she said as she looked down at the floor once again. ‘No, I didn’t tell him. As you can probably infer, Inspector, my husband and I do not have the easiest of marriages.’

‘His infidelities?’

She first sighed and then scratched her head. ‘He’s a man, it’s to be expected.’

‘His spending,’ İkmen continued. ‘Out of control and upon things that I feel mean little to you.’

Matilda Melly looked up again. ‘Carpets? Yes. Nice enough, but . . .’

‘You do not have a passion for them as your husband does.’ İkmen smiled. ‘Not of course to say that you don’t have passions, Mrs Melly.’

Her eyes, if not the rest of her face, flinched. ‘What?’

‘Passions,’ İkmen said. ‘You have passions.’

‘Well we all have passions, don’t we?’ Again the nervous little laugh. ‘Well, don’t we?’

‘Indeed.’ İkmen looked across at Metin İskender again and said, ‘Mine is my job and my family. I think that Inspector İskender is of a roughly similar mind. Although I have heard, Inspector, that you and your wife also enjoy collecting rare books.’

‘Yes,’ İskender replied, frowning as he did so and then starting to say in Turkish, ‘What—’

‘So yes, passions, interest, whatever one may call such things, are very nice,’ İkmen said. And then the smile went suddenly. The effect of this was as if someone had quickly turned off all the heating in the room. ‘However,’ he continued, ‘when such passions are for sexual congress with men who are not your husband, then the word passion can take a sinister turn. Mrs Melly, have you been having affairs with other men since you have been living in Peri?’

‘That’s none of your business!’ Her face contorted into something that, in spite of the lovingly applied make-up, was old and bitter.

‘In the normal course of events, you would be quite right, it is none of my business,’ İkmen replied. ‘But if one of your lovers was the carpet dealer Yaşar Uzun . . .’

Matilda Melly laughed. ‘Yaşar? Are you kidding?’

‘Kidding?’ It was rare that there was an English word that İkmen didn’t understand, but this was one of them.

‘Joking,’ she said. ‘Are you joking?’

Ah.’ He first smiled and then let his face drop again. ‘No. No, Mrs Melly, I am not “kidding” as you say. From the evidence that I have so far it is perfectly possible to me that this situation has happened.’

‘What, my having an affair with Yaşar Uzun?’ She laughed. ‘But that’s ridiculous. I hardly knew the man. And what I did know, I didn’t like. He was into carpets, for God’s sake! He ripped off my husband!’

İkmen shrugged. ‘Mr Uzun and your husband would, I think, disagree that the Lawrence carpet was in some way over-valued,’ he said. ‘But that is not relevant. Mrs Melly, if I check to see whether or not this aunt you speak of did indeed leave you money, what will I find?’