Arabesk

myself in the near future – if I can get around the TRT pack who appear to be constructing gecekondu accommodation in the car park.'

With a smile, Arto Sarkissian rested his considerable behind on the edge of Suleyman's desk. 'You probably need to speak to Zelfa Halman with regard to Cengiz Temiz.'

'I've mentioned him to her,' Suleyman said in the kind of automatic fashion he knew he should avoid. For was it not just one step from talking about mentioning things to stating where that mentioning occurred? 'She advised rather more intervention with the parents at this stage, until forensic come up, or not, with something. I have instructed Coktin to meet them when they arrive, no doubt accompanied by Mr Avedykian, later this morning.'

'They've already gone to the top for their lawyer then?'

Suleyman shrugged. 'It is their right And if they are rich enough to buyAvedykian, well…'

A pause hung between the two men for a while as they both recalled their previous dealings with Sevan Avedykian. Principal among these was the moment only ten months before, when Ikmen aided by Suleyman had been obliged to tell Avedykian that his son, Avram, had been murdered by his psychopathic lover, Muhammed Ersoy. Suleyman could still vividly recall the stony silence that had accompanied the greying of Sevan Avedykian's face, as well as the hysterical screaming that had signalled Mrs Avedykian's knowledge of the facts. Arto Sarkissian had once been a friend to Avram and as a fellow Armenian had visited frequently, for a while, after that. But not recently. For as Sevan Avedykian's sorrow had grown, so his silences had hardened. Every fibre of his body shouted to Sarkissian that he should have alerted the father to the son's activities many years before. And perhaps Sarkissian should have done just that. He had, after all, known about Avram's obsession with Ersoy for many years. True, he didn't realise quite how dangerous the fabulous Ersoy was until it was too late. Not that Avedykian would have listened then any more than he did now. And so, after just one abortive attempt to explain his involvement in Avram's past, Sarkissian had walked out of the Avedykian house for what he hoped was the last time. That had now been three months ago.

After looking down briefly at his pocket diary, Suleyman broke the silence. 'I've learned who Erol Urfa claims to have been with on the night of the murder. Coktin told me.'

'Oh?'

'Yes. Ali Mardin; he owns a small pansiyon on Yerebatan Caddesi. Like Urfa he is a…'

'He's Kurdish,' the doctor assisted. 'Don't you think you should take Coktin with you, in that case?'

'No. I think it might be better if I impress upon Mr Mardin the seriousness of what has happened alone. I want to cut through as much clan loyalty as I can. These people need to know that only two things are of importance to me – the safe return of Merih Urfa and the apprehension of Ruya's killer. I don't care what values these people adhere to or what they consider their origins to be.'

'How very modern’ Arto Sarkissian said with more than a hint of irony in his voice. 'I wish you luck although I do have some anxieties. I mean, you are dealing with people -Erol, Aksoy, Tansu and now possibly Mardin – who know how to keep secrets very effectively. After all, Ruya and Merih were, until yesterday, nonexistent people’

'Yes. Strange’ Suleyman's eyes glazed over as he considered this point 'I would have thought that Aksoy would have wanted to exploit the fact that Erol honoured his village betrothal. Man of principal marries little country girl. After all, most of his fans are of a certain class…'

Sarkissian laughed. 'Oh, you terrible snob!' he said. 'But yes, I suppose they are mostly peasants. It does rather depend upon what Aksoy had in mind for Erol though. And his affair with Tansu was frequently headline news. That woman is so volatile she ensures whoever she is with is never out of the public eye’

'And if the public are fascinated by a person, they will buy their tapes, CDs or whatever.'

The doctor bowed in agreement. 'Precisely.'

'How horribly cynical.'

'That's business.'

There was a knock at the door. In response to Suleyman's call to enter, a smart, if rather nondescript young man, entered the office. Tipped as Suleyman's replacement, Ikmen's new sergeant, Orhan Tepe was one of those men who always looked cheerful, whatever the occasion. And now was no exception.

'What is it, Tepe?' Suleyman said, only briefly looking away from the doctor.

'We've got some people downstairs who claim they killed Ruya Urfa. They say they've got to see you, sir.'

Suleyman groaned. 'Crazies.'

'Well, yes, but, er, not obviously so, sir,' said Tepe. 'Not mad old women in rags or men who think they're Adnan Menderes.'

'Oh,' the doctor said with a smile, 'unusual crazies, eh?'

'Well, if you call two teenage girls wearing chadors unusual then, yes, they are, sir.' Turning back to Suleyman, he said, 'Shall you be coming to see them, Inspector, or shall I just get their parents to collect them?'

I am an addict for the sorrow that you bring I embrace the knife's edge of your disdain I am lost I am gone I am dead

Until your sweet return into my life happens once again.

As he looked at what he had just written, Cetin Ikmen shook his head in disbelief. 'You know’ he said calling out to Fatma over the top of the tape he had been transcribing, 'I think the state should give the Ministry of Culture some sort of award for attempting to get this dross banned back in the eighties.'

'That's Tansu at her best!' his wife answered as she walked over to the stereo and made to turn up the volume. 'She sings of universal emotions, Cetin; of love and loss and-'

'Don't touch that dial!' he shouted. 'In fact, turn it down, will you? Makes me want to jump into a bottle of brandy and stay there. I don't think I can stand any more ungrarnmatical sorrow-filled insults to my intelligence.'

'All right, all right!' Fatma said as she laid the towel she had been using across the back of a chair and then turned the music down to almost silence.

'No wonder the suicide rate in dumps like Sivas keeps on going up. They listen to this stuff all the time out there. Being in the country is bad enough but with this going on day and night… I'd be slitting my throat within hours.'

Fatma, already wearied by the younger children, who were on vacation, and the housework, sat down beside her husband. 'Oh, you've been listening to Arabesk all your life without noticing,' she said. 'People play it everywhere. I play it I like it'

'You,' he replied, touching just the end of her nose with stern affection, 'should know better.'

'It's romantic.' She shrugged. 'The stars themselves are romantic. Women like such things. Even Cicek will sing along to Arabesk at times, when she's not listening to those Western musicians. We are Turks, we like to imagine ourselves involved in grand passions like the singers. And then we like to have a good cry.'

'A rather sweeping generalisation there, Fatma,' her husband said with not a little amusement in his voice, 'confounded, of course, by people like myself who want to vomit when we hear it.'

'Oh, that's just you!'

'And Suleyman and Arto. I can't really even see Commissioner Ardic. getting damp around the eyes just because some spoilt old plastic-surgery victim has been cast aside by a lover who is young enough to be her son. I may be wrong, but… It's just all 'Oh, I can't live without you', 'I think I want to die'; it's so unremittingly morbid! It's helpless too, which I don't like. I mean, have you seen that photograph of Tansu on the front page of Hurriyet?’

'No. I haven't really had time for reading.'

He reached over to the table and grabbed hold of one of the newspapers stacked behind a heap of ironing.

'Look at this,' he said as he spread the paper across his wife's knees. A large photograph of an anguished Tansu howling into a white-and-silver lace handkerchief screamed off the page. 'Poor Mrs Urfa lies dead on a slab, her baby, who is described but not shown, is missing and what do we get? A photograph of some adulterous old has-been who reckons that her poor Erol is so badly traumatised their love will never be as it was ever again. It's sick!'

'I agree we should see a photograph of the baby. If members of the public are to look for her they need that.'