Arabesk

Fatma's face was set with the seriousness of the subject 'But people do like this romance thing with Tansu and Erol. I myself find it disgusting because he's so young. I would hate it if one of our sons became involved with an older woman. But bad as they are, Allah has punished them now and it is not for us to judge.'

Ikmen, whose opinion of religion of whatever type placed such phenomena somewhere between folk tales and the astrology columns in newspapers, rolled his eyes with impatience.

'And also,' Fatma continued, 'you have to remember that Tansu, anyway, is not always helpless.'

'Oh, I know that, 'Ikmen blustered on a laugh. 'She's reputed to have the most volcanic temper, be totally selfish-'

'No, I mean in her music,' Fatma said. 'There are some songs where the words are resentful rather than sad. They're often songs about her lover being stolen by another woman. They're really quite, well, I suppose you'd call them sort of tough.'

'A bit masculine, you mean?'

'No, her tone is much the same as in the others. But in songs like 'I Want None of You' or 'Hate Is My Only Friend' the words are very strong, very… ‘ She thought hard to find the right words, 'very sort of bitter, I suppose you'd say.'

'Expressing the collective frustrations of the lahmacun-eating classes?'

'Those are your words, not mine,' she said as she rose and picked up her towel once again. 'Anyway, I have things to wash. I haven't got time to sit about with you. Oh, and you might have a word with Bulent whenever he decides to come in.'

Ikmen looked up and frowned.'Why?'

'He's lost his job.'

'At the Pudding Shop?' Ikmen's face took on a thunderous look. 'Why this time?'

'He turned up drunk,' Fatma said with more than a little edge to her voice. 'I think you should speak to him, don't you?'

'I've never been drunk at work!' he roared as he followed Fatma's retreating figure with his eyes. 'I used to take a drink, but only what I could handle: I was never drunk! What was the boy thinking, I mean-'

'He doesn't care, Cetin,' Fatma called out from the kitchen. 'As long as he's having fun he doesn't care.'

'Well, I'll just have to make him care then, won't I? If he's wobbling around in public he could get arrested even!'

'I think that may be the object of the exercise, actually.' Fatma put her head round the door of the kitchen and sighed. 'I mean, what better way to get back at you, eh?'

'But why would he want to get back at me? Am I not a good father? Do I not listen to his ghastly adolescent ravings without complaint? Have I not always had a stable job in order to provide for my-'

'I think that's the problem.'

For a moment he just sat and stared at her, his mouth open and a little dry. 'You mean the job?'

'Well, it's a bit sort of with the establishment, isn't it? He's young. It's what they do, Q!etin.'

'Is it indeed?'

'Yes, and you're going to have to be very calm when you tell him off or he'll do it all the more. I don't know how you're going to achieve this, Cetin, but you're going to have to be very 'modern' indeed.'

And then she was gone, leaving her husband even more desperate for a drink than he had been before.

Although they gave the outward appearance of being devout Muslims, Deniz and Gulsum Erturk were in fact obsessed with only one thing – sex. That they didn't realise this was a tribute both to their youth and to the fact that the twins had been raised with only scant education in that area. All they knew was that ever since they had seen Erol Urfa for the first time three years before, they had been in love. They'd been fourteen when Erol's plaintive tones had entered their lives and ever since that moment he had dominated their every waking moment.

As much as they loved Erol, the sisters hated Tansu. One of their favourite games was to ascribe all her successes, both personal and professional, to witchcraft Deniz had once heard that some people in the far east of the country worshipped Shaitan and she had taken it into her head that Tansu might be one of them. These people, it was said, always avoided blue, a colour that Tansu with her shades of dramatic red, black and white seemed to shun.

The death of Erol’s wife had, however, taken the twins to a new dimension. Now, as they sat silently looking at the stern inspector across the table from them, was their finest moment as fans of Erol Urfa.

'We could stand it no longer, you see’ Gulsum said as she nervously twisted one edge of her chador between her fingers. 'Erol is special, he deserves so much better than just a peasant girl’

'And so you killed her,' Suleyman said, noting the fine, cultured accent of the two young women. A lot of high-born girls had taken to the veil in recent years. In some cases it was a form of rebellion against Westernised, materialistic parents. But they still, he reflected with grim amusement, retained all of their prejudices against 'peasants'.

'She was no good for him… She didn't love him,' Deniz added as she leaned across her sister's chest

'So how did you kill her then?' Suleyman asked.

For just a few seconds the sisters exchanged a glance and then Deniz said, 'We poisoned her.' 'With?'

'With the stuff that Resat uses to kill the rats,' Gulsum said, enthusiastically adding, 'It contains cyanide.'

Suleyman frowned. Although the press had reported that Mrs Urfa had been poisoned, the substance involved had not been named. This could just be a coincidence, however. 'And who is Resat?'

'He is our father's servant. He tends the garden. Rats come up from the water sometimes and so he kills them.' Deniz gave her sister a slow, sly smile. 'But we used it for another purpose.'

'And the child.' Suleyman leaned forward the better to see into their sweetly deranged and identical eyes. 'What did you do with Erol Urfa's child?'

Gulsum looked at Deniz and then stared blankly back at Suleyman. Then she tipped her head just lightly towards her sister and smiled.

'The baby wasn't there,' Deniz said with the kind of direct confidence not popularly associated with the wearing of the veil. It was a confidence Suleyman recognised as one to which a person can only be born.

'So how do you account for the baby going missing?'

'How should we know?' Deniz replied haughtily. 'We only killed the peasant woman, we would never have hurt the baby.'

'Not Erol’s,' her sister put in. 'He wrote 'The Long Road to Your Heart' which means so much to me. He is a true and great artist and we would not even think of destroying such a genius's child.'

'You do know’ Suleyman said, leaning back in his chair and then lighting a cigarette, 'that Mr Urfa is from peasant stock himself? Unlike you girls he has always had to work rather than spend his time musing upon impossible imaginary romances.'

Gulsum, outraged, looked across at her sister.

'How dare you speak like that to us!' Deniz blustered at Suleyman. 'We came here in good faith to confess to a crime and not only do we not get to see Erol to apologise to him but we are subjected to your rudeness too.'

'We're not afraid of the police, you know,' Gulsum added. 'Our father knows three judges-'

'And your father is where right now?'

Gulsum looked down at the floor and murmured, 'He's with Mummy in New York.'

'Leaving you two alone? I can't believe that,' Suleyman said, knowing that however virtuous a girl might be or however modern her parents, Turkish adults rarely left a woman's honour to chance.

'Our brother Kemal takes care of us,' Deniz said sulkily and then waving her hand in front of her face she added, 'Do you have to smoke!'

Suleyman replied with a face as straight as his back. 'Yes, I do. Now, I think that I should perhaps call Kemal before we go any further.'

Deniz sniffed. 'He's at his work now.'

'And anyway he won't come,' Gulsiim said. 'He finds us tiresome.'

Suleyman could appreciate Kemal's point of view.

'His opinion of you is immaterial.' Suleyman rose from his seat and then motioned forward the female officer who had been standing at the back of the room. 'You have admitted to a very serious crime about which you appear to have some knowledge.'