'It's there, sir,' the young officer said as he pointed to a round protuberance at the far end of the pit 'Ah.'
As the doctor made his way shakily towards his goal, some of the tired young men up above shared amused glances, Ikmen, who declined to comment on their behaviour, consoled himself with the grim thought that one day these well-muscled young men would be as Katsoulis was now. It made him smile.
The doctor bent down low in order to look at the dirt-caked skull. Had he been younger and fitter he would probably have got down on his haunches to examine the remains, but as it was he could only peer down at something that looked more like a clod of earth than a face.
'Would you be kind enough to clear some of the dirt away from the face, please, Inspector,' he said. 'I would do it myself, but…'
'Yes, of course,' Ikmen replied. 'You know I'm not practised in this, don't you, Doctor?' he said. 'I wouldn't want to damage anything.'
'If you move the soil out of the mouth that will be sufficient,' Katsoulis said as he placed a pair of half-moon spectacles on his nose.
Quite why the mouth was of such great significance, Ikmen didn't know. However, when he saw the first small glints of metal, he realised, or at least he thought he did.
'There are gold teeth here, lots of them,' he said. 'I do believe Madame was playing us for fools.'
'If there's gold teeth, then that's Murad Aga, the old eunuch,' Cohen, who had been observing proceedings from above, said with a laugh in his voice. 'Well, the old witch!'
Dr Katsoulis, who was now moving various items around on the face with the end of his cigarette holder, frowned. 'What do you mean, Inspector, playing us for fools?' he asked.
'Well, Doctor, it could mean that Madame killed Murad Aga and not her husband. Or she killed Murad and her husband and then buried her husband somewhere else in this garden. Or she killed nobody and the eunuch just wanted to be put here when he died. Or maybe the morphine had sent her quite mad.' He shrugged helplessly as he stood up in order to relieve the strain on his calves. 'I'm hoping you can enlighten us.'
'Well, I can,' Katsoulis said as he, too, straightened his back for comfort, 'although I find it hard to believe you don't know.'
'Don't know what?' Cohen asked.
Katsoulis sighed. 'That the discovery of this body means that Madame buried both her husband and Murad Aga beside this tree.'
'Eh?'
'Murad and Madame's husband were one and the same. Kleopatra was joined in matrimony to a eunuch.'
Sevan Avedykian looked across at the heavily swearing heap that was his client and said, 'Mr Temiz would, I believe, appreciate a glass of water.'
Wordlessly, Suleyman signalled to Coktin that he should comply with this request As the younger man left the room in order to get the water Suleyman settled back to take a long, hard look at Temiz.
At forty-five, Cengiz Temiz was both more and less well-preserved than the average man of that age. Although grotesquely overweight his face was quite free from lines and wrinkles. But then the thick, open mouth rarely moved and his eyes which were small and markedly slanted gave no emotion back to the world beyond the occasional flashes of fear. When Coktin returned with his water, Cengiz Temiz gave no indication that he was pleased or relieved by this. He simply, as he had done for nearly half an hour now, sat in a shroud of self- contained silence.
For Suleyman, however, things were different There was too much going on in his head, some of which had little to do with Cengiz Temiz. Mr Erturk had, it seemed, been most scathing with regard to the treatment of his little sisters. How, he'd said to Ardic, this ridiculous inspector could have been taken in by two silly girls who had hit upon the word cyanide because it was, probably, the only poison they knew, and then detained them under suspicion of murder, was beyond him. True, the gardener did use, amongst other poisons, cyanide to kill certain pests, but Resat hadn't reported any substances missing and besides, even if he had, there were other families he gardened for besides the Erturks.
All right, Erturk had told Suleyman to 'hang on' to his sisters until his conference was over, but he had not expected them to be detained in a filthy cell! These were girls of quality! Born and bred in stylish Yenikoy! But Suleyman had treated them no better than common streetwalkers! That the pair were both manipulative and frighteningly obsessive had not been mentioned. So now Suleyman was in disgrace and that was without the report from Dr Halman that he knew was coming. Some days were like this. Some days suspending oneself from a high place looked attractive.
With a sigh, Suleyman started his questioning once again. 'Miss Arda has told us,' he said, yet again, 'that, knowing as you do that she cannot have children, you presented her with the Urfa baby in order to win her affections and to protect the child from an 'evil demon'. What I want to know, Mr Temiz, is whether this is correct.'
'My client has already told you that he doesn't know this woman’ Avedykian said, 'and so this line of questioning-'.
'Is necessary because of the testimony of Miss Arda. And as far as I am concerned, Mr Avedykian, your client has told me nothing as yet. It is you, if you recall, who has said that Mr Temiz has no knowledge of Miss Arda. What he thinks or knows I cannot tell’ Then turning to face Cengiz directly, he said, 'Both Mina and yourself are in a lot of trouble here, Cengiz. It is trouble that I feel you don't need to be in but only the truth can confirm that. Now-'
'Inspector Suleyman, I feel I must-'
'If I tell you, will my mum and dad have to know?'
Both the two policemen and the lawyer gazed, for different reasons, at what had now become a rather more animated interviewee.
Suleyman cleared his throat 'That does depend on what you have to tell us, Cengiz,' he said.
'You don't have to tell them anything,' Avedykian put in hurriedly, fearing, so Suleyman felt that his client was on the verge of galloping irrevocably away from him.
Cengiz Temiz, however, after only a brief glance at his lawyer, went his own way. 'It's about dirty things,' he said as he bent his head low in shame.
Suleyman, confused, looked at Coktin, who said, 'Do you mean sex, Cengiz?'
'Yes.'
‘I really do think that I would like some time alone with my client before-'
'It's all right, Mr Avedykian,' Cengiz said and laid one pudgy hand on his lawyer's slim arm. 'It's naughty but it's not killing.'
Avedykian looked hard into what he could see of his client's eyes and then sighed. 'Well, Cengiz, if you must'
'So What about sex, Cengiz?' Suleyman asked as he lit a cigarette and then leaned forward towards the downcast Temiz. 'Have you done it or did you just want to do it or-'
'I have sex with Mina.' He turned his face round so that none of the other men in the room could see his eyes. 'Mum gives me money for cigarettes and food but I spend it on Mina.'
'She makes you feel good?'
'Yes. Dirty things do that. Good boys shouldn't and Mum will punish me if she knows, but…'He turned back to face them, his eyes wet with tears. 'You won't tell them that I'm dirty, will you, sir?'
Suleyman smiled. 'I won't tell anyone you're dirty, Cengiz. But you must tell me where Mrs Ruya and the baby come into all this. I know that you took the baby to give to Mina but I have to know how you did that You do understand, don't you?'
'Mmm.' Then, rapidly changing tack, Cengiz looked down at the floor, watched a spider bounce on its web underneath the table and laughed.
'Cengiz?'
He rolled his eyes up in the direction of the taller of the policemen and then wiped some wetness away from around his mouth. 'Eh?'
'Cengiz, Mina has told us that you rescued the baby Merih from a,' and here Suleyman once again had to clear his throat in order to enunciate what were, to him, ridiculous words, ‘a demon woman who-'
'Oh, no, no, no, no, no!' He was sideways on now, head down, mouth trembling with anxiety.
