Arabesk

Sevan Avedykian placed a comforting arm around his client's shoulders and then said, 'I think you've gone as far as you can go now, Inspector.'

'I would disagree,' Suleyman replied haughtily.

'Besides, if Mr Temiz can tell Mina Arda about the demon then he can tell me. Cengiz?' 'No, no, no!'

Avedykian stood up. 'Inspector!'

'Look, Cengiz,' Suleyman said with more than a little pleading in his voice, 'if you tell me about the demon, I can help you. I…' and then suddenly a thought struck him which had not occurred before. But it made perfect sense and so he went with it 'Look, I can and will, I promise, protect you from her. No harm will come to you or Mina or the baby.'

Cengiz looked up. 'Uh?'

'I give you my word!' Suleyman said with what he perceived as rather unnecessary drama in his voice.

'And the inspector is a gentleman,' Coktin put in earnestly, 'so his word does mean a lot'

'You don't have to listen to this!' Avedykian said as he took hold of his client's sleeve and tried to pull him to his feet 'I think we should terminate this interview now, Inspector Suleyman. My client is distressed-'

'She had silver hair and a fluffy coat'

Once again, all eyes turned towards Cengiz whose face was now quite white, almost grey.

'Her face was all hissy like a snake,' and here he made an approximation with his own features. The result was, even to Suleyman's horror-accustomed eyes, really quite scary.

'Would you know the demon if you saw her again?' Coktin asked.

Cengiz, whose face had now reverted to its usual expression, said,'Yes.'

'Are you sure?'

'Mr Temiz has told you so-'

'Will you please sit back down, Mr Avedykian!' Suleyman, suddenly quite out of patience with the lawyer, roared his request which was, surprisingly, complied with immediately.

'So if I put the demon in front of you in a fluffy-'

'White.'

'A fluffy white- coat, then…'

Coktin leaned in towards Suleyman and whispered something in his ear.

'Right,' Suleyman said in response to this. 'Good. Perhaps the sergeant here can get us some photographs to look at in a moment Now, Cengiz-'

'Mrs Ruya was lying on the floor.' He was crying now, full on, choking sobs. 'She, she never, she never moved when I touched her. Merih was crying-'

'Where was Merih, Cengiz?'

'In her little bed. I love Merih, sir! I-'

'All right, all right Sssh. Now, calm down,' Suleyman smiled. 'You're doing very well, Cengiz. I'm really pleased with you.'

Sevan Avedykian silently passed a very white folded handkerchief to his client and then sat back quietly once again. Cengiz dabbed at his eyes as he attempted to get his sobs under control. He now looked like he had a bad case of hiccups. 'Sorry! Sorry!' he said through gulps of air.

'It's all right, you've no need to be sorry. You're being very, very good.'

'Am I?'

'Yes. Now I just need to know one more thing and then you can take a rest.'

Cengiz leaned forward as if waiting to catch the words physically from Suleyman's lips.

'And that is,' Suleyman said, 'how you got into Mrs Ruya's apartment Was the demon woman there when you went in? Did she let you in? Did you arrive with her for some reason? What, Cengiz? What?'

Orhan Tepe knocked once on Inspector Suleyman's door and then went straight in. Well, his news, though not earth-shattering, was required by Suleyman and besides it wasn't his particular custom to be subservient. This proud Ottoman prince might think himself somebody but to Tepe he was just as other men. If nothing else, seeing Suleyman in the act of procuring a prostitute, albeit in the line of duty, had proved that.

Although Suleyman's desk was occupied when Tepe entered the room, it was not by the inspector himself. With a loud bang as her fist hit wood, Zelfa Halman slammed a cardboard file shut before looking up sharply.

'Well?' she asked before she realised that she was quite out of context here.

'Oh, er, I was looking for the inspector’ Tepe said as he watched her hurriedly slip something underneath the cover of the file she had just closed.

'Well, he isn't here,' she said sharply.

'Yes.'

She stood up, smoothing her skirt down as she did so. She was, Tepe thought, a not unattractive woman for her age. Although quite why the inspector should be so taken with her when he could, surely, have almost any woman he wanted was a mystery. Perhaps it had something to do with her being a foreigner.

'Well,' she said as she moved round the desk towards Tepe, 'seeing as he isn't here then perhaps we should leave.'

'Yes.' But he didn't move. Quite why, he didn't really know. But then he always felt a little on edge in the presence of this woman. The word 'psychiatrist' loomed large and menacing in his head.

'Well, come on then, out!' she said as she literally shooed him ahead of her.

He moved quickly now. She was, for some reason, quite agitated and he didn't want to tangle with her in such a mood. To do so, Tepe felt, might invite all sorts of strange interpretations on her part. His grandfather had been, as his mother was accustomed to say in muted tones, 'taken somewhere' when he became, in the family parlance, 'rather vague'. Psychiatrists could do things like that. One didn't need to be exactly insane in order to attract their attentions. As he watched Dr Halman disappear down the corridor, Orhan Tepe let out a long sigh of relief. There were some who believed that mental confusion could be hereditary and-

'Inspector Suleyman is out, I take it?' The voice was familiar if unexpected.

'Oh, er, yes, sir. He is,' Tepe said as he looked down into the sharp eyes of Cetin Ikmen.

'I saw you leaving his office,' Ikmen said, 'in the furious wake of Dr Halman.'

'Yes.' And then feeling the need to change the subject he said, 'I wanted to see the inspector about something.'

'Oh?'

'Yes.' There was a strong feeling of curiosity emanating from Ikmen that Tepe felt was not quite appropriate. 'I thought that you were sick, sir.'

Ikmen smiled. 'like all of us, Tepe, I am slowly but inexorably dying. What was it you wanted to see Inspector Suleyman about?'

'Oh, it was just an identity card thing. Some man who needed checking up on.'

Almost without his noticing, Ikmen took Tepe's elbow in his hand and led him down the corridor. 'Oh? What man?'

'Well…'

'I ask only because, as you say, it is just an identity card thing.' He laughed. 'I like to remain in touch, as you know. And if it's not important…'

Tepe shrugged. 'Just a friend of Erol Urfa's, as I understand it The inspector asked him for his card yesterday but he couldn't find it'

'So did he find it today when you went round?'

'No. He wasn't there.' He looked down at the floor which, just very slightly, moved, Ikmen, he felt subtly increased the pressure on his elbow. But as soon as the faint tremor had ceased, the pressure eased.

Ikmen smiled. 'So where had he gone, this man? Do you know?'

'No, no one knew, or would say. That's what I was coming to tell the inspector. I don't know what he might do about it I mean, it is rather minor in comparison to the investigation into Mrs Urfa's death.'

'Oh, indeed.' Ikmen started moving a little faster. 'Not of course that we must forget details like this, Tepe. Men's lives can often be circumscribed within such trivia, in my experience. Things like identity cards, the words of songs, the syndromes people may suffer from…' And then suddenly he stopped and turned to face Tepe. 'By the way, the doctor who examined the Urfa baby, was it Akkale, do you know?'