'So what have you come to tell me then, Bellas?' Suleyman asked, attempting without success to look her in the eye.
Belkis licked her dry lips before answering. 'I do want you to know that I have always loved Tansu Hamm, sir. I have loved her music and her all of my life.' Then looking across at Ikmen who, presumably, she saw as more of a father figure, she said, 'And even though she has wronged me, I still want to be like her one day. I can sing and dance and everything and Insallah, I will be an Arabesk myself one day.'
'I'm sure you shall,' Ikmen said kindly, 'but for the moment, Belkis, you say that Tansu has wronged you. How did she do this?'
'Madame dismissed me just before Inspector Suleyman arrived yesterday.' She threw a short, shy glance at the younger man. 'She thought that Inspector Suleyman might be Mr Erol come back to her and when that wasn't so, she told me to go.'
'That seems particularly unfair,' Suleyman commented, 'Does no one else in her party object to this?'
'Miss Latife, Madame's sister, did, so I had hopes that she might change her mind. Miss Latife does so much for Madame that sometimes even in her rages she can make her do things.'
'But not on this occasion?'
Belkis started to snivel. 'No,' she said, 'Madame was too furious for that. Although Miss Latife did give me money to get home to Sivas with.' Then bursting into full-blown tears, she said, 'Not even Mr Yilmaz, Madame's brother, said goodbye and…'
Suleyman took his handkerchief out of his top pocket and handed it across to Belkis.
'Thank you, sir. Thank you.'
After a brief pause during which the girl attempted to get hold of her emotions, Suleyman said, 'Well, that's very bad indeed, Bellas, but I don't think that you came here, instead of presumably going back to your parents, just to tell me this sad story, did you?'
She looked at Ikmen, who smiled yet again, before answering. 'No, sir.'
'And so
.'Well…-.. Look, Pm not saying all this because I am angry at Madame, you understand. I mean she is still the best star in all the world…'
'But?'
'But…But I know that Madame lied when she said that she was in the house on the night of Mrs Urfa's murder.'
Ikmen gave Suleyman a look which spoke volumes about the value of the serving classes. Suleyman ignored this and went on with his questioning.
'So how do you know this, Belkis?'
The girl breathed in hard before launching into her tale. 'Miss Latife went to bed at about seven,' she said. 'She'd been out all day tending the plants with the gardening man. She likes the plants. She says it comes of being the daughter of a country girl.' She smiled. 'But anyway, that left Madame alone downstairs, sitting out on the veranda. Mr Galip was at that football match and Mr Yilmaz, well, he was upstairs too by then…'
'So what happened then?'
'Well, after making sure that everything was ready for the morning, I went out to Madame and asked her if she wanted anything else. She said that she didn't and that I could go to my room now if I wanted. She was quite pleasant to me.' Belkis suddenly seemed very nervous again, presumably because she was getting to the nub of the matter now. ‘I, er…'
'Go on, Beikis,' Ikmen said encouragingly, 'you're doing very well.'
'Yes, but I should have told you this before, should-'
'That's not important now,' Suleyman said earnestly.'So you did what?' 'I went upstairs.' 'To your room.'
'No,' she said, lifting her tear-stained face just a little, 'to Mr Yilmaz's room. We, um…' The tears, silent this time, started flowing once again and Beikis buried her eyes in Suleyman's handkerchief. 'Oh, sirs, what must you think of me!'
Even though he knew he strictly shouldn't, Ikmen placed a fatherly hand on the girl's shoulder. She couldn't be much more than seventeen, if that, and sadly he could easily imagine what Mr Yilmaz might have said to get this little one into his bed.
'Did Mr Yilmaz say he would help you with your career if you slept with him?' Ikmen asked.
‘I only had to take my shirt off at first,' the girl said sadly, 'but then he said that wasn't enough and he'd only really be able to help me if I, I, oh…'
'He took advantage of you, Beikis,' Suleyman said with a sigh, 'which was very wrong.'
'Yes.' Feeling, quite correctly, that the inspector wanted her to get to the point of the story, Beikis pulled herself together once again and carried on.
– But you don't want to know that,' she said. 'What you need to know is about Madame.'
Suleyman nodded encouragingly.
'When I went to Mr Yilmaz's room, he had just got out of the shower and was sitting on the end of his bed drying riimself with a towel.' She gulped nervously at the memory of this. 'So I sat down next to him, and we, well, I don't want to say, but a little later I heard a car start. It wasn't Mr Galip coming back, it was definitely someone going somewhere. And Mr Yilmaz, who was recently given a new Ferrari by Madame, which he loves, ran over to the window to make sure that no one who shouldn't was driving his car. Madame and Miss Latife have both driven it and he doesn't like it.'
'So what was there when Mr Yilmaz looked out of the window?' Ikmen asked. 'And did you go over there with him?'
'Yes, I did go and I did see.'
'What did you see, Belkis?' Suleyman asked, his heart now beating faster with excitement.
'I saw Madame dressed in one of her big white furs driving off in the silver Mercedes.'
'And did you see her return again?'
'No, I went up to my room soon after that. Then I went to sleep.'
'What about in the morning?' Ikmen asked. 'Did you see her then?'
'Yes, I did, and she was crying. I heard her say to Miss Latife that she thought something bad might have happened to Mr Erol. Miss Latife had to give her tranquillisers to calm her down.' Then as if suddenly aware of what she had said, Belkis clapped her hand across her mouth. 'I won't have to speak about Mr Yilmaz in the court, will I?'
Chapter 12
'… and on and on and on,' Tansu said as she rocked miserably about on the sofa in front of the television screen. Then, laughing, but without mirth, she threw what was left of her champagne down her throat and poured another draft half into her glass and half across the surface of the table. She wasn't bothered. As soon as she had a decent amount in her glass she drank it and then flopped back to look at the TV screen again.
She didn't hear her sister walk across the room towards her.
'Watching one of your old movies, Tansu?'
The star turned to face what looked like a smarter, more sober version of herself. 'Yes,' she slurred. ‘I like to look at myself when I was a beautiful girl.'
Latife took a few moments to view the film before saying, 'You were thirty-five in this one.'
Leaning forward with an almost demonic leer on her face, Tansu said, 'You wouldn't say that to me if I was sober!'
