Arabesk

'Past the cells.'

'Yes.' He smiled. 'And we could move Mr Temiz to rather more sanitary accommodation at the same time.'

'Yes.' Suleyman bit down thoughtfully on his lower lip. 'And if he doesn't ID her?'

'Then she must have been fucking instead of killing’ Ikmen said with a shrug. 'But let us meet that eventuality if it arises’

'All right’ With a sudden rush of energy, Suleyman got to his feet. 'Come on, then’ he said, 'let's get on with it’

'You go ahead.' Ikmen nodded towards the door. 'I'd better phone home and tell Fatma what I'm doing’

'Oh, yes’ Suleyman said. He reached the door and turned. 'You really should be there, shouldn't you?'

'Yes’ Ikmen replied tartly, 'but I'm not, and so there it is.'

Quickly, before he lost his nerve, Ikmen punched his home number into the telephone and then waited for that familiar, angry voice.

Erol Urfa paced restlessly back and forth across the floor of his living room. Just looking at him made

Ibrahim Aksoy, who had taken refuge in a large bottle of raki some hours before, feel dizzy.

'I don't know why you don't just settle for a bit,' the manager said from inside his anise-tinged haze. 'Ferhat Goktepe said that he'd call as soon as there was any news.'

'I should be there with her,' Erol said vehemently. 'I should go now!'

'Oh, and take Merih into a stinking police station, that's a good idea!' Aksoy said acidly.

'If you would look after her…'

'Now, you know I can't do that, Erol,'.Aksoy said as he poured himself yet another draught of the oily, transparent liquid. 'I can't possibly do all that stuff with the feeding and then the, er, the toilet business. And anyway, I'm really quite drunk. You know I'd gladly lay down my life for you but…'

'Ibrahim, she didn't do it!' Erol raked one shaking hand through the thickness of his hair. 'Tansu did not kill my wife!'

'You don't know that, Erol.'

‘I do!'.

'Oh, so who did kill her then?' Aksoy's face, though drunk, was. full of challenge.

Erol flung both arms into the air in a gesture of hopelessness. ‘I don't know!' he said.

'Right,' Aksoy replied. 'You don't know, so it could be anybody, including Tansu. I mean, with Ruya out of the way, she probably thought that you might marry her.' Then under his breath he muttered, 'Silly old…'

'But if that is the case, it is I who have brought Tansu to this trouble and it is also I who, indirectly, have killed my own wife and unborn child!'

'Nonsense!'

Erol put his hands up to his face and then sat down beside his manager. Although it was hot, he knew that the palms of his hands were sweating far more than they usually did. He also knew, or rather felt, that perhaps now was the time to confess to those most close to him – in this case, Ibrahim Aksoy.

'Ibrahim,' he began and then faltered. 'Ibrahim, much as I may wish to marry Tansu, that can never be.'

'Well, of course not, she's old enough to be your mother!'

'Yes, but that is not the reason why I cannot marry her.'

Aksoy peered out from deep inside his alcoholic mist and leered. 'Oh, is there another-'

'No!' Erol put his head down and stared at the rug on the floor. He would need to look at something while he said this, something other than Ibrahim's face. Since coming to the city, there was only one other person he had told his secret to and that was because that person had known – it was a secret they shared.

'Ibrahim,' he said slowly, 'I am not the man you think I am.' Then looking up sharply into that raki-sodden face, he added, 'Everything you think you know about me is a complete and utter lie.'

Sergeant Orhan Tepe was given the task of moving Cengiz Temiz from his current abode to another cell a few metres away. Why Inspector Suleyman wanted this done, he didn't know; in all likelihood Temiz would be released within twenty-four hours and so, to Tepe, it all seemed a bit pointless. However, something had to be up on account of the fact that the inspector had told him to watch Temiz very closely during the next few minutes. He didn't know what he was supposed to be looking for or why, although he did gain an inkling when he saw the inspector, Tansu Hanim, someone who could be one of her brothers, and her lawyer, Mr Oz, walking down the corridor towards Temiz and himself. Behind, at some distance, he could just make out the slight form of old Inspector Ikmen.

'Well, Cengiz,' Tepe said into Temiz's large, red-tinged ear, 'here is a little present for you. A real life superstar.’ In order to direct Cengiz's eyes to the star, he waved one hand in Tansu's direction. 'Look, there.'

The first indication that something was seriously amiss came in the form of a sharp intake of breath. Cengiz gasped and then, looking up at Tepe, the officer immediately noticed the fear that had suddenly settled in his eyes.

'Cengiz

Still fixated on Tepe's face, Cengiz Temiz simply whimpered.

'It's only a lady, Cengiz,' and then physically turning the man's head to watch the progress of the party toward them, Tepe said, 'Nothing to be frightened of.'

With small but obviously terrified noises of protest, Cengiz tried to resist Tepe's hand, but without success. For a moment he simply stood looking at Tansu with an expression of frozen horror on his face. At this point, Tepe observed, Suleyman turned round and looked at Ikmen.

But then suddenly there was a change. At first Tepe felt this rather than saw it for it came in the form of a slackening that shot through the whole of Cengiz's body like an arrow. Initially, imagining that his charge was about to faint, Tepe moved closer to him in order to offer some sort of support. When Cengiz didn't fall, he turned to look at him again. What he found was a very winning, if child-like, smile upon his face. And as Tansu, Suleyman and party passed by without a word or a look, Cengiz made several small grunts and gestures of approval.

'Cengiz…'

‘I thought it was her, but it isn't,' he said and giggled with what might have been mirth or relief or both. 'It isn't who, Cengiz?'

'The demon who killed Mrs Ruya,' he said in a voice that boomed towards the rafters with glee. 'That lady isn't her!'

'You thought it might have been?'

The party heading for the back entrance had stopped now. Slowly, her eyes full of a furious malevolence, Tansu Hanim was turning to face Suleyman.

'You…' she began.

'I had to see whether or not he would identify you,' Suleyman said, adding quickly, 'and he has not.'

'That man is-' But then she stopped and for just one frozen, monstrous moment she watched as Cengiz Temiz did what, at first sight, could have been an ungainly dance.

'The demon walked like this, you see,' Cengiz said as he tottered backwards and forwards on Tepe's arm, with what looked like a very pronounced limp. 'White hair like the lady but,' he teetered back and forth once again, giggling, 'like this!'

'Allah!' Although said under her breath, Tansu's exhortation to divine intervention, coupled with the whitness of her face and the shakiness of her hands, caused Ikmen to look at her sharply. She gave every appearance, he thought, of one who has just woken from a beautiful dream only to discover reality. It was one of those moments when a person involuntarily gives others fleeting access to the raw core of his or her being. But, as ever with things psychological, unless one could interpret such a moment, its true meaning could not be ascertained. And as the door to Tansu's soul closed and she regained her composure, Ikmen realised that he hadn't a clue about what he had just seen.

'Get me out of this stinking pit, will you, Adnan?' she said as she took hold of her lawyer's arm and began to walk forwards. 'I want to see my manager and my sister.'

'They're waiting with your car,' the lawyer soothed, 'ready to take you home, away from all this hideousness.'

'We had to do this, madam,' Suleyman began.

'You will be hearing from me in due course,' Adnan Oz said with a slight bow. 'You can't trick people like