Arabesk

Tansu Hanim and expect to get away with it.'

Suleyman indicated that Tepe should put Cengiz Temiz, who now appeared to be disturbed by what was going on, into his new cell. Then turning once again to Adnan Oz he said, 'I look forward to hearing from you, sir.'

Dutifully holding the door open for Tansu, her lawyer and Yilmaz Emin to pass through, Ikmen bowed to them politely as they left. The fact that Tansu averted her eyes when he looked at her could just have been bad manners, but it could also have been because she didn't want him to know that she was crying.

Once they had gone, Ikmen shut the door and looked across at Suleyman who was now slumped against the wall with his head in his hands. Tepe, for his part, had settled Cengiz Temiz into his cell and had just come back out into the corridor when Ikmen said, 'Don't lock up yet, Tepe. I need a moment with Mr Temiz.'

'Oh, right' Tepe stood to one side while Ikmen entered the cell. Suleyman, who had come back to himself somewhat as Ikmen spoke, was right behind him.

The overweight, unwashed heap on the edge of what passed for a bed in that terrible place rolled his eyes as Ikmen approached him.

'You had a bit of a fright there, didn't you?' Ikmen said with a smile.

'Who are you? Have you got a cigarette?'

'My name is Cetin,' Ikmen said as he took a cigarette out of his packet and handed it to Cengiz.

'Can I have a light too?'

'Yes.'

Ikmen handed over his lighter and Cengiz lit up. For a few moments he puffed contentedly before saying, 'Mr Avedykian said I don't have to talk to him any more.'

'Who?' Ikmen asked.

Cengiz pointed rudely towards Suleyman.

'Oh.'

Suleyman duly turned away and walked towards the far corner of the cell.

Ikmen smiled. 'But you can talk to me though, can't you?'

Cengiz didn't answer, seemingly absorbed in his cigarette. 'Cengiz?'

'What?'

Ikmen held out his almost full packet of cigarettes to Cengiz and smiled. 'Listen, Cengiz,' he said, 'if I give you this packet of cigarettes, will you answer just one question for me?'

For a few moments Cengiz looked from the packet of cigarettes to Ikmen's face and then back again. He licked his lips as if just the look of the cigarettes was making him drool with anticipation.

'You can keep the lighter too,' Ikmen offered.

A small grunt-like noise seemed to indicate that Cengiz had consented to this. It was enough for Ikmen.

'OK, Cengiz,' he said, 'why didn't you tell Inspector Suleyman that the devil woman, or whatever you call her, walked with a limp? Can you tell me that?'

Cengiz's eyes narrowed and he put his hand out for the cigarettes.

'Not until you answer my question,' Ikmen said, putting the pack back into his pocket. 'Well?'

Cengiz, pouting a little now, shrugged. 'He never asked me.'

'He never asked you what, Cengiz?'

'Whether the lady had one leg smaller than the other leg.'

Ikmen took the cigarettes back out of his pocket again and held them up close to his face. 'But she did, is that what you are saying, Cengiz?'

'Yes.' He made a quick grab for the cigarettes which Ikmen foiled.

'Ah, not yet!' he said. 'Not yet. So what you're saying is that the woman you saw just now looked like the woman who killed Mrs Ruya except that that woman had one leg which was shorter than the other. Is that right?'

'Yes.'

'Are you certain?' 'Yes!'

Ikmen handed the cigarettes over and then leaned back to watch as Cengiz Temiz secreted his precious haul within the considerable folds of his clothes. Turning to face Suleyman, Ikmen said, 'Latife Emin does look remarkably like her sister, don't you think?'

Chapter 14

'Latife Emin does not limp, nor does she have one leg noticeably shorter than the other!'

'Ah, but have you really looked at her legs, Suleyman?' Ikmen said. 'No, you have not!'

'Well, of course I haven't!' Suleyman cried as he flung himself wearily down behind his desk. ‘I have paid Latife Emin very little heed during the course of this affair. I mean, what would have been her motive?'

‘I don't know.' He sat down in front of Suleyman's desk and lit a cigarette. As he did so, his ulcer made small twinges of protest 'But that surely is something we must now find out'

'Oh, so I just drag Latife Emin back in here and parade her before Cengiz Temiz!'

'No.' Ikmen sighed. 'Both you and I know that given the status of these people, we can't do that If they were nobody, then we could, but it is in the nature of all societies to have those on top and those on the bottom, and those on top get treated more gently.'

'So what do you suggest then?' Suleyman asked angrily. 'I pass this over to MIT on the pretext that because all the protagonists involved are Kurdish it might be political?' 'You wouldn't do that.'

Suleyman looked down at his hands and groaned. 'No, you're right'

'Let us try, if we can, to think laterally,' Ikmen said in a slow, considered voice. 'Why don't you get the file out and let us review the evidence in the light of what happened today.'

Suleyman took the folder out of a drawer and laid it on his desk. 'Of course, you don't actually have to be here at all,' he said as he rubbed his tired eyes with his fingers.

'No, but I am and so… OK, Mrs Urfa was killed by the ingestion of cyanide-laced halva. What other forensic evidence do we have?'

Suleyman consulted the various documents in front of him with a grave expression on his face. 'We have. Cengiz Temiz's prints all over the body, plus some footprints that match his footwear…' He perused the information, frowning. 'Erol's prints on the table, the child's, Ruya's on kitchen equipment and her pen…' He looked up, frowning even more. 'Except that…'

'What?'

'Erol said that his wife didn't read or write and so why would she have a pen?'

'She could have used it for drawing,' Ikmen opined,

'but I take your point Write that down, just in case.'

Suleyman took a sheet of paper from his desk and scribbled this seeming anomaly at the top of the page.

'So, as I understand it,' Ikmen continued, 'Cengiz Temiz basically walked in on the murder scene.'

'According to Cengiz the door to the Urfas' apartment was open, he went in, saw both the devil woman and Ruya Urfa's body.'

'The devil woman ran when she saw him…'

'With, what we now know, was an unsteady gait'

'But why was the door open?' Ikmen asked. 'I mean, the idea that the woman murdered Ruya with the door open, notwithstanding the fact that the world was currently watching football, is absurd.'

'Unless,' Suleyman said, 'she had gone back to get something she had forgotten.'

'True. But what?'

'Who knows?'

'How possible do you think it is that Cengiz Temiz murdered Ruya in order to procure a baby for Mina Arda? Really?' asked Ikmen.

Suleyman smiled a little sadly. 'Even if one takes into account the fact that Cengiz has a previous conviction for immoral behaviour, I don't think he'd have the cognitive skills to kill in this way. That his 'theft' of the baby was both opportunistic and philanthropic seems to me beyond doubt. I am quite in accord with Dr Halman there.'