‘Yes. He needed a lot,’ Maurice said. ‘Back in those days there was my mother, my paternal grandparents, a couple of uncles and Edmondo and myself. We were just babies. When the war ended and the danger was past, Father still wouldn’t let the stuff go. He never used it himself, you understand, but he wanted to have it - called it his insurance policy.’ He flicked over the pages of Huge Breasts and pulled a disgusted face.

  ‘And when your father died?’

  ‘To be honest, I didn’t know what to do with it,’ Maurice said. ‘I thought about taking it all to somewhere like the forensic institute and letting them dispose of it. But I didn’t want to have to answer any questions about where it came from or anything. And as for just throwing it away, how can you do that? And where? If you bury it, will it infect the ground? You can’t sell it, we’ve enough junkies in this city as it is! And anyway, according to my brother, Father wanted us to keep it, just in case.’ He looked down at the magazine-covered table again and added, ‘Seems my brother just wanted this place left alone for his own purposes.’

  ‘These magazines belong to Edmondo?’

  ‘Well, I can’t think of anyone else they might belong to. We have no servants these days, can’t afford them, and I prefer real, live women myself.’ He looked up at İkmen. ‘Inspector, even putting his “confession” aside, my brother is odd. I mean these magazines’ - he shrugged - ‘God, he has a bedroom! Why doesn’t he keep them in there? I know he must have a sexual life of some sort, I’m not going to knock on his door and stop him!’

  ‘You’re sure these are Edmondo’s?’ Ayşe asked.

  ‘No one else has access to here,’ Maurice replied. ‘Your own men missed the entrance from the garden when you came to search the first time. As I said before, I didn’t want you to find this place. It’s, well, it’s awkward and it’s shaming and—’

  ‘We will have to remove the narcotics now.’

  ‘Of course!’

  ‘Huge Breasts, however…’ Ayşe began.

  ‘There is no law against that,’ İkmen said. ‘And at least we didn’t find a dead body in here, did we?’

  ‘You thought you might?’

  İkmen shrugged. ‘I didn’t know, Mr Loya,’ he said. ‘Your brother says he has killed this woman and thrown her body into the Golden Horn. As you know, we found what he claims to be the murder weapon in that waterway. But beyond that there is no sign of any body and it puzzles me, as, I imagine, it must puzzle you, as to how your brother got the body down to the Horn without being seen or collapsing under the weight. Edmondo is arthritic; he’s not a strong man.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So although I do not disbelieve your brother, I cannot entirely believe his story either,’ İkmen said.

  ‘Well, I don’t know how I can help you,’ Maurice said as he looked at the serried ranks of opium bottles on the shelves of his father’s hidey hole. ‘I have never, ever been close to my brother. He isn’t easy to get close to. I mean, to come down here with these magazines! God, we don’t come down here! Or at least I don’t.’

  One of the young constables, who was now tentatively fingering a magazine on the table, said, ‘Your brother was having a—’

  ‘Yes, I think that we all know what Mr Loya’s brother was doing down here,’ İkmen said as he ripped the magazine from the young man’s fingers.

  ‘Sir.’ He stood back immediately and lowered his head.

  İkmen looked down at his feet, idly shuffling them against the hard stone floor.

  ‘Mr Loya,’ he said, ‘do you have any idea why your brother might want to admit to a crime he did not commit?’ ‘No.’

  İkmen first fixed Maurice Loya with a hard gaze before he said, ‘Do you know whether Edmondo might have been coerced into making a confession?’

  ‘Coerced? By whom and for what reason?’ Maurice raked his fingers through his greying hair and said, ‘I don’t know Edmondo’s life, Inspector. I don’t know who his friends are, if he has any. This woman he says he killed was someone from back in the days when he used to hang around Sultanahmet with all the hippies. I was never part of that. God almighty, if he used to come down here - with all these terrible jars around the walls, without my knowledge

  ‘It can’t be easy living with a person as closed off and distant as your brother,’ İkmen said.

  ‘No it isn’t,’ Maurice Loya crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head. ‘He doesn’t do anything! Drifts around, not talking … What goes on in his life is a mystery.’

  ‘You pay for everything.’

  ‘Who else is there?’ Maurice said. ‘Everyone else is dead! Our father left us money, but contrary to many people’s belief, that is now all gone.’

  Ayşe Farsakoğlu, who had been following what had been happening closely, turned away. She knew where İkmen was going with this even if, apparently, Maurice Loya did not.

  ‘With some people you can have a conversation sometime, but with my brother…’ He shrugged. ‘It’s impossible. Living like this, together and yet apart… God, but I’m so angry that he came down here! What did he think he was doing? It wasn’t as if he used opium himself.’

  İkmen picked up a powder-filled bottle from one of the shelves and looked at it. ‘Didn’t he?’ ‘No!’

  ‘In his youth he was involved with hippies.’

  ‘He smoked a bit of cannabis!’ Maurice Loya said. ‘He’s too dull to have done anything more than that!’

  ‘And you?’ İkmen, still looking at the bottle, said.

  ‘Take opium? Me?’ He laughed. ‘Are you insane? I have to work all the hours God gives in order to keep this place going and put food in our mouths! I can’t be half asleep! I can’t even be vaguely relaxed, most of the time. You try it when you get no help at all and are just expected to—’

  ‘So if your brother were out of your life in some way, things would be a lot easier for you?’ İkmen asked.

  At last Maurice Loya fell in. With a heavy, weary sigh he pulled out one of the chairs underneath the table and sat down. Yet again he put his forehead in his hands. ‘Oh, so now it’s all my fault, is it?’ he said. ‘I made my brother confess to a murder he didn’t commit in order to get him out of my life and have this house and everything in it to myself?’ ‘I—’

  ‘Inspector İkmen, I will be honest with you,’ Maurice Loya said, ‘and tell you now that that idea, as a concept, has a lot going for it. If Edmondo goes to prison, I get everything, which will probably enable me to give up working completely. Fantastic! There are problems, however.’ He recorded them one by one on his fingers. ‘Firstly, as you have said yourself, my brother’s story is clumsy and full of holes. I don’t make mistakes like that - ask my clients! And secondly, much as he may drive me insane, I do care for my brother. I love him. I’ve looked after him for his entire adult life!’

  ‘Which means that he, by his own admission, does what you want him to do most of the time,’ İkmen said. ‘He wants to please you.’

  ‘Yes—’

  ‘He is also, I think, rather afraid of you too, Mr Loya,’ İkmen said. ‘Intellectually clever and complex as I know he is, Edmondo is also emotionally fragile and—’

  Maurice Loya stood up quickly. ‘Inspector İkmen, if you want to make an accusation …’

  İkmen casually waved his words away with one hand. ‘No …’

  ‘I was there, as you may recall, when the knife my brother claimed to have used on this woman was found in the Golden Horn,’ Maurice Loya said. ‘I felt at the time that you felt my presence there was suspicious in some way. It was not. Edmondo told me the ins, the outs and all the rest of it about his murder of this woman before he ever told you. It was me who agreed with him that he had to go to the police! The night you and that other plain-clothes male officer came here, Edmondo and I rowed. He told me what he’d done and I told him he needed to tell you. I don’t know whether he killed this Emine woman or not! I wasn’t here the night he claimed to have done so. If you can’t find evidence of this woman in this house then …’ He sighed. ‘Yes, I can and do “bully” my brother, Inspector. If I didn’t, Edmondo would do even less than he does do. But as for persuading him to confess to a crime he didn’t commit -‘ he shook his head slowly. ‘No. No.’

  İkmen pulled another chair out from underneath the table and sat down opposite Maurice Loya. ‘Sir,’ he said, ‘what would be helpful would be if you could go over, with me, as precisely as you can, the conversation you had with your brother about his supposed murder of Emine Aksu. Sometimes there are small things that people tell us which have a significance which at first we don’t recognise.’

  ‘Well, yes I—’

  ‘Maybe something Edmondo has told you but hasn’t told us,’ İkmen said. ‘Because if he is innocent and you have, as you say, no hand in his confession, then he must be doing it either to cover up for someone else or for some other reason we don’t understand.’

  ‘Sir,’ Ayşe Farsakoğlu interjected. ‘Mr Aksu’s house?’

  They were indeed due yet again to search Ahmet Aksu’s house as soon as they had finished in Fener. But then they were not on any sort of time limit and, besides, talking to Maurice Loya was something that was long overdue and potentially important.

  ‘Mr Aksu can wait for a while longer,’ İkmen said. ‘Give the forensic institute a call while I have a chat to Mr Loya, please, Sergeant. Tell them we have some very old narcotics for them.’ He then turned back to Maurice Loya and said, ‘Now, sir, I want to help your brother and quickly, so let’s talk, shall we?’

  Chapter 12

  Rafik Sangul had been deep in conversation with two of his friends about the up-coming football match when the police arrived. There were three in uniform and two other men, one very smart indeed, in suits. His friend Deniz, who far and away favoured AC Milan over Liverpool, had headed out of the back of the shop immediately, like a rocket. No one really liked the police very much, but Deniz had some particularly bad tales to tell about when he was younger, stupider and sniffed glue. The police had not been particularly ‘sympathetic’.

  ‘Do you want to buy some shoes?’ Rafik had asked stupidly as his remaining friend, Adnan, had looked on aghast. ‘This is a shoe shop.’

  ‘Owned by a Mr Ali Paksoy, I understand,’ the taller and smarter of the plain-clothes officers had said.

  ‘My uncle, yes,’ Rafik replied. He then looked up at the officers and, for some reason, he smiled.

  ‘My name is Inspector Süleyman,’ the officer said after a pause. ‘I need to speak to your uncle. Can you tell me where he is?’

  ‘Er…’ Rafik knew exactly where his Uncle Ali was, which was down in the basement organising the stock. But faced with all of these policemen his throat was closing very quickly and he was having great difficulty getting anything very much out.

  ‘Boy, are you hearing what the inspector is saying?’ the rather rougher looking man in plain clothes said. He had a very large and intimidating moustache.

  ‘Um…’

  ‘Can I help you, gentlemen?’

  It was a voice that brought considerable relief to Rafik. ‘Uncle Ali,’ he said as he pointed to the short, fleshy man now standing at the back of the shoe shop. ‘Uncle Ali Paksoy.’

  Inspector Süleyman smiled and said, ‘Mr Paksoy, I understand you are the owner of three garages on Sancaktar Street in Fener.’

  ‘That’s right.’ And then turning to Rafik and Adnan, he said, ‘Why don’t you boys go and get yourselves some lunch?’ He put his hand in his pocket, took out a twenty-lire bank note, and gave it to Rafik.

  For a moment the boy just stared down at the money in disbelief. Uncle Ali was, as a general rule, very mean. This was unprecedented.

  ‘Go to Osman’s kebab shop on the corner,’ he said. ‘You boys stay there a while.’

  He wanted them out of the way. But then with twenty lire in his pocket, Rafik was happy to do just that. As well as having two enormous lunches at Osman’s, twenty lire would also buy the boys cigarettes and possibly even some bottles of drink, too. They both left without another word.

  ‘My garages on Sancaktar Street,’ Ali Paksoy said, ‘what about them?’

  The shop, which seemed to sell little beyond cheap plastic shoes and boots, was small and oppressive. Süleyman told the uniformed officers to wait outside. This left only himself, İzzet Melik and Ali Paksoy.

  ‘Mr Paksoy,’ Süleyman said, ‘do you read newspapers, watch the news on the television?’

  Ali Paksoy’s fleshy features frowned. ‘Sometimes. Newspapers, that is. People leave them in the shop. Rafik likes to read the sports pages. I don’t have a television. Why?’

  ‘Sir, are you the owner of the 1972 Fiat model 124 BC we found in one of your garages this morning?’ İzzet Melik asked.

  ‘My father’s car?’ the shoe shop owner said. ‘Green?’

  ‘Green, yes,’ Süleyman said. ‘Just like the one we’ve been trying to track down since last week. The one we have been asking the public, via the media, to report if they see or hear of. A very rare car these days, sir, and one we think may have some sort of connection to an ongoing criminal investigation.’

  Still frowning, Ali Paksoy said, ‘Criminal?’

  ‘A body was found, an apparently exhumed corpse in Karakoy,’ Süleyman said. ‘You may have read about it in the papers. The only lead that we have is the reported presence of a 1972 Fiat 124 at the scene of the offence. Now it may well be that the car has absolutely nothing to do with this outrage, but we have to eliminate it from our inquiries.’

  ‘Absolutely.‘Ali Paksoy rubbed his chin with his hand. ‘Gentlemen, the car belonged to my father, now sadly deceased. I keep it, or rather my sister, the boy Rafik’s mother, and myself keep it for sentimental reasons. It isn’t registered.’

  ‘And yet it is in perfect working order.’

  ‘Gentlemen, why were you at my garages this morning, may I ask?’

  Süleyman told him about Mr Rossi and Mr Ferrari and why, when he had seen their antics, Gazi Sinop had put things in motion to call the police.

  When he had finished, Ali Paksoy sighed. ‘But I always keep the garages locked.’

  ‘The Italian gentlemen said that the doors into that particular garage were flapping open,’ Süleyman said. ‘It was why they went in in the first place. They’re not criminals. They were just a little … slightly inebriated.’

  ‘If the car isn’t registered,’ İzzet Melik said, ‘presumably you don’t drive it on the road, Mr Paksoy.’ ‘No.’

  ‘And yet, although they, too, didn’t drive the car, the Italians proved to themselves and to us that the vehicle is in working order. The engine fires, it has gasoline. The keys were in the ignition.’

  Ali Paksoy first wiped some beads of sweat from his forehead and then shrugged. ‘What can I say? It’s not usual, I know, but to hang on to things isn’t a crime. My sister and I keep the car because it reminds us of our father. Ask her! Handan Sarigul - she lives above the baker’s next door.’

  ‘We will,’ İzzet Melik said as he made a note of the woman’s name on his pad.

  ‘Neither of us drives that car,’ Ali Paksoy continued. ‘And I always lock it away in the garage if I go there to maintain it, or Handan and I just simply go to look at it. Only I have a key to any of those garages.’ He sighed. ‘You know, people collect old cars these days, it’s probably worth money. If those doors were open, it can mean only one thing, that my garage was broken into.’

  ‘When did you last go and look at the vehicle yourself, Mr Paksoy?’ Süleyman asked.

  Ali Paksoy thought for a few moments, lighting up a cigarette as he did so and then said, ‘I think it must be about three weeks ago. Handan came with me, ask her; we cleaned the old thing, as we do from time to time. I turn the engine over for a few minutes.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘Her husband died when Rafik was only a baby and life ever since has been hard - for Handan and for me -1 keep both her and Rafik. As well as being a possible investment, my sister and I are very nostalgic for that car. We had happy times in it long ago. It was cool, you know. I hate to think that someone may have used it for… for bad things.’

  ‘Mr Paksoy, where were you on the night of the 19th May, last Thursday?’

  ‘Here at the shop,’ Ali Paksoy said. ‘At night, in my bed.’ ‘Can anyone corroborate that?’ İzzet Melik asked. Ali Paksoy cleared his throat and then looked down at the floor. ‘I live alone,’ he said. ‘I see.’

  ‘Well, Mr Paksoy, you’ll have to come and give us your fingerprints,’ İzzet Melik said. And then, with a quick glance at his somewhat disapproving superior, he added, ‘In order to eliminate your prints from any that may belong to whoever may have taken your Fiat.’

  ‘Ah.’ Ali Paksoy smiled, as did Mehmet Süleyman. The latter, although just as punitive and often crueller than İzzet Melik, was not in favour of intimidating as yet innocent members of the public. In his experience it made people nervous and not in a way that could be useful to an investigation. Many years before, his old mentor, Çetin İkmen, had expressed it as his opinion that intimidation was usually pointless. Those who were not guilty would own up to anything to make the intimidation stop and the guilty were usually too canny or too tough to be taken in or bothered by it. European Union standards aside, ‘gentler’ working was usually a much more productive approach.

  ‘It may also be helpful to us if you could look at the gasoline used, Mr Paksoy,’ Süleyman said. ‘I mean, you keep the car in working order…’

  ‘With only a tiny amount of gas,’ Ali Paksoy said. ‘Not enough to go anywhere. Is the tank full?’

  ‘We don’t know yet, we’ll have to take the vehicle away for forensic testing,’ Süleyman said. ‘I do apologise, but—’

  ‘You have to do your duty,’ the shoe seller said. ‘I understand. It’s important to catch criminals. Do you know if my car stopped at a garage? For gas, I mean?’