But to return to Felicity. Who else could have killed her father? Apart from her brother, there was no one, and there didn’t appear to be any forensic evidence that couldn’t be accounted for, and no forced entry. Just a dead man and a broken mirror. According to Ardiç Felicity was going to be transferred to hospital. Dr Sezer was emphatic on the point. No date could be set for her hearing, nothing. Because that was just what they were getting from her – nothing. Where was she now in her mind? What strange landscapes was she viewing through the curtain of drugs they were already administering to her? The British newspapers were saying that she should be sent home and in a way İkmen felt they were right. After all, what progress could be made while she was surrounded by foreigners who did not speak her language? When people became ill like this it was common for them to regress to their first language. Yusuf Cohen was known to experience times when he could only communicate in Ladino, the language he had learned as an infant at his mother’s knee. Grimly, İkmen considered the possibility of how such a breakdown would affect him. Would he suddenly start to speak the Albanian his mother had sung to him? Would the world of Lek Dukagjini suddenly make perfect sense?

  In a way, he had to admit, it already did. If nothing else his experiences with the Albanians had taught him that change is only possible through understanding. The rules of the Kunan were very old and had been nurtured in spite of the repressive tactics employed by successive conquerers. They were something of their own, unique. First the Ottomans and then the communists had tried to ban the Kunan, suppress it or reason adherents out of it, but it continued to survive. Because, bloody though it was, it was theirs alone and they would continue to die for it, as his mother had.

  Angeliki Vlora and her two sons were due to appear in court that Wednesday – on drugs charges. Mehmet would then appear later charged with the murder of Egrem Berisha. The ‘boys’ had already given statements that absolved their mother from actually dealing. They took full responsibility for that. Angeliki would go to prison, but not for as long as İkmen would have liked. And besides, the Vloras had enough friends on the outside to ensure that Aryan could never be truly safe. The only consolation being that they would almost certainly be able to keep Mehmet Vlora off the streets for good. That was something that would please almost everyone.

  For the moment, however, there were practicalities to be addressed. Tepe was in the process of moving Aryan Vlora and Engelushjia Berisha to a safe house where they would be guarded night and day until after Mehmet’s trial. After that, Aryan would be on his own. Hopefully, maybe together with Engelushjia Berisha, he would be able to disappear as totally as Aryan’s brother Dhori – if the youngest Vlora had indeed disappeared. It made İkmen wonder again where, if anywhere, the missing Dhori might be. He was the only Vlora brother apart from the one who died in infancy that İkmen hadn’t met.

  There is an old saying about proximity to princes being dangerous. Basically a prince is a fire that burns brightly and with force, and anyone who gets too close is likely to get burned. Some friends and colleagues applied this to Ayşe Farsakoǧlu. Ever since the end of her affair with Mehmet Suleyman she had been edgy, something that Orhan Tepe seemed helpless to remedy. It wasn’t easy being in Tepe’s shoes because the edgier she got, the more tactless she became – her comment to Engelushjia Berisha being a comparatively mild case in point. ‘I hope that you and the old man,’ she said, tipping her head in the direction of Aryan Vlora, ‘aren’t committing immoral acts.’

  ‘No!’ the girl retorted with, Tepe was pleased to observe, some heat in her voice. ‘Aryan is a friend. He’s looking after me now, like a father.’

  ‘Sergeant Farsakoǧlu?’ Tepe said. ‘Could I speak to you for a moment please?’

  As soon as they were out of sight of Engelushjia and Aryan who was packing the last of his meagre possessions into a box, Tepe gave vent to his anger.

  ‘What do you mean by asking Engelushjia questions like that about her friend?’

  ‘Her friend!’ she huffed contemptuously. ‘Why should a middle-aged man want to have a little kid like her around unless he’s fucking her?’

  Tepe gripped her arm rather harder than she liked.

  ‘Ow! Orhan, you’re—’

  ‘If you’d seen what her father did to her, you’d let her live just about anywhere away from him! And besides, these people will be giving evidence against someone we know is a killer – Mehmet Vlora. So whatever they’re doing we need to keep them happy.’

  ‘Yes, but didn’t that sample from Egrem Berisha’s shirt match the blood on the Vloras’ floor?’

  ‘Yes, it did, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that Mehmet did it. Any good lawyer could argue that Aryan is lying to save his own neck. We must support him. Just keep focused on the job, Ayşe,’ he said, relinquishing his hold on her arm, ‘and stop taking out your own frustrations on others.’

  Her eyes burned. ‘What do you mean?’ she said through gritted teeth.

  ‘I mean that you should make up your mind to forget about Mehmet Suleyman, he’s marrying Dr Halman now. Find yourself a husband before it’s too late!’

  ‘Oh, I thought I’d already done that!’ she responded, venomously looking him up and down.

  ‘I meant a husband of your own.’

  Her face was a mask of pure fury. ‘So do I take it you no longer want me to do all those little things that Aysel won’t let you do to her?’

  ‘Sergeant Tepe?’

  They both turned at once, caught as it were in the spotlight of the innocent gaze of the young girl before them.

  ‘We’re ready to go now,’ Engelushjia said.

  ‘Right.’

  Aryan Vlora joined them. ‘I don’t suppose I’ll ever come here again,’ he said simply, ‘but then I’m not sorry for that. This has been a bad place – a place of death.’

  Ayşe Farsakoǧlu wordlessly walked towards the front door of the apartment while Tepe helped Aryan and Engelushjia with their belongings.

  ‘Will we have a policeman with us at the house we’re going to?’ Engelushjia asked. ‘To make sure that my father and Aryan’s family don’t harm us?’

  Tepe smiled. ‘Yes, of course,’ he said, ‘we won’t let any harm come to either of you. I give you my word. You’re very brave people.’

  The girl, in her youthful enthusiasm, reached up and impulsively hugged his neck. ‘Thank you.’

  Ayşe Farsakoǧlu opened the apartment door and then slammed it behind her.

  It was dark by the time Çetin İkmen finally managed to get down to the cells to see Angeliki Vlora. It was bone-chillingly cold down there; the duty officer was not the sort who believed that prisoners should experience anything approaching comfort. But İkmen was of a different order and so he took a couple of blankets and an extra packet of cigarettes along with him.

  ‘Come to gloat, witch’s child?’ the old woman said as she surveyed his figure in the doorway of her cell.

  ‘No. I came to give you these actually.’ İkmen threw the blankets onto her bed and placed the cigarettes in her hands. ‘And to tell you that you were right.’

  She looked at him questioningly.

  ‘About my mother,’ he continued. ‘As you suggested, I spoke to my uncle and to Emina Ndrek also. And it seems my mother was murdered by her brother, but probably not in the way you imagine.’

  ‘No?’ She patted the small cot that served as her bed and motioned for him to sit down. ‘Tell me.’

  İkmen sat down. He lit a cigarette and then one for the old woman. ‘My mother gave her life willingly to Salih Ndrek,’ he said, ‘in exchange for the lives of myself and my brother.’

  ‘The witch was with child.’

  ‘Yes, we think so,’ İkmen responded calmly, ‘although as I know you will appreciate, with my mother one could never be sure. She told such audacious lies.’ He smiled at his memory of her. ‘But then I’ve been thinking that if my mother’s actions put an end to the blood between the Bajraktar and the Ndrek, as indeed they did, then perhaps her sacrifice was worthwhile.’

  ‘The Bajraktar have other fis they are in blood with back home.’

  ‘Yes, but not here, Angeliki, not in my city. Not in a place where that madness can harm my children.’

  ‘Gjakmaria is a noble obligation.’

  ‘Gjakmaria,’ İkmen said, ‘is an insult to humanity. One thing I have learnt in all this is that Ghegs are bright and tough and instinctively magical people. I respect you, Angeliki, I respect your resistance and your adherence to what is truly your own. But, like the rest of us, you can’t just kill with impunity. No one will ever take you seriously or display any sympathy for you while you engage in this madness.’

  Angeliki first spat on the floor and then said, ‘You live in your world, Turk, and I’ll live in mine. Ghegs don’t need the Ottoman’s permission to breathe any more.’

  İkmen shrugged. ‘No, you don’t. But when you do finally leave custody, I will be watching you, Angeliki.’

  ‘In case I go after that coward that was my son?’ She laughed. ‘I expect you’ve put him somewhere safe now, İkmen.’

  ‘Yes,’ İkmen said with a smile, ‘I have. He’s a good man. He makes me believe that Albanians have a real future in the world. But Aryan is not the only reason why I will be watching you, Angeliki.’

  ‘Oh.’ It was said without apparent interest; the old woman seemed more interested in her cigarette.

  ‘No. I will also be watching you because I cannot find it within myself to forgive you.’

  Angeliki frowned. ‘Forgive me? For what?’

  ‘I don’t suppose you have any idea how arduously I have had to prepare to tell my brother Halil how his mother died.’

  She looked at him blankly.

  ‘No, I thought not,’ İkmen said with a sigh. ‘I have searched my soul and, lain awake at night. He found Mother, covered in blood, dead. Not a thing you’d forget, is it? But my brother has. The psychiatrist who has helped me to prepare for this says that Halil is in what she calls denial. In other words, his mind was so damaged by what he saw that he has blanked it out in order to protect himself. He was happy enough like that. And if I had never met you,’ he said, raising his voice slightly, ‘he and I would have stayed happy. But now that I know, I can’t keep the truth just to myself. Even taking into account the risk to my brother that telling him the truth involves, I can’t keep it from him. That would be disrespectful to him and anyway, what if he should learn about it from another source – like some malicious old woman?’

  ‘I did what I had to to protect my boys!’

  ‘Oh yes, I know that,’ İkmen said, ‘and I have rationalised it to myself in just those terms, but I still can’t forgive you.’ He stubbed out his cigarette on the floor and rose to his feet. ‘Must be the Albanian blood in my veins,’ he added bitterly.

  ‘Bastard!’

  ‘So if you are ever free again behave yourself, won’t you, Angeliki?’ He bent down to whisper in her ear. ‘Because the witch’s child will be watching you and if you so much as steal a strawberry . . .’ he clapped his hands hard right in front of her ear.

  ‘Ah!’

  ‘You will be back here as quickly as that.’

  And then he knocked hard on the door to attract the guard’s attention.

  In the few seconds it took for the door to be unlocked, Angeliki Vlora said, ‘So what was so special about the blood of the children of a Turk that Ayşe Bajraktar should give up her life?’

  İkmen smiled. ‘I think it’s something called love, Angeliki,’ he said as the door opened. ‘It’s something that doesn’t depend upon blood or belong to any particular fis. Just love.’

  Chapter 26

  * * *

  Mehmet Suleyman stood in front of Commissioner Ardiç’s desk, his eyes trained upon the now rapidly melting snow on his superior’s windowsill. Birds, mainly pigeons, were fighting over crumbs that only Ardiç could have put there, probably when he’d arrived that morning. Strange that so explosive a person could be sentimental about something as trivial as pigeons.

  ‘İkmen tells me,’ the older man said, closing what looked like an English newspaper, ‘that the British press seem to have forgotten about us.’ He shrugged. ‘There is an election impending, I believe.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Mmm.’ Ardiç inspected the tip of his cigar. ‘Difficult times.’

  Suleyman, his eyes still focused on the world outside, did not respond. British politics were as much a mystery to him as he suspected they were to Ardiç and besides, he just wanted to get whatever was going to happen over with and then get back to Zelfa – and his baby, of course. Unborn and unknown, the foetus was his baby and he already loved it – just thinking about it almost made him smile.

  ‘And I am told,’ Ardiç continued, ‘that the British Ambassador in Ankara is meeting the Minister of Justice about our silent prisoner.’ He sighed. ‘Our respective heads of state enjoy very good relations, I believe.’

  Suleyman looked down at Ardiç. ‘Sir?’

  ‘Who knows what will happen,’ Ardiç said. ‘Only Allah, who in His mercy has seen fit to silence Miss Evren. That we, as mere servants of Allah, cannot see beyond the embarrassment both our nations are experiencing over this is a failing within us as humans.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘If we accept that it was indeed written that Miss Evren should survive to bring us all this trouble, we must also conclude that her saviour must have a purpose too. After all, you were in a difficult situation, your weapon was only discharged the once . . . Anyway, the Turkish police force has a reputation for supporting its better officers.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘I’d like you to finish your holiday, Suleyman,’ Ardiç said roughly, ‘and return to duty tomorrow.’

  Suleyman smiled.

  ‘In future all hostage situations should be referred to me personally.’ Ardiç held a match to the end of his cigar and puffed. ‘There is no place in the Turkish police force for personalities.’ Catching the incredulous look in Suleyman’s eyes, he added, ‘And don’t even start to speak to me about İkmen!’

  ‘But—’

  ‘İkmen is a side issue, Suleyman! I don’t want to talk about him. I like him,’ he shrugged, ‘but I don’t want to talk about him.’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Right, well, you’d better go now. Make the most of your last day on leave.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.’ He was just about to salute and depart when Ardiç spoke again.

  ‘Oh, and please extend my regards to ex-Constable Cohen. I take it you are still living with his family?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Suleyman was not a little surprised at this. Ardiç rarely, addressed that amorphous lump known as ‘the men’ by name. But then he suspected that Ardiç knew rather more about a lot of things than he admitted to.

  ‘A pity his son has decided against a career in the police,’ Ardiç went on.

  ‘Berekiah, Mr Cohen’s son, feels that his talents are more suited to the world of art.’

  ‘Yes.’ He gave Suleyman one of his infrequent smiles. ‘One rarely dies or goes mad applying gold leaf or whatever to old pictures. And in view of the boy’s brother . . .’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Well, give them my regards anyway,’ Ardiç concluded and then signalled with a wave of his hand that the interview was over.

  Still smiling, Suleyman left Ardiç’s office and ran towards his own. And when he opened the door, there was Zelfa waiting for him. After first placing a hand on her precious stomach he kissed her, then whispered his good news in her ear.

  That evening, Halil İkmen made one of his rare visits to his brother’s riotous apartment in Sultan Ahmet. He and his cousin Samsun Bajraktar had been invited to a meal by Fatma, though Halil knew that Çetin must have been the prime mover behind this. After all, none of that business his brother had raked up about their mother had yet been resolved. As he prepared for his evening out, Halil found that he was more than a little nervous. Whatever Çetin had to tell him, if indeed he had anything, Halil wasn’t entirely sure that he wanted to know. Not remembering an event, if that event is bad, is very comforting.

  Nothing was said until after the meal was done. ‘Imam Bayıldı’, the aubergine dish cooked to Fatma’s unique and slightly sweet recipe, was served with great ceremony to the İkmen males and five of Çetin’s vast tribe of children. Small talk, mainly initiated by that gossipy old fruit Samsun, dominated the table and though trivial and sometimes even spiteful, the conversation was amusing and undemanding.

  When the meal had finished, Halil followed Çetin and Samsun into the living room. Taking with them tea, brandy and cigarettes, the men effectively cut themselves off from the rest of the household, who either busied themselves in other rooms or went out for the rest of the evening. And so it was that over the next half-hour Çetin İkmen, the cat Marlboro asleep on his lap, smoked and drank his way through the series of events that had led to the death of Ayşe İkmen.

  They all cried. Çetin as part of a continuing reaction to a tragedy he had now known about for some days, Samsun as much for her father as her aunt, and Halil with horror and also with a rushing sensation as the darkness that had engulfed his mind suddenly cleared.

  ‘I must have always known it,’ he said, the palms of his hands over his eyes. ‘I must have seen . . .’

  ‘Yes, you did,’ his brother answered, catless now, crouching down beside Halil’s chair, holding his shoulder tightly. ‘But you put it away. You buried it.’

  ‘I . . .’

  ‘You protected me, Halil,’ Çetin said. ‘Your first instinct was to look after your little brother. I genuinely knew nothing. I’ve searched my mind and I know it. And you did that,’ he squeezed Halil’s arm, ‘a very brave thing for a thirteen-year-old to do.’