Divorce Turkish Style E-Book

Esmahan Aykol

• Herausgeber: Bitter Lemon Press
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Serie: Kati Hirschel Istanbul Murder Mystery
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Seitenzahl: 351

Beschreibung

Praise for Esmahan Aykol:"Kati could be the love child of Miss Marple and NPR's Andrei Codrescu. It doesn't matter who done it. What matters is that Aykol uses the genre to tell us more about the world than we're used to."—Newsday"An offbeat amateur sleuth with a distinctive narrative voice. Fans of Amanda Cross's Kate Fansler and Kerry Greenwood's Phryne Fisher will find a lot to like."—Publishers WeeklyKati owns Istanbul's only mystery book store and, as usual, gets involved in a case that is none of her business. Every day, a beautiful woman lunches alone in the restaurant next to the bookstore. When the woman is found dead in her apartment, Kati immediately recognizes the stranger from the restaurant in images in the newspaper photos. Although the police believe it was an accident, Kati suspects something more sinister has happened.Sani Ankaraligil was an attractive young woman and a politically active ecologist in the middle of a divorce from her wealthy husband. So who would benefit from her death? The industrial companies Sani had accused of polluting the rivers of western Turkey, or her jealous husband seeking revenge through an honor killing, or a Thracian separatist group? The investigation pulls Kati into murkier waters: the marriage may have been a sham, designed to cover up Sani's husband's homosexuality . . . the role of her mother-in-law goes from distasteful to outright criminal.

Leseprobe

Esmahan Aykol was born in 1970 in Edirne, Turkey. She lives in Istanbul and Berlin. During her law studies she was a journalist for a number of Turkish publications and radio stations. After a stint as a bartender she turned to fiction writing. Divorce Turkish Style is the third of the Kati Hirschel series. The first two are Hotel Bosphorus and Baksheesh, also published by Bitter Lemon Press.

Also available from Bitter Lemon Press by Esmahan Aykol:

Hotel Bosphorus

Baksheesh

BITTER LEMON PRESS

First published in the United Kingdom in 2015 by

Bitter Lemon Press, 47 Wilmington Square, London WC1X 2ET

www.bitterlemonpress.com

First published in Turkish as Şüpheli Bir Ölüm by Merkez Kitaplar, Istanbul, 2007

Bitter Lemon Press gratefully acknowledges the financial assistance of the Arts Council of England and of the TEDA Project of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Turkey

© Esmahan Aykol/Merkez Kitaplar, 2007

English translation © Ruth Whitehouse, 2015

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without written permission of the publisher.

The moral rights of the author and the translator have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988.

All the characters and events described in this novel are imaginary and any similarity with real people or events is purely coincidental.

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

eBook ISBN 978-1-908524-584

Typeset by Tetragon, London

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Epilogue

DIVORCE

TURKISH STYLE

1

Istanbul had become a dangerous place, especially in and around İstiklal Street. I only had to mention that I was going out to the bank and Fofo would start fussing over me and wishing me luck. Not only that, he’d recently started rising early to prepare me wonderful breakfasts, saying how young and beautiful I looked, and embracing me before I set out as if we were seeing each other for the last time. But he was right. Anything could happen. There was a constant danger of disappearing down one of the many holes in the pavement that the council had opened up, or of being pushed under one of the huge trucks that sped along our street, despite its being officially closed to traffic.

In my attempts to stay alive, I’d taken to wearing cargo pants and comfortable shoes. I’d also stopped carrying a bag over my shoulder because it slowed me down, so now the roomy pockets of my cargo pants were filled with all sorts of items, including my mobile. Despite the initial embarrassment at venturing out in trainers, I soon found them to be invaluable for comfort and safety.

Actually, I’d made considerable progress. When the council started replacing the paving stones the previous year, I was barely capable of remaining upright when picking my way through the squelchy mud. Who’d have thought it now possible for me to jump over a two-metre pothole and land safely the other side? My previous limitations now seemed amusing. However, it was difficult to believe that İstiklal Street was really meant to be a traffic-free area for pedestrians to stroll about in comfort, because it was constantly filled with machinery, diggers, trucks and winches. Suitable attire, reliable reflexes, strong muscles and alertness – and bad enough manners to elbow other pedestrians out of the way – were essential.

It was incredible but true that the paving stones were being replaced for the second time in a year. Fofo told me that roads in Spain were constantly being dug up because it enabled successive governments to create newly rich contractors who were then beholden to them. Turkey seemed to be going the same way, judging by the number of men who had abandoned public transport and were now driving their wives around in shiny new Range Rovers.

Since moving to Kuledibi, I’d started going to the bank in İstiklal Street once a week on Fridays, and that was more than enough. I’m not as young as I was, and one’s calamity avoidance coefficient inevitably reduces over time.

That Friday, I went into Şimdi Café in Asmalımescit Street after visiting the bank and, as I sipped a Turkish coffee, quietly congratulated myself on having negotiated the toughest part of the journey. Provided I managed to make my way past the Swedish Consulate and down the slope in front of the German High School without mishap, I knew that I’d be safe and sound with Pelin and Fofo within five or six minutes.

Any readers who remember how Fofo had infuriated me by going off with his lover might wonder why I keep mentioning his name. Well, the affair was soon over and, after a few days in a cheap and nasty hotel, Fofo finally plucked up the courage to ask if he could come back to live at my place. Naturally, soft as I am, I couldn’t bear to see him living like that, and gave in.

Okay, I admit that describing myself as soft is a bit of an exaggeration. However, I don’t consider myself a bad person. After all, it didn’t even occur to me to fire Pelin when Fofo returned and threw himself so eagerly into working at the shop. I made her promise to complete her university course that year, and indeed trusted her to do it. There had been the usual explosion of summer visitors to Turkey, and I suspected that Pelin had ideas about training as a tour guide in order to prey on this influx of rich tourists. She needed telling that the gains to be made in Turkish tourism were small and that being a tour guide was a risky business. However, I wasn’t the person to do that. It wasn’t my business to wreck a young girl’s dreams.

My business was selling crime fiction. With my shop in Kuledibi, I became, and indeed still am, the first and only specialist seller of crime fiction in Istanbul. I’m always being asked what made me think of doing this, but what could be more natural than selling a product I love? And I adore reading crime fiction.

Readers who have followed my progress through life will know that, after considerable difficulties, I’d succeeded in buying a bargain-price apartment close to the shop. Having raised a few loans to have the place refurbished, I’d now moved in. Thanks to Atakan, my friend Candan’s cousin, the work was completed sooner and more cheaply than expected, which of course was a lovely surprise. I now took great pleasure in recommending Atakan to everyone. After all, he’d handed the keys back to me on the agreed date as promised, making me ashamed of my assertions that the construction industry was rotten to the core and totally untrustworthy. I didn’t normally make such generalizations, but I’d had a few bad experiences with contractors and architects. Atakan reminded me that there are good and bad guys in every situation. That’s how the world is.

However, one generalization that I considered to be true was summed up in that depressing film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. That men like blondes is beyond dispute. Take my friend Lale. She went blonde and found herself a new lover even before her first retouch! Was that coincidence? And, would you believe it, the guy was none other than Erol, the bearded man living on the top floor of my new apartment block. Actually, he no longer had a beard because Lale didn’t like it, and he certainly looked better without it. He and Lale had been together for over a year.

And me? I was still without a partner, as I had been for ages. I’d been thinking of going blonde too, because I felt that my appearance didn’t conform to the Turkish perception of a German woman. However, I decided instead to spread the word that Germany was not a nation of blonds. Research apparently shows that only fifty-one per cent of German women and fifty-four per cent of German men are blond.

When I reached the shop, Pelin hadn’t yet arrived and Fofo was in a flap.

“Where were you?” he cried.

Fofo’s habit of watching third-rate TV series had taught him that Turkish was a language to be spoken with a succession of screams accompanied by exaggerated gestures and facial expressions.

“I thought something had happened to you!” he yelled.

“Stop shouting, for goodness’ sake! My head’s already pounding from the roadworks in İstiklal Street,” I said.

“Look at this,” said Fofo, pressing a folded newspaper into my hands.

You may remember that I wasn’t in the habit of reading newspapers. I preferred to read a good detective story rather than waste my time reading press rubbish. However, this piece of news, or at least the headshot of the smiling blonde, immediately caught my attention. It was as if she’d been created to support my theory about the allure of golden-haired females. She was utterly and unbelievably beautiful. What’s more, I recognized her from somewhere. Her face was the sort that, once seen, was unforgettable. I wondered if I’d seen her at one of the crowded clubs full of cigarette smoke and noisy music that Fofo dragged me to on Saturday nights.

“Where do I know that face from?” I asked.

“Take a good look. Don’t you recognize the place?” said Fofo.

“Stop winding me up and tell me.”

“It’s the little restaurant we go to for lunch.”

“But her hair… that woman isn’t blonde,” I said, sitting down in the rocking chair, my eyes still glued to the photo.

“No, she used to be brunette.”

“So she’s had it dyed.”

“Dyed to this year’s colour.”

Since our decision to eat more healthily, we’d been lunching at a restaurant in the Tünel area, where we’d even shared a table with this woman a few times owing to lack of space. Whenever I’d seen her, she was picking at a minute salad. I glanced at the newspaper article and saw that she was Sani Ankaralıgil, aged thirty-two.

Sani Ankaralıgil had married into the renowned Ankaralıgil family, one of Turkey’s richest. Six months previously, she’d left her husband, and subsequently applied for a divorce. She’d been found dead around noon the previous day at her luxury villa in Paşabahçe, where she lived alone. Sani Ankaralıgil had apparently died as the result of a tragic accident. The police had taken a statement from her grief-stricken husband Cem Ankaralıgil, who had last spoken to her the previous week.

“So? What of it? It’s nothing to do with us,” I said.

“Don’t you think her sudden death in the middle of a divorce case is of interest?”

“If you really want to know, struggling to pay off my bank loan is a lot more interesting to me right now,” I replied. “Tell me, how many books have you sold this morning? Hmm?”

“What’s happened to your bloodhound nose? A woman divorces her rich husband—”

“I keep my nose for sniffing out financial matters,” I interrupted. “Not that it seems to have any effect on my staff.”

“What if she was murdered?” persisted Fofo.

“Do you know how many women are murdered every minute? Things like that are handled by the police, whose salaries are paid for out of my taxes, and by women’s associations, to which I give financial support despite my current material straits. It’s none of my business.”

“You’re impossible today. Sorry for taking up your time,” said Fofo reproachfully, rising to his feet with a bitter smile.

He went out to the small kitchen area behind the orange- and green-striped curtain and picked up a duster, which he started flicking randomly over the bookshelves. Meanwhile, I sat down at the computer to go over the previous week’s accounts.

Business on Fridays was always erratic. Sometimes, there’d be a constant flow of customers and barely time to breathe, while at other times we’d squabble with each other just to pass the time. However, that Friday was very busy. Our customers ranged from foreign tourists taking a look at city life to locals wanting to arm themselves with books before setting off to spend the best days of autumn on an Aegean boat trip. It was a profitable day. If only every day could be like that.

After paying Pelin and Fofo’s salaries, I was finding it difficult to keep up the repayments on my bank loan, never mind putting money aside for retirement.

“From now on, we’ll be opening at the weekends,” I’d announced at the start of summer, ignoring the way Fofo and Pelin looked at each other as if I was out of my mind. “Not only is Kuledibi much nicer when all the trashy shops are closed, our target customers mainly come here at weekends, either just to have tea or to see Istanbul from the Galata Tower.”

Fofo and Pelin remained silent.

“Any objections, either of you?”

“We’d have to make up a new rota,” said Pelin.

“Of course we’ll have a new rota. Since you’ll be at university during the week, you can open up at the weekends. Fofo and I will take care of the other days.”

“Fine,” said Pelin.

Fofo nodded reluctantly. He was a dear friend, but wouldn’t so much as move his little finger unless compelled.

So Pelin and Fofo started running the business without me at the weekends. In return, I’d come in early on Monday mornings. That Monday, I’d opened the shutters and was waiting for the water to boil to make green tea when the telephone rang.

“Are you online?” shouted Fofo down the line.

“Yes,” I replied, holding the receiver away from my ear.

I’d opened up the computer as soon as I arrived, as always.

“Go to Skyrat. Our Sani is headline news!” cried Fofo.

Skyrat was a popular website for gossip and rumours in Istanbul. For security reasons the website owners didn’t reveal their names, but the word was that three men ran it: a couple of journalists who had lost their jobs while investigating the police, and the editor of a society magazine.

From this website, for instance, we’d learned that Turkey’s self-styled most beautiful woman, the singer Binnur Baran, had discovered her husband in bed with their Romanian maid, and the identity of the person who supplied drugs to the beautiful young model Gül Arkan, whose corpse had been found in the street the previous year. The website provided all kinds of source material: from pre-fame nude photos of a well-known actress to secret sex tapes of a university professor who was familiar as a TV news commentator.

With the phone wedged between my neck and shoulder, I typed in the website address.

A page of flashing headlines came up and invited me to click for more details. I clicked.

Investigations are continuing into the sudden and mysterious death of Sani Ankaralıgil following an accident at her villa in Paşabahçe. She was in the process of divorcing her husband Cem Ankaralıgil, a familiar face in society and the only son of Tamaşa and Bahri Ankaralıgil, the well-known shipping magnate and owner of the Ankaralıgil group of companies. A few days before her death, Sani Ankaralıgil is known to have dined at the famous Shining Sun restaurant with a close friend of her husband.

What was discussed at this meal?

Bookmark skyrat.com.tr for breaking news!

“So, what about it?” I said.

“It’s hotting up!” said Fofo, his voice ringing with excitement. “We’re not the only ones who’ve refused to let this go. Why don’t we go and speak to the people who run this website? We might find out what’s behind it all.”

“You’re full of good ideas today, aren’t you, Fofo?” I retorted. “But I can’t be running after killers. I need to concentrate on running the shop, paying off my debts and putting money aside for a rainy day.”

However, I was beginning to weaken. This could be another chance to prove my skills at sniffing out a murderer. As you’ll appreciate, dear reader, it wasn’t every day that a seller of crime fiction was presented with a murder waiting to be solved.

“Anyway, suppose we decided to pursue this,” I said, still putting up a defensive front, “where are you going to find the people who run this website? No one knows who they are.”

“Oh, Kati, how naive you are,” interrupted Fofo cheerfully. “Don’t tell me you really think something like that can be kept secret in Istanbul.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that I know the two journalists. I see them cavorting around on the dance floor whenever I go to Pakize’s. You’ve seen them too. Remember the guy with brown hair and horn-rimmed glasses?”

“Uh-huh,” I said in a non-committal way, finding the description pretty unhelpful.

“You know, the one who dances like a lunatic?” continued Fofo. “He removed his shirt once and started waving it about. He’s tall, with—”

“Yes, I think I remember,” I said.

An image was beginning to form in my mind, not of a face but a trim, muscular body, the type I’d swear spent at least four days a week at the gym, weightlifting in front of a mirror and watching his muscles swell. How did he find time to stretch out this one-line piece of news like a piece of chewing gum?

“Well, it’s him,” said Fofo with a deep sigh. “They say he’s totally straight, but if you ask me, there’s a bit more to him than that.”

This was nothing new. Fofo was always claiming that men were naturally bisexual from birth. His belief in this theory was quite unshakeable.

“Could you find this guy?” I asked.

“I can do more than that,” he said, brightly. “I don’t have his number, but I know who he hangs out with, and one of them is my friend Taner. How about that?”

“You’re a marvel! Call him immediately,” I said, suddenly feeling ready to pursue a murder case with the energy of a panther preparing to pounce on its prey. Never mind the shop and the endless loans!

“Old habits die hard, I see,” laughed Fofo. “Isn’t that what you used to say?”

“Why break the habit of a lifetime?”

“Indeed. But what about the shop?” said Fofo, suddenly sounding serious. “Can we get hold of Pelin? If this man works near here, we might be able to see him straight away.”

“I’m calling Pelin now.”

“And if you can’t reach her?”

“Don’t worry, I’m not missing this for anything,” I said.

“Yeah, I like it!” said Fofo.

I called Pelin and used various threats to get her to come to the shop immediately. Then, as I was going over the piece on Skyrat again, the telephone rang. It was Fofo.

“Sweetie,” he said. “We’re on! Be at Cactus Café in fifteen minutes. Don’t be late! I worked hard to persuade him to meet us.”

Rather than attempt the hazardous walk, I jumped into a taxi and was the fırst to arrive at Cactus Café. By the time Fofo rushed in, all out of breath, I was settled at a table on the street, flipping through a magazine and sipping lemonade.

“I told the guy that we’re private detectives,” whispered Fofo, pulling a chair up to mine. “I also hinted that his help wouldn’t go unrewarded.”

“You hinted what? Do you think I’ve got money to throw away?” I replied, probably too loudly, because a little girl, who’d been waiting for a chance to sell me a packet of tissues, glared and walked away. “You do realize I haven’t paid off my loans yet, don’t you? And there’s all that interest! I’ll go bankrupt at this rate.”

“Oh, Kati. This isn’t like you. Stop being so melodramatic.”

“Fine,” I said, and thought for a moment. “There’s a hole in my pocket, I’m skint, I’m running on empty, and I’ve left everything to the cat! Is that good enough for you?”

“Money never brings happiness,” grinned Fofo.

We stopped arguing and looked up as the journalist approached us. I scrutinized his face to see how else Fofo might have described him other than saying he was brown-haired with horn-rimmed glasses. Actually, he could have been taken for a student. There was a penny-pinching air about him, and I hated him instantly.

“Fofo Bey?” he asked, checking that he was sitting down at the right table, and appearing to be seeing Fofo for the first time in his life.

“We’ve met before, at Pakize’s,” said Fofo, looking most impressed by all the designer gear the man was wearing.

“I don’t set foot in Pakize’s unless I’m stoned, so I never remember faces from there,” he said, as if anyone who frequented Pakize’s was not even worth remembering.

“But we remember seeing you dance until dawn. In fact, I’d even say that your style is quite unforgettable,” I commented, making no effort to hide my contempt.

Fofo and the journalist looked taken aback.

“What do you mean by that?” asked the journalist, scratching his sideburns.

“Nothing,” I said, patting a strand of hair into place.

“We haven’t been introduced,” said the journalist, clumsily pushing his glasses into place on his nose.

“This is my business partner, Kati Hirschel,” said Fofo.

When did we become partners?

“His boss, actually,” I corrected. “I’m Kati Hirschel.”

“Do you have a private detective company? Your name seems familiar, but I can’t think why.”

“It’s a sideline of mine,” I said, as if I owned a company, or even a chain of companies.

“What is it you want from me?” he asked, this time looking directly at me. Actually, his eyes weren’t bad. Brown, flecked with green, which wasn’t obvious unless you looked carefully behind the glasses. I prefer good looks that aren’t immediately obvious, like a fine Riesling that’s best after a few sips. Not that I understand much about wine, but I enjoy it.

“Did you write the piece on the website?” asked Fofo. “The one on Sani Ankaralıgil?”

“Maybe. Why do you ask?”

“Can we keep this off the record?” whispered Fofo to the journalist, sounding like someone in a TV crime series and making me wonder if I was too harsh on him about his Turkish.

But what was he up to?

“The situation is this,” continued Fofo. “We’re conducting an investigation on behalf of Sani Ankaralıgil’s family.”

“Yes?” said the journalist.

“We believe there’s something suspicious about the poor woman’s death.”

I sighed inwardly at the inanity of what Fofo was saying.

“Yes?” said the man again, before turning to me and saying triumphantly, “I know why your name’s familiar! Don’t you sell crime fiction in Kuledibi?”

“Maybe. Why do you ask?” I replied, imitating his earlier reply.

“I know you. You’re a friend of Lale Hanım, aren’t you?”

Fofo and I exchanged glances.

“A German film director was killed in Istanbul five or six years ago. Remember that?” asked the journalist.

Fofo and I exchanged glances again.

“Lale Hanım engaged some of our investigative staff to get information for you,” continued the journalist. They said one of your friends was mixed up in it.”

“Yes, that murder was never solved,” I said, with feigned regret.

Officially, it was recorded in the statistics as “unsolved murder”. However, you dear readers will remember that… But of course, I’m not one to boast.

“You’d be amazed at the number of crimes that go unsolved,” said the journalist.

I nodded in agreement.

“I’m going to be open with you,” he said.

I’d been about to ask for his name, because I was warming to the way he spoke, as I had to his eyes. However, not wanting to interrupt, I remained silent.

“It’s thanks to Lale Hanım that I got into this business,” said the journalist. “It’s impossible to get into media without a torpil to put in a word for you. It’s the same at every level. Even a tea boy is related to someone’s uncle. This business of torpils is the shittiest part of the media world – excuse my language. Everyone, right down to the lowliest reporter, is someone’s man, brother, daughter or son. But Lale Hanım never bothers with torpils. She just demands that people do their jobs properly. She’s a law unto herself, and as straight as a die.”

As you might imagine, I was delighted to hear these words spoken about my closest friend. I liked this man more by the minute. My first impressions had turned out to be wrong again.

“Yes, you’re absolutely right,” I said.

There was silence for a moment. When I say silence, I mean the silence of daytime Beyoğlu, where the constant drilling was mixed with the cries of people fearing for their lives as they tried to make their way on foot down İstiklal Street.

“When I started working for Günebakan newspaper, I’d just graduated from university in Anatolia. I was no more than a kid, and knew no English. You’re no one in the media business without English, so my chances of finding work that involved using the phone were zero. As my dad would say, who wants a one-armed mechanic? Anyway, to cut it short, it was all thanks to Lale Hanım that I got a job, and I’ll never forget what she did for me. So, since you’re a friend of Lale Hanım, ask whatever you want. I’ll tell you what I know, and what I don’t know I’ll find out.”

He spoke like a grateful and excited student addressing an elder.

“So did you learn English later?” asked Fofo, making it sound like a silly interview question.

“What?” I said, giving Fofo a withering look. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Nothing. I was curious,” said Fofo. “It’s just that I’ve read his interviews with foreign models on Skyrat, that’s all.”

“Of course I learned English. I also spent time in the UK to improve it, so I can speak enough to get by. But then the work dried up, because when Lale Hanım was fired they got rid of me too. As I said, no one survives without a torpil. Anyway, my best friend was also out of work, so we went off to the UK together and set up Skyrat on our return. Internet businesses were still relatively new then, and we decided to go for special-interest items and stories that no one else covered. For two years, it was just the two of us running the website, then my older brother joined us. We’ve started employing other people now because we can’t keep up with the work. So that’s it, Kati Hanım.”

Since he’d just told us everything about himself that we needed to know, I launched straight into asking questions about what was of real interest to us.

“It said on the website today that Sani went out to dinner with someone. Who was it?”

“Demir Soylu. He was Cem Bey’s lawyer, as well as a childhood friend. We learned that from another source, not Demir Bey. However, he didn’t deny that they had dinner together.”

“Did you wait for Demir Soylu to corroborate that before putting it on the website?”

“No. We called him the moment we got the story, and had it confirmed straight away. Our policy is to release a headline and follow with information a bit at a time. That way we keep people logging into our website throughout the day. It’s common practice in Internet journalism.”

“Do you know what they discussed over dinner?”

“Demir Bey didn’t give us any details, but he said that the couple had signed a prenuptial agreement and that he and Sani had been discussing the implications of this agreement in the light of her application for a divorce.”

“Was it a financial agreement?”

“Of course. It concerned alimony, lump sum settlements and so on. Inheritance too, probably. Though Cem Bey would be Sani Hanım’s legal beneficiary, anyway.”

“Who leaked that information to you?”

“Someone dining at the Shining Sun at the same time. But I’m sure you’re not expecting me to reveal my sources.”

“Is that how you get all your information? Or was this an exception?”

“No, ma’am, it was no exception. It’s called gossip journalism. You obviously don’t follow our website or media journal. Most of our news items are based on information received from people who’ve spotted a couple dining out together, or maybe a married man dancing with another woman at a nightclub.”

“Hmm, from now on, I’m going to be more careful about where I go, who with, and what I do,” said Fofo. “Or, if you like, I could be a volunteer reporter for you.”

The journalist looked distinctly unexcited by Fofo’s offer.

“We could go to my office, if you like,” he said, glancing at his watch. “It’s not far from here, in Süslü Saksı Street. We can talk more comfortably there. Also, there’s no one in it at the moment, and I don’t really like leaving it empty.”

I suddenly thought of my abandoned shop. Hopefully Pelin would have kept her promise to be there.

“Won’t you have anything to drink?” I asked, seeing the waiter coming towards our table.

“Okay, I’ll have a lemonade,” he said, without any hesitation.

The office was light and spacious. As soon as we entered, the journalist, whose name I finally learned was Murat, disappeared to make coffee. Fofo and I settled into armchairs and started looking through some gossip magazines lying on the table.

I picked up a particularly dog-eared magazine in which, among some pictures taken at a fairy-tale wedding at Esma Sultan Palace, I noticed a photo of Tamaşa and Bahri Ankaralıgil. The caption beneath the photo read “Tamaşa Hanım, one of society’s best-dressed women, dazzled us in a purple evening gown by Valentino”.

I showed the picture to Fofo, who studied it carefully.

“Definitely not my type,” he said eventually. “Too much Botox. I can’t stand it when Botox is used to raise the eyebrows, especially if they have lines between them.”

“How do you know about Botox treatments?” I asked in amazement.

“Through Mustafa, my doctor friend.”

I nodded. I’d met Mustafa once when I went to his house to collect Fofo.

“He does Botox. All the skin specialists do nowadays. He explained it all to me.”

“Does it work?” I asked, thinking I might pay him a visit one day.

“Mustafa goes for a very natural look. He doesn’t create masks like that.”

“Tell me, why do people have their eyebrows raised?”

“Because if you raise the eyebrows, it tightens the area around the eye,” replied Fofo, using one hand to demonstrate. “That’s why you see so many people going around with such arched eyebrows.”

When Murat returned, we were both engrossed in magazines.

“Please, ask whatever it is you want to know,” he said, pulling up a wheeled office chair.

This time, I didn’t even allow Fofo time to open his mouth.

“Actually, we don’t know much about what happened. We only know what we read in the press.”

“Is that so?” said Murat.

I began biting my nails.

Fofo glared a silent order at me to remove my hand from my mouth. Bless him – he’s like a mother to me. However, I paid no attention and continued gnawing at my nails. Why should I pay attention to that halfwit Fofo?

“You said Sani Ankaralıgil’s family hired you as detectives,” said Murat.

“Well, that’s not entirely correct. Nobody hired us. But we knew Sani Ankaralıgil. Or rather we used to see her almost every day.”

“I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

“There’s a small restaurant at Tünel, where we have lunch. Everything there is home-cooked. The food’s simple and there’s little choice, but it’s tasty,” I said, simultaneously realizing that I was famished. “Our lunch break often coincided with Sani Hanım’s, though she only ever ate salad. We often ran into each other, but we had no idea who she was. It was only when we saw her picture in the paper that we realized—”

“Is that all?” said Murat, shuffling in his chair.

“That’s it,” I said.

“Excuse my curiosity, but why are you interested in this? I mean, if the family didn’t contact you—”

Fofo frowned and moved his lips as if silently saying, “Well done!”

“For the same reason as you,” I said. “Out of curiosity.”

Murat laughed gleefully.

“Curiosity killed the cat!” muttered Fofo, taking courage from Murat’s laughter.

“In that case, let’s see what I can do for you,” said Murat. “But first we’ll have coffee.”

Murat went out and soon returned with a tray of coffee. It was terrible. It tasted like tar, and I abandoned it after a couple of sips. Fofo and I watched as Murat took his coffee over to his desk, where he pulled up a chair and sat down.

“I’m looking up some files on people we consider newsworthy,” said Murat. “We search magazines that aren’t online, and anything that might be useful goes into this archive. Like Sani Hanım’s marriage to Cem Ankaralıgil, for instance. Ah yes, I see she had an office on the fourth floor at the Tünel Business Centre, so it’s not surprising that you saw her around there. I’ll give you the short biography used for news items about her. She was born in 1974 in a village called Kayacık, outside Lüleburgaz. Her maiden name was Kaya, and she was born into a farming family. She went to the village primary school, where she was a brilliant student, and was sent to middle school in Istanbul, where she stayed with an uncle. After attending a high school that specialized in science, she went on to graduate in industrial engineering from Istanbul Technical University and was awarded a scholarship to the USA, where she did a PhD in economics. Apparently, she met Cem Ankaralıgil while over there, and they returned to Turkey together in 2003. Cem took over his father’s business, and a few months later, despite family opposition, he married Sani. His mother Tamaşa was particularly opposed to the marriage, and even issued a statement, which caught our eye because this family rarely speaks to the press.”

Murat took his eyes off the screen to look at us.

“There are two types in society life,” he continued. “One type talks incessantly, while the other never gives interviews, rarely accepts invitations and wants no one to know what they’re doing. Tamaşa belongs to the second type. She normally hides from the media, yet on that occasion she was actually prepared to make a statement concerning her son’s marriage.”

“What did she say?” asked Fofo.

“What did she say?” repeated Murat. “It was one sentence: ‘Saniye Hanım is undoubtedly an admirable person, but I do not consider her right for our family.’ That was it.”

“Saniye Hanım?”

“Yes, Saniye Hanım. Sani is an abbreviation.”

“Like Kati,” grinned Fofo.

“Katharina is a long name, and difficult to pronounce,” I said. “But Saniye isn’t.”

“Saniye wasn’t considered appropriate for society. It sounds too rural. Sani is more modern,” said Murat.

“Hardly modern, but it sounds more trendy,” said Fofo. “But never mind the name, what did Tamaşa Hanım mean when she said that Saniye wasn’t right for their family? Who do these wealthy people think they are?”

“Well, of course, it wasn’t just a question of wealth. Tamaşa Hanım is a sixth-generation descendant of the exiled Vezir-i Azam Abdullah Pasha. The family has a long pedigree. Her father’s the great scientist Professor Lütfullah Mısırlı, who established the first gynaecology faculty in Turkey and later became Health Minister. When her parents divorced, Tamaşa Hanım was sent to a Roman Catholic boarding school in Switzerland. She knows French, English, German and Italian. She’s also a collector of antiques. Definitely not a member of the nouveaux riches, if that’s what you were thinking.”

“I think you have a degree of sympathy for this Tamaşa Hanım,” I commented.

“Sympathy? No, but I think she’s unusual. She’s not the sort to be seen out with her arms full of designer shopping bags or being pursued by the paparazzi. The world is full of Paris Hiltons, but Tamaşa Hanım strikes me as different.”

“So what happened? Did Tamaşa Hanım sever relations with her son because of his marriage?” I asked.

“No, I don’t think so. But she didn’t talk to the press again. Perhaps the prenuptial agreement put her mind at ease. Or maybe she realized that the couple were truly in love and that she would never make Cem change his mind. Anyway, for whatever reason, she made that one statement and then said nothing more. If you ask me, given that they were about to divorce, I think she’d probably been manipulating her son. As you know, mothers and sons—”

“Don’t I just!” I said. “Especially Turkish mothers and sons.”

One of the reasons I’d settled in Istanbul was that my lover’s mother couldn’t accept her son being abroad with a “foreigner”. To her dying day, the poor woman did her best to prise us apart, and then pegged out before seeing us separate.

“What did Sani Hanım do? I mean at the office in Tünel,” I asked.

“People with loads of money never know what to do with themselves,” said Murat sullenly, possibly out of jealousy. “Cem was into extreme sports like bungee jumping, skateboarding, mountaineering and so on. I think Sani tried to keep up with him. You know, ‘anything you can do, I can do better’.”

“You mean she organized extreme sports tours? In her office at Tünel?”

“Tours? No, no! Sani organized trips for people interested in environmental issues. She set up an environmental association called GreTur to fight against pollution in Thrace.”

“Interesting. Did they have any success?”

“You heard what happened to the Ergene Basin, didn’t you?”

“Of course,” I said. “Leather workshops and factories were set up there without proper clean-up facilities, causing an unbearable stench and the destruction of first-class agricultural land.”

“Well, at least Sani achieved something,” said Murat. “A few years ago, hardly anyone could have placed the Ergene Basin on the map.”

2

As soon as we left Murat’s office, I called the shop to see if Pelin was there. She said a group of Spaniards had just been in and bought up our entire stock of Spanish crime fiction.

“Hey, Fofo! You missed a group of Spanish tourists at the shop,” I said.

Fofo loved having opportunities to chat to his compatriots.

“Never mind Spanish tourists. What do you think about Sani?” he said.

“What can I say? It’s interesting. As an industrial engineer with an American PhD, she could have had a marvellous career, yet—”

“Having married into the Ankaralıgil family, she probably didn’t want to work for a rival company, but at the same time didn’t want to work under her husband.”

“Very likely,” I said, my attention more on the rumblings of my empty stomach than Sani Ankaralıgil.

“What do you say to calling in at her office?”

“Let’s eat something on the way,” I said.

“It’ll only take two minutes. Two more minutes of hunger won’t harm you,” persisted Fofo.

“Okay, but let’s avoid the main road and go by the backstreets.”

“Do you really think the backstreets are any better? At least on the main road there’s room to escape if a truck comes along. Come on, let’s go!” said my dear friend, tugging at the sleeve of my cashmere sweater.

*

The Tünel Business Centre was like a labyrinth. We lost our way twice in its dark corridors before finding the GreTur office.

“I wonder what GreTur means?”

“Probably an abbreviation of Green Turkey or something.”

“Aren’t you the smart one?” remarked Fofo.

Was he mocking me?

After passing rows of brown doors, we finally came to one with a small GreTur plaque on it.

“We should have eaten something first,” I said despondently. “Anyway, we’ve found the office. Now what?”

“How often does Professor Langdon eat in Angels and Demons?”

“How should I know? Do you think I count every mouthful consumed by Dan Brown’s heroes?”

“He drinks a glass of hot chocolate on page three and has his first meal on page 710. There are pages and pages without even a mention of hunger. The man even parachutes out of a plane on an empty stomach. This business takes discipline and professionalism.”

“Okay, but I don’t subscribe to puritan self-denial,” I protested.

“Nor did Professor Langdon. Now ring the bell and let’s get this over with,” said Fofo.

I reached out for the doorbell, but my hand stopped in mid-air.

“Oh, that’s just great!” I exclaimed, elbowing Fofo back out of the way.

Fofo’s expression changed from bewilderment at my apparent hesitation to wide-eyed apprehension on seeing that the door latch was broken and dangling uselessly.

“Someone’s been here before us,” I whispered.

“Didn’t I tell you?” whispered Fofo in reply.

“What?”

“That it was hotting up.”

Deciding not to argue with him, I knocked at the door.

It immediately swung open and a young woman, her eyes red from crying, stood before us as if she’d been waiting for someone to knock. I instantly assumed that she was a secretary, though I was later to question why I’d jumped to that conclusion so quickly. Perhaps it was the air of transience about her. Something was odd. She didn’t look as though she belonged there, and would certainly never have been a contender for an office manager prize. Giving the appearance of being a visitor at one’s place of work isn’t exactly the best way to advance a career. At my shop, the situation was quite the opposite, because my employees were so involved that I was almost redundant. But that’s another matter.