I drank some more water. ‘I discovered that I had a half brother yesterday. Probably the result of some little adventure of my father’s.’
He didn’t even respond with that cross between a cough and a laugh, just twisted his mouth briefly as if at a presumptuous child.
‘Second: Erden didn’t kill the man, certainly not with a small, sharp instrument neatly driven between the ribs and into the heart. Maybe with a pistol, or he would have knocked his skull in. You know that as well as I do. And it is certainly not pleasing in the eyes of the Lord to pin a murder on an innocent man.’
‘Innocent is not the word I’d think of in connection with Abakay. Between ourselves, one of the girls he was offering was twelve at most — that shocks me more than the death of a punter who wanted to abuse a girl like that.’
‘How interesting. So you consider your own rules superior to those of the community at large. You know better what is right and what is wrong?’ This time there was genuine and slightly malicious satisfaction in his smile. ‘Someone like that is known as a fanatic, am I right? I’m sorry, Herr Kayankaya, but we are not talking about morality here. We are talking about established laws and a prison sentence lasting many years.’
‘I thought my claims would never stand up in court? Abakay will probably get off with a couple of years.’
‘Weak, very weak — that’s no way to argue a case. You don’t like my nephew, so you want to pin a murder on him, full stop.’
I didn’t say anything. There wasn’t anything to say. The sheikh was right.
‘Furthermore, one can always have the bad luck to encounter a judge whose prejudices weigh more heavily than the facts. I know you would like to forget it, but to many of them we are just Turks.’
‘I don’t forget it, Sheikh, but I don’t base my actions on that principle. Do you know why you have to keep Abakay out of prison?’
‘As I said, because he is innocent and he is also my sister’s son.’
‘No, it’s because he’s blackmailing you. If you don’t get him out of there, he’ll send you and your drug deals sky-high.’
His mobile rang again. Hakim held it to his ear, listened for a while, then murmured something in Turkish, closed it and put it in his trouser pocket. Then he leaned towards me over the table, and said quietly, ‘Listen to me carefully: the situation has changed. We have a hostage. If you do not withdraw your statement against Erden by tomorrow evening, we shall begin cutting off parts of our hostage’s body: toes, fingers, ears and so on. If you tell the police, the hostage will disappear forever. Do you still have my number on your phone from my call yesterday?’
I heard myself replying, in a toneless voice, ‘Yes.’
‘Good. I shall wait for your call tomorrow. The police are sometimes rather slow. It could be a couple of days before Erden’s lawyers hear the news. But I trust you. If you assure me that you have done as I require, we will not injure the hostage, and as soon as Erden is released from custody our hostage will also go free. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, I understand. Who …?’
Ignoring my question, he turned away and got to his feet. After taking a thin, black raincoat off a hook, he came close to the table again, bent forward, looked gravely into my eyes and said, in a quiet but penetrating voice, ‘Read the Koran. Learn to forgive a brother like Erden. Learn to forgive yourself. There is nothing bad about being a Muslim, on the contrary. Be proud of yourself. Allah loves those who are happy.’ He smiled encouragingly at me. ‘I’ll expect to hear from you in the morning.’
I watched him go to the door and out into the street. As soon as he was out of sight I snatched my mobile from my bag and tapped in Slibulsky’s number with trembling fingers. The first thing I heard was the noise of the bar, then Slibulsky’s cheerful voice. ‘Hey, when are you joining us?’
‘Where’s Deborah?’
‘Hmm, wait a minute … Behind the bar, opening bottles. Want to speak to her?’
I slumped in my chair with relief. ‘No, no, that’s all right. Is anyone else at the table missing?’
‘No … the superstar author just went out with a girl, probably to feel her up, the horny prick.’
‘Oh, shit.’
‘Why? I’m glad. He’s been hitting on Lara, Deborah, Tugba, and then some girls at the next table, one after the other. Very uncomfortable. He wants to have it off with someone this evening and now he’s found that someone. Good for him.’
‘Can you please go out and see if he’s still around?’
A door opened and closed, the noise of the bar fell silent, then I heard Slibulsky again. ‘No, they must be looking for a corner somewhere.’
‘Okay. I’ll be with you in a minute.’
I put my mobile in my bag and signed to the waiter. ‘A double shot, schnapps, please!’
Chapter 13
‘I don’t know either, she was just suddenly standing at our table. Eighteen or nineteen, I’d say. Done up to the nines — moist lipstick, sexy hippie mini-dress, brightly coloured platform shoes and a book in her hand. By your Monsieur Don’t-I-Just-Love-Women.’
‘Did he say that?’
‘He said a lot of other shit like it.’ Slibulsky sighed. ‘Particularly when he’d had a drink.’
‘An alcoholic drink?’
‘Yes,’ said Deborah. She was standing behind the bar drying glasses. ‘Although he kept on telling us how he never really touches a drop of the stuff. But he could certainly put it back. Almost a whole bottle in half an hour. I bet he binge drinks every few months.’
Tugba cleared her throat. ‘And he seems to have loved no end of women. Turkish women, like me. Jewish women, like Deborah. Women who make jewellery, like Lara …’
‘But do women who make jewellery love him back?’ growled Benjamin, with his eyes half closed. ‘When he was asked to shut up for a bit he first looked insulted, then turned to the boutique dolls at the next table. “I just love clothes!” Okay, so I’m pretty toasted myself at the moment, but he was much, much worse.’
‘Yes, well,’ said Slibulsky, returning to the real subject. ‘And then Titty-Mouse was suddenly standing in front of him, making out she was a fan of his and asking him to sign her book. Of course he went off like a rocket. To be honest …’ Slibulsky cast a quick glance at the bench where Lara had fallen asleep. ‘If I’d written a book, and I suddenly had a fan like that standing in front of me — well, I can understand it’s a great moment in an author’s life.’
‘And her shoes alone,’ murmured Benjamin, his eyes now tightly closed. ‘With those flower stickers all over them — wow!’
‘Can we have our bill, please?’ called a man in the corner. He and the woman with him were the last guests in the bar.
An hour later Deborah and I were lying in bed. While I told her about the day’s events in rough outline, her eyes were closing, and by the time I finished I was sure she was asleep. But suddenly she said, with her eyes closed and her voice husky with wine, ‘What possessed you to pin the murder on him?’
And all of a sudden I had Sheikh Hakim in bed beside me.
I thought again about the moment when I’d got to work on Abakay’s chest with the knife. And of how I hadn’t just left it at assumptions when I was talking to Octavian, I’d claimed there was no alternative to Abakay as the murderer.
Finally I explained, ‘There was a sixteen-year-old girl in that barred and soundproofed room. She was shaking all over. She’d put her finger down her throat and smeared herself with her own vomit to keep a fat drunk from raping her. I’d rather not know how many girls’ lives Abakay has ruined like that, and I thought he never ought to get the chance to do it again.’
For a while Deborah didn’t react. Then she opened her eyes, turned to me and put a pillow under her head.
‘I hope you remember who you’re sharing your bed with? That’s the kind of thing that happens to tarts. Not all of them, but a great many. I was lucky, but I knew some girls who weren’t. And you yourself, you’ve only forgotten it. Today what happened to your client’s daughter seems to you like the worst of nightmares, but back then — don’t you remember how we would sit in some bar at five in the morning, finished, broke, drunk — just hoping for another customer, or not to get AIDS, or to find some fool ready to pay for a round of drinks? You, me, Tugba, Slibulsky, all the others. Some dead and buried long ago, others living in the West End. You’ve grown old, darling, old and soft, and that’s just fine — but you’ll call Octavian tomorrow and withdraw that stupid statement.’