Barbara Nadel [Cetin Ikmen 15 Deadline (epub)

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.‘I don’t like organised fun,’ İkmen continued.‘It makes me anxious.’‘It’s supposed to relax you,’ Arto said.Then looking at him narrowly, he said, ‘Would it help if I said it would be good if we had a representative from the police department at the event?’‘Mehmet Süleyman’s going, he can do that.’Arto looked at the bill and then placed a 50 Turkish lire note down on the table to cover it.The waiter, who had been hovering, whipped it away immediately.‘I know for a fact that Fatma is going to stay with her aunt in Bursa that week,’ the Armenian said.‘She goes away that week every year.’‘For which I am always grateful.My wife is a very understanding woman.’‘You’ll be alone, you can’t cook.’‘I’ll be alone as I always am!’ İkmen said.‘I like it like that, you—’‘You invite Krikor and myself to some dreary bar in Sultanahmet – if you remember,’ Arto interjected.‘If it crosses your mind to invite your own brother it’s a miracle and I’m not sure that any of your more recent friends even know when your birthday is.As far as they’re concerned you age in one long, unregarded and continuous stream of time.’‘Which is how I like it.’‘It isn’t normal.’‘Whoever said that normal equals good?’‘You should at least allow your children to celebrate your birthday,’ Arto said.‘They’re your children! They love you.I’m sure they’d like to, at the very least, take you out for a meal.’ Then he looked at the skinny, smoking figure across the table from him and added, ‘Not that eating is really what you do.’İkmen smiled.They’d spent a happy day together until the subject of Arto’s brother Krikor’s latest fundraising event had arisen.Ambling around the İstanbul Modern gallery had been exhilarating for İkmen.Not that he understood what all the pictures, photographs and installations were really about.But in a country that in recent years had been ruled by a government with Islamic roots, an avowed secularist like İkmen felt cheered by the sight of artworks depicting things like sex, sexuality and dissent.‘If Krikor’s project is to provide facilities to immigrant as well as Turkish addicts then it needs more money,’ Arto said.‘Five thousand Turkish lire each, at least,’ İkmen said.‘That’s what this “fun” of yours will cost.’ Then he shook his head.Arto leaned across the table.Out on the Bosphorus the sound of a single ferry foghorn signalled that the night was destined to be one of dampness, mist and coughs.‘I said I’d pay for you and I will!’ Arto snapped.‘It is my birthday and Christmas present to you!’‘But Arto, I’m not a Christian, I don’t—’‘Oh, yes, and I’m in church all the time myself!’ Arto leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest.‘Christians give presents to each other and to non-Christian friends because it is one of our traditions,’ he said.‘As well you know.’‘Yes, well.’‘Çetin, it will be amazing,’ Arto said.‘Krikor and his staff have engaged a professional acting troupe.Lale Aktar will be there.Lale Aktar!’‘So if Lale Aktar is there, I won’t need to be,’ İkmen said.‘Let the great novelist do her stuff.’‘Oh, Çetin, don’t be childish!’‘Arto, why would I want to go to some play about murder? On my birthday? I deal with the real thing.’Arto Sarkissian looked across at the Asian shore of the Bosphorus, now just very gently softened by sea mist.Both he and Çetin had been born over there, a long time ago.He turned back to his friend and said, ‘It’s for all the people who walk around this city with untreated sores from infected needles.For the kids from Romanian orphanages who sniff glue, for the girls who sell themselves for the price of a fix.Krikor never turns anyone away from his clinic.All they have to do is want to get clean.Money isn’t an issue.’‘Except that it is.’‘If he’s to carry on helping people with their addictions, yes, it is for Krikor,’ Arto said.‘He doesn’t have any more capital.’ His brother, an addiction specialist, had already ploughed most of his own considerable fortune into his substance abuse clinic in the İstanbul district of Beyazıt.‘This city’s population grows every day and so, unfortunately, do the number of addicts on the streets.Çetin?’İkmen looked up and breathed in the dank, moisture-soaked air deeply.He believed in everything that Krikor Sarkissian was doing.Of course he did! He just didn’t want to go to his extravagant fund-raising event.As well as being really not at all his kind of thing, the last time he had attended one of Krikor’s fund-raisers it had led him, albeit coincidentally, into the life of a murderer whose crimes still, sometimes, haunted his sleep.But that had been nothing at all to do with Krikor Sarkissian or his very worthy project.İkmen pulled a grumpy face (mainly because he knew that Arto would expect it of him) and said, ‘OK, I’ll come.’Arto Sarkissian smiled as the evening call to prayer wound itself around them from every part of the city.Inspector Mehmet Süleyman looked through the open door into Çetin İkmen’s office and stared at the elegant woman looking intently at her computer screen.She appeared completely calm, absorbed and at peace with herself.It stunned him.How could she be like that? In just over three weeks’ time she, Sergeant Ayşe Farsakoğlu, was going to marry a man who looked like a 1970s Arabesk crooner – all moustache, jutting stomach and machismo.Why?‘Er, Sergeant Farsakoğlu.’She turned round and smiled.‘Sir?’Why he’d spoken at all, Süleyman didn’t know.Maybe it was just to see her face.But that was ridiculous.He’d got over his brief affair with Ayşe Farsakoğlu years ago.But now he’d caught her attention, he had to find something to say.‘Where is Inspector İkmen?’ he asked.He could just as easily have called or emailed and he knew she knew that.‘It’s the first of December, sir,’ she replied.‘Ah.’ He felt stupid.If he could, Çetin İkmen always took 1 December as leave.Everyone knew that.It was World Aids Day and he liked to spend time with one of his cousins who had apparently lost someone or other to the disease.Nobody, including İkmen, ever really spoke about it.‘Can I help you with anything, Mehmet Bey?’ Ayşe asked.For a moment he’d almost forgotten she was there.Slightly flustered, he said, ‘Er, no.No thank you.’She turned her beautiful face back to her computer screen and resumed whatever it was she had been doing.The reason behind his agitation over her fiancé was, Süleyman acknowledged, a source of shame.Since the collapse of his second marriage, Süleyman himself had been single and he had harboured some idle fantasies that Ayşe Farsakoğlu might throw herself at him again as she had years before.Not that he actually wanted a relationship with her [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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