Free Ikmen 16 - Body Count by Barbara Nadel Page A

government because they are far too common and Islamic for their taste. Mind you, money always changes things. Ablak’s dirty Kemalist money was good enough for my family.’ He glanced down at İ kmen, who looked back at him with a question on his face. Süleyman, who knew him very well, knew exactly what it was. ‘But no, I can’t imagine even my most insane relatives killing anyone.’
    ‘I didn’t think so,’ İ kmen said. Although Süleyman had no doubt that Sezen İ pek and her family would be minutely considered by him. ‘No, my mind is on the lover’s wife.’
    ‘Faruk Genç’s?’
    ‘Yes. I felt that his dying wife, although freely admitting her own pragmatism about her husband’s affair, was rather
too
pragmatic. There was no passion there, where I think most people would have expected it. There was some barely suppressed malice, too. I must say I am also drawn towards the world that Leyla Ablak was apparently so attracted to,’ İ kmen said. ‘The “alternative” health scene.’
    Süleyman frowned. ‘Oh?’
    ‘Yes, aromatherapy, chakras, homeopathy – she did a lot of that.’
    ‘Really. I didn’t know.’
    ‘Ah, the appeal of the weird,’ İ kmen said as he lit one cigarette from another.
    ‘Well that’s very interesting, Çetin.’
    İ kmen laughed. ‘What, pseudo-science? The outer limits of human credulity? I mean, I know I say this as the son of a woman who was a witch …’
    ‘Yes, but you believed in your mother, didn’t you?’
    ‘My mother clearly had something, even if I can’t really say what that was.’
    ‘It’s interesting because my victim, Levent Devrim, was into alternative therapies too,’ Süleyman said. ‘Apparently he read copiously on all sorts of “weird” topics – aliens, stone circles, the Mayan 2012 prophecies – at his favourite bookshop, the Ada on İ stiklal.’
    ‘Can’t imagine your cousin consorting with the great unwashed at the Ada,’ İ kmen said.
    ‘Maybe not, and maybe the fact that Devrim and Leyla were both into these therapies doesn’t mean anything,’ Süleyman said. ‘But I tell you, Çetin, I am struggling to find a motive for Levent Devrim’s death. As far as I can tell he was a quiet eccentric obsessed with numbers. Although what numbers meant to him, and why, I have no idea. The calculations we found scrawled all over his apartment were meaningless. Then today Ömer was told by Levent Devrim’s old paramour Sugar Bar ı ş ı k that Ş ukru Ş ekero ğ lu didn’t in fact find his body. A gypsy kid found it. But of course the child, Hamid, was nowhere to be found.’
    ‘Did Ömer speak to Ş ukru Ş ekero ğ lu?’ İ kmen knew the gypsy brother of Süleyman’s great love, as well as the rest of the Ş ekero ğ lu family, rather well, and had always been aware of the fact that back in his native Sulukule, Ş ukru had been a local celebrity for decades. He wondered how he was dealing with the comedown that Tarlaba ş ı had to be for him.
    ‘No,’ Süleyman said. ‘We’re going after the boy Hamid on the pretext that he picked Sugar Bar ı ş ı k’s pocket. Once we get hold of him, we can also question Ş ekero ğ lu again. In the meantime, I’m going to have Ş ukru watched.’
    İ kmen raised his eyebrows.
    ‘Yes, I know Tarlaba ş ı is a tough place to stake out, but I’ve got a few old Sulukule contacts over there, and I’ve got the budget for it.’
    ‘Sulukule contacts who will tell you the truth about Ş ukru Ş ekero ğ lu?’
    ‘Ah, well that could be moot,’ Süleyman said.
    ‘Friends or enemies?’
    ‘Oh, enemies.’
    ‘Then you’ll have to be careful.’
    ‘Of course. But what can I do? A strange face in that quarter would be headline news in all the coffee houses and brothels within minutes. One of the many things that really puzzles me about this case is how the murderer managed to get in and out without being noticed.’
    ‘Unless he was local.’
    ‘Unless he was local, which is a