Free Dance with Death by Barbara Nadel

to stop her?’ İkmen said, knowing that what he was saying probably didn’t make sense in the context of Muratpaşa circa 1983. After all, not everyone, even now, allowed their daughters to marry young Jewish boys they fell in love with as he himself had done.
    ‘No,’ the old man said. ‘May Allah forgive me, I admit that I experienced greed! She went to him, he and that evil daughter of his, and I only saw her twice before she disappeared. They made me speak to her through that great gate Ziya had made for his courtyard. She told me she wasn’t yet with child and I heard Nazlı order her about as if she were a servant. My daughter was used by Ziya and, I think that when he discovered that she, like his second wife, was not taking his seed, he killed her.’
    İkmen, who had just reached into his pocket to retrieve his cigarettes, stopped and frowned. ‘But the police seemed, I understand, more interested in the possibility of Kemalettin being at fault.’
    ‘With respect to yourself, Çetin Bey, they would be.’ The old man sighed. ‘Ziya Kahraman used to be able to buy people. Miserly with those who worked for him, very free with money to people he wanted or needed. His daughter is just the same. Seventy years old she may be, but last year Nazlı Kahraman married a boy of twenty-five she met somewhere on the south coast. Oh, no, Ziya Kahraman was barely touched by the police at the time!’
    ‘But you think that he killed your daughter?’ İkmen said as he finally took a cigarette out of his pocket and lit up.
    ‘Yes. I have always believed she was murdered. Half the village still think that, somehow, Kemalettin Senar killed my daughter, but I do not agree. I know that the boy has since become rather strange, but I really do believe that is because he misses Aysu. He loved her so much! Now he just drifts, talking to himself and . . .’
    ‘So what do you think I can do about this, Haldun Bey?’ İkmen asked. ‘I am a policeman just like those in Nevşehir . . .’
    ‘Ah, yes, but you are from İstanbul, aren’t you!’ the old man said. ‘And in İstanbul you have tests that can be done to see who killed who sometimes years and years before. I have read it in newspapers.’ His face assumed a proud glow. ‘I can both read and write.’
    İkmen smiled. Coming from İstanbul it was sometimes easy to forget that the ability to read and write was still, for some citizens of the Republic, a considerable achievement and one to be trumpeted.
    ‘In Nevşehir they will not do such tests on my daughter’s body,’ Haldun continued. ‘All they will say is that they will find out how she died. I said, “What about these tests to see who killed her?”, but that inspector over there, the same idiot who came here twenty years ago, he just ignored what I said and told me they would release Aysu to me as soon as they could. They would not even tell me whether they think she was murdered. I know that she was. I know that you must know that she was, too, or else why would you be here?’
    İkmen smiled. A simple man he may be, but Haldun Alkaya was far from stupid. ‘So what exactly do you think I can do, Haldun Bey?’
    ‘Menşure Hanım tells me that you are an honest man, Çetin Bey,’ the old man said. ‘You are also a clever man. Not just me, but this whole village needs to know who killed Aysu. We will never be at peace until this matter is settled. As it is, those who believe the Kahramans to be wronged will not speak or do business with the Senars or with me either. It is very bad for business.’
    ‘But if, as you believe, Haldun Bey, Ziya Kahraman killed your daughter, if he’s now dead . . .’
    ‘Ah, but the tests can be performed on his relatives, can they not?’ Haldun said. ‘My friend Rahmi has a satellite dish and we saw this programme on his television about a murder in Ankara. The police there took some water from the mouth of a man who was the brother of a