Arabesk

'Which is why,' Ìkmen said, reaching forward and embracing his friend once again, 'I think I might do a little research around just who these overpaid people are and exactly what they do. I may even, may Allah protect me, voluntarily listen to some of their music!'

Some things that, at first sight, appear extremely eccentric can turn out to be quite logical in genesis. Istanbul's tiny underground railway, known as Tunel, is one. It is old, it is so cheap as to be totally unviable from a financial point of view and with only two stations on the 'line', one can hardly go far by this method. History, however, as is often true of so many odd phenomena, provides the logic needed to understand the existence of Tunel. Built by French engineers in 1875 it was designed to carry European merchants resident along the Grand Rue de Pera to and from their offices in Karaköy. Whilst under the ground these privileged foreigners would be well-protected from the extreme weather conditions of winter and summer and also from the pimps, prostitutes and other desperate subjects of the Sultan who for all remembered time have haunted this part of the city. So the merchants got their business done in comfort and without distress and the Sultan earned their gratitude if not their precious pounds, francs and Deutschmarks. These days, with the aid of a jeton priced at virtually nothing, one can ride Tunel in order to save oneself the effort of walking either up or down the Galata Hill. This is particularly useful for those who do not want to experience the excitements of some of the streets round about However, for a person to continually travel from top to bottom and vice versa for a whole afternoon is odd. Tunel may well be endlessly fascinating for railway enthusiasts but for a fat man who was obviously local and rather 'simple' to boot, it was bizarre. At least that was what the jeton vendor at the Karaköy end of the line thought when he called the police late that afternoon.

To be fair, the police were discreet although the vendor couldn't help thinking that sending plainclothes detectives to deal with the man was a little over the top. The young redhead in charge took two others with him onto the platform to wait for the train. They even bought jetons which was very strange given what some of the local 'uniforms' did with regard to fare paying, which was basically nothing.

When the little two-carriage train sighed to a halt at the bottom of its journey, Sergeant Çöktin scanned those people exiting the carriages for a man of large girth. His two colleagues stood at the barrier in order to look at people as they came past and indicated, as soon as the rush was over, that they had not found the man in question either. The first carriage being obviously empty, Çöktin moved quickly on to the second where his efforts were rewarded by the sight of a large man counting slowly on his fingers. With a brief movement of the head, Çöktin signalled to his colleagues to come and join him. He then sat down opposite the man and, when he had caught his eye, smiled.

'Good match last night I thought,' he said, jauntily pandering to every red-blooded male's obsession, football.

The man just stared glassily ahead of him, his mouth open and dry looking.

'Not enough goals, but still plenty of excitement,' Çöktin persisted, taking great care not to mention either of the teams involved (Galatasaray and Besiktas) for fear of causing offence.

'I haven't got enough money to get back up now.' The man may have been exaggeratedly round but his voice was quite unusually flat

Çöktin felt all the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. 'Oh,' he said, 'that is unfortunate. Do you need to get home?'

'Need to get back up. Keep going.'

Çöktin's two colleagues moved to sit down behind the man.

'Do you have a cigarette?' he asked Çöktin, putting out his hand, hopefully, for what may or may not be given to him.

'You can't smoke in here,' Çöktin replied as the carriage doors swished shut

'For later,' the man persisted, pushing one stubby ringer against Çöktin's knee.

'Well, all right then.' Çöktin casually sorted through his pockets looking for his cigarettes. 'So what's your name then?'

'It's…' His mouth, which had obviously not tasted a cigarette for some time, slavered expectantly as Çöktin slowly took a single cigarette from his packet.

'Mr…?' Holding the cigarette just slightly out of reach, Çöktin lifted one questioning eyebrow.

'Cengiz,' the man said as he leaned forward to snatch the item from Çöktin's grasp. 'Got a light for it, have you? Got a light?'

'We're not supposed to smoke in here, Cengiz, it's not-'

'Cengiz Temiz,' the man said, reasoning, or so Çöktin thought later, that the revelation of his whole name might just make him change his mind with regard to the light

With a glance at the driver who was patiently waiting outside, Çöktin leaned forward and lit the cigarette which now belonged to Cengiz Temiz.

The doors of the carriage swished open.

By the time most people were sitting down to their evening meal it was common knowledge that, firstly, Erol Urfa had a wife, secondly that the wife and not the star was not so much indisposed as dead, and thirdly that the Urfas' young daughter was missing. That extremely well-spoken police inspector told the nation that based upon the time of the woman's death the baby could have gone missing as early as the previous evening.

One of those who had watched the television broadcast was a grey-faced Erol Urfa. Now ensconced, at least temporarily, in the lounge of Ibrahim Aksoy's Sisli apartment, he looked at the plate of chicken and beans that now sat in front of him almost with horror.

'You should eat that.' Aksoy said as he poured himself yet another large raki. 'It will make you feel better.'

'No, it won't.' His voice, which was as dead as his eyes, bluntly expressed the reality of the situation. With his wife dead and the baby Merih still missing, Erol Urfa was not going to feel better for some considerable time to come.

Ibrahim Aksoy sat down on the sofa beside his protege’ and sighed.

After a while, Erol Urfa spoke once again, of terrible things, in the distant tones of one who has experienced more than he or she can bear. 'I keep thinking about the word "murder!'‘ he said, 'but when I think it and I see Ruya's face I cannot put the two together. Who would want to kill her? I just don't know.'

'You know that the police are going to interview Tansu. don't you?' Aksoy, although now outwardly recovered from his earlier interrogation by the police, still shook just a little when he spoke directly of the day's grim events.

With some obvious difficulty, Urfa turned his tension-wracked neck to look into his manager's face. 'But Tansu knew all about Ruya. She accepted the situation. She is from a country family, she knows how things are.'

'Perhaps,' Aksoy said as he cut and then lit a Very large cigar, 'you should tell the police about how it really is with you and Tansu.'

'What do you mean?'

'Well, I mean how it's basically for publicity. The old sex goddess and the smooth young country boy. All that fantasy stuff that makes those hoards of middle-aged women and their silly teenage daughters buy your music'

Erol Urfa's long, almond-shaped eyes closed up just a little, indicating that, angry as he now appeared, he was still under some sort of sedation. 'Although I know that publicity was your only intention when you introduced Tansu and me, I thought you knew by now that I love her.'

‘You do? Really?'

'If I did not, why would I be with her, sleep in her bed, give myself totally to her?' Then suddenly with a muscular fierceness he took hold of Ibrahim Aksoy roughly by the collar. 'What kind of man do you think I am, Ibrahim?'

'All right! Calm down!' Aksoy cried as he pulled Urfa's fingers away from his neck. 'I just thought that what with her being so old and you-'

'You thought me the kind of man who would do anything to become famous? Well, I can understand that even if it is not so.' With calm but determined fingers, he took the cigar from Aksoy's mouth- and placed it in his own. 'But I am not that man. I love Tansu because she makes me feel things no other woman can. She treats me like a Sultan, she knows everything. And she loves me.'