Arabesk

She didn't hear her sister walk across the room towards her.

'Watching one of your old movies, Tansu?'

The star turned to face what looked like a smarter, more sober version of herself. 'Yes,' she slurred. ‘I like to look at myself when I was a beautiful girl.'

Latife took a few moments to view the film before saying, 'You were thirty-five in this one.'

Leaning forward with an almost demonic leer on her face, Tansu said, 'You wouldn't say that to me if I was sober!'

'No I wouldn't. But seeing as you won't remember any of this in a few hours' time, I can say what I like.' She sat down beside her sister on the sofa, making sure that she was just far enough away to be out of danger.

'I've given you and our brothers everything,' Tansu murmured as she watched her younger self run fearfully from a big man with a sword. 'Not that I resent that I would do it all again.'

'Thank you.' It was said automatically, expressing acceptance rather than gratitude.

'Yilmaz is angry that I got rid of his little girl, but I said you can fuck anything you like, you're my brother.'

'What if he wanted his freedom?'

Tansu frowned. 'What do you mean?'

Latife sighed. It was a lot like trying to explain things to a child when Tansu was like this. 'What if Yilmaz wanted to leave this house? Would you give him that?'

'But Yilmaz doesn't want to go. He hasn't got anywhere to go.'

'Yes, but what if he did have somewhere? Would you let him leave?' She looked hard into her sister's face Just at the moment when Tansu's soft eyes turned hard. 'Well?'

The voice when it came was more like something animal than human. Td throw his ungrateful carcass out without a kurus.

'Nobody uses kurus any more, Tansu, they're worth nothing.'

'Well, how should I know that?' She leaned forward, wobbling slightly at the waist. 'I have people to do the money thing, don't I?'

'You have people to do everything except have sex, drink and take drugs.'

Tansu laughed, but not out of good humour, a fact made evident by her words. 'I'll kill you for that tomorrow,' she said, 'my dear, bright little sister.'

With an accepting shrug, Latife pushed herself up against the back of the sofa and was about to close her eyes when Galip and Yilmaz entered the room. As they walked somewhat shakily across the floor, Latife thought at first that the two men were as drunk as her sister. It was not until she felt a familiar sickening flip in her stomach that she realised that they were quite sober. Another small earth tremor to add to all the others that had been occurring of late. Not, as born and bred Istanbuhs were wont to say, that it meant anything. The earth moved, it sometimes did a bit of damage, it shuffled back again and everything was the same once again. Insallah it would always be so.

As the tremor subsided, so Galip and Yilmaz regained their equilibrium.

'If this carries on, I’m going to get out and go down south’ Galip said as he picked up Tansu's almost empty bottle of champagne.

'A-a-and m-me,' Yilmaz echoed, 'I w-will Moo’

Tansu observed her brothers with a lizard-like eye. 'You'll go south soon anyway’ she said contemptuously, 'so you can spend my money on beer and foreign women.'

Galip just laughed, but Yilmaz was genuinely stung by her words. 'I-I'm going to m-my room.'

'To think about poor little Bellas?' Tansu taunted.

'Y-you t-take away everything w-we w-want!' he said, suddenly furiously angry. 'Y-you just give us w-what y-you tthink w-we should w-want!'

'Oh, is that s-so, Y-yilmaz?' Tansu hissed in obvious and hurtful imitation of her brother's impediment.

'Y-you, a-are-'

'Come along’ Latife said and stood up. She took hold of her brother's arm. 'We've all had a very upsetting time lately, perhaps it might be better if-'

'Buts-she-'

'Yilmaz! Come along!' And with that Latife pulled her brother bodily from the room.

'I was born a slave, but I will die free!' a much younger version of Tansu wailed from the television set.

The older Tansu threw what was left of her champagne at the image, laughing bitterly as the flowing liquid distorted the rosy-hued skin on the screen.

It isn't easy to concentrate on anything when one's mind is tortured by anxiety. Even the most simple task may be rendered virtually impossible. When, however, that which has to be attended to is both unfamiliar and complex, the task becomes doubly difficult. This was a lesson that Ìsak Çöktin was learning as he attempted to make some sort of sense out of what Miss Göle, the laboratory technician, was attempting to tell him.

'The principal industrial use of cyanide is in the manufacture of steel. It's used to pickle it. A by-product of this process is a substance called hydrocyanic acid,' then as if suddenly noticing the glazed look on Çöktin's face for the first time, she said, 'Do you follow, detective?' '

'Yes,' Çöktin smiled in that particular way people do when they haven't a clue what is actually happening.

Holding up a fragile glass bottle filled with an amber-coloured liquid, Miss Göle then announced, 'And this is what it looks like.'

'Oh.' Çöktin reached out to take it from her, but Miss Göle stopped him with her free hand.

'No, I don't think so, detective,' she said sternly. 'Your mind is far too distant for you to be trusted with something so delicate and at the same time so deadly.'

How right she was. And yet, try as he might, Çöktin just could not drag his mind away from the subject of Erol Urfa – or the invidious position his relationship with that man might have placed him in. Inspector Suleyman was not happy about what he perceived as partisan behaviour. He was quite correct in his assumption that that was what was happening and he was probably also quite correct in still having his suspicions about Erol. Not, of course, that Çöktin could agree with that. The whole point about followers of the Peacock Angel was that they were not wicked or profane or violent If only he could explain that to Suleyman – but then that was as impossible as it was ridiculous. It would also be professional suicide – if, of course, he had not already committed that act.

'Cyanide may be created by distilling the stones of either the plum or the cherry. Anyone who has access to distillation equipment may produce it. We here at the institute, for instance’ Miss Göle said with a smile, 'could manufacture cyanide with ease’

'I see’ Had he been listening with full attention, Çöktin would have been chilled by her words, but instead his responses were as half-hearted as his questions. 'So can cyanide be used domestically?^,

'You mean in the home?'

Çöktin shrugged. 'Yes.' Suleyman had used the words 'domestic uses', which he assumed meant within people's houses and apartments. Oh, if only he could just give up on Erol and let the legal process take its course like it had for every other suspect he'd ever come into contact with!

'Well, not really,' Miss Göle said as she shifted her spectacles up onto the bridge of her nose, 'although I have come across several instances where it has been used to kill pests. Rats, mice, wasps – you know.'

He wrote it all down, his pen making notes almost without thought from him.

'Usually, though,' Miss Göle continued, 'when it is used domestically, those employing it generally have some sort of connection with industry. They bring a little home from their place of work.' She smiled. 'A sort of perk, I suppose you'd say.'

'Right'

She looked down at her watch and then pursed her lips. 'Well, if that is all.

'You've been most helpful,' Çöktin, said taking her hand in his and shaking it firmly. 'Thank you.'

'It's nothing,' and with that she made her way back to the door of the laboratory and then held it open for Çöktin to pass through. 'Goodbye, detective.'