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.‘Then all I ask is that if you find something – anything – amongst Uncle Vahan’s papers, you will be absolutely truthful with me.’‘Of course,’ Arto Sarkissian replied.‘Do we not love each other as true brothers?’‘Yes.’‘Then I will do everything I can to help you as I know you would assist me if this sad matter belonged to my family.’İkmen smiled.‘Thank you, Arto.I appreciate this.’‘It’s nothing,’ the doctor said.‘Now I really do need to get on with my paperwork.Perhaps you could assist me by telling Mehmet Suleyman that comparative tests between Rifat Berisha’s blood and that found in the car are under way.’‘Of course,’ İkmen said.‘I’ll go and see him now.’‘Thank you.’‘So I will speak to you later then, Arto?’Noting, yet again, the neediness in İkmen’s voice, Arto Sarkissian said a very firm, ‘Yes,’ followed quickly by, ‘Goodbye, Çetin.’‘Goodbye, Arto.’As İkmen rose from his chair to go and see Suleyman, he reflected that although he trusted his oldest friend to keep his word and look through his father’s papers, he wasn’t sure that he would indeed be entirely honest about what he found there.After all, Arto Sarkissian was a doctor and they did not always, as everybody knew, tell people everything they thought they needed to hear.Doctors sometimes tried to protect people, even if that was against the knowledge of the ravages of time and their own biology.Still, there was nothing İkmen could do about this.He would just have to take Arto’s word for whatever he found.It was either that or insult him and risk their friendship, and that was something he certainly didn’t want to do.Chapter 10* * *Although in recent days the residents of Kutucular Caddesi had become rather more accustomed to the appearance of unfamiliar people entering number 32, they had not reckoned on the sight of this huge vehicle blocking their street.Gold in colour and as Mimoza’s husband Dilek the landlord would say to his coffeehouse friends later, upholstered in the finest leather, the Rolls-Royce represented a lifestyle completely unknown to Kutucular’s residents.In spite of the best efforts of the chauffeur who stayed with the vehicle after the young lady had gone into number 32, the crowd that gathered around the Rolls was male and envious.Even discreetly fingering the small pistol Mr Evren had given him with orders to protect his children at all costs did not make Hassan the chauffeur feel any more secure.Inside number 32, however, things were calmer than in the street, if no less strained.The girl, or rather woman as became apparent if one stood close to her, had entered asking to see ‘Rifat’s family’.Her tiny, twisted frame was swathed in black from head to toe and she spoke in the same halting fashion as the Berishas themselves, as if she, too, were not native to the Turkish Republic.Aliya Berisha, predictably, had been hostile towards this unknown and ugly-looking person.‘What do you want with Rifat’s family?’ she had asked.‘Who are you?’‘My name is Felicity Evren,’ the woman replied, her voice soft and quite deep.‘I was a good friend of Rifat’s.His sister telephoned yesterday with the terrible news of his death.I said that I would come.’‘What? Engelushjia?’ Aliya looked nervously at her daughter.‘Yes, Mum, I invited her,’ the youngster explained as she moved forward to solemnly shake hands with the stranger.‘I had a number for Miss Evren.Rifat gave it to me some time ago.’‘Gave it to you!’ her mother cried, slipping back into Albanian in her agitation.‘Why did I not know of this – relationship?’‘There were lots of things you didn’t know about Rifat,’ Engelushjia said, stoically speaking in Turkish.And then taking this odd and, at close quarters, facially disfigured woman by the hand, she led her into the living room and sat her down.Following, Aliya and Rahman muttered agitatedly to one another.Only Mimoza Özer smiled.‘This must be one of Rifat’s conquests,’ she whispered into Aliya’s ear.‘One with money, by the look of it, cousin.’‘I have come to pay my respects,’ Felicity Evren said.‘It is all I can do for beloved Rifat now.’ And then she burst into tears, her tiny frame threatening to fall apart with every miserable convulsion.‘I’m sorry!’The Berishas, admittedly with half an eye on the great golden car outside, sat down beside her, with the exception of Engelushjia who went to the kitchen to prepare tea.The older Berishas sat and watched the stranger cry for quite some time.‘Do you think she wants something?’ Rahman asked his wife in the Albanian they spoke when addressing each other, trying, as he did so, to work out whether this odd stranger had lumps on her face or whether parts of it were paralysed.‘If Rifat had sex with this one then I think that the mystery about those trips he took and where he got his car from are solved,’ Mimoza commented acidly.‘A man would have to close his eyes and think only of money in order to pleasure such a thing without vomiting.’‘Oh, please do not speak of that cursed car again!’ Aliya said.‘When that policeman told me they’d found it out in Ortaköy and I, in this grief, had to act as if I knew nothing about it.A car, full of my son’s blood.’‘We don’t know that it was Rifat’s blood,’ Rahman said gravely.‘It—’‘Rifat took me to some beautiful places,’ the strange woman cut in.The Albanians stared at her [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]