Belshazzar's Daughter Read Online Free PDF

maudlin.’ He strode purposefully out of the room and stopped by the door to speak briefly to Avci. ‘All right, Constable?’
    ‘Yes, sir.’
    ‘Good boy.’ He patted him gently on the cheek with
    understanding. ‘We’re going to dust for prints now. IT
    send forensic up as soon as I get downstairs. Give the lads any help they need and try to keep the neighbours away, OK?’
    ‘Yes, sir.’
    ikmen turned to Sarkissian. ‘Ready, Arto?’
    They walked along the balcony towards the stairs. The Abrahams had disappeared back into their apartment now*
    but they could still be heard. The father weeping; the children, their voices angry, disgruntled by lack of sleep: each trying to find some small area of floor on which to rest their ill-nourished little bodies, ikmen sighed deeply, What hope was there for such people?
    The two men descended the filthy stairwell.
    ‘I’ll let you have my report as soon as I can, Cetin.’
    ‘Good.’ ikmen lit a cigarette. ‘How is Maryam?’
    A small but discernible cloud passed across the Armenian’!
    features. ‘As ever. And Fatma?’
    ‘Staggeringly huge.’
    Sarkissian smiled. ‘And how is Timiir? Still fighting Allah?’
    ikmen laughed. His mirth echoed and bounced like a
    ball, up and down the gloomy stairwell. ‘Oh yes. Some things, and my father is one of them, never change.’
    ‘When he dies he’s either going to get a dreadful shock, or he’s going to be unbelievably smug for all eternity.’
    “I would think the latter, wouldn’t you?’
    Sarkissian grunted in agreement.
    They reached the bottom of the stairs and stepped out into the noise and glare that always seemed to surround police cars en masse. Sarkissian held out his hand and smiled. ‘I’m going to get down to the mortuary now.
    I want to have everything ready when they bring the body in.’
    ikmen took his hand and smiled back. ‘See you later, Arto.’
    As Sarkissian left, Suleyman returned. He was looking pleased with himself, ikmen turned aside and hailed a tall man leaning sullenly against the wall of the apartment building. ‘Demir!’
    The tall man straightened up and came to attention.
    ‘Yes, sir.’
    ‘You and your men can go up now. The doctor and I
    have finished.’
    ‘Right.’
    ‘Oh, and Demir?’
    ‘Yes, sir?’
    ‘The usual. Anything of interest, papers, anything at all, back to the station.’
    ‘Right, sir.’
    Suleyman, now standing directly in front of his boss, was patiently waiting his turn. He had news.
    ‘All right, Suleyman, what have you got?’
    ‘A woman across the street, sir. A Mrs …’He consulted his notebook. ‘Yahya. Said she saw a man, a stranger, hanging around the corner here at about four, four-thirty yesterday afternoon.’
    ‘Any description?’
    Suleyman smiled. ‘Quite good, actually, sir. Tall, about my height, very blond, fair-skinned. Could be Western European or Scandinavian. Apparently he was smoking a cigarette, just standing in the road.’
    ikmen threw his cigarette butt on to the pavement and ground it out with his foot. ‘Well done, Suleyman. It might mean nothing at all, but get a statement anyway.’
    He looked up and across the road towards the dark, silent bulk of the Byzantine Kariye Museum. He thought back to his last trip to the site. Marvellous thirteenth-century mosaics: the Birth of Christ, the Death of the Virgin Mary; holy pictures glittering through the thin light of a late autumn afternoon. Fatma, outside, too pious to enter; the children running riot around the narthex and annoying the foreign tourists. The hundreds of foreign tourists, he recalled, even then, in October.
    Suleyman hadn’t moved. He was watching Ikmen. ‘I
    know what you’re thinking, sir, but it doesn’t apply.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘The Kariye was closed. Been closed for weeks, sir, Emergency repair work.’
    ikmen sighed. ‘Well, I suppose that cuts it down a bit Any thoughts on why a foreigner might come here if the Museum’s closed?’
    Suleyman