He heard Lloyd chuckle lightly at the other end of the line. 'Well, believe it or not the lucky bastard got off again!

Insufficient evidence.' He paused for a second, consulting his notes once again. 'Mind you, he resigned from his job shortly after. Although whether out of guilt or because young William Smith and his cronies gave him a rough time in class, I can't say.' He sighed deeply. 'Anyway, that's it.'

'OK.'

'Oh, except that ...'

Suleyman frowned. There was something in Lloyd's voice, a certain hesitation that he felt was of significance. 'Yes, Inspector?'

'Well, it may not mean anything, Sergeant, but Sheldon's statement regarding the attack did also include an accusation of racism against Cornelius.'

'Racism?' The word was not immediately familiar to Suleyman, although what he felt upon hearing it unaccountably alarmed him.

Lloyd was, however, all too ready to explain. 'Racism means making remarks or doing things to mock or denigrate another's race or religion. Simon Sheldon was Jewish, you see, and apparently your Mr Cornelius was not very polite about that.'

'Oh.' Suleyman, writing as fast and furiously as he could, struggled to stop his shaking hand rendering his words illegible. 'Oh, thank you! Thank you!'

The cheerful voice at the other end of the telephone grunted knowingly. 'That's quite significant, I feel, Sergeant.'

'Yes, well, is very good, Inspector. Of great use to Inspector ikmen, I think.'

'Good. Good, I'm glad.' Lloyd sighed heavily. 'Anyway, have you made any progress yet?'

'Little. Small ones. Inspector ikmen looks to er ...' He groped for the right word and he didn't find it. 'Psychological explain, you understand?'

The voice at the other end of the line roared with laughter.

'Oh, Cetin! Tearing around building biographies, getting to know the victim. I don't know!' He paused. 'Trouble is, he's so often bloody well right!'

'Inspector ikmen is very clever.'

Lloyd laughed again. 'I know, the bastard! Anyway, look, Sergeant, give him my regards and if there's any more help I can give you, just say the word.'

'Thank you, Inspector. You have been very help. It's good.'

'All right, Sergeant, speak to you soon.'

'Goodbye, sir.'

'Bye.'

Suleyman pushed himself back against his chair and looked at the note he had just written. Sheldon. A Jewish lawyer. It would get ikmen going all right. More strange connections, if tenuous. And the child. Hitting a child!

Suleyman wondered what Sheldon and this Smith child had done to Cornelius, if anything. He wondered whether Smith was a name that English Jews used. He wondered, more immediately, how he might sweep up the upturned contents of ikmen's ashtray without soiling his hands. He had just decided that two pieces of old card provided the answer when ikmen's telephone rang.

He went over to his desk and picked up the receiver.

'Hello, Inspector ikmen's extension?'

'Where's ikmen?' It was Commissioner Ardic's voice and he was not sounding best pleased.

'Oh, Commissioner, I'm sorry, the Inspector isn't here at the moment, he's out with Cohen.'

'What's he doing? Who's Cohen?'

'Well, sir, he's interviewing. One of our victim's friends, an old Jewish lady and some old drinking ...'

'Arsing around with life histories.'

'Biography-building, yes, sir. Can I help at all ... ?' His voice faded out and he felt annoyed with himself. Why did he always sound so weak!

The Commissioner sighed. 'I've got a meeting with the Israeli Consul in fifteen minutes. I've only just been told myself! You know what diplomats are like! He wants a progress report, of all things, on this Meyer case.'

'Oh.' Weak again!

The Commissioner sounded like he was pulling himself together. 'Look, Suleyman, if ikmen isn't back in time you'll have to do it. It'll look terrible for the Department, but it can't be helped. Just be here in fifteen minutes and bring all your papers and stuff. Do you have Sarkissian's lab report yet?'

'Yes.'

'Well, bring that along too. If any of us can understand it, it will be a miracle, but ... Oh, and Suleyman ...'

'Yes, sir?'

There was a long pause followed by a deep sigh. He obviously meant to say something of great importance, but decided against it. Suleyman imagined, bitterly, that it was probably something Ardic didn't consider him bright enough to understand. It would be typical of the man. 'Oh, nothing!'

The line went dead and Suleyman gently replaced the receiver. A briefing with the Israeli Consul was not a regular occurrence. The great and the good coming to listen to him!

He moved around the side of ikmen's desk and wondered where he should start to look for Dr Sarkissian's report.

In the tower block of files or perhaps within the depths of an overflowing drawer. And what about the upturned, stinking ashtray? He quickly grabbed two used envelopes and hunkered down in order to get to grips with the job at hand. He had just managed to balance the stinking load delicately on to one of the envelope flaps, when suddenly the full portent of what he was about to do struck him.

A diplomat, the Commissioner, the as yet complete lack of progress! He felt his hand twitch but it wasn't until he saw the whole reeking mass hit the floor again that he gave vent to his feelings.

'Oh, fuck it!' he cried, not caring that probably the whole floor could hear him.

Despite the fact that ikmen and Cohen had already spent rather more time in that tiny, cabbage-tinctured apartment than either of them would have liked, ikmen at least felt he had to get some semblance of a clear story before he could even think about leaving.

Mrs Blatsky had proved to be a very pleasant, if rather alarmingly whiskery old lady and had been only too willing to answer any questions that the officers put to her.

That she spoke very rapidly and that her grasp of neither Turkish nor Ladino was very secure was not her fault, ikmen knew. It did not, however, do a great deal for his patience.

Just before he spoke once again, he smiled. Mrs Blatsky duly smiled back, exhibiting an extremely large and varied selection of broken teeth.

'All right, madam,' ikmen said, 'let's get this straight, shall we? Leonid Meyer was, so he told you, a Bolshevik during the course of the Revolution. Is that right?'

Small, pudgy hands moved several times in front of his face before she actually started speaking. They reminded ikmen of a pair of fat love-birds.

'Leonid moves with the Bolsheviki, yes!' She smiled sweetly. 'It was ever so with the men in that times.'

'I see.'

'Like some boys from the shtetl, Leonid moves to the armies of the Commissars. You see?'

ikmen, his eyebrows raised, turned to Cohen for clarification. lShtetl?'

'It's a settlement of Jews, sir. Sort of a ghetto.'

'Right.' He turned back towards the smiling little woman again. 'So, what you are saying, Mrs Blatsky, is that Leonid Meyer was actually a communist who, if I understand you correctly, also fought with the Bolsheviks during the Revolution.'

'Exactly, yes.'

'Right.' Here he paused for just a second in order to collect his thoughts. It was most important now that she understand him fully. 'OK, Mrs Blatsky, now I want you to think very carefully about what I am going to say and then give me as honest an answer as you can.'

Her smile remained static as she nodded enthusiastically.

'Now, Mrs Blatsky, did Leonid Meyer ever tell you anything about how he killed people back in Russia?'

'Oh, yes!'

Considering the morbidity inherent in the subject it seemed somewhat incongruous that the old woman appeared so cheerful about it all. But then, ikmen reasoned, that was obviously just how Mrs Blatsky was.

Gently, but persistently, ikmen pushed the thing forward.

'Could you then perhaps tell us about that, Mrs Blatsky?'

'Oh, yes!'

He leant forward slightly and, although this movement was almost entirely involuntary, motioned her onward with his hands. 'And?'

'Pigs of the bourgeoisie is what they say. Leonid and other boys shooting, bang! bang! Lots of money, pigs of the bourgeoisie, as they say.'

'So he killed some people, people with money?'

'As I say, yes.'

'And then?'

Here for the first time her face dropped, and ikmen suddenly saw just how very ancient this woman was. 'Leonid is afraid.'

'Afraid?' ikmen sighed and sat back slightly in his small grease-stained chair. 'What was he afraid of, Mrs Blatsky? It sounds to me as if he had done his duty as a good Bolshevik.

What do you mean?'

She shrugged. 'Maybe this, maybe that. But Leonid is always afraid since then, I see.'

'But you don't know why, is that right?'

'As I say, yes. Leonid don't speak proper when he is in drink.'

Although addressing Cohen, ikmen let his head fall back, gazing at the smut-smeared ceiling as he spoke. 'So now we have got Meyer the Bolshevik, have we? How interesting.

Meyer the Bolshevik who, in addition, did his duty and then promptly ran away to live in a country that was still officially at war with his own.'

'The 1914-18 war that would be, sir?'

'Yes, Cohen, as you say. The war during which the old Ottoman Empire finally died and Leonid Meyer and Maria Gulcu left their respective Slavic homes and came to live with us. The war during which, also I should imagine, our friend Meyer developed his taste for strong liquor.'

'Oh, liquor, yes!'

ikmen lowered his head to look at the old woman again.

Once more, she was smiling. 'Yes, Mrs Blatsky? Is there something else?'

'Oh, yes, liquor, yes!'

'Yes, liquor, we've both said the word several times now, what about it?'

'Well, for Leonid, it makes sleep when fears of the other come to him.'

ikmen looked at Cohen who shrugged his own lack of understanding. 'The other, madam?'

'The one who knows he bang! bang! at the rich pigs.

The one who sees.' Her smile then broadened considerably before she concluded. 'The one that still lives.'

'Lives? Lives where?'

The old woman, still smiling, pointed to the ground beneath her feet.

She disengaged herself from him and wandered naked towards the wide-open balcony doors. Robert marvelled at how sublimely unselfconscious she was about her body.

The whole district of Besjktas, was going about its business under those huge round breasts of hers. That she could be seen was certain, but she didn't give a damn. Natalia liked herself. She knew that the sight of her body could only provoke two emotions. Desire or envy. Either way it was OK with her.

Robert did up his shirt and pulled himself back into his trousers and pants. He felt exhausted.

Sex with Natalia was a puzzle. It was like she was playing with a doll. She did everything, all he was required to do was lie, sit or stand as the case may be, and enjoy. He had never actually 'taken' her once. And yet she always seemed satisfied. She was! It was just that orgasm had a different effect upon her. It seemed to invigorate her. As if she took the strength from his climax, incorporated it into her own body and recycled it. The process shattered him.

He loved it, of course, but he felt very wasted afterwards, as if he'd just had a bad case of flu and needed building up.

Despite the heat, Robert felt cold and bloodless. She'd kept him going for a long time, her skilful fingers, mouth and genitals bringing him just so far and then stopping. A teasing look into his eyes and then another part of his body would be attacked for a while: an ear, his throat, a single nipple. Then back again, lowering herself on to his penis, so sensitive he cried out in pain. She liked vocal sex; words, cries, excited her. As he came up to his climax, she would shout encouragement. 'Tell me to fuck, Robert! Fuck!'

He screamed, pain and pleasure finally coming together, and she was off. She always got off immediately. No post-coital kissing and caressing, just a lot of rather active parading about the room. Looking at her exaggerated profile in window-panes, mirrors, the shine on the coffee table.

Pleased with her performance. It made him feel hollow and cheap, as if he were spying on her. Maybe if she cuddled him afterwards, he would not feel so bad, so jaded.

Robert lit a cigarette. 'Would you like some coffee, Natalia?' He knew better than to talk of love to her just after sex.

She walked out on to the small balcony and smiled down into the busy street below. 'No.'