'Allah is, if nothing else, merciful, Reinhold.'

Smits laughed again. It was one of those days, grimly amusing. 'What Allah may or may not be is of no interest to me. In case you've forgotten, Doctor, I am a Calvinist like my father and believe me, my God will show little in the way of mercy to a person like myself.'

Dr Suleyman imad had been Smits's personal physician for nearly forty years - plenty enough time to realise that there really was no answer to his last statement. Instead, he simply slipped his stethoscope off his neck and placed it back in his briefcase. Smits was as well as could be expected given his recent experiences and there was little to be gained by staying any longer.

Smits, seeing this activity, concurred. 'So, you had better be on your way then.'

'Yes.' Imad retrieved his jacket from the back of the chair and slipped it on. 'I would like you to think about what I said regarding the police though, Reinhold.'

The old man shrugged. 'I may. Although I can't imagine what it might achieve.'

'They had no right to harass a sick man like yourself, we can see the result of that strain in your condition now. I would be only too pleased to speak to your lawyer in those terms should you decide to take action.'

Smits closed his eyes and rested his head back against the pillows. 'We will see,' he said. 'Could you please send Wilkinson up here on your way out?'

'Of course.' Imad picked his briefcase up and then smiled at the closed and sightless face before him. 'I'll come by again tomorrow.'

'As you wish.'

'I'll see you then.'

As soon as he heard the bedroom door close behind the retreating doctor, Reinhold Smits opened his eyes again.

God, but he was so awfully tired of it all! He had been tired even before all this Meyer business began, but with that now added in on top of the ghastliness of dying, the whole thing was utterly unbearable. Not least because the most terrible aspect of the whole affair was the one thing that he couldn't share with anyone.

The way Leonid's body and face had looked in death was, without doubt, the most frightening thing he had ever seen - that and the stench, the flies, the terror in blood that almost leapt upon him from that filthy wall. So horrifying, so barbaric and yet so awfully sacred too.

If only he hadn't mentioned the swastika to the old bitch.

If only he hadn't been, wasn't still, so terribly vulnerable. A whole lifetime of being discreet, it now appeared, counted for nothing.

And just that one tiny bit of thoughtlessness meant that Maria Gulcu could, if she wanted, destroy him. Which was what he knew she would do. He almost laughed when he thought about it now. Leonid would have laughed himself sick.

A soft tap on his door was followed by the entrance of the butler.

Smits, as ever, pulled himself together for the benefit of the staff. 'Ah, Wilkinson,' he said, his voice once again a paragon of authority, 'I want you to gather some items together for me from the library and bring them up here.'

'Yes, sir.'

Using his fingers as markers for each item, Reinhold Smits listed those things that he needed. 'I would like all of my photograph albums, a book called The Death of Russia by Simon Danilov - it's in English and resides in the History section - plus my writing paper, envelopes and a pen.' He raised a finger in warning. 'Not a ballpoint, a proper pen.

Do you understand?'

'Yes, sir.'

With a flick of his hand he waved the menial away. 'Off you go then.'

However, once the door closed behind the butler, Smits's mask of superior confidence fell. There is often a gap between knowing what is right and acting upon that knowledge and even though Reinhold Smits had now taken that step in his mind there were still niggling doubts. Once it was done, Madame Maria could place any sort of interpretation upon it that she wished. After all, even to the so-called dispassionate policemen, his actions could seem like guilt or spite or both.

But then did that matter? No. No, all that mattered now was that almost everything in the albums was destroyed.

Then it would be just like none of it had ever happened and now, of course, without Leonid, it might as well have just been a dream anyway. But, oh, how he'd enjoyed it.

Smits smiled again and this time the expression stayed on his features for some time.

* ' Robert Cornelius's first thought after he had excused himself from Mr Edib's oily presence had been to get as far away from the Londra Language School as possible. This had, not of necessity but more as a reaction to a sort of internal dare he decided to have with himself, meant that he had to walk through the streets of Balat again. Although almost insanely confident at first, it wasn't until he came across that apartment block on that corner that it all, suddenly and with almost coronary-inducing power, became too real and unbearably horrifying. And that he then found himself running again only added to his sense of being inside a nightmarish and inescapable loop of time. At one point he almost fancied that he even saw Natalia running in front of him, her face scared and drawn and just that little bit too thin. And yet despite all this and despite his almost bursting chest he kept running until he was very far from Balat.

Finally stopping in order to catch his breath, he looked around him and, to his dismay, he discovered that he was in a part of the city that he didn't recognise. It was like he had got to wherever he was blindfold and although he assumed that, since he had passed the old apartment block in the usual way, he was probably somewhere closer to the Sea of Marmara than to the Golden Horn, he couldn't be certain of that. But then given his current situation, did that really matter?

He looked first to his left and then right. It was a typical istanbul street: a clutch of shops, a few broken paving stones, a selection of evil-eyed dogs and cats. For no other reason than it seemed like a good idea at the time, he started walking to the right. There had to be a bar or a hotel somewhere nearby and that was after all what he was here (wherever here was) for. With drink he might just be able to forget and that was all that he wanted - for the moment. To hell with letters and women and policemen and old, dead Jews. What he wanted was to be himself again, just for a bit, just before it all got going again, leading God alone knew where.

And then suddenly there was an enormous expanse of blue in front of his eyes - a great sea with its little boats and tankers and pleasure craft flying the familiar Turkish crescent and star flag. And then there was music too and bars and drink and happy, laughing voices. When they want to relax, people go down to be by the sea and have a few drinks. It's very benign and very normal. Robert Cornelius, unshaven, hurting and sick in all sorts of ways, moved to join in the fun.

Chapter 19.

Leonid. It was strange but looking back over the years it was almost as if she were thinking about two people. Leonid before and after middle age. He'd been young for so long!

At forty he'd still been like a teenager, still coming round to the house with a smile and a jaunty spring in his step, his pockets always and forever full of Reinhold Smits's money.

He'd made her feel quite old - then. She'd resented it. She remembered the feeling well.

But he'd paid in the end, of course. It had been almost as if his whole life had caught up with him at once. One day he was young, the next ... Perhaps the enormity of it had come to him in a dream, perhaps like Lady Macbeth he'd finally realised that nothing he had done or could do would ever wash it away. But at that point they had ceased being friends and for a time she had felt sad. His new incarnation was an obligation, a mere mouth in which to pour alcohol and scraps of food. The last time she'd visited him in his foul Balat hovel, twenty, or maybe even thirty years ago, she'd been disgusted to discover that he was completely toothless.

He'd tried to kiss her but she hadn't let him. She'd endured enough of his rough caresses coming across the mountains of Armenia and beneath the sparse trees on the central Anatolian plain. Although 'endured' she knew was not really the right word. Endurance implied lack of complicity.

Maria took a cigarette from the box beside her bed, lit it and then leant back heavily against her pillows. Leonid had been doubly excited during their journey out of Russia.

Excited by her and also intoxicated by the situation. It had been a lot for a seventeen-year-old boy to take in. For days, although he'd been able to touch her, conversation with him had been impossible. It was almost as if his groping hands and searching tongue made up in some way for his inability to speak to her. But at the time, of course, she hadn't analysed it. All she'd known then was the blood.

Three rivers: the one that poured from the wound on her face; the one that coursed painfully down her legs when he took her that first time; and the one she'd seen running down the wall just before they left. The one Leonid had slipped on as he tried to lift the woman's dead body up on to his shoulders. She could still see the look of horror on his face as, filtered through the mist of smoke that had seared her half-closed eyes, she'd seen him look into the woman's dead face. She'd wondered at the time what someone like him was doing there.

Not that she'd ever loved him. There had been gratitude and, just after they entered Turkey, a moment of great passion, probably brought about by relief, but not love. Leonid was a Jew, an animal, something 'other' and unpleasant a killer of Christ.

She looked across to where Nicholas was leaning against the wall and squinted narrowly the better to see him.

The first visitor she'd had after he was born had been Leonid. Even before Mehmet. Drunk, even then, Leonid had pinched the baby's cheek affectionately before sitting on her bed and trying to persuade her to one of his insane schemes. But she had, as she had always done, refused and rebuffed him then too. Besides pain and frustration, she had actually given him very little.

Perhaps even as he lay dying, looking up at that filthy smoke-stained ceiling, his stomach and his throat burning white hot, he'd thought his pain then was a present from her. Perhaps at the last he'd even cursed her. She felt cursed.

When she'd first heard of his death, almost gagging at the horror of it, she'd felt cursed. And, in addition, Leonid's death had opened her own son's mouth against her and now there was no stopping it. Even from beyond the grave, Leonid still had her by the throat. Nicky's sullen eyes slid across her features in disgust and she looked away from them, down towards the picture of the pretty plump girl with chestnut hair that rested in her lap. The fat cheeks were unscarred, the eyes clear. She wished she knew where the original was, when and where it had been taken, but she couldn't remember. There had been so many photographs.

'Well, Mama?'

She sighed deeply and stubbed her cigarette out in a small terracotta ashtray. She looked at his face and was struck by the almost arrogant light she saw in his eyes.

That was new. But then Nicky had done a lot of thinking and his conclusions were leading him down a new and exciting path. Nicky had nothing to fear, the world and all its unknown delights waited for him - the tall bearded man emerging from the shadows. Maria cleared her throat.

'I don't know, Nicky. I don't know.'

'Well, Mama, it is your decision ultimately, but unless we do something I cannot see that things are going to get any better. Natalia has, and with your blessing I might add, already involved one unfortunate outsider. I understand your views-'

'And I yours' - she shot him a look like a dagger - 'now.

But I've never lied to you, Nicky, whatever you may think.

The fact that you have changed your mind, that events have caused you to question-'

'Events?' He moved across to the bed and sat down beside her. 'What we are talking about here, Mama, is murder! Two people from this family were present at Uncle Leonid's apartment on the day he died. And' - he held a finger up to silence her - 'before you allude, yet again, to Reinhold Smits, let me remind you that we, in addition, have a confession here. If Smits says he was there-'

'Which he was!'

'Yes, admittedly. But the fact remains, Mama, that Natalia told us all about how Uncle Leonid looked in death some time before Smits contacted you and inadvertently confirmed some other descriptions - about the existence of the swastika, for instance. And with an admission of guilt and a detailed description of how it was done to poor Uncle Leonid originating from this house, I think that the chances of Smits being involved are rather slim.'

'Oh, but Nicky, Natalia could have been wrong. She could have got there just after Smits ...'

Nicholas rubbed his eyes before replying. 'But then, Mama, you are forgetting, are you not, just whose hands Natalia-'

'She could be lying! You know what a wicked disgusting girl she can be!'

'Well, she's not lying about this, Mama. What on earth would be her reason for doing so? There really cannot be one, can there? You and I both know that.' He knew she wouldn't like this, but try as he might, he at least could not see any other way around the problem. 'Basically, such matters as this are for the police anyway.

We must give them the information we have and let them make the decision. This has gone on far too long already!'

She cast her eyes downwards now and he had the distinct feeling that what she said next was really the principal area of concern. 'And what of the family?'

'What of it?'

She looked up quickly, the movement of her neck snapping her now furious face forwards once again. 'You say what of the family? You say this after a lifetime of belief and tradition? You say it in the face of what you know are our hopes and aspirations for the future?'

Nicholas sighed. And here they were again, back full circle with the family again - the wearisome and to him now completely irrelevant concept of the family. When he spoke he did so slowly and deliberately as if to a child.

'Mama, by the time the police and the immigration people have finished with us, we will be very fortunate if we are even able to lay claim to a couple of rented rooms.'

'No, no, no! I cannot and I will not let go of everything that I am, that I feel. That is asking things of me that are beyond my endurance!'

Nicholas looked his mother steadily in the eyes and saw in them the things, or rather the lack of things, that he had always known were there. 'And that is just about it, isn't it, Mama? The fact that you can't do what needs to be done is not because loved family members are involved.

It's because of you and your delusions and your strange, crazy little world. It's never been about us and that is why you have allowed us to become the pitiful monsters that we are.' He stood up. 'Look at me, Mama! I'm an old man and yet I wear the uniform of a regiment of soldiers who all died before I was born! I am a freak! And what is more, I am your freak! Look at me, Mama!'

She didn't speak again and neither did he until he reached the door. But there he turned and, looking her full in the face, he said, 'I'll give you until tomorrow morning, Mama, and then I will do what has to be done myself. But if you have any honour at all, I suggest you make that move yourself. It will, if only in part, help to re-establish my respect for you.' And with one tiny bow he was gone.

Alone, bitter and frustrated, Maria Gulcu attempted to rip her bedclothes to shreds, but found that all her strength had deserted her.

The Bar Paris was not the sort of place to pop into for a quick drink. Unless the intention was to get wildly and outrageously drunk, it was the kind of establishment that was best given a wide berth. The regular clientele was generally noisy, frequently criminal and many of them were no strangers to violence, ikmen didn't go there often, but whenever he did he threw himself into the experience totally.

He held the grimy front door open for Suleyman and the young man watched as several highly painted prostitutes peered through the gloom in their direction.

The place reeked of old sweat and vomit. Suleyman didn't even attempt to hide his disgust. 'In here!'

'Yes,' ikmen replied simply, his face as innocent as that of a guide showing a tourist round a mosque.

'You want me to go in here!'

ikmen shrugged. 'The drinks are cheap.' He let go of the door and stepped into the smoky gloom.

Suleyman watched the door close on him and sighed.

The choice was simple really. Either he joined ikmen in the alcoholic hell of the Bar Paris and risked life and limb at the hands of the various undesirables beyond its grim door or he went home to his mother. He pushed the door boldly aside and drifted towards the bar on a sea of smoke.

He saw ikmen immediately, sitting on a barstool, holding up a glass and shouting something he couldn't make out at the barman. Even amongst such bizarre company as the Bar Paris provided, ikmen stood out as something especially shabby and unkempt.

Just before he reached ikmen, however, Suleyman saw an extremely tall woman in a green sequinned dress rush in front of him and grab the barstool he'd been heading for. As soon as she sat down the woman flung her arms around ikmen's neck and kissed him affectionately on the cheek. To Suleyman's surprise, rather than pull away from this unlooked-for advance, ikmen the devoted father and husband kissed the woman back - on the lips.

To say that he was shocked was an understatement. For a few moments he just stood and stared with his mouth open like a goldfish.

ikmen laughed. 'Come over then, Suleyman. Come and meet Samsun.'

He looked at the woman with her long hooked nose and grimy teeth and attempted a smile, ikmen placed a large glass of something that smelt dangerously close to petrol in his hand and made the formal introductions.

'Samsun, this is Suleyman my sergeant. Suleyman, this is Samsun, a divine lady of dubious profession who also happens to be my cousin.' He grabbed a sequin-clad knee between his fingers and squeezed. The woman giggled girlishly, her large Adam's apple bobbing up and down against her blue and red pearl necklace.

'Cetin, you always know how to treat a girl!' The voice was very deep and contained just the slightest trace of a foreign accent, but it was unmistakably male. The creature put one hand on the bar and Suleyman noticed the thick mats of hair that grew on the knuckles just below the painted fingernails.

Suleyman tried not to freeze. 'Hello,' he said and quickly took a gulp from his glass. The nearest he could come to describing the effect the liquor had upon him was to liken it to being smashed in the face by a tank.

Samsun, seeing his distress, patted him gently on the back and looked concerned. 'The brandy's a little violent here unless you're used to it.'

'But worth cultivating, if only from a financial point of view,' said ikmen, pulling his cousin's heavy claw away from Suleyman's back. He winked, slyly. 'Now, now, Samsun, no touching!'

'What, with a policeman? Are you mad!'

ikmen shrugged his shoulders. 'You're Albanian.'

'Which makes me crazy?' Samsun pursed her lips in mock affront. 'Anyway, I prefer gold-dealers, they're very generous and they like to play femme in bed.' She pouted the last word lasciviously at Suleyman.

The young man forced himself to make headway with his drink. The only consolation he had was that he could see ikmen was fully aware of his discomfort. He wouldn't have to endure this for long.

Samsun put her hand on ikmen's shoulder and caressed his neck. 'So what are you doing in this dump then, Inspector?'

'Same as you, I suspect, minus the sex.'