Divorce Turkish Style by Esmahan Aykol

Author:Esmahan Aykol [Aykol, Esmahan; Whitehouse, Ruth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781908524584
Publisher: Bitter Lemon Press

We went by metro as far as Levent and from there by taxi to Paşabahçe. By the time we reached the housing complex, Naz was obviously feeling badly on edge.

“Perhaps we should find the nightwatchman first,” she said.

“Once we have the nightwatchman on to us, we’ll never get away from him. Let’s find the house first.”

The housing complex was on top of a hill. It consisted of seven villas situated around a large swimming pool. Signs of life were visible in only three of the villas; the others looked very empty, which confirmed what I’d heard the previous night.

“This is the one,” said Naz, stopping in front of the villa nearest to the main road.

An official notice with a red seal was wedged between the door and door frame, stating that breaking the seal and entering would incur a penalty. I’d secretly entered sealed-off places before, as my dear readers will know. However, this door was visible to any passer-by, and also to the Soners opposite. It was a greater risk than I was prepared to take.

“What should we do? Find the nightwatchman?” asked Naz.

Why did she keep going on about the nightwatchman?

“He’s not likely to let us in, and it’s better if we don’t linger here staring at the door,” I said, heading towards the side of the house. “Is there only one way into this enormous house? Isn’t there a back door?”

“I don’t know. I only came here once before, when my parents stayed with Sani for a few days and I came to collect them,” said Naz. “Anyway, if there’s another door it’ll be sealed off too.”

“Let’s look round the back,” I said.

We both smiled upon seeing that the back door wasn’t sealed. Batuhan, bless him, had clearly been doing wonders with this investigation!

“Let’s just hope that Sani gave my father a key to this door.”

While Naz tried each of the keys she was holding, I looked to see if we’d been noticed, but everything was as silent as before – no twitching curtains, no opened windows and no neighbours’ voices. One of the keys finally fitted the lock, and we breathed a sigh of relief.

We went through a hallway into a completely vacant sitting room that overlooked the street and the sea.

“She lived upstairs,” said Naz. “Downstairs was always empty.”

Naz clutched my arm, as if my presence gave her strength, as we went up the stairs to the first floor. In a sitting room, we saw the outline of how Sani’s body had been positioned on the wooden floor. Remains of the black dust used to take fingerprints were sprinkled over the furniture. A heavy smell pervaded the airless room. Was it the smell of death? It was certainly unbearable.

One part of the spacious sitting room was raised slightly to give a better view of the Bosphorus. The position in which the corpse had been found suggested that Sani had hit her head on the steps leading to this raised area.

“Ouch,” I winced, as Naz tightened her fingers on my arm like a vice.

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