A Noble Killing Read Free Page B

do believe. Try to be a good Muslim. You know. That said, I don’t always like everyone else who calls himself a good Muslim. Can’t go along with those Afghans, the Taliban and all that.’
    ‘Well, no, that’s just good sense,’ İkmen said. ‘What killing has to do with Islam is a mystery to all good believers and secular people with understanding.’
    ‘Exactly.’ The fire chief sighed once again. What he was trying to say was obviously very difficult for him. ‘And to me, Inspector, that means that killing is not allowed,’ he said. ‘Don’t care if it’s for religious or political or tribal reasons. Even what some – generally people from the provinces – would call a killing for the sake of honour.’ He looked İkmen hard in the eyes at this point. The policeman for his part knew instantly what he was thinking and where his talk was going.
    ‘You . . .’
    ‘The death of the girl on Mecit Ali Street was declared a suicide,’ the chief said. ‘I’ve no evidence to say that that wasn’t exactly what it was. But she was a bright girl, she was doing well at school and she had a lot of friends. Why would she want to go back to some fly-blown village? Why would she kill herself rather than be clever and popular, as she was? On the day of that fire, one of my men was walking through the crowd when he heard someone say the word “slut”. What did that mean? As far as we were told, the girl didn’t have a boyfriend. That never came up. Then there was her family. Like a row of stones when I told them what had happened to her. No emotion at all.’
    ‘Shock?’
    ‘Oh, could be, could be,’ the chief said as he puffed and then puffed again on his cigarette. ‘I tried to find out why that person in the crowd would have called the girl a slut, but I couldn’t get anywhere with it. All these migrants close ranks, don’t they? But there must have been a reason. Maybe someone saw her talking to some man in the street, or . . .’ He coughed and then cleared his throat loudly. ‘Inspector, if the body in that apartment in there is a woman or a girl . . .’
    ‘What you’re talking about here, Chief, is a possible honour killing, isn’t it?’ İkmen said. He looked up into the chief’s smutted, heavily lined face and smiled. ‘Of course I will investigate if you have the slightest suspicion about this death,’ he said. ‘I will not, I promise you, just let it go.’

Chapter 2
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    Weeping, he nevertheless arrived at where he had been told to go. A clean shower with good soap and hot water followed. Then new, clean clothes. But they weren’t his style, which irritated him. When he put them on and looked at himself in the mirror, the sight of them made him want to tear them off and rip them up. He looked at the stinking pile of fabric that was his old clothes on the floor and had to really control himself. In spite of everything, he wanted to put them on. He looked in the mirror and saw a face that was pure white with black pits where, somewhere, his eyes were sunk. He looked like that American rock star, that freak . . . Marilyn Manson.
    What was he doing looking like Marilyn Manson? He was supposed to be a good person, a moral person, not some sexual deviant! The black T-shirt didn’t help. It was tight, too, which gave his body the kind of definition he’d seen in magazines he knew he shouldn’t be looking at. Shame and anger were followed by more pity for her . She who had turned and looked at him through the flames. She whose burning eyes of hatred had shown him that she had understood what he had done and why. What she cannot have appreciated was the utter rightness and necessity of the act. Stupid girl! Stupid, stupid, wicked girl! How could she not have known? How could she not have appreciated that ramifications were inevitable? And how could he feel sorry for her, and why?
    He put his old clothes into a plastic bag, which he then placed on the floor by the door. The new