Death by Design Read Online Free Page B

who had attended to Çetin’s wounds and cooked special food for him. It was as if Fatma’s love for her husband had died along with their son.
    İkmen entered the station in dour mood and failed to acknowledge either of the two young constables who saluted him as he mounted the stairs up to his office. He knew that once he started working again he would become totally absorbed in his job and would be able to distract himself from his personal problems. But the walk up to his office was tiring and tedious and it made him painfully aware of how weak he still was from his injuries. He eventually arrived at his office door, aching and breathless. When he stepped inside, however, his sergeant, Ayşe Farsakoğlu, was not at her desk. Instead he found his superior, Commissioner Ardıç, in conference with a tall, blond, foreign man.
    ‘Ah, excuse me, please,’ he heard Ardıç say in English to the foreigner. Then struggling up from İkmen’s own chair, Ardıç waddled across the office towards him and said, ‘This is Inspector Riley from Scotland Yard in London. He wants to talk to you.’
    ‘Talk to me?’
    Ardıç turned towards the Englishman, smiled, and then said to İkmen in Turkish, ‘About the Tarlabaşı handbag factory. There is a connection to London. This officer wants to talk to you about that.’
    ‘Ah.’ İkmen walked forward as the Englishman rose from his seat and extended his hand.
    ‘Inspector İkmen, I’m Patrick Riley,’ he said. There was an accent of some sort to his English which İkmen was later to discover came from Liverpool.
    İkmen took Riley’s outstretched hand and shook it. The Englishman smiled. He was, İkmen felt, probably about forty. Tall and thin, he wore a loose, rather cheap-looking suit and had the slightly rough voice of a smoker. The only really remarkable thing about him was his vast shock of white-blond hair which made his head look not unlike a particularly untidy hyacinth.
    ‘Pleased to meet you, Inspector,’ İkmen replied.
    Ardıç grunted and sat down in Ayşe Farsakoğlu’s seat. ‘Your sergeant won’t be disturbing us and nor will anyone else,’ he said in Turkish as Ayşe’s seat groaned in protest beneath his vast backside. İkmen walked round to his own chair and sat down too. It felt a little strange to be back, but to be back with Ardıç sitting in his office and this foreigner somehow on the scene too . . .
    ‘Inspector İkmen,’ Riley said, ‘I’ve come all the way from London because we in the Met – that is the Metropolitan Police,’ he smiled, ‘we’re currently involved in an investigation in north London into similar operations to your recent find here in İstanbul, involving counterfeit goods.’
    ‘It is the mayor of London, is it not, Inspector Riley?’ Ardıç said in English. ‘He has a, what do you say, a fight against counterfeit things in London.’
    ‘Our new mayor is very keen to deal with the gangs who produce fake goods in London,’ Riley said to İkmen. ‘It’s run on slave labour—’
    ‘As everywhere,’ İkmen said. ‘What we found in Tarlabaşı was not unusual, Inspector.’
    ‘With the exception of the man who blew himself up,’ Riley said. ‘Not that that in itself is of interest to me.’
    İkmen took his cigarettes out of his jacket pocket and offered them to Riley. The Englishman put out his hand to take one, but he looked surprised nonetheless. ‘We can?’
    ‘Soon it will not be possible to smoke in buildings,’ Ardıç said as he reflexively touched the full cigar case in his trouser pocket. ‘The government now, they don’t like it. But for now . . .’ He shrugged. ‘İkmen always smoke. Please, Inspector Riley, do what will make you happy.’
    With somewhat tentative fingers, Riley took hold of one of İkmen’s Maltepe cigarettes and then allowed the Turk to light it for him. The strength of the cigarette caught him unawares and made him cough. Neither of the Turks seemed to think this