Belshazzar's Daughter by Barbara Nadel Page A

angrily. Stupid! He could have left a few notes for her on the kitchen table, but he hadn’t. He checked quickly inside his jacket pocket for the bulging wallet he knew already was there, and groaned again.
    ‘Oh, no! I’m sorry, Fatma. I got called late last night and in the rush—’
    She remained frighteningly calm. ‘It’s all right. We’ve all had bread for lunch. Just …’ It wasn’t all right and her voice broke. Fatma’s battle with her anger was over. Her composure snapped. ‘Just don’t bother to come home at all!’
    T—’
    ‘There is not so much as a tomato in the refrigerator!
    Of course we have enough brandy for the combined armed forces of NATO
    Suleyman came back into the office and threw a full packet of cigarettes on to ikmen’s desk. The Inspector was on them like a starved hyena. He even smiled, weakly.
    ‘… have eight children and yet you still behave as if you were a single …’
    Fatma’s voice was getting even louder. But ikmen was on his way to personal sanity again. He excused himself to her.
    ‘Just a minute, Fatma.’ He put his hand over the shouting receiver and lit up immediately. ‘Thanks, Suleyman. Any Russian speakers on the force?’
    ‘Not one, sir.’
    He took his hand away from the telephone and spoke
    to his wife once again. This time he was more collected, less afraid, as if tar and nicotine had invested him with courage.
    ‘Sorry, Fatma. Look, I’ll send a man round with some money right now. Is Timur there?’
    ‘Unfortunately.’
    ‘Can I speak to him?’
    ‘If you want. Just get that money to me!’
    She banged the receiver down and he heard the sound of her slow, heavy footsteps, padding laboriously down the apartment hall. He looked across at Suleyman. ‘There’s something I want you to do.’
    ‘Sir?’
    He put his hand in the pocket of his jacket and drew out a bunch of keys. ‘Here are my car keys. Drive round to my apartment and’ - he pulled a large wad of notes out of his wallet and placed them in Suleyman’s hand - ‘give my wife this.’
    ‘Your car, sir?’
    ‘Yes!’
    Suleyman made as if to go but ikmen held up a hand
    to stop him. ‘And that’s not all. Pick my father up while you’re there.’
    ‘Sir?’
    ‘My father can speak Russian.’ He gestured towards
    Meyer’s tiny address book lying open on his desk. ‘He can decipher this for us.’
    ‘Bring him here, sir?’
    ‘What do you think!’
    The silence at the other end of the phone ended with the arrival of a dry and querulous voice. ‘Cetin?’
    Suleyman put ikmen’s keys and money into his trouser pocket and left the office. ‘Hello, Timur. Sorry to bother you, but … I’ve got something here I don’t understand and I need your help …’
     
    Robert Cornelius had reckoned without his conscience. He didn’t like lying. It made him feel bad. There was that previous experience of course, which had, against his expectations, been resolved in his favour. But this he felt was
    different. This was, somewhere along the line, going to rebound upon him when he least expected it. He was convinced.
    Perhaps it was a function of having attended public school that made him think like this? Seven very impressionable years of being told you cannot expect to get away with anything has a lasting effect. His masters had in the main been right too. Robert had rarely got away with anything.
    Barring that one exception. Or rather two? Those out-of character explosions of violence that had led to so many lies, so much guilt.
    It made him feel quite bitter sometimes - often. Child and man he had always, like it or not, paid his dues. It was the whole reason why he was so nice, so easy to get on with. Unpleasant acts came back upon a person.
    Pleasantness and honesty, however insincere, were merely tools, aids to self-preservation. Common sense.
    He looked at the faces of the students sitting before him. Two were diligently working their way through the exercise on page nine. A