Dance with Death by Barbara Nadel

Alison had visited the district in the seventies it had still, basically, been the same as it had been in the fifties. If, of course, Alison had ever got to Muratpaşa. Menşure had told him the news about the body as soon as she’d seen him. It wasn’t, couldn’t be her. In a way it was disappointing and yet in another way it was a relief – the thought that maybe Alison could be alive somewhere.
    İkmen sat down on one of the little rickety chairs on the balcony and closed his eyes. Menşure said that she was going to come with a tray of tea and some börek for them both. She was also going to tell him something about the girl whose body had been found. It was, she said, an interesting and perplexing story. If he wasn’t too much mistaken, İkmen sensed that his cousin might even want him to get involved with this ‘case’ or whatever it was. Not that that was possible. He was outside his jurisdiction and besides, given this new and potentially fatal twist to the peeper scenario, he was really needed back in İstanbul and so he’d have to go. Altering his ticket and cancelling part of his leave wouldn’t be problematic.
    ‘I don’t know that we should sit out here where we can be seen.’
    İkmen opened his eyes. Menşure and her tray of goodies had come in to his room almost without a sound.
    ‘Oh, Ramazan . . .’
    ‘You forget country bumpkins like Muratpaşa folk really take it seriously,’ Menşure said as she set the tea glasses and börek down on the small table inside İkmen’s room. ‘Come in and let’s eat.’
    ‘OK.’
    At first they talked about their families – or rather, İkmen spoke about his and Menşure spoke about her late parents and the odd visit she would sometimes get from another cousin from Ankara. Not so much lonely as alone, Menşure Tokatlı was not an unhappy woman – except when she didn’t get what she wanted.
    ‘Now look, Çetin,’ she said at length, ‘about this Alkaya body. I think that you . . .’
    ‘Menşure, I’m out of my jurisdiction,’ İkmen said as he lit up a cigarette. ‘And besides, I really do need to be in İstanbul. I only came because I thought if it was Alison . . .’
    ‘Yes,’ she responded somewhat harshly. ‘You know that it has been such a long time now, Çetin. You must give this Alison business up. I have never been comfortable knowing about it while your wife remains ignorant.’
    ‘I know,’ he said. ‘But in the early days I needed you to keep a look out for her. The local police were never that bothered enough for my liking. I know we’ve never been that close, but I have always trusted you, Menşure.’
    ‘I am flattered, Çetin, truly, but . . .’
    ‘Menşure, I have always and will always love Fatma. But my wife is, if you can understand, always attainable.’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘I mean that Alison as a foreigner, especially back in those days, was unattainable. I’ve never been under any sort of illusion about my own physical appeal. I’m an ugly man and yet here was a beautiful foreigner who wanted me over and above her own and very handsome countryman. Even I have some vanity. It was intoxicating.’
    ‘And rather juvenile now, don’t you think?’
    ‘Yes, but,’ he sighed, ‘I have to know what happened to her, Menşure. What happened to that impossible dream?’
    ‘Yes, but as I’ve said, Çetin, you must move on. Now look, I know you say you should be back in İstanbul, but hear me out,’ Menşure said as she held up an imperious, silencing hand. ‘When Aysu Alkaya went missing just over twenty years ago, this village was riven by suspicion and rumour. To some extent it has remained so ever since. But now that Aysu’s body has materialised, well, it’s about to get a lot more intense yet again.’
    ‘What do you mean?’ İkmen said as he mentally bowed to the inevitability of Menşure’s argument.
    Menşure, who didn’t normally smoke, but who would occasionally ‘treat’