Death by Design by Barbara Nadel Read Free Book Online

drinking tea and smoking a cigarette when his friend, without even knocking on the door, let himself in.
    ‘Arto.’ It was said with some warmth but without the usual expression of joy the Armenian’s appearance generally elicited.
    ‘So you go tomorrow,’ Arto said and lowered himself into the chair in front of İkmen’s desk.
    ‘Yes.’ İkmen looked down at his desk, pretending to read documents he had no concern with and which did not interest him.
    ‘To the east, you say,’ Arto continued. ‘Is that the south or the north-east?’
    He watched İkmen closely, knowing with certainty that his friend was not attending to what was on his desk in any way. He’d told him the previous day that he was going east, but he hadn’t specified a location.
    ‘Um, I don’t know,’ İkmen said. ‘Not yet.’ He looked up and smiled. ‘They haven’t told me.’
    ‘They?’
    ‘Ardıç.’
    ‘Oh, so Ardıç—’
    ‘Look, Arto, I can’t tell you where exactly I’m going. I’ve told you this,’ İkmen said. ‘I can’t tell you where I’m going, I can’t tell you know long I’m going for. I can’t even tell Fatma.’
    ‘Have you sorted things out with Fatma?’
    İkmen’s face flushed immediately. ‘Sorted things—’
    ‘You know what I mean,’ Arto said a little impatiently now. He and Çetin had never had secrets, they had always talked about everything. Except that when Bekir had been killed, Çetin had kept everyone out, including Arto. He knew that Fatma blamed Çetin for their son’s death. Fatma had told her best friend, Estelle Cohen, who in turn had expressed her anxiety about the İkmen marriage to Arto’s wife, Maryam. ‘I just hope that wherever you are going you’re not going just because you want to run away from the situation here.’
    İkmen looked up at his friend with steady, lying eyes. ‘No.’ This was something he was going to have to get used to doing now.
    ‘Because, Çetin,’ Arto said, ‘it is my belief that there are few things in life that cannot be sorted out in the end. You and I know this. There are ways and ways. Sometimes I identify a killer or a rapist for you using just one strand of hair I’ve picked up from underneath a dead body, sometimes you find a killer all on your own, using your experience, your skill or the magical insight you inherited from your mother. We solve things, Çetin. We always have.’
    ‘Have we?’
    ‘Çetin, I know you’re not allowed to tell anyone where you are going. I mean, for all I know you could be leaving the country.’
    Did he know? Or was he simply fishing for whatever he could find? He, like everyone else, with the notable exception of Fatma, was worried. They all knew now that he was going ‘to the east’ and they all feared he would die staring down the barrel of a terrorist’s gun. What they didn’t know, or rather what he thought they didn’t know, was that he was more likely to die in an airless container on a ship crossing the English Channel. Just the thought of it made him shudder, something that Arto noticed immediately.
    ‘Çetin?’
    ‘Arto, I am leaving to go somewhere and I will return when I do. As to whether I’m running away from anything that is no more your business than the fact that your own marriage has been a front for years is mine.’
    Childless and prey to numerous health problems, Maryam Sarkissian had been Arto’s wife in no more than name for years. It was something the two men had spoken of only once, many years before when Arto had broken down during a conversation they had had in a bar. Nothing had been said since – until now. Çetin’s words, spoken almost casually, hurt. Arto looked down at the floor and said, ‘Çetin—’
    ‘Arto, I am going for my own reasons and whenever I return, things will be as they have always been,’ İkmen said. He could see his friend was hurt, there was no getting away from it, and deep inside he felt guilty for having inflicted such pain. But he