Jakob Arjouni - Brother Kemal

Finally I got back into the Opel and drove to the station.

Sheikh Hakim was sitting at the table I had reserved. In front of him was a glass of water. He did not have any bodyguards around, or at least I couldn’t see them. Maybe they were stretching their legs outside.

At this time of the evening there were few guests left in Herbert’s Ham Hock, and most of those still here were quietly drinking their beer. All except for two old men in fine tweed suits, talking and laughing at the tops of their voices as they made inroads into the mountains of meat on their plates and a bottle of schnapps. There were no waiters in sight; they were probably out in the yard, smoking. A cleaning lady had begun wiping the floor, and the smell of the cleaning fluid mingled with the aroma of the specialty of the house. Herbert’s Ham Hock had been in existence for more than forty years, and as far as I knew the curtains and cushions had never been changed. Even if the place hadn’t been serving grilled or boiled ham hock all day, the restaurant would still have exuded the smell of animal fat from every pore. It was a Nazi joke for me to have invited Sheikh Hakim here.

‘Nice place,’ he said, after we had greeted one another.

‘I knew you’d like it.’

By comparison with the photographs of him that I’d seen on the Internet, Sheikh Hakim looked older, thinner, more haggard, greyer — an inconspicuous little man, almost bald, in a black suit. They probably prepared him for photos and public appearances with makeup. I even thought I remembered seeing him with a full, thick head of hair in some younger photographs. Did he wear a toupee in public?

‘Thank you for the little holy book.’ I took my jacket off and sat down opposite him. He looked at me with a chilly smile. ‘I’ve nearly finished it. Can’t wait to find out how the story ends.’

He gave that coughing laugh that I knew from the telephone, and his smile became a little broader but no warmer at all. ‘The way it ends is entirely in your hands.’

‘The little book?’

He did not reply. At the same moment a waiter came out of the kitchen, saw me and came over to our table.

‘A glass of water for me too, please.’

When the waiter left I asked, ‘Or did you mean Methat’s attempts to follow me?’

Without taking his eyes off me, he reached carefully for his glass and took a small sip before putting it down again equally carefully. He licked his upper lip.

‘At any rate, if I get my hands on him he can expect something from me.’

This time his smile was natural. Methat was probably some two metres tall and spent a lot of time in the gym. He must be very strong to have knocked my office door down just like that.

‘Herr Kayankaya,’ said Hakim finally, ‘never mind the talking. I want you to withdraw your statement incriminating my nephew. And I want you to do it tomorrow morning. As I understand from my nephew’s lawyers, that will be in your own interest. Your claims concerning what you say took place in my nephew’s apartment on that morning are so flimsy that, and I quote the lawyers, you would very probably end up in prison yourself for making a false statement. There is still time to put the whole thing down to momentary confusion, or alternatively, for instance’-he paused briefly — ‘to jealousy.’

‘Jealousy?’

‘Well, the lawyers strongly suspect that you were working for Frau de Chavannes on the morning in question.’

‘De Chavannes? Never heard the name.’

He looked at me expressionlessly, then shrugged his shoulders. ‘Never mind, you’ll think up some pretext. As we all know, you don’t lack for imagination.’

‘Thank you.’

The waiter brought my water, and I drank a sip. Hakim was watching me. Maybe he was just putting on a show, but he seemed very sure of himself. Did he have a surprise in store for me? Was there a group of holy warriors waiting round the corner of Herbert’s Ham Hock to beat my unbelieving soul out of my body if I refused to withdraw my statement? Or had Methat and his henchmen been sitting in the wine bar like normal guests while we talked here, waiting for Deborah to go outside and smoke a cigarette? Bonk, a blow on the head and off to Praunheim. I suddenly thought of the little delivery van. Suppose the girl was part of this? I’d put her age at fourteen at the most, but admittedly at a distance of ten metres and in the faint light of the streetlamps.

‘Do you know what I’d really like to understand? Why are you going to so much trouble for a little bastard like Abakay? I’ve heard that you improve your cash flow as a preacher by dealing in heroin, and I can well imagine that Abakay is being useful as a smuggler or dealer, but a really important man? You’re not so naïve as to trust someone like Abakay.’

His face didn’t move a muscle, only his eyes became a little thoughtful.

‘And as a cleric … I mean, Abakay sends underage girls out on the street. Is that pleasing in the eyes of the Lord?’

Just then his mobile rang. ‘Excuse me.’ He took the phone out of his trouser pocket, opened it and said, ‘Yes?’ Then he said no more for a while, and finally just, ‘Very well,’ before he closed the mobile and put it down on the table. I was sure that Turkish had been spoken at the other end, and Hakim had replied in German purely for my benefit. I was meant to hear how he conducted short phone conversations in which he was being informed about something or other — a precisely planned operation now in progress?

I realised that my mouth had gone dry, and drank some water. Should I call Deborah? Slibulsky? Ought I to let Hakim see that he was succeeding in frightening me?

Before I could make up my mind, Hakim said, ‘First, Erden Abakay is my nephew. Do you have a family, Herr Kayankaya?’

I drank some more water. ‘I discovered that I had a half brother yesterday. Probably the result of some little adventure of my father’s.’

He didn’t even respond with that cross between a cough and a laugh, just twisted his mouth briefly as if at a presumptuous child.

‘Second: Erden didn’t kill the man, certainly not with a small, sharp instrument neatly driven between the ribs and into the heart. Maybe with a pistol, or he would have knocked his skull in. You know that as well as I do. And it is certainly not pleasing in the eyes of the Lord to pin a murder on an innocent man.’

‘Innocent is not the word I’d think of in connection with Abakay. Between ourselves, one of the girls he was offering was twelve at most — that shocks me more than the death of a punter who wanted to abuse a girl like that.’

‘How interesting. So you consider your own rules superior to those of the community at large. You know better what is right and what is wrong?’ This time there was genuine and slightly malicious satisfaction in his smile. ‘Someone like that is known as a fanatic, am I right? I’m sorry, Herr Kayankaya, but we are not talking about morality here. We are talking about established laws and a prison sentence lasting many years.’

‘I thought my claims would never stand up in court? Abakay will probably get off with a couple of years.’

‘Weak, very weak — that’s no way to argue a case. You don’t like my nephew, so you want to pin a murder on him, full stop.’

I didn’t say anything. There wasn’t anything to say. The sheikh was right.

‘Furthermore, one can always have the bad luck to encounter a judge whose prejudices weigh more heavily than the facts. I know you would like to forget it, but to many of them we are just Turks.’

‘I don’t forget it, Sheikh, but I don’t base my actions on that principle. Do you know why you have to keep Abakay out of prison?’

‘As I said, because he is innocent and he is also my sister’s son.’