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converse or . . .’
    ‘We don’t really speak Turkish that well yet,’ Richard Ford said with a smile. ‘We’ve been here three years, but . . .’ He shrugged. ‘The Seyhans came to the building maybe a year after us.
    His wife nodded in agreement.
    ‘The kapıcı told me that they came from somewhere in the east. The mom and the daughter are both always covered.’
    ‘Oh, but we don’t have a problem with that,’ his wife put in quickly. ‘Everyone is entitled to dress how they want, right?’
    Süleyman didn’t answer, but said instead, ‘Some women cover, others do not. The Seyhan family are rural people. Covering of women remains more common in those areas.’
    ‘They have to be fairly well off to be able to live here,’ Richard Ford said. ‘I know this isn’t the best part of town, but . . . I don’t know what the men do, but it must pay quite well.’
    Lokman Seyhan worked in a garage, his brother in a restaurant; their father apparently drove a taxi that he shared with a friend. Süleyman looked at Mrs Ford. Something she had said had piqued his interest.
    ‘Mrs Ford, you clearly know the girl Gözde’s name. Were you friendly with her?’
    Jane Ford smiled. ‘We exchanged pleasantries,’ she said. ‘On the stairs, sometimes when she was pegging clothes out in the back yard. She didn’t go out.’
    ‘Her family kept her in.’
    She shrugged. ‘I guess.’
    It was not unusual for the daughter of rural parents to be confined to her home. Back in her village, which in Gözde’s case was near the city of Kars, she would be more or less confined until her marriage. Girls who went out could possibly be up to no good. And in view of the fact that several people involved in the investigation believed that if the body did turn out to be that of Gözde Seyhan, she could possibly be the victim of an honour killing, that kind of background did make sense.
    ‘Mrs Ford do you know whether Gözde Seyhan had a boyfriend?’ Süleyman asked.
    A moment of icy silence was followed by a shocked expression passing over Jane Ford’s face. ‘A boyfriend?’
    ‘Yes.’
    Then she turned her head away and a little laugh came from her throat. She no longer looked Süleyman in the eye. ‘No! God, no! She was a good girl.’
    Süleyman looked over at her husband, who was observing his wife closely.
    ‘She never went out,’ Jane Ford continued. ‘Never! How would she get a boyfriend! God, no, girls like that are pure. That is essential to them and their families, right?’
    Yes, it was right, and Süleyman said so. What was not right, however, was Mrs Ford’s response to his questions about Gözde Seyhan. That wasn’t right at all, and he felt sure that Mrs Ford was lying. He turned back to her husband.
    ‘Did you see anyone leaving these apartments when you discovered the fire, Mr Ford?’
    ‘Er . . .’ Richard Ford looked away from his wife. ‘Um, no,’ he said. ‘People passing on the street – the guy who sells simit bread, the lady who takes in laundry at the end of the road.’
    ‘That is all?’
    ‘That’s all I remember,’ he said. ‘Say, Inspector, has the Seyhan girl been seen since the fire? Are they all OK or what?’
    Süleyman cleared his throat. ‘Mr and Mrs Seyhan and their two sons are staying with family for the moment. Gözde Seyhan is officially a missing person.’
    Jane Ford gasped. ‘Oh my God!’ she said. ‘So Gözde was in that fire!’
    Süleyman, who was accustomed to members of the public making such leaps of logic, albeit understandable ones, said, ‘No. We don’t know anything of the kind, Mrs Ford. Miss Seyhan is a missing person. That is all.’
    ‘Oh.’ Her agitation deflated, or seemed to do so, immediately. ‘Oh, I see.’
    But in spite of her decreased anxiety, her face looked sad, and flushed. Mr Ford and Süleyman spoke for a few more minutes and then the policeman got up to leave.
    As he shook hands with Richard Ford, he asked, ‘So what