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man working in a hospital, around so many drugs that could have eased him comparatively gently into the next world, should choose to kill himself with disinfectant was mysterious. It was a very painful way to die, especially in a place where an overdose of everyday painkillers could be obtained with little difficulty. But then if he were truly out of his mind at the time . . .
    İkmen had learned quite a few things of interest since he’d come back to the Cerrahpaşa. He’d learned that the cleaners involved in the rescue of Yusuf Kaya could not, so far, be either named or identified by any member of the hospital staff. He’d learned that İsak Mardin was a very new employee while, by contrast, Faruk Öz and Murat Lole had been working at the hospital for eighteen months. Öz and Lole were fully qualified nurses, while Mardin’s status was, due to lack of copied certification, more open to question.
    ‘Can you tell me where Mr Mardin worked before he came here?’ İkmen asked after a pause.
    The administrator looked down at the three files in front of him and picked one up.
    Could it have really been some sort of conspiracy, İkmen wondered? Had the late Mr Oner given İsak Mardin a job at the Cerrahpaşa with a view to using the nurse to assist in Yusuf Kaya’s escape? Or had Mardin come to Oner and blackmailed him, by some means, into giving him a job? Had Oner known that he planned to enable a very dangerous criminal to escape justice? Had the former administrator killed himself because he couldn’t live with that knowledge? And where, if anywhere, did Öz and Lole fit into this picture?
    Or was İkmen racing ahead of himself, creating scenarios that did not really have any basis in fact or true validity?
    ‘Mr Mardin worked at the Urfa Hospital in Şanlıurfa,’ the administrator said. ‘He came recommended by them,’ he added.
    ‘Did he?’ İkmen cleared his throat. ‘Do you have a name I can contact at the Urfa Hospital? I’ll need to verify this.’
    The administrator copied something down on to a piece of paper and handed it over to İkmen.
    ‘Lead cardiac consultant at the Urfa,’ he said. ‘Would have been İsak Mardin’s overall superior. He will be able to comment on his work. You’ve not been on to his ward here, have you, Inspector?’
    ‘No. That is one of my tasks for tomorrow,’ İkmen said. ‘I am going to see the cardiologist who had been due to examine our escaped prisoner.’
    ‘He gave your officers a statement at the time.’
    ‘I am aware of that.’
    The administrator didn’t reply. It wasn’t that he was either evasive or hostile. He just, İkmen felt, had nothing more to add. For himself, the policeman had done everything he believed he could for the present. It was early evening and he had a full diary of interviews and meetings for the following day – not least of which was with his team, which temporarily included Süleyman’s sergeant, İzzet Melik.
    If, as he was coming to believe was just possible, the plot to spring Yusuf Kaya went back a considerable way, there was a possibility that people still present in the Cerrahpaşa knew about it. And then there was Mr Oner, the now deceased previous administrator. Why had he died in such an unnecessarily painful fashion? Had he in fact been killed rather than taken his own life? Yusuf Kaya was well known for his brutality. Had he ordered a hit on the man İsak Mardin? Had Faruk Öz or maybe even Murat Lole been somehow persuaded to either support or turn a blind eye to his venture? Were any of the three nurses truly involved anyway? The security footage was very unclear and there was not, as yet, any evidence that connected any one of them in any way to Yusuf Kaya.
    His brain humming with numerous possibilities, İkmen left the hospital soon afterwards. As he made his way back to his car he found himself thinking about İsak Mardin’s previous job in Şanlıurfa. Far down in the deep south-east, ‘Urfa’, as it was