Read Online Hotel Bosphorus by Esmahan Aykol - Free Book Online

around on the chair, turned to the left and put my right elbow on the table with my hand under my chin. I thought I looked rather impressive, like a female columnist, as I gazed straight at the man sitting opposite me. “You’re a fellow reader of crime fiction, so I think you’ll understand me. Deep down, we all want to be a detective really…”
    â€œOr a murderer,” said Batuhan.
    â€œI must say, I’ve never heard of a crime-fiction reader who turns into a murderer,” I said. I smiled, adding, “Or am I on your list of suspects? Is it because I read detective stories?”
    â€œWell you not only read them, you sell them too,” he said, laughing at his own joke.
    â€œWonderful. A female seller of crime fiction commits a murder. But why?”
    â€œBecause the murder victim had deserted the bookseller’s close friend and was about to sack her.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?” I said. I think we’d stopped playing games by then.
    â€œAccording to what we’ve learnt, your friend Petra was in love with Müller. Just about everyone in the film crew knew that. Apparently, Müller and Petra had a row after they arrived in Istanbul and Müller decided to give the starring role to a Turkish actress called Ayla Özdal. In short, when Müller was killed, Petra was about to confront him on both these counts.”

    It was no longer possible for me to maintain my female columnist pose. I now understood what Batuhan had meant when earlier that evening he had said, “I don’t think we’ll learn anything more of interest from the statements of the film crew.” They’d already obtained enough interesting material from those statements.
    I reached out for a cigarette from the packet on the table and lit it with the lighter he held out for me. As I exhaled, I leaned my head slightly to the right, looked at him seriously and rather disdainfully, and said coldly:
    â€œDo you think that is sufficient motive for a normal person to commit murder? I mean, the person we’re talking about isn’t a cold-blooded murderer; she’s an ordinary person, like you or me. In fact she’s someone with more to lose than either of us. She’s a famous actress.” The extent of Petra’s fame was perhaps questionable, but that was not our priority just then.
    â€œAs far as I’m concerned, what I said constitutes a very possible motive for murder. For someone famous, it’s not insignificant to lose both a lover and a job at the same time.” He took a large gulp of his iced rakı . It wasn’t a pretty sight.
    â€œAnyway, I’m not saying that Miss Vogel committed the murder. We don’t have sufficient evidence to prove that. As you know, everyone is innocent until proven guilty.” He uttered this last sentence somewhat arrogantly and took a mouthful of rakı . If he went on like this, he would very soon be drunk.
    â€œLet’s suppose that Kurt Müller intended to sack your friend. Mind you, I’m not saying he was, we’re merely discussing possibilities. There may be nothing in it, we’re still investigating.” He also lit a cigarette. “But if that is the case, Miss Vogel would have had more to
gain financially if Müller had been killed after he broke the contract.” He rubbed his fingers as if counting out banknotes.
    If you ask me, Turks have started to take money matters more seriously since the latest economic crisis. He continued to bombard me with words without letting me get a word in edgeways.
    â€œIf Müller had been killed a few days later, the contract your friend signed would have been cancelled by the film company and, according to the conditions of the contract, Miss Vogel would have had full rights to compensation.” He stopped for a moment and grinned at me.
    â€œWhichever way you look at it, it doesn’t look good for Miss Vogel,” he