Death of a Carpet Dealer

by Neil Betteridge

  “A Thursday.”

  “A Thursday,” repeated Claesson.

  “That’s right. A week ago to the day,” said the carpet dealer.

  “May I ask what you did?”

  “We drank tea and chatted.”

  “About what?”

  “About carpets, naturally,” said the man, with a surprised look.

  “So nothing in particular?” continued Claesson.

  The man stared down at the busily patterned rug at his feet, slowly shaking his head.

  “No, nothing in particular,” he muttered.

  “Can you help us with this?”

  He took out the photocopy of the photograph of the shabby antique rug that they’d found in the carpet shop in Oskarshamn.

  The man put on a pair of steel-rimmed glasses and the younger man moved closer to have a look. Merve Turpan said something in Turkish, and both men studied the photograph closely, but it was obvious from their body language that a quick glance would have sufficed.

  “Yes, I can,” said the older carpet dealer, and the other nodded. “This is a fragment of a…” and then said something that Claesson didn’t understand.

  The man resorted to Turkish.

  “One of those that’s smooth,” said Mustafa Özen, searching for words while stroking his hand in the air as he looked around the shop for a suitable specimen. “Like that,” he said, pointing at a carpet that was knotted rather than flat-woven.

  “The rug is very old, fourteenth or fifteenth century, and you can see Kufic script along the border,” continued the older of the two.

  “Kufic?” wondered Claesson, sounding just as ignorant as he was. He knew the Swedish word kuf, but there was nothing kufic or oddball about this.

  “It is a kind of Arabic script that was developed in Kufa a long time ago, at some time in the eighth century, I believe. Kufa is now a ruin in central Iraq by the famous Euphrates River.”

  “So that’s where the rug comes from?”

  “I think not. People have always traveled in our part of the world. The rug comes from the Anatolian Highlands.”

  “Central Turkey to us,” added Özen.

  Claesson knew that. Something had seeped in, after all.

  “It was found in a mosque in a village in Cappadocia, Ayvali, if you want to know,” continued the carpet dealer and Claesson and Özen exchanged glances. Now they were getting somewhere. It was the same provenance that they had been given by the young woman who had taken over the carpet shop in Oskarshamn.

  “So you recognize this rug, then?” asked Claesson.

  “Oh, yes, indeed,” said the older man as the younger nodded.

  “It was from me that Mr. Olsson had bought the rug on behalf of a very particular customer.”

  In the silence that followed you could have heard a pin drop, if it hadn’t been for the thick carpets.

  “I’m sorry, but do you happen to know where it is now?” asked Claesson.

  “No, I have absolutely no idea, I’m afraid. Has it been mislaid?”

  “We don’t know.”

  “But Olsson collected it from us the next day. Unfortunately it was not me who handed it to him but a cousin of mine.”

  All these cousins, Claesson thought with a concealed sigh.

  “Where can we find this cousin?”

  “Oh, that is me,” said the other man, the one who had welcomed them into the shop and who was much younger. “I assumed he would be flying home right away, but we never spoke of this. Expensive rugs like that are not things you want lying around a hotel room. They are much sought-after… Most people who buy an expensive carpet have their taxi drive past the shop on the way to the airport to pick it up.”

  “Was it large?”

  “No bigger than fitted in a medium-sized carpet bag, which we supply our customers with. Since it was an old rug, we had folded it in a piece of washed-out cotton to protect the pile and to prevent sharp creases from forming. Olsson could take it on a plane as a carry-on,” said the carpet dealer.

  Well, whaddaya know?

  Claesson’s mind was a blank. He looked at Özen.

  “Is there something I’ve forgotten,” he asked in Swedish?

  “I don’t know, maybe you could ask them what the rug might be worth.”

  Right! So he asked. It was the older of the two, now with glasses in hand, who spoke.

  “Well, it is certainly not the cheapest kind of rug. In my humble opinion I would say quite the opposite. It is the kind, I mean, that would fetch a higher price.”

  The man smiled crookedly and then gave a price in dollars that made Claesson and Özen reel. They looked at each other while they converted it into Swedish.

  “One and a half million. More, even!”

  CHAPTER 41

  VERONIKA SAT WITH THE THURSDAY PAPER in her kitchen. At last! A cup of strong coffee.

  Klara was at the Bumble Bee nursery and Nora was sleeping, newly fed and content, in her bassinet in the sitting room. The whole morning had been chaotic after a hectic night. She’d had to lower her voice to a muffled, collected tone as she got the kids ready and drove the short distance to the preschool. She tended to slip into a falsetto when tired or stressed and her voice would harden, which just made Klara cry, and it would take forever to comfort her again. And with another child in tow.

  No, she’d just have to pull herself together.

  She saw the article. Read that a woman had been assaulted in Bråbo at six o’clock yesterday evening, and had been taken to hospital with her injuries. The police were now hunting her attacker and were keen to hear from anyone who might have seen something.

  Oh.

  Should she give them a call? If Claes had been home, she’d have talked to him first to avoid making a fool of herself and wasting police time.

  She stood up as she spoke to an operator who’d make sure that she’d be put through to the right person. A man answered. She said who she was and told him what she’d seen the day before. He asked her to wait. Another person came on the line. It was Louise Jasinski. She began with all the expressions of congratulations in the world that she could think of, Veronika could hear that.

  “But listen,” she then said. “It’d be good if you came down to the station so that we can get your statement officially in writing.”

  “Please, do I have to? I’m alone here with two kids.”

  “I know.”

  “One of them’s asleep and the other’s got to be picked up at eleven. Can’t someone come here and take it?”

  There was silence. She could tell that Louise was deliberating with herself.

  “Of course we can pick you up. But…”

  “No,” sighed Veronika. “I realize it’ll be difficult for you. And I guess you don’t have child seats for an infant and another little one. Either you see me now at once or I’ll come down this afternoon, in which case you’ll have to put up with my having two children in tow.”

  Half an hour later, she was sitting in the police station in front of a man called Martin Lerde, and who was a little on edge, she being who she was. The boss’s wife, with kids and all.

  She was a good interviewee, she thought smugly. She’d seen Christoffer Daun out in the yard, she could attest to that, she wasn’t mistaken, she recognized him easily; after all, he was a colleague. And it sounded very convincing.

  However, she felt less convincing when she was asked to talk about the man who’d crept behind the lilac bush and who she thought was someone Christoffer had helping him. What could she say about him? Not much. He moved more like a forty-year-old than a seventy-year-old. Average height, neither fat nor thin. Brown hair, probably. That was about it.

  And then there was the car. A dark green Saab.

  “Are you sure about that?”

  Nora whined. Veronika picked her up from out of the infant carrier she’d brought her in with.

  “Yes,” she finally answered.

  Her parents drove a similar car, though of an
older model.

  Nora started screaming at the top of her lungs. The idea of sitting there breast-feeding her under this young whippersnapper’s nose was unthinkable.

  “Can I go somewhere private?”

  “Er, yes, of course. I think we’re done. I’ll be in touch if need be.”

  “Feel free.”

  She stood up with Nora in her arms. Where could she sit? Preferably not on the couch out in the corridor in front of everyone. In Claes’s office, perhaps?

  She passed Louise’s office.

  “Of course you can sit in there!”

  She didn’t sit at his desk but on the upholstered visitor’s chair with armrests facing it. Her body relaxed once she’d put Nora to her breast. The door was closed. She could hear footsteps in the corridor and the odd car passing by outside. Otherwise it was peaceful.

  She looked around while Nora drank her fill. Claes’s presence was palpable, even though he wasn’t actually there, she thought. Claes, far away, but here nonetheless. She got a thrill out of that. She missed him, but was with him still.

  She’d been here before, but had just popped in. Now she had time to take in his life here from the visitor’s perspective. It was a spacious room with windows along the entire north wall. Well-stocked bookshelves and cupboards of various ages. It was obvious that some had been fitted later, a little ad hoc, as his need had increased.

  She thought how nice it was to be married to a man she could be proud of. He had a solid reputation, mostly on account of his stability and integrity. And that was good. Imagine living with someone who was generally considered a blockhead or a grump or a whiner! But there were, of course, people who did that.

  She then noticed that it said M & MS on the spine of a binder.

  M & MS?

  Murder and Manslaughter, of course. She smiled.

  Tina Rosenkvist had been given a private room and felt no shame for that, since there were many empty beds around. She wasn’t sick “for real” and didn’t demand much of the staff. She’d showered and put on a new nightshirt. Her mother would soon arrive with some clean clothes; the ones she’d been wearing the day before had been taken by the police and sent away to be analyzed for DNA from the so-called perpetrator. Hairs, fibers, saliva, and all that. She hadn’t been raped after all.

  Dear old Sofa came in with a tray of sandwiches and tea and a stainless steel jug containing juice and ice.

  “How nice of you,” said Tina, curling her lips into a vague smile. It meant she didn’t have to show herself with her swollen throat in the lounge.

  “I reckoned a little extra service for one of our own was in order,” said Sofa.

  A shortcut to treatment was really the only perk they had, they liked to joke. As long as you worked, you could ask the doctors to write prescriptions or arrange referrals to the doctor you wanted to see. Things weren’t so easy for other people though. Like retirees. She remembered how embarrassing it had been when an elderly man had had to lie in the corridor for hours in agony as they didn’t have a bed for him. He’d had a hip fracture, hadn’t he? God, the time it took to get him off to radiology!

  And then his wife had shown up. She said nothing, but they recognized her. Turned out the man had been a doctor at the clinic. In fact, if it hadn’t been for him, the clinic wouldn’t be what it was today. But what good did that do him now? Now that he couldn’t speak up for himself.

  Sofa pulled up the blinds and opened the window vent. Tina squinted and shaded her eyes with a hand.

  “Oh, sorry, was that too bright?” asked Sofa.

  “No, I’ll be alright.”

  Mercifully, Sofa asked no more. She didn’t even seem curious, nothing in her body language said that she was hungry to wheedle out from her something about what had happened.

  “Let me know if there’s something you need,” she said and walked out.

  Once Sofa had left her alone and she’d eaten breakfast on the edge of her bed, she sat down in the armchair with a two-year-old gossip magazine and let her eyes flit over a double-page spread showing the royal family in their evening wear. She hardly took in anything of what she was looking at. Their lives seemed so sparkly, smiling, and superficial in comparison with her own situation, but of course that wasn’t really the case. Not always, anyway: even the royal family had their problems. No one was spared, Birgitta Olsson liked to say, without sounding bitter for all that.

  I wonder how Birgitta’s feeling, for that matter, poor thing.

  But her interest in Birgitta soon waned. She didn’t have the energy to think about anyone else. She had enough on her plate as it was.

  A police officer had asked her a whole load of questions. He’d sat there in the armchair yesterday evening, talking kindly. He didn’t seem to be in any hurry, and so he was soon done. Things always went more quickly when you weren’t stressed and could work calmly and methodically. She recognized it from her own work; if you get stressed you always screw up, and you have a hell of a job getting the needles in and the drip counters get all in a mess and the patients keep asking if everything’s OK until they drive you insane!

  The police didn’t say a word about what had happened to Christoffer. They’d be questioning him too, naturally, she took that for granted. The officer was just wondering what she was doing in his house, and she told them how it was, that Christoffer had given her a lift home, that they were workmates, and that they’d then sat down to have a chat.

  “So you just talked?”

  What did he think? She was offended and slightly scared of all the rumors that would start flying.

  “Yes, actually. And a glass of wine. But I never got around to drinking it.”

  The police had obviously seen the glass. Maybe even taken it to look for traces of saliva. They’d discover that they came from her and Christoffer.

  Christoffer…

  Her heart pounded and spread a euphoric warmth through her body when she thought about him. She closed her eyelids and leaned her head back against the armchair’s headrest and let the sensation settle in her.

  She tingled from head to toe. Christoffer held his arms around her and rocked her while hugging her almost to the point of pain. “Baby, you’ve got no idea how much I love you,” he whispered in her ear. “I promise to take care of you, my love. I will protect you from everything. What’s happened is merely a sign that we belong together.”

  Damn Christoffer for not seeing that they were twin souls! For not being braver and daring to let himself go, and not realizing what was important in life and getting around to leaving his wife. A stinging, bitter sensation took root in her guts.

  But if he did insist on being a spineless coward…

  She got up and poured herself some of the light red juice. She felt only a slight tenderness in her throat as she drank. But the back of her eyes stung. Burned because Christoffer didn’t want her most. And because there had to be something else mysterious about him too, bearing in mind what happened yesterday.

  What were they up to? That maniac had been shouting about a rug. It must have had something to do with his wife’s job.

  Tina had an anxiety attack, and was gripped by a sheer torment that sent ants crawling over her body when she thought about it. But if Christoffer really was up to no good, it was probably just as well he didn’t want her, wasn’t it?

  The defiance swelled within her.

  He’d get no begging from her, if that’s what he wanted.

  She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. The policeman had tried to coax out of her who it was that had attacked her in the kitchen. She couldn’t remember, she said. He’d asked her if she could remember his voice. The ears could sometimes be sharper than the eyes, he’d said. Yes, she did…maybe, she’d replied.

  He didn’t wish to put words in her mouth, of course, but was naturally wanting to find out if it was a voice she recognized.

  And it wasn’t.

  But she didn’t tell him. She needed more time to think, s
he said.

  “If you say so,” the policeman had said, regarding her. “But people often remember best when they don’t have time to reflect.”

  Maybe the policeman could tell that she was lying when she refused to say that it hadn’t been Christoffer. Noticed that she wanted the possibility to hang in the air for a while? No way was she going to let Christoffer off that easily. Not now that he didn’t want her.

  The door opened to reveal Pär standing there holding a shopping bag. Her stomach turned to ice. Her mother was supposed to be coming to fetch her with a change of clothes, that had been agreed.

  “Hi,” he said, avoiding her eye. “Here.”

  He held out the bag with the clothes in it. She took it and opened it.

  “Thanks,” she mumbled and started to sort out a pair of underwear, a bra, a pair of jeans that were actually too tight, and a top that was too warm, but he’d done as best he could, no doubt.

  She wondered where the kids were. They were with his mom, he said, but they could pick them up later.

  Tina didn’t like Pär’s mother, but this wasn’t the time or place to argue about that. At least the woman didn’t harm the kids, she thought, even though she lacked patience and easily grew short-tempered when they were with her.

  She stood there with the bag in her hand and felt an instinctive reluctance to undress there in the room in front of him. It was odd, but the thought embarrassed her. And to think that they’d been married and shared a bedroom for so long! Without another word, she slipped into the bathroom to get changed.

  She then waved goodbye to Sofa in the corridor and left the ward. She and Pär took the elevator down in silence and continued to ignore each other as they walked out to the car. A fluffy but ominous iron-gray cloud blocked the sun just as they were climbing into the Volvo.

  He turned the stereo on. She couldn’t really cope with having something thundering in her ears, but she put up with it. It was better than talking.

  When they turned off toward Bråbo and were almost home, that was when her heart started to thump. She pressed a hand against her chest and swallowed.