Death of a Carpet Dealer

by Neil Betteridge

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “It’s nothing,” she said, swallowing a second time. She removed her hand.

  There were no doubt many eyes watching them as they drove home through the village. She thought that the house looked cold, which was unusual. After all, she’d spent hours in the garden planting petunias of different shades in large pots and the flowerbeds were bursting with color. The kids’ toys lay strewn about the lawn.

  Pär yanked open the mailbox and retrieved the newspaper. What, hadn’t he collected it yet?

  She wondered if there was anything in it and trembled inside.

  He unlocked the front door and held it open for her. She hung her coat up, feeling like a stranger in her own home.

  She blew her nose. When she tossed the tissue into the trash can under the sink, she noticed that Pär had placed an empty vodka bottle there. He’d been drinking that night.

  There were flowers on the table. He’d already set out some cups and was now putting on some coffee, strangely enough, for that had always been her thing. The air was fragile, as if the world could fall apart at any moment.

  They seated themselves opposite each other and then it came.

  “What were you doing at that Daun’s place?” Pär said through clenched jaws.

  She said nothing.

  “Explain yourself, for fuck’s sake. Jesus, the whole fucking village knows!”

  Still she said nothing. He got up and walked around the table and, grabbing her top, wrenched her up onto her feet.

  The blows came raining down. The cheeks, the head, teeth crunching, the chest, the head again. She tried to get away, but he came after her, knocked her down, took hold of a leg and dragged her into their walk-in closet.

  “Explain yourself, you fucking cunt!” he roared and started kicking her, making the clothes tumble down from their hangers. He forced apart her legs and kicked her hard in the crotch, wrenched off her jeans despite her attempts to lash out, tore off her underwear. And then, picking up one of her pointed high-heeled shoes, he rammed the toe into her vagina. She squirmed and screamed and he pushed and pushed until most of the shoe was inside her. She could feel something rupturing inside. She tried to grasp hold of the shoe to pull it out, but he twisted her arms until something must have snapped. He went for her head again.

  When his rage had subsided he locked the closet door.

  “Jesus fuck, you’ve only got yourself to blame!” he screamed at the door.

  And then he went into the kitchen and washed up the coffee cups.

  CHAPTER 42

  IT HAD STOPPED RAINING. The black clouds had blown away in an almost storm-like wind that then suddenly and quickly subsided. The sun was starting to break through, and at once the temperature rose. Classic coastal weather, thought Claesson. Like in Oskarshamn, though that’s as far as comparisons went.

  Merve had found a “hole in the wall” kind of restaurant, a simple eatery, in other words. This sort of place wasn’t, on the other hand, hard to find in Istanbul. As they stood by the counter making their selections and Claesson pointed at the stainless steel tubs of steaming dishes, he couldn’t help but think about what Janne Lundin would have said: Where there are locals, there’s no food poisoning.

  And that’s where they were now. But why would chefs slob around their kitchens “just” because they had tourists as guests? That had to be a fabrication.

  They were each handed a plate of rice, chicken, and different-colored peppers cooked in a delicious stock, and went to sit down at a wobbly plastic table out on the pavement. They were hungry. Cars blared their horns and people slid around them in one big chaotic muddle. The Grand Bazaar was just a block away, and it was the same atmosphere here, with eager salesmen calling out their wares. On one side of the café was a little supermarket, on the other a trinket shop and then some food stores. Claesson saw one of the carpet dealers smiling broadly to a tall, robust woman with short, ash-blonde hair.

  “Where are you from?” he called.

  “Sweden,” she tossed out with a smile.

  That doesn’t surprise me, thought Claesson. That kind of linen-wear could only be found in Sweden.

  “Ah! Markaryd and Gnosjö!” called the carpet dealer happily after her as she walked past without stopping.

  If you’ve seen Markaryd and Gnosjö, you’ve seen Sweden, thought Claesson.

  At the same moment, he noted that Mustafa Özen and Merve had held each other’s gazes for that little bit too long. And it wasn’t the first time.

  Claesson kicked Özen’s shin.

  “Don’t forget you’re a Swedish cop and that you’re coming home with me,” he said thickly in Swedish.

  Özen grinned embarrassedly back. Merve countered with something in Turkish to Özen, who replied in a velvety voice in their shared language and shook his head. Merve smiled, tilted her head to one side, and glittered so intensely at Claesson that it felt as if his head was about to explode.

  “What was that you just said?” he asked in Swedish, wiping his mouth with the tiny paper napkin.

  “I just told her that you think she’s hot,” smiled Özen.

  Love is in the air, sung Claesson to himself.

  They were to go on to the coroner, who had Carl-Ivar Olsson’s corpse in cold storage. They’d managed after a little hard work to coordinate things with his widow and two children. Claesson hadn’t met any of them, which was an oversight that he intended to rectify. The family were here to identify Carl-Ivar Olsson’s body.

  Merve stepped into the traffic and waved down a yellow taxi.

  The forensic pathology building was adjacent to a large hospital. They drove through narrow, winding streets and alleys, and then onto a busy main road, where car horns seemed to be the most popularly used signaling system.

  The taxi driver had his seatbelt pulled over his shoulder for appearances’ sake, but hadn’t done it up. Claesson remembered back to the seventies when seatbelts became compulsory in Sweden, and how many drivers, usually men, did the same thing in the belief that a skilled driver, in principal, was immortal.

  It was exaggeratedly quiet in the back seat. Claesson turned. Merve and Özen were sitting like two opposite poles in a magnetic field. Claesson could sense how they were making every effort to look normal while staring absently ahead.

  Do they think I’m totally stupid? he thought as he watched a poor emaciated man try to dodge the traffic with his overburdened wooden cart.

  At the same time, he could feel that chilly sensation of exclusion and perhaps a little jealousy wash over him as the third wheel. Get a grip, man! he told himself, and the moment the feeling had been rationalized, it evaporated. He’d made it in life. Not only was he married with kids, he was also a man who liked being married with kids.

  The car slowed down and passed through a pair of iron gates, coming to a stop shortly afterwards by an almost cubic building standing beside a larger hospital complex. Another taxi had stopped just ahead of them. Three people were getting out of it – no, four, he saw. The family.

  Merve Turpan’s cell phone rang, and after a glance at the display she switched it off. Was it her mother? Claesson wondered. She’d called now and then and Merve had made excuses, saying that her mother was a woman with an inexhaustible capacity to fuss her daughter.

  Merve led them inside and walked over to a plump woman in a green hospital gown. Her pants were stretched tight over her bottom, and her wide blouse also seemed fit to burst. It was the coroner. She disappeared behind a door of milky glass, leaving the Olsson family there treading water.

  Claesson greeted them in turn. The wife, Birgitta Olsson, was a prim and relatively well-preserved woman. She looked pleasant, but her face, for obvious reasons, was slack. The daughter, Lotta Öberg, was staring at the floor, constantly and nervously licking her lips. The son, Johan, greeted him with a firm handshake, and the son-in-law, whatever his name was, made absolutely no impression at all.

  “I’m very g
rateful that you’ve come all the way here to find out what happened to Carl-Ivar,” his widow said in a muted voice.

  “We’re doing what we can,” said Claesson. “It would be helpful if I could ask you a few questions afterwards… I mean once you’ve been inside and…”

  The green-clad coroner returned with an assistant, a much younger man with a hairy chest, who led them into a small room with cool, bare walls, where the body they believed to be Carl-Ivar Olsson’s lay covered in a white sheet up to his chin.

  Birgitta Olsson broke down at once. So this was her husband, Claesson said silently to himself. An ordinary man of typical Swedish model.

  Everyone wept, except for the son-in-law, who, with tight-lipped gravity, laid an arm around the shoulder of his wife, a slim woman with thick, flaxen hair cut short in a way that made her look sporty and youthful. Stones twinkled in her earlobes.

  The three police officers left the room so that the family could pay their last respects in peace and quiet. Merve pulled out her phone and ordered two police cars to come and take them and the grieving family to the station.

  They lingered in the corridor for a while without saying a great deal to each other. The family came dribbling out one by one and had to sit and wait in a visitors’ room that was not of this world and as small and as hot as a sauna.

  Then the police cars arrived.

  When they arrived at the station, Fuat Karaoğlu came out to meet them.

  “How is it coming on?” he asked.

  “Fine,” answered Claesson, meaning it. By “fine,” he didn’t mean that they were close to a solution, but that things were rolling along as normal, pretty much. Although in Turkey instead of Sweden.

  “And you are pleased with DI Turpan?” Karaoğlu asked.

  Claesson couldn’t work out if his eyes were glistening with mockery or affection.

  “Very much so,” said Claesson, stressing the very.

  “I mean it,” Karaoğlu said contentedly. “She is one of the best,” he continued, tapping a finger against his skull.

  He then said a few pleasantries and apologized once more for not being able to take more active part in the investigation. And Claesson, for his part, said a few polite words about how grateful he was for the help that the Oskarshamn police had received, and not the least for this collaboration, which had let them so generously into the investigation that it would be easier to continue it when they returned to Sweden. Contact with Turkey was particularly well established, he said.

  “Talking of the investigation, can you say when the body can be transported to Sweden?”

  “As far as we are concerned, you may take it to Sweden whenever you wish. The forensic examination has been completed.”

  “Thank you. I’ll let the family know.”

  It was time to question the Olssons. Claesson’s head was tired and stuffy, but what the hell. The quicker they got things done, the sooner he’d be home.

  They began with Birgitta Olsson. Claesson asked Özen to sit in with him, but as they were to conduct the interviews in Swedish, Merve Turpan didn’t have to be present. They intended to go through what was said with her later. Or rather Özen promised to do so.

  Birgitta Olsson agreed to their conversation being taped. So Özen took out the little Dictaphone that he had brought down from Oskarshamn. He also had a notepad in front of him, just in case. He was organized, and that was good. It wasn’t smart to depend on gadgets exclusively.

  They’d been given Merve Turpan’s office. It was warm but not insufferably hot inside; it had rained all afternoon and the air had been washed clean. Claesson didn’t bother to turn on the desk fan.

  He told the widow straight off that she was perfectly entitled to take the body home whenever she could arrange to do so.

  “What if he’d preferred to have been laid to rest in Turkish soil?” she said spontaneously with a thick voice.

  Claesson waited a few seconds.

  “What makes you think that?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know, I’ve always had a feeling that he loved it here.”

  “So he never expressed any special desire to be buried in Turkey?”

  “Not at all. It’s just me being so impressionable, now that we’re here… and because he died here. But I want to take him home… of course I do.”

  She shook her head as if shaking off the worries. The ones that she actually couldn’t escape from.

  Claesson asked her to tell him in her own words what had gone through her head when she first heard the news of his death. If she’d suspected something when she left him the day before in Istanbul, and naturally she hadn’t. Carl-Ivar’s death came like a thunderbolt out of the blue.

  “It’s so terrible to think about that I get the shudders all the time,” she said softly between closed lips, as if she was trying hard to force back an urge to throw up.

  “Your husband had a long life as a carpet dealer,” he then said, which was possibly a little too emotional, as Birgitta Olsson started to wail so tearfully that he had to stop and wait for her to blow her nose. “I wonder if you know anything about your husband’s dealings in the carpet business,” he continued.

  “Nothing at all, actually. I’ve never been that interested in carpets, even though the odd one has come my way over the years,” she said with a sad smile. “I’m a nurse, as you know. But Carl-Ivar’s assistant, or whatever we can call her… knows for sure. Annelie Daun’s her name, but maybe you’ve already spoken to her. She’s his niece.”

  She looked up. Claesson said nothing, wondering if the wife was deliberately or unconsciously trying to shift the focus from herself.

  “So you know nothing about a rug of the more exclusive kind that your husband had undertaken to arrange for a very fastidious customer in Sweden?” he asked.

  She twisted the paper hanky in her hands.

  “No. Who’s saying he did? Annelie?”

  Claesson didn’t have to answer, he knew that. But he chose his own way.

  “We’ve met one of your husband’s carpet contacts here in Istanbul. A very professional dealer.”

  “I see,” she said, sounding like she was listening with half an ear. “And so who was the customer… the man who wanted the rug?”

  She looked up at him. Her eyes were light blue, like frozen ice.

  “I’m afraid we don’t know. Do you?”

  “No,” she said with an earnest shake of her head.

  “Have you any idea where the rug might be?”

  “No. But I went home before Carl-Ivar, so I’ve no idea what he did afterwards. One might wonder… given what happened to him.”

  “According to the Turkish dealer, people who buy expensive carpets leave them in the shop and then pick them up in a taxi on their way to the airport so that they don’t have to leave them lying round a hotel where they can easily get stolen. But perhaps you already know that.”

  She nodded silently.

  “We know that Carl-Ivar picked up this carpet around the time of your flight home. The evening before, actually. What do you know about that?”

  “Nothing,” she said without a pause, and shook her head again. “I went from the hotel to the airport, and Carl-Ivar carried my bags down and waved me off, but a rug, no. Have you asked at the hotel if it’s lying around there somewhere? Or if someone’s taken it? Hotel thefts are very common.”

  Claesson didn’t answer. He placed the photograph of the rug in front of her, and she studied it carefully.

  “I’ve never seen a rug like that before.”

  “What did you do the evening before you left for home?”

  She stared at the wall.

  “We went out for a meal. Then Carl-Ivar said he had to go and do something so I went home and went to bed. I lay reading for a while and was asleep by the time he got back.”

  “Did you notice if he came back with a bag?”

  “No. I said I was sleeping.”

  “What about in the morning? Did you n
otice a bag then?”

  “What’s it supposed to look like, this bag?” she said, and seemed pleased with herself for thinking of the question.

  “Don’t you know what the bags you take rugs home in look like?”

  She looked embarrassed.

  “Yes, dark canvas. Soft bags that can handle being stuffed.”

  “And you didn’t see a bag like that?”

  “No. But then he could’ve put it somewhere where I couldn’t see it. In a closet, maybe. I had enough to do to with my packing and everything.”

  “Did you have breakfast together that morning, you and your husband?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Guess?”

  “Yes, we did. But it was a quick breakfast. I had a taxi waiting, didn’t I?”

  We’ll have to check up on that, thought Claesson. If they could get hold of a witness that could say that they’d had breakfast together or if her husband was watching over a bag.

  “Do you know if your husband had other contacts here in Turkey than the carpet dealer in the Grand Bazaar?”

  “He knew several dealers, one who lives a little outside the city, but I don’t know his name, and someone in another city, but I don’t know them that well.”

  “No one else other than dealers?”

  Claesson and Özen avoided each other’s eye. Then Claesson took the photograph of the Yeniköy quayside that one of the crew had taken. Carl-Ivar was standing fully visible in light summer trousers, a light blue shirt and an open, lightweight poplin jacket. He was holding what looked like a soft, dark bag.

  “Oh, is it that the bag you mean?” she said. “No, I haven’t seen one. Not on this trip. He used to come home with ones like that, though.”

  “OK,” said Claesson. “But if you look at the woman standing next to him?”

  She bent her head over the photo and Claesson could see that she started to blush – her throat and face were turning a deep red. It was always such a giveaway.

  “Who is she?” she asked.