Death of a Carpet Dealer

by Neil Betteridge

  One thing was for sure, the “fucking bitch” wasn’t Merve Turpan.

  “They’re so up themselves with their formalities… so fucking inflexible and slow!” he spit out.

  Claesson waited.

  “The airlines! Like a fool I started with the Swedish office, but they had half-day closing or whatever it was. Anyway, they were closed. So I called Turkey,” he said, giving Claesson a black look. “‘We can’t just pass on the details of our passengers to any old Tom, Dick, or Harry’,” he mimicked. “And of course they can’t. But then I’m not any old Tom, Dick, or Harry, which I tried to get into their thick skulls.”

  “Ask Merve to get on it,” said Claesson smiling kindly. “Ask her or Fuat Karaoğlu to call Turkish Airlines. They’ll have better luck, I’m sure.”

  While Claesson trudged home, it occurred to him that they’d forgotten to cancel the car. But what the hell, he thought, no one else had asked to borrow it.

  His guilty conscience made him dread that Veronika would make him feel worse by being in a foul mood. But his main struggle was with his own latent depression. He really didn’t want this. He wanted to be at home. Ten days, as planned.

  But now things were as they were.

  And Veronika wasn’t in a foul mood. He’d psyched himself up for it unnecessarily. She was hardly awake.

  He found her crashed out on the living room sofa, and it was only a quarter past six. The TV was on. Klara was sitting quietly and obediently, watching kids’ shows. Nora was sleeping.

  He sat down, or rather squeezed himself next to her floppy body. She opened her eyes, and looked around, still thick with sleep.

  “Oh, my God. I guess I dropped off.”

  She lifted her head to see where Klara was.

  “Lucky for us we’ve got well-behaved kids…”

  “Mmm,” he said and felt his irritation dissipate. “Have you had dinner?”

  “No, I haven’t actually.”

  “I’ll get something going.”

  He went into the kitchen. They had some new potatoes. These delicious delicacies, the kings of the potato family. Boiled potatoes it would have to be today, and a piece of salmon, which he threw into the oven. They had some lemons at home, too. And with it he made a yogurt sauce and a green salad with cocktail tomatoes. Expensive, but tasty. The juicy Swedish ones would soon be in the shops. During the winter he didn’t bother with cucumber and tomatoes that had been shipped half way around the world. Pepper was OK, but the rest just tasted of water.

  He found it quite convenient to stand there puttering around among the pots. His work day seeped away from his body, out through the pores and in his breath, emptying his skull.

  His cell phone rang.

  “Ilyas Bank is arriving in Copenhagen with Turkish Airlines at 11:15 tomorrow morning,” said Özen.

  “What the… ?”

  Things were heating up.

  “His plane took off at nine from Atatürk airport,” said Özen.

  A little over a two-hour flight, thought Claesson. No, three, with the hour’s difference. They’d have to have their wits about them now. Bank was already wanted by Interpol. But things would have to run smoothly tomorrow. No screw-ups.

  “What do you say we go to pick him up? The Danish police make the formal arrest, we’ll contact them. I reckon they can apprehend him at the gate. But then I’ll want him here at once. You and someone else will do.”

  “OK.”

  “This is no hooligan we’re dealing with here. You drive to Kastrup and get him. It doesn’t have to be a marked car. I’ll ring Louise and ask her to find someone to back you up. You’ll have to leave early. It takes at least three and a half hours, count on four. Drive via Växjö, it’s quicker. And then it’s just over the Öresund bridge.”

  The salmon had started to color in the oven just as he was finishing his call to Louise Jasinski. She rarely grumbled these days. She’d make the necessary arrangements and then call Özen.

  It was a good-humored Claesson who called out that dinner was ready.

  The rest of the evening was spent getting the kids to bed. He took Klara, and Veronika, who had the breasts, took charge of Nora.

  He’d already made up his mind to have a chat with the widow in the morning, and was thinking about confronting the young surgeon Christoffer Daun man-to-man. He didn’t know what he should expect to get out of it, but there was something about the missing rug and the woman he was probably having an affair with. The woman who was now also missing.

  Veronika might be able to give him some pointers. She knew Daun, after all. But not too many. Prejudice always colored one’s impression.

  CHAPTER 52

  AT LAST HE WAS in the air!

  It had been a fretful period. His stomach couldn’t take any more, and heaved at the slightest morsel, even though he wasn’t actually vomiting any more.

  But it’d soon be over now. He was high up in the clouds, literally. Ilyas Bank looked out through the little window at an infinitely blue sky, with fluffy white cloud formations forming a wall-to-wall carpet below.

  The police hadn’t gotten in touch. He supposed they’d forgotten all about him and Ergün, but that was probably because they hadn’t nailed a suspect yet, as Ergün had said. And he always knew best, right? It hadn’t been that long ago they’d found the dead man, and investigations take time. We’ll just have to wait and see, he’d said.

  It was nice to be free of Ergün and his know-it-all attitude. Although he was a good guy, too, Ilyas reminded himself. He’d helped him out like a real big brother. The thought of Ergün pricked at his conscience. Wonder what he’s thinking now?

  But it was liberating not to have to put up with his going on and on about where he got the money from. And yet he’d not said a word about it himself, just that he was going on a trip – but that was enough to set Ergün off, he who had kids to feed and who was always broke and who, naturally, felt that life was slipping away from him. But such was Allah’s will!

  He’d managed to evade his questions deftly, he thought proudly. Had said that his parents had helped him out and that his relatives in Sweden had contributed something as well.

  Ergün had just stared at him silently. Ilyas realized that he’d be found out sooner or later, so it was just as well that he wasn’t still on the boat. Lying was hard work. You had to remember what you said the whole time.

  Ergün had tried to get hold of him yesterday. He’d seen it on his cell phone display but just let it ring. He’d been totally tied up on Monday, sorting everything out for his journey.

  First, he’d picked up his visa at the Swedish Consulate General on İstiklal Caddesi, and then bought a few things in the shops in Beyoğlu while he was there: new jeans, a cool pair of sneakers, some tops, one a bit warmer than the others. His preparations took the whole day. He bought a new bag, too, a good quality one. He didn’t want to arrive at his cousins’ place in Sweden with any old piece of shit.

  So he hadn’t had time to go to work yesterday. Or rather, he’d blown it off.

  The plane had reached cruising height. The refreshments cart had rattled past, and he’d taken an apple juice, but realized that it was too sharp for his stomach and so he put the glass down. All he needed was a bite to eat and it would settle. The menu offered a chicken or vegetarian pasta dish. He intended to take the chicken.

  And then try to get some sleep.

  Once the plane had landed in Copenhagen and he was on his way to the gate, he saw a group of policemen standing at the narrowest point of the passage. At least four of them. Two female, both tall, slim, and blonde. He’d heard, of course, that Scandinavia was full of hot chicks, but that offered him little joy at this juncture. His stomach turned over the moment he saw them and he felt the sudden urge to empty his bowels. He’d just have to clench and resist.

  He talked reassuringly to himself. He had everything in order. Passport and four-week visa. There was no cause for alarm.

  Ergün had said
that he could count himself lucky, not even Turks who had a relative on their deathbed in Sweden could get a visa. He’d also said that Europe was being very uncooperative about letting Turkey into the EU. “They don’t want us,” he said gloomily. “So why should we go there? Things are getting better and better here in Turkey! Stay here instead! Fight for our own country. We can manage without the EU.”

  It was coming to his turn in the line. They weren’t stopping everyone to inspect their passports. Not those who looked Western European.

  He approached one of the female officers and held up his passport for her to see. But she stopped him.

  Politi it said on her breast. She was so tall, she almost had to look down at him. She thumbed through his papers and asked something, making curious throaty sounds, and at first he didn’t understand; but then he realized she wanted to see his return ticket, too, so he dutifully produced it, handing it to her with sweaty fingers.

  “To Sweden?” she said.

  “Yes,” he nodded. “To Sweden.” It said that on the visa.

  Then she turned to her colleague. This was bad; she hadn’t done this to anyone else. He took out his radio and spoke some gobbledygook into it.

  I’m going to shit my pants, he thought, and clenched for all he was worth.

  “Please stay here,” she said, and keeping hold of his passport and papers, had him stand to one side of the line, which continued to snake forward in the narrow passageway out toward the broader walkways of the terminal.

  “Bathroom!” he said, almost panicking.

  But she ignored him.

  He repeated his plea, but more loudly and more resolute. His bowels were on the point of exploding. She must have interpreted his panic-stricken face correctly. The strange language whizzed over his head like a machine gun salvo, and one of the airline staff came and took pity on him.

  He was a little calmer when he came out. But it didn’t last long, because two new police officers were there, who each took him by an arm and said that he was to go with them. They dragged him away like some common criminal. Or rather, let him walk himself. He was as meek as a lamb.

  They arrived at a room with windows overlooking a large car park. There were more police officers in the room, as well as two men in plain clothes, who were now approaching him.

  “Are you Ilyas Bank?” said one of them in Turkish.

  “Yes.”

  “We are policemen from Sweden.”

  His heart began to gallop. What had happened? What had he done? And Miro was there waiting for him.

  “Where are you traveling to?” continued the dark-hard one, with a slight accent.

  “To Sweden. My cousin’s waiting for me. He’s picking me up in his car.”

  “Where does your cousin live?”

  “In…” He couldn’t pronounce the place. “I’ve got it written down here.”

  He pulled a piece of paper from his back pocket.

  “Landskrona,” the Swedish-Turk read. “OK, we’ll make sure to inform him and to give him your luggage. You can call him yourself and tell him you won’t be coming today. You’re to come with us to another town in Sweden. The journey will take almost four hours.”

  “Why… ?”

  “Because you were a witness to Carl-Ivar Olsson’s death.”

  Oh, shit! thought Ilyas. Is this dead old man going to follow him everywhere?

  Barely an hour later, Ilyas was sitting in the back seat with a sturdy, red-bloated Swede of the larger kind beside him. They wanted to keep an eye on him, he supposed. The policeman called Mustafa Özen was driving.

  The car drove onto a long bridge that stretched between Denmark and Sweden, he learned. Nice view. The sun was shining and small boats were sailing in a flock some way away; otherwise the water was quiet, compared, at least, with Istanbul’s frenetic boat traffic.

  They arrived in Sweden. To a country that seemed clean and somehow desolate. They drove through some flat countryside until the forests took over. Trees, trees, and more trees. They stopped off at a McDonald’s in some godforsaken spot and let him go in as a normal civilian.

  “What would you like?” wondered the one called Özen.

  He pointed to a picture of a McFeast. It was hardly something he normally ate, but he was hungry. His stomach had eased, and he was clearly not meant to die today.

  So there he was, munching a hamburger at a rudimentary, wiped-clean, bolted-down table, with a burly Swede on one side and a Swedish Turk on the other, staring into a murky forest.

  So this was Sweden.

  CHAPTER 53

  ÖZEN CALLED TO ANNOUNCE that they had Ilyas Bank. They’d picked him up at Kastrup and had stopped off in Växjö to have a bite to eat.

  Claesson looked at his watch. They’d be in Oskarshamn by four, at the earliest.

  He called Louise and asked her to contact some kind of carpet expert who could come and value Olsson’s stock. She promised to do what she could.

  He drove to the hospital. He approached the information hatch, showed his ID and asked them to page Christoffer Daun. While he waited, he read the note that was taped to the glass partition. A wanted notice: If anyone had seen the woman in the picture they were to contact the Oskarshamn police, it said.

  Daun was on the ward, he was told, so he took the elevator up to the sixth floor, opened the frosted glass door, and stepped inside. Felt the familiar ill-ease. This was not an environment for him. It wasn’t a case of hypochondria or cancer phobia, but of feeling shut in, diminished.

  Christoffer Daun came to greet him. He was wearing a light-blue shirt with pens sticking out of the breast pocket, white pants, and sneakers on his feet. And a badge, of military design that you just stuck into a fold in the cloth. Name and rank – although in this case it was profession: Registered Doctor.

  “I’ve got a few minutes,” said Daun. “We can go in here.”

  Just then Claesson’s phone rang. It was Özen.

  “Can we talk?”

  “Make it brief.”

  “Merve just called and said that they’d located Olsson’s bank account. Turns out that his payment to the carpet dealer in the Grand Bazaar was all in order. He had a pretty fat account. Her conclusion is that he was straight and paid tax in Turkey and all that.”

  “OK.”

  “But then Olsson had also withdrawn a small fortune in lira over and above what he needed for the rug. Roughly two hundred thousand Swedish kronor.”

  Silence.

  “Did you hear me?”

  “Yes.”

  “I haven’t asked Ilyas. We’ll have to take it later. But who might have it?”

  “Thanks,” said Claesson feeling suddenly braced, but collected himself when he caught sight of Christoffer Daun’s face.

  The man looked worn, but still had that baby-like countenance that academics from better social circumstances often had. The kind with a large head and even teeth who’d never dream of replacing the drainpipes on his house.

  “I’m not investigating Tina Rosenkvist’s disappearance,” said Claesson.

  Daun’s jaws were working frantically, he noticed.

  “But Carl-Ivar Olsson’s death. I know your wife worked for him. Has Annelie mentioned some special rug or carpet of some kind?”

  “She goes on a lot about special rugs and carpets. That’s pretty much all she talks about these days. They’ve gone to her head,” he said, but not without a certain tongue-in-cheek irony, as Claesson interpreted it.

  “So you can tell me nothing about an old fragment…” he took out the picture, “… which is five, six hundred years old and which might be worth at least one and a half million? Probably more?”

  Christoffer Daun stared at the picture.

  “I have no idea. This hasn’t passed through our home at least. Is this what everyone’s after?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m thinking about that psycho who came bursting into our kitchen and…”

  “Started to st
rangle Tine Rosenkvist?”

  Daun shrugged lightly.

  “Yes.”

  Claesson thanked him and left the ward.

  CHAPTER 54

  CLAESSON RECOGNIZED ILYAS BANK from the ferry at once, and gave a quick thought to the strangeness of seeing him here. In the wrong part of the world, and in a completely different role to that of a seller of hot tea in cute little glasses.

  Ilyas Bank was looking uncomfortable, despite his more casual clothes: jeans and a smart top instead of the white shirt and black pants he’d worn on the ferry. Both garments looked new, as did his shoes.

  Did Bank recognize him? This would be an excellent test of his memory. Or perhaps not? Rather a test of his own vanity, he realized as he thought it. Ilyas Bank probably met hundreds of tourists every day. If he recognized anyone it was probably through association with a particular event or notable appearance.

  “Is he tired, or can we get cracking right away?” he asked Özen.

  After a visit to the bathroom and tea and sandwiches and even some little cakes that they’d found in some forgotten corner of the fridge, they sat themselves down at a table with a tape running. The corridor was silent.

  “Ask him if he knows why he’s here,” said Claesson.

  Özen became more animated when speaking Turkish; Claesson had noted that back in Istanbul. Now he was gesticulating again as he asked questions. Ilyas Bank cast a quick glance at Claesson now and then to see if he was listening. The fellow was starting to pale, and kept wiping his palms against his jeans.

  “Try to make him understand he’s in no danger here, that we want him to help us, and we’re not out to arrest him…not at the moment, anyway,” said Claesson.

  Özen explained, sounding calm. Claesson understood nothing of what he said. Turkish and Swedish have little in common, that’s for sure, he thought. As he sat there, wholly dependent on Özen and his interpretive skills and honesty, he felt that powerlessness that an immigrant parent without knowledge of Swedish but with Swedish-speaking children must feel. An inverted age hierarchy, the younger now the spokespeople for their elders.