Death of a Carpet Dealer

by Neil Betteridge

  Özen had already called in and sighed.

  “If Ilyas recognizes the suspect among all the people milling about here, it’ll be a miracle,” he said.

  “We’ll do as we’ve agreed,” answered Claesson, his jaws clenched, his lips making the smallest possible movements toward the microphone he had pinned under his lapel.

  “OK.”

  To make matters worse, there were now quite a few opened umbrellas.

  Louise had made sure to reserve two seats at the back of the chapel by the aisle so that they could come and go with ease.

  Claesson was wearing a white shirt under his dark gray jacket and a pair of unmatched, lead-gray, pressed slacks that he put on maybe once every third year, and always on occasions such as this. Over his jacket he had his dark green Gore-Tex coat, the one he’d had for so long that its resistance to wind and weather, and above all rain, was no longer what it once was. The damp was eating its way in.

  He and Louise had arrived early and greeted the priest, whom Claesson knew from previous professional encounters. He was a down-to-earth man, and one who was now informed of their, preferably invisible, presence.

  There was a sudden crackling in his ear. “He thinks he’s spotted the mark,” reported Özen excitedly.

  Hot damn! thought Claesson, and bent his head. “Copy that,” he said. He knew that everyone else had received the same information. “Where?”

  “Walking up the path to the chapel.”

  “Thanks.”

  Without shifting his position, Claesson stretched his neck almost imperceptibly while his eyes scanned everyone who was approaching the chapel. The drizzle had started to lighten up. The faces were wet, as were the clothes, but more and more people were folding away their umbrellas. Sometimes things really went your way, he thought.

  He figured he blended in well with all the other darkly-clad funeral guests. It had been decided that Louise would remain in the chapel unless ordered otherwise.

  A stream of people in dark clothes advanced steadily in clusters along the asphalt pathway. He recognized one or two, and they nodded barely noticeably to each other. Of course they realized why he was here. That Olsson’s killer hadn’t been arrested yet was public knowledge.

  And then they saw him.

  Magnus Öberg was walking slowly with slightly bowed head and eyes fixed on the ground. He wife was beside him.

  It was definitely him, Claesson confirmed to himself, but found Öberg slightly taller than he remembered him from Istanbul and than his passport details stated – six foot – but that could have been because he seemed to have grown thinner. The shoulders of his elegant dark designer jacket stuck up, the front hung down despite being buttoned up, and his pants flapped freely over his thighs. His black shoes shone.

  Claesson took his eyes from the Öbergs, but kept them in his peripheral vision. As he stood there he could feel his chest tighten in that familiar way, and that was one of the main reasons why he hadn’t chosen a job that mostly involved sitting on his butt in an office. He didn’t need peace and quiet. He needed excitement and to feel his pulse gallop now and then.

  It wasn’t until the Öbergs had passed him and entered through the doors that he told the others that he’d also spotted their mark, and that this mark should soon be in his seat in the chapel.

  They could, in other words, arrest him after the funeral and the coffee in the parish hall. Wait until afterwards out of respect for the family. No fuss, just nice and calm. They didn’t intend to lose sight of him, even if the relocation entailed a certain risk. But why would Öberg try to run once he’d made it all the way here? They had to keep their profile low so as not to arouse suspicion. In one sense it was an advantage to already have such a large police presence at the chapel.

  Claesson entered and sat down beside Louise, listening to the quiet murmur, the odd echoing coughing fit, the blowing of a nose, voices whispering as the darkly-clad guests slowly continued to fill the pews. He smelled the faint odor of wet clothes.

  True to custom, the Olsson family was seated at the front. The widow and the two children with their spouses. Claesson let his eyes drift over Magnus Öberg’s neck at intervals and never let him fully out of his sight. Louise and he exchanged the briefest of glances, confirming the situation. They were in control and everything was going according to plan.

  He saw Annelie Daun coming down the aisle, her husband on one side looking hollow-eyed and her mother on the other – a haggard woman whom Claesson knew from long ago. Her name was Kerstin Olsson and she was the carpet dealer’s alcoholic sister. Some neighbors, he assumed, were also putting in an appearance along with members of the Tradesman’s Association, Rotary, and the local folklore society. He could make out some faces he recognized. He was a real Oskarshamnian, as they said. Belonged to the town. It sat in his body like cement.

  The chapel was as full as it could possibly get without people sitting on each other’s laps. People from the funeral director’s office helped to squeeze people together and ushered others demurely and courteously to empty seats, often in the middle of a pew. People had a tendency to sit at the far ends, to block the way.

  The chapel was stylish inside, too, thought Claesson as he surveyed the clean, light yellow brick walls. At the front by the altar, daylight filtered in through a beautiful stained glass window. The chapel was restrained in its decoration, with a tasteful, muted tapestry on one wall, simple lighting, and nothing else. He estimated that the room held about a hundred people.

  The bells started to ring, and the murmuring and coughing gradually subsided until silence descended upon the congregation. The rain had stopped and the sun was poking though the window, causing it to glow in all its variegated colors. As if someone up there had a hand in proceedings, he thought.

  The organ had just started playing a prelude that Claesson didn’t recognize, when he heard a dull bang from behind him. The noise had come from the door, and now walking slowly along the aisle was a dark-haired woman. She seemed diffident, and came to a halt a few steps in.

  Just as she was preparing to squeeze into one of the rear pews, Annelie Daun turned. She extracted herself from the front row, walked all the way to the back, and escorted the woman back with her to the family pew. It was a brave gesture. And a clear demonstration, Claesson thought, as he turned to Louise, who raised her eyebrows. They’d both recognized her.

  When the service was over and everyone had laid down their wreaths, Claesson and Louise slipped out to stand by the front door of the chapel to watch the guests come streaming out. It took time. A man standing next to them unfolded a large white cotton handkerchief, with which he blew his nose and wiped his eyes. His wife asked something about what the matter was, which Claesson thought a strange thing to say just after a funeral.

  “It’s the freshly mown lawn,” he said.

  “Did you forget to take your medicine?” she asked.

  Hay fever, thought Claesson. The spring and early summer were a tough time for many.

  “Yes. It’ll pass,” he said through his blocked nose, and wiped his handkerchief over his puffy eyes once more.

  “Look, I’ll drive you home and we’ll pick up your pills and spray on the way to the parish hall. It won’t take long. You can’t drive with your eyes like that.”

  They walked off, while Claesson remained where he was, observing how the guests had touchingly gathered in small, slightly lost clusters before moving on to the parish hall. Many of them were going to drive, otherwise it was no more than a fifteen-minute walk.

  The sun came and went. It was warm and relatively still and dry. The group over by the driveway had gotten smaller as far as he could see, but not by much. It was all those who hadn’t gotten a seat in the chapel but who’d had to stay behind the hastily erected police cordon. Those who’d wanted to pay tribute to carpet dealer Olsson, or at least take part in the grieving for reasons that in many cases were likely to be extremely personal. Things got so blown up these da
ys, thought Claesson. The media, particularly through the Internet, spread the news and inflated the emotions. I guess we need it, he thought. To cry tears of joy at a wedding or of sorrow at a funeral, even when we might not even know the people involved.

  And still not everyone had come out.

  Louise was standing outside on the other side of the exit. Birgitta Olsson emerged, looked at Claesson, and walked over to the woman who’d arrived late and who was now standing shyly, with bowed head, with Annelie Daun. The two of them were cousins, it struck him.

  Claesson had also seen these photographs, but the one that had lodged itself most firmly in his memory was the one taken by chance by a member of the ferry’s crew, showing a quayside bathed in bright sunlight. Father and daughter together for the last time.

  The woman had a slightly irregular face, with the dark hair tied back tightly from the face, brown eyes under heavy eyebrows, a small mouth with a well-shaped Cupid’s bow and a dimple in her chin. He recognized this soft yet resolute chin from Annelie Daun and Carl-Ivar Olsson, if the photos were anything to go by. Her shoulders were broad and her waist narrow. She was wearing a dark brown coat.

  Ayla, a beautiful name, thought Claesson. It didn’t seem as if they were saying very much, she and Birgitta Olsson. They were just standing there now looking at, now avoiding each other. The features of Birgitta Olsson’s face were hard to read, because they were constantly shifting.

  Finally, the young woman bowed her head. She was crying. As was Birgitta Olsson.

  It suddenly struck him. Magnus Öberg hadn’t come out.

  He stared intently at Louise, who’d also just realized the same thing. His wife, Lotta Öberg, was there, however, and was greeting, with slight guardedness, her half sister. She was followed in this by Johan Olsson, and then his wife.

  “The bathroom,” said Claesson and nodded to Louise to wait while he made for the chapel entrance.

  Meanwhile, Louise Jasinski thought that she heard Lotta Öberg say something to her mother about her husband. She made out the words “migraine medicine” and “will be along later,” no doubt meaning the parish hall. Jasinski informed Claesson at the same moment that he found the bathrooms vacant. No Öberg there, in other words.

  The side entrance!

  Damn! Why hadn’t he deployed someone there? That was very unprofessional, to say the least. If Öberg had slipped out that way straight after the ceremony, he’d have a few minutes’ lead on him.

  But why would he do that? Was he feeling that things were heating up around him? Or was it something else? And where had he gone? Home to Birgitta Olsson’s to get his migraine medicine?

  Hardly. But they’d have to send a car over just to make sure.

  He took a deep breath and dropped his shoulders. Typical. Everything had been going so smoothly and now this. But there was still no reason to panic, he told himself. They knew were Birgitta Olsson lived. They’d have to pick up Öberg there, either immediately if he had really gone there, or after the coffee gathering, at which he should sooner or later make an appearance. And if they were really lucky, he realized, they’d be able to confiscate the shoes with the treaded soles.

  He went out to Louise to start directing his people.

  CHAPTER 62

  NETTAN BROMSE SNATCHED a tissue and blew her nose. She’d passed the Coop supermarket on the way to the funeral and had popped in to buy a family pack of disposable tissues. Sven insisted on his cotton handkerchiefs, and she’d even sometimes iron them for him if she was in the right mood. She preferred tissues herself. It was more hygienic. Crusty old snot-rags were revolting.

  There would be more tears, of that she was convinced. There was still the coffee gathering to go and no doubt the odd emotional speech. They agreed in the car that the funeral had been moving. That said, they fell into a collective silence. Nettan thought mostly about the traffic. They were feeling a little harried. Sven blew his nose beside her, and panted noisily through his mouth.

  She turned down onto Holmhällevägen and slowed down. There were children living around here. Now that she’d seen the coffin, it became real to her that Carl-Ivar would never again walk down his garden path. She guessed she hadn’t really grasped what had happened. That she’d never again get to see him walk down to the mailbox by his gate in his slightly rocking, leisurely way, with his gaze often absently directed at the stone pavement.

  People came and went in your life, that was only natural, and you both got accustomed to it and didn’t, she thought, as she drove up onto the garage driveway and turned off the engine. A car was parked outside the Olssons’, but not right in front of the gate.

  “Strange,” said Nettan. “Isn’t everyone at the funeral?”

  “Maybe it’s the son-in-law’s car, and they drove together to the funeral,” said Sven, looking up toward the Olsson house. He simply couldn’t keep tabs on every single car, and anyway, the models all looked pretty much the same these days, he thought as he walked toward his own front door with a strong yearning to be rid of all his allergy symptoms.

  Just then he saw, despite his red eyes and blurry vision, how the Olssons’ bedroom curtains seemed to twitch. Or did he imagine it?

  He was just about to take his eyes off the window when, again, he thought he glimpsed a person in it. But who’d be snooping around Birgitta’s bedroom when she was out?

  He had a nasty feeling that some smart burglar was taking the opportunity to empty the house of jewelry, money, and other easily shifted items while everyone was off at the funeral. He’d read about things like that. Break-ins while families were on vacation and on New Year’s Eve when people would certainly not be coming home until after midnight. He also thought about that low-life with the rug trick who’d been at Birgitta’s. The guy who’d learned from the city hoods but who was so inept you almost felt sorry for him.

  All these thoughts flitted quickly through his mind. Didn’t the Olsson’s have an alarm? he thought suddenly. He’d stopped in his tracks on the natural pink paving stones, from where he lifted his glasses, wiped his eyes, and put his glasses back. My word yes! There was someone there!

  Should he just forget it? It probably wasn’t a thief. He hesitated. But someone was very clearly in Birgitta’s house, and he wasn’t the kind of person to let things be. Not things that really worried him. He liked order, and if something was amiss, he was the man to fix it.

  “What is it,” asked Nettan, who’d already unlocked the door. “Hurry up!”

  “I thought I saw Birgitta’s bedroom curtains move,” he said in a low voice.

  “You don’t say!” she almost whispered back. “Then you’d best see who it is. Everyone should be at the parish hall…”

  He wavered.

  “Do what you want, I’m going inside to get your medicines together,” he heard her call from inside the house. She’d left the door open.

  Maybe Birgitta had forgotten to set the alarm, stressed as she was about the funeral, he thought as he crept through the hedge onto the Olssons’ garden and positioned himself on their front steps. Should he knock? He wasn’t sure if that was such a good idea if it did actually turn out to be a burglar. Unconsciously, he reached out his hand and grasped the door handle.

  It was unlocked, and the door swung open and a stuffy warmth hit him as he peered into the darkness of the hall.

  And sure enough, he could hear a faint noise coming from deeper inside the house, but what astonished him most of all was that the contents of the hall closet were lying partly strewn on the floor. Someone was obviously searching the house for something.

  He left the front door ajar and crept a few steps into the house. He saw the sitting room ahead of him, untouched. The kitchen table was empty, and there was no one in the passageway between the kitchen and oven.

  “Is anyone there?” he called out in a loud, firm voice on pure impulse, and at once the banging stopped. There was an unpleasant hush. His heart somersaulted. Maybe I should just back away, he thoug
ht. But his curiosity was still pricked. His eyes were running, and he breathed in the way he did when his nose was blocked.

  He took a step toward the bedroom – the hall opened into a recess there – and pulled up short.

  “Oh, sorry,” he said when he saw who it was standing there in his white shirt and funeral pants. The son-in-law had, however, removed his jacket.

  Sven made to turn on his heel and leave with some apologies on his lips, but the sight of Birgitta’s son-in-law standing there in her bedroom sent, with a moment’s delay, all the alarm bells in him ringing. This was not right. It was quite clear that something was very not right indeed. The son-in-law had opened all the clothes closets and the linen closet and parts of their contents were lying scattered in jumbled heaps all over the bed.

  “Are you looking for something?” he said, fixing Magnus Öberg with his eyes. OK, he was a big shot in Stockholm, Sven recalled, but he didn’t care about that. The man just didn’t belong in Birgitta’s bedroom!

  And at that moment, the son-in-law didn’t look like a big shot. Sweaty face, eyes flitting about nervously. As if he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar, as people said when Sven was growing up.

  He felt his advantage quickly grow as the silence grew.

  “That’s none of your business,” Öberg finally answered, stressed.

  I see! Insolent, too, Sven thought coolly. Then he remembered the telephone call he’d accidentally overheard once at Birgitta’s. Had been something about a rug, hadn’t it? It was the daughter who’d called.

  Was it that rug he was trying to get his hands on now? The one that was worth so much?

  Sven gave pursed his lips authoritatively. “You have no right going through Birgitta’s closets,” he said with gravitas.

  “And you have no right coming in here uninvited,” returned the son-in-law coldly, and seemed to pull in his stomach so that his upper body swelled, as if he was prepared to punch Sven at any moment.