A Passion for Killing (35 page)

‘Your father’s financial problems continue.’

‘So it would seem.’ He cleared his throat. ‘However, apparently Raşit Bey has found a buyer for the Princess Gözde’s other carpet that my father was selling and so he won’t be entirely without funds. Raşit Bey got a good price for it in spite of what Father might say. Apparently he’s sold it to a footballer who has just had an enormous great modern “palace” built on the hills above Rumeli Hisar.’

İkmen pulled a face. ‘Who else but gangsters and footballers can afford such luxury?’

Süleyman shrugged. ‘But thank you anyway, Çetin, for helping me with what really was a dilemma. How could I, in all conscience, even have begun to approach Mr Roberts on behalf of my own family?’

‘Well, I think that it was fairly obvious that your great-aunt Gözde had to be one and the same with the lady Victor Roberts gave the carpet to,’ İkmen said. ‘But I take your point. Was Mr Roberts happy with the way that things turned out, do you think?’

‘Father said so, yes,’ Süleyman replied. ‘I hope so. Mr Roberts is a very decent person. He could so easily have just enriched himself . . .’

‘As the carpet dealer Yaşar Uzun had intended to do,’ İkmen said.

‘Oh, yes, Uzun. Metin İskender told me that you’ve been having some trouble with the two women you arrested in connection with his death.’

‘You could say that, yes,’ İkmen replied. ‘Changing stories, one blaming the other, the complication that comes about when one tries to get at the truth from people who are deluded or besotted or both.’

Süleyman, not really understanding what İkmen was saying, frowned.

İkmen put his cigarette out and then lit up another. ‘The murder of the carpet dealer had little to do with his trade,’ he said. ‘Yaşar Uzun had been the lover of the British diplomat Peter Melly’s wife, Matilda. They met at Raşit Bey’s shop, apparently, when the English husband and your father’s friend were deep in carpet talk. Mr Uzun was a regular carpet Casanova by all accounts.’

Süleyman wrinkled his nose in disgust.

‘Having said that,’ İkmen continued, ‘he didn’t deserve to die for that or any other reason.’

He told Süleyman about Matilda Melly and her many affairs, including her more spiritual connection with Handan Ergin.

‘Yes,’ he said, lowering his voice as he did so, ‘I heard that they were, er, lesbians . . .’

‘Bi-sexual in the case of Mrs Melly,’ İkmen corrected. ‘My own opinion about Handan Ergin is that she is entirely heterosexual. I think that she just used the Englishwoman to help get rid of her husband.’

‘Yes. Poor Sergeant Ergin!’

‘Oh, don’t waste your sympathy on him!’ İkmen said disdainfully. ‘He beat his wife and was in all ways no wounded innocent. In fact, no one in this case has been innocent, if you ask me. Peter Melly should have paid more attention to his wife, Ergin should not have been violent to his, and the women, well . . . Handan Ergin is a manipulative, psychopathic personality. I mean, to just give up your child as she did . . . Mrs Melly, of course, killed—’

‘You’re sure?’ Süleyman asked. ‘In spite of the changes of story and—’

‘We have some forensic evidence now,’ İkmen said. ‘The dust on the hand broom in the Mellys’ kitchen is the same as that found at the scene of Uzun’s death. A pair of her shoes also yielded similar particles and there was some blood on one of those too.’

‘The same as Uzun’s?’

‘The same group, yes,’ İkmen said. ‘I’m just waiting for the DNA comparison now. But I know it was Matilda Melly anyway. She confronted Uzun on the road out of Peri the night that he died. We know that he was shot when his car was stationary. So he pulled up for some reason. To see his lover, the one he’d bought a house for, perhaps? No other explanation, as yet, works quite so well for me.’

‘Not a Mafia hit, then?’

‘No.’ İkmen smiled. ‘Although it was odd to have Nikolai Stoev in the middle of it all, completely and utterly innocent for once!’

‘Metin said that part of the reason why you were so suspicious about the “other” Mrs Melly was because she, Handan Ergin, went to Bulgaria under that name,’ Süleyman said. ‘Why on earth did she do that?’

‘Because I don’t think that either of them believed we would ever make a connection to Bulgaria,’ İkmen said. ‘Also Mrs Ergin’s husband was apparently of the opinion that illegal passports could still be obtained in that country. You know, Mehmet, both of these ladies were strictly amateur criminals. Their enterprise was in places very poorly thought out.’

Süleyman smiled. ‘Only in places?’

‘Oh, the actual execution of Uzun was really quite well done,’ İkmen said. ‘Framing Abdullah Ergin who they knew could, as a police officer, pull cars over and then using his own gun to do the deed on top of that, was genius. The row Handan must have orchestrated with him to get him out of their apartment that night must have been spectacular. But Mrs Ergin should never have travelled to Bulgaria and Mrs Melly should have bent her mind to getting her sixty thousand pounds sterling back to the UK via a method other than in her suitcase. Having said that, however, even professional criminals are not perfect. If they were, we’d never catch any of them.’

‘So a satisfactory end to your investigation, Çetin?’

‘No more than the end to your peeper case, Mehmet,’ İkmen replied.

Süleyman smiled. ‘I’ve told you everything I am permitted to tell you about that, Çetin,’ he said.

‘And I would ask you for no more,’ İkmen replied. ‘But you, as well as I, my dear Mehmet, have the knowledge of yet more unnecessary death in your mind. Yaşar Uzun should not have died and nothing we can ever do can put that right or even begin to console his family.’

‘We work with murder, Çetin. It’s what we’ve chosen to do.’

‘I know,’ İkmen sighed. ‘But . . .’

There was a pause during which he looked both undecided and very sad.

‘Don’t tell me you’re thinking of pursuing another career, Çetin?’ Süleyman said with what looked like real concern in his eyes.

But İkmen just laughed and said, ‘No, I’m too old to change career now. Mind you,’ his eyes twinkled as he carried on, ‘maybe a little foray into carpet dealing . . .’

‘No!’ Outraged, Süleyman said, ‘Çetin, really . . .’

‘It’s profitable, aesthetically pleasing, you get to drink a lot of tea and smoke a lot of cigarettes . . .’

‘Yes, but . . .’

‘Ah, I’m only joking,’ İkmen said with a laugh in his voice. ‘I’d never learn about all the different carpets at my age and anyway, I couldn’t keep up their endless relentless patter.’

‘The sales talk.’

‘The dyes, the knots, all the technical stuff. Not to mention the “romance” of it all,’ İkmen said.

Frowning, Süleyman said, ‘The romance? What, about carpets?’

‘Yes. You know. The whole carpet as a work of art angle. The “magic” carpet that chooses its owner . . .’

‘That chooses its owner?’ Süleyman said. ‘What does that mean?’

‘Oh, it’s something Raşit Bey said to me right at the beginning of my investigation. Carpets, he said, choose their owners. Buyers only think that they are choosing but, in fact, it is actually the carpet that does the choosing all along. My understanding of this is that Raşit Bey at least believes that there is some sort of intelligence woven into the carpet when it is created. That is the magic.’

Süleyman snorted.

‘What rubbish, you think,’ İkmen said with a smile. ‘And I can’t blame you for that. But you have to admit, Mehmet, that if one accepts that the Lawrence Kerman did once belong to your great-aunt Gözde, it has taken a very strange, almost miraculous route back to your family.’

‘You do know that what you’ve just said is superstitious rubbish, don’t you, Çetin?’ Süleyman replied.

‘Yes.’ İkmen shrugged. ‘But if it did really belong to the old woman’s fiancé, if that is really his blood smeared upon it . . . Well, maybe then it is kismet . . .’

‘Maybe,’ Süleyman said. ‘Kismet, yes, maybe.’

‘Or magic,’ İkmen said.

His friend gave him a very hard and sceptical look.

İkmen, laughing, shrugged again and said, ‘All right, both. Kismet and magic.’ He then put a hand on his friend’s shoulder and said, ‘Mehmet, dear boy, I am the son of a witch, you cannot expect me to totally dismiss the supernatural and unseen. Carpet weavers and carpet dealers come and go but carpet legends and those who pursue them are as numerous as they are immortal.’

There are various types of what are generically described as ‘oriental’ carpets that appear in this book. The ‘star’ carpet in this novel is, of course, the Lawrence Kerman carpet which, unlike the rest of the pieces described, is Persian. Intricate and embellished with complicated arabesques, the Lawrence carpet features a Tree of Life motif, which is a magical symbol common to Islamic, Christian and Judaic traditions.

Other types of carpet mentioned include:

Tribal or nomadic carpets. Very colourful carpets made by nomadic tribespeople, often whilst on the move. These are thickly knotted, high pile carpets which are very spontaneous and naive. They can be plain in terms of ornamentation but they can also be very personalised too, for instance the woman who weaves the carpet may also mix in some of her own strands of hair. Alongside the carpets, there are also nomadic trappings; woven salt bags, camel bags and baby slings. Because of the large-scale settlement of nomads in the middle east and central Asia over the past fifty years, tribal carpets and trappings are now quite rare and therefore collectable.

Turkish village carpets. Made by a village dwelling woman, possibly as part of her dowry at a set time of year. The wool and dyes used to make these carpets are pre-prepared by the same woman in advance of the weaving process. Good ones reflect the personality of the weaver and the colours used are generally indicative of the region or district in which they were produced.

Palace or court carpets. Often very large carpets made for the Ottoman court in the nineteenth century. Handmade and very ornate they were produced professionally for the court by paid weavers as opposed to village women. Frequently embellished with flowers and usually with a central medallion motif.

Kilims. A flat weave rug that was definitely the ‘poor relation’ in the carpet world until the nineteen seventies. Often made for prayer the design bases of these rugs nevertheless go back to Neolithic times. Geometric in design, some of the older kilims in particular can exhibit a wild eccentricity that many collectors find almost addictive. Turkey leads the world in the fineness of its kilims.

Thomas Edward Lawrence was the second of five illegitimate sons of an Anglo-Irish baronet called Sir Thomas Chapman. ‘Ned’, as he was known to his family, was a bright boy who obtained a first-class honours degree from Jesus College, Oxford after which he was employed upon archaeological digs across the Middle East. When the First World War broke out in 1914 he worked first in the geographical section of the military General Staff in London until, by virtue of his knowledge of the Arabic language and culture, he was transferred to Cairo. In October 1916 he was sent to the Hedjaz on a fact-finding mission and to meet Sherif Hussein of Mecca who had rebelled against Ottoman rule. He was subsequently given the role of British Liaison Officer in the Arab revolt serving with the forces of Hussein’s son, the Emir Feisal. His achievements as part of the Arab revolt are now legendary, particularly his involvement in the capture of the sea port of Akaba. That he became in the eyes of some, and by dressing in Arab clothes and adopting some Arab manners and customs, more Arab than the Arabs was frowned upon to an extent back in Britain. But on the whole he was viewed as a heroic figure by his own people. However once the war was over, Lawrence became quickly disillusioned with regard to the treatment of the Arabs by the British, the French and their allies. In assisting these powers against Germany and the Ottoman Empire the Arabs had just, it seemed, swapped one master for another. It was with great anger and trepidation that Lawrence watched the western empires carve the Middle East up into the deeply troubled region of falsely created states we see today. Lawrence, who never married or had children, died in a motor bike accident in 1935.

By 1914 the once great and powerful Ottoman Empire was a shadow of its former self. Almost completely absent in Europe, the Empire was reduced to control over what is now Syria, Iraq, Israel, Palestine, Jordan and parts of Saudi Arabia. Egypt had long been lost to the british and places like Greece and Albania were now independent countries in their own right. Internally too things were changing. In 1908 the last autocratic Ottoman Sultan, Abdul Hamid II, was deposed by an organisation called the Committee of Union and Progress (otherwise known as the Young Turks) which was headed by three army officers, Enver, Talaat and Djemal pashas. The office of sultan was held by Abdul Hamid’s younger brother, Mehmed V, who was little more than a puppet of the Committee.

The Ottoman Empire joined Germany and its allies in opposition to Britain, Russia and their allies in the autumn of 1914. This came about as a direct result of a secret Ottoman–German alliance that had been signed by Enver, Talaat and Djemal Pashas in August 1914. This alliance threatened both Russia’s Caucasian territories and the British Empire’s communications with India and the east via the Suez Canal.

The Caucasian front was commanded by Enver, who in December 1914 threw 100,000 Ottoman troops against the Russians at Sarikamis. He lost 86% of his forces during the course of this battle. The Ottoman campaign against the British and their allies in Gallipoli in 1915 was rather more successful, largely due to the fact that it was commanded by a brilliant young officer called Mustafa Kemal, later Atatürk. In 1915–16 the Russian General Yudenich scored a string of victories over the Ottomans in the Caucuses. The war in what Lawrence called ‘Arabia’ (Syria, Palestine, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq) was fought against the British and the French. Baghdad fell in March 1914, Jerusalem in December 1917 and a final defeat at Megiddo in September 1918 finally put paid to the Ottoman forces and thereby the Empire once and for all.