A Passion for Killing by Barbara Nadel Page A

It was from the previous consul that Doris and myself kind of inherited Raşit Bey’s carpet shows. When he left we took over. We first met Yaşar last year when he came along with Raşit Bey to see how things were done. Then this year he came just with the boys and gave, I must say, an even better talk than Raşit Bey. His English is – was – excellent. Do you know how his car came to come off the road, Inspector?’
    ‘No.’ He hadn’t told them that it was thought Yaşar Uzun had been murdered. Plenty of time for that shock later. ‘So tell me about this carpet show, Mr, er, Wim, if you will.’
    The Dutchman shrugged. ‘Once a year the boys and either Raşit or Yaşar come to us for the evening with a selection of their carpets. Doris and myself are avid collectors of village carpets as I’m sure you can see, Inspector.’
    There were various brightly coloured rugs hanging on the snow-white walls and spread out across the floorboards, but İkmen didn’t have a clue about what precisely these carpets were.
    ‘Our friends likewise,’ Wim continued. ‘And because Raşit Bey and his boys are so knowledgeable, we like to buy from him.’ He looked at İkmen with a sudden serious cast in his eye. ‘Do not take this the wrong way, Inspector, but there are a lot of useless, cheating dealers out there . . .’
    ‘Oh, you don’t have to tell me about cheating carpet dealers, Mr – Wim, I can assure you,’ İkmen replied.
    ‘Raşit Bey’s prices are very good,’ Doris put in. ‘And the Nomadic Trappings he gets hold of are amazing. A couple we knew from the Swedish consulate, they love those. Turkoman camel bags, baby slings, salt bags, even sometimes old dowry trappings. Raşit Bey has so many wonderful pieces.’
    Including, İkmen remembered, some of the Süleymans’ carpets from their many and various defunct palaces.
    ‘So anyway,’ Wim returned to the subject at hand, ‘the show. On Monday Yaşar and the boys arrived at about four in the afternoon with the carpets. Unloading from the van took them just over an hour, they bring so much. Then Doris made us all some drinks and sandwiches and we sat talking in here until our guests started to arrive at about seven.’
    ‘What happened then?’
    ‘Well, it took a while for everyone to arrive, people come from both here in the village and from İstanbul too.’
    ‘All consular people?’ İkmen asked.
    ‘Some. We have friends in the NATO coterie too,’ Wim said. ‘On Monday night we had people from the Netherlands, Sweden, Israel, Canada, the United States, United Kingdom and one couple of Turkish friends too. Yaşar started his talk, which is about the different types and grades of Turkish carpets, at about eight fifteen. By the time all the buying and selling had finished the boys didn’t get away with the remaining carpets until, I suppose, about twelve-thirty.’
    ‘Mr Uzun, I understand, stayed on a little after the carpets had gone.’
    ‘Yes, Doris made him coffee,’ the Dutchman said. ‘He was tired and asked for a coffee before he set off back to İstanbul. We talked. Amongst other things we bought a very rare Turkoman tent-door decoration. Inspector, forgive me, but was Yaşar’s accident of a suspicious nature?’
    But before İkmen could answer, the front doorbell rang and Wim excused himself in order to answer it. Because of the open-plan nature of the lower floor of the house both İkmen and Doris Klaassen could see who was at the door almost as soon as Wim. It was a rather flustered-looking, thin man in his fifties who spoke English with a pronounced British accent.
    ‘Oh, Wim,’ he said distractedly, ‘God! You haven’t heard from that bloody Yaşar Uzun, have you? I called the shop yesterday, but they say he’s missing. I’ve rung and rung his mobile . . .’
    ‘Ah, Peter, yes, come in,’ Wim replied also in English. ‘You must talk to our . . .’
    ‘I had a deal with that bastard!’ the Englishman