Lifetime

by Liza Marklund

  ‘You’re crazy,’ Ronja said, as she made for the Ladies.

  Emil was hammering away at his computer, pretending he hadn’t noticed.

  She went into the national ID database and typed in ‘David Lindholm, male’, the postcode for Bondegatan, and there he was.

  Personal information: THE PERSON IN QUESTION IS DECEASED.

  But the Swedish state didn’t let go of its citizens just because they had died. Here were all of David Lindholm’s personal details: his ID number, full name (Lindholm, David Ze’ev Samuel), his registered address on Bondegatan, the date he was registered, county, local council, parish, and then the information: deceased, 3 June that year.

  He must have been Jewish. Ze’ev isn’t a common Swedish name. Named after Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the Jewish activist?

  She clicked to get his personal report. When the image appeared on the screen, David’s ID number was already included in the menu.

  This isn’t a game any more.

  She clicked select all and, two seconds later, was rewarded with all the information available about David: financial records including repayment defaults, debts, tax information, details of any bankruptcies, official roles in registered companies, self-employment records, the registration number of his own company, any restrictions, and what vehicles he owned.

  ‘You really ought to pay for my jeans to be dry-cleaned,’ Ronja said, gathering her things in a pretty little briefcase.

  The cutbacks start to be implemented in December. She’ll be history in a few weeks’ time.

  Annika smiled at her. ‘I usually put mine in the washing-machine. But perhaps you haven’t got one?’

  ‘Well, at least I haven’t set fire to it,’ the girl said, and marched out of the newsroom.

  Annika glanced at Emil. His face hadn’t moved a muscle.

  She stared at the screen in front of her and had to hold on to the desk to stop herself falling through the floor.

  At least I haven’t set fire to it.

  That was no coincidence, and Ronja was hardly Einstein. If she knew, then everyone on the paper was aware of the police’s hypothesis.

  Is that what they all think? Is that what they’re saying? That I set fire to my own house? Tried to kill my own children?

  She stared at the computer screen for another long minute before she pulled herself together and scrolled down to read further.

  There!

  David Lindholm had had ambitions as a private businessman.

  He had been on the boards of four different companies, two of which had been de-listed; a third was about to be declared bankrupt.

  She printed out the information and pondered what to do next.

  It would probably make sense to get to the bottom of all this, dealing with issues as they came up. She fetched a cup of coffee from the machine, walked back via the printer and picked up the list, then went back to her laptop.

  The first business on the list was a trading company that had been deregistered fifteen years ago, Fly High Equipment HB, and David was listed as a board member. She hadn’t known they kept a record of such old information. Now she was getting somewhere.

  She went into the database of registered companies and clicked through to the page identifying the nature of the business. ‘Trading in parachute equipment and accessories and conducting associated activities,’ it said.

  So, flying high was a literal description of what they did. David Lindholm must have been an active parachutist in his youth – why else would he own a company selling the equipment?

  She clicked to see who the board members were, and who had been its registered signatories. The computer thought for a moment, and from the corner of her eye she saw Emil packing up his laptop and getting ready to leave.

  ‘See you tomorrow,’ he said, and she nodded to him.

  David had been a registered signatory of Fly High Equipment with two other men, Algot Heinrich Heimer and Christer Erik Bure.

  Bure, again. They must have been really good friends.

  She went back to the national database and ran a couple of complementary searches.

  Christer Bure lived on Södermalm, on Åsögatan.

  She checked his details as well. No debts, no bankruptcies, no links to any companies except Fly High Equipment.

  She looked up the second man.

  Aha!

  Algot Heinrich Heimer was dead.

  She checked the date: 9 February last year.

  Young, only forty-five, registered in Norrköping.

  She bit her lip.

  Forty-five-year-old men don’t die just like that. Maybe he had help.

  She opened another window, went into the archive of articles and looked up Algot Heimer.

  No results.

  She tried ‘dead or murder’, 9 and 10 February last year.

  Site found, wait …

  Bingo!

  A forty-five-year-old man had been shot dead in a car park outside a shopping centre in Norrköping during the evening of 9 February.

  Could that have been Algot Heinrich Heimer? How high could the odds be?

  She quickly opened the home page of the Office of National Statistics, and saw from the population statistics that approximately 91,000 people had died last year. Something like 250 per day, and how many of them would have been forty-five-year-old men living in Norrköping?

  Not many.

  ‘Is anyone sitting here?’

  One of the evening reporters, a girl, had stopped by the chair where Emil had been sitting. What was her name? Pippi, maybe?

  Annika shook her head and the girl sighed. ‘Why can’t people tidy up after themselves?’ she said, sweeping Emil’s empty crisps packet, plastic cup and crumpled notes into the wastepaper bin. ‘How do they expect anyone to work if they have to—’

  ‘Sorry,’ Annika said, ‘but I’m trying to work.’

  The girl fell silent.

  Annika called the Norrköping Police and asked to speak to the press officer responsible for the crime unit. She was put through to a mobile phone and ended up talking to a woman who was picking her child up from nursery.

  ‘Algot Heinrich Heimer?’ she said. ‘No, we never arrested anyone for that murder. It’s still an open case.’

  So it really was him!

  ‘What happened?’ Annika asked, as she heard a small child crying in the background.

  ‘He was shot in the back of the head as he was walking across a poorly lit car park carrying a crate of beer. The murder weapon probably had a silencer. No one heard or saw anything.’

  ‘No tyre tracks?’ Annika wondered.

  The child in the background sounded out of control.

  ‘Yes,’ the woman said, sounding exhausted. ‘About one and a half thousand. It’s a big car park.’

  Annika thanked her and hung up.

  She printed out Heimer’s personal details and the article about the death in the car park. She leaned back in her chair, finished her coffee and looked at the time. Five to five. Thomas would be picking up Kalle from his after-school club now, then going to get Ellen from the nursery on Scheelegatan. She felt a burning sensation in her chest, the searing pain of jealousy and feeling not quite good enough.

  I’ll never get away from him as long as I live.

  The girl unpacked her laptop from a big rucksack, then unfolded a napkin and put an apple and a banana on it. Then she took out a china mug and a Thermos flask, and poured what smelt like stewed herbal tea.

  Annika went back to the national database and looked up the next company in David Lindholm’s records, a limited company that had gone bankrupt: Pettersson Catering & Arrangement AB, listed as providing restaurant and catering services, importing and exporting foodstuffs, hiring restaurant and serving staff, trading in horses, confidential documents and associated activities.

  Trading in horses?

  Yes, that’s what it said.

  The details of board members and registered signatories contained a long list o
f names, ten in total. David Ze’ev Samuel Lindholm was a deputy member, two from the bottom.

  Annika checked through them one by one. Apart from David, they were all still alive and lived somewhere in the Mälar Valley, not far from Stockholm. The chairman of the board and managing director of the bankrupt company had been Bertil Oskar Holmberg, registered as living in Nacka, just outside Stockholm. She did a search for his personal details.

  Bloody hell!

  The man was linked to fifteen different businesses, some de-listed, some bankrupt, and some still active. Among the latter were a solarium, a consultancy firm, a travel agency and a property company. He had eight notices for bad payment, and owed the enforcement office a total of 509,439 kronor.

  Is someone like that actually allowed to run a company?

  Apparently so: no restrictions were listed.

  The young reporter was now typing very slowly and deliberately on her computer on the other side of the desk. Annika concentrated on ignoring her. She printed out all the information about Holmberg and looked through the names of the board members in the other companies. None rang any bells.

  Why so many? And why this business in particular? Why was David a deputy board member? There had to be a reason: that he stood to profit by it, or was doing someone else a favour by being there …

  Her mobile rang and she dived into her bag. She just managed to answer before voicemail took the call.

  It was Thomas. ‘Where are Ellen’s winter clothes? How the hell am I supposed to look after the children if you don’t let me have their things?’

  Annika clenched her teeth to stop herself screaming. Monday was when they swapped the children. One parent had Kalle and Ellen for the rest of the week, dropping them off and picking them up from nursery and after-school club, then had the weekend to wind down with them. They would leave them at nursery and school on Monday morning, and the other would pick them up in the afternoon. That way they didn’t have to see each other.

  ‘I didn’t send any winter clothes,’ Annika said, ‘because Ellen doesn’t have any. They went up in the fire. You’ll have to go and get her some new ones, and a pair of decent winter shoes.’

  ‘I’ll have to? You’re the one who gets the child allowance!’

  Annika shut her eyes and propped her head on her hand.

  Dear God, give me strength!

  ‘You’re the one who says he wants sole custody of the children, so you can show a bit of bloody initiative for once.’ She ended the call with her pulse hammering in her ears.

  God I hate him!

  Thomas was pursuing a case for sole custody of Kalle and Ellen through the courts. He opposed any form of adequate access for her, but had agreed to supervised visits every other weekend.

  That’s only so he can have a free babysitter while he goes to the pub with his girlfriend.

  Thomas was claiming that Annika’s violent and criminal past made her entirely unsuitable to have custody, and that the suspicion that she had set fire to the home they shared meant that she was a direct threat to the children.

  The initial custody hearing had taken place in July, on one of the hottest days of the year, and had been a truly unpleasant experience. Thomas had been aggressive and arrogant and had boasted about his job in the Justice Ministry to the point at which even his barrister had looked embarrassed. Annika’s lawyer, a woman called Sandra Norén, had laid a hand on her arm and flashed her a quick smile.

  She had explained that Annika had acted in self-defence on the occasion many years ago when her former boyfriend had died. As far as the allegation of arson was concerned, it verged on slander. Annika had rescued the children from the flames; Thomas Samuelsson had already left the family to spend the night with his lover.

  Annika had taken all her maternity leave, and nine times out of ten she was the one who stayed at home and looked after the children when they weren’t well. Apart from two weeks during the football World Cup, when Thomas had conveniently taken some leave.

  The judge had taken the interim decision that they should share custody, and Annika and Thomas had avoided each other ever since.

  She put her phone into her bag and was settling back to work when her eyes met those of the late-shift reporter opposite. She was openly curious. She had evidently heard the brief conversation.

  ‘If there’s anything you feel like talking about, just say,’ she said, her eyes sparkling.

  ‘Thanks, but no thanks,’ Annika said.

  The next company that David Lindholm had been involved in was called Advice Investment Management AB.

  So many empty phrases all in a row. Advice and investment and management.

  ‘The company will provide financial advice, business development and associated activities, but nothing that could legally be deemed banking or credit-related,’ she read.

  David had been a deputy board member in this business as well. There were two full members living on the outskirts of Stockholm: Lena Yvonne Nordin from Huddinge, and Niklas Ernesto Zarco Martinez from Skärholmen.

  She checked out Nordin and found that she was linked to two other companies, both deregistered: a cleaning company in Skärholmen and another investment business. She had run the cleaning company with Martinez, and the investment business with Arne Filip Göran Andersson.

  She sighed and looked at the time. Martinez didn’t appear to be linked to any other companies …

  Frustrated, she pushed the computer away.

  Maybe she should have something else to eat. Life always seemed a bit easier then.

  She pulled out her wallet to see if she had any meal tokens left. Yes.

  ‘Do you fancy hanging in the canteen together?’ the young reporter asked.

  Hanging?

  Annika put the tokens back. ‘I think I’ll just get something quick from the machine,’ she said, heading over towards the sandwiches. She chose one with cheese, ham and a tired slice of tomato.

  The last company on David Lindholm’s list was called B Holmberg Property in Nacka AB. The business was still going, and managed property, conducted legal transactions and other associated activities.

  Oh, well.

  This is pretty boring. Viktor Gabrielsson would probably have been much more fun.

  She swallowed a sigh and went through the details of the last company. Again, David Lindholm was listed as a deputy board member. The managing director and registered signatory was Bertil Oskar Holmberg from Nacka.

  I know that name …

  Yes. The guy who had run the bankrupt catering firm that had done all those other odd things. She clicked, went to the printer, waited impatiently, then gathered the papers into a neat bundle.

  So, what am I going to do with all this?

  Check out the dead man in the car park, look into the man with all the different companies, maybe write something about David’s complex personality …

  She consulted her watch – it was almost time for the early-evening television news.

  It’ll just be a load of stuff about Gabrielsson.

  She thought about getting a mug of coffee but decided against it: she’d never sleep. When her mobile rang, she jumped.

  Number withheld.

  She put the earpiece in.

  ‘The receptionist told me you were trying to reach me. What’s this about?’

  A man: she didn’t recognize his voice.

  ‘Who am I talking to?’ Annika asked.

  ‘You don’t know who you tried to call? My name’s Christer Bure. I’m a detective inspector on Södermalm.’

  Arrogant, she wrote on her notepad. ‘Thanks for calling back. I’m a reporter on the Evening Post, and I—’

  ‘Yes, I know what number I called.’

  She decided to ignore his rudeness. ‘I’m writing an article about David Lindholm, and I understand that you were a good friend of his.’

  ‘That’s correct.’

  ‘I also understand you were in business together a long time ago. Could yo
u tell me something about that?’

  The man at the other end cleared his throat authoritatively. ‘There’s not much to say. We were into skydiving, and bought and sold equipment involved in it – rigs, parachutes, helmets, jumpsuits and so on, weight belts, cutters, straps and other spares. Altimeters and height alarms, of course …’

  Skydiving?

  ‘You must have been fairly committed parachutists,’ Annika said politely.

  ‘It was David who got me interested. He was obsessed, jumping whenever he had any time off. If it hadn’t been for that one bad landing in Skellefteå, he’d never have stopped.’

  ‘Bad landing?’

  ‘The Swedish Cup. He was jumping freestyle and landed all wrong, fracturing his seventh vertebra. He was lucky not to end up in a wheelchair. That was the end of his jumping career.’

  ‘How did he take it?’

  ‘How the hell do you think?’

  Bitter because of a parachute accident? Annika wrote.

  ‘David was very interested in a lot of other things too, of course,’ she said. ‘He was a probation worker, and a custodian.’

  ‘Yes,’ Bure said. ‘He wanted to make a contribution besides just catching crooks. There aren’t many who can maintain that balance.’

  This might be a way in.

  ‘So this was important to him?’ she asked lightly.

  ‘Of course – otherwise he wouldn’t have done it.’

  ‘And he carried on with this probationary work right up to the end?’ She held her breath.

  ‘Of course,’ Bure said firmly. ‘The last time he met Filip Andersson was just a few days before he died.’

  ‘Right, Filip Andersson,’ Annika said, searching her memory frantically. Filip Andersson, Filip Andersson …?

  ‘David volunteered as a trustee as soon as the legislation was passed. He was probably the only person who believed that Andersson was innocent. That was so typical of him, going in and supporting someone who was so despised.’

  Ah, that was it: Filip Andersson, the financier who was found guilty of the axe murders on Sankt Paulsgatan. So David was his trustee? Trustees were contact-people for prisoners serving life sentences, a sort of aristocracy within the probation system.

  ‘Did he have any other cases towards the end, do you know?’