Missing in Malmö: The third Inspector Anita Sundström mystery (Inspector Anita Sundström mysteries)

by MacLeod, Torquil

  ‘Well, Weatherley’s right about one thing: even if Carol had somehow got hold of the diamond money, Todd wouldn’t have been able to prove it. She could have sent him off with a flea in his ear, and he wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.’

  Anita rummaged in her bag and eventually found a handkerchief, which she then proceeded to clean her glasses with. She held them up in front of her and squinted until she was satisfied that they were clear. She popped them back on.

  ‘And we know something’s wrong over here. Someone breaks into Jennifer’s home, and we think removes any information connected to the Little enquiry. Todd makes a mysterious trip to the North East – the chances are that it was to see Billy Hump to get some background on the robbery.’

  ‘I can check that out.’

  ‘Then Hump’s suddenly killed in a hit-and-run. Is someone in Sweden manipulating events in England?’

  The Magnesia Bank, or Maggie Bank, as it was known locally, was half-full on a Wednesday evening. Anita found a table on a raised dais round the corner from the front door. She sat next to the window, through which she could see a couple of smart apartment blocks silhouetted against the night sky. There was a gap between the blocks, and she gave a sudden start as she saw, at close range, an enormous container ship glide past. From her elevated position, she could look down on the wooden-floored bar where Ash was getting in the drinks. Suddenly, she remembered where she’d heard the name of the pub before. Ewan had mentioned it. This had been his local. Some of these people would know him. Certainly the bar staff. Her conscience stabbed her. She was going to have to do something about Ewan very soon. She wasn’t being fair to him. She had to admit it was easier to be in love with him because there was no commitment involved. No day-to-day contact. No getting pissed off with your partner trying to run your life, as Björn had done. Maybe she was keeping the love going because it stopped anyone else getting close. She could shut them out. She could use Ewan as an emotional barricade. After she had got over Björn, she had been attracted to the idea of another life partner as a way of moving on. Someone to share the responsibilities; someone on the spot to offer Lasse the fatherly advice she couldn’t. But Mr Right had never turned up and, now that Lasse had grown up, it was dawning on her that she didn’t want to go through the process of adapting to someone else’s habits, foibles and human attachments. She had become too independent. Though the whole Ewan thing messed with her head, she had become used to the status quo. His love was unconditional. It would always be there. Maybe a lovers’ limbo land was a safer, less demanding place to be.

  ‘You seem miles away,’

  Suddenly she was aware of Ash standing above her with two pints in his hand.

  ‘Sorry. Thinking about my next red day,’ she lied.

  ‘What’s a red day?’

  ‘Oh, like your bank holidays. I’ve used up all my leave this year.’

  He placed the foaming glasses on the table. ‘Workie Ticket. From a little local brewery. I think you’ll enjoy it. Part of your education. Oh, by the way, they do grub here, too, so we might as well grab a bite. There’s a menu on the board.’

  They sat in silence as they both tried the beer. It was a different taste to anything that Anita had tried before, but it was very pleasant. She remembered colleagues at the Met being surprised that the “Swedish bird” liked beer. It had made her more acceptable to some – others took it as a sign that she was “easy”. They had found out pretty quickly that she wasn’t. Her lovers during that year had not been policemen.

  ‘After what we talked about before, I think it’ll be best if we divide up our work tomorrow morning. I’ll go to Acomb and find out if Todd went to see Billy Hump; see if there’s anything I can dig up. By the way, I’ve put in a call to Doncaster. The prison. See if George Dobson also had a visit from Todd. Just to cover all the bases.’

  ‘And me?’

  ‘You can go to the police station here in Shields. It’s just along the road from here. I’ve confirmed that they’ve got a photo of Carol. You can get them to send it across to your people. They’ll also show you the file on the Commission Quay case. Not sure you’ll get much out of that, but it’s worth a try. The bloke you need to ask for is a DS Tony Phillipson. Tony’s one of the good guys.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Well, we might as well have a nice evening. There’s nothing else we can do until tomorrow.’

  That was the problem, Anita thought. They were stuck. She had a horrid feeling that tomorrow wasn’t going to bring them any good news.

  CHAPTER 36

  Anita found the police station opposite a park in an area dominated by regulation council houses. Its front elevation was long and squat, and occupied most of one side of the street. A row of police cars were lined up outside. As the dark clouds scurried across the sky, the brightness of yesterday was already a memory. Anita’s head wasn’t at its clearest, either. They had stayed in the Maggie Bank too long and she had been persuaded by Ash to have too many drinks. However, he had been the complete gentleman and hadn’t taken advantage of the situation to try anything on. She knew a few who would have done so in the same situation. That had been a relief.

  She attracted a mixture of strange looks and admiring glances from the staff inside the building. The tight black t-shirt under her leather jacket was a mistake, but it was the only clean top she had left from her hasty packing. After a ten-minute wait, a stocky officer in a smart grey suit and tie appeared. Detective Sergeant Phillipson had a chubby, rosy face, black hair receding from his temples and an eager-to-please smile. A chunky hand was proffered in greeting as he introduced himself. He showed Anita into a sparsely furnished interview room. There were two thick files and a thin folder on the table.

  ‘Can I get you a coffee?’ Phillipson asked pleasantly.

  ‘Water would be fine.’

  He came back a couple of minutes later with a plastic cup of cold water.

  ‘How’s Cockney these days?’

  ‘Spending his time catching sheep rustlers.’ Phillipson laughed politely.

  ‘It was a pity about... well, it was pity he had to leave. A good detective.’ He could see that Anita wasn’t in the mood for small talk. ‘I’ll leave you to it. If you need me, I’m the second door on the left down the corridor outside. The ladies’ toilet is just beyond,’ he added helpfully.

  It took her an hour to flick through the files. They covered the ground that she and Ash had already been over. Nothing new emerged, though she could see how lucky Weatherley had been. The anonymous tip-off leading to the arrests of Hump and Chapman was a break from which he’d never looked back. Ash had said that the word was that he was favourite to become Chief Constable of Lincolnshire Police. That would be the next stepping stone to one of the really top jobs.

  It was only the thin folder that contained anything useful. It had a photograph of Carol Pew. As it wasn’t a mugshot, Anita could read more into the face. She was a striking woman. It was the eyes that caught Anita’s attention. They were dark and piercing. This was a woman who knew her own mind. The hair was black and in the fashion of the early 1990s; it was straight and cascaded down over her shoulders, giving her a Jennifer Aniston look. The lips were full and the nose was probably stronger than Carol would have liked. Her make-up was subtly applied and suited her dark complexion. There was also a cutting from a local magazine of the same period with a photo of her and Nicky at some social event. She looked stunning with an exquisite coiffure and a designer dress. He was only seen in profile, as he was talking to somebody behind his wife. He was tall and lean with short, dark brown hair. This must have been the same photo of Carol that Todd had found, enabling him to identify her on the Swedish newspaper website. But the photos were pretty much it. Carol was obviously clever enough to keep herself detached from her husband’s “business” dealings. The size of the file indicated how little they knew about her.

  Anita took out her mobile and picked a number from her contacts.
r />   ‘Hi, Hakim. How are you doing?’

  ‘Busy.’

  ‘Well, I’m about to make you busier.’

  ‘Haven’t had any luck with finding a Carol Pew. Been through all the usual channels, including the Skatteverket website. Whatever she’s doing, she’s not paying tax under that name. Not under Ridley, either. And, as a long shot, I translated Pew directly into the Swedish “Kyrkbänk”. Still zilch.’

  ‘That’s commendably thorough, but not to worry. I’ve managed to find a photo of her. I’ll get the police here to send it over. It was taken about twenty years ago. I want you to get the techies to age the woman to what they think she might look like now – different colour hair... that sort of thing. Then I want you to go through the archive sections of all the local newspapers looking for photos of jazz events – concerts, jam sessions; whatever jazz people do. Your job is to find Carol Pew in one of them.’

  ‘You’re joking.’

  ‘I’m afraid not. If Graeme Todd could find her, then a bright spark like you should have no trouble.’

  ‘At least it’ll get me away from Westermark. I don’t think Nordlund’s enjoying working with him. If you ask me, Westermark seems to be trying to take over the Jansson investigation.’ Anita hoped not, as that would be a pity, because this would be Nordlund’s last case before retirement. But it was a typical Westermark manoeuvre.

  Anita left North Shields police station with a copy of the Carol Pew photograph. It still niggled her that Weatherley could well be right, and that Carol Pew really did have nothing to do with the Todd murder; but she was the only lead they had. The least they had to do was track her down and eliminate her from their enquiries. And if they did do that, then they really would have nowhere left to go. But what else would have taken Todd to Sweden?

  She wasn’t sure what to do next, as Ash hadn’t called in. The dark clouds were still rolling across the river from the direction of the sea, though the rain was holding off for the moment. It was chillier than when she’d entered the police station and she wished she’d put on a jersey. She wandered towards the centre of North Shields, passing a Netto store. It made her think of home. She remembered that Ewan had made a joke about Netto being regarded as quite downmarket in Britain. It had surprised her, as she had always regarded the popular Danish supermarket chain as quite good. Ewan. He had lived in North Shields right up to his imprisonment. Now what had been his address? If she could find a street map, she might remember the name. There was a map in Bedford Street, the main shopping thoroughfare. After scrutinizing it for a few minutes, her eye alighted on Etal Court. That was it. It looked close by. She turned into Nile Street, opposite the Metro station entrance. The centre of the town was busy, but it had a feeling of neglect, in contrast to the redevelopment on its fringes and along the river. She crossed Albion Road and walked past a row of Victorian terraced houses. Ahead of her was an unassuming spread of three-storey blocks of flats, probably built in the 1970s. Ewan had described them as full of pensioners; people who had downsized. He had said that he fitted in well, as his neighbours were quiet and no one bothered him.

  Anita followed the pavement round the blocks. She couldn’t remember the number of his flat, not that she would have been able to tell which was which. It was just as she was nearly at the end of the cul-de-sac at the back of the buildings that her mobile began to vibrate, a setting she had put it on when she had entered the police station earlier. As she took it out of her pocket, her heart sank. It was Karl Westermark. What the hell did he want? He had nothing to do with her case.

  ‘Hi, Anita.’ Westermark’s voice was almost cheery.

  ‘What do you want, Karl?’

  ‘It’s OK. Nothing to do with the case, though I’m sure you’re having lots of fun in your beloved England.’

  ‘Just get it on with it,’ she responded with annoyance.

  ‘Some news. I thought you should be the first to know.’

  ‘What news?’

  ‘About your boyfriend.’

  Anita was nonplussed. ‘Who?’ Then it suddenly dawned on her who he meant.

  ‘Strachan. Your murdering journalist.’

  ‘What about him?’ Anita asked warily.

  ‘Topped himself last night.’ There was glee in his voice. ‘Managed to get pills from somewhere. Easy thing to do in our crap prisons. So, one less piece of shit bunging up the system.’

  Anita didn’t hear any more. She was barely conscious of holding the phone to her ear. She just stared at the flats in front of her. She was too numb to react. She had no idea afterwards what she did in the next few moments.

  ‘Are you all right, pet?’ Anita slowly swivelled round and saw a small, white-haired woman in a blue wool winter coat bending down and picking her phone up off the ground. ‘You dropped this.’ The woman now held it out to Anita. ‘You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.’

  Anita took the phone. ‘Thank you,’ was all she could manage.

  ‘Do you want to come in for a cup of tea? You look as though you could do with one.’

  ‘No. No, I... I’ll be OK.’

  Only after further assurances, did the woman let Anita go.

  She wandered aimlessly back through the centre of North Shields and found herself on the road above the fish quay. She watched the waves battering the Victorian harbour walls. They were rising and coiling above the stone parapets like some spitting sea serpent. The fermenting water wasn’t the result of any storm, but what an aged fisherman in Simrishamn had once described to her as an “old sea”.

  How could Ewan have taken his own life? Why? It was the “why?” that kept returning and tormenting. And then the guilt. The searing guilt that festers in the mind and gnaws at the soul. She had left their last meeting abruptly because of her bloody ex-husband. Then Ewan’s last call had been brushed aside because she had been rushing off to the airport. She’d had no time for him. He had been trying to tell her something. Was it a call for help? Could she have prevented him taking his life? A feeling of overwhelming sadness made her physically shudder. And the one regret that would live with her forever was that not once had she told him how she felt. His love for her was total. She had never said to Ewan that she loved him.

  Her phone buzzed again. She reluctantly pulled it out of her pocket. She didn’t recognize the number.

  ‘Kevin here,’ came the cheery voice. ‘Are you there?’ Anita hadn’t realized that she hadn’t even bothered to say anything.

  ‘Yes.’

  There was a pause at the other end. ‘Any luck at North Shields nick?’

  Her professionalism took over. ‘Photograph of Carol. I’ve sent it through to Sweden.’

  ‘Well, my trip to Acomb hasn’t been wasted either. I’m on my way back. Meet you at the Maggie Bank in half an hour.’

  ‘OK,’ she said blankly.

  ‘Do you mind if I walk with you?’

  Hakim glanced to his left and saw Henrik Nordlund striding up to him along the pavement by the canal.

  ‘Of course not,’ said Hakim. It was a cloudy day that didn’t promise rain, but the first blasts of a winter wind coming off the Sound between Sweden and Denmark had made Hakim turn up the collar of his jacket on leaving the office for his lunch break.

  ‘Grabbing a sandwich?’ Nordlund asked.

  ‘Actually, I was going to pop into Moderna Museet.’

  Nordlund knew of Hakim’s love of art. It was a passion that had saved Anita’s life eighteen months before.

  ‘I’ve never been there. Is it good?’

  Hakim smiled. ‘It depends on your view of modern art. There’s a Didi Dandano exhibition I wanted to see. It’s about to finish, so this is my last chance.’

  They turned to the right and headed across Paul’s bridge, which spanned the canal.

  ‘If you don’t mind, I‘ll come with you.’

  Hakim couldn’t help a little chuckle. ‘I hope you’ve got an open mind.’

  Nordlund liked Hakim. Anita spoke highly of h
im, and he could see how their professional relationship had blossomed. In some ways he envied the young Muslim, as he was just at the beginning of his police career. He hoped that in today’s force, his creed and colour wouldn’t be the obstacle others had had to contend with in the past. Things were changing for sure, but maybe not fast enough. The old prejudices were still there, and suspicions of those with immigrant backgrounds still too evident. No excuse, he knew, but the police were just a more exaggerated reflection of the country’s natural conservatism and the difficulties many native Swedes still had accepting incomers.

  But Hakim was the representative of a new generation of police officers. And he was very good at his job. Nordlund had been impressed with the perceptive conclusions the young man had reached from the interviews he had carried out with the colleagues of Fraser and Holm. His approachable style had encouraged the staff to confide in him. He had learned that Holm was regarded as a bit of a lecher. Female colleagues were uncomfortable in his presence. Fraser was liked, though a couple of members of his department thought that he had a “crush” on Greta Jansson. This information made the CCTV evidence of Fraser being in the Lilla Torg area at the time that Jansson was meant to be meeting her Stockholm friend seem more suspicious. Apparently, Fraser could be vocal in departmental meetings and had strong opinions, which could spill over into anger if he felt that his views weren’t being listened too. Could his temper have got the better of him if Greta Jansson hadn’t responded to his overtures? His movements that night were hazy after he had left The Pickwick; and Holm had no alibi whatsoever.

  From Stora Nygatan they quickly turned into Gasverksgatan, and the modern art gallery was in front of them. The main part was an attractive brick building with heavily shuttered windows over two floors. It had been an electricity plant in the early 1900s and was now cleverly renovated. At one end, an enormous, orange, perforated-steel annex had been added in 2009. This was to give the building’s interior “an entirely new spatial order”, as Nordlund read in the pamphlet he was given in return for his hefty seventy-kronor entrance fee. His growing doubts about the wisdom of accompanying Hakim were increased the moment he entered the main gallery area, which had been the turbine hall. After he had seen the first two paintings, Nordlund consulted his exhibition leaflet to try and understand the theme of the oddly grotesque, half-abstract, half-cartoon-style pictures on display. Apparently they formed “a surrealistically spinning narrative that sucks you into the brutal and contradictory world of the male of the species”. Nordlund pondered that the artist must have come across some seriously appalling men in her time to issue such a blazingly harsh indictment of his sex. The images were disturbing. Many of the paintings were difficult to decipher, but some were blindingly obvious. One depicted a rape scene. This gave Nordlund a jolt. Had Greta Jansson’s attacker worn the callous expression of the man in the painting? Was it someone who loved women or hated them? Nordlund found the exhibition hard to take, and excused himself to Hakim, who was engrossed in the work. Nordlund escaped upstairs in the hope of finding something lighter. He was disappointed. Despite the size of the gallery, there were few exhibits; mostly comprised of random explosions of paint and textile. One had so many spots of colour that he felt a headache coming on.