‘That’s brilliant! Good work!’ Moberg put his phone down with a flourish.
‘The airfield?’ Anita asked eagerly.
‘Yep. That was Hakim. A Cessna Citation did land on the seventh of August. And it flew out the next day; the day of the murder. Also, he’s found a witness who has identified the photo of Cassidy that you got off the internet. They said he was picked up by a Land Rover. We know that a Land Rover was at the campsite. And the driver sounds as though it could well be McNaught. I’ll get straight onto Blom and the commissioner and get them to start diplomatic proceedings to haul him over here.’
‘Hope we have more success than we’ve had with Julian Assange.’
‘I don’t think the Ecuadorian embassy will have room for yet another asylum seeker,’ he commented wryly. ‘At the moment, Cassidy probably thinks he’s safe behind the protection of the Metropolitan Police.’
‘He’ll remain that way if we can’t keep our witness alive. Presumably, there’ve been no more sightings of McNaught?’
‘One more. One more blank. I suppose his background is all about blending in. How’s Danny holding up?’
Anita decided to be truthful. ‘Not very well. He’s feeling the pressure. We all are.’
‘Is Wallen with him today?’
‘Yeah. I’m taking over tonight, and Hakim will relieve me in the morning.’
Moberg pushed his chair away from his desk. ‘Do you think he’s up to testifying?’
Anita was pensive. ‘As long as McNaught is roaming free and Cassidy is safely in his millionaire home, then no.’
‘My client has already explained in great detail the events of the day and the evening of Thursday, the twenty-seventh of July, 1995.’ Zetterberg had taken an instant dislike to the lawyer who had been waiting at the polishus when she’d arrived back with Ivar Hagblom just after lunchtime. For starters, she seemed far too young, far too elegant and far too attractive to be a proper lawyer. Zetterberg thought that she would be given an easy ride by this piece of legal fluff. She’d been wrong, and Malin Axrud was earning her inflated fee by proving to be a tough obstacle to overcome. The immaculately dressed lawyer was sitting next to an anxious Ivar Hagblom. Opposite them sat Zetterberg and Bea Erlandsson. Zetterberg had surprised the other two members of her team by choosing Erlandsson. It was partly as a slap on the wrist for Szabo for not revealing information to her before they talked to Ivar in Uppsala – and partly because she wouldn’t countenance any interruptions while she was officially interviewing their chief suspect. She didn’t trust Szabo to keep quiet – she was confident that Erlandsson wouldn’t interfere.
‘As I’m sure your client would agree, if you actually let him speak, he is in a very difficult position. He has no alibi for the time of the murder, and he then coerced two other people to lie on his behalf. Not the actions of an innocent man.’
‘I think, Inspector, that my client has given a perfectly adequate account of his movements and his reasons for asking the young women for their help. Naturally, he is deeply sorry for this and the difficulties it has caused them and the police. It was a mistake.’
‘And his dealings with Prosecutor Renmarker?’
‘Again, a misjudgement. He was only trying to protect a friend he believed, at the time, to be utterly innocent. And he is willing to face the consequences of his actions. There will be consequences?’
Zetterberg gave Axrud a waspish grin. ‘You can be certain of that.’ Ivar stared despondently at the table.
‘Let me turn to the motive,’ continued Zetterberg. ‘That’s if it’s OK with your client, fru Axrud?’
‘He believes that there is no motive.’ The reply was tight-lipped. ‘But carry on.’
‘I’ve already discussed with herr Hagblom the little things that were starting to undermine his friendship with the deceased. Göran Gösta’s treatment of Linus Svärd for one; Göran generally falling out with the group another.’ Looking at Ivar fully in the face: ‘Then there was your academic rivalry with Göran Gösta, which really got up steam on Malta when you discovered a book inside which was part of an original letter written by Jacob Björnstahl. Why didn’t you want Göran to know about that?’
Ivar looked up. Zetterberg noticed the dabs of sweat on his forehead. She could feel his anxiety.
‘It was a big find. I wanted to make the most of it. Make a splash when I brought out my thesis. If I shared the knowledge with someone working in the same field, I couldn’t be sure it wouldn’t get out into the public domain prematurely.’
‘So you didn’t trust Göran?’
Ivar wavered before answering. ‘I suppose not.’
‘And only Linus and your girlfriend of the time, Larissa Bjerstedt, knew?’
‘Yes.’
‘Yet you never used the Björnstahl letter?’
Ivar shook his head.
‘Can you speak up? For the recording.’
‘No.’
‘And why not?’
‘It disappeared.’
‘But you had it with you at the cottage in Knäbäckshusen?’
‘Yes.’
‘And when did you notice it had gone missing?’
‘I didn’t think it had gone missing. I’d just misplaced it.’
Zetterberg’s voice exuded scepticism. ‘Are you trying to tell me that this dramatic academic find that was going to change your life had disappeared and you just thought you might have misplaced it? Surely you’d have guarded it with your life.’
‘I knew... I thought it was around somewhere. I kept it in the bottom drawer of a chest in our bedroom. I hadn’t looked at it for a few days. And there was a lot of drink and some drugs going on. We were all pretty laid back at the time.’
‘It hardly sounded laid back,’ Zetterberg weighed in dismissively. ‘Everybody seemed to be at each other’s throats. Relationships being put under pressure. Arguments.’
‘It didn’t seem like that at the time. It’s easier in hindsight...’ Axrud appeared to be on the verge of jumping in to save her client, but couldn’t find the pretext to do so.
‘Shall I tell you what I think happened? I think Linus, desperate not to lose his lover, Göran, told him about the Björnstahl letter. It had been an area of conflict between you and Göran since Malta; and between them as well. Göran then finds the letter, which he steals. He even makes it clear in his overheard argument with Carina about Lars-Gunnar. The threat that you would suffer the most and—’
‘That was nothing,’ burst in Ivar. ‘Just hot air.’
‘It was even hotter than that. I believe that Göran actually carried out his threat and burnt the letter so you could never use it.’
Horror was etched across Ivar’s face. ‘Burnt it?’
‘Göran’s last words in fact. He’d destroyed your precious discovery. With all the other things that had happened between you two, this was the straw that broke the camel’s back. He probably boasted about it to you in the chapel. I can imagine your fury. Your dreams shattered. You snapped. And you killed him. Yet afterwards, in a totally calculated way, you went about covering your tracks, and you’ve done that successfully for over twenty years.’
’But I didn’t know that he’d burnt the letter. I didn’t know what had happened to it.’
‘What did you think had happened to it?’ Zetterberg asked sarcastically. ‘It had blown away in a Baltic breeze?’
‘No. I just didn’t know. I was frantic, but I couldn’t find it anywhere after the murder.’
‘Of course you couldn’t. It was ash.’
There wasn’t a shred left of the composed and confident man that Zetterberg had first come across in Uppsala. Or that of the public figure on his numerous television appearances. This was a broken man before her, and Axrud was quick to intervene.
‘I think my client needs a break, and I need to consult with him further.’
‘I think you do. Interview suspended at 16:36.’ Zetterberg’s jaunty agreement showed how close she was g
etting to a result.
The Chinese restaurant on Möllevångstorget was far enough away from the polishus not to be frequented by any colleagues. It was on the way home for Anita, who wanted to return to her apartment for a shower and change before she took over at the safe house. God knows how Klara Wallen was explaining to her demanding Rolf why his supper wasn’t on the table these days.
Anita sipped a glass of water as she waited for Bea Erlandsson. In front of her was an open file of Erlandsson’s case notes on the Göran Gösta murder that she had surreptitiously passed on. It contained her own work and everything that had been reported back by Zetterberg and Szabo. Anita was pleased to see that Erlandsson was very thorough. The Chinese restaurant was nearly empty at that early time in the evening; only a father and son waiting for a carry-out order and having a quick beer while they hung around. Outside in the square, most of the market stalls had packed up for the day, though a number of men were still sitting on the benches on the far side idly discussing life and the universe. All were of Arab origin. So were most of the stallholders.
Erlandsson had come to her office after Zetterberg’s interview with Ivar Hagblom. She told Anita all that had gone on and filled her in on information that had been gleaned from Zetterberg’s last trip to Stockholm and Uppsala. Anita had been grateful, and wasn’t totally surprised that Ivar was on the point of being charged with Göran Gösta’s murder. After her visit to Renmarker and his revelation about deliberately undermining the case, she had started to see the original investigation in a fresh light. Yet she still had doubts, and she could see that Bea Erlandsson did too, despite the evidence stacking up against Ivar. They’d decided to pool their ideas away from the polishus. Erlandsson had left her notes with Anita and, in return, Anita had asked Erlandsson to look something up for her while she herself promised to make a phone call. This she had done. Now she was eager to see Bea Erlandsson.
The young detective came in and immediately apologized for being late. She said that by the time she left the office, Zetterberg was closeted with Prosecutor Blom. Zetterberg was confident that the arrest of Ivar Hagblom would be made official tomorrow. She was talking about organizing a press conference for midday.
‘Alice Zetterberg likes her publicity,’ Anita commented dryly. ‘Her turning up in Uppsala and picking up Hagblom was very public.’
‘Oh, yes. She’d tipped off the TV stations.’
‘Made him look guilty. However much you say he’s only helping police with their enquiries, everybody assumes he must be the one.’
They waited while a smiley waitress came and took their order in broken Swedish. Erlandsson had a beer. Anita would have loved to have joined her but knew it would just make her drowsy later on.
‘So, how did you get on?’ Anita asked after the waitress had left a bowl of prawn crackers. She snapped one in her mouth as Erlandsson fished for a file in her bag. It was an old file – twenty-one years old. Erlandsson opened it.
‘You were right; it was worth looking at again. The forensics report mentions that the ash left at the barbecue did contain faint paper residue. Old paper, though it wasn’t radiocarbon-dated at the time.’
‘I thought I’d remembered something of the sort because there was a discussion with Henrik Nordlund about any possible significance. Of course, we couldn’t find any because the Björnstahl letter was never in the equation. We thought it had just been put on to help the fire.’
Erlandsson shut the file. ‘So, it appears that Göran burnt the letter after the barbecue broke up. Sweet justice. He must have gone down there, set it on fire and then gone into the chapel. Presumably we’ll never know why he was in there.’
‘Someone saw him go in – or someone found him there, anyway. But you don’t seem convinced that it was Ivar?’
Again Erlandsson shook her head. ‘There was something about Ivar today that made me believe him. I know he did everything to distance himself from the murder, which doesn’t look good. But I watched him carefully in that interview room today, and I think he genuinely didn’t know what had happened to that letter.’
Anita tucked into another prawn cracker. She realized she was really hungry. ‘Maybe he didn’t. I rang Linus Svärd an hour ago and told him what was happening. He swears blind that he didn’t tell Göran about the Björnstahl letter.’
Erlandsson downed some beer and then coughed because she had drunk it too quickly. When she’d stopped spluttering, she said: ‘I know Larissa was supposedly the only other person who knew about the letter, yet Ivar was sleeping with Carina at the time. He might have let it slip. Pillow talk. But even if she did know about it, that’s no reason to kill Göran. But you can’t escape the fact that she’s got a different motive, and she hasn’t got an alibi. I know I don’t want it to be her because I love her books. Maybe it’s appropriate that the crime writer is the murderer.’
‘It could be her,’ agreed Anita. And she would have been quite happy for Carina to be the perpetrator now that she knew that she had seduced – or been seduced by – Björn; the information that Zetterberg had drunkenly implanted still rankled. ‘There’s one thing that struck me when I was looking through your case notes. You’d better have them back, by the way. Don’t want the lovely Alice finding out I’ve seen them.’ Anita closed the file and passed it across the table and Erlandsson returned it to her bag.
‘If you ask any of my family and friends, Bea, they will tell you that I’m not the most organized of people. Or particularly house-proud.’ Erlandsson beamed at her. ‘I can see from your notes that you are very organized. What I always had trouble getting my head round in the original case was the murder weapon. We couldn’t find it. However, our theory was that it had accidently been left on the beach, and that Linus had picked it up while down there. And now, according to Zetterberg, that’s what Ivar must have done. And the timings work. I can’t argue with that. But there was someone in that household twenty-one years ago who was incredibly organized. Someone who wanted to keep the cottage looking nice. It may have been for mercenary reasons – she clearly wanted to keep on the right side of Ivar’s parents. Larissa herself said that she was in the kitchen, and Carina, in her last interview, admitted she heard someone, and it could only have been Larissa. So, if Larissa was in the kitchen cleaning up after the barbecue, she’d notice that the skewer was missing. She doesn’t seem the type of person who’d just let it go. What if she left the kitchen and went down to the beach to find it? What if she recognized what had been burnt and wondered if Göran had destroyed the Björnstahl letter?’
‘That implies that she knew Göran knew about the letter.’
Anita could only shrug. They didn’t continue with their discussion until their dishes of steaming hot food arrived. Erlandsson picked up a pair of chopsticks. Anita opted for the safety of a spoon and fork.
‘There’s another thing that I can’t explain,’ ventured Erlandsson after her first mouthful of noodles. ‘I was asked to check the mobile phone records of the suspects. They all seemed to fit with who is in touch with whom these days. Except one. Just after Anders Szabo and I talked to Larissa the first time, she made a call to Ivar.’
‘To warn him presumably,’ replied Anita with a half-eaten sweet and sour pork ball still in her mouth.
‘But they claimed not to be in touch. And other than that call, there’s no evidence to suggest that they were in any sort of regular contact. She only came out with the story about the false alibis when I goaded her with the derogatory things that Ivar had said about her.’
Anita suddenly pointed a fork, brandishing another pierced pork ball, at Erlandsson. ‘There’s something else in your notes that got me thinking. When Ivar confessed that it hadn’t been his father that had sought ways of halting the investigation, but he himself, it made me think back to my little chat with Renmarker. He got the impression that someone was pushing Ivar to stall the case. Like Renmarker, I assumed it was Old Man Hagblom, who had a fearsome reputation for being utterly rut
hless. But, what if that person was Larissa? Could she have been the one to suggest the alibi and not Ivar?’
‘So, the phone call?’
‘It was to warn him. But also to make sure he towed the party line.’
‘Makes sense. What doesn’t though is why kill Göran?’
That halted the conversation, and both women reflectively returned to their meals.
‘OK,’ said Anita, putting down her fork. ‘This is pure conjecture. If Larissa was on the beach and realized that the Björnstahl letter had been burnt, the first thing you’d expect her to do was tell Ivar, wouldn’t you?’
‘Yeah,’ Erlandsson acceded.
‘She didn’t. Why? Because she already knew that Göran knew about the letter.’
‘Because she was the one who’d told him and was feeling guilty!’ Erlandsson said with mounting excitement.
‘Exactly. She saw him go into the chapel from the beach and, in her fury, rushed up to confront him. You can imagine the rest. Then she hides the skewer, and then cleverly starts to manipulate Ivar. The alibi. Prosecutor Renmarker. Ivar thinks he’s helping Linus when in fact he’s shielding Larissa. The trouble is that it all goes horribly wrong for her personally. She may have seen Ivar as her ticket to a glittering future, but she seems to have genuinely loved him. Obsessively so. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have followed him up to Uppsala years after he cynically discarded her.’ Anita paused. ‘Just think about it: she must have gone mad over the years thinking that she’d killed Göran because she loved Ivar and not being able to tell him as she would have had to admit that she was a murderer. Almost worse, she would have had to admit that it was her fault that the letter disappeared and was burnt. She sacrificed everything for him and got nothing in return.’
Erlandsson‘s eyes were gleaming. ‘It all fits.’ Then her lips twitched. ‘Except for one thing.’
‘Why did she tell Göran about Björnstahl? I don’t know. I suggest you ask her very soon before Alice Zetterberg hangs Ivar Hagblom out to dry.’
Menace In Malmö Page 31