Spring Tide

by Börjlind, Cilla

  ‘The news has been greeted with strong protests in many quarters today. The company has been severely criticized for its methods in connection with coltan mining in the Congo. This is what the managing director, Bertil Magnuson, had to say to his critics…’

  The cake-eating woman turned off the radio. She was familiar with the name Bertil Magnuson in connection with a disappearance in the 1980s.

  She directed her gaze at a portrait on the edge of her desk. Her youngest daughter, Jolene. The girl smiled at her, with a peculiar smile and enigmatic eyes. She had Down syndrome and was nineteen years old. My darling Jolene, the woman thought, what does life have in store for you? She was reaching out for the last piece of cake when there was a knock on the door. She quickly pushed the cake behind a couple of box files on the desk, and then turned towards the door.

  ‘Come in!’

  The door was opened and a young woman peered in. When she looked at you her left eye was not completely parallel with her right eye – she had a bit of a squint. Her hair was set up in an untidy black bun.

  ‘Mette Olsäter?’ the untidy bun asked.

  ‘What is it about?’

  ‘Can I come in?’

  ‘What is it about?’

  The untidy bun seemed uncertain as to whether that meant that she should come in, or not. She stopped in the door frame, the door half-open.

  ‘My name is Olivia Rönning and I’m a student at the Police College. I’m looking for Tom Stilton.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’m doing a project on a case that he was in charge of and need to ask him about a few things.’

  ‘What case is that?’

  ‘A murder on Nordkoster in 1987.’

  ‘Come in.’

  Olivia stepped in and closed the door. There was a chair in front of Olsäter’s desk but Olivia didn’t dare sit on it. Not without an invitation. The woman behind the desk was not only obviously large, she had a very commanding presence.

  Detective superintendent.

  ‘What does the project entail?’

  ‘We’re looking at old murder investigations and examining what could have been done differently today, with modern methods.’

  ‘A cold-case exercise?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  The room fell silent. Mette looked at her piece of cake out of the corner of her eye. She knew it could be seen if she asked the young lady to sit on the chair, so she kept her on her feet.

  ‘Stilton’s left,’ she said bluntly.

  ‘Oh, right. When did he leave?’

  ‘Is that relevant?’

  ‘No, I… but perhaps he could answer my questions. Even if he’s left. Why did he leave?’

  ‘Personal reasons.’

  ‘What’s he doing now?’

  ‘No idea.’

  Like an echo from Åke Gustafsson, Olivia thought.

  ‘Do you know where I can get hold of him?’

  ‘No.’

  Mette Olsäter looked at Olivia without moving her eyes. The message was clear. The conversation was over as far as she was concerned.

  ‘Well, thanks anyway.’

  She found herself making an almost unnoticeable bowing gesture before going to the door. Halfway out, she turned round and faced Mette.

  ‘You’ve got a bit of something, some cream or something, on your chin.’

  And then she pulled the door shut behind her, fast.

  Mette – just as fast – wiped her chin with her hand and removed the little blob of cream.

  So annoying.

  But a bit amusing too, Mårten would have a good laugh at that this evening, her husband. He loved embarrassing situations.

  But she was less pleased about Rönning’s hunt for Tom. She probably wouldn’t find him, but even just mentioning his name had stirred things up inside Mette’s head.

  She didn’t like people stirring things up there.

  Mette was of an analytical bent. A brilliant investigator with an overactive intellect and an impressive capacity for doing lots of things at the same time. That wasn’t boasting, it was what had got her where she was today. One of the most experienced murder investigators in the country. A woman who kept a cool head when softer colleagues got caught up in irrelevant emotions.

  Mette never did that.

  But there was a place in her head where you could stir things up. On rare occasions. Those occasions almost always had some link to Tom Stilton.

  Olivia left Mette’s office with a feeling of… yes, what? She didn’t really know. As if that woman hadn’t liked her asking about Tom Stilton. But why? He had been in charge of the investigation of the Nordkoster murder for several years, and then they had closed the investigation. And now he had left the police. Big deal. Surely she could get hold of that Stilton on her own. Or let go of the case, if it was going to be so complicated. But she wouldn’t do that. Not yet. Not that easily. There were still several ways to get hold of information now that she was in the police headquarters anyway.

  One was Verner Brost.

  And now she half ran down a dreary office corridor, several metres behind him.

  ‘Excuse me!’

  The man slowed down a little. He was just under sixty and on his way to a slightly delayed lunch. He didn’t seem to be in the best of moods.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Olivia Rönning.’

  Olivia had caught up with him and held out her hand. She had always had a firm handshake. She herself hated shaking something the consistency of a Danish pastry straight out of the oven. Verner Brost was a Danish pastry. He was also the newly appointed head of the cold-case group in Stockholm. An experienced investigator, with a suitable patina of cynicism and a genuine calling, all round a good civil servant.

  ‘I just wanted to find out if you’re doing anything on the beach case.’

  ‘The beach case?’

  ‘The murder on Nordkoster in 1987.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’re familiar with it?’

  Brost had a good look at the pushy young woman.

  ‘I’m familiar with it.’

  Olivia ignored the decidedly guarded tone.

  ‘Why isn’t it on your agenda?’

  ‘It isn’t accessible.’

  ‘… accessible? What do you mean by…’

  ‘Have you eaten lunch, Miss?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Nor have I.’

  Verner Brost turned on his heel and continued on his way to the Plum Tree, the staff canteen in the police building.

  Don’t pull rank, Miss Olivia thought, and felt herself just as patronised as she had cause to feel.

  Not accessible?

  ‘What did you mean by “not accessible”?’

  Olivia had followed Brost, two steps behind him. He had homed in on the canteen like a robot, put some food and a beer on a tray, and then found a seat without losing momentum. Now he was sitting at a small table totally concentrated on eating his food. Olivia had sat down opposite him.

  She soon realised that this man had to get some food into him, quickly. Proteins, calories, sugar. This was obviously a large scale problem.

  She waited a while before saying her piece.

  She didn’t have to wait very long. Brost dealt with the intake at impressive speed and sank back on his chair with a barely concealed burp between his lips.

  ‘What did you mean by “not accessible”?’ she asked again.

  ‘I meant that we have no justification for opening the investigation again,’ said Brost.

  ‘Why is that?’

  ‘How much do you know about this sort of thing?’

  ‘I’m in my third term at police college.’

  ‘You don’t know very much, in other words.’

  But he smiled when he said that. He had seen to his bodily needs. Now he could allow himself a short conversation. Perhaps he could persuade her to treat him to a mint biscuit with his coffee.

  ‘If we are going to take on a case, a basic req
uirement is that we can apply something to it that they haven’t been able to use before.’

  ‘DNA? Geographic analysis? New witness statements?’

  She does know something then, Brost thought.

  ‘Yes, that sort of thing, or some new technical evidence, or if we find something that they missed in the old investigation.’

  ‘But you haven’t in the beach case?’

  ‘No.’

  Brost smiled indulgently. Olivia smiled back.

  ‘Would you like me to get you some coffee?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, that would be nice.’

  ‘Anything to go with it?’

  ‘A mint biscuit would be tasty.’

  Olivia was soon back. She had the next question on her tongue before the coffee was on the table.

  ‘Tom Stilton was in charge of the case, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you know where I can get hold of him?’

  ‘He is no longer with the police, he left many years ago.’

  ‘I know, but is he still in Stockholm?’

  ‘I don’t know. For a while it was rumoured that he was moving abroad.’

  ‘Oh right… gosh… then it’ll be hard to get hold of him.’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘Why did he leave? He wasn’t that old, was he?’

  ‘No.’

  Olivia saw how Brost stirred his coffee with the obvious intention of avoiding her gaze.

  ‘So why did he leave?’

  ‘Personal reasons.’

  I ought to stop here, Olivia thought. Personal reasons were not really any business of hers. It had no connection at all with the college project.

  But Olivia was Olivia.

  ‘What was the mint biscuit like?’ she said.

  ‘Delicious.’

  ‘What were the personal reasons?’

  ‘Don’t you know what “personal” means?’

  The mint biscuit hadn’t been that delicious, she thought.

  Olivia left the police building on Polhemsgatan. She was irritated. She didn’t like it when she came up against a brick wall. She got into her car, pulled out her laptop, opened a search site and typed ‘Tom Stilton’.

  Several articles were listed. They all had some connection with the police, all except one. A report from a fire on an oil platform off the coast of Norway in 1975. A young Swede was feted as a hero after saving the lives of three Norwegian oil workers. The Swede was called Tom Stilton and was twenty-one years old. Olivia downloaded a copy of the article. Then she started looking up Tom Stilton on all the directory sites. He wasn’t on Eniro, the online national address registry. Nor had she found any trace of him on the other sites. No results. Not even on Birthday.se. As a joke she checked the national vehicle registry too. Same there.

  The man did not exist.

  Perhaps he had moved abroad? Like Brost mentioned. These days he could be sitting in Thailand with a cocktail and boasting of his murder investigations to some drunken hotties. Or maybe not. Perhaps he had other inclinations?

  Homosexual?

  No, he wasn’t that.

  At any rate not in the old days. Then he had been married to the same woman for ten years. Marianne Boglund, a forensic generalist, a sort of coordinator. Olivia had finally found Stilton in the tax authorities’ register of marriages.

  He was listed there.

  With an address but no telephone number.

  She made a note of the address.

  * * *

  Almost on the other side of the world, in a little coastal village in Costa Rica, an elderly man was sitting and painting his nails with transparent nail polish. He was on the veranda of a most remarkable house and his name was Bosques Rodriguez. From his vantage point he could get a glimpse of the sea on one side. On the other, the rainforest climbed up the side of a mountain. He had lived here all his life, in the same place, in the same remarkable house. He used to be known as ‘the old bar-owner from Cabuya’. Nowadays he didn’t know what people called him. He rarely went into Santa Teresa, where his old bar was. He thought the place had lost its soul. It was probably because of the surfers, and all the tourists who flocked in and forced up the prices of everything that could be forced up.

  Including the water.

  Bosques smiled a little.

  The foreigners always drank water from plastic bottles that they paid scandalous amounts for and then threw away. Then they put up posters urging everybody to take care of the environment.

  But the big Swede in Mal Pais isn’t like that, Bosques thought.

  Not at all.

  3

  The two boys sat quietly in the sand under a wind-ripped palm, with their backs facing the Pacific Ocean. Some way from them sat a man with a closed laptop on his lap. He sat on a simple bamboo chair in front of a low building with a peeling façade of blues and greens, a sort of restaurant which sold home-caught fish and booze at irregular hours.

  For the moment it was closed.

  The boys knew the man. One of their neighbours in the village. He had always been kind to them, played and dived for shells. Now they understood that they must sit quietly. The man was only wearing a pair of thin shorts, nothing on top. Barefoot. His blond hair was thinning and tears ran down his heavily tanned cheeks.

  ‘The big Swede is crying,’ one of the boys whispered, in a voice that disappeared in the warm wind. The other boy nodded. The man with the laptop was crying. He had now been crying for many hours. At first up in his house in the village, in the last hours of the night, then he had needed some air and gone down to the beach. Now he was sitting here facing the Pacific.

  And still crying.

  Some years earlier, he had ended up here in Mal Pais, on the Nicoya peninsula in Costa Rica. A few houses along a dusty coast road. The sea on one side and the rainforest on the other. Nothing to the south; to the north lay Playa Carmen and Santa Teresa and some other villages. Backpackers flocked to them. Long fantastic surfing beaches, cheap lodgings and even cheaper food.

  And nobody who asked who you were.

  Ideal, he had thought at the time. For hiding. For starting afresh.

  Unknown.

  Going by the name of Dan Nilsson.

  His reserve capital had hardly kept him afloat until he was offered a job as a guide in a nearby nature reserve, Cabo Blanco. That suited him perfectly. With his quad he could be up there in half an hour, and with his fairly decent knowledge of languages he could deal with most of the tourists who found their way to the reserve. There weren’t that many at first, more in the last year, and now enough to keep him busy four days a week. The other three days he mixed with the locals. Never with tourists or surfers. He wasn’t a water person, and wasn’t interested in getting high. He lived a very modest life, in most respects, people hardly noticed him, a man with a past that was going to remain in the past.

  He could have turned up in any one of Graham Greene’s books.

  Now he was sitting on a bamboo chair with his laptop on his knees and crying. With two small boys sitting worried some way away and not having a clue as to why the big Swede was so sad.

  ‘Shall we ask him what’s wrong?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Perhaps he’s lost something that we can find?’

  But he hadn’t.

  He had, however, reached a decision. At last. Through the tears, a decision he had never thought he would need to make. Now he had done it.

  He got up.

  The first thing he got out was his gun, a Sig Sauer. He felt the weight of it in his hand while keeping an eye on the window. He didn’t want the little boys to see it. He knew they had followed him, keeping their distance. They always did. Now they were sitting in the bushes waiting. He lowered the gun and went into his bedroom and closed the shutter. With some effort he pushed the wooden bed to one side and exposed the stone floor. One of the slabs was loose and he lifted it up. There was a leather bag under the slab. He lifted the bag up and put the gun in the em
pty space and lowered the slab again. He noticed that he was acting with precision, efficiently. He knew that he mustn’t end up off course, start thinking, and risk changing his mind. He took the leather bag into the living room, went up to his printer and lifted up an A4 sheet of paper. It was filled with closely spaced text. He put the sheet of paper into the bag.

  There were already a couple of other items in there.

  When he stepped out of his house, the sun had climbed over the trees and now bathed his simple veranda. The hammock swayed lazily in the dry breeze and he realised that he would raise a lot of dust on the road. An awful lot. He looked about him to see if the boys were around. They had gone. Or had hidden. Once he had come across them under a blanket at the back. He thought that a large monitor lizard had sneaked in and he pulled the blanket away with some caution.

  ‘What are you doing there?’

  ‘We’re playing at lizards!’

  He got onto his quad with the bag in one hand and rolled off down the road. He was going to Cabuya, a village some distance away.

  He was going to visit a friend.

  There are houses, and houses, and then there is Bosques’ house. And there is only one of those. It had originally been a fishing shack, knocked together by Bosques’ dad, an eternity ago. Two small rooms. Then the Rodriguez family had grown, indeed grown considerably, and with the arrival of each new baby Daddy Rodriguez had insisted on building a little extension. Eventually the supply of legally acquired timber dried up, and then he had to improvise, as he called it. Built with whatever he could lay his hands on. Sheets of metal and laminates and various sorts of netting, driftwood sometimes, and bits from a wrecked fishing boat. Daddy Rodriguez had reserved the bow for himself. A projection on the south side where he (with some difficulty) could just squeeze in and lose himself in bad liquor of one sort or another and read Castaneda.