Spring Tide

by Börjlind, Cilla

  ‘Excellent, Bosse.’

  Mette turned round.

  ‘Have we heard any more about his mobile?’

  ‘No, but we have had a report from the pathologist. The blood on the granite rocks near the murder scene did come from Nils Wendt. There were fragments of skin too. The blood on the ground near the tyre tracks came from him too.’

  ‘So the damage to his skull can thus be linked to the granite rocks?’

  ‘It seems so.’

  ‘But did that kill him? Or did he drown?’

  Lisa looked down at the pathologist’s report.

  ‘He was alive when the car rolled into the water. Presumably unconscious. He died from drowning.’

  ‘OK, so we know that.’

  Mette got up.

  ‘Well done, everybody… now we must focus on determining his movements from when he checked in at the hotel to the time the body was discovered. He must have been seen on more occasions than when he checked in, he must have eaten at a restaurant somewhere, perhaps used the same bank card as when he rented the car, he might have used the hotel’s phone…’

  ‘No he didn’t, I’ve checked that,’ said Lisa.

  ‘Good.’

  Mette walked towards the door. Everyone in the room started moving.

  * * *

  Just a few buildings away in the same block, sat Rune Forss in a similar room with Janne Klinga. The MHP investigation had been upgraded to a murder enquiry on account of Vera Larsson. The team had been reinforced with a couple of officers and some extra resources had been put at Forss’ disposal.

  He had sent some of his team out into the city and talked with some of the homeless people who had been beaten up before Vera Larsson was murdered. One of them was still in hospital, a big northerner who couldn’t remember anything of what happened. They couldn’t do much more at present.

  In Forss’ opinion.

  He sat and browsed through Strike, a bowling magazine; Klinga was going through the technical report from the caravan.

  ‘We’ll see if that film leads to anything,’ said Klinga.

  ‘When they’re shagging in the caravan?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The man who had engaged in sexual intercourse with Vera Larsson was still unidentified. Suddenly there was a knock on the door.

  ‘Come in!’

  Stilton stepped in with a bandage round his head. Forss lowered his magazine and looked at him. Stilton kept his eyes on Klinga.

  ‘Hello, I’m Tom Stilton.’

  ‘Hello.’

  Janne Klinga stepped forward and held out his hand.

  ‘Janne Klinga,’ he said as they shook hands.

  ‘So you’re homeless nowadays?’ said Forss.

  Stilton didn’t react. He had prepared himself fairly well, mentally. He knew it would be like this. It didn’t bother him. He looked at Janne Klinga.

  ‘Are you in charge of the investigation into Vera Larsson’s murder?’

  ‘No, it’s…’

  ‘Do you know who beat you up?’ Forss asked.

  He looked at Stilton, who still kept his gaze fastened on Janne Klinga.

  ‘I believe Vera Larsson was murdered by a couple of Kid Fighters,’ said Stilton.

  There was silence in the room for a few moments.

  ‘Kid Fighters,’ said Klinga.

  Stilton told them what he knew. About cage fighting, exactly where it took place, who took part in it and who he thought arranged it.

  And which symbols some of them had tattooed on their arms.

  ‘Two letters with a ring round them, KF, you can catch a glimpse on one of the films on Trashkick. Have you seen that too?’ he asked.

  ‘No.’

  Klinga glanced at Forss.

  ‘KF stands for Kid Fighters,’ said Stilton.

  He started to walk towards the door.

  ‘How did you find out all this?’ said Klinga.

  ‘The tip came from a young boy in Flemingsberg, Acke Andersson.’

  He left the room without even once having looked at Rune Forss.

  A few moments later, Forss and Klinga were on their way to the staff canteen. Forss was extremely sceptical about Stilton’s information.

  ‘Cage fighting? Kids fighting in cages? Here? In Sweden? We’d have bloody well heard about it. It sounds totally daft.’

  Klinga didn’t answer. Forss implied that Stilton might have been a victim of his own psychoses again and hallucinated a completely implausible story.

  ‘Or what do you think? “Kid Fighters”? Could there be anything in it?’

  ‘Don’t know,’ said Klinga.

  He wasn’t as convinced as to the implausibility of Stilton’s information. He decided to look through the downloaded Trashkick films to see if he could find that tattoo.

  Later, on his own.

  * * *

  Ovette Andersson was walking on her own along Karlavägen. Black stiletto heels, a tight black skirt and short leather jacket. She had just finished with a customer in a private garage on Banérgatan and been dropped off where she had been picked up. This wasn’t her usual patch. But there had been rumours of plain-clothes police on Mäster Samuelsgatan so she had changed venues.

  She re-applied her lipstick and turned down Sibyllegatan, on her way to the underground station. Suddenly she caught sight of a familiar face in a shop on the other side of the street.

  In Weird & Wow.

  Ovette came to a halt.

  So that was what it looked like, her shop. Her posh façade outwards. A huge step from sucking someone off with coke running out of her nose, she thought. It was the first time she had passed Jackie Berglund’s boutique. This wasn’t an area she hung around in, not nowadays at any rate. There had been a time when Ovette actually was pretty much at home in Östermalm, even though it might be hard to believe now.

  It was before Acke.

  Weird & Wow, she thought. A clever name. But then of course she had always been smart. Jackie, smart and calculating. Ovette crossed the street and stopped in front of the shop window. She could see the charming woman inside again. That very same moment, Jackie turned round and looked Ovette right in the eye. Ovette returned the look without flinching. Once upon a time they had been workmates, escort girls in the same stable, Gold Card. Her and Jackie and Miriam Wixell, at the end of the Eighties. Miriam had stopped when there was talk of sexual services. Ovette and Jackie had kept on.

  The money was good.

  Jackie was the smart one of the three. The one who always took the chance to get to know the clientele they served. Ovette just hung along and snorted coke with her customers now and then. Without any ulterior motives. When Gold Card closed down, Jackie took over the business from Carl Videung and renamed it Red Velvet. An exclusive escort firm for a small closed world. Ovette followed along with Jackie to the new firm, worked a few years for her and then she got preggers.

  With a customer.

  That was not good.

  Jackie demanded that she should have an abortion. Ovette refused. It was the first time she was pregnant and would probably be the last. She wanted the baby. It ended with Jackie throwing her out onto the street, literally. And there she had to support herself as best she could with a newborn baby.

  Acke.

  The son of a customer, only Ovette and Jackie knew who it was. Not even the customer knew.

  Now they were standing there glaring at each other, straight through a shop window on Sibyllegatan. The street whore and the luxury prostitute. Finally, Jackie looked away.

  Did she look a little bit afraid? Ovette wondered. She stayed where she was a few moments and saw Jackie was tidying things inside the shop, well aware of Ovette’s presence outside.

  She’s afraid of me, Ovette thought. Because I know, and could make use of that knowledge. But I’d never do that because I’m not like you, Jackie Berglund. That’s a difference between us. A difference that means that I’m on the street and you’re there inside. But it’s worth it. O
vette held her head rather high when she continued along towards the underground station.

  Jackie tidied things in her boutique, a little maniacally. She was angry and upset. What was she doing here? Ovette Andersson? How the hell did she dare? Finally she turned back towards the window. Ovette had gone. Jackie thought about her. Ovette, the lively one, with the joyful eyes, in those days. She who had the idea of dying her hair blue and made Carl furious. She wasn’t that smart, Ovette, or strategic. Which was a good thing, Jackie thought. Ovette knew too much about some customers. But she had kept her mouth shut.

  All those years.

  She must be afraid of me. She knows who I am and what happens if somebody threatens me. It must have been a coincidence that she walked past here.

  Jackie continued to tidy in her boutique, and managed to suppress the unpleasant sight through the window. After a while she could just shrug her shoulders. A little scrubber from Kärrtorp landed with a son. What a comedown. When she could have had an abortion and worked her way up to a totally different level. Some people make daft decisions in life, she thought, while at the same time opening the door for one of her regular customers.

  Linn Magnuson.

  * * *

  Rune Forss had just finished his second cup of coffee in the staff canteen when he caught sight of Mette Olsäter. She was coming towards his table. Janne Klinga had already left.

  ‘Has Tom Stilton been in touch?’ Mette asked when she came up to him.

  ‘What do you mean in touch?

  ‘Has he talked to you today?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘About cage fighting and Kid Fighters?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Fine. Goodbye!’

  Mette started to walk away.

  ‘Olsäter!’

  Mette turned round.

  ‘Has he told you about that too?’ said Forss.

  ‘Yes. Yesterday.’

  ‘Do you believe that stuff?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t I believe it?’

  ‘Because he… You saw the condition he was in?’

  ‘What has that got to do with the information?’

  Mette and Forss looked at each other for a couple of seconds. Neither liked the other. When Forss lifted up his cup, Mette went off. Forss followed her with his gaze.

  Was the National Crime Squad going to start interfering with his investigation?

  * * *

  Olivia half lay on her bed with the white laptop balanced on her outstretched legs and a tub of Ben & Jerry ice cream in her hand. She could knock back a whole tub at a single sitting and then skip dinner.

  Not exactly low GI, but oh it tasted good!

  She had spent a couple of hours on the Internet. Acquainting herself with Nils Wendt’s earlier life. In those days he was an active company director and partner of Bertil Magnuson. She didn’t think that this was breaking her promise of dropping the beach case. There was, after all, no connection between that and Wendt’s murder. So for the time being she called it research. About Magnuson Wendt Mining, first and foremost, the company that later became Magnuson World Mining, and which already back then, before Wendt disappeared, had been severely criticized from various directions. Not least for their contacts with dictatorships.

  Roughly what Mårten Olsäter had been on about when he had his little outburst at the dining table.

  Her thoughts slipped over to the big old mansion out on Värmdö. She thought about the previous evening. It was an experience that rather shook her up. She recapitulated some of the conversation at the dining table in her head. And what had happened down in the cellar, or rather music room, with Mårten. She tried to grasp the hidden undertones that existed between Stilton and the Olsäters. It was difficult. If she got a chance, she would ask Mette or Mårten what sort of relationship they had. Stilton and the Olsäters. Ask them what they knew about what had happened to Stilton.

  She was convinced that they knew more than her.

  Suddenly she had found her way to a photo of a young Nils Wendt on the screen. Next to an equally young Bertil Magnuson. The photo was from an article from 1984. It described how the two men had just signed an agreement with President Mobutu in what was then called Zaire. The agreement would earn millions for MWM. They both smiled straight into the camera. At their feet lay a dead lion.

  Magnuson was proudly holding a rifle in his hand.

  Repulsive, Olivia thought. That very moment, her mobile rang. She checked the display, it wasn’t a number she recognised.

  ‘Olivia Rönning.’

  ‘Hello, this is Ove Gardman, I’ve just checked my Swedish mobile and you have left a couple of messages, you wanted to get in touch with me?’

  ‘Yes, absolutely!’

  Olivia pushed her laptop to one side with fingers sticky from the ice cream, and sat up properly. Ove Gardman. The boy witness from Nordkoster!

  ‘What’s it about?’ Gardman asked.

  ‘Yes, well, it’s about an old murder investigation that I’m studying, about what happened at the Hasslevikarna coves, 1987, that you witnessed, if I’ve correctly understood?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. But how weird.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘No, I was talking about that only a week ago, or so, with a man in Mal Pais.’

  ‘Where is that?’

  ‘In Costa Rica.’

  ‘And you were talking about the murder on the beach?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Who were you talking to?’

  ‘He was called Dan Nilsson.’

  Olivia kicked away the last vestiges of her promise about the beach case and tried to keep her voice as stable as possible.

  ‘Are you in Sweden now?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When did you come home?’ she said.

  ‘Last night.’

  ‘So you haven’t heard about the murder of Nils Wendt?’

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘Dan Nilsson. He used that name, but he was called Nils Wendt.’

  ‘And he’s been murdered?’

  ‘Yes. Yesterday. Here in Stockholm.’

  ‘Oh gosh.’

  Olivia let Gardman digest that. She had more to ask, but it was Gardman himself who went on.

  ‘Ugh, he did seem so… really unpleasant, I was at his place there and…’

  At this point Gardman became silent and Olivia sneaked in.

  ‘How did you meet?’

  ‘Well, I’m a marine biologist and was in San José to help with a large water reservation that they’re planning, out on the Nicoya peninsula, and then I travelled across to the ocean side for a couple of days to see the place and that was when I met him, he was a guide in a rainforest reservation just outside Mal Pais.’

  ‘Did he live there, in Mal Pais?’

  ‘Yep… we had some contact in the reservation there, I don’t suppose he got many Swedish visitors and so he invited me to his home for dinner.’

  ‘And that was when you started talking about the murder on Nordkoster?’

  ‘Yes, we drank quite a lot of wine and then somehow we realised that we both had a connection with the island, he used to have a summer house here many years ago, and then I told him about that evening when I saw… er, that thing, up at Hasslevikarna.’

  ‘And how did he react?’

  ‘Well, he… it was a bit strange, because he became extremely interested, and wanted to hear lots of details, but I was only nine years old then and of course it’s more than twenty years ago, so I didn’t remember so very much.’

  ‘But he was extremely curious?’

  ‘In some way, yes. Then he left Mal Pais. I came back the next evening to fetch something, I’d forgotten my cap there, and he’d gone, a couple of young lads were running around playing with the cap, but they didn’t know where he was, just that he had left, evidently.’

  ‘He went to Nordkoster.’

  ‘Did he?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And now he’s dead?’
>
  ‘Unfortunately. May I ask you, where are you now?’

  ‘At home. On Nordkoster.’

  ‘You’ve no plans to come up to Stockholm?’

  ‘Not just now.’

  ‘OK.’

  Olivia thanked Gardman. In fact for much more than he realised. She hung up and immediately keyed in Stilton’s number.

  Stilton was standing outside the Söderhallarna shopping centre selling Situation Stockholm. It wasn’t going well. Two copies in one hour. Not because there weren’t many people around but because virtually every one of them had a mobile pressed to their ear or a couple of wires hanging from their ears down to a mobile in their hand. We’re probably in the process of mutating, Stilton thought. A new race. Homo digitalis, an online version of Neanderthal man. Then his own mobile rang.

  ‘It’s Olivia! D’you know what I’ve just found out about Nordkoster?’

  ‘You weren’t going to carry on with that? You said that you…’

  ‘Nils Wendt met the boy witness Ove Gardman just over a week ago! In Costa Rica!’

  Stilton fell silent. For quite a while.

  ‘That is rather strange,’ he finally said.

  ‘Yes, isn’t it?’

  An excited Olivia quickly described how Gardman had told Wendt about the beach murder and how Wendt just after that had left and gone home to Sweden. To Nordkoster. After having kept away more than twenty-seven years.

  ‘Why did he do that?’ she said.

  Why did Gardman’s story about the beach murder trigger that reaction from Wendt? After all, he disappeared three years before the murder took place. Did he have some other connection with the woman on the beach? She was probably of Latin American extraction?

  ‘Olivia…’ Stilton attempted.

  ‘Had they met in Costa Rica? Had she been sent to Nordkoster to fetch something that Wendt had hidden in his summer house?’

  ‘Olivia!’

  ‘Was she tortured in the water to confess what she was looking for? By people who had been tipped off that she would turn up and had followed her? Had she…’

  ‘Olivia!’

  ‘Yes?’

  Stilton had tired of Olivia’s conspiracy theories.

  ‘You must talk to Mette again.’