‘Olivia Rönning?’ said Gardman.
Olivia was caught off balance, but nodded. Gardman went up to her.
‘Ove Gardman,’ he said.
‘Hello.’
Gardman sat down next to her.
‘How young you are,’ he said.
‘Oh really? How do you mean?’
‘Well, you know, when you hear a voice on the phone you get an idea of what the person looks like and… I thought you were older.’
‘I’m twenty-three. Have you got the hairslide with you?’
‘Yes.’
Gardman pulled out a little transparent plastic bag with a hairslide in it. Olivia examined the slide and Gardman told her where he’d found it.
How.
And above all when.
‘Just before you heard the voices?’
‘Yes. It was in the seaweed next to some new footprints in the sand and I followed those footprints with my eye and then I saw them, the people there, and heard them, and that was when I hid.’
‘Gosh, what a memory!’
‘Well it was an extremely special event, I don’t think I’d have remembered in such detail if I hadn’t found the hairslide.’
‘Can I keep it for a while?’
Olivia lifted the plastic bag and looked at Gardman.
‘Sure, absolutely. By the way, Axel, Nordeman that is, asked me to give you his regards. He ferried me across to Strömstad this morning.’
‘Thanks.’
Gardman glanced at his watch.
‘Oh hell, I must push off.’
Already? Olivia thought. Gardman got up and looked at her.
‘The lecture starts in half an hour. It was great to meet you! Be sure to get in touch if this has been of any help.’
‘Of course, I’ll do that.’
Gardman nodded and walked away. Olivia followed him with her gaze. Why didn’t I suggest that we could go for a beer before he travelled home? she thought.
Lenni would have asked him.
* * *
The young police inspector Janne Klinga had – with some difficulty – discovered where Stilton hung out. In a caravan in the Ingenting forest. Not the exact location. So he had walked around for a while among the dog owners and early-morning sun worshippers before he caught sight of it. Now he knocked on the door. Stilton glanced out through the window, disappeared, and opened the door. Klinga nodded to him.
‘Am I disturbing you?’
‘What do you want?’
‘I think there’s something in what you told us yesterday. About Kid Fighters.’
‘Does Rune Forss think so too?’
‘No.’
‘Come in.’
Klinga went inside and looked around.
‘Did you live here before too?’ he said.
‘When?’
‘When Vera Larsson lived here?’
‘No.’
Stilton wasn’t going to open up. He was on his guard. Perhaps this was just a way for Forss to cause trouble, he couldn’t know. He knew nothing about Janne Klinga.
‘Does Forss know that you’re here?’
‘No… can’t we keep this between us?’
Stilton looked at the young policeman. Perhaps he was a decent guy who just happened to have ended up with a bad boss? He waved towards one of the bunks. Klinga sat down.
‘Why have you come here?’
‘Because I think you’re on the right track. We’ve downloaded those Trashkick films and I looked through them last night and saw that tattoo on one of the guys doing the assault. KF with a ring round it. Just like you said.’
Stilton remained silent.
‘Then I looked up cage fighting and found quite a few things, mainly in England, young boys fighting in cages, but it seemed to be often with the parents present.’
‘There was no sign of parents when I saw it.’
‘Out in Årsta?’
‘Yes.’
‘I was there this morning, in that rock shelter, it was completely empty.’
‘They got scared when I turned up, and they moved all the stuff.’
‘Presumably. There were quite a lot of traces of activity there, bits of tape, screws, a smashed red light bulb and lots of junkie shit. But we can’t link that to cage fighting specifically.’
‘No.’
‘But I’ve got some people watching the place.’
‘Behind Forss’ back?’
‘I said that it was where you were beaten up and that it was perhaps worth keeping an eye open out there.’
‘And he bought that?’
‘Yes. I think he’d been talking to someone from the National Crime Squad, and I suppose he wanted to show them he’s doing something.’
Stilton grasped immediately who had spoken to Forss. She doesn’t waste any time, he thought.
‘And I’ve been in touch with our youth group. They didn’t know anything about it but they’d bear it in mind.’
‘Good.’
By now, Stilton was no longer so cautious. He believed Janne Klinga. Enough at any rate to pull out a map of Stockholm and unfold it between them.
‘You see the crosses?’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘Those are the places where the assaults occurred, and the murder. I’ve tried to see if there’s a geographic connection.’
‘And is there?’
‘Not for the actual assaults, but three of the people who were beaten up, including Vera Larsson, were at the Söderhallarna selling magazines before they were assaulted. That’s the cross here.’
‘He didn’t mention that Vera hadn’t actually stood there that evening, it was he who had stood there, but she came along and they walked off together.’
‘So what’s your theory?’ Klinga asked.
‘It isn’t a theory, it’s a hypothesis. The guys who beat up people perhaps pick their victims at Söderhallarna and then follow after them.’
‘The other two who were beaten up, what about them? We’ve had five in all, didn’t they stand there?’
‘I haven’t got hold of one of those, the other hadn’t been standing there. He stood at the Ring on Götgatan.’
‘That’s not very far from Medborgarplatsen.’
‘No. Besides, he went past Söderhallarna before he went to the Ring.’
‘So we ought to keep a bit of a watch on Söderhallarna?’
‘Perhaps, it’s not my decision.’
No, Klinga thought. It’s up to me or Forss. He found himself wishing that Forss had been a bit more like Stilton.
Decisive.
Klinga got up.
‘If you find out anything else, then could you contact me directly? I’m going to do this a bit on the quiet.’
And it was quite clear who he didn’t want to hear about it.
‘Here’s my card if you want to get hold of me,’ said Klinga.
Stilton took the card.
‘And like I said, this is just between…’
‘Sure.’
Klinga nodded and went towards the door. Halfway out, he looked back.
‘There was one more thing. On another of those films, the one taken here at the caravan, when Vera Larsson was beaten up, just before that they filmed through a window… it must have been that one, and then you see a naked man having sex with her on this bunk.’
‘Yes?’
‘Do you have any idea who it was?’
‘It was me.’
Klinga gave a bit of a start. Stilton looked him right in the eye.
‘But that’s just between us.’
Klinga nodded and stepped out and very nearly walked straight into a decidedly excited Olivia Rönning. She cast a glance at Klinga, stepped in and pulled the door shut behind her.
‘Who was that out there?’
‘Somebody from the council.’
‘Oh right. Well, do you know what I’ve got here?’
Olivia held up Gardman’s little plastic bag with the hairslide.
‘A hairslide,’ said Stilton.
‘From the Hasslevikarna coves! Found the same evening that the murder happened, by Ove Gardman, next to the footprints of either the victim or one of the perpetrators!’
Stilton looked at the bag.
‘And why didn’t he give it to us? Back then? In 1987?’
‘I don’t know. He was nine years old and had no idea it might be of any value. For him it was simply a beach find.’
Stilton reached out for the bag.
‘There’s a hair in the slide,’ said Olivia. ‘Black.’
Now Stilton knew exactly where the Scud missile Rönning was heading.
‘DNA?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’ said Stilton.
‘Well if it’s the victim’s hair then it’s of no interest, but if it isn’t?’
‘Then perhaps it could be from one of the perpetrators?’
‘Yes.’
‘Someone with a hairslide?’
‘One of them could have been a woman.’
‘There is no information about there having been another woman there.’
‘Says who? Says a terrified nine year old who was hiding quite a long way away, it was night, he saw some dark figures and heard a woman scream, he thought that there were three or four people there, he didn’t have a chance to see if there was more than one woman there. Did he?’
‘You’re back to Jackie Berglund again, are you?’
‘I didn’t say that.’
But she thought it. And felt it. As soon as Stilton mentioned the name it churned up a pulsating fury inside her head. She suddenly had some very personal reasons to go after Jackie Berglund.
A lift and a cat.
Above all a cat.
But that had nothing to do with Stilton.
He gave Olivia a sideways look. He knew that there was a lot of sense in Olivia’s reasoning.
‘You’ll have to talk to the cold-case guys.’
‘They’re not interested.’
‘Why not?’
‘The case is not “accessible” according to Verner Brost.’
They both looked at each other. Stilton turned his gaze away.
‘But your ex-wife works at the SKL lab…?’ said the missile.
‘And how the hell do you know that?’
‘Because I’m Arne’s daughter.’
Stilton smiled a little. Slightly sadly, Olivia thought. Had Dad and him been close friends?
She’d ask him about that when the occasion arose.
* * *
The room was a typical interrogation room, designed with one aim in mind. On one side of the table sat Mette Olsäter with a couple of sheets of A4 paper in front of her. On the other side the managing director of MWM, Bertil Magnuson. Today with a dark-grey suit, wine-red tie and a lawyer. A woman who had been summoned at short notice to the police headquarters by Magnuson to be present at the interrogation. He had no idea what it was about, but he was a man who took precautions.
‘The interrogation will be taped,’ said Mette.
Magnuson glanced at his lawyer. She gave a little nod. Mette pressed the ‘Record’ button and started by describing the time and place and who was there.
Then the interrogation got under way.
‘When we met the day before yesterday you denied having had any contact with the murdered Nils Wendt recently. Your last contact was approximately twenty-seven years ago, is that correct?’
‘Yes.’
Magnuson had been fetched in a police car from Sveavägen and driven the short distance to the police headquarters at Polhemsgatan. He was remarkably calm. Mette registered a very distinct male perfume and a slight whiff of cigarillo. She put on a pair of reading spectacles and studied the piece of paper in front of her.
‘On Monday, 13th June, at 11.23 in the morning, Nils Wendt phoned from his mobile to a mobile with this number.’
Mette held up a piece of paper for Magnuson to look at.
‘Is it correct that this is your mobile number?’
‘Yes.’
‘The conversation lasted eleven seconds. The same evening, at 19.32, another call came from Wendt’s mobile to the same number. That conversation lasted nineteen seconds. The following evening, on Tuesday the 14th, came the next conversation and that lasted about the same time, twenty seconds. Four days later, on Saturday, 15th June, at 15.45, came yet another call to the same mobile, from Nils Wendt. That conversation was a bit longer, it lasted just over one minute.’
Mette took her reading spectacles off and looked at the man in front of her.
‘What were those conversations about?’
‘They weren’t conversations. I received calls on those occasions you have named, I answered, got no reply, there was silence at the other end and then the call was cut off. I assumed it was an anonymous caller who was trying to convey some sort of threat to me, or frighten me, there has been some ill-feeling against our company of late, perhaps you know about that?’
‘Yes. The last call was longer?’
‘Yes, that… well, to be honest I got angry, it was the fourth time somebody phoned and didn’t say anything so I myself said some well-chosen words about what I thought of that type of cowardly way of trying to intimidate, and then I hung up.’
‘So you had no idea that it was Nils Wendt who phoned?’
‘No. How could I? The man has been missing for twenty-seven years.’
‘Do you know where he has been?’
‘No idea. Do you?’
‘He was living in Mal Pais in Costa Rica. You have never had any contact with him there?’
‘No. I thought he was dead.’
Magnuson prayed to the gods that his facial expression didn’t reveal what was going on in his brain. Mal Pais? Costa Rica? That must be the ‘unknown place’ with the original tape recording!
‘I would appreciate it if you don’t leave Stockholm in the coming days.’
‘Am I subject to travel restrictions?’ Magnuson wondered.
‘No, you definitely are not,’ said his lawyer suddenly.
Magnuson couldn’t help but smile. That smile vanished quickly when he saw Mette’s gaze. If he had been able to read her thoughts, it would probably have vanished even quicker.
Mette was convinced that he was lying.
* * *
There was a time, not so very long ago, when the district around Nytorget square was full of all manner of small shops with all manner of weird goods for sale. And often with proprietors who were just as weird. But like a shadow of the ethnological demise most of them were swept away when new residents with different requirements took over the district and transformed it into a catwalk for hipsters. Now only a handful of the original shops were still holding out. Just. And they were mainly regarded as curios and picturesque elements in the street scene. One of them was a little shop selling old books, and run by Ronny Redlös. It was just opposite the building on Katarina Bangata where Nacka Skoglund used to live. It was there when Nacka was born, during his lifetime and when he died, and it was still there today.
Ronny had taken over the place from his mother.
The shop itself looked the same as most other antiquarian booksellers that have survived. Chock-full of books. With shelves from floor to ceiling, and piles of books on tables and stands. ‘A glorious mess of treasures’ as it said on the little sign in the window. Ronny himself had a well-used armchair beside one wall, with a standard lamp from the First World War leaning over it. Now he was sitting there with a book on his lap. Klas the Cat in the Wild West, about a popular albeit somewhat eccentric Swedish cartoon character.
‘Beckett in cartoon format!’ said Ronny.
He closed the book and looked at the man who was sitting on a simple stool across the room. The man was homeless and was called Tom Stilton. Ronny often had visits from homeless people. He had a big heart and a degree of solvency which enabled him to buy the books that had been found in skips or dustbin rooms, or w
herever else they’d been found. Ronny never asked. He paid a bit for each book and helped a homeless person. Quite often, he then threw the books into a skip somewhere or other, and then a week or two later he would be looking at the same books again.
It went on like that.
‘I need to borrow an overcoat,’ said Stilton.
He had known Ronny for many years. Not only in his capacity as a homeless person. The first time they met, Stilton had been on duty with the Arlanda Airport Police and had been obliged to take into custody a couple of Ronny’s fellow travellers on a flight from Iceland. Ronny had arranged a little group trip to the Penis Museum in Reykjavik and two of his mates had drunk a little bit too much of the hard stuff on their way home.
But not Ronny.
He didn’t drink alcohol, at least not more than once a year. On that occasion he drank till he dropped. That was the day his girlfriend disappeared under the ice in Hammarby docks and drowned. That day, the anniversary of her death, Ronny went down to the quay where she had jumped out onto the ice and drank until he was completely incapacitated. A ritual that his mates were very familiar with, and were careful not to disturb. They kept their distance until Ronny was completely drunk. Then they transported him home to the bookshop and tipped him into his bed in the inner room.
‘You need an overcoat?’ said Ronny.
‘Yes.’
‘Funeral?’
‘No.’
‘I’ve only got a black one.’
‘That’ll do fine.’
‘You’ve shaved.’
‘Yes.’
Stilton had shaved, and even cut some of his hair. Not too neatly, but enough so that it wouldn’t hang down on all sides. Now he needed an overcoat, so that he would look reasonably respectable. And a bit of money.
‘How much do you need?’
‘Enough for a train ticket. To Linköping.’
‘What are you going to do there?’
‘Help a young girl with something.’
‘How young a girl?’
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