‘OK. Here at last is The Oligarch unveiled! What wouldn’t the Swedish media give for that photo!’ Brodd was enjoying his moment in the limelight. Anita frowned; she knew Brodd of old. If that photo found its way into the press, she would descend on him like Vidar, the Norse god of vengeance. ‘He’s worked for Sanningen for nearly a decade and, as you can see, he’s accumulated quite a prestigious gallery of victims, from television personalities and politicians to sportsmen and businessmen. We don’t know exactly when he came over from Finland, or why. What we do know is how successful he was at catching people out; ruining careers, relationships –some people even ending up in prison.’
‘Through entrapment,’ said Erlandsson with some feeling.
‘He would call it subterfuge. Whatever the morality of his methods, he achieved fantastic scoops and brought down all these people here on the board. Some may have deserved it, some not. Depends on your point of view. In theory, every one of them has a motive.’
Brodd handed out a typed list of The Oligarch’s marks.
‘I thought this might be handy as a guide to have with you.’
Anita glanced at the list:
Jimmy Brantling, children’s television presenter
Kurt Alkeborn, footballer and football manager
Britt Rosengren, soap star
Nils-Åke Rydén, businessman
Folke Allinger, politician
Claes Svärdendahl, television presenter
Absame Madar Geesi, boxer
‘Though I’ve put down their professions, if I was being more accurate, all should have “ex” in front of them,’ joked Brodd. ‘The Oligarch saw to that.’
‘Why this seven in particular?’ asked Anita.
‘They’re the most high profile, so they had the most to lose. Of course, there are others, but me and Bea,’ he smiled across at Erlandsson as though she was his new girlfriend, ‘have been able to discount some of the others. These are the ones we need to check out first.’
‘All yours, Pontus.’
Brodd stood up straight and puffed out his chest.
‘Jimmy Brantling is the latest victim. Or last, I suppose. Popular kids’ presenter – wacky Jumping Jimmy – who confessed on hidden camera that he couldn’t stand kids. Litmanen had filled him up with recreational drugs so he’d be in the mood to say anything, whether he meant it or not. Litmanen was posing as a Lithuanian television executive keen on using him on a new show over there with the promise of more work throughout the Baltic States. Claimed he had contacts in Germany as well. Jumping Jimmy jumped at the chance of extra exposure and extra dosh. Two meetings took place in top-end Stockholm hotels. The “confession” happened at the second meeting. He was immediately sacked after the story broke in Sanningen.’
‘And the Lithuanian television executive was called Joris Rimkus?’
‘You’ve got it.’ Brodd took a swig of water before continuing. ‘Kurt Alkeborn was a footballer.’
‘He was a good defender. Played at Malmö FF for a time.’ Erlandsson was staggered that Anita would know anything about football, but didn’t say anything.
‘Yes. His career took him to Holland and then Italy briefly in the nineties. After he finished playing, he came back here to Sweden before going into coaching, and then management. Did very well. A spell in England really raised his profile, and three years ago, he was on the verge of taking over the Swedish national team when The Oligarch struck. Litmanen really did pretend to be an oligarch for this one. A rich Russian who was thinking about buying Hammarby in Stockholm. Claimed he had the money to turn the club into Sweden’s biggest and best. They’ve underachieved for years and have only been Swedish champions once in their history, in 2001. He wanted Alkeborn to advise him and offered him a lucrative deal as a consultant. Alkeborn agreed but asked The Oligarch to keep their financial arrangement hush-hush, as the Swedish Football Association might see this as a conflict of interest. He didn’t want the prospect of becoming Sweden’s national manager to be jeopardized. During two meetings in London, The Oligarch agreed to Alkeborn’s terms. That was bad enough, of course. What made it worse was, over a few celebratory vodkas, a well-oiled Alkeborn, who was known to like the occasional tipple, started to come out with scurrilous stories about other footballers and managers, including some of the Swedish players he would soon be managing. Needless to say, Kurt Alkeborn is out of work at the moment.’
‘And Britt Rosengren?’ Anita knew how popular she’d been. Though she’d never seen her act in her popular soap, she’d caught her a couple of times on chat shows. Besides being very attractive, she’d come across as quite self-deprecating, which had appealed to Anita.
‘Ambition was her downfall. She must have been one of the highest-earning actresses around. The Oligarch pretended to be a Swedish, British-based talent scout for one of the big Hollywood studios. He claimed he was responsible for looking for new actors in northern Europe, mainly Scandinavia. Two meetings again. The first in London, the second in Stockholm. How could she resist the lure of Hollywood? They had indulged in a little bit of cocaine in London, which The Oligarch had supplied. She probably took it to fit in. When the meeting in Stockholm was set up, he asked her if she could get hold of some coke and bring it to his hotel, as he didn’t want to risk bringing any into the country himself. She hadn’t got any herself as she wasn’t a user – that’s certainly what she claimed later – but got a friend in the business to supply her with some, which she gave to The Oligarch. Next thing she knows, she’s splashed across the front page of Sanningen as a drug addict and dealer. She was lucky to escape a prison sentence. No one will touch her now, of course.’
‘That’s awful,’ said Erlandsson.
‘Her own fault.’ It was clear that Brodd had no sympathy for the actress.
‘He certainly seemed to have had an instinct for his victims’ weaknesses, and then known how to exploit them.’ Hakim was shaking his head. Anita wasn’t sure whether it was out of grudging respect or horrified disapproval.
‘OK, our next victim is in prison, or was until a week ago. Nils-Åke Rydén was a businessman from up north in Umeå, who originally made his money in timber. Then he successfully diversified before becoming a bit of a stock market guru. Held seminars for potential investors; that kind of thing. At a cost to the punters, naturally. The Oligarch got him on insider trading by posing as a rich Russian investor. Rydén gave him tips he shouldn’t have known about. This wasn’t a case of entrapment; Rydén had been doing it for some time.’
‘So he was a real criminal, albeit a sophisticated one,’ commented Hakim.
‘Yep. That’s why he ended up inside five years ago. But as I said, he came out last week. He needs to be traced.’
‘Presumably they all do, and their movements accounted for at the time of the murder.’
‘That’s my next task, Boss.’
‘Just stick to Anita, please.’ She felt uncomfortable with the elevation. Besides, she’d always loathed the expression ‘boss’.
‘Right B..., Anita. Next up is a real beauty. And another that ended with a prison sentence. It was one of Sami Litmanen’s early scoops. I don’t know if you remember an ultra-right-wing group called White Justice?’
‘Yes. Nasty bunch, I remember. Anti-everything. Often violently.’ The thuggish, square face and tattooed neck on the board didn’t look like they belonged to a man who would take any prisoners.
‘They’ve since disappeared into the woodwork or, in some cases, blended into the Sweden Democrats in an attempt at respectability.’ Hakim gave an exaggerated ‘humph’. ‘Well, in the noughties, Folke Allinger was an up-and-coming member of White Justice. He had his eye on the leadership, but his way was barred by a guy called Hans Leonardsson. In 2007, Sami Litmanen enters the scene, posing as the leader of a small Finnish neo-Nazi group. Basically, to cut a long story short, Allinger tried to hire his new Finnish friend to bump off Hans Leonardsson. If it was carried out by another group, Allinger could dist
ance himself from the murder. Then they would join forces with Litmanen’s fictitious bunch and form a bigger, trans-Scandinavian group, very like today’s Nordic Resistance Movement. After the story ran, Allinger did a bunk. He was caught trying to hop on a ferry to Germany in Trelleborg. Litmanen’s in-camera testimony ensured Allinger got eight years. Got out a couple of years ago.’
‘He sounds a good candidate,’ said Hakim. ‘He’s the only one so far who’s contemplated murder, though you’d think he might have struck earlier.’
‘Could have taken a couple of years to find Litmanen,’ commented Erlandsson.
‘And he certainly had plenty of time to think about revenge.’
‘That’s what I was thinking,’ Brodd agreed. ‘Well, now we go from the beast to the beauty – Claes Svärdendahl.’ He was a pretty boy with an unblemished face. The smile displayed gleaming white teeth with the trademark gap. Anita was familiar with him as she’d sometimes seen him on his morning show after a late-night shift, horribly bright and breezy when she, clutching her first strong coffee, was still trying to come to terms with the new day. His cheeriness wasn’t infectious, just irksome. But he was loved by a legion of women, even though he was married and lived, by all accounts, an idyllic, wholesome Swedish life. He had a family apartment in Stockholm and a summer house on one of the archipelago islands so favoured by residents of the capital as an escape from the rigours of their daily routines. She recalled, without remembering the exact circumstances, that there had been a fuss when he was whisked off the airwaves. Brodd was about to enlighten her.
‘It turns out that Claes Svärdendahl’s weakness was prostitutes. The clean-living presenter with the beautiful wife and three perfect Nordic kids liked a bit of rough stuff on the side. Not that the beautiful wife knew any of this until The Oligarch informed the world. And when she did find out, there was none of that standing-by-her-man nonsense. She grabbed the three perfect Nordic kids and left.’
‘So how did Litmanen set that one up?’ Anita enquired.
‘Again, a rich Russian. You saw him in that video clip. He told Svärdendahl that he was involved in Russia Today, the international English-language news service. The Oligarch said he and a consortium of Russian businessmen were setting up a new television company to complement Russia Today, which would have more magazine-style shows. As Svärdendahl’s English is virtually perfect, he was going to host the morning programme. Big name guests, big exposure and big money. What wasn’t there to like? The first meeting took place in a Stockholm hotel early last year. Once he’d got Svärdendahl hooked, he invited him to St. Petersburg in September. There was nothing rushed about this trap. Put him up at a fancy hotel, showed him the sights and brought in a couple of prostitutes to keep him company. He likes a bit of sadomasochistic fun – obviously his beautiful wife didn’t spank him at home. So, Claes Svärdendahl was literally caught with his pants down. Not that he went without a fight. When the job and the wife went, he marched round to Sanningen to find The Oligarch and threatened to kill him. Litmanen was nowhere to be seen, of course. The editor had to call the police and have Svärdendahl escorted from the premises. Not an uncommon occurrence at Sanningen.’
‘Is Svärdendahl the only one who actually threatened violence?’ asked Anita.
‘No. Which brings me to our last leading suspect: Absame Madar Geesi. Better known simply as Absame, the Somali name for The Great One. Absame’s parents came from Somalia to Malmö when he was three. Typical immigrant story. Only way out of Rosengård was sport or crime. In Absame’s case, it was both. He was a talented boxer, who was picked up by a local trainer called Bogdan Kovać. Kovać ran a small club to keep kids like Absame off the streets. It worked, and Absame moved onto the straight and narrow after some early scrapes with the law: petty theft, joyriding, usual stuff. Absame began to attract attention and turned professional. Boxing’s not particularly popular over here – except when Ingemar Johansson was world heavyweight champion back in 1959.’
‘I thought boxing was banned here in the seventies,’ interrupted Anita.
‘1970, to be precise. The ban was lifted in 2006, but with time restrictions on bouts. That’s why Kovać had to get Absame fights abroad – in Spain, France, Britain, and in his native Serbia.’
‘Like Badou Jack.’
‘Who’s Badou Jack, Hakim?’
‘He’s the world super middleweight champion. He’s Swedish but fights out of Las Vegas.’
‘I hadn’t got you down as a boxing aficionado.’
‘I’m not really, but I read the newspapers – with the exception of Sanningen.’
‘As I was saying,’ Brodd continued, ‘Absame was building a good reputation and got a shot at the European middleweight title in 2014. He beat a German named Gunther in front of his home crowd in Berlin. Now he had a chance to make some real money and there was talk of a tilt for the world title in a year or so. Bought himself a smart place in Stockholm. When he started flashing the cash and overdoing the bling back here in Sweden – and attracting attention by being on the front pages as well as the back, The Oligarch noticed. Suddenly there was interest from wealthy Kazakh fight promoter, the one and only Erkin Akhmetov.’ Brodd nodded in the direction of Litmanen’s Kazakhstan passport photo. ‘Said he could double Absame’s earnings and get him an early shot at the world title. Though it probably turned Absame’s head, it was Bogdan Kovać who was the boxer’s undoing. I’m not sure how Litmanen did it, but he got Kovać to admit that he had supplied Absame with steroids in the early days and performance enhancing drugs after he’d turned professional. Litmanen got this confession out of Kovać while visiting Absame’s training camp in Austria. Once the front page of Sanningen screamed out that Absame was a drugs cheat, his career was finished. He received a lifetime ban in 2015. He protested his innocence and said that he’d just taken what Kovać had told him to take: he didn’t know they were illegal substances; thought they were harmless medications. Needless to say, he also went looking for The Oligarch, promising to tear him to pieces if he ever got hold of him.’
‘Do we know where he is now?’ This appeared to be the first one with a Malmö connection.
‘Yes, we do. He’s back here. He’s now muscle for Dragan Mitrović.’ Anita had never actually come across Mitrović but knew he was well known to the police. Officially, he ran a couple of nightclubs and some gyms, though his main business was drugs and prostitutes. He’d never been caught; he was too clever for that. Anita suspected that he had someone in the polishus who tipped him off before raids. Nothing was ever found in his clubs. Given the circles Mitrović moved in, someone like an angry ex-professional boxer was useful to have on the payroll. ‘It may not be a coincidence that Bogdan Kovać disappeared off the radar shortly after Absame began working for Mitrović. Anyhow, Absame lives in an apartment in Apelgården.’ Brodd stopped talking then winced sheepishly. ‘That’s it.’
‘Thank you, Pontus. Good work.’ Brodd beamed with pleasure. Anita suspected no one had ever said that to him before. ‘That’s given us a lot to digest.’
‘It strikes me,’ said Hakim, ‘that Litmanen started out as a campaigning journalist and went for legitimate targets before he slipped into stitching up celebrities. Easier and higher profile, I suppose.’
‘Doesn’t make him any more laudable. He spread misery,’ Erlandsson said with feeling.
‘OK, we’re not here to judge,’ said Anita firmly. ‘We’re here to catch a killer, irrespective of how we feel about the murder victim. Firstly, we’re going to have to check out the whereabouts of all these people on the day of the murder. I expect most of them live in Stockholm, so it should be easy enough to discover if one of them took a trip to Malmö around the time of the killing. We also need to discover more about Sami Litmanen. Why was he living here and not in Stockholm, where most of his targets lived and worked? What was he working on at the moment? That might be important given that his computer and phone are missing. I think a trip to see the editor of San
ningen might be a starting point.’ Anita gazed at the eclectic collection of potential suspects. ‘One thing that may discount a number of these people is that they wouldn’t know where he lived. We were surprised that he was in Malmö. I’m sure some of them would be too.’
‘Which puts Absame at the top of the list,’ said Brodd. ‘He lives here. He may have seen Litmanen and followed him. Or he may have got Dragan Mitrović to find him for him.’
‘You could be right, Pontus. I want you and Hakim to have a word with him. Pull him in if he’s being uncooperative.’
‘We might need boxing gloves!’
‘You’ve got a pistol.’
CHAPTER 19
Anita unscrewed the cap from the bottle of wine. Her head was buzzing and she didn’t care what sort of wine it was as long as it was red and it was alcoholic. She sank down on her day bed and stretched out her legs on the coffee table. It was Thursday night and she had an early flight the next morning. She knew she should be giving the apartment a quick dust and tidy as Kevin was due to fly in on Saturday, and she wasn’t coming back from Stockholm until the same day. When she’d invited him back, there hadn’t been a dead investigative journalist to worry about. Now she had her hands full, and the timing couldn’t be worse. She had half thought about putting him off, but knew how disappointed he would be. Besides, he could do the cleaning, have a meal ready for her when she got home and put up with her moaning about work. The perfect, temporary house husband. And he could warm her bed. At times of stress, it helped to have the close proximity of someone you have affection for, and trust.
She idly picked up the television remote. She held it in her hand for a few seconds before putting it down again. She wanted to avoid the chance of seeing herself. Earlier in the day, she had given a brief statement to the media saying that the police were investigating a suspicious death but that the investigation was at an early stage. She wasn’t in a position to give them further details. She could just imagine the fun they were going to have once they eventually discovered how Litmanen was killed. She omitted to say that they were exploring a number of leads, and that some of those leads had come to nothing over the last thirty hours or so. Jumping Jimmy Brantling had been drunk in a Stockholm bar on the night of the murder. That was easy to corroborate as his rowdy expulsion from the establishment had reached the newspapers. Actress Britt Rosengren had been traced to her mother’s home in Västeräs, where she had been living since her sacking from her soap opera and her work had dried up. The night of the murder she was helping out at a community theatre a hundred kilometres west of Stockholm. And Kurt Alkeborn had the best alibi so far. He was in South Africa trying to resurrect his football managerial career in a country where he hadn’t yet slagged off any players or officials. Businessman Nils-Åke Rydén hadn’t been found yet, so Anita had decided, while in Stockholm, to call on Claes Svärdendahl, who had been suspiciously evasive about his movements after Erlandsson had tracked him down and called him. Absame hadn’t been at home when Hakim and Brodd had paid a visit to his apartment in Apelgården. Neighbours said he was around but hadn’t seen him for a couple of days. One positive was that Folke Allinger lived somewhere in Skåne. He would receive a personal visit when they found his latest address.
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