MALICE IN MALMÖ

by Torquil Macleod

  Anita got out of her car and locked it: she wanted to make sure it was still there when she got back. She knew that Absame lived on the fourth floor of the nearest block. She reasoned that he probably felt safe now that his protector, Dragan Mitrović, had pulled him out of the police cells, and wouldn’t feel the need to make himself scarce. She took the lift up to Absame’s floor and stood outside his apartment door. She took a deep breath and found herself running her hand against her regulation police pistol; she had to be ready for any possible violence. She pressed the buzzer. Nothing. This time, she held her finger down continuously. No response. As she headed back towards the lift, a young black boy, about eight years old, wandered past.

  ‘Looking for Absame?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I saw him earlier. Had his bag with him. Gone to the gym,’ he said with a broad grin. ‘He’s cool.’

  ‘Do you know where the gym is?’

  ‘On Sallerupsvägen. Opposite the school.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘I’m going to be a boxer one day. Like Absame.’

  ‘Good for you.’

  ‘And then I can get me and my family out of this dump.’ He was very matter-of-fact.

  It was easy to park on the other side of the road from the gym as there were very few other vehicles around. The gym was on the ground floor of a 1980s block. This wasn’t one of the spanking new gyms that Dragan Mitrović owned that attracted the health-obsessed professionals. This must have been the place where the youthful Absame had come to find a way out of poverty. Both the exterior and the interior had seen better days; so had the swarthy man at the desk. His wispy hair and dark stubble had that unwashed look. He was wearing an aging red tracksuit that hadn’t been near a laundry room in some time. He was glued to his newspaper, and Anita could see the telltale bulge under his upper lip – snus. It wasn’t just native Swedes that had the habit.

  She was about to pull out her warrant card and then decided against it. No need to get his back up before she’d started.

  ‘Is Absame in this morning?’

  He didn’t even glance up; just, almost imperceptibly, turned his head towards the double doors behind him.

  Anita pushed her way into the gym and was met with a sickly wave of stale sweat. In the centre of the room was a boxing ring surrounded by sagging ropes. Beyond the ring, aging punch bags hung limply from the ceiling; all except one, which was being pummelled by a man in a grey hoodie top and white boxing shorts. On the flaking walls were peeling photos of famous boxers. Even she recognized Mohammed Ali. There wasn’t a white face among them.

  She approached Absame. His constant jabbing of the bag was accompanied by sharp bursts of breath.

  ‘Absame Madar Geesi?’

  He ignored her.

  Anita took out her warrant card and flashed it at the back of Absame’s head.

  ‘Police.’

  Absame stopped punching and held out his gloves to stop the swinging bag before he slowly turned round. Globules of sweat were running down his prominent cheeks. His light-grey top had turned dark with perspiration and was sticking to his chest. His proud face jerked up, and the wide, black eyes bored into her. Though the thick, padded, red-gloved hands were now dangling by his sides, she could see that they were tense, ready to strike.

  ‘I’ve nothing to say to you or any cop.’

  She put her warrant card away. ‘That’s up to you. The only problem is, if you won’t speak to us, we may jump to conclusions.’

  His brows furrowed. ‘Conclusions?’

  ‘That you murdered Sami Litmanen.’

  ‘I don’t know who that is.’ She knew that wasn’t true as Hakim and Brodd must have mentioned Litmanen’s name during their abortive interview.

  ‘You may know him better as the Kazakh fight promoter, Erkin Akhmetov. Or more likely, The Oligarch. The man who destroyed your career; the same man you threatened to kill in the offices of Sanningen.’

  ‘He deserved to die.’

  ‘Did you kill him?’

  ‘Does herr Mitrović know you’re here?’

  ‘I thought you were a big enough boy to speak for yourself.’

  ‘That’s no, then.’

  ‘Where were you on the night of the fourteenth? Last Sunday night.’

  ‘You’ll have to ask herr Mitrović.’

  ‘Why? Are you afraid of him?’

  Absame took a stride towards her. She instinctively stepped back, her eyes fixed on his gloves. His right paw was now inches from her face.

  ‘Herr Mitrović is my boss. He’s the only person who’s shown me any respect.’

  Though she was feeling very unsafe, her natural instinct was to continue to needle him.

  ‘He shows so much respect for you that he has you running around town as his little drugs delivery boy. Do you beat up people who upset him, too?’

  The glove pulled back and she awaited a blow to her face. She could see the fury in his eyes.

  ‘Get out, lady cop, before I do something that you really will need to arrest me for. Just leave me alone.’

  Anita retreated slowly. She wasn’t going to admit that she was frightened until she’d left the building. Then she allowed herself some deep breaths. By the time she’d climbed back into her car, she felt calmer. Was Absame their killer? She was none the wiser. And if he was, it was going to be difficult to prove. The obstacle was Dragan Mitrović. He would provide Absame’s alibi and a hundred convenient witnesses. Brodd was right to speculate that Mitrović had the contacts to track down Litmanen and enable Absame to carry out his revenge. After all, the murderer had smashed the lamp into Litmanen’s head; nothing could have been easier for a boxer. On the other hand, Mitrović was more than capable of getting one of his thugs to do it. This wasn’t going to be easy.

  CHAPTER 26

  ‘We’ve now ruled out Ystad and Helsingborg because of the proximity of the railway lines. I’ve been back to talk to Peter Uhlig, and he can’t remember hearing any trains. The container areas that the kidnappers could have used are all close to the tracks. So, our best bet is still Malmö.’ Klara Wallen stopped and waited for some reaction from Zetterberg. There wasn’t any, so she ploughed on. ‘We still haven’t been able to trace either the Danish van we believe was used in the Mats Möller kidnapping or the car that they spirited Uhlig away in.’

  Zetterberg sighed, so Wallen hurried on. ‘The photofit of the man who waved Uhlig down hasn’t produced anything from Interpol so far. We’ve also tried to get a description from Ann-Kristen Uhlig of the so-called policeman who stopped her outside Skårby. She apologized for not giving us a better description, but it’s pretty useless. He wore a police cap and dark glasses and she was in such a state of anxiety that she really didn’t pay him much attention, which was understandable in the circumstances.’ Wallen nervously consulted her notes. ‘No luck with the mobile phones used. And, as yet, none of the money paid out has turned up.’

  ‘It’s hardly likely to as it was in euros.’

  Anita could see that Wallen wasn’t sure what to say next. ‘That’s about it,’ she concluded unconvincingly.

  Zetterberg watched Wallen distractedly tidy up her notes. ‘So, what you’re really saying is that you are no further forward. You’ve achieved nothing.’ Anita could see that Wallen was deflated by the putdown.

  ‘I would say that Klara is doing a thorough, methodical job,’ said Anita, defending her colleague. ‘By the book.’

  ‘You would say that. I’d say that the lack of progress says a lot about this team. A team without a rudder. But things are going to change.’

  ‘We’ve done everything we could in the circumstances.’

  ‘Like letting the Uhlig ransom money disappear under your very noses?’

  Anita stared at Zetterberg in disgust. ‘What do you suggest?’

  ‘Actually, there’s very little we can do now. Opportunities were missed in the early stages. The gang has carried out two successful kidnaps, so I suspect
they are long gone. And if they are from Eastern Europe or Russia, there’s virtually no chance of catching up with them. That doesn’t mean we stop investigating, of course. For one thing, we need to reassure the business community that we are still pursuing these people and that such a thing won’t happen again. Something we can’t afford to do is look ineffective.’

  So basically, Zetterberg was going to do nothing. Anita decided not to share her thoughts and doubts on the kidnappings at this juncture; it would be a waste of time. She was glad that Wallen hadn’t mentioned Liv’s research; it might turn out to be totally irrelevant. The fact that she was using an outside source would only give Zetterberg another stick to beat her with.

  Zetterberg gave them all a disparaging smirk. ‘Now, let’s turn our attention to a case that we still have a chance of solving. I’m going to release a brief statement to the press about the murder and that we are pursuing a number of leads. I’m also going to use this to appeal to people who were in the vicinity of Litmanen’s apartment to report anything they regarded as suspicious on the night in question. This should have been done before.’ The implied criticism of Anita’s handling of the case was clear. ‘I’ll mention Sami Litmanen’s name but not who he was as that would spark a media frenzy.’

  ‘That’s exactly why the commissioner wanted this kept under wraps,’ Anita pointed out.

  ‘I suspect that’s because he felt you didn’t have the experience to handle the press in the right way.’

  ‘Well, you didn’t make such a great job of it the last time I saw you in action,’ Anita couldn’t resist saying. There was an intake of breath from the others.

  Zetterberg just stared at Anita. Her eyes blazed. ‘I don’t want any of you talking to the media,’ she said slowly. ‘I’ll deal with any enquiries, on both cases.’

  After they’d recapped: ‘I certainly believe,’ said Zetterberg, ‘that we have the three main suspects in our sights. So let’s concentrate our efforts on them. All have motive, with two actually threatening Litmanen in front of witnesses. Opportunity? We know Claes Svärdendahl was nearby in Lund. I want you, Brodd, and you, Erlandsson, to follow that up. You might find mass heterosexual bonking quite an eye-opener,’ she said as a snide aside to Bea Erlandsson. Bea blushed. She knew Zetterberg was getting at her sexual orientation.

  ‘Mirza and Sundström will go down to Ystad and talk to Folke Allinger. He perhaps has the strongest motive as Litmanen effectively put him behind bars. And at the moment, we have no idea where he was at the time of the murder. But he only lives forty-five minutes away so getting to the murder scene would have been easy enough. I expect you to grill him.’ Anita knew that Zetterberg was playing with them. From what she’d read about Allinger, he was not only a racist, but he’d also been described as a misogynist. A combination of her and Hakim would immediately put his back up.

  ‘Finally, we have the boxer, Absame. This is going to be more difficult to handle as he’s under the protection of Dragan Mitrović. We’ll be hard-pressed to pin anything on Absame, as Mitrović will pluck out an alibi for any occasion. So we need to try and check his movements that night. That means everywhere in Västra Hamnen during the time the murder was taking place. Check any CCTV.’

  ‘We’ve already gone through virtually everything we can find,’ said Hakim. ‘As you can imagine, there’s not much in the way of cameras in that area. No sign of any of the three suspects specifically. It was dusk around then. Civil twilight was officially 21.59 that night so it was certainly dark by the time the killer left the apartment.’

  ‘Of course, Mitrović may have got one of his people to do the killing for Absame,’ Anita pointed out. ‘A way of repaying his loyalty. He made it clear that we’d have to go through Mitrović if we wanted any answers.’

  Zetterberg gave her a quizzical look. ‘How do you know that? I was under the impression that when he was interviewed here, he didn’t say a word. Isn’t that right, Pontus?’ Brodd, who was also looking askance at Anita, nodded. ‘So when did he make that clear?’

  ‘He told me.’

  ‘How the hell did he tell you?’

  ‘Erm... I bumped into him yesterday.’

  ‘You “bumped” into him. And where did this happen?’

  ‘Near entré.’ The gym was in the vague vicinity, so it was nearly true. ‘He was there, so I took the opportunity to talk to him.’

  ‘I thought I told you he was off limits at the moment.’

  ‘I thought it was too good an opportunity to miss.’

  Anita could see that Zetterberg was furious and obviously didn’t believe for a moment that she had accidentally run into Absame. ‘And what other gems did you pick up?’

  ‘Nothing much,’ Anita shrugged. The gesture only further infuriated Zetterberg.

  ‘Well, make sure you don’t “bump” into Absame again. I’ll deal with him and Dragan Mitrović.’ She didn’t elaborate. ‘Right, that’s the suspects dealt with. Now, I spent part of yesterday at the murder scene to get an idea of the layout, etcetera. Not much there for a successful guy; he can’t have been short of money in his line of work. Anyway, can I have an update from forensics?’

  ‘Nothing that’s going to help us has emerged,’ said Anita staring up at the photos arrayed along the wall. They included the victim in situ as well as the rest of the living room and the office. ‘The only clear prints they found in the apartment, other than Litmanen’s, belonged to his cleaner. She’d been in two days before; the Friday. He was going out when she arrived. He was just back after being away for a week or so. She didn’t know where he’d been. The whisky glass and the cigarette butts had his prints on them. The only other things they’ve managed to analyse are the torn bits of paper which were left under the drawing pins from the notice board in the apartment, but they got nothing from them. Some were from the same supply of A4 in the desk and other smaller ones were from coloured Post-it notes. The empty drawer at the bottom of the desk had been wiped clean, probably by a handkerchief, so the killer had the presence of mind to cover his tracks. Nothing on the door handles of the office or the front door either. He’d even wiped the top of the lamp, though that wouldn’t have given forensics much to go on as Eva Thulin reckoned that the killer used his fist like the head of a hammer and there wouldn’t be much in the way of prints from that part of the hand. She says it was a lucky first-time blow, as he wouldn’t have had complete control over his aim without holding onto the lamp stand to steady it, and there’s nothing to indicate that he did this. Which begs the question, other than physically covering his tracks, what was the killer trying to hide by stealing the notes on the board and whatever was in the drawer? In theory, The Oligarch had already done the damage to our three suspects.’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ said Hakim. ‘Absame, for example, is tied up with Dragan Mitrović. When setting him up for his fall, Litmanen may have come across Mitrović and was now going to do an exposé on him. That might explain the business angle he was working on. We know Mitrović is not legit, but the public don’t. Then again, Folke Allinger had some pretty unsavoury associates who are now involved in a legitimate political party. Again, Litmanen might have been looking into them and any dubious business connections. Not sure about Svärdendahl. Possibly his sex parties in Lund. Heaven only knows what pillars of the community might be involved in them! That would be a potent combination for a scandal sheet like Sanningen.’

  ‘Quite right,’ agreed Zetterberg, who was pleased to see that Anita’s attempt to steer the investigation in a different direction had been countered. ‘There’s one other point which you’ve overlooked. I think the killer deliberately laid the trap which you so effectively fell into, Anita. By taking everything connected with Litmanen’s current investigation, it looks like that’s where the reason for the murder lies. A classic case of smoking mirrors. Take it from me, having read all the reports so far and considered what evidence has been gathered, we’ve got the right suspects. This is all about revenge. It’s
just we don’t know which one is the killer.’

  ‘So you’re saying that the murder was premeditated?’

  ‘I’m not saying that. If it was premeditated, the killer would have brought a weapon. I think whoever it was took their opportunity while Sami Litmanen was off guard.’

  ‘It still begs the question as to why he let his killer in. That in itself is strange because not even his employer knew where he lived. He was very secretive about that, apparently. Secretive about everything. Even the mobile phone number his editor had was only to be used in emergencies. She would leave a message and he’d call back. That number hasn’t been used for weeks. But surely he must have spoken to other people in the meantime. His mother? Following up on his current investigation? I suspect he had more than one phone and if so, the killer probably took them. Yet, despite all his precautions, he let someone in,’ Anita glanced up at the photo of the victim with his hands holding an invisible piece of paper, ‘and he certainly can’t have felt threatened as he was quite happily sitting reading something, which was later ripped out of his hand by the killer.’

  ‘He definitely let the killer in,’ conceded Zetterberg. ‘I don’t think it was for a cosy chat either, as indicated by the one whisky glass. If it was a planned meeting, surely the other person would have had a drink as well. So why did he let him in? Had he invited him, or did he just turn up on the doorstep? Either way, Litmanen didn’t sense any danger. I think Sami Litmanen was the sort to enjoy the control he had over other people’s lives. He liked to break them. Except there was one he hadn’t broken. And that was the one who killed him.’

  ‘Pontus, could you stay behind? I want a word.’

  Brodd arched an eyebrow at Hakim. Was he in trouble? He hung around while the others left the room. After the door closed, Zetterberg switched on a reassuring smile. Brodd was immediately relieved.