She put her key in the front door and, to her surprise, found it was unlocked. Kevin had probably forgotten when he went out. She pushed the door open and wearily headed for the kitchen. She threw her bag down on a chair and filled up the kettle. Then she opened the fridge and found that Kevin had prepared a salad for her, neatly laid out under a wrapping of cling film. What a thoughtful man. She took the plate out and put it on the table. The kettle finished boiling as she fished out a lemon and ginger teabag. She stood with the teabag in her hand, all senses alert. Had she heard a noise in the apartment? No, just her tired mind playing tricks. She took down a mug and poured the hot water onto her teabag. She inhaled the spicy aroma. There it was again! Suddenly, she had the uncomfortable feeling that she wasn’t alone. Had Kevin come back early? Unlikely. If he had, he would have greeted her. Yes, she could definitely detect some movement. It was coming from the living room. A burglar? There’d been some break-ins recently in the area. She tensed and looked around for something to arm herself with – her service pistol was safely locked away in the polishus. She found a rolling pin; not much use against a determined assailant. Maybe he would be as scared as she was.
‘Kevin?’ she called out in the remote hope that it might be him. No answer. She tiptoed along the short corridor to the living room doorway and hovered for a moment before swinging in with the rolling pin raised above her head. There, sitting in the armchair that Kevin favoured, was a man she didn’t recognize. He greeted her entrance with a smile.
‘I wondered when you’d get home.’
The man was immaculately dressed in a sharp, dark-blue suit. His black shoes were polished to a mirror-like sheen. His white shirt had no tie, his only concession to modern business wear. Anita put him in his early sixties. His hair was still thick, and dyed to match his shoes. It was slicked back in a way that Hercule Poirot would approve of. But it was the face that was memorable. It was strong; the features carved from granite, the cheekbones like rocks. A livid scar cleft the right-hand side almost to the mouth, which was slightly lopsided, enabling it to move from a smile to a sneer in a flash. All this Anita took in but what transfixed her were the eyes. They were large and dark; unreadable. And they were trained on her. What was this man doing in her living room, waiting patiently for her? And how had he got in?
Which was exactly what she asked him when she had composed herself.
‘It wasn’t difficult,’ he said with a wave of his hand. ‘Please, take a seat.’
She couldn’t believe that she was being asked to make herself comfortable in her own home by an intruder. Yet she did exactly that. There was something in the man’s tone that brooked no argument. But it didn’t stop her clinging onto the rolling pin on her lap.
‘I appreciate that this is an unorthodox way of approaching you,’ he said pleasantly in a thick accent that confirmed his Eastern European origins. ‘More private.’
She wished that Kevin was here. ‘What do you want?’
‘I like getting straight to the point. I want you to leave Absame alone. You are harassing him.’
‘So you must be Dragan Mitrović.’
‘That was most rude of me not to introduce myself. Please forgive me.’ Anita would put money on him not using that phrase to many people.
‘He’s a murder suspect. We need to talk to him.’
‘He’s not a murderer. I can find dozens of witnesses if needed.’ She was sure that could easily be arranged. ‘My lawyer made this clear to Acting Chief Inspector Zetterberg.’ That explained a lot. So, he’d put the frighteners on her. ‘Yet you seem to persist.’
‘We need a solid alibi.’
Mitrović pulled out some folded papers from his inside pocket. He reached over and handed them to Anita. ‘Witness statements. He was working at my club on the night of your murder. He’s good at throwing out troublemakers.’
‘Why didn’t he just tell us?’
‘He’s a badly damaged boy. He took all that Oligarch business badly. Lost his confidence, his faith in human kind. At last he’s found someone he can trust – my good self.’ With a flourish, he put his hand on his heart. Did Mitrović stand in front of the mirror and practise talking like this? He’s been watching too many gangster movies, she thought.
Anita flicked through the pieces of paper. She suspected that every name that supported Mitrović’s claim that Absame was working at the club that night had a criminal record – if not in Sweden, certainly in the Balkans.
‘I can tell you that Absame had no idea that this Oligarch’ – he virtually spat the name out – ‘was living in Malmö.’
‘You like Absame?’
‘Of course, he’s like a son. He is loyal. I respect that.’
‘You’d do anything for him?’
His smile carried no warmth. ‘I do not like where this is going. I, too, did not know that the man lived here. If I had...’ The implication was clear.
‘Like Bogdan Kovać?’
He spread his arms wide and shrugged. She took that as a yes. Mitrović suddenly stood up. Anita started. She was still nervous; this was a dangerous man.
‘I hope that you understand that I don’t want to cause you any harm. Or your son, Lasse. Or the lovely little Leyla.’ Anita’s throat went dry. How did he know about her family? He didn’t have to issue any further threats.
Mitrović patted down his suit jacket until he was satisfied that it was hanging perfectly.
‘We’ll leave you people alone if you leave my people alone. It’s bad for business.’ His eyes never left her. ‘I will see myself out.’
Sod the herbal tea – Anita needed something stronger. Half the bottle of red had gone by time the front door opened. She jumped.
‘Hi,’ called Kevin. When he entered the kitchen (she couldn’t bring herself to go back in the living room as she felt it had been violated), she launched herself at him, threw her arms round him and hugged him tightly.
‘Heavens, I’ve only been gone a few hours.’ He could feel her body shaking. Then she burst into tears.
He coaxed her gently into the living room and armed her with a refill of her glass. She was staring at the chair that Dragan Mitrović had been sitting in an hour before.
‘There, right there,’ she said, pointing in disgust. Then she took him through her ordeal.
Kevin was fuming. ‘The scumbag! If I get my hands on him—’
‘There’s nothing you can do. There’s nothing I can do.’
‘He threatened a police officer and her family. Christ! Breaking and entering.’
‘That’s not going to bring down someone like Dragan Mitrović.’ She put down her glass and clenched her hands together on her lap, turning the knuckles white. ‘God, if this was some wretched thriller, I’d be the feisty cop who then kicks the baddie’s ass. But it’s not like that. It’s my family he’s threatening. I’m flesh and blood. After Westermark’s crazy sister got hold of Lasse, I can’t put him in danger again. Or Jazmin... or my lovely Leyla.’ She was fighting back the tears.
Kevin put his arm round her shoulders.
‘We’ll make sure nothing happens to them,’ he said soothingly. ‘In order to protect them, we’ve got to think like cops. It all boils down to one thing – do you think Absame is the murderer? Well, two actually. Do you think Mitrović is behind it?’
CHAPTER 30
‘You’re looking a bit glum,’ Hakim said cheerily to Anita, who was on her third coffee of the morning. After a sleepless night, she needed constant injections of caffeine.
‘Bad night.’ She wasn’t prepared to let Hakim know about her unwanted visitor just yet.
‘This might perk you up. Then again, it might not.’ He was carrying an iPad. He laid it on Anita’s desk. ‘Recognize him?’ The CCTV footage was clear. The dishevelled figure of Folke Allinger was getting off a train.
‘That’s not Triangeln.’
‘No,’ sighed Hakim. ‘It’s Hyllie.’ Hyllie was two stops short of the Central Station and on
the outskirts of Malmö. Its twin attractions were a huge shopping complex, which included the Malmö Arena; and the connection to the Öresund Bridge, and Copenhagen and Kastrup Airport on the Danish side.
‘What was he doing there?’ Anita muttered.
‘He didn’t change onto a Copenhagen-bound train. I checked that. Shopping?’
‘That’s very unlikely.’
‘There wasn’t anything on at the Arena that night, so he wasn’t going to a concert.’
‘At least we know he was lying about his movements.’
‘Not necessarily. You asked where he was that night, not during the day.’
‘You’ll have to go through more CCTV to see if he got a later train into town. Sorry about that. We’ll send Bea and Pontus to ask around down at Hyllie.’
‘You’ll have to pass that by our new boss.’
‘Point. I keep trying to forget. I’ll see if I can get a couple of the guys who are working with Klara’s group. It’s not as though they’re doing much; that really is a dead end.’
Hyllie is a concrete jungle. From the miserable concrete station under the shopping complex, you emerge into more concrete, leavened with copious amounts of glass, which don’t make it any less soulless. Even on sunny days, it feels chilly. Swedophiles would probably attribute it to cool Scandinavian design. Anita put it down to unsympathetic planning. The heart of Hyllie is unashamedly commercial, though blocks of housing were now mushrooming all around. Anita wasn’t quite sure why anybody would want to live out here except shopaholics and those wanting easy access to Kastrup. She’d decided to come down herself, as it saved her the bother of going to Zetterberg and asking for help. It also got her out of the office. She was still troubled by last night’s visit. She’d had difficulty persuading Kevin not to come into work and act as her personal bodyguard. Instead, he’d agreed to go round to Lasse and Jazmin’s and keep an eye on Leyla.
Anita decided that the shops were a waste of time. Allinger didn’t strike her as the type who was turned on by fashion labels. Bars and restaurants were more likely. Allinger was still hovering at the top of her own list of suspects. He had motive, and now there was opportunity. With help, he could have tracked Litmanen down. Over the years, she’d met suspects that she thought could never have committed a murder, and yet had – and plenty that seemed likely, yet hadn’t. Human nature was difficult to fathom, and her instincts weren’t always right. So what about Allinger? She could see him killing Litmanen. Prison had given him the time to let the thought of revenge marinate. What also kept him at the top of Anita’s hit list was her belief that he already knew about the murder when she and Hakim interviewed him.
Two hours later, she’d found his watering hole. According to someone behind the bar who had recognized Allinger’s photo, he’d spent around three hours drinking with a friend. He’d seen them both in here before. She took the description of the other man. He was tall, about sixty, poorly dyed brown hair, with a thick moustache, wearing jeans and a white baseball cap. Oh, and he was slightly tanned. Either it was fake or he’d been somewhere in the sun recently, opined the barman. They’d consumed quite a lot of alcohol in the time, though the man in the baseball cap was buying most of the drinks. That figured. She knew the state was financing Allinger. She thanked him for his help. Just as she was leaving...
‘The other guy; I think he was one of your lot.’
‘One of my lot?’
‘Yeah. A policeman.’
The hospital smelt like all hospitals, an antiseptic combination of hope and despair. She’d stalked the corridors in here often enough to experience both. This time she hoped that Erik Moberg was getting better and that it wouldn’t be long before he returned to work. That was a thought she’d never expected to entertain.
The signs were encouraging. He was dressed. He greeted her with ‘They’re letting me out. Ambulance is taking me home soon.’
‘That’s good.’
‘I should have been out of here a few days ago, but they say there were “complications”. Either your heart is fucked or it’s not. That’s not complicated. It must be fine now, but it doesn’t stop the fucking stupid dietician giving me this!’ He scrunched a leaflet in his hand. ‘I’m not allowed to smoke or drink. I can’t even eat proper food.’
‘I don’t think takeaways count as proper food.’
‘If you read this,’ Moberg waved the leaflet under her nose, ‘there’s nothing left except bloody leaves.’
‘It’s all for the best. A healthier lifestyle might be a good thing.’
‘Bollocks. I’ll wither away.’ Anita somehow doubted that. ‘On top of that, they’re threatening me with a cardiac nurse, occupational therapists, bloody physios; God knows who else. They’ll have me running next. Aren’t you allowed to recover in peace?’
‘Do they say when you might return to work?’ She tried to keep the desperation out of her voice.
‘Weeks yet.’ Anita’s heart sank. ‘And I’ve got a case full of damn pills. Christ! Beta-blockers, statins – whatever the hell they are – and everything else under the sun that the quacks in here reckon I need.’ He sat down on the bed and it bulged under his weight. ‘What I really need is some chocolate. Did you bring any?’
‘Sorry.’
He tut-tutted. ‘I suppose I’ll have to buy my own.’
‘I’m sure it’s not on your list.’
‘You’re as bad as they are. Well, as long as you’re here, at least you can update me on what’s going on at work.’
Anita filled him in on both cases. He listened without interruption, which was a first in itself.
‘A fellow cop?’ She had finished by telling him about her most recent discovery. ‘One of these ex-White Justice people?’
‘I assume so. Who else would meet up with Allinger?’
‘Makes me sick.’ He shook his head in disbelief. ‘And you’ve got a problem with Alice Zetterberg; I warned you the commissioner would stab you in the back. Zetterberg’s a piece of work. I saw her being quoted in the press about the failed ransom drop, which she conveniently distanced herself from.’
‘She wasn’t there at the time.’
‘That’s not the point,’ he said angrily. ‘We stick together.’ He took a couple of breaths to calm himself down. ‘What I can’t understand is why she’s not chasing Absame – or Dragan Mitrović. He’s bad news. I’ve come across him before.’
‘She obviously doesn’t want to pursue that route.’ She was tempted to mention Mitrović’s visit, but didn’t. Nor did she mention that she believed that Zetterberg had been frightened off by Mitrović’s lawyer. Mitrović was exploiting her vulnerability over her family. What had he got on Zetterberg?
‘I just can’t work for the woman. I can’t handle her.’
‘You can. Just do what you always did with me.’
‘And what was that?’
‘Pretend to listen to my instructions then totally ignore them and do your own bloody thing.’
‘Erik Moberg’s out of hospital,’ Anita informed Hakim, who had his feet up on his desk and his hands cupped behind his head. He looked tired.
‘When will he be back?’
‘Not soon enough.’ Anita slumped down opposite her colleague. This was like old times again.
‘Any luck down at Hyllie? I’ve drawn a blank here,’ he said with a wave at his computer screen.
‘Allinger met up with someone for a drink. He was there until about four.’
‘Well, I’ve been through the Hyllie footage up until about seven, and there’s no sign of him. So, he didn’t go from your bar to the station.’
‘He didn’t go to another bar round there. I’ve been to them all, even the posh sky bar at the Malmö Arena Hotel.’
‘We’ve still got six hours to fill in.’
‘The trouble is that my helpful barman thinks that Allinger’s drinking companion was a policeman.’
‘Ah.’
‘Ah, indeed. I’ve got a descript
ion. That’s my next job. Find the mysterious cop, and we could be getting closer to our murderer.’
CHAPTER 31
Anita’s anticipation of enjoying a Zetterberg-free Friday didn’t materialize. Zetterberg was indeed flying to Stockholm to talk to Claes Svärdendahl. Anita had noticed that it was conveniently on a Friday, so she had an excuse to stay in the capital for the weekend. But rather she be there than in Malmö. Zetterberg had called Anita in for a catch-up meeting before her flight – at six in the morning. Anita dragged herself in and sat opposite Zetterberg, bleary-eyed. She knew Zetterberg had done this on purpose; they could have had this meeting last night.
Anita wasn’t involved in following up on Claes Svärdendahl’s movements, so she could only talk about Folke Allinger. She explained that they had traced him to Hyllie on the day of the murder and he had met up with a friend for a few drinks. Allinger had left the bar at four. As yet, there was no sign of his movements after that. The man he was drinking with was a cop called Dennis Årnell. He was on holiday but was due back on Monday. What she didn’t tell Zetterberg was that Årnell had suddenly become of extreme interest to her – he had been one of the officers called to the scene of Mikael Nilsson’s restaurant ruckus. Could he have worked out that Mikael Nilsson was actually The Oligarch and passed on his address to Allinger?
‘Get on to him the moment he comes in. Anything else?’
‘Not really, except we seem to be doing nothing about Absame.’ Anita was reluctant to raise the subject as it could have dire personal consequences if they officially probed any further, but she couldn’t help wondering what Zetterberg’s reaction would be. Had Dragan Mitrović scared her as much as he had Anita?
‘We leave Absame well alone,’ she said brusquely. Mitrović had done a good job. At least Zetterberg hadn’t got wind of her second visit to the gym. ‘He’s not a suspect at the moment.’ Anita was taken aback that Zetterberg was actually dismissing the possibility. She hadn’t gone as far as this before.
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