MALICE IN MALMÖ

by Torquil Macleod

  ‘They were kind in their way. Well, the servants were, for I saw little of herr and fru Offesson. He was away on business much of the time. She did not have much time for the children.’

  ‘And the children? Anders Offesson?’ Eila acknowledged this with a slight raise of her eyebrows. Anita knew of Anders Offesson. He had been a great philanthropist, though he was rarely seen nowadays. She was sure that he wasn’t running the business now. ‘You must have gone to school. Your Swedish is very good.’

  Eila summoned a wry smile. ‘It was hard won. I was mocked at school for being a Finn. I was the only one there. Do people still look down on us in Sweden?’

  ‘The jokes about drunks with knives are dying out, I’m pleased to say.’

  ‘Is that progress?’ she said wistfully. ‘I was never happy there. Sweden that is. I never really settled. And I had to wait an extra year to come home. The economy here was in ruins after the war. My father survived, but had no job to come back to. Mother scraped a living. I returned to Helsinki in the autumn of 1946 when my father had at last found work. It was the happiest day of my life to be reunited with my parents. I had forgiven Mother over time. Being older, I appreciated she had sent me away for the right reasons.’ Eila’s right hand slipped onto the handle of her cane and she squeezed it. ‘The odd thing is that I could not settle here in Finland either. Many of us returning could not. Over the years, I have been hospitalized. They say it is called mental illness. Unfortunately, I was sometimes taken away from home when Sami was growing up. It was not so bad when Otso was alive. After his death, his sister took Sami in. He resented that. His mother taken away from him. It is difficult to explain to a child that their mother is in hospital with an illness that they cannot comprehend, cannot see. An illness locked into one’s head.’

  Anita felt moved by the mother’s anguish, still fresh after all these years.

  ‘Sami, before he died, told the editor of his newspaper that the story he was working on, which we now know concerns the Offessons, had become personal. That was only a few days after he visited you here. Do you know what he meant? Was it the unhappiness you experienced with the family? Or the suffering you went through after you came back to Helsinki?’

  Eila’s wrinkled hands straightened her dress at the knees. Almost in a whisper, she said ‘No. Neither of those things.’

  ‘Eila, can you tell me?’ Anita said gently. ‘I want to catch the person who killed your boy. This might help me.’

  Eila’s eyes caught Anita’s gaze and held it. There was such sadness in the old woman’s lined features. She carefully wiped away the hint of a tear.

  ‘I should not have told him.’

  ‘Told him what, Eila?’

  ‘About Isabell.’

  ‘Who’s Isabell?’

  ‘Anita, promise me that you will find the person responsible for Sami’s death.’

  ‘Of course I promise. I’ll do everything I can.’

  Eila’s fingers twined her handkerchief around as she spoke. ‘Isabell was the daughter of herr and fru Offesson. Anders’ younger sister. He was eight, Isabell was five. She was my only friend. I needed her, as Anders was always horrid to me. He resented me staying with the family. Once, he found the letters my mother had sent that I kept under my pillow. He burned them. He was good at making me cry. Making me feel unwanted. And pretty little Isabell would fight my battles for me. Protect me.

  ‘One day – it was summer time – we were all sent out to play after lunch because the grown-ups wanted to relax without us pestering them. Anders was furious. He wanted to stay with the adults. I played with Isabell for a while. She was helping me to pick flowers but then she went off to find Anders. I was under one of the two oak trees in the middle of the garden. One of them had a rope ladder going up to a tree house built into the branches. I never went up as I was scared of the height. But Anders and Isabell would climb up. She had no fear. That afternoon I heard rustling above me. I glanced up. At that moment, to my horror, Isabell plunged out of the tree and fell to the ground right in front of me. It was awful.’

  ‘How dreadful! Was she badly hurt?’

  ‘She was dead.’

  ‘What an appalling accident!’ gasped Anita.

  ‘It was no accident,’ said Eila with a firmness that had been missing from her voice as she told her story. ‘I saw Anders push her. Deliberately.’

  Anita was shocked. ‘What did you do?’

  ‘What could I do? Anders said that I was not to say anything. No one would believe me, a pathetic Finnish girl. It was true. He was the adored son and family heir. My word against his. He said if I said anything, I would be taken away and put in an asylum for mad people, where I would be beaten and fed on bread and water. And I would never be allowed to see my parents again. Can you imagine what that was like for a six-year-old? After Isabell’s death, the family had no time for me. It was as though I had brought them bad luck.’

  ‘It’s horrific.’

  ‘I never told anybody what had happened, not even my husband, until I spoke to Sami that last time. All his talk of the Offessons. It just came pouring out.’

  The tears were flowing now. Anita went over to Eila and put her arms around the woman’s shaking body. As she tried to console her, she couldn’t help thinking that she could well understand how Sami Litmanen’s investigation had turned ‘personal’.

  On the way from Eila Litmanen’s apartment, walking round the edge of Railway Station Square to catch her train to the airport, Anita phoned Hakim.

  ‘The book... the book that was on Sami Litmanen’s table?’

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘Did we ever find out what it was about?’

  ‘You mean did I ever find out? Yes, I did actually. Can’t remember what the title was translated as—’

  ‘That doesn’t matter. I just want to know what it was about.’

  ‘It was to do with Finnish children that came over to Sweden during the Second World War. The translator I spoke to said it was mainly about the psychological after effects on the young evacuees. Increased mental health issues, personality disorders, substance abuse... that sort of thing. Biological consequences too – risk of heart disease, diabetes. Why? Is it relevant?’

  ‘Oh, yes. I think I now know why Sami Litmanen was killed.’

  CHAPTER 41

  When Anita got back from the airport in the late afternoon, the office was deserted except for Bea Erlandsson. The young detective explained that, for the second day running, Zetterberg had everybody else out combing the harbour areas in an attempt to pinpoint exactly where Kristina Ekman had been held.

  ‘I can see why she’s doing it. The pattern of the kidnappings is virtually the same. Kristina Ekman was held in a container. Brodd rang me an hour ago to say they’d still drawn a blank. Zetterberg’s going to be very unhappy.’ Erlandsson gave a chuckle. ‘And this will really make her day,’ she said, pushing over the evening newspaper Kvällsposten, the Skåne edition of the national Expressen. Anita squinted at the headline: WHERE’S OUR POLICE PROTECTION? ASKS KIDNAP VICTIM. It was accompanied by a photo of a suitably anguished Kristina Ekman. She may have been though a horrific experience, but she’d still made sure she looked good for the cameras, though there was a close-up shot of her wrists for impact. Anita quickly read the article. The gist of the story was that Kristina Ekman was saying that the kidnapping of the region’s wealth creators was a hijacking of the economy that she and her fellow businesspersons were helping to create, sustain and expand. It was causing commercial turmoil. It would put off investors and foreign companies who might want to set up in Skåne and generate further jobs. The police should be doing all they could to protect the region’s leading employers, which, in turn, would safeguard the futures of the people of Skåne. Basically, it was an attack on the police wrapped up in the righteous indignation of a benefactor of the common working person.

  ‘She’s got a nerve,’ snorted Erlandsson. ‘How on earth are we meant to protect
all these people? If we kept an eye on all the top business people in Skåne, we’d have no one left to do anything else. We didn’t even know she’d been kidnapped until she turned up in Limhamn. Not officially, anyway.’

  ‘Her pride’s been pricked; she’s been manhandled by some lower class hoodlums and she’s had to pay out money to them. That’ll have hurt. She’s lashing out, and we’re an easy scapegoat. And Kristina’s never forgiven us for going after her father.’

  ‘He paid the ransom, you know. Four million euros, like Uhlig.’

  ‘Makes sense. Her German playboy has the connections, though I suspect he hasn’t got the money. He might be worth looking into.’

  ‘You don’t think he could have something to do with it?’

  ‘Well... no, not really. I just didn’t like him. Cop’s intuition.’

  ‘I’ve already checked Goessling’s movements around the time of the kidnap. Said he flew to Frankfurt to pick up the ransom money from a bank over there. He did fly there and back on the days he claimed.’

  ‘He’s the sort of creep that I could see absconding with the money, but Dag Wollstad’s reach is long and vengeful. He obviously paid up, or else the lovely Kristina wouldn’t have been set free to slag us off.’

  Anita pushed the newspaper away. She didn’t really want to be around when Zetterberg saw the article. The timing was particularly bad, as Commissioner Dahlbeck would be back from his vacation on Monday. Zetterberg would have some explaining to do, though she would probably lay the blame at Anita’s door somehow. Zetterberg’s absence also meant that she didn’t have to report on her Helsinki trip just yet. She still needed time to process the information she’d uncovered and work out how best to proceed. She wasn’t a Moberg, who would just charge into the Offessons’ lives demanding immediate answers. She would have to tread carefully. They were an incredibly influential family.

  ‘Oh, Anita. There’s something you might be able to advise me on. We believe that there’s someone working with the kidnap gang who’s local. The cop who stopped Ann-Kristen Uhlig at Skårby? The voice making the ransom demands?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘The Russian gang, as we now think they are, will, in all likelihood, have recruited someone with local knowledge. Zetterberg’s asked me to go through all our known villains to see if we have anyone who might fit the profile. But I’m having no luck. Trouble is I’m not that familiar with the scene down here.’

  ‘You mean you haven’t been around as long as I have!’

  ‘I mean I haven’t been in Malmö that long,’ Erlandsson said quickly. ‘And most of that time was on cold cases, not current crooks.’

  ‘I wasn’t being serious, Bea. At my great age, I should be familiar with the city’s lowlife. I could look though the rogues’ gallery with you. Point out possibles.’

  Erlandsson sounded relieved. ‘That would be brilliant, Anita.’

  Anita thought for a moment. ‘Actually, I can do better than that.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Get it straight from the horse’s mouth.’

  ‘You’re mad. Stark raving mad!’

  This was Kevin’s considered opinion as he sat next to Anita in a car he’d hired for a few days so that they had transport. She ignored the comment and continued to watch the gates of the large house in Limhamn. She knew he was inside and would be coming out at some stage. This was the easiest way to get to speak to Dragan Mitrović. He certainly lived in ostentatious style, itself not a Swedish trait. The gates were too ornate, the house too flamboyant, the garden too prissy; though she couldn’t fault the view across the Sound with the Öresund Bridge slightly to the left and Copenhagen slightly to the right. They had been sitting there for nearly an hour. It wasn’t the best way to spend a Saturday morning. Kevin had insisted on coming along once he’d realized what she was going to do. ‘If he so much as lays a finger on you, I’ll have him.’ She appreciated the genuine concern, though Kevin’s slight figure wasn’t likely to put the wind up Mitrović and his thugs. He was spending most of his time playing with a new app he’d put on his phone that located commercial aeroplanes and their destinations. As they were sitting across the water from Kastrup Airport, there were hundreds of flights to check. ‘Oh, that one’s going to Los Angeles. Blimey, that’s a long way! That incoming one we can see over there is coming from Reykjavik. Never been there. Have you?’ She wasn’t sure how much more of his prattle she could take before grabbing his phone and throwing it into the sea. Fortunately, there was some movement at the front of the house and a couple of minutes later, the electronic gates opened. By then, Anita had got out of the car and was firmly warning Kevin to stay put. ‘I’ll just look hard,’ he said jokingly before adding ‘Just be careful.’

  The car with the smoke-glassed windows Anita had spied driving past her apartment a few days before now slipped through the open gates. She walked across the road and held her hand up. The vehicle stopped as the gates closed silently behind it.

  The window on the left-hand side at the back slid down. Anita went round and saw Dragan Mitrović watching her. She found it disconcerting as he was wearing expensive sun glasses and she couldn’t see his eyes.

  ‘Are you now harassing me at my home, Inspector Sundström? My wife will be watching. I don’t like her to worry.’

  ‘I’m not harassing you. I’ve come with news that might stop you trying to intimidate me.’

  ‘Intimidate you?’ he drawled.

  ‘Little things like threatening my family, blowing up my car.’

  ‘I heard about that. Unfortunate. It wasn’t me.’ She couldn’t read his face, but she knew he was lying.

  ‘I’m here to tell you that you and Absame are no longer considered suspects in the murder of Sami Litmanen. But don’t for a minute think it has anything to do with your tactics. We’re pursuing a different line of enquiry.’

  ‘Is that official?’ It wasn’t. It was just that Anita knew her killer lay elsewhere.

  ‘It’s as official as it’s going to get.’

  ‘I must say I’m pleased. I always told you my boy Absame was innocent. Maybe you’ll believe me next time.’

  ‘I hope there won’t be a next time.’

  ‘Just so.’ The window started to slide up.

  ‘A minute!’

  The darkened window was stopped halfway up. Anita had to cock her head to see into the car.

  ‘I need your help.’

  The window went back down again.

  ‘My help?’ he said with a hint of incredulity. ‘Why should I help someone who has been falsely accusing me and one of my associates of murder?’

  ‘I admit I was wrong... about that particular murder.’ The insinuation that she might be referring to the disappearance of Absame’s boxing coach Bogdan Kovać was left hanging. ‘You may have read that Kristina Ekman was recently released from a kidnap situation.’

  Mitrović gave an almost girlish titter. ‘Oh dear; she was so horrible about the police. But she has a point. Business people of stature have to be protected.’

  Anita glanced at the two hulks sitting in the front seats. ‘I see you have your own protection.’

  ‘You can never be too careful.’

  ‘The gang behind these kidnappings. We think they’re Russian. I had a feeling that you wouldn’t be too happy that they’re carrying out these abductions on your turf.’

  Mitrović took off his sun glasses. ‘I’m not. It’s not good for my business or my credibility when outsiders muscle in. What makes you think they’re Russian?’

  ‘Information received,’ she said noncommittally.

  He shrugged.

  ‘We think they’ve recruited a local. Someone who knows who to go after and where they can be found. I was hoping you might have heard who’s working for them.’

  Mitrović thoughtfully chewed on the end of the arm of his glasses. ‘No. No one I’ve heard about. That does not mean they’ve haven’t got someone from Stockholm. They’re all crooks up there
.’

  ‘If you hear anything, I’d appreciate it if you’d let me know. Then we can take this gang out of the picture.’

  ‘Of course, Inspector. I’ll contact you.’

  ‘That shouldn’t be a problem; you know where I live.’

  Anita drove along Strandgatan and parked near the marina. She wanted a walk. The sun was breaking through the clouds, and the chance of another fine day lay ahead. She and Kevin wandered down towards the bobbing yachts. They hadn’t spoken since she’d returned to the car and told him about her exchange with Dragan Mitrović. Her mind had turned towards Sami Litmanen’s killer. Last night, she’d gone home before Alice Zetterberg returned to the office. But what she couldn’t avoid was a phone call at half past nine from a distraught and distracted boss, whom she suspected had already been drinking. Zetterberg wasn’t really interested in how Helsinki had gone, and Anita was quite happy to keep her in the dark until she’d decided on her next move.

  ‘Have you seen what that cow Ekman said in the paper?’ Zetterberg almost shrieked down the line. ‘How could we protect her? We didn’t even know she’d been kidnapped!’ Anita knew that wasn’t entirely true. ‘You should have been firmer with Goessling. Found out that he was lying about her being in Switzerland.’ Anita was too tired to argue and let her rant on. ‘Then we could have done something to catch the gang.’ It had only been a matter of time before Zetterberg was blaming her. ‘It’s bloody incompetence. You were involved in the Uhlig fiasco too. What the hell am I going to tell the commissioner? He’ll go crazy. He hates this sort of crap. Someone will go down for this, and it won’t be me!’ The line went dead. Anita assumed that Alice Zetterberg would be heading for the nearest bar to get plastered.

  A number of the yachts were starting to make their way out into the Sound; others were being prepared for an outing. Swedes never miss the opportunity to hit the water when there’s an encouraging wind and the sun is shining. Soon the blue of the sea would be flecked with white fluttering sails. She found that she was holding Kevin’s hand. Her first reflex was to take it away; it’s what young people do, and they weren’t young anymore. Then she stopped herself. It was nice. It was comforting. She gave his hand a squeeze. He returned the gesture.