by Leif Persson
‘As far as we’re concerned,’ Enoksson said, ‘things are looking pretty good. But you’ll just have to be patient for a couple more days. Partly because we’re waiting for a load of test results, but after that I promise we’ll get back to you. Until then you’ll have to make do with what they say in the evening papers, although I think I’d exercise a bit of caution there.’
Aha, Bäckström thought. Bloody hell. Enoksson’s not a happy bunny.
Olsson didn’t appear to note the comment, and evidently had no intention of letting go of the crime scene yet. ‘If I’ve got this right,’ he said, ‘she was strangled and raped at least a couple of times, and she died just before five o’clock.’
‘Yes,’ Enoksson said. ‘She died between half past four and five.’
Good lad, Bäckström thought, stick to your guns. If you give someone like that so much as your little finger, he’ll take your whole arm.
‘The more ritualized elements in the case . . . almost torture . . . to put it bluntly, he tied her up, gagged her, and then stabbed her a number of times. How far have we got with that?’
‘Stabbed is putting it a bit strong,’ Enoksson objected. ‘It’s more like he cut her.’
‘If I’ve got this right,’ Olsson repeated, ‘he stabbed her thirteen times. Or cut her, if you prefer.’
‘Yes. Thirteen, and I don’t think we’ve missed any. She bled a fair amount when he cut her, even though the wounds aren’t particularly deep, which means that she was alive and struggling, and that was probably the whole point.’ Enoksson suddenly looked exhausted.
‘Stabbed thirteen times,’ Olsson said, sounding like someone who’d seen the truth and the light. ‘That can’t be coincidence, can it?’
‘I don’t think I understand what you mean.’ Enoksson looked like he meant it.
‘Why thirteen in particular?’ Olsson persisted. ‘It’s everyone’s unlucky number. If you ask me, it’s no accident that it was thirteen. I’m fairly sure that our perpetrator wanted to send us a message.’
‘But on the other hand, I happen to think it was pure coincidence that it was thirteen, and not ten or twelve or twenty,’ Enoksson said curtly.
‘Let’s think about it.’
Bäckström had had enough. He grunted loudly enough to get everyone’s attention.
‘I’m inclined to agree with you, Bengt,’ he said, smiling amiably at Olsson. ‘And the date she was killed on can hardly be a coincidence either, although I didn’t realize that until I recalled Anna’s excellent profiling work. She pointed out that the victim had actually spent a couple of years living in the USA when she was younger. I mean, the fourth of July. Surely that can’t be a coincidence?’
‘I don’t quite follow,’ Olsson said hesitantly.
But everyone else seemed to, to judge by their cupped ears and craned necks, Bäckström thought. A Mexican wave.
‘The American national day,’ Bäckström said, nodding for emphasis. ‘You don’t think we could be dealing with someone from al-Qaida?’
The number of people who shuffled on their chairs was slightly larger than those grinning or smirking, but the message had got through.
‘I understand your point, even if it was subtle,’ Olsson said with a stiff smile. ‘Well, to move on, I understand that we’ve got wind of an extremely interesting individual.’ He turned towards Knutsson.
The rats are thinking of jumping ship, Bäckström thought, looking at Knutsson, who suddenly seemed absorbed in his papers.
‘Yes,’ Knutsson said. ‘The victim’s Polish neighbour. Marian Gross, a man many of you here evidently already know.’
Exactly, so why didn’t you deal with him on Friday so that I didn’t have to? Bäckström thought. But of course the uniformed officers who were conducting the door-to-door enquiries hadn’t known who he was, because the prosecutor who had been considering his case since last winter hadn’t realized that he lived in Linda’s building until little Hans from National Crime in Stockholm starting waving it in front of his nose.
They discussed the Polish neighbour within the frame of ‘already known sex maniac’, and as not merely a potential but also the probable perpetrator. The discussion rolled back and forth for almost quarter of an hour, while Bäckström tried to focus on other matters, and when Olsson suddenly asked him a direct question he had no idea what it was about. Other than the fact that it must concern the Polack, of course.
‘What do you think, Bäckström?’ Olsson said.
‘I suggest that we do the following,’ Bäckström said. ‘Pay the bastard a visit and question him. And make sure we get a DNA sample.’
‘I’m afraid there might be a few problems with that,’ Salomonson interrupted from his place further down the table. ‘I’m the one who was in charge of the allegations of sexual harassment, in case anyone’s wondering. Gross is a difficult individual.’
Well then, if he’s that bad we’ll just have to drag him back here, Bäckström thought. Put a pair of cuffs on him and lead him in through the main entrance on Oxtorget so the reporters get plenty of good pictures of the bastard.
‘As the officer responsible for this, I’m happy for him to be brought in for questioning,’ Olsson said, straightening his back. ‘Brought in for questioning under paragraph twenty-three, section seven of the Criminal Justice Act,’ he clarified, looking very pleased with himself as he did so.
You do that, lad, Bäckström thought, nodding in agreement like everyone else sitting round the table, with the exception of Rogersson, whose expression didn’t change.
After the meeting Bäckström caught Olsson before he had time to disappear into his office and shut himself in.
‘Have you got a minute?’ he said with a friendly smile.
‘My door’s always open for you, Bäckström.’ Olsson sounded just as friendly.
‘She seems to have spent most of her time at her father’s house,’ Bäckström said. ‘Her room there ought to be searched as soon as possible.’
Olsson looked troubled, nowhere near as energetic as he had towards the end of the meeting. Her dad was in a bad way. A few years earlier he had had a heart attack and had almost died. His only daughter had been taken from him in the most brutal way, and whenever he switched on the television or the radio or tried to read a paper he was constantly reminded, in the most inconsiderate way, of the tragedy that had befallen him. Besides, it was practically unimaginable that he had anything to do with his daughter’s death. For instance, he had volunteered his fingerprints for the usual comparisons when he was in the police station.
‘I don’t think he had anything to do with his daughter’s death either,’ Bäckström agreed, already focusing elsewhere. Just as little as that fucking Polack, he thought, but that wasn’t the issue just then.
‘It’s reassuring to know that we agree on that,’ Olsson said. ‘I suggest that we wait a few more days, to give Linda’s dad a chance to get back on his feet. I mean, if we’re in luck with this Pole, Gross, the whole thing might be over as soon as we get the DNA results back.’
‘Your decision,’ Bäckström said, and walked away.
After lunch Bäckström received a new list from Knutsson, who for some reason seemed almost guilty.
‘I understand from Rogersson that you don’t believe in the Pole,’ the detective inspector said apologetically.
‘What did Rogersson say, then?’
‘Well, you know what he’s like when he’s in that mood.’
‘So what did he say?’ Bäckström said, looking expectantly at Knutsson. ‘Give me a direct quote.’
‘He said I could shove Gross up my . . . well . . . my backside, you know,’ Knutsson said stiffly.
‘That wasn’t a very nice thing to say,’ Bäckström said. Mind you, it was pretty nice for Rogersson, he thought, considering the things he was capable of saying when he was in that mood.
‘If you’re interested, here’s the latest list,’ Knutsson said, evidently keen to change the subject.
‘My door is always open,’ Bäckström said, leaning back in his chair.
In Knutsson’s opinion, work had been going well since their previous conversation on the subject the day before. He and his colleagues had, amongst other things, been able to get through twenty or so of the seventy most interesting and violence-prone hooligans in Växjö and the surrounding area. DNA samples had already been taken from another ten, in conjunction with earlier offences, and as soon as the National Forensics Lab sent their findings through they’d be able to check for a match.
‘Sounds pretty good,’ Bäckström said. ‘Make sure they all give samples as soon as possible.’
‘There’s just one small problem,’ Knutsson said.
‘I’m listening,’ Bäckström said.
After going through the list with the others working on the same thing, Knutsson and Thorén had decided to expand the list of potential perpetrators.
‘There are a lot of burglaries at this time of year, when people are away on holiday,’ Knutsson explained. ‘So we added the most serious repeat offenders, regardless of whether or not they’d ever shown any signs of violence in the past.’
‘So how many have we got now? A thousand?’
‘It’s not quite that bad,’ Knutsson said. ‘The list now contains eighty-two men with links to the area who have previous convictions.’
Later, the VICLAS unit from National Crime rang Bäckström to share their findings.
‘I’ve got a lot to do, so the short version will do fine,’ Bäckström warned. He knew the officer up in Stockholm and thought he was unbelievably long-winded. The Chin must have put the fear of God into the useless bastards, he thought.
The VICLAS unit looked for serial offenders by trying to find connections between new crimes and old cases, preferably solved ones. To start with they had fed in all the known details about Linda’s murder, and then compared it with previous cases and known perpetrators who were already in the unit’s computer.
‘We got a match with a known criminal,’ Bäckström’s colleague said, sounding proud as a peacock. ‘Your case is very similar to the one he’s serving time for. Not bad. But you should know, Bäckström, they don’t come much worse than this one.’
‘So who is he, then?’ Bäckström said. Almost sounds like you’re talking about your own son, he thought.
‘It’s that crazy Pole who killed that beautician out in Högdalen. The Tanja murder. That was her name. The victim. You remember it? Leszek, Leszek Baranski. Calls himself Leo. He’d raped a whole load of women before that. A really nasty character. Used to run the whole repertoire, tying them up and gagging them, then torture and rape and strangulation. More than one strangulation on the same victim, actually. He used to strangle them a little bit until they lost consciousness, wake them up again by hacking at them with an ice-pick until they came round, then start all over again. A really nice guy.’ The officer was almost bursting with enthusiasm.
‘Hang on a minute,’ Bäckström said. He had suddenly remembered who they were talking about. ‘Didn’t he get life?’ Is that fucker already on the loose?
‘First he got life imprisonment in the district court. But the appeal court sentenced him to a secure psychiatric ward with specific probationary requirements, and according to our records he’s still inside, even though it’s now six years since he was sentenced. Must be a new record for a secure psychiatric unit.’
‘So what are you calling me for?’ Bäckström said. We’ve already filled our quota of Polacks, he thought.
‘Ah, I forgot to say,’ his colleague said. ‘He’s in Sankt Sigfrid’s, in Växjö, or at least he should be. Come on, Bäckström, you’ve been doing this for a while now. You know how things are with psychiatric units. Maybe the shrinks thought some fresh air would do him some good, let him get a bit of a tan and so on, and just forgot to tell us.’
‘You mean he could have got day-release or something?’ Bäckström said. Not him. Even shrinks aren’t that fucking crazy, are they?
‘No idea,’ his colleague said. ‘Why don’t you call them and ask? I’ll fax you everything we’ve got on him.’
‘Thanks,’ Bäckström said, and hung up. Right man in the right job: that fool he’d just spoken to would work for nothing if he had to. Who the hell are they letting into the force these days?
Bäckström stood up and lumbered over to the fax machine. Maybe he’d be lucky enough to both catch his perpetrator and fuck over the whole psychiatric industry at the same time.
The investigation’s first Pole, librarian and holder of a doctorate, Marian Gross, had been contacted by the police that morning. Through the letterbox of the closed door of his flat he indicated to Inspector von Essen and his colleague Constable Adolfsson from Växjö Police that he was extremely busy all day, but that he could be reached by telephone the following day. Seeing as neither von Essen nor Adolfsson was in the mood, not where this case and, in particular, that building were concerned, Adolfsson had roared at him to step aside so he didn’t get hit by his own door, and then landed an exploratory kick to check if he needed to get the ram from the boot of the patrol car. For reasons that were never entirely explained – the accounts of those involved differed quite dramatically in the report that was sent shortly afterwards to the police complaints authority – Gross had immediately opened the door.
‘Ah, there you are, Gross,’ Adolfsson said, smiling broadly at the flat’s owner. ‘Would you like to come with us, or do you want us to drag you?’
Quarter of an hour later von Essen and Adolfsson, with Gross between them, walked into the premises occupied by the investigating team. Gross had decided to walk under his own steam. He wasn’t cuffed, and they had arrived discreetly via the garage of the police station.
‘One Polack, as requested,’ Adolfsson declared, as he handed him over to Salomonson and Rogersson, who were going to conduct the interview.
‘I heard that,’ roared Gross, whose face had been bright red the whole time although up to now he hadn’t made a sound throughout the entire journey. ‘I’ll file a complaint for unlawful discrimination. You fucking fascists.’
‘If Dr Gross would be so kind as to follow me and my colleague here, we’ll sort out the practical details at once,’ Salomonson said with a polite gesture towards the interview room.
The interview with the murder victim’s neighbour, Marian Gross, started just after eleven o’clock in the morning. Lead interviewer was Detective Inspector Nils Salomonson of regional crime in Växjö, and the witness was Detective Inspector Jan Rogersson from National Crime in Stockholm. It would last almost twelve hours, with a break for lunch, two coffee breaks, and a couple of pauses so everyone could stretch their legs. At the end of the interview Martin Gross refused the offer of a lift home, and asked them instead to order him a taxi. At quarter past ten he left the police station. Considering what they had managed to get out of him, they might as well not have bothered.
Gross was mainly interested in talking about himself and the harassment the police had subjected him to for almost six months now, based on a ridiculous complaint filed by ‘a mad woman at work whose sexual advances I have turned down’. Her accusations had started the ball rolling, and now that his neighbour’s daughter had been murdered the police obviously thought he was fair game.
‘You don’t seriously believe that someone like me would be capable of doing something like that?’ Gross had asked, looking in turn at Salomonson and Rogersson.
Naturally he hadn’t received an answer. Instead Salomonson had changed track to a related issue where the fingerprints that they already had on file for Gross, as a result of the earlier investigation into the sexual harassment allegation, might come in handy. Unfortunately they had neglected to take a DNA sample on that occasion.
‘You and Linda’s mother, Liselotte Ericson, you’ve been neighbours for several years now,’ Salomonson had said. ‘How well do you know her?’
Normal neighbourly encounters, nothing
more, nothing less, even if Linda’s mother might not be averse to a closer relationship, according to Gross. And he’d also taken the opportunity to put them right.
‘People call her Lotta. That’s the name she uses herself,’ he had said, and for some reason he seemed rather pleased. ‘A not unattractive woman, unlike her anorexic daughter. They’re not very similar at all. Lotta looks the way a woman’s supposed to look.’
Salomonson had ignored his description of the murder victim. ‘But Lotta Ericson isn’t your type either?’
A bit too simple, possibly even a bit vulgar generally, and she was bound to be the clingy sort that he couldn’t stand. And far too old, according to Gross.
‘I see from our records,’ Rogersson interjected, ‘that she’s a year younger than you. She’s forty-five, you’re forty-six.’
‘I prefer younger women,’ Gross said. ‘Not that that’s any of your business.’
‘Have you ever visited Lotta in her flat?’ Rogersson wondered.
Gross had been inside her flat on several occasions. A couple of times along with their other neighbours, when they’d discussed matters concerning the residents’ association, and a couple of times on his own. Most recently just a month or so ago.
‘She insisted on asking me in even though I was trying not to give her any signals in that direction,’ Gross said. ‘Like I said, she was fairly clingy.’
Whereabouts in the flat had he been? The hall, the living room, the kitchen, the usual places you went when you visit someone who’s invited you for coffee. Possibly also the lavatory.
‘The one beyond the bedroom?’ Salomonson asked.
‘I know what you’re getting at,’ Gross said. ‘To avoid any misunderstanding: I’ve never set foot inside her bedroom. I might have been to the toilet out in the hall, and because our flats are identical I had no trouble finding it. So if you do happen to find my fingerprints anywhere – the same fingerprints you got hold of without any legal justification – there’s an entirely natural explanation.’
He’s not your average idiot, Rogersson thought. No fingerprints from Gross had yet been found at the crime scene, and if any were in future their value was now extremely limited as a result of what he’d just said. So they had changed the subject and asked about his neighbour’s daughter, the murder victim, instead.