by Leif Persson
Enoksson was wearing a white lab coat and plastic gloves when Bäckström walked into the forensics lab, but as soon as he caught sight of Bäckström he pulled off the gloves and put them on the big laboratory table, then pushed a chair towards his visitor.
‘Welcome to our humble abode,’ he said with a smile. ‘Would you like some coffee?’
‘Just had one,’ Bäckström said, ‘but thanks anyway.’
‘So what can I help you with, then?’ Enoksson said.
‘Drugs,’ Bäckström said. Olsson can sit there sweating for a bit longer, he thought. ‘My colleague, Lewin, has got an idea that he might have been high on something. How can we find that out?’
According to Enoksson, there was at least a decent chance. They had probably found enough blood on the windowsill to investigate the matter. He wasn’t sure about the perpetrator’s semen, but he would look into it. The strands of hair they had found were also a possibility. ‘If they came from the perpetrator’s head, the National Lab ought to be able to tell if he used cannabis, for instance. At least if he was a regular user.’
‘What if he only took something just before he attacked Linda?’
‘Doubtful,’ Enoksson said, shaking his head. ‘What drug have you got in mind?’
‘Amphetamine, or something like that.’
‘Ah. Yes, several of us were struck by that particular detail,’ he said, without being more precise about what he meant. ‘I promise we’ll look into it. As far as Linda herself is concerned, we actually got the results back from the lab this morning.’ He leafed through a pile of paper in front of him on the laboratory desk. ‘Here it is,’ he said, holding up the document.
‘I’m listening.’
‘Zero point ten parts per thousand in her blood, and zero point twenty in her urine, which in plain language means that she was at most mildly intoxicated when she was at the club, and pretty much sober when she died.’
‘Nothing else?’ Bäckström said. If I’m in luck, they took something together, he thought.
‘Nothing,’ Enoksson said, shaking his head. ‘The test for so-called prescription drugs in her blood has come back negative, and there were no traces of cannabis, amphetamines, opiates or cocaine metabolites in her urine. Linda seems to have been completely clean, if I can express myself the way our colleagues in the drug squad usually do.’
Oh well, you can’t have everything, Bäckström thought. ‘One more thing,’ he said. ‘If you’ve got a moment?’
‘Of course.’
‘Who is he?’ Take your time, Bäckström thought. Olsson’s absolutely fine where he is.
‘I thought that was your job, Bäckström,’ Enoksson said evasively. ‘You mean, the shoe-rack and all that? That it must be someone she knew?’
‘Yep.’
‘I see what you’re thinking, but he seems pretty crazy too. Would Linda really have known someone like that?’
‘Think about it,’ Bäckström said generously. They never learn, he thought.
‘Well,’ Enoksson said, suddenly looking extremely embarrassed. ‘This really is a terrible business. It’s really got to me, and I thought I’d seen almost everything.’
‘I know,’ Bäckström said happily. ‘Our mutual friend Lo must have a lot to do.’
‘I suppose I’m starting to get old, but if you can’t even bear to look at the pictures of a crime scene, then you probably shouldn’t apply to join forensics. You don’t get any decent pictures that way, and we’re still the ones who are supposed to take them.’
Who the fuck would want to work in forensics, Bäckström thought.
‘And I suppose only a very few among us are granted the blessing of our Lord’s guidance and solace.’
‘So you’ve heard, then,’ Bäckström said with a grin. ‘Thanks for the tip.’
‘Yes, it’s bad.’ Enoksson sighed. ‘What happened to the confidentiality of the confessional? The deeds of men may be fragmentary – and that’s not a direct biblical quote, by the way, but a play on the text of chapter thirteen of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, as any good Smålander could tell you – but do we police officers really have to hold all the fragments up for general view? Follow me, and you’ll see what I mean.’
He got up, went over to his computer and starting tapping at it as if he were a computer geek forty years younger. ‘This is one of our most popular internet newspapers,’ he said, showing Bäckström the screen. ‘And here you can read all the gruesome details that not even the evening papers dare to print. “Strangled by her dad’s tie.” That’s the headline, and the article contains pretty much everything we discussed at yesterday’s meeting. Including the shoes. But they seem to have missed the shoe-rack. Probably not interesting enough for them.’
You’re a proper little philosopher, you are, Enok, Bäckström thought.
‘Oh yes, one last thing,’ Bäckström said. ‘Olsson wanted to talk to you. I think it’s about the search of the victim’s father’s house.’
This is going like clockwork, Bäckström thought. He had gone straight down to his friend Rogge and told him it was high time to interview Linda’s parents, and that this should be done in the usual exhaustive way.
‘In that case I’d better do it myself,’ Rogersson said.
‘Then we have to sort out the people she knew. Drag in anyone who ever said hello to her and stick cotton-buds in their mouths. That way we won’t have to take samples from the whole town. Mum, dad, friends, fellow students, family friends and acquaintances, their neighbours, her teachers at college, people working here in the station, every single bastard in trousers at the club on Friday night. Even the ones who prefer skirts even though they’ve got something sticking out of the front. You know what I mean.’
‘I know,’ Rogersson said. ‘Mind you, we can forget about her mum, can’t we? As far as getting a sample goes, I mean? And no matter what, you’re probably going to have to give our colleague Sandberg some reinforcements.’
‘Any suggestions?’
‘Knutsson, Thorén, or both. Neither of them is likely to win the Nobel Prize, exactly, but at least they’re both fucking thorough.’
You take what you’re given, Bäckström thought. Wasn’t that what Jesus said when he shared out the fish and bread to his mates?
‘Have you got a moment?’ Anna Sandberg asked quarter of an hour later, looking enquiringly at Bäckström as he sat in majesty behind the piles of paper on his borrowed desk.
‘Of course,’ Bäckström said generously, gesturing towards the only unoccupied chair in the room. Who could say no to a pair of decent tits, he thought.
‘I understand I’m going to get some back-up,’ Anna said, sounding pretty much like her colleague and boss, Superintendent Olsson, a short while ago.
‘Exactly,’ Bäckström nodded. So can I possibly have a smile, please?
‘But you’re going to keep me in charge of the profiling of Linda and her acquaintances? You’re not thinking of replacing me, I mean?’
‘Of course not,’ Bäckström said. ‘You can borrow Thorén and Knutsson. Decent lads. Keep them on a short leash, and if they start causing trouble, just let me know and I’ll deal with them.’ Bloody hell, don’t tell me we’re going to have to have a debate on equality as well, he thought.
‘In that case I’m happy,’ Anna said, standing up. ‘You’ve completely dropped the idea that she was the victim of an ordinary madman?’
‘I don’t know about dropped,’ Bäckström said vaguely. ‘One more thing. That pocket diary you promised me. You haven’t forgotten?’
‘I’ll get it for you right away,’ Anna said as she left.
What the fuck’s she so miserable about?
A perfectly ordinary black pocket diary, in a slightly less ordinary red leather cover with the owner’s name, Linda Wallin, embossed in gold in the bottom right-hand corner. A present from her father, Bäckström thought, as he started to leaf through it in a hunt for male acquaintances.
The penultimate entry was for Thursday 3 July. A week old now, and Linda had written that she would be at work from 09.00 to 17.00, and that she and Jenny evidently had plans for the evening. Party? The last notes, which, judging by the handwriting and the pen used to make them, seemed to have been made at the same time as those for Thursday, gave the time of her shift on Friday, 13.00–22.00, then a line through Saturday and Sunday to indicate that she had the weekend off.
If only something hadn’t got in the way, Bäckström thought, suddenly feeling inexplicably gloomy. Pull yourself together, lad, he thought, and straightened up in his chair.
In January there were a total of four entries about someone called Noppe, but as Bäckström already knew that this was her nickname for her ex-boyfriend, who was already out of the investigation thanks to his DNA, he didn’t pay any particular attention to the fact that this Noppe had evidently incurred Linda’s wrath, because he was granted the only negative emotional comment in the entire book. Noppe’s always been a little shit! his ex-girlfriend declared on Monday 13 January.
Okay, Bäckström thought. Really there was just one thing he was wondering about. Not that it was particularly exciting, but it was probably just as well to deal with it before he stopped for the day and headed back to the hotel. Probably best if she comes to me. I am her boss, after all, he thought, reaching for the phone.
‘Thanks for lending it to me,’ Bäckström said amiably, passing the diary back to officer Sandberg.
‘Did you find anything interesting?’ she asked. ‘Anything I missed, I mean?’
What the fuck’s wrong with her? Still sulking, Bäckström thought. ‘There’s just one thing I’m wondering about.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Saturday 17 May. The Norwegians’ national day,’ Bäckström said, nodding towards the diary.
‘Right,’ Anna said hesitantly, and leafed through to the relevant page. ‘Ronaldo, Ronaldo, Ronaldo, magical name,’ she read.
‘Ronaldo exclamation mark, Ronaldo exclamation mark, Ronaldo exclamation mark. Magical name, question mark,’ Bäckström corrected. ‘Who’s Ronaldo?’
‘Ah, I get it,’ Anna said, suddenly smiling. ‘It must be that footballer. That Brazilian, the one who’s so good. I think he was playing in some Europa League final that day. I’m sure our colleagues in forensics have checked it out. I’m pretty sure he got three goals, if I’ve got it right. I think I said at our first meeting that Linda was one of the best players in the women’s football team at police college. The match was shown live on television. She must have watched it. I doubt if there’s any more to it than that.’
‘Hmm,’ Bäckström muttered. Bloody hell, you’re suddenly very talkative, aren’t you? Sadly, his next thought found its way out before he had time to stop it.
‘It couldn’t simply be that she was a dyke, could it?’ Bäckström said. Shit, he thought, but it was already too late.
‘Sorry?’ Anna said, looking at him with her eyes wide open. ‘That she was what? What did you call her?’
‘Pretty girl, no blokes, interested in football, loads of female friends. She couldn’t simply have been, well, a lesbian?’ Bäckström clarified. Or whatever the hell they call themselves, he thought.
‘Oh, come on, Bäckström,’ Anna said with feeling, and evidently without any regard to their relative status. ‘I play football as well. And I’ve also got a husband and two children. Whatever that’s got to do with anything,’ she said, looking at him angrily.
‘In cases like this, the victim’s sex life always has something to do with it,’ Bäckström said, and when he saw that she wasn’t going to back down he raised his hand in a defensive gesture. ‘Forget it, Anna. Just forget it.’
‘Yes, let’s hope we can,’ Anna said crossly. She picked up the diary and left.
There’s something that doesn’t make sense, Bäckström thought, pulling out a pen and a sheet of paper. Ronaldo! Ronaldo! Ronaldo! and then, immediately below, Magical name?
Fuck knows what, though, Bäckström thought, staring at what he’d just written. Besides, it was high time for him to make his way back to the hotel, have a little lie down before dinner, and maybe squeeze in a beer or two.
‘I found this in her diary,’ Bäckström said, shooting the note over to Rogersson a couple of hours and several beers later. ‘From 17 May this year.’
‘Ronaldo, Ronaldo, Ronaldo, magical name,’ Rogersson read. ‘Must be that football player, mustn’t it? Some match she saw on television. She was interested in football, wasn’t she? What are you wondering about?’
‘Oh, bollocks,’ Bäckström said, shaking his head. Bollocks, he thought.
25
Växjö, Friday 11 July
THE MORNING MEETING on Friday mainly focused on an old police notion which turned out to be right more often than the even older theory about the murderer’s usually showing up at the victim’s funeral. Considering everything their perpetrator had come up with when he killed Linda, it didn’t seem entirely out of the question that he might have committed other crimes in conjunction with that one. Interesting crimes in the vicinity of Linda’s murder, in both time and space, which – in an ideal world – could have been committed when he was on his way to see Linda, or making his escape afterwards.
From the police database Detective Inspectors Knutsson and Thorén had dug out every reported crime and police report, and even ordinary parking tickets, that had been recorded from Wednesday 2 July up to Tuesday 8 July. The results were fairly meagre, even when the parking tickets were taken into account. A lot of motorists were on holiday and had taken their cars with them. And a lot of traffic wardens were also on holiday. There was no more to it than that, and in the area where Linda’s mother had her flat there hadn’t been a single parking ticket issued during the week in question.
In terms of other crimes, a total of 102 had been reported to the police in Växjö during that same week. There were 13 bicycle thefts, 25 thefts or cases of shoplifting, 10 burglaries from flats, houses, offices and business premises, 10 cars broken into, 5 cars damaged, 2 cars stolen, 4 cases of fraud, 1 of embezzlement, 2 cases of breach of trust reported by the same person, 3 cases of tax offences, 10 serious driving offences, of which 5 were drunk-driving, and a total of 17 different offences involving violence.
Of the latter, 8 were physical abuse, 7 unlawful threats or threatening behaviour, and 1 a case of violence against a public official. Half of them were marital rows and minor skirmishes, a further 25 per cent were between people who knew each other, and the remaining 25 per cent took place in and around bars. And one murder, of course, the murder of trainee police officer Linda Wallin, early on the morning of Friday 4 July.
This town’s just like Chicago, Bäckström thought with a sigh. ‘Anything interesting, then?’ he asked, trying hard not to sound as uninterested as he felt.
‘The one that’s geographically closest to the crime scene is one of the car thefts. An old Saab was stolen from a car park on Högtorpsvägen, out in Högstorp, to the south of that patch of woodland just east of Linda’s block. Basically, it was stolen about two kilometres south-east of the crime scene. Close to route 25, the Kalmar road,’ Knutsson said.
‘The most stolen cars in the country,’ Thorén added. �
�Old Saabs, I mean,’ he clarified.
The problem was that it wasn’t reported stolen until Monday, three days after the murder.
‘Maybe the bastard camped out in that patch of woodland. Took the chance to get a bit of a tan and do some swimming while he was at it,’ Bäckström suggested, and managed to get a few smiles from his colleagues.
‘Obviously, we checked to see if the date the report was made matches the date of the theft. Erik called the owner and spoke to him,’ Thorén nodded towards Knutsson.
‘According to him it was there over the weekend. He’d spoken to a neighbour who saw it,’ Knutsson said. ‘He was a retired pilot, by the way, the owner, I mean, not the neighbour. He was away in the country and it was his old car. Mostly just sat in the car park. He’s got a new Merc now. Not that that’s got anything to do with the case. But you never know,’ Knutsson said, nodding gravely towards Bäckström.
Yes, Bäckström thought. What the hell has that got to do with anything? ‘And that’s it?’
‘Yes,’ Thorén said.
‘If you like we can look further afield,’ Knutsson said helpfully.
‘Bollocks to that,’ Bäckström said. We’ve got more important things to do. ‘Well, what are you sitting here for?’ he went on, looking round his investigative team. ‘The meeting’s over. Did I forget to say? Go and do something useful, and if you haven’t got anything better to do, try to catch some of the people we want DNA samples from.’ He stood up. Completely useless, he thought. And it was hot too. Unbearably hot, and at least eight hours to the first cold lager of the day.
The same morning Enoksson and one of his colleagues searched Linda’s room in her father’s house outside Växjö. Superintendent Olsson had gone along, despite Enoksson’s trying to steer him away from the idea without being too blunt.
‘You’re probably needed here instead,’ the forensics chief had said. ‘There’s no need for you to worry, Bengt. My colleague and I can sort this.’
‘I think it would probably be best if I come with you,’ Olsson had decided. ‘I’ve known him for a while, after all, and I can take the opportunity to have a bit of a chat, find out how he’s feeling.’