by Leif Persson
‘So what had he done?’ Bäckström asked.
‘Not him, her,’ Adolfsson said. ‘She tried to bite the baron in the neck when we were trying to get her in the car, and considering that she was HIV-positive, I thought it best to gag her.’
‘I didn’t know you kept gags in the car,’ Bäckström said. ‘Sounds practical.’
‘I took my jacket off and tied it round her head,’ Adolfsson said. ‘Even the traitors in police complaints didn’t have any objections.’
‘Okay, this is what we’re going to do, and not a word to anyone outside this room,’ Bäckström said. He took his feet off the desk and leaned forward.
31
Skåne, Saturday 19 July
AT THE START of the week the Head of National Crime had flown down to Skåne to personally lead the hunt for the most dangerous criminal in the country. The madman from Dalby, a mass-murderer, and – in the world where people like Nylander were obliged to live – in all likelihood also a serial killer. To be close to the search area in and around Dalby, where his troops in the rapid-response unit had been deployed, he had taken quarters in the Grand Hotel in Lund.
At first they had had the poor taste to put him in an ostentatious suite, but when he explained in very clear terms about the operational circumstances of his visit they had swapped the suite for a normal double room with en suite bathroom. These wretched civilians haven’t got a clue about heightened states of alert, Nylander thought.
Unfortunately, though, late on Saturday evening a small incident occurred in his hotel room.
Nylander was tired after having spent more than fifteen hours out in the field. The heat had been troubling and there had been some difficulties about obtaining adequate supplies. As he was going to bed, when he was unloading, or possibly loading, his service revolver – the specific details were never made public – a shot unfortunately went off and hit the mirror in his bathroom. Because no great damage seemed to have been done, Nylander brushed his teeth, put the pistol under his pillow, where he always kept it when he was away from home on official duty, and went to bed. He was on the point of falling asleep when he was woken by someone knocking violently at his door.
Unhappily, the errant bullet appeared to have ended up embedded in the television of the next room. His hysterically inclined neighbour had rushed straight to reception, screaming out loud, wearing nothing but a pair of boxer shorts embellished with pictures of Donald Duck. The hotel staff had immediately called the police and told them that there had been ‘a series of shots fired in the room of the head of the National Crime Unit’. Just two minutes later the first patrol car arrived from Lund Police, and just to be on the safe side the rapid-response detail from the Malmö force was on its way.
After that the situation got out of hand. Even though Nylander himself calmly and systematically explained what had actually happened, and even suggested that everyone went back to their own business, he was ignored. The local officers were simply not professional enough to handle the situation. Instead they took his service revolver into safe keeping and dragged him to the police station in Lund for questioning, even though it was the middle of the night. After the interview they finally drove him back to the hotel.
‘Unfortunately I shall be obliged to write a report about this matter,’ Nylander said, fixing his eyes on the head of the Malmö rapid-response detail when they dropped him off outside the entrance to the hotel.
‘Go ahead, Nylander,’ the officer replied, in a broad Skåne accent. ‘As long as you promise to keep your hands above the covers.’
The following morning they found the sought-after madman. He was in a fisherman’s shed outside Åhus, and the fact that he was found by the owner of the shed rather than by Nylander’s rapid-response unit was in all likelihood explained by the fact that he was in the wrong place, in terms of the area being searched. To judge by the smell and the number of maggots, he had evidently been there for several days.
‘Looks like the bastard put the gun in his mouth and fired,’ the head of Nylander’s unit said.
‘Get a DNA sample from him and let our colleagues in Växjö know,’ Nylander said. Backwoods policemen, he thought. You had to do everything yourself.
32
Växjö, Sunday 20 July
LATE ON SUNDAY evening Knutsson and Thorén knocked on the door of Bäckström’s hotel room. Their colleagues in Stockholm had finished their preliminary investigation into the mobile phone belonging to trainee police officer Erik Roland Löfgren.
‘What, they’ve been working over the weekend?’ Bäckström said in surprise.
‘I suppose they want the overtime, like everyone else,’ Knutsson replied.
‘So is he still here, or has he scarpered?’ Bäckström asked. Hope the fucker’s scarpered, he thought, suddenly feeling the familiar tingling again.
‘Judging from the call log, he’s been on Öland since the middle of the week,’ Thorén said. ‘Before that, it looks like he was in Växjö.’
‘The most recent search locates him close to a phone mast in Mörbylånga,’ Knutsson clarified. ‘His parents have a summer house nearby, so he’s probably there sunbathing.’
‘So have you found anything interesting?’ Bäckström asked. Cretins, he thought. Why would someone like Löfgren want to go sunbathing?
‘I think so,’ Thorén said, looking pleased with himself.
‘What, then?’ Bäckström said. ‘Unless it’s a secret?’
‘Officer Sandberg seems to have tried calling him several times,’ Thorén said. ‘The first time on the day Linda was murdered.’
‘Yes,’ Bäckström said with a sigh. ‘Which isn’t so bloody strange considering that she was the one who questioned him over the phone.’ Utter cretins, he thought.
‘That’s what we thought to start with,’ Thorén said.
‘Until we thought about it a bit more,’ Knutsson explained.
‘Really?’ Bäckström said sourly. Who the hell do they think they are?
According to the interview report that Sandberg had written and signed, she had questioned trainee police officer Roland Löfgren between 19.15 and 19.35 on Friday 4 July.
‘She called his mobile. Probably from her own extension in the police station in Växjö, seeing as the call went through the station’s exchange,’ Thorén said.
‘I’m not that stupid,’ Bäckström said. ‘So what’s the problem?’
‘For one thing, the conversation’s a bit short,’ Knutsson said, giving Bäckström a crafty glance. ‘It ends after just four minutes. At 19.19.’
‘So what?’ Bäckström said. ‘That could just mean he asked her to call the landline instead. Bad reception, battery running out. How the hell should I know?’ Christ, how stupid could you get? ‘Have you checked his landline?’
‘It’s being done,’ Thorén said. ‘It’s a normal Telia connection, to his student lodgings. In some big house on Doktorsgatan in the centre of Växjö, owned by a doctor with a private practice here in town. Probably one of his dad’s old friends. The account is under his father’s name, not the boy’s, which makes getting permission to see the records a bit tricky.’
‘Well, they’ll just have to get it sorted,’ Bäckström said. ‘What’s the other problem?’
‘Well, to put it briefly,’ Knutsson said . . .
To put it briefly, the problem was as follows: at 19.20 someone had made another call from the police station exchange to Löfgren’s mobile, but he didn’t answer. Another five incoming calls had been logged, all from the same number, and all of them – to judge by the length of the call – had gone straight to voicemail. The last of the calls was made just after midnight. During the following fifteen days, a total of ten more calls had been made to Löfgren’s mobile from the police station exchange. All of them apparently unanswered.
As if this weren’t enough, Sandberg had also called him from her official police mobile on five occasions, and those calls also seemed not to have bee
n answered. Finally she had also called him one more time from her personal mobile.
‘That was on Thursday afternoon, just after lunch,’ Knutsson said. ‘And they actually seem to have talked to each other that time. The call lasted nine minutes.’
‘Weird,’ Bäckström agreed. What the fuck’s she playing at? Wasn’t that when she had a go at me in the canteen?
‘Yes, definitely a bit weird,’ Thorén said.
‘Pretty mysterious, if you ask me,’ Knutsson said.
‘Let’s sleep on it,’ Bäckström said. What the fuck’s going on?
‘One more thing,’ Bäckström said, before they had time to disappear through the door. ‘Not a word about this to a single damn soul.’
‘Course not,’ Knutsson said.
‘Very hush hush,’ Thorén agreed, winking with his right eye and holding his right index finger to his lips.
‘What?’ Bäckström said. Are the bastards freemasons as well?
‘Very hush hush,’ Knutsson repeated. ‘Like that film about cops in Los Angeles in the fifties. LA Confidential.’
‘One of the characters says that, very hush hush,’ Thorén explained. ‘It’s a good film. Based on a book by James Ellroy. You should see it, Bäckström.’
There’s no other explanation. They have to be poofs, Bäckström thought just before he fell asleep. Since the rest of humanity had got hold of television and video, only poofs still went to the cinema. Poofs and old women, of course. Not even kids went to the cinema any more, Bäckström thought, and that must have been when sleep caught up with him, because when he opened his eyes it was already light outside and the same merciless sun was searching for gaps in the curtain, trying to get into his room.
Today I’m going to make glue out of the bastard, Bäckström thought as he stood in the shower, letting the cold water prepare him for yet another new day in his life as a murder detective.
33
Växjö, Monday 21 July
DETECTIVE SUPERINTENDENT JAN Lewin had taken to reading the Småland Post. He still had to read at least one newspaper to stay informed about the media view of the world in general, and the murder of Linda Wallin in particular.
Obviously, Linda’s murder dominated the news in the big local morning paper, but they also had room for other stories, some small comfort amidst all the human misery, and on this particular Monday morning this came in the form of an article about what was probably the largest strawberry in the world.
There was a picture of the strawberry on the front page, with the classic matchbox alongside for scale, from which it was possible to deduce that the strawberry was the size of a cauliflower, or perhaps a man’s fist. Inside the paper was a lengthy interview with the man behind this horticultural feat, Svante Forslund, 72, and a slightly shorter one with his wife Vera, 71.
Svante Forslund had been retired for almost ten years, after a career as a biology and chemistry teacher at the high school in Växjö. He and his wife now spent all year in what had once been their summer cottage outside Alvesta. The Forslunds’ great hobby was gardening. Their plot was almost an acre in size, and contained most of what could be grown for both culinary and visual delight. Flowers, herbs, medicinal plants, fruit and all other forms of greenery. Potatoes and every other root vegetable, and other nutritious things. Obviously also beehives, to guarantee the pollination of their private paradise. And, last but not least, there were numerous varieties of Fragaria ananassa, because strawberries in particular were Svante Forslund’s great passion in life.
The strawberry in question was a recent American hybrid, Fragaria monstrum americanum, the American monster strawberry. Forslund had noticed this particular strawberry during the week after mid-summer, and even then it had been considerably larger than others in the same row.
Forslund had immediately decided to embark upon a special growth programme. Other strawberries on the same plant had been removed to avoid any competition for nutrients, a special watering and feeding regime had been introduced, and the plant had been given particular protection from insects, grubs, birds, hares and deer. A fortnight later, when Forslund estimated that his strawberry had reached its optimal size, it had been picked, photographed, and ended up in the paper.
Aside from the purely horticultural interest, Svante Forslund also saw huge economic potential in his giant strawberry. Professional strawberry cultivation in Sweden currently occupied 2,350 hectares, and in Forslund’s opinion it would only take a couple of years of systematic focus on his giant American strawberries for annual fruit production to increase by some 400 per cent. From the same area and with considerably lower watering and fertilizer costs than was currently the case.
His wife Vera had also had her say, and she was far less enthusiastic. In summary, she thought her husband’s monster strawberry was both watery and tasteless, and, to put it bluntly, she wouldn’t dream of using it in the kitchen. In Vera Forslund’s world, a proper strawberry should taste like they did when she was little. Her own favourite was a local variety that produced a dark red and fairly small fruit with firm flesh, a sweet taste, and a pronounced flavour of the wild variety. She had inherited the plants from her parents, and although her husband was a latter-day Carl von Linné, even he had been unable to classify their origins. Nevertheless, their fruit still formed the main ingredient of the famous strawberry tart that she always made for her children, grandchildren, and friends each summer, and the readers of the Småland Post could make for themselves by following the accompanying recipe: a base of thinly sliced sponge, a few splashes of homemade strawberry liqueur, a large quantity of jam made from the same strawberries, a lot of whipped cream, thinly sliced strawberries all round the sides and a particularly fine whole strawberry to crown the creation.
It sounded simple and tasty. Rather like the tarts his mother used to make when he was a child, Lewin thought, deciding to cut out the article and add it to the rest of the material he was collecting from his trip to Växjö.
34
THE VOLUNTARY DNA sampling programme in Växjö and the surrounding district seemed to be a real success. They now had almost four hundred samples. The National Forensics Lab had set aside resources for the Linda murder and almost half of those who had submitted samples had been discounted from the investigation.
‘What about our fellow officers and those students?’ Olsson asked.
‘It’s going okay,’ Knutsson said, looking at his files. ‘We’ve had eight samples. All of them voluntary. The first four we received have already been discounted. There are just two we haven’t got.’
‘Yes, and I’ve promised to sort out Claesson’s, so it’s on its way,’ Olsson said. ‘No need to worry. I’ll take care of it myself,’ he added quickly.
‘Right, so that leaves one student that we don’t have a sample from,’ Knutsson said, pretending to consult his notes. ‘Let’s see. He was in the same class as Linda, and was in the nightclub on the night in question. An Erik Roland Löfgren, according to college records.’
‘I’ve tried to reach him by phone. Several times,’ Sandberg said.
‘How are you getting on?’ Bäckström asked. Just tell us what the fuck you’re up to.
‘Well, it’s the middle of the holidays, but I did eventually manage to get hold of him at the end of last week,’ Sandberg said. ‘He was with his parents at their summer house on Öland, but he promised to get in touch as soon as he gets back to Växjö.’
‘That’s very generous of him,’ Bäckström grunted. ‘So when can we expect to see him, then? When the college term starts in the autumn, perhaps? The simplest solution is surely to ask our colleagues in Kalmar to go over to Öland and take a sample.’
‘I promise I’ll chase him up again,’ Sandberg said. ‘I promise. Don’t let’s forget that this is about people volunteering. I mean, he’s not a suspect, after all.’
‘Just get it sorted,’ Bäckström said. ‘Explain to our little student what this is all about. Otherwise I’ll go and
get him myself, and then we’ll be talking blood samples rather than cotton-buds.’
‘I’m sure it’ll sort itself out,’ Olsson said. ‘It’ll be fine. Don’t let’s get wound up about such a small detail.’
‘I’m not at all wound up,’ Bäckström said. ‘Just tell the fucker that if he wants to join the police, he’d better stop acting like a common criminal under suspicion of committing some sort of crap. Just a bit of kind-hearted advice. And if there’s nothing else, then I at least have a lot of work to do.’
That afternoon Olsson asked to talk to Bäckström in private. ‘I could do with a bit of wise advice from an experienced colleague,’ he said.
The flasher, Bäckström thought. You’ve asked for a DNA sample, and now he’s hanged himself in his attic, and you want to have a good cry on Uncle Bäckström’s shoulder.
It turned out to be a rather different problem. There was a lot of anxiety in Växjö after Linda’s murder, particularly among young women, and, seen from a social point of view, this had actually diminished the quality of life of a large group of individuals.
‘Do people actually dare to go out and have fun any more without running the constant risk of being attacked?’ Olsson wondered.
‘Interesting question,’ Bäckström said.
‘It’s many years since we in the police have been able to guarantee anything like that,’ Olsson said. ‘Our resources aren’t even sufficient to cover the essentials any longer.’
If there are actually any essentials in a shithole like this, Bäckström thought. Badly parked cars and missing dogs? ‘Yes, it’s a bad situation,’ he agreed with a sigh.
‘There’s a group of us who’ve been trying to come up with an alternative solution, and it was actually Lo who came up with the idea,’ Olsson said.
‘I’m all ears, I can assure you.’ Bäckström nodded seriously and leaned forward. Our very own battery hen. I can hardly wait, he thought.