Linda - As In The Linda Murder

by Leif Persson

  On Friday evening Bäckström gathered his core team for dinner at the hotel. They started in Bäckström’s room, to be able to discuss the case in peace and quiet, and just for once Lewin, Knutsson and Thorén had all said yes to Bäckström’s generous offer of a beer. Little Svanström didn’t drink beer, but she was perfectly capable of going to her room for a glass of the white wine from the bottle she evidently kept in the minibar.

  ‘Then at least I can keep you company,’ she said.

  Bäckström was furious. He wasn’t the sort who was prepared to take a heap of crap and put up with a load of backstabbing from a bunch of hillbilly cops who were too cowardly to say it to his face. Several times that day he had thought about going up to the police commissioner’s office and banging his fists on his desk.

  ‘With all due respect, Bäckström, I don’t think that would be particularly constructive,’ Lewin said.

  ‘Really?’ Bäckström said. Bloody traitor, he thought.

  ‘I’m inclined to agree with Lewin,’ Rogersson said, even though it was Bäckström’s beer he was guzzling his way through. ‘Anyway, as soon as we get the bastard behind bars, the talk will stop.’

  Another one, Bäckström thought.

  ‘It was someone she knew,’ Lewin said. ‘Someone she let in of her own free will, because she liked him, and I’m also pretty sure that she had sex with him of her own free will, at least to start with. Until it got out of hand.’

  ‘So where do we find him?’ Bäckström asked. In one of your bastard constructs, he thought.

  ‘We’re going to find him,’ Lewin said. ‘There can’t be that many to choose from, can there? Sooner or later we’re going to find him.’

  Then they went down to the restaurant to have dinner, and because Bäckström had started to thaw out he even managed to persuade the others that they should have another drink before the meal.

  ‘The schnapps is on me,’ he said, having already worked out how to deal with that little problem without having to surrender any of his hard-earned cash.

  After that there were several more. Mostly for him and Rogersson, of course, but even Lewin, of all people, fell into line and had a couple. Hans and Fritz acquitted themselves reasonably well before they eventually headed out into town, and this time they evidently weren’t thinking of enjoying the films on offer in Växjö.

  Bäckström stayed in the bar together with Rogersson, and when they finally staggered back to their rooms for some well-deserved rest they were both fairly far gone. Bäckström had trouble with the plastic key to his room, but Rogersson had helped him and made sure he got in.

  ‘Do you want one?’ Bäckström said, gesturing in the direction of the minibar.

  ‘I think I’ve had enough,’ Rogersson said. ‘I know, there’s something I meant to say.’

  ‘I’m listening,’ Bäckström said, as he kicked off his shoes and lay down on his side to save time before he fell asleep.

  ‘One of those bastard reporters called and had a go about us sitting here watching porn films all night,’ Rogersson said. ‘Do you know anything about that, Bäckström?’

  ‘Not the foggiest,’ Bäckström muttered. What the hell’s he going on about? he thought. Porn films? Now?

  ‘Nor me,’ Rogersson said.

  ‘So what did you tell him?’ Bäckström muttered.

  ‘I told him to go to hell, of course. What would you have done?’

  ‘Told him to go to hell, of course,’ Bäckström said. ‘What do you think about getting a bit of sleep?’

  On Sunday 10 August, Linda Wallin’s family buried her in the presence of her parents, her two half-brothers from her father’s previous marriage, and twenty or so other relatives and close friends. No journalists or police, however. Detective Superintendent Olsson had been sharply rebuked by Linda’s father when he had called and offered their services. He had already made his own arrangements. The funeral service took place in the church where Linda had been confirmed seven years before, and she was buried in the adjoining cemetery, in the plot her father had bought on his return to Sweden for himself and coming generations. His own grief was already boundless, with no beginning or end, so the fact that his only daughter had ended up there before him could scarcely make it any worse.

  53

  Stockholm, Monday 11 August

  BY SEVEN O’CLOCK on Monday morning, Lars Martin Johansson had already arrived at his new workplace. His desk was covered with piles of neat documents. One of them had a Post-it note from his secretary with the words Immediate action?

  On the top of the pile was a memo from the Chancellor of Justice, CJ, then one from the Judicial Ombudsman, JO. Their contents were almost identical, and they were addressed to the county police commissioner of Kronoberg County Police Authority, with copies to the Head of National Crime for information and eventual comment. They had been prompted by the contents of the Dagens Nyheter newspaper on Thursday 7 August, and concerned the methods which were reported as having been used in the preliminary investigation into the murder of Linda Wallin, and, in particular, the use of so-called voluntary DNA samples. But last but by no means least, the memos from CJ and JO were both policy initiatives. In light of their origins, this was the second worst thing that could happen, and a fairly good omen of the worst.

  Why are these on my desk? Why didn’t they send them straight to Ulleråker? Johansson thought crossly, as he wrote on the Post-it note that he wanted to meet whichever one of all his lawyers was responsible for this matter immediately. But otherwise everything seemed exactly the way it had been for years in his elevated existence. Papers, papers, papers, and yet more papers, he thought.

  54

  Växjö, Monday 11 August

  WHEN THE INVESTIGATING team gathered around the big table for the first morning meeting of the week, they had no idea of the dark clouds that were gathering above their investigation. On the contrary, they all seemed to feel that a merciful sun was finally shining down on them. A minute after they began Enoksson suddenly appeared and asked Bäckström if he could start. He said he had a number of interesting things to tell them, and because it was Enoksson rather than Olsson – who had made Bäckström very happy by not being there – Bäckström suddenly felt a hint of the familiar tingling somewhere nearby.

  ‘Our colleagues in Kalmar have found a match for the Linda murderer’s DNA,’ Enoksson began, and observed with satisfaction the way everybody immediately sat up and took notice. ‘Unfortunately they can’t provide us with an identity, but I still think it’s pretty encouraging.’ Is this what it feels like to have an audience spellbound? he wondered.

  Because Enoksson was a thorough and pedagogical man, he tried to make things easier for his audience by summarizing, with bullet points, what he was about to tell them, and just to make sure he handed round some photocopied notes that they could look at as he explained. The first point was about Linda’s murder. The last was about the report he had received from the National Forensics Lab in Linköping just an hour ago.

  Linda had been murdered between four and five o’clock in the morning of Friday 4 July, at home in her mother’s flat on Pär Lagerkvists väg in Växjö. On the afternoon of Monday 7 July the Växjö Police received a report that a ten-year-old Saab had been stolen a couple of kilometres from the crime scene on the morning of the day it was reported missing. The same car had appeared in their investigation on Friday 11 July, when, as part of the investigation into Linda’s murder, they had checked other interesting crimes in the area. Because it had been deemed to be of little interest, it had been set to one side. But now there were good reasons to take another look.

  ‘If I remember rightly, we thought at the time that if it had been stolen three days after the murder, then it was pushing the boundaries of anything that could have any connection with Linda,’ Enoksson said.

  No matter. It had been found on the Sunday, so it couldn’t have been stolen on the Monday. It was hidden in the forest near a side road off
route 25 between Växjö and Kalmar, about ten kilometres from Kalmar. It was found by the landowner early that morning when he was inspecting his property. The car’s registration plates had been removed, and someone appeared to have made a half-hearted attempt to set light to it. Considering the state it was in, it looked pretty much like the usual easy way for the owner to avoid one last journey to the scrapyard, and this wasn’t the first time the landowner had experienced this particular form of private initiative. In short, he wasn’t remotely amused.

  That afternoon he had called the police in Kalmar, but because they were short of staff it wasn’t until Wednesday 9 July that a patrol from the neighbourhood police unit in Nybro was able to take a look at the problem. After checking the car and taking a quick look round the surrounding area, they found a pair of number plates in a ditch some fifty metres from the vehicle, back towards route 25. They had checked them out over police radio, and were told that the plates matched the car, and this was where things began to get really interesting.

  The crime reduction division of the county police authority in Kalmar had taken to heart the Justice Minister’s proposals to deal more firmly with everyday offences, and they were participating in a national trial to use modern forensic techniques in an attempt to raise the clear-up rate for car thefts.

  There were also several indications to suggest that this particular vehicle had been stolen. The car had been started by someone ramming a screwdriver into the ignition, and the steering lock had been broken the usual way, by locking the car’s wheels and then wrenching the steering wheel as hard as possible.

  In the ashtray between the front seats their colleagues from Nybro had found a hand-rolled cigarette with a promising smell of Cannabis sativa, so they put the butt in an evidence bag and sent it off to the National Forensics Lab for DNA analysis, and had the car moved to the police compound in Kalmar in case any further forensic tests were required within the framework of the national trial.

  After that, both car and cigarette butt had got lost in the police computer system. The police in Kalmar had no idea that the same car had been discussed in the country’s highest-priority murder investigation for a whole minute. They had made do with sending a letter to the car’s owner saying that they had found it, but he hadn’t got in touch, and no one appeared to have given it another thought.

  At the National Forensics Lab the submitted marijuana butt ended up at the bottom of the ever-expanding list of pending DNA samples. Regardless of the Justice Minister’s political manoeuvrings, and regardless of the priorities of the crime reduction division of the county police authority in Kalmar, and with no intentional disrespect to a national trial, it had been set to one side and had to wait its turn, and only after a whole month did anyone have any time to deal with it.

  Late in the afternoon of Friday 8 August the analysis was finished, and when the results were compared with other cases in the database the warning lights began to flash. Unfortunately all of those most closely involved, from both the Växjö and Kalmar forces, had already gone home, and out of respect for confidentiality and various other reasons of the usual personal variety it wasn’t until Monday morning that Enoksson and his colleagues were given the happy news over the phone by an expert at the National Lab.

  ‘That’s pretty much it,’ Enoksson concluded. ‘We’ve got officers on their way to Kalmar to bring the car back here. We thought that would be the easiest option. What else? Oh yes, a message from our colleagues in Kalmar.’

  ‘What do they want?’ Bäckström asked, although he already knew the answer.

  ‘The usual,’ Enoksson said. ‘That if we need any more help solving Linda’s murder, we only have to ask.’

  ‘I don’t think that will be necessary,’ Bäckström said. ‘Okay, comrades,’ he went on. ‘Now we’ve something to get our teeth into, and if there’s ever been a car theft that’s ever been more thoroughly investigated anywhere in the kingdom of Sweden than this one, then I promise to throw in the towel.’ Dream on, losers, he thought.

  55

  IN THE COUNTY police commissioner’s office one floor above, no one had any idea of the enthusiasm pervading the murder investigation downstairs. On the contrary, the county police commissioner was seriously concerned, and, as was so often the case, his fears were shared by his colleague Detective Superintendent Olsson, who was both faithful and wise.

  Early that same morning his secretary had called him at his summer house, even though he was on holiday, with the sole purpose of informing him that he had received letters from both CJ and JO. This was something he had previously been spared, despite having worked in the police for almost twenty-five years and having in that time accumulated increasing numbers of fellow officers to keep in line. Accepting that he had no choice, he got in his car at once and made the roughly hundred-kilometre one-way trip to the police station in Växjö. But first he had checked on his beloved wife. As usual, she was lying down on the jetty sunbathing, and as usual she just waved at him dismissively when he, as usual, reminded her to use sun cream.

  Once he was in the car he called his faithful squire Olsson, and, bearing in mind the sensitive nature of the matter, was careful to stress the importance of their having the chance to discuss the matter privately first, and that it would be advantageous to withhold all information for the time being from their colleagues from National Crime.

  ‘I completely agree with you, boss,’ Olsson concurred, promising to talk to Bäckström at once and ask him to take charge of the morning meeting in Olsson’s absence, but without going into the reasons.

  After discussing the situation in peace and quiet over a cup of coffee, it turned out that they agreed on much more than just that. The information in the newspaper article had admittedly, and entirely as usual, been both seriously spun and violently exaggerated, but Olsson had still attempted on several occasions to get their colleagues from National Crime to hold back.

  ‘I suppose in part I see it as them having a completely different culture of policing from the one we have down here,’ he explained. ‘And it really does seem like they’ve never had to take the cost of things into consideration. It’s very much get up and go, if you know what I mean.’

  As far as the response to JO and CJ was concerned, he promised to look into the precise details. His boss had no need to worry himself with that at all.

  ‘If it comes to it, I’ll just have to give them a stiff talking to,’ he said, straightening his back.

  Olsson’s a rock, the county police commissioner thought, wishing it were possible to ask him to call the newly appointed head of the National Crime Unit for him as well. That was a conversation he probably ought to get over and done with more or less immediately; he had been getting wound up about it since early that morning. What is it the others call him? he thought. The Butcher of Ådalen?

  He himself had only met him on a couple of occasions, but that was more than enough to appreciate how he had earned the nickname. A big, coarse Norrlander who seldom said anything, but had a way of looking at people that certainly didn’t contribute to the peace of mind of those under observation. Some sort of distant country cousin with no background, education or even the slightest hint of legal training, the county police commissioner thought, a shiver running down his spine.

  Maybe it would be best if I called him myself after all, the county police commissioner thought, and without thinking about it he tapped in the same mobile number as the one his old classmate had used only a week before.

  ‘Johansson,’ a voice snapped abruptly at the other end of the line.

  HNC Lars Martin Johansson wasn’t the only person getting a telephone call. At roughly the same time as the county police commissioner called him, the head of the CP group, Inspector Per Jönsson, called his colleague Bäckström down in Växjö to offer his services in light of the DNA match he had just heard about. An excellent opportunity to pay back, in a subtle way, the various shameless remarks that Bäckström had spewed o
ut the last time they met, Jönsson thought.

  ‘I don’t really see what the problem is,’ Johansson interrupted after having to spend far too long listening to the county police commissioner’s tirade. ‘Your people are leading the investigation, aren’t they? I thought our people were only there to help.’ Which was probably bad enough, considering that one of them was Bäckström, but I’ll deal with that little nightmare later, Johansson thought.

  ‘Well, yes,’ the county police commissioner conceded. ‘The preliminary investigation is being led by one of my most reliable colleagues, a very experienced officer from regional crime here.’

  ‘Good to hear,’ Johansson said. ‘Tell my guys to behave properly, otherwise they’ll be in serious trouble. If you want me to recall them, I’ll need that in writing.’

  ‘Oh no, definitely not, definitely not, they’re doing an excellent job,’ the county police commissioner protested. In spite of the heat, his hands felt cold and clammy.

  ‘Okay, then,’ Johansson said.

  What an extraordinarily primitive person, the county police commissioner thought.

  ‘Correct me if I’m wrong, Pelle,’ Bäckström said, evidently in an extremely good mood. ‘You’re calling to ask if you and your playmates down among the X-Files can help me and my team with something that we haven’t yet had time to work out for ourselves?’

  ‘Well, if you say so, Bäckström,’ Jönsson replied stiffly. ‘I’m calling to offer our analytical expertise with regard to the DNA traces on that car you found.’

  ‘In that case I understand correctly,’ Bäckström said. ‘You’re calling to ask if you can help us with something we haven’t yet had time to work out for ourselves.’