Linda - As In The Linda Murder

by Leif Persson

‘Exactly. It’s the sex I’m after. I mean, when you had sex together, you and Linda.’

  Entirely normal sex, according to Månsson, and that wasn’t the slightest problem with someone like Linda, considering his feelings for her and hers for him.

  ‘Normal, vanilla sex,’ Holt summarized.

  ‘When we were together, it was like when you’re with someone you like a lot, someone you respect,’ Månsson said. ‘But sure, normal vanilla sex if you prefer to put it like that.’

  What about all the others, Holt wondered. Everyone he’d been with, who’d been far more experienced than Linda Wallin – had that still just been normal vanilla sex?

  Not always, according to Månsson, but as long as it was a matter of voluntary, mutually agreed behaviour between responsible adults, surely there was nothing wrong with that? Not if it was something they both wanted and as long as nobody got hurt. ‘Take a look at any sexual advice column in any ordinary newspaper, and you’ll see what I mean,’ he said.

  ‘I understand exactly,’ Holt said. ‘Besides, that isn’t the reason why you’re sitting here talking to me.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘What you just said, about mutually agreed behaviour between responsible adults. I agree with you entirely. What business is that of mine? After all, that’s your private life. Look, why don’t we stop now and carry on tomorrow? We’ve actually been sitting here more than three hours.’

  ‘Thanks for letting me sit in,’ Lisa Mattei said, smiling at Bengt Månsson. ‘It was actually really interesting. I mean, what you said about being experienced and being worn out. I thought that was pretty well put, actually.’

  ‘Well, thank you,’ Månsson said.

  ‘Well? What did you think about my little Bengt Axel, then?’ Holt asked as soon as she and Mattei were alone.

  ‘Not my type,’ Lisa Mattei said. ‘Mind you, I’m probably not his type either,’ she added with a shrug of the shoulders.

  ‘So who is his type?’

  ‘Everyone, if we’re to believe him.’

  ‘But in your opinion?’

  ‘No one apart from himself,’ Lisa Mattei said, shaking her head. ‘If you were to rewrite the interview and replace women with food, for instance, you’d see what I mean. A binge eater. That’s what he is.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘The journal,’ Mattei said. ‘The one that everyone seems to think Linda’s dad is hiding.’

  ‘So what do we do about that, assuming it’s true?’

  ‘Well, obviously Linda’s dad has hidden it. We’re never going to get hold of it, but Månsson evidently suspects that you’ve already read it – it was clever how you did that, by the way – so it might be just as well that we don’t. His lawyer would want to look at it.’

  ‘So what’s he so worried about, then?’

  ‘Anna,’ Mattei said with a sigh. ‘You know perfectly well what he’s worried about.’

  ‘That Linda’s journal isn’t just about vanilla sex,’ Holt said.

  ‘There, you see?’ Mattei said. ‘And you’re talking to someone who’s hardly even had vanilla sex. What do you need me for, really?’

  85

  BY NOW, EVERYONE knew who Linda’s murderer was. And far too many people seemed to know him personally. The detectives were working a triple shift at full strength, and a torrent of tip-offs about Månsson was overwhelming the desks of the investigating team.

  First Månsson’s supplier got in touch with his confessor in the drugs squad of the district crime unit. He certainly wasn’t the sort to shop his ordinary customers, but Månsson wasn’t an ordinary customer any more. He had never been a particularly good customer either, come to that. Used to buy a couple of times a year, mostly cannabis. Now, seeing as he himself had just landed a two and a half year sentence, maybe he was due a favour in return?

  More or less simultaneously Knutsson worked out how Månsson had learned to steal cars. A former classmate from Lund called to say that he and Månsson had spent several summers in a row working in a young offenders’ institution in Skåne. Månsson had been practically minded and interested in mechanics, even though he almost made a virtue of the fact that his appearance suggested the opposite. But what he was undoubtedly best at was women. But of course they knew that already, didn’t they?

  Almost everyone who called in was a young woman. More than the detectives could have possibly wished for called to tell them about their experiences with Månsson. And even more to say that they had friends who had told them about him. One of the informants was particularly interesting. She had a friend who was now thanking her stars that she was still alive. According to what she was supposed to have told the friend who made the call, she had been with Månsson on the evening of Thursday 3 July. She had realized that something wasn’t right and had left.

  Two hours later she was interviewed by Knutsson and Sandberg, and, inevitably, the story she told them was rather different. But in all significant respects, and from the police’s point of view, it was still extremely interesting. And it also fitted other information they had managed to gather.

  At about ten o’clock on the Thursday evening she had gone round to see Månsson in his flat on Frövägen, out in Öster. She had been there on several occasions over the summer, and it had started the way it always did. On the sofa in Månsson’s living room. But then she had suddenly put a stop to it.

  ‘I don’t actually know why,’ she said, looking at Anna Sandberg. ‘All of a sudden I just didn’t want to any more.’

  So what had he done then, Sandberg wondered.

  First he had carried on as usual, but when she started to resist he had stopped.

  Had he turned violent? Did he use force against her?

  ‘No,’ the witness said. ‘He just got really angry. Like a little kid.’

  And because the witness was just as angry herself, she had pulled her top back down, done up her trousers, grabbed her handbag and walked out.

  ‘Thank God,’ the witness said. ‘If I’d stayed, he’d have strangled me too.’

  In fact it was probably far worse than that, Anna Sandberg thought. If you’d done exactly what you usually did, then Linda Wallin would probably still be alive today. Then she had asked the obvious questions about Månsson’s sexual preferences, and the witness had answered just like all the other women they had already spoken to.

  A highly prized trophy among all the girls. Liked to take the initiative during sex. Handsome, strong, fit, a good fuck, a stallion who had mastered the various disciplines. Hard-handed if necessary and if she wanted it, open to most suggestions and ideas. But not violent, not out to hurt anyone, and certainly not trying to satisfy any sadistic tendencies of his own.

  ‘That’s what’s so strange,’ the witness said. ‘I never realized he was a sadist. He was never like that with me.’

  Because you always did what he wanted, so he never got frustrated enough when he was with you, Sandberg thought.

  You were probably just the wrong type, Knutsson thought.

  86

  THE FACT THAT Lisa Mattei sat in on Anna Holt’s fourth interview with Månsson was no coincidence. Holt was thinking of starting to twist the arm of their perpetrator, and needed Mattei there to ease the pain and make it less obvious to him. Mattei’s friendly manner, her gentle appearance, her innocent exterior, made her entirely uninteresting to Månsson as a woman, and absolutely perfect for Holt.

  ‘Yesterday you mentioned that Linda had written about the two of you in her journal.’

  ‘Yes?’ Månsson said with a wary look in his eyes.

  ‘There’s an exception to every rule,’ Holt said. ‘I know you and Linda usually had vanilla sex with each other, but what about the times when you didn’t? The times when you played sex games, when you experimented with each other? I want you to tell me about that, and I don’t think you’ll find it very difficult.’

  ‘No,’ Månsson said. ‘Why should it be? It was really nothing special
. Just the sort of thing that perfectly normal people have done at least once when they’re having sex.’

  But it evidently wasn’t entirely straightforward, since it took almost two hours for Anna Holt to get him to admit that on several occasions he had tied Linda’s hands while he had sex with her. And it had been a long journey for his and Linda’s sexual relationship as well, if he was to be believed.

  Linda wasn’t particularly experienced. Before she slept with Bengt Månsson the first time she had had four sexual partners. The very first time had been when she was fourteen years old, and she hadn’t even been especially drunk. Just wanted to get it over and done with. All her previous partners had been the same age as her. She had never had an orgasm with any of them. But she did when she masturbated, the first time when she was sixteen, and carefully followed the instructions of the country’s most famous sex therapist in a column in the Sunday supplement of the big evening paper. All of this she had told Bengt Månsson. The first proper lover in her life.

  With Månsson she had always had an orgasm. Usually more than one each time they had sex. Only the second time they were together she had an orgasm from ordinary intercourse. Which was usually the hardest thing for most women, especially at the start, and that was when he made his discovery.

  ‘I realized that she liked it when I held her tight when she was about to come,’ Månsson said.

  The first few times that was as far as things went. Then Linda herself had come up with the idea, without actually saying anything about it. She had been lying on her back on his bed. They had already had sex once. He was caressing and stroking her. Suddenly she had taken the cord of his dressing-gown and handed it to him, then held both her hands out in front of her, palms together. Very carefully he had tied them together, then tied her hands above her head to the top of the bed. In complete silence, in complete understanding, and with complete trust from Linda. And suddenly her lover, Bengt Månsson, had two hands free at the crucial moment.

  ‘Obviously it makes a difference. If you’re going to have an orgasm, then it’s all about stimulation, physical and mental.’

  Tied her up? Certainly. Hit her? Never. Tortured her without hitting her? Never. Not even harsh language, according to Månsson. Linda didn’t like it, and she would lose interest. The path she enjoyed travelling was silent, enclosed, secret intimacy between just the two of them.

  ‘Uncomplicated sex, basically,’ Månsson said. ‘If you do something you like, but don’t dare to talk about it, then it wasn’t really you who did it.’

  ‘What do you think, then, Lisa?’ Holt asked after the interview.

  ‘Sigh,’ Mattei said. ‘Why ask someone who’s practically a virgin about this sort of thing? Why do you think so many perfectly normal women run after dominant men? And almost always end up in bed with someone like Månsson. Anyway, Månsson’s no man. He’s probably not even human.’

  ‘So what is he, then?’ Holt asked.

  ‘Some sort of sexual instrumentalist, if you ask me. I mean . . . how cool is it to hear that physical and mental stimulation are both important when you’re having sex? How inexperienced do you have to be to realize that that’s exactly what he’s doing? And how turned on would you be when you realized that was what he was doing?’

  ‘Doesn’t sound much like fun,’ Holt agreed.

  ‘The interesting thing, if you ask me, and the only reason we’re sitting in there listening to him at all, is what happens inside his head when he finds himself in a situation that he almost never ends up in, because almost all the girls have done exactly what he wanted the whole time.’

  ‘And what situation is that?’

  ‘When he’s already frustrated right from the start. When he has just one thought in his head. Come and go, as so many blokes so romantically describe it. When the person he’s with sees through him and refuses to join in. And when he realizes that she’s seen through him. When he ends up feeling ridiculous.’

  ‘And in that situation Bengt Månsson isn’t much fun to be around any more.’

  ‘And that’s the situation where he strangles Linda Wallin, and he’ll never admit that.’

  ‘Not even to himself ?’

  ‘Not even to you or me,’ Mattei said.

  ‘Have you got any tips?’ Holt asked.

  ‘Rip him to shreds,’ Mattei said with a gentle smile. ‘Not because it’ll make him confess, but because I’d like to see you do it. I don’t think I’ve ever come across such a self-obsessed, long-winded and cretinous murderer before.’

  87

  HARD GRAFT, CONSCIENTIOUSNESS and ingenuity were not only Lewin’s defining characteristics, but also those of his closest colleagues. As a result, they had finished their preliminary profile of Bengt Månsson less than five days after he had been caught.

  Thirty-five years old. Born in the General Hospital in Malmö on a fine Sunday morning in May, when summer had just arrived in Skåne for the first time that year. The first child of a single mother, thirty years old, father unknown. It was possible that he might have been able to explain the vague ethnic assumptions about the unknown perpetrator’s DNA which had caused such problems for them, and were still lurking at the back of Lewin’s mind.

  There didn’t seem to be much wrong with the mother. She came from a farming family near Ängelholm, and the relatives they had spoken to described her as beautiful and cheerful, a solid character, and enterprising with it. When she turned twenty she had moved to Malmö, and just ten years later she was a successful businesswoman with her own hair and beauty salon in the centre of town, in a prime location and with a growing number of employees. According to her older sister, she had met the unknown father on holiday to the Canary Islands, but Bengt Månsson’s aunt was unable to provide any more precise details.

  But she had shown a collection of photographs to the officers in Malmö who had questioned her. Of Bengt Månsson, from when he was a small and utterly enchanting little lad to when he graduated from high school some nineteen years later, by which time he had turned into an extremely handsome young man. More or less the way film stars used to look, only without the moustache. The aunt found everything that was happening quite incomprehensible, and her only consolation was that she was convinced the police would realize they had made a terrible mistake.

  When Bengt was five years old his mum had met a new man. Fifteen years older than her. A relatively successful businessman and, oddly enough, still single. One year later the mother was married, and Bengt gained a half-brother, while his new dad had formally adopted him. The family had moved to a smart, expensive villa in Bellevue on the outskirts of Malmö. His mum had sold the salon for a healthy profit and switched to being a housewife, working part time from home as a representative for a German company selling hair-care products and cosmetics.

  They seemed like decent, hard-working people. Respectably middle class. No negative comments from neighbours, schools, social services or the police. Neither against Bengt nor about anyone else in the family. Bengt had done well in primary school, and was just above average when he left high school. He had been physically fit, although not particularly interested in sport, and had been popular among his male classmates without having any close friends. And all the girls at school had started asking if they could go out with him back in primary school.

  He hadn’t had to do military service, being let off without having to take recourse to any bizarre medical excuses. After a year’s sabbatical, which he seemed to have spent partying with his contemporaries, whilst earning a small monthly wage doing odd jobs in his dad’s office, he had moved to Lund and started university. Four years later he graduated with a fairly soft degree in a combination of subjects. Film and theatre studies, philosophy, literature. He had been active within the university drama society and the student union, and various other of the less demanding clubs and societies on offer to students in Lund. And all the female students in his vicinity seemed to have fallen in love with him at first glance.r />
  In the autumn of the year he graduated his mother died from cancer. In contrast to most cancer sufferers, she died within a month of receiving the diagnosis. The day before Christmas Eve that same year his adoptive father dropped dead of a massive heart attack somewhere between the twelfth and thirteenth holes on the still snow-free grass of Ljunghusen golf course.

  He and his half-brother sold the villa and other assets. They buried their father, paid off any debts and divided what was left over. This was actually substantially less than they had evidently been expecting, and possibly a contributing factor to the reasons why the two half-brothers appeared to have had little contact with each other afterwards. As soon as the half-brother graduated as an economist he moved to Germany. For the past five years he had been working as the head of finance for a subsidiary of a Swedish forestry company. Married to a German woman, and living outside Stuttgart. He had refused to talk to the police when they called to ask him about his brother Bengt. Everyone in Bengt Månsson’s family had either died or abandoned him.

  At the age of twenty-five he got a job as administrator and project assistant at the cultural division of Malmö Council. That summer he had met the pilot’s daughter, who was spending the summer working in customer relations at Sturup Airport. He applied for a new job as project manager within the cultural division of Växjö Council, and as soon as he got it he moved in with his girlfriend in a flat that his prospective father-in-law had arranged for them. About a year later their daughter had been born. And a year after that they had separated. He had got hold of a new flat on Frövägen, where he still lived.

  Single, with access rights to a seven-year-old daughter whom he had seen less and less often over the years. A monthly income before tax of 25,000 kronor. A driving licence, but no car. No credit defaults or unpaid taxes. No notes in social service or police records. Not so much as a parking ticket, in fact. And all the young women who came near him seemed to fall in love with him.