Linda - As In The Linda Murder

by Leif Persson

  At the age of thirty-five years and three months, he had raped and strangled Linda Wallin at home in her mother’s flat in the centre of Växjö. And had thereby given the police a reason to summarize his known life up to his arrest and to compose the report known in police language and among officers of Jan Lewin’s generation as the perpetrator’s little biography.

  Anna Sandberg had interviewed the pilot’s daughter, who testified to Bengt Månsson’s astonishing sexual appetite. But only at the start, when they used to spend pretty much every waking minute having sex. After they moved in together and she got pregnant, he had hardly touched her. Instead he had slept with everyone else, and as soon as she realized this she had ended the relationship.

  In answer to a direct question: no, he had never been violent towards her. Apart from the frequency, they had indulged in ordinary, normal sex. Bengt Månsson was the ‘most handsome man and the most charming slacker’ that she’d met in her whole life, and she simply couldn’t comprehend what he had done eight weeks ago. But she was primarily concerned about their seven-year-old daughter. They had already decided not to let her start school yet, and only the previous day she and her husband had made up their minds to move away from Växjö.

  The evening papers had already offered her money and celebrity if she was willing to come forward and talk about her life with the murderer, and what it was like to be the mother of his only child, a little girl of seven. The bestial rapist and murderer who had a little daughter. What had finally persuaded her to leave Växjö, however, wasn’t the male headline-hunters of the big evening papers, but the female editor of Dagens Nyheter’s family section. She had wanted to run a large, factual and sensitive article about that very subject. How she, her new husband and her daughter had become the victims of the media’s news frenzy. About the daughter’s postponed schooling, how it had influenced her emotionally when she had found out that her ‘real daddy’ was a murderer, their rumoured plans to move, maybe even change their names and apply for a protected identity. That was when she and her husband had made up their minds to go. They had turned the offer of an interview down flat.

  On Friday Anna Sandberg and a female colleague from the Växjö Police went to question Linda’s mother out at her summer house by Lake Åsnen.

  It was a largely futile interview. Linda’s mother was in crisis. The shock she had experienced when she found out that Linda had been murdered the previous month had developed into post-traumatic stress disorder just in time for the next shock, when the police had arrested her daughter’s murderer and she had realized her own role in events. Now she was on open-ended sick leave, taking strong tranquillizers, seeing her psychiatrist pretty much every day, and under the constant supervision of her best friend.

  She never wanted to set foot in the flat in Växjö again, but hadn’t felt up to considering what on earth she was going to do with it. It wouldn’t be particularly easy to sell, after all. It was now notorious as the ‘murder flat’ to anyone who read the papers, listened to the radio or watched television. The neighbours in the area where she was still registered were divided into two camps: those who tried to sneak a glance through the windows when they went past, and those who took detours to avoid the building altogether. She had already received one anonymous letter from a neighbour who was worried about the value of her own flat, and blaming her for it. But this was the very least of her worries.

  It was more than three years since she had last spoken to Bengt Månsson. They hadn’t had any contact since then. Basically, she didn’t want to have any contact with him, and he hadn’t made any attempt to contact her. She had stopped seeing him as soon as she realized that they didn’t have much in common, and that he wasn’t particularly interested in her. Her version of the story was the same as his. How they had met, how long they had seen each other, where they had rendezvoused. Anna Sandberg hadn’t asked any intimate questions about their sexual relationship. She hadn’t even considered doing so.

  Linda herself had told her mother that she was also seeing Bengt Månsson. A year or so later, during the difficult period in their lives when Linda had moved back to ‘the father she idolized’, Linda had thrown it at her during one of their recurring arguments. Not that they had slept together, which her mum had suspected anyway, but just that she had met him. The following day Linda had phoned to apologize. According to Linda, it was the sort of thing you said when you were angry, and not meant seriously. Lotta had tried to put it out of her mind. Now she bitterly regretted not going straight round and beating him to death.

  ‘It’s my fault it happened,’ she said, staring blankly ahead of her, nodding to underline what she had just said.

  Anna Sandberg leaned over the table. Took a firm grip on her arms to get her attention.

  ‘Listen to me, Lotta,’ she said. ‘Are you listening?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good,’ Sandberg said, still looking into her eyes. ‘What you just said is as stupid as if you had said it was Linda’s fault that he murdered her. Do you hear what I’m saying?’

  ‘Yes, I hear you. I hear you,’ she repeated as Anna tightened her grasp.

  ‘It was Bengt Månsson who murdered Linda. No one else, just him. It’s his fault. And only his. No one else’s. You and Linda are his victims.’

  ‘I hear you,’ Lotta Ericson repeated.

  ‘Good,’ Sandberg said. ‘Make sure you understand it as well. Because it’s true. That’s what happened, and that’s why it happened.’

  After that Anna Sandberg and her colleague drove back to the police station in Växjö. Neither of them was feeling great. But compared to the woman they left behind, their lives were a dream.

  ‘I could kill that bastard,’ Sandberg said as she drove down into the garage.

  ‘Let me know if you need any help,’ her colleague said.

  Knutsson and Thorén had continued the fruitless hunt for the journal and other similar details about the victim. They started by talking to her friends again, and got a bit of new information that way. Finally they went to see her father out in his manor house, and they managed pretty much as well as their colleagues had when they had spoken to him before on the same subject.

  Henning Wallin had no knowledge of any journal. Naturally he had given the matter some thought – how could he avoid it when the police kept going on about it all the time – so the only thing he could offer were his own thoughts on the subject.

  ‘If you wouldn’t mind,’ Knutsson said.

  In Henning Wallin’s opinion, a person’s journal was the most private thing in that person’s life. This was particularly true of young people, and even more so of young women. Like his daughter, for instance. If there had been a journal in her life, it would have been the place where she conducted the dialogue with herself that every sentient human being conducted with themselves about their own life, their feelings, their conscience. That would be where she would have confided her most private thoughts, and the only reason she would have done that was if she knew it would remain her private business.

  ‘Can you understand that?’ he asked, looking in turn at Knutsson and Thorén.

  ‘I understand,’ Knutsson said.

  ‘Yes,’ Thorén said.

  ‘Good,’ Wallin said. ‘Well, if you’ll excuse me, gentlemen.’

  ‘I wonder if he’s got rid of it, or just hidden it?’ Thorén said in the car on their way back to the police station on Oxtorget.

  ‘Either way, he’s read it,’ Knutsson said.

  ‘To make sure there was nothing that identified the perpetrator,’ Thorén said.

  ‘And when he didn’t find anything, he probably got rid of it. Or maybe burned it,’ Knutsson said.

  ‘I reckon he would have burned it,’ Thorén said. ‘He’s not the sort to just throw something away. But I’m still inclined to think he’s just hidden it somewhere safe.’

  ‘Why do you think that?’ Knutsson said.

  ‘Because he’s not the sort to get
rid of things,’ Thorén said. ‘Although . . .’

  ‘. . . we can’t be sure,’ Knutsson concluded.

  88

  ANNA HOLT’S FIFTH interview with Bengt Månsson lasted almost the whole day. The witness was Lisa Mattei, and as before she had hardly opened her mouth. She just sat there listening with her gentle smile and kind eyes. As usual, Holt had begun with a different subject from the one Månsson was expecting. The truth was, there was no longer any great urgency regarding what they had discussed the day before. On the contrary, it was an excellent idea to let him have the whole weekend, all alone, to think about his contact with Linda Wallin.

  ‘Tell me about yourself, Bengt,’ she began, leaning forward on her elbows, smiling to show how interested she was.

  ‘About myself ?’ Månsson said in surprise. ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

  ‘What were things like when you were growing up?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Start at the beginning,’ Holt suggested. ‘Tell me about your very first memories.’

  According to Bengt Månsson, his earliest childhood memories were from when he was seven, once he’d started school. Before that he didn’t remember much. His mother and her family had often told him things he was supposed to have said and done when he was younger, but his own head was a blank.

  His memories from the time he started school were nothing remarkable. Ordinary memories. Some good, and almost all of those uninteresting. Some less good, which he would rather not talk about. Besides, he didn’t understand the question. What did his childhood memories have to do with his current situation?

  Nor did he want to talk about his parents. They had been dead for years now, and he had no intention of going into what had happened between him and them before that. But there was one thing that was worth pointing out. He only acknowledged one parent, his mother. He had no idea who his real father was, and he had realized early in life that there was no point asking his mother about that. He had had an adoptive father, but he didn’t want to talk about him, and was trying hard to wipe him from his memory.

  ‘You don’t visit their graves?’ Holt asked.

  ‘My mum’s grave, you mean,’ Månsson corrected her.

  ‘Your mum’s grave?’

  ‘Never.’

  What about his adoptive father’s grave, then?

  ‘You mean I could have gone there to ease the pressure?’ Månsson asked with a crooked smile.

  ‘What do you mean by that?’ Holt asked.

  ‘To piss on his grave.’

  ‘Tell me why you’d want to do a thing like that,’ Holt said. ‘Did he treat you that badly?’

  Månsson had no intention of talking about that. Not to Holt, nor to anyone else either.

  ‘Don’t say that,’ Holt said. ‘Maybe I can help you.’

  How could Holt help Månsson with his adoptive father? After all, he was already dead. What could Holt do to him? She could hardly lock him up, could she? He realized that Holt and her colleagues could tear him apart, but surely they had no jurisdiction over people who were already dead?

  Anna Holt made three attempts. Approaching the subject from different angles. Taking her time. With the same result each time. Either he didn’t have any memories, or he didn’t want to talk.

  ‘When you say that, I get the distinct impression that there’s something you don’t want to tell me about your parents, and your adoptive father in particular. Can I suggest that you give the matter some thought?’ Holt said, and called the guard to take him back to his cell. ‘So what did we get out of that?’ she asked Mattei as soon as he had gone.

  ‘He’s using you to try out the story he’s going to tell other people,’ Mattei said, and went on to explain that after Holt’s first question and Månsson’s first answer, she had worked out what he would say three hours later when he was asked the last question.

  ‘Good to know,’ Anna Holt said. ‘Maybe I should stick to talking to you from now on.’

  ‘If I were you I’d be flattered,’ Mattei said. ‘Why would he risk you pulling it apart now? Better to save it for the men in white coats. He won’t have to worry about them running round asking people who may have been there at the time if what he’s saying is true.’

  ‘You don’t think you’re crediting him with being more devious than he actually is?’

  ‘He’s not especially devious,’ Mattei said. ‘But he knows exactly how to lie to women. How to sell himself to a sceptical customer. That’s what he’s best at.’

  ‘And I’m just an ordinary bimbo,’ Holt said with a smile.

  ‘Not to Bengt Månsson,’ Mattei said, shaking her head. ‘For him you’re a smart bimbo. A dangerous bimbo.’

  ‘But he’s still going to get between my legs.’

  ‘Don’t say that, Anna,’ Mattei said. ‘You’re way too good for that. What I mean is just that deep down he’s absolutely convinced that he’s eventually going to sweep you off your feet. Metaphorically, I mean.’

  ‘So that’s what he thinks, is it?’

  ‘How could he think anything else?’

  That afternoon Bengt Månsson sent Anna Holt a message via the custody officer. He had to talk to her again. It was important. Within fifteen minutes of receiving the message Holt was sitting in his cell. Månsson was feeling terrible. And he didn’t understand why. Suddenly he felt a terrible angst, and he didn’t understand what was going on inside his head. In the lavatory in the custody section just before Holt arrived, he had felt giddy and fallen over.

  ‘I’ll make sure a doctor comes to see you,’ Holt said.

  ‘Could you?’ Månsson said.

  On the way out Holt looked questioningly at the custody officer. ‘How is Månsson, really?’

  ‘What have you been doing to him?’ the guard said with a broad grin. ‘When he was going to the toilet just now he seemed completely gone. He was on the floor before I had time to grab him.’

  ‘What do you think’s happening, then?’

  ‘He’s better than anything I’ve seen before. Rule number one – feel bloody awful. Defend yourself with an Oscar for best male lead.’

  Later, when she was about to head home to the hotel, she spotted something on the notice board which really had nothing to do with her investigation.

  It was a page from the interview with the female journalist who had filed a complaint against Bäckström for sexual harassment.

  The Växjö officer who had interviewed the complainant appeared to have handled similar cases before. Amongst other things, he seemed to be very aware of the significance that prosecutors and courts usually applied to the difference between careless or simply partial clothing, and the nakedness which could only be caused by sexual and indecent behaviour.

  ‘Did you notice if he had an erection when he removed the towel?’ the interviewer had asked.

  She wasn’t sure. She hadn’t looked that closely. And she had been shouting at him to pull himself together.

  ‘But you must have seen something?’ the questioner persisted, aware that this was of decisive significance if he was to be able to manoeuvre this case through the eye of the needle that led to a courtroom.

  ‘It looked like a little sausage,’ the complainant said. ‘An angry little sausage.’

  Lucky Bäckström, Anna Holt thought, as she crumpled the sheet and tossed it in the bin for things that needed to be shredded.

  ‘Serves him right,’ Mattei giggled when she and Anna Holt were sitting in the hotel bar with a glass of wine each, talking over the week that had just ended.

  ‘Yes,’ Holt said with a sigh. ‘Sometimes I wonder what’s wrong with me. I actually felt a bit sorry for him. Imagine that, Lisa. I felt sorry for Bäckström.’

  ‘You can get help for that sort of thing, Anna,’ Mattei said, looking at her sternly. ‘If you like, I could put the note back up again. If you give them so much as a millimetre, they’ve got you.’

  ‘But not Johansson,’ Holt
said.

  ‘Never my Lars Martin,’ Mattei agreed.

  89

  JAN LEWIN DREAMS every night now. Almost every night about that summer almost fifty years ago when he got his first proper bicycle and his dad taught him to ride it. But not about the bicycle, not about his red Crescent Valiant, but about that summer, and about the day when his dad suddenly had to go into town.

  Daddy hadn’t taken the bus like he usually did. Instead Grandad drove out in his car to pick him up. Daddy seemed tired. ‘See you soon,’ Daddy said, ruffling Jan’s hair, but this time everything didn’t go back to normal when he did so.

  Then Grandad had ruffled Jan’s hair as well, and that was strange because it was the first time in his whole life that Grandad had ever ruffled his hair.

  ‘You’ll have to take over, Jan, and be the man of the house and help Mummy while Daddy’s in town,’ Grandad said.

  ‘I promise,’ Jan said.

  90

  A NEVER-ENDING summer. A landscape with as many lakes to swim in as stars in the Nordic night sky. That Sunday Anna Holt and Lisa Mattei packed a basket and headed out to one of them to recharge their batteries before the working week ahead.

  First Anna had caught up on her neglected exercise regime. As soon as she had changed, she did her stretching exercises, then ran round the lake. No sooner had she got back, approximately ten kilometres and an hour later, than she had kicked off her running shoes and swum across the lake and back again. Then she had done two hundred sit-ups and the same number of push-ups. She finished by doing more stretches, slightly flushed, and caught her breath in the twenty-five-degree heat.

  Lisa had found a spot in the shade to lie down and reread one of her favourite books from childhood, Emil and the Detectives, by Erich Kästner. The part where little Emil uses forensic evidence to catch the slimy crook – the holes made in the six stolen banknotes by a pin – in particular had left a lifelong impression on her soul, and even elevated Emil above master detective Ture Sventon with his more intuitive investigative technique. Lisa had been interested in forensics ever since she was a little girl.