She glared distrustfully at the phone and tried ringing her mother instead. She was transferred straight to voicemail, but decided there was no point leaving a message because her mother virtually never used her mobile. She tried ringing her parents’ landline instead. She closed her eyes and imagined the telephone ringing in the library and hall simultaneously and her parents each leaping to a phone as usual. Her father generally got there first.
The phone echoed into emptiness. One ring, two, three rings. Then an anonymous female voice told her this number, too, no longer existed, and no forwarding number was available.
What on earth was going on?
She could not honestly remember an occasion on which she had felt truly afraid. But this time it was impossible to ward off the anxiety that was creeping over her. She racked her brains in vain for a rational explanation for her failure to get hold of her parents. It was not just that they were out, it was more than that. They were no longer subscribers. Why ever would her parents do that without telling her? She told herself to stay calm. She ought to get herself something to eat and drink, perhaps sleep for a while. It had been a long day and she had to decide what she was going to do about the trip home.
She gripped the mobile phone hard. Who else could she ring? If she restricted herself to people who already knew where she was, the list would not be very long. And anyway, she had not got their numbers; they were her father’s friends. As far as she knew, most of them were ex-directory to make sure they were not disturbed outside work. She felt tears prick her eyes. Her rucksack was heavy and her back was starting to ache. Worn out with worry, she set off back to the hotel.
There was in fact one more person she ought to be able to ring. Just to make sure everything was all right, just for some help to reach her parents. Yet she still hesitated. They had not been close for several years now, and from what she had heard, he was in considerably worse shape than he had been then. On the other hand, she did not have many options left. She made up her mind just as she stopped to buy something to eat from a stall selling chicken kebabs.
‘Hi, it’s me,’ she said, relieved to hear the familiar voice answer. ‘I need a bit of help.’
To herself she added:
‘I’m being cut off from the world.’
STOCKHOLM
Alex Recht assembled his team in the Den straight after lunch. Fredrika slipped in just as he was starting the meeting. Alex noted that she looked a bit brighter. He avoided catching Peder’s eye. He had still not told him why he had been summoned back to HQ, only sent a message via Ellen that he was to take a look at anything on the Ahlbin case that the public had rung in with. Since the couple’s identities had not yet been released in the media, the number of calls had been pretty sparse.
‘Right,’ Alex said briskly. ‘Where do we stand?’
Fredrika and Joar looked at each other, then Joar looked at Peder, who nodded mutely to Joar to present what they had found out in the course of the day. Joar rounded off with a report of the conversation with Sven and Elsie Ljung, who were convinced their friends had been murdered.
‘So they stuck to that when they talked to you, too?’ asked Alex, leaning back in his chair.
‘Yes,’ said Fredrika. ‘And they raised quite an important point, actually.’
Alex waited.
‘They went round to their friends’ place because they’d been invited to dinner. Why wasn’t the dinner called off if the couple had just heard their daughter had died?’
Alex sat up straight.
‘Very good objection,’ he said, but furrowed his brow. ‘Though according to the farewell note, only Jakob knew the terrible news. So in that case it wasn’t surprising that Marja sounded normal on the phone.’
‘But the Ljungs also queried the whole story of the daughter’s death,’ Joar elaborated. ‘And as regards whether Marja knew about her daughter or not, we can’t be sure.’
‘But it can’t be that difficult to check, can it?’ said Alex dubiously. ‘Whether the daughter’s dead, I mean.’
‘No, not at all,’ said Fredrika. ‘We’ve got copies of the doctor’s forms, confirmation of death and cause of death, from Danderyd Hospital. She apparently died from a drugs overdose, and it was clear from the paperwork that she’d been an addict for some years. The hospital called the police but there were no indications that the death was anything other than self-inflicted. So no further steps were taken. But we don’t know who actually broke the news to her parents. Their friends didn’t seem to know she was a drug addict.’
‘That bit about the Ljungs and Ahlbins not being so close any more is interesting,’ said Alex, changing tack. ‘Did they say why?’
Fredrika hesitated.
‘Not exactly,’ she said slowly. ‘There was something they didn’t really want to tell us, but I didn’t get a sense of it being particularly relevant to the case.’
Silence fell. Fredrika gave a discreet cough and their assistant Ellen Lind jotted something on her pad.
‘Okay then,’ said Alex. ‘Where shall we go from here? Speaking for myself, I shan’t be happy until we’ve interviewed more of the Ahlbins’ friends and acquaintances. It would be a shame if we couldn’t find anyone taking a contradictory view to the Ljungs on whether Jakob Ahlbin fired the gun and whether the daughter was on drugs.’
He shook his head irritably.
‘What more do we know about the daughter’s death?’ he said, frowning. ‘Anything strange there?’
‘We haven’t had time to go into it in detail,’ Joar put in. ‘But I was planning, sorry, we were planning to take a closer look this afternoon. If it seems worth our while.’
Alex tapped his pen gently on the table.
‘I’d like to suggest something else. Fredrika, how’s your afternoon looking?’
Fredrika blinked several times, almost as though she had been sleeping through the meeting.
‘I’m going to try to get some scraps of paper translated,’ she replied. ‘That thing I rang you about. I’ve nothing else on.’
‘Scraps of paper,’ echoed Peder suspiciously, mainly to have something to say.
‘The hit-and-run victim outside the university had various scraps of paper on him, scrunched into little balls. They’ve got things written on them in Arabic.’
‘Since we’re talking about that case,’ said Alex, his eyes on Fredrika, ‘is there anything at this stage to indicate it could have been a deliberate criminal act?’
‘No,’ said Fredrika. ‘At least, not according to the doctor who did the preliminary report, but there’ll be a full autopsy later.’
Alex nodded.
‘But that’s hardly going to take all afternoon, knowing you. How about going into the Ahlbin daughter’s death a bit more and trying to write a summary of what happened, so we’re all clear on the sequence of events? Not because I think we’ll unearth anything revolutionary, but it would be good to know we’d checked it out thoroughly.’
Fredrika gave a cautious smile, hardly daring to look at Joar. Maybe he was like Peder, one of those who hated to be passed over. She had not had time to form any proper opinion of him, but her first impression had been a good one. Really good. A quick glance in his direction reassured her. He looked completely unperturbed. Yes, she was impressed.
‘I’ll be glad to follow up the daughter’s death,’ she said, ‘but I’m afraid I won’t be able to stay very long this afternoon.’
‘It doesn’t matter. You can carry on tomorrow morning,’ Alex added quickly.
Peder tried to catch his eye across the table, wondering what was going on.
Alex felt anger bubbling up inside him, and swallowed several times.
‘Joar and I are going to pay a visit to the parish where the Ahlbins worked,’ he went on. ‘I had a call from the vicar there, earlier on today, and he was very keen to sound cooperative. We’ll interview him before we decide how to take it from there – see if there’s any reason to think anyone else was involv
ed, or if we can assume Jakob was the sole perpetrator. And we’ll all offer up a prayer that we find their other daughter, Johanna, by the end of the day.’
Peder was staring at Alex.
‘And what am I going to do?’ he asked, trying not to sound as if he was whining.
He failed.
‘You are going to see the head of HR at two o’clock,’ Alex said dully. ‘And if I were you, I wouldn’t be late.’
Peder’s heart leapt with anxiety.
‘Was there anything else?’ said Alex.
Joar hesitated, but then went ahead.
‘We got the feeling the flat wasn’t their proper home,’ he said.
‘How do you mean?’ asked Alex.
Joar looked sideways at Peder, but found his colleague was sitting staring at the wall, his face immobile.
‘As I say, it was just a feeling,’ said Joar. ‘But it seemed so impersonal, almost as though the whole place was designed just for entertaining.’
‘We ought to investigate that angle,’ said Alex. ‘Summer cottages and the like won’t necessarily be in the parents’ names; one of the daughters could just as well be the registered owner. Fredrika, can you look into that, too, while you’re at it?’
Then Alex declared the meeting closed.
Peder, full of foreboding, went to see the head of HR, Margareta Berlin, at exactly two o’clock. He could not get Alex’s stern look out of his mind. He had to wait outside her door for a few minutes, before she asked him in. What the hell was this about?
‘Come in and shut the door,’ said Ms Berlin in her inimitable husky voice, very probably the result of high whisky consumption and lots of shouting at subordinates as she climbed her way to the top.
Peder did as he was told. He had enormous respect for the tall, powerfully built woman behind the desk. She wore her hair cut short, but still looked very feminine. Her large hand waved to indicate he was to take a seat on the other side of the desk.
‘Does the name Anna-Karin Larsson say anything to you?’ she asked, so brusquely that Peder jumped.
He shook his head and swallowed.
‘No,’ he said, embarrassed to find he had to clear his throat.
‘No?’ said Margareta, suddenly less abrasive, though her eyes were still dark with anger. ‘Hm, that’s rather what I thought.’
She paused before going on.
‘But maybe you do know whether you like a croissant with your coffee?’
Peder almost sighed with relief. If this was about nothing worse than that stupid remark, the meeting would soon be behind him. But he still had no idea who Anna-Karin Larsson was.
‘So,’ said Peder, with the lopsided smile he used for disarming women of all ages. ‘If it’s yesterday’s croissant incident you want to talk about, let me start by saying I meant no harm.’
‘Well that’s reassuring, at any rate,’ Margareta said drily.
‘No, I really didn’t,’ he said magnanimously, holding up his hands. ‘If anybody in the staff room took offence at my, er . . . how shall I put it, slightly crude way of expressing myself, I apologise. Of course.’
Margareta observed him across the desk. He stared back stubbornly.
‘Slightly crude?’ she said.
Peder hesitated.
‘Very crude, maybe?’
‘Yes, actually,’ she said, ‘extremely crude, even. And it’s a matter of deep regret that Anna-Karin was confronted with that sort of behaviour in only her third week with us.’
Peder gave a start. Anna-Karin Larsson. Was that her name, the luscious new trainee he’d made such a fool of himself with?
‘I shall go and see her and apologise in person, naturally,’ he said, talking so fast he almost started stuttering. ‘I . . .’
Margareta held up one hand to stop him.
‘Naturally you’ll apologise to her,’ she said forcefully. ‘That’s so self-evident as not to count as any kind of redress here.’
Bollocks. Some third-rate bit of skirt who couldn’t cope with the pressure except by running off to HR at the first opportunity. As if she could read his thoughts, Margareta said: ‘It wasn’t Anna-Karin who told us about this.’
‘Wasn’t it?’ Peder said mistrustfully.
‘No, it was someone else who found your behaviour offensive,’ said Margareta, who was now leaning across the table with a concerned look. ‘How are you, Peder, really?’
The question nonplussed him so much that he could not summon a reply. Margareta shook her head.
‘This has got to stop, Peder,’ she said loud and clear, in the sort of voice normally only used for addressing children. ‘Alex and I have been aware of what you’ve been going through these past eighteen months, and how it’s affected you. But that’s not enough, I’m afraid. To be blunt, you’ve put your foot in it once too often now, and this morning’s croissant episode was the final straw.’
Peder almost started to laugh, and raised his arms in a gesture of appeal.
‘Now hang on . . .’
‘No,’ roared Margareta, bringing the palm of her hand down on the desk with such force that Peder thought he could feel the floor shake. ‘No, I’ve hung on long enough. I wondered whether to intervene when you got drunk at the Christmas party and pinched Elin’s bottom, but I heard the two of you had worked it out between you and assumed you realised you’d gone too far. But clearly you hadn’t.’
You could have heard a pin drop, and Peder felt his objections to her verdict piling up and turning into a shout, which he only kept inside him with a huge effort. This wasn’t fair in any way and Peder was going to bloody well throttle the bastard who’d squealed about the croissants.
‘I’ve booked you a place on a workplace equality course which I think might be an eye-opener for you, Peder,’ she said frankly.
Seeing his reaction, she went on quickly:
‘My decision isn’t negotiable. You attend the course, or I take this problem to a higher level. I also want you to agree to an appointment with a psychologist through the healthcare provider we have a contract with.’
Peder opened his mouth and then closed it again, his face flaming.
‘We as employers cannot accept this sort of conduct, it simply won’t do,’ she said in the same firm tone, pushing a sheet of paper over the desk towards him. ‘The police force is no place for office fornication. Here, these are the dates and times of your appointments.’
For a moment he contemplated refusing to take the sheet of paper and telling her to shove it up her fat arse, and making a run for it. But then he remembered that Alex knew the story and even seemed to be in on the conspiracy. Peder clenched one fist so hard that the knuckles went white, and snatched the paper with the other hand.
‘Was there anything else?’ he said with effort.
Margareta shook her head.
‘Not for now,’ she said. ‘But I shall be keeping a close eye on how you deal with your colleagues from now on. Try to see it as a fresh start, a second chance. Take the opportunity of getting something out of this, especially out of your talk to the psychologist.’
Peder nodded and left the room, convinced he would fucking well kill the woman if he stayed a second longer.
Neither Alex Recht nor Joar Sahlin said a word as they drove the short stretch from HQ in Kungsholmen to Bromma Church where Jakob and Marja Ahlbin had worked. Ragnar Vinterman, the vicar, had promised to meet them at the parish rooms at two thirty.
Alex’s thoughts went to Peder. He knew he had been hard on him at the meeting in the Den, but he did not really know what else he could have done. The croissant episode was as odd as it was unacceptable, and revealed poor judgement in a colleague whose employer had placed a good deal of trust in him. Alex knew well enough that the boy had been having a hard time in his private life over quite a long period. It was only natural for that sort of thing to affect one’s judgement, and if Peder had ever commented on his own conduct in a way that showed he knew he was behaving badly, people might
have been more tolerant. But Peder had not. He got himself into awkward situations more and more often, embarrassing his employer in front of other employees.
In front of other female employees.
Alex suppressed a sigh. And then there was Peder’s peculiarly lousy sense of timing. The last thing they needed at the moment was any negative publicity, with the special investigation group’s continued existence currently under discussion. It was enough that their only civilian appointment and only female investigator had been forced to go part time by a more than hellish pregnancy which Alex’s bosses had initially construed as symptoms of stress and exhaustion. He had been more than thankful the day Fredrika finally gave in and followed the rules for a proper reduction in hours backed up by a convincing doctor’s note.
Meanwhile, the group had acquired new blood in the shape of Joar. Admittedly only for a limited period, but still. The decision was in itself an indication that the group had not been written off. It had not taken Alex long to appreciate Joar as an exceptionally talented detective. By contrast with both Peder and Fredrika, he also seemed mentally stable. He never flared up like Peder, and never seemed to misconstrue things the way Fredrika tended to. He always stayed calm and his integrity appeared boundless. For the first time in many months, Alex felt as though he had someone he could talk to at work.
‘Mind if I ask about your surname?’ Joar suddenly said. ‘Is it German?’
Alex gave a laugh; it was a question he was often asked.
‘If we go back far enough in our family tree it apparently is,’ he replied. ‘Jewish.’
He glanced sideways at Joar, keen to see if he reacted. He did not.
‘But that was a long time ago,’ Alex added. ‘The men whose surname it was married Christian women, and the Jewish blood ties between mother and child were broken.’
They were approaching the church. Alex parked outside the parish rooms as arranged. A tall, dignified-looking man was on the front steps in his shirtsleeves and dog collar, waiting for them. He was silhouetted like a dark statue against the white building and pale grey sky. Commands respect, was Alex’s assessment before he was even out of the car.
Silenced: A Novel Page 6