Third Voice

by Börjlind, Cilla

  ‘And this agent used her to make porn films.’

  ‘I’m not really sure how it works, he was some kind of producer too. Maybe he rented her out?’

  Abbas got up and went over to the window. He brushed a finger against the window pane, from one edge to the other. In the distance he saw large swarms of black jackdaws swooping over the houses in undulating formations.

  Porn films? Samira?

  He carried on looking out through the window and asked, ‘Why did she agree to it?’

  ‘Well, why do women agree to it? I reckon he drugged her, or got her hooked on drugs.’

  ‘The agent?’

  ‘Yes. I suppose it makes most people let down their barriers.’

  ‘Presumably.’

  Abbas drew a little cross on the windowpane with his index finger and turned to face Marie.

  ‘Do you know the agent’s name?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He took the stairs down.

  The lift was too slow.

  * * *

  They made love for a long time, in a large peaceful bedroom, on a wide Victorian steel bed. They didn’t say a word, both of them had pent-up desires that drove their bodies together. Stilton knew the reason for his own – what drove Claudette was her own business.

  Eventually the heat subsided and they lay naked on the soft bed, crossways. Stilton felt the sweat trickle down onto the sheet.

  He was empty, drained.

  Such a great feeling, he thought, and looked at Claudette. She was lying on his arm with her eyes shut. He let his gaze move along her shiny body and over to the wall. There were several unframed oil paintings hanging on the light-blue wallpaper, some of them looked unfinished. Stilton lifted his head a little to get a better look.

  Then his mobile rang.

  Claudette opened her eyes. Stilton looked at her. She lifted her head and released his arm. Stilton grabbed his mobile, he assumed that it was Abbas.

  ‘Hi, Tom? Have you arrived?’

  It was Mette Olsäter.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You promised you’d ring!’

  ‘I haven’t had time.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I didn’t get a chance. Have you spoken to Abbas?’

  ‘He’s not answering.’

  ‘Well, he can probably see it’s you calling.’

  ‘And what is that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Nothing. He wants to be left alone.’

  ‘Tom, please… we’re adults. We’ve known each other for donkey’s years. What are you up to?!’

  Stilton didn’t answer directly, partly because he had to say something with some substance, otherwise it would be ridiculous, and partly because Claudette had leant down over his groin and begun caressing his penis.

  ‘It’s a long story,’ he said. ‘Abbas will have to tell you himself. I heard it on the train. It’s pretty tragic.’

  ‘But it’s about him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why are you there, then?’

  ‘I have a few contacts down here.’

  ‘Fabre? Jean-Baptiste Fabre?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Mette had never met Fabre, but she knew that Stilton had worked with him some time ago and developed a warm personal acquaintance. They’d also met a few times as part of investigations in which Mette was also involved. So she concluded that the visit to Marseille had something to do with police business.

  Which didn’t do much to assuage her concern.

  ‘Could it get dangerous?’ she asked.

  ‘For whom?’ Stilton half-groaned and felt his penis stiffen.

  ‘For you?’

  ‘I hope not. Why would it?’

  ‘Because I know exactly what you two…’

  ‘Mette, I’m sorry. I have to go, there’s a taxi waiting for me outside! I’ll be in touch!’

  Stilton managed to end the call just seconds before he was about to come again. Claudette looked up at him.

  ‘Was that your wife?’

  ‘I’m not married.’

  ‘Me neither.’

  And then he came.

  * * *

  Marie knew the agent’s name, Philippe Martin. But she didn’t know his address or where Abbas could find him. He had to establish that for himself. However, she did know that he was dangerous. She’d heard his name a couple of times in the last few years in connection with some brutal incidents. Each time, she’d thought about Samira. A couple of times she’d tried to get hold of her, unsuccessfully. Her husband had advised her not to be too persistent.

  He’d also heard of this agent.

  Abbas just had a name, but he had a pretty good idea of the circles that the man in question probably frequented. Or that he was known in at least. So, feeling extremely frustrated, he had waited for it to be evening and for the place he wanted to visit to open. Le Bar de la Plaine, a place he knew from before and he assumed would still be there. Presumably with the same clientele, a mix of pimps, musicians, gangsters and hookers. And the occasional celebrity.

  Abbas went in. The bar had only been open ten minutes, but it was already packed. He elbowed his way to the bar. An older bartender brushed away some non-existent ash in front of him.

  ‘Hi,’ Abbas said. ‘I’m looking for Philippe Martin, do you know where I can find him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I owe him three grand, he’ll be annoyed if he doesn’t get it.’

  ‘Not just annoyed.’

  ‘No, exactly. So?’

  ‘The bar diagonally opposite the station. He tends to be there at lunchtime. What do you want to drink?’

  ‘I don’t drink.’

  Abbas turned around and pushed his way towards the exit again. He knew that people had their eyes on him. He just hoped they weren’t the bad kind, from before, from the Arab quarter, or the port, the kind that might recognise him.

  He knew that would create problems.

  * * *

  Stilton stopped to catch his breath. He’d been running. It was just gone eight o’clock and he’d reached the restaurant. From the front, from the road, it looked pretty wide, but from the side you could see that it must have been one of the city’s narrowest restaurants, Eden Roc, located in one of the city’s narrowest buildings, four metres wide and twenty-five metres long, on just one floor, built onto the hotel that Abbas had found online. The restaurant was also on the rock jutting out into the sea, hence the name.

  Stilton went inside.

  A thin, red-bearded, stressed waiter was standing behind a tiny bar a couple of metres in.

  ‘Une coupe?’

  The waiter looked at Stilton while pouring different drinks into different glasses. Stilton didn’t know what he meant, so he shook his head and peered into the restaurant. Two of the nine plastic tables were occupied by families, six were empty and Abbas was sitting at the ninth. Right at the back, at a window table looking out at the bay. Stilton went in and sat down opposite him.

  ‘You smell like sex,’ Abbas said.

  Stilton had only just sat down, but he knew that it was probably true. He’d had no time to shower, he knew that he was soaked in bodily fluids.

  ‘I needed it,’ he said.

  ‘Someone you knew?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What did Jean-Baptiste say?’

  Stilton summarised his conversation with Jean-Baptiste, leaving out the bit about the knives.

  For now anyway.

  He had to do that when he didn’t smell of sex.

  ‘When do you think he’ll be in touch?’ Abbas wondered.

  ‘When he hears something. What are you having?’

  The waiter had hurried past with a couple of small chalkboards with today’s menu. Stilton had a look at it – rabbit, fish, seafood risotto, artichoke, calamari fritti.

  ‘Calamari fritti,’ Abbas said.

  Stilton wasn’t too partial to squid so he ordered the risotto. Both of them drank Perrier. Abbas didn’t speak. Stilton felt
that the current hierarchy demanded him to report back first. The issue of the large policeman was dealt with, but not the large policewoman.

  ‘Mette called,’ he said. ‘She said she’s been trying to reach you.’

  ‘Yes, I saw that. I didn’t feel like talking to her.’

  ‘She wants to know what we’re doing down here, she’s worried.’

  ‘And you think she’d be less worried if she knew why we were here?’

  Stilton didn’t have to answer as the red-bearded waiter had just placed a plate of thin crispy calamari in front of Abbas and a bowl of black sludge in front of Stilton. Abbas squeezed some lemon over his plate and picked up one of the squid rings with his fingers.

  ‘What did you say to her?’ he said as he put the crispy sea creature into his mouth.

  ‘That it was a long story and that it was yours, and that you needed to tell her when you felt ready to.’

  ‘Was she satisfied with that?’

  ‘I ended the call. I had to run to catch a taxi to come and meet you.’

  ‘Did you get lost?’

  ‘No, why?’

  ‘You were running, I saw you through the window.’

  Stilton pushed a heaped forkful into his mouth.

  ‘How’s the squid?’

  ‘Excellent. And that?’

  ‘That’ tasted pretty much how it looked. Stilton had a few more mouthfuls and then realised that he’d clearly ordered tasteless black porridge. The black stuff was made from squid too.

  ‘It’s good, a bit spicy perhaps,’ he said. ‘Did you get hold of your friend?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Stilton assumed that Abbas would elaborate. He didn’t, not immediately. He finished his food first. When his plate was empty he put it on the empty table next to them and drank up his water. He put that on the other table too. Stilton watched him. He realised that this was some kind of ritual that he was observing, one which demanded that everything around him was cleared away. When the waiter asked whether they would like anything else, Abbas replied: ‘It would be great if we weren’t interrupted for a while.’

  The waiter’s body language did the talking – he headed back to his safe haven behind the bar. Then Abbas looked out through the window, at the darkness outside, the sea, the sky and tried to say it as directly as Marie had said it.

  ‘Samira did porn films.’

  Abbas let the information sink in, rather like Marie had done, and sink in it did. In a way that surprised Stilton somewhat. He’d never known Samira, and he knew nothing about her other than what Abbas had told him. But it was enough. He knew Abbas. And when Abbas turned away from the window to look him in the eyes he saw everything he needed to know. In particular, he saw the darkness of Abbas’s pupils.

  ‘She had an agent,’ Abbas began. ‘Philippe Martin. An arsehole. I’m thinking of looking him up.’

  ‘I understand. To talk?’

  ‘You coming?’

  * * *

  Mette sat on the toilet seat and watched her husband brushing his teeth. Mårten had a special technique, he brushed each tooth individually. The front, the back, the chewing surface, and then he flossed both sides. As all his teeth were still in good repair, at the age of sixty-eight, that meant thirty-two individual brushings before Mette was given access to the washbasin. That was one of the reasons why she was nagging him about redoing the bathroom, so that they could have a double washbasin.

  ‘Apparently it’s about a murder.’

  Mette tried to distract Mårten, who was working on tooth number twenty-six. He pulled out the toothbrush and looked at her.

  ‘The trip to Marseille?’

  ‘Yes. I called a colleague down there I vaguely know. Well, no… It’s Tom who knows him, but we’ve had some contact. He said it was about a murder and that Abbas knew the victim.’

  ‘Oh shit.’

  Mårten sank down on the edge of the bath with the toothbrush in his hand and Mette took the opportunity to occupy the washbasin.

  ‘How does that tie in with the past that he talked about?’ she said.

  ‘The victim might be someone he knew when he lived in Marseille?’

  ‘I thought that too, at first.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘It’s been ages since he lived there and as far as I know he hasn’t been in touch with a single person since he left,’ Mette said and started brushing her teeth.

  ‘No. Could it be a relative?’

  ‘He’s got no family left, you know that.’

  ‘His mother,’ Mårten said.

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘She disappeared when he was seven. She might still be alive.’

  ‘And now been murdered?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘A mother who abandons her son when he’s seven and never makes contact would hardly cause the adult son to rush down to Marseille at zero notice and take someone like Tom with them?’ Mette said. ‘Even if she’d been murdered.’

  ‘No, perhaps not. I have six teeth to go.’

  ‘I’m almost done.’

  Mårten took the opportunity to drift off into thought while he waited. Abbas and Tom in Marseille with a French murder and Abbas knew the victim, a victim from the past, a past he hated. What were they planning to do? He didn’t really want to know as he had no chance whatsoever of influencing it.

  So he focused on his teeth.

  ‘So have you called Olivia?’ he said. ‘To apologise?’

  Mette turned around with her toothbrush in her mouth, and as she didn’t take it out, he didn’t understand what she said. But he saw.

  She hadn’t.

  ‘I think you’re being a bit of a wimp,’ he said, peering down at the washbasin.

  Mette pulled the toothbrush out of her mouth.

  ‘Please can you stop getting involved in things that are nothing to do with you!’

  ‘Absolutely. Sorry.’

  Mårten had reclaimed pole position by the washbasin and began working on tooth number twenty-seven. Mette suddenly threw her toothbrush into the bath and left. Mårten watched her go in the mirror. What kind of reaction was that? It couldn’t only be about Olivia? Or Abbas and Tom?

  That was a sign of imbalance based on something else.

  Her heart?

  Mette had recently had another check-up. Her heart wasn’t in great shape, and the doctor had issued her a couple of serious warnings: minimise all stress and do something about your weight.

  She’d ignored both of them.

  Chapter 8

  Olivia generally kept a healthy distance from journalists. It had not turned into contempt, as it had among some of her colleagues at the Police Academy. She respected the Fourth Estate of the Realm. She’d seen astonishing examples of the value of investigative journalism, but she’d also grown up in a media-obsessed society where journalism often pushed the boundaries. It undermined the credibility that press freedom depends on, often because of certain journalists’ total lack of respect for their own profession.

  She hoped that Alex Popovic did not belong to that category. He’d asked her to come to the editorial office of Dagens Nyheter. He had to be there to monitor something or other.

  He’d given no indication as to what.

  But he had an interesting voice, Olivia thought, regarding her reflection in the entrance door at Gjörwellsgatan. She pushed her smooth grey knitted hat down on her head. It was a nice hat, not like the one that Maria had forced upon her in Rotebro. She should probably have taken it off as she was going indoors, but she liked the appearance it gave her. Her long black hair fell down over her shoulders. She leant in towards her reflection.

  There was something contradictory about her healthy tanned complexion and her winter attire.

  Alex Popovic had just turned forty-two and he’d been employed by the large newspaper for the last eight years. His desk was right at the far end of the editorial office. He’d just sent an email to the Swedish embassy in Senegal asking them to confir
m that there were no Swedish citizens on the tourist bus that crashed down into a ravine a couple of hours earlier. When he looked up he saw a young woman in a grey hat being escorted in by a man from reception. He also saw that some male colleagues had registered her arrival. A few backs were straightening up behind their screens. The woman carried on in and leant down to talk to a female journalist. She nodded, turned around and pointed straight at him. The young woman started walking towards him. Is that Olivia Rivera? he thought.

  Olivia approached Alex. He greeted her with an outstretched hand and gestured towards the chair next to his desk. Both of them sat down.

  ‘Nice tan,’ he said and smiled, while removing some nicotine gum from his mouth.

  ‘I’d just got back from Costa Rica when you rang.’

  ‘Bengt’s house?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What were you doing there?’

  ‘In Costa Rica?’

  ‘At Bengt’s.’

  ‘I wanted to collect a laptop.’

  Alex’s expression revealed that Olivia needed to clarify certain things, so she told him about her relationship with Bengt Sahlmann and his daughter and why she had gone to collect a laptop.

  ‘I told Sandra that you’d called the house. She said that you’d known Bengt for ages.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘We went to Lundsberg together.’

  ‘The boarding school?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Alex gestured as though it was not the first time he’d had to explain the fact that he’d gone to Lundsberg.

  ‘Well, we both fitted in equally badly there,’ he said with a smile. ‘But then we kept in touch over the years. Bengt was a good friend. You gave me a double shock – first that he’d committed suicide and then that he’d been murdered.’

  ‘Both things were true when I said them. Why did you call?’

  Alex was an experienced journalist and he was used to asking the questions. Now he found himself being questioned by a total stranger, an attractive one, but nonetheless a stranger. He’d googled her name and found nothing about this Olivia Rivera. Perhaps it wasn’t her real name? Why? What did she want?