Meet me in Malmö: The first Inspector Anita Sundström mystery (Inspector Anita Sundström mysteries)

by MacLeod, Torquil

  ‘But you didn’t have much to give him?’

  ‘I gave him enough to pay for these.’ He chuckled as he nodded towards his recent acquisitions. ‘I may have elaborated a bit, but there was truth in there.’

  Nordlund picked up his coffee, which had gone cold. He put it down again.

  ‘I’ve seen your record. The Stockholm police were very helpful. When you ran that car bodyshop in Hammarby some pretty dodgy vehicles came out of your workshop. All sorts of lethal combinations. One bit of a car stuck to another. The judge described them as “deathtraps”. And that’s not the only dubious dealings you’ve had over the years. You were bullshitting people then. You could be bullshitting me now.’

  Tapper pointed the glass at Nordlund. ‘If I’m bullshitting, why are you here? I’ll tell you why. Because they’re trying to shut up Mick Roslyn just like they shut up my brother.’

  CHAPTER 26

  Anita laughed at Ewan’s well-rehearsed anecdote about his father’s embarrassingly prehistoric attempts to explain the facts of life. She was really having a good time. Ewan had already made her laugh at a number of his stories. Nearly all were told at his expense. She liked that. When he laughed, he was better looking than she had thought. Lose a bit of weight and he might be quite presentable. It was the blue eyes that kept catching her attention. They were playful. He had probably been a mischievous kid, which made her think of her own childhood.

  ‘Do you get to Durham often?’

  ‘Occasionally. Sometimes I cover a cultural event there.’

  Anita twisted the top off her snus tin and popped a sachet into her mouth. It was when having a drink that she most missed a cigarette. They were sitting in Persson’s, a small and intimate bar at the end of Storgatan.

  ‘It is a beautiful city. I was very happy there.’ She smiled at the recollection. ‘My father used to take me for a walk round the river banks. In the summer we sometimes went on the river…in those old rowing boats. There were punts too, but Dad never had the nerve to try one of them.’

  ‘I’m not sure if they’re still there. I’ll look next time I’m through.’

  ‘I would like to go back. See if it still has that magic.’

  ‘It’s changed. The university is even bigger and it’s taken over many of the green spaces. But the castle still looks as dramatic as ever. And the cathedral, of course.’ He paused as though caught up in recollections of his own. ‘You should come over. Visit. I’ll show you around.’

  She watched him closely. He really meant it. It was tempting. She hadn’t got anything planned for a holiday this year. Lasse probably had his own plans, which would involve Rebecka and not her.

  ‘I don’t know. They say you should never go back to a place you have really been happy in. Were you happy in Durham?’

  The cheery expression he had worn most of the evening disappeared. ‘Part of the time. Another drink? He pointed to Anita’s empty glass.

  The bar still only had a smattering of customers. The weather and the back end of the weekend were keeping the drinkers away. As she watched Ewan at the bar she realized she had hit a nerve. She would steer clear of Durham because he was being so nice to her. And attentive. And polite. On his return she noticed he had changed from Czech beer to a glass of rum.

  ‘There’s no real ale here, like in The Pickwick,’ he said by way of explanation. ‘Rum was my old man’s drink. He was in the navy in the war. Actually it was the Swedish navy that gave us our expression “pissed as a neut”. It came about after some British naval officers had a night’s drinking with their Swedish counterparts. Afterwards, they said that they had got as “pissed as neutrals”, which was then shortened to “neuts”.

  She put on a mock serious face. ‘I am glad that Sweden’s contributed to British cultural life. There’s more to us than Abba, IKEA and Björn Borg.’

  ‘And Sven-Göran Eriksson. Pornography as well. Don’t forget that.’

  ‘I think you will find that most of that horrible stuff comes from Denmark,’ she said with some distaste.

  Ewan smirked. ‘I apologize. British males prefer to think of Swedes as being the sexy ones. It doesn’t quite work with Danes for some reason.’

  ‘Sweden offers so much more,’ Anita said indignantly. She had had many an argument during her time in London, defending Sweden. The British couldn’t see beyond the obvious. Much as she loved the British, it was their sense of superiority that struck her as one of the nation’s least appealing traits. They always seemed so arrogant when it came to history, architecture, culture, music and sport – and so condescending about what they saw as lesser nations. It made her patriotic, which surprised her as she had never thought of herself as being remotely nationalistic.

  Ewan was taken aback at this sudden turn. ‘I didn’t mean to—’

  ‘Ingmar Bergman, Greta Garbo, Carl Linnaeus, Alfred Nobel...’ She stopped herself in mid-rant. She was sounding petulant.

  ‘Great design, too,’ said Ewan, breaking the awkward silence that followed. ‘And buildings. Just look at the Turning Torso. It’s very Scandinavian. Who designed it? ’

  Anita eyes widened. ‘The Turning Torso was designed by a Santiago Calatrava.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound very Swedish.’

  ‘No, he’s Spanish!’ Then they both laughed.

  Moberg picked up the phone in his office. It was late, but he had much on his mind. He had had another conversation with Westermark, which he had decided to act upon. And he was still awaiting news from Västerås. And the truth was that he was avoiding going home. His third marriage was going the way of the first two. The only thing keeping it together was the fear of paying out three lots of alimony. Nordlund was on the other end of the line.

  ‘Linas Tapper is our “Deep Throat”,’ Nordlund explained. ‘Doing it for the money he can get out of Roslyn.’

  ‘So we can forget him and that line of inquiry?’

  ‘Not entirely. He claims that Säpo were behind his brother’s fatal car accident. There were certainly no other vehicles involved. No witnesses. And he believes that they probably got to Malin Lovgren, too.’

  ‘He sounds like a fucking fantasist,’ Moberg said dismissively.

  ‘I thought so at first, but his brother was in Stockholm at the time of Palme’s murder and claimed, albeit after a lot of booze, that he knew who had killed the prime minister. He indicated that it was an inside job.’

  ‘So what do you want to do, Henrik?’

  ‘Give me another day, or a couple at most. I’d like to check out the brother’s death. If there are question marks over it we may have some rogue ex-Säpo operatives on the loose.’

  ‘Ok. But time isn’t on our side. And don’t piss off the local cops, because I’ll get it in the neck from the commissioner.’

  ‘By the way, is there anything more on Valquist?’ Nordlund asked.

  ‘No. But something else has cropped up.’

  Anita threw her coat over the sofa and flopped down next to it. She was tired, but happily mellow. The evening had been good. Fun actually. She hadn’t been that relaxed for quite some time. She had tried to persuade him to go up the Turning Torso before he left because she had a contact at the building, who would let him up onto the roof. He said he would love to, but his train was early. Their parting had been awkward. Neither had known what to do.

  ‘I didn’t have time to tell you about the Earl of Bothwell,’ Ewan said turning up his collar against the cold. ‘Interesting story. Maybe next time?’

  ‘You think there’ll be a next time?’ she teased.

  ‘I hope so.’ His eyes locked onto hers. She glanced away, unable to match his gaze.

  ‘Thanks for a lovely evening.’ He leant forward as though he were going to kiss her on the cheek, but ended up holding out his hand for her to shake.

  She, too, folded up her collar. ‘I hope it’s not so cold next time you come. It’s lovely here in the summer’

  He smiled. ‘It must be nearly freezin
g now.’

  ‘Zero degrees Celsius.’ Then her face creased into a wide grin. ‘Anders Celsius was Swedish.’

  Anita zapped the television on. She put it on mute and flicked through the channels. There was nothing worth watching so she switched it off again. She got up and went into the kitchen. She was too weary to eat. A cup of tea would have to do as a nightcap. As she waited for the water in the pan to boil, she found herself wondering what Lasse would think of Ewan. Would he like him? Would they have interests in common? Football maybe? Why was she thinking these things? She hardly knew Ewan and yet she was worrying about how her son would react. It was stupid. She might never see him again, let alone contemplate getting close to him.

  Her mobile interrupted her confused thoughts. She went back into the living room and found the phone in her pocket. It was a work number. She groaned. ‘Anita Sundström.’

  ‘Anita.’ It was Moberg. ‘I don’t think you’re going to like this.’

  CHAPTER 27

  Ewan packed up his overnight bag. It was fuller than when he had arrived. He’d had to buy some extra clothes as he’d only enough with him for the original two nights. He shut down his computer and packed that up, too. Last night, after he had left Anita at about half-nine, he had completed his follow-up article on the murder. He had quoted Mick, using things he had said before he went into a safe house. He wrote as though he had had access to Mick after he had gone into hiding. As the piece was concentrating on the capture of Halvar Mednick, he wasn’t able to overdo the Olof Palme assassination theory, which was the best angle. However, he did again hint at the dark machinations of a secretive government organization. It was too vague to pinpoint, but had enough clues to sound interesting. The fact that Mick had been hidden away helped the mystery quota. And, as before, he had built up Inspector Sundström’s part in the story. Anyway, Brian would be pleased.

  He went to the window. It was another cold day, though the sun was trying to heave its way over the horizon to spread a little light. The locals had said that it had been a mild winter so far. He could see the distorted white blocks of the Turning Torso. If he made it back to cover the trial he would take up Anita’s offer to get himself up to the top. His feelings about Malmö were split. Half of him was glad to be escaping, while the other half yearned to stay and be close to Anita. He had relived their evening together many times already. He had so wanted to kiss her when he was saying goodbye, but his nerve had failed him. The handshake seemed pathetic. So bloody British. However, two positives came out of the evening. He had got the impression that she would be happy to see him again, if he could ever get back to Malmö, and he had also managed to get her email address. The first thing he did when he returned to the hotel was to put her details in his email address file. He had even started to compose an email to her, thanking her for a great night. On reflection, he decided it might be best to wait until he got back to Tyneside, and that would give him an excuse to write – back safely, thanks for help, fun evening etc. This was a woman he had only met six days ago – at a murder scene – but he knew that he was in love with her.

  For the last time he made his way to the station. It took five minutes. He wanted to be early as he had a fear of missing trains, flights, ferries. His train was at twenty past nine. He was twenty minutes early. He took a free copy of the Metro. There was nothing on the front page about Malin Lovgren that he could see. After days of full coverage, the Swedish media were waiting for the police to release further details on the case. The media had used up all the speculation over the weekend. He checked the platform for the Copenhagen train before wandering into the book booth in the middle of the station concourse. He still had ten minutes when he walked through to the platform. His train was already in and people were boarding. Some late commuters, early Copenhagen shoppers and a few people dragging huge suitcases heading for the sun via Kastrup airport. He didn’t blame them.

  He was about to get on board when he noticed a familiar figure coming along the platform. He couldn’t believe it – it was Anita. This was fantastic. She had come to see him off. ‘Anit…’ He didn’t get her full name out because he had just noticed that she was not alone. She was with a man who looked suspiciously like a policemen, despite the leather jacket, the jeans and the expensive shoes. It was the supercilious sneer below the blond cropped hair that alerted Ewan.

  ‘This is Inspector Karl Westermark,’ Anita explained rather formally when they reached him.

  Westermark whipped out his warrant card for a moment and then casually put it back in his inside jacket pocket.

  ‘We would like you to accompany us back to police headquarters.’

  Ewan thought he had misheard. The noise around him suddenly vanished. He could see Anita repeating the request but he couldn’t hear her. Why was the woman he had fallen in love with asking him to go to the police station? This woman had laughed at his jokes only last night. At least she had the grace to look embarrassed.

  ‘I can’t. I’ve got a plane to catch,’ Ewan managed to get out between gasps of air. He felt as though he had just been winded by a well-aimed punch to the solar plexus.

  Westermark sneered again. ‘I am not thinking that you understand. If you refuse, we will arrest you here.’

  Anita switched on the tape machine and lent towards it: ‘Klockan är sju minuter över elva. Närvarande är herr Ewan Strachan, kriminalinspektör Westermark och kriminalinspektör Sundström. Samtalet kommer att hållas på engelska.’ Turning towards Ewan, ‘We will speak in English.’

  She had found it difficult to order her thoughts from the moment she had received the phone call from Moberg. It had disconcertingly turned her world upside down, yet in many ways it vindicated her first instincts. There had been something wrong about the relationship between Ewan Strachan and Mick Roslyn. She knew both of them had lied to her. Even now, the reason wasn’t obvious. What was clear was that Westermark – at Moberg’s prompting – had unearthed information about the British journalist, which had resulted in their sitting in a stark interrogation room at seven minutes past eleven on Monday morning, 18 February. She knew she should have told Moberg and Westermark that she had been out for a drink with the suspect – twice. That compromised her official position. The fact that she hadn’t mentioned it when she’d had the opportunity now made her nervous that it would come out in the interrogation and cause her serious embarrassment. So why hadn’t she spoken up?

  She realized that she desperately wanted to be part of this case, to find Malin Lovgren’s killer. And she knew she had been onto something when the rest believed Mednick to be the murderer. She had asked the questions they hadn’t – or most of them. She had come to believe that Mick Roslyn was the key to the murder, and not Malin Lovgren. And she was damned if Moberg and Westermark were going to bugger it up when she had been right. Only this was a twist she hadn’t foreseen.

  What was adding to the pressure was conducting this particular interview with Westermark at her side. She could sense that he was enjoying her discomfiture. Moberg had insisted that she should lead the interrogation because of her fluent English. Westermark was there to intimidate the suspect.

  ‘Can you say your name and address? For the tape.’

  ‘I can’t believe you’ve brought me here,’ Ewan started to protest once more. He had done nothing else since they picked him at the station.

  ‘Your name and your address,’ Westermark came in sharply. Anita couldn’t think of anyone else she knew on the force who could make a straightforward statement sound like a threat.

  ‘Ewan Strachan. I live at Etal Court, North Shields, Tyne and Wear.’ Then with pointed emphasis towards Westermark. ‘That’s in the United Kingdom, of which I am a citizen.’ Turning to Anita. ‘Why am I here?’

  Anita ignored the question. ‘We need you to tell us again your exact movements from late Monday afternoon.’

  ‘For God’s sake! It’s all in my statement.’ There was real frustrated anger in his voice.
r />   ‘Just answer the kriminalinspektör,’ commanded Westermark.

  Ewan glared at Westermark before he spoke. Then, slowly and deliberately he began. ‘I went out for a meal in Lilla-thingy square. Had a drink and a bite to eat. Then I went to The Pickwick pub. After that I went back to the hotel.’

  ‘And what time was that?’ Anita asked before Westermark did. She wasn’t going to let Westermark wrest away control of the interrogation.

  ‘About 9.30. Wanted to prepare myself and get a good night’s sleep before the big day. Well, it was a big day, but not in the way I was expecting.’

  ‘Did anybody see you return to the hotel?’

  ‘There was a girl on reception. I gave her a smile. She didn’t smile back but I’m sure she’ll vouch for my movements.’

  ‘And you didn’t leave the hotel after that?’

  ‘Of course not.’ He was having difficulty reining in his temper.

  Anita opened a Manila file and Ewan recognized the statement he had signed. ‘And you say that you had never had any contact with Malin Lovgren at any time. You had never seen her or talked to her.’

  ‘No. Never.’ Ewan was becoming increasingly irritated, even though it was Anita who was asking him these questions. He was the prey and she was the beautiful hunter. ‘I’ve already said so.’