The Dying Detective

by Leif G. W. Persson

  ‘Attic?’

  ‘I didn’t see that either.’

  ‘Well, then,’ Johansson said. Over-furnished, he thought. Things everywhere. Wine in the cellar, and God knows what up in the attic. Plenty to snoop about in if you were that way inclined.

  ‘So, tell me . . .’ Carina Tell leaned forward and smiled at him. ‘Why are you so interested in Margaretha Sagerlied and her house?’

  ‘I have a feeling that was where it happened. That that was where Yasmine was murdered, I mean.’

  ‘With all due respect,’ Carina Tell said, shaking her head, ‘I really, really can’t believe that. How can you think that?’

  ‘Mostly just a feeling,’ Johansson said, with a shrug.

  ‘Okay. I hear what you’re saying. But if that’s true, then the woman who lived there, Margaretha Sagerlied, couldn’t have had any idea about it. I’m absolutely certain of that. A thousand per cent.’

  ‘I agree with you,’ Johansson said. ‘She couldn’t have known anything about it.’ She only realized that later, he thought. And it blew her world apart. ‘Nothing else you can think of about the investigation?’

  ‘I actually think about it fairly regularly,’ she said. ‘For various reasons. One of my clients – he trains at one of my gyms – used to live in the next street from Yasmine and Margaretha Sagerlied at the time it happened. I sometimes see him several times a week.’

  ‘Who’s he, then?’

  ‘Retired military – I think he even made it as far as General before he left. He’s over eighty. Doesn’t seem a day past sixty. Alert and in good shape, still got all his marbles.’ For some reason Carina Tell was smiling and nodding at Johansson.

  ‘So what’s his name?’ Johansson asked. The bastard must have a name, people who go to gyms usually do, he thought.

  ‘Axel Linderoth,’ Carina Tell said. ‘I’m sure he’s in the phone directory, and if he isn’t I can get you his number. I’ve a feeling he was a lieutenant general when he retired. Lieutenant general in Defence Command. I might as well give you my card while I’m here.’ She stood up and put her business card on the table.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Feel free to get in touch. I could help you with all that fat you’re dragging around, quite unnecessarily.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you, Carina,’ Johansson said. ‘Very kind of you to volunteer, and I promise to consider your offer carefully and in a positive spirit.’ And you’re very lucky I wasn’t your boss back then, he thought.

  ‘Good,’ Carina Tell said. ‘Say hi to your wife.’

  ‘You know Pia?’

  ‘She comes to the gym. Anyone sensible who cares about their health does.’

  And then she left, with a nod and a smile, closing the door behind her. Here you lie, Johansson thought. Alone, fat and out of the game, barely able to roll over on your own sofa. But no headache any more, no anxiety. It was even easier to breathe. I’ll get you soon enough, he thought. I’ll get you. In spite of everyone who thinks you don’t even exist.

  42

  Friday afternoon, 23 July

  Johansson was tired, but he couldn’t sleep. He lay there on his sofa, twisting and turning, paddling with his healthy left arm, but he couldn’t find any peace of mind. No nap-giving tranquillity. So he had no choice.

  ‘Matilda!’ Johansson roared. ‘For God’s sake, woman!’

  She came rushing in like a shot – she must have been standing ready to move outside the closed door of his study; it took a second at most – and Johansson immediately felt much brighter.

  ‘Has anything happened?’ Matilda asked.

  ‘No, damn it,’ Johansson said. ‘Everything’s fine. Just doing a test run, that’s all.’

  ‘I see. And?’

  ‘Well, seeing as you’re here now, I was wondering if you could get hold of a telephone number for me?’ He gestured towards the business card that Carina Tell had left on the table.

  ‘It’s on there,’ Matilda said. ‘Carina Tell, her number’s—’

  ‘On the back.’

  ‘Axel Linderoth?’

  ‘That’s the one,’ Johansson said with unexpected warmth in his voice. ‘Good girl. He lives in Bromma. Retired army officer.’ What do you mean, good girl? he thought. Why am I saying that?

  ‘Okay, boss. Anything else?’

  ‘A triple espresso. The strong sort. No milk.’

  ‘Coming right up,’ Matilda said, and disappeared.

  Boss, Johansson thought. Why is she calling me boss? She isn’t a police officer.

  ‘Do you want me to dial the number for you?’ Matilda looked at him innocently.

  ‘Yes, if you wouldn’t mind,’ Johansson said. That serves you right, he thought.

  ‘Do it yourself,’ Matilda said. ‘It’s important to practise your motor skills.’

  Then she walked out and closed the door on him. ‘Just shout if you want anything, boss.’

  Lively girl. No chance of running rings round her. I need to talk to her about those tattoos, he thought.

  Then he dialled the number of the retired general and, as he did so, he thought about what he was going to say. A mixture of white lies, he thought. He’d been a general in Defence Command, so he probably wouldn’t mind.

  The general answered on the first ring.

  ‘Linderoth,’ former Lieutenant General Axel Linderoth said. He sounded like one as well.

  ‘Johansson,’ Johansson said. ‘I hope I’m not disturbing you, but I’ve got a question. I was wondering—’

  ‘I know what you want,’ Linderoth interrupted. ‘Carina Tell, my personal trainer, called and told me.’

  Not partial to lengthy preambles, then, Johansson thought.

  ‘If it’s urgent, then we have a practical problem,’ Linderoth said. ‘I’m going down to Skåne first thing tomorrow. Playing golf for a week.’

  ‘I can be with you in half an hour.’

  ‘Agreed,’ Linderoth said.

  ‘Matilda!’ Johansson roared as soon as he had hung up.

  Might as well ask her, Johansson thought when they were sitting in the car about to head off to Äppelviken in Bromma to visit a retired lieutenant general.

  ‘There’s something I’ve been wondering,’ Johansson said.

  ‘Go ahead, boss,’ Matilda said.

  ‘Why do you call me boss?’

  ‘I heard at work that you were some sort of supercop. Head of the Security Police and then head of that other lot – National Crime. Well, before you retired, of course.’

  ‘Oh,’ Johansson said. ‘So you heard about that.’

  ‘Yes, although to start with, I thought you were like all the rest of our clients. When I saw the way you lived and all that.’

  ‘Like all the rest?’

  ‘Yes, a bean-counter. One of those bonus-junkies who’ve fallen to earth in spite of their parachutes. I could call you director if you’d rather.’

  ‘Boss is fine,’ Johansson said. Smart girl, thought Johansson. Presumably, it was possible to have those tattoos removed.

  ‘Of course, boss. Glad that’s sorted.’

  ‘Äppelviksgatan,’ Johansson said.

  ‘I know.’ Matilda nodded towards the dashboard. ‘I’ve already put the address in the satnav.’

  Johansson contented himself with a nod. What’s someone like her doing with people like me? he thought. Melancholy, he thought.

  An agreeable feeling of melancholy spread through his body. She knew how to drive as well, smoothly and efficiently. Almost like his best friend, when he was in the mood.

  ‘I think it would be best if I stayed in the car,’ Matilda said as she pulled up in front of the yellow wooden villa.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Retired army officer,’ Matilda said.

  Johansson made do with a nod. We’re predictable as well, he thought.

  ‘Here,’ she said, and leaned over and popped his dictaphone in the breast pocket of his jacket.

  ‘Then you don’
t have to worry about taking notes. I’ve switched it on. The battery’s supposed to last at least twenty-four hours. If you don’t want him to know you’ve got it, you can just leave it in your pocket. It will cope with that fine.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Johansson said. ‘Thanks, Matilda. That’s very kind of you.’

  43

  Friday afternoon, 23 July

  ‘Coffee, juice, water?’ Axel Linderoth said, pointing in turn at a steel Thermos flask, a jug of red juice and a large bottle of Ramlösa that he had placed on the garden table where they were sitting, along with two glasses and two white porcelain mugs with the emblem of the armed forces on them.

  ‘Water would be good,’ Johansson said. This man doesn’t need a uniform, he thought. Slim, fit, suntanned; white cotton trousers and a short-sleeved, red polo shirt. Didn’t look a day over sixty. A very fit sixty.

  ‘My then wife and I – I’ve been a widower for five years – moved here in 1972,’ the general said. ‘And as you can see, I still live here. Our three sons have long since moved out. Grown men, these days. The eldest is forty-one, the middle one forty, the youngest thirty-nine.’

  ‘Quick work,’ Johansson said. Sixteen, fifteen and fourteen years old when Yasmine went missing. Just like that, he thought. He hadn’t even had to think about it.

  ‘Yes,’ the general said with a slight smile. ‘I was almost forty when I had the first of them. My wife, admittedly, was eight years younger than me, but a rapid advance across the terrain was called for if the Linderoth family was to have a future.’

  ‘Were you here when it happened? When little Yasmine went missing, I mean, in June 1985?’

  ‘I was in the Middle East, working for the UN in the Gaza Strip. So I didn’t have to deal with your colleagues. My wife and our boys didn’t get off as lightly.’

  ‘They were at home,’ Johansson stated.

  ‘No,’ the former general said. ‘They weren’t, but it took a fair while for your colleagues to grasp that point.’

  ‘I daresay that was just a regrettable matter of routine that sometimes happens in cases like this. Necessary routine,’ Johansson emphasized.

  ‘Apparently so,’ the general concurred with a grim expression. ‘My wife and sons had gone down to Skåne the weekend before to visit her parents. The boys’ grandparents. They got home a few days after that little girl went missing. They had plane tickets, plenty of witnesses down in Skåne – aside from my parents-in-law, I should point out. But that didn’t help them in the slightest. One of your colleagues seems to have been a uniquely persistent and stupid individual. A fat little fellow. My wife called me in Gaza in tears. I got angry and called the Chief of Police. He was a good man – we knew each other from his time with the Security Police. He sorted the idiot out, told him to get his act together. So, at long last, my wife and sons were left in peace. What had happened was bad enough in itself – it really was a terrible business – but you probably had to be a police officer to get it into your head that it had actually happened out here.’

  It’s always Bäckström, Johansson thought.

  ‘You don’t believe it could have happened here?’

  ‘Certainly not. You only need a pair of eyes in your head to realize that. Wrong area, wrong people. And the only neighbours who were at home at the time were pensioners. More water?’ the general asked, nodding towards Johansson’s empty glass.

  ‘Thank you,’ Johansson said. ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘I remember there being a huge fuss about some little red car that was supposed to have been parked here that evening. Over on the corner, by the junction with Majblommestigen,’ the general said, gesturing in that direction. ‘A hundred metres down the road from where we’re sitting,’ he clarified. ‘Supposed to have been parked outside Johan Nilsson’s house.’

  ‘Johan Nilsson?’ Where have I heard that name before? Johansson thought.

  ‘Correction,’ the general said with a slight smile. ‘The house where Johan Nilsson used to live. He was already dead when it happened. But his dear wife, his widow, still lived there.’

  ‘Margaretha Sagerlied,’ Johansson said.

  ‘The very same,’ the general said. ‘Born Svensson, Margaretha Svensson, which is one of many things she preferred not to talk about. In contrast to all the things she loved to talk about.’

  ‘What was she like?’

  ‘Stuck-up, tedious, phenomenally self-obsessed. But her husband was a good man. I both ate crayfish and drank schnapps in his company. He was old enough to be my father, but that wasn’t an issue at all. He was a smart businessman, too. Traded in meat and charcuterie, had a big wholesale business out in Årsta and Enskede. And he owned several grocery stores in the city centre. His wife, the opera singer, wasn’t left short, if I can put it like that.’

  ‘I understand that they married late in life?’

  ‘Yes, so Johan told me. About all the years he spent courting her before she finally agreed. And about all the years it took him to realize that he should have spent his time doing something else instead.’

  ‘Was he bitter?’ What does that have to do with anything? Johansson thought.

  ‘No, not in the slightest. He was a good-natured man, kind and decent, very generous. But after a few glasses when there were just the two of us, he could be fairly open-hearted.’

  ‘Had he had any previous relationships? By which I mean, did he have any children from previous relationships?’

  ‘No,’ the general said. ‘He often spoke about that: it was something of a regret to him. He was very fond of my boys, I remember. He couldn’t have had it easy, not with that wife,’ the general declared with a sigh. ‘That red car – I seem to recall my wife saying it was a Golf – I don’t think that’s anything to get hung up about.’

  ‘You don’t think so?’ Johansson said. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Not bearing in mind who it was who claimed to have seen it. The local nuisance. An officious little man who poked his nose into all manner of things where it had no business. A proper little busybody.’

  ‘What sort of thing did he poke his nose into?’

  ‘Everything,’ the general said. ‘The school board, the Parents’ Association; then he was going to set up some sort of neighbourhood-watch scheme in the area, and organize care of elderly residents, local parties, Christmas festivities. Shared transport for people who wanted to go to church on Christmas Eve but might have had one too many drinks that evening, which was pretty much everyone round here, if you ask me. He used to roam about in the evenings with a huge, black beast of a dog. He was a short, skinny little man, so when you saw them together it looked like the dog was taking him for a walk.’

  ‘Do you remember what his job was?’

  ‘He was some sort of lawyer. I think he worked for the National Audit Office. Terribly exciting, no doubt.’

  ‘Is he still alive?’

  ‘No, he’s dead. Died a few years after that business with the little girl. Heart attack, I seem to remember. As so often happens when you spend your whole life worrying about anything and everything.’

  ‘So Johan Nilsson had no children of his own from a previous relationship?’ Just drop it, Johansson thought. You’ve been wrong before, after all.

  ‘No,’ the general said.

  ‘His wife,’ Johansson said. ‘After her husband died, did she have a wide circle of acquaintances?’

  ‘I’m not sure I could say that,’ the general said. ‘A number of elderly people like herself, from the same background. Cultural personalities, I suppose they were. Mostly, she spent her time alone. She wasn’t particularly popular as a neighbour. You used to say hello to her, but that was about it.’

  ‘A big house,’ Johansson said. ‘She must have had someone to help her? With the house and the garden?’

  ‘When her husband was alive, in Johan’s time, they had a housekeeper who lived with them. Quite a lot of parties back then, when they’d hire extra staff. My wife and I went on a number of
occasions, despite the difference in our ages. But the housekeeper left as soon as Johan was dead. I think she moved out before the funeral. Why she did that is a matter of speculation.’

  ‘What do you think, then?’

  ‘Margaretha Sagerlied was a difficult woman. She was never particularly pleasant.’

  ‘So, from then on, she looked after herself?’

  ‘Not at all,’ the general said. ‘She got hold of a new cleaner and factotum more or less immediately. As a rule, they only used to stay for a year or so before leaving. Until she got hold of Erika – Erika Brännström.’

  ‘Erika Brännström?’

  ‘An excellent person, very pleasant, very patient,’ the general said with a smile. ‘From Norrland. You Norrlanders are made of stern stuff. She must have worked for Sagerlied for several years. Until she, too, moved out. I have a feeling that Margaretha Sagerlied sold the house in the spring of the year after that little girl was murdered. In the spring of ’86. I’m fairly sure of that. I was sent back to Gaza in the autumn, and when I got home just before Christmas the house was already for sale. My wife and I actually went to look at it, but it was a bit too expensive, even then, for a man in the service of the crown. Margaretha Sagerlied had already moved into the city centre. She’d bought an apartment in Östermalm, so the house out here was empty.’

  ‘When Margaretha Sagerlied was interviewed – coincidentally, by our mutual acquaintance, Carina Tell – she was adamant that she didn’t have any staff. She claimed she looked after everything herself. Why would she say something like that?’ Considering how smart she pretended to be otherwise, Johansson thought.

  ‘I suppose Erika was working unofficially,’ the general said.

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘Well, she certainly was when she used to help my wife and me with the cleaning,’ the former general said.

  ‘Erika Brännström,’ Johansson said.

  ‘Erika Brännström,’ the general confirmed. ‘Her husband had found a new woman and moved in with her. She had two little girls she was raising on her own. She was probably around thirty-five at the time. Must be about sixty now. Lived on Lilla Essinge with her daughters.’