‘And you didn’t think of mentioning it to me?’
‘You mean before everybody else?’
‘Yes.’
‘Should I have done?’
‘What do you think?’
Jennifer shrugged, looking a little puzzled.
‘You were busy with the hotels and hostels; if you’d found anything I wouldn’t have expected you to tell me. I thought the most important thing was to inform the whole team.’
Billy didn’t reply. There was something in what she said; that was why the team had such regular meetings. They all worked independently, then passed on information when they got together. Just as Jennifer had done. Why was he being so over-sensitive? He was beginning to wish he’d just let it go.
‘But if I come across anything else I’m happy to run it by you first,’ Jennifer said, interpreting his silence as a sign that she’d got it wrong. ‘It’s not a problem.’
‘There’s no need,’ Billy said quietly. He glanced to the side, out into the corridor behind her – anything but look her in the eye.
‘Are you sure? I mean, if you want to present whatever we come up with, I’m fine with that too.’
‘No, really, it’s OK.’ Billy made eye contact and managed a faint smile, hoping it would take the sting out of his initial sourness.
‘Are you sure?’ Jennifer still seemed a little uneasy about the situation.
‘Absolutely. I was wrong. I’m sorry.’
‘So we’re all good?’
‘We’re all good.’
‘Great, because I really don’t want to upset people.’
‘You haven’t. I promise.’
Jennifer gave him a warm smile and walked away. Billy stayed where he was, feeling more than a little troubled. What the hell had happened to him? What was he doing? Getting annoyed because Jennifer hadn’t spoken to him first, which meant he felt threatened in some way. Which in turn meant that Vanja’s comment about being a better cop than him had gone deeper than he thought. He was sure he’d put all that behind him; they’d sorted it out. He had gone back to the aspects of the job he was best at, realised that they had different, but equally important roles within the team. At least he thought so. But now there was this business with Jennifer. And the fact that he hadn’t applied for the FBI training course. Small signals.
Did he doubt his own abilities, or was he turning into one of those bitter individuals who never climbed the ladder, and ended up believing that everyone else was working against him? He couldn’t let that happen. None of it. He was too young, and he loved his job too much. Perhaps it would be better to start all over again. Leave Riksmord and apply for something new.
Valdemar Lithner rolled over onto his right side and looked at the clock on the bedside table. Time to go back to work. He had come home for lunch, eaten some cereal and a yoghurt at the kitchen island, then gone for a lie-down. He was tired these days, although he didn’t really know why. He was sleeping just as well as ever, but he never felt properly rested. He had heard that could be a symptom of burnout, but it didn’t seem likely in his case. He wasn’t working any harder than usual, quite the reverse in fact, and he didn’t feel stressed or under pressure. However, he was getting less and less done, and then there was that nagging pain in his lower back. Could he have twisted it? It didn’t feel like a muscle strain though. He left the bedroom and walked through the silent, empty apartment. It would feel even more silent and empty in a few months when Vanja moved to the USA.
She hadn’t lived with him and Anna for many years, but she was a frequent visitor. They had dinner together every Thursday, but she often called in, watched TV for a while, had a coffee, stayed for something to eat. If she was near his office she would call him and ask if he had time to meet up for lunch. Now all that would end. She would be far, far away, for a long time, and Valdemar would lose the thing he valued most in life: the close contact with his daughter.
Of course he wanted her to go. He was incredibly proud of her – he always had been. He had felt nothing but joy and pride when she was chosen to join Riksmord, but now those feelings were tinged with sorrow, and the sense of loss was tangible when he thought about her living in Virginia, even though there were still a couple of months to go before she actually left.
He wouldn’t be alone. He wouldn’t be short of love and companionship. He and Anna had a good marriage, they still loved one another, and whenever he thought about his future, Anna was always there. But his relationship with Vanja was so special, they were so close. They always had been. He had had more patience with her than Anna when she was little; he had enjoyed playing games, doing things on her terms, and Anna had been grateful for the respite. When other men at work or in other contexts had complained about their teenage daughters, talked about the arguments and outbursts and saying that it was like living with an alien, Valdemar hadn’t recognised their situation at all. He had always been able to reason with his daughter, to discuss things and reach a joint decision. Perhaps it was because she had always been very mature for her age, but he liked to think it was because the bond between them was so important to both of them that they weren’t prepared to test the boundaries. Anna had had a more difficult time with Vanja during her teenage years, and had therefore handed over many of the decisions and rules of engagement to him. The relationship between mother and daughter was generally more complex than the one between him and Vanja. It wasn’t open war, and they didn’t exchange harsh words, but they just weren’t as close.
Vanja had always been Daddy’s girl. And now she was going to leave him.
When she told him about her plans, his initial reaction had been that she couldn’t go. He would forbid it. Find a way to keep her here. For the first time he could remember, he had deliberately lied to her, said it sounded like a good idea. Over the next few weeks he had struggled to suppress the hope that she would fail. He had to keep on telling himself that this was something she really wanted. It would make her happy, and therefore it would make him happy too.
By this stage he really did want her to succeed, but sometimes the sense of loss overwhelmed him. Even before she had gone. How would he feel when it actually happened?
He shook off his gloomy thoughts, went back into the kitchen and poured himself a glass of water. He glanced at his watch; time to go. As he put the glass in the dishwasher and headed into the hallway, his mobile rang. Annika, his secretary. As soon as he answered she let fly with a lengthy and rapid harangue. He couldn’t quite grasp everything she said; she seemed upset, and he hoped he had misunderstood. He fought to keep his voice steady as he asked her to calm down and repeat what she had just said. Annika took a deep breath, and unfortunately he realised that he had got it right the first time. The police were there, demanding documents dating back several years, and she thought he ought to come in right away. Valdemar told her he was leaving immediately, and ended the call.
He stood in the hallway trying to gather his thoughts.
But he’d got away with it.
He’d taken a shortcut.
The preliminary investigation had been shelved. Lack of evidence.
He’d done it for the sake of the family.
Wrong, of course. Easy, but wrong. He had put it all behind him, forgotten it, suppressed it. The police were in his office. It could hardly be about anything else. Why now? Why had they come back?
An easy way of giving them what he would otherwise have been unable to give them.
They wouldn’t have come back if they didn’t think they could bring him down this time. What had happened? He wasn’t a criminal, it had just been so tempting. So easy.
A shortcut.
A safe shortcut.
How should he handle this?
The sound of a bell broke the silence. Valdemar gave a start. The doorbell. Who would call round at this time? Nobody was supposed to be home. He opened the door with his mind still elsewhere, but in an instant everything came together.
He recognised his visitor.
She was smiling.
After the morning meeting they all had plenty to do. Billy had been tasked with finding out when and where Patricia Wellton had entered the country. They all knew it was a time-consuming and possibly futile exercise. If Patricia Wellton, whoever she was, had come in by train or car they would never find her, but they had to try. He had asked Jennifer to help him, and she was happy to oblige. He stressed that she didn’t need to inform him personally if she found anything, and apologised again for his earlier comment. She waved his apology away; it was fine.
They sat down opposite one another in the empty restaurant, equipped with a laptop and mobile phone each, and started from the beginning. What did they know? Not much. Patricia Wellton had hired a car in Östersund on the morning of 30 October 2003 – that was about it. It was relatively easy to establish that there were no direct flights from overseas into Östersund at the relevant time apart from charter flights, which were very rare. No charter flight had landed on the morning of the thirtieth. The closest in terms of time was a flight from Amsterdam on the morning of 26 October. Billy and Jennifer discussed the possibility that Patricia had spent four days in Östersund, but dismissed the idea more or less right away.
That left domestic flights and trains. They decided to start with the two largest airports in Sweden; Jennifer took Arlanda, Billy Landvetter.
Before they made a start they collected a flask of coffee from the kitchen and found a packet of biscuits in one of the cupboards, jotting down what they had taken on the list by the counter. Mats and Klara had introduced the system on the first evening: ‘Take whatever you want, whenever you want, but make a note of it’.
Back in the restaurant they poured themselves a cup of coffee and looked at one another across the table. Billy sighed.
‘OK, let’s do this.’
They raised their cups in a toast, then started calling every airline that had flown into Stockholm and Gothenburg on 30 October 2003 and in the preceding week, requesting access to their passenger lists. Not only would they have to plough through an enormous amount of bureaucracy, but even if they did get hold of the information they would be looking at thousands of names. There was also a significant risk that the details were no longer available.
‘This is like the labour of Sisyphus,’ Jennifer said, smiling at Billy over her laptop.
‘Absolutely,’ Billy said, smiling back. He didn’t really know who or what Sisyphus was, something to do with Greek mythology perhaps, but he had no intention of asking.
* * *
Torkel’s task was to see if someone in the USA could help him to identify Patricia Wellton. The driver’s licence she had been using looked perfectly authentic as far as he could see from the photocopy in the car hire documentation. A good forgery; with a bit of luck it was so good that it meant she had used the alias before, in which case the US authorities might be able to trace her real identity. If she was a US citizen, of course. There was a possibility that she came from a different country, and was merely using an American ID. Still, he had to start somewhere.
It was highly unlikely that Torkel himself would be able to find the right person to speak to and get the information direct from the USA, so he contacted IPO, the department in the National Crime Unit dealing with international police co-operation. Börje Dahlberg answered. Torkel knew him well, and after a quick chat about work and life, which sadly in Torkel’s case came down to the same thing, Börje said he would do his best. Torkel thanked him and hung up. There wasn’t much more he could do at the moment. He left his room and wandered down the corridor. He went past Ursula’s room, but didn’t stop; he knew she had gone back up to the grave. Last night they had started sifting the earth they had removed; the work was continuing today, and Ursula wanted to be there. Torkel had already made the call asking for a wider area to be excavated in the hope of finding the Dutch couple’s rucksacks; he had expected resistance, and had been ready to pull rank if necessary, but it had proved surprisingly easy to get a digger back out there. He had no intention of telling Ursula that, of course. The version she would hear was going to involve a whole series of officials tangled up in bureaucratic red tape, unreasonable tree-huggers, and journalists with sharpened pencils, all of whom Torkel had tirelessly battled for the sake of the investigation, but for her sake too, of course.
He went into the restaurant and saw Jennifer and Billy sitting opposite one another, both busy on the phone, both speaking English. He ambled over to the counter, picked up an empty cup, went over to their table and poured himself a coffee, then waited until one of them finished their call so that they could tell him what they needed help with.
* * *
After the meeting Vanja had decided to look into the burnt-out car. They had received all the details available from the rental firm in Östersund, and the police investigation into the accident had been very thorough. Unexpectedly thorough, Ursula would have said, Vanja thought with a smile. However, Vanja had a little more confidence in the local police, which admittedly wasn’t saying much. Anyone who didn’t think the local cops were hopeless amateurs with the competence of the average six-year-old had more confidence than Ursula.
Vanja decided to drive up to Åre. A report was a report, but there was always more to find out, particularly if the officers who had been working in 2003 were still there. She picked up the copy provided by Jennifer, pulled on her outdoor clothes and headed for the door.
‘Where are you going?’
Vanja spun around and saw Sebastian slumped in one of the armchairs by the main entrance. He had an old copy of a magazine in his hand, and Vanja caught a glimpse of a half-finished crossword before he put it down. He seemed to be physically exuding boredom and weariness.
‘Åre.’
‘Why?’
‘I want to see if I can find out more about that car accident.’
‘Can I come with you?’
His voice full of hope. Vanja also noted that he had actually asked. ‘I’m coming with you’ would have been more like Sebastian’s style, but after the Hinde case and everything that had happened he had changed. He was softer, somehow, she thought. Less confrontational, towards her at any rate. That was fine by her, and she really didn’t mind if he came with her to Åre.
‘Are you bored?’ she asked with a nod at the dog-eared magazine.
‘No, I can ponder over “Egyptian sun god, two letters” all day; I’d just like to get out for a while.’
Vanja nodded.
‘OK. Hurry up then.’
‘Two minutes,’ Sebastian said, and she thought she saw a little smile of gratitude as he disappeared in the direction of his room.
Bored was an understatement. There was only one cure for the restlessness and anxiety in his body, but up here there was nobody to go to bed with. He had briefly considered Klara, but she was never more than two steps away from her beardy husband, and there was an air of the great outdoors about her that, to be honest, was something of a turn-off as far as he was concerned. A little outing with Vanja might relieve the worst of the tedium; otherwise there was nothing useful he could do up here.
Six skeletons and a car crash.
Nothing he could directly apply his knowledge to, so what should he do? In spite of the fact that it had stopped raining and turned into a fine autumn day, he had no desire to go for another walk. He had followed the river for half an hour, seen the landscape, and that was enough. He had never really understood the business of experiencing nature. Huge desolate areas were seriously overrated in Sebastian’s opinion. Why was it more amazing to be able to see several kilometres in the distance rather than a couple of hundred metres? Admittedly waterfalls were impressive and mountains could be dramatic, but they did nothing for him. They didn’t speak to him. During his years in the USA he had travelled around, seen the Grand Canyon, the Rocky Mountains, Niagara Falls. He had heard people ooh-ing and aah-ing, talking about h
ow magnificent it all was, how it brought home how small we are.
As if that was a positive.
Idiots.
He grabbed his coat and headed back to the foyer. To Vanja.
* * *
They sat in silence most of the way, but that didn’t bother Sebastian. There were different kinds of silence, and this was a good one. It wasn’t a hostile exclusion, not an icy statement of intent, but a natural silence between two people who didn’t need to fill every second with chatter. From time to time they would comment on something they saw; it was usually Vanja, and it was usually about the natural landscape all around them. She said she would like to go walking in the mountains one day, follow Kungsleden, the King’s Trail, from Abisko to Hemavan. Take her time. Rucksack, tent and mosquito repellent, the whole experience. However, it was unlikely to happen any time soon if she moved to the USA.
Sebastian didn’t take the bait. He didn’t want to talk about the possibility of her going away. He wanted to enjoy the moment as they drove through the mountains together, enjoying each other’s company. Besides which, he had decided: she wasn’t going. He still hadn’t worked out how to stop her; he had the beginnings of an idea, but it was far from fully formed.
‘Kungsleden will still be here,’ he said, looking out of the window; he was afraid that something would give away what he was thinking. Vanja was a police officer, after all, with an almost uncanny ability to tell just from their tone of voice whether people were lying or hiding something.
‘Do you ski?’ Vanja asked as they drew closer to Åre and began to see the wide slalom slopes and the skeleton of the ski lift on the left-hand side.
‘No – how about you?’
‘Not often and not particularly well, but I can get down.’
‘Did your father teach you?’
Vanja quickly turned her head and gave Sebastian a questioning look. Was there something . . . strained in his tone? He kept his eyes fixed on the road ahead.
‘Yes. Why do you ask?’
The Man Who Wasn't There Page 13