This didn’t feel good.
Harald had had dealings with the police in the past. Frequently. For some reason they always took a trip out to his place whenever some garage in the area had been broken into, or someone had had their snow scooter stolen. They would stroll around the place, lift the tarpaulins, search the outbuilding. They never found anything. Said they were keeping an eye on him. He usually said he was pleased to hear it, and that it was always nice to have visitors. Then they would leave.
They never found anything, but not because he wasn’t involved. Most of the things they were looking for had already reached Harald before the police turned up, or were on their way. They hadn’t managed to pin anything other than minor infringements on him, and that was because he was smart. Smart, consistent, and blessed with patience. When he bought this house almost twenty years ago, one of the first things he did was to rip up the outhouse floor and get in there with a small digger. Beneath the new floor there was now a storage room measuring approximately eight square metres, deep enough to stand up in. The trapdoor leading to the steep wooden staircase down into the Chamber, as he called it, was underneath the big rag rug with the snow blower standing on it, and so far no one had discovered it. Everything that found its way to Harald ended up in the Chamber. Down there he could take his time to decide what to do with each item: sell it on as it was, take it to pieces and sell the parts separately, or do it up and then sell it. There were plenty of possibilities, and Harald invariably chose the one that would bring in the most money. Snow scooters were extremely lucrative, but they also involved a lot of work, because they had to be impossible to trace. It took time, but that was just the way it was. He was good at what he did. Tools, machinery, vehicles. No art or jewellery or crap like that. Some of the Norwegian guys he worked with had brought the trampoline a year or so ago. Said it was a present for him, that he could get five thousand for it. At least. And it was impossible to trace, because they were all exactly the same. He had taken it, but when he checked the online auction site he had discovered that there were plenty on offer for less than a thousand, so he hadn’t even bothered to advertise. So far, nothing he had sold on had come back to bite him on the arse. The police were a minor inconvenience, nothing more. He never even gave them a thought once they had driven away. But now it was different.
This didn’t feel good.
He had watched their car disappear before he went inside and put the coffee on. He couldn’t settle, and had gone out to fetch Zeppo for company. Made a sandwich. Poured himself a cup of coffee. Started smoking.
It was nine years since that car had come off the road. No one had shown any interest in him during the investigation, apart from a brief interview at the scene; he had told the truth, said he had been driving past, seen the smoke, stopped, and found the car down in the ravine. As far as Harald was aware, no one had ever suggested that it was anything other than an accident, but now Riksmord had turned up. They didn’t investigate accidents. They investigated murders. Had the woman in the car been murdered? That must be it. He couldn’t get mixed up in all this. He guessed the police would put a little more effort into a murder case than a stolen scooter that the insurance company would cough up for anyway. If they found something linking him to the accident – the murder, he corrected himself – they would turn the place upside down.
It would all be over.
They would discover the Chamber.
He would have nothing left.
So he had to make sure they didn’t find anything. Simple.
And yet he was hesitating.
It didn’t feel right to destroy something that might help the police to solve a murder. Even though Harald operated on the periphery of the law, he had morals. Receiving stolen goods was one thing; he never ordered anything, never incited anyone to commit a crime. He just earned a little money when the damage was already done. If he didn’t do it, someone else would. It was just business. Killing someone was a different matter.
Then again, if they had spent all these years looking for whoever murdered the woman in the car, it seemed unlikely that they were going to catch him now. With or without the items Harald had removed from the burnt-out car.
He made a decision, put down his glass and left the kitchen. He knew exactly where the rucksacks and the handbag were. It was time for a bonfire.
Safety procedure briefing. Exactly the same as last time. Then the plane taxied over the runway, picked up speed and left the ground. Vanja was sitting by the window, gazing at the dwindling town below. Sebastian watched her out of the corner of his eye. It would be something of an exaggeration to say she was pleased when he told her she would have company on the journey to Stockholm, but at least she had accepted it. She had wanted to know why, of course. Sebastian had repeated the reason he had given Torkel: he just wanted to get away from this bloody mountain.
Billy had driven them to Östersund. Wanted to know why Vanja had chosen to leave them, but she just told him it was a family matter. Billy hadn’t pushed her, but Sebastian thought he detected a certain disappointment because Vanja hadn’t confided in him. He had noticed a distinct change in their relationship lately; something had definitely happened when they were working on the Hinde case, and whatever it might be, it was still affecting them.
Billy had accompanied them into the departure lounge, even though Vanja had said there was no need. Sebastian had the feeling that that was exactly why he did it. When they had checked in and Vanja went off to the loo, Billy had immediately turned to Sebastian.
‘Why are you going with her?’
Sebastian was struck by the question, and Billy’s suspicious tone. The choice of words suggested that Billy believed his departure was somehow linked to Vanja’s, that they were travelling together rather than merely at the same time.
‘I’m not,’ he said. ‘We’re just taking the same flight.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it’s nice to have some company.’
Billy had given him an exasperated look and sighed, as if he were talking to a small child.
‘I mean why are you leaving too, if it’s nothing to do with Vanja?’
Sebastian had immediately given what had become his standard response to that particular question, but he doubted whether Billy had believed him.
‘Has she said anything to you about what’s happened?’ Billy asked.
‘Vanja?’
‘Yes.’
‘No, nothing.’
This time there was no doubt; Billy didn’t believe him. Vanja had returned and they had said goodbye. A brief, almost forced embrace, Sebastian noted. When he looked back before they went through the security check, Billy had already gone.
But now they were on their way. The seatbelt sign went out, but both Vanja and Sebastian kept theirs fastened. Vanja was still half turned away from him. He guessed she was intending to spend most of the journey ignoring him unless he did something about it.
‘What’s going on with you and Billy?’
Result. She immediately swung round to face him.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘You don’t seem to be getting on so well these days.’
‘You think?’
‘Yes. Am I wrong?’
Vanja fell silent. She could of course brush the whole thing aside and end the conversation simply by answering yes to his question. That was probably what she would have done in the past, firstly to shut him up, and secondly because there was no way she would admit that he was right. But that was then.
‘No. Things are a bit . . . strained.’
‘Why?’
Vanja hesitated again, then made up her mind. She twisted her body as far as the seatbelt would allow.
‘I told him I was a better cop than he was.’
Sebastian absorbed this information with a nod. Hearing something like that would undoubtedly put a professional relationship under strain.
‘I know it was stupid,’ Vanja went on as
if she had read his mind. ‘You don’t need to say it.’
‘It was stupid,’ Sebastian said with a smile, which to his relief she returned. ‘True, but stupid.’
‘I know . . .’
Vanja sighed. It was clear that her damaged relationship with Billy was weighing her down. Sebastian got as comfortable as he could in his seat. This was, or at least had been, his home turf. He began by explaining that of course Billy had always known that Vanja was better than him, that Billy liked her too much to compete with her, but clearly something had changed. For some reason he had stopped being content with his position in the hierarchy; he had decided to compete with her, and now he simply didn’t want to lose. Vanja asked what she could do to improve the situation. Sebastian wondered briefly whether to go for a lie that would make her feel better, or the hard truth. He opted for the latter.
‘Nothing. You started this by saying you were better than him; that can’t be undone. He has to deal with it, and you have to deal with him.’
Vanja nodded, her expression grim. Sebastian could see that wasn’t the answer she had been hoping for. Like everyone else she wanted there to be a solution, to learn the magic words that would make everything all right. But sometimes there just weren’t any. Sebastian looked at her tenderly, suppressing the urge to place a gentle hand on her arm. Softly softly. They had had a conversation. On a personal matter. Work-related, admittedly, but still. He decided to continue along the same line.
‘I could have a chat with him when they get back to Stockholm,’ he offered.
‘Thanks, but there’s no need. I feel better now we’ve talked about it.’
Sebastian thought fast. She had just given him an opening, an opportunity to get closer, past the job, into her personal life. He might be moving too fast, but he was definitely going to risk it.
‘Perhaps you’d feel better if you talked about what’s happening in your family right now.’
Vanja stiffened. Met his gaze, searching for any sign of fake concern. Was he trying to gain the upper hand, trying to find a weakness he could exploit? She looked for the old Sebastian in his eyes, but he wasn’t there.
‘My father has been arrested,’ she said. To her surprise, saying the words out loud relieved her anxiety just a little.
‘What? Why?’
‘I’ve no idea. Anna didn’t know.’
A cold shudder ran down Sebastian’s spine. What if it was fraud?
They would act fast if they had got hold of the material Trolle Hermansson had dug up on Valdemar Lithner a few months ago. At Sebastian’s request, when he had been hell-bent on trying to destroy the relationship between Valdemar and Vanja. The material he had told Ellinor to get rid of. She had told him she had thrown it away, but the truth was a highly subjective concept as far as Ellinor was concerned.
Could she have acted off her own bat?
Was that why Valdemar had been arrested?
Why would she have done such a thing?
Because she was Ellinor. Suddenly it seemed perfectly reasonable. She had asked about Valdemar once, he recalled, but did she know anything about Vanja? Sebastian tried to think: was there any information about her in Trolle’s notes?
He couldn’t remember.
In the best-case scenario, Ellinor had handed the material in anonymously. Posted it to the police. Or given it to them without leaving her name.
In the best-case scenario. But this was Ellinor. Deep down Sebastian knew that he couldn’t make that assumption. It was more likely that not only had she identified herself, but that she had been very proud of what she had achieved, or would achieve when the police carried out their investigation. If that was the case, could it damage him? Would Vanja find out? Probably not. Even though she was a police officer and a colleague, it would count as gross misconduct if someone gave her the name of an informant in a case involving her father.
‘You’ve gone very quiet.’
Vanja’s voice brought Sebastian back to reality.
‘Sorry . . . I was just wondering how I can help you. I do know a few people in high places, after all.’
‘Thanks, but I don’t want you to get involved. This is something we need to get through on our own.’
She turned away once more and stared out of the little window, out over clouds that looked like a billowing landscape made of ice.
For personal reasons.
Vanja had left the investigation for personal reasons.
Ursula wrenched the wheel to the left and turned onto the narrow asphalt track the GPS was telling her to follow for 1.2 kilometres before turning left again. Her annoyance was illogical, but that didn’t make it any less real. Her husband had dumped her and her daughter was completely on his side.
Weren’t those personal reasons? Didn’t she have things she needed to face up to and sort out?
Of course she did, and no one would have understood better than Torkel, if he had known. But the difference between Vanja and Ursula was that Ursula hadn’t told anyone, and that she wanted to carry on working. She wanted nothing more, in fact. But not on this particular aspect of the case.
Torkel had called her down from the mountain, where she had been undertaking a detailed examination of the scene with a local team. Most of the earth and gravel from the grave had been sifted and checked, but they had found nothing that would move the investigation forward. The digger had arrived, and Ursula had pointed out where she wanted the excavation to start. So far she had redirected it three times, but without success, which meant that at the moment the grave site was proving the least productive area. Torkel had quite rightly decided to prioritise by moving her temporarily, but she was still annoyed. It was Vanja’s job to drive out to scrapyards and question dealers about car accidents from years ago.
Jennifer and Billy were still trying to track Patricia Wellton’s journey to Sweden. Torkel was keeping in touch with Europol and Interpol. Both organisations were going through their records looking for families or various combinations of two adults and two children who had been reported missing in the autumn of 2003; so far Torkel had been given three possible cases, but had quickly been able to write off all of them.
Ursula had to admit that Torkel was also a problem, a source of further irritation. He wanted her to come to him, he wanted everything to go back to the way it used to be when they were working away from Stockholm: nights of intimacy in various hotel rooms all over Sweden. He wanted her. Physically, of course, but that wasn’t all, and right now his longing for something more just felt like hard work; it was too stressful. No doubt the easiest thing would be to go to his room tonight. Have sex. Creep back to her own bed at dawn. Pretend that everything was just the same. It would be no great sacrifice.
But she couldn’t do it.
Didn’t want to do it.
Even though Torkel didn’t know that she and Mikael had split up, the very thought of complicating life still further by adding in a boss and lover who was picturing a cosy future together was just too much for her at the moment. Ursula intended to keep him at arm’s length.
And she wasn’t planning on wasting much time on this visit, she thought as the GPS informed her that she had reached her destination. She turned into the scrapyard through the open metal gates and stopped in front of a grey single-storey building with a sign on the roof confirming that this was indeed Hammarén & Son Breakers Yard. She switched off the engine, picked up the folder Torkel had given her and got out of the car.
Ursula had never been to a place like this before and didn’t really know what she was expecting. She hadn’t given much thought to what happened to cars when they came to the end of their life, but she had probably imagined they were dismantled, everything that could be reused was recycled, and what was left was compressed into a small cube. Surely the idea of them being piled on top of one another in long rows several metres high belonged in American films? Apparently not. The vast area, surrounded by a tall corrugated iron fence topped with barbed wire, was pa
cked with cars. Every possible model and colour. Row after row, most of them ten, twelve metres high. The cars at the bottom of each pile had been squashed down by the weight of those above. In the row nearest to her Ursula quickly counted over a hundred cars. Thousands of cars had found their final resting place with Hammarén & Son.
Her thoughts were interrupted as a door opened and closed, and she turned to see a man in his mid-fifties coming towards her from the grey building. He was wearing bright orange overalls, straining over an impressive beer gut, and an oily cap with the name of the firm on it. A few strands of grey hair poked out from beneath the cap; he had a round face with blue eyes that were quite close together, a broad nose and a dark moustache sprinkled with grey above a generous mouth. As he came closer she could see that he was chewing a plug of snuff.
‘Good afternoon, how can I help you?’
Ursula introduced herself and showed her ID. The man didn’t even glance at it.
‘Ursula . . . wasn’t that the name of the mean octopus in The Little Mermaid?’
‘Could be,’ Ursula replied, somewhat taken aback. It was a rather unexpected opening remark, and she had no idea what anyone in The Little Mermaid was called.
‘It definitely was,’ the man stated, nodding to himself. ‘The kids were just the right age when it came out. We played the tape over and over again until it more or less wore out. It was VHS in those days, of course.’
Ursula was wondering whether to point out that few women, regardless of their name, would find it particularly appealing to be compared to a cephalopod mollusc, or whether she should just get down to business, when the man transferred the gloves he was carrying into his left hand and held out his right. Ursula shook it.
‘Arvid Hammarén. Nice to meet you. How can I help the long arm of the law?’ he said, pushing his cap back a little. Yet another remark she hadn’t expected. Did anyone really use that expression to refer to the police these days? Obviously Hammarén (or was it & Son?) did; his expression was open and helpful.
‘We’re investigating a car accident in Storlien in the autumn of 2003. October 31.’
The Man Who Wasn't There Page 16