Anders Knutas 04 - The Killer's Art

by Mari Jungstedt

  This arrangement worked well for six months. Erik did his job in an exemplary fashion and remained sober on the days when he had the children. His parents continued to deposit a sizeable sum into his bank account every month, although his mother made it clear that the money was for her grandchildren and not for him.

  Then one Saturday after Erik had picked up the children from Lydia’s house, an old boyfriend of his turned up and stayed for dinner. After the children went to bed, the former lover started getting friendly, and they had sex. Then they began drinking some of the excellent whisky that he’d brought along. And, as usual, once Erik started he couldn’t stop.

  The next day he woke up on the living-room sofa around noon when the doorbell wouldn’t stop ringing. It was Lydia. She came storming into the flat and found the three children sitting in the bedroom in front of the TV, munching on crisps, cake and raw spaghetti.

  They were all supposed to have gone to Skansen amusement park that Sunday. That was the last weekend that Erik was allowed to have the children to stay with him, and his parents stopped the monthly payments.

  He hadn’t seen his parents since.

  By chance he once caught sight of his mother in the hat section of the NK department store. For a long time he stood behind a pillar and watched her laugh as she tried on hats along with a woman friend of hers. He couldn’t understand how this person he was looking at could be his mother. That she could have carried him inside her body, given birth to him, and nursed him when he was a baby. It was incomprehensible. Just as difficult to understand was the fact that she had once chosen to have children at all.

  The night was black and cold. When he turned his car on to Valhallavägen, he didn’t see a soul around. The temperature was minus 12°C. He pulled into an empty parking slot outside the 7-Eleven, almost all the way down to the open space at Gärdet. It was far enough away that his car wouldn’t be immediately linked to the crime scene if anyone, contrary to all expectations, happened to notice him parking here.

  The backpack stored in the boot was lightweight and well packed. He fastened the sling with the cardboard tube to his shoulder so he’d be able to move his arms freely. He headed quickly across the street, choosing a path along the edge of the fields of Gärdet so as to avoid being seen.

  At the Källhagen Hotel and restaurant, he cut across the car park and continued down the slope towards the Djurgårdsbrunn canal. A short distance away he saw that the magnificent white facade of the Maritime History Museum was illuminated, as always at night. The area around him was quiet and deserted. He could just make out the rocks of Skansen’s hill on the other side, outlined against the dark night sky. Further off in the distance he glimpsed the lights of the city. The centre of town seemed so far away, even though he was only a couple of kilometres from the main shopping district.

  Down at the dock he put on his skates. The thin layer of snow covering the ice had now been blown away, making it easier to skate. Several times over the past few days he had tested the ice along this stretch; he knew it would hold if he stayed close to shore.

  It was extremely unusual for anyone to take this route on skates. Normally the ice was either too thin and uneven, or the snow cover was too thick. But right now it was possible, and the means of transportation that he’d chosen was perfect. No one would see or hear him coming.

  The ice crackled and whistled under his feet as he set off. First he had to make his way along the canal. He skated at a good speed and then rounded the point of Biskopsudden out near the Thiel Gallery. There the ice opened up in front of him like an expanse of polished floor. He hoped that it would hold. Further out in the waterway, near the sea approach to Stockholm, a channel had been broken in the ice so that boats could pass through in the wintertime.

  At the Waldemarsudde dock everything was dark. He skated past and didn’t stop until he was right below the castle. It was pitch dark, and his fingers were stiff with cold. Quickly he took off his skates, leaving them on the ice. He picked up his backpack and crept up towards the building, which stood on a hill in solitary majesty. Fortunately there were no other buildings nearby; the closest neighbour’s house couldn’t be seen from the sea.

  There were no lights on in the building. He was dressed in dark clothes with a knitted cap on his head. He had all the necessary tools in his backpack. Nothing was going to stop him now.

  Climbing up the fire escape at the back of the building, he reached a small landing and then continued up to the part of the roof facing the sea. That’s where he knew he would find a hatch to a ventilation shaft. In old blueprints of Waldemarsudde, he’d seen that the ventilation shaft led straight down to a storage room near the stairwell.

  He opened the hatch and went in, wriggling down through the narrow duct by pressing his elbows and knees against the walls. It took only a minute for him to reach the grating, which he quickly unscrewed. He was inside.

  He found himself in a cramped, dark space with no windows. The light of his torch helped him to find the door. For a brief moment he stood still, hesitating, with his fingers gripping the door handle.

  The instant he opened the door, it was highly likely that the alarm would go off, and he prepared himself mentally for the racket. Then the question was how long it would take before the police made it out to Waldemarsudde. Since the museum was located at the very end of Djurgården, he figured it would take at least ten minutes. Unless a patrol car just happened to be in the vicinity, but that would be the ultimate bad luck. He had calculated that the operation would take six or seven minutes, which gave him a certain margin. Very slowly he pressed down the handle and opened the door.

  The sound was deafening, screaming from every direction. His eardrums felt as if they would burst as he raced across the floor, through the dark rooms, and over to the salon where the painting he wanted hung on the wall. Moonlight was shining through the tall windows, making it easier for him to find his way.

  The painting was bigger than he remembered, and the scene looked ghostlike in the dim light. He steeled himself to maintain his focus, even though the noise was driving him crazy. From his backpack he took out a collapsible ladder. It teetered a bit as he climbed up, and for a second he was afraid that it would topple over.

  The painting was so big that the only solution was to cut the canvas out of the frame. He stuck his upholstery knife in one corner and drew it along the edge as carefully as he could. He finished the top without mishap and continued around the canvas until it fell to the floor. Swiftly he rolled up the painting and stuffed it into the cardboard tube. It fitted in perfectly.

  There was one more thing he had to do. He glanced at his watch and saw that so far he’d used up four minutes. Three minutes remained, at most. He dug inside his backpack and took out the object that would complete his mission. He set it on the table that stood in front of the frame where the painting had hung.

  Then he dashed back through the rooms. It would have been easy to exit through a window or a balcony door, except that they were all equipped with steel frames and bullet-proof glass. Impossible to force open without a bulldozer.

  His only option was to return the same way he had come, through the ventilation shaft. He carried the tube containing the painting in the sling

  on his back. When he came out on to the roof again, he stopped to catch his breath. He looked in all directions but couldn’t see a single person or any police vehicles.

  Focusing all his attention on a swift escape, and with his heart pounding in his chest, he jumped down to the ground, rushed around the corner to the back of the building and stumbled down the steep steps towards the ice. With fumbling fingers he strapped on his skates. As he took off he came within a hair’s breadth of falling, but he quickly regained his balance and disappeared as fast as he could, taking long, gliding strokes on the ice.

  Far in the distance he heard the wail of police sirens; the sound was getting closer. When he reached the canal he could see police cars speeding across Djurg�
�rd Bridge, on their way to Waldemarsudde.

  He listened to his own gasping breath. His lungs ached from the cold and the exertion. At the same time, he felt a seed of happiness sprouting within him. Finally the debt would be repaid. The painting was on its way to its rightful owner, and knowing that gave him a sense of peace.

  The tracks he had left behind would end on the rocks below the castle. They would never catch him. Not this time either.

  For the first time in the history of the museum, someone had broken in during the night. When the museum director, Per-Erik Sommer, arrived at three a.m. on Monday he felt as if someone had barged into his own living room. He’d been the museum’s director and chief curator for fifteen years. Waldemarsudde was like his second home, his beloved child. No one had ever imagined that a thief might get in during the night. The security measures were rigorous. Stockholm had experienced several big art thefts over the past few years. An armed robbery at the National Museum had taken place in broad daylight while it was open to the public, and a raid had been made on the Museum of Modern Art when the thieves got in through the roof. Naturally these events had affected what security precautions were subsequently taken in every museum in the city. At Waldemarsudde, millions had been spent to protect the prince’s home and his enormous art collection.

  The police were on the scene with a canine patrol when the director arrived. The area had been cordoned off and the grounds were being searched. At the main entrance Sommer was met by police inspector Kurt Fogestam, who was in charge of the case and showed him how the thief had got in. After all the security measures that had been taken, he had brazenly entered through the ventilation shaft. Sommer just shook his head.

  Then he and the inspector walked through the museum to see what was missing.

  All of the rooms were now brightly lit. They started with the library. Nothing was missing there or in the conservatory. Sommer breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that the living room was also untouched. A portrait by Anders Zorn of the prince’s mother, Queen Sofia, hung on the wall in that room. It was one of the prince’s favourite paintings, and it would have been disastrous if that particular work of art had been stolen. The other exceptionally valuable painting, titled ‘Strömkarlen’, by Ernst Josephson, was set into the wall itself, making it impossible to steal.

  But then the museum director discovered what had been taken. Due to its size, the painting had dominated the entire dining room during the exhibition. Now that it no longer hung in its place, the wall seemed terribly naked. ‘The Dying Dandy’ was gone. Cut out of its frame, which gaped at them, empty and ominous, like a mute witness to what had happened.

  The director needed to sit down, but the police officer stopped him from doing so, as he might disturb possible evidence. Sommer felt numb with shock, but he turned away to see if anything else had been stolen.

  That was when he discovered an object that he hadn’t noticed at first.

  On a table in front of the missing painting stood a small sculpture. It did not belong in Prince Eugen’s home. Sommer didn’t recognize it at all. Slowly he leaned forward to get a better look.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Kurt Fogestam.

  ‘This isn’t part of the collection,’ said Sommer.

  He reached out his hand to pick it up, but the inspector stopped him. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘This statue doesn’t belong to the museum. The thief must have put it here.’

  They both stared in surprise at the little statue that had been carved from stone. It was a nude bust with a long neck; the head was turned to the side and tipped back slightly. The facial features had been carved with simplicity; the eyes were closed, the lips pressed together, the expression one of melancholy or yearning. It was hard to tell whether it was a man or a woman. Its androgynous image actually seemed well suited to the motif of the stolen painting.

  ‘What in the world does this mean?’

  Per-Erik Sommer could only gawk with astonishment. It was one thing for thieves to steal something, but he’d never heard of a thief leaving behind a work of art at the scene of the crime.

  When Johan arrived at the Stockholm editorial offices of Regional News, he found his boss Max Grenfors in a frenzied state. He was sitting at his desk with his hair sticking out in all directions, his shirt wrinkled, and a wild look in his eyes. He held a phone to each ear and had a pen gripped between his teeth, and there were four half-empty coffee mugs in front of him – all signs that he was totally swamped. The fact that half of the reporters were off sick just as a big news story was breaking was a nightmare for the editor-in-chief. The bold theft at Waldemarsudde was going to dominate the broadcast. It was clear even from a distance that the situation was straining Grenfors’ nerves. His haggard face lit up when he caught sight of Johan.

  ‘Great that you’re here,’ he shouted, even though he was in the middle of two different conversations. ‘You need to get out there right away. Emil is waiting for you.’

  Emil Jansson was a young, ambitious cameraman who worked mostly in hotspots like the Gaza Strip and Iraq. He gave Johan a friendly handshake, and then they hurried downstairs to his car in the SVT garage. It took them only five minutes to get out to Waldemarsudde. The headquarters of Swedish TV was just down the road from the bridge to Djurgården.

  The police had blocked off the entire park surrounding the castle, the gallery and the old house. The grounds were still being searched. Johan got hold of a police officer who was willing to be interviewed. The conversation he’d had with the officer in charge during the brief car ride to the museum had produced nothing that Johan didn’t already know.

  It was a good backdrop for the interview, showing the police tape cordoning off the castle and officers walking around with police dogs.

  ‘So what happened here?’ Johan began. The simplest question was often the most effective.

  ‘At 2:10 a.m. we were alerted that the museum had been broken into. A painting had been stolen,’ said the policeman. ‘It was a painting that happened to be on loan. “The Dying Dandy” by the artist Nils Dardel.’

  ‘How did the thieves manage to do it?’

  ‘Or thief,’ the officer corrected him. ‘Although clearly it would be difficult to carry out this type of crime alone. There were probably at least two individuals involved.’

  He turned to glance towards the museum building. Emil kept his camera fixed on the man. For a moment it almost seemed as if the officer was unaware that he was taking part in a filmed interview. He was behaving in an unusually natural manner and seemed genuinely distressed about what had happened. Johan also had the impression that he was actually interested in art.

  ‘How did they get in?’

  ‘Apparently through a ventilation duct at the back of the main building.’ He motioned with his head in that direction.

  ‘Aren’t there any security alarms?’

  ‘Of course there are, but the thieves just let the alarms go off, took what they’d come for, and then disappeared.’

  ‘Sounds like they had nerves of steel.’

  ‘Yes, it does. But since the museum is in an isolated location, it takes time for the police to get here.’

  ‘How long did it take?’

  ‘They say it was about ten minutes. And that’s rather a long time. Enough for a thief to make off with what he wanted and disappear. Which is precisely what happened.’

  Johan felt his cheeks burning. It was extremely unusual for a police officer to criticize his own colleagues.

  ‘How long would be reasonable, in your opinion?’

  ‘I think it should be possible to get here in five minutes. If the alarms go off, it’s obviously an emergency.’

  Johan was caught off guard by the officer’s candour. This guy must be a real beginner, he thought as he studied the young officer. He was probably no more than twenty-five, and he spoke with a strong Värmland accent. He’s going to catch hell for this, thought Johan, but who cares? It’s to our advantage that
the guy’s so clueless.

  ‘So how did they do it? If I remember correctly, that painting is really big.’

  Johan was very familiar with Dardel’s painting. He’d seen it several times when his mother had dragged him along to the Museum of Modern Art in some of her countless attempts to interest him in culture.

  ‘The thief or thieves cut the canvas out of the frame.’

  ‘And nothing else is missing?’

  ‘Apparently not.’

  ‘But doesn’t that seem strange? Shouldn’t the thieves have taken other paintings? I assume that there are many valuable works of art inside.’

  ‘Yes, it does seem odd. But evidently that was the only painting they were interested in.’

  ‘Do you think it was a contract job?’

  ‘There seem to be clear indications pointing in that direction.’

  The young officer now started to look nervous, as if he realized that he’d said too much.

  The next second an older officer in uniform came over and pulled his colleague away from the camera. ‘What’s going on here? The police never give interviews in this kind of situation. You’re going to have to wait for the press conference this afternoon.’

  Johan recognized the man as the newly appointed spokesman for the county police force.

  The young policeman looked scared out of his wits and quickly took his leave, along with his older colleague.

  Johan glanced at Emil, who had let the camera roll. ‘Did you get all that?’