Midnight In Malmö: The Fourth Inspector Anita Sundström Mystery (The Malmö Mysteries Book 4)

by Torquil Macleod

  ‘So, what happened?’ Anita asked, using English for Kevin’s benefit.

  They had taken the shaken Klas Lennartsson inside and rustled up some besk that Anita’s friend Sandra had left after a boozy night when she first rented the house. Lennartsson downed the drink in one go.

  ‘Albin killed himself.’

  ‘What?’ Anita was appalled.

  ‘Suicide.’

  ‘Did he leave a note?’ It was the typical response of a cop.

  ‘None has been found.’

  Anita exchanged glances with Kevin. They both knew that suicides tended to leave some form of communication.

  ‘Why now?’ Lennartsson said while shaking his head in disbelief. ‘The book was going so well.’

  ‘Maybe he woke up this morning and the pain was too much for him,’ Kevin suggested.

  ‘It was last night, according to Moa. It was poor Moa who found him this morning shortly before I arrived. She called the doctor. The police have been here too. There was an inspector called Zetterberg.’

  ‘Alice Zetterberg? Inspector Alice Zetterberg?’ Kevin noticed how surprised Anita sounded.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Lennartsson, still in a daze.

  ‘Know her?’ Kevin asked.

  The frowning nod Anita gave warned him not to probe any further.

  ‘I know he didn’t have long. But he was so positive about telling his story. I just don’t understand it.’

  ‘Do you know how he killed himself?’ Anita asked.

  ‘He… em… he seems to have taken some pills. Drank whisky to help him swallow them.’

  ‘Not uncommon.’

  ‘It’s just… not right.’

  Hakim was surprised to see Moberg in the meeting room that was doubling as their murder incident centre. Not that there was much to see other than the original crime-scene shots, various body photographs courtesy of Eva Thulin, and now a few pictures taken off the internet of examples of butterfly knives.

  ‘Not much to go on,’ Moberg said grumpily. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got anything for me?’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Have you seen Wallen?’

  Just then, she came in. She wore a broad grin, which wasn’t her usual facial expression.

  ‘We’ve got something!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A response from someone who saw the picture of the victim in Sydsvenskan. It’s the owner of an apartment on Kronborgsvägen, which is close to the park. The woman rents, sorry rented, the apartment from him. She’s called Akerman. Julia Akerman.’

  The sparkle in Moberg’s eye told them that this was the breakthrough they had been waiting for. At last, some concrete information.

  ‘The owner is called Mankad. He said he’d meet us down at the apartment in half an hour and let us in.’

  ‘Well done, Klara.’ Wallen beamed with delight. ‘Take young Mirza with you, and I’ll get people here to track down any information we can find on Julia Akerman. What are you waiting for?’

  Kronborgsvägen is a wide street that runs parallel to Pildammsparken and ends up at a major crossroads opposite the city’s theatrical hub, the Malmö Opera. The block was about halfway down Kronborgsvägen, and was a good example of pragmatic sixties architecture. Jutting out from the flat face of the five-storey, red-brick, red-roofed building, above the front entrance, was a V-shaped, windowed column that ran the height of the structure to give it some perspective. It was hardly worth the effort. In front of the wooden doors hovered Mankad. He was a young man of no more than thirty, with thick black hair swept back, and casually dressed in a white shirt and cream trousers. On seeing Hakim, he flashed a smile which said “fellow immigrant”.

  ‘Herr Mankad,’ Wallen greeted him formally.

  ‘Please call me Vinoo.’ His Swedish was almost immaculate.

  ‘Inspector Klara Wallen. We spoke on the phone. This is my colleague, Inspector Hakim Mirza.’

  Mankad insisted on shaking hands with them both.

  ‘OK, you want to see the apartment?’

  Wallen nodded. Mankad clicked in a combination on the keypad and pushed the front door open. There was no lift, so they had to take the stairs to reach the fourth floor.

  ‘Did you know Julia Akerman well?’ Hakim asked as he took up the rear of the procession.

  ‘Mankad stopped at the first landing. ‘I met her only once. When I handed over the keys. She wanted a furnished apartment, and this was the only one we had.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘Over four years ago.’

  They carried on up.

  ‘Is that usual? I mean to only meet a tenant once over such a long time?’

  ‘We usually see them more regularly. They ring up with maintenance problems, or they have difficulty with the rent one month, or they want to move. My family owns a large number of properties in Malmö, Helsingborg and Landskrona. But Akerman was different. She paid her rent on time, and we never had any complaints.’

  ‘No leaky taps or bunged up sinks?’ Wallen said with some feeling. Her own kitchen sink had flooded twice recently, and it had taken ages to get hold of a plumber to fix it.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Don’t you regularly inspect the properties?’ asked Hakim. ‘Make sure that the tenants are keeping them in a reasonable condition?’

  ‘We do. But according to our records, Akerman was never around when we called. Busy lady.’

  ‘A very dead lady,’ said Wallen severely.

  ‘Yes, it’s horrible.’

  They reached the fourth floor in silence. Mankad produced a key at the same time as Wallen took out the key they had found on the body.

  ‘I’ll try this one,’ said Wallen. ‘To make sure this is the right apartment.’

  The key fitted and turned in the lock.

  Mankad was about to follow them in when Wallen held up a warning hand.

  ‘We need to do this on our own without anybody getting in the way. But wait for us, as we might have some questions.’

  The chirpy Mankad shrugged his shoulders at her rebuff. ‘I’ve got calls to make,’ he replied, and whipped out his smartphone.

  Wallen and Hakim took out plastic gloves and slipped them on.

  The apartment was unspectacular. Two bedrooms, bathroom, kitchen and living room – just like thousands of other apartments all over Malmö. What made this one slightly different was the balcony beyond the living room; as the apartment was at the back of the building, it had a view. Two blocks on, Roskildevägen ran at right angles to it – and beyond was the park. At this time of year, the trees were proudly manifesting their fresh new apparel, and nothing else was visible until the eye rested on the conical roof of the water tower by the park’s lake. This was exactly the sort of apartment in the right sort of area that Hakim would like to move into once he had saved enough to escape his parents’ home.

  What struck both Hakim and Wallen was that there was nothing personal about the apartment. No photos or pictures or ornaments or books or DVDs or CDs – just a place to lay one’s head. The kitchen cupboards were virtually empty of foodstuffs. In the fridge was a half-drunk bottle of water, a carton of goat’s milk and a pot of strawberry yoghurt. The main bedroom was the only place that contained anything of interest. The bed was made. A plain white T-shirt and a pair of Rag & Bone jeans had been thrown on top; presumably what Akerman had changed out of to go for her run. The chair in the corner had an Isabel Marant cream cardigan draped over it. On a table next to the wall mirror was a black cross-body bag.

  ‘Jimmy Choo,’ said Wallen admiringly. Hakim was none the wiser.

  Inside the bag, they found her passport; a mobile phone; a make-up bag; a compact mirror; a pack of tissues; a purse with a Credit Suisse credit card, 214 kronor and 107 Swiss francs; and a set of keys which included a car key. Wallen unfolded an A4 piece of paper.

  ‘It’s a printed-out Easyjet boarding pass.’

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘Geneva. For Wednesday, the fourth.
So, she was travelling out the morning after her stabbing. There’s also one for her inward journey to Kastrup, dated Monday, the second.’

  On the bedside table was a Kindle.

  ‘She certainly believed in travelling light,’ remarked Hakim as he surveyed the cabin case on the floor. It was already half-packed.

  The built-in wardrobe was more revealing still. Though there were only three dresses, one was a very elegant blue evening gown. Again, Wallen seemed to appreciate the label. What was also hanging up was a nun’s habit.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ Wallen exclaimed. ‘I knew she had a cross, but this is ridiculous!’

  ‘Doesn’t sit with her other clothes,’ Hakim said, pointing to the drawer he had just opened. It was full of exotic underwear – skimpy knickers and g-strings, low-cut bras, black stockings and suspender belts.

  ‘Sexy games?’ Wallen ventured. ‘Maybe that was her lover’s “thing”’.

  Hakim felt embarrassed at the thought.

  ‘I’ll have a look in the bathroom. You go and ask our friend outside how he was paid,’ ordered Wallen. She was actually starting to enjoy being in charge. ‘It might give us an idea where she was based. It’s obviously not here.’

  Mankad quickly finished off his conversation when he saw Hakim. He had been speaking in English to someone.

  ‘You said Akerman always paid on time. Do you know where the money came through from?’

  ‘Yes. A bank in Switzerland.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I double-checked this morning. Thought you might ask. She’s paid up until the end of this month.’

  ‘OK. That fits in.’

  Mankad offered an apologetic grin. ‘Em… when will you be finished here?’

  ‘Soon.’

  ‘I mean for good. It’s just that we don’t want the property lying empty. It would be better for business to get a new tenant fixed up for July.’

  Hakim stared hard at him. They had a dead woman lying on a cold slab in Lund, yet the wheels of commerce would grind on regardless. ‘We’ll let you know, herr Mankad.’

  ‘Why don’t we trace her route?’ Hakim suggested as they stood outside the apartment block and watched Mankad depart in an open-topped Porsche.

  At the west corner of the block, there was a flooring store. Between that and a florist, there was a tarmaced path leading towards the park. Hakim noted down its name – Tuborgsgången. Past an electricity station with vibrant graffiti, the path ran straight to Roskildevägen between two blocks of apartments. The gardens of the one on the left were well tended with copious bushes, small trees and freshly mown grass, while the block on the right was verged by a low hedge between the entrances to the building.

  They made their way onto Roskildevägen. Akerman’s most likely route was either down Margaretavägen, which was a road you could drive along to the centre of Pildammsparken and park near the lake, or she had gone further along Roskildevägen and headed straight towards the Plate, where her body was found.

  ‘The trouble is that we don’t know what stage she’d reached on her run.’ Wallen’s gaze was drawn down the tall avenue of trees to the murder site. ‘Was she starting, or was she near the end? A circuit round the Plate before she finished?’

  ‘Your guess…’

  ‘Right; we’d better get back to headquarters and tell Moberg what we’ve got. At least we know where she was going to and where she probably lives. Or certainly where she has a bank account.’

  ‘That’s all we seem to know. The neighbours I talked to had no idea who she was. In fact, the one next door had never seen her, though he had heard her through the wall. He reckoned that she was hardly ever there, and he’s lived in the block since before Akerman arrived.’

  ‘She should be easy enough to trace now we have her passport.’

  Given what he had seen and heard in the last couple of hours, Hakim wasn’t so sure.

  CHAPTER 11

  They sat listening to the sea and watching the sun go down. They sipped their wine quietly. Anita was disappointed that such a wonderful day up at Stenshuvud should have been spoiled by Rylander’s death. She knew it was an awful, selfish thing to think. But he was an old man, racked with cancer, who was going to die anyway. He had just brought the day of reckoning forward by a few months. In a similar position, she would probably do the same thing. And in Rylander’s case, he didn’t have any family to live for. Maybe he wanted to die with his dignity intact instead of physically wasting away further. Her limited experience of Albin Rylander led her to the conclusion that he was a proud man who always took great care of his appearance, whether being seen in public, or in the sanctuary of his own home. He was vain. And why not?

  ‘I hope Klas will be OK,’ she said at last.

  ‘I feel sorry for him. This was his moment of glory. Can you imagine the fuss that would have been made over his book if Rylander did have some saucy secrets to reveal? Radio, telly, magazines; all doing interviews. He’d be the centre of attention. And that’s not even taking into account the money he might make from such a book.’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of it like that,’ Anita confessed. ‘I was thinking more about his relationship with Albin. They got on so well. It was like he’d lost his best friend. But, as you say, he’s had the golden goose snatched from his grasp.’

  ‘Maybe you should go round and see him tomorrow,’ Kevin suggested.

  ‘Yes, I think I will. And you can come, too. I want to show you Simrishamn.’

  They went quiet again. It was an awkward hush where they were searching frantically for something to say to break it. They didn’t know each other well enough to relax in those silent moments. That’s why Kevin found himself asking, ‘Do you know the inspector Klas mentioned?’

  ‘Huh! Alice Zetterberg. Oh, I know her.’ Kevin immediately wished he hadn’t asked. ‘We were at the police academy together in Stockholm. We have, as you say in England, “history”.’

  ‘Want a top up?’ Kevin asked to quickly change what was obviously a touchy subject.

  Anita smiled. ‘Yes, sorry. It’s just I can’t stand that woman. Or, to be more precise, she can’t stand me. She thought I’d slept with the guy who ended up as her husband. He was at the academy, too. We were friendly, but never that friendly. But being a typically boastful man, he obviously intimated that we were. Suddenly, Alice was being a bitch to me, and I ended up being ostracised by some of my new so-called friends.’

  ‘If she married him, then what’s the problem?’

  ‘The problem is that after a couple of years, he ran off with another female cop. I’m sure she blamed me for supposedly leading him astray in the first place.’

  ‘She sounds the bitter sort.’

  ‘Oh, yes; a very bitter woman. Or she certainly was the last time I came across her, which was at a police conference in Germany a few years ago. She was in Jönköping then. I’d heard through the police grapevine that she’d ended up in Ystad. They oversee the police station in Simrishamn, but I’m surprised she should turn up here. A local suicide would usually just involve the team on the spot.’

  ‘But he was a famous person. Politically, I mean.’

  ‘I suppose. Anyhow, not our problem.’

  Kevin raised a glass. ‘Let’s hope we don’t run into your Zetter-whatever woman then. I don’t want to see any more fights. I’ve come to Sweden to get away from punch-ups in Penrith.’

  Klas Lennartsson’s house was in Stenbocksgatan, halfway between the train station and the harbour. It was large for a single person, but Anita had told Kevin that it had been left to him by his parents. It was a rendered building painted the colour of blue slate that towered over the single-story fishermen’s cottages it was attached to. Like its neighbours, this was one of the town’s original buildings. Lennartsson welcomed them through the stout wooden front door into a high-ceilinged living room. He wasn’t house proud, Kevin noted. Everywhere was a mess. On a genuinely distressed oak table was a tray of his uneaten breakf
ast, surrounded by books and newspaper cuttings. He had to clear a stack of notebooks off the sofa so he could offer them a seat.

  ‘If I’d known you were coming, I would have tidied up,’ Lennartsson said in English. He didn’t want to be rude to his visitor.

  ‘It’s my fault, Klas. I should have rung first.’

  Lennartsson waved away Anita’s apology. ‘I’m glad you came. I wanted to talk to you. I’ll fix some coffee first.’

  With that, he hurried out with the tray.

  ‘He’s always been like this,’ Anita said, raising an eyebrow. ‘I remember it used to drive his mother mad. She died a couple of years ago.’

  ‘It looks like he hasn’t cleared up since,’ Kevin observed. For a man who liked everything orderly, he was still trying to get his head round Sweden’s shambolic electrics (unattached light roses hooked to wires festooned across ceilings and plugged into a wall socket: there was one in Lennartsson’s living room, too), and the peculiar bathroom in Anita’s rented home. (The stand-alone bath next to the wall doubled as a shower. The only problem was that the water ran down the gaps around the bath, flooded the floor and soaked the bathmat. The only escape for it was a hole in the floor underneath the bath. When he mentioned this to Anita, all he got in return was a dismissive ‘That’s what the mop and wiper are for’.) Even the doors opened outwards, which Kevin kept forgetting.

  Lennartsson returned with the same tray, but with a thermos jug of coffee and three cups. He distractedly poured the black coffee out, spilling some onto the tray. He was in such a state that Kevin didn’t have the heart to ask for some milk.

  ‘Are you OK, Klas?’ asked Anita with genuine concern.

  ‘Not really. I had a couple of local newspapers calling me last night to do obituaries on Rylander. I knocked something up, but my heart wasn’t in it.’

  ‘It’s understandable.’

  Lennartsson stared out of the window over to the patch of green grass and trees on the other side of the road.

  ‘I still find it difficult to believe that he would kill himself. I sat with him for hours and, though I knew he was in pain, he seemed real determined to finish telling his story.’