Rylander reached Washington in the early 1980s. Ronald Reagan had become president and was ramping up the Cold War. It was a dangerous time. Krell was now back in Berlin and in a very senior position. That was when Albrecht came across him. A very dislikeable, cold and arrogant man– and not one to cross. The trouble was that he now had access to vital information that he was passing back to the British, which was then shared with the CIA in Langley. Sometimes he used Rylander, who managed to take out some of the most sensitive material before it reached the desks of MI6. Rylander was becoming alarmed at the quality of the information that Krell was now sending. He realized he had to do something. They met one last time – somewhere in Sweden when Rylander was home on leave. It was a sad parting for Rylander because he knew he was about to betray the love of his life. And that is exactly what he did, through Albrecht. At first, no one could believe it, but the Stasi’s interrogation methods were infallible. Krell was hard to break; he knew what it was like to be on the other side, both with the Gestapo and the Stasi, and he knew how to handle even the most difficult of questions and the physical force that accompanied them. But when he heard who had betrayed him, all the fight seemed to go out of him. He was finished. He had been in love with Rylander. Of course, they made sure that Rylander was in no way connected to Krell’s sudden fall from power and subsequent execution. He needed protecting.
Albrecht remained Rylander’s contact until the Wall fell. That was a bad time to be a Stasi agent. He could tell the way the wind was blowing. Unlike many of his colleagues, he could see that his days were numbered. He may have been a communist, but he was also a pragmatist. He got rid of all the files connecting him to the Stasi, which, of course, included everything to do with Albin Rylander. He did it before the panic, when everybody was desperately trying to get rid of everything. When the Stasi headquarters were occupied by protestors, apparently they found 16,000 sacks of shredded documents, much of which they have painstakingly pieced together since. But there is no mention of Albrecht in there – or Rylander, or Krell. He disappeared from sight and remained anonymous until his granddaughter was contacted by Rylander a couple of months ago. He agreed to meet Klas Lennartsson after Rylander’s death. Rylander told Albrecht that he was going to tell all in a book, though Albrecht’s name wouldn’t be revealed.
Rylander’s legacy? Above all, he gave Krell to the Stasi. It was a huge blow to the British and Americans when one of their top sources throughout the Cold War was silenced. After Krell’s death, he continued to provide Moscow and East Berlin with sensitive information; his time in America was particularly fruitful. Incredibly, Albrecht firmly believed that Rylander went on serving the communist cause even after his retirement; even after glasnost. Albrecht wasn’t totally sure, as he had been out of the game for a long time, but his guess was that during Putin’s first presidency, Rylander was still supplying the Russians with intelligence. The Russians have snooped around the Stockholm archipelago and Sweden’s east coast for years. Could Rylander have played a part in that? Albrecht could only speculate. None of this, of course, was known to the West. Rylander was so respected that he served on various important committees – diplomatic and military – both in Sweden and internationally. And the diplomat’s death? Albrecht was pretty sure he knew who had killed him – and why.
CHAPTER 41
The evening had started to cool, and Anita was quite happy to have her meal inside the Vesuvio trattoria off the Strausberger-Platz roundabout and not at a pavement table. After leaving Manja’s apartment, she had phoned Kevin, who had holed up in a bar near Alexanderplatz waiting for her to contact him. She had taken a table, and Kevin joined her fifteen minutes later when she was on her second glass of the house red. He wasn’t sure if Benno Källström had followed him, but it didn’t matter now. As long as he didn’t know where Anita had been.
Over their antipasti, she filled him in on Albrecht’s story. Kevin was fascinated with all aspects of the tale, and annoyed Anita by constantly interrupting her to clarify certain points. By the time their main courses arrived – a Tortellini alla Panna for him and a Petti di Pollo al Pepe Verde for her – they were entering the area of speculation.
‘Did he produce a suggestion as to why Rylander might have been killed?’ Kevin asked in between mouthfuls.
‘Yes,’ she answered as she waved to the waiter to bring them a second bottle of wine. ‘And very disturbing it was too.’
‘Disturbing?’ His fork stopped short of his mouth.
‘He thinks that it could be our own people behind it.’
‘What do you mean, “own people”?’
She lowered her voice. ‘The Swedish government. Or more likely, some Swedish agency within the government.’
‘Wow! I know we’ve been talking conspiracy theories, but I didn’t think there was any real possibility of that.’
‘It’s all to do with what I mentioned to you about Sweden’s balancing act during the Cold War. There have been a couple of Swedish spies unmasked, like Stig Wennerström, who worked for the Soviets in the 1960s. Like Rylander, he was based in Washington at one stage. But he was an individual acting on his own. The difference is that Rylander was recruited by the Section for Special Collection. Even today, most Swedes know nothing about this organization. Basically, they were getting into bed with the British at a time when they were meant to be neutral.’
‘I remember reading about all the Edward Snowden stuff, and it was revealed that Sweden had signed a top secret agreement with the Yanks, us, Canada and Australia, I think, to share intelligence.’
‘Well, Rylander in his memoirs would have revealed the SSI connection. This would further damage the supposed neutral stance that Sweden still has today, and give Putin even more ammunition. The problem is that I suspect the SSI at the time didn’t bother to inform the Swedish government. They acted alone in their recruitment of Rylander. But to make it worse, having been involved in creating one of the West’s most useful spies, Rylander then changes sides and hands Krell over to the Stasi. That fact coming out would have damaged the relationship Sweden’s secret service and MI6 had with the CIA. And then, of course, he was spying for the Soviets and East Germans in Washington, and may well have carried on supplying the post-communist Russian government with vital secrets. Depending on what those secrets were – which presumably would have come out in the book – that would have further destroyed trust with the Americans. It would have also led to a witch hunt among the government secret service agencies in Sweden. God only knows what kind of power struggles go on there. Whatever the situation, the revelations in the book would have been explosive, and the repercussions and recriminations would have had major international implications. I don’t think the British, Americans, Russians or the Swedes come out of it well, so there are a lot of people who might have gone to great lengths to make sure nothing ever came out.’
Kevin filled Anita’s glass up from the fresh bottle. ‘It’s certainly all been kept very quiet. I’ve never heard of Bruno Krell. And the media have named and shamed most of the Cold War spies over the years. Bloody hell!’ He topped up his own glass. ‘Who does Albrecht think is behind it – specifically, I mean?’
‘He reckons it could be the modern equivalent of the SSI. It’s now Kontoret för särskild inhämtning – KSI – The Office for Special Collection.’
‘That’s only one letter different.’
‘And the same, very secret organization.’
Kevin pulled a strained face. ‘If that’s all true, then they’re not going to be very happy about us.’ He leant over the table and held Anita’s hand. ‘Are we getting in too deep? I don’t want anything horrid happening to you. Not to me, either.’
She gazed at his hand on hers. ‘I don’t know what to do. Pretend it never happened? In some ways I no longer care about Rylander. He was a traitor, though I’m sure he could justify it to himself. In fact, the whole book thing was him just being mischievous on a giant scale, knowing he wouldn�
�t be around to take all the flack. But Klas? That’s different. He was an innocent in all this. Just doing the most exciting job to ever come along in his ordinary life.’
Kevin squeezed her hand. ‘Pudding?’
Anita slowly removed her hand. ‘I think they call it dessert.’
‘If you want to be posh. I can’t finish without ice cream. Isn’t that what Italian restaurants are all about?’
They walked back to the hotel. They had eaten and drunk too much and realized they needed the exercise to settle their stomachs. Even at that late hour, the traffic was still swishing past on its way out of the city centre. Lights were gradually disappearing from the apartment blocks they wandered past. Anita slipped her hand into Kevin’s. They knew their unspoken thoughts were about what they should do. The moral dilemma of cops who suddenly realize that whatever action they take, they can’t bring to justice an organization that has the power to brush everything under the carpet. What made it seem even more hopeless, more impossible was that there was no way they would be believed because they didn’t have access to the facts that would support their case. Kevin broke the silence.
‘There was something that Klas said about Rylander not being ashamed of what he’d done, but he felt guilty about the person it most affected.’
‘I remember.’
‘Whatever we think of Rylander now, the most difficult thing in his life must have been to betray his great love. I can’t imagine doing that.’ He gripped her hand tightly.
‘Krell sounds like a self-serving monster.’
‘But even monsters can love. It sounds as if discovering it was Rylander who had grassed him up was what broke his resistance. And Rylander still had regrets at the end.’
Anita turned to him. ‘Have you any regrets?’
‘A few. But none that I’ll worry about on my deathbed; unless you’re not there holding my hand.’
Anita smirked. ‘I don’t know about that.’ She let go of his hand. He was getting into uncomfortably intimate territory. This wasn’t the time.
They walked on in silence. What on earth were they going to do about Rylander and Lennartsson? All the options seemed to spell danger.
CHAPTER 42
Moberg was also weighing up his options. Sandwiches, a pizza, or a Chinese carry-out? Waiting for the team to report back from Sjöbo had made him hungry. He had gone over all the material, interviews and evidence surrounding the case. Notwithstanding his natural loathing of Axel Isaksson, he was beginning to think that the politician, though guilty of various crimes – supplying a passport in a false name, paying a prostitute for sex, withholding information from the police – wasn’t the murderer. The aggravating thing was that Isaksson’s alibi checked out, despite Moberg’s attempts to circumvent the timeframe of his movements and the murder. It still added up to the fact that he couldn’t have been in two places at once. And Moberg was coming to a similar conclusion regarding Markus Asplund’s possible guilt. He had carefully listened to the interviews again. Though Asplund was clearly avoiding admitting to setting up Ebba with her clients, he did sound like a man who was telling the truth most of the time. Moberg had been in and around interview rooms long enough to know when someone was lying through their teeth. It might be frustrating in terms of progressing with the case, but, with that in mind, he’d had a brief meeting with Prosecutor Blom about what they already knew about Pastor Kroon and what the team were busily trying to dig up.
What Brodd had found out was that Kroon had been in Malmö that Tuesday. CCTV had shown him getting off the direct SkåneExpressen 8 bus at Södervärn bus station at 9.38 am. It had arrived three minutes late. He hadn’t been able to find Kroon making a return journey from there. But that was enough to give the cautious Blom the nerve to say that if the team found witnesses willing to substantiate Isaksson’s assertion of Kroon’s behaviour towards Ebba, then they could bring him in for questioning.
Moberg was still undecided about his early lunch when his office phone rang. He grabbed the receiver. It was Hakim.
‘We’ve found four people who have reluctantly admitted that they were uncomfortable with the pastor’s unsavoury relationship with Ebba. One elderly ex-member, according to one of the constables I spoke to, said that she was expelled from the church for raising the subject. She didn’t report it, as she thought the police wouldn’t believe her because Kroon was well respected in the town. But they’ve all kept quiet. I think they were frightened of Kroon. Still are. And they justified their silence by the fact that Ebba suddenly went away. Out of sight, out of mind, I suppose.’
‘That’s good work. Right, I want you and Wallen to go round to Kroon’s place now. Pick him up and bring him in.’
Another decision. A Chinese carry-out. Things were looking up.
The Stasi Museum at Lichtenberg was a five minute walk from the Magdalenenstrasse underground station. It was the sheer size of the old Stasi headquarters’ twenty-two-hectare complex that blew Kevin’s mind. As they didn’t have to be at the airport until one o’clock, he had convinced Anita that they could spend the morning going round the museum and find out what sort of organization Hans-Dieter Albrecht had worked for – and Albin Rylander had spied for. And it was sort of on their way.
The museum was in the building which had housed the Stasi hierarchy. It was much like any other unimaginative early 1960s office block you’d find anywhere in the world – except the business of “house 1” was more ominous. Its role was to police, spy upon and terrorize a whole nation; to seep into and control every aspect of its citizens’ lives.
The centrepiece of the museum was the office suite of the Minister for State Security; the fiefdom of Erich Mielke, who held this position for thirty years. It was just the same as it was when the frenzied citizens of East Germany forcibly occupied the administrative buildings before all the documents could be destroyed; and they were able discover the files on themselves, their families, friends and colleagues. What they found was an organization that had compiled 111 kilometres of paper files, 1.7 million photos and 28,000 recordings. Kevin was much taken with Mielke’s conference room and private quarters. They were vivid snapshots of 1960s design with wood-panelled walls, parquet flooring and clunky furniture. Not too ostentatious, of course, but solid, practical, comfortable; reeking power. Mielke’s vast, plain, highly polished desk still had the telephones of the time in place. Kevin mentally speculated about what dreadful instructions and fateful decisions must have been conducted over those lines.
In various rooms the story of the Stasi was told through their imaginative, yet often clumsy, listening and photographic devices in what was a surveillance seventh heaven. Many aped the technology of the early James Bond films – the watch with a recording device, the clothing that contained miniature cameras, and innocent handbags that picked up idle but subversive snippets of conversation; even the Rosa Klebb shoe with the metal spike at its tip. What tickled Kevin most was the watering can with a concealed camera – even gardeners weren’t safe.
As he moved through the rooms, he realized that Anita was not with him. He made his way back and found her staring at a case containing domestic listening devices.
‘There’s some fascinating stuff through there, Anita.’
She didn’t acknowledge him but continued to be transfixed by the objects in front of her.
‘We’d better not be too long; we’ve got to get to the airport.’
‘That’s what all this has been about.’
‘What?’
Anita swivelled round to face him. ‘Surveillance. Listening in. That’s what they’ve been doing.’
Kevin was still unsure what she was alluding to.
‘Rylander. They were listening in.’ The penny dropped. ‘That’s what the Källströms were doing next door. They had Rylander under surveillance. There must be bugs planted in his house. They were listening to his conversations with Klas. When they realized that he was going to reveal everything, they killed him. Maybe not they
themselves, but other members of their team or organization. That’s why they left when they did before their holiday rental was up.’
‘Maybe it was our Mr Large I saw in the trees observing the house.’
‘He’s obviously the same man Moa Hellquist saw with Alice Zetterberg when she reported Rylander’s death.’
A young couple came wandering into the room, and Anita and Kevin slipped out into the corridor.
‘They must have bugged Klas, too. They would have suspected that he would find out at least some of Rylander’s life story that he hadn’t yet told.’ Anita suddenly smacked the wall with her hand in exasperation. ‘The text! The text he sent me. They would have intercepted that. Oh, the poor fellow!’
Midnight In Malmö: The Fourth Inspector Anita Sundström Mystery (The Malmö Mysteries Book 4) Page 25