Backstrom: He Who Kills the Dragon (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Original)
Page 6
“Peter and I were also thinking along those lines,” Hernandez said, nodding. “But we’ve also been wondering whether this is more than just a question of spontaneous anger—if there’s a more rational motive.”
“Like what?”
“Like the fact that he stole from him,” Hernandez said.
“Exactly,” Bäckström agreed with heavy emphasis. “Which just goes to show what a fucking moron he is. Stealing from someone like Danielsson. It’s like trying to cut a bald man’s hair.”
“I’m afraid that probably wasn’t the case on this occasion,” Hernandez said. “In the top right-hand drawer of Danielsson’s desk we found a bundle of winning slips from Solvalla. All of them cashed in and held together neatly in date order with an elastic band. The top slip is from the meeting out at Valla the same afternoon and evening that Danielsson was murdered—the day before yesterday, in other words. He won twenty thousand six hundred and twenty kronor, and the winnings were paid out from the cashier at Solvalla immediately after the race. It was the first race of the V65 coupon, to be precise, at half past six that evening. But we haven’t found the money. His wallet, for instance, which was on the desk in his bedroom, was completely empty, apart from a few business cards.”
“Well, I never,” Bäckström said. “Well, I never,” he repeated. Must have been a serious win for someone like Danielsson, he thought.
“A couple more things,” Hernandez said. “Things we’ve found, and things we haven’t found but should have.”
“I’m listening,” Bäckström said, grabbing a pen and his little black book.
“We’ve found a betting slip but no money, we’ve found traces of what we think was a briefcase but no briefcase. We’ve found one open and one sealed carton of Viagra. Written out to Karl Danielsson using a repeat prescription that we’ve also found. Six pills remaining out of eight. According to the details on the prescription, he’s had another eight pills since the start of April. We also found a box of condoms, containing ten originally, but there were only two left.”
“So our victim had at least two strings to his bow. Even if he needed help getting his instrument tuned,” Bäckström said with a grin.
“We found two keys to a safe-deposit box, but we haven’t located the box yet,” Hernandez went on. “But we didn’t find a cell phone, or a computer, or any credit cards. No bills for any of those either, for that matter. We found an ordinary pocket diary with a few notes in it. But no other diary, no photos, no personal correspondence.”
“A typical drunk,” Bäckström said. “What would someone like that want a cell for? To call and order home delivery of drink? And who’d give a credit card to an old lush? They’re not that stupid, even in Social Services. Anything else?” he added.
“There were several bundles of taxi receipts on his desk,” Hernandez said.
“Mobility allowance. I daresay all alcoholics get that in our glorious socialist paradise, and the rest of us have to pay for it.”
“No,” Hernandez said. “No chance. They’re just normal receipts. I have an idea that he used to trade in them.”
“What, taxi receipts? What on earth for? Are they edible?” Bäckström said.
“I think he knew a taxi driver, and bought his unclaimed receipts for maybe twenty percent of the amount on them, and then sold them on for fifty percent or so to someone who could claim them as tax-deductible expenses for their business. Presumably something he learned during all those years he spent working as an accountant, and he’s bound to have a few contacts left from those days,” Hernandez said.
“I thought old drunks collected empty bottles and cans,” Bäckström said.
“Maybe not this one,” Hernandez said.
Whatever the hell this has to do with anything or the cost of vodka, Bäckström thought with a shrug.
“Was that everything?” he asked.
“Yes. That’s pretty much everything so far,” Hernandez said, standing up. “You and your colleagues will be getting a written report covering what Peter and I have come up with to date, including a number of pictures of the crime scene and the postmortem later today. You’ll get it by e-mail.”
“Good,” Bäckström said. Astonishingly good, considering it was the result of collaboration between a bastard Finn and a strutting tango dancer, he thought.
12.
Detective Inspector Annika Carlsson had been at work since half past seven that morning, even though she hadn’t got to bed before midnight the previous evening.
She had hardly had time to sit down at her desk when Peter Niemi called her cell to tell her about the clothing they had found.
“I’ve been chasing Bäckström, but he isn’t answering,” Niemi explained.
“I’ve been chasing him as well. I suppose he’ll show up in due course. I’m worried about him. He doesn’t seem well. He looked awful yesterday. I don’t know if you noticed.”
“Yes, I did, but what the hell,” Niemi said. “Since both the Pole and his workmates need to be interviewed, and the sooner the better, I thought I’d call you.”
“Well, thanks for that,” Carlsson said. Niemi’s good, she thought. Really good. Not only good at what he does, but the sort who actually gives a damn.
“Like I said, I’ve been out to the site and we’ve been through the trash bin but didn’t find anything interesting. And there was nothing in the vicinity either, in case you’re wondering. We even took a dog patrol, even though it was the middle of the night. Since then I’ve spoken to the lad who found the bag containing the clothes. Nice boy. Almost speaks better Swedish than someone like me,” Niemi said, his smile audible in his voice. “But because it was all a bit hectic, I didn’t get long to talk to him.”
“So now you want me to do it properly, with a tape recorder and making notes?” Carlsson said, also smiling so broadly it came through her voice. Why can’t all men be like Niemi? she thought.
“Exactly,” Niemi said. “That’s what we’re like, you know.”
“I’d better get it sorted, then,” Annika Carlsson said. Since it’s you, she thought.
Then she had called Bäckström again on his cell, but it was still switched off, even though it was now almost half past eight. Annika Carlsson had shaken her head and gone to find Felicia Pettersson, then took one of the cars and headed down to Ekensbergsgatan to talk to Jerzty Sarniecki and his four compatriots, who were renovating a small block of rented apartments in Solna, a thousand kilometers north of their homeland.
Felicia Pettersson, twenty-three, had graduated from the Police Academy in January that year. Now she was on her first practical placement, with the crime unit in Solna, and after just one week here she was helping with a murder investigation. Felicia was born in Brazil. She had been in a children’s home in São Paolo and was just a year old when she had been adopted by a Swedish couple who both worked in the police and lived on the islands of Lake Mälaren, just west of Stockholm. Now she herself was a police officer, like so many police children before her. Young and with no practical experience, but with good prospects. In good shape, calm and sensible, and she seemed to enjoy what she was doing.
She’ll turn out to be pretty good, Annika Carlsson had thought the first time she met her.
“You know how to get to Ekensbergsgatan, Felicia?” Annika asked, once she had settled into the passenger seat and fastened her seat belt.
“Yes, boss,” Felicia Pettersson said, nodding.
“I don’t suppose you happen to speak Polish as well?” Annika asked.
“Yes, boss. Of course. Fluently. I thought everyone could?” Felicia said with a smile.
“Anything else I should know about?” Annika Carlsson asked. She’s sharp too, she thought.
“My friends usually call me Lisa,” Felicia said. “You can too, if you like.”
“They usually call me the Anchor,” Annika Carlsson said.
“Do you like being called that?” Lisa said, glancing at her in surprise.
“Not sure,” Lisa Pettersson said, and giggled. “But I think you’re pretty cool. And I mean that.”
Annika Carlsson and Felicia Pettersson were in luck. It may have been only nine o’clock in the morning, but Jerzty and the others were already eating lunch. They had got up before it was light, had breakfast at four, and had started work at half past. By nine o’clock it was high time for lunch if they were going to have the energy to keep working until the evening.
“Sorry to disturb you in your breakfast,” Annika Carlsson said in English, smiling and showing her police ID. “My name is Detective Inspector Annika Carlsson, and this is my colleague, Detective Constable Felicia Pettersson. By the way, does any one of you speak Swedish? Or understand Swedish?”
“I speak a bit of Swedish,” Jerzty said, as three of his workmates shook their heads and one nodded hesitantly. “I can interpret, if you like.”
“We’d just like to ask a few questions,” Annika went on. “Is it okay if we sit down?”
“Sure,” Jerzty said, quickly getting up. He removed a toolbox from a spare chair that was already standing beside their homemade table while one of his colleagues went to fetch a stool and offered his own chair to Detective Constable Pettersson.
Two beautiful young women. Who also happened to be Swedish police officers, even though one of them looked like she came from the West Indies. Friendly, cheerful, easy on the eyes, and well worth fantasizing about as you hammered in yet another nail. They would stay for an hour. But what did that matter? Eighty kronor was only eighty kronor, and they missed other things much more than work.
Had they noticed anything during Wednesday evening or early Thursday morning?
They had worked until eight o’clock that evening. Then they had stopped because the neighbors usually complained if they carried on after that. Then they had eaten. Chatted, played cards, went to bed at ten or so. None of them had left the building throughout that time, since it had been raining all evening.
What about during the night, then? Did any of them see or hear anything?
They had been asleep. None of them had any trouble sleeping. None of them had seen or heard anything. They had been lying asleep in their beds. One of them had got up briefly to go to the toilet. That was all.
“Leszek, he’s a plasterer,” Jerzty clarified, nodding toward the man who had emptied his bladder. “The toilet faces the street, it’s got a window,” he added, preempting Annika Carlsson’s next question.
“Ask him if he knows what time it was.”
“He doesn’t know,” Jerzty said after a few quick sentences in Polish and a shake of the head in answer to her question. “He didn’t look at the time. He had taken his watch off and put it beside his bed.”
“Was it still raining?” Annika Carlsson asked, having already read the report they had received from the meteorological office. Rain getting lighter though Wednesday evening, stopping half an hour after midnight on Thursday, May 15.
“Not much,” Jerzty summarized after a short exchange in Polish. “It was dark as well. As dark as it gets. When we woke up, the weather was beautiful. That was at four o’clock in the morning.”
About midnight, Annika Carlsson thought.
“Ask him if he saw or heard anything. People, cars, any sort of noise. Or if he didn’t see or hear anything. As you can understand, absolutely everything is of interest to us.”
More Polish. Hesitant shakes of the head. Smiles from both Jerzty and Leszek. Then the latter had nodded firmly, said something more in Polish, and shrugged.
“I’m listening,” Annika Carlsson said. Watch yourself, Anchor, she thought. You’re starting to sound like Bäckström, and you don’t do that if you’re pretty cool.
“He saw a cat,” Jerzty said, smiling happily.
A little ginger cat. They often saw it and presumed that it lived somewhere nearby, even though it didn’t have a collar. They’d even given it some milk once.
But no people, no cars, no human sounds. It was dark, it was quiet, it was drizzling. No television or radio on anywhere, no lights in any windows. Not even a dog barking. A solitary ginger cat that had strolled past outside. That was all.
13.
Detective Inspector Lars Alm, sixty, had worked in the crime unit of the Solna Police for about ten years. During the years before he arrived there he had first worked in the old violent crime section in police headquarters on Kungsholmen in Stockholm, and then had moved on to the investigative unit covering the city center itself. Then he had moved out to Solna. He had got divorced and remarried, and he and his new wife, a nurse at the Karolinska Institute, had a nice apartment in the center of Solna. Alm could walk to work in two minutes, so it didn’t matter to him if it was snowing or raining cats and dogs.
That was one good reason to move to the Solna force, but there were several others. Alm was burned-out. His years in violent crime in Stockholm had taken their toll. Solna ought to be a bit better, he had reasoned. He could finally escape the waves rippling out from the weekend’s nightlife that would wash over his desk every Monday without fail. But his hopes had been dashed on that score. Ideally he would have liked to take early retirement, but after looking at the numbers he had decided to try to hold out until he was sixty-five. A nurse didn’t earn much, and neither of them wanted to starve when they got old.
He had tried to organize things as best he could. He had avoided the violent crime unit, the surveillance unit, drugs, and robbery. He had taken over the simpler things like petty crime, crimes that affected ordinary people, break-ins to homes and vehicles, the less serious cases of abuse, fights, criminal damage. Personally, he thought he had succeeded pretty well, and he used to keep an eye on the number of cases expected of him. Tried to slot himself somewhere into the average range for people like him.
On Monday, May 12, a tornado had swept through the Western District. Two as yet unknown individuals had robbed a security van out at Bromma Airport. They had shot and killed one of the guards and came close to killing his partner. Aggravated theft, murder, and attempted murder. Just a few hours later the minister for justice had appeared on every television news program. Their new boss, police chief Anna Holt, had no cause for complacency. One month into the job and this happens.
He had survived the first wave. Even though the head of the crime unit, Superintendent Toivonen, had moved a lot of officers in from other departments and responsibilities, he had spared Alm. But on Thursday morning Alm had been dragged in as well. Toivonen had stormed into his office and explained that it was all hands on deck.
“Someone’s beaten an old drunk to death up by Råsundavägen,” Toivonen said. “The sort of case any normal officer would clear up before lunch, but considering all the shit that’s hit us, I’m going to have to give it to Bäckström.”
“What did you have in mind for me, then?” Alm said, realizing that this wasn’t up for discussion.
“Make sure that little fat nightmare doesn’t miss an open goal,” Toivonen said, before walking out abruptly.
So that was how things stood. After a gap of more than ten years, Alm had another murder round his neck, and because he was more than aware of who Evert Bäckström was, he’d certainly had better days.
Alm knew Bäckström from long ago. Toward the end of the eighties they had both worked on the murder squad in the old violent crime section in Stockholm. A few years later Bäckström had suddenly got a job with the murder unit of the National Crime Division. Completely incomprehensible. Someone high up in National Crime must have had a stroke or been bribed by the head of crime in Stockholm. Alm and all his more sensible colleagues had taken the ferry to Åland and spent twenty-four hours celebrating. Fifteen years later vengeance had struck with full force.
In his hour of need he had talked to Annika Carlsson. She was a woman, and she was generally very competent. He had offered t
o put together a profile of the victim, his social life, and what he was doing during the hours before he died. As long as he could sit in his office and didn’t have to see Bäckström more than was strictly necessary.
“Sounds like an excellent suggestion,” Annika Carlsson said with a nod. “So what’s he like? I’ve heard all the usual stories about Bäckström, but I’d never met him before this morning. And that was only in passing, when he came down to look at the crime scene.”
“If you’d met him properly you’d remember it,” Alm said with a sigh.
“Is he as crazy as everyone says? A lot of those stories have to be urban myths.”
“He’s worse,” Alm said. “He’s much worse. Every time I turn on the news and see that an officer has been shot, I pray to God that it’s Bäckström. If we have to suffer something as awful as that, why not start with Bäckström and spare all the normal, decent officers? It never helps,” Alm said, shaking his head. “That fat little idiot is immortal. He’s entered into some sort of pact with Beelzebub. The rest of us are stuck with him to atone for our sins, and I don’t understand what on earth we could have done to deserve him.”
“I understand what you mean,” Annika Carlsson said, nodding thoughtfully. Well, this is going to be fun. If it comes to it, I suppose I can always drag him down to the garage and break his arms, she thought.
Alm had got off to a flying start with his profile of the murder victim, Karl Danielsson. As soon as people who knew the victim heard rumors of his unexpected demise, the news had spread like wildfire, and they had contacted the police. For once, the police hotline had worked, the tip-offs had come streaming in, and by the time Alm went home on the evening of the first day, he knew that he had a good grasp of the situation.
He had names and full details of about ten people in the victim’s closest circle of acquaintances. All of them men, and without knowing for certain, Alm had got the impression that they all shared the same great interest in life as their murdered “friend” and “comrade-in-arms.” He had spoken to several of them over the phone. From them he had obtained the names of other friends of the victim who hadn’t yet been in touch, and he had already interviewed a couple of them. As Alm walked home at seven o’clock that evening, to a meal of stuffed cabbage leaves and lingonberry sauce with his wife, he was as happy as he could be, considering he was being forced to have anything at all to do with Detective Superintendent Evert Bäckström.