I must have been about fourteen when I heard the story for the first time. She related the tale as if it were a funny anecdote. I don’t remember having any particular reaction; I didn’t feel angry or upset. I assume my response was the usual one. Acceptance. I simply accepted the insult – hook, line and sinker. Just as I put up with everything she said about me, no matter how denigrating her words. I can hear her voice echoing inside my head.
‘And just imagine – even though I was so upset about having you, you were incredibly happy when you came out! Right from the very beginning!’
Sure, Mamma. Imagine that. And why exactly are you telling me how unwanted I was? I have no bloody idea.
I’m dressed now. I have to go out of the door, take the lift downstairs, and mingle with all the people out on the street. I take a breath. A deep breath.
LINA PHONED JUST as Knutas was heading down the corridor to the investigative team’s morning meeting. He’d left home very early, before she was awake. Knutas’s Danish wife was on her way to her job as a midwife at Visby Hospital. She’d started taking a walk every morning before breakfast. It was another of her countless attempts to lose weight. Knutas didn’t think there was anything wrong with his wife’s plump figure, but she was always trying to get rid of a few extra pounds. At the moment she had high hopes for the diet based on the glycaemic index, which was the current fad. Consequently, whenever it was her turn to do the cooking, their meals consisted of meat, fish and salads. Potatoes, pasta and rice had been replaced by lentils and beans, although Knutas and the children weren’t happy about the substitution. Because of their protests, she had relented enough to serve whole-grain pasta.
‘Good morning,’ Lina gasped on the phone, sounding out of breath. ‘How’s it going?’
‘OK, but we’re really busy. We’ve got a meeting in a few minutes.’
‘I just had to phone you because Nils is sick.’
Knutas stopped in his tracks.
‘What’s the matter with him?’
‘This morning it was almost impossible to wake him. He said that he’d hardly slept at all and that his stomach hurt.’
‘Hurt in what way?’
‘He says it aches but he hasn’t thrown up, and he doesn’t have a fever. At any rate, I let him stay home from school.’
‘That’s good. I’ve got a lot on my plate today, but I might be able to drop by to see him later on.’
Lina’s work schedule was not as flexible as his since she was assigned specific shifts at the hospital.
‘That would be great. I know you have to go, so we’ll talk later.’
‘I’ll phone Nils.’
‘No, don’t do that. He went back to sleep.’
‘OK. Love you.’
‘Love you too.’
Worry instantly settled over Knutas. Nils hadn’t been himself lately, and maybe it wasn’t all due to puberty.
Still thinking about his son, he went into the conference room for the first meeting of the day with the investigative team.
Chief Prosecutor Birger Smittenberg was already in his place at the table, intently leafing through the morning newspaper. He glanced up at Knutas and gave him a distracted greeting. Wittberg and Jacobsson were sitting next to each other, leaning close and conversing in low voices. The police spokesman, Lars Norrby, was missing. He’d taken a two-month leave of absence to sail around the West Indies with his children. While Lars was away, Knutas had to handle the press himself, which he didn’t really mind. Things were actually calmer this way. He and Norrby didn’t always agree about what information should be made public.
Knutas had just sat down in his customary place at the head of the table when Sohlman came in. The crime-scene tech’s face was ashen and he looked as if he hadn’t slept all night.
He sank down on a chair next to Jacobsson, who patted him lightly on the shoulder. Sohlman reached for the thermos of coffee on the table.
‘Good morning,’ Knutas greeted everyone. ‘You all know about what happened. Viktor Algård was found dead yesterday afternoon inside the conference centre. According to the ME’s preliminary examination, Algård died of cyanide poisoning. But he also had a wound on his forehead, and there were bloodstains both on the cocktail table near the bar and on the floor underneath. Marks on the floor indicate that the perpetrator dragged the body into the lift, presumably to hide it. We don’t know yet what caused the wound on the victim’s forehead. The body is being taken on the afternoon ferry to Stockholm and the Forensics division in Solna. We’re hoping that the post-mortem will be done tomorrow. Sohlman, can you describe what we know so far about the injuries and crime scene?’
Knutas nodded to his colleague, who got up to stand next to the screen at the front of the room.
‘First let’s take a look at the victim. Certain circumstances make this a particularly interesting case. You can see that the victim’s skin is bright pink. Livor mortis, which is a light crimson or rose colour, has fully developed. This points to cyanide poisoning, since cyanide obstructs the airways, making it impossible for oxygen to get out of the bloodstream. The victim also smelled strongly of bitter almonds, which is typical of cyanide poisoning.’
‘I don’t know anything about cyanide,’ said Jacobsson, ‘but it must be an extremely unusual method for killing someone. I’ve only heard of it used as a murder weapon in old detective novels.’
‘I know. I’ve never handled a homicide case in which cyanide was used,’ Sohlman agreed. ‘But I’ve actually had a couple of instances of suicide by cyanide. It’s extremely toxic. In this instance we’re probably dealing with potassium cyanide, which is cyanide in crystal form. It dissolves easily in water.’
‘Why did you make that assumption?’
‘Because that’s the easiest form to handle and carry around. It can be kept in small glass vials. Then all you need to do is empty the contents into a glass of water, or some other liquid.’
‘What about alcohol?’ asked Jacobsson.
‘It doesn’t dissolve in alcohol, but the perpetrator could have mixed it in water first, before adding it to a drink. If that’s how the poison was administered to Algård, that is. We don’t know for sure. But it’s not the sort of substance that anyone would drink voluntarily. The perp must be at least somewhat familiar with cyanide. Handling it can be quite risky. For one thing, it’s fatal if inhaled. Hydrogen cyanide was the gas that the Germans used to murder the Jews in the concentration camps in the Second World War. As I said, it can knock out your respiratory system in a matter of minutes.’
‘How does it work?’ asked Knutas.
‘The cyanide instantly blocks the airways. You could say that the cells are suffocated, and the victim will have trouble breathing immediately after ingesting the poison. I presume it’s sometimes used as a method of committing suicide because it’s such a lethal substance. If you take a sufficient amount of cyanide, you will definitely die. And it happens so fast, taking anywhere from thirty seconds to a few minutes, depending on the amount. The Nazi Hermann Goering killed himself by swallowing a cyanide capsule when he was sentenced to death for genocide at the Nuremberg trials.’
‘How difficult is it to get hold of cyanide?’
Sohlman shrugged.
‘These days you can buy just about anything on the Internet. Or make it yourself if you have an interest in chemistry. It may also be used in certain industries. I don’t really know.’
‘We’ll need to find out about that,’ said Knutas. ‘Will you look into it, Thomas?’
‘Sure. At the same time, I think we have to ask ourselves what type of person would use poison to commit a murder. It indicates a certain amount of calculation. And who would be capable of handling such a dangerous poison?’
‘Something that distinguishes a killer who uses poison is the absence of physical contact between the perpetrator and the victim,’ Sohlman interjected. ‘That type of murderer watches the victim ingest the poison, but usually leaves the scene as quickly
as possible. So he doesn’t leave any incriminating evidence behind. No fingerprints or strands of hair, no skin scrapings, no blood. In this case, the perp did drag the victim into the lift, but he must have felt a need to hide the body for some reason. There’s also a psychological aspect. Death by poison is often extremely painful, even though it happens fast, which indicates that the motive is most likely personal. So the victim and killer knew each other; they had some sort of relationship.’
‘If we assume that someone put cyanide in Algård’s drink, shouldn’t he have noticed from the smell that something was wrong with it?’ asked Jacobsson. ‘Since it would have smelled so strongly of bitter almonds?’
‘Hmmm,’ said Sohlman and then paused, rubbing his chin. ‘That depends. I’ve heard that only fifty per cent of human beings are able to smell the scent of bitter almonds. Algård might have belonged to the group that can’t. Or else it all happened so fast that he noticed the smell too late. It’s also possible that he was forced to drink the poison. We found a chair toppled over at the crime scene. And he’d suffered a blow to the head.’
Silence settled over the room, as if everyone were trying to imagine what might have happened on the night of the dedication festivities. Knutas broke the silence.
‘Let’s leave the speculations for now and concentrate on what we know about Viktor Algård. I didn’t really know him. I only met him a few times in connection with various events that he’d organized. Anyone else know him?’
Everyone shook their heads.
‘OK.’ Knutas glanced down at his notes. ‘Algård was fifty-three years old, born and raised in Hamra. Married, with two grown children who live on the mainland. A son who’s twenty-eight and a daughter who’s twenty-six. He’d worked as an event planner for years, and I know that he was quite successful. His problems started when he bought a building down by the harbour and turned it into a club for teenagers. We all know what has gone on since then. There has been trouble at that club from the very beginning, and now, to top it all, we have the recent case of assault and battery.’
Knutas got up, picked up a red marker and began writing on the whiteboard at the front of the room.
Assault.
‘The incident that took place in front of his club is an important factor, and we need to explore a possible connection, of course. According to several witnesses, Algård was in the process of divorcing his wife.’ Knutas wrote the word Divorce on the whiteboard. ‘Wittberg, can you tell us more?’
‘The Algårds filed for divorce in district court a week ago. They’ve been married more than thirty years. We’ve just started on the interviews, and unfortunately we haven’t been able to talk to any of the family members yet. We’ll be meeting with his wife, Elisabeth Algård, later today. Both children will also be interviewed – I hope sometime today. The only people we’ve talked to so far are employees of his company, which specialized in PR and event planning. Algård had two people on staff and his company is called Go Gotland. The office is located on Hästgatan and the client list includes major players, such as Wisby Strand, Kneippbyn and the municipality of Visby itself. I’ve talked to the two employees, a young guy named Max and a girl called Isabella. They had only good things to say about Algård as a boss. In addition, both of them are positive that he was having an affair. They hadn’t seen him with another woman, but apparently he’d exhibited all the signs of being in love. They said that he’d started having lunch with someone, but he refused to tell them who it was. He was gone from the office for long periods of time, and would return looking flushed and very pleased with himself. He’d started going to a gym – apparently he used to work out, but had let it lapse – and he’d even hired a personal trainer just a few weeks ago. He’d told his employees that he was going to take a trip to Paris in May, and he’d contacted an estate agent to help him find a large flat in the centre of Visby, since he was planning to sell his small pied-à-terre.’
‘So now we have another motive,’ said Smittenberg, twirling the ends of the moustache he’d recently affected. ‘The mysterious mistress.’
Knutas wrote Mistress on the whiteboard and then turned again to Thomas Wittberg.
‘You might as well write Wife, while you’re at it,’ Smittenberg suggested. ‘From what I gather, Elisabeth Algård doesn’t have an alibi, does she?’
Knutas did as the prosecutor requested.
‘There’s one theory that may be a long shot, but we still can’t rule it out,’ Wittberg interjected. ‘The fact is, the conference centre has been a very controversial construction project. It’s possible that someone murdered Algård to protest against the dedication of the building.’
‘A statement from rabid environmentalists, maybe? That sounds really credible,’ Jacobsson teased him.
‘We need to keep all avenues open,’ Knutas countered, his voice sharp.
He added the words Conference Centre to the list and again turned to Wittberg.
‘What have you found out so far from talking to the waiters and service personnel?’
‘According to a bartender, shortly after midnight Algård told him that he was going to take a break. It was the first time all evening that he left the party. After that no one saw him again.’
‘And no one missed him?’ asked Jacobsson in surprise.
‘The dinner was over by the time he took a break, and then the dancing started up and there was a lot of commotion. We’re talking about more than five hundred guests, after all. The people that we’ve interviewed so far seem to have taken it for granted that Algård was on the scene somewhere, but none of them can pinpoint exactly the last time they saw him.’
‘Was he alone when he left?’
‘Yes, he headed downstairs to the section of the building that was closed off for the evening.’
‘The perp could have been someone he worked with,’ said Jacobsson. ‘What do we know about any problems on the job? We should look into that.’
Knutas wrote Work Colleague on the board.
‘As of now, we haven’t come up with anything significant other than the trouble at his club,’ said Wittberg. ‘We need to keep working.’
THE GROUP FROM the National Criminal Police in Stockholm arrived in the afternoon. There was none of the hullabaloo that always ensued whenever Martin Kihlgård was part of the group, and Knutas reluctantly had to admit that he missed his charismatic colleague. Even though Kihlgård frequently drove Knutas crazy, at least he was entertaining. Jacobsson politely greeted their newly arrived associates, but displayed what seemed like a deliberate lack of interest in talking to them. Knutas found that annoying. It wasn’t their fault that Kihlgård was ill.
In charge of the group was an inconsequential-looking man by the name of Rylander. Under his direction, they immediately set to work on the most pressing task: scheduling and recording the huge number of interviews. Some had already been conducted, but hundreds of others still needed to be done.
Viktor Algård’s two children were coming to the police station to be interviewed, but his wife couldn’t muster the strength to do the same. So the police would have to go to the Algård house. Knutas thought that was actually just as well. He wanted to see Algård’s home to get a better picture of what the man was like as a person. The police had already searched the house without finding anything of interest. The same could not be said of the victim’s flat on Hästgatan. In the bathroom the police had found perfume, a hair dryer and other feminine toiletries. In the bedroom were shoes and clothing belonging to a woman, but of course they might be his wife’s. Knutas had decided to wait to ask about these items until he could talk to Elisabeth Algård in person.
As soon as the morning meeting was over, Jacobsson and Knutas headed for Hamra to interview the widow.
First, however, they made a detour to Bokströmsgatan and parked in front of Knutas’s house.
‘I just need to run in and see Nils for a moment,’ he explained. ‘He stayed home from school because he had a stomac
h ache this morning.’
‘But isn’t he sixteen by now?’
‘Children still need their parents. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. They’re never too old for a little parental concern.’
Knutas gave her a wry smile as he opened the car door. Jacobsson made a choking sound, as if something had got lodged in her throat. Then she had a coughing fit.
‘Are you coming down with something too?’ Knutas asked.
He pounded his colleague on the back as tears ran down Jacobsson’s cheeks. Knutas looked at her in astonishment.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘It’s nothing,’ she told him. ‘I must have swallowed something the wrong way. That’s all. I think I’ll wait in the car.’
‘OK.’
The house was dark and silent. Knutas tiptoed upstairs so as not to wake Nils if he was asleep. Cautiously he opened the door. Nils was sitting at his desk next to the window with his back turned. His computer was on. Knutas saw at once the picture of Alexander Almlöv that had been published in the newspapers.
‘Hi, Nils. How are you feeling?’
His son turned around with a start. His eyes were shiny with tears.
‘What are you doing at home?’
Knutas went over to Nils and placed his hand on his son’s shoulder. The boy was much too thin. That was something he’d been noticing for a while now.
‘I just wanted to look in on you. Mamma said you had a stomach ache.’
Knutas’s expression turned grim as he looked at the picture on the computer screen. The photo had been taken at Tofta beach in the summertime. Alexander, his face suntanned and his hair wet, was smiling at the camera. Now he lay in a coma.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked gently.
‘Nothing.’ Nils turned off the computer and went over to his bed to lie down. ‘Just leave me alone.’
‘But how are you feeling?’
‘Better. Nothing to worry about.’
He turned over to face the wall. Knutas sat down on the edge of the bed.
‘Are you thinking about Alexander?’
Dark Angel Page 6