‘You fit a lot in.’
The woman blushed. ‘Not really. In the afternoons I usually work here, in the flat. Anything that takes a long time to cook I prepare here and take it to Nora the next morning, stews, roast elk, stuffed cabbage, the bread and cakes as well.’
She pronounced the Swedish dishes in an almost perfect Stockholm accent.
‘And the knitting?’ Nina said.
‘Nora thinks handicrafts are important.’
‘Do the children know that you work in the house?’
She nodded again. ‘Sometimes I stay later, when the children are having their afternoon nap. The boy has seen me several times, the elder one, Isak. He’s very bright. Nora said I was an angel who watched over them. He spoke to me, in Swedish, but I never answered. It hurt me, having to lie to the boy. I don’t really know what he thinks of me.’
‘That you’re an angel,’ Nina said. ‘At least, that’s how he refers to you.’
‘Has he mentioned me?’ she asked anxiously.
Nina studied her carefully. ‘Do you know where Nora is?’
The woman’s face closed. She didn’t answer.
‘Do you know anything about her business abroad?’
Still no answer.
‘What happened a year ago, when Nora employed you? Something must have happened because until then she managed to look after the house and take care of her husband’s accounts on her own. Then all of a sudden she couldn’t do it any more. She started to run out of time, began to plan her escape, and got you to help her …’
The woman stared at her hands.
‘Where are you really from?’ Nina asked.
‘I don’t know if I want to say any more now.’
Nina considered her options. ‘Under Swedish law, you’ve committed a crime by working here without a work permit,’ she said. ‘You could be fined or spend up to a year in prison for what you’ve done. And that’s if I choose to ignore the fact that you might have assaulted Ingemar Lerberg.’
The woman looked up at Nina and her eyes filled with tears again. ‘I never met her husband, not until I saw him lying there on the bed.’
Nina believed her. She wasn’t responsible for the assault: she didn’t have the physical strength. But she might have been an accomplice, in either word or deed: she could have provided information about the Lerbergs’ habits and routines – even unlocked the door.
‘If you’re honest with me, I won’t report you,’ she said. ‘But for that to work, I need you to tell me everything you know about Nora Lerberg and her business dealings. What do you say?’
The woman nodded.
Nina gulped. She didn’t have the authority to make that sort of promise. She would just have to break it if she had to. Or not.
‘Where are you from?’
‘Ukraine,’ Irina Azarova said quietly. ‘From Chernobyl. My husband is dead, but my daughters are still there, studying in Kiev. Nadia’s going to be a doctor, Juliana a lawyer. I support them.’
Nina checked her mobile phone to make sure their conversation was still being recorded. ‘How did you first come into contact with Nora?’
‘I put an advert on the internet, saying I could give language tuition. She replied to the advert.’
‘Language tuition?’
The woman wiped her nose and tucked her handkerchief back in her pocket. ‘Nora wanted to learn Russian. I used to teach Russian and English in Chernobyl, at the high school. It was a good job but very badly paid, and my husband was ill for years, ever since the girls were little. When he died and the girls were going to university, I had to get a different job, a job in the West …’
‘So Nora wanted to learn Russian?’
Irina Azarova nodded. ‘She studied with me, private lessons every Wednesday evening. That was how we started. And she spent a lot of time listening to a Russian-language course on her headphones. She was clever, a quick learner.’
‘If you were teaching her Russian, how come you started to do housework for her?’
‘Nora had a lot of work to do with the businesses. She was sometimes up all night, and didn’t have time for the washing and cleaning.’
‘Do you know what those businesses were?’
The woman paused. ‘She looked after the accounts of different companies,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what they were. She never had any meetings with clients in the house.’
‘Where did she see them?’
‘In Switzerland. I used to have the house to myself on those days. I would change the curtains, clean the place from top to bottom …’
‘How did she do the accounts? On paper, or on a computer?’
‘On computers, two different ones. She spent a lot of time every day working on them.’
Two computers. Two mobile phones. Two passports. Two identities, and at least three addresses: Marbella, Fisksätra, and Silvervägen. Were there any more? Five businesses in Spain. More? She laundered money. Her own? Or someone else’s? If so, whose? And where did she get the money from?
‘Why?’ Nina said quietly. ‘Why did she start all this?’
‘She once said that she had borrowed money.’
Nina waited. When Irina said nothing, she prompted, ‘Borrowed money? Who from? The bank?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘But why? Ingemar’s business was doing well. Did she have expensive tastes? Did she use drugs? Was she a gambler?’
Irina Azarova looked almost insulted on Nora’s behalf. ‘Definitely not. She was very careful with money, and she barely drank, not even wine. And I never saw her show any interest in betting.’
Nina looked out of the window at a ragged treetop, and behind it an identical brown and white building. Somehow it all fitted together: Nora had borrowed money from the wrong people and was running an international money-laundering operation. Over the past year she had got into financial difficulties.
The Spanish authorities tightened the laws, the construction industry collapsed, and the money-laundering machinery began to break down.
But whose money was she laundering? Hardly her own: she didn’t have the resources for that. Was she a smurf for some international syndicate, the people she had borrowed money from, perhaps?
‘I don’t understand,’ Nina said. ‘How could she get involved with something like this?’
‘She wanted to save his life.’
‘Whose life? Ingemar’s? He wasn’t dying, was he?’
‘He needed a platform from which he could influence society, to gain respect.’
‘But isn’t he afraid of being found out?’
Irina looked horrified. ‘Oh, no! Her husband doesn’t know anything – he mustn’t! He doesn’t know that I work in the house. Nora always arranges her meetings in Switzerland for when he’s away on business.’
Nina looked out at the treetop again. It had all started seven years ago, after Ingemar’s resignation from top-level politics, after all the articles and the supposed tax fraud.
All to gain respect.
‘Do you know where Nora is now?’
Irina Azarova shook her head.
‘She never mentioned that she was planning to flee?’
‘No, but she did say she might disappear one day. She was scared and worried. She gave me a mobile phone, told me to send a text message if anything happened to her or her family.’
‘Disappear?’
‘That’s what she said.’
‘Die, or flee?’
‘I took it to mean that she was frightened.’
‘Who of?’
‘She never said.’
‘Why did she want to learn Russian?’
‘I don’t know. I asked, but she just said that there were some things it was better not to know.’
‘What sort of Russian did Nora study?’
‘Ordinary Russian. She used an ordinary language course for beginners.’
‘Any special vocabulary? Words or phrases about a particular subject?’
‘Nothing like that. Just words and pronunciation and grammar from the course book.’
‘Could she have been working for Russians?’
Irina didn’t answer.
‘There’s no office in the house on Silvervägen,’ Nina said. ‘Where did Nora sit when she did her work?’
‘At the kitchen table. She kept the computers in one of the kitchen cupboards.’
That was true. Nora’s computer had been found in a compartment next to the cupboard containing the pots and pans, the computer she worked on when she was doing the accounts for Ingemar’s company.
‘Was there anywhere else she used to keep them?’
The Ukrainian woman stared at her. ‘No! There’s no office in the house. Ingemar’s business was run from a different address.’
Could Nora have taken the other computer with her when she’d left?
According to Kristine Lerberg, Nora had walked out with nothing but her oilskin coat. She didn’t even take an umbrella or her handbag. Could she have sewn a laptop into the lining? Perhaps, but that was unlikely – too bulky. Kristine’s story of how Nora had left the house had been second-hand, though, filtered through Ingemar. And if Nina and Annika Bengtzon’s theory was true, Nora had had a second-hand car parked somewhere in the neighbourhood, a car no one knew belonged to her. She could have hidden the computer in the boot, with her old passport and a bag containing the money. But if she used the computer every day, it would have been impractical to keep it in the car.
‘You’ve still got your key to the house?’ Nina asked.
The woman nodded.
‘Would you mind giving it to me?’
Irina stood up, went out into the hall and came back with a key that she handed to Nina.
‘Have you been back to the house since you found Ingemar?’
‘No,’ the Ukrainian woman said. ‘Can I ask you something?’ She was calmer now. ‘How did you find me?’
There wasn’t really any reason to lie. ‘Isak’s drawings,’ Nina said. ‘He drew you in one of his pictures. And then I saw you on surveillance-camera footage from Solsidan.’
The woman slumped on her chair again. ‘I stand out in a crowd,’ she said. ‘It’s a genetic mutation, inherited. I was born with too little IGF-1, a growth hormone. The girls haven’t got it, thank God.’ She smiled fleetingly. ‘I can’t carry on living here,’ she said. ‘Where am I going to go? Where am I going to find another job?’
Nina picked up her mobile phone, switched off the recorder and tucked it into her pocket with the key. She gave the woman her card. ‘This is my direct line, and my mobile number. I’ll need to talk to you again, so call and tell me where you end up.’
Irina nodded.
Nina shook her hand and left the flat.
Irina Azarova would never call her, but that didn’t matter.
Ingemar Lerberg had indicated that he had been tortured by two men, not a very short woman.
And a professional torturer, or anyone working with him, would never leave a pair of slippers at the scene of a crime.
Annika had written the text of the article and conducted the web-TV interview. Of course. She always made sure she was the focus of everything, gathering the very worst gossip, making herself out to be incredibly important.
Thomas clicked the symbol to open the video and a blonde woman filled the screen. She was identified as Linda Viljeberg, the daughter of missing billionairess Viola Söderland.
‘It doesn’t make any difference if my mother is alive,’ she said. ‘To me she’s been dead for twenty years, ever since she chose to walk out on us without a word.’
The video showed a light brown briefcase that was said to contain Viola’s ‘most cherished memories’. Linda Viljeberg had tears in her eyes as she looked through the old pictures, a pair of baby’s shoes …
‘This feels surprisingly good,’ she said. ‘Mum took us with her when she left. She didn’t leave us behind altogether.’
She wiped away a tear.
A map of northern Finland appeared on the screen, and Annika’s hoarse voice croaked that Viola’s car had been discovered at the Russian border with the key still in it, two weeks after her disappearance. That was where the brown briefcase had been found.
‘What do you think of the Light of Truth?’ Annika’s voice asked, from somewhere out of shot.
Linda Viljeberg’s head snapped back. ‘I’ve never spoken to that blogger. He’s never got in touch with either me or my brother. I don’t understand where he gets it all from.’
Irritated, Thomas clicked to close the video. Anders Schyman still hadn’t resigned, even though the entire internet was howling for him to be sacked. His door was closed, but he listened for noises in the corridor. He heard nothing so he went onto the blog and read the latest comments on the Light of Truth.
Gregorius was now one of the most liked and praised commentators on the whole site: 4.5 out of a possible 5.0 on the star rankings, and more than three hundred people had clicked to like his comment. A warm glow spread through him.
He was itching to add another comment, but he couldn’t risk logging in from the government chancellery: that could have horrifying consequences.
A sharp knock at the door made him jump. He clicked to close his browser as Jimmy Halenius walked into the room. ‘Hello, Thomas,’ he said in a low voice.
Thomas stared at him. What the hell was he doing there?
‘What … Has something happened?’ he asked, as his tongue seemed to swell in his mouth.
The under-secretary of state didn’t cut a particularly impressive figure. He was wearing dark blue chinos, a shirt but no tie, and a jacket that was rather too big for him. He ran a hand through his hair, making it even messier than usual.
‘I don’t know if you’ve noticed the information that’s been circulating in the media this morning?’ he said.
Thomas’s stomach turned somersaults and he felt dizzy. He wanted to smash the bastard’s face in with his useless bloody hook – what the hell was he talking about? There was so much information circulating – Anders Schyman? Annika’s video report?
‘Er,’ he said. ‘What exactly?’
‘That I’m to take over as director general of the Prison and Probation Service. It isn’t true. I’ve turned it down.’
Thomas felt sweat trickle down his back. He hadn’t seen that. Should he have done? Did that make him a lazy, badly informed employee who didn’t keep up with the news?
‘Well,’ he said, ‘of course you can’t help wondering …’
‘Obviously it would have serious personal consequences for you if Annika moved to Norrköping. That’s why I wanted to let you know in person that the information is incorrect. So you weren’t left wondering why we’ve been keeping something as important as that from you.’
Thomas ran a hand across his forehead. Halenius came a step closer and Thomas became aware of how clammy his fingers were. He put his hand on his lap next to the hook.
‘The Light of Truth,’ Halenius said, nodding towards the computer screen. ‘Have you seen what that nutter’s been writing?’
Thomas turned to the screen and felt his heart stop: he hadn’t managed to close the site when Jimmy knocked at his door. The comments glared at him, with Gregorius’s contribution glowing bright green:
Anders Schyman should be fucked up the arse with a baseball bat. Hope the splinters form a bleeding wreath around his anus.
Jimmy Halenius scratched his head. ‘Christ,’ he said. ‘You can’t help wondering what’s going on inside some people’s heads. “Gregorius”. Yeah, that just about sums it up.’ He put his hand on Thomas’s shoulder and gave it a brief squeeze, then turned to leave the room.
‘Thanks,’ Thomas said, his mouth full of dust. ‘Thanks for … well, coming to tell me. In person.’
The under-secretary of state smiled and walked out.
Thomas felt anxiety rise inside him, like a pillar of smoke, filling him from his knees to h
is throat. He couldn’t breathe. Oh, God, oh, dear God, what if Halenius knew, what if he’d realized that Thomas was …?
He closed the site.
There was a computer on the other side of the desk.
Nina froze in the doorway, one foot inside the office, the other still out in the corridor.
The laptop was the same as hers, with the music app, Spotify, visible on the screen. Music was playing quietly from some small speaker somewhere. An open folder lay alongside the computer, full of printouts covered with Asian characters.
Jesper Wou was back.
She took a deep breath and made herself walk into the room. She skirted warily round the desk, keeping a safe distance from it, then sat down on her chair without taking her eyes off the new computer. The classical music rose to a crescendo, then fell silent. Two seconds later another track started, melodic piano music.
Oh, God. Did he always have Spotify on, or only when he thought he was alone?
She put the key to the Lerbergs’ house on her side of the desk.
Why had Nora needed so much money? What was she borrowing it for? And from whom? Someone she was afraid of, according to Irina. She must have had a very good reason, that much was obvious, or she would hardly have embarked on these crazy international financial transactions.
The piano music changed pace and character and Nina recognized it. It was from some film. Julia used to play the same track, from that film with Holly Hunter in it, the one she got an Oscar for …
Would Jesper Wou mind if she switched it off?
No, she couldn’t start fiddling with his computer. It would be like helping herself to his lunch.
She adjusted her ponytail.
Nora had been very keen to keep her loans and financial transactions secret. Otherwise she wouldn’t have fought so hard to keep them hidden.
Nina leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. The music swelled and she could see the film in her mind’s eye, Holly Hunter playing the piano on a beach while her daughter performed cartwheels in a white dress.
Nora had studied Russian instead of going to yoga classes. She had a Russian-language course on her headphones instead of the latest Henning Mankell. She flew back and forth to Switzerland instead of getting treatment for her thyroid. She employed someone to knit jumpers for the children and do her cooking. She had a computer that she didn’t keep in the kitchen cupboard …
Without a Trace (Annika Bengtzon 10) Page 26