Motive X

by Stefan Ahnhem

  ‘Don’t worry. She’s not a big fan of the outdoors. If it’s not too hot, it’s too cold. Not to mention all the bugs this time of year.’ He let out a short laugh and signalled to her not to follow. ‘But she’s a good person and means well. I’m not sure how I would get by without Beatrice.’

  ‘Reidar, I understand this is difficult for you. But I really do have to ask you to—’

  ‘The last time the police asked me all these questions, I told them everything was fine.’ Reidar closed his eyes against the sun. ‘That things had never been better. Those were my exact words. It was a Saturday afternoon, and I was in the middle of a badminton game when my phone rang. A double, and after the break, it was going to be my serve. I heard everything they said, every word. About how they’d found her, washed up on Ven, nailed to that…’ Reidar faltered and turned his back to the sun. ‘But I wasn’t able to take it in. I just wanted to cover my ears and close my eyes, so I hung up as though it were a wrong number and went back out on to the court and took my serve.’ He shook his head. ‘Three straight aces. Don’t think I’ve ever served better. It was only when I got back home it started to sink in. That those words were so much more than words. The police were already there, waiting to bring me in for questioning. And I told them about how great things were between us. Said what I thought I should say. How passionately in love we still were after all our years together. That our sex life had never been better. Anything to keep them from suspecting me. From suspecting that I was the one behind that—’ He broke off and looked like he had to focus all his energy on not crying. ‘But it was all a lie.’

  ‘Which parts weren’t true?’

  ‘None of it was. Not one word I said was true. She wasn’t home that Friday when I got back from work. But did I get worried and call the police?’ Reidar shook his head. ‘I assumed she’d left me and would be back when she ran out of money. I wasn’t even worried. Our relationship was so destructive that looking back now, I’ve no idea why she stayed. I made everything toxic and made sure I broke her to make her need me.’ He turned around and looked Fabian in the eyes. ‘She never came out and said it, but I could tell from the look in her eyes and read it between the lines. She hated me intensely. At times, I think she even wished I would die. And in hindsight, I have no problem seeing why. Living with me must have been torture. I’m a different person now, but back then I was a controlling, condescending prick. And to answer your question – of course I was convinced she was having an affair, so I watched her like a hawk.’ He shook his head. ‘Once, I even got it in my head that she was sleeping with our neighbour. Right, maybe you know him. Ingvar Molander. He works for the police, too, but he’s a crime technician.’

  Fabian ignored the question. He’d been given all the information he needed. He was about to thank the man for talking to him and wish him a good day, when a woman on a bicycle suddenly called out to them.

  ‘Why, hello there!’

  Fabian looked at the woman, who was wearing a bike helmet and sunglasses, but couldn’t place her.

  ‘It’s Fabian, isn’t it?’

  He did recognize her voice, though.

  ‘Hi, Gertrud,’ Reidar shouted, waving. ‘I figured you two might know each other.’

  Of course Ingvar Molander’s wife had to ride by at this precise moment. He almost couldn’t believe it, but the very thing he’d been trying to avoid by not going to Reidar’s house had just happened anyway.

  ‘Hi there,’ he finally managed to squeeze out, and he added a wave, frantically trying to think of some way of saving the situation. ‘Long time no see. How are you these days?’

  ‘Good, thank you.’ Gertrud had now pedalled over to them. ‘But I didn’t know you two knew each other.’

  ‘We don’t,’ Reidar Dahlberg replied. ‘But they’ve reopened Inga’s case. Apparently there’s new information, which as far as I can make out is interesting enough that they’re hoping it might lead to an arrest down the line.’

  It was too late. The catastrophe was already a fact.

  ‘Oh, really. Well, imagine that. I haven’t heard anything about it.’

  ‘Apparently they’re keeping it quiet until the perpetrator has been caught. So it’s not something we should be spreading around. Right? That’s what you said, isn’t it?’

  Fabian could only nod and watch as the scorching meltdown ate through one containment wall after another.

  45

  MURDER AT ICA MAXI, HYLLINGE IN SHOCK!

  LAUNDRY ROOM PAEDOPHILE STILL AT LARGE

  POLICE THREAT TO DEMOCRACY! HEADS WILL ROLL!

  For once, there was so much going on, the tabloids were all running different headlines. All of them were, however, unanimous in their message about imminent societal breakdown, and two of them carried pictures of a neat and proper but incensed Sievert Landertz, just released from detention.

  Lilja felt sure hers was one of the heads that was going to roll. He had already mentioned her by name on the radio; she would be shocked if he hadn’t hung her out to dry in the papers as well. Landertz had a habit of attacking, and right now, she was in his sights.

  She didn’t care in the slightest. She didn’t even have it in her to be upset. They were empty threats, attempts to clear himself and his son. For that reason, she resisted the urge to sneak into the Furutorp corner shop to buy up all their papers. Besides, she didn’t have time.

  The task of locating Assar Skanås’s phone had gone as expected. Molander had been able to tell them straight away that it was unsearchable, which could mean anything from it simply being turned off or out of battery to it sleeping with the fishes at the bottom of Öresund.

  What they had found was a logged position from when it was last connected, which turned out to have been that same morning, just after their meeting. At that time, it had been in the middle of the town centre, near Consul Olsson Square, where at 10.54 a.m. it had received a call from a hidden number before being turned off again twenty-one minutes later on Söder, where the police station was located.

  It was now quarter past one, which meant he had a two-and-a-half-hour head start. That wasn’t a lot of time, but certainly enough for him to cross the border and, at least in theory, be on his way to the other side of the world. But theory was one thing, practice another. A more likely scenario was that he was holed up somewhere, waiting for things to blow over.

  She and Molander and Tuvesson had done a risk assessment and decided that she could go over there unaccompanied. Granted, with three simultaneous cases their workload had been a big factor in their decision-making, but she shouldn’t be in any real danger.

  She passed the funeral home on Furutorpsgatan.

  Even so, her body was pumping out adrenaline, as though preparing for the worst, as she approached the given location at the lower end of Carl Krooks Gata.

  The area had been pinpointed by five masts and looked like an oval with a sixty-five-foot semi-major and a fifteen-foot semi-minor axis. The centre of the oval was at the junction of Furutorpsgatan and Carl Krooks Gata, and even though she had no memory of ever having been there before, it didn’t take her long to conclude that it was one of Helsingborg’s most depressing intersections.

  Four buildings, one on each corner, each uglier than the last. And that was despite three of them having large corner balconies. Even though the sun was out, there was nothing on them but satellite dishes, rubbish and the occasional pigeon. Clearly, this was a forgotten corner of the city and in many ways a perfect location for a furtive child murderer.

  That said, he could, of course, simply have been walking that way when he realized he’d forgotten to turn his phone off. Maybe he’d been on his way to the South Harbour via the underpass. There were a handful of residential buildings there. But apart from those, that area of town was mostly offices, industrial buildings and, in the main, a lot of freight and container ships. A possible way out if you didn’t want to leave signs of your departure.

  If, on the other han
d, he was holed up inside, there were, as far as she could make out, only two possible entrances within the confines of the oval. Furutorpsgatan 26 and Carl Krooks Gata 55. Of the two, the entrance on Furutorpsgatan was further from the centre of the oval, so she decided to start with the other one.

  The building had five floors, and each floor had three flats. Among the fifteen names on the blue felt board with pinned-on plastic letters there were two Perssons, two Nilssons and no less than four Svenssons. On the third floor lived a P. Milwokh. She’d never heard the name before. At least not as far as she could remember. And yet it sounded vaguely familiar.

  When she couldn’t think of why, she continued towards the lift, which jerked to life and started ascending at an uncommonly slow and uneven pace. She’d never been scared of lifts, but this particular one added to her unease, which had been growing since she walked past the funeral home.

  When the lift finally came to a stop, she couldn’t get out fast enough. She proceeded to examine the three front doors, which looked like they were being cared for about as tenderly as the lift.

  A. Andersson, B. Andersson and C. Andersson.

  Was someone having her on?

  The Andersson on the far left seemed the tidiest. Unlike the other two, he had neither bin bags nor shoes outside his door. If it even was a he? Judging from the postcard of roses on the door, it was more likely to be a woman. The Andersson on the right, on the other hand, was definitely a man, unless she was the owner of giant, Guinness World Record worthy, size-nineteen shoes. If not for the row of children’s shoes, she might have rung the bell. Instead, she turned her attention to the bin bag outside B. Andersson’s door.

  She walked over, squatted down and opened it. A cloud of fruit flies swarmed up at her, causing her to back away instinctively, which made the bag tip over and spill its contents on to the floor.

  In addition to various mouldy food remnants, she could see advertisement flyers from low-cost chain Alfo Gross, an old bottle of neon-blue nail polish and a push-up bra from H&M.

  B. Andersson was most likely a relatively young woman who had nothing to do with the man they were after.

  But, then, what had she expected? That he would jump out and turn himself in, just because she was poking through people’s rubbish? No, she should just quickly scan each floor and then turn the door-knocking over to a couple of uniformed officers, so she could be put to better use in the office.

  The first thing she saw when she reached the next floor down was the note on the middle door.

  Nice one-bed sublet from 1 July. 5,300 kronor/month.

  Without knowing if she was really going to call, she ripped off one of the tabs with the phone number before turning to the door on the right.

  P. Milwokh.

  She definitely recognized it. But just like when you ran into someone from primary school who looked different now or hadn’t made a lasting impression, the name was little more than a combination of letters.

  There was only one way to find out, she thought to herself, and she walked over and rang the bell. But she couldn’t hear it ring, so she pressed the little beige button again, harder this time. Still no sound. She knocked instead, so hard her knuckles smarted.

  When that went unnoticed too, she decided to do a search for the name instead, as soon as she got back to the office. But just as she turned to leave, the tiny pinprick of light in the peephole darkened.

  So there was someone inside.

  She knocked again. ‘This is the police! Please open the door!’ She held out her ID and waited a few more seconds, during which nothing happened, and then pulled out her phone. ‘If you don’t, I have no other choice than to call for back-up to break the door down.’

  The peephole remained dark.

  Was she mistaken? Had the peephole in fact been dark all along?

  She had taken a step towards the door and grabbed the letter box when her phone suddenly lit up.

  It was Hampus.

  He, who never called, of course he would choose this moment to be in touch, when she had neither the time nor any desire to hear his voice.

  She declined the call and turned back to the letter box, but then her phone rang again.

  ‘Hampus, what are you doing?’ she hissed into the phone. ‘I’m busy and I can’t—’

  ‘I know, but I think you’d better come home right now,’ he said, sounding unusually calm and collected.

  ‘Why, what happened? Did something even happen? Or are you just having trouble finding the Coke? Because if that’s the case, I can tell you we’re out and you’re just going to have to work up the energy to go to the shops and—’

  ‘As I said, I think you’d better come and see for yourself.’

  46

  ‘Einar Greide in Forensics, and yes, you have it right – I’m too busy to talk to you right now. And no, don’t leave a message. If I don’t have time to talk to you, why would I have time to listen to you?’

  There was a beep; Fabian ended the call. Flätan was known for his hatred of phones, mobiles in particular, and had made a habit of never taking his mandatory work phone home with him.

  He called two more times just for the sake of it. At least that way he could say he’d called three times before he decided to go to his house.

  He’d never been to Flätan’s house before and wasn’t exactly looking forward to it. The address had not been listed online, and no one at Helsingborg Hospital seemed to know it either, unless they’d in fact been given strict orders not to give it out under any circumstances.

  His colleague Arne Gruvesson, on the other hand, had immediately given Fabian the number without objection. Indeed, he’d seemed almost giddy at the thought of Fabian going over there to bother Flätan at the weekend, and his birthday weekend to boot.

  He parked on Traktörsgatan 38 and gazed up at the two-storey, side-facing brick house. It was quiet. Surprisingly quiet, considering how close to Söder it was. Once upon a time, the area had probably been teeming with children learning to ride bikes and playing hopscotch and tennis in the streets. Now they’d all flown the coop, leaving their parents to polish their cars while they waited for grandchildren to come and visit.

  The only thing that didn’t fit in was Flätan. He had neither a car nor children, and his garish clothes and long grey hair likely irked several of his neighbours no end. Knowing the coroner, though, he couldn’t care less.

  Fabian stepped through the small wooden gate and suddenly thought of Molander’s wife, Gertrud, who had stumbled right into his meeting with Reidar Dahlberg. She had reacted, that much was undeniable. But whether it was to the fact that the investigation had been reopened or that she hadn’t known about it was far from clear.

  If the latter, there was a considerable risk she might already have called her husband to ask why he hadn’t mentioned it to her. If the former, she would likely hold off on bringing it up until he came home from work.

  If they even talked about things like that. It was conceivable that Molander, much like himself, avoided discussing his work at the dinner table. The question was if that would discourage Gudrun from bringing it up. It was impossible to know.

  What was certain was that if she did tell him, he would have to let Tuvesson in on his secret investigation as quickly as possible so they could prepare an arrest order, praying they had enough evidence to secure a conviction.

  He rang the doorbell, but couldn’t tell if it was working. After a few attempts, he gave up and tried to walk around to the back instead, but a tall wall blocked his way, so he crossed over to the driveway on the other side of the house.

  The garage was locked, as expected, and beyond that he was cut off by the neighbours’ overgrown hedge. There really wasn’t enough space, but with some effort he was able to push in between the hard, spiky branches and the garage wall.

  A big back garden opened up on the other side. It was completely private and the trees were hung with hundreds of tiny disco balls that sent specks of
light dancing across the lawn, which also housed, among other things, a tall wooden totem pole. A familiar electronic ambient groove was pulsing out of the surround speakers at a pleasant volume.

  Trentemøller’s The Last Resort. He had the album in his collection, and even though he hadn’t listened to it in a long time, he rated it as one of the best albums ever to come out of neighbouring Denmark. That Flätan had even heard of it was impressive.

  He walked on past some shrubs and spotted Flätan in a large hot tub full of steaming water, meditating with his eyes closed while a bronzed Adonis at least twenty years his junior massaged his shoulders, sitting right behind him in the tub.

  The notion that he should probably sneak back out the way he’d come and heed Tuvesson’s advice to wait until Monday occurred to him too late; the young man had already noticed him and stopped his massaging, which made Flätan open his eyes and give Fabian a tired look.

  ‘Hello,’ Fabian said, waving while he worked on his smile. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know you—’ It felt like he’d just been caught red-handed and sent to the headmaster’s office. ‘If it works better for you, I can wait until you’re done with—’ he continued, and made a move to back away.

  ‘That would unquestionably have been preferable. But unfortunately, you’ve already disturbed the energy fields.’ Flätan signalled to the man behind him that the session was over. ‘And for your sake, I hope this is important.’ He pointed straight at Fabian. ‘So important it can under no circumstances wait until tomorrow.’

  The younger man climbed out of the hot tub, and even though Fabian looked away, he had time to note that his golden-brown body was as close to perfect as it was possible to get. His wasn’t a body that spent its days lifting weights in a gym. No, it stayed fit some other way. Maybe climbing or yoga.

  ‘Coge el floreado,’ Flätan said in fluent Spanish. In response, the man fetched a floral bathrobe and held it up so Flätan could climb out of the tub. ‘Mientras tanto puedes adobar la carne. Y luego pásame mi maletín, por favour. Ya sabes, el marrón.’