A Beautiful Breed of Evil (The DI Stella Cole Thrillers Book 5)

by Andy Maslen

  She picked up the ‘Lynne’ figure and brought it to shore. She laid it down between two of the trees Simone had crudely sketched in.

  ‘Try this on for size,’ she said. ‘Adam, for some reason, maybe the shooter forces him to, shoots Lynne on dry land. Then he drives out onto the ice, again, maybe he’s at gunpoint. The shooter kills him then runs back, drags Lynne out to the hole and dumps her in.’

  Simone shook her head. ‘If Adam’s got a Glock, why doesn’t he just shoot our mystery guy? Why go along with an order to kill his wife?’

  Roisin frowned. Simone was right. She pulled out a nugget of advice from her training. If you can’t figure it out, think the unthinkable.

  ‘What if Adam wanted to kill Lynne? What if he killed her just before the other shooter arrived?’

  Simone nodded slowly.

  ‘He’s panicking,’ she said. ‘He drives onto the ice to escape the shooter. But he’s not used to Minnesota weather. He thinks the ice will hold him. He’ll drive across or along the ice and escape further down the shoreline.’

  ‘But the ice cracked and he went through,’ Roisin said. ‘The shooter followed Adam onto the ice and shot him where he sat, then the SUV sank.’

  ‘The shooter dragged Lynne’s body over and dropped it in the hole, along with the Airweight.’

  Roisin nodded. It worked except that now she was faced with another mystery. If Adam had killed Lynne before the shooter arrived, it was murder. What was his motive for killing his wife? With the prospect of the investigation into the Colliers’ deaths splitting into two before her eyes, Roisin turned to the little figures on the ice.

  A sentence from the ME’s report on Adam Collier came back to her. ‘Edges of bullet hole and fractures to frontal bone indicate a downward trajectory from a shot fired straight-on.’

  She picked up the FBI figure, bent its knees and placed it on the hood, arm outstretched and angled down into the cabin.

  Roisin looked at the figures and the toy SUV. For some reason, Adam Collier killed his wife in the middle of nowhere. A mystery shooter arrived, having somehow worked out where to find him. The shooter’s intended victim must have been Adam. If it was Lynne, there was no need to kill Adam at all. They could have vanished, leaving Adam as the prime suspect in any subsequent murder investigation. So, who had a motive to kill Adam Collier?

  It would have to wait. She wanted to see the SUV.

  17

  Stockholm

  Stella emerged onto Vasträ Trädgårdsgatan in her running gear at 6.58 p.m. and looked up and down the narrow street for Johanna. This far north, and approaching the summer solstice, which she’d read the Swedes celebrated as Midsommar, the sun was still high in the sky. It felt more like early afternoon than early evening.

  While she waited, a few pedestrians nodded to her and smiled. She inhaled deeply, catching a whiff of someone’s toffee-flavoured vape. Despite the shit-show with Jamie, despite Roisin digging around in stuff Stella had thought literally dead and buried, despite everything, this felt good.

  She found she couldn’t wait to get started. Her legs were twitching with pent-up tension. She now realised how badly she needed to feel herself flowing along in that blissful state when everything became clearer, simpler and easier to understand.

  A tap on her shoulder made her turn. Johanna stood beside her, close enough to smell her perfume, a light, floral scent. In her leggings and running top, cropped to show off a flat, muscular stomach, there was no escaping her incredible physique.

  ‘Hej!’ she said, leaning closer to kiss Stella on each cheek. ‘You look great! Ready to go?’

  ‘More than ready.’

  ‘I thought we’d head into Kungsträdgården and do a couple of laps to warm up, then there’s a really nice waterside circuit we can do. About 5K. That all right with you?’

  Stella smiled. ‘Sounds great.’

  The two women set off, side by side, splitting around other pedestrians and nodding to fellow joggers heading in the opposite direction. Johanna looked as though she could run at twice the pace she’d set, though Stella was finding it easy to match her.

  The park was surfaced with Astroturf. Stella wondered why the city council hadn’t gone for grass. Plastic turf in somewhere as environmentally aware as Sweden struck her as odd.

  She and Johanna ran round the periphery twice, picking up the pace a little on each turn.

  Johanna turned her head as they completed the second circuit. ‘Ready to hit the waterside?’ she asked.

  ‘Let’s go.’

  Johanna led her out of the park and onto Strömgatan. Concrete bollards linked with heavy black iron chains stood between the pedestrians and the waters of Lilla Värtan maybe a couple of metres below.

  Stella found her rhythm easily and, as they ran almost hip to hip, she asked Johanna the question she’d been mulling over all day.

  ‘Do you think a woman could have done it? The business with the tongue?’

  ‘For sure! You know, in the town where I grew up, the butcher’s shop was called Petersson och Döttrar. You know what that means?’

  ‘Petersson and Daughters?’

  ‘Yes, exactly! And daughters. I was best friends with Hanna, the older one. She and Stina, they would do all the work that their dad did. Cut up the carcases, take out the guts, do whatever was needed. And guess what they like to eat the most in their house?’

  ‘Surprise me.’

  ‘Långsamt kokt oxtunga.’

  Stella laughed, dodging an elderly man using a Zimmer frame. ‘I didn’t get all of that, but I’m guessing oxtunga is ox tongue.’

  ‘You’re right. The rest means slow-cooked. We ate it with French fries and pickled vegetables. Even now, when I go back home, that’s what I ask my mum to cook for me.’ Johanna slowed down a little so she could turn her face to look at Stella. ‘Speaking of food, do you want to get some dinner after this?’

  ‘Love to. I haven’t had anything since breakfast. I need to change, though.’

  ‘Me too. Why don’t we circle back to your hotel? You can shower and change, then I’ll drive you over to mine and I’ll change there, then cook for you.’

  Stella hesitated, just for a second. Was Johanna coming on to her? It had never happened before. Gareth always joked that Stella sent out mega-strong ‘straight-girl vibes’ as he called them in his lilting Welsh accent. But the way Johanna had checked her out earlier, and called her pronunciation ‘cute’? Hey, what did it matter? It was no different to a man inviting her, and she’d probably say yes to him. Just not take it any further.

  ‘Stella?’

  ‘Sorry, yes, thanks. I’d love to. Just as long as it’s not Långsamt kokt oxtunga!’

  Johanna laughed, revealing crooked front teeth. At last! A flaw in that irritatingly perfect face. They turned left and ran back through another park and a few more wide, clean, birch-lined streets.

  ‘Come up,’ Stella said, as she collected her key from reception. ‘I won’t take long, then we can go.’

  Stella closed the bathroom door behind her, having left Johanna sitting in a squishy armchair reading a magazine. She glanced down at the lock beneath the handle.

  Hesitating for a second, she stretched out her right hand, then, as quietly as she could manage, twisted the chrome knob to the stop. She felt silly for doing it, but shrugged her shoulders. If Johanna said anything she could always put it down to English squeamishness about nudity.

  As she massaged shampoo into her hair, she looked over to the door and saw the handle inching downwards. It stopped, paused, then returned to its horizontal position. She smiled to herself.

  Ten minutes later, feeling tingly from the heat of the shower and full of energy after the run, she was sitting beside Johanna in her pistachio-green Fiat 500. Johanna put the little car’s transmission into first and pulled away, zipping into a gap between two looming black Audis.

  ‘You smell nice,’ Johanna said. ‘What is that?’

  ‘Miller H
arris Feuilles de Tabac. It’s my boyfriend’s.’

  Stella hadn’t meant to add the second sentence. But she registered Johanna’s tiny pause.

  ‘Unisex, then?’

  ‘I guess so.’

  ‘How long have you two been together?’

  Stella sighed. ‘Er, not very long, actually. About a year.’

  ‘You sound sad. What is it?’

  ‘It’s a long story. A glass of wine story.’

  Johanna smiled. Nodded. ‘We can do that.’

  The evening traffic was slow and it took another fifteen minutes to reach Johanna’s apartment building.

  Inside, Stella marvelled at the sleek flat with its white and beige palette and the frill-free contemporary furniture. Pale woods with contrasting grains like winding black rivers dominated. A painting of a birch forest occupied most of one wall.

  ‘Make yourself at home. I’m going to take a quick shower,’ Johanna said.

  A picture window gave onto an expanse of water dotted with small sailing craft and larger pleasure vessels including multi-decked, glass-enclosed tourist boats. Stella stood there people-watching while Johanna changed.

  ‘Red or white?’ Johanna called from the kitchen five minutes later.

  ‘White, please.’

  Johanna entered the living room bearing two long-stemmed wine glasses, a bottle in a wooden cooler and a white porcelain bowl of green olives on a black lacquer tray. She’d done her hair up in a loose pleat at the back of her head. A couple of tresses curled artfully down to her collar bones. She’d paired a simple turquoise shirt with pale, tight jeans. She was barefoot.

  She poured them both some wine and raised her own glass. ‘Welcome to Sweden, to Stockholm and to my humble abode. Skål!’

  ‘Skål!’ Stella clinked rims and took a sip. The aroma of new-mown grass and gooseberries filled her nose as she drank the lightly chilled wine.

  Johanna motioned for her to sit. Stella chose an armchair – unbleached cotton stretched over a bentwood frame. Johanna took the end of the matching sofa nearest to her guest.

  ‘What’s the cost of living like in Stockholm?’ Stella asked. ‘All I know is alcohol is supposed to be very expensive.’

  Johanna laughed. ‘It’s not just supposed to be expensive. It really is. Are you perhaps wondering how I could afford my apartment? Waterfront location, amazing views, three bedrooms, state-of-the-art kitchen?’

  Stella shook her head. ‘No! Not at all.’ But she had to admit, Johanna was on the nose. She had been thinking just that. A detective sergeant in her early thirties living in a swanky city centre flat like this.

  She didn’t know what the SPA paid its sergeants, but there was no way a DS in the Met could afford a place like this.

  ‘Most people come to the same conclusion. They think I must be on the make – is that right?’

  Stella shrugged again. ‘I think “take” is more usual, but they both mean basically the same thing.’

  ‘Thanks. Well I’m not. I said I was in Financial Crime, right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I studied Finance at university. The crime side of the industry interested me but I also learnt enough to get into investing as a sideline. You’re looking at the fruits of my own hard work.’

  Stella nodded and took a sip of wine to hide her embarrassment. ‘Good for you. I wish I knew how to do that.’

  ‘It’s mainly down to research. Then you just need a strategy.’

  ‘You make it sound so simple.’

  Johanna drew one leg up and folded it beneath her. ‘OK, maybe a master’s in International Finance and Investment helps,’ she said with a smile.

  Stella laughed. It felt good to be far from home, drinking a clearly expensive bottle of wine with an intelligent woman who was unafraid of going for whatever she wanted. Whatever being the operative word.

  ‘Story time,’ Johanna said decisively. She leaned forwards, plucked an olive from the bowl and popped it into her mouth. ‘Tell me about you and your boyfriend.’

  Stella gave her an edited account of her and Jamie’s relationship. Meeting through work – the old story – discovering they had lots in common, from a dark sense of humour to liking Renaissance art. Keeping clothes at each other’s places.

  ‘Then what happened?’ Johanna asked, as Stella petered out at the days immediately before her trip to Sweden.

  She poured another glass of wine for Stella and topped up her own.

  ‘He suggested we move in together and I felt I needed to be honest with him about something. He didn’t take it so well and he left. Went to stay in a hotel. I haven’t heard from him since.’

  ‘What thing?’

  Stella looked at Johanna, searching behind those grey-blue eyes for some prurient desire to know another’s secrets. But she saw only unfettered curiosity. An enviable quality in a detective, but a pain in the arse from a new friend.

  ‘Something I did that I’m not massively proud of.’

  Johanna nodded, adopting a knowing expression. ‘Been there, sister. Sometimes you have to draw a line, yes?’

  ‘That’s what I’m hoping.’

  ‘Have you called him? Texted?’

  ‘I’m letting him make the first move,’ Stella said, discounting her texts as not worth the name ‘move’.

  ‘I went through something similar with my ex-girlfriend. She asked me to marry her. As we were being totally honest about our past relationships, I told her I hadn’t always been a lesbian. She went crazy! My god, Stella, if you’ve never seen a dyke lose her shit, it’s not something you’d pay to get a ringside seat for, I can tell you. Awful.’

  Stella laughed loudly. Somehow, Johanna’s confirmation that she was gay took all the tension out of the air. She felt herself relax, and, as soon as she did, the wine hit her and she felt a delicious warmth spreading out from the pit of her stomach.

  ‘Were you hitting on me earlier?’ she asked.

  Johanna smiled. ‘You’re an attractive woman. You know that, right? And don’t give me any of that terrible British modesty, because you are. So, maybe, yes, a little bit. But I won’t anymore. We can still be friends, yes?’

  ‘Of course. I’m just not, you know—’

  ‘It’s fine. Honestly. Probably, I broke about a million SPA rules. So, let’s talk about the case.’

  With the elephant in the room gently led out by its keeper, there seemed to be more air to breathe. And in the space created, something scratched at Stella’s brain. Something to do with Cap’n Coat. And Johanna. It wouldn’t come. Plenty of time. Let it find its own way to the surface.

  ‘I spent all day looking into Brömly’s background,’ Stella said. ‘I spoke to eight people, no, nine. I even tracked down a couple of his school friends. They’re all old now, but some have amazingly clear memories.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Nobody had a bad word to say about him. I’m surprised he wasn’t nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.’

  ‘No sexual indiscretions?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘Money worries?’

  ‘Nuh-uh. Nothing.’

  ‘Any snags in his military record?’

  ‘Nope. He did his national service – värnplikt?’ Johanna nodded. ‘In the tenth Psyops-förbandet. A lot of that’s classified, but, from what I could see, his service was blameless and undistinguished.’

  ‘Sounds like he made a career out of not giving people a reason to kill him.’

  ‘Yes, it does, except for one thing. There’s a big gap between 1971 and 1976 when all it says is voluntary service in Africa. It’s like a black hole. No information escapes that period in his life.’

  Johanna took a sip from her glass.

  ‘In finance, you look for trading patterns or sudden spikes in profits or losses that can’t be explained by analysis of a company’s fundamental financial data. Anomalies, yes? So that’s your anomaly.’

  ‘That’s where I’m at, too. We need to know what Brömly was up to
in the early seventies.’

  Johanna nodded. ‘Come into the kitchen and we’ll talk while I cook.’

  ‘Anything I can do to help?’ Stella asked in the spotless wood-and-stainless-steel appointed kitchen.

  ‘You could make us a salad. There’s loads of stuff in the fridge.’

  As Stella chopped and sliced tomatoes, avocado, spring onions and fresh herbs, Johanna set to work on two rainbow trout, slitting their bellies open and cleaning them with swift, decisive movements.

  After thirty minutes they were sitting facing each other across a table of spalted maple wood. The colours in its variegated top ranged from the palest sand to a dark, ashy grey. Black lines, swirls and pockmarks gave it the look of a desert criss-crossed by roads and dried-up riverbeds.

  The trout was excellent. Johanna had served it simply, a dollop of horseradish cream on the side, lemon wedges and a few grinds of black pepper.

  Johanna took a sip of her wine. ‘Did you lose your husband?’

  Stella’s stomach flipped. ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Sorry. My ex always said I had no filter. It’s just you’re wearing a wedding ring, but on your right hand. I just thought…’ She tailed off, a blush creeping over her cheeks.

  Finally, after a mouthful of wine, Stella nodded. ‘He was killed by a hit and run driver. Ten years ago. My baby daughter, too.’

  Johanna’s face fell. ‘I’m so sorry. How dumb of me to ask. Did they catch the driver?’

  Stella gave herself time to think by cutting another chunk of the trout and popping it into her mouth. It was a good question. But how to answer?

  ‘He tried to evade justice. But we caught up with him in the end.’

  ‘What’s the maximum penalty for that in the UK?’

  This was an easier question. She answered at once.

  ‘Life.’ Meaning death.

  ‘Did he get that?’

  She contented herself with a nod.

  ‘I’m glad. For you. I hope it gave you some closure.’

  Stella wrinkled her nose. ‘Not really. He can’t hurt anyone else, so that’s something, but I still miss them both. A lot.’