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

by Andy Maslen

‘Tomas Brömly and Inger Hedlund were responsible for implementing the eugenics programme here in Umeå in the seventies,’ she said. ‘I think someone they…’

  Kerstin paused, suddenly uncertain how to complete her sentence.

  His face had changed once more. His lip curled as he spoke. She saw contempt in those cow-like eyes with their long lashes. It distressed her more than she could explain to herself that he made no attempt to hide it.

  ‘Sterilised? Is that the word you’re searching for?’

  ‘Yes,’ she replied, unable to hold his gaze despite promising herself she would. ‘I think someone they sterilised killed them in revenge.’

  She felt tears welling up. She reached for a tissue then remembered she hadn’t packed one of the little polythene-wrapped packs in her blazer pocket.

  ‘And you know this, how?’ he asked, making another note.

  He knew. She could see it in his eyes. But he was going to make her say it out loud. To punish her. So be it. God alone knew, she deserved to be punished. She swallowed.

  ‘Because I was involved as well. There were four of us in charge. Me, Tomas, Inger and a man called Ove Mattsson. He was a doctor. He works at the university now, as a Professor of Genetics.’

  At the final word, Olin actually snorted. ‘Appropriate,’ he said. ‘To be clear, then. You say that the four of you were responsible for mass sterilisations in Umeå. When, exactly?’

  ‘From 1971 to 1976.’

  He made another note. ‘And now you believe that, somehow, after all this time, one of those you abused has taken it upon themselves to seek revenge by killing you all? That about the size of it?’

  ‘Yes.’ She felt as meek as she had at school when summoned for a ‘serious talk’ with the headmistress for one of her rare transgressions against the rules.

  ‘I need you to give me a contact number. Preferably a mobile. I’ll talk to my boss. He may want to interview you. In the meantime, I’m sorry but I can’t authorise any protection. As I said, we don’t have the resources.’

  She felt panicky. Stars flicked around the edge of her vision.

  ‘But what if they come for me? And Josef? He’s done nothing wrong. Surely you can protect him somehow?’

  Olin got to his feet and snapped his notebook shut.

  ‘I’m afraid not. Look, if you’re worried the best thing you can do is keep to your house. Stay indoors. Don’t open the door to strangers. Maybe your husband could get away for a few days. Stay with friends.’

  Annika checked her watch. Dahl had been inside for thirty minutes. Surely she couldn’t be taking much longer. She’d be telling some detective she thought Brömly’s and Hedlund’s murders were connected. It was obvious. It’s what Annika would do in her situation. Well, tough. Too late for the first two and too late for her as well. And Mattsson.

  The reflections of the birch trees in the plate-glass doors of the police station shimmered and swerved away from each other as the doors opened. There you are! Time we had a little chat. While we still can.

  Annika grabbed her bag, checked she had everything she needed, then climbed out, slammed the heavy door and locked it. Dahl was looking up and down the street as if unsure which way to go. Annika lengthened her stride.

  She was close enough now to pick out the pattern in the headscarf, which Dahl had just re-tied. Anchors and chains and little Swedish flags.

  She thought it an appropriate motif for the woman she’d vowed to destroy. The flags for the evil she and her friends had perpetrated in the name of a racially pure Sweden. The anchors for the way the past was about to drag her down.

  She came to a stop a metre away from Dahl. Who turned and started as she saw Annika.

  Annika reached into her messenger bag.

  34

  Umeå

  Kerstin looked down at the object in the woman’s right hand and her stomach flipped. The plastic ID card carried the text Journalistförbundet – Swedish Union of Journalists. In large capital letters, in English, it said, PRESS. She tried to read the name but the letters swam before her eyes.

  ‘Kerstin Dahl?’

  ‘Yes. What do you want?’

  Kerstin’s heart was racing. She felt as though she might faint. Her knees were wobbling. She realised she was hyperventilating and tried to slow down her breathing.

  ‘I want to buy you a coffee,’ the woman said. ‘Maybe a cookie, too.’

  If there was something Kerstin wanted less right now than fika with this slightly built woman pushing a press card in her face, she didn’t know what it was.

  ‘No, thank you. Can you get out of my way, please?’

  She moved to walk around the woman but she sidestepped, blocking her way.

  Kerstin briefly considered pushing her out of the way, then realised that though slim, the woman looked fit. One of those bloody women who was forever cycling or sailing or playing tennis. Trying to keep age at bay. Whereas Kerstin had long ago given up the unequal fight. And besides, how ridiculous would it look, two old women fighting in broad daylight?

  The woman put her press pass back in her bag. She shook her head, never taking her eyes off Kerstin’s. Kerstin wished she’d stop staring at her like that. It was unnerving. So very un-Swedish. She looked sad.

  ‘It was my sixteenth birthday.’

  ‘What are you talking about? Get out of my way.’

  From somewhere, Kerstin found a shred of courage. She stepped towards the younger woman and pushed her. Pain shot up her right arm. She cried out. The woman had her wrist in a bony grip.

  ‘That butcher Mattsson was so clumsy, I bled for a week,’ the woman hissed.

  Now Kerstin knew. She felt panicky. Black spots swam in her vision and she really did think she might pass out. She felt the woman leading her away from the police station.

  The murderer had come for her at last. The police would find her body and that sneering young detective would have to explain to his superiors how he ignored the plea of an old woman for police protection.

  On heavy legs she stumbled along, dimly aware that the woman had transferred her grip. Now she was squeezing Kerstin’s hand so hard she could feel the thin bones grinding against each other. She’d have bruises tonight, for sure. How would she explain them to Josef? He was bound to notice.

  The woman folded Kerstin’s arm up in front of her, still crushing her hand, and held her elbow with her other hand. She felt powerless, propelled along like one of those doddery old dears you saw on the TV in reports on care homes.

  A horrible thought struck her. Was she a doddery old dear? Is that how a passerby would view her? An old bird with incipient Alzheimer’s being taken for a walk by a friend two decades her junior. Out for the morning and a nice spot of lunch together.

  ‘Where are you taking me?’ she croaked.

  ‘I said. Coffee and cookies. If you don’t want a cookie, have a croissant. Or nothing. I don’t care.’

  Somehow she managed to stay on her feet. The woman had eased off the pressure on Kerstin’s right hand and the pain had subsided. But her grip was still firm and Kerstin had no doubt any attempt by her to free herself and escape would be met by renewed force.

  The woman led her to a cafe she’d seen many times but never visited. It looked too studenty for her tastes. Ask & Embla, it was called, after the first two humans in Norse mythology.

  The interior reflected the theme the owners had chosen for the name. One wall featured across its entire length a beautiful mural of Yggdrasil, the tree at the centre of the cosmos, surrounded by the nine worlds.

  In niches set into the facing wall stood realistically modelled and painted figurines of the various Norse gods. She spotted Thor with his hammer. A red-haired female with ridiculously large breasts who might have been Odin’s consort, Frigg.

  ‘What do you want?’ the woman asked, pushing Kerstin down into a chair at a vacant table.

  ‘I’m not hungry.’

  ‘Have a coffee at least. And don’t look so worri
ed. I haven’t come to kill you.’

  Kerstin didn’t know that she believed her. But surely she wouldn’t try anything in the cafe? Not with half a dozen witnesses. Could she signal to the barista somehow? Or ask to use the toilet then text Josef that she was in danger?

  ‘A latte, please.’

  The woman nodded. ‘Good. One latte coming up. And please don’t think of leaving before I get back. I know where you live and I’ll just come to find you there.’

  Somehow the woman’s words were all the more frightening for having been delivered in such a reasonable tone. Kerstin nodded. Her legs didn’t feel strong enough to get her to the door, let alone all the way back to her car.

  The woman returned a few minutes later. For the first time, she smiled.

  ‘Table service. It’s one of the reasons I like this place. That and the crazy artwork.’ She pointed to the mural. ‘I know the artist. He’s a very talented young man.’

  ‘Who are you?’ Kerstin asked at last.

  The woman took a sip of her coffee and bit delicately into her kanelbullar.

  ‘Delicious,’ she said. ‘Best in Umeå.’ She brushed a crumb from the corner of her mouth. ‘My name is Annika Ivarsson. Ove Mattsson sterilised me at University Hospital of Umeå on my sixteenth birthday. Tomas Brömly drove me there in his new yellow Saab. It had black leather upholstery and it smelled of strawberries.’

  ‘What are you going to do to me?’

  ‘I thought I’d interview you.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m writing a lengthy article on the forgotten children of Umeå. Those of us who grew up in children’s homes and were sterilised under your bloody rule during the seventies,’ she said. ‘Mattsson, you, Brömly and Hedlund. Of course it won’t carry quite the same punch now the last two are dead, but I’ve come too far in my research to give up now.’

  Kerstin could feel herself relaxing. She had to fight down an urge to laugh, right here among the arty types sipping their coffees and nibbling on cakes and pastries.

  ‘You’re really not going to kill me, are you?’

  Ivarsson smiled. ‘Is that what you thought? No, I’m not going to kill you. Though I hope I can ruin what remains of your lives – you and Mattsson – by exposing you to the glare of publicity.’

  Kerstin opened her mouth. Then she clamped her lips. Hold on. Why on earth should she talk to this woman? This journalist?

  She’d always made a point of avoiding them whenever possible when she’d been a minister, and it hadn’t done her any harm in the nineties. Why start now?

  She sipped her coffee. Student hangout or not, they made a lovely latte. As her fear left her, she realised she was hungry. No, not hungry, ravenous.

  ‘I think I’d like that cookie now, please,’ she said, smiling sweetly at Ivarsson.

  Tutting, Ivarsson rose from her chair and fetched back a double-chocolate cookie from the counter on a white plate with a shiny stainless-steel knife wrapped in a bright-yellow paper napkin.

  Kerstin thanked her then made great play of unwrapping the knife, laying the paper napkin on her lap and cutting the delicious-smelling cookie into two equal pieces.

  She halved one of the pieces again and popped a morsel of still-warm and slightly gooey chocolate into her mouth. She chewed slowly: the sweetness was punctuated by grains of sea salt and her mouth flooded with saliva.

  As she swallowed, she regarded the woman sitting opposite. Perhaps Ivarsson could ruin her reputation. But so what? A minute or two ago she’d been convinced the woman intended to murder her.

  Kerstin was eighty-one. Three years older than her mother had been when she died. Every year now was a bonus, that was the way she looked at it.

  Compared to a life with Josef, free of the illnesses that had robbed her remaining friends of any pleasure in their last few years on earth, she thought she could cope with a few disapproving stares. After all, plenty of people high up in Swedish society, including some very powerful media executives, would be equally anxious to let sleeping dogs lie.

  She finished her coffee and stood up, delighted by the newfound strength she could feel in her legs. And the expression on Ivarsson’s face was worth all that fear and anxiety. Her eyes, wishy-washy blue in yellowing whites, popped wide. And her mouth opened, revealing grey, uneven teeth.

  ‘Where are you going?’ she asked.

  ‘Shopping. By the way,’ Kerstin said, turning in the act of leaving the table, ‘where are you publishing this…article?’

  Ivarsson frowned. There! Kerstin caught it. The first sign of nervousness. She struck.

  ‘You’re a freelance! I saw it on your press card. You haven’t even sold the story, have you?’

  ‘I won’t need to,’ Ivarsson retorted. To Kerstin, her voice lacked conviction. ‘When I take it to an editor they’ll pay me anything for it.’

  Kerstin smirked. ‘I somehow doubt that. The eugenics story is old news. Dagens Nyheter did it to death in ninety-seven. Nobody cares about it anymore. Sweden has moved on. It’s such a shame you can’t.’

  Smiling, and feeling as if she could actually skip out of the cafe, she left Ivarsson at the table. ‘See you later, alligator,’ she called over her shoulder, not caring that two youngsters sitting by the door grinned at each other as she passed.

  By the time she reached home, her earlier confidence had dissipated. What if Ivarsson did find an editor willing to run the story? Even if the nationals wouldn’t touch it, she thought the editor of Västerbottens-Kuriren would go for it.

  She could just imagine the local paper’s lurid headlines. ‘Eugenics butchers living among us.’ ‘Hiding in plain sight: the “racial purity” fiends.’ ‘Former minister masterminded abuse of vulnerable children.’

  Even though it was she who’d made up those brief but horrifying lines, Kerstin’s heart sank at the last of them. It was true, after all.

  Without getting out of the car, she called a number she had memorised long ago.

  ‘I told you never to call me.’

  She felt a little of her former steel enter her spine again. She wasn’t about to be shafted by a muckraking journalist. Nor was she willing to let Ove Mattsson speak to her like that.

  ‘I don’t care what you told me, Professor Mattsson. Because unless you’re tired of being addressed by that title, I’d shut up and listen if I were you.’

  Gratifyingly, Ove’s tone changed at once.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘A journalist just bought me coffee. She’s writing an exposé of the Project here in Umeå. She’s going in for the kill, Ove. Me,’ a beat, ‘and you.’

  ‘Shit!’

  After a ministerial career rich in invective, Kerstin swore rarely these days. But she permitted herself a brief indulgence now.

  ‘“Shit” just about covers it. I don’t know about you, but I do not intend to have what little time remains to me ruined.’

  ‘Agreed. Listen, I’m sorry for speaking sharply a moment ago. Did she say who she was working for?’

  ‘No and that’s half the trouble. She’s freelance.’

  ‘Name?’

  ‘Annika Ivarsson. Apparently you sterilised her yourself. On her sixteenth birthday, no less.’

  Ove paused. She took it as a good sign. It meant he was thinking.

  ‘Leave this with me. I still have some friends in the media. I’ll make a few calls. Don’t worry, Kerstin, by the time I’ve finished, nobody will want to touch her story. It’ll be radioactive.’

  ‘How? What will you tell them?’

  ‘Never mind. Best you don’t know the details. Leaves you in the clear.’

  Kerstin ended the call feeling as if she’d escaped an onrushing thunderstorm. Ove had hidden their involvement for almost fifty years. She trusted him to do the same until both of them had died of natural causes. And then, who cared?

  35

  Umeå

  Stella and Oskar drove out to the Dahls’ lakeside house in possession of a valuabl
e piece of intelligence. The previous day, Kerstin Dahl had entered the police station and requested protection. It gave her an advantage in the upcoming conversation.

  Every few hundred metres, a gap would appear in the forest and Stella could see sun glinting off the lake. Here and there she glimpsed yachts and small sailing craft scudding across the ruffled surface of the water.

  She pulled off the main road and onto the Dahls’ drive. Here was yet another beautiful Swedish lakeshore house: two storeys, with a pretty balcony at the back looking over the lake. This one had been left in a natural timber, which had silvered over the years to a soft, grey sheen.

  Parked outside was a big BMW estate car, its gleaming gold paintwork reflecting the trees that towered over the house. From habit, she peered in through the windows, but the cabin was spotless. The only item visible that had not been fitted by the factory was a single bottle of water slotted into a holder between the front seats.

  They walked up to the front door and Oskar rang the bell. Stella recognised the opening bar of the Swedish national anthem. It opened immediately. Kerstin must have been waiting for them. Once the introductions were out of the way, Stella asked if she and Oskar could come in.

  Attractive now, Kerstin Dahl must once have been beautiful. High cheekbones and a wide mouth. An aristocratic nose, neither too large, nor too small and slightly uptilted. Fine lines fanning out from the eyes that bespoke a lifetime of good humour and pleasant conversation.

  Her skin was smooth and plump: no thread veins or leatheryness that would point to one or more bad habits involving alcohol or nicotine.

  But today, worry clouded her features. Without any makeup, she looked washed-out. Was it guilt or fear? Stella intended to find out.

  ‘Would you like some coffee?’ Kerstin asked as she led the two cops through the house – lots of pine panelling, simple country-style furniture – and into the garden.

  ‘That would be nice. Yes, please,’ Stella said, looking at Oskar with raised eyebrows.