Cinderella Girl (27 page)

‘Were you aware that your father was on the boat?’ Hamad asked Joakim.

‘No,’ Joakim answered quietly. ‘Not until the morning. He showed up in the breakfast lounge.’

He did not dare look at his father when he answered. Nor could he stand to meet the eyes of the policemen. He stared down at the floor with his arms hanging at his sides.

‘Why haven’t you told us this before?’ asked Sjöberg.

‘Why should I have? No one asked. We didn’t travel together.’

‘But still,’ Sjöberg attempted, ‘you must have been very surprised when your father suddenly showed up out of nowhere.’

‘Yes … I guess I was,’ Joakim admitted.

‘Afraid perhaps?’

Joakim did not answer.

‘What did you talk about at breakfast?’

Sjöberg turned back to the father.

‘The murder, of course,’ the man answered. ‘I guess that was all anyone was talking about that morning.’

‘Did you know it was Joakim’s girlfriend who’d been murdered?’

Göran Andersson was silent for a few seconds before he answered. ‘I had my suspicions.’

‘How’s that? Had you met her?’

‘No, I hadn’t. But I knew her name.’

‘Was it not the case,’ Sjöberg suggested sharply, ‘that you spent some time in the bar on Saturday evening together with Jennifer Johansson?’

For a fraction of a second Sjöberg thought he saw a shadow pass across Göran Andersson’s face before he answered with a surprised laugh.

‘Where in the name of God did you get that from? I’ve never seen her! Until they showed me a picture of her in the morning.’

‘And if someone says they’ve seen you in the bar with her? What do you say to that?’

For the first time during the conversation Joakim looked over at his father. Sjöberg sensed both astonishment and fear in that look. A penny for your thoughts, Joakim, he thought before the father answered.

‘That
someone
is not a credible witness.’

‘I can tell you a thing or two about credibility,’ Hamad said. ‘A credible person does not assault his son. A credible person does not live his life in isolation with a seriously ill woman enclosed in a room without care. A credible person does not sleep in the same bed as his adult son.’

During the silence that followed his colleague’s unexpected outburst, Sjöberg observed father and son and noted that Joakim was blushing and had turned his eyes down to the floor again, while his father’s face was like stone. No one said anything for a long time.

‘How do you know Elise Johansson?’ Sjöberg broke the silence.

‘Who the hell is that?’

‘Elise is Jennifer’s sister, and we know that you met her a few hours ago.’

‘I don’t know her.’

‘Apparently you know her well enough to spit out a number of ugly things to her. “Aren’t you dead, you little
whore?” for example. Why did you say that to a fourteen-year-old who has just lost her sister?’

Göran Andersson recovered quickly and answered without any hesitation, ‘She looked like that Jennifer. I thought it was her.’

‘You can’t very well have thought that, because you knew she was dead, didn’t you?’

‘All the more reason to be surprised,’ Göran Andersson observed drily.

‘So it was pure surprise that made you say that?’

‘Yes, you might say that.’

‘Who were you comparing her to?’

‘What do you mean, compare?’

‘Who were you comparing Elise to?’

‘To Jennifer, of course. What kind of crazy questions are these?’

‘But you’d never seen her, you say,’ Sjöberg continued.

‘I saw her on that picture they showed us, damn it.’

‘Would that be enough for you to see a similarity between the sisters? A photograph?’

‘Apparently,’ Joakim’s father answered coldly.

‘I don’t believe that,’ Sjöberg continued tirelessly. ‘You were with Jennifer in the bar, and that was the image you were comparing Elise with.’

‘You can believe what you want.’

‘But why did you call her a whore?’ asked Hamad.

‘I guess I thought she looked like one,’ answered Göran Andersson with a crooked smile.

‘Do you mean you would say the same sort of thing to anyone at all you think looks sluttish?’

‘Anyone at all, I don’t know exactly …’

Sjöberg did not intend to let him off that easily. He couldn’t escape logic just by being shameless.

‘You meet a girl in the stairwell outside. You maintain that you’ve never seen her before, and yet you say, “Aren’t you dead, you little whore?” Now I want you to explain to me exactly what was going on in your mind when you said that. Otherwise we’re taking you to the police station for interrogation.’

Göran Andersson let out a heavy sigh and finally answered reluctantly. ‘There has been one girl in Joakim’s life. One girl, and it was that Jennifer. I’d seen the picture of her the police showed. I didn’t like it that Joakim was going out with her. She was a bad influence on him. He went to Finland with her, even though I’d told him not to. So when I’m coming up the stairs and I catch sight of Joakim with a girl who I think looks exactly like Jennifer in the picture, I guess something goes wrong in my brain somehow. I didn’t really understand what I was seeing. I could only believe that it was her, but she was dead as far as I knew and it came out that way. Just like I said.’

Göran Andersson did not buckle under their pressure. Towards the end of this fruitless interview Hamad took a look around the apartment, and he too caught a glimpse of what Sjöberg had described to him: Joakim’s grotesquely overweight mother and the bed he apparently shared with his father. There was nothing more the two policemen could accomplish at the Andersson family home right then. They were preparing to leave when Hamad once again felt forced to bring up what bothered him most.

‘Why do two grown men share a bed? Can you explain that to me?’

He directed himself to the father, not to Joakim, but Göran Andersson simply dismissed him with a cold laugh.

‘You’ve seen what’s spread out in the double bed. Finally you get pushed off on to the floor, and then the only thing to do was move into the bed where there was still room.’

‘But you could easily get another bed,’ Hamad suggested sardonically.

‘Do you think I’m made of money? The little bastard can move out if he thinks it’s too cramped,’ replied Göran Andersson, unrolling the newspaper he’d held rolled up in his hand during the entire interview.

Hamad tried to make eye contact with Joakim, but he was occupied by something stuck under his thumbnail. With faint hope that the father intended to devote himself to reading, the two policemen left the apartment.

‘There’s something about that insult that doesn’t sit right,’ said Sjöberg when they were down on the street.

‘It doesn’t mean much more than brat these days,’ said Hamad.

‘Yes, but for our generation. You don’t blurt out such things just like that.’

‘Maybe you don’t, Conny, but the similarities between you and Göran Andersson are not exactly striking.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Sjöberg doubtfully. ‘Both of us are white-collar workers, roughly the same age …’

‘With his vocabulary you’d think he cleans at the bank.’

‘Stop right there. Maybe we shouldn’t be so prejudiced.
With your appearance you’d think you clean at the police station.’

Hamad smiled fleetingly, but continued seriously. ‘But you have to admit you seldom encounter someone like him when you go to the bank.’

‘I’m sure he’s not that way at work. It’s just at home with the family that that side comes out. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. He’s not the only one who lets himself be provoked by the police.’

‘He sounded like a longshoreman,’ Hamad said.

‘I don’t think a longshoreman my age would call just anyone a whore.’

‘You think maybe there’s something more to it?’

‘Who knows? I’m thinking about those two Finnish businessmen. Maybe they weren’t the only ones Jennifer was misbehaving with on the boat.’

* * *

‘Is your mum or dad there?’

Didn’t the voice sound a little familiar?

‘Who is this?’ Hanna asked, curious.

There was silence on the line.

‘Is it Björn?’ asked Hanna. ‘It sounds like Björn.’

‘Yes, it’s Björn. I thought I would just have a few words with your mum or dad, and make sure it’s okay for me to come over and visit you this evening.’

‘Mummy moved away, I told you. And Daddy is in Japan. You know that!’

‘Sorry, I forgot. So do you still want me to come over?’

‘Yes, you promised!’ said Hanna. ‘And you’re going to bring sweets and hamburgers.’

‘I’ll do that. See you in a little while.’

‘Bye!’

Excited and expectant, she put the receiver back in the cradle, but she had just climbed down from the chair when the phone rang again.

‘Hi, this is Hanna. Is this Björn?’

‘Holgersson, Hammarby Police.’

‘You sound crabby.’

‘Is your mother or father there?’

‘They don’t want to talk to you.’

‘They can decide that for themselves. Would you please get one of them?’

‘No, I won’t.’

‘Just do it now, please.’

‘Why are you so angry?’

‘Get them now, otherwise I’m coming to see you.’

That would not do, that crabby old man couldn’t come here. Björn was coming and no angry policeman was going to spoil that.

‘Daddy went to get hamburgers,’ said Hanna, in a friendlier voice now. ‘He’ll be back soon. Wait a minute and you can talk to him when he gets here.’

‘So you’re not at home alone?’

Hanna hesitated only for a moment before she answered, ‘No, Daddy’s with me.’

‘That’s good to hear,’ said the voice. ‘Bye now.’

Hanna hung up, relieved at not having to talk to that nagging man any more. You could tell from his voice that he didn’t like children. He had a voice like Aunt Hedda.

She had not even reached the floor when the phone rang a third time.

‘Who is this now?’ she answered, still irritated after the last call.

‘Hi, this is Einar. I’m a policeman. I would like to speak to your mother or father.’

‘Was it you who just called?’ Hanna wanted to know.

‘No, why do you think that?’

‘Because he was a policeman too.’

‘What are you saying? What was his name?’

‘His name was Hammarby Police,’ Hanna replied.

She heard him laughing at the other end. This policeman’s voice sounded much nicer.

‘So what did he want?’ asked the policeman.

‘He wanted to talk to Mummy or Daddy too,’ Hanna answered truthfully.

‘So did he?’

Hanna hesitated for a moment before she answered, ‘Yes, he talked to Daddy.’

‘I’d like to have a word with him as well.’

‘That’s not possible now, because he went to get hamburgers for us. But if you wait for a while, you can talk to him,’ she added.

‘Otherwise your mother will be just fine,’ said the friendly policeman.

‘But she’s not home. Do you want to wait for Daddy?’

‘I’ll call again in a little while. Bye now, Hanna.’

When she was back in the living room in front of the TV the phone rang again. The phone is ringing off the hook, thought Hanna. Daddy always said that. But this time she did not even bother to answer.

Hamad headed for the metro to Thorildsplan to confront the bartender Juha Lehto with the pictures of Sören Andersson and Joakim’s father, Göran Andersson. It was Lehto’s girlfriend who let him in. She was a short woman in her thirties with a cheerful, open appearance. For some reason it surprised Hamad that she spoke Swedish without a Finnish accent, but when he remembered that her name was Britt-Marie Lundholm it made sense.

‘Juha is on the phone, but he’s expecting you. Come in and have a cup of coffee. Do you drink coffee?’

Hamad suddenly noticed how hungry he was and in the hope of getting something edible to go with it he said yes. She showed him into the kitchen and he took one of the two chairs at the small kitchen table. He heard a male voice from inside the closed door to an adjacent room that he assumed was the bedroom.

‘I have some rolls in the freezer I can heat up if you’d like.’

‘That would be great,’ said Hamad gratefully. ‘Do you work at Viking Line too?’ he asked, to avoid seeming to eavesdrop on the phone call going on in the background.

‘No, I work at a shoe shop in the city,’ she answered as she put the rolls on a plate and into the microwave.

They made small talk for a few minutes until the microwave beeped, just as the door to the bedroom opened.
Lehto greeted Hamad and sat down across from him. The girlfriend discreetly left the kitchen.

‘Have you thought any more about what happened?’ Hamad asked, taking a bite of one of the rolls.

It felt impolite to be eating in front of someone who wasn’t, but he pushed the thought aside and tried to take small bites.

‘Of course I have,’ Lehto answered in his melodic dialect. ‘It’s pretty hard to think about anything else. But it feels like I’ve thought about it too much, if you know what I mean. It’s like I don’t know any more if I’m thinking about what happened or my memory of it.’

‘I can understand that,’ said Hamad. ‘It’s a common phenomenon in witness psychology. But you’re aware of it anyway, and that’s a good thing. So you have nothing to add to your previous testimony?’

‘No, unfortunately not.’

From the briefcase Hamad dug out an envelope that he had prepared before leaving the police station, and from it he removed ten photographs depicting middle-aged men, only two of whom he knew.

‘I’d like to know if you recognize any of these men,’ he explained, placing the pictures in a row in front of Lehto.

Lehto sat quietly for a few minutes and Hamad studied his reaction with tense expectation. He could see the bartender’s eyes running back and forth across the photographs. Finally Lehto revealed his thoughts.

‘I recognized one of them immediately, but I wanted to be sure of myself and not say anything too soon. This is the man in the bar,’ he said, pointing at one of the photographs. ‘Small, mean eyes.’

Hamad picked the photograph up from the table and viewed it with satisfaction.

‘You’re sure of that?’ he asked to be on the safe side.

‘I’m completely sure of it,’ Lehto confirmed.

* * *

Lisa’s Café was open in the evening for once. Lisa was stocktaking and thought that this boring but necessary task would be more fun with customers around. Sjöberg was not much company, however, submerged in his own thoughts.

An extremely overweight woman, somewhat older than himself and possibly a little drunk, came into the café and sat down at the neighbouring table with her back to him. She was babbling ceaselessly about first one thing, then another with everyone in the place except Sjöberg, who had the good fortune to be at a kind of dead angle to her. He was not paying attention to what she was saying, but something about her reminded him of his night-time walk with Margit Olofsson. Perhaps it was the hennaed hair, perhaps something familiar in the voice, or perhaps simply her way of taking the whole world in her embrace. There was also the possibility, of course, that Sjöberg’s musings had nothing to do with the talkative woman. Perhaps it was the short break in itself that allowed his thoughts to run away. Because whenever he was not occupied with something else she was always making an appearance. Margit. He barely knew her, and yet there was something about her that felt like home. There it was again, that word. Home.

In logical terms, Margit Olofsson was the opposite of home. Right now she was the greatest threat to everything the word ‘home’ stood for. She had rocked the foundations of his existence and there was nothing positive about that. Absolutely nothing. Yet here he was daydreaming back to that night. A walk, a kiss – that was all there was to it. But still, there was something else too. An aroma, warmth. Security? What kind of security is it that turns everything upside down? Push it away; shut it down.

In front of him was his second cup of coffee, a plate with an almost finished egg-and-anchovy sandwich and a tabloid that he was now leafing through again. Both his own case and Petra’s got quite a bit of space today, and he noted that the paper’s depiction of the police department’s work was not particularly flattering. Even though they were working their butts off, they did not have anything concrete to report to the press. So the articles contained no new facts, only even sharper criticism of their work. But tomorrow they would get pictures of the dead mother and her boy – he and Petra had agreed on that – so then the reporters would have something to feed on. His musings were interrupted by a vibration in his pocket.

‘Jamal here. We’ve identified the man in the bar.’

‘No doubts?’

‘Lehto was dead certain about it.’

‘How many pictures did he have to choose from?’

‘Ten.’

‘That’s good.’

‘Where are you?’

‘At Lisa’s.’

‘I’m on the metro between Thorildsplan and Fridhemsplan. There’s a hold-up. Power cut. It might take a long time, they say. Have you finished eating?’

‘More or less. Okay, out with it now, damn it.’

‘I suggest you immediately make another visit to Ölandsgatan.’

‘Of course.’ Sjöberg ended the call, breaking into a big smile.

Fifteen minutes later he was sitting on the edge of the dark-green couch again, across from Göran Andersson. Joakim was not there this time; Sjöberg had asked him to go out for a while, so that he could speak to his father in private.

The father no longer looked so insolent; his gaze wandered and he avoided eye contact. It struck Sjöberg that perhaps Göran Andersson felt more secure when there were several people around than when he was subjected to a single individual’s penetrating gaze. Possibly his son’s presence may also have changed his attitude. For the worse, it seemed. The aggressiveness seemed to have run out of him completely now, and he seemed mainly uncertain rather than angry and condescending. Perhaps he felt the thumbscrews being tightened. Perhaps the police showing up twice in such a short interval had helped him to understand the seriousness of the situation.

‘Okay, now. So, I’m back already,’ Sjöberg began. ‘It didn’t take long for us to round up reliable witness information that unambiguously points you out as the person sitting in the bar with Jennifer Johansson a few hours before the murder.’

Göran Andersson fumbled with his cigarette pack and
finally managed to get one out, which he lit with a match. He glared at the MP3 player on the table and did not answer.

‘You can continue to deny it, of course. That doesn’t put you in a better light, as I’m sure you understand,’ Sjöberg continued. ‘Even if we still have no technical evidence that confirms this testimony, three independent witnesses, all of whom point you out, weigh very heavily in this context.’

Admittedly the two Finnish businessmen had not been confronted with the pictures yet, but Sjöberg saw no reason to reveal that fact right now. He studied how Joakim’s father took a deep drag and coughed. He was off balance now; Sjöberg felt it instinctively. He blew out the smoke and followed it with his eyes for a while before he finally spoke.

‘I sat with the girl briefly in the bar. But so what? I didn’t kill her. I bought her a beer, nothing more.’

‘According to our witnesses you were threatening her. What reason did you have for that?’

‘Threatening?’

‘They claim you were heavy-handed with her and said unpleasant things. Until someone came to her rescue. Did you know who she was?’

Göran Andersson let out a dejected sigh. ‘Yes, I knew who she was.’

‘How did you end up in the bar together? Did you follow her?’

‘No, I didn’t follow her. I was just sitting down in the bar when I caught sight of her. I knew immediately that it was her.’

‘Joakim’s girlfriend?’

‘No, I didn’t realize that until later. When the police
showed me the photograph and said her name. Jennifer – that’s fairly uncommon.’

‘What do you mean you knew who she was? Had you met her in some other connection?’

Göran Andersson took a few quick puffs on the cigarette and tapped off a pillar of ash against the edge of the now almost full ashtray on the table. The man must smoke like a chimney, Sjöberg thought. The contents of the ashtray had increased noticeably since he had last seen it just over an hour before.

‘Yes, I had met her earlier,’ Göran Andersson admitted. ‘Or … I thought I had. Now I’m not so sure.’

‘You’re going to have to try to be a little clearer,’ said Sjöberg authoritatively.

‘A lookalike showed up. The sister, I mean. That Elise or whatever the hell her name is.’

‘You can’t tell them apart?’ Sjöberg helped out.

‘It doesn’t seem like it.’

‘So in the bar on the Finland ferry you didn’t know that the girl you were talking with was Joakim’s girlfriend, but you still recognized her from before?’

Andersson nodded.

‘But today when Elise showed up, it occurred to you that maybe it was actually her that you’d met before,’ Sjöberg summarized. ‘Resulting in the attack in the stairwell.’

Andersson nodded again.

‘Now we’re getting somewhere. Why the aggressive treatment? Why did you call her a whore?’

Göran Andersson took a last puff on his cigarette and put it out. Sjöberg waited patiently until he had finished.

‘Joakim was on his way out on Friday night. He was going
to meet Jennifer, he said. I couldn’t allow him to do that, but then he got angry and said he was going on a Finland cruise with her the next day. It was completely out of the question for him to go along, so we had a little tussle about that.’

‘A little tussle?’ Sjöberg repeated. ‘You beat him black and blue. That’s called assault and it’s a crime.’

Göran Andersson did not counter Sjöberg’s accusations and did not look him in the eyes. Sjöberg saw how he was shrinking up into the little piece of shit that he was. The faulty structure was starting to shake on its foundations.

‘I thought we’d agreed that he should stay home. Joakim fell asleep and I went to bed,’ Andersson continued.

You beat him unconscious, you miserable creep, thought Sjöberg.

‘When I got up a few hours later he was gone. He had gone out, even though he wasn’t supposed to. I went out in my car to search for him. I drove around for a while, without success. On Skånegatan a girl suddenly came rushing towards me. She waved and waved and when I stopped she started banging on the door. She pulled open the door and got in on the passenger side and I asked what she wanted. She wanted a ride; she was in a hurry to get home, she said. I thought it seemed more like she was in a hurry to get away from there. She was drunk as hell too; she reeked of alcohol. “What will I get for it?” I asked. I wanted to mess with her a little; she did just get in the car without having the green light, so to speak. “I’ll show you my pussy, you dirty old man, just drive!” she screamed.’

Göran Andersson fell silent and started fumbling for another cigarette in the pack.

‘And you let her do that,’ Sjöberg filled in.

‘She just did it. As soon as I started driving she pulled up her knees and spread. She had on a very short skirt and no panties.’

‘And so was this Jennifer Johansson or her sister, Elise?’

‘I’m starting to think it was Elise, but I’m still not completely sure. The girl in the car and the one in the bar the next evening looked exactly alike to me and had similar clothes on.’

‘Very short skirt?’ asked Sjöberg.

‘No, it was a leather jacket with pockets and buttons and shit on it. And they had the same slutty look.’

‘What did you and Jennifer talk about in the bar?’

‘I asked her if she was drunk again. She looked puzzled and didn’t seem to recognize me. I told her she should knock it off with the whorishness, but she was completely blank. That’s what makes me think now that she wasn’t the one in the car; it was the other one instead. Because
she
on the other hand looked completely terrified when she caught sight of me.’

‘And then what happened? In the bar, I mean.’

‘Some guy she knew came and she went off with him.’

‘And you?’

‘I left the place.’

‘Did you see her again during the trip?’ asked Sjöberg.

‘No, I didn’t see her again. And I didn’t kill her,’ Göran Andersson added. ‘Why the hell would I have done that?’