Meet me in Malmö: The first Inspector Anita Sundström mystery (Inspector Anita Sundström mysteries) (9 page)

Ewan was starting to get a taste for Swedish coffee. It was the sort of drink that put hair on one’s chest. He had never been able to grow chest hair, which irked him. As a student Mick had always enjoyed telling him that the ‘birds love running their fingers through mine’. Needless to say Mick’s chest was like a demented doormat. In fact, Ewan could never grow hair in all the right places and now he had reached an age when it was growing in all the wrong places. He sipped his coffee and glanced round the other tables in Café Simrishamn 3. It was half-full and nearly everybody had a computer in front of them. The atmosphere was warm and unhurried.

He looked at the blank screen, then typed:
There’s more to Malmö than meets the eye
. He sighed. It was rubbish, though the sentiment was probably true in that in mid-winter it didn’t do itself justice. With all the beautiful parks this was undoubtedly a summer city. Without a green canvas to break up many of the functional buildings, it was difficult to judge its true character. His walk round Kungsparken, the city’s oldest park, had been pleasant. The canal ran through it with the city library on the other side. He had crossed over the canal on an elegant bridge with art nouveau designs and obelisk-like lampposts at each end, and made his way down to what was now called the Malmö Opera. It was the main municipal theatre of the town and had built up an enviable reputation under Ingmar Bergman, who had been the director and artistic adviser in the 1950s.

Ewan had stood on the expansive forecourt outside the theatre’s large glass frontage and classically crisp concrete elevations. But as he peered through the glass into the foyer he felt oddly uncomfortable. This building had celebrated its opening in September 1944 with a performance of Shakespeare’s
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
. While the citizens of Malmö were taking their seats in their stylish new theatre, chatting quietly away before the curtain went up, just over the water, a mere few miles away, the world was ripping itself apart. In the same month the Allies were battling their way through France; the Arnhem parachute landings were proving a bridge too far; in neighbouring Norway the mighty German battleship
Tirpitz
was being attacked by the RAF and across central Europe trains were still trundling inexorably towards the death camps. How had the Swedes reconciled what was happening all around them with the normality of their own lives? That was something he would ask Inspector Sundström, if he got the chance.

He sipped at his coffee. He had thought about the detective a lot since she left his hotel room the previous day. He used mental pictures of her to drive out the recurring image of the dead body of Malin Lovgren. His fascination with Sundström – he wished he knew her first name – was making him see Malmö in a different light. He typed:
It’s all go in Malmö
. That was shite, too.

There was something different about the place. A tension. A suppressed excitement. The moment Anita and Olander came through the front entrance they knew something had happened. Their routine enquires around Värnhem had yielded nothing. An increasingly desperate Moberg had insisted on their revisiting the crime area in case something had been missed. Anita hadn’t expected to turn up anything new because she was covering ground that Nordlund had gone over already. And Nordlund was very thorough. If it had been the slapdash Westermark then it would have made sense.

Klara Wallen intercepted them before they reached Anita’s office.

‘Moberg wants you in his office.’

‘What is it?’ Anita asked, because she could see that Wallen was caught up in the prevailing mood.

‘CCTV. Something’s come up.’

When Anita and Olander entered Moberg’s room Nordlund and Westermark were already there with one of the technical people whom Anita knew vaguely but whose name escaped her. They were huddled round a TV monitor and there was some CCTV footage on the screen.

‘Ah, Anita, come and see this. Edvardsen has got onto something.’ Moberg pointed to the figure on the screen. Anita could see a tall man with his back to the camera. Smoke could be seen rising from in front of him. Then his gloved hand appeared and in it was a cigarette. He stamped his feet, but his gaze never wavered.

‘This is taken from the
Systembolag
side. He’s looking across the street,’ said an evidently pleased Edvardsen.

‘Towards the apartment block,’ added Moberg.

The continuous time code was running just after midnight on the night of the murder. The time had just tipped over into Tuesday. The man, who was wearing a blue winter skiing jacket and a dark-red baseball cap, took one last puff of his cigarette, then threw it down on the ground. He half-turned, so that the side of his face could be seen in profile. Anita wasn’t sure what age he was but he was certainly under forty. He glanced at something across the street – the time code twirled onto three minutes past twelve. He was about to step forward, then he dodged back into the doorway for a moment. He waited for another thirty seconds before stepping out of the frame.

‘Night of the murder,’ Moberg announced triumphantly. ‘And clever old Edvardsen has put together a compilation tape, which shows the same man at the same spot every night for the last two weeks. In fact, every night that Lovgren had been back in Malmö after her return from Stockholm.’

‘Hit man?’ wondered Nordlund.

‘Possibly. Or H?’ said Moberg.

‘Unfortunately, we don’t have a full face because of the cap,’ said Edvardsen, ‘but this is the best we could do.’

On the screen came a nearly full face of the man but his features were obscured by the shadow cast by the peak of his cap. Anita now put him at about thirty.

‘Is it possible to go back to the last bit where he gets rid of his cigarette?’ asked Anita.

‘Why?’ Moberg sounded irritated.

‘Just something.’

Edvardsen ran the tape back to the position Anita had asked for. He ran it again. The man threw down his cigarette.

‘Stop!’ Anita said quickly. The frame was frozen. Anita looked closely at the screen. Then she pointed to the ground. ‘That. Can you zoom in?’ The pavement moved towards them until the screen was taken up with a large screwed up piece of wrapping paper next to the still glowing cigarette stub.

‘Is that a discarded kebab? Yes,’ said Anita with some certainty now.‘There are a number of kebab places around that area. So what?’ Westermark was trying to score points.

‘If he had been there for a while then that might be his kebab. He’s standing next to it. If someone else had dropped it, he probably would have stood in another place, not virtually on top of it. And if it’s his kebab, he would have bought it at one of the shops close by. They might recognize him. He might even have gone in regularly over the last fortnight.’

‘Print off this guy’s picture and get down there, Olander. It might turn up something.’

Just then Eva Thulin came in.

‘That’s timely,’ said Moberg. ‘Have we got a precise time of death?’

‘It was probably about midnight. But could be half an hour either way. It’s impossible to be totally exact.’

‘That would fit in with our friend here.’ Moberg was trying to control his exhilaration. Anita knew that feeling. When there doesn’t seem to be answer in sight and then suddenly there’s a breakthrough, it buoys the team, giving them a focus that was missing before. It might be early days but it was something to cling onto. Something concrete to investigate.

‘That your suspect?’ asked Thulin glancing at the screen.

‘Could be.’

‘Well, the body was touched by Roslyn and by Strachan.’

‘We know that!’ Moberg was under pressure but his man-management skills were as dreadful as ever.

‘I thought you might like to know,’ Thulin carried on defensively, ‘that the body was definitely touched by a third party.’

Now Moberg was all ears. ‘Touched?’

‘Yes. Or held closely. We’ve got fibres that don’t belong to either of the two other men. Strachan had a black woollen coat and Roslyn a brown leather jacket.’

‘I thought it odd that Roslyn was only wearing a leather jacket when he had come all the way from Stockholm. Must have been freezing up there.’ Anita was impressed that Olander had the courage to contribute his thoughts in front of Moberg and the team. The confidence of youth.

‘Because he’s a trendy arsehole. Olander, I thought I’d told you to fuck off and do something,’ Moberg barked. The young man vanished.

‘Anyway,’ continued Thulin, ‘the third one could be from a weatherproof jacket. Blue.’

‘Bingo!’ Moberg smashed the desk in delight with the palm of his hand and pointed at the man who was back on the screen.

The doubtful look on Thulin’s face showed she didn’t share Moberg’s enthusiasm. He sighed impatiently. ‘Well?’

‘It could be the killer. Or the person who disturbed the body.’

‘Couldn’t they be one in the same?’ asked Nordlund.

‘Possibly. But why go to all the trouble of dragging the body in from the kitchen, setting it up on the sofa and then let it slide onto the floor?’

‘I can’t believe that there’s a second person involved,’ Moberg said firmly. ‘No.’ He swivelled round and pointed at the screen. ‘That’s our man. Let’s bloody find him!’

Ewan clicked on
send/recv
and the email and attached article winged its way to the office in Newcastle. He had to admit he was quite pleased with his effort after a sticky start. He had given Malmö a very positive write-up, despite his adverse personal experiences since his arrival. Maybe the glow that he had bathed Malmö in had more to do with his feelings for Inspector Sundström. At least they had enabled him to look beyond the cold, drab time of year and see the city’s potential as a very pleasant summer destination for British visitors.

He had plundered some history to put the city in context. It had been Hanseatic merchants, enticed by the plentiful herring, who had established Malmö as a commercial centre. Malmö had then come under Danish rule and was the second city of Denmark. Malmöhus had even housed the Danish royal mint. The Danes were driven out of Malmö by Swedish King Karl X in 1658 and had remained Swedish ever since, though the city still had a strong affinity with its Danish neighbour.

Twentieth century wealth had been built round the huge Kockums submarine and shipyard. With its decline in the 1970s, Malmö faced difficult times. Isolation from Stockholm hadn’t helped, but now the Öresund Bridge had opened up a whole new world of opportunity. Malmö was a vibrant town. He had mentioned the parks, the castle, the theatre, the football club (essential for Geordie consumption), the shopping and had made a point of namechecking The Pickwick and Café Simrishamn 3. He had included a warning about the strength of Swedish coffee, but he had finished off by encouraging people to come and see Malmö, and southern Sweden, for themselves.

Ewan ordered another coffee and some rich-looking carrot cake to celebrate. Now he would have to turn his attention to Brian’s scoop. At least he had the makings of a great story. In fact, he couldn’t believe his luck; ruthless, right-wing secret service agents bumping off their own prime minister. And Mick seemed quite convinced that these very same assassins were behind the murder of his own wife. It was manna from heaven and he would push it for all it was worth with Brian. He started to type in some notes, but he would need a lot more information before he could allow Brian to print anything. He needed inside information. That brought him back to the lovely Inspector Sundström. How could he inveigle his way into her confidence? He must have gained some sort of kudos with his Mick manoeuvre. She should do well out of that meeting. A fresh line of inquiry delivered on a plate. Yet she hadn’t shown the appreciation he thought had been his due. Playing hard to get, or just not remotely interested? Ewan stuffed a large piece of cake into his mouth and concluded it was bound to be the latter.

Anita made her way over to the water cooler. She took out a plastic cup and filled it with the cold water. As she turned, she was trapped by Westermark. His reptilian gaze always made her feel ill at ease. His ice-blue eyes always seemed to be boring into her. Visually molesting her. Like Roslyn, he held his looks in high esteem. He assumed that all women would agree. He was more rugged than Roslyn and his short-cropped, fair hair was in stark contrast to Roslyn’s dark follicle plumage. But they were cut from the same cloth.

‘How’s the love life?’

A typical Westermark conversation opener. Couldn’t he think of anything sensible to say? But that would have been asking too much.

‘Too busy trying to catch a killer to worry about that sort of thing.’

‘So you’re going through a barren patch? I can help you out.’

‘Just give it a rest, Karl. And if even I get really desperate, you’ll still not get a call.’

She took her plastic cup.

‘The boss thinks we’re onto something with the CCTV footage,’ said Westermark, changing tack.

‘Worth following up. It’s all we’ve got, except for the Säpo connection.’

‘That could be very tricky. Moberg has got the commissioner to pull strings to get photos of Säpo operatives around the mid-eighties. Maybe Roslyn can recognize his “Deep Throat”. Otherwise we’re pissing in the wind.’

Anita nodded agreement as she managed to move away.

‘One funny thing.’ Anita stopped. ‘I checked up on that meeting that Roslyn was meant to be having on the evening of the murder.’

‘And?’

‘And he didn’t make it. He wasn’t there.’

‘Does Moberg know?’

‘Didn’t think it was worth mentioning because he’s so sure he’s got the man we want. It’s probably nothing, anyway.’

‘So why is Roslyn lying, then?’

‘I’ll put money on a woman.’

It confirmed what Anita had always thought: Westermark could only think with his balls.

The phone went as soon as Anita had made it back to her office. It was Olander. He had news from the kebab shop. It wasn’t the closest one to Malin’s apartment but over on Lundavägen.

‘You were right. The guy on the CCTV had been in a few times recently to buy a kebab at the Värnhems falafel shop. Always pretty late. Trouble is they don’t know his name, but they’re fairly sure he’s not from round Värnhem. He’s not a regular, anyway.’

‘That’s a start. Well done. I’ll let Moberg know.’

A breakthrough of sorts? She put down the phone and noticed that a copy of the CCTV photo of the “kebab man” had been put on her desk. She picked it up. She had a feeling that there was something familiar about the man’s profile but couldn’t put her finger on it. Besides she was distracted by what Westermark had told her. So, Roslyn hadn’t been at the meeting. Were they a hundred per cent sure that he had
been
in Stockholm on Monday night?

Anita still had the photo in her hand when she put her head round Moberg’s office door. ‘Olander rang in. The man in this photo has visited the Värnhems falafel shop a few times lately. But they don’t know his name and they don’t think he’s local.’

‘Good,’ grunted Moberg without glancing up, his hands below the desk.

‘Anything on the Säpo front?’

Moberg did look up now and his hands appeared above the desk. He held a large bar of chocolate. Had he been hiding it?

‘Our beloved commissioner has, amazingly, come up trumps and Säpo are – reluctantly it has to be said – going to furnish us with photos of their operatives. But they won’t be for general consumption. They’re scared stiff that they’ll fall into the wrong hands even though most of the guys who were operating at that time are long retired. Good job too. They couldn’t protect our Prime Minister.’

‘Unless they killed him?’

Moberg unwrapped his chocolate bar. ‘Do you buy that? I mean Roslyn’s theory?’

Anita leant against the doorframe and tucked the photo under her arm.

‘We’ve all thought it, even if we’ve then dismissed it.’

‘Could this guy,’ said Moberg, lifting up his own copy of the photograph, ‘be their hitman? He’s too young to have been around at the time of the assassination. Whoever he is, I don’t think Roslyn was the intended victim. This guy was watching the apartment regularly, so he’d know that Roslyn wasn’t in residence.’

Anita stared at the photo as Moberg was holding it up, face on. She was about to mention Roslyn’s absence from his meeting when she suddenly moved towards Moberg’s desk – and towards the man in the photo.

‘That’s it. Something was nagging at the back of my mind. I’m sure I’ve seen that man recently. The other day. In the park. In Beijers Park.’

Moberg stopped in mid-bite. He quickly ate the chunk of chocolate before he spoke.

‘He must live near. It’s not the sort of park you make a special trip to.’

Anita held her own copy of the photo in front of her. ‘It was the cap that alerted me.’ She was casting her mind back to her visit to the park. What was it about him? She spoke slowly as she tried to put the missing images in place. ‘I was crossing the road with Britta Lovgren. This guy was coming the other way. I wasn’t really paying attention. I was just aware of someone. Yes, he was wearing a sort of a skiing jacket.’

‘Colour?’ Moberg demanded excitedly.

‘Can’t be positive but it could well have been blue.’

Moberg shot to his feet and nearly overturned his desk in the process.

‘Right, I want everybody in here in five minutes. This is it!’

He was coming back from the centre of town. He wasn’t sure what had motivated him to get on a bus that morning and head off to Sankt Petri Kyrka. He had hardly been to church since he was a boy growing up near Skanör, just down the coast from Malmö. Yet when he entered the church he found it calmed him immediately. He hadn’t slept properly since that night and the whole experience had just added to his anxieties. Seeing the woman detective had unnerved him. At first he had wondered how she could have found the park he frequented so quickly, then he realized that it was only natural that the police would want to speak to Malin’s mother. He knew exactly where she lived – he could almost see her home from his apartment. Even if the policewoman had noticed, why should she connect him with the murder?

Yet doubts remained, and in the middle of the night his imagination had run riot with the awful possibilities of being spotted. He had nearly rushed upstairs to his storage cage in the attic where he had hidden the gun. It was an illegal firearm, which he thought would be harder to find if it was stored away among his junk. If they searched his apartment they wouldn’t find anything. Except the photos, of course. He had nearly taken them down, but couldn’t bring himself to. Not yet. If it all blew over he could leave them up.

The great church was tall and narrow inside. He sat down in a pew and found his gaze soaring heavenwards. Its white walls and columns could have made the space seem stark and sanitized, but he found it uplifting. And reassuring. In here he felt safe. Safe from his demons, which were waiting for him outside. And safe from any Muslims, who had helped distort his life. He heard the door open behind him and he turned round. An elderly woman came in and as she passed, gave him a beatific smile. She slipped into a pew nearer the altar and started to pray. He did the same, bending down and resting his head on the back of the pew in front. He prayed for Malin’s soul. He prayed for himself. And he prayed for protection.

He must have dozed off for a few minutes, for when he raised his head again the woman had gone. He felt better. If there was a God then he must be looking after him. After leaving the church, he went off to the Hamrelius Bokhandel on Södergatan and bought himself a couple of thrillers. He loved books. They were the only things that had kept him sane on active service during that scorching heat. Besides, though the detectives in his purchases were fictional, he might gain an insight into their thinking, their methods.

His flimsy sense of well-being was quickly shattered when the bus turned into the pencil-straight Beijersparksgatan. He couldn’t help but spot that parked near the park entrance were two police cars.

It had only taken half an hour. Moberg had flooded the area with police armed with the photo of the “kebab man” to get a positive identification. The little oriental man behind the counter in the baker’s in the small shopping complex on the other side of Östra Fäladsgatan recognized him, but didn’t know his name. Across the way, the owner of the video shop proved more useful. The man in the photo was called Halvar. Where did he live? In one of the apartments over the road in Smedjekullsgatan. He would have his details as he was signed up for their video club. While the owner was going through his records, the constable called the chief inspector, who reached the shop within minutes, having come from co-ordinating the operation from his parked car in Östra Fäladsgatan. He was accompanied by Westermark.

‘Here it is,’ said the shop owner. ‘Halvar’s surname is Mednick.’ He then gave Moberg the address. The block was directly across the main road. Mednick lived on the far side of the block.

Moberg turned to Westermark. ‘Get onto headquarters and see if we have anything on a Halvar Mednick. Constable, whip along to the park and get Inspector Nordlund and Inspector Sundström back here. Now!’

The startled constable rushed out.

‘What’s Halvar been up to?’ asked the owner.

‘Up to no good,’ said Moberg as he left the shop.

Ten minutes later, they were gathered outside the baker’s shop awaiting Moberg’s instructions. On arriving, Anita had noticed that Moberg had just finished off a bun. Maybe food helped him think.

‘His apartment is over in that block, but before we go in I want to know what to expect. Westermark is checking. What we do know is that he’s called Halvar Mednick. That gives us our H.’

Westermark came off his mobile phone and pulled a face.

‘He’s on our radar. He was arrested in November for getting into a fight with a couple of immigrants in Möllevågen. Let off with a caution.’

‘So he has a record of violence.’

‘No surprising really, because he’s ex-army.’

‘That could make him a possible hitman,’ ventured Nordlund.

‘Not so sure,’ answered Westermark. ‘He had a breakdown after serving with the Nato Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan in 2006. Not exactly hitman material.’

‘Anything else?’ Moberg asked.

‘That’s about all we’ve got so far but they’re digging for more.’

All eyes turned to Moberg. He pulled up his coat collar to ward off the cold. ‘I don’t want to go in mob handed. Henrik, Westermark, you come with me. Breakdown or not he’ll have been trained to look after himself. He knows how to kill quickly and efficiently, as we saw with Malin Lovgren. You both armed?’

Nordlund and Westermark nodded. Anita felt annoyed that she was being overlooked. She was the one who had recognized Mednick. It was she who had got them to the right area.

‘Shouldn’t we keep the apartment under surveillance first?’ she asked.

‘Fuck procedure!’ Moberg roared. Glory was within his reach and he wasn’t going to let the opportunity slip. The commissioner and the press wanted a quick result and that was exactly what he was going to give them.