Midnight In Malmö: The Fourth Inspector Anita Sundström Mystery (The Malmö Mysteries Book 4) (18 page)

‘Complicated. Possibly something to do with commercial interests in a mineral-rich part of the Congo. Katanga, I think it was called. America worried about it falling into Soviet hands. The Belgians and the British were also involved, as well as the UN. There are lots of conspiracy theories.’

‘Yeah, I must read up about all this. Sounds just my sort of thing.’

‘Something to keep you busy on long winter nights in Penrith.’

They stopped on the brow of the hill, the farmhouse behind them. ‘If you’re not there to keep me warm, I’ll have to do something.’ He leant over and gave her a soft kiss on her lips. Any further endearments were interrupted by Anita’s mobile phone. Kevin’s exaggerated sigh didn’t distract her from seeing who the call was from. Eva Thulin.

‘I’ve got to take this.’

Anita seemed pensive when she had finished her call. Kevin knew that Eva Thulin had something to do with forensics and that Anita had phoned her before they set out on their trip to Hammarskjöld’s retreat.

‘Any luck?’ he asked.

‘You love a conspiracy theory?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, what about this? I’ve just spoken to Eva, and she said that neither Rylander’s nor Klas’s bodies were brought to Lund. They should have gone there. They would need autopsies because of the ways they both died.’ The strong light glinted off her sunglasses. ‘She’s double-checked, but they definitely didn’t come in.’

‘But the bodies will have to appear at some stage for their respective funerals.’

‘I’m sure they will, but it would be good to make sure that they were properly examined beforehand.’ Anita threw her arms up in the air. ‘But the whole thing doesn’t make sense. What if Klas was right about being suspicious of Rylander’s death? Moa the nurse wasn’t convinced either. Then Klas suddenly gets killed. What if that wasn’t an accident? What if, as the tyre tracks indicate, he was deliberately driven off the road?’

‘Come on, that’s difficult to buy. This isn’t the Cold War.’

Anita stared at him. ‘But it might have something to do with it. Rylander was at the heart of things at the time.’ Even to Anita, it was starting to sound outlandish, but she pressed on. ‘Klas said that Rylander indicated that it all started and finished in Berlin.’

‘I think he said Wilhelmstrasse.’

‘But that’s in Berlin!’ Kevin was being annoyingly pedantic. ‘So what happened in Berlin?’

‘Well, two things must have happened if it started and finished there.’

‘Are you always like this?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Quibbling.’

‘It’s one of my best qualities,’ he tried to joke.

‘It’s not a quality I like.’

‘All right, I’m sorry,’ Kevin said hurriedly. He needed to placate her before it blew up into their first row. ‘Look, I’ll tell you what. We’ve got all Klas’s notes back at the house. Maybe we’ll find some answers in there.’

Moberg didn’t give the team a blow-by-blow account of his unsuccessful meeting with Axel Isaksson. And he didn’t inform them about the cigarette butt, which he had handed over to Eva Thulin, who would pass it on for DNA testing. Naturally, he hadn’t told her how he had come by it, as he knew she wouldn’t have allowed herself to be involved in such a deception. He knew he couldn’t do anything with the evidence, but if he could connect Isaksson to Akerman, then he had some ammunition. What he wasn’t looking forward to was the expected call from Commissioner Dahlbeck wanting to know why he had visited the politician – he expected Isaksson to use the word “harassment” – and why he had disobeyed specific instructions to leave well alone until there was some firm evidence. He knew he had possibly buggered up any chance of nailing Isaksson. Which is why he was in a foul mood when the team assembled, and he opened the meeting with: ‘Give me something fucking positive!’ And they did on the Asplund front. The Sjöbo connection sounded encouraging.

‘Do we know whether Asplund and Isaksson knew each other?’ Moberg asked. ‘They’d both be young men then.’

‘Asplund was only there for a couple of years, but they might well have come across each other,’ chirped up Wallen. Hakim was impressed how assertive she was being on this case; maybe she was emerging from Anita’s shadow. ‘The population is only around six thousand for the whole municipality. But we haven’t anything positive yet.’ She took a deep breath. ‘But one tack I thought worth taking was to follow up the well-publicized fact that Isaksson is a devout churchgoer.’

‘Mmm.’ Moberg was about to blast off on an anti-church invective but reined himself in.

‘He’s an upright member of
Svenska Kyrkan
. So, I thought I’d check out the local Church of Sweden in Sjöbo. He wasn’t a member of that congregation, but it turns out that he was attached to a lot called the Church of God’s Mission on Earth.’

‘Who the fuck are they?’

‘It was more of a sect than a church. It was run by a charismatic pastor who’d broken away from the official church because he didn’t believe that they were engaging enough with young people and too many were slipping away from the path of righteousness as a result. His church appealed particularly to young families.’

‘And is this Mission on Earth outfit still going?’

‘No. A number of followers left Sjöbo, and it closed down after a few years because the congregation had dwindled to virtually nothing.’

‘And Isaksson was one the church members? Is that any use to us?’

Wallen’s face lit up. ‘I was thinking back to Julia Akerman’s cross and the bible that Hakim saw by her bedside in Switzerland. She was connected with a church over there. So, as she may well have a link with Sjöbo – the number in her phone points to that – I thought a visit to the pastor might throw up something. He’s still alive and living in the town.’

Moberg went over to the crime scene photos of the dead woman. Next to them were photos of the wooden cross and the inscribed page of Akerman’s bible, that Hakim had taken with his mobile phone while in her apartment.

‘You think she may have been one of the Mission on Earth worshippers? Did they have an Ebba in their congregation?’

‘We should ask the question.’

Before Moberg could speak again, there was a knock on the door and a young secretary slipped into the room.

‘What?’ Moberg shouted angrily, annoyed that his train of thought had been disturbed. The secretary winced.

‘I’m sorry, Chief Inspector. Commissioner Dahlbeck would like to see you.’ Her voice was muted.

‘Can’t you see I’m busy?’

Despite her trepidation, she stood her ground. ‘He wants to see you
now
.’

Anita was uncharacteristically nervous. She stood outside the Simrishamn police station, unsure whether to go in. Initially, she had had no intention of doing so, but that was before her visit to the letting agent of the holiday home next to Albin Rylander’s. She had gone in to get the name and address of Fanny and Benno. The girl on the desk had been reluctant to give out the information until Anita had flashed her warrant card. That had done the trick, and she had the name – Källström. After further prompting, the girl had produced a Stockholm address and phone number. Anita had gone out into the sunshine on a busy Storgatan and phoned. The elderly lady at the end of the line said that she was called Källström, but she had no idea who Fanny and Benno were. Anita checked the address with her. That was correct; so was the phone number the letting agent had given her. Further questions about whether Fanny and Benno might be a nephew or niece or grandchild were indignantly rebuffed, and when the old woman threatened to call the police about nuisance calls, Anita gave up. As she put her phone away, she was faced with the obvious question – who were the young couple?

To double-check, she went back to the letting agent. Yes, they had paid in advance. It was a fairly late booking, but they had been in the holiday home for three weeks. The woman who picked up the keys matched Kevin’s description. And the keys were returned to the office. They had been shoved through the letterbox before any staff had arrived on the Friday morning.

‘We were a bit surprised,’ the girl remarked.

‘Why?’

‘Well, the Källströms had booked the house for six weeks. It doesn’t worry us because it’s all paid for. Maybe they had to go back to Stockholm for some emergency. It just seems a waste of a nice holiday let.’

Anita’s mind was now working overtime. ‘Can I borrow the keys? Just until tomorrow.’ The girl immediately looked worried. ‘It’s police business,’ Anita said firmly. ‘You’ll have them back before the office closes tomorrow. I’ll sign for them.’

‘I suppose that’s all right,’ she said uncertainly.

Alice Zetterberg feigned surprise at seeing Anita enter her office. They surveyed each other like a mongoose and a cobra. The mutual mistrust and loathing was taken as read. Zetterberg didn’t offer Anita a seat.

‘Are you so bored with your holiday that you have to come and pester us? I assume this isn’t a social visit.’

‘It’s about Albin Rylander’s suicide and Klas Lennartsson’s death.’ There was no point in any preamble.

‘Neither of which have anything to do with you.’

‘Are you in charge of those cases?’

‘I would hardly call them cases. But, yes, I’m overseeing them.’

Anita suddenly felt uncomfortable under Zetterberg’s unflinching stare. Why the hell had she come to see this ghastly woman?

‘I have some information that might be useful.’

‘And what could you possibly have that would be useful to me?’

‘Both Lennartsson, and Rylander’s nurse, Moa Hellquist, felt there was something not right about the suicide. Rylander’s positive state of mind at the time made them sure that he wasn’t contemplating killing himself.’

Zetterberg gave a mirthless laugh. ‘And that’s it? You’ve been listening to the wrong people. Lennartsson seemed to have his head up his arse most of the time; and the nurse is busy covering herself for neglecting her patient. She should have made sure he wasn’t storing away his pills.’

‘So why were the bodies not taken to Lund for the autopsies?’ Anita snapped back.

Zetterberg scrutinized her old foe. ‘You have been a busy little bee. The reason they didn’t go to Lund is that they had too big a workload, so they were sent up to Stockholm instead. And
they
found nothing suspicious.’

‘You’ve seen the reports?’

‘Yes.’

‘What about the tyre marks at Lennartsson’s crash scene? The angle of the swerve?’

‘I saw nothing wrong with the scene. The man either tried to avoid an animal or just nodded off for a moment and lost control. He’d just come back from Germany, I’m led to believe.’

Anita was about to mention that Klas was returning from Berlin with some important information concerning Rylander; then she thought better of it. Pointless mentioning the Källströms, too.

‘Who was the other cop who turned up at Rylander’s on the morning his body was found?’

Zetterberg’s eyes blazed with fury, but she kept her voice calm. ‘Why are you coming to me with this shit? Trying to get your name in the papers again?’ she added nastily. ‘Either a colleague feels he needs to blow his brains out in front of you, or you’re shooting the wrong person. If I were you – and thank God I’m not – I would avoid publicity in the future. Go back to your little holiday with your skinny British boyfriend, and leave the professionals to do their jobs.’

Moberg picked up his office phone and dialled an internal number.

‘Wallen. I want you and Mirza to go and see Asplund now. Do a DNA swab. If he objects, threaten him with something. Obstruction. Anything. We need to make things happen.’

He slammed the phone down. His meeting with the commissioner hadn’t improved his mood one jot. Not only did Dahlbeck want action on this case, but he was tying his hands behind his back because Isaksson was off limits. The politician had made a formal complaint.

‘You’ve got no evidence. And what on earth were you doing going to the bloody man’s house? Are you completely stupid?’

‘But he’s a genuine suspect,’ Moberg had protested; he had had difficulty keeping his temper in check.

‘He’s not now because you barged in there after I expressly told you not to.’

The dressing-down continued for another ten minutes. Moberg left with the commissioner’s orders ringing in his ears: ‘Asplund sounds like our man. Put pressure on him and get a result.’

Moberg was sure that the politician had a lot to hide. In his opinion, all politicians did. They would have to crack Asplund first, but he would get Axel Isaksson in the end.

Anita was still spitting feathers by the time she reached the cabin and found Kevin at the living room table, surrounded by notes. He had a beer in his hand. By the thunderous look on her face, he didn’t think it worth bothering to ask how she had got on.

‘That fucking woman!’

‘What woman?’

‘Alice Zetterberg!’

Kevin put down his bottle and shook his head. ‘What on earth did you go and see her for?’

‘What do you think?’

Kevin stood up. ‘Come and sit down. And calm down. I’ll fetch a bottle.’

‘Make it a big one.’

He went into the kitchen and picked up a bottle of Shiraz. He made sure that the wine glass was full before handing it over. Anita nodded gratefully and took a huge gulp. She was more composed by the time she had related the tale of her discovery about the non-existent Källströms and then her fruitless approach to Zetterberg.

‘What did you think that would achieve?’ Kevin asked after she had finished.

‘Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I thought it would awaken her curiosity if nothing else. But she’s too brainless.’ By now, she was on her second glass, and Kevin had opened another bottle of Honeybee beer from the local Bohman & Brante Brewery, which he was growing fond of.

‘But you didn’t give her much to go on.’

Anita’s eyes blazed. ‘She wouldn’t have listened, whatever I said. As far as she’s concerned, there isn’t anything suspicious in the deaths.’

‘You have to find out more before you can go back. You need something concrete. Something like evidence!’

Anita’s fierce expression melted. ‘Oh, fuck off!’ she grinned. ‘I’m sorry.’ She leant across the table and squeezed his hand.