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Authors: Helene Tursten

Tags: #Police Procedural, #Mystery & Detective, #Women Sleuths, #Fiction

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BOOK: The Golden Calf
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By lunchtime, Irene had a much better understanding of Bonetti’s past. She didn’t like him, but that was the fate of most of the people Irene learned about from the crime register.

At the time of his disappearance, Bonetti was thirty-one-years-old, but he looked more like forty in the photographs. He was the only son of the famous lawyer Antonio Bonetti. His father, who had emigrated from Italy, had fair skin and red hair. Nothing in Thomas’s appearance suggested his Italian heritage. Thomas had a sister who was two years older. He went to a private school during his elementary and high school years and then began to study at Göteborg’s business school. While at university, he was arrested twice for possession of narcotics. Both times cocaine was the drug of choice, but the amount was so small that he’d gotten off with light punishments. He had never been in the military

After working at a Swedish bank for a few years, Bonetti moved to London. He decided to start an investment bank with another Swede whom he’d known since his university days. They met a Norwegian man their age, who was already working in the finance sector and wasn’t happy with his income. He wanted to start something of his own, so he joined his new Swedish friends with the intention of making some fast cash.

Bonetti’s Swedish business partner was named Joachim Rothstaahl. Irene felt her pulse race as she read the name. Positive confirmation that Bonetti and Rothstaahl were connected! One missing without a trace and the other killed along with another of Bonetti’s later partners. Her head started to spin. She had to make sure she knew exactly how all these people fit together, but the most important fact was established. Seven years earlier, they were already in business together. Perhaps there wasn’t a connection to the three murders, but this fact could be important.

The Norwegian man was named Erik Dahl. The name
didn’t ring a bell, but she wrote it down for further research. The three business partners, using the right contacts and many elegant meetings at one of London’s finest restaurants, managed to convince numerous businesses and people from Scandinavia to invest money in their management fund, which they named Poundfix. They made sure to have famous English politicians and a lord or two at all their functions so that they would have a cover of respectability.

In practice, the fund was nothing more than a pyramid scheme. The new money coming into Poundfix was used to pay the high dividends and to redeem the investments when people wanted out. It worked for a while, but the bubble burst when their largest customer, a Norwegian company, demanded an audit. There was no money to audit, since the three partners had already made off with it. Thomas Bonetti had seen the end coming and managed to pull his money out before the ceiling fell in. He had a couple million kroner in his pocket by then.

Joachim Rothstaahl came through the experience with no more punishment than a good scare. Since he was a Swedish citizen living in England, he couldn’t be forced to face a Norwegian court. Erik Dahl, on the other hand, was the one who had to face the music in Oslo. He was sentenced to seven years in jail for major embezzlement.

Irene stopped. Could Erik Dahl have been released from prison? Was he now looking for revenge on his former partners? He wouldn’t have been out of prison at the time of Thomas Bonetti’s disappearance, but maybe now? She made a note in her notebook to follow up, when she realized that there was a problem—what was the connection between Erik Dahl and Kjell B:son Ceder? She glanced at the clock and saw it was time for lunch. It had been a fruitful morning.

T
HE OBLIGATORY
T
HURSDAY
pea soup with pancakes was always a favorite. Perhaps a little more thyme in the soup
would have been nice, but there was no need to be petty. Tommy probably didn’t even notice that the soup was lacking as far as herbs were concerned. He was gesturing wildly with his soup spoon to emphasize his points. Irene noticed a drop of mustard fly off the spoon and land on the paper tablecloth. Tommy didn’t see it, or perhaps didn’t care. He was totally caught up in his morning’s research.

“There’s no way to get a clearer picture of what actually happened on deck that night. Only Kjell B:son Ceder and his wife Marie were there. Perhaps the man who steered the boat might have seen something. Guess who he was?” Tommy grinned, and Irene frowned when he didn’t continue.

“I have no idea,” she said sourly.

“Edward Fenton!”

Irene stared at him. “Fenton? You mean Doctor Fenton? Morgan Fenton?”

“No, Edward! Morgan Fenton’s younger brother! Don’t you remember that Morgan Fenton mentioned a brother who was employed by a London bank? Both Edward and his girlfriend were on the boat as well as Morgan and his late wife! She was pregnant! It must have been that kid you talked to yesterday.”

Irene nodded. Christopher Fenton was fifteen-years-old. He’d also been on that fateful trip, although just a baby in his mother’s womb. She tried to pull together what she already knew.

“So both Morgan and Edward Fenton were friends with Ceder sixteen years ago. They also knew his first wife Marie. Morgan Fenton divorced and married Tove Kaegler, and a few years later, Kjell B:son Ceder married her sister Sanna. You said yesterday that Sanna had business connections with Edward Fenton and was also mixed up in that Internet business. This means that Edward also knew Thomas Bonetti and Philip Bergman. Interesting—but complicated.”

“Exactly! So I sniffed around the Fenton brothers, but I didn’t find much. Morgan is an orthopedic doctor here in
Göteborg, and Edward now works for a large American investment bank named HP Johnson. He’s the head of their European office in London. The mother of the brothers was a Swedish woman, who died a number of years ago, and their father was an Englishman. He is still alive, but has been living in Spain for the past few years.”

“He has to be really old.”

“Well over eighty.”

“How old are the Fenton brothers?”

“Morgan is fifty-one, and Edward is forty-two.”

“So Edward’s our age,” Irene pointed out.

“Yep. Their parents divorced at the end of the seventies, and their mother moved here with Edward. A few years later, Morgan also came to Göteborg and started studying medicine. He decided to stay, and he got married here.”

“So that’s why Morgan speaks Swedish so well. He’s been living here for more than twenty-five years.”

“That’s right. He stayed here, and his brother Edward returned to England. He studied economics at Cambridge and shot straight up in the financial world. He also made a good marriage, though he didn’t marry the woman who was on board the sailboat when Ceder’s wife drowned. Edward’s wife is an American, and they’ve been married for ten years. They have two children.”

“Wow, you found out an incredible amount on Edward Fenton. How’d you do it?”

“Online. There’s lots of stuff on him. He’s an important man in banking circles, or so I understand. And he’s also in the American tabloid press. His wife seems to be from an influential family. Her father is Sergio Santini, and her name is Janice. Her father is one of those self-made men that the Americans love so much. He was poor but worked hard to get an education. His career took off, and now he has a business empire and is as wealthy as Midas.”

“So Edward married into the financial world as well?”

“Yep.”

“Odd that he doesn’t work for his father-in-law.”

“He already had a good position when he met his wife. Perhaps he didn’t want his father-in-law or his brother-in-law to be his boss.”

Irene told Tommy what she’d found out concerning Thomas Bonetti and his earlier escapades on the London financial market. As she expected, Tommy was excited when she revealed the connection between Bonetti and Joachim Rothstaahl.

“It’s like we had a sixth sense about it. The murders are connected!” he exclaimed.

Irene asked him to keep it down. Others were beginning to pay attention to their conversation. Even if it wasn’t uncommon to hear police talk in the cafeteria, there’s nothing like the word
murder
to make people prick up their ears.

Tommy lowered his voice. “It’s clear that everyone involved knew everyone else for some time. We have to find out how exactly each and every person knew each and every other.”

“We have to dig into the past. As usual.” Irene sighed.

Tommy was interrupted by his cell phone vibrating in the pocket of his denim jacket. “Hi, Birgitta,” he said.

Tommy listened for a while and then turned to Irene. He gave her the thumbs-up, and Irene knew what Birgitta must have found: the third victim was indeed Philip Bergman.

T
OMMY AND
I
RENE
arrived at the apartment, but only Elsy Kaegler was there. She was watching Ludwig while her daughter ran errands. Sanna had a lot of things to do, Elsy informed Irene. She had to contact the funeral home, which would be taking care of her husband’s burial, for starters. Elsy didn’t believe that Sanna would be back until later that afternoon. Irene asked Elsy to tell Sanna that she should expect a visit from the police later, at four thirty
P.M
.

•   •   •

S
VANTE
M
ALM, THE
technician, had acquired at least a thousand new freckles during his vacation in Greece. Irene thought of her fair-haired husband Krister’s freckles after their vacation in Crete a month earlier. He could have given Svante a run for his money. In her opinion, pinkish people shouldn’t go tanning. They just ended up looking like boiled tomatoes. After some time, their skin peeled off, and they were just as pale as before. Irene had been telling her husband this for at least twenty years now, but it didn’t change a thing. Krister burned every year. Svante, on the other hand, looked rested and rejuvenated, and he waved happily to Irene and Tommy when they slipped into the room and took a seat in the back. From the front row, Kajsa turned and smiled at them, but Irene didn’t smile back. She knew Kajsa’s smile wasn’t meant for her.

Andersson cleared his throat. “I just want to say a few words before Svante takes over. The two victims have been identified as Joachim Rothstaahl, thirty-two, and Philip Bergman, thirty. Bergman’s parents identified him earlier today. His father last saw him when he was heading off on Monday evening to meet with Rothstaahl. He also pointed out that his son was missing a brand new jacket and a briefcase. The jacket is made of light-colored leather. Bergman’s car is also missing. He’d borrowed his father’s car, a black Saab 93 Aero. Bergman doesn’t live in Sweden any longer. According to his parents, he’s been living in Paris. Honestly, why do all these guys have to live abroad? Can’t they swindle people while living at home?”

There were widespread chuckles among his listeners. Svante Malm’s horse-like face lit up in a smile. “Did you lose a lot of money when these so-called ‘fund managers’ speculated with your stocks?” he teased.

“Never had stocks and never going to get them, either,” replied Andersson.

“Smart of you, but hindsight is twenty-twenty. It’s tougher for those of us who are young enough to be in the new pension system. We had no choice in the matter, and that was our pension money that disappeared in tech and communications stocks. Not to mention that a great deal of the old pension system’s stocks were transferred there as well. My brothers and sisters, our golden years are going to be rough.”

“So you’re going into politics?” Jonny asked sarcastically.

“Oh, no, but believe me, our pensions are blown.”

“Stop bitching about your pension and start working for your wages instead,” Jonny said.

Andersson looked irritated, but nodded in agreement.

“All right,” Svante said. “So we have the double murder in Långedrag. I have some pictures to show you of the house and the surrounding area.”

Svante turned on the projector and turned to face the photographs. As the screen still hadn’t been fixed, he was projecting them directly onto the wall.

“The property is pretty remote, though not far from Käringberg Hill. The house is a summer cabin, which has been remodeled into a year-round, eighty-five-square-meter residence with three bedrooms. The car port was added later.”

The house was built of wood and had been recently painted light blue with dark blue trim. It didn’t seem all that large or special, but once Svante showed more photographs, Irene changed her mind. The property spanned an enormous natural area on a rocky hill, complete with an expansive ocean view.

“It had been raining hard beginning Monday night until Wednesday afternoon,” Svante continued. “By the time the bodies were found on Wednesday, most potential clues had already been washed away. We’ve haven’t been able to find any trace of a third car. Only two cars left tracks on the gravel driveway in front of the house.”

Tommy raised his hand. “Were there any traces of the car Rothstaahl’s father drove there?”

“No, because he rode there on his bike. His parents live only a kilometer away. Joachim inherited the house from his grandfather a few years ago. He repaired it and, according to his father, was planning an addition once he moved back to Sweden.”

“So where was he living?”

“Paris,” said Jonny.

Both Tommy and Irene reacted to this, but Irene was quickest. “So both Joachim Rothstaahl and Philip Bergman are … were living in Paris,” she said.

“That’s right.”

“So why did they have to meet in Göteborg?”

Jonny had no answer and shrugged.

Svante changed to a close-up picture of a door handle. “This is the outer door, which was unlocked when Rothstaahl’s father arrived on Wednesday. There is no sign that the lock had been broken. The patio door was locked by a bolt that could only be opened from the inside.”

A series of photographs from the inside of the house followed. Svante flipped through them until he came to the kitchen.

“There was a bag with three bottles of red wine, one bag of French rolls, and two loaves of
pain riche
on the table. A packet of roast beef and a large bowl of potato salad were found in the refrigerator, as well as recently purchased brie and a package of margarine. In addition, there were four half-liter bottles of strong beer, one unopened liter of milk, and a small carton of eggs.”

BOOK: The Golden Calf
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