The Killer's Art (26 page)

He parked in front of the main building and got out to look around. The owner was nowhere in sight. He glanced at his watch and realized that he was a little early. He breathed in the fresh air. What a peculiar place. The building looked abandoned, like a decaying beauty. It seemed to have been unoccupied for years. The sculptures were like mementoes of a bygone era. Art and love had both flourished here at one time, but that was clearly long ago.

Now the owner came walking towards him along the gravel path from the cabin area. She was a stylish woman in her fifties with her blonde hair drawn into a knot on top of her head. She was wearing bright-red lipstick but no other make-up. Even though they were about the same age, Knutas didn’t know Anita Thorén. They’d gone to different primary schools before starting secondary school, but even then they hadn’t frequented the same circles.

She gave him a friendly but slightly wary look as they shook hands.

‘Well, truth be told, I’m not sure exactly why I’m here,’ he explained. ‘But I wanted to see the original of the sculpture that was found at Waldemarsudde.’

‘Of course.’

They went around the corner, and there it stood, against a wall. ‘It’s called “Yearning”, and I think you can see that emotion in her eyes, can’t you?’

‘Is it a woman? I can’t really tell.’

‘Yes, I agree that there’s something rather sexless about her. And that fits in well with Dardel … the androgynous, slightly indeterminate …’

Anita Thorén looked as if she were seeing the sculpture for the first time.
A genuine enthusiast,
thought Knutas.
Imagine taking over a place like this.
It would undoubtedly require a real commitment, and he admired that sort of person, someone who had a genuine passion for something.

‘The sculptor’s name was Anna Petrus. She and Dardel were contemporaries, and she was also good friends with Ellen Roosval.’

‘Yes, I’ve heard the whole story about how he often came here. And that he was the one who designed the garden,’ said Knutas, feeling like a real expert.

‘And that wasn’t all,’ said Anita Thorén. ‘That art thief really knew what he was doing when he placed a sculpture from Muramaris under the empty frame. It was actually here that Nils Dardel painted “The Dying Dandy”.’

Knutas raised his eyebrows. ‘Is that so?’

‘That’s what people say, at any rate. Come on, I’ll show you.’

She led the way through a creaking wooden gate. The house had
certainly been grand and imposing in its day, but now it looked dilapidated and run-down. The walls were crumbling in places, the paint was peeling off, and the windows were in dire need of repair. They used the side entrance and entered an old-fashioned kitchen.

‘There,’ she said, pointing to a room next to the kitchen. ‘It was in there that Dardel painted “The Dying Dandy” during the same summer that he designed the garden. He walked around the property with the head gardeners, explaining how everything should look. It’s all described in letters and other documents from that period. But Dardel also worked on his painting. First he did a watercolour with a similar motif, but using other colours, and with three men standing around the dandy. In that version he was holding a fan in his hand instead of a mirror. The first painting had a much more blatant homosexual theme.’

Knutas was listening dutifully, but he wasn’t particularly interested in art history.

Next they went into the drawing room, where a magnificent fireplace made of Gotland sandstone dominated the space.

‘Ellen was both a painter and a musician, but her primary interest was sculpture,’ said Anita Thorén. ‘She studied with Carl Milles, among others. She sculpted this enormous fireplace. It’s almost nine feet high, and it was the centrepiece around which the rest of the house was built. The reliefs symbolize the four elements – earth, fire, air and water. Others represent human love, suffering and work. That figure over there is the goddess of love,’ she added, pointing to one of the beautiful reliefs etched into the stone. ‘On June the twenty-first, the summer solstice, the last rays of the setting sun strike her face. That’s the shortest night of the year. Well actually, there’s practically no night at all.’

They walked through the music room and the library, then went upstairs to have a look at the bedrooms while Anita Thorén told him the history of the house. Outside they stopped by Ellen’s studio as well as beside a large house for the caretaker who looked after the garden.

‘He’s really the only one here in the wintertime,’ said Anita. ‘My husband and I live in the city and just come out once in a while to check on things.’

‘But what about the cabins over there? What are they used for?’ asked Knutas, pointing to the identical wooden cabins near the edge of the woods. They looked newly built.

‘We rent them out in the summertime. I’ll show you.’

Anita Thorén led the way over to the group of cabins, which stood a good distance away from Muramaris and close to the woods. She unlocked the door to one of the cabins and showed him inside. It was plainly furnished but with the requisite comforts. Directly below the plateau where they stood were some steps leading down to the beach.

Standing by itself was a red-painted cottage that seemed older than the others.

‘That’s Rolf de Maré’s cottage,’ said Anita. ‘Ellen had it built for her son so that he could have some privacy when he spent his summers here.’

They went inside. There was a simple kitchen with a wood stove, a big bedroom with two twin beds, and a small toilet and shower room. That was all.

‘So this is where he lived,’ said Knutas, nodding as he surveyed the bright floral wallpaper on the walls. ‘And Dardel also came here?’

‘Of course. He came here often over a period of several years. As I said, they were quite open about their homosexuality, at least as much as was possible in those days. Rolf de Maré was also Dardel’s benefactor; he helped him financially and gave him a great deal of support psychologically. Dardel’s life wasn’t exactly carefree. They also stayed in touch by letter. Later they spent a lot of time together in Paris. Rolf de Maré was the founder of the avant-garde Swedish Ballet in Paris, you know. And Dardel created the set designs and costumes for several performances. They also travelled together, going to Africa, South America, and all over Europe. Rolf de Maré was probably the person who was closest to Dardel, except maybe for Thora, whom he later married. And his daughter Ingrid, of course.’

As Knutas listened to Anita Thorén’s account, an idea started to take shape in his mind. He stood there in the cottage, now smelling of damp in the winter, with its low ceiling, and listened to the sound of the sea outside. He suddenly felt that he was standing at the very hub of what this investigation was all about.

‘Do you rent this cottage out too?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ said Anita Thorén. ‘But only in the summer. The water is turned off in the winter, and besides, there’s no demand for it. Except in a few cases.’

Knutas was instantly alert. ‘What sort of cases?’

‘Well, sometimes I make an exception. For instance, there was a researcher here not too long ago. He wanted to rent it in connection with the work he was doing on some project.’

Knutas felt his mouth go dry. ‘When was this?’

‘A few weeks ago. I’d have to check my notes to be more precise about the date. I think I wrote it down.’

She opened her bag and took out a little pocket calendar. Knutas held his breath as she looked through it.

‘Let’s see now … He rented it from the sixteenth until the twenty-third of February.’

Knutas closed his eyes and then opened them again. Egon Wallin was killed on the nineteenth. The dates matched.

‘Who was this person? What was his name?’

‘Alexander Ek. From Stockholm.’

‘How old was he? What did he look like?’

Anita Thorén looked at Knutas in surprise. ‘He was young, maybe twenty-five or so. Tall and well-built. Not overweight but very muscular. Like a bodybuilder.’

‘Did you ask him for ID?’

‘No, I didn’t think that was necessary. And besides, he seemed so nice. I also had the feeling that he’d been here before, but he said he hadn’t when I asked.’

That was enough for Knutas. He cast a quick glance around the cottage. Then he took Anita Thorén by the arm and practically pushed her outdoors.

‘We’ll talk more about this later. We need to cordon off the cottage and bring in the techs to go over the whole place. No one is allowed to set foot inside until that’s been done.’

‘What? What do you mean?’

‘Wait just a minute.’

Knutas rang Prosecutor Smittenberg on his mobile to obtain a search warrant. Then he rang Jacobsson and asked her to make arrangements to have the area blocked off and to bring in the police dogs.

‘What’s this all about?’ Anita Thorén eyed Knutas nervously as he finished his phone conversation.

‘The dates when the cottage was rented out match the timing of the murder of the art dealer Egon Wallin. The theft of “The Dying Dandy” may be connected to his murder. And it’s possible that the researcher who rented the place is involved.’

I
t took twenty-four hours before the media got wind of the fact that the police had blocked off Muramaris and were searching Rolf de Maré’s cottage. On Tuesday afternoon someone was out taking a walk in the area and happened to see the blue-and-white police tape around the cottage. That’s when the rumours started to fly. The police refused to comment on their actions, citing the need for keeping under wraps the preliminary investigation that was under way.

Johan was about to burst with frustration because no one would tell him anything. He and Pia were back at the editorial offices after going out to shoot whatever they could get at Muramaris. They’d been forced to plod through the woods to take pictures. Even then they only got partial shots of the grounds. The police had blocked off the car park.

As usual, Grenfors had rung Johan to demand a story to headline the news broadcast. Johan had been unable to contact either Anita Thorén or anyone else willing to make a statement. He was tearing his hair out, staring vacantly into space as Pia edited the footage they had shot.

‘I’ve got no text,’ he said. ‘The only thing I can report is that we have nothing to report! The police aren’t talking. Nor is the owner, and there aren’t any neighbours in the area. What the hell are we going to do?’

Pia stopped typing on the computer keyboard and took her eyes off the screen, with its sweeping image of the woods and the imposing building just visible in the background. She took out a small tin of snuff and took a pinch.

‘Hmm … who the hell might know something? Wait a minute, there’s a restaurant out there that’s open in the summertime. And I know
a girl who usually works there. It’s a long shot, but I can try ringing her.’

Ten minutes later they were on their way to Muramaris again to do a piece-to-camera. Johan was going to report on the latest news on-site with the house in the background, even though it was barely visible because the grounds had been blocked off by the police. But it would be much more effective on TV. Pia Lilja’s friend turned out to be the girlfriend of Anita Thorén’s son, and she was surprisingly well informed. She knew about the police searching the place, and she told them about Nils Dardel’s connection to Muramaris. She also said that it was presumably there that he had painted the stolen work of art. She said she’d heard that the police suspected that the perpetrator had rented Rolf de Maré’s cottage just before Egon Wallin was murdered.

T
he story on the TV news startled him so badly that he nearly spilled his coffee. Of course he had expected it. The connection was bound to come out eventually; he knew that. But not so soon. He studied the reporter standing there with Muramaris in the background; he recognized the man from earlier reports. He was annoyed by the reporter’s manner of speaking. So self-confident, even though he didn’t have a clue as to what this was all about.

It was bad enough that he had the police on his heels; now he also had to worry about journalists. There was something about the reporter’s face that he found especially irritating. Who the hell did he think he was, anyway? Then his name appeared on the screen. Oh, that’s right, it was Johan Berg.

Tonight he wasn’t sitting in front of the TV alone, and he had to make a real effort not to reveal how upset he was. He had to maintain a neutral expression. That was almost worse than anything else. Pretending that nothing was going on, that everything was the same as usual. He would have liked to shout to the whole world about what he had done and why. Those two seconds had been burned into his soul, and the evil wouldn’t go away until he’d carried out everything he had planned. Only then would he be free. After he had washed away the shit. Done a thorough clean. Then they could start over again, and everything would be fine.

Today he’d done an extra-long workout at the gym. The more he worked out, the better control he felt he had over himself. It somehow provided a release for his frustration, nervousness and doubt. When he
studied his body in the countless mirrors in the weight-training room, he felt strong. His reflection spoke loud and clear – he’d be able to carry it out. No one was going to catch him. Not the police, not some cocky reporter who thought he was hot stuff because he was on TV. Fucking idiot. Just let that guy try and stop him.

T
he man who had rented the cottage at Muramaris had used a false name. There was no Alexander Ek with the address he had given. He had paid cash, and the van he’d been driving was traced to a carrental company in Visby. The police spent a long time interviewing the gardener, even though he had been away most of the week in question. But on the day when the guest arrived, he’d seen the man’s vehicle and even noticed on the back window the name of the rental agency, which he was able to recall. The van had been rented for the same period as the cottage, also under a false name. All indications were that the perpetrator was indeed the man who had rented the cottage at Muramaris. Rolf de Maré’s cottage was combed for evidence.