The Spring Tide (27 page)

He was, on some levels.

As for the other levels, very few people knew about those.

Olivia looked at Abbas. He stood next to a low discreet bookcase, filled with very slim books. His white short-armed sweater
hung comfortably above a pair of well-cut grey chinos. Where does he keep it? Olivia wondered. The knife? That he always carried on him, according to Stilton. Always. Her eyes looked over Abbas’ body. He’s hardly wearing any clothes. Has he put it down somewhere?

‘You have curious eyes.’

Abbas turned round with a little cup of tea in his hand. Olivia felt caught out. She didn’t want Abbas to misinterpret her look.

‘Stilton says that you always carry a knife.’

Abbas’s reaction was minimal, but evident. And negative. Why had Stilton told Olivia about his knife? Unnecessary. The knife was a part of Abbas’ hidden character. It was not something public. Not even this young girl ought to have access to that information.

‘Sometimes Stilton talks a lot.’

‘But is it true? Do you have it on you now?’

‘No. Sugar?’

‘A little, yes please.’

Abbas turned round again. Olivia sank back on the low armchair and just that very same moment something hit the wooden frame right next to her – a long thin black knife trembled only a couple of centimetres from her shoulder. Olivia jerked to one side and stared at Abbas who was walking towards her with a cup in his hand.

‘It isn’t a knife, it’s a stripped Black Circus, 260 grams. Shall we talk a little about the beach case?’

‘Absolutely.’

Olivia took hold of the cup of tea and started to talk. A little too fast and strained. The knife was still stuck in the armchair. At the back of her head, the question was: where the hell had he had the knife?

Ove Gardman sat in the kitchen in his old family home on Nordkoster. He looked out through the window. A little earlier, he had talked to a woman police officer in Stockholm and told her what he knew about Wendt and Mal Pais. The can of ravioli had been eaten. Not in itself a culinary experience, but it had done the job and satisfied his hunger. Tomorrow he would go shopping and buy some proper food.

He looked around in the old family house.

He had stopped off quickly at his two-room flat in Göteborg before going on to Strömstad, visiting his old dad at the retirement home and travelling across to Nordkoster.

‘Home to Nordkoster’, since that was where he belonged.

It was as simple as that.

Now his mum and dad no longer lived in the house, and it made the place a bit sad. And empty. His mother Astrid had died three years ago and Bengt had recently had a stroke. Now he was partially paralysed on the right side of his body. An unpleasant handicap for an old weather-beaten lobster fisherman who all his life had defied the sea with his amazing constitution.

Ove sighed a little. He got up from the kitchen table, put his plate in the sink and thought about Costa Rica. It had been a fantastic journey, instructive, and strange.

And it got even stranger when he got home and rang that Olivia Rönning. Dan Nilsson murdered. A missing businessman who was really called Nils Wendt. Who had gone to Nordkoster straight after their meeting in Mal Pais. And then been murdered. What had he done here? On the island? Weird. Unpleasant. Was it connected with what I told him about the woman on the beach? Ove wondered.

He went up to the front door and turned the latch. He never usually did that. You didn’t really need to here on Nordkoster, but he did it anyway. Then he went up to his childhood room.

He stood in the doorway and looked into the room. It had hardly been touched since he moved to Göteborg to study at university. The old wallpaper with the shell motif, entirely in accordance with the wishes of the young Ove, had passed its best-before date many years ago and needed painting over.

He crouched down. The linoleum on the floor had fulfilled its function. There would certainly be a wooden floor under it that he could paint or sand down and oil. He tried to pull up the corner of the lino to see what was underneath, but couldn’t loosen it. A chisel, perhaps? He went out to the big tool cupboard in the hall, his father Bengt’s pride. Everything was there sorted and hung up in perfect order.

Ove smiled to himself when he opened the cupboard and saw it. His own old box of treasures. A wooden box he had made in the carpentry class at school, and that he filled with things he found on the beach. Amazing that it had survived. And here of all places? In Bengt’s beloved tool cupboard. He lifted out the box with the powerdrill and carefully picked up his old box.

He took the box into the bedroom and opened it on the bed. Everything was still there, just like he remembered it: the bird’s skull that he and mum found up by the Skum coves. Bits of birds’ eggs. Beautiful stones and bits of wood, and pieces of glass that had been worn down by the sea. Some odder things too, things that had washed up on the beach. Half a coconut, for example, and all the shells. Whelk and cockle shells, oyster shells and fan mussels. Shells that he and Iris had found the summer they were nine years old and in love. And the hairslide he had found later in the summer. Iris’ hairslide. He had found it in the seaweed on the beach and was going to give it back to her, but she had moved home for the summer and the year after he had forgotten about the hairslide and Iris.

Ove took it out of the box.

Just think, there was even a little strand of hair from Iris on it. After all those years. But? Ove held the slide under the light from the table lamp. Hadn’t she had blond hair? These hairs were much darker. Almost black. How strange.

Ove started to think about it. When had he found it? Really? The hairslide? Was it the same evening as… yes, damn it, it was! Suddenly his memory was crystal clear! He had found the hairslide in the seaweed next to the new footprints in the sand, and then… then he had heard those voices further along the beach and he’d hidden behind the rocks!

That night there was a spring tide.

Abbas pulled the knife out from the armchair frame. Olivia had drunk her tea and left. He had followed her to the door. There was no more to it. Now he keyed in a number on his mobile and waited. He got an answer. In one of his two mother tongues, French, he expressed his wishes to somebody at the other end.

‘How long will it take?’ he asked.

‘Two days. Where shall we meet?’

‘In San José, Costa Rica. I’ll text you.’

He hung up.

Three people were making their way down the corridor at the National Crime Squad. They were all newly awakened, yet alert and ready.

Mette had summoned her team especially early, at 06.30 they were all in the room. Ten minutes later she had told them about the information she had received from Olivia the day before. To this was added Lisa Hedqvist’s conversation with Gardman the previous evening. It didn’t really contain anything new. But now they knew where Wendt had been living before he came to Sweden. A large map of Costa Rica was put on the board. Mette pointed out Mal Pais on the Nicoya peninsula.

‘I have sent a personal contact out there.’

Nobody reacted. They all knew that Mette knew what she was doing.

Bosse Thyrén walked up to the board. Mette had phoned him when she left Abbas’ flat the previous evening and given him the necessary information to get going.

‘I have mapped out Wendt’s route,’ said Bosse. ‘He checked in at the airport in San José in Costa Rica under the same name that he used to rent the car here, Dan Nilsson.’

‘When was that?’

‘Friday, 10th of June, at 23.10 local time.’

Bosse wrote this on the board.

‘What passport was he using?’

‘We’re working on that. The plane flew to London via Miami, arrived 06.10, and then he took a plane to Landvetter, Göteborg, on Sunday 12th of June at 10.35.’

‘Still as Dan Nilsson?’

‘Yes. From Landvetter airport he took a taxi to the central station and bearing in mind his sighting in Nordkoster later that evening we can assume he went directly to Strömstad and took a boat across.’

‘Yes. Thanks, Bosse. Did you get any sleep at all?’

‘No. But it’s OK.’

Mette gave him an appreciative look.

Bosse’s information was quickly put together with his earlier mapping of Wendt’s movements after he left Nordkoster. Now they had a pattern of movements that stretched from San José in Costa Rica to the Oden hotel on Karlbergsvägen. Via Nordkoster.

‘The technicians have been in touch about Wendt’s mobile, they’ve got it to work.’

One of the older investigators came up to Mette with a plastic folder.

‘Have you read it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Anything of value?’

‘Yes, I would say so.’

A slight understatement, Mette noted when she quickly looked at the report. Among other things it contained a detailed list of calls.

With dates and exact times.

Ove Gardman had phoned Olivia late the previous evening and told her about the hairslide he had found. A slide with a black hair in it. Might that be of interest?

It might.

Gardman has also received an urgent request to stand in for somebody at a lecture on marine biology in Stockholm the next day, and he intended taking the morning train up.

‘The lobby bar at the Royal Viking. Next to the Central Station. How would that suit you?’ Olivia suggested.

‘Fine.’

Gardman strolled into the bar with washed-out blue jeans and a black T-shirt. Tanned, and with sun-bleached hair. Olivia
examined the guy who’d come in and wondered if he was single. Then she stopped looking. Gardman went up to the bar and ordered an espresso. When he’d got his coffee he turned round, looked at his watch and caught sight of a dark-haired girl over by the panorama window. He took a gulp of his coffee and waited. Another gulp later Olivia raised her head and had another look at the guy at the bar again.

‘Olivia Rönning?’ said Gardman.

Olivia was caught off balance, but nodded. Gardman went up to her.

‘Ove Gardman,’ he said.

‘Hello.’

Gardman sat down next to her.

‘How young you are,’ he said.

‘Oh really? How do you mean?’

‘Well, you know, when you hear a voice on the phone you get an idea of what the person looks like and… I thought you were older.’

‘I’m twenty-three. Have you got the hairslide with you?’

‘Yes.’

Gardman pulled out a little transparent plastic bag with a hairslide in it. Olivia examined the slide and Gardman told her where he’d found it.

How.

And above all when.

‘Just before you heard the voices?’

‘Yes. It was in the seaweed next to some new footprints in the sand and I followed those footprints with my eye and then I saw them, the people there, and heard them, and that was when I hid.’

‘Gosh, what a memory!’

‘Well it was an extremely special event, I don’t think I’d have remembered in such detail if I hadn’t found the hairslide.’

‘Can I keep it for a while?’

Olivia lifted the plastic bag and looked at Gardman.

‘Sure, absolutely. By the way, Axel, Nordeman that is, asked me to give you his regards. He ferried me across to Strömstad this morning.’

‘Thanks.’

Gardman glanced at his watch.

‘Oh hell, I must push off.’

Already? Olivia thought. Gardman got up and looked at her.

‘The lecture starts in half an hour. It was great to meet you! Be sure to get in touch if this has been of any help.’

‘Of course, I’ll do that.’

Gardman nodded and walked away. Olivia followed him with her gaze. Why didn’t I suggest that we could go for a beer before he travelled home? she thought.

Lenni would have asked him.

The young police inspector Janne Klinga had – with some difficulty – discovered where Stilton hung out. In a caravan in the Ingenting forest. Not the exact location. So he had walked around for a while among the dog owners and early-morning sun worshippers before he caught sight of it. Now he knocked on the door. Stilton glanced out through the window, disappeared, and opened the door. Klinga nodded to him.

‘Am I disturbing you?’

‘What do you want?’

‘I think there’s something in what you told us yesterday. About Kid Fighters.’

‘Does Rune Forss think so too?’

‘No.’

‘Come in.’

Klinga went inside and looked around.

‘Did you live here before too?’ he said.

‘When?’

‘When Vera Larsson lived here?’

‘No.’

Stilton wasn’t going to open up. He was on his guard. Perhaps this was just a way for Forss to cause trouble, he couldn’t know. He knew nothing about Janne Klinga.

‘Does Forss know that you’re here?’

‘No… can’t we keep this between us?’

Stilton looked at the young policeman. Perhaps he was a decent guy who just happened to have ended up with a bad boss? He waved towards one of the bunks. Klinga sat down.

‘Why have you come here?’

‘Because I think you’re on the right track. We’ve downloaded those Trashkick films and I looked through them last night and saw that tattoo on one of the guys doing the assault. KF with a ring round it. Just like you said.’

Stilton remained silent.

‘Then I looked up cage fighting and found quite a few things, mainly in England, young boys fighting in cages, but it seemed to be often with the parents present.’

‘There was no sign of parents when I saw it.’

‘Out in Årsta?’

‘Yes.’

‘I was there this morning, in that rock shelter, it was completely empty.’

‘They got scared when I turned up, and they moved all the stuff.’

‘Presumably. There were quite a lot of traces of activity there, bits of tape, screws, a smashed red light bulb and lots of junkie shit. But we can’t link that to cage fighting specifically.’

‘No.’

‘But I’ve got some people watching the place.’

‘Behind Forss’ back?’

‘I said that it was where you were beaten up and that it was perhaps worth keeping an eye open out there.’

‘And he bought that?’

‘Yes. I think he’d been talking to someone from the National Crime Squad, and I suppose he wanted to show them he’s doing something.’

Stilton grasped immediately who had spoken to Forss. She doesn’t waste any time, he thought.

‘And I’ve been in touch with our youth group. They didn’t know anything about it but they’d bear it in mind.’

‘Good.’

By now, Stilton was no longer so cautious. He believed Janne Klinga. Enough at any rate to pull out a map of Stockholm and unfold it between them.

‘You see the crosses?’ he said.

‘Yes.’

‘Those are the places where the assaults occurred, and the murder. I’ve tried to see if there’s a geographic connection.’

‘And is there?’

‘Not for the actual assaults, but three of the people who were beaten up, including Vera Larsson, were at the Söderhallarna selling magazines before they were assaulted. That’s the cross here.’

‘He didn’t mention that Vera hadn’t actually stood there that evening, it was he who had stood there, but she came along and they walked off together.’

‘So what’s your theory?’ Klinga asked.

‘It isn’t a theory, it’s a hypothesis. The guys who beat up people perhaps pick their victims at Söderhallarna and then follow after them.’

‘The other two who were beaten up, what about them? We’ve had five in all, didn’t they stand there?’

‘I haven’t got hold of one of those, the other hadn’t been standing there. He stood at the Ring on Götgatan.’

‘That’s not very far from Medborgarplatsen.’

‘No. Besides, he went past Söderhallarna before he went to the Ring.’

‘So we ought to keep a bit of a watch on Söderhallarna?’

‘Perhaps, it’s not my decision.’

No, Klinga thought. It’s up to me or Forss. He found himself wishing that Forss had been a bit more like Stilton.

Decisive.

Klinga got up.

‘If you find out anything else, then could you contact me directly? I’m going to do this a bit on the quiet.’

And it was quite clear who he didn’t want to hear about it.

‘Here’s my card if you want to get hold of me,’ said Klinga.

Stilton took the card.

‘And like I said, this is just between…’

‘Sure.’

Klinga nodded and went towards the door. Halfway out, he looked back.

‘There was one more thing. On another of those films, the one taken here at the caravan, when Vera Larsson was beaten up, just before that they filmed through a window… it must have been that one, and then you see a naked man having sex with her on this bunk.’

‘Yes?’

‘Do you have any idea who it was?’

‘It was me.’

Klinga gave a bit of a start. Stilton looked him right in the eye.

‘But that’s just between us.’

Klinga nodded and stepped out and very nearly walked straight into a decidedly excited Olivia Rönning. She cast a glance at Klinga, stepped in and pulled the door shut behind her.

‘Who was that out there?’

‘Somebody from the council.’

‘Oh right. Well, do you know what I’ve got here?’

Olivia held up Gardman’s little plastic bag with the hairslide.

‘A hairslide,’ said Stilton.

‘From the Hasslevikarna coves! Found the same evening that the murder happened, by Ove Gardman, next to the footprints of either the victim or one of the perpetrators!’

Stilton looked at the bag.

‘And why didn’t he give it to us? Back then? In 1987?’

‘I don’t know. He was nine years old and had no idea it might be of any value. For him it was simply a beach find.’

Stilton reached out for the bag.

‘There’s a hair in the slide,’ said Olivia. ‘Black.’

Now Stilton knew exactly where the Scud missile Rönning was heading.

‘DNA?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’ said Stilton.

‘Well if it’s the victim’s hair then it’s of no interest, but if it isn’t?’

‘Then perhaps it could be from one of the perpetrators?’

‘Yes.’

‘Someone with a hairslide?’

‘One of them could have been a woman.’

‘There is no information about there having been another woman there.’

‘Says who? Says a terrified nine year old who was hiding quite a long way away, it was night, he saw some dark figures and heard a woman scream, he thought that there were three or four people there, he didn’t have a chance to see if there was more than
one
woman there. Did he?’

‘You’re back to Jackie Berglund again, are you?’

‘I didn’t say that.’

But she thought it. And felt it. As soon as Stilton mentioned the name it churned up a pulsating fury inside her head.
She suddenly had some very personal reasons to go after Jackie Berglund.

A lift and a cat.

Above all a cat.

But that had nothing to do with Stilton.

He gave Olivia a sideways look. He knew that there was a lot of sense in Olivia’s reasoning.

‘You’ll have to talk to the cold-case guys.’

‘They’re not interested.’

‘Why not?’

‘The case is not “accessible” according to Verner Brost.’

They both looked at each other. Stilton turned his gaze away.

‘But your ex-wife works at the SKL lab…?’ said the missile.

‘And how the hell do you know that?’

‘Because I’m Arne’s daughter.’

Stilton smiled a little. Slightly sadly, Olivia thought. Had Dad and him been close friends?

She’d ask him about that when the occasion arose.

The room was a typical interrogation room, designed with one aim in mind. On one side of the table sat Mette Olsäter with a couple of sheets of A4 paper in front of her. On the other side the managing director of MWM, Bertil Magnuson. Today with a dark-grey suit, wine-red tie and a lawyer. A woman who had been summoned at short notice to the police headquarters by Magnuson to be present at the interrogation. He had no idea what it was about, but he was a man who took precautions.

‘The interrogation will be taped,’ said Mette.

Magnuson glanced at his lawyer. She gave a little nod. Mette pressed the ‘Record’ button and started by describing the time and place and who was there.

Then the interrogation got under way.

‘When we met the day before yesterday you denied having had any contact with the murdered Nils Wendt recently. Your last contact was approximately twenty-seven years ago, is that correct?’

‘Yes.’

Magnuson had been fetched in a police car from Sveavägen and driven the short distance to the police headquarters at Polhemsgatan. He was remarkably calm. Mette registered a very distinct male perfume and a slight whiff of cigarillo. She put on a pair of reading spectacles and studied the piece of paper in front of her.