The Spring Tide (34 page)

‘Has he been killed in the fire?’

‘I don’t know! They don’t know. Is Mette there?’

‘No.’

‘Ask her to phone me!’

‘Olivia, you must…’

Olivia dismissed the call and then phoned Abbas.

He answered from an unmarked police car on the way in from Arlanda. A car that just then was barely moving. A truck had managed to jackknife and ram the steel cables separating the carriageways and caused a major hold-up in the other direction. Their direction. They couldn’t get past the scene of the accident. The queues moved at a snail’s pace.

The same applied to the car trailing them.

It was just a few cars behind.

Abbas hung up. Had Tom been in the caravan? Was that why he hadn’t answered? Abbas looked out through the car window, there were low patches of mist hovering over the wide green fields. Is this how you get notified of a death? he thought.

In a traffic jam?

Olivia drove home. Parked the car and walked slowly up to the entrance to the building. She could hardly think straight any longer. Digest the news. She couldn’t understand what had happened. But her instincts still worked, more or less. When she keyed in the door code and pushed the door open, she did so with some caution. She had seen Jackie Berglund’s gaze from the taxi outside the police headquarters, and she had seen Vera’s burnt-out caravan. Was that Jackie’s revenge for the interrogation?

There were no lights on in the lobby, but she knew exactly how far away the light switch was. She could reach it while still keeping the door open with her foot. She stretched out her hand towards the switch and suddenly gave a start. She had seen something out of the corner of her eye. She screamed at the same moment that she pressed the switch. The light flooded over a very pathetic looking figure with scorched hair and burnt clothes and whose arms were bleeding from various scratches.

‘Tom?’

Stilton looked at her and coughed. Violently. Olivia rushed forward and helped him onto his feet. They made their way slowly up the stairs and into the flat. Stilton sank down on a chair in the kitchen. Olivia phoned Abbas. They had left the queue and were now close to Sveaplan.

‘Is he with you?’ said Abbas.

‘Yes. Can you phone Mette? I’ve not been able to get hold of her.’

‘OK. Where do you live?’

Olivia put plasters on the bleeding cuts and scratches as best she could. Opened a window to air out the acrid stink of smoke and tried to offer him a cup of coffee. Stilton didn’t say a word. He let her carry on. The shock was still in his body. He knew how close it had been. If he hadn’t managed to smash a window at the back with a Calor gas tube, the technicians would now have picked up the remains of a twisted skeleton and taken them away in a black bag.

‘Thank you.’

Stilton took the mug of coffee with trembling hands. Panic? He had panicked. Not surprising, perhaps, he thought. Shut inside a burning caravan. But he knew that it was something else that had triggered the panic. He so well remembered his mother’s words on her deathbed.

Olivia sat opposite him. Stilton coughed again.

‘Were you inside the caravan?’ she finally asked.

‘Yes.’

‘But how did you get…’

‘Forget it.’

Again. Olivia was beginning to get used to it. When he didn’t want to, then he wasn’t going to. Obstinate, to put it mildly. She was beginning to understand Marianne Boglund. Stilton put the mug down on the table and leaned back.

‘Do you think Jackie Berglund was behind it?’ Olivia wondered.

‘No idea.’

It could be her, he thought. Or it could be completely different people, who had followed him home from Söderhallarna. But that wasn’t Olivia’s business. When he felt up to it, he would phone Janne Klinga. For the time being he let the hot coffee calm his breathing. He saw Olivia looking at him, discreetly. She’s pretty, he thought. Something that hadn’t occurred to him earlier.

‘Are you in a relationship with somebody?’ Stilton suddenly asked.

Olivia was very surprised by that question. Stilton had never shown any interest at all in her private life.

‘No.’

‘Me neither.’

He smiled. Olivia smiled back. Suddenly her mobile rang. It was Ulf Molin. From her class in college.

‘Hello?’

‘How are things with you?’ he said.

‘Fine. What do you want?’

‘My dad phoned me a while ago, he had heard something about that Tom Stilton you asked about, do you remember?’

‘Yes.’

Olivia turned away as she spoke. Stilton watched her.

‘Apparently he’s a tramp,’ said Ulf.

‘Oh, really?’

‘Did you get hold of him?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is he a tramp?’

‘Homeless.’

‘Oh yeah? Is there a difference?’

‘Can I call you back? I’ve got a visitor.’

‘Oh, right. Yes, do that. Bye.’

Olivia hung up. Stilton realised who the conversation was about. There weren’t many homeless people in Olivia’s circle of acquaintances. He looked at her, and she looked back.

Something in Stilton’s eyes suddenly reminded her of her father. From the photo she had seen at the Wernemyrs in Strömstad. Of Stilton and Arne.

‘How well did you know my dad?’ she said.

Stilton looked down at the table.

‘Did you work together long?’

‘A few years. He was a good detective.’

Stilton looked up, and now directed his gaze straight into Olivia’s eyes.

‘Can I ask you something?’ he said.

‘Yes.’

‘Why did you choose the beach case for your college project?’

‘Because dad was involved in the investigation.’

‘Was it only that?’

‘Yes. Why do you ask?’

Stilton pondered this a moment. Just as he was about to open his mouth, the doorbell rang. Olivia got up, went out into the hall and opened. It was Abbas. He had a blue plastic bag in his hand. Olivia let him in and walked ahead into the kitchen. The first thing that came into her head was the mess. Fuck, she hadn’t cleaned the flat in ages!

She hadn’t thought about that when she walked in with Stilton.

With Abbas it was different.

He stepped into the kitchen, looked at Stilton who looked back at him.

‘How are you?’

‘Feel like shit,’ said Stilton. ‘Thanks for Adelita Rivera.’

‘You’re welcome.’

‘What have you got in the bag?’

‘The material from Mal Pais, Mette’s on her way here.’

K. Sedovic, who had received orders from Sveavägen to follow the croupier from Arlanda, was brief as he spoke on his mobile.

‘The croupier went inside the building, the other two are sitting outside.’

He was sitting some distance from Olivia’s building and watching the other car which was right outside the entrance. Bosse Thyrén and Lisa Hedqvist sat in the front.

‘Did he have that bag with him when he went in?’ Bertil asked.

‘Yes.’

Bertil couldn’t fathom what was going on. What the hell was Abbas el Fassi up to? A block of flats on Skånegatan? Who lived there? And why were the other two waiting outside? And who were they?

A question that he very soon got an answer to. When Mette Olsäter turned in and parked right in front of Lisa’s car and got out. She went up to the wound-down window on the driver’s side.

‘Go back to the station. Call in the others. I’ll be in touch.’

Mette disappeared in through the entrance. K. phoned Bertil again and told him what had happened.

‘What did she look like?’ Bertil wondered.

‘Grey hair in a bun. A very large woman,’ said K.

Bertil Magnuson lowered his mobile and looked out across to the Adolf Fredrik churchyard. He knew immediately who the woman was. The one who had gone into the building. Mette Olsäter. The chief inspector who had asked him about Wendt’s short calls and given him a very distinct look: you are lying.

This was not good at all.

It was getting all screwed up.

‘It stinks of smoke!’ said Mette as she stepped into the kitchen.

‘That’s me,’ said Stilton.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes.’

Olivia looked at Stilton. Badly beaten up just a couple of days ago, and now half incinerated. And he says he’s all right. Was it just jargon? Didn’t want to give anything away? Or a way to shift focus to something else? Away from himself? Presumably, because Mette seemed satisfied with his answer. She must know him better, Olivia thought.

Abbas emptied the contents of the plastic bag onto the kitchen table. A cassette tape, a little envelope and a plastic folder with a piece of paper in it. Luckily, Olivia had four kitchen chairs. She wasn’t sure how well Mette would fit in hers. They were a bit wobbly.

She landed heavily. Olivia saw how the chair legs spread out a little. Mette put on a pair of thin rubber gloves and lifted up the cassette tape.

‘I’ve already touched that,’ said Abbas.

‘Right, so we know that.’

Mette turned towards Olivia.

‘Have you got an old cassette tape recorder?’

‘No.’

‘OK, I’ll take this to NCS.’

Mette put the cassette back into the plastic bag and lifted up the little envelope that had lain in the leather bag. It was an old envelope, with an old Swedish postage stamp on it. Inside was a letter. Written on a typewriter and short. Mette glanced at the letter.

‘It’s in Spanish.’

She held it up in front of Abbas. He translated aloud.

‘“Dan! I’m sorry, but I don’t think we are right for each other, and now I’ve got the chance to start a new life. I’m not coming back.”’

Mette held the letter under the kitchen lamp. It was signed ‘Adelita’.

‘Can I look at the envelope?’ said Stilton.

Abbas handed the envelope across, and Stilton looked at the stamp.

‘It’s postmarked five days after Adelita was murdered.’

‘Could hardly have been written by her then,’ said Mette.

‘No.’

Mette opened the plastic folder and pulled out a typed A4 sheet of paper.

‘This seems to be more recently written, it’s in Swedish.’

Mette started to read it aloud.

‘“To the police authorities in Sweden!” It’s dated 8th June 2011, four days before Wendt came to Nordkoster,’ she said and continued to read. ‘“Earlier this evening I received a visit from a Swedish man, here in Mal Pais. His name was Ove Gardman and he told me of an event on the island of Nordkoster in Sweden. A murder. 1987. Later in the evening I could ascertain that the woman who had been murdered was Adelita Rivera. A Mexican whom I loved and who was pregnant with my child. On account of various circumstances, mainly economic, she had travelled to Sweden and Nordkoster to fetch some money that I couldn’t fetch myself just then. She never came back. Now I know why, and I am fairly certain who lay behind her murder. I’m going to go to Sweden to see if my money is still on the island.”’

‘The empty suitcase,’ said Olivia.

‘Which suitcase?’ Abbas wondered out loud.

Olivia quickly explained to Abbas about Dan Nilsson’s empty suitcase.

‘He must have had it with him to put his hidden money in,’ she said.

Mette went on reading.

‘“If the money isn’t there, then I’ll know what has happened, and will act accordingly. I have with me a copy of the cassette
tape that is enclosed in this bag. The voices on the tape are of me and Bertil Magnuson, managing director of MWM. The recording is self-explanatory.” It’s signed Dan Nilsson / Nils Wendt.’

Mette lowered the letter. She had suddenly been presented with a great deal of substance for her case. Above all the short telephone calls to Bertil Magnuson from Wendt. They must have been about the missing money.

‘Perhaps you should have this too.’

Abbas opened his jacket and pulled out the photo from the bar in Santa Teresa. The photo of Nils Wendt and Adelita Rivera.

‘Can I see it?’

Olivia reached out for the photo. Stilton leaned towards her. They both looked at the couple who were holding each other in the picture. Stilton reacted slightly.

‘They look happy,’ said Olivia.

‘Yes.’

‘And now they’re both dead. Sad…’

Olivia shook her head a little and handed over the photo. Mette took it and got up. Because she was the only one of them who officially was involved in the murder investigation, nobody protested when the lifted up the blue plastic bag with all the material. On her way to the door she caught sight of a little cat’s toy on the window sill. The only thing Olivia had kept.

‘Have you got a cat?’ she asked.

‘I had, it… disappeared.’

‘That’s sad.’

Mette left the kitchen.

She left the building with the blue bag in her hand and went up to her black Volvo, got in, put the car in gear and rolled away. Some way behind her, another car rolled away, in the same direction.

Bertil Magnuson stood beside the window in his office. The lights were not on. He was in touch with K. Sedovic all the time. Bertil played up a number of scenarios in his head. The first, and most desperate, was quite simply to force Olsäter’s car off the road and get hold of the blue plastic bag with violence. Which meant an attack in the street against a senior police officer and involved considerable risk. The second was to see where she went. She might even drive home? Then they could do a break-in and get hold of the bag. With a lot less risk. The third was that she drove straight to police headquarters.

Which would be disastrous.

But unfortunately was the most likely scenario.

In Olivia’s kitchen there was now a pregnant silence. The information that had now reached them was quite astonishing. Stilton could hardly take it in. After all these years. Finally, Olivia looked at Abbas.

‘So Nils Wendt was the father of Adelita’s child?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you find out anything else about her? From that man, Bosques?’

‘Yes.’

Abbas opened his jacket again and pulled out a little menu from the airplane.

‘I memorised what he said and wrote it down on the plane…’

Abbas started to read from the menu in his hand.