Without a Trace (13 page)

‘But there is something dodgy about it,’ Valter said. ‘I mean, the bloke was almost killed.’

The motorway, blasted through rock, ran past cliff-faces and noise-dampening barriers. Annika thought back to the women in Solsidan, to the big house with its ice-cold stone floor, all the effort that went into hair-colouring, bun-baking and finding the right curtains to match the sofas. Some time ago she had read an article about scientific research that showed it was possible to shop your way to a better quality of life, but only in three specific areas: food; travel and new experiences; charity and gifts. Eating, doing new things, and giving things away. So how come everyone put so much effort into the rest of it? Were the researchers wrong? How else could sofas and fingernails be so important?

‘Do you think the evening papers are obsolete?’ Valter asked out of the blue.

Annika glanced at him. ‘Do you mean the print media in general or …?’

‘Investigative journalism used to balance out the gossip, but that’s pretty much been taken over now by documentaries and books.’

‘But we’re the ones who draw attention to the documentaries and books. Their message only gets across because of the established media.’

‘Impoverished freelancers and underpaid film-makers spend years working on a story, then the evening papers write one article and appropriate the glory for themselves. Talk about getting a free ride!’

Annika couldn’t help smiling. ‘Are you sure you’ve chosen the right place to do your work placement?’

The young man glared through the windscreen. Annika slowed down and turned off towards Hammarbyhamnen, leaning forward to peer through the filthy windscreen. ‘So, are you ready for this?’

The office was in Södra Hammarbyhamnen, not the fashionable new residential area, but next to the old light-bulb factory in the industrial district. The accountancy firm of Moberg & Moberg was located on the ground floor of a three-storey apartment block from the seventies.

The door was opened by a woman with lipstick on her teeth. ‘I’m afraid Robert isn’t here,’ she said, and was about to close the door again, but Annika walked into the office, forcing her to stand aside.

‘We’d be just as happy to see Henrik,’ she said.

The office was based in an ordinary three-room apartment. It was very obvious that Moberg & Moberg didn’t spend their profits on interior design. The bookcases and desks looked as if they had come from Ikea’s starter range at the time the place was built.

‘Have you booked an appointment?’

Annika smiled. ‘I called from the car, Annika Bengtzon. We’re from the
Evening Post
newspaper, and we’ve got a few questions for either Robert or Henrik Moberg.’

The assistant glanced uncertainly behind her. ‘I don’t know if he’s got time to—’

At that moment Henrik stepped out from what would once have been a bedroom. He was tall and heavy, dressed in a jacket and shirt that was open at the collar. He didn’t seem particularly pleased to see them. ‘What can I do for you?’ he said curtly, as he shook their hands.

‘We’ve got a few questions about one of your clients, Ingemar Lerberg, and his businesses,’ Annika said.

‘And we’re governed by the law of confidentiality, as I’m sure you’re aware,’ the accountant said.

He was clearly finding the situation extremely uncomfortable, Annika thought. His face was dark and he had a fixed set to his mouth.

‘First and foremost, I’d like to know what happened with the tax-office investigation into Ingemar Lerberg’s business seven and a half years ago,’ she said.

The man’s eyes widened slightly – that clearly wasn’t the question he had been expecting. ‘Why?’ he asked.

‘I couldn’t find any details in the media archives,’ she said breezily.

‘That’s not particularly strange,’ Henrik Moberg said. ‘Nothing was ever written about it. I told Ingemar he ought to release a press statement after the investigation was over, but he didn’t want to. He said, “They’ll still twist it to make me look like the tax offender of the century.”’

‘So they found him innocent?’

‘He was late with his VAT return on two occasions, and was given a fine totalling one thousand kronor.’

A thousand kronor, less than two parking tickets outside her front door on Södermalm would cost her. But that wouldn’t have made any difference. Ingemar had been right: the media would indeed have turned it into a crime comparable to high treason. Annika nodded and smiled. ‘We’d also like to look at the accounts of his older companies, the ones that went bankrupt,’ she said.

Henrik’s face closed. ‘What for?’

Annika continued to smile. ‘I don’t have to tell you that. Those documents are public files.’

The assistant shuffled anxiously in the background.

‘We don’t have the resources to look through the archive right now,’ Henrik said. ‘But if you could specify exactly what you’re after, we’ll see if we get a chance next week.’

Annika’s smile was still firmly in place. ‘No need. We can go through the archive ourselves. Where is it?’

The accountant exchanged a quick glance with his assistant. ‘In the basement. But …’

‘Excellent,’ Annika said. She walked out into the stairwell and began to go down the stairs.

Henrik and his assistant hurried after her.

‘The accounts from Ingemar’s first two companies have been destroyed,’ Henrik said, ‘so we can’t help you with those.’

Annika tilted her head to one side. ‘We’ll take the other two then, please.’

Henrik nodded to his assistant, who disappeared into a dimly lit corridor. ‘The media has become an arena for gladiatorial combat,’ he said. ‘You send people out into the spotlight, cheer and applaud them, then shoot them down and watch them bleed to death.’

Annika looked at him calmly. ‘The gladiators were the big celebrities of the Roman empire. It wasn’t just slaves and Christians who were forced to fight in the ring. Upper-class boys would apply to get in too. Things went so far that they had to impose a lower age-limit for gladiators …’

Henrik turned on his heel and disappeared back upstairs.

Valter was looking round, wide-eyed, his ethical doubts seeming to have dispersed in the dry basement air. ‘What a strange place to keep an archive of bankruptcies,’ he whispered.

Annika peered into the darkness of the corridor. It reminded her of the basement in the block of flats on Tattarbacken in Hälleforsnäs where she had grown up, a three-storey brick block like this one, with a communal laundry and drying rooms, and storage areas divided by chicken wire. Proximity to Stockholm meant that properties like this one had aged considerably more gracefully than their cousins in the backwaters of Södermanland. The stairwell had been painted recently, and the stone floor was polished to a shine. At the end of the corridor there was a small desk, with a chair and a reading lamp.

The assistant wheeled out a trolley with the files balanced on top. There weren’t many: four covering one bankruptcy, and three the other. ‘Just leave them here when you’re finished,’ she said. She still had lipstick on her front teeth.

‘Which ones relate to Lerberg Consulting?’

She pointed to the files on the left of the trolley. Then she trotted back upstairs, her heels clicking on the stone steps. Valter looked at the files with a degree of horror.

‘Have a seat,’ Annika said, pointing to the chair by the little desk. Then she took off her jacket, folded it and laid it on the stairs. She grabbed three of the files and sat down.

‘Why do you want to look at those in particular?’ Valter asked.

‘This is the company that was investigated by the tax office,’ she said, opening the first page.

Valter sat down warily on the old office chair. ‘Where shall I start?’

‘At the beginning, perhaps?’

Valter read the labels on the back of the files and opened one. He checked each page before moving on. ‘Lerberg Investment,’ he said. ‘Offices on Strandvägen in Saltsjöbaden. Three employees, Ingemar Lerberg and two secretaries.’ He let out a whistle. ‘Ingemar was paying himself a quarter of a million kronor a month, while the secretaries got twenty thousand.’

‘A generous employer,’ Annika said. ‘At least towards himself.’

She flipped through receipts and invoices, sorted by date. Each receipt was stapled to a sheet of A4 and categorized according to strict criteria. They included office supplies, office furnishings, entertaining, IT equipment, taxis, parking costs, travel, expenses, wages, pension …

She paused over a large bill from the Operakällaren restaurant in Stockholm: 7,900 kronor. Carefully she lifted the receipt, and the names of those in attendance were written on the back. None meant anything to her.

Valter read out: ‘Conference trip to Monaco, five nights at the Hôtel de Paris.’ He looked up at Annika. ‘Isn’t that …?’

‘The casino in Monte Carlo? Yep. Carry on.’

He turned a page. ‘Yacht hire. Lease of helicopter for transport between Monaco and the airport in Nice.’

Annika moved on to the next file. The documents rustled. She came to another bill for entertaining at Operakällaren, no names she recognized. Christmas lunch at the Grand Hotel. This time there were several old acquaintances: Kristine Lerberg, Nora Andersson and Helmer Andersson, among others. Ingemar’s elder sister, his future wife and possibly her father. A little family dinner at the company’s expense.

‘Stage costumes, twelve thousand five hundred and ninety kronor,’ Valter said, and looked up at Annika. ‘Can you really claim for that as a consultant?’

‘Have you come across any income?’ Annika asked.

Valter leafed back and forth. ‘There are records of payments into the company account,’ he said. ‘Capital injections from investors.’

Annika had similar bank records of in-payments from customers. The company names meant nothing to her: Lindberg Investment, Sollentuna Entrepreneurs, Viceroy Investment Inc. She opened the last file. Now she was approaching the dates mentioned in the articles in the media. The first receipt was another huge bill, this time from a restaurant, Edsbacka krog, out in Sollentuna, dating from October seven and a half years ago. At the time Edsbacka krog was the only restaurant in Sweden with two Michelin stars. Two people had eaten the tasting menu, and had drunk some astonishingly expensive wines. She turned the thin sheet of paper over. The guests had been Ingemar Lerberg and Anders Schyman.

Her hand froze in mid-air.

Anders Schyman?

‘Do you think,’ Valter said, ‘that it might have been one of the investors who did it? Someone who had lost all his money?’

Annika stared at the names on the back of the restaurant bill, then turned back and checked the date: 28 October. Barely two weeks before the torrent of articles had begun to appear. She closed the file. ‘Seems a bit of a long shot,’ Annika said. ‘After all, his company has been doing well recently.’

‘So what does this mean? Can we write about it? The bankruptcies? Or the restaurant bills?’

Annika stared at the wall. ‘Not right now, at any rate,’ she said. ‘We can’t very well portray him as dodgy while he’s lying at death’s door.’

‘But if he gets better? We can write about it then? That would be okay?’

All of a sudden Annika felt very clearly that she’d had enough press ethics for one day. She stood up, shook her jacket and put it on. ‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘Let’s go.’

Anders Schyman bent down and pulled open the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet that stood against the far wall. Hanging folders inside, plenty of papers. Documents. Notes, in alphabetical order, from government crises and defence cutbacks to primary-school policy.

He groaned.

It must be there somewhere. He was absolutely certain that he’d kept it. Surely he would have done.

He shut the drawer with his foot and sat down at his desk. The first place he had looked was the little filing cabinet on wheels, but without any great expectation of finding the old video-cassette there. He had a reasonable idea of what was in his desk drawers. But the old dresser by the glass wall, the bookshelves and the archive cupboard had been a trip down Memory Lane. God, he’d covered so many storms in teacups, politics, power games and corruption at every level, but he hadn’t managed to find the old VHS tape containing a recording of his prizewinning documentary. It wasn’t at home, he was sure of that, because his wife had cleared out everything like it several years ago, and had asked him if there was anything he wanted to keep. He’d told her he’d look through it all a bit later but had never got round to it, and in the end she’d just got rid of it all. He hadn’t been bothered at the time. Anything that was at all relevant to work was kept in his office at the paper anyway. Or so he’d thought.

Where the hell had the documentary got to?

He’d looked among the classics on Swedish Television’s open online archive, but it evidently wasn’t regarded as such. Obviously his former employers would have a copy in their archive but they would have finished for the day, and if he wanted to buy a copy it would probably take several weeks to get hold of it and cost a fortune. Above all, though, he didn’t want to alert anyone at the national broadcaster that something was going on and that the subject was suddenly relevant again.

Let sleeping dogs lie, he thought, although the real issue at the moment was just how soundly the dog was actually sleeping. The latest post on the Light of Truth had already attracted 590 comments. Everyone hated him, with just ten exceptions. He had read each and every one.

He had come to realize that the level of detailed knowledge about Viola Söderland’s life was practically limitless. The 580 expert commentators all knew with absolute certainty that he had lied through his teeth in his documentary and that the old billionairess was dead and buried, and had been for twenty years. The question was whether she had been dead during those years when she had been running her company into the ground. Golden Spire: the property company that had been in the vanguard for the new deregulated capitalism of the late 1980s, when the banks’ lending cap was abolished and the grab-what-you-can attitude was celebrating its greatest triumphs. Viola Söderland borrowed money and bought properties, which she then mortgaged, and with that money she bought more properties, which she mortgaged, eagerly cheered on by, among others, her colleagues, Linette Pettersson and Sven-Olof Witterfeldt. It had carried on like that until the bubble had burst and Golden Spire collapsed like a pack of cards.