Without a Trace (29 page)

What if she moved to Norrköping with Jimmy? And let the children live with Thomas full-time? Let them escape these horrible rush-hour journeys so that they could walk to school, maybe go home for lunch and during free periods …

And only see them every other weekend? Out of the question.

So whose best did she really want?

She hoisted her bag onto her shoulder and quickened her steps.

Nina stood outside the front door looking at the nameplate. Four surnames, a mixture of Swedish and foreign. These people had clearly chosen to live together (well, maybe not the children). Families didn’t necessarily have to be tied together by blood (
families = blood
), but could be like this one: responsible, conscious choices by individuals who didn’t even have to come from the same corner of the world.

She rang the bell. A girl with blonde hair and bright eyes opened the door. Nina immediately recognized the handsome government official from that morning in the little face.

‘Hello,’ Nina said. ‘My name’s Nina. I’m here to see your mummy.’

The child took a step back and called, ‘Mummy! Your operational analyst is here!’

Then she vanished, quick as a flash, into a room off to the left, from which Nina could hear electronic bleeping noises.

Annika Bengtzon came out into the hall, wiping her hands on a tea-towel. ‘Welcome,’ she said, shaking Nina’s hand. ‘I’ve got something in the oven, so maybe we could …’

Nina took off her jacket and shoes and looked around discreetly. It was an impressive apartment: mirrored doors, high ceilings with ornate plasterwork, and in the living room ahead she caught a glimpse of an old-fashioned tiled stove and a balcony. She followed Annika Bengtzon into a rather cramped, impractical kitchen. A small table with three chairs was squeezed up against one wall, covered with a red and white checked tablecloth.

‘Would you like coffee?’ Annika asked.

‘No, thanks.’

She sat down at the table. Annika crouched and looked through the window in the door of the old-fashioned gas oven. Inside was a large piece of fish – Nina thought it looked like salmon – with a thermometer sticking out of the fleshiest part.

‘I was rather surprised when you called,’ Annika said. ‘And pleased.’ She smiled at Nina. Nina looked at the table. Annika sat down opposite her. ‘I spoke to Q this afternoon,’ she said. ‘He was remarkably accommodating, and said someone would contact me. Do you know what he’s after?’

Nina looked up in surprise. ‘The way I understood it, you were the one who wanted to see us because you’ve got new information about some old case.’

Annika didn’t reply, just looked at her with narrowing eyes. Nina waited for her to say something.

‘I don’t talk about things that shouldn’t be talked about,’ Annika said, in a low voice. ‘If anything’s supposed to be made public I shout about it. If not, it stays with me.’

Nina knew that was true.

‘I really only had one question when I contacted Q,’ Annika said. ‘About Viola Söderland. Are you in charge of her case?’

Viola Söderland? An absurdly wealthy woman who vanished years ago, laden with debt? ‘Me? No. Should I be?’

‘My editor-in-chief has asked me to track her down.’

Nina looked at her, stony-faced. ‘That sounds … complicated,’ she said.

Annika scratched her head. ‘I wanted to know if there had been any developments in the case during the last twenty years or so, and that was when Q said he’d get someone to call me.’

Nina took a deep breath. The kitchen smelt of dill and fish. ‘Exactly what did you say to Q?’

There was a ping from the oven. Annika got to her feet and hurried over to it. Moments later the front door opened and a man called, ‘Hello!’ Children’s feet drummed on the parquet floor.

‘Dinner’s ready,’ Annika said. ‘Have you eaten?’

Nina’s back stiffened. ‘I really don’t want to intrude.’

‘You’re not intruding,’ Annika said, getting the dish out of the oven. The top of the fish was covered with dill and slices of lemon. She sprinkled some sea salt over it, followed by a drizzle of honey.

The man came into the kitchen: Jimmy Halenius, undersecretary of state at the Justice Ministry. He was fairly short, quite thick-set, with brown hair. Not half as handsome as Thomas Samuelsson.

‘Hi,’ he said, leaning over to shake her hand. ‘Jimmy.’

She stood up – she was taller than him. ‘Nina,’ she said curtly.

‘Nina’s at National Crime,’ Annika said, kissing him on the lips. ‘We’re going to have a chat later. Can you get another plate out?’

He reached for another glass and plate, then some cutlery. In passing he pressed against Annika, who pretended not to notice, but Nina spotted it.

The little blonde girl came into the kitchen. ‘What are we having?’

‘You can tell from the smell,’ a boy said from the hall.

‘Kalle doesn’t like salmon,’ the girl said to Nina.

‘Right, let’s eat,’ Annika said, nudging the child out of the kitchen with her knee. In one hand she was holding a dish of roasted vegetables, and in the other she was balancing the ovenproof dish containing the fish.

‘Let me take that,’ Nina said, grabbing some oven gloves.

Annika picked up a jug of iced water from the worktop instead and led the way into the dining room.

An antique table laid for seven, with napkins, side-plates and stemmed glasses. There was some sort of salad on the side-plates. A dark girl, her head covered with little plaits, was lighting the candles in a huge wrought-iron candelabrum.

‘I recognize that,’ Nina said. ‘It’s from the old works in Hälleforsnäs.’

Annika gave her a broad smile, rather surprised. ‘Wow,’ she said. ‘Local knowledge. My dad worked there – he was a blacksmith and the union rep. He made this one.’

The dark girl snorted derisively, then blew out the match and put it on the table.

‘Don’t leave it there,’ Annika said. ‘It’ll mark the wood.’

‘It’s not your table, is it?’ she said, but she picked up the match and took it out to the kitchen.

Nina saw Annika’s mouth set. That hadn’t been the first time the girl had challenged her.

Two boys came into the room, Annika’s son, dark-haired and green-eyed, like his mother, and a mixed-race boy with curly black hair. The children didn’t seem to have fixed places, and there was a bit of squabbling about who was going to sit where. Nina ended up next to Annika.

The starter was a classic goat’s cheese salad with rocket, cherry tomatoes and pine nuts, topped with honey and balsamic vinegar. It didn’t last long, everyone seemed hungry, and then they set about the fish. The family had a tradition of talking about what had happened during the day, so the under-secretary said something about government business, Annika said she’d phoned a man who had turned out to be dead, and the children talked about classmates and school lunches.

‘How about you, Nina?’ Jimmy Halenius said. ‘Good and bad things about today?’

Everyone looked at her, the children with bright eyes, Annika rather amused. She put her knife and fork down. ‘I’m a police officer,’ she said, then remembered that that wasn’t quite true now. ‘Well, more an operational analyst,’ she corrected. ‘I help police officers catch thieves and murderers.’

The children’s eyes got bigger.

‘Have you caught anyone today?’ the blonde girl asked.

Nina felt a smile develop inside her head and crack open on her face. ‘I’ve tried,’ she said. ‘It’s not easy. They’re good at hiding, all the bad guys and bandits.’

The children had put their cutlery down and were looking at her, their mouths half open.

‘Who’s the nastiest murderer you’ve ever caught?’ the darker boy asked.

She reflected. The children seemed used to dealing with complicated words and concepts. They didn’t seem bothered by stories about death and tragic events – Annika’s description of her conversation with the dead man’s wife had made them listen carefully, not recoil in horror.

‘Murderers aren’t always nasty,’ she said. ‘Often they’re just lonely and sad and angry.’

‘So tell us about one who wasn’t so nasty, then,’ Annika’s son said.

Nina smiled at him. He really was a lot like his mother. ‘Once I caught a murderer, a young man, only twenty years old. He had killed his best friend with a knife. They were both very drunk, and they had an argument about something, and this young man got angry and grabbed a knife and stabbed his best friend with it. It hit him in the heart and the friend died. The murderer was very sad and really regretted what he had done afterwards.’

‘You shouldn’t drink so much that you lose your judgement,’ the dark girl said.

‘What’s for dessert?’ Annika’s daughter asked.

‘Ice-lollies,’ Annika told her.

This evidently signalled that the meal was over. The children got up at the same time, scraping their chairs, and cleared the dirty dishes into the kitchen.

‘I can deal with this,’ Jimmy said, opening the dishwasher.

‘Let’s go and sit in the study,’ Annika said to Nina. She went into the hall, then a little room behind the kitchen – presumably it had once been for a maid. The walls were covered with shelves laden with books, folders and reports. A Super Elliptical table took up most of the space, with two laptops facing each other. Annika pulled out one of the office chairs and sat down. ‘So, what exactly did I say to Q?’ She brushed the hair off her face.

Her shoulders slumped slightly, but Nina didn’t think that was anything to do with Q or work.

‘Yes, what did I say?’ Annika went on. ‘I asked if he’d been involved in the search for Viola Söderland. He hadn’t, but he knew my editor-in-chief had made a documentary about her, in which he concluded that she’d fled to Russia.’

‘I’ve heard of that programme,’ Nina said. ‘I’ve never seen it, though.’

Annika nodded. ‘You’re a bit younger than me, but most people my age remember it, even if they didn’t see it. Viola Söderland became almost a
cause célèbre
, like Nine/Eleven, or Abba winning the Eurovision Song Contest. On a much smaller scale, of course …’

Nina shifted on her chair. She wouldn’t personally have compared either Abba or Viola Söderland with 9/11, but she understood the point. ‘Did you mention that analogy to Q?’ she couldn’t help asking.

Annika smiled. ‘I reminded him about the facts of the Viola Söderland case, that she had been planning her departure for a long time, buying a car without anyone’s knowledge, changing her name before she left, getting hold of a second passport, cash from the Cayman Islands, sewing the money into her coat, packing a case with her wedding photograph and locks of her children’s hair …’

Nina held up a hand to stop her. ‘Hang on. She changed her name?’

Annika looked at Nina, her eyes narrowing. ‘Q asked that as well. Why did you react to it?’

Nina took several shallow breaths. Q must have had good reason to tell her to breach the normal rules about the confidentiality of preliminary investigations. ‘Nora Lerberg changed her name before she disappeared,’ she said quietly. ‘She adopted her maiden name, Andersson, and declared that she would now be using her middle name, Maria.’

The colour drained from Annika’s face. ‘When did she do that?’

‘Almost a year ago. And in December last year she reported her handbag stolen, and with it her passport.’

Annika stood up and closed the door. She remained there, leaning against it. ‘Has she been to the Cayman Islands recently?’

‘No,’ Nina said. ‘But she did go to Switzerland. Last Friday, to Zürich, there and back in a day. She’d been lying to her sister-in-law, claiming that she has to keep going to Södermalm Hospital for treatment when she’s really doing other things entirely.’

Annika went slowly back to her chair. ‘A neighbour who works for the International Monetary Fund in Geneva has seen her on the flight several times, and she eats at expensive restaurants there. She tells her friends that she’s doing yoga on Wednesday evenings, but she isn’t. And she claims to listen to audio books, but hasn’t got any time to read.’

Nina sat in silence.

‘Has Nora bought a car recently?’ Annika asked eventually.

‘Not that we know of,’ Nina said.

‘Has she been to see a tailor?’

Nina looked at the window, trying to remember what Lamia had said that morning: hadn’t there been something about a trip to see a tailor? In Östermalm?

‘I think she might have,’ Nina said.

‘Have you got much idea about Nora’s clothes?’

Nina gave her a quizzical look.

‘According to the description, she was wearing trousers and an oilskin coat when she disappeared. Is that right?’

‘We don’t know for certain. That’s an assumption.’

‘Do you know if she’s got any sort of Muslim outfit in her wardrobe?’

Nina’s brain stopped working. ‘You mean a burka?’

‘A headscarf and full-length skirt, maybe a long coat.’

There were plenty of headscarves in Nora’s wardrobe, and a long skirt as well, she was fairly sure of that. Maybe a couple of old coats too. Long? Difficult to say.

‘What makes you … Why do you call it a Muslim outfit?’

‘Haven’t you ever tried it?’ Annika said. ‘Wrapping a scarf round your head the way Muslim women do? It makes you instantly invisible.’

No, Nina had never tried.

What did all this mean? Cars, trips, names, passports, lies … Thoughts were swirling through Nina’s head, making her giddy.

She looked at her watch, a birthday present from Filip, and got to her feet. ‘Can you email me the details about Viola Söderland’s disappearance?’ she asked. ‘Everything you know? I’ll check if there’s anything else in the police file about the search for her.’

Annika Bengtzon stood up too. ‘It was good to see you again,’ she said. ‘You’re welcome to come and have dinner with us any time you like.’

Nina’s throat tightened. ‘I’d love to,’ she heard herself say.

That evening the sky cracked open and there was a hint of blue evening light on the horizon. The children were more unruly than usual, the boys fighting and Serena crying for her mother. Annika and Jimmy had to make emergency checks on the various bedrooms several times.