by C S Duffy
‘Maybe she knew and just didn’t say so to me?’
‘Maybe.’
I sighed. Maybe not. Every time I thought I was on to something, it was as though a fog rolled in and obscured it all again. My mind kept flashing back to the look Gustav had given me barely an hour earlier in that dark little park. There had been menace in his eyes. I thought of Sanna’s kayak floating upside down in the freezing water, and I shuddered.
‘I’ve been getting the impression that Sanna was secretive,’ I said slowly. ‘Or perhaps distant is the right word, she kept herself to herself. I don’t feel as though many people knew her particularly well. On one hand people describe her as this wild party girl, but there’s not masses of evidence of that. Most of her friends’ Facebooks and Instagrams are filled with pictures of mad, drunken nights, but hers is a good bit more reserved. A handful of thoughtful posts about politics, very few photos at all. Then there’s what Mia said about her being troubled, or even depressed.’ I shrugged. ‘All those things aren’t mutually exclusive, exactly, but she is a bit of an enigma.’
‘So she could have other secrets you’ve not come across at all yet.’ said Maddie.
‘I suppose she could.’
‘I think that you should go to the police, tell them about your conversation with Gustav,’ Lena said. ‘Don’t admit you recorded it unless they specifically ask, it could confuse matters. Just tell them what he said to you and let them take it from there. And then I think you should drop this matter and let the police take care of it. That is my advice.’
I nodded, feeling exhausted suddenly. She was right. I’d bitten off more than I could chew.
‘If I were you I’d nip home for a bit too,’ said Maddie. ‘Just a couple of days even, give yourself a break. Breathe in some smelly London air and gorge yourself on your mum’s home cooking, you know? Charge yourself up. Whatever happens with all this, if Johan is going to start therapy, he’s going to need you firing on all sixes, babe.’
I nodded. The thought of sitting on a minging tube, rattling away beneath London on the way to my mum’s brought a lump to my throat and for a second I was tempted to phone a taxi direct for the airport then and there. ‘Yeah, might do. Just for the weekend or something.’
‘Bring me back some Fruit Pastilles if you do.’
‘Deal.’
25
It was Lena’s job to be measured and cautious, I thought as the bus trundled back towards Södermalm a little while later. She had to refrain from coming down on any one side until the evidence was conclusive, but she hadn’t been there. She hadn’t seen the look in Gustav’s eye.
It was dark and silent when I got off the bus at Åsögatan, and there was a chill in the air that seemed to reach my bones. As I trudged the couple of blocks to Johan’s flat, all I could think of was climbing into our warm bed and drifting off into a long, deep, sleep. I may or may not go to London, I thought. Maybe I should focus properly on my Swedish life instead. Look to the future. Sign up for Swedish for Immigrants classes, do something about finding some work. The bottom of my bank account was beckoning.
When I turned the corner into Johan’s road, I spotted a car sitting outside the building, and my heart started to thud. It was just a plain, dark coloured sedan, but instantly I knew it spelt trouble. For a mad instant I considered turning and running.
‘Ellie James?’
I blinked, confused. It was them. The detectives, the dark haired woman and the rockstar guy. The ones I was going to phone first thing in the morning. Did they know? Had Lena contacted them?
‘We would like you to come with us, please,’ said the woman, with a pleasant, but formal, smile.
‘What — why? Is Johan okay?’ I stammered.
‘He is fine,’ the guy said, in a lilting accent Johan had explained meant he came from the north of Sweden.
‘Then why? What do you want?’
‘Did you argue with Gustav Lindström earlier this evening?’
‘Argue?’ I looked from one to the other, but their faces were impassive. ‘No, I wouldn’t call it that. We spoke. Why?’
‘A witness claimed he knocked you to the ground.’
‘I fell over, but I’m not even certain — we were both drunk, it was dark. What is this about?’
‘And did you leave him unconscious?’
‘Yeah, he passed out. I left my bottle of water next to him. He was snoring.’
‘He was alive?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘One hour ago Gustav Lindström was found dead at Nytorget.’
Her voice sounded distorted over the roaring of blood in my ears. I stared at her in shock. My breath caught in my throat as horror fluttered through me.
‘He — I mean, he was sitting up, I never even thought there was a chance he would choke or anything.’
The rockstar guy opened the car door. ‘We would like you to come with us now, please.’
26
‘A heart attack?’
I stared at the two detectives. The rockstar guy, who had introduced himself as Henrik, made a note on his pad, while the woman, Nadja, stared at me.
‘I don’t understand, he’s Mr Fitness, how could —’ Then I cut myself off as I thought of his unnaturally bulging muscles, the tight neck that looked as though it must ache. ‘Steroids?’ I asked.
‘Not according to his brother, who we spoke to earlier,’ Henrik replied. ‘Though the tests for drugs in his system are not yet complete.’
I nodded, trying to slow my breathing a bit. My heart was hammering in my chest. I couldn’t quite get my head around what was happening. One minute I was about to climb into bed and snuggle up to Johan’s warm back, and the next I was sitting here in this chilly interrogation room, discussing the death of a man I had spoken to just a couple of hours ago. I could see Gustav Lindström clearly in my mind’s eye, slumped against the rubbish bin, slurring about how much he loved Sanna. And now he was dead. It wouldn’t quite sink in, as though I could sense the reality of it, but every time I tried to grasp it, it flickered just out of reach. The word dead rattled around my head, echoing and meaningless.
I took a sip of a coffee that had long gone cold. I’ve never been in a police interrogation room before, but I’ve always imagined them pretty rank. Dimly lit, covered in graffiti, probably stinking of piss. Possibly with one of those little high up barred windows, so that streetlights from outside cast shadows of bars across the accused’s face, making them feel as though they were already in prison.
My impressions may have been formed more than a bit by telly.
Either way, this room was nothing like that. Freshly painted in a clean white, it was brightly lit with a pine desk in the centre, surrounded by red plastic chairs. It reminded me of the sort of room in which junior schools might hold parent-teacher conferences. All it needed were a few bits of coloured paper strewn around the walls, covered in messily glued bits of pasta.
They had offered to phone Johan — it turned out they had arrived just as I walked around the corner, so they intercepted me before they got a chance to ring the buzzer — but I declined. He was most likely asleep. I’d fill him in when I got home later, once it was all sorted.
‘But surely, a young healthy guy like that — he can’t have been much over thirty. Unless he had some sort of pre-existing heart condition?’
‘Did he seem to be in any pain or distress when you spoke?’ asked Nadja.
‘Not physical, other than being pretty wasted. He threw up in the bin.’
‘He was in emotional distress?’
‘We were talking about his ex girlfriend. Sanna Johansson.’
The two detectives glanced up, exchanged a look. I took a deep breath.
‘Sanna Johansson?’ repeated Henrik with a frown.
‘Look, you know, obviously I found her — what was left of her, a few weeks ago. I know that Johan has been living with the shadow of suspicion over him since she disappeared, and I — I’m a journalis
t. I’m nosy. It’s what I do. I know Johan is innocent, and I have been trying to find proof.’
‘Johan is innocent of what?’ asked Henrik.
I frowned. ‘Of killing Sanna.’ I looked from one to the other. They seemed genuinely surprised. ‘Didn’t you question him in connection with her disappearance?’
‘They were in a relationship, of course he was questioned.’
‘But then some newspaper got a hold of it. His friends and family have been suspecting him ever since.’
They exchanged another look. ‘That is not something we are aware of,’ Nadja said carefully.
‘Perhaps you had better explain what you have been doing,’ added Henrik.
I explained how I had gone to Sanna’s memorial, then spoke to Linda Andersson who suggested there was another man in Sanna’s life and how that led me to Gustav Lindström. ‘He said he talked to Sanna that weekend, the weekend they were away at Krister’s island. Or at least he tried to. He said he took his boat out, but she told him she was happy with Johan and to leave her alone.’
‘He told you all this tonight?’
‘Yes, that’s what we were talking about in the little park.’
‘Nytorget, where he was found?’
‘Yes. He kept saying how much he loved her, how much he regretted screwing things up between them, and that he just wanted her to undertand how much he was sorry and wanted her back.’
‘And he wanted to tell her this the weekend she disappeared?’
I hesitated. ‘He was drunk, talking in circles. It was hard to pin him down exactly. But that was my impression. He specified he had taken a boat to find her, so it stood to reason it was when she was on the island.’
‘How exactly did you meet Gustav Lindström tonight?’
‘He followed me from the bar. I was there having a drink with a friend.’
That was technically true.
‘He must have seen me and came after me when we left. He was quite aggressive to begin with, he sort of crashed into me and I fell over, but when we started talking about Sanna he calmed down. He just seemed broken hearted at that point. Crying about how much he loved her. It don’t know if any of it is relevant, but I was planning to contact you first thing tomorrow, for what it’s worth.’
The two detectives exchanged a look.
‘Sanna Johansson had a restraining order against Gustav Lindström,’ said Nadja. ‘He had been stalking her in the months following their break up. She did not report that he had been physically violent, but he was extremely possessive and was refusing to accept that they were no longer together.’
‘Jealous and insecure,’ I said with a frown. ‘A woman named Linda Andersson — she worked with Sanna — told me that Sanna’s boyfriend was jealous and insecure and she wanted rid of him. I thought she was talking about Johan, but maybe she meant Gustav. She did say he was a nurse, but it’s possible she got parts of two stories mixed up.’ I looked from one to the other, but their expressions were inscrutable. ‘What if she never got in the kayak at all? He could have attacked her then dragged it into the water afterwards to make it look like an accident. You can’t know for certain that she drowned.’ I swallowed back a shudder. ‘There were no lungs left.’
I sat up straighter, suddenly wide awake, my mind racing. ‘Maybe the guilt got to him,’ I said. ‘The stress of her body being found after all these months, the fear that somehow it would be connected back to him. I’m not a doctor, but all that combined with the strain of extreme training, possibly steroids — it’s surely possible it could have induced a heart attack.’
The silence was just long enough to make me realise that I had got something very, very wrong. Fear prickled down my spine. I picked up the coffee cup, put it back down again.
‘The post mortem examination is still underway,’ said Henrik, ‘but the coroner noticed one thing at the crime scene. There was a spec of blood on Gustav Lindström’s shirt collar, and a puncture mark on his neck.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘You are correct that the likelihood of a person of his age having a spontaneous heart attack is extremely low, even considering the stress you suggest. It is not impossible, but it is something we must investigate regardless of the circumstances. As we said, the tests to determine drugs in his bloodstream have not yet been completed, but the coroner is of the opinion that Gustav Lindström was injected with a substance that caused a fatal heart attack.’
‘What time did you arrive at your friends’ apartment after you left him in the park?’ Nadja asked, staring at me intently. My heart started to thud.
‘I — uhh, I’m not certain, I didn’t pay attention. It was late. Midnight, maybe. Thereabouts.’
‘Will your friends vouch for that?’
27
As I crossed Swedensborgatan next to the train station, I was trembling so deep within me I felt detached from my body. There was a thick, hollow feeling inside me, pressing on my windpipe and it was all I could do to keep breathing as I walked through the darkness. Somebody murdered Gustav Lindström after I left him.
The police thought it could have been me.
The pedestrian walkway opened out, with a wide park bordered by neat trees on my right, a building site to the left. Despite the streetlights it felt pitch black. I scanned the shadows for movement, for any sense that anyone was out there, watching me. Waiting for me.
Of course there bloody wasn’t.
I shook myself and walked on briskly, focussing on the lights of Medborgarplatsen ahead. If someone wanted to do me harm, they could have got me hours ago along with Gustav.
The thought wasn’t quite as reassuring as I’d hoped.
His killer must have approached within minutes of me leaving. Did they lie in wait, listening to me desperately try to get Gustav to confess? Chuckling to themselves, knowing that Gustav couldn’t confess to killing Sanna because they had?
The bars and restaurants around Medborgarplatsen were closed at this time, though the lights of the hot dog kiosk at the far end glowed and the square was bathed in a silvery sheen of street lamps. Suddenly not ready to go home and start explaining to Johan, I sat down on one of the benches, my hands in my pockets. Thoughts were careening around my mind like out of control waltzers. I closed my eyes, trying to focus.
There was something niggling, just out of reach. A thought, something someone had said. Something important, something that didn’t quite add up.
The police were going to find my fingerprints and DNA on the water bottle. I’d explained how I left it for him, my words sounding hollow and desperate in my own ears. A witness had seen us argue.
Had I touched him at any point? I suddenly couldn’t remember, and chills danced down my spine as I imagined the coroner extracting my skin cells from him and a prison door clanking behind me. I had arrived at Maddie and Lena’s at a quarter to twelve. Gustav’s body had been found at 1am, and the police believed he had been dead for less than an hour when he was found.
I had an alibi of a quarter of an hour.
But I hadn’t killed him. Even if I had the first clue of what drug could induce a heart attack, where would I have got it from? That had to count for something. Whatever the drug was, it wasn’t likely to be the sort of thing one might happen to have about their person.
I took a deep breath. They would see that. They had to. The real killer must have got the drug from somewhere. The real killer must have had reason to kill him.
What would possess me to kill someone I thought could clear Johan?
I knew, though, that motive wasn’t nearly as crucial a piece of evidence as TV detective dramas would have you think. Criminal cases live or die on access and opportunity, not airy fairy, forever debatable things like why people do what they do. If the prosecution can prove that the accused acquired the weapon and were in the vicinity, then it’s more or less game over — even if no one has a clue what possessed them to murder.
‘People are weirder than you
think,’ a Met Police DCI told me once. ‘Some folk just kill because they just do. That don’t make for good telly, but it’s often how it happens in real life.’
If I wasn’t me, I would suspect me right now.
I thought of Gustav Lindström slumped snoring against the bin, tried to imagine reaching into my bag for a syringe, reaching over, injecting his neck, praying that he wouldn’t wake before the lethal substance took effect. It was too surreal. It wasn’t possible. I was me. How could anyone think I’d killed someone?
That wasn’t how it worked, though, I knew that. It might be comforting to imagine the world in terms of goodies and baddies, but I’d been a journalist for too long. I’d reported on the mousy little girl scout leader who’d been sent down for a campaign of astonishing cruelty against Muslim neighbours, the gigantic ex-gangster with a rap sheet a mile long who had almost broken an arm rescuing a kitten from a storm drain. There were no goodies or baddies, there were just people in circumstances.
An icy wind snaked under my collar and I shivered. It was late summer, and there was already a whisper of winter dancing in the air. The cobblestoned square where I sat was wide and dark and empty. All around me, in apartment buildings, people were safe and cosy at home. They slept soundly, buried in well worn duvets, entangled in partners’ legs. In the handful of lighted windows dotted here and there, they read, pottered about the kitchen, paced the floor with restless babies.
I sat alone on the bench in the darkness and thought about murder.
Two murders.
The thought slithered into my brain and sparked to life. Two murders, both staged to look like accidents. The first done well enough it went undetected for almost a year. Even now, foul play hadn’t been confirmed in Sanna’s case.
The other sloppy enough to leave a mark, but it had been risky, probably rushed. Gustav had been out for the count when I left, but he could have woken up at any moment. Perhaps he had stirred in his sleep, even started to wake when the killer approached. Maybe a late night dog walker or horny teenage couple happened by just as they reached for the syringe.
