‘Hi! Listen, I’ve got a little problem …’
It was the neighbour. His door was wide open behind him in the corridor and from inside the lively voices of the boys could be heard. He broke off when his eyes fell on the gardening gloves.
‘Am I disturbing you in your work?’ he said jokingly.
‘Yes, we’re making the balcony nice, planting a few flowers. What can I help you with?’
‘How nice, how nice. Well, the wife is working a half-day and a friend is wondering if I can help him bring in his boat. If we’re going to get it done today, it would be good if we could get going right away. You couldn’t look after the boys for a while?’
‘Sure, no problem.’
It was not the first time they had taken care of the neighbours’ boys; they used to help out when it was needed. The boys were two whirlwinds aged three and five, but they were fun little rascals, affectionate and charming.
‘She’ll be finished at the salon in an hour and a half so you can drop them off there, if that’s convenient. She was thinking about shopping for shoes with them.’
‘No problem. Shall we have them here or stay at your place?’
‘Whichever you like. I’ll leave the door open, so you can do what you want. Oh, wait a minute …’ He rushed into his apartment and came right back with a bottle of Rioja in his hand. As he handed it over, he bowed solemnly. ‘To brighten up Saturday evening with your beautiful wife!’
She materialized in the background and waved cheerfully.
‘Thanks in advance for the help!’ the neighbour said, already on his way out.
‘No problem; it’s fun!’ she called after him as he disappeared down the stairs. ‘Go in to the boys now and see what they’re up to, then I can carry on with the planting,’ she said to her husband.
He handed her the gloves and went in through the neighbours’ open door.
The boys were sitting on the floor in the children’s room, setting up Brio train tracks.
‘Hey there, boys! Can I play too?’
They threw themselves at him happily and then all three of them tumbled around on the floor for a while, before returning to the building. It was part of it; you always had to wrestle a little first. He thought that if he had a son of his own he would wrestle and build with him but his wife could do the playing. He loathed the train driving itself, but the track building he had developed into an art. It had to take its time; he let the boys think and guided them with a careful hand, so that they got the feeling that they had built the track without his help. At last it was done and then there was no going back; then you had to play long-drawn-out train games. But he was rescued this time by little Tobias, who asked, ‘Where is the lady?’
‘Listen now, my young man,’ he answered with an offended look. ‘That lady is no lady, that lady is a girl.’
‘So where is the lady girl?’
Big brother Andreas and he laughed so hard they fell backwards on the floor, and then it was time for a little wrestling again.
Wednesday Morning
Sjöberg, with his thoughts elsewhere, studied Petra Westman as she closed the door and sat down at the table. She stirred the spoon a few times in her cup before she brought it to her mouth. The tea was still too hot, so she set the cup down again, stirred a little more and then let it stand. Sjöberg woke up from his musings and started the meeting.
‘Everyone here? Hadar is in court today and isn’t coming. But Bella has taken the time to join us and also has Kaj’s preliminary report with her, is that right?’
Gabriella Hansson held up a black folder and nodded affirmatively.
‘Then perhaps you can begin, Bella. After that you can leave, if you want.’
‘Okay. Catherine Larsson was murdered some time between nine o’clock on Saturday evening and three o’clock in the morning on Sunday. The murder took place in the bathroom where she was standing turned towards the sink when she was cut across the throat with a single cut, deep enough that she would die pretty much immediately. The bruises on her upper arms and across her ribcage confirm that she was held from behind. The murderer is considerably taller than the victim and right-handed. He – though it could have been a tall woman – had a good view in the mirror when he did the deed, and Catherine Larsson probably could have seen it all too. Then he carried – not dragged – her to the bed, where he placed her alongside the children. After that, bending over the woman, he did the same to the girl, who was in the middle. Then he went around to the other side of the bed and killed the boy. Both children were certainly asleep; there were no marks on their bodies to indicate that they might have put up any resistance. The weapon had a long, sharp blade – at least twenty centimetres long, probably longer – like a sturdy hunting knife, machete or sword.’
‘How did he get into the apartment?’ asked Sjöberg.
‘There were no signs of violence. Either he was let in or else he got in on his own. He may have had his own key, he may have picked the lock or the door may have been unlocked. He left the apartment without locking up. The door can be locked from inside, with or without a key, but from outside only with a key, so the fact that the door was unlocked possibly indicates that he did not have one.’
‘Wouldn’t he have been covered in blood himself?’ Hamad wondered.
‘That’s hard to say,’ Hansson replied. ‘He must have got quite a bit of blood on him, but how much I don’t know. He certainly had blood on his arms and hands, but he seems to have washed himself off in the sink before he left, although without using any of the towels. He may have had protective clothing on, which he took off before he left the apartment.’
‘There was a jumper hanging in the hall –’ Hamad began.
‘We have found hair strands on it which we have sent to Forensics,’ Hansson responded quickly. ‘It was too big to be hers.’
‘Brand?’ Sjöberg wanted to know.
‘Åhléns’ own brand.’
‘I saw a shoeprint too,’ Hamad tried again, but the efficient crime technician was a step ahead.
‘We have secured a number of impressions. All come from the same pair, gym shoes of some type. We have not been able to establish the brand yet, but the size is about 43 or 44, so that also indicates that the murderer is a man. We found the same impressions in the stairwell, but they obviously ended as soon as we were out in the courtyard.’
‘Fingerprints?’
‘Sure, there are fingerprints from several different people in the apartment. The majority are the family’s own, naturally, but we have found a few other sets too. However, not on the bathroom taps or the door handle, as one might have hoped. I’ll compare them with the ones I got from you, Conny.’
Sjöberg nodded.
‘Do you have anything to tell us from the autopsy?’ he asked.
‘Yes, three autopsies, and they’re not finished yet. But Zetterström says that none of the victims was subjected to sexual assault. Catherine Larsson had not engaged in sexual activities in the final days of her life. Forensics has not found any trace of assault, either on the children or on the mother. Anything else?’
Hansson started gathering up her things.
‘I would actually probably like to take samples of these children and of Christer Larsson to establish paternity,’ said Sjöberg musingly.
‘Oh,’ said Sandén with a self-righteous smile. ‘Exciting.’
‘Shall I pass on your request to Zetterström or were you thinking of taking the blood samples yourself?’ said Hansson with a smile.
‘Yes, thanks,’ said Sjöberg. ‘Thanks for the report, Bella.’
Hansson pushed the black folder with the preliminary autopsy report over to Sjöberg, packed up the rest of her papers in her briefcase and left the room.
After the four police officers around the table had recounted the facts that had emerged from their respective interviews, Sjöberg sat with his hands behind his neck and leaned back, balancing his chair.
‘What kind
of murder is this really?’ he wondered. ‘What type of murderer are we dealing with? This is extremely clinically performed. Could it be a contract job?’
‘The shoeprints argue against that,’ Westman suggested. ‘It’s unprofessional to leave tracks behind.’
‘Who said that hired killers are professional?’ Hamad interjected jokingly. ‘Have you seen that on TV or … ?’
Westman gave him an irritated look.
‘Joking aside, it may have been a pair of shoes he incinerated afterwards,’ Hamad continued. ‘A pair of ordinary shoes that are in every store. Or else he didn’t care if he left evidence, just wanted to get the job done.’
‘Then he wouldn’t have been so careful about the fingerprints,’ Westman pointed out.
‘Maybe,’ said Sjöberg. ‘Admittedly, the murders themselves are brutal, but despite that they were carried out without any sign of personal involvement, don’t you agree? No unnecessary violence, no humiliation, no mutilation. It can’t be a question of an ordinary break-in that got out of hand, because then he hardly would have attacked the children. Not a sex crime. Quick and efficient, no fumbling, no unnecessary suffering.’
‘But a contract job?’ Sandén hesitated. ‘Money laundering comes to mind, thinking about the apartment transaction. Could she have had connections to the underworld?’
‘Whoever took out the contract would have the connections, in that case,’ said Sjöberg. ‘We’ll have to check on her customers.’
He scratched himself under his chin with his thumb and index finger.
‘So Einar isn’t here again today,’ he noted despondently. ‘Has anyone seen him?’
Only head-shaking.
‘I guess I’ll have to check if he’s taken leave,’ Sjöberg muttered.
‘It’s good for you to try your hand at pen-pushing sometimes too,’ Sandén sneered. ‘You’ll get to see what it’s like to be Einar. Doesn’t he already look a little sullen … ?’
He looked around at his colleagues and gestured towards Sjöberg, whose self-conscious drumming of his fingers on the tabletop released a salvo of laughter from his subordinates. Sjöberg let them have their fun for a moment, before he took command again.
‘As punishment, Jens, you get to track down someone who can translate Catherine Larsson’s correspondence. Get to work on the list of customers too. Check them out, contact them and see whether they in turn know any more of her customers. Petra and Jamal, you’ll sit down with the list of phone calls that I put on Einar’s desk yesterday evening. Get an overview of her telephone habits, especially the last few days. Who did she talk to and about what? Is Erik there anywhere? In addition I want you to find out whether she had signed up for a mobile phone contract. She did not have one with Telia, that much we know. I’ll investigate the Johansson family’s finances, and the decorating company and so on.’
An hour and a half later Sjöberg had managed to chart both the Johanssons’ personal and the decorating company’s finances, without discovering any irregularities. No large withdrawals, no deviations from the normal receipts and revenues. Absent-mindedly he swung his pen back and forth between his index and middle fingers, staring vacantly ahead. Finally he picked up the phone and dialled Einar Eriksson’s mobile number. He immediately got voicemail and listened to the concise message. At Eriksson’s recorded request he left a message after the tone:
‘Hi, Einar, Conny here. You haven’t been seen for a couple of days and I haven’t heard anything about you taking time off. Please give me a call as soon as possible. We need you here,’ he added before he finished.
Then he searched for Eriksson’s home number in the contacts on his mobile and called it. Eriksson’s landline had no answering machine. After ten rings he gave up. He also tapped a brief text message to Eriksson’s mobile, with the same request he had just left on voicemail. Finally he entered the speed-dial number for the police switchboard and asked to be connected to the payroll office.
‘Conny Sjöberg, Violent Crimes Unit. I need a little information concerning one of my subordinates, Einar Eriksson.’
‘Yes?’ said the woman on the other end.
‘Is he on holiday now or on sick leave or anything like that?’
‘Let’s see here,’ she said obligingly, and Sjöberg heard her tapping on the keyboard in the background. ‘What is his civil registration number?’
‘No idea,’ said Sjöberg. ‘You can tell me that. There can’t be that many Einar Erikssons in the police.’
‘Let’s see … Yes, here he is. He’s not sick and hasn’t requested any leave.’
‘Could you give me his address?’ Sjöberg asked.
‘We don’t give out that kind of information,’ she answered amiably but firmly. ‘You’ll have to get authorization.’
‘Get authorization? I’m his boss, for crying out loud,’ said Sjöberg sullenly, but at the same moment realized that she was only doing her job.
‘I can call you back,’ she said just as amiably.
‘Okay, my number –’ Sjöberg started.
‘I have it,’ she said, hanging up on him.
Authorization, thought Sjöberg. What kind of awful word is that? He had no time to ponder this further because the phone rang.
‘Sjöberg.’
‘Yes, that’s good. You wanted information about Einar Eriksson?’
‘Correct,’ said Sjöberg.
She gave him Eriksson’s civil registration number and his address, and he thanked her for her help and ended the call.
It struck him that he actually had no idea even what part of the city Eriksson lived in. Now it turned out that they lived very close to each other. Einar’s home was on Eriksdalsgatan, only a short walk from the police station on Östgötagatan and just as close to Sjöberg’s apartment on Skånegatan. They knew so little about each other, thought Sjöberg. They had worked together for – what was it? – twelve years, and he knew nothing about Einar. Yes, he knew he was married and that he didn’t have any kids, but what else? Nothing, now he came to think about it. Einar Eriksson was an inaccessible character, contrary and difficult to deal with, so the conversations they did have dealt exclusively with work. Eriksson never went out for lunch with his colleagues, usually an excellent opportunity to talk about things other than work. No, he stayed in his office and ate the packed lunch that his wife had prepared. Presumably, thought Sjöberg, smiling at the absurdity of Einar Eriksson at the stove, busy throwing together a piping-hot sausage stroganoff for the next day’s lunchbox.
These thoughts led him to his own life. There were certainly things his colleagues did not know about him. He imagined that the possibility of a Margit Olofsson in his life must seem extremely foreign to the others. Except for Jens, who was now in the know and who had sensed something was going on from the start. But Sjöberg’s mother – what would she say if she found out? He couldn’t bring himself to think about it. She was so anxious about the facade she presented to the neighbours and so worried about what they would think.
His mother was a case in point, with all her secrets. ‘Secrets’ was perhaps the wrong word, rather it was her taciturn way of refusing to talk about anything that had any significance. He remembered how he had tried to press her to tell him about his father, the father that he had never got to know. All he had were vague impressions of a man who had died when Sjöberg was only three years old, of some mysterious, unmentionable disease.
He happened to think about the title deeds he had found among his mother’s papers when he was helping her pay some bills after she had fallen off a stool and broken a couple of ribs. A title to a plot of land somewhere: Björskogsnäs 4:14. His mother claimed not to know where this property was located. It must be something from his father. But was it really possible that she – if she hadn’t known about the property at his father’s death – had not been curious enough to find out what kind of place it was? It seemed improbable, but he would not get anything out of his mother, detective inspector or not;
he had already tried.
Suddenly he was struck by an intense desire to get to the bottom of that old property mystery. If he had to sit here anyway, playing Einar and pen-pushing, as Sandén had put it, he could certainly find out where that land was too.
He dialled the number for Information and asked to be connected to the Registration Authority at Stockholm District Court. After a few minutes’ wait it was his turn. Sjöberg introduced himself and explained his business.
‘I have a title deed with a property designation, but I have no idea where in Sweden the land is located, so I’m sure I’ve called the wrong registration authority. Can you help me anyway?’
‘Sure,’ said the woman on the other end. ‘It may take a while, but just give me the property designation, then we’ll see.’
‘Björskogsnäs 4:14,’ said Sjöberg.
She spelled it out to make sure she had the right information, and after a few minutes she was back.
‘Björskogsnäs 4:14 is in Västmanland,’ she said. ‘In the vicinity of Arboga.’
‘Arboga?’ mumbled Sjöberg.
‘Arboga,’ the voice confirmed. ‘Do you want me to fax you a map of the area?’
Please,’ said Sjöberg, without having a clue what he would do with the information.
* * *
He woke with a start. Even though he slept for the better part of the night, he still managed to doze a little in the morning too. He slept only intermittently because he was forced to change position every ten minutes or so. Otherwise the pain was almost unbearable for hours afterwards. But now he woke himself when it was time. It had become his body’s instinct to wake up after a short period of rest to change position. Life on the chilly, splintery wooden floor in the tool shed had fallen into a routine.
He slid up into a sitting position against the cold outside wall, moving slowly, almost listlessly, and spent a few minutes trying to stretch the rigid rope. He knew that he had to do something, and this was what he was capable of. He no longer hoped, he did not look ahead. There was nothing in his future worth seeing; he looked backwards instead. He saw himself with the two little boys draped over him like small warm pillows, downy chicks that you could pinch and snap at, roll around with. It was like they had no edges and if you got an elbow in the eye, for some reason it didn’t hurt. Your body was prepared for it not to hurt, and so it didn’t.
The Last Lullaby Page 6
