Missing in Malmö: The third Inspector Anita Sundström mystery (Inspector Anita Sundström mysteries)

by MacLeod, Torquil

  She made her way back to the doorway.

  ‘Don’t be a stranger!’ he called after her. She turned. What did he mean? He grinned. ‘The next time you’re in The Pickwick, come and say hello’.

  Hakim was beaming when she returned to the office.

  ‘I sense someone’s been a clever boy,’ said Anita as she threw her bag over the back of her chair.

  ‘You could say that. I’ve found him!’ he announced triumphantly. He pointed to his screen. ‘He got off the train at Triangeln.’

  Anita squeezed round the desk and stared at Hakim’s computer. It was frozen on an image that she now had firmly planted in her mind. Hakim clicked the mouse, and Graeme Todd began to move along the platform. On the screen, the time started spooling from 14.44. He was wheeling a small suitcase along the platform, and slung on his shoulder was a computer bag, presumably containing a laptop.

  ‘He’s heading out towards the shopping centre side,’ Hakim confirmed.

  Anita watched Todd as he got on the escalator.

  ‘He couldn’t be going to the Hilton, could he? That’s the nearest hotel.’

  Hakim’s grin widened.

  ‘Yes. He booked in that afternoon.’

  ‘You have been busy.’ Anita was learning to admire her young colleague’s thoroughness.

  ‘I’ve arranged to go down and see someone at the hotel. Want to come?’

  The Hilton abutted the glass facade of the Triangeln shopping centre. Towering over the rest of the complex, it was one of the tallest buildings in the city. Anita and Hakim stood in the massive glass atrium. Outside, the street was packed with shoppers. Inside was hushed calm. An elegant staircase wound its way through the centre of building, while a glass lift, with a blue illuminated undercarriage, glided up from the foyer, ferrying guests silently to the upper floors. To the left of the reception area was a bar and restaurant. Anita had often looked through the window from the street and wondered if she would ever meet someone who could afford to take her there for a meal. They sat down in the comfortable chairs on the other side of the reception. Anita felt she was in a goldfish bowl. Hakim looked around in awe. This was definitely how the other half lived. Anita was more interested in the fact that someone like Graeme Todd had booked into a place that, according to his wife, would normally be beyond their means.

  They stood up as they were approached by a small, dark-haired woman in a neat black skirt and jacket. The woman switched on a meet-and-greet smile. She was immaculately turned out, and Anita was conscious of her own, more casual, appearance, as a manicured hand was held out for her to shake.

  ‘Erica Tufvesson, deputy manager,’ she introduced herself. ‘The manager, herr Nørgaard, is back in Denmark for a two-day conference. Can I get you some coffee?’

  ‘No, thanks.’ Anita wanted to get straight down to business. ‘I believe that you had a Graeme Todd staying here last week.’

  Tufvesson produced a black, leather-bound notebook and flicked through some pages.

  ‘Since your colleague rang, I’ve done some checking. Yes, a herr Todd did book in on Monday, October 1st.’

  ‘For how long?’

  Tufvesson again consulted her notebook. ‘Three nights. He was due to leave on Thursday, the 4th. But he never checked out.’

  ‘When was he seen last?’ asked Hakim.

  ‘He had breakfast here on the Wednesday morning but he didn’t come back that night. Certainly his bed wasn’t slept in.’

  ‘Did he leave anything behind?’ Anita was quite happy for Hakim to take over the questioning. He had got them this far.

  ‘Yes. A small suitcase. I have it in my office.’

  ‘We’ll take that with us, if you don’t mind,’ Anita put in. ‘Was there a laptop with his belongings?’

  ‘No. After he failed to turn up, we cleared out his room and kept everything in case he returned. But we had to get the room ready for another guest arriving on the Thursday.’

  ‘So the room was totally cleared?’ This was Hakim again.

  Tufvesson nodded. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Were his bathroom things still there? Toothbrush, toothpaste, that kind of stuff?’

  ‘Yes. Everything’s in the suitcase.’

  ‘So it seems he was expecting to return from wherever he went that morning,’ Anita mused.

  ‘It doesn’t appear that he was just avoiding paying his bill,’ Hakim added.

  ‘Do you mind if we have a word with whoever was on reception or serving breakfast, so we can get a description of what Todd was wearing last Wednesday?’

  ‘Of course.’ Tufvesson’s smile was appropriately toned down.

  After talking to the staff, they took the suitcase back to the polishus. It only confirmed that he had packed for a short break and not a long-term stay. There were no documents or files that could hint at what he was doing or whom he was going to meet. The only significant item was in one of the zipped compartments. It was a photocopy of his return Easyjet boarding pass, dated for Thursday, October 4th – destination Manchester. He had certainly planned to return home. So why hadn’t he? And where had he disappeared to? As far as Anita was now concerned, Graeme Todd was officially missing in Malmö.

  CHAPTER 11

  Moberg wasn’t too pleased when Anita reported back to him that Graeme Todd really was missing. ‘The commissioner will get his knickers in a twist over this.’ However, he did agree that they needed to get Todd’s description out via the press and television. They had the photo of him and they now knew what he was wearing when he left the hotel – beige slacks, buff-coloured jacket with a lime green jersey and a white shirt underneath.

  ‘You‘d better inform his wife,’ Moberg added. Anita had already had that planned, though it wasn’t a call she was looking forward to making. ‘And see if you can get more information out of her about what Todd was doing over here.’ Anita doubted that she would extract anything more revealing than she had already. Basically, Todd had kept his wife in the dark. Why he had done so was a mystery in itself.

  Hakim had a coffee waiting for her when she returned to the office.

  ‘Do you think something bad has happened?’ he asked as he settled down to his drink.

  Anita stared out of the window.

  ‘I don’t know. If we knew what he was doing in Malmö, we’d be in a position to speculate.’

  ‘He could have had an accident. Should I widen my search of the hospitals? He might have being going somewhere else in Skåne.’

  ‘Yes. Good idea. But I don’t think he could have gone too far afield as he was obviously coming back to the hotel.’

  She sipped her coffee thoughtfully. She knew that what she was really doing was postponing the phone call she had to make. All she was going to do was confirm Jennifer Todd’s worst fears.

  It was with a glass of red wine in her hand that Anita sat down in front of the television to watch the local news. There was a brief mention of Graeme Todd at the end of the broadcast. The photo that Jennifer Todd had emailed to Anita was used, and it filled the screen for twenty seconds while the newsreader said that the police were appealing for any information concerning the whereabouts of this British national, last seen on Wednesday, October 3rd. Then the weather forecast came on. The warm weather they had just been enjoying was about to change – colder, cloudier and the chance of showers. Anita flicked off the TV with the remote.

  ‘Is that yours? The missing English guy?’

  Anita hadn’t noticed Lasse standing in the doorway.

  ‘Didn’t know you were in.’

  Lasse strolled over to the armchair and slumped down. His long legs stretched out across the floor.

  ‘Yes. That’s mine.’

  ‘Didn’t think you did missing persons.’

  ‘Neither did I, but my lovely boss thought that as this particular missing person was British, I was perfect for the job.’

  Anita’s mind flashed back a couple of hours to the call she had made to Jennifer Todd to tell he
r that they now regarded her husband’s disappearance as official. At first, Jennifer had been quite hysterical and it had taken Anita a few minutes to settle her down. In between floods of tears, Jennifer kept repeating, ‘I knew something was wrong.’ Then she was ready to rush down to Manchester to catch a flight to Sweden. Again, Anita managed to persuade her that there was little that she could do while they made their enquiries. Were there any relatives around that she could turn to? It transpired that she had a sister in Lancaster who had come up to be with her for a few days. Jennifer explained that she was nervous staying by herself as she had had a break-in over the weekend; though the burglar must have been disturbed as nothing seemed to be missing. Anita promised that the moment she heard anything she would be straight on the phone.

  As for getting any further with Graeme Todd’s reason for visiting Sweden, Anita drew a blank. Other than that it was something to do with the old lady who had died in Carlisle a few years previously, there was no clue as to who Todd had been hoping to meet. Jennifer was just as baffled as they were.

  ‘What about Dad?’ said Lasse. ‘Did you find anything out about his girlfriend?’

  ‘Damn. I’d forgotten about that. I’d better phone him. It’s something or nothing.’

  Anita took a swift gulp of wine before taking the home phone out of its cradle. Despite everything that had gone on between them, she still had Björn’s number on her phone. It was purely practical as they had had to communicate from time to time about Lasse and his holiday visits to Uppsala when he was still at school.

  Björn answered almost immediately. Anita decided to get straight to the point so she didn’t have to talk for long.

  ‘Greta Jansson has definitely left the school she was teaching at and, according to the neighbour, her father came to visit her. She gave him the key to Jansson’s apartment. And the school said that she wasn’t returning for family reasons. So it all fits. You’ve nothing to worry about.’

  There was silence at the other end of the line.

  ‘Did you hear what I said, Björn?’

  At last he spoke. ‘Greta’s father died of cancer last year.’

  CHAPTER 12

  During the morning, two reported sightings of Graeme Todd came into the polishus. The first was from the city library and the second was from the Malmöhus museum. Both were for the day before he disappeared. But both needed to be followed up. Anita decided to send Hakim to the castle. It was a tourist attraction and therefore an obvious place for a first-time visitor to Malmö to go. Over the centuries, it had been a fort, a royal mint, a prison and now a rather eclectic museum, which featured everything from period furniture to a stuffed elk. She decided that she would take the library as it was a more intriguing place for Todd to visit.

  Anita walked through the drizzle along the canal towards Slottsparken. The weather matched her mood. Her brief conversation with Björn had thrown up more questions than the simple answer she thought she had uncovered. Greta Jansson’s whereabouts were no longer a straightforward matter, but she knew she had to shove that to the back of her mind. Graeme Todd was the priority. It was official. Reluctantly, Anita had again promised Björn that she would ask around, but only when she had time. It had been enough to get him off the phone. It was after overhearing the conversation that Lasse had poured out his confused feelings for his father. Lasse had been upset at seeing him in such a drunken and maudlin state. During his teenage visits to Uppsala, he had met a succession of increasingly youthful girlfriends. The fact that they were far nearer his own age than Björn’s had been amusing at the time. What unnerved him was that he had never seen his father so besotted. All these years, he had harboured the dream of many children of divorced parents that there would be some sort of reconciliation. Of course, Lasse now knew that he had been deluding himself, and that his mother would never turn back the clock. He still hoped that his father would realize that he had made a mistake, change his philandering ways and try to mend their fractured family. But seeing Björn so upset by the disappearance of his latest girlfriend brought home the harsh reality that his father had moved on and would never come back. He would never change. He saw him now as an old man who was making a fool of himself over a girl only a couple of years older than his son. Björn made him feel sick.

  Anita was torn. She was saddened that Lasse had such negative feelings for his father, who was behaving like a complete idiot. She hated to see her son so upset. It was a tough lesson having to reassess a parent. Yet she was pleased that they had been able to talk together again, as in the pre-Rebecka days. It was their first proper conversation since Lasse’s return home. And when he had broken down in tears, she had taken him in her arms. She had missed that human contact, which had decreased as he’d grown up and he’d shunned her attempts to hug him. After she had gone to bed and left him watching his box set of Curb your Enthusiasm, she hadn’t been able to sleep because she was so furious with Björn. His selfish actions were alienating a devoted son. What’s more, he was intruding into her life again. She had fought so hard to banish him from her feelings that his reappearance was aggravating beyond measure – all the disappointments and resentments had come flooding back. Well, he could wallow in his self-pity. Fuck Björn and fuck Greta Jansson.

  The city library was on the edge of Slottsparken. The older part of the building reminded Anita of a solid German schloss. She entered the foyer of the modern 1990s annex, which had a certain fascination, despite its incongruity. The sheer glass walls captured each beam of light and threw it triumphantly over the central staircase. It was a bright and welcoming space, conducive to all activities, from both light browsing to intensive research. At the reception, she asked if she could speak to the librarian who had phoned the police about the missing person mentioned on the local news last night. The young man on the desk knew immediately who Anita was referring to. No doubt it had been a topic of conversation over the water cooler that morning.

  ‘That’ll be Paula. Paula Wennås. You’ll find her up the stairs there,’ he said, pointing up to the glass box. ‘Reddy brown hair, shaved on one side,’ he added for identification.

  Anita thanked him and made her way up the flight of stairs. At the top were rows of book shelves. Beyond was a structure which reminded her of man-sized pigeonholes on three levels. Each carrel must have housed a thousand books and had an individual work area. Because of the transparency of the wall beyond, it seemed as though those studying were suspended in mid-air. Anita spotted Wennås pushing a trolley past one of the bookcases on the main floor. The librarian stopped and put a couple of books back onto a shelf.

  ‘Paula Wennås?’

  The young woman turned. She had a pretty, round face and a lovely smile. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Anita Sundström. I’m here about the call you made to the police this morning.’

  Wennås automatically picked up a book off the trolley and held it aloft, halfway to the shelf. ‘The man you were looking for. I recognized him from the television. I remembered him because we don’t get many British visitors.’ She slotted the book into its place. ‘It was a good excuse to speak some English.’

  ‘When did Graeme Todd come in?’

  Wennås trundled the trolley along to the next bookcase. Anita followed her.

  ‘It was last Tuesday. Yes... a week ago today.’

  ‘Time?’

  Wennås smiled. ‘A bit before half eleven. I remember because it was just before I went for a coffee break.’

  ‘As you talked to him, I assume that he was after something specific.’

  ‘Maps.’

  ‘Maps?’

  She fished another book off her trolley. ‘Local maps.’

  ‘Anywhere in particular?’

  ‘Well, Skåne.’

  ‘Do you know where in Skåne? It could be really important.’ Anita was feeling that at last this could give her a clue as to where Todd had intended going.

  Wennås adopted an apologetic expression. ‘I’m sorry. I did
n’t find any maps for him. All I did was point him in the direction of the section where he could find them.’

  Anita inwardly groaned.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Snap,’ said Anita in reply to Hakim.

  ‘The man at the Malmöhus shop said he bought a couple of postcards. He thought it was about four o’clock, so we have no idea how long he was in there. I could look at the CCTV footage if you want.’

  ‘Not at the moment. He was probably doing some sightseeing while he was here. Filling in time.’

  ‘What about the library?’ Hakim asked.

  ‘He was after maps of Skåne. Trouble is, we don’t know any locations as the librarian only sent him off to the relevant section.’

  ‘At least it shows that he was probably leaving Malmö on the Wednesday.’ Hakim fiddled with his computer keyboard thoughtfully. ‘He must have been looking for detailed maps. Ordinary maps he could pick up at the tourist information or a bookshop. It sounds as though he might have been looking for a specific building or house.’

  ‘Why not use Google Earth then?’

  ‘Maybe he hadn’t got a name to work with. I don’t know. But he’s out there somewhere.’

  ‘But where?’ Anita went to the window. The drizzle had now morphed into heavy rain. The leaves on the trees over on Kungsgatan were changing colour. Winter was on its way.

  Then she turned decisively. ‘Back to the train and bus stations.’ Hakim gave a mock groan. ‘We know he left the hotel after breakfast. So we’ll start at Triangeln again. Then the bus station on Spårvägsgatan. That’s the nearest to the Hilton. I’ll see if Klara Wallen is available to help. Moberg should be OK with that, given that Todd has now been missing for six days.’

  Anita sat down at her desk and picked up the phone.

  ‘Do you think he could be dead?’

  She glanced over to Hakim and shrugged her shoulders. She was starting to think that that might be a possibility.

  CHAPTER 13

  The good news was that Klara Wallen had been assigned to help. The bad news was that Chief Inspector Moberg was now going to oversee the case of the missing British heir hunter. With a flapping Commissioner Dahlbeck looking over Moberg’s shoulder, it was going to be the foot soldiers who would end up in the firing line. The more pressure Moberg got from above, the more he would pass on to the team. At least Anita wouldn’t have to work with Westermark, who was helping Nordlund with the investigation into the savage beating of an old man in Segevång.