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

by MacLeod, Torquil

  Hakim was down at Triangeln station, while Wallen had gone to the bus station. The task that Moberg had given Anita was to once more ring up Jennifer Todd to see if she could provide any further information. She knew it was a pointless exercise, but she also knew that Moberg would check to make sure she had done it. This time Jennifer Todd’s sister answered the phone. As a friendly warning, she explained how desperately worried Jennifer was at the moment. Anita said she understood, but insisted on speaking to her, even though she hadn’t any fresh news of her husband’s whereabouts.

  Jennifer sounded calmer than during their previous conversations, and admitted that her feelings were ambivalent about the fact that there was no news. This took Anita aback. Though the possibility that Todd was dead had obviously crossed her own mind, she had expected the wife to assume that he was alive until told otherwise.

  ‘I’m a nurse. I face death every day in the hospital. I have to be prepared.’

  ‘I’m sure Graeme is fine.’ She knew it didn’t sound convincing.

  ‘You don’t have to soft-soap me, Inspector.’

  ‘Call me Anita.’

  ‘OK, Anita. What do you really think has happened? You’ve had a few days to think about it.’

  Anita wasn’t sure how to answer. ‘If I’m honest, I have no idea. If we had any clues as to where he intended going, who he was trying to meet—’

  ‘I think everything he had about the Doris Little case is on his laptop. I’ve checked his main computer, which is in his office downstairs here in the house, and there’s nothing on that. I’ve also looked in his filing cabinet – nothing there either.’

  ‘Did he usually have a physical file?’

  ‘Oh, yes. He’s a stickler about that. There’s often lots of paperwork. Copies of birth and death certificates, census sheets downloaded from the internet; that sort of thing.’

  ‘So you’d expect him to have a paper file on this woman?’

  ‘Very much so. And I doubt he’d take it with him. When meeting a claimant, he usually puts all the relevant information on his laptop. Easier to go through than having lots of bits of paper floating around. Of course, official forms he’d need for signing up an heir, he’d take with him. That would give him permission to put in a claim on the beneficiary’s behalf.’

  Anita had a thought. ‘You mentioned you had a break-in.’

  ‘Saturday night. But nothing was taken.’

  And then another thought: ‘Could the burglar have been after the file?’

  There was silence at the other end.

  ‘Look, Jennifer, we’ve found out a couple of things about Graeme’s movements. He was staying at the Hilton hotel.’

  ‘What?’ Jennifer sounded incredulous. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But we can’t afford that. What was he thinking? He’s normally very careful with money.’ She sounded cross.

  ‘The other thing we discovered was that he paid a visit to the city library on the Tuesday. He wanted to find the map section.’

  There was a little knowing snort at the other end of the line. ‘That sounds more like Graeme. Loves his maps. Whenever we go on holiday, he spends hours poring over road atlases and ordnance survey maps to plan our routes and activities. Bit of an obsession. He’s a bit obsessive. The Little case became an obsession.’

  ‘So you wouldn’t read anything significant into his wanting to look at some maps?’

  ‘No,’ she almost laughed. Anita took it that the map thing was a family joke. Another blank, she thought.

  ‘But he does like to find out everything beforehand about a place we we’re going to visit. He usually Googles it, but he just loves proper maps. He’s got quite a collection of them here.’

  ‘All we know is that he was interested in maps of Skåne. Trouble is, that’s about like the size of your Yorkshire. Oh well, we’ll carry on digging. As soon as we know anything, I’ll be straight back on to you.’

  There was a pause at the other end of the phone. ‘Thank you for all your efforts, Anita.’ Anita felt helpless as she had no idea what they were going to do next. Todd could have gone anywhere.

  She was about to put the phone down when she had a thought. ‘Apart from visiting Sweden for this case, was there anything about the country that interested him? I don’t know... history, architecture, food, films.’

  ‘Not really.’ Then a moment later. ‘Oh, there are the Wallander novels of course.’ She pronounced the W as a W and not as a V. ‘We saw some of the TV series. That actor. Brannigan? No, Branagh. Not really my thing, but Graeme had to read all the books. He took the last one with him to read on the flight.’

  ‘Another obsession?’

  ‘Once he’s into something...’ At least Jennifer Todd was being positive. She was still using the present tense.

  Anita popped a sachet of snus under her top lip. She was glad the office was empty; she wanted time to think. Two potentially significant pieces of information had emerged from her conversation with Jennifer Todd. Firstly, the obsessive Graeme Todd might well have gone to Ystad, home of the fictional detective, Kurt Wallander. There was now quite a tourist trail built around the character, who featured in Henning Mankell’s books and various TV series. The easiest way for him to travel to Ystad would be by train, direct from Triangeln. It was only forty-five minutes away. He could do that in a morning, and then be back in Malmö for his meeting, whoever that was with. Unless the meeting was out of town. The moment Hakim got back with the CCTV, she would get him onto that. As they had nothing else to go on, they might as well pursue that as a possible angle.

  The second piece of information was more troubling. Had the break-in at the Todds’ home been an opportunist one that had been disturbed, as Jennifer assumed? Or, was the burglar after the Doris Little file? Was it significant that it had taken place two days after Todd disappeared? If the burglar’s sole intention was stealing the file, then someone was going to great lengths to ensure that no trace was left of the reason for Todd’s visit to Sweden. And, if the two were interlinked, it also meant that someone in Sweden was powerful and influential enough to organize a break-in in another country. Was she being too fanciful? What she did know for certain was that Todd had uncharacteristically forked out to stay at the Hilton, he was secretive about his heir-hunting investigations, and now he had disappeared. Three things that added up to one – the death of an old lady in Carlisle in 2009 which had inadvertently triggered off a series of events that Anita had a nasty feeling wasn’t going to end well.

  CHAPTER 14

  Linnea Kotiranta was seriously hacked off. She was more than a little drunk, too. Carlsten was being such a prick. As usual. This was meant to be such a pleasant evening out. They were making up. Carlsten had taken her to that nice sushi restaurant in Limhamn. The one on the main street. He had been at his most charming and accommodating. At first.

  She stumbled forward, not quite sure where she was. She knew that she had been walking for about half an hour and had just passed a lot of fancy apartments. Ahead of her, she could hear the sea. Bright lights behind her, darkness in front. She wanted to sit down. The high-heeled shoes she was wearing were meant for looking good, not for tottering along endless concrete pavements. Now she could feel yielding grass beneath her feet.

  She and Carlsten had split up twice already. The first time she had moved out. The second, she had refused to budge and he had had to leave. After three weeks apart, she was more than ready to take him back. She missed the sex. She missed him, despite his slovenly ways. He never lifted a finger around the apartment. And when she managed to get him to take the dirty clothes down for their weekly washing slot in the apartment block’s laundry, he moaned. And then there were his friends. Slobs. Except for Halvar; he was all right. He was the only one brave enough to admonish Carlsten when he was treating her badly in public.

  Linnea felt her heels sink into the grass. It had rained most of the day. As she extricated her shoes from the envelo
ping turf, she realised where she must have staggered. It was Ön. “The island” attached to Limhamn. Down to the left, she could see the lights running along the length of the Öresund Bridge. She could make out a train as it flashed between the girders underneath the road. She lurched forward. Down in the other direction, she could see the myriad lights of the Turning Torso piercing the night sky. It made her feel dizzy.

  The argument had started to brew even before they had left the restaurant. It was always the same one these days. His commitment, or lack of it, to be more precise. She was nearly thirty. They had been together for over five years. She wanted to cement their relationship and start a family. She was even prepared to forgo marriage if it would make Carlsten feel less trapped. He was always using that as an argument. He wanted to retain his “freedom”. She suspected that that meant he could shag other women. She was open to compromises, but not that one. In her heart of hearts she knew that he’d never settle down. ‘You’ll never change him,’ her mother had warned in the early days. But her love for him had made her think otherwise, and she had resented her mother’s unflattering observations. When the simmering argument had blown up into a fully fledged row on the street outside the restaurant, the drink had given her the courage to say what she really felt. Their shouting had appalled the respectable citizens of Limhamn on their evening constitutionals. Her final, yelled ‘Fuck off!’ hadn’t been the most original parting line, but had eloquently summed up the failure of their attempt to make up.

  As her head swam, she veered away from the lights of the buildings behind her and stumbled off in the direction of the Torso. The developers hadn’t reached this end of the small spit of land. The grass felt soft on her bare feet; she could no longer take the pain her expensive shoes were inflicting upon her. She could make out some boulders just ahead. She would sit there and try and gather her thoughts. The neatly cut grass made way for stony, rough ground, which scuffed and tore at her feet. She half fell into a bush before righting herself. With great difficulty, she put her shoes back on and tottered towards the lapping sea. Now she felt queasy. Maybe, if she got to the shoreline, she could dab her face in cold water. She made it to the edge and plonked herself down on a boulder. She took some deep breaths. They didn’t stop her from feeling sick; she’d drunk far too much. She knew that Carlsten had been trying to get her pissed to ensure he got her into bed. Water. She needed cold water on her face. The sea was only a couple of paces away. Easing herself off the rock, she stepped forward. She groped down into the darkness and plunged her fingers into the freezing water. She whipped her hand out. That had been quite a shock. So, more carefully this time, she leant down on her haunches and gingerly lowered her hands towards the sea. But this wasn’t what she expected. The water had more substance to it. Perhaps it was seaweed. No, it was something more familiar. What was it? Stretching out further, the full horror of what she was touching began to creep over her. A few seconds later, she started to scream.

  CHAPTER 15

  Anita was totally disorientated. She could hear the knocking on the door, but all was blackness. Her sleep had been deep.

  ‘Mamma.’

  It was Lasse calling. She rubbed her eyes. The digital clock clicked to 01.36. What on earth did he want? What was he still doing up at this time? Watching some unsuitable programme on the telly most probably.

  ‘Come in.’

  Lasse, still fully dressed, came in clutching her mobile phone.

  ‘You left it in the living room. It was buzzing. It was Klara Wallen.’

  ‘God, what does she want?’

  ‘She says you should get down to Ön as soon as possible.’

  ‘What?’ Anita was still half asleep.

  ‘They’ve found a body.’

  ‘Honestly, it’ll probably be some floater.’ She began to stir herself. ‘Or someone’s jumped off the bridge, like that ferry company boss in the summer.’

  Lasse handed her the phone. ‘She thinks it might be your Englishman.’

  It wasn’t more than a ten-minute drive from Anita’s apartment at that time of night. The streets were virtually deserted. She put her foot down. The rain from the previous day made the tarmac on the road glisten in the headlights. She fervently hoped that the body wasn’t Graeme Todd’s. They had made a breakthrough yesterday afternoon when Todd had shown up on the Triangeln station CCTV, getting on a purple Skånetrafiken train heading out of Malmö. It was the train to Ystad and Simrishamn. She had arranged to meet Hakim at Triangeln that day, take the Ystad train and see if they could retrace Todd’s steps. But, if he was lying dead on Ön, then he must have returned to the city that Wednesday afternoon or evening.

  It was just after two when she drew up next to a couple of police vehicles in the car park of one of the smart apartment blocks. She remembered being down on Ön a year and half or so ago to interview a Danish copywriter about the murder of his boss. She knew that the fantastic views of the Sound made the apartments round here very desirable. She ran into a uniformed officer who pointed her in the direction of where the body was discovered.

  Anita crunched her way over the rough ground towards the shoreline, where two policemen were erecting a cordon with police tape. She could see that a couple of arc lights had been brought in to illuminate the area. A temporary privacy shield had been set up. A tent would probably follow later. There were a number of people in plastic overalls hovering around the crime scene. She was met by Wallen, who had obviously been roused from her bed, too. Her black hair had been quickly scraped back. She had an old anorak over the protective clothing. It made Anita realize how cold it was. Wallen was clutching a copy of the photo of Graeme Todd. Before Anita could say anything— ‘I think it’s him.’

  ‘Accident?’

  Wallen shook her head. ‘You’d better have a word with Eva Thulin.’

  As Wallen was speaking, Anita noticed Westermark hovering in the shadows. He was dressed in a tracksuit.

  ‘What’s he doing here?’

  ‘Lives in the apartment block over there. Heard the police cars and got up to see what was happening. Don’t know why he’s still hanging around, though. He’s a creep.’ Wallen didn’t like Westermark any more than Anita did. Anita sometimes wondered if Wallen’s aversion to him was his obvious lack of sexual interest in her.

  Anita put on overalls, latex gloves and plastic overshoes. She was greeted with a weary smile from Eva Thulin, the best forensic technician Anita had worked with in recent years. She was a bit younger than Anita, but they seemed to view life – and their colleagues – from a similar perspective. Anita wondered why they had never met up socially. In fact, even after working with Thulin on a number of cases over the last five years, she didn’t actually know whether she was single, married, attached or divorced. Anita also liked Thulin’s dark sense of humour, which presumably was a prerequisite for a forensic technician’s gruesome trade. Thulin pulled the mask away from her mouth.

  ‘My husband thinks I must have a lover as I keep slipping out of the house in the middle of the night.’ That answered one question.

  ‘Klara says it wasn’t an accident.’

  ‘No,’ Thulin answered emphatically. ‘Unless he decided to cut his own hand off.’

  Anita felt a sudden wave of sickness. For a moment she thought she was going to vomit.

  ‘Want to have a look?’

  ‘Not really.’ But she knew she had to.

  ‘We had to pull him in a bit because his feet were still in the water,’ Thulin explained as they stood over the crumpled body. It was the face that Anita noticed first – the mole close to the nostril. The features were bleached out and the seawater had played havoc with his dyed hair. But it was unmistakeably Graeme Todd. Thulin pointed to the victim’s arm. Todd still wore a sleeveless shirt, now torn and dirty. As soon as Anita caught sight of the stump, she quickly turned away. It wasn’t the sickening sight of dismemberment that caused her reaction, more the realization that she was going to have to tell Jenni
fer Todd.

  ‘Is that what killed him?’

  ‘Not sure yet. His body has taken a savage beating. Might also have drowned, but I’ll let you know.’

  Anita noticed that Westermark was no longer there. That was a relief. ‘Eva, I know you’ll need to take the body back to Lund for a more thorough examination, but is there anything you can tell me now? Apart from the obvious,’ she added, turning back to look at the man who had come to Sweden to pick up his “jackpot”, and instead had met a horrible fate.

  ‘This certainly isn’t the crime scene. His body was washed up here.’

  ‘Where from?’

  ‘Well, you know how weird the currents are in the Sound. The Baltic meets oceanic saltwater here. So the surface stream tends to be northbound.’

  ‘So he could have been dumped south of the bridge?’

  ‘That’s my guess.’

  Anita stared down towards the Öresund Bridge. Even at that time of night, there was traffic criss-crossing between Sweden and Denmark.

  ‘How long do you think he’s been dead?’

  ‘Can’t be certain. I’m pretty sure he’s been dead longer than he’s been in the sea. As you can see, there’s very little bloating and he hasn’t been nibbled. Makes time of death a bit of a lottery. How long has he been missing?’

  ‘Just under a week.’

  ‘Might have a better idea when we get him back to the lab. After we’ve photographed everything, can we remove the body?’

  ‘Yes. If it’s not the murder scene, there’s not much more we can do here. But your people had better give this area the once-over when it gets light. You never know.’