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

by MacLeod, Torquil

  As she left the pub three quarters of an hour later, the wind was whipping the rain into her face. Now she wished she had brought her car to work. She would get seriously buffeted on the walk home. But that was nothing to her mental turbulence on finding out about Jansson’s real relationship with Björn. If she was in Malmö trying to get away from him – and they weren’t a couple any more – how the hell had he got hold of a key to her apartment?

  The breakers came rushing in from the Sound. It was not a night to be out at sea. The water crashed against the concrete wharfs that stretched like a giant’s fingers out into the harbour. Even the biggest ships rocked to the rhythm of the storm, and the skinny quayside lampposts swayed back and forth, casting pinpricks of light on normally darkened corners of the dockside. Plastic crates, an old tyre, bottles, bits of rope and rotten wood, the usual flotsam and jetsam of every large port, ebbed and flowed around the old jetty at the edge of Nyhamnen. Now fenced off, it had not been used for some years – too close to the burgeoning buildings of the university around the Inner Harbour and the phalanx of new apartment blocks further along the Outer Harbour. Among the rubbish, something else was being unceremoniously tossed by the waves onto the ravaged concrete, and used as a battering ram against the fencing, constantly thrown at the unyielding mesh. A flickering beam from the nearest lurching lamppost picked it out – only for second – a crumpled, broken body with bedraggled hair, the blonde strands gleaming in the light.

  CHAPTER 22

  The train didn’t zip through the countryside; it rumbled quickly. The rolling stock on the Manchester Airport to Edinburgh route wasn’t of the inter-city sleekness of the Virgin pendalinos that whizzed through the fringes of the Lake District. For that, Anita was grateful. She could take in the beauty of the mountains. It was such a contrast to the flatness of Skåne. Memories of childhood visits with her parents came rushing back. Her father had loved the hills and would have quite happily settled among them had their circumstances been different. She remembered one camping holiday outside Keswick. It had rained continuously, and her mother was not a happy camper. Her father was oblivious to the weather and had dragged her up the fells while her mother went shopping. Though she would rather have been inside, watching the television or playing with friends, she did it to please her father. The higher they climbed, the more relaxed he became. She had revelled in his contentment. It was just the two of them on top of the world. Inseparable. Sadly, it would be short lived. Within a year of their return to Sweden, her parents divorced. She had always wondered if there was something she could she have done to save the situation. Of course not, but it did plague her teenage years.

  Anita also felt guilty about Ewan. As she was rushing out of the apartment that morning, her mobile had rung. Like every trip she made, she had left her packing until the last minute. She had also prised Lasse out of bed so he was awake when Hakim came round. Lasse had been less than enthusiastic that he was going to have a flat-mate for the weekend. She was dragging her case along the pavement on the way to Triangeln to catch the train to Kastrup, so she answered breathlessly.

  ‘It’s Ewan.’

  She couldn’t hide the surprise in her voice. Prisoners were allowed to make regular calls, but Ewan had never rung her before.

  ‘Are you OK?’ he asked when she didn’t immediately respond.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is this a bad time?’

  ‘It is really. I’m off to the airport.’

  ‘Oh.’ Ewan sounded disappointed.

  ‘To England. On a case.’

  Anita hovered at the crossing on Carl Gustavs väg, waiting for the pedestrian lights to change.

  ‘Will you be away long?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  The light went green and Anita hurried across the road.

  ‘This is obviously a bad time.’

  ‘Was there anything specific you want to talk to me about?’

  There was a pause. ‘Yes.’ Anita nearly dropped the phone as the wheels of her case bounced off a raised paving stone, and she didn’t quite catch what Ewan said.

  ‘...but it doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Ewan, can I get back to you? I’ll come and see you when I get back. I promise.’

  There was no sound at the other end of the phone. All she could hear was her own heavy breathing.

  ‘Send my love to Britain,’ he said at last.

  ‘I’ll bring you something back.’

  ‘Anita...’ It sounded as though he was about to say something. But all that eventually came out was a clipped ‘Goodbye.’

  He was gone, and Anita had put her mobile away and managed to get to the station just as the Copenhagen-bound train was pulling in.

  The sun glinted on the rugged, green Howgills with their patchwork of dry-stone walls, clinging at precarious angles to the steep slopes. Sheep could be seen grazing, even in the upper reaches of the fells. The train snaked through Tebay and passed its colourfully painted railway houses. There was something about the way Ewan had said goodbye that stuck in her head. It was so final. But any further thoughts about him were pushed to the back of her mind as the train came out of the hills. In the cool, late-afternoon sunshine, she could see the buildings of Penrith sprinkled over the valley and up the slopes of the wooded Beacon Hill. The sandstone station, with its red-painted stanchions supporting the glass and wrought-iron canopy, matched Anita’s idea of what a Victorian British station should look like. The huge, old-fashioned clock hanging above the platform added to her romantic notion. The other travellers alighting with her were mainly walkers, who would be heading off into the heart of the north Lakes.

  The man who was obviously waiting for her didn’t fit her pre-conceived image of Detective Sergeant Ash of the Cumbria Constabulary. He was smaller and thinner than she had expected. He wore a crumpled, grey suit and light blue tie, which was loosened at the neck. She had never understood why British plain-clothes policemen dressed so formally. His hair was severely cropped, though there wouldn’t have been much of it even if it had been allowed to grow. He hadn’t shaved that morning, so there was a stubbly frame around his lined face. What caught her attention most were the brown, humorous eyes that lit up when he spotted her. She put him in his early fifties. Later, she found out that he was only forty-eight. She was greeted by a wide smile followed by a firm handshake.

  ‘Inspector Sundström, I presume. Welcome to Cumbria.’

  Inspector Henrik Nordlund stood on the jetty in the mid-afternoon. The atrocious weather of the previous night had long abated and there were even hints of blue sky between the scudding clouds. The body of the young woman had been removed a few of hours earlier by the forensics team. All that was left was the official tape cordoning off the scene. He didn’t mind being there, as he hadn’t planned to do anything special this weekend. He never had plans. No children to visit. No one to share his weekends with. He knew why he had come back to the scene of the body’s discovery. Simply for something to do. Truth be told, he wasn’t sure how he was going to fill his time when he retired at Christmas. All the plans he had made with Hannah had disappeared in that faceless hospital cancer ward. That last night he had stayed in the small bedroom until the dawn broke. He had squeezed onto the bed to hold her one last time. He had no idea whether she knew what was going on. She had breathed her last as the first light peeked through the drawn blinds, and he’d stayed on the bed, clinging to her, not believing that all their dreams were now dust. Sailing round the Baltic had been their great retirement plan. He hadn’t gone near a boat since she died.

  The water slapped at the edge of the jetty. He glanced around. To his left, two red pilot boats swayed gently in the swell. Just beyond was a large confection of concrete and glass – offices. Behind him was the unexceptional Bylgahuset, which housed Sweco and VASYD. Again, offices. The simple conclusion was that when the body was dumped, it had most probably been done at night when no one would be around. And dumped it had been, according to Eva
Thulin’s preliminary findings. It had been battered by the storm and had experienced a huge amount of trauma, but Thulin had said there was the strong possibility of strangulation being the cause of death. The likelihood was that hands had been used, so someone had been strong enough to throttle the life out of the victim. There wasn’t much else she could tell him until she had had time to investigate further. She couldn’t give him an idea of how long the body had been in the water because of its severely bloated state, through the inevitable loosening of the skin. She hazarded a guess that it was over a week. One thing in their favour was that, despite the mauling and the effects of the water, the head was still just recognizable, though one of the eyes had been eaten. She explained with relish that though on land the head degrades first, at sea it is often the reverse. However, if the victim had lingered in the water much longer, it would have been increasingly difficult to identify the remains. One important point of interest was that she was still wearing one small hooped earring in her pierced left ear. The other earring was missing, either coming off in the sea or during the attack. Thulin suggested it was a case of checking missing persons – a natural blonde female aged between twenty and thirty. Westermark was already on it. As there wasn’t a great deal that they could do on the Todd murder until Anita unearthed some clues over in Britain, Moberg had put him, Nordlund, on the new case, with Westermark helping. It wasn’t a situation that he was entirely happy with, as he knew Westermark would try and take over and bulldoze his way through the investigation. But Nordlund did trust the younger man’s instincts. In fact, he had been surprised that when Westermark had been hauled in by Moberg, he hadn’t complained about his weekend being ruined. He seemed up for the task. Nordlund reflected that this would be his own last case. He was determined to crack it before they handed him his leaving present on Friday, December 21st, a date seared on his brain. At least he had a good start; he was pretty sure he knew who the girl was. Greta Jansson.

  CHAPTER 23

  When Anita drew the curtains, she saw the rain had set in. The room in the Carrock Guest House was traditionally comfortable without a hint of modern flamboyance. It was situated in a Victorian terrace in the centre of the town. Ash had explained that it would be more comfortable and have more character than the local Travelodge. For that she was grateful. Ash had taken her briefly to the county police headquarters at Carleton Hall, on the edge of Penrith, where he was based. In a cramped office, he had shown her the few bits of information he had managed to gather so far. He’d got hold of copies of Doris Little’s birth and death certificates from the General Register Office in Carlisle. Nothing obvious had leapt out from the documents, but they would form the core of their research. He had also obtained building society details. On her death, Doris Little had had £5,633.76 in her account. That was the full value of her estate. Ash remarked that he could understand the London probate researchers giving up so easily after finding their reward would be so paltry. On the other hand, it certainly didn’t explain why Graeme Todd had got so excited. Afterwards, Ash had dropped Anita off at the guest house.

  Anita had gone out and had a pizza at an Italian restaurant close by. Before finding somewhere to eat, she had wandered round the centre of the small town to get her bearings. It was based around the market square with its distinctive Musgrave Monument clock tower. Behind the square, she had found St. Andrew’s Church. Originally 13th-century, all that remains of the medieval building is the tower. The elegant Georgian nave and chancel had a soothing ambiance, and Anita had spent a few contemplative minutes sitting in one of the pews. Ewan seeped into her thoughts. She couldn’t get his phone call out of her head. She found herself about to offer up a silent prayer for him before mentally admonishing herself. Her father would have been most disappointed. When Anita was at her most impressionable, his fierce atheism had won out over her mother’s limp Christianity. It had been an easy battle, and nothing in her life had given her cause to recant. After her meal, she had retired early to her room. It had been a long day. She was in bed by nine o’clock.

  She was reading a book she had picked up at Kastrup airport when her mobile buzzed. As she took the phone from the bedside table, she assumed it was Lasse. He must have had an argument with Hakim. She was surprised to see Henrik Nordlund’s name on the screen.

  ‘Hi, Henrik. It’s late over there.’

  ‘Hope I’m not interrupting anything, but it’s important.’

  Of course; with Nordlund it would be. She waited for him to tell her just how important.

  ‘A young woman’s body has been found. Nyhamnen.’ Anita’s mind raced to Greta Jansson. ‘Thrown up by the storm.’

  ‘Blonde?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Age?’

  ‘Between twenty and thirty.’

  ‘You think it’s—’

  ‘Greta Jansson? Yes. Westermark has been through recent missing persons of roughly the same description and nothing has come up. Of course, it might be someone who, like Greta, hasn’t been reported missing yet.’

  ‘But unlikely.’ Anita was wondering how Björn would receive the news if the body really was Greta’s. He was a wreck already. This would finish him.

  ‘Accident?’ she asked without conviction.

  ‘I’m afraid not. It’s not easy working with a corpse that’s been in the water for some time, but Thulin reckons she’d been strangled.’

  ‘Oh, God!’ Anita’s heart sank. This was another missing victim that she hadn’t taken seriously.

  ‘There’s another thing.’ Anita wondered if it could get any worse. ‘It appears that the young woman was probably raped first.’

  ‘Shit!’

  ‘Problem is, there’s no semen because she’s been in the water too long.’

  ‘So no attacker’s DNA.’

  ‘The first thing we need to do is establish if it is Greta Jansson. Who do you think we should contact for identification purposes? The body’s in a bad way.’

  Björn was an obvious choice, but Anita didn’t want to put him through the experience in his present emotional state. It was going to be difficult enough telling him. Anyway, he was up in Uppsala.

  ‘For speed, I’d get one of Greta’s colleagues in the English department at Kungsskolan. The one I spoke to was a Scottish guy called Alex Fraser. I haven’t got a number for him, but you’ll probably find him at The Pickwick pub on Malmoborgsgatan.’ Anita glanced at her watch. It would be half past ten in Sweden. ‘He’ll probably be there now. It’s his regular haunt.’

  ‘Thanks, Anita.’

  ‘Henrik. If it is Greta, can you tell me as soon as it’s confirmed? It’s best that’s it’s me who breaks the news to Björn.’

  ‘I will.’

  She couldn’t believe that her mother had asked her to take it round to the policewoman’s apartment. Her bloody brother. He was so damned perfect. She never got a look in. Constantly criticized. And yet he was able to escape for the weekend to stay at his boss’s fancy pad. He was only going to be gone two days, and yet her mother had badgered her to take round the plastic box filled with couscous. Just because it was his favourite! Ponce! It wasn’t even Iraqi. But he thought eating North African food was more sophisticated than what they usually ate. She was happy with the McDonald’s on the other side of the main road. Now she was having to trudge round to the edge of Pildammsparken. She had a good mind to throw the box away. It would serve him right. He was too big for his boots now he was a policeman. What an awful thing to be – they’re all racist and fascist. Why couldn’t he have stuck to painting? He was good at that. He was a serious embarrassment. Her friends were always taking the piss, especially the boys. Some wouldn’t even speak to her because they knew what he was. They didn’t trust her. In a moment of anger, she flipped off the box’s lid. She could see the food by the light of the street lamp. She looked for somewhere to tip it out. Then she checked herself. She was bound to be found out when Hakim came back, and her father would go berserk.

&nb
sp; She approached the apartment. It was on the ground floor. She could see there was a light on. It wasn’t as smart as she had expected, but it was a hundred times better than their run-down block. She sauntered up to the door and rang the bell. She knew that the policewoman was away. At first she just wanted to hand over the box and get away, but now she was here, curiosity got the better of her. See how Swedes really lived. The only homes she had ever been in were those of other immigrants. She had no white friends. Maybe she would get Hakim to show her around.

  When the door opened, she was taken aback not to see her brother. A tall, blond young man with grey-green eyes was standing in a pool of light. He smiled.

  ‘You must be Jazmin.’

  Suddenly she found herself tongue-tied. She had been preparing something rude to say to her brother. Now she was struck dumb. She could only nod stupidly.

  ‘Do you want to see Hakim?’

  ‘Not if I can help it.’ It just came out in a rush.

  Lasse laughed. ‘It’s OK. He’s not in at the moment.’

  Jazmin held out the box of couscous. She wished he would just take it and she could escape. For some reason all she could feel was embarrassment.

  ‘Why don’t you bring that in?’

  Jazmin hesitated. For one daft moment she became very conscious of her hair, severely shaved at the sides and with an outcrop running across the top of her head. Like so many white kids, Lasse had blond, floppy locks.

  He smiled again. ‘You can bring that Red Cross food parcel in only if you promise not to mention the sodding police.’

  Jazmin tried hard to suppress a grin as she stepped inside the apartment.

  Though Anita had turned off her bedside light at about ten o’clock, the chance of an undisturbed night’s sleep was now out of the question. Voices drifted up from the street outside, before tailing off. There was a pub at the end of the road, so there was probably more Saturday night noise to come. Not that it mattered. Her mind was racing anyway. She started to worry about Fraser. It wasn’t really fair that he was going to have to identify a dead body when it should be Björn, but it would be quicker. He was on the spot. She would owe him a few pints if he stayed on speaking terms with her.