'Which is?'
'These two guys. They were obviously shot by the same killer, but that's the only thing about them that matches. I mean, we've got Lars Waltz, a photographer with artistic ambitions. Divorced suburbanite with two well-behaved teenage children. A bitter ex-wife, that's true, but not bitter enough to kill him. Grew up in a normal family, no hint of anything criminal. Fairly well balanced, has friends, is popular, has a relationship. And then we have Olof Bart, a complete oddball. Troubled childhood, criminal activity from an early age. Never had a long-term relationship with a woman, as far as we know. Socially inept. Unbalanced. Makes a living doing this and that, not all of which is strictly legal. Lives alone in the forest; nobody wants to let on that they know him.'
'You're wondering what these two men have in common.'
'Exactly. Why would you go on a killing spree, taking out Mr Average and then Mr Weirdo, in a very similar way, as if it were some kind of ritual? I mean, it would have been enough to shoot them, but to run over them as well?'
Gonzales followed Tell into the hallway.
'We have to assume that their paths crossed somewhere, however unlikely it seems.'
Tell nodded mournfully.
'And the worst of it is, the more we look into it, the more unlikely it seems.'
* * *
Chapter 38
'We have to assume that both of them crossed the murderer's path at some point,' said Gonzales, repeating Tell's words from the previous evening.
Tell was fifteen minutes late for morning briefing, and was fully aware of how annoyed he was whenever anyone else turned up late. His head was aching from too little sleep. Or perhaps it was the large whiskey he had knocked back just before he fell into bed, exhausted, at three o'clock in the morning.
He poured himself a coffee and glanced at Gonzales. Evidently he was still enjoying the privilege of youth, the ability to look fresh even when you ought to resemble a withered apple.
'I think we can come back to that point after we've run through the new information. We'll spend the final part of the meeting thinking about what fresh conclusions we can draw. I can start with my report on the meeting with social services.'
An agenda was quickly agreed, with Bärneflod volunteering to take notes, which took Tell by surprise.
'We've learned that Bart was placed in a foster home in Olofstorp, with a family called Jidsten, from the age of eleven to seventeen.'
'Have you spoken to them?' asked Beckman.
'Only on the phone. They live up in Jämtland these days.'
'But Waltz wasn't living in Olofstorp at that time,' Beckman pointed out. 'When Bart was a teenager living there, Waltz was in Majorna.'
'I know,' sighed Tell. 'But perhaps we're getting closer.'
'I've been going after Susanne Pilgren.'
Bärneflod leaned over and gave Karlberg a slap on his bare arm. 'Bloody hell. Did you get anywhere?'
'Very funny. I have been trying to find her, if I can rephrase things so that even Bärneflod can understand. She seems to be a frequent guest at a hostel for homeless women; the place is called Klara. The supervisor at the mission hostel also knew who she was, but she doesn't go there as often. She's registered with social services in Hogsbo, but she hasn't turned up to a meeting with her social worker in over a year. They found her a place in a boarding house in the eastern part of the town. Linden's B B.'
'A boarding house?' said Tell suspiciously.
'That's what they call it. Apparently, social services pay for a certain number of places for homeless people at Linden's. And it's not cheap.'
'OK,' said Tell. 'But you don't know where she is now?'
Karlberg ignored the impatient undertone.
'No, but I've asked the staff in all three places to get in touch as soon as they see her. I can also tell you that she is no longer known to anyone as Susanne Pilgren, but as Susanne Jensen. She got married ten years ago, and carried on using her married name even though they got divorced the following year. So she's registered as Pilgren, but uses the name Jensen.'
He shook his head as if she had changed her name purely to make life difficult for him.
'We'll wait to hear from them, then,' said Tell. 'I've had a closer look at the crime Bart committed when he was sixteen,' he went on. 'Armed robbery, but the pistol turned out to be a replica. He was alone, but a friend was outside keeping the engine running. The assistant was too shaken up to remember anything but Bart's appearance, and they never found out who his accomplice was.'
'Couldn't they get it out of him?'
'Not a word, apparently. He seems to have been good at keeping quiet even then. When it came to sentencing, they took into account the fact that he had already been done for nicking a car - no, two cars. His foster-father's car and another one. Both when he was fourteen.'
'So his foster-father reported him for stealing the car?' said Beckman.
'Indeed he did,' said Tell. 'The secure unit, Villa Björkudden, is still there today, although it has a slightly different brief. These days it specialises in dealing with young men with schizophrenia or some kind of psychosis. Anyway, a couple of people who worked there in the old days are still on the staff. One of them is the supervisor now: Titti Moberg-Stark. She might able to help us and is going to look in the old registers to see who was there at the same time as Bart. We might get something out of that.'
Tell pushed a route map over to Bärneflod.
'The place is outside Uddevalla. They've set aside some time for us tomorrow morning. I thought you might deal with that, Bärneflod.' He moved on quickly. 'What else have we got? Beckman?'
Karin Beckman cleared her throat. She was hoarse and looked as if a few hours' sleep would make her feel a lot better.
'Yes, what else have we got?' she muttered. She straightened her back and carried on, her voice stronger. 'I've been going through the list of calls from Lars Waltz and Lise-Lott Edell's landline, but I didn't get anywhere. Lars also had a third phone, a mobile. There were very few incoming and outgoing calls on that over recent weeks. Zachariasson, Lars's childhood friend, came up a few times.' She shrugged. 'It's hard with such a wide search area. Hard to know where to start digging.'
'Zachariasson's in the clear, isn't he?' said Tell, turning to Bärneflod.
'Yes and no. He has an alibi for the Tuesday evening - he was out with three colleagues and a former classmate. He went home alone that night, but he remembered he'd travelled up in the lift with a neighbour. The neighbour confirmed this. And another neighbour banged on the wall when he was playing loud music in the living room a couple of hours later. The neighbours' statements show that he was at home until at least three o'clock in the morning. Of course he could have gone out first thing-'
'Yes, but we know that Waltz was murdered earlier than that. And he doesn't have a motive,' Tell interrupted. 'We'll concentrate on those who have some kind of motive.'
'Reino Edell,' said Bärneflod. 'He claims he was at home watching TV until half past nine, then he went to bed with the crossword. His wife confirms that he was home all night, but she did give away the fact that they have separate bedrooms, so he could easily have crept out. I'm also convinced that she would lie for him if he told her to.'
'A pretty worthless alibi, in other words.'
Bärneflod nodded.
When Tell looked up he met Ann-Christine Ostergren's searching eyes. He wondered how long she had been standing by the door watching him, and immediately felt uncomfortable.
They had always worked well together in the past. He cursed himself for getting into a situation where he felt like a criminal in his own workplace. In fact, he felt as if he lacked control at every level. The enquiry was at a standstill; they were gathering material that led nowhere, and the only thing he could concentrate on at the moment was his own internal conflict. He was sufficiently in love to risk letting the cat out of the bag with regard to Seja, but he was far from ready to sacrifice his job or even his reputation for lov
e. He just didn't have that kind of spontaneity in him. And, as Carina had once put it, if he didn't have his job, what did he have?
Ostergren sought eye contact again and indicated that he should come to her office after the meeting. He nodded silently. A chill spread through his abdomen. Did she know anything? But how could she?
He would have to stop seeing Seja. She was mixed up in an investigation he was leading, and no amount of explanation would convince Ostergren.
He became aware that his colleagues were waiting for him to speak and pulled himself together.
'The ex-wife's alibi, on the other hand, is watertight,' he said. 'Maria Waltz was staying over at her parents' house in Kungsbacka, along with her younger son. Her mother confirms that Maria had stomach cramps during the night, and that she filled a hot water bottle for her a couple of times.'
'So we can cross her out.'
'What about the sons?' asked Beckman.
'What about them?' said Karlberg.
'You mean you don't think children are capable of murdering their parents, or that teenagers don't commit murder? Take a look at the crime statistics.'
'We were intending to speak to the boys,' Tell defended himself, looking over at Karlberg. 'Can you call them in? The younger one can have his mother with him, then we won't get a load of earache about bringing in social services. He'll probably say there's no need anyway.'
He saw Beckman stiffen. Presumably it annoyed her that Tell evidently felt it was more likely that Karlberg would get the boys to talk.
The age issue had been at the forefront of Tell's mind in making his decision. The younger officer's lack of experience was often noticeable in a certain inflexibility when it came to interview technique, and this could be counter-productive when questioning youngsters. But in this case he had faith in Karlberg, who perhaps had a better idea of how a seventeen year-old boy thinks. Tell realised he still thought of Andreas Karlberg as green, despite the fact that he had a fair number of years in the job behind him now. He was also a quiet pleasant individual who often made people feel they wanted to confide in him, which wasn't something Tell could always say about himself.
He ran his hand irritably through his hair. He couldn't shake off the feeling that he had lost his focus in this investigation. The thought from the previous night came back to him: there was no logical explanation as to why the same person should want to kill two men from such completely different backgrounds and with such different lives. The discovery of the rented Grand Cherokee in Ulricehamn was certainly a step forward, but Mark Sjodin had had the car for only two days, and therefore could have run over only one of the victims in it.
Before the meeting Tell had been informed that the Mark Sjodin whose ID had been shown to Berit Johansson did in fact exist, and was registered at an address in Dalsjofors. Initially he had had no hesitation in ringing Sjodin to ask him to come to the station so that he could be eliminated from their enquiries. He totally discounted the idea that Sjodin might be the murderer and had hired the murder weapon in his own name. Unfortunately Tell had been unable to get hold of him before the meeting, which gave him a little time to consider whether he ought to treat Mark Sjodin as a suspect.
Having decided to send a patrol car out into the sticks to pick up Sjodin, he didn't want to waste any more time. He excused himself and went to ask Renée to take care of the matter.
When he came back into the conference room, he felt a little more cheerful.
After Beckman and Bärneflod had summarised what they had found out by going through old reports of similar violent crimes, the team went through the other cases that were crying out for attention.
Tell was well aware that the extra resources they had been granted were now hanging by a thread. If he was unable to demonstrate concrete progress soon, they would lose the additional help. When Beckman brought up the fact that Lise-Lott Edell had moved back home and was asking for protection, the tiny fragment of desperately won pleasure in his work disappeared.
Lise-Lott was obviously afraid that the murderer would come after her, given that no one yet knew who he was or why he had murdered her husband.
'Out of the question,' Tell said, not bothering to hide his irritation. 'There are no indications of any such threat. And we just don't have the staff for that kind of thing.'
* * *
Chapter 39
The man on the opposite side of the desk in the interview room had an unpleasant habit of picking at his cuticles. Tell tried not to look at the sores that Mark Sjodin couldn't leave alone, which didn't really fit with the overall picture. Otherwise, Sjodin was impeccably dressed, and looked exactly like the expert in debit and credit that he was; he had informed Tell of this important fact right from the start. Sjodin Audit was based in Borås.
A drop of blood coloured Mark Sjodin's thumbnail red. It made Tell think of an example Beckman had once mentioned from her psychology training. A man, doubtless as apparently ordinary as Sjodin, had collected his own excrement in a box under his bed. Tell didn't have the expertise to give a sensible explanation as to what caused this kind of bizarre behaviour, but he assumed it arose from the very human need to find an outlet for one's frustration. If you didn't allow yourself to be less than perfect elsewhere, perhaps the thing you didn't want to reveal ended up under the bed in the form of a box of shit.
In his work Tell had a theory that perfection always masked something else. A person who displays an impeccable facade and the patience of a saint has something to hide. An anger so fierce that it has to be kept under strict control. A box of shit under the bed. Or a body buried in the garden.
Therefore he quite liked Mark Sjodin's inflamed cuticles. They made him human.
'So you're saying that I hired a black Jeep in Ulricehamn between Christmas and New Year?'
'I'm saying that the hire of a Jeep was registered in your name on 27 December at Johansson Johansson in Ulricehamn. Are you claiming that you didn't hire a car at that time?'
'I wasn't even anywhere near Ulricehamn at that time.'
The sore next to Sjodin's thumbnail started to bleed again, and he staunched the flow by pressing the top of his index finger against it.
The auditor's forehead was dry despite the heat from the powerful fluorescent lights, and his eyes were still firmly fixed on Tell. He certainly didn't seem nervous. Tell got up and fetched a packet of tissues from the handbasin. By handing over the tissues and gesturing in the direction of Sjodin's hand, Tell let him know that he had seen through the facade.
Sjodin muttered something and wrapped a piece of tissue around his thumb. He cleared his throat a few times, finally seeming to lose his cool. Then, just as quickly, the penny dropped. It was impossible not to notice how relieved he was.
'Now I know what happened! My wallet was stolen on Boxing Day, that must be it. Somebody pretended to be me and used my ID to steal the car.'
'We're not talking about a car theft here; this is a murder investigation.'
Sjodin became very still, breathing jerkily through his mouth. He didn't even bother to wipe the condensation off his glasses.
'You mean the person who pretended to be me murdered someone?'
Tell didn't reply; he simply watched as Sjodin absorbed the information.
'Why didn't you report the theft of your wallet?' he asked eventually.
'But I did!' Sjodin exclaimed indignantly. 'If my daughter's cat hadn't been run over I would have reported it as soon as I got home from the Co-op - that's where it was stolen. I'd been shopping in Borås and I paid for my stuff; the thief must have taken the wallet while I was packing everything into bags. I must have put it down for a few seconds.'
'When did you report it?'
'Two days later, on 28 December.'
'Can you remember anything about the person in front of you or behind you in the queue at the checkout? Or anyone who stood unnecessarily close to you?'
Sjodin shook his head firmly. 'I've been thinking about it, because I wo
ndered who would have had the nerve virtually to steal my wallet out of my hand, but… I can't remember anything in particular.'
'Do you perhaps remember which checkout you were at?'
'I do, it was the one furthest away from the entrance. I went back to speak to the cashier to see if she'd picked it up, but of course she hadn't.'
'OK.' Tell stood up and held out his hand.
'I'll have a look at your report. Otherwise we're done.'
Mark Sjodin stayed where he was for a moment. He took off his glasses and polished them before finally leaving the interview room with Tell.
'What about the chances of getting my wallet back?' he asked.
'What do you think?' Tell replied, leaving the auditor to his fate, or rather to the receptionist, who helpfully showed him out.
It was as he'd thought: the ID was stolen. This increased the likelihood that it was their murderer who had hired the Cherokee in Ulricehamn.
He stuck his head around Gonzales' door.
'Get the Jeep from Ulricehamn brought in straight away.'
Gonzales was just keying in the number for Johansson Johansson when Tell heard the phone ringing in his own office.
The caller display showed Seja Lundberg's number. This immediately made him think of Ostergren's searching gaze that morning. He swore as he realised he'd forgotten his promise to go and see her straight after the meeting, and now Ostergren would be wondering more than ever whether he was avoiding her. Which he was, of course. The phone stopped ringing.
'One missed call'.
Sometimes you have to make choices in life, he told himself. The only reasonable choice in a situation like this was to end the relationship with Seja, even though it had only just started. It wasn't even a choice, really; it was the only possibility. Because as Carina had said, if he didn't have his job, what did he have?
With a heavy heart Tell walked over to Ostergren's office, only to be informed by her secretary that she had gone home for the day. He felt an enormous sense of relief, although he knew it was childish; the problem would still be there tomorrow. Since he didn't have to face a difficult conversation with Ostergren, he felt ready to listen to the message from Seja.
Frozen Moment Page 26
