‘And you don’t know who he was going to meet?’ I say, one more time.
‘No, that’s right, I’ve no idea. Oh yes, one more thing. At some point during the day, just after lunch, I think, he went for a walk with Kele, Kele Valdez. They often do that, go for a stroll round the campus.’
‘What sort of a person was Thomas?’ Did he have any friends, relatives that he would talk about, anything like that?’
‘Thomas was … a loner. He did have a girlfriend when he started, I remember that, then they split, and after a year or so he started seeing someone, but that didn’t last either. His closest friends were his colleagues. Kele Valdez in particular. I don’t think he’s been informed yet.’ She hesitates. ‘Could y—?’
‘I’ll do it,’ I say, and make a note on the pad. ‘I need to talk to him anyway.’
Everybody is missed by someone. Grim used to say so, when one of our friends from Salem had disappeared and nobody seemed to notice. When someone dies there’s always someone who lies awake at night, always someone who walks the streets where the deceased once walked, someone who’ll go through their wardrobe to avoid letting go. I wonder who that person is this time.
Outside Marika Franzén’s window, the snow has stopped falling. The world seems strangely quiet, as it often does from a distance.
Valdez hasn’t turned up yet, so I do Heber’s office first. It’s only half the size of Franzén’s, yet it’s home to roughly as many objects and as much furniture as his apartment. The only things missing are a camping stove and a toilet. If he’d had access to those, he could easily have lived here. One wall is lined with bookcases. Along the opposite wall, a little sofa is squeezed in next to the wide desk. There’s a cushion and a plaid blanket on the sofa. The desk is covered with piles of paper and books, a computer and keyboard, an Eighties telephone, and a printer.
On the hook on the back of the door hangs a black tongue of a tie, a blazer, and, over that, a badminton racket in its case. I carefully check the blazer pockets. They’re empty.
A framed diploma hangs above the desk, declaring that Thomas M Heber has been awarded the Faculty of Social Science’s prize for the best thesis of the year. Next to it is a similar certificate declaring him ‘Young Sociologist of the Year’, this time awarded by the European Society of Sociology. It was for his article, ‘Notes on the Relations between “Insiders” and “Outsiders” in Social Movements’, published in the British Journal of Sociology.
A rising star, already shining brightly. Now dead.
I slump into the desk chair and fumble with the mouse, in the hope that Heber’s computer might be on. It isn’t, and, once I’ve turned it on, the password screen stands between me and access to its contents. I stare at it for a second before I pick up the phone and dial the extension for the IT department, which is scrawled on a note next to the phone.
‘I need your National Identity number,’ the technician says in a monotone voice when he returns to the receiver.
‘My ID number?’
‘I need to be able to check that you are actually a policeman.’
‘How do you know I’m not going to give you someone else’s number?’
The IT guy sighs, as though he has this conversation every day.
‘Just give it to me.’
Heber’s desktop is full of folders and documents, and I click through them in no particular order. All I find is drafts of articles, saved copies of other people’s publications and minutes, agendas and decisions ahead of meetings — the kind of information that can make a policeman glad he’s not an academic.
One of the folders, marked only with an ‘F’, leads to another marked FIELD, which contains lots of documents. One comprises a list that starts at 1580 and finishes at 1602. Alongside most of the numbers are abbreviations — AFA, RF, FF, P, SM, RAF-S, RAF-V — as well as several others. They’re his interview subjects, I guess, and perhaps the initials of the groups they belong to. The next document is called LOG, and when I open it I feel a shiver down my spine.
This is Thomas Heber’s diary, more or less. The first entry is just over two years ago. He had just started the research project that would occupy him until his death. The document is fifty-four pages long, and ends on the twelfth of December, yesterday, with the words:
12/12
Meeting 1599, to talk. Might tell them what I’ve heard. I don’t know. We’re meeting at our usual spot at 2230. I’m nervous and unsettled, hesitant. Haven’t got much done today.
I click back to the list of interviewees and find a 1599, with the abbreviation RAF-s. I imagine how Heber arrived early to their agreed meeting and how 1599, when he or she came into the yard, plunged his knife into the sociologist’s back. But it doesn’t quite make sense — something in the sequence of events doesn’t add up. Like wearing a jumper inside out, it works, but it’s not right.
The interviewee, 1599, is the first to arrive, and waits for Heber behind the green bin. Heber slips into the alleyway and looks around, searching for his contact. Then, from out of the shadows of the capital’s streets, a third silhouette appears and sticks the knife into Heber.
Has 1599 lured Heber into a trap? Perhaps. How much time passes between Heber going up the alley and the assailant following him? Is it a second, or a minute? Do Heber and 1599 get the chance to say anything to each other? Maybe, but probably not. Why does 1599 ring the police, if indeed it was 1599 who made that call? Why is Heber nervous and unsettled, and what is it that he’s heard? Who has been in Heber’s apartment and left shoeprints there? Was that before or after the murder?
My questions are becoming more and more like knots. As soon as I get close to an answer to one of them, it turns out I’ve made too many assumptions, and I have to go back and start again. I need to talk to Birck — he’s more analytical than I am.
I print off two copies of the list and then two copies of the long, diary-like document. While the printer on Heber’s desk spits out sheets of paper, I read the list of numbers and abbreviations, and circle ‘1599’.
Just before 10.00 a.m., the man arriving to open up at Café Cairo notices that something weird has happened.
His name is Oscar Svedenhag, and he heads in the back way, through the courtyard, and unlocks the empty premises, lights the soft lighting, and weaves his way through the tables and chairs over to the counter. He dumps his rucksack, puts the keys down on the side, and starts whistling. He starts preparing the coffee machine, and checks that they have all the produce they will need for the day.
There are a few minutes left till opening when Oscar notices: there’s a slight hum in the café. The door out onto the street, through which customers come and go, is not closed. The door handle is hanging limp, as though someone has broken it.
As if that wasn’t enough, something else isn’t right here, behind the counter. But what? Then he realises. There’s something amiss with the black-matte handles of his set of knives sticking out from the little wooden block in the corner — one of the knives is gone.
On top of that, the float is missing from the till.
There are lots of ways to react to this, one of which would be to call the police. He doesn’t do that. He does, however, stop whistling.
Kele Valdez is sitting in his room, hunched over his desk, his face hidden behind black curls, reading a text very carefully. Valdez is wearing a black jacket, black shirt, and black jeans, as though the feast of St Lucia also included a funeral. It might be just as well.
‘Knock knock,’ I say, feeling every inch the unpleasant surprise as Valdez lifts his stare from the page.
‘Good morning,’ he says, taking off his dark-rimmed glasses. ‘How can I help you?’
‘I’m from the police.’
‘The police?’ Keles eyebrows rise slightly, causing his forehead to crumple. ‘What’s this about?’
He takes the n
ews of his colleague’s death as you might expect. During our conversation, Kele’s voice is mechanical and empty, the sound of a person in shock. That’s the voice with which he confirms that they took a walk together yesterday.
‘How did he seem, on your walk?’
‘I don’t know, there was something a bit … he seemed nervous, a bit snappy. Do you know what I mean?’
‘Maybe,’ I say. ‘How?’
‘He was a bit short, as though he had his mind on other things, I suppose. I don’t know what it was about — I just assumed it was something to do with work.’
‘But you didn’t ask?’
‘No. No, I didn’t ask. Should I have?’ he adds, as though hoping I could relieve him of a burden.
That’s something that police seldom do.
‘No,’ I say, ‘I don’t think so. Would you consider that there was any threat to Thomas’s safety?’
‘There was,’ Kele says. ‘But not something that I would consider serious. There were threats made against him, especially since the Utøya massacre. Thomas’s thesis was pretty new when it happened, and extremist movements got a fair amount of coverage after that. Thomas was interviewed, and participated in debates and so on. That made him a public figure, and, I suppose, dangerous. The far right recognised him from his time with AFA, if you were aware of that.’
‘I am aware of that. But nothing I’ve heard would suggest it could go as far as murder or manslaughter.’
‘No, that’s true. But you asked about threats to his safety, which certainly existed.’
‘Do you think that these groups are potent enough to do something like this?’
‘You mean on the far right?’
‘Yes, exactly.’
Kele has shifted in his chair. His legs are still crossed, but his arms are now wrapped around his torso, as though he were freezing, or trying to protect himself. His voice is steady, but his eyes are shifty and glazed.
‘No, I can’t imagine that they are. But I’m not the right person to ask.’
‘I was wondering,’ I say as I pull out the printout of Heber’s LOG document. ‘I found this on his computer.’ I hold it out, towards Kele, who takes it from me. ‘I haven’t read all of it, but there’s a note at the end that I’d like you to have a look at. I’m not sure what it means.’
Kele reads the first page before looking up.
‘I don’t think you should be reading this. Have you got permission to go through his computer?’
‘When someone dies the way Heber died, we do get the warrants we need, sooner or later. And I think this might be important.’
‘These are his fieldwork notes. It’s like a researcher’s diary. You have no right to be going through this, breaking confidentiality and everything. I need to at least see a formal request.’
‘I can get back to you with one of those. But until then, there’s this one thing I’ve been wondering about, on the last page.’
Kele flips reluctantly through the document and reads the last entry.
‘1599 must be an interview subject,’ he says, stroking the paper tenderly, carefully.
‘I wonder if you know anything about this bit,’ I say, showing him. ‘What it is that he’s heard? It doesn’t feel like an ordinary entry,’ I add. ‘If you read the others, this one sticks out. It feels more personal.’
‘I have no idea what it means.’ He puts the document to one side and looks devastated. ‘I don’t want to read this — it’s far too personal. Have you got any more copies?’
‘No,’ I lie.
Happy lucia
The text arrives, and I read it as the lift carries me up to the floor to where the violent crime unit is based. Grim.
I didn’t know they’d given you a phone, I reply.
A new text arrives straightaway, as though Grim were sitting, phone in hand, waiting for it to beep. Which is probably exactly what he’s doing. The activities put on for the sectioned patients at St Göran’s are pretty limited.
they haven’t, he writes. I stole it
For some reason, this makes me titter, standing there alone in the lift. Then I call the psychiatric ward at Sankt Göran’s and tell them that someone ought to check what the occupant of room 22 has managed to acquire.
‘And,’ I add, ‘make sure he doesn’t find out it was me who tipped you off.’
Birck, Olausson, and Mauritzon are sitting in one of the numerous meeting rooms. Mauritzon is holding the handle of her coffee cup in one hand, a task that appears to be the only thing keeping her awake.
‘I’ve got two grandchildren,’ she says. ‘Five and two. When my daughter can’t cope, they come to me. They arrived this morning, just as I was getting ready for bed. I’ve hardly slept.’
‘You poor thing,’ says Olausson, his eyes half-closed.
Prosecutor Ralph Olausson is a lanky man. His nose makes a quiet whistling sound as he breathes, and his suit needs pressing. A rough scar high on his chest becomes visible as he loosens his tie and unbuttons his collar.
‘Where are the others?’ I ask.
‘What others?’
‘You mean this is it? This is a tenth of what we need.’
‘This is it, for now,’ is Olausson’s only comment.
‘But you’ll sort out some more bodies, right? We can’t run a murder investigation with three people.’
‘That’s where we are right now.’ Olausson studies his hands, as though they were more interesting than this business. ‘Okay, let’s get started, shall we?’
We spend half an hour going over Thomas Heber’s death. The other witness statements appear to corroborate little John Thyrell’s version of events. Heber arrives, then another person, presumably the assailant, who then leaves and is followed by a third, who emerges from behind the bin. No one knows when the third person got there, because nobody saw anything. A taxi-driver stops to pick up a fare on the other side of Döbelnsgatan and notices two people emerge from the alley, one at a time. The timing puts this just after the murder has taken place. In one of the apartments overlooking Döbelnsgatan, a sixty-seven-year-old insomniac who is watering her pot plants sees the same sequence of events. Neither she nor the taxi-driver is able to give a more detailed description than young Thyrell’s.
‘A six-year-old,’ says Birck. ‘Our best witness is a six-year-old boy.’
‘But the sequence of events is nonetheless pretty clear,’ says Olausson.
‘Er,’ I say. ‘There are still plenty of questions to be answered.’
‘I know, I know,’ Olausson mumbles, pulling out his phone without looking at me. ‘But I’m sure they’ll sort themselves out eventually.’
‘Eventually? As in?’
Olausson glances up, and blinks once.
‘As in when you lot get on with the job.’
‘To do that we’re going to need people,’ says Birck.
‘We’ll see what we can do.’
Olausson smiles weakly, and that’s that.
‘I reckon that whoever was behind the bins wasn’t standing there for more than a few minutes,’ Mauritzon says, perhaps to keep herself awake. ‘That’s what the prints in the snow would indicate. There were just a few. And it could be a woman. Not that many men wear size-38 shoes.’
‘I might know who it is,’ I say, and give a brief account of my visit to the university, and tell them about the anonymous emails Heber had received, the research he was working on, how he had seemed recently, the field notes and 1599, the person he was on the way to meet when he died. ‘He also wrote that he had heard something, that he wasn’t sure whether to mention it to 1599. I’ve got no idea what it was, but I did get the distinct impression that it was something important. I didn’t have time to read the whole thing, and I wasn’t allowed to take the notes with me.’
‘So you left them th
ere,’ Birck says, without looking up from his notebook.
‘Yes.’
‘You didn’t take any copies?’
‘No.’
Olausson is absent-mindedly staring at something through the window, his eyes still only half-open. His mobile is lying next to the case-file on the table in front of him.
Mauritzon asks to see the file, and he nudges it towards her.
‘We found this as well,’ she says, ‘a hundred metres from the body, on Döbelnsgatan.’
She pulls out one of the photographs in the file and pushes it across the table to Olausson, who picks it up inquisitively.
‘Vomit,’ he states flatly.
‘Yes, we’ve done some tests, but we’re waiting for the results.’
‘I’m afraid that might be mine,’ I say.
‘Yours?’ Mauritzon’s eyes flash between me and the picture. ‘Okay.’
‘I’d had something that had gone off. The combination of that and Heber’s body, perhaps, made me nauseous.
‘Right,’ says Olausson.
‘I’m sorry. I should have mentioned it.’
‘How long have you been back on duty?’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘Just wondering.’
‘Thirteen days.’
‘I see.’
‘You see? What do you mean by that?’
‘Nothing. As I said, I was just wondering.’
He smiles and lets go of the photo. I wonder how he got that scar under his shirt. I wonder if he’s married or lives alone, whether he’s taping this meeting, I also wonder how good Olausson might be at identifying a liar.
‘In that case, it’s no use in the investigation,’ Mauritzon says, stuffing the photo in her pocket and pushing the open case-file back towards Olausson.
The Falling Detective Page 5
