by Sten, Viveca
“Hardly noticeable at sea,” Thomas said.
Again, he remembered Juliander on the deck after the race began, and the confusion that broke out when the crew realized their skipper was dead.
Thomas took one final look at the bluish-white body on the examination table.
“We’re dealing with a cold-blooded killer,” he said.
CHAPTER 17
The drive from Solna to Saltsjöbaden usually took about thirty minutes if it wasn’t rush hour. Thomas drove while Margit sank into thought. They passed Fisksätra, a crowded group of shabby apartment buildings built in the seventies. They stood in stark contrast to the fashionable houses in Saltsjö-Duvnäs and Saltsjöbaden.
A few minutes later, they reached Saltsjö Square and turned west toward Neglinge. The Juliander house sat on the other side of Hotel Bay and the historic Grand Hotel. The winding road led them past huge mansions with exquisite gardens sitting next to some white brick town houses from the sixties.
Out on the spit, they could see the RSYC yellow clubhouse.
Only fifteen minutes from the center of Stockholm and they found themselves in the middle of the countryside. The water sparkled in this lush landscape. Some houses were completely covered in ivy. Hundred-year-old oaks stood in many of the yards, a clear indication that Saltsjöbaden was one of the first suburbs of Stockholm. The industrial Wallenberg family had founded it, and their influence was still felt throughout the area.
Thomas turned onto Amiralsvägen, and they soon caught sight of the large gray mansion. It had a fantastic view of Saltsjö Lake. In the driveway, a Land Rover was parked next to a silver Lexus, while another car, a black Porsche, rested in the shade.
“Not a bad place,” Margit said. “I wonder how long it takes to clean it.”
“You mean for the maids? I doubt they pick up a vacuum cleaner themselves,” Thomas said.
They walked to the white front door, and Thomas rang the bell. A young man in jeans and a red shirt with a well-known logo opened the door immediately. He introduced himself as David Juliander, Oscar’s youngest son.
Margit remembered that the lawyer had three children: two sons and a daughter. The daughter was studying abroad. Paris, if Margit had her facts right. The youngest was following in his father’s footsteps and studying law. The oldest son worked in IT. So David was the one studying law.
Thomas expressed his sympathies and asked for David’s mother. The young man invited them to sit down in the living room. He said that his mother was still resting, but he’d let her know they were there.
They sat on the large corner sofa upholstered in an unusual material resembling suede. It faced the water so one could enjoy the view.
While they waited, Margit wondered about the woman they were going to meet. How did she feel as she wandered through this house while her husband was off having his adventures? The children must have been busy with their own lives.
She could imagine Sylvia moving from room to room waiting for her husband. She must have known what was going on. Perhaps she’d even confronted Oscar and then learned to swallow the bitter truth to preserve the marriage.
She must have been lonely, especially after the children left, Margit thought.
A few minutes later, Sylvia Juliander entered the room. She looked pale but composed. Her brown hair framed her narrow face. It was obvious that the past few days had taken a toll on her.
Her son sat next to her and watched his mother with concern. It was obvious he wanted to take care of her, as if he were the parent instead of the child.
“You have some questions for me,” Sylvia said. She spoke in a quiet voice. She fidgeted with a loose thread on her blue cardigan. Her well-trimmed fingernails were painted a neutral color. She wore a large sapphire ring as well as a simple golden wedding band on her left ring finger.
Thomas broke the silence.
“As you know, our highest priority is to find the person who murdered your husband. Therefore, we must ask some questions that may seem unpleasant or unusual. We apologize for any distress.”
Sylvia nodded.
“Do you know if your husband had any enemies?”
The pale woman looked frightened.
“Why would he have any enemies? Oscar was a business lawyer. People liked him. He was in great demand.”
“It’s important that you consider the possibility, no matter how strange it seems,” Thomas said. “We need to create a picture of your husband’s public and private lives.”
Thomas gave her an encouraging smile.
“I understand. Still, I’ve never heard him mention any enemies,” Sylvia said. “Actually, I know very little about my husband’s business. He said he didn’t want to bore me with his work. I wouldn’t understand much of it, anyway.”
David Juliander’s face twisted, and he leaned forward.
“My dad received threatening letters,” he said.
Thomas studied the sad young man. Despite the tan, he looked worn and tired.
“Who sent them?” Thomas asked.
“I think it was called Property something. I don’t really remember. Something to do with real estate.”
“How do you know?” asked Thomas.
“I happened to open a letter by mistake. My dad told me it was a company who’d employed him during some bankruptcy proceedings. He told me the previous owners had owed the Russian mafia money. The mafia wanted to pillage the company, but they went into bankruptcy before that happened.”
“Are you sure about this?” Margit asked.
David seemed to hesitate.
He’s just a boy who’s recently lost his father, Thomas thought.
“Pretty sure. When they found out about the court proceedings, they told my dad to stop the bankruptcy case. But the court had already ruled on the matter.”
The young man was familiar with legal terms. He clearly went to law school.
“What happened to the letters?” Margit asked.
“He said he’d given them to the police.” David seemed unsure. “I don’t remember that well. It was last year, or maybe even the year before. My dad told me not to worry about them.”
He cleared his throat and went on.
“My dad laughed it off,” he said. “I asked if he was scared. He told me that such threats happened occasionally to lawyers, but it was nothing to worry about. I’d forgotten all about it until now.”
Thomas made a note to check if Juliander had filed a report about the threatening letters. He also noted that the letters had been sent to the home address, even though the family had an unlisted telephone number.
Margit turned to Sylvia and asked, “How was your relationship with your husband? Were you happily married?”
Sylvia appeared insulted by such a private question.
“We’ve been married for almost thirty years. We have three children.”
“Please answer my question,” Margit said. “How would you describe your marriage?”
Sylvia stared at Margit for a moment. Then with a sigh and a quick look at her son, she decided to speak.
“I was alone most of the time,” she said. “Oscar traveled a great deal. He had work and many other duties as well. The Swedish Bar Association, the RSYC.”
“Tell us about his sailing,” Thomas said.
Sylvia’s entire face transformed. As she smiled, the worn contours disappeared. She was still a beautiful woman.
“Oscar loved sailing,” she said. “He’s loved it since he was a teenager. He’s always raced. The bigger the boat, the better. I think his best memories were made at sea. He found peace there, even though he always focused on winning.”
“Do you like to sail?” Margit asked.
Sylvia laughed. Her smile disappeared.
“No. I don’t like sailing. I get seasick the moment I see a mast.” She pulled her cardigan tighter around her body. “But it was Oscar’s life. Our eldest son loves it, too. But not David. Right, darling?”
She lo
oked at her son, who nodded in agreement and squeezed her hand.
“What did you do while your husband was at sea?” Thomas asked.
Sylvia shrugged hopelessly.
“I’d wait for him in port. Or I’d stay at our summerhouse on Ingarö. I often found myself waiting for Oscar. It became part of our marriage.”
“Were you also active in RSYC?” Margit asked.
“Not really.” She shook her head. “Oscar wanted me to become more involved. I did my best, but I wasn’t really interested.”
“Did your husband expect to be elected chairman this fall?” Thomas asked.
“Yes. But I wasn’t really paying attention. It wasn’t that important to me.” She spread her hands. “Becoming chairman was just one more duty that would take him away from us.”
“Why do they need a house on Ingarö when they already have one with such a wonderful view of the water here in Saltsjöbaden?” asked Margit as they left. “Going from one water view to the other. What’s the point?”
Thomas turned the Volvo around and started back. He simply smiled.
“What do you make of those threatening letters? The Russian mafia has their methods, but that’s not usually one of them,” Margit said.
“I hope the letters are still around. That is, if Juliander actually filed a police report. It’s not certain that he did. We’ll have Erik check for it.”
Margit nodded.
“If the letters exist, we’ll have to find out where they came from,” she said.
Thomas’s telephone rang. He picked up the call.
“Hello, this is Britta Rosensjöö. We met on Monday.”
Thomas pictured the distraught woman who’d constantly twisted her damp handkerchief between her fingers.
“Hello,” he said.
“Well, yes,” she said. “I want to tell you something . . . if you’re not busy, that is.”
“Not to worry,” he said. “What’s up? Did you find your camera?”
“No, I haven’t, but I’m sure it’ll turn up. It’s not the first time I’ve misplaced something.”
She fell silent for a few moments.
“The thing is, I think someone broke into our hotel room. Hans says I’m imagining it, but I still wanted to call and tell you.”
“A break-in?” Thomas asked.
“Yes, that’s right. It looks like someone was in the room.”
“Is anything missing?”
“Not a thing. But it’s not the way I left it.”
“Do you think the cleaning lady might have moved things around?” Thomas asked.
“That could be it.” She hesitated for a moment. “But still, it feels like someone has been in our room. I can’t shake that feeling.”
“But nothing is missing, you say?”
“That’s right.”
“Perhaps it’s nothing to worry about. If you find something more, that something has gone missing, give me a call.”
Thomas hung up and told Margit about Britta’s concerns.
“What do you think?”
“I think it probably has nothing to do with the investigation. She seemed a bit confused last Monday, and she’s still pretty shaken by what happened.”
Margit looked out the window. They passed the square and were heading back to the highway.
“I’m sure you’re right. Just a cleaning lady moving things.”
CHAPTER 18
A strange feeling came over Martin Nyrén when he opened the front door. He stood in the hallway and looked around.
The long, blue-patterned Persian runner was still in place. On the hall table, beneath the Balinese mirror he’d bought on a trip to Asia, everything was in its proper place. Below the mail slot, a few white envelopes and ads lay on the floor.
Still, something made him hesitate.
He walked into his living room without taking off his shoes. His beautiful Italian leather sofa was there, and the windows were properly shut. He noticed he’d forgotten to close the curtains when he’d left that morning, and the orchids were wilting in the bright sun.
Then he realized what he’d been sensing: an unfamiliar scent. A smell that didn’t belong.
He furrowed his brow as he tried to identify it. A mixture of exotic spices? Nutmeg, perhaps, or cloves.
He walked back into the hallway and hung up his jacket.
Where had this scent come from? Had somebody been in his home?
He walked around his apartment again. Everything appeared normal, nothing missing or out of place.
He sniffed the air again. Was he imagining things? It was hard to tell.
He shook his head and let go of the thought. It was probably the smell of flowers in the hot air. The apartment was certainly stuffy.
He opened the window as wide as possible to let in the cool evening air.
Then he poured himself a glass of whisky and water.
Their loud voices woke him in the middle of the night. He’d turned thirteen that summer, but wetting the bed still woke him up. He’d try to scrub the sheets clean in the sink so nobody would notice.
This time, something else startled him from his dreams. His father’s muffled voice came through the thin walls between the bedrooms of the summerhouse. He heard his mother’s desperate pleading.
“I’m begging you. Please stop seeing that woman!”
His mother cried. She was drunk. Of course.
She thought nobody noticed when she poured herself glass after glass of sherry. Everyone in the household knew what she was doing. But nobody said anything, especially not his father.
“Don’t stick your nose into things that don’t concern you!” his father yelled. “If you weren’t sloshed all the time, I wouldn’t have to go to her.”
He pulled up his blankets and put his pillow over his head so he wouldn’t have to listen. The lump in his throat hurt.
When he got up in the morning to eat breakfast, Elsa told him that his father had already gone back to Stockholm for important business and his mother had such a migraine she needed to be alone.
WEDNESDAY, THE FIRST WEEK
CHAPTER 19
Persson cleared his throat to indicate that it was time to get the meeting started, and people took their seats, coffee mugs in hand.
It was eight in the morning—exactly two days and twenty minutes since Oscar Juliander had been shot to death a few nautical miles southeast of Stockholm. Rain beat against the windows. The temperature had dropped to sixty degrees as dark clouds rolled in. Typical Swedish summer, Thomas thought.
Thomas and Margit sat on one side of the conference table while Kalle and Erik took chairs at the short end, with Carina next to them.
Persson cleared his throat again. “Well, it’s time to draw some conclusions. Who wants to start?”
He looked directly at Margit and Thomas.
“So, you two went out to Sandhamn. What did you find out so far?”
Margit walked over to the whiteboard. The first marker she picked up was dried out, but the second one worked.
As she wrote, she discussed the main conclusions that she and Thomas had arrived at.
When she was done, Margit pointed to the list on the whiteboard:
Jealousy
Mistresses
Wife?
Cuckolded husband
Financial crimes
Russian mafia
Drugs
“Why did you put a question mark after wife?” asked Persson.
Margit took a few moments to think before she replied.
“She certainly has a motive, but she also has an alibi. Seven people described her drinking Italian wine on the Storebro when the shot was fired. Every single person on board that boat can back each other up. She also appears to have no experience with guns, let alone a permit to own one.”
Margit reached for her coffee cup.
“I don’t see what she’d have to gain,” she said. “I believe we can eliminate her as a suspect at this time.”
<
br /> “Nobody will be eliminated until I say so,” Persson muttered. “I understand there are several mistresses involved.”
A number of meaningful looks were exchanged around the table.
“You could say that,” Erik said quietly.
“Are you jealous?” Margit smiled.
“No, I’m doing quite all right with the ladies,” Erik responded. Everyone around the table believed him. He was a young man, almost thirty, with a boyish smile and a muscular body.
Kalle held up the list of mistresses from Eva Timell. Over a dozen women were listed by name and address.
“So he enjoyed the good things in life.” Persson chuckled.
“That’s one way to look at it,” Margit said. “If you find a man cheating on his wife funny.”
“Let’s focus,” Persson said. “Divide the list among yourselves and contact these women. We can leave the wife out of it for now. Next, what can you tell me about the financial situation?”
Thomas turned to Carina.
“How did it go? Did you locate his financial records?”
The prosecutor had granted them permission to examine Juliander’s bank accounts.
“I’ve just begun,” Carina said. “It’ll take some time since it’s hard to reach people in July. I’ll know more by the end of the week.”
“We’re also going through his legal caseload to see if anything comes up,” Thomas said.
“I see. What about the Russian mafia hypothesis?”
Persson turned to Margit and Thomas, who, in turn, looked at Erik Blom. Erik flipped through his notebook.
“We found no police report, so it appears he did not bring the letters his son mentioned to our attention. According to Eva Timell, the letters may be connected to the bankruptcy of a company called Eastern Property. It’s been a few years since Juliander handled the case.”
“That may be why he didn’t take the letters seriously,” Thomas said.
“Or he didn’t dare report it,” Margit said.
“I spoke to a former colleague in Financial Crimes yesterday,” Erik said. “I asked if he recognized the name Eastern Property or anyone who may have been involved.”
