by Sten, Viveca
He flipped through a few more pages and looked up.
“My colleague checked the names against their records.”
“What did he find?” asked Margit.
“He didn’t find anything in the crime records, nor in the list of banned economic activities.”
“If the Russian mafia was involved, they might have used a fall guy.”
“A fall guy?” Carina asked. She looked embarrassed as she realized everyone else knew what the term meant.
“It’s the person who takes the fall if a company goes bankrupt, especially if there were any financial crimes. They find a man on the board to take the blame.”
“Are there really people who’d do that?” Carina asked.
Thomas couldn’t decide if her question was serious or if she was really that naïve. Then he felt a little disloyal for questioning his girlfriend—or whatever she was to him.
“You’d be surprised,” Margit replied. “If you only knew what a guy down on his luck would do for a few thousand kronor. Somebody on unemployment would be glad to sign his name on a business contract for next to nothing.”
“Whatever,” Erik said. “If the mafia used a fall guy, it won’t be easy to find them.”
“How does the Russian mafia usually operate?” asked Persson. “Does this match their methods?”
There were a few moments of silence until Thomas spoke up.
“I’m not an expert, but it doesn’t seem like it. Waiting a whole year just to get rid of a troublesome bankruptcy lawyer? It’s a stretch.”
He was doodling a few pictures in his notebook.
“If they were really unhappy with Juliander, they would have sent some thug to beat the shit out of him.”
“They would have had many ways to get rid of him,” Margit agreed. “A car crash, a shot in the night, a knife in the back in a dark place. Take your pick.”
She leaned over the table.
“This was a sophisticated murder that required care and planning. Our Russian friends are not known for their finesse. Why go all the way to the seafront when it’s easy enough to take him out after work some dark night?”
She sank back into her chair and crossed her arms. She looked like an angry wasp with her short dyed-red hair. It wasn’t pretty, but it inspired a certain respect.
“Maybe they wanted to send a message,” Persson speculated.
“So long after the letters?” Margit raised an eyebrow. “Who would they be targeting? All the bankruptcy lawyers in Sweden? Those gangs tend to keep to their own kind. They avoid lawyers and the courts. It’s a bad idea to draw attention by attacking the judicial system.”
“I can buy that,” Persson said. “So let’s put the Russian connection to the side for now.”
He rocked in his chair, which creaked under his weight.
“In my opinion,” Thomas said, “how Juliander was killed is as important as the fact that he was killed.”
Persson turned toward Thomas.
“Go on.”
“As Margit mentioned, this murder was very carefully planned. So I believe the way he was killed is important. It had a purpose. Juliander was taken down in a moment of triumph.”
“Yes,” Margit said. “It was almost an execution if you think about it.”
“That’s right,” said Thomas.
“Would a scorned woman go to so much trouble to kill her lover?” asked Persson.
“Doubtful. But what about a jealous husband?” Thomas asked. “A competitive sailor, perhaps active in RSYC, who would be at the start of the race anyway. Someone who had access to both a boat and a rifle.”
“That’s worth looking into,” said Persson. “Keep following that lead.” He changed the subject. “Drugs. What can we say about that?”
Thomas summarized his conversation with Winbergh and his suspicions of drug use.
“So Juliander was a drug user?” Persson asked. “Any other evidence for this?”
“We haven’t found any so far.”
“So the charming lawyer did have a few secrets. By the way, what have we found out about the murder weapon?”
Erik pointed to a tall stack of printouts in front of him.
“We’re comparing all gun permits with the names of the people around Juliander. We’re especially looking for persons who had licenses for small-caliber weapons and ammunition.”
“Be sure to include the entire RSYC gang,” Persson said.
“How many people are we talking about?” asked Margit.
“There are about six hundred and fifty thousand gun owners in Sweden and over a million gun permits.” Erik grimaced. “At least we have Sachsen to thank for ruling out shotguns.”
He winked at Carina, who winked back. She went to the window and opened it wide. The fresh air was a relief in the oxygen-starved room.
Persson collected his papers. Nobody said a word.
“I think that’s enough for now. Everyone knows what to do for the rest of the week?”
Persson started to get up from his chair, then sat down again.
“By the way,” he said. “Keep the prosecutor in the loop. Otherwise things will get hairy.”
“We’ll be meeting with her tomorrow morning,” Margit said. “We’ll take care of it. Don’t worry, Charlotte Öhman’s on the case, and we know her.”
CHAPTER 20
Nora disliked the real-estate agent from the moment he set foot on Sandhamn. She couldn’t decide which was worse: his dapper jacket, his polished shoes shining from across the dock, or the fact that he wore a tie in the outer archipelago.
His youth surprised her. He smiled like this was the opportunity of his life. An ambitious young man, Nora thought to herself. Ready to impress his superiors.
Svante Severin wasn’t dissuaded by Nora’s cool reception. He flashed a well-practiced smile and shook her hand far too long. With Henrik, he acted as if they’d known each other for years. A constant stream of words flowed from his mouth in the ten minutes it took them to walk to Aunt Signe’s house.
When they reached the house, he used every superlative imaginable to describe the property.
The kitchen had an irresistible, old-fashioned charm. The Swedish tile oven in the dining room entranced him. The old-fashioned veranda took his breath away. Even the old bathroom, with its claw-foot tub, received its share of breathless admiration, though it was obvious the room needed a complete renovation.
Nora bit her tongue and delivered a stiff smile.
“Were you listening?” Henrik asked.
“What was that?”
Lost in thought, Nora had not heard a word they’d said as she followed them down the stairs and back into the dining room.
“You have to pay more attention, darling. Svante said they’d adjust the fee since this is such a unique property.”
Nora crossed her arms and looked at Svante Severin and Henrik.
“Fee?”
“They have to be paid for their work, of course. But Svante here is ready to waive his normal fee of four percent for a fixed sum. Doesn’t that sound great?”
Henrik wrapped a protective arm around Nora’s shoulders while nodding to the real-estate agent.
“Absolutely,” the man said. “It would be an honor to market a cultural treasure like your house. I’m sure we can come to an agreement that benefits everyone.”
He smiled as if to reassure them. “I wouldn’t haggle about percentages in a case like this.”
The situation was bizarre. Nora searched for a sign that Henrik understood she was far from ready to sell.
She pulled away from Henrik and walked to the window. The view amazed her, as always. Through the inner window, she could see the old wicker chair on the veranda where Signe used to sit in the evenings. For a moment, she almost thought she heard the thud of a tail on the floor, the sound of Signe’s dog, Kajsa, who’d always slept at her feet.
“I think it’s too soon to discuss all this,” Nora said. “Henrik, we need to ta
lk this over first.”
Henrik continued as if she hadn’t spoken.
“Listen, Nora. Svante says there’s already been an offer.”
“An offer?”
“A good offer. This house is in demand.”
Nora touched the old Mora grandfather clock in the dining room. It had stopped ticking.
“How can there be an offer? We haven’t even put the house on the market.”
Severin looked at them with surprise.
“You see, after Henrik and I talked, I searched our customer register. Sandhamn is very attractive, especially for Swedes living abroad. We have a list of customers who have already expressed an interest in buying older homes here.”
“I still don’t understand,” Nora said.
“After our conversation, I found an interested family. They’re Swedes living in Switzerland. When they heard about the Brand house, they jumped at the chance to buy it.”
Nora was furious. She couldn’t decide who made her angrier: her husband or his real-estate agent. But she had reached her limit.
“How much money are we talking about here?” Henrik said.
“I believe”—Severin paused for effect—“we’re talking about several million here. It’s an extraordinary house in an extraordinary location. It’s all about location, you know,” he said.
“Wow, that’s a fortune,” Henrik said. “And all for something that just dropped in our laps.” He turned to Nora. “Unbelievable, right? Just think what we could do with that kind of money! We’d have all kinds of possibilities!”
He beamed at the real-estate agent.
“Henrik, we have to think about this,” Nora said. “We haven’t even decided to sell yet.”
Nora gave her husband a thunderous look, and then she turned to the agent.
“Thank you for taking the time to come to the island. We really have to think about this. Both of us.” She glared again at her husband, but he seemed lost in thought about the money.
She led the agent to the door.
“We’ll be in touch,” she said.
CHAPTER 21
They divided the list between former and present mistresses. Thomas took one half and Margit the other.
Some of the women were businesswomen and others were people Thomas had never heard of. Two of them were flight attendants. How typical, Thomas thought. Others were married to prominent men and would hardly welcome a visit from the police asking about a murdered lover.
Though it was summertime and people were vacationing, it had been surprisingly easy to find out where each woman had been at the time of the murder. Thomas decided to interview Oscar Juliander’s latest conquest—as Erik had called her—the woman on his speed dial.
Diana Söder was thirty-nine years old. She hadn’t yet left for vacation, and Thomas hoped he could catch her at her workplace on Strandvägen.
Thomas parked his car in an expensive garage. He walked down Birger Jarlsgatan past the Royal Dramatic Theater, where tourists sat on the stairs watching the crowds go by. Then he turned in the direction of Djurgården.
“Strandvägen Art Gallery” was elegantly scripted on the glass of the front door. Two large landscapes in heavy golden frames hung in the window.
He walked into a long, narrow space with white walls covered in works of art. Ceiling spots lit up the artwork. To the right of the entrance were two comfortable club chairs in forest-green leather with a glass table holding art magazines between them.
What Thomas knew about art could be written on a note card. He realized he had no idea if the art on the walls was worth ten kronor or ten thousand.
An attractive woman sat at an antique desk near the back of the gallery. She was speaking on the phone but quickly ended her conversation when she saw him.
“What can I do for you?” she asked.
She wore a rose summer dress and a pearl necklace. Her hair was gathered behind her neck in a clasp. When she smiled, the trace of a dimple appeared on one cheek.
Thomas introduced himself and showed her his police badge.
“I have a few questions about Oscar Juliander.”
The woman’s face turned a bit pale, but she nodded and offered him a seat in one of the club chairs.
“What would you like to ask me?” she said quietly, sitting down.
Thomas pulled out his notebook and flipped to a new page. Diana Söder watched him nervously.
“Could you describe your relationship to Oscar Juliander?” he began.
“We were friends.”
“Very good friends, from what we understand,” Thomas said.
He could tell by her expression that Diana Söder didn’t want to answer. But Thomas waited, he could afford to be patient.
“We had a relationship,” Diana Söder finally said. She looked at the floor and fiddled nervously with the ring on her right hand. It was made of intertwining gold and silver strands.
Thomas had a thought.
“That’s a beautiful ring,” he said. “Is it new?”
Diana Söder nodded.
“Did he give it to you?”
Her hands stopped moving as a tear slid down her cheek.
“For my birthday. This past June. He had it specially made for me.”
“How did you two meet?”
“At work. The gallery has a December party for customers and important people who like to be seen and heard. My boss’s wife organizes it.”
“So you met at this party?”
“Yes, a year and a half ago, the day before the Saint Lucia’s Day celebration. Isabelle always invites many guests, including the entire board of the Royal Swedish Yacht Club and their wives. But Oscar came alone.”
RSYC. Isabelle. This got Thomas’s attention.
“What’s the name of your boss?”
“Ingmar von Hahne.”
Thomas tried to hide his surprise. How could he have missed the fact that Ingmar von Hahne was her boss? Now he remembered that von Hahne had mentioned that he worked in the art world.
“Ingmar owns the gallery. He started it just about twenty-five years ago. He’s a real art lover but not a salesman.” She smiled slightly. “He loves the art too much to sell it.”
What a remarkable coincidence that Juliander’s latest mistress worked for Ingmar von Hahne, Thomas thought. Did it mean something?
“What happened at the party?”
“We started talking. Then he called me a few days later and asked me to lunch.”
She sighed slightly and let her eyes wander to the window.
“Things just went on from there. Oscar could be very stubborn when he knew what he wanted.”
“Did you know he was married?”
Diana Söder avoided looking at Thomas.
“Yes,” she said. “I knew. Oscar said he and his wife had an agreement. As soon as the children finished their studies, he was going to divorce Sylvia.”
A note of defiance crept into her voice, as if she was daring him to contradict what she’d just said.
What a familiar line—the children needed to grow up before the unfaithful husband could leave his wife. Convincing his mistress that his children had to finish their university studies took it one step further.
Thomas tried to understand why an attractive woman like Diana Söder would be in a secret relationship with a married man, especially a womanizer like Oscar Juliander.
“Were you planning a future together?”
“I was hoping to. I loved him very much.”
Her voice was so low that Thomas had to strain to hear the words.
“I need to know where you were last Sunday when Oscar Juliander was killed.”
She clasped her hands in her lap before she answered, almost like she was praying.
“I was with my brother and his family at their summer place on Skarpö. I heard what happened on the news . . . that he was killed.”
“Can your brother confirm that?”
“Of course. It was horrible, fi
nding out about it on TV.” Her eyes filled with tears, and she tried to hide them by running her forefinger beneath each lid. “Why would anybody want to kill Oscar? It’s incomprehensible,” she said.
“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Thomas said. He leaned toward Diana Söder. “Was Oscar acting any differently lately?”
She thought about it for a moment.
“He seemed harried. Stressed. I thought he just had a great deal to do at work. But all through this past spring, he was more moody.”
“Do you know if he had any financial trouble?”
She shook her head.
“Not anything he discussed with me. In fact, he was always generous whenever we met. We took trips together and always stayed at elegant hotels.” She fell silent for a moment and then asked Thomas, “Do you think this is all about money?”
“I don’t know. And I can’t discuss the investigation.”
Diana Söder sank back into her chair. Her eyes were shiny with tears.
“Do you know if Oscar Juliander used drugs?” Thomas asked. He kept his voice as calm as possible. He didn’t want to frighten Diana.
It was so quiet in the room that they could hear a woman with a baby carriage walking by on the street outside. They could even hear the pinging of the rattle hanging from the carriage.
“Yes, sometimes,” Diana said. “He did cocaine every now and then.”
“What did you think about that? Did you do it with him?” asked Thomas.
Diana Söder shook her head.
“Not on your life. Oscar wanted me to try, but I refused. I have my son to think about.”
“But Oscar still did it?”
“He said it helped him concentrate, made him think more clearly. We argued about it. He thought I was being ridiculous.”
“How long had he been doing drugs?”
“I have no idea. He first used in front of me about a year ago.”
“Where were you then?”
“In my home. I’d gone to the bathroom, and when I came back he showed me some white powder on a pocket mirror. He asked me to try.”
“And you did?”
“No, I already told you.” Diana Söder’s voice was sharp.
