The Golden Calf

by Helene Tursten

  “Friends? Ha! That boy had no friends.”

  Annika’s laugh was raw. Irene glimpsed teeth that were in desperate need of a dentist, if they could be saved at all. They reminded Irene of the blackened remains of a garden shed she’d seen burned down years ago.

  “How long have the Bonettis owned their summer cabin?” asked Irene.

  “A long time. Long before Thomas was born. His sister was a baby when they moved here. I wanted to babysit her, but they wouldn’t let me. I was just eight-years-old, but I still knew how to take care of an infant. I had two little brothers.”

  Irene felt liked she’d been dunked in cold water. Thomas Bonetti’s sister was thirty-five, which meant that Annika had to be just a year or two older than Irene herself. Since Billy was around twenty-eight, Annika had to have been sixteen when she’d had her son.

  “Do you have any other children besides Billy?”

  “Nah, he’s the only one. He was enough for me.” Again Annika broke into her hoarse laugh. She dug through the clutter on her table, and with a triumphant cry she pulled out a wrinkled cigarette pack. With shaking fingers, she pulled out a long though rather crumpled stub and stuck it between her chapped lips with a sigh of contentment. Her red-rimmed eyes met Irene’s. “Do you have a light?”

  Irene shook her head. After another round of digging, Annika found a box of matches. She managed to light the cigarette butt after a few attempts and inhaled deeply before releasing the smoke through her nose.

  “I never told anyone who Billy’s father was. Nobody needs to know. But his father has paid up all this time. Even now. Just so I never tell.…”

  She broke off in the middle of her sentence, and glared at Irene malevolently through the smoke, causing the doughy bags under her eyes to tighten.

  Time to return to the subject at hand. “So that evening when Thomas disappeared, you heard his boat going past outside?”

  “Yes, as I said, it was odd because—”

  “What time was it?”

  “Sometime between eight and eight thirty in the evening. Don’t really remember.”

  “How can you be so certain of the time?”

  Annika pointed at the opposite wall. Irene turned and saw a large kitchen clock made of pine.

  “Billy made it in woodshop. It runs on a battery,” Annika explained with obvious pride.

  “Tell me everything that happened. You heard the boat going past and.…”

  Irene nodded encouragingly so that the woman on the other side of the table would continue.

  “He killed the motor and tied up at their dock. Nothing strange about that, but then he started up the motor again and sped off.”

  “How long did he stay before he took off again?”

  “Fifteen minutes at the most. More likely ten minutes.”

  “So you heard him start the motor again, but you couldn’t see it?”

  “Nah, their dock is on the other side of the spit. But I saw the boat again once it headed back to sea.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “Went up to my telescope.”

  “So you went up to get your telescope.…”

  “Didn’t you hear me? I went up to my telescope! I didn’t get anything!”

  Irene paused, unsure of how to continue. Annika sounded aggressive, and she was already drunk enough to become enraged. If that happened, there would be no chance to get a suitable testimony from her.

  “Do you have a special kind of telescope?” Irene asked, making a tentative effort.

  “A special telescope? You bet your ass I do!” A coarse laugh crossed the table along with the smell of sour wine.

  “How could you see anything? It was dark.”

  Annika rose to her unsteady feet. “Let me show you.”

  She wobbled across the kitchen floor, through the cluttered hallway, and toward the foot of the stairs leading to the second floor. With a solid grip on the handrail, Annika managed to heave herself up the creaking stairs.

  The stairwell opened into a large room. Directly ahead there was a balcony window facing the ocean. On the balcony was an enormous telescope.

  “A Swarovski with fluorite lenses,” Annika said proudly.

  Irene didn’t know much about telescopes, but she knew enough to recognize that this was an advanced model. An eyepiece was placed above the tube at a forty-five-degree angle. She took off the lens cap and aimed the telescope at a small motorboat that was puffing along on the water. The passengers were just red and blue pricks. When Irene looked through the telescope, she was taken aback.

  The man had a mustache and glasses. The woman was wearing a red jacket and handkerchief, and a few wisps of her gray hair fluttered in the breeze. The couple seemed to be in their seventies. They were talking to each other, and the woman handed a steel thermos to the man.

  When Irene looked back out to sea without the telescope, all she could see was a tiny boat and two spots of color.

  “Good heavens, this is some telescope,” she said.

  “Yes, indeed! The twilight factor is sixteen point zero at twenty times magnification,” Annika clucked contentedly. This meant that as long as there was any bit of twilight left, you could see anything you wanted from this telescope. And out here in the archipelago, twilight lasted longer than in the city.

  Irene stepped aside. “Would you please focus this on Branteskär?” she asked.

  Annika bent down and adjusted her telescope. “There. I’ve focused it on Nisse’s Cairn.”

  “Thanks.”

  Irene could see a tiny island with steep sides heading straight down to the water. Farthest out on one edge of the island, she could see the top of a pile of stones.

  “Are those stones on the other side of the island from our perspective?” Irene asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “Why is it called Nisse’s Cairn?”

  “Because Nisse was the guy who made it. He’d run his boat right onto the rocks between Branteskär and Ärskär. So he built the cairn so that the rocks would be easier to avoid. Now the cairn has been moved. I’ve told you guys at the police station over and over that it’s been moved, but would you listen?”

  “When did you notice that the cairn had been moved?”

  “Right then! When Thomas disappeared. I noticed it just a day or two later. I didn’t think much about it at the time, but when … they said he’d gone missing … then I remembered that someone had moved the cairn.” Annika wavered and then sat down in a worn out sofa. She burped loudly and yawned. She slowly lifted her legs onto the sofa so she could lie down. Less than a minute later, she started to snore.

  • • •

  “I’LL BE DAMNED!” Andersson said.

  He looked at Irene with respect. Not bad to find a new piece of evidence after three years.

  “So, have you thought about how you will proceed now that you have this drunk’s testimony?” he asked.

  “I believe we should take a closer look at Nisse’s Cairn. According to Annika Hermansson, it was moved around the time of Thomas Bonetti’s disappearance. And, according to her, she saw his boat go behind Branteskär, but she didn’t see him leave the island again,” Irene said.

  “So you think his boat is buried beneath the rocks?” Jonny Blom said, grinning.

  “No, but I believe Thomas is,” Irene said.

  There was a moment of silence.

  “That’s what you believe,” Andersson said at last.

  “It’s clearly possible. I believe Annika about the cairn having been moved. Even though her entire house is a pile of garbage, she has that telescope, which must have cost a pretty penny. Åhlén believes it must have been at least fifteen thousand kroner. My guess is she hardly ever leaves her house, and the telescope is her only contact to the outside world. I am positive she knows each and every contour of the islands she can see through her telescope,” Irene said.

  “So,” Andersson said with a sigh, “you want us to check beneath the cairn.�
�

  “That’s right.”

  Andersson’s forehead wrinkled. “All right, then. It’ll be done. I’ll give the boys at the sea police a call and tell them to bring some technicians with them to that island.”

  “It’s called Branteskär,” Irene said.

  The superintendent pretended not to hear her. Instead, he turned toward Tommy. “What has Her Highness Lady Ceder said today?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing at all?”

  “Nope. She moved back into her Askim house today. She’s gotten a doctor’s order that she is supposed to rest for the next few days. Her mother says she’s refusing to talk to anyone resembling a journalist, but she can hardly refuse to talk to us—she’s just delaying the inevitable by getting that doctor’s order. I’ll be able to have a chat with her on Tuesday at the latest,” Tommy said.

  “That damned woman! We ought to bring her in and grill her,” grumbled Andersson.

  “She’s a smart one, but perhaps not as smart as she thinks she is. I’ve gone through the Kaegler-Ceder finances. Sanna’s millions have disappeared at a rapid rate. Last year her taxed income in Sweden was fifty-two thousand kroner, and her savings are two hundred and nineteen thousand. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to tell if she has money in other countries, but at least here in Sweden, her fortune is running out.”

  “Did she use it up by building the Askim house?” Birgitta asked.

  “Not likely. I called the state property assessment office, and the property in Askim has been owned by Kjell B:son Ceder for years. He’d inherited it from his first wife. He’d kept it as the value rose over the years.”

  “And then he let Sanna have it,” Birgitta said.

  “Right, though Ceder’s company built the house. His restaurant and hotel are also owned by his company, which is called K B:son Ceder AB. One interesting point: his company’s tax declaration also shows that the company is on the brink.”

  “On the brink?” echoed Andersson.

  “It’s lost an incredible amount of money. From what I understand, it’s lost so much money that it’s about to go bankrupt.”

  “And yet Sanna has been able to decorate her home in her expensive taste without anyone complaining about the cost. Isn’t that interesting?” Irene said.

  “Well, maybe that’s what Ceder did: complain. We know that they met on the Saturday before he was shot. Perhaps they discussed house expenses as well as the company’s bankruptcy,” suggested Tommy.

  “According to the restaurant employees, they weren’t arguing,” Birgitta said.

  “Maybe not, but remember, the employees work for Ceder. Perhaps they’re worried about losing their jobs. Who will be inheriting the company now that Ceder is dead? Sanna, of course.”

  Birgitta shook her head. “I was the one who talked to the employees. The head of security, Michael Fuller, saw the Kaegler-Ceders in the dining room, and he insists that they weren’t arguing. Also, the maître d’ and the waitress at their table, as well as another server, have given similar testimony. I would have noticed if there was something wrong about their statements.”

  “This doesn’t mean that they weren’t talking about her house and the bad financial situation the company was in. Perhaps they’d already stopped arguing about the fact that the money wasn’t there. Perhaps they were trying to figure out what they could still save.”

  “Stop speculating and go talk to Her Highness,” Andersson barked. “Ask her a direct question. Damn it all, it’s time that woman started giving us some real information!”

  “She’s a tough nut to crack,” Tommy said. He looked defeated.

  “So? You’ve been talking to her. Don’t give up. She knows much more than she’s letting on.” Andersson turned to Birgitta. “So, what have you found out about Philip Bergman?”

  “I’ve talked to his parents. They’re completely overcome with grief. It was not easy to talk to them. Philip was their only child. I learned that Philip had been living abroad for years. First in London and then two years in Paris. I asked them why he’d moved to Paris, but they didn’t have an answer. All they could say was ‘business’ and ‘bank consulting.’ They’re impressed by his cleverness and very proud of his success as a businessman.”

  “Businessman!” Andersson snorted. “He just used other people’s money and made it disappear.”

  “You have a point. I was thinking about why he decided to go into business with Joachim Rothstaahl. My instincts tell me they were up to something shady.”

  “Did you find anything at the Bergman house?”

  “No. His boyhood bedroom hadn’t been changed since he’d left home. I was allowed to search through his room, but there wasn’t much there to begin with. His father told me that Philip had packed a large duffle bag and told them he wouldn’t be home that night. He’d asked to borrow his father’s car. All he said was that he was going to Joachim’s place, but he did not mention meeting a third person. There was no computer in the room, nor any papers. Not a single lead. According to his parents, he’d booked a flight back to Paris for Wednesday. So anything of interest is going to be in Paris.”

  “Paris!” Andersson muttered.

  Birgitta ignored him and continued, “Philip had almost no resources in Sweden. He was still a Swedish citizen. I found an old complaint from bankruptcy court. He hadn’t bothered to pay off a car loan. That was right before he moved to London.”

  “What do his parents do?” asked Irene.

  “His father is an optician, and his mother is a nurse. They live in a townhouse in Tuve. Philip grew up there.”

  “Sorry for interrupting,” Kajsa said, “but Sanna’s mother moved to Tuve after her divorce. Philip and Sanna met each other in secondary school.”

  Andersson looked at Kajsa in surprise before he remembered he’d given her special duties. “You can tell us more about those two crazies after we’re done with Rothstaahl,” he said.

  Kajsa nodded politely.

  The superintendent turned to Birgitta. “Anything else?”

  “No. He probably took everything that would be of interest to us in that duffle bag, including his laptop. I still think that we should go to Paris as soon as possible to secure any papers or discs. Perhaps he even had a computer in his Paris apartment.”

  Fredrik Stridh spoke up. “I agree with Birgitta. We haven’t found a thing that would give us any insight into what Joachim Rothstaahl was up to. There isn’t a single clue in his house. Probably the killer took everything with him. Maybe the killer is headed for Paris, too. Joachim lived at—” Fredrik looked down and began to spell out an address from his notebook—“Boulevard R-a-s-p-a-i-l.”

  Birgitta gave a shout. “Bergman has the same address! He’s at 207.”

  “Bingo! So is Rothstaahl,” Fredrik said.

  Both Birgitta and Fredrik turned toward Andersson. His glum face had acquired more worry lines.

  “No,” he said. “It costs too much to go to Paris just to look at an apartment. We can ask our French colleagues for help.”

  “We can?” said Birgitta. “We have two Swedish citizens who were killed on Swedish soil. It just so happens that they both live in Paris, but I hardly believe our French colleagues are interested in getting tied up in this investigation.”

  Andersson glared at her. She turned away from him pointedly and looked at Fredrik before she asked, “What else do you have on Rothstaahl?”

  “The first thing I found out was that the rumor that Rothstaahl was going to move in with his girlfriend is wrong. The woman in question is an old friend from Vänersborg who has a new job in Göteborg. She was going to sublet his house for at least a year. She was planning to get the keys from him and sign the lease on Tuesday because she knew he was returning to Paris on Wednesday,” Fredrik said.

  “So he was returning on the same day that Philip was,” Birgitta said. “Why did they have to meet in Göteborg? They’re neighbors in Paris!”

  “Exactly. Did Ber
gman’s parents give a reason for his homecoming?” asked Tommy.

  “Just that he’d come home to see them and to meet some old friends.”

  “Which he didn’t. He met the friend he sees daily in Paris,” Irene stated.

  Fredrik nodded. “And Joachim Rothstaahl came home to get his house ready to rent. Both Bergman and Rothstaahl arrived on the same plane Friday night. On Saturday, Rothstaahl was at his house but ate dinner with his parents that evening. On Sunday, the entire Rothstaahl family met at Rothstaahl’s aunt and uncle’s place. According to his parents, he went right home to his house once they left. That was the last time they saw him. His mother had a short phone call with him on Monday during lunchtime. He seemed fine. The family is in shock and has no idea why anyone would want to murder Joachim. They own a number of clothing boutiques all over the country, but Joachim was not involved in the family business.”

  Irene took a closer look at the enlarged photograph of Joachim Rothstaahl, which had been pinned to the bulletin board. It was his most recent passport picture. Joachim had a narrow face dominated by dark brown eyes. There was a friendly glint to them. There was also a vague smile on his thin lips. His thick brown hair had been combed back from his high forehead. The living, sympathetic young man looked down at Irene from the wall. Next to it was the photo from the crime scene. It was almost impossible to recognize Joachim Rothstaahl in that photo.

  “They own the Zazza and Escada boutiques,” Birgitta said.

  “Oh my, they must be very wealthy. Those are big chains,” Irene said. She had bought a couple pieces of clothing from Escada. Zazza’s clothes were more in line with her daughters’ taste.

  “I’ve been going through Rothstaahl’s background and finances as well,” said Jonny. He waited until everyone was ready to pay attention. “Joachim returned to Sweden after the crash in London. He was unemployed for six months until he found a job at a bank here in the city. Going back through his finances, they appear ordinary. He lived in his house without needing to pay rent. Two years ago, he got a job at a foreign bank and moved to Paris.”