Fredrik took notes. Elisabet impatiently followed the movements of the pen across the paper.
“Your mother died two years ago,” he said. “As I’ve understood it, there were a number of questions about the inheritance.”
Elisabet shook her head firmly.
“No, there were no questions. All that was arranged long ago. There was a prenuptial agreement.”
“But isn’t it the case that Henrik has questioned the distribution of the estate?” asked Fredrik.
“He does have certain ideas and that’s his business, but as I said, everything was arranged long ago. If you want to know exactly how, it’s best that you read it yourself.”
“So the fact that Henrik has filed a lawsuit is not something that worries you?”
Her eyes narrowed when the lawsuit came up.
“No, not in the slightest. He doesn’t frighten me. If he wants to fight about that, it’s fine with me. I’m the one who has the law on my side.”
The high cheekbones became even clearer when she angrily clenched her jaws hard.
9.
Fredrik and Sara stopped in Fårösund and had lunch at a place with solid pine furniture, blue drinking glasses in a display case, and a little opening where you ordered your food. Fredrik’s stomach was growling. It was past one o’clock. There was fried herring with mashed potatoes. Good and well-prepared, not too much butter in the potatoes, just the way he liked it.
“What do you say about the evil stepsister?” he asked Sara.
She looked at him with amusement.
“Eyes poked out, yes,” she said quietly. “Poop in the toy box, doubtful.”
“People can do the strangest things.”
Fredrik took the last bit of herring and set aside his utensils.
“Dad and her husband give her an alibi,” Sara pointed out.
“Yes, but she had just shouted that alibi out over all of Fårö, so I don’t think much of it.”
Sara folded up the napkin.
“Are you done?” she asked.
“I’m done.”
They said thanks to the woman behind the opening and went out into the sharp sunlight.
“Maybe Alma Vogler is the toy box type,” he said.
Sara squinted toward the sun.
“Can we go back to the station before we do the interview with Alma? There are a few things I want to check.”
Fredrik had no objections. It might be worth digging a little before they spent more time on an intractable half sister.
* * *
Back at the office Fredrik pulled out the rental contract they had received from Henrik Kjellander. The last tenant was Inger Kvarnbäck from Gothenburg. Fredrik made a few quick registry searches. Inger was sixty-seven years old and married to Thomas Kvarnbäck, born the same year as she was. They were registered at Prinsgatan 8.
Fredrik tried calling their home number, but got no answer, not even an answering machine. There were two cell phone numbers, one for Inger and one for Thomas. He tried both. Thomas’s cell seemed stone dead, and when he called Inger’s the voice mail started immediately.
He decided to continue with the two other tenants. Even if it was unlikely, it could not be completely ruled out that it might have been one of them who slipped the picture into the linen closet and pooped in the toy box, while the last ones were simply unusually messy and inconsiderate.
The first tenant was Jörgen Malmqvist from Bromma in Stockholm. He was thirty-seven years old, married to Eva Maria Malmqvist. They had two children, age seven and nine.
Tenant number two was Emma Dahlberg, age twenty-nine. She was registered at an address in Vasastan in Stockholm and was neither married nor living with anyone. Her income suggested that she was a student. It was not probable that she rented the house for two weeks to stay there by herself. She must have been one of the five or six thirty-year-olds that the neighbor noticed. This meant then that there were three or four individuals about whom it was hard to find out anything unless he called Emma Dahlberg and asked.
Fredrik picked up the receiver and called the agency that had arranged the rental of the house.
“Maj-Lis Eriksson, GotlandsResor,” a cheerful voice answered.
“Hello, my name is Fredrik Broman and I’m calling from the Visby police—”
“I see, oh my. I haven’t done anything crazy, have I?” came out of the telephone.
“No, no,” he assured her, and explained why he was calling.
Maj-Lis promised energetically to do what she could to help out.
“I was wondering if you have more personal information in your system than appears on the contract.”
“You mean whether they rented through us before?”
“I actually would like to know that,” said Fredrik, “but I was thinking about whether there are more names. If, for example, several people are renting, do you enter all the names in the system?”
“No,” answered Maj-Lis. “We don’t usually do that. Sometimes, if there are two families who will share a house, it happens that both want to be on the contract. To share the liability. If they want to that’s fine, but it’s not that common. The majority book on the Internet and there it’s not possible to have more than one name on the contract.”
“And you can see after the fact what bookings have been made on the Internet and which ones you’ve taken over the phone?”
“Of course.”
Fredrik went through the three tenants with Maj-Lis. Malmqvist, the family with children, had rented through GotlandsResor before. Two years in Hellvi, but this time Malin and Henrik’s house on Fårö. Emma Dahlberg rented for the first time. Maj-Lis could see that she requested a house for at least four people. The Kvarnbäck couple were also renting for the first time. It did not show how many people they were applying for, only that they requested lodging on Fårö and north Gotland, which was a single region in the company’s system.
“How do they get the keys to the house? Do they pick them up from you?”
“If you haven’t arranged otherwise with the landlord, you pick up the keys here at the office, that’s right,” said Maj-Lis.
“How about with this particular house, can you see that?”
“Well, now, let’s see here,” she said. “All of them picked up here.”
“Can you see who gave out the keys, too?”
“Just one moment, then I have to go in…”
Maj-Lis fell silent and Fredrik could hear her fingers against the keys like faint whispers.
“Indeed. I must have been the one who handed out the keys to the first ones, Malmqvist. Elin did the other two. She’s not still here. She was a summer temp.”
“Do you remember anything about the Malmqvist family?”
Fredrik could easily picture Maj-Lis’s broad smile.
“No,” she laughed. “July is when we’re busiest. The majority change on Saturdays and then it’s on the verge of chaos. People stand in line out the door. You barely have time to look them in the eyes.”
“I understand,” said Fredrik, but asked for a telephone number for Elin anyway.
“Nothing else that you recall about these customers?”
“No, I can’t think of anything,” said Maj-Lis after thinking a moment.
“The last ones, Kvarnbäck, must have turned in their keys as recently as Saturday. Nothing in connection with that?”
“There’s nothing noted.”
Fredrik thanked her for the help and hung up. Then she called both Jörgen Malmqvist and Emma Dahlberg. He asked for the names of everyone who had stayed in the house or visited them during the rental period. Had anything out of the ordinary happened? Did they possibly leave the house earlier than planned so that it stood empty a few days?
Both Jörgen Malmqvist and Emma Dahlberg had used all of their rental days, and they gave an honest impression when they said that nothing special had happened. Emma was accompanied by three persons. Two men and a woman. They had also had a visit f
rom a fifth person for three nights, a woman. He took down all their names.
At last he tried calling the Kvarnbäck couple again, all three numbers, but without result. Why didn’t they answer?
10.
The Gotland police shared a building with the public prosecutor’s office, and the investigation department was next door, so it was almost simpler to look up a prosecutor in person than to call. Especially if the line was always busy for the prosecutor you wanted to get hold of.
Sara heard Peter Klint’s melodic, slightly high-pitched voice far off in the corridor. The door to his office was ajar and she carefully stuck her head in. He waved to her to come in and sit down. The telephone conversation continued; it seemed to be something of a personal nature. Klint laughed and continued an enthusiastic account of a vacation memory.
Would she have to sit here long? Klint smiled apologetically and made a gesture toward the phone, even though he was mostly the one who kept on talking.
The fifty-four-year-old Klint had a fresh haircut and was casually dressed in a striped shirt with rolled-up sleeves. He was going to be a father again. The rumor had been confirmed for a week. Two years earlier he got a divorce and met a woman sixteen years younger. Not necessarily in that order.
Sara wondered whether he knew what he was getting into. Personally she thought it was demanding enough to have a long-distance relationship with a man in Stockholm. And no children. But that was the price a man had to be prepared to pay if he wanted to trade up for a newer model. Sixteen years younger. The same age as Sara.
She sighed, not overly explicit, but loud enough so that it would be noticed.
“Listen, I have a meeting here,” Klint said into the phone. “Of course, let’s do that, bye now. Bye.”
He hung up.
“Okay,” he said. “What can I do for you?”
“How are you at inheritance law?”
“Well, so-so. What’s this about?”
Sara briefly described what Henrik Kjellander had told about his half sisters, the letter from his grandmother, and what followed after his mother’s death.
Peter Klint sat awhile and nodded to himself.
“I’ll have to double-check, but I don’t believe that a letter from the grandmother has any great weight in this case. If it had been a regular will it would have been a different story, but without one of course it’s the mother who inherits.”
“I checked with Lantmäteriet,” said Sara.
“Yes?”
Peter Klint laced his hands together and leaned back in the chair.
“Four years ago Ernst Vogler transferred most of the property to Elisabet, but nothing to the other daughter, Alma. Alma on the other hand bought a smaller property on Fårö, a single-family house on an ordinary lot, about the same time the farm was signed over to Elisabet.”
“It sounds like Grandmother’s money went to compensate the daughter who didn’t get any share in the farm,” said Klint.
“Yes, that would be my guess anyway.”
“You can think what you want about it, but the mother does as she wants with the inheritance from the grandmother, that’s how it is.”
Klint threw out his hands symbolically and let the money fly away. “The letter is not enough, I would say. An individual may have a number of different thoughts and intentions about what she leaves behind, but it is always possible to maintain that the person in question changed their mind between the time she expressed them and when she actually died.”
“So Henrik Kjellander doesn’t have much of a case?”
“Probably not. But this does not rule out him suing them anyway. If he’s lucky they’ll be frightened enough to give in and propose a settlement.”
It had not sounded as if Elisabet Vogler had any settlement in mind, thought Sara. More likely the contrary.
* * *
Gotland University College was housed in a beautiful old factory building that was attached to a newly constructed part with a glass façade facing toward Cramérgatan. GOTLANDS MALT FACTORY AB could still be read at the very top of the façade on the older part. Something that surely had given rise to many tired student jokes.
The sea breeze swept in from Hamnplan and blew sand in the eyes of Fredrik and Sara as they got out of the car. Squinting, they turned toward Almedalen and the library, where the swinging doors let out a group of students who were done for the day. The students stopped briefly on the sidewalk and spoke with large gestures before they separated. Perhaps plans for the evening.
Fredrik and Sara passed through the college’s can-like metal and glass entry and asked at reception for Alma Vogler.
Alma worked at the college computer support department on the second floor in the factory building. She was blond, like Elisabet, but in contrast to her sister, she looked much more like Henrik. Especially the curious, inviting gaze and the kind, almost childish face. She was thirty, according to the census records, two years younger than her sister.
“We can go down and sit in the mezzanine in the restaurant. There probably aren’t too many people there this time of day,” she suggested.
They went one flight down to the restaurant to immediately go one flight up to the balcony that hovered in the middle of the glass wall facing Cramérgatan.
Alma had guessed right. A few students were sitting at the tables on the ground level, but the balcony was empty.
“What we mainly want to know is where you were on Saturday,” said Sara as soon as they sat down.
“Yes, I heard that you’ve been at my sister’s, but I don’t really understand why you’re asking.”
It was clear, Elisabet had presumably run to the phone as soon as they left. They looked at Alma, waiting for her answer.
“Excuse me, I should answer the question. I was out shopping right before lunch, otherwise I was at home all day. You can ask my husband.”
“So do you mean you shopped on Fårö?” asked Sara.
“Yes, at Nyström’s.”
“Were you alone or did you have anyone with you?”
“I went alone; it usually goes quicker that way. Nisse and Marta were at home with Krister.”
“Krister is your husband?”
“Exactly.”
“Can you estimate how long you were gone?”
“Oh, this is getting precise. It sounds like I’ve murdered someone at the very least,” Alma said with a smile.
“No, it isn’t that serious,” said Sara. “We just want to check some information.”
“Okay, well, it took about an hour in all. You can ask at Nyström’s. I’m sure they’ll remember that I was there.”
“Yes,” said Sara, making note of the most important items.
Alma was the exact opposite of her sister. Happy, open. Did not seem to have anything to hide, at least.
“Have you lived your whole life on Fårö?” asked Sara.
“Yes, except for two years when I was studying on the mainland.”
“But there can’t be many jobs for someone with your education here on the island?”
“One is enough,” she said.
“Yes, of course.”
“No, I understand what you mean,” said Alma. “It’s not really that easy to find challenges here. The work at the college is actually a little below my level, but I think it’s worth it.”
“To be able to live on Fårö?”
“Yes. I’ve sometimes thought about moving to the mainland for a while, but right now I’m content with my job and my house on Fårö. We’ll have to see.”
“Your sister owns a good deal of land, but not you,” said Fredrik. “Did she buy you out?”
Alma made a slight grimace, smiled quickly toward Sara, and then looked out the window. Two young men were unlocking their bikes at one of the many bike stands on the sidewalk just below. One of them was wearing a hat that made him look like he had escaped from another era.
She turned back toward Fredrik and Sara with a distant look in her eyes.
“I have no great desire to talk about this,” she said, fingering a button on her shirt.
“I see,” said Sara cautiously. “Is there a conflict behind it?”
Alma responded with a tired smile.
“I guess that’s why I don’t want to talk about it.”
Sara nodded that she understood.
“What did you think about your half brother Henrik Kjellander moving to Fårö?”
Alma lowered her eyebrows and wrinkled her nose slightly. She seemed to take the question seriously and had no ready answer like Elisabet.
“I guess I was mostly surprised,” she said.
“Because?”
“I didn’t think…”
She fell silent, thought awhile longer.
“If I were him I probably never would have set foot here again. Really. Especially not after Grandmother died. I would probably just want to escape it all. I don’t understand how he has the energy to mess with this.”
“You’re thinking about the lawsuit?” said Sara.
Alma sighed, produced another tired smile, but no reply.
“Is that also part of what you don’t want to talk about?”
“Yes, thanks.”
“You bought a house on Fårö four years ago,” said Fredrik. “How did you finance that purchase?”
Alma turned toward Fredrik, but did not answer.
“Well,” said Sara at last. “We can’t take the right to remain silent away from you.”
Then Alma sighed. Deeply and heavily.
“It was Dad’s idea to sign over the property to Elisabet. He wanted the farm to stay in the family, and that was his way of resolving that. He saw an estate distribution as a threat. That we would sell, or be forced to sell because neither of us would have the money to buy out the other.”
“But you got no compensation?” said Fredrik.
“Yes, we got help for our house,” she said reluctantly.
“But not the corresponding value on the land?”
Alma stretched.
“I don’t know. I love Fårö, but I’m not interested in running a farm.”
“How is your relationship with your father and Elisabet?”
“It’s good, but we don’t see each other as much since Mom died.”
The Intruder Page 6
