The Intruder

by Hakan Ostlundh

  72.

  Once Klint had said yes it did not take Fredrik long to make his way from Visby to Södermalm in Stockholm. He had arranged a time with Thomas Bark in his studio in Hammarbyhamnen, but first he wanted to question Janna Drake.

  The agency was housed in a typical fin-de-siècle apartment two flights up on Hornsgatan. The color scheme of the walls and woodwork was white and looked as if it had been painted yesterday. Judging by the many signs on the door, the Drake Agency shared the office with several other businesses.

  Two sober, gray couches met them in the unstaffed reception area. Above the couches two poster-sized black-and-white photographs were hanging. One depicted a naked young woman on a horse, the other some laughing children in a shabby backyard in an unknown country. Two worlds. Which one was it that enticed Joakim? Fredrik didn’t know.

  A woman roughly the same age as Henrik Kjellander entered the room, walked quickly up to Fredrik, and extended her hand. He recognized Janna Drake’s slightly hoarse voice at once.

  She showed him into the room she had just come out of. Two large desks stood across from each other, edge to edge.

  “You can sit there,” she said, pointing to the one seat.

  Fredrik pulled out the chair.

  “Oops,” he said when he realized he was sitting very low.

  Janna Drake giggled. “There’s a lever there at the side,” she said.

  He found a black plastic lever and managed to adjust the height.

  Janna Drake did not look at all as he had expected. She was about five foot five, and her medium blond, straight hair was cut short. Her face had friendly, soft forms. Fredrik had expected a stately woman with definite features. Probably it was the name that called forth an upper-class pattern.

  “How many work here?” he said, looking around the room.

  “Do you mean in the whole office, or at the agency?” said Janna Drake, sitting down across from him.

  “At the agency.”

  “Right now there are three of us. Helena, my partner, and then we have one employee, Andreas.”

  He already knew the names.

  “But you’re the one who is Henrik’s agent? I mean, who has contact with his clients, manages negotiations and such?”

  “Yes,” she said. “We divide our photographers up between us. That’s a source of security for them, but it is also good for the clients that they know, for example, who I represent. That it’s not different from one time to the next. Then sometimes we fill in for one another if someone is sick or there’s a lot going on with certain photographers.”

  “Good,” Fredrik said firmly.

  He did not really know what it was that was good, but was eager to interrupt. The tone suggested that a longer presentation of the Drake Agency was on its way. A sales pitch that Janna Drake presumably could supply with a sparklingly intense gaze while she thought about something else.

  “You said before, when we talked on the phone, that you did not really socialize with Henrik privately,” he said.

  “That’s correct,” said Janna.

  “But you have nonetheless been his agent for a really long time.”

  She nodded. “Over ten years.”

  “That’s a long time. Almost as long as he’s been together with Malin.”

  “Yes?”

  Her eyes narrowed a touch and her forehead got a wrinkle, as if she did not really appreciate the parallel.

  “But you didn’t know him before you became his agent?”

  “Yes, we were acquainted before that.”

  Fredrik looked at her with surprise.

  “So you have socialized privately, even if you no longer do?”

  “No, or…”

  She interrupted herself with an embarrassed sigh.

  “It was different then. We were younger. You went out a lot. We socialized in the same circles, met at the bar.”

  “Okay, I think I understand the difference.”

  “We were acquaintances, but not friends. It’s no more difficult than that.”

  “Do you know if he saw other women? Other than Malin?”

  “Other women?”

  Janna Drake leaned slowly back and looked at him with her head at a slight angle. “What exactly do you mean?”

  “I mean if he had any relationships on the side, short-term or longer.”

  The guarded expression on Janna Drake’s face was replaced by a smile.

  “You shouldn’t confuse the image of the fashion photographer with the private person,” she said. “If you’re constantly surrounded by beautiful young women in provocative clothing it’s easy for people to get a certain impression. But it’s crucial to distinguish between apples and oranges.”

  Fredrik hated that silly fruit metaphor that people hid behind when they really wanted to say you seemed a little dense.

  “You don’t need to defend him,” he said. “I’m out to find a murderer, not to root in Henrik Kjellander’s private life. But if the way to the perpetrator goes via his private life, then I have to do that.”

  “And you know that?” she said in a somewhat flat voice.

  “No, but that’s how it usually is.”

  Janna Drake got up and went over to a low cabinet to the right of the door. She reached for a glass and filled it with water from a carafe. She raised the glass, but stopped.

  “Excuse me,” she said, turning to Fredrik. “Would you like a glass of water?”

  “No, thanks, I’m fine.”

  She took a couple of sips and came back and sat down, holding the glass with both hands and letting it rotate slowly.

  “If you’re looking for something concrete I probably can’t contribute. But this much I can say: that when I started working with Henrik he had a reputation for being pretty wild. As I said, that’s fairly common in our industry.”

  “What does wild entail?” asked Fredrik.

  “Well, you know, women, going out a lot. But my understanding was that this was before he met Malin. To me, Henrik has always been a decent, open person. Flirtatious perhaps, but not creepy in any way, if I may say so.”

  “With you as well?” Fredrik asked.

  “Flirtatious? Yes, but in a social way.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He is extremely considerate and positive, but he hasn’t hit on me.”

  How do you know that so definitely? thought Fredrik.

  “You’ve never had a relationship,” he said.

  “Us?”

  Janna Drake stared at him with mouth half open. There was no mistaking that she was surprised, almost offended. As if she was exerting herself.

  “Yes,” said Fredrik. “You and Henrik.”

  “No, not really.”

  “Not even a temporary—”

  “But now you have to back off. If you think I would start a relationship with one of my clients. That’s just crazy.”

  “Not a good idea, perhaps, I agree. But you’re not his psychoanalyst, of course.”

  Janna set down the glass with a bang that presumably was louder than she intended. The determined gaze turned to the side and wandered around the room.

  There was not much left of the pleasant atmosphere that had started the interview, but that was his task, to ask the uncomfortable questions. Not considerate and positive like Henrik Kjellander, he thought.

  “I’m almost done. Just one last question. What were you doing last Friday?”

  * * *

  Perhaps it was just as simple as Janna Drake had already said on the phone. She did not know Henrik Kjellander as a private person, thought Fredrik as he stepped onto the light rail at Gullmarsplan. He himself could say that he knew some of his colleagues really well, in the sense that he understood more or less how they functioned. At the same time he knew very little about what kind of lives they led. Perhaps he knew that they were married, had children, and liked to play tennis. But not what they brooded about at night.

  Janna Drake thought anyway that he wa
s a bastard, and she had an alibi for Friday.

  The wheels of the tram creaked against the rail as it took a long ninety-degree curve. The cars wound out from the enclosed track area at the subway station and came out among cars and scattered pedestrians in Hammarby Sjöstad.

  It was the first time he had taken the light rail down to the newly constructed residential area. It had not been there when he left Stockholm for Gotland. Not many of the buildings, either.

  He got off at Lumaparken, or Luma as the stop had concisely been christened. Both got their name from the dirty-yellow complex between the park and the canal, the old lightbulb factory that had been renovated into apartments. Fredrik remembered that he had skimmed through an interior decorating article about one of the new apartments. A duplex apartment full of expensive furniture.

  According to the address Thomas Bark had provided, his studio should be in an industrial building with a brown sheet-metal facade, immediately to the left of the Luma factory. Fredrik found the door and came into a worn stairwell. On the second floor, at the far end of a narrow corridor, was a piece of graph paper taped up with “Thomas Bark” carelessly printed in pencil.

  He knocked, heard steps, and soon the door was opened by a man with short reddish-brown hair. He gave Fredrik a pirate smile. One of his front teeth was completely gold.

  “Thomas Bark?” Fredrik asked, slightly disconcerted by the eccentric row of teeth.

  “Yes, that’s me.”

  They shook hands and he was let in.

  “Did you just move in?”

  Thomas Bark looked at him, perplexed.

  “The note on the door.”

  “I see, no.” Thomas Bark grinned. “I like keeping a somewhat low profile.”

  The steel door closed behind Fredrik with a scraping sound. He followed Thomas Bark into the studio, a long, narrow room with a very high ceiling. The windows were covered by white sheeting, but daylight seeped in through a narrow slit high up where the fabric had come loose. At the far end of the room was a stand with paper backdrops in different colors. Right behind Thomas Bark was a flash tripod with a large tent-like arrangement that Fredrik guessed would reflect light in some way. The tent stood on end with a square white bottom that shone faintly.

  Thomas Bark looked around the room.

  “I don’t really know … I never have any real meetings here, so I haven’t arranged any good place to sit. But maybe there?”

  He nodded toward a couple of office chairs in front of a counter with large computer screens.

  “We can stand here,” said Fredrik. “I’ll try to keep this brief. But it would be nice if there was a little more light.”

  Thomas Bark’s face was almost entirely in shadow.

  “Of course.”

  He quickly found a switch and three rows of fluorescent lights started flickering in the ceiling. The darkness was swept away. It almost made his eyes hurt. Fredrik squinted toward Thomas Bark, who was dressed in a black T-shirt and a pair of baggy black pants with large pockets on the outside of the legs. He was approximately the same height as Fredrik and had a pair of round tortoise-shell eyeglasses that matched his hair color.

  “Better?” asked Thomas Bark, scratching himself nervously on the neck.

  “Yes,” said Fredrik.

  “Okay…” said Thomas lingeringly, with a little coughing laugh at the end of the word.

  “I was on Hornsgatan and spoke with Henrik’s agent, Janna Drake, just now. She’s your agent, too, isn’t she?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know whether she and Henrik have ever had a relationship?”

  Thomas Bark’s eyes widened. He seemed both surprised and a little amused.

  “Did you ask Janna about that?”

  “Yes, but I got a feeling that I didn’t get a completely honest answer.”

  Thomas looked away.

  “I can imagine that.”

  “Have they?”

  “Relationship is saying a lot, but … Uh, it’s guaranteed completely uninteresting to … well, for what happened…”

  Thomas Bark picked up a lens from a small table on wheels right behind him. He screwed off the lens cap on one end, viewed the lens, screwed the cap back on again.

  “There is nothing that has to do with Henrik Kjellander that is uninteresting for this investigation. It’s that simple.”

  Bark laughed drily and shrugged his shoulders.

  “Okay, if you say so…”

  He set down the lens.

  “They had sex on the bar at PA.”

  It was Fredrik’s turn to look surprised.

  “But it was after closing and it was a really long time ago. They were like twenty-two, or something like that.”

  “But so they did have a relationship?”

  “No. It was never more than that bar counter.”

  “And you’re certain that they haven’t had a relationship later, either?”

  “As sure as I can be,” said Thomas. “Both Janna and Henrik stick firmly to not mixing work and personal life. Like I said, this was years before she started the agency. And Henrik has never been involved with assistants or photo models. Not the ones he worked with anyway.”

  “But with others?”

  “Did I say that?”

  Fredrik looked quietly at Thomas Bark. “Perhaps we should sit down anyway?”

  Thomas sighed and looked away again self-consciously.

  “Exactly what is it you want to know?”

  “I want you to answer my questions honestly and frankly. Perhaps you have received confidences from Henrik that you don’t want to breach. I can understand that. But this concerns a murder investigation. You can’t expect the ordinary rules of the game to apply then. Or perhaps you don’t agree with that?”

  “Yes, yes, of course.”

  “I think that the person who killed Malin and Axel is someone who is or has been in Henrik’s vicinity in recent years, or possibly someone who in turn is close to that person.”

  “Jealousy. You said that last time.”

  “Yes.”

  Thomas Bark rubbed his chin with his hand.

  “So…”

  He cleared his throat, stood silently, cleared his throat again.

  “Damn…”

  “What?” said Fredrik.

  “Well, it’s like this,” Thomas Bark began.

  He sounded more definite now.

  “The only reason I’m telling you this is because the situation is what it is. I doubt that it will help you at all, but…”

  “In this situation it is definitely wrong to hold back anything you know,” said Fredrik.

  “I found this out in the greatest confidence. I would be grateful if you kept where you got this from to yourself.”

  “I can’t promise that.”

  Thomas Bark sighed quietly.

  “Henrik had a relationship with Maria.”

  For a moment the floor rocked under Fredrik. Did he mean Maria Andersson?

  “Malin’s sister?”

  “Yes.”

  “You mean a sexual relationship?”

  “Yes,” said Thomas Bark reluctantly.

  It almost sounded as if he was the one who was the sinner.

  Fredrik thought of the image of the perpetrator. The pink sweatshirt. But they had gotten to the bottom of all that. Maria could not possibly have anything to do with the murders.

  “When did this relationship go on?”

  “It didn’t last very long. I think it started some time before Malin and Henrik moved to Gotland, a couple of months before, maybe. Then they met now and then for the first six months after they moved, but not that often, as you understand.”

  “Who was it who ended it?”

  “It was probably a joint decision. You can understand that yourself. It couldn’t be more wrong. But it was something that happened and … well, I guess they couldn’t help it. Maria and Malin were so tight, Maria was always around and I guess something started up bet
ween her and Henrik.”

  “It sounds as if there were strong emotions involved?”

  “Maybe, but it was completely unsustainable. They realized that themselves. They probably got a little distance to it, too, with the move.”

  “Did Malin know that they had a relationship?”

  “No, I don’t think so. Henrik should have told her. If nothing else I would have noticed something. I mean, there would be consequences if Malin had found out.”

  A reasonable assumption that there would have been consequences. But was it so certain that Bark would have noticed something? That depended entirely on when Malin found out. If she even did find out.

  It was high time to have another talk with Henrik Kjellander.

  73.

  It was late in the afternoon when Fredrik was picked up at the airport. He had slept almost all the way from Bromma and felt rested and energetic as he hurried up the stairs to the criminal investigation department.

  The door to Göran Eide’s office stood open and he heard Sara’s voice from inside.

  “Welcome to Gotland,” Göran greeted him. “What a fucking mess this has become.”

  “Yes, you can say that.”

  “By the way, have you seen this?”

  Göran turned and reached for a copy of Aftonbladet that was on top of the bookshelf behind him. He opened to a double spread and set the newspaper on the table.

  Under the headline “The Ex-Girlfriend: I Didn’t Kill Them!” was a large color photo of Stina Hansson by the ferry terminal in Fårösund. Fårö could be glimpsed in the background.

  Fredrik pulled the newspaper to him. He had left the tabloid unread on the plane in favor of his nap. He quickly skimmed the story. Stina Hansson averred her innocence and told about her relationship to Henrik Kjellander, who in the text was referred to as “the famous fashion photographer.” She was open-handed with personal details and admitted that she had taken it hard when the relationship ended, but explained that it was a long time ago and that she would never have harmed Henrik or his family. She experienced it as incredibly unpleasant to be a suspect, which is why it was important for her to cooperate in the interview. At the same time she claimed to understand that the police had to investigate anyone with a connection to Henrik.