by Leif Persson
The muskrat, Ondatra zibethicus, was very rare in the Hultsfred region. It was also very timid, very difficult to hunt, and no larger than a small rabbit. So it had been several years before the grandfather had killed a sufficient number to produce a pair of slippers. After his death they had been passed down to his eldest son, and then to his son. The story of how the slippers came to be made had been told countless times for more than half a century, in front of blazing fires in the snow-covered, masculine space of the hunting lodge. The tale certainly hadn’t got any worse with the years, and now formed part of the oral hunting tradition in Småland. The slippers had even become part of our local cultural inheritance, according to the defence lawyer, who also concluded his cross-examination of the plaintiff with a remark about their fundamental significance for his client’s mental wellbeing.
‘And now you have the stomach to sit here and claim that these were just an ordinary pair of slippers!’ the lawyer declared indignantly, fixing his eyes on the plaintiff.
It was actually considerably worse than that, it turned out, according to the unusually comprehensive report of the trial which the crime reporter of the Småland Post had chosen to share with her readers. The plaintiff was not only the former girlfriend of the accused. She had also spent many years working as a veterinary assistant, and even though she had never had any professional dealings with Ondatra zibethicus – fortunately – she none the less appeared to be in possession of considerable knowledge about muskrats.
The whole story was a typical male fabrication, she explained to the members of the court. If the grandfather really had told the stories that she had been forced to listen to so many times during the far too many years she had spent with his grandson, then he was as much of a liar as his descendant was.
The muskrat had migrated into Sweden, and Norrland in particular, from Finland, but this hadn’t happened until 1944, in other words a couple of years after her ex-boyfriend’s grandfather, thirteen hundred kilometres further south, was supposed to have shot enough of them to make a pair of slippers, so the whole damn story was nothing but a pack of lies. For the sake of domestic harmony she had chosen to keep quiet about that fact for a good many years. But if anyone wanted her opinion, the most likely explanation was that the slippers had been made from perfectly ordinary rats, and certainly not muskrats, since the latter had only been sighted in Småland in recent years.
In short, according to the plaintiff, this was a pair of badly worn, fifty-year-old rat-fur slippers, impregnated with the sweat of three generations of male feet, and if anyone really wanted to talk about emotional symbolism, then that was her opinion of her ex-boyfriend’s so-called muskrat slippers.
It was a shame she never applied to join the police, Jan Lewin thought as he pulled out his scissors to add the article to his scrapbook from Växjö.
73
LEWIN HAD GOT to work on Wednesday morning before half past seven. Eva Svanström had some things of her own she needed to sort out, and to avoid having to listen to Bäckström’s words of wisdom over his morning coffee Lewin had got up at seven and eaten breakfast in peace on his own. But in spite of all this, his colleague Sandberg was already at work when he arrived.
‘You’re in early, Anna,’ Lewin said. Mind you, you don’t look terribly awake, he thought.
‘Later,’ Anna said, shaking her head to warn him off. ‘Our old lady called a little while ago, wanting to correct her statement.’
‘Really? Well, we know she does get up early.’
‘She wanted to change the bit about Clark Gable. It was Errol Flynn she had in mind. Not Clark Gable in Gone With the Wind. Apparently his face was too fat. The man she saw had a much thinner face, more like Errol Flynn. But still no moustache.’
Lewin smiled. ‘It’s a good job we didn’t release a photofit picture, then.’
‘Yes,’ Anna said, looking at him hesitantly. ‘Then she said something else. I don’t know . . . ever since you explained about her birthday really being 4 July rather than 4 June . . .’
‘She said something else?’ Lewin prompted.
‘She asked if we were absolutely sure that the pilot doesn’t have a son,’ Sandberg said.
‘Not one that we’ve been able to find, at any rate,’ Lewin said, shaking his head. ‘Anything else?’
‘She promised to call again if she remembered anything else. And she said to say hello to you as well. Seems you made quite an impression.’
‘There’s nothing else I can help you with?’ Such as whatever’s really worrying you, he thought.
‘That’s kind of you, but I don’t think so. There are some things you just have to sort out on your own. But thanks anyway.’
She’s told her husband what happened when she went to that nightclub last month, and now her whole life has been plunged into chaos, Lewin thought. She’s braver than me.
At the morning meeting Bäckström was unusually restrained, even though Olsson wasn’t there. He had asked if anyone had any new ideas, now that a bunch of ignorant outsiders had wrested the cotton-buds out of the hands of the police. Lewin had taken the opportunity to remind everyone about his old ideas.
‘At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I still think we know far too little about our victim,’ he said.
‘Imagine that,’ Bäckström said, smiling his crooked smile. ‘So, in concrete terms, what’s really on your mind, if I might be so impudent as to ask?’
In Lewin’s world, there was no harm in asking. In concrete terms, fresh interviews with Linda’s parents and closest friends. And all the personal notes, possibly diaries, photograph albums and so on, that he was still missing and which, according to his firm conviction, definitely existed. Because they always existed.
Bäckström let out a deep sigh, and promised to take up the same old question with Olsson. And then, if no one else had anything to add, then he at least had more important things to be getting on with.
‘Get out there and do something useful for a change, and I’ll get the cakes in,’ he said.
No one wants cake any more, Lewin thought as he collected his papers and went back to his office. And as far as the rest of it was concerned, it looked like he was going to have to sort it all out himself.
Just after lunch Bäckström’s boss called him on his mobile, and, because he was taken by surprise, he answered. What? Go home to Stockholm to talk to some bastard Lapp? Bäckström thought, as he listened with half an ear to the torrent of words on the other end of the line.
‘I can’t hear you very well,’ Bäckström said, holding his mobile at arm’s length. ‘Can you hear me? Hello? Hello?’ As he should have done earlier, he finally switched the wretched thing off.
Forewarned is forearmed, he thought, and immediately switched it on again to call his union representative and explain about the miscarriage of justice of which he was the victim. It hadn’t been difficult to wind the union guy up, seeing they were like peas in a pod anyway, and also happened to be related. Police officers were often fairly similar to one another, fortunately.
‘That’s bloody awful, Bäckström,’ the union rep declared. ‘Bollocks to this. It’s high time we manned the barricades and put down a clear marker.’
He spent the rest of the day polishing his complaints against Moa Hjärtén and Bengt Karlsson, and as soon as he was finished he went to see Olsson and told him to make sure they were registered properly and, naturally, addressed as soon as possible with all available resources. Which was, of course, the least one could expect from the head of a preliminary investigation.
‘Making false accusations, false certification, use of illegal documentation, violation of a public servant, grave defamation,’ Olsson read.
‘Exactly,’ Bäckström said. ‘The union’s lawyer is going to get back to me if there’s anything I’ve missed, but I suppose if that happens we can always add a little amendment.’
‘But hang on a minute,’ Olsson said, holding up his hands in his usual ges
ture. ‘You don’t think perhaps that this might be—’
‘Correct me if I’m wrong,’ Bäckström interrupted, glaring keenly at Olsson, ‘but I hope you’re not trying to suppress the reporting of a number of serious offences?’
‘Of course not, of course not,’ Olsson said. ‘I’ll see that this is addressed at once.’ What do I do now? he thought once Bäckström had disappeared. And what choice do I actually have? He dialled Moa Hjärtén’s number.
That gave the little bastard something to suck on, Bäckström thought as he shut the door behind him. As for him, it was high time for a chilled beer.
Jan Lewin spent the day going through the piles of paper on his desk one more time, without finding anything interesting. His contact in the Security Police hadn’t been in touch, despite his promise, and when Lewin called him he just got his answer machine. Something urgent’s probably come up, Lewin thought, feeling a pang of guilt about the fact that he was so impatient.
Just before it was time to leave off for the day, Eva came into his office and told him that in her inquiries concerning their 92-year-old witness she had made a minor discovery that probably wasn’t at all interesting. The flight officer who had been married to the pilot’s younger daughter for the past five years wasn’t the biological father of her child. There was another man, thirty-five years old, the same age as the child’s mother, but hardly the sort of person to make a police officer’s mouth water, or even that of a civilian employee like her.
‘He’s lived here in town for ten years. Seems to be some sort of culture vulture, no criminal record, nor any mention of him in our files,’ Svanström summarized, handing over the printouts about the child’s hitherto unknown father.
Not a name that sets any alarm bells ringing, Lewin thought. But then why should it? And why is everyone in this case called Bengt? Bengt Olsson and Bengt Karlsson and the pilot, Bengt Borg. Plus at least twenty or thirty other witnesses and men who’d provided DNA samples who all shared the name Bengt.
‘What’s his job these days?’ Lewin asked, mostly for the sake of saying something.
‘The computer’s playing up, so you’ll have to wait till tomorrow,’ Svanström said. ‘When their daughter was born he seems to have been working for Malmö City Theatre. Like I said, seems to be some sort of culture vulture.’
Lewin sighed. Well, if no one else felt like doing it, he might as well make a serious attempt to talk to Linda’s parents. Culture, culture vulture, he thought as soon as Eva had shut the door. What exactly am I hoping to find?
On Thursday morning the journalist Carin Ågren suddenly appeared in Växjö police station, to file an official complaint against Detective Superintendent Bäckström for sexual harassment. Because the officer of Växjö Police who received the complaint had been discreetly warned by Detective Superintendent Olsson the previous evening, he immediately set to work with all the conscientiousness that the matter demanded, and held a lengthy interview with the victim.
Now that little fat metropolitan bastard would have to hold on to his hat, he thought in delight as he read the printout of the interview back to Ågren and got it accepted and signed.
Detective Superintendent Olsson reached the same conclusion when he read the same interview an hour later. Since he was at heart a peaceful soul, and had already spoken to Bäckström’s boss, who had promised to find a definitive solution to the Bäckström problem by the weekend at the latest, he decided to take some time owing and spend a couple of extra days at his house in the country. He had been working almost two months without a break, and it was high time that he recharged his batteries in advance of the coming week’s renewed efforts. If anyone was going to say goodbye to that little nightmare from the regal capital city, someone else could do it, Olsson thought before heading out of town to his beloved wife and the relative tranquillity of the Småland countryside.
On Thursday afternoon Lewin’s contact from the Security Police finally got in touch. After the introductory apologies – something had come up out of the blue and got in the way – he said that he thought Lewin would probably forgive him, seeing that he had a fair amount to tell him.
The person the mobile phone belonged to had been identified. He worked in the culture department of Växjö Council, and the council was listed as the account holder. On Monday 7 July the owner had reported his mobile phone missing, some time between Thursday 3 July and Monday 7 July. On Thursday 3 July the owner had taken a few days off, and he had a distinct memory of leaving the mobile in the desk drawer in his office. When he returned from his short break he couldn’t find it. He had spoken to the colleague who was responsible for the council’s phones. The mobile had been reported missing at once, and the account had been blocked.
None the less, it had been used to make two calls during that time. First, the wrong number that Lewin had been interested in, at 02.15 on Friday 4 July. And second seven hours later the same day. Both calls had been traced back to the mast they had been sent via. The first call appeared to have been made from central Växjö, while the second had been traced to a mast outside Ljungbyholm, about ten kilometres south-west of Kalmar. The second call had been made to another mobile, the sort of pay-as-you-go cell phone with an unknown user that was all too common in this sort of context. It hadn’t been used since then.
‘Well, that’s about it,’ Lewin’s old friend said. ‘I’ll email you all the details, so it’s over to you now.’
‘Thank you, thanks very much indeed,’ Lewin said, who knew what was coming. ‘By the way, I don’t suppose you could give me the name of our mobile user?’
‘Oh, did I forget to mention that to you?’ Lewin’s friend was clearly having some difficulty concealing his glee. ‘How strange. You’re probably barking up the wrong tree, I’m afraid. I took a moment to look him up, and he doesn’t appear in our register, or yours. Seems to be a perfectly ordinary, decent, honest citizen. Above all suspicion, not to mention all the horrors that people like you seem to enjoy wallowing in.’
‘But I dare say he still has a name?’ Lewin said, who had been through this before.
‘His name’s Bengt Månsson, Bengt Axel Månsson,’ Lewin’s contact said. ‘You’ll get all his details in the email. His passport photo is also fairly recent. Less than a year old, if I remember rightly.’
Once doesn’t count, but twice is too many, Lewin thought. He hated coincidence, and had been told the same name by Eva Svanström just before he had left work the previous day. The father of the little girl who had a grandfather who used to be a pilot.
‘Thanks,’ Lewin said. ‘I’ve a feeling this case is solved now.’
‘If you say so, I believe you,’ his colleague concurred. He had also been around a while, and had known Jan Lewin since they were at Police Academy together.
74
AS SOON AS he had hung up, Jan Lewin did exactly what he always did in similar situations. First he closed his door and made sure the red light was on. Then he took a sheet of paper and a pen and tried to make sense of everything that was going through his head. It always got easier when he could see it on paper. And for once he didn’t have to worry about either Olsson or Bäckström. Olsson had taken some time owing and gone out to the country, and there was really no need for Lewin to disturb him with the little he had to tell him. Bäckström’s general absence was conspicuous, and with a bit if luck he was already packing for his return to Stockholm.
Which left the facts, Lewin thought. Which facts spoke for and against Bengt Månsson, Bengt Axel Månsson, thirty-five years old, responsible for so-called special projects in the culture department of Växjö Council, father to the daughter of the pilot’s younger daughter, a person he had never met, spoken to or even glimpsed, who appeared nowhere in his investigation, and evidently not in any other police case either . . . What evidence was there to suggest that he either did or did not murder Linda Wallin? And where had he come across his name before Eva Svanström and then his old friend at the Securi
ty Police had given it to him? And then he had suddenly thought of his first proper bicycle. A red Crescent Valiant. And can it really be possible? he thought as he recalled the old article in the Småland Post about the local cultural dispute that had broken out in Växjö just a week or so after the murder, and which, all things considered, shouldn’t have anything to do with his investigation.
Let’s begin with the profile, and for once let’s try to be a bit professional, Lewin thought, clearing his head of all extraneous thoughts. To suggest that Månsson didn’t match the profile was a considerable understatement, even from the little that Lewin already knew about him. The only thing that didn’t seem to be utterly wrong was that he lived on Frövägen in the part of town known as Öster, about two kilometres south of the crime scene. But half the population of the town lived within that radius, so it was of little help for anyone looking for a perpetrator. To put it mildly, there was nothing that matched, and according to the CP group’s profile, Månsson was entirely unthinkable as the perpetrator.
Yet the fact that his mobile had been used to make the mysterious wrong number call to the anaesthetist indicated that he could have something to do with the murder. Of course, it could be the case that he simply called a wrong number, and so far there was nothing to suggest that he knew either Linda or her mother, but the coincidence of a call to that number at that time on that night was undeniably highly peculiar.
The idea that his mobile might have been lost or even stolen was also rather strange, considering the timing and the context. If someone had stolen it, why would they only have made two calls, one of which was the supposedly mistaken call to the number that the victim’s mother had had a few years before? People who stole phones weren’t usually so restrained. And suspected perpetrators seemed to be struck remarkably often by crimes in which perfect strangers for some reason chose to relieve them of possessions which might otherwise prove highly problematic for their owners.
