by Leif Persson
Then there was the stolen car as well. It could be linked forensically to the perpetrator they were looking for. Bengt Månsson could not, admittedly, be linked directly to the car, but he was the biological father of the car-owner’s grandchild, and if their 92-year-old witness had actually seen what she said she had, then the natural next step in the investigation was to present her with a set of photographs including one of Bengt Månsson.
The sooner the better, and with a bit of luck she didn’t go to bed as early as she got up, Lewin thought.
First he spoke to Eva Svanström, who promised to arrange the practical details at once, then he talked to Anna Sandberg. Partly because she had actually found their witness, partly because he had a feeling that she needed something else to think about, and partly because he was, in practice, in charge in Olsson’s and Bäckström’s absence.
‘I’ve got a feeling that you’re absolutely right,’ Anna Sandberg said, suddenly not seeming to spare a thought for her difficult domestic situation.
‘Well, we’ll find out soon enough,’ Lewin said.
‘That’s him. Him, the son. That’s what I’ve said all along,’ Mrs Rudberg said an hour later when they were sitting at her kitchen table and she had just put her finger on the picture of Bengt Månsson.
‘Like that Errol Flynn, who was in all those pirate films, but without a moustache,’ the witness went on. ‘He does look like him, doesn’t he? But why on earth would a father deny that he has a son? Maybe he’s illegitimate.’
Not the son, but the son-in-law. In the modern way that applied in today’s Swedish society, Lewin had explained as gently as he could, however you were supposed to do that to a 92-year-old woman. And from Småland, he thought.
‘Well, that’s it then,’ the witness said as soon as Lewin had finished. ‘I don’t know how many times I’ve seen him pushing the child in that pushchair.’
Which probably indicated that it was a few years ago, Lewin thought. But what difference would that make if you were close to a hundred years old yourself ?
‘That blue cashmere sweater,’ Anna Sandberg suddenly said when they were sitting in the car on their way back to the police station. ‘I’ve suddenly realized that it’s exactly the sort of sweater a pilot might have bought on one of his trips abroad.’
‘Not a bad thought,’ Lewin agreed. The same thought had occurred to him even before their witness put her finger on Bengt Månsson, but naturally he wouldn’t dream of saying so to Sandberg. It would have been both immodest and completely unnecessary.
‘What do you think about going to see him and showing him pictures of various sweaters, and asking if he’s ever had or bought or given away anything resembling any of them?’ Sandberg asked, evidently keen to carry on.
‘We should definitely do that,’ Lewin agreed. ‘But first we have to do something else.’
‘Never wake a sleeping bear,’ Sandberg said. ‘Not too early, anyway.’
‘Exactly,’ Lewin said. ‘First we find out as much as we possibly can about Månsson without having to ask anyone who might tell him about it.’
75
BÄCKSTRÖM HAD EVIDENTLY decided to hold out until the very last minute, and under those circumstances Lewin felt he had no choice. Regardless of anything else, he had to inform him. Now that their witness had identified Månsson, it was no longer a question of random shots in the dark, or improbable coincidences. And, since Lewin had these days somehow ended up wandering the same nocturnal paths as his colleague Bäckström, he chose to tell him before breakfast on Friday morning, just the two of them, in Bäckström’s room.
Bäckström was fresh from the shower, pink as a little piglet, his eyes only slightly bloodshot, and in an excellent mood.
‘Sit yourself down while I get my trousers on,’ he said. ‘If you fancy a morning beer, there’s one in the minibar,’ he added generously.
Lewin declined the offer and instead gave him a brief summary of the situation. Bäckström immediately started firing on all cylinders, and even forgot about putting on his trousers.
‘Fuck, Lewin,’ he said. ‘I think we’ve struck gold here.’
Who’s this ‘we’? Lewin thought, sighing deep inside. Then he suggested that they talk to the prosecutor as soon as they had put together a file about Månsson and his involvement in the murder inquiry. Everything suggested that this could be done that afternoon, and that they might even be able to go and pick Månsson up without any prior warning as soon as the prosecutor had taken the decision. The stolen car and the fact that their witness had picked him out ought to be sufficient grounds. Not least considering what this was actually about.
‘He’s supposed to be at work today, so the easiest thing would probably be to pick him up when he’s leaving.’
‘Not a chance!’ Bäckström said, shaking his head. ‘This bastard’s mine, and this is what we’re going to do . . .’
I wonder how he became yours? Lewin wondered as he headed downstairs shortly afterwards to get some breakfast.
As soon as Bäckström reached the police station he summoned the faithful to his room and allocated the jobs. Lewin, Knutsson, Thorén and Svanström, reinforced by Sandberg, would check out their suspect, Bengt Månsson. Not a stone was to be left unturned. Rogersson would take care of various unspecified tasks under the direct leadership of Bäckström, whilst Bäckström himself would manage and delegate the work, as well as obviously providing them with encouragement and support. And of course they were given a few words of advice to help them on their way.
‘This has to be kept quiet. Not a word to anyone outside this room. Don’t forget what I said about little Olsson being best mates with Månsson. I’m damn sure Olsson’s mixed up in this one way or another, and if we so much as whisper anything about this to him he’ll scuttle off and tell Månsson, and I don’t even want to think what that bastard might do.’
‘I was under the impression that you were going home to Stockholm, Bäckström?’ Lewin said. And what a fine way with words you’ve got, he thought.
‘Forget it,’ Bäckström said. ‘No one’s leaving this ship until we’ve made it to shore.’
‘It would still be interesting to know what you were thinking of doing yourself,’ Lewin persisted.
‘I’m going to arrange a bit of discreet surveillance of our perpetrator,’ Bäckström said. ‘So he doesn’t disappear and kill anyone else. Tell Adolfsson and that stuck-up toff that I want to talk to them right away.’
‘Of course, Bäckström,’ Lewin said. Not a word to anyone outside this room, he thought.
‘Månsson, Bengt Axel,’ acting Police Inspector and Baron Gustaf von Essen said a short while later when he and Adolfsson were standing in Bäckström’s office. ‘Isn’t he one of the town’s beloved Fellow Menfolk?’
‘Exactly,’ Bäckström agreed. ‘Crazed sex pests, the lot of them.’ So the stuck-up little twerp’s not completely stupid after all, he thought.
‘In that case he was the one who got blood all over your uniform, Adolf. I remember taking his name along with everyone else’s,’ von Essen said, with a nod to his partner.
‘So you’ve already beaten up the little fellow?’ Bäckström said cheerily, fixing his gaze on Adolfsson. Was I right about this lad or what? he thought.
‘Well, it wasn’t quite like that,’ Adolfsson said, and explained to Bäckström about his intervention in the brawl outside McDonald’s on Storgatan about three weeks before.
‘So what the fuck did you do with the uniform?’ Bäckström snarled, staring at Adolfsson with unusually narrow eyes, even taking into account the fact that they happened to be in Bäckström’s head.
‘I wiped off the worst of it and hung it back up,’ Adolfsson said, shrugging his shoulders. ‘Haven’t had time to hand it in. He didn’t seem to be your average junkie, so it ended up back in my locker.’
‘So what the fuck are we waiting for?’ Bäckström said excitedly, jumping up from his chair, and five minutes lat
er he was standing in front of Enoksson in the forensics unit, clutching the jacket of Adolfsson’s uniform. First he made Enoksson swear to keep quiet, then he explained what it was all about. According to Bäckström, informing Olsson was out of the question. Unfortunately there were a number of mysterious circumstances which indicated that Olsson was at best to be regarded as a clear security risk, but it was probably considerably worse than that.
‘With all due respect, Bäckström, I doubt things are quite that bad,’ Enoksson said as he examined Adolfsson’s jacket under a high-strength lamp.
‘Well, bollocks to that right now, Enok,’ Bäckström said in his usual polite way. ‘Is there enough blood left on there?’
Assuming that it was Månsson’s blood on the jacket, and that it hadn’t been contaminated with anything that Enoksson couldn’t see – but he didn’t want to risk damaging it by subjecting it to further examination at the moment – there was more than enough blood for a DNA analysis and anything else that might prove to be of interest given the context.
‘When can we have the results, then?’ Bäckström asked.
At the start of the following week, according to Enoksson, assuming that there were no legal hindrances of the sort that had been top of the agenda for the past few weeks.
‘Forget it,’ Bäckström said. ‘Do you think I’m prepared to risk him slaughtering half of Växjö while we wait?’
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Enoksson sighed. ‘From a purely technical point of view, they ought to be able to come up with a preliminary analysis within twenty-four hours, assuming there’s nothing wrong with the material we send them. But we mustn’t forget that it’s the weekend, as well. Anyway, weren’t you supposed to be going back to Stockholm?’
‘Weekend? We’re not talking weekends, Enok, we’re talking murderers!’ Bäckström blustered. And no one’s going anywhere, he thought.
‘I’ll be in touch in an hour or so,’ Enoksson sighed.
As soon as Bäckström had grabbed Adolfsson’s jacket and taken it off to Enoksson, von Essen and Adolfsson had begun the surveillance of their subject, Bengt Månsson. First they got a young female colleague from the surveillance unit of Växjö Police to make a call to Månsson at his office in the culture department, to find out if there was any chance of getting some funding for a theatre project for young immigrant women. While the conversation was going on, they parked their unmarked car a discreet distance away, from where they had a good view of the entrance to the premises of the culture department. Quarter of an hour later their female colleague called von Essen on his mobile to give a report. Not only was Månsson at his desk, he also sounded ‘really nice’, and had been ‘really interested’ in the project. He had even suggested that they meet up soon to discuss the idea in person.
‘So what kind of impression did you get of him?’ von Essen asked.
‘Horny,’ the female colleague declared. ‘Really horny. I think he wanted to check first to make sure I’m as nice as I sound. Let me know if there’s anything else I can do to help,’ she said, and giggled.
‘So what did little Caijsa have to say, then?’ Adolfsson said as soon as his partner had ended the call.
‘She seems quite taken with Månsson,’ von Essen said.
‘She’s quite taken with everyone,’ Adolfsson said, suddenly sounding rather cross for some reason.
‘Not quite everyone, surely?’ von Essen retorted innocently. He had been at the same staff party as Adolfsson a couple of months earlier.
Enoksson had done his best, and in the end one of his old contacts in the National Forensics Lab had given in and promised to help. She had to work that weekend anyway, so with a bit of luck she’d be able to find time to do what Enoksson wanted. But he could forget all about twenty-four hours. Assuming she got the material within the next few hours, and assuming it was usable, and assuming nothing unexpected happened, the earliest he could have the report was Sunday morning.
After some more persuasion, and the promise of both overtime and time off in lieu, he had also managed to find a young colleague who was prepared to act as a courier to Linköping, a round trip of four hundred kilometres, even though it was already Friday afternoon. Once Adolfsson’s jacket was safely on its way to the lab, Enoksson took several deep breaths and called Bäckström. Let’s hope this means we can actually get rid of the fat little bastard some time soon, Enoksson thought, even though he was renowned, with good reason, as being a gentle soul.
‘Sunday morning,’ Bäckström groaned. ‘So what the hell are they so busy with up there? Am I the only person doing any work in this fucking police force?’
‘Sunday morning at the earliest,’ Enoksson repeated.
‘I’m not deaf,’ Bäckström said, and hung up.
What’s wrong with just saying thank you? Enoksson thought, as he called his colleague Olsson to explain what was going on. Olsson, after all, was still head of the preliminary police investigation. But, as on so many previous occasions, Enoksson had to make do with leaving a message on his answering machine. ‘Yes, hello Olsson. Enoksson here. I didn’t want anything in particular, but if you feel like it, call me on the usual number. Otherwise, have a good weekend.’ Enoksson didn’t actually have any more faith in Adolfsson’s jacket than he had in the rest of Bäckström’s theories. Mainly he just wanted to get home to his beloved wife and their domestic bliss out in the Småland countryside.
76
ADOLFSSON AND VON Essen had spent the rest of Friday watching Månsson, which like all surveillance jobs had mainly meant sitting and waiting for something to happen. Because they were both keen hunters there was nothing particularly difficult about this. Hunting was all about the ability to wait. The fact that Månsson had met them three weeks before didn’t worry them much either. The idea, of course, was to see without being seen, and they estimated that the risk of Månsson’s seeing them before they saw him was fairly negligible. Not that it would matter much in a town the size of Växjö, where people were always bumping into each other.
At about four o’clock on Friday afternoon Månsson had emerged from his place of work in the council offices on Västergatan, just along from the concert hall, in the company of a few other people who, to judge by their appearance and manner and the way they were dressed, were probably his work colleagues. Adolfsson had taken a few discreet pictures from a safe distance, and noted the time and place in their surveillance log. There was nothing whatsoever to suggest that their subject was remotely like the serial killer Bäckström had warned them about.
First Månsson and the others had sat down at an outdoor terrace on Storgatan, a few blocks away from their offices. There they had drunk beer, eaten fried chicken wings and chatted. Then the company had broken up, disappearing in different directions, each of them most likely just going home. Månsson had headed east on Shanks’s pony, towards his home on Frövägen, and because that was a couple of kilometres away and he was obviously planning to walk, Adolfsson and von Essen decided to split up. Von Essen had followed him on foot, while Adolfsson took the car.
In spite of what the profile said about the killer, Månsson lived more than two kilometres from the place where he was supposed to have murdered Linda seven weeks earlier. But apart from that, the fact that he lived where he did was quite splendid, because one of their fellow officers from the traffic division happened to live in the building on the other side of the road. Månsson’s flat was on the third floor, and their colleague’s on the fourth floor of the building opposite, so things couldn’t be better for anyone wanting to see what Månsson got up to. They had managed to get hold of their colleague before they left the police station, as soon as Thorén had given them a list of addresses associated with Månsson. The officer had been seconded to Öland for the weekend, but he had nothing against letting them borrow his flat as soon as they told him what it was about. Nothing special, just a bit of extra overtime helping the drugs unit, von Essen had explained. ‘Great, let those junkie
s have it!’ their colleague had said as he handed over the keys. Von Essen and Adolfsson were to make themselves at home: everything was where they might expect in the home of a 39-year-old bachelor who worked for the traffic division of Kronoberg District.
When Månsson disappeared through the door of the building he lived in Adolfsson was already in position in the flat opposite, and by the time Adolfsson saw Månsson’s feet and legs come in through the front door of his flat von Essen had joined him.
‘He hasn’t got any curtains, either,’ von Essen said happily.
‘Culture vultures like him never have curtains,’ Adolfsson explained, as he followed Månsson through his personal pair of Zeiss binoculars, enlarged twenty times.
As von Essen and Adolfsson were settling into their new abode, Bäckström called them to find out how things were going. The subject was at home in his flat, on his own, and right now he was watching the seven thirty news on television, Adolfsson told him.
‘So he’s not doing anything he shouldn’t be?’ Bäckström asked.
‘Not apart from watching the news,’ Adolfsson said.
‘Call me if anything happens,’ Bäckström said.
‘Understood, boss,’ Adolfsson said.
‘I wonder what he’s really doing?’ Bäckström said, looking at Rogersson, who was dealing with their empty beer glasses.
‘So what was he really not doing just then?’ Rogersson asked.
‘Watching television,’ Bäckström said. ‘Who the fuck watches television at this time of day?’
‘Maybe he hasn’t got anything better to do,’ Rogersson suggested.
‘I bet you he’s got something new on the go,’ Bäckström said.
Månsson sat and watched television for about two hours, and the longer he sat there, the more often he zapped between channels. Like most other people, he seemed to have twenty or so to choose from. Just after half past nine he spoke to someone on the phone for a few minutes. Then he went into the kitchen and lifted some side plates down from the cupboard above the sink, took various things out of the fridge, sliced a baguette and put it all on a tray, which he carried through and placed on the coffee table in front of the sofa in the living room. Then he went back into the kitchen.
