“We do have our production to consider,” De Soto said, but it was an empty objection. He and Moya both knew this. The latter did not bother responding to it.
“We thank you for your cooperation,” he said politely. “We will leave some ten officers here for a few hours. If we need to remove any materials from your company, then we will of course present the required legal documentation to facilitate this.”
De Soto knew that Moya had the upper hand and played along. He said something in Spanish and Moya cast an amused glance at him.
“Thank you for everything,” Lindell said and grasped De Soto’s hand energetically.
Haver shot her a look. “That’s what it says on funeral wreaths,” he said in Swedish.
“It may be a funeral we’re witnessing,” she answered.
They returned to the police headquarters in Plaza Azaña in silence. Moya appeared thoughtful. Lindell knew that he was reviewing his performance, perhaps testing his arguments and the solidity of the effort. She recognized this. The afterthoughts. Should we have done this a different way? What will the prosecutor say?
She had not understood all of the implications in the exchanges between Moya and De Soto. There was something more in all of this that Lindell did not grasp. She was irritated at not being fully briefed but calmed herself with the thought that this was only the beginning. It was a game. She and the other Swedes were only pawns.
Had Moya used them for reasons she did not understand? What lay behind this massive response from the Spanish authorities?
When they stepped out of the car at the station, Moya suggested that they eat dinner together. Lindell was exhausted. Trying to follow everything, to speak English and be smart, had taken its toll. What she wanted most of all was to stretch out on the hotel bed.
“With pleasure,” she said and smiled her nicest smile.
* * *
They moved into the same conference room that they had been in before. King Juan Carlos on the wall looked far more satisfied now, Lindell thought.
“I have to ask you why you held back so much in the beginning,” Lindell began. “You gave us the impression that you did not have the formal warrants necessary for a larger action against UNA Médico.”
“I did not want to create all too great expectations,” Moya said modestly. “It is better to be able to provide positive surprises.”
“I recognize the name Jaime Urbano,” Haver said.
Everyone looked at him in astonishment.
“That’s why you reacted so strongly,” Lindell said in Swedish.
“We have reviewed the passenger lists to both the Dominican Republic and Málaga,” Haver continued. “There are thousands of names, but we removed all of the ones that we thought were tourists, Swedish retirees who live on the Costa del Sol, and those traveling for health reasons. It was a little subjective, but we had to proceed in some manner. And still there were a thousand names left. Among them was Jaime Urbano.”
“Why do you remember this name?” Moya asked.
“My neighbor’s name is Urban,” Haver said. “I thought it was a little funny that there was someone with the name Urbano as a last name. That was all it was.”
“And Urbano traveled to Stockholm?”
Haver nodded.
“I don’t remember when it was, but he is on the list,” he said. “But perhaps there are many Urbanos?”
“Probably around one hundred in Málaga alone,” Moya said. “But not so many Jaime Urbanos. Are you sure of the first name?”
“Very,” Haver said.
“Do you have the lists with you?”
“No, but if I can borrow your fax, we can get them shortly.”
Arrabal recited his fax number.
Haver glanced at the clock, picked up his cell phone, and dialed.
* * *
Lindell feared that the dinner Moya invited them to would be at a fancy restaurant and eyed the clothes she had brought with her critically. But to her surprise they ended up at a casual joint in the shadow of the great cathedral. Because it was an outdoor café with a large number of people around the many tables, the noise level was high. Traffic on the narrow street sometimes made it hard to hear what was said, but Moya appeared to think that it was quite normal to take care of police matters in the midst of the noise and bustle.
Lindell stared up at the cathedral. She thought the building looked heavy, as if it was pressing down on the observer with its imposing, almost frightening facade that most resembled a fortress. She imagined that it gave a completely different impression from the inside.
Moya ordered food and drink as he chatted about Málaga and asked about his Swedish colleagues’ family lives. When Lindell explained that she lived alone, he gave her a look that was difficult to interpret but that she understood to be one of commiseration, as if she had confided that she suffered from a severe illness.
“We now know with certainty,” Moya said when the food was on the table, “that Jaime Urbano—and it’s very likely that he is our man—flew to Stockholm two days before Cederén’s wife and child were killed, more exactly on the twelfth of June. Three days later he returned. On this trip he was accompanied by a certain Benjamin Olivares. A lowlife that we are also well acquainted with.”
Lindell felt a rising excitement. For each hour that they spent in Málaga, she was becoming more and more convinced that Gabriella Mark had been right: Sven-Erik Cederén had not killed his family, nor had he committed suicide.
“For what it’s worth, Olivares is a small-time crook who doesn’t appear in connection with any more substantial violent crimes, but in Urbano’s company, anything can happen,” Moya went on. “We have been searching for Urbano for a while, but no one seems to have seen him for several weeks. We know that he received a large sum of money in the middle of June. This is confirmed by several independent sources: a drug dealer whom Urbano owed money and also a prostitute for whom he was a regular.”
“How did you manage to gather all of this information in so short a time?” Haver asked.
He was tucking into the octopus with gusto. Lindell wished he would use his napkin on his greasy mouth.
“We’ve had our eye on Urbano for a while,” Moya said. “Or rather, we’ve been looking for him.”
He put down his knife and fork, rested his chin on his hand, and gazed up at the cathedral.
“He is a cop killer,” he said darkly.
Moya took a sip of his wine, put his glass down, and let the words sink in. Lindell glanced at Haver. That’s why he had struck with such force, she thought. He had already uncovered a connection between Urbano and UNA Médico, and when we came to him with our questions, it fit perfectly into his plan to take a torch to the company.
“What worries me is how Urbano has been able to travel in and out of the country under his own name without us discovering it,” Moya said.
“Do you want to tell us what happened?” Haver asked.
Moya nodded and poured himself some more wine before he started. Lindell was done eating and waited for him to continue.
“It was in the beginning of May. A colleague from the local police had pulled over a car to the north of the city. We don’t know why, but he guided the car to the side of the road. It was a white Honda, according to the only witness—a young car mechanic who was waiting for a bus some fifty meters away.”
A car went by at high speed and Moya made a face.
“The witness saw the driver step out of the car and take something out of his pocket—it turned out to be a pistol—and immediately opened fire on the police officer. The officer had only just made it out of the car when he was struck by four shots, of which one should have killed him immediately. But he lived for a couple of minutes.”
Moya looked down and paused.
“The whole thing went very quickly,” he said. “The driver of the Honda calmly got back in his car and drove away. It was as if he had stopped only to aid an animal that he had struck on the road a
nd put it out of its misery. He smiled as he drove past the witness, who then ran straight to the scene of the crime. Our colleague had time to say a few words to the witness before he died. He gave us the name Jaime Urbano. We know that he recognized Urbano from before. Why he stopped Urbano, we have no idea. It was admittedly a foolish thing for him to do on his own, but the punishment should not have been death.”
“And you have been searching for Urbano since then?” Haver asked.
“Day and night. We quickly found out that he had been in contact with UNA Médico. This surprised us. The company had a good reputation and had never previously been involved in illegal activities. Not as far as we know, at least. We did not know the nature of the connection, but when Urbano is involved, it is not a regular business agreement.”
“So you began to take a closer look at UNA Médico,” Lindell said, seeing clearly the parallels to her own investigation.
Moya told them about the efforts that both the national and local police had made to locate the police killer. The name Olivares had turned up early. The intensified police efforts had roiled up Málaga’s underworld, and there had been widespread gossip about the two men. Many passed this information along to the police, perhaps to secure some peace and calm for themselves.
“We received a tip that Urbano and Olivares had been spotted in Ronda, which is a town some distance up into the mountains. That was a week ago.”
In some way Lindell knew what was about to follow.
“Olivares is dead, isn’t he?” she said.
If Moya was taken aback by this statement, he did not show it.
“You are a good detective,” he said and smiled. “Yes, he is dead. A half hour before we arrived here, our colleagues in Ronda called and said that a body had been recovered in a ravine outside of the town. It was Olivares. He had taken three shots, one behind the ear.”
“What will you do now?” Haver asked. Between the questions, he was still chewing his octopus.
“There is some information that Urbano may still be holed up in Ronda. It is a little town and the gossip travels quickly across the bridges. One of my old acquaintances—a check forger who now spends his time picking the tourists’ pockets in his bar—often gives us tips about his old buddies. He saw both of the men as recently as yesterday.”
Lindell felt a sense of gratitude. All of her suspicions of a corrupt Spanish police had come to nothing.
“We have arranged a trip to Ronda early tomorrow morning,” Moya said. “Perhaps you would like to join us?”
“Claro,” Haver said, and Lindell had rarely seen him look so pleased.
They stood up from the table after having agreed that Lindell and Haver would be picked up at four-thirty in the morning. Lindell checked her watch and quickly calculated how much sleep they would get.
In spite of her tiredness she had trouble winding down.
“I’m going to walk a bit,” she told Haver.
They parted ways. Haver walked toward the hotel and Lindell decided to visit the cathedral.
“I deserve to do a little sightseeing,” she had said to Haver, but it was actually a desire to be alone that drew her to the church.
A pair of beggars slouched outside the door. One of them—an older man with gray hair—uttered a few unintelligible words as Lindell went by. She stopped, fumbled around in her shoulder bag, and pulled out five hundred pesetas, about as much as a beer had cost at the restaurant they had just left. She placed the coin in the man’s hand and received a gurgling sound in thanks.
Inside the cathedral there were preparations for an evening mass. Some fifty people were sitting in the pews. A custodian was walking around and lighting the candles in front of the altar. He looked bored and his movements were lackadaisical. It irritated her because she herself was overcome by a feeling of awe. She was in no way a believer but still felt that the area inside a church was conducive to peace and reflection.
The candles on either side of the sanctuary were put out one after one. An older woman in nun’s clothing stepped forward and tested the microphone by tapping on it with her finger. Lindell sat down. The nun launched into something that Lindell thought sounded like a hymn of praise. “Dios,” she heard the nun sing with a clear voice. The congregation rose to its feet and Lindell felt compelled to follow their lead.
The priest and his assistant—whom she had mistaken for a custodian but who was now dressed in a long coat—walked in and the mass began.
The congregation inserted a few words in the priest’s recitation. Why was I pulled into this? she wondered. She sat at the very front and did not feel that she could leave during the ceremony.
The nun burst into song again. She looked pleased, almost humorous, as if she did not take all this too seriously, but Lindell thought she was probably just happy to be able to express her unwavering faith.
The congregation sank down with a sigh, and Lindell sat gratefully. The priest took up where the nun left off and Lindell was captured by his voice, allowing herself to relax into a state of melancholy restfulness. She realized that what she was feeling was grief—a sense of sadness that she did not belong to any group with which she could share her beliefs. In a way, the police force was her safety net, but this did not get her very far when troubled thoughts overwhelmed her mind.
She wanted to leave the church while at the same time retain this feeling of worship. Perhaps this is where I will make my decision, she thought, only to find herself in the next moment cursing her own volatile emotions.
She stood up quickly but took her time to leave the church, in order to show proper respect to the mass in progress. The nun’s voice followed her, and as she came out onto the front steps, the beggar greeted her with a smile on his dried and cracked lips.
It was still very warm in the air—probably twenty-five degrees—and she walked slowly back to the hotel. She tried to think about the investigation and the more or less sensational turn that it had taken.
Twenty-four
Edvard pulled up the boat with a jerk. A few fish scales that still adhered to the railing after the late spring herring fishing caught on his hand. He picked them off with a thoughtful expression.
He knew that Ann was in Spain, but it didn’t matter. She might as well be in Uppsala; the distance would feel as great. It had been two weeks since they last met. The joy he had felt at seeing her again and actually being reunited with her had been replaced by the old sense of doubt.
His uneasiness was in part due to his knee. It ached, and occasionally his leg would give way, producing a lot of pain. Viola had told him to see a doctor.
Viola herself had not been completely well herself. Right after the Midsummer celebration she had contacted a severe cold with a high fever and a barking cough. Edvard could see that it had left its mark. She was still noticeably low and sluggish.
While they drank their morning coffee, the radio played songs from the fifties. Lily Berglund sang about “let a little sunlight in my mind.” They had looked at each other and laughed.
The sunshine had mostly been absent this summer, but today it had broken out in the afternoon and Edvard had decided to set some nets in the evening. He would surely snare a perch or two.
He had decided not to turn on the engine and had rowed out into the bay instead. The sea gull that spent so much time on his dock had followed him. Now it was back on the dock.
Viola had been unusually irritable before he set off. Something was bothering her. Sometimes she saw signs and got notions about things. She had suggested that the wind might pick up and that he should be careful. When he told her that he was only going some hundred meters out, she had calmed down a little.
He took her concerns seriously. Many times her somewhat vague predictions about the weather turned out to be true, though today she had been wrong. The bay was almost completely still and Edvard lingered on the shore.
Ann was fishing for bigger fish than he. She had told him very briefly why she was going to
Spain. Was he jealous that she got to travel? Or simply jealous, period? He knew that she met many people in her work, and he felt more and more like the isolated islander that he had to look like in comparison to the other men she met.
What kind of life could he offer her? A feeling of helplessness overcame him. How could he leave Gräsö and establish a new life? If he did, he would have to feel certain that it was somewhere he could remain for a long time. He was no nomad, despite his longing for new horizons. This realization had come to him during his two years on the island. He was not going to run anymore. Either stay on the island and focus on his island life and bachelor existence or start a new family with Ann and perhaps have children with her.
The wind picked up somewhat. Had Viola been right after all? Sometimes a wind picked up in the evenings and it didn’t die down again until morning. That was what Viola had worried about, he realized. She must have thought a little further ahead.
The gull took off, made anxious by the wind. Edvard walked indecisively up to the water’s edge. Fredrik Stark, his old friend from the farm labor union days, was going to come up for the weekend. Edvard didn’t know what to think about this. Of course it was nice to have company, but most of all he wanted to be here with Ann. He wasn’t sure how long she was staying in Spain. Should he call her cell phone? A sense of longing mixed with his completely unfounded jealousy ached in him. He was unable to describe it in any other way. An ache in his knee and an ache in his heart. He smiled to himself.
Twenty-five
The streets of Málaga were deserted when Haver and Lindell climbed into the Toyota to drive to Ronda. Moya looked tired. Likely he had gone back to work after their dinner the night before.
They drove in silence. Moya told them nothing about what to expect. They drove inland, and after half an hour—when they had left the coast and arrived at the mountains—they could see the Mediterranean spreading out behind them. Blue and inviting. Lindell thought about another sea—the Sea of Åland, which Edvard looked out over.
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