Cinderella Girl

by Carin Gerhardsen

  Hamad stared blankly at the names before him. He did not know how many times he had let his eyes run over these endless lists, but he knew that somewhere here there was a significant name. He wished that one of the names would speak to him, would leap out, but the best he could do was to learn to recognize as many as possible. He hoped that sooner or later he would be rewarded for his diligence. That was how he worked: methodical, focused and persistent. Sjöberg, who lacked that sort of patience and seldom could stick to the same task for very long, relied on intuition and energy. Hamad relied on being systematic, on dogged zeal and stubborn perseverance. And as a result of these monotonous marathons, he had developed his already good memory. It was rare, but it happened and it would happen again. That creeping sensation would come over him: the seed of an idea, a sense that he ought to react. In the beginning he would not know to what he was reacting, but gradually it would come to him.

  There was half an hour before he was due to question yet another of the passengers from the Finland ferry, and he decided to plough through another two pages of names before rewarding himself with a cup of coffee. There were two names left on the page when something clicked. This time it did not creep up on him; he saw it at once. His eyes wandered across the row, from the name and personal identification number to the telephone number and address. Every detail he had in front of him tallied with what he had seen a few hours earlier. The man whose wallet Elise had turned in, Sören Andersson, born in 1954 with an address on Katarina Bangata, had been one of the passengers on the Finland boat when Jennifer was murdered.

  What should he do with this information? They now had a connection between Jennifer and a previously unknown fellow passenger. A lost wallet, Sören Andersson’s wallet, handed in to the police by Jennifer Johansson’s younger sister. How had Elise come across it? Naturally, she must have found it among Jennifer’s possessions. The two sisters shared a room. Perhaps Jennifer stole it from Sören Andersson and Elise had found it and handed it in to the police.

  But why in that case would Elise lie about that and pretend she found it on the street? Because she did not want to tarnish her sister’s memory? No, that didn’t add up. And it was in Elise’s interest for her sister’s murderer to be arrested. Does a man commit murder because his wallet was stolen? But maybe there had been something special in the wallet – something that the man was determined to keep secret at any price. Maybe it was something that was no longer there, that wasn’t there when Elise turned in the wallet. Thoughts were whirling around in Hamad’s head.

  Quickly he scanned the rest of the solo travellers and determined that Sören Andersson was one of the men scheduled to be questioned by Sjöberg, but who had not yet been contacted. He grabbed the telephone and called the lost property department.

  ‘Sören Andersson, the one with the wallet that I spoke to you about – have you got hold of him yet?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, we have. He’s here now.’

  ‘Keep him there for me. Detain him somehow, without making him suspicious. I’m coming down right away.’

  He rushed down to the lost property department, but stopped in the corridor and took a few deep breaths, not wanting to be out of breath or seem excited. For a minute or two he stood like that before stepping into the office, hoping he seemed casual and relaxed. His eyes met the young policeman’s, who signalled that this was the sought-after Sören Andersson he was talking to. Hamad went up to him and put a hand on his shoulder.

  ‘Sören Andersson?’ he asked calmly.

  The man looked back at him with a blank expression. ‘Yes?’ he answered.

  ‘I’ve been trying to get hold of you about a completely different matter,’ Hamad said slyly. ‘It’s great that you happened to come in right now. Would you please come with me up to my office? It won’t take long.’

  ‘Sure,’ answered Sören Andersson. ‘Were we done with the formalities?’ he asked the policeman at the counter.

  The police officer smiled and nodded in reply, and Hamad gave him a grateful wink as he left with Sören Andersson.

  He was tall and thin with sunken cheeks, and gave the impression of being relaxed. His hair was strawberry blond, thin and unruly, and seemed freshly washed.

  ‘The reason I want to talk to you is that you were a passenger on the Finland cruise over the weekend where a young girl was found dead,’ Hamad said when they had sat down on either side of his desk.

  ‘I see,’ the man answered with no noticeable reaction.

  ‘I’m sure you were told by the Finnish police that you might be questioned again?’

  ‘Yes, they mentioned that.’

  ‘At the present time we are questioning all men who travelled alone across the Baltic, and from what I understand you travelled without a companion?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  The man’s expression did not show that he was uncomfortable in the situation or that he was worried about the questions he had to answer. Hamad thought that either Sören Andersson was a very good actor or he really had nothing to fear from the police.

  ‘What was the purpose of your trip?’ Hamad asked.

  ‘Just a pleasure trip,’ the man answered.

  ‘So how did you spend your time? Did you meet anyone?’ Hamad continued.

  ‘No, I didn’t meet anyone in particular. I danced a little. Ate and drank. Played the slots.’

  ‘Did you win anything?’

  ‘A few kronor.’

  ‘Jennifer Johansson, which was the girl’s name, was seen in the bar on board together with a man your age. Was that you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you quite sure of that?’

  ‘Like I said, I didn’t meet anyone. I didn’t sit in the bar with anybody.’

  ‘So our witnesses are not going to point you out?’

  ‘How would that be possible?’

  The man was cold as a piece of ice, showing no signs of uncertainty.

  ‘You danced, you said?’ Hamad continued.

  ‘Yes, a little.’

  ‘With anyone in particular?’

  ‘With a few different women.’

  ‘How many?’

  ‘Five, maybe.’

  ‘Anyone you talked to?’

  ‘Not that much.’

  ‘You didn’t dance with Jennifer Johansson?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’re sure of that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Hamad asked him to recount in detail what he had done during the trip, and Sören Andersson described what he had been up to without leaving any obvious gaps in his story. He had slept alone in a two-bed cabin and gone to bed at one o’clock on the night of the murder. The man looked ordinary; there was nothing in his appearance or behaviour that might attract attention as far as Hamad could see. He showed him a photograph of Jennifer Johansson and another depicting the clothes she had been wearing when she was murdered.

  ‘Do you recognize her?’ asked Hamad.

  ‘No,’ the man answered calmly. ‘I’ve seen the pictures before, but I’ve never seen the girl.’

  There was not much more Hamad could do, so he moved on to talk about Sören Andersson’s current errand at the police station. As if in passing he tossed out his question, with a half-regretful, half-joking smile.

  ‘And then you went and lost your wallet. Was it on the boat you lost it or –?’

  ‘No, it was before.’

  ‘Was it stolen?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I must have left it somewhere or dropped it.’

  He answered calmly and factually, without looking away, but Hamad’s smile went unanswered. Sören Andersson showed no signs of anxiety.

  ‘Where do you think it might have happened?’

  ‘No idea. I didn’t discover it until the next day.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘Last Saturday.’

  ‘So you lost it on Friday?’

  ‘Yes, I must have.’

  ‘When do you think it happene
d?’

  ‘In the afternoon or evening.’

  ‘When did you last see the wallet, do you think?’

  ‘When I was out shopping, about four.’

  ‘Were you out in the evening?’

  ‘I took a walk.’

  ‘Alone?’

  ‘Alone.’

  ‘You have no family?’

  ‘Sure. Wife and kids.’

  ‘But they didn’t want to go along on the Finland cruise?’

  ‘They had other things to do.’

  ‘Where did you get the money for the trip, since you’d lost the wallet?’

  ‘My bank cards weren’t in it.’

  ‘Where do you usually keep them?’

  ‘I leave them at home if I don’t think I’m going to use them.’

  ‘Why didn’t you file a police report?’

  ‘There was nothing of value in the wallet. A little money, but I didn’t think I’d get it back.’

  ‘And yet you did in the end anyway?’

  ‘Apparently there are honest people.’

  ‘Do you know who brought in the wallet?’ asked Hamad.

  ‘Evidently someone who wanted to remain anonymous.’

  ‘Do you have any idea who that might be?’

  ‘No.’

  Brief, concise answers, no unnecessary digressions. Sören Andersson was a man of few words or a man who carefully avoided saying too much. Hamad decided it was time to end the interview.

  * * *

  If you take a walk at night with a pram in Vitabergsparken, you don’t live far from there, Petra concluded. If you usually go to Blecktornsparken in the afternoons, that only strengthens that theory.

  A number of tips had come in since the newspapers started reporting on the incident, but they were able to dismiss them all. Petra had visited all the paediatric health centres within a reasonable distance from Vita Bergen, even Liljeholmen, which was almost too far away. The private alternatives that existed in several places in the city had also been checked off the list. She had made home visits to a handful of paediatric nurses who had not been at work the last few days to ask whether they recognized the boy or his mother. Everywhere she had come up empty-handed.

  They had no witnesses, no names. It was high time to submit the pictures to the media and ask the general public for help. Someone would find out that he had lost his wife by seeing the picture of a dead woman in the newspaper. Someone would turn on the TV and be met by their dead daughter’s pale face. It was not how they usually worked. But they had to do something to move the investigation forward. Anything else was indefensible.

  That was partly why Petra was now back at the station, even though there were still a few paediatric nurses left to check off. To discuss strategy with Sjöberg. To ask him for help with the reconstruction of the hit-and-run accident, if it had, in fact, been an accident. But there had also been something so ominous about his tone of voice on the phone that she was having a hard time concentrating on anything else. He had asked her to come in for a talk and she might as well bite the bullet.

  She gave a slight shudder as she passed Sjöberg’s door in the corridor. It was cracked open and she could hear him talking to someone in there. Calm and friendly. She went into her own office, hung her jacket on the hook behind the door and sat down at the desk to collect herself. Her mouth was dry; her heart was pounding loud beats in her ears. She could not remember being so nervous since her driving test. It was important to stay on Sjöberg’s good side. It was hard not to be; he liked people, appreciated them for who they were, whatever they were like. But he was a person you did not want to let down; Petra had a strong feeling that somehow she had done that.

  A light knock at the door made her jump in her chair.

  ‘Nervous?’ asked Gunnar Malmberg, deputy police commissioner, with a smile distinctly lacking in warmth.

  Petra laughed and shook her head.

  ‘No, I was just deep in thought.’

  He stepped into the office and sat down in the visitor’s chair across from her.

  ‘A lot going on in your mind, I imagine?’

  The smile was already completely gone.

  ‘Yes, I’m working extremely intensively on a case –’

  ‘I guess you have time for other things too?’

  Petra did not understand, and squirmed a little in her chair, unable to think of anything to say.

  ‘Outside of work.’

  He was leaning far back in the chair with his legs apart and his hands clasped over his stomach. Handsome and smart in a well-ironed shirt, tie and jacket, he looked at her with an aura of self-assurance. Her brain worked feverishly trying to understand the reason for his visit.

  ‘What were you doing last Friday, for example?’

  ‘I was on a course all day, as you know,’ answered Petra, feeling surprise turning into irritation. ‘Is this some kind of interrogation?’

  Malmberg was the police commissioner’s henchman. The police commissioner himself was an idiot, dense and ignorant, but with an ingratiating smile and the gift of the gab. It was Malmberg who did the work. Always one step behind the police commissioner, talented, shrewd and with a superficial charm that could impress anyone. Which he was not showing any sign of right now, as he studied her with a blank expression.

  ‘Does that surprise you?’

  ‘Yes, very much,’ answered Petra, bolder now.

  ‘What did you do after the course?’

  ‘I went back to the police building and worked out in the gym. Then I had a beer with a colleague.’

  ‘One beer?’

  Inconceivable. What was he getting at?

  ‘Do you suspect that I’m drinking too much; is that what this is about?’

  ‘Just answer my questions, please. How many beers did you have?’

  Petra rolled her eyes.

  ‘Five, I think. So now you know.’

  ‘Who were you out with and where were you?’

  ‘When did you become an internal investigator?’ countered Petra.

  ‘I’m an internal investigator in this particular case, on orders from the police commissioner.’

  Brandt, realized Petra. That lecher feels slighted and now he’s trying to smear me.

  ‘And I think you should be grateful for that,’ Malmberg continued. ‘That there aren’t others involved, I mean.’

  He added this last with a quickly passing smile that made her think of a father admonishing a child.

  ‘So who were you out with and where were you?’

  ‘I was at the Pelican with Jamal Hamad.’

  ‘And when did you leave there?’

  ‘At eleven-thirty, I think.’

  ‘Together?’

  After a moment’s hesitation Petra answered, ‘We left the bar together, yes.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘What exactly are you looking for?’

  ‘I am looking for exactly what you did then,’ Malmberg answered.

  ‘Ah, I understand,’ said Petra with a contemptuous smile. ‘I know that Brandt is interested in sex, but from that to mapping the sex lives of his staff … You can tell him that I did not hop into bed with Jamal and that I am not interested in hopping into bed with the police commissioner either.’

  Malmberg’s expression revealed nothing of what he was thinking. Factually and in an ice-cold voice he continued the questioning.

  ‘But you stopped by the police station before you went home?’

  ‘No, I did not.’

  ‘The log from your pass card shows that you came in at 11.44 p.m. and left the building at 12.06 a.m.’

  ‘But that’s not right,’ said Petra, feeling at a disadvantage in this mysterious interrogation.

  She did not know what this was about, she did not know what they intended to punish her for, but it would amount to nothing. Then she suddenly remembered something.

  ‘After the course Jamal and I went back to the station; I went up to the office and while I was gett
ing my workout bag I put my pass card on the desk and left it there. We went down to the gym together, and he let me in. We left there together, took our bags to the office again and either I simply forgot to take the card from the desk or else it was no longer there.’

  ‘In that case, why haven’t you reported your lost pass card? You know that’s what regulations prescribe.’

  ‘Because it was here on the desk on Saturday when I dropped in. I hadn’t even missed it. The main entry was open, I went straight up to the office and here it was.’

  ‘So someone borrowed your pass card. Perhaps someone borrowed your computer too?’

  ‘No,’ said Petra. ‘No one knows my password.’

  ‘So what is it? “Westman” maybe?’

  Petra tried a smile that was supposed to look superior.

  ‘Nothing that easy.’

  ‘Show me,’ said Malmberg challengingly.

  ‘My password? Never.’

  ‘Your computer. Log in.’

  While Petra logged into the computer he sat calmly, without trying to see what she typed.

  ‘There,’ said Petra. ‘I’m in.’

  ‘You maintain that your computer security is not compromised? That no one besides you could get into your computer?’

  Petra nodded, but suddenly felt uncertain whether that was the right answer.

  ‘Go into your e-mail,’ Malmberg continued in a frosty voice.

  Petra did as she was told without resisting. She had no obligation to accommodate him, but she wanted to get this whole thing over with.

  ‘At 11.58 p.m. on Friday you sent a provocative e-mail to Roland Brandt,’ said Malmberg, getting up from the chair and straightening his tie. ‘He is deeply offended and is going to take action. The fact that you were drunk might possibly be considered an extenuating circumstance. Or aggravating. We’ll get back to you when a decision has been made about whether drug treatment, suspension, transfer or termination will be necessary. Goodbye.’

  The deputy police commissioner left the office with self-confident steps. Petra felt ready to cry, still not having a clue about what she was really being accused of. With a lump in her throat she double-clicked on the folder of sent mail.

  * * *