‘Because he’s a sick bastard who doesn’t tolerate being contradicted.’
‘Well, he’s no doubt sick,’ Sjöberg observed. ‘He abuses his twenty-four-year-old son, and holds him in a kind of prison as his extremely obese mother’s caregiver. They also sleep together …’
‘Who sleeps together?’ Hamad wanted to know.
‘Father and son.’
‘Sleep together? In the same bed, or what?’
‘In the same bed. A single bed besides.’
‘You’re joking. Why haven’t you said anything about this?’
‘I am now. We’ve had other, more important things to talk about, haven’t we?’
‘This is important! Suddenly Joakim’s father is a person of interest in the investigation!’
‘Jamal, I’m telling you this now because he’s attracted our attention. There’s no reason to start speculating about sensitive issues like incest on such flimsy grounds.’
‘You’re the one who said it, Conny. You said incest, so you were thinking incest.’
‘The kid is twenty-four, Jamal. What can I do? Start an incest investigation on a twenty-four-year-old man? Joakim could report the matter himself if he wanted to. In theory he is perfectly capable of moving away from home and breaking contact with his family.’
‘In theory, yes. But not in practice. He’s chained to his sick mother.’
‘And to his sick father,’ Sjöberg agreed. ‘Yes, I know. And we’re stuck with our procedures. For that reason we’ll let this rest for the time being. Until we need it.’
‘You realize that Joakim may have been abused by his father the whole time he was growing up?’
‘I realize that, yes,’ Sjöberg sighed.
‘In that case it would mean that the old bastard is not only incestuous but a paedophile,’ Hamad pointed out.
‘Now let’s just take it easy. We can at least find out whether he was on board the boat before we start running away with this.’
‘You’ve already completed the thought.’
‘At the same time as you, I would think,’ Conny Sjöberg concluded the discussion.
Their suspicions proved correct. Neither of them was surprised when a short time later in Sjöberg’s office they determined that Göran Andersson, Joakim’s father, had been among the passengers on board the Finland ferry that fateful night. Hamad filled a briefcase with papers and other things he thought he might need that evening. Neither of them could predict how the next few hours would turn out, so it was as well to be prepared. He felt they could do without running back and forth between the police building and the homes of those involved. Eriksson was briefed on the latest thinking and Lotten was ordered to cancel Sjöberg’s and Hamad’s remaining interviews for the day. They also asked her to send photographs of Göran Andersson and Sören Andersson to Nieminen. Then they took off for Joakim’s apartment on Ölandsgatan.
No one opened the door, even though Hamad rang the doorbell several times. Not until Sjöberg called out to Joakim through the letter box were they let in. Joakim looked devastated, his eyes terrified.
‘Why don’t you open when the doorbell rings?’ Sjöberg said harshly, clomping straight into the living room without taking off his shoes.
Hamad followed and Joakim slunk behind them like a shadow, without saying anything. A middle-aged man was sitting in an armchair with a cigarette in one hand and a rolled-up newspaper in the other. He looked at them with an indifferent air and struck the newspaper against his knees a few times before Sjöberg began to speak.
‘Are you Göran Andersson, Joakim’s father?’
‘Yes. What’s he done now?’ he retorted, with an almost amused expression.
‘Nothing, as far as we know. On the other hand we would like to have a few words with you.’
He took a few quick puffs on his cigarette before he answered, ‘You don’t say.’
Sjöberg turned on the record function on the MP3 player and set it on the coffee table without asking for permission. Göran Andersson followed his movements with his eyes, but said nothing.
‘We have information that you were on board the boat where Jennifer Johansson, Joakim’s girlfriend, was murdered. What do you have to say about that?’
Sjöberg made an effort to be strictly factual, without revealing what he was thinking.
‘That might be true.’
‘For what reason did you make that trip?’
‘I guess a little getaway to Finland is never a bad thing.’
‘You have a sick wife to take care of in there,’ Sjöberg pointed out, gesturing towards the bedroom. ‘It seems a bit irresponsible to leave her without supervision for more than twenty-four hours. What do you have to say about that?’
Göran Andersson’s eyes flicked suspiciously from Sjöberg to his son.
‘Has Joakim –’ he said, before Sjöberg interrupted him.
‘Joakim has nothing to do with it. I’ve been here myself and seen her. How can you take off on a Finland cruise with Joakim and leave a family member who is in need of constant care at home alone for such a long time?’
‘We didn’t travel together,’ Joakim interjected.
‘No one asked you to open your mouth!’ his father shouted.
‘I’m the one leading the conversation here,’ said Sjöberg without raising his voice, giving the man in the armchair an ice-cold look. ‘So you didn’t travel together? Then I’m extremely curious about what business you had on that boat.’
‘I wanted to check up on what Joakim was up to. He didn’t have permission to go.’
‘No permission?’ Hamad interjected. ‘As far as I know, you don’t need your father’s permission for anything when you’re twenty-four years old.’
‘As you’ve seen, his mother needs care.’
‘And?’ Sjöberg said with feigned surprise. ‘Is that Joakim’s job? Taking care of your wife?’
‘Taking care of his mother is another way to look at it. Yes, that’s the arrangement we have. The kid gets paid for it.’
‘So, if Joakim happens to be away, you take the opportunity to go away at the same time? So that it’s completely certain she gets no care? Mrs Andersson should have had professional help long ago. We’re going to report this to social services.’
For the first time Göran Andersson looked bothered. He did not answer, but instead took a deep drag on the cigarette before he put it out in the ashtray on the table.
‘Were you aware that your father was on the boat?’ Hamad asked Joakim.
‘No,’ Joakim answered quietly. ‘Not until the morning. He showed up in the breakfast lounge.’
He did not dare look at his father when he answered. Nor could he stand to meet the eyes of the policemen. He stared down at the floor with his arms hanging at his sides.
‘Why haven’t you told us this before?’ asked Sjöberg.
‘Why should I have? No one asked. We didn’t travel together.’
‘But still,’ Sjöberg attempted, ‘you must have been very surprised when your father suddenly showed up out of nowhere.’
‘Yes … I guess I was,’ Joakim admitted.
‘Afraid perhaps?’
Joakim did not answer.
‘What did you talk about at breakfast?’
Sjöberg turned back to the father.
‘The murder, of course,’ the man answered. ‘I guess that was all anyone was talking about that morning.’
‘Did you know it was Joakim’s girlfriend who’d been murdered?’
Göran Andersson was silent for a few seconds before he answered. ‘I had my suspicions.’
‘How’s that? Had you met her?’
‘No, I hadn’t. But I knew her name.’
‘Was it not the case,’ Sjöberg suggested sharply, ‘that you spent some time in the bar on Saturday evening together with Jennifer Johansson?’
For a fraction of a second Sjöberg thought he saw a shadow pass across Göran Andersson’s face before he answere
d with a surprised laugh.
‘Where in the name of God did you get that from? I’ve never seen her! Until they showed me a picture of her in the morning.’
‘And if someone says they’ve seen you in the bar with her? What do you say to that?’
For the first time during the conversation Joakim looked over at his father. Sjöberg sensed both astonishment and fear in that look. A penny for your thoughts, Joakim, he thought before the father answered.
‘That someone is not a credible witness.’
‘I can tell you a thing or two about credibility,’ Hamad said. ‘A credible person does not assault his son. A credible person does not live his life in isolation with a seriously ill woman enclosed in a room without care. A credible person does not sleep in the same bed as his adult son.’
During the silence that followed his colleague’s unexpected outburst, Sjöberg observed father and son and noted that Joakim was blushing and had turned his eyes down to the floor again, while his father’s face was like stone. No one said anything for a long time.
‘How do you know Elise Johansson?’ Sjöberg broke the silence.
‘Who the hell is that?’
‘Elise is Jennifer’s sister, and we know that you met her a few hours ago.’
‘I don’t know her.’
‘Apparently you know her well enough to spit out a number of ugly things to her. “Aren’t you dead, you little whore?” for example. Why did you say that to a fourteen-year-old who has just lost her sister?’
Göran Andersson recovered quickly and answered without any hesitation, ‘She looked like that Jennifer. I thought it was her.’
‘You can’t very well have thought that, because you knew she was dead, didn’t you?’
‘All the more reason to be surprised,’ Göran Andersson observed drily.
‘So it was pure surprise that made you say that?’
‘Yes, you might say that.’
‘Who were you comparing her to?’
‘What do you mean, compare?’
‘Who were you comparing Elise to?’
‘To Jennifer, of course. What kind of crazy questions are these?’
‘But you’d never seen her, you say,’ Sjöberg continued.
‘I saw her on that picture they showed us, damn it.’
‘Would that be enough for you to see a similarity between the sisters? A photograph?’
‘Apparently,’ Joakim’s father answered coldly.
‘I don’t believe that,’ Sjöberg continued tirelessly. ‘You were with Jennifer in the bar, and that was the image you were comparing Elise with.’
‘You can believe what you want.’
‘But why did you call her a whore?’ asked Hamad.
‘I guess I thought she looked like one,’ answered Göran Andersson with a crooked smile.
‘Do you mean you would say the same sort of thing to anyone at all you think looks sluttish?’
‘Anyone at all, I don’t know exactly …’
Sjöberg did not intend to let him off that easily. He couldn’t escape logic just by being shameless.
‘You meet a girl in the stairwell outside. You maintain that you’ve never seen her before, and yet you say, “Aren’t you dead, you little whore?” Now I want you to explain to me exactly what was going on in your mind when you said that. Otherwise we’re taking you to the police station for interrogation.’
Göran Andersson let out a heavy sigh and finally answered reluctantly. ‘There has been one girl in Joakim’s life. One girl, and it was that Jennifer. I’d seen the picture of her the police showed. I didn’t like it that Joakim was going out with her. She was a bad influence on him. He went to Finland with her, even though I’d told him not to. So when I’m coming up the stairs and I catch sight of Joakim with a girl who I think looks exactly like Jennifer in the picture, I guess something goes wrong in my brain somehow. I didn’t really understand what I was seeing. I could only believe that it was her, but she was dead as far as I knew and it came out that way. Just like I said.’
Göran Andersson did not buckle under their pressure. Towards the end of this fruitless interview Hamad took a look around the apartment, and he too caught a glimpse of what Sjöberg had described to him: Joakim’s grotesquely overweight mother and the bed he apparently shared with his father. There was nothing more the two policemen could accomplish at the Andersson family home right then. They were preparing to leave when Hamad once again felt forced to bring up what bothered him most.
‘Why do two grown men share a bed? Can you explain that to me?’
He directed himself to the father, not to Joakim, but Göran Andersson simply dismissed him with a cold laugh.
‘You’ve seen what’s spread out in the double bed. Finally you get pushed off on to the floor, and then the only thing to do was move into the bed where there was still room.’
‘But you could easily get another bed,’ Hamad suggested sardonically.
‘Do you think I’m made of money? The little bastard can move out if he thinks it’s too cramped,’ replied Göran Andersson, unrolling the newspaper he’d held rolled up in his hand during the entire interview.
Hamad tried to make eye contact with Joakim, but he was occupied by something stuck under his thumbnail. With faint hope that the father intended to devote himself to reading, the two policemen left the apartment.
‘There’s something about that insult that doesn’t sit right,’ said Sjöberg when they were down on the street.
‘It doesn’t mean much more than brat these days,’ said Hamad.
‘Yes, but for our generation. You don’t blurt out such things just like that.’
‘Maybe you don’t, Conny, but the similarities between you and Göran Andersson are not exactly striking.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Sjöberg doubtfully. ‘Both of us are white-collar workers, roughly the same age …’
‘With his vocabulary you’d think he cleans at the bank.’
‘Stop right there. Maybe we shouldn’t be so prejudiced. With your appearance you’d think you clean at the police station.’
Hamad smiled fleetingly, but continued seriously. ‘But you have to admit you seldom encounter someone like him when you go to the bank.’
‘I’m sure he’s not that way at work. It’s just at home with the family that that side comes out. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. He’s not the only one who lets himself be provoked by the police.’
‘He sounded like a longshoreman,’ Hamad said.
‘I don’t think a longshoreman my age would call just anyone a whore.’
‘You think maybe there’s something more to it?’
‘Who knows? I’m thinking about those two Finnish businessmen. Maybe they weren’t the only ones Jennifer was misbehaving with on the boat.’
* * *
‘Is your mum or dad there?’
Didn’t the voice sound a little familiar?
‘Who is this?’ Hanna asked, curious.
There was silence on the line.
‘Is it Björn?’ asked Hanna. ‘It sounds like Björn.’
‘Yes, it’s Björn. I thought I would just have a few words with your mum or dad, and make sure it’s okay for me to come over and visit you this evening.’
‘Mummy moved away, I told you. And Daddy is in Japan. You know that!’
‘Sorry, I forgot. So do you still want me to come over?’
‘Yes, you promised!’ said Hanna. ‘And you’re going to bring sweets and hamburgers.’
‘I’ll do that. See you in a little while.’
‘Bye!’
Excited and expectant, she put the receiver back in the cradle, but she had just climbed down from the chair when the phone rang again.
‘Hi, this is Hanna. Is this Björn?’
‘Holgersson, Hammarby Police.’
‘You sound crabby.’
‘Is your mother or father there?’
‘They don’t want to talk to you.’
‘
They can decide that for themselves. Would you please get one of them?’
‘No, I won’t.’
‘Just do it now, please.’
‘Why are you so angry?’
‘Get them now, otherwise I’m coming to see you.’
That would not do, that crabby old man couldn’t come here. Björn was coming and no angry policeman was going to spoil that.
‘Daddy went to get hamburgers,’ said Hanna, in a friendlier voice now. ‘He’ll be back soon. Wait a minute and you can talk to him when he gets here.’
‘So you’re not at home alone?’
Hanna hesitated only for a moment before she answered, ‘No, Daddy’s with me.’
‘That’s good to hear,’ said the voice. ‘Bye now.’
Hanna hung up, relieved at not having to talk to that nagging man any more. You could tell from his voice that he didn’t like children. He had a voice like Aunt Hedda.
She had not even reached the floor when the phone rang a third time.
‘Who is this now?’ she answered, still irritated after the last call.
‘Hi, this is Einar. I’m a policeman. I would like to speak to your mother or father.’
‘Was it you who just called?’ Hanna wanted to know.
‘No, why do you think that?’
‘Because he was a policeman too.’
‘What are you saying? What was his name?’
‘His name was Hammarby Police,’ Hanna replied.
She heard him laughing at the other end. This policeman’s voice sounded much nicer.
‘So what did he want?’ asked the policeman.
‘He wanted to talk to Mummy or Daddy too,’ Hanna answered truthfully.
‘So did he?’
Hanna hesitated for a moment before she answered, ‘Yes, he talked to Daddy.’
‘I’d like to have a word with him as well.’
‘That’s not possible now, because he went to get hamburgers for us. But if you wait for a while, you can talk to him,’ she added.
‘Otherwise your mother will be just fine,’ said the friendly policeman.
‘But she’s not home. Do you want to wait for Daddy?’
‘I’ll call again in a little while. Bye now, Hanna.’
When she was back in the living room in front of the TV the phone rang again. The phone is ringing off the hook, thought Hanna. Daddy always said that. But this time she did not even bother to answer.
Cinderella Girl Page 25
