Meet me in Malmö: The first Inspector Anita Sundström mystery (Inspector Anita Sundström mysteries)

by MacLeod, Torquil

  ‘Time for coffee?’ Frida asked.

  ‘Yes. And I think I’ll treat myself to a Bakewell tart, too, please.’

  Frida eyed him closely. ‘That sounds like you’ve had a bad day.’

  Ewan gave a grimace to confirm her observation. Frida continued to talk as she poured the coffee from the pot. ‘You need a break. Go away and forget about your magazine.’

  ‘Still trying to get me to Norway?’

  ‘Norway is good. The air is clean.’ She pushed the cup and saucer towards him, ‘The mountains are fantastic. Might even find a wife,’ she added with a mischievous smile.

  ‘But you had to come over here to find a husband.’

  ‘My second one. My first was Norwegian.’

  Ewan settled down to read The Scotsman at one of the long tables. As he munched his way through his cake he caught up on the comings and goings of Hearts, his boyhood football team. By the time he had finished his coffee he was onto the newspaper’s arts section. Over the years it had proved useful for pinching ideas to use in his Novo News column. He had been known to use reviews from The Scotsman of films he didn’t fancy, virtually word for word, so he didn’t have to see the movies himself. He was about to turn the page over when a small article hidden away at the bottom caught his eye. To be more precise, a name in the first paragraph. He stared at it long and hard. It couldn’t be – yet it obviously was. He pushed away his cup and glanced up at the gallery above. A librarian was sorting some books. When Ewan looked back at the newspaper the name was still there. It was another minute or so before he actually read the piece. The article was little more than a straightforward announcement of the events schedule for the 2008 Northern Stars Film Festival, which was starting in a week’s time. Yet it unsettled him. Then it gave him an idea.

  The wind whipped up a discarded crisp packet and tossed it around under the flickering light from the lamps strung across the street. It was cold and the flurry of snow could soon turn into something heavier. The winter hadn’t been as bad as last year but there was still plenty of time. The crisp packet landed briefly before corkscrewing away into the dark. The man turned his attention to the window on the fourth floor of the building on the other side of the street. He could see the light was still on though the curtains were drawn. And he knew that she was behind those curtains. What would she be doing at this moment? Watching TV? Having a late meal? Maybe she was painting? He knew she did that. Quite good. He had seen some of her watercolours at that little arty-farty gallery off Lilla Torg in the centre of town.

  He adjusted his baseball cap and pulled his coat collar up against the bitter winter chill. He stamped his feet, but it didn’t seem to warm them up. He felt in his pocket for his pack of cigarettes. With gloved hands he found it difficult to extract one. He accomplished the manoeuvre and even managed to light it after the second attempt in cupped hands. He took a puff and exhaled deeply, his smoke curling its way at right angles to the snow.

  CHAPTER 2

  Brian Fletcher hadn’t been enthusiastic when Ewan first mentioned his idea. He naturally assumed that Ewan wanted to skive off to Edinburgh for the day on company expenses. Didn’t the Tyneside Cinema show enough obscure foreign films without his having to swan off to Edinburgh?

  ‘Look, Brian, this is different.’ After seeing the article in The Scotsman, Ewan had spent the next hour on the Internet finding out as much as he could. And yes, it had been that Mick Roslyn. And yes, he was what the article had claimed - “the modern Bergman”, even if he wasn’t Swedish. ‘Mick Roslyn is huge in Sweden. Like…’ and Ewan tried to think of a film director whom Brian might have heard of. ‘Like a… Spielberg.’

  ‘Now if he was a Hollywood director,’ Brian said as he half-suppressed a burp, confirmation that he had just had a very large pub lunch.

  ‘No, the point is that it’s a big local success story. “Geordie-made-good-in-foreign-land” approach.’

  ‘Ah, you didn’t say he was Geordie.’ Brian’s interest was now piqued.

  Ewan had already mentioned that Roslyn was from the Heaton area of the city, but Brian hadn’t been paying attention at that stage of the conversation. ‘Yes, he’s a Geordie who has conquered Swedish cinema. And he happens to be married to one of their top actresses. Malin Lovgren.’

  Now Brian really started to look interested. ‘Blonde?’

  ‘Of course.’ And very attractive, too, judging by the photos he had managed to find on the web. Typical of Mick, thought Ewan.

  ‘And you say this Roslyn bloke is going to be at the Northern thingamajig.’

  ‘Yes. He’s introducing his latest film and there’s a question and answer session with him afterwards.’

  ‘And will his wife be there?’ Brian was already imagining putting a glamorous photo of a sexy Swedish film star on the front page of his magazine. That would impress upstairs.

  ‘I don’t think so. There’s nothing in the article about Malin Lovgren being in Edinburgh, though she stars in the movie.’ Brian looked disappointed, but he could still legitimately use her photo if she was involved.

  ‘But we’d want more than a review of his film.’

  ‘Of course, I could do a big piece on him. The works. Local background. How he ended up in Sweden and how he became a celebrity over there and part of a glamorous couple.’

  ‘Sort of Posh and Becks.’

  ‘More Madonna and Guy Ritchie.’

  Even Brian had heard of Madonna. His face lit up. He could see the possibilities. And he could scoop the editors of the group’s two big local newspapers. He loathed them as much as they despised him. Then doubt crossed over his ample features. ‘What makes you think you’ll get an interview with him? He might not be keen on being associated with such a sma….’ – he managed to correct himself – ‘a publication of our size.’

  ‘I think he will speak to me. We were at university together.’

  Of course, doubts set in the moment he boarded the train to Edinburgh. Once he arrived at Waverley Station he nearly jumped on the first train back. Mick might not want to see him. He was a big deal now. That was obvious from the way he adroitly handled the question and answer session after the film had finished. It helped that most of the questions were sycophantic, but he retained that enormous charm he had exercised at Durham. There was no doubting his charisma. Still handsome, still remarkably lean and still with that arrogant swish of thick black hair, he commanded a room. Always had. The winning smile, the polite way he answered questions, the flashes of humour – but he was good at concealing his ego when it mattered for his public.

  As Mick held his audience spellbound, Ewan was amused to note that he had lost all traces of his Geordie accent. He had been proud of it once upon a time. In fact, it had been a badge of honour in a university that was awash with ‘public school ponces’ as he called them. He made great play of being a Geordie. He even gave the impression of being a working-class hero, even though his family were reasonably well-off. That’s why the Michael who had turned up at Freshers’ Week had become Mick three weeks later. His chosen persona went down well with posh girls from down south – their bit of northern rough. He had always been surrounded by attractive women.

  Sadly, in this case, there was no Malin Lovgren, but he did have a stylish PR woman sitting with him alongside a young actress who had appeared in a small role in the film as the murdering husband’s bit on the side. Ewan didn’t catch her full name in the credits: Tilda something - but she was not your archetypal Swedish blonde; quite dark in fact. But undeniably attractive. And appreciably taller than the older Lovgren. Mick didn’t introduce her during his talk so she wasn’t there for the publicity. Maybe she was the producer’s girlfriend; the producer was an earnest young man with very trendy red-rimmed spectacles who had taken the stage with Mick, but wasn’t asked any questions and whose only contribution to the discussion was to say that Mick Roslyn was a brilliant visionary. It was an observation with which Mick seemed entirely in agreement.

>   After a gushing thank you from the festival organizer the audience started to filter out of the cinema. The festival organizer was ushering the VIP party out through a side door. The producer attached himself to the young actress. A gentle hand in the small of her back as he guided her out hinted that they were in a relationship. Ewan moved towards the retreating group. Mick was talking to the PR woman when Ewan tried to attract their attention.

  ‘Mick. Can I have a word?’

  The PR woman turned and with an icy smile said,’ Sorry, Mr Roslyn isn’t doing any extra interviews at the moment.’

  Ewan ignored her. ‘Mick. It’s me.’ Mick Roslyn turned round and looked at Ewan blankly. ‘Ewan. Ewan Strachan from uni. Durham.’

  The PR woman tried to spirit Mick away, but Mick hesitated. He stared hard at the man in front of him. Slowly it began to dawn on him that he recognized the person who was shifting awkwardly from one foot to another. Though standing at six foot like himself, the Ewan Strachan he remembered was much thinner, had a lot more reddish hair (certainly not greying and fraying around the temples) and a boyish face. That was gone, though there was still the same twinkle in the deep blue eyes.

  ‘My God,’ Mick said slowly. ‘Ewan bloody Strachan. I don’t believe it.’

  ‘Sorry, Mr Roslyn, we must get on. The Scotsman want their interview, then we have to get you to the airport,’ said the PR woman insistently.

  Mick held up his hand. ‘Isobelle, just give me a minute.’

  His smile part-placated Isobelle, who wasn’t happy that her timetable was being disrupted, but she didn’t want to upset her client. ‘Only a minute.’

  Mick held out his hand for Ewan to shake. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Trying to get an interview with the great Swedish-based film director.

  ‘Journalist?’ His surprise was obvious. ‘Thought you’d end up as a teacher.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have known what to do with all the holidays.’

  ‘So what rag are you working for? A Scottish one, I presume.’

  ‘No. In Newcastle actually.’

  Mick gave him a quizzical look. ‘So you’ve never escaped. And your newspaper?’

  ‘Magazine actually. You wouldn’t have heard of it. After your time.’

  ‘Course I would. My folks still live there.’

  ‘Novo News.’

  He pursed his lips. ‘No, I haven’t heard of it.’

  ‘Mr Roslyn, they’re waiting for you,’ said a still hovering Isobelle.

  ‘Sorry Ewan. Looks like I must dash. But we must catch up.’ He paused for a moment as a thought struck him. ‘Tell you what; get your rag to send you across to Sweden. I’ll give you the works. The whole Mick Roslyn story. And, off the record, my new hush-hush project,’ he said with a conspiratorial wink. He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and fished out a card. ‘Ring this number. It’s our production company. Ask for Agnes. She’ll sort out a convenient time. Fly across. Meet me in Malmö.’

  He knew she was alone. Where the man had gone he wasn’t sure, but there had been no sign of him yesterday or the day before. He would have to make his move when he wasn’t there. Not tonight. But he was going to have to do something soon. As far as he was concerned it had gone on too long like this. A group of youngsters sidled past him, noisily making their way homeward – or maybe they were going to call in for a carry-out at that place he sometimes frequented round the corner. They were enjoying their own company too much to notice him. A couple of drunks, mumbling incoherently to themselves, huddled under the shelter of the small terracotta-coloured Skånetrafiken bus station on the opposite side of the road. The youngsters disappeared in the direction of the falafel shop. As he turned back he noticed a police car moving slowly towards him, coming from the city centre. He slipped into the shadows.

  The police car turned left at the lights and was well out of sight as he took up his former position. He noticed that the light on the fourth floor was no longer on. ‘Shit,’ he whispered to himself.

  CHAPTER 3

  Ewan hated aeroplanes. They were frighteningly claustrophobic. When the plane door slammed shut he always got that panicky urge to rush up the narrow aisle and try and force his way off. And the Cimber Air flight from Newcastle to Copenhagen’s Kastrup airport was particularly enclosed as it was a small aeroplane. But it was still a better way to spend a Monday morning than in the office. That he was on the flight in the first place amazed him. Brian hadn’t been very happy when he returned without his interview. ‘All that expense to go to Edinburgh to see some bloody Norwegian film…’

  ‘Swedish.’

  ‘As if there’s a bloody difference!’

  It had taken a couple of days to persuade Brian that this was quite a story – and would be a real feather in his cap. Roslyn might have only made Swedish-based films but he had quite an international reputation, as Ewan had discovered on further Internet research after his return from Edinburgh. One of his films had even been nominated for a BAFTA – Film Not in the English Language – a few years before. Though that had completely passed Ewan by at the time, the information brought a smile to Brian’s chubby cheeks. What was more, Ewan promised (but doubted it would happen) he would try and get an interview with Malin Lovgren as well. He had produced a photocopy of a near-naked shot of Lovgren from one of Mick Roslyn’s earlier films as confirmation that she as worth it. The fact that Brian stopped eating his sausage roll in mid-bite was a good sign. His ‘Can I hang onto that?’ rubber-stamped the decision. A return flight abroad and two nights at a hotel – booked by Brian’s sulky secretary Val – was almost unheard of in the annals of Novo News’s expenses.

  ‘Watch the spending. And I want receipts for everything, mind,’ were Brian’s parting words.

  The weather was dull when the plane took off. Would there be snow at the other end? Ewan wondered. Pity he couldn’t have done this in the summer but buggers like him couldn’t be choosers. He had to admit that he was surprised that he wasn’t going to Stockholm. It was the obvious place for celebrity Swedes. And the star-studded duo did have a flat in the Swedish capital to make sure they were at the hub of all things artistic. However, further reading had revealed that Malin Lovgren was from Malmö and that she was happier living in her home town. Hence Mick’s invitation. Of course, when Mick had said ‘Meet me in Malmö’ he had pronounced the umlaut so it sounded like ‘Malma’. So Swedish, so Mick. In the three weeks it had taken to set up the meeting with Mick, Ewan had delved deep into his chosen subject. He had lost touch with Mick’s movements after university.

  According to his web autobiography Mick Roslyn had gone into advertising in London. From copywriting jobs in a couple of the top agencies he had moved onto directing commercials. It was while filming one of these in Sweden that he had fallen in love with the country – and with an up-an-coming actress called Malin Lovgren. He decided to stay, and from Swedish commercials he moved onto movies. The rest was history. It all sounded so easy. Whether Malin had made Mick, or Mick had made Malin, it was difficult to tell from the sketchy details. One thing seemed certain – their fates and subsequent success were inextricably linked.

  Ewan had seen as many of Mick’s movies as he could get his hands on. He had also canvassed Frida’s opinion. She had heard of Roslyn and Lovgren though, being Norwegian, she was scathing about the Swedes. And the Danes. And the Finns. ‘Not my kind of thing,’ was her verdict. She could never understand how Roslyn could film his own wife naked – and sometimes making love to other men - in front of all those viewers. ‘That should stay in the bedroom, is what I have to say on the subject.’

  Ewan mulled over this less-than-in-depth critique of Mick Roslyn’s body of work as the plane began to bank over flat fields and squat hamlets. Then there was a great expanse of sea with land further to the left, which he took to be Sweden. Why did the plane have to lean so alarmingly? During his rather nervous flight he had buried himself in the flight magazine which carried a feature on the Scand
inavians who had made it in Hollywood. Of course, there was no Mick Roslyn or Malin Lovgren. They seemed content to make their names in the domestic market. Were they happy to be little fish? Surely they must have thought about dipping their toes in the bigger waters across the pond. Or was it fear of failure? Mick never liked to fail. Rejection wasn’t his thing either, unless he had changed in the last twenty-odd years and there had certainly been no evidence of that in Edinburgh. Maybe Malin really was a home bird who didn’t want to spread her wings. Mick had never been short of ambition, so was she holding him back? It would be interesting to find out, but first he had to cope with the landing.

  At the top of the aeroplane steps he stood for a moment and took in deep gulps of air. He didn’t feel comfortable in the old black woollen coat he had come in. He had bought it for his father’s funeral years ago. It was too formal. It wasn’t him but it was the only warm outer garment he possessed and he had assumed that Sweden would be bloody freezing at this time of year. Though it was chilly, it wasn’t as cold as the Newcastle he had left an hour and a half ago. However, he was grateful for the shelter of the warm bus, which ferried them to the terminal. Kastrup was Ewan’s first experience of Scandinavia. It met his pre-conceived ideas of Scandinavian cleanliness, efficiency (the bags emerged very quickly) and sleek modern design. He made his way straight through to the airport railway station, which was underneath the terminal and reached by a flat-surfaced escalator. As the Malmö train was arriving, lights in the platform floor lit up to show where it would stop. This fascinated Ewan.

  The train was fairly crowded so he was happy enough to stand. Within a few minutes of setting off, the train emerged from a tunnel under the sea into the daylight and onto the elegantly curving Öresund Bridge, which linked Denmark and Sweden by both rail and road. Over four and half miles of modern engineering had bonded two disparate cities in two separate countries into one metropolitan area. Through the girders of the railway section, which ran under the elevated road, Ewan could see Malmö’s latest landmark and Scandinavia’s highest building, the huge fifty-four-storey Turning Torso. This massive, slender, white skyscraper, its nine cubes twisting ninety degrees from top to bottom, seemed far too big for its surroundings – an awkward, gangling Gulliver in a Lilliputian landscape. In any other modern city it would be lost among a mass of gigantic towers but here, on flat terrain either side of the seaway, its only rival was the bridge itself. On the Swedish side the train arced its way in a semicircle through the outskirts of Malmö.