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

by MacLeod, Torquil

  Brian’s response was a mixture of cautious disbelief. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah. Dropped into my lap by Mick Roslyn.’

  ‘Something we can print?’ The scepticism still hadn’t left his voice.

  ‘Not yet, because he’s only just told the police and they’ll probably keep it under wraps for the time being.’ Inspector Sundström’s threat was still ringing in his ears: If a word of this gets out before we’ve investigated, my boss will have your balls for breakfast. He’s very big and very hungry.

  ‘Can you tell me?’

  ‘It’s complicated, but Mick thinks it’s tied up with a documentary he’s doing on the assassination of Olof Palme. He thinks—’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Olof Palme, the Swedish prime minister. 1986. You must remember?’

  There was a pause at the other end of the line.

  ‘Yes. That’s right. I remember. Dead liberal guy.’

  ‘Well, he turned out to be a dead liberal after some bloke shot him in a Stockholm street. They never found the killer. Anyway, to cut a long story short, Mick thinks that his digging into the story has led to his wife’s murder. It’s all tied up with the Swedish security police. We can’t go public yet and we’ll need confirmation first. But it could be a massive international story.’

  ‘God, yes. Could be huge. Brilliant. Keep me in touch.’

  ‘Will do.’

  ‘Oh, by the way. Have you done that travel piece for Henry?’

  ‘I’ll finish it tomorrow morning and email it to him by lunchtime.’

  Of course, he hadn’t even started the travel piece yet, but he would go back to the café in Möllevågen and write it over a couple of coffees. And now Brian was happy and would leave him in peace for a while.

  After he put the phone down he went over to the nearly empty bottle of whisky and poured himself the remains. It had been quite a couple of hours. First he had phoned Inspector Sundström. She had been surprised to hear from him and wasn’t sure whether he was serious at first. However, she had come across. Valquist had left before her arrival, saying that his girlfriend, the actress Tilda Tegner, was coming back to Lund from Stockholm to be with him during this difficult time. The conversation between Inspector Sundström and Mick had been in Swedish. Despite having no idea what they were saying, Ewan had watched Sundström in fascination. She was a striking woman. The voice that had virtually no trace of an accent when she was speaking English seemed to be guttural when speaking in her native Swedish; quite harsh to the ear but, from her lips, rather sexy. Or maybe it was just that he had a thing about women in glasses speaking in a foreign language.

  When Mick had gone to the bathroom to freshen up before heading off to the police headquarters with the inspector, Ewan pointed out to her that it was he who had been responsible for making Mick come to the police. And that it was his idea that Mick talked to her first.

  ‘It was a sensible suggestion.’

  ‘So I’ve done you a favour. If you have any information that would be useful to me then…’ He handed her a piece of paper on which he had written his mobile phone number in anticipation of just such an opportunity.

  She took the paper without looking at it and popped it into her pocket. He wanted to take advantage of the favourable impression he hoped he had created and find a reason to see her again. And he really did want to see her again. ‘Would it be out of the question to meet? Maybe for a drink. I don’t know. Give me a chance to fill you in on some background stuff on Mick.’

  ‘If we need to talk further we can do that at the Polishus.’

  ‘Is that a “no” to the drink?’

  Moberg lumbered grumpily towards the commissioner’s office. After a long discussion with Roslyn, he wasn’t sure whether it was all fantasy or all for real. But, as that bloody Anita Sundström had said, they couldn’t take a chance on getting it wrong. He needed to give the commissioner the facts and decide on somewhere to put Roslyn for the next few days while they checked out his story. At least he had forced the name of Roslyn’s “Deep Throat” out of him, without resorting to throttling. The only problem was that Roslyn had no idea who this whistleblower’s real identity was – he had called himself “Henrik Larsson”, presumably after the famous footballer - or where he lived. He might not even live in Stockholm.

  ‘Chief Inspector!’

  Moberg turned round and saw Klara Wallen clutching a piece of paper. ‘Yes?’ he growled.

  Wallen flinched before nervously thrusting the paper in his direction. He snatched it from her and glanced over it. ‘That’s something.’

  Wallen scuttled away before Moberg said anything else to her.

  Moberg knocked on the commissioner’s door. ‘Come!’ came a call from the other side. He entered a far plusher office than his own. This was where the politicking took preference over proper policing. The commissioner was sitting behind his desk, which had the day’s newspapers strewn over it. ‘Ah, Erik, tell me that you’ve brought me some good news.’ He cast a hand over the newspapers. ‘This lot aren’t being very patient. They want results.’

  ‘Well, Commissioner, I have some good news and some bad news.’

  The commissioner fiddled fretfully with his expensive watch.

  Moberg held up the piece of paper Wallen had just given him. ‘Crabo, the stalker. He’s turned up. He’d gone north to visit his sister. His alibi checks, so we can rule him out.’

  ‘And the bad news?’

  Anita was pleased that Lasse had rung. She had kicked off her shoes and was seeking solace in a glass of Rioja. Even though she was tired and troubled by the case, she could always relax when chatting with her son. They had a good relationship. They had had very few rows over the years, and most of them were caused by her untidiness. Sometimes she felt that their roles were reversed and that Lasse was the mature one. He was far better at making decisions than she was. Above all, Lasse made her laugh. Björn always had until he made her cry more often. Not many males made her laugh these days. Too caught up with themselves, too Swedish.

  ‘How’s the investigation going, Mum?’

  ‘Not getting very far.’

  ‘The telly is full of it. I saw your boss the other night. He’s even fatter than when I last saw him.’

  ‘It hasn’t improved his temper, either.’

  ‘Is he giving you a hard time?’

  ‘No more than usual. I can handle him. It’s just that he doesn’t think that women should be involved in murder investigations. We should be doing traffic or child abuse cases. To him, murder is man’s world. Anyway, how’s student life?’

  ‘Good.’ There was a pause. There was always a pause when Lasse had something important to say. It was usually a request for money.

  ‘I’ve got a girlfriend.’

  Anita tried to sound upbeat. ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘Rebecka.’

  Was this the moment she had dreaded? She had always wondered how she would cope when Lasse found someone more important than herself. Would there be a feeling of rejection? Since Björn’s betrayal she had channelled her unconditional love into her relationship with Lasse. There may have been occasional visitors to her bed, but no one had been allowed to stay in her heart. She had worried that Lasse’s leaving home for the first time would loosen the umbilical cord that had linked them since his birth. Was her real fear that she would be left alone?

  ‘That’s a nice name. What does she study?’

  ‘Politics.’

  ‘Not politics! Haven’t we got enough politicians!’

  ‘Oh, Mum. She’s fun.’ There was another pause. ‘She’s special.’

  ‘I’m pleased,’ she lied.

  ‘You’ll really like her.’ He was almost too insistent, trying too hard to convince.

  ‘It’ll be lovely to meet her.’ She knew she would have a battle not to be too judgemental.

  ‘Mum, can I bring Rebecka down with me when I come down next?’

  Anita’s heart sa
nk. She had been so looking forward to spending some time alone with Lasse. Someone to talk to - she loved their cosy chats. Doing those things they enjoyed doing together. Now she would have to share him. She knew young love. It was all-consuming. He would only have eyes for this girl. It wouldn’t be the same. And she’d also have to make a real effort to tidy up the apartment.

  ‘Of course. But I might not be around too much if we’re still heavily involved in this case.’ She didn’t want to put him off but he might think twice about bringing his girlfriend if he thought she was busy.

  ‘I thought it would be over by then. The county commissioner was on the telly an hour or so ago and he said you had some strong leads.’

  ‘Dahlbeck’s an idiot. He’s just worried that he’ll get persecuted by the press. By sounding too positive he just piles more pressure on us.’

  ‘Don’t worry. If you’re busy, I can show Rebecka round Malmö. She’s never been before.’ It wasn’t the reaction she wanted to hear.

  Afterwards, she chided herself for being so petty-minded. It was his life and she would make a positive effort to like the girl, even if she was awful. The Rioja bottle was more than half-empty. She poured another glass. She had more on her plate than Rebecka. She hadn’t known what to make of Roslyn’s story. It could be true – or he certainly believed what he had been told. No one really knew who was behind Olof Palme’s murder. An ultra-right-wing group within Säpo was as plausible as any other conspiracy theory. If it was true, then they really had their hands full. It might be twenty years since the assassination, but these people had been highly trained. That made them efficient, elusive and dangerous. The method of death and the deliberate positioning of the body would fit Roslyn’s theory. And he had seemed genuinely agitated. Of course, it could be that he was a very good actor and for some reason was pointing them in the wrong direction. There was an off-the-wall thought. No, it didn’t add up. Roslyn was in Stockholm anyway.

  Yet why would Malin Lovgren get herself in a position to offer a professional killer a cup of tea? Anita was still sure that the murderer had been known to Lovgren. And where was the starfish pendant? If it was a professional hit, why bother removing the pendant from the murder scene? There had been no attempt to make it look like a burglary gone wrong. Had it been taken as a trophy? Or was it to be produced later as a warning to Roslyn if he decided to carry on with his controversial documentary? We’ve got your wife’s pendant so we can do to you what we did to her. Or was Roslyn the intended victim? Given what they had discovered about the glamorous couple, he must have had more enemies than she had. People seemed to like Malin. But Mick? Anita had a feeling that all was not what it seemed between the director and his supposed friend Strachan. Did that really matter, or was it worth digging a little deeper? She couldn’t make her mind up, so she drank some more wine.

  CHAPTER 16

  Ewan was starting to get a taste for Swedish coffee. It was the sort of drink that put hair on one’s chest. He had never been able to grow chest hair, which irked him. As a student Mick had always enjoyed telling him that the ‘birds love running their fingers through mine’. Needless to say Mick’s chest was like a demented doormat. In fact, Ewan could never grow hair in all the right places and now he had reached an age when it was growing in all the wrong places. He sipped his coffee and glanced round the other tables in Café Simrishamn 3. It was half-full and nearly everybody had a computer in front of them. The atmosphere was warm and unhurried.

  He looked at the blank screen, then typed: There’s more to Malmö than meets the eye. He sighed. It was rubbish, though the sentiment was probably true in that in mid-winter it didn’t do itself justice. With all the beautiful parks this was undoubtedly a summer city. Without a green canvas to break up many of the functional buildings, it was difficult to judge its true character. His walk round Kungsparken, the city’s oldest park, had been pleasant. The canal ran through it with the city library on the other side. He had crossed over the canal on an elegant bridge with art nouveau designs and obelisk-like lampposts at each end, and made his way down to what was now called the Malmö Opera. It was the main municipal theatre of the town and had built up an enviable reputation under Ingmar Bergman, who had been the director and artistic adviser in the 1950s.

  Ewan had stood on the expansive forecourt outside the theatre’s large glass frontage and classically crisp concrete elavations. But as he peered through the glass into the foyer he felt oddly uncomfortable. This building had celebrated its opening in September 1944 with a performance of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. While the citizens of Malmö were taking their seats in their stylish new theatre, chatting quietly away before the curtain went up, just over the water, a mere few miles away, the world was ripping itself apart. In the same month the Allies were battling their way through France; the Arnhem parachute landings were proving a bridge too far; in neighbouring Norway the mighty German battleship Tirpitz was being attacked by the RAF and across central Europe trains were still trundling inexorably towards the death camps. How had the Swedes reconciled what was happening all around them with the normality of their own lives? That was something he would ask Inspector Sundström, if he got the chance.

  He sipped at his coffee. He had thought about the detective a lot since she left his hotel room the previous day. He used mental pictures of her to drive out the recurring image of the dead body of Malin Lovgren. His fascination with Sundström – he wished he knew her first name – was making him see Malmö in a different light. He typed: It’s all go in Malmö. That was shite, too.

  There was something different about the place. A tension. A suppressed excitement. The moment Anita and Olander came through the front entrance they knew something had happened. Their routine enquires around Värnhem had yielded nothing. An increasingly desperate Moberg had insisted on their revisiting the crime area in case something had been missed. Anita hadn’t expected to turn up anything new because she was covering ground that Nordlund had gone over already. And Nordlund was very thorough. If it had been the slapdash Westermark then it would have made sense.

  Klara Wallen intercepted them before they reached Anita’s office.

  ‘Moberg wants you in his office.’

  ‘What is it?’ Anita asked, because she could see that Wallen was caught up in the prevailing mood.

  ‘CCTV. Something’s come up.’

  When Anita and Olander entered Moberg’s room Nordlund and Westermark were already there with one of the technical people whom Anita knew vaguely but whose name escaped her. They were huddled round a TV monitor and there was some CCTV footage on the screen.

  ‘Ah, Anita, come and see this. Edvardsen has got onto something.’ Moberg pointed to the figure on the screen. Anita could see a tall man with his back to the camera. Smoke could be seen rising from in front of him. Then his gloved hand appeared and in it was a cigarette. He stamped his feet, but his gaze never wavered.

  ‘This is taken from the Systembolag side. He’s looking across the street,’ said an evidently pleased Edvardsen.

  ‘Towards the apartment block,’ added Moberg.

  The continuous time code was running just after midnight on the night of the murder. The time had just tipped over into Tuesday. The man, who was wearing a blue winter skiing jacket and a dark-red baseball cap, took one last puff of his cigarette, then threw it down on the ground. He half-turned, so that the side of his face could be seen in profile. Anita wasn’t sure what age he was but he was certainly under forty. He glanced at something across the street – the time code twirled onto three minutes past twelve. He was about to step forward, then he dodged back into the doorway for a moment. He waited for another thirty seconds before stepping out of the frame.

  ‘Night of the murder,’ Moberg announced triumphantly. ‘And clever old Edvardsen has put together a compilation tape, which shows the same man at the same spot every night for the last two weeks. In fact, every night that Lovgren had been back in Malmö after her return f
rom Stockholm.’

  ‘Hit man?’ wondered Nordlund.

  ‘Possibly. Or H?’ said Moberg.

  ‘Unfortunately, we don’t have a full face because of the cap,’ said Edvardsen, ‘but this is the best we could do.’

  On the screen came a nearly full face of the man but his features were obscured by the shadow cast by the peak of his cap. Anita now put him at about thirty.

  ‘Is it possible to go back to the last bit where he gets rid of his cigarette?’ asked Anita.

  ‘Why?’ Moberg sounded irritated.

  ‘Just something.’

  Edvardsen ran the tape back to the position Anita had asked for. He ran it again. The man threw down his cigarette.

  ‘Stop!’ Anita said quickly. The frame was frozen. Anita looked closely at the screen. Then she pointed to the ground. ‘That. Can you zoom in?’ The pavement moved towards them until the screen was taken up with a large screwed up piece of wrapping paper next to the still glowing cigarette stub.

  ‘Is that a discarded kebab? Yes,’ said Anita with some certainty now.‘There are a number of kebab places around that area. So what?’ Westermark was trying to score points.

  ‘If he had been there for a while then that might be his kebab. He’s standing next to it. If someone else had dropped it, he probably would have stood in another place, not virtually on top of it. And if it’s his kebab, he would have bought it at one of the shops close by. They might recognize him. He might even have gone in regularly over the last fortnight.’

  ‘Print off this guy’s picture and get down there, Olander. It might turn up something.’

  Just then Eva Thulin came in.

  ‘That’s timely,’ said Moberg. ‘Have we got a precise time of death?’

  ‘It was probably about midnight. But could be half an hour either way. It’s impossible to be totally exact.’

  ‘That would fit in with our friend here.’ Moberg was trying to control his exhilaration. Anita knew that feeling. When there doesn’t seem to be answer in sight and then suddenly there’s a breakthrough, it buoys the team, giving them a focus that was missing before. It might be early days but it was something to cling onto. Something concrete to investigate.