The Dying Detective

by Leif G. W. Persson

  They moved into a flat out in Flemingsberg together. They had two children, Karolina, born in 1975, and her younger sister, Jessica, born in 1979. Four years after the younger daughter was born, in 1983, Erika and Tommy split up. Tommy remained in Flemingsberg and had a son that year with his new partner, who had been born in 1964. She, too, worked at Huddinge Hospital as a nursing assistant. Erika took the daughters with her and moved to Lilla Essinge. She started working part-time at St Göran’s Hospital, and there was no sign of a new man in any public records.

  Part-time at St Göran’s, Johansson thought. In 1983, when she moved into the city with her two girls. In all likelihood, that was when she started cleaning for Margaretha Sagerlied. Her bloke had found a new woman, eleven years younger than Erika, and presumably she needed all the money she could get.

  His conscientious brother-in-law had gone on to look into the man who was the father of Erika’s children, with the help of public records and his declared taxable income. Two years after fathering his fourth child, in 1985, he was living alone again, at a new address out in Huddinge. Same employer, but his income had dwindled, and was now supplemented by payments from the income-support system.

  He started drinking, Johansson thought, with the insight given to someone with past experience of a common professional affliction in the police force. His partner kicked him out. So what does he do? Contact Erika again? Maybe he even tries to visit her at the home of her new employer at her big, fancy villa out in Bromma?

  Another year later, something even more drastic must have happened. His income fell by half, but there was no income support this time. At this point in his reading Johansson picked up his mobile and called Superintendent Hermansson at Regional Crime in Stockholm.

  ‘Johansson,’ he said.

  ‘Hello, boss. I hope everything’s okay, Lars?’

  ‘Never felt better, Herman,’ Johansson lied.

  ‘What can I do for you, sir?’ Hermansson asked.

  ‘I’d like you to check the records for me. His name is Högberg, Tommy Rickard, born in ’56.’

  ‘Just a moment, I’ll go and sit down at the computer. Okay, I’m listening.’

  ‘Högberg, Tommy Rickard, born on 16 February 1956, ID number 0539. Last known address—’

  ‘I’ve got him,’ Hermansson interrupted. ‘Lives out in Flemingsberg. Diagonalvägen 14.’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘A mixed bag, mostly nonsense, really. Looks like he has trouble holding his drink. First entry is drink-driving in ’83, and the latest was the same, drink-driving, 2006. And driving without a licence. He lost that in 1996.’

  ‘Nothing since then? After 2006, I mean?’

  ‘No,’ Hermansson said. ‘Poor lad was probably worn out. Drink takes its toll. Looks like he was given early retirement on health grounds the year he turned fifty, in 2006.’

  ‘Nothing serious, then?’

  ‘Not really,’ Hermansson said. ‘He was given a six-month custodial sentence for aggravated burglary in 1987, but the rest is mostly crap, like I said. Three drink-driving convictions, a few instances of driving without a licence, one attempt at insurance fraud, but that was dropped. Violence against a public official. Also dropped. Sounds to me like he got thrown out of the pub. That’s the lot.’

  ‘That’s it?’

  ‘Yes. So if you feel like explaining—’

  ‘Is he in the DNA database?’

  ‘No,’ Hermansson said. ‘But we got his other details after the robbery in ’87. I have to admit, I’m extremely curious now.’

  ‘We’ll take that up later. See what else you can dig up, and we’ll talk later on.’

  Then he ended the conversation, despite Hermansson’s protests, got up from the sofa without any great difficulty, and went out to the kitchen to see how things were going with the lunch he had been promised. Matilda was talking on the phone, hadn’t heard him approach. She sounded upset. Johansson stopped and eavesdropped, another bad habit he had picked up at work.

  ‘Yes, but that’s not my problem. You promised to pay by Thursday at the latest. I think this is fucking awful behaviour. I can’t actually pay my rent, thanks to you. Just so you know.’

  Boyfriend, girlfriend, best friend, Johansson thought. Then he cleared his throat, just loudly enough. Matilda lowered her voice. She turned her back to the kitchen door.

  ‘Just so you know,’ she repeated. Then she switched her phone off and put it in her pocket.

  ‘Sorry,’ Matilda said. ‘Food’s nearly ready.’

  ‘Boyfriend? Girlfriend?’ Johansson smiled amiably, and nodded.

  ‘My crazy mother,’ Matilda said. ‘She’s mad. She drives me round the bend.’

  ‘Don’t let her,’ Johansson said. ‘That could damage my health. I’m hungry. What are we having?’

  ‘Poached chicken with couscous and salad. I’ve topped it with a healthy dressing that I think you’ll like. Then there’s a surprise. Do you want to sit in here, or shall I lay a tray?’

  ‘Here,’ Johansson said, nodding at the kitchen table. ‘From now on, we’ll be sitting up when we eat in this household,’ he added. A surprise, he thought.

  49

  Tuesday afternoon, 27 July

  Matilda had spoken to Pia, who had spoken to his cardiologist, and now the surprise was standing on the table in front of him. A glass of red Bordeaux. At first, Johansson sniffed the glass cautiously. This is what it smells like when you haven’t touched a drop for almost a month, he thought. Then he tasted the wine and felt the same peace that only the little white tablets could give him but, this time, it appeared instantly.

  ‘No more than two glasses,’ Matilda said. ‘That’s non-negotiable. Two glasses okay, three glasses a definite no-no.’

  ‘We’ll have to find a bigger glass,’ Johansson said. He smiled and raised it towards her. ‘On a completely different subject: where do you live?’

  ‘Hägersten. A two-room rented flat. No boyfriend. Why do you ask?’

  ‘I’ll get to that,’ Johansson said. ‘What’s the rent on something like that? Two thousand a month?’

  ‘Are you kidding?’ Matilda said. ‘Maybe, if you live in Lapland. I pay six thousand a month. How much do you pay?’

  ‘This is privately owned,’ Johansson said.

  ‘I worked that out,’ Matilda said. ‘I’m not completely stupid. What’s the monthly maintenance charge, then?’

  ‘Nothing, actually. The association has a number of retail units that we rent out, and that pays for maintenance. Members of the association don’t have to pay for any of the upkeep.’

  ‘Whoever said that life was fair?’ Matilda said.

  ‘What do you earn, then?’

  ‘Thirteen a month, after tax. How about you? Unless that’s a secret?’

  ‘To be honest, I don’t actually know. Pia looks after all that.’

  ‘Why are we talking about this?’

  ‘I happened to overhear part of your conversation,’ Johansson said.

  ‘It’s not nice to eavesdrop.’

  ‘I know. It’s a bad habit I got into at work.’

  ‘I know, I like eavesdropping as well.’ Matilda beamed at him.

  ‘Where am I going with this?’ Johansson said. Where am I going with this? he thought.

  ‘My rent, how much I earn and the fact that you eavesdrop on people,’ Matilda said.

  ‘Quite,’ Johansson said. ‘You got paid on the 25 July, the day before yesterday. You lent your mum some money, and she promised to pay it back as soon as possible so that you could pay your rent on the last of the month. That’s in four days’ time. But now she can’t, so you haven’t got enough for your rent. Out of curiosity, how much did you lend her?’

  ‘Enough for me not to be able to pay the rent.’

  ‘Does that happen often? Her borrowing money from you and not paying it back?’

  ‘Drop it,’ Matilda said, shaking her head. ‘It’s really none of your business.’

/>   ‘I interpret that to mean it’s happened before,’ Johansson said. Probably all too often, he thought.

  ‘You can interpret it any way you like, but it really doesn’t concern you.’

  ‘As long as it doesn’t jeopardize my health,’ Johansson said, smiling at her. ‘Just say if you need a loan.’ What a fucking mother, he thought.

  ‘If I borrow money, I get the sack. Anyway, I don’t want to borrow your money, just so you know.’

  ‘Just say if you change your mind,’ Johansson said, and shrugged his shoulders.

  When he had finished his meal and let his tongue gather the last valuable drops of his second glass, he told Matilda to bring a coffee in to him. Then he went straight to his secret place and, with some difficulty, pulled out his emergency case and relieved it of six thousand-kronor notes, folded them and put them in the pocket of her jacket, which was hanging on a hook in the cloakroom.

  ‘Where did you get to?’ Matilda said when she came into his study with the tray.

  ‘Toilet,’ he said, with a cheery grin. ‘Must have been all that red wine I guzzled.’

  ‘Bound to be,’ Matilda said. ‘Say when,’ she said, and poured warm milk into his cup of coffee.

  ‘Stop,’ Johansson said. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I need to make a call.’

  Then he phoned Erika Brännström. A very reluctant Erika Brännström. First, he explained who he was and what he wanted to talk about: the twenty-five-year-old murder of Margaretha Sagerlied’s nine-year-old neighbour Yasmine. She interrupted him at once.

  ‘I know very well who you are. Axel – Axel Linderoth called – and told me that you’d probably be getting in touch. I even saw you on television years ago. I know very well who you are, but I don’t understand why you’d want to talk to me.’

  ‘About Yasmine, like I said,’ Johansson repeated. ‘You’re the only person I’m aware of who actually met her.’

  ‘What about her parents?’

  ‘Can’t get hold of them. They left Sweden over twenty years ago.’

  ‘Fine, but I still don’t understand. I can’t have met her more than ten, twenty times at most, and, obviously, that must be at least twenty-five years ago.’

  ‘You had two young daughters who were the same age as her. I have a feeling that it might be worth having a conversation with you,’ Johansson said. Besides, your daughters are alive, Johansson thought. Grown women, over thirty, regardless of anything else, he thought.

  ‘I’ve booked to use the laundry room this afternoon,’ she said.

  ‘No problem,’ Johansson said. ‘I’m happy to come over. Shall we say an hour from now?’

  ‘Call before you get here,’ she said. ‘Promise you’ll call before you get here.’

  At last, he thought, as he ended the call. Why should it be so hard to volunteer to help the police?

  ‘Matilda!’ he roared.

  ‘Boss,’ Matilda said. She must have been leaning against the door to his study.

  ‘Fire up the Batmobile,’ Johansson said. ‘We’re going out into the field.’ Must be the wine, he thought. No headache, no tightness in his chest, not even any elation. Just calm and focused. Like a man who makes the best of things, hates coincidence and never complicates things unnecessarily.

  50

  Tuesday afternoon, 27 July

  Essinge Brogata, a building dating back to the thirties, a compact two-room flat on the top floor. Two rooms, and a kitchen with a little sleeping alcove next to the dining table. Presumably where Erika slept, he thought, while her daughters shared the smaller of the two rooms. The same flat she had moved into almost thirty years ago, and where her two girls had grown up. Where they had lived with their mother until they moved out to get on with their own lives. He didn’t even have to ask. To judge by the decor, and everything on the floors, ceilings and walls, he realized that this was where Erika had spent the past twenty-seven years of her life. A frugal life, a hard-working life; neat, tidy, but with little to spare and no room for material fripperies.

  Just like the woman herself. Fit. Lithe movements, alert eyes, strong, suntanned hands – a working woman’s hands – and she had clearly been beautiful when she was younger. With a spring in her step, dreams about the future that you could see in her smile and eyes. But she still looks good, Johansson thought, feeling a pang of awareness without really knowing why. She had made coffee without even asking if he might prefer tea. That’s what we’re like, us true Norrlanders, Johansson thought, as someone, or something, tugged at his battered heart.

  ‘Sugar and milk?’ That she had asked.

  ‘Black is fine,’ Johansson said.

  ‘What do you want to talk about?’ she asked.

  ‘Let’s take it from the beginning,’ Johansson said. ‘When you started working for Margaretha Sagerlied.’

  The spring of 1983. Her husband had left her for a younger woman, a workmate of hers at Huddinge Hospital. Eleven years younger than her, no more than a child, and already pregnant with her husband’s baby. She had worked all this out without even having to ask him. Listening to his lies, observing his angry rages and guilty conscience.

  Her boss at the hospital had arranged all the practical details for her. A senior consultant and an opera lover, wealthy, independent of his generous salary, like everyone born with a silver spoon in their mouth. He had sorted out the flat on Lilla Essinge for her. The building was owned by a good friend of his, and she was allowed to live in it rent free if she cleaned the lobby and stairwell once a week and changed a bulb or two when necessary. It had taken him just a day to find her a new job at St Göran’s, by calling a friend and colleague. And the job with Margaretha Sagerlied as well. A close friend of him and his wife.

  ‘Naturally, you’re wondering if I was sleeping with him,’ Erika Brännström said.

  ‘No,’ Johansson said. ‘Were you?’

  ‘No. He was just a nice person. The sort who makes you feel you can put up with all the other men who aren’t like him. Anyway, he was twice my age.’

  What’s that got to do with anything? thought Johansson, whose wife was twenty years younger than him.

  ‘What did you do for Mrs Sagerlied, then?’ Johansson asked. Just between us Norrlanders, he thought.

  ‘Cleaned, washed up, did the laundry, took care of the house and garden. Bought food. Helped out when she had guests.’

  ‘What was she like? To work for, I mean.’

  ‘She wasn’t mean,’ Erika Brännström said. ‘She really wasn’t mean, but she was very pleased with herself. If I’d had the stomach to sit and listen to her stories the whole time, I could probably have been a lady’s companion instead, then I wouldn’t have had to wash and clean.’

  ‘Demanding?’

  ‘You had to wheedle your way round her, agree with her and then do what you were going to do from the start.’

  ‘Unkind?’

  ‘Definitely not. She was self-obsessed, but she wasn’t unkind. She could be demanding if you approached her the wrong way. She didn’t have any children, of course. She used to talk about that a lot, actually – the fact that her career had stopped her having children. That was her big regret: that she got married so late, to a man who was much older than her.’

  ‘What about your children?’ Johansson said. ‘Did she meet them?’

  ‘Oh, yes, lots of times,’ Erika said. ‘Every time one of them had a cough or cold and couldn’t go to preschool. Or at evenings and weekends when I was helping her with something, when it made sense for all of us to sleep at hers. You have children yourself?’

  ‘Yes,’ Johansson said.

  ‘So you know what it’s like to have small children.’

  ‘More or less.’

  ‘I can imagine,’ Erika Brännström said. She smiled slightly and stirred her coffee once more.

  ‘What was it like when you had the children with you, then? With Mrs Sagerlied, I mean?’

  ‘It was absolutely fine,’ Erika said. ‘They ador
ed Aunt Margaretha. They played the piano and sang and put on plays and dressed up and I don’t know what. I had to keep a grip on things. She spoiled them. Gave them presents that were far too expensive. She used to take them off to NK to buy them presents for Christmas and their birthdays, that sort of thing.’

  ‘What about your husband?’ Johansson said. ‘Your former husband,’ he corrected himself. ‘Did he ever meet Mrs Sagerlied?’

  Suddenly alert now, he thought.

  ‘No, never. But I can see why you’d ask.’

  ‘How do you mean? Why can you see that?’

  ‘You’re a police officer – you must know all about him by now. If we’re honest, he’s the real reason you’re sitting here, isn’t he?’

  ‘Actually not,’ Johansson said. ‘I was going to talk about Yasmine but, seeing as you’ve worked out why I’m curious about your husband, perhaps you could tell me about him, anyway?’

  ‘Well, there isn’t really anything to hide. Tommy was a slob. He drank too much. He already did when we first met, when he was only eighteen. I was the girl from the country, and presumably easy prey, even though I was a few years older.’

  ‘He drank too much?’

  ‘Too much partying; he was far too fond of the ladies. I’m pretty sure he was seeing other women the whole time he was with me. Eventually, he started to develop a serious drink problem, but by then I’d already taken the girls and left him.’

  ‘He never made any attempt to contact you?’

  ‘No, he barely got in touch at all during those first years. I had to talk to him on the phone a few times about his maintenance payments, but it was hopeless. I ended up going through a solicitor, and after that the money was deducted straight from his wages. That meant I didn’t have to phone and nag him, which was just as well. He was lazy, he drank far too much, like I said, but there was no harm in him. Obviously, I know about the silly things he got involved in. I know he even went to prison for a while. There was some burglary racket going on at his work and he got caught up in it.’