‘I’ve spoken to a gunsmith,’ Max said. ‘Explained about your right hand, boss. Could you manage to feed a new cartridge in using the breechblock, boss?’
‘Yes,’ Johansson said, because he had secretly been practising this during the past week.
‘So it’s your trigger finger that’s the problem?’
‘Yes,’ Johansson said. ‘I don’t have any real feeling in it.’
‘According to the gunsmith, we can get round that,’ Max said. ‘He’s done that before for another customer. He had the same trouble as you, boss, so he made it possible for the customer to fire with his left index finger by adding a new trigger towards the front of the body of the rifle.’
‘Really?’
‘If you can hold the butt against your shoulder with your right hand and take aim, it ought to work.’
‘What the hell are we waiting for?’ Johansson said. At last. Now we’re getting somewhere, he thought. Somewhere that looked at least vaguely reminiscent of the life he had always led up to now.
64
Wednesday afternoon, 4 August
Alf phoned Johansson before lunch and was at his front door an hour later.
‘Tell me,’ Johansson said as soon as his brother-in-law had sat down and taken out another sheaf of papers from his worn brown briefcase.
‘A bit of a mixture,’ Alf said, pursing his thin lips. ‘You remember that painting I told you about? Wanderer and Hunter by Leander Engström, the one Vera Nilsson was given by her half-brother, Johan, which he in turn had inherited from their father, Anders Gustaf Nilsson?’
‘Yes,’ Johansson said. ‘What about it?’
‘It was sold in Bukowski’s spring auction in May 1986. Went for almost a million kronor, after deductions. The seller just happened to be Vera Nilsson’s son, Staffan Nilsson – before the details of her will had been settled, in case you’re wondering.’
‘They don’t care about that sort of thing, do they?’ Art dealers, he thought.
‘Probably not, probably not,’ Alf agreed. ‘I could tell you a thing or two about the art market, if you wanted to listen. I’ve brought a picture of it, by the way. It’s a fine painting,’ he said, handing a large colour photograph to Johansson.
Wanderer and Hunter, the subject evidently having a rest by a lake when Leander Engström’s brush caught him. A mountain landscape in red and blue, green and grey, fading away in the background, the translucent air indicating the chill of autumn, which could be nothing but a sign of approaching winter at that time of year. He had leaned his gun against a rock. His prey – a couple of ducks and a hare – were slung over a tree branch. The man himself was sitting by a fire he had just made, reading a book.
Wanderer and Hunter. Hard to imagine a better title, Johansson thought.
‘One million for the painting,’ said Alf Hult, former tax-office auditor. ‘His mother also owned a couple of apartments on Birger Jarlsgatan, which her son sold at more or less the same time as the painting, apparently with the help of a power of attorney that was set up just a week or so before she died. A highly irregular business.’
‘So how much did he get in total?’ Johansson interrupted.
‘I’d say a couple of million. One million for the painting, seven hundred thousand for the flats, and the rest made up of savings and shares which he seems to have sold at the same time.’
‘He sold the whole lot,’ Johansson said. ‘Before his poor mum was even cold.’
‘Yes,’ his brother-in-law agreed, pursing his lips. ‘That seems to be a reasonable summation.’
‘So he didn’t bother to pay any tax, ran off to Thailand and bought a hotel,’ Johansson said, suddenly thinking about his eldest brother.
‘Yes,’ Alf sighed. ‘That’s what he did. But you’ll have to be a little patient when it comes to that bit. I’m still waiting for information about that hotel project he seems to have been involved in.’
‘What else has he done, then? Before he went to Thailand, I mean?’
‘All the things young men usually get up to. Seems to have been rather idle. I’ve also found a couple of forged certificates.’
‘Really?’ Johansson said. Now we’re getting somewhere, he thought.
‘It was when he was applying for a job back in the early eighties – incidentally, I’ll be coming back to that job. He declared that he’d graduated from high school in 1979. From the Norra Real School here in Stockholm. After that he claimed to have studied economics at university – in Uppsala, of all places. Two terms of business economics, one of national economics, one of statistics, an introductory course in law. Taken together, approximately three-quarters of a bachelor’s degree.’
‘But he hadn’t?’
‘No,’ Alf said. ‘He did attend Norra Real, but he left high school after just three terms, without graduating. And he never seems to have been enrolled as a student at Uppsala.’
‘The cheeky rascal,’ Johansson said. ‘Where did he do his national service, then?’
‘He got an exemption. A medical certificate: scoliosis – severe problems with his back, apparently.’
Not when he raped Yasmine, he was thinking. ‘Anything else?’ Johansson said.
‘I’ve also tracked down a foundation. A couple of years after her husband, Johan Nilsson, died, his widow, Margaretha Sagerlied, set up a foundation.’
‘What’s it called?’
‘Margaretha Sagerlied’s Foundation for the Support of the Operatic Arts,’ Alf said, and sighed, for some reason.
Who’d have thought it? Johansson thought. ‘Tell me,’ he said.
65
Wednesday afternoon, 4 August
When Johan Nilsson died and his wife inherited his estate, she used five million kronor of her considerable inheritance to set up a foundation that would support the ‘Operatic Arts’. Young singers and musicians could apply to it for grants to help fund their education or research trips, or to arrange concerts. The foundation also awarded an annual prize of twenty thousand kronor, the Margaretha Sagerlied Award, for ‘Most Promising Young Soprano of the Year’. The foundation began its work in 1983. Its chairman was a highly respected Stockholm lawyer and opera enthusiast, while the finances were managed by the foundations department at the SE Bank.
‘That Sagerlied seems to have been a regular latter-day Jenny Lind,’ Johansson said, having made himself comfortable on the sofa, hands folded over his stomach, and feeling better than he had done in a very long time.
‘Yes, perhaps.’ His brother-in-law sighed. ‘Sadly, there was only a brief period of harmony, if I can put it like that.’
‘Why?’ Johansson said. ‘Five million was a lot of money in those days, wasn’t it?’
‘That wasn’t the problem,’ Alf Hult said. ‘Unfortunately, Margaretha Sagerlied employed her closest – indeed, only – relative to look after the practical details. I’m talking about the young Staffan Nilsson, of course. After just a couple of years the foundation was more or less obliged to shut up shop, as a consequence of some highly dubious affairs he got the foundation mixed up in.’
‘How could that have happened? I thought set-ups like that had a pretty rigorous system of controls.’
‘They usually do,’ Alf agreed. ‘One of the main reasons for that is that foundations have serious tax advantages, so there’s always a risk they’ll be exploited. When Margaretha Sagerlied chose to employ her only close relative, Staffan Nilsson, the chairman of the foundation pointed this out to her. And that there was a risk that it would be seen as a way of giving him various tax-related benefits. That was also why the chairman requested a CV from him, so it could be demonstrated that he had been appointed on his merits and not merely because he was a family member to whom Margaretha Sagerlied wanted to give unwarranted privileges.’
‘But he fabricated his qualifications,’ Johansson said.
‘Yes, insofar as I’ve been able to check them. According to his own description, he was a very industrious young m
an who had various summer jobs while he was still at school, but I haven’t been able to look into that, for practical reasons. I have the CV here, if you’re interested,’ Alf said, holding up a plastic sleeve containing the document.
‘Put it on the pile,’ Johansson said. Probably lies from beginning to end, he thought.
‘At first, the foundation appears to have worked as intended, in accordance with the statutes and deeds of any foundation. Margaretha Sagerlied’s prize was awarded each year for the first three years, until 1985. Apart from that, grants and donations to a total value of about a hundred thousand kronor were distributed each year. Together with the other costs – payments to board members, Staffan Nilsson’s salary, rent of a small office on Linnégatan in Östermalm – the foundation’s annual expenditure amounted to approximately three hundred thousand kronor.’
‘Six per cent of its capital. That sounds quite high, if you ask me,’ Johansson said.
‘They got a good return on their capital in the first year; in fact, the foundation actually made a surplus, in the order of a hundred thousand kronor.’
‘But then everything went wrong.’
‘As early as 1984, if you ask me,’ Alf Hult said. ‘Unfortunately, they tried to compensate for this by making risky financial investments, and this is where the supervision broke down. Both internally and at the bank, which of course was supposed to monitor that side of the foundation’s activities.’
‘So how much ended up in the pockets of young Mr Nilsson, then?’
‘Not much, as far as I’ve been able to see. It was, to all intents and purposes, a case of genuinely bad investments. Anyway, to cut a long story short, an additional six-monthly audit was conducted in the summer of 1986, when it was discovered that more than half of the foundation’s capital had been used up. But, by then, young Mr Nilsson had resigned and departed for a then unknown destination.’
‘What happened after that?’ There was a lot going on in the first half of 1986, Johansson thought.
‘Since then, the foundation has been slowly dwindling. Its working capital is a couple of million, as it has been more or less since Margaretha Sagerlied died. The foundation still awards grants, and that prize Mrs Sagerlied set up, but the total amounts to less than a hundred thousand kronor each year. Taking into account the foundation’s running costs, its total outgoings per year are about two hundred thousand. Its capital is gradually shrinking by a couple of per cent each year, and has been for many years now.’
‘But she made no attempt to refill the coffers?’ Johansson said. ‘When she popped her clogs, I mean.’
‘Margaretha Sagerlied was still a very wealthy woman when she died. The estate was valued at over ten million kronor after tax, and that was in 1989. The foundation didn’t get a single krona.’
‘Who got it, then? All the money?’
‘Margaretha Sagerlied made a new will in October 1986. That’s four months after the audit of the foundation, when its precarious financial state was revealed. She chose to leave almost all her money to various charities working with children and young people. The Church’s Children’s Fund, Save the Children, the children’s section of the Red Cross.’
‘And young Mr Nilsson?’
‘Not a krona. But her former cleaner pops up again. Erika Brännström, who I’m sure you remember, received five hundred thousand kronor. Money which, according to the will, was to be used to pay for her two daughters’ education.’
‘Who’d have thought it?’ Johansson said. Money as penance, an indulgence for another person’s crimes, he thought. Or, at worst, a bribe in return for silence. Margareta Sagerlied’s life must have been a living hell in the years before she died, he thought.
‘Erika Brännström,’ Alf Hult repeated. ‘If you’re interested, I could find out more about her as well. Both she and her daughters are still alive; I’ve checked. She’s about sixty now; her daughters are in their thirties. You’ve already had that information, in fact.’
‘No,’ Johansson said. ‘Never mind her.’ What I want to know about her isn’t anything you can help me with, he thought. ‘Anything else?’
‘There is, actually,’ his brother-in-law said. ‘It’s about Staffan Nilsson’s mother, Vera Nilsson.’
‘What about her?’
‘Like I said, she died on 10 March 1986. Without a will, which, from a legal perspective, isn’t terribly interesting, seeing as her only son was also her only heir. But the circumstances surrounding her death are interesting. Particularly for someone like you. Given your professional background, I mean.’
‘Really?’ Johansson said. Now we’re talking, he thought.
66
Wednesday afternoon, 4 August
Vera Nilsson, sixty-four years old, was found dead in her home at Birger Jarlsgatan 104 in Stockholm on the morning of 11 March 1986. The person who found her was her son, Staffan, who lived in a smaller flat in the same building.
Vera Nilsson was lying on the sofa in her living room. She was wearing pants, a bra, her dressing-gown and slippers. On the coffee table was an empty half-bottle of whisky, half a dozen empty cans of export-strength lager, a large bottle of vodka, approximately half full, an empty mineral-water bottle, a similarly empty fizzy-drink bottle and a tumbler containing a mixture of vodka and carbonated grape-fruit drink. An empty jar of strong sleeping pills and a similarly empty jar of tranquillizers were found in the bathroom. But no suicide note, or any message to that effect, was found.
The bed in the bedroom was untouched, made up with clean sheets, but otherwise, the two rooms and the kitchen of the small flat made a cluttered and dirty impression. Drawers had been pulled out, their contents emptied on to the floor, the clothes from two wardrobes were piled on the floor, and someone seemed to have made a right mess of the cupboards and drawers in the kitchen, hunting through the food and household products.
Because the circumstances surrounding Vera Nilsson’s death were unclear, to put it mildly, her body was sent to the pathology lab in Solna for a post mortem, and the crime unit of the Stockholm Police had conducted a forensic examination of her flat, with ‘suspicious death at home’ written on the first page of the report.
According to the post-mortem examination of her body, Vera Nilsson had died of poisoning, a combination of large quantities of sleeping pills, tranquillizers and alcohol. The level of alcohol in her blood was approximately three parts per thousand, and the level in her urine not much lower. Because there was no evidence of more long-term alcohol abuse, these were very high figures for a woman of her age and physical condition.
The pathologist had taken his time and, when his verdict was delivered one and a half months later, he began by stating that he couldn’t rule out criminal activity, but that most of the evidence pointed towards suicide. This was also his ultimate conclusion. Vera Nilsson had taken her own life. He regarded it as improbable that anyone could have poisoned her without her knowledge. The drugs she had taken simply tasted too unpleasant for their taste to be hidden by strong spirits, beer or soft drinks. He also regarded it as unlikely that anyone had forced her to take them. There were no injuries on her body to suggest that she had been subjected to violence or physical force.
But at one point in the post-mortem report he did note one disturbing fact. During the post mortem a number of factors suggested that Vera Nilsson had lain dead in her flat for more than twenty-four hours by the time she was found.
Because her son, who found her at about eleven o’clock on the morning of 11 March, claimed to have spoken to her over the phone at seven o’clock the previous evening, this raised at least one question. The pathologist was unable to rule out the possibility that she had died on the evening of 10 March, even if various factors uncovered during the post mortem suggested otherwise.
‘Hang on, now, Alf,’ Johansson said as soon as his brother-in-law had finished. ‘How do you know this?’
‘In an unusually propitious case of serendipity, I happen to have a
contact at the undertakers who conducted Vera Nilsson’s funeral. He’s a member of the same genealogical society as me,’ Alf said. ‘We both happen to be on the committee, in fact. So, his firm took care of all the practical details after Vera Nilsson’s death. Apart from dealing with the issue of probate and the funeral, they also cleared out her flat and put her son in touch with a firm of auctioneers which undertook to sell her belongings. The post-mortem report was found when they were clearing out the flat.’
‘I see,’ Johansson said. ‘So why did he keep it?’ Must have been sent to the son after the investigation was concluded; how on earth had that happened? he thought.
‘My acquaintance knew Vera Nilsson,’ Alf said, clearing his throat slightly. ‘I don’t know if I mentioned it, but Vera worked as a maîtresse d’ at a restaurant not far from her home. My acquaintance often used to have both his lunch and dinner there, so that was how they got to know each other. He thought it rather odd that Vera should have committed suicide. He describes her as a happy, positive person, so that was why he took a copy. I assume he gave the original to her son, together with all the other papers they found when they were clearing the flat.’
‘But your acquaintance never contacted the police?’
‘No,’ Alf said. ‘He didn’t. The police had evidently concluded that it was a suicide and, when it came to the son, the undertakers were supposed to be acting on his behalf and safeguarding his interests, so he left it alone.’
‘And the findings of the investigation into her death? He didn’t happen to find that? My colleagues must have written a report.’
‘Nothing like that,’ Alf said, shaking his head. ‘But I assume that you’re the man to track it down, if such a thing exists. This isn’t the sort of thing I usually have to deal with in my genealogical work. But I suppose that, if the report still exists, it ought to be held by the regional archive in Stockholm.’
The Dying Detective Page 25
