by Viveca Sten
He might even say that she was the one who’d made a move on him, hint that she was trying to save her job now that there was talk of major cutbacks within the bank. She was the one who’d sent the text asking for a meeting; he could simply show it in order to prove his point.
Whatever happened, Nora’s position would be untenable.
Jukka Heinonen would definitely have Einar’s back if it became necessary. Einar had kept him informed all along; she should have realized that.
Heinonen loved power; there had been talk of how he had forced conscientious members of staff to resign. It was even said that his former secretary had suffered a breakdown.
The distant roar of an engine echoed through the parking lot as a car came up the ramp from the floor below; Nora heard the gates leading onto the street open with a metallic clang.
Tears sprang to her eyes once more. I’m so naïve, she thought, stupid and naïve. I don’t know how to handle people like this.
“Jonas,” she whispered with a sob. “Why aren’t you home?”
If only he’d been in Sweden, she would have gone straight over to tell him what had gone on. She took out her cell phone and pressed speed dial, but it went straight to voice mail.
“You’ve reached Jonas Sköld’s phone—leave a message and I’ll call you back.”
“It’s me,” she managed to say, her voice thick with emotion. “Call me as soon as you can.”
CHAPTER 66
The pile of newspapers rustled; Lars Palmér had gone out to buy them as soon as Pauline left the apartment. He had picked up everything he could find: both evening tabloids, plus Göteborgs-Posten and Sydsvenskan.
He had almost finished going through them; he had read every word that had been written about the murder of Jeanette Thiels. There was no suggestion that New Sweden had been involved in any way.
Wearily he leaned back on the kitchen chair and pushed the last paper away. His fingertips were black with newsprint.
The tabloids speculated that Jeanette might have been at risk because of her fight against racism and the oppression of women. Lars hadn’t managed to find out how she’d been killed; the police were obviously keeping that under wraps for the time being.
He got up and fetched a glass of water as he tried to fit the pieces of the puzzle together. Pauline wouldn’t be back until around nine, so he had plenty of time to think.
He kept coming back to Fredrik Åkerlind.
Before Pauline began to rise within the organization, Åkerlind had served as assistant general secretary twice. It was no secret that he’d expected to take over the post when Pauline’s predecessor stepped down. He was fifteen years younger than she, and was a payroll administrator with the government’s national insurance company. Unlike Pauline, he hadn’t gone to college, and it showed. At least that’s what Lars thought. Åkerlind expressed himself in a simplistic way; he lacked Pauline’s elegant touch.
In the leadership vote, Pauline had beaten him by a narrow margin, and he hadn’t taken it well. Immediately after the election, he had congratulated her on her victory, but later, at the dinner, he had had too much to drink and had become very vocal about his views on the organization’s new general secretary.
Lars knew that Pauline was worried about Åkerlind; she thought he might be biding his time, just waiting to mount a fresh challenge. Maybe it was Åkerlind who’d tipped off the police, triggering today’s visit?
It wasn’t out of the question; Åkerlind was a ruthless man. It would suit him very well if Pauline were tainted by a scandal in connection with the death of a well-known journalist.
CHAPTER 67
The driveway was empty when Thomas parked outside Michael Thiels’s house. There was no sign of the black car that had been there before, aside from tire tracks revealed by the light shining above the garage door.
Thomas hoped Alice would be home alone.
They really shouldn’t interview a minor without a parent or guardian present, but there was no reason why they couldn’t stop in and ask to see her father. And if they happened to ask a couple of question while they were there . . . who could complain about that?
He wasn’t convinced that it was Alice who’d refused to see them on their last visit. Her dad may have made that decision for her.
They followed the narrow track that had been cleared of snow up to the front door. Thomas rang the bell and waited a few seconds. Rang again, keeping his finger on the button a bit longer.
“Maybe she’s out,” Margit said.
A sound from inside, the handle was pushed down, and a thin face appeared in the doorway; the eyes were red-rimmed, the hair tousled.
“Hi, Alice, do you remember me? Thomas Andreasson from the Nacka police district. This is Margit Grankvist; we were here the other day. We’d like a word with you and your dad.”
“He’s not here.”
“Could we come in anyway?” Margit said. “We just have a couple of questions; it won’t take long.”
Alice hesitated, her hand resting on the handle, then she let go and the door swung open. She stepped back to let them in, and a white cat slid past and down the steps.
“What a lovely cat,” Margit said. “What’s its name?”
“Sushi.”
“Shall we go and sit in the kitchen?” Thomas suggested.
Alice nodded and led the way, moving silently in velour sweatpants and top, padding across the stone floor in her thick socks.
“So where’s your dad?”
“He’s at Petra’s.”
Her voice was cold and sullen, as if she regretted letting the two officers in, but didn’t have the nerve to ask them to go away and leave her in peace.
“You didn’t want to go with him?”
Alice didn’t respond to the question, she simply opened the door and went into the kitchen. When she turned on the bright overhead light, her gaunt facial features were even more marked.
Thomas pulled out a chair and sat down. He looked at the coffee machine in the corner, once again considering the possibility that someone might have ground up the poisonous beans and added them to Jeanette’s coffee.
“Any idea when he’ll be back?”
Alice sat down and tucked one leg underneath her.
“In a while—before dinner, I guess.”
It was just before five, so they had plenty of time.
“This won’t take long,” Margit assured Alice. She was also well aware that they were talking to a thirteen-year-old without the presence of a responsible adult. “So how are you?” she added gently.
“Not great. I’m not sleeping too well.” Alice’s voice was thick with unshed tears.
“We understand.” Margit patted her hand. “I promise you we wouldn’t have come over today if it wasn’t so important to find out how your mom died.”
Alice gave a start.
It’s hard for her to hear those words, Thomas thought. Poor kid, she hasn’t really taken it in yet. She shouldn’t be left at home by herself. Then again, that’s exactly what we were hoping for . . .
“Your dad said you went to see your mom at her apartment the day before Christmas Eve,” he said. “Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“Could you tell us about that visit?”
Alice looked at him anxiously, as if she couldn’t quite make out what he was asking her.
“What did you talk about?” Margit prompted her.
“Nothing special.”
“You must have said something to each other.”
Alice was very unsure of herself; her eyes darted all over the place as Margit pressed her. Thomas wanted to interrupt: Leave her alone. He hated the fact that they were exploiting the situation.
“Mom asked about school. If I had a lot of assignments, that kind of thing.”
“Alice,” Thomas said, his gaze calm and steady, “I know this is hard, but it’s essential for the investigation that we find out as much as possible about your mom. For example, was
everything the same as usual when you went to see her?”
“Mmm.”
“So nothing different happened? She didn’t do or say anything that struck you as a little strange?”
Alice wiped her nose on her sleeve. “Don’t think so.”
“Try to remember,” Margit said. “It might not have seemed significant at the time, but if you think back . . .”
“Mom was the same as she always was.”
“OK, I understand, that’s fine. So what did you do?”
“We just had coffee and cake.”
“What kind of cake?”
Alice looked confused, but answered the question.
“Lucia buns and gingerbread. Mom had coffee and I had silver tea—milk with hot water.”
Thomas had to ask: “Did you notice if it was a different kind of coffee? Did your mom open a new pack while you were there?”
“No,” Alice said slowly. “I guess it was the same kind she always had.”
Margit leaned forward.
“Do you know if your mom was planning to see anyone on Christmas Eve?”
Alice wiped her nose again. “Yes, she said someone was coming over.”
The coffee cups on the kitchen table—so someone had been there on the morning of December 24. Thank you, Alice.
“Did she mention this person’s name?” Thomas asked. “It’s really important.”
“No, she didn’t say who it was.”
Margit frowned, glanced at Thomas. Getting the name out of Alice had been too much to hope for.
“By the way,” she said casually, “I don’t suppose you happened to see your mom’s computer in the apartment?”
“Why?”
“We can’t find it. We think it would help if we knew what your mom was working on before she passed away.” Thomas tried to choose his words carefully, but he could see that Alice was upset. She bent over her drawn-up knee, and her hair fell forward, hiding her eyes.
“I don’t suppose your mom asked you to take care of something for her—a printout or a USB stick?” he went on.
Alice shook her head without looking up. Thomas wondered if she even understood what they were asking. “So how long did you stay with your mom? Do you remember what time it was when you left?”
“I’m not sure, but it was dark outside.”
“You didn’t check your watch?” Margit said.
“You mean my cell?”
The question was so obvious, a reminder of the generation gap. Nobody Alice’s age wore a watch.
“So what did you do after you’d said good-bye to your mom?” Thomas asked.
“I came home on the bus, the 670 from the Royal Institute of Technology.”
“What time did you get here?”
“I don’t know . . .” Alice lifted her chin a fraction. “Maybe around seven? Dinner was ready when I got in.”
“You and your dad had dinner together, just the two of you?”
“Yes.”
Everything sounded completely normal. Apart from the fact that Jeanette had ingested a deadly poison the day after she’d seen her daughter for the last time.
“But I expect there were more of you celebrating on Christmas Eve?” Margit said.
Alice cheered up a little. “Grandma and Granddad were here; they always come for Christmas.”
“When did they arrive?”
Thomas’s question seemed to take her by surprise. “In the middle of the day, I think—around coffee time.”
“So what did you do in the morning, before they got here? Did you go to church?”
Alice stared at Margit. “Of course not.”
“In my family we have porridge with almonds for breakfast on Christmas Eve,” Margit confided. “Then we all go to church together. My daughters are only a few years older than you, and they think it’s a lovely thing to do.”
Alice softened.
“We usually do that, too. Have porridge, I mean, not go to church. But Dad had already left when I woke up, and I didn’t feel like making it for myself, so I just had an apple.”
“So where had he gone?”
Margit kept the question casual, as if the answer didn’t matter at all.
Don’t scare her off.
Thomas held his tongue as he studied Alice’s face.
“I’m not sure. I guess he went shopping. He often has to go back to the store because he’s forgotten something.”
“Do you remember what time you woke up?” Margit said in the same tone of voice.
Alice looked embarrassed. “Pretty late, like maybe twelve o’clock.”
“Wow! But you know what, my girls do that, too—I had to wake both of them on Christmas Eve.”
Thomas took over. “Listen, Alice, there’s something else we need to ask you about. When we were here before, and you found out your mom had died—do you remember what you said to your dad?”
Alice kept her eyes fixed on the table.
“No?” Margit ventured.
Alice picked at a ragged cuticle, determined not to look at either of the two officers.
Margit tried again: “When your dad told you your mom was dead, you shouted that it was all his fault, then you ran up to your room.” She gently placed her hand on Alice’s arm. “What did you mean by that?”
They were dangerously close to crossing the line.
“We don’t mean your dad any harm, Alice; we just want to understand why you said that.”
Alice tore off a small piece of skin by the nail bed, and a bead of blood appeared.
“Dad didn’t do anything to Mom.”
“That’s not what we’re saying,” Thomas assured her. “We just want to know why you said what you did.”
Alice’s eyes shone with unshed tears.
“Alice?”
“Dad was so angry with Mom,” she whispered. “I thought he’d made her kill herself.”
CHAPTER 68
Thomas pushed open the door of the conference room that had been set up as a temporary case headquarters. Once again, Aram was sitting there with a pile of printouts in front of him.
It was after six o’clock in the evening, and Margit had needed to go home; half her relatives were visiting. Thomas could see how guilty she felt when she left him to it.
“Hi there,” Aram said. “I’m glad you’re here—I was just about to call you.”
Thomas went and sat down next to his colleague.
“I spoke to Sachsen a little while ago,” he began. “Bertil Ahlgren’s body is on the way to the forensic lab in Solna. How did it go with Jeanette’s Hotmail account?”
“I’m still waiting for the tech guys; I thought I’d follow up on it tomorrow.”
Aram moved some of the papers so that Thomas could see them: lists of telephone numbers, with the subscribers’ names in the right-hand column. Some had been highlighted in yellow.
“All the data has been retrieved from her phone,” he said. “I’ve just finished going through everything.”
“So what did you find?” Thomas asked, checking the lists as Aram explained.
“This is where the calls made on December 23 begin,” he said, pointing to a line in the middle of the first page. “Three calls in the morning, starting with Alice. Their conversation lasts about ten minutes. A little while later she has a brief conversation with Anne-Marie Hansen—maybe she was just confirming something about the get-together they were planning. The last call is to SAS, the airline—that lasts about fifteen minutes.”
“So we need to check if she was going on another trip, and if so, where,” Thomas said.
“She doesn’t use her phone again until after lunch—13.15, to be precise, when she gets a call from someone listed as M in her address book. The number is a burner phone, impossible to trace—I’ve already checked.”
“M as in Michael?” Thomas said.
Aram shrugged. “I don’t think so—he’s already in there as Michael.”
Thomas stared at the list. “It
was a long call.”
“Twenty-eight minutes.”
So Jeanette had spent almost half an hour speaking to this unknown person on the day before Christmas Eve. Could it have had something to do with her job? Then again, not many people used a burner phone at work, so it was more likely to be private.
But who was it?
Aram picked up another printout, comprising several pages of short text messages.
“These are the texts from Jeanette’s phone. Take a look at December 23.” He placed the tip of his pencil on the relevant lines. “Half an hour after that long call, at 14.10, Jeanette receives a text message from M—from the same burner phone as before.”
Need to see you. Same place as before. VBP tomorrow morning?
“There was some kind of relationship,” Thomas said.
“Looks that way,” Aram agreed. “Ten minutes later Jeanette sends this reply.”
You come here instead, 11:00.
“So she’d arranged to meet someone,” Thomas said, straightening his back. The content of the message indicated that this hadn’t been planned in advance; it must have been urgent for Jeanette to agree to meet the sender at such short notice, and on Christmas Eve.
“There are two more messages that are of interest,” Aram went on. “They were sent late at night, from the same number.”
They both looked at the printout.
Will you be alone tomorrow?
No need to worry.
“They didn’t want to be seen together,” Aram said.
“A source, maybe?” Thomas was thinking aloud. “If she was in the middle of an investigative piece.”
“With a link to New Sweden?” Aram said immediately.
Thomas clasped his hands behind his head. “We can’t afford to get hung up on them; there are plenty of possibilities.”
“Jeanette and M exchanged more messages,” Aram said, turning to a fresh page. “Here. It looks as if they’d already met up on the twenty-second—the Monday before Christmas Eve. Although this time it’s Jeanette who wants to see M rather than vice versa.”
