by Viveca Sten
Tobbe had seen it all before.
Victor had become increasingly moody during the spring; it didn’t take much for him to lose his temper, and when Felicia had been drinking, she also had a pretty short fuse.
“You’re so fucking stupid, you crazy bitch,” Victor yelled at Felicia.
“And you’re sick in the fucking head.”
Victor looked as if he were about to hit her. “Shut your fucking mouth!”
“You shut your fucking mouth!”
Victor slammed his glass down on the table so hard that it cracked. He stood up and left the boat.
Felicia burst into tears. “Victor, wait,” she called out and ran after him.
Tobbe had no idea what was going on. It was so unnecessary, messing everything up like this. Sometimes he couldn’t cope with Victor. Or Felicia.
A while after their argument, Christoffer came back. He’d brought some fast food with him; their father had given him money before they left home. A gang of his friends from college had turned up in their boat; Tobbe was welcome to come along and bring the girls.
Why not? Tobbe thought.
Tessan and the others were more than happy with the invitation, and to be honest, he couldn’t care less about Victor and Felicia. No doubt they were sorting out their shit somewhere, and if Ebba wanted to go off and sulk, that was her problem.
He took a swig of his drink, then he pulled Tessan close, and his lips found hers.
When they’d eaten their burgers, they grabbed some booze and went over to the other boat. It was by the Via Mare jetty; Christoffer had been given the code for the gate, so they had no difficulty getting in.
He stayed there until the music stopped at the Sailors Restaurant and more or less passed out as soon as he got back to the boat.
He woke up to find a cop standing in the cabin.
CHAPTER 30
Tobbe avoided meeting Thomas’s eye. Instead he started chewing a fingernail. Thomas noticed that all his nails were bitten down to the quick. There was so little of the actual nails left that the tips of his fingers looked swollen.
It was obvious that Tobbe would rather be anywhere but here. His expression was both distrustful and unhappy.
So a group of five young people had arrived on Sandhamn to celebrate Midsummer. During the course of a few short hours, three of them had left the boat, and the evening had ended in disaster.
Thanks to Tobbe, Ebba had stormed off in a rage and had ended up wandering around on her own. Felicia had collapsed down by the harbor, and her boyfriend had been killed over in Skärkarlshamn. Meanwhile, the two brothers sitting opposite him didn’t seem to have noticed a thing or even wonder what might have happened. Instead they had kept on partying with their new friends.
Thomas couldn’t help being struck by their self-absorbed attitude, but he didn’t say anything. Harry Anjou was more outspoken.
“Didn’t you wonder where Victor and the girls had gone?” he asked sharply. “Or was it just that you were drunk and didn’t give a shit?”
Tobbe shrank down in his chair. His voice was trembling when he spoke. “I tried to get ahold of the others to tell them we were hanging out with Christoffer’s friends, but nobody answered their phone. I texted Victor, but he didn’t get back to me. I didn’t forget about him or the girls. We’re friends.” He looked as if he was on the verge of tears. “How could I know he was dead?” he went on. “I thought he was with Felicia, and they’d be back later. I swear.”
His thumbnail, or what was left of it, disappeared into his mouth.
“If I’ve understood you correctly, Ebba, Felicia, and Victor were missing from around seven o’clock in the evening on Midsummer’s Day,” Thomas said. “Neither of you wondered whether something had happened to them?”
He looked inquiringly at the older brother. Christoffer’s shoulders were broad beneath the green polo shirt, forming a sharp contrast to Tobbe’s slighter frame.
But his eyes were empty.
Harry Anjou directed his next question to Christoffer. “Shouldn’t you have reacted when so many of your group took off? Your brother and his friends have only just finished high school. You were the only adult, after all.”
Now it was Christoffer’s turn to shake his head. “I didn’t even think about it. There were so many people around, everyone was partying . . . I didn’t realize they’d gone.” He swallowed hard. “I mean . . . I wish I’d done something . . . but I assumed they were OK. I thought they’d turn up eventually.”
There was no point in making the brothers feel even more guilty; they could do that for themselves. Thomas leaned forward.
“The important thing now is that you help us. Do either of you have any idea where Victor could have been during the evening? Where he might have gone?”
“No,” Tobbe said immediately with a rapid glance to the side.
Thomas caught the movement. Had Tobbe sent his brother some kind of signal, or was it his imagination?
Before he could say anything, Harry Anjou jumped in. “Did Victor owe anyone money? Had he fallen out with anyone?”
“I don’t think so,” Tobbe said.
That bruise on Tobbe’s cheek . . . had the boys gotten into a fight?
“Where did you get that bruise?” Thomas asked.
Tobbe’s hand flew up to his face in an involuntary movement. “I fell.”
“How did that happen?”
“I slipped on a rock.”
“I see,” Thomas said. He waited for Tobbe to go on, but the boy just stared down at the desk.
Anjou had had enough. “There must be something you can tell us!” he snapped.
Thomas saw how Tobbe reacted to his tone of voice. He gave Anjou a look to tell him to take it easy; there was no point in upsetting the brothers even more. However, Anjou didn’t seem to pick up his signal.
“Your best friend has been murdered,” he went on. “Help us, instead of sitting there, mumbling! You must know something!”
Tobbe grabbed his stomach again, and Thomas decided it was time to stop.
“You can go now, but we need you to stay on the island in case we have more questions.”
Christoffer stood up. When Tobbe didn’t move, he gave his brother a push. “Come on.”
Silently Tobbe followed him to the door, but just as he was about to leave, he turned and gave Thomas a pleading look.
“Are you absolutely sure he was murdered?”
CHAPTER 31
“What are you doing?”
Jonas’s voice took Nora by surprise, and she gave a start. She was sitting at the kitchen table with her laptop open when he appeared in the doorway, his hair standing on end, his eyes no more than narrow slits.
“Hi there,” she said.
“You should have woken me long ago,” Jonas said, but without conviction. “I guess Wilma hasn’t come home yet?”
“No, unfortunately. If she had, I’d have told you right away. There’s fresh coffee if you’d like some and bread from the bakery. You ought to eat something.” Nora realized she sounded as if she was talking to one of her sons. She pointed at the computer and changed her tone. “I’m trying to find one of Wilma’s friends; I thought we might be able to track her down that way.”
Jonas sat down beside her. Nora moved the cursor across the screen, and after a few clicks with the mouse, Wilma’s smiling face appeared. Jonas gave a start when he saw his daughter. Nora quickly selected “Friends” directly beneath the image; a list of several hundred friends arranged in alphabetical order by first name appeared, along with their profile pictures. Nora scrolled down until she reached the letter M.
M for Malena and for Mattias.
She stopped at the picture of a brown-haired girl.
“There you go,” Nora said. “Wassberg—Malena Wassberg. And her older brother is . . .” She scrolled a little farther. “Here.”
She clicked on the picture of a seventeen-year-old boy, and Mattias Wassberg’s Facebook profile came
up.
According to the information on the screen, he played basketball and attended Östra Real, a high school in inner-city Stockholm. He also had hundreds of friends and was a fan of bands Nora had never even heard of.
She had to admit he was good-looking, even if the glint in his eye suggested that he was well aware of his charms. She could imagine how popular he was with teenage girls.
Was that why Wilma was so besotted with him? He was seventeen. Wilma was only fourteen; three years was a huge difference at that age. She felt a little pang of anxiety in her stomach.
“Do you recognize any of her friends?” she asked Jonas.
“No, they’re not the old crowd.” He scratched his chin. “I used to know most of the kids she hung out with, and their parents. But that changed when she moved up to high school. It’s a totally different ball game. Now I have far less contact with both her classmates and their families.”
Nora opened another window, clicked on a search engine, and typed in “Malena Wassberg.”
Nothing.
She tried “Mattias Wassberg” and found twenty-five individuals, four of whom lived in the Stockholm area.
“Bingo,” Jonas said. He got up and poured himself half a cup of coffee. “Would you like some?”
“I’m fine, thanks. I’ve already had too much. I’ll end up with an acid stomach if I have any more today.” Nora reached for the phone. “Shall we give it a go?”
Without waiting for a response, she keyed in the first number on the list, then switched to speakerphone so Jonas could hear.
An answering machine kicked in. “Hi, you’ve reached Mattias, please leave your name and number, and I’ll get back to you.”
“He sounds middle-aged,” Jonas said.
Nora left a message just to be on the safe side, asking the man to call her.
The next Mattias Wassberg turned out to be a father who had no idea what Nora was talking about when she mentioned Wilma Sköld. She apologized politely and hung up.
“Two left,” she said; Jonas was still standing by the coffee machine.
She tried the third number; no answer. Nora was expecting to be able to leave a voice mail message, but then the call was cut off.
“That’s weird. Shall I try again?”
“Yes.”
She pressed “Redial” and listened to the ringing. Just as she thought the call was about to be cut off again, a young boy answered, sounding as if he’d just woken up.
“Hello?”
There was something in the background—birds? Gulls, maybe? If he was in the archipelago, this could be the right person.
Nora quickly introduced herself. “I’m wondering if you know a girl called Wilma, Wilma Sköld? I’m trying to find out where she is.”
“Wilma? No idea.”
There was silence, then a click, and he was gone.
Nora stared at the phone. Hopeless. For a moment she’d thought that was the right Mattias Wassberg.
Slowly she keyed in the last number. After a few seconds, an elderly man answered, his voice a little shaky. “Wassberg.”
Nora felt like a deflated balloon. “Sorry,” she said. “Wrong number.”
Jonas turned to put down his coffee cup on the countertop, but he placed it too close to the edge, and it crashed to the floor and broke.
“For fuck’s sake!” he shouted. “Shit shit shit!”
Nora closed her laptop and stood up. “I’m going down to the outreach center to find Thomas,” she said. “It’s time the police did something.”
CHAPTER 32
Harry Anjou and Thomas had stayed in the center after the Hökström brothers had left; it was lunchtime now.
“Those boys are doing their best to look innocent,” Anjou said. “But it’s obvious they’re spoiled brats. It’s fine to get drunk on Daddy’s motorboat, but they can’t be bothered to get their act together to help the police.” He rubbed his eyes, then stretched his arms. “And what about that bruise on the younger kid’s face? I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d been in a fight with Ekengreen.”
“You mean something got out of hand?” Thomas said.
Anjou shrugged. “Drunken teenagers do dumb things. You heard what he said: they’d been drinking all day. Maybe they bumped into each other later in the evening. How should I know? So far, we only have his word that Victor took off and that he didn’t see him after that.”
The door opened and Adrian Karlsson came in.
“Jens asked me to let you know that there are two teams down in the harbor doing ‘door-to-door inquiries.’” He made quotation marks in the air with his fingers. “Or whatever you call it when you’re walking up and down a jetty, talking to boat owners. More officers will be arriving in half an hour to relieve those by the cordoned-off area. Jens said you can call him if you need something.”
“Thanks,” Thomas said.
“We’re leaving now,” Adrian went on, “but the others will be here all day.”
He suppressed a yawn, and Thomas realized he must have been on duty for over twenty-four hours. It also struck him that Harry Anjou kept rubbing his eyes. It had been a very long Midsummer weekend.
“Are you coming back with us or staying here?” Adrian asked Anjou, who seemed torn between exhaustion and a sense of duty. He hesitated, and before he could answer, Thomas made the decision for him.
“You’ve been up all night. Go home and get some sleep, and I’ll see you first thing tomorrow morning in Nacka.”
There was no point in wearing the guy out before he’d even had a chance to properly join the Violent Crime Unit. Thomas checked his watch; Margit would be here shortly. As soon as she arrived, he wanted to go over to Nora’s house and speak to Victor’s girlfriend and the other girl, Ebba.
He stood up and stretched.
“I’ll come down to the jetty with you; I’m meeting a colleague from the ferry in a few minutes.”
They were about to leave when the doorbell rang. He opened the door to find Nora standing outside. She was pale, her hair was caught up in a messy ponytail, and her T-shirt was tucked into faded shorts.
“Thomas!” she burst out, grabbing his arm. “Wilma’s still missing! We’ve tried to find Mattias Wassberg, a boy we think she was hoping to meet up with yesterday, but we can’t get ahold of him. You have to do something. It’s been almost twelve hours since she was supposed to be home!”
Nora took a step forward and realized Thomas wasn’t alone. “Sorry,” she said, overcome with embarrassment.
Adrian raised a hand in greeting. “We met last night when you came to pick up the girls,” he said.
“Of course. I’m sorry, I didn’t recognize you.” She shook hands with him and Harry Anjou. “It’s all been a bit much over the last few hours,” she went on. “My partner’s daughter is missing, and we can’t get in touch with her.”
“I was just on my way over to your place,” Thomas said.
“Why?”
Fear leaped into her eyes, and Thomas could see that she’d misinterpreted him.
“It’s nothing to do with Wilma,” he reassured her. “I still think she’s just had too much to drink and is sleeping it off somewhere.”
“You’ve no idea how often that kind of thing happens,” Anjou said to Nora. “You’re not the first parent who’s contacted us this weekend.”
“We’ve had an incident overnight,” Thomas went on. “I need to speak to both Ebba and Felicia as soon as possible.”
“What kind of incident?” Nora asked. Her voice was shaky, and Thomas understood that he hadn’t reassured her at all. He pulled out a chair for Nora and sat down beside her.
“I don’t want this spread around the village, but a teenage boy was found dead in Skärkarlshamn this morning,” he explained.
Nora let out a cry of horror, and her hand flew to her mouth.
“It seems to be Felicia Grimstad’s boyfriend, which is why I was coming to see you. We need to talk to her.”
Nora’s
face had lost all trace of color.
“Are you OK?” Thomas said.
“Are you sure this has nothing to do with Wilma? What if something’s happened to her as well . . .” The last few words were swallowed up in a sob.
Thomas realized he’d made the situation even worse, but there was nothing more to say. He had to trust his instinct, which told him that Wilma was all right.
Adrian Karlsson got to his feet and picked up a black overnight bag from the corner of the kitchenette. “We need to go,” he said.
Anjou nodded to Thomas and followed Adrian out into the sunshine. Thomas stood up.
“It would be good if we could go over to your house,” he said to Nora. “Margit’s ferry will be arriving at any minute, and she’ll come along, too.” He gave her an encouraging pat on the cheek. “Where’s Jonas, by the way?”
“Back home. He’s trying to call Wilma’s friends to see if anyone’s heard from her. I really hope you’re right.” The doubt still lingered in her voice.
I hope so, too, Thomas thought.
CHAPTER 33
Margit was the first to disembark. Her short hair looked redder than usual in the bright sunshine. She waved when she caught sight of Thomas and Nora, who were waiting a little bit behind the crowd around the landing stage.
“Hi, Nora,” Margit said when she reached them. “I can’t believe you’ve been dragged into all this. What a mess. It’s always difficult when young people are involved.”
Nora nodded. She had met Margit many times in the past and knew how much Thomas valued his down-to-earth colleague.
They set off for the Brand villa, while Thomas quickly summarized the morning’s events for Margit’s benefit. Fragments of the conversation reached Nora as she walked a few steps ahead of them. The knot in her stomach grew; how could Thomas be so sure that nothing had happened to Wilma? What if he was wrong, and she was mixed up in all this?
They turned off by the Värdshuset Restaurant and took the narrow alleyway past Barnberget, a hill well known for the track made by thousands of kids sliding down on their bottoms over the years. The surface was perfectly smooth, and several four-year-olds were whizzing down as they passed by. Their joyous laughter made Nora feel even worse; the contrast was too great. She slowed her pace and joined Thomas and Margit, trying to think about something else. They soon reached the Brand villa.
