by Viveca Sten
When he tapped on the door, she didn’t answer, pretending to be asleep. He assumed she was trying to put off the moment when they’d have to talk. Maybe it was just as well; he also felt worn-out, exhausted by the stress of the past twenty-four hours. It was nice to have a bit of peace and quiet; he needed the chance to recover.
Judging by the pinging sounds coming through Wilma’s door, she was busy texting her friends. Apparently she still had some energy left.
Jonas picked up the evening paper and went out into the garden with a cup of coffee. He sat down on the white chair that would soon be in the shade when the sun disappeared around the corner of the house.
He flicked through the paper and found a full-page article with the headline MURDER ON SANDHAMN, accompanied by a picture of Skärkarlshamn and the cordoned-off area. POLICE SEEK WITNESSES, said the subheading.
His cell phone rang and Jonas checked the display. Margot. Time for another telling off? He put down his coffee and answered without much enthusiasm.
“Hi, Margot.”
“How’s it going?”
“OK. I’m sitting in the garden, and Wilma’s in her room. To be honest, I think she’s avoiding me.”
“I’ve just spoken to her.” The deep voice sounded serious, quieter than usual. Jonas heard a rustling sound and imagined her gathering her shiny brown hair in a ponytail, a gesture he remembered from their schooldays. They had gotten together during their last year in high school, and Margot got pregnant around the time they graduated. They moved into a small apartment together with no idea of what lay ahead. Shortly after Wilma’s second birthday, Jonas got into the airline pilot training program in Ljungbyhed, and a little while after that, their relationship had foundered.
However, it hadn’t been a dramatic breakup, and apart from the time he spent in Skåne, they’d shared custody of Wilma.
Jonas couldn’t remember when Margot had last yelled at him the way she’d done yesterday. Over the years, they had developed a warm friendship, and he’d even spent Christmas with his ex and her new family.
“So where’s she been?” he asked. “What happened?”
Margot didn’t answer right away. “I had to promise her that I wouldn’t tell you. I’m really sorry, but when you talk to her, you’ll understand.”
There was another brief pause. Jonas didn’t like what Margot had said, but he could tell there was no point in pushing her. She started to speak, stopped, then tried again.
“Listen, I’m sorry I yelled at you yesterday. I was just so worried.”
Jonas couldn’t exactly throw the harsh words back in her face when he’d actually agreed with her.
“It’s fine,” he said. “Let’s forget it.”
But Margot wasn’t done.
“You’re a great dad, and you have every right to meet someone new. I’m so pleased that you and Nora have found each other. She seems really nice.”
Nora had been at Jonas’s one evening when Margot came over with a couple of things that Wilma needed. They had chatted in the hallway for a few minutes, with no trace of awkwardness.
Margot laughed but sounded a little strained. “Believe me, I’d love if you made a go of it. Maybe have more kids, like me. You’re not exactly ancient.”
The words warmed Jonas’s heart, but right now the thought of a new family seemed like a remote prospect.
A bumblebee was buzzing happily around the dense red currant bushes growing just inside the fence. The clusters of pale-yellow flowers suggested that there would be a good crop this year. Was it Nora who’d planted them? Jonas felt a stab of pain at the thought.
“Anyway, I just wanted you to know,” Margot added.
“OK. Thanks.”
Another pause. “If I were you,” Margot said, “I’d leave Wilma in peace tonight, then have a chat with her tomorrow, when everything’s calmed down. I think you both need some breathing room. It must have been so stressful.”
The bee took one last swoop around the red currants before setting off for the neighbor’s garden.
“Sounds like a good idea,” Jonas said. “I’m sure you’re right.” Without a hint of irony in his voice, he added, “As usual.”
He heard Margot’s warm laugh. “Take care of yourself,” she said, and ended the call.
Jonas slipped his phone into his pocket. He would talk to Wilma tomorrow, when they both had had the chance to recover.
CHAPTER 59
Pernilla answered after four rings, just as Thomas was about to leave a message. He was still at the station, having spent the last few hours on the phone trying to find out as much as possible about Tobbe Hökström.
A picture was beginning to take shape.
“Hello?”
She sounded breathless, as if she’d rushed to the phone. It was a lovely evening; maybe she’d lingered down by the jetty in the sunshine. He pictured the tranquil inlet, the spot where the gulls like to land on the wooden posts, the bathing platform extending out into the water.
“Hi, it’s me.”
“Good evening, kind sir.”
The old-fashioned greeting made him smile. Typical Pernilla.
“How’s it going?” she went on. “Let me guess. You’re still at work, and now it’s too late to catch the last ferry. You’re not coming home tonight.”
She knew him well. Thomas was about to answer when he heard a furious roar on the other end of the line. Elin might be only a few months old, but there was nothing wrong with her lungs.
“Your daughter isn’t in the best of moods today,” Pernilla said, raising her voice to try and drown out the cacophony. “We’ll talk later. I’ll call you when she’s asleep.”
Thomas put down the phone and heard a knock. Harry Anjou stuck his head around the door.
“Do you have a minute, or are you on your way home?”
“Come on in,” Thomas said, nodding at the visitor’s chair. “Take a seat.”
He tidied up the remains of his burger as Anjou sat down and ran a hand over his chin, where the dark stubble was now clearly visible.
“I’ve been thinking about this business with the drugs,” he began, leaning back on his chair. “If Victor Ekengreen was planning on really going for it over Midsummer, he presumably had a decent supply with him. But maybe something happened—he was robbed or he dropped it in the sea, whatever. Anyway, it made him real mad. Plus, we know that he was drunk.”
“From what his friends have said, he didn’t have much of a head for booze,” Thomas said.
“Exactly. I’m thinking he went looking for a dealer on the island and eventually ran into one of Minosevitch’s guys.”
“As we discussed earlier.” Thomas wondered where his colleague was going with this.
“And do you remember the girlfriend saying that Victor was in a hurry when she caught up with him on the hill behind the Sailors Restaurant? Maybe he’d arranged to meet a dealer.”
“Felicia did say that Victor didn’t want her there,” Thomas conceded. “She had to talk him into letting her tag along.”
“That’s what just occurred to me!” Anjou said eagerly. “The girlfriend might have thought they ended up in Skärkarlshamn purely by chance, but the spot where the body was found is hidden from view. It would have been the perfect meeting place to buy drugs without being seen by anyone.” A wry smile. “Believe me,” he went on, “the entire harbor was crawling with cops, but we hardly went over there at all—just the odd patrol taking a walk around to make sure no one was lighting fires in the forest.”
“So if we could find out who Victor had arranged to meet . . . ,” Thomas said slowly.
“We might have a witness or even a possible perpetrator. It would be a real bonus if we could track down the dealer. What if Victor refused to pay what he was asking—or couldn’t pay? You don’t mess with these guys.”
“That’s what Landin said.”
Anjou leaned forward. “Victor starts picking an argument when it’s time to come up with the
money; they get into a fight, and Victor goes down. The dealer’s worried. He doesn’t dare take the risk of Victor coming round and deciding to go to the cops, so he kills him.”
“You mean he killed him to be on the safe side?” Thomas said. “That sounds a bit farfetched.”
Anjou shook his head. “Not necessarily. Many of these dealers don’t have a permanent residence permit. If they’re convicted of a narcotics offense, they’re almost always deported once they’ve served their jail time. It’s a high price; many of them will do anything to stay in this country.” Anjou spread his hands wide. “It’s a theory anyway.”
“Let’s see what Landin says tomorrow,” Thomas said, stretching his arms in front of him as he thought things over.
They had investigated the two men involved in the knife fight and hadn’t found a link, but it would be interesting to hear if their colleagues in the drug squad had noticed Victor before he was killed.
Anyhow, it seemed as if Anjou was settling in.
“So how’s it going?” Thomas said. “You’ve certainly been thrown into the deep end.”
“You could say that, but it’s better than shuffling paper. I thought I’d be starting off with minor infringements and so on.”
Thomas smiled at the image of Anjou surrounded by piles of parking tickets.
“How do you like living in Stockholm?”
“It’s OK. The pace is faster than up in Norrland, of course, but I like the city and the fact that people don’t feel the need to poke their nose into your business all the time.” He pulled a face. “You know what it’s like in small towns—all the gossip, everyone has to have an opinion on everything. This environment suits me much better.”
Thomas looked at his watch: almost nine thirty. He yawned. “Time to call it a day,” he said, getting to his feet.
CHAPTER 60
Thomas got in the Volvo and fastened his seat belt. He hadn’t heard from Pernilla, but surely Elin must be asleep by now. He took out his cell phone.
“Hi, it’s me,” he said when Pernilla answered. “Has she gone to sleep?”
“Yes, thank goodness,” Pernilla said. She laughed softly, then grew serious. “I’m wondering if she’s got a touch of colic, given the way she was yelling. Maybe we should try those drops you can get at the drugstore? I can’t cope with this for much longer.”
Thomas’s guilty conscience kicked in once more. He should be on Harö, taking care of his daughter; instead he was spending twelve hours a day at work.
“How’s the case going?” Pernilla asked.
“OK, but it’s early days. There’s a hell of a lot to come to grips with, as usual.”
“I read about it in the papers. It’s impossible not to be affected by this kind of thing, even though I’ve never met Johan Ekengreen or his wife.”
Thomas heard a door closing, then a boat puttering along in the distance. Presumably Pernilla had gone to sit by the jetty and was looking out across the water.
“Is it hard?” Pernilla’s voice was full of sympathy, with not a trace of reproach because he was still in town. Thomas loved her for that.
“You know how it is,” he said. “A thousand things that need to be checked out and not enough people to do it. We’ve brought in a couple of officers from elsewhere to deal with information from the public, background checks and so on, but it all takes time.”
Thomas passed Danvikstull and was approaching Folkungagatan, where he would turn off to reach the apartment in the Söder district of the city. He stopped by the ferry terminal. One of the huge Finland ferries was moored, ablaze with lights.
“The autopsy’s done,” he went on. “We’ve had various meetings today; from the outside everything looks fine, the teenagers we’re dealing with are well brought up and financially secure. But when you scratch beneath the surface . . .”
The lights changed to green, and Thomas turned left.
“Money definitely isn’t everything,” he said. “It’s pretty depressing.”
“So what have you been working on?” Pernilla asked.
“I’ve spent the last few hours checking out Victor’s best friend, who was with him on Sandhamn. We’re just trying to work out the course of events.”
The picture of Tobbe had gradually filled out as Thomas spoke to his teachers and others who knew him. Most of them described the teenager as a cheerful prankster always ready with a witty remark. An attention seeker who sought approval. Several people said he probably partied too much but that he was extremely popular.
“Hey, are you still there?” Pernilla said.
Thomas realized he’d lost himself in his thoughts. “I was thinking about the kids.”
“Have you reached any conclusions?”
“It’s too early to say. We have to follow up with everyone who was with Victor during his final twenty-four hours, and that’s going to take a while.”
Pernilla sighed. “He was only sixteen,” she said slowly. “That’s not very old.”
“No.”
In the silence that followed, Thomas knew they were both thinking about Elin.
“I’ll try and come over tomorrow,” he said before ending the call.
Tobbe came to mind again. Judging by what Thomas had heard, he seemed like somewhat of a lost soul with a weak moral compass. His grades were decent, but according to his teachers, he was too chatty and found it difficult to sit still and focus. It was clear that his parents’ divorce had affected him adversely, and during his last year in high school, he had become increasingly restless.
Since they now knew that Victor had been using drugs, it was entirely possible that Tobbe was doing the same.
Had he, too, become aggressive under the influence?
Was Victor dead because two strung-out kids had clashed on the shore on Saturday evening?
CHAPTER 61
Nora and the boys were sitting in front of the television in Signe’s old sewing room, which had been turned into a TV room. They had curled up on the fine velvet sofa with its brightly colored woolen Dalarna embroidery; it had been there as long as Nora could remember. This very piece of furniture had once almost suffocated Signe’s younger brother when the sofa bed flipped over, and he got trapped under the mattress.
The story had been told on many occasions, and whenever Nora sat on it, she thought about Signe and her brother—she couldn’t help it. To be on the safe side, she had hammered some nails into the mechanism so that it no longer worked. She wasn’t going to risk her sons being attacked by a mattress!
On the wall above hung one of Signe’s favorite pictures, a beautiful oil painting by the well-known archipelago artist Axel Sjöberg. He had lived on Sandhamn for most of his life and was commemorated by a statue in the harbor in front of the museum.
It was almost eleven, and the summer sky had turned dark blue. The whole house smelled of popcorn; Adam loved it and had filled two big bowls.
With Simon’s head resting on her knee and Adam beside her, Nora was making sure she appreciated this moment. The last twenty-four hours had been a roller coaster, and now she just wanted to shut out the world and be with her boys.
I love you both so much, she thought, stroking Simon’s cheek. He barely noticed; the two of them were totally focused on the movie. Adam never took his eyes off the screen as he worked his way through the popcorn, and as a result, there was a bit of a mess on the rug at his feet.
Nora let her hand rest on the nape of Simon’s neck. He was slightly sweaty, and she was starting to feel warm, too, but she loved the closeness. It made her think back to the days when her sons were babies and lay curled up on her chest like little frogs as they fell asleep, the days when they didn’t want to be anywhere but with their mom.
Gradually her tense muscles began to relax.
The kerosene lamp on the gray-painted sideboard burned with a warm golden glow, and a few insects that had found their way into the room circled around the flame. The window was ajar, and the thin lace curtains fl
uttered in the mild evening breeze.
Nora was trying to concentrate on the film, but Jonas was there, in the back of her mind. He hadn’t replied to her text or been in touch all day. Had it been naïve of her to believe that everything would work out just because they had fallen in love? Had they moved too fast during the spring?
Nora had a feeling that the adjustment had been too much for Wilma.
Ebba switched off her bedside light and drew the covers up to her chin. She needed to sleep, but she couldn’t stop thinking about Tobbe, wondering how he was feeling, what he was doing. Last night she had lain awake until the early hours of the morning.
She remembered his mischievous grin when he tried to get her to smile during boring classes, the warmth when they held hands during breaks, the feeling that it was just the two of them.
She remembered when he stayed over for the first time. Mom had been away, and Ebba had said she would spend the night at Felicia’s. Instead she had brought Tobbe home, and they had fallen asleep together in her bed. She had never been happier than when she opened her eyes in the morning and saw him lying there, with his tousled red hair on her pillow.
Lovely Tobbe, she thought.
Her cell phone buzzed, and Ebba reached for it without switching on the light. If Mom saw she was texting at this hour, she’d go crazy.
Against all the odds, she hoped it would be Tobbe, but when she looked at the screen, she saw it was a text from Felicia, who was on Vindalsö.
Ebba would be staying in Lidingö all week because Mom’s vacation didn’t start for another seven days. Then they would be going to the island of Gotland for two weeks.
She read the short message.
Tobbe going to the cops tomorrow, me, too.
A lump formed in Ebba’s throat, and she swallowed several times.
Why? she typed quickly.
