The Department of Sensitive Crimes

by Alexander McCall Smith

  “Carl is very clever,” observed Erik one day. “Why isn’t he a professor somewhere—like that dad of his—rather than a detective?”

  “He’s here because he believes in justice,” said Ulf. “And because he thinks it’s the right thing to help others.”

  Erik looked thoughtful. “What does he do in his spare time?”

  Ulf replied that he thought that Carl had very little spare time, what with the demands of his young family and the long hours he worked in the department. Yet he clearly found time to read, and so that must be what he did.

  “Just read?” said Erik. “Just read books and so on?”

  “Yes. I think so.”

  Erik shook his head in wonderment. “I should ask him whether he wants to come fishing some day.”

  “You could,” said Ulf. “But I doubt if he could find the time.”

  Erik shrugged. “If you can’t find the time to go fishing, then... well, what’s the point?”

  Ulf did not feel that further discussion would be profitable. So he simply said, “True, Erik,” and left it at that.

  * * *

  —

  The case that Ulf had mentioned to Dr. Svensson at the end of his last therapy session had started, as many of the department’s cases did, with a simple report from the local police. Their resources were strained, and if anything happened that looked as if it might require complicated investigation, they referred it to the Department of Sensitive Crimes. These cases could go to the normal Criminal Investigation Authority, but the local police enjoyed a close relationship with the authority and tried to avoid burdening them excessively. The fact that these referrals were often made rather hastily inevitably meant that some of the issues with which Ulf’s department was landed were not all that sensitive, but by and large the system worked. Only occasionally did they have to protest that the routine disappearance of a teenager, or the theft of a laptop computer, was not really the sort of issue for which they had been set up.

  The report that came in one morning stated simply: “Market stabbing. No severe injury, but unusual locus. No witnesses, and the victim himself saw nothing. Please investigate.”

  Ulf read the report out to Anna. “Unusual locus? What does that mean?”

  “Strange place, I imagine.”

  “But the locus could be the locus of the crime or the locus of the injury.”

  Anna laughed. “Hardly the latter, surely. No, I think it’s probably a stabbing that took place in the back of a puppet theatre, or under a table laden with peace movement literature—the anti-war people have a stall down there most days. Something of that sort.”

  Ulf sighed. “I suppose we’d better go and ask around. The local police say somebody will be there to fill us in with such information as they have. I don’t think that’ll be much—no witnesses, they say.”

  Anna closed her laptop and reached for her handbag. “I was hoping to do some shopping anyway,” she said. “Count me in on this one. I need to buy broccoli. And free-range eggs.”

  They travelled to the market in Ulf’s ancient light grey Saab. It had once been silver in colour, the pride of Ulf’s uncle from Gothenburg, but it had faded with age. “It’s the Kattegatt air,” the uncle explained. “Salinity is bad for certain paints, and I think silver is especially vulnerable. But inside, Ulf, the car is perfect. Real leather. Everything works. Everything.”

  The uncle’s eyesight had deteriorated, and he had reluctantly given up driving. “It’ll give me great pleasure to know you’re looking after it, Ulf. And I hope it gives you as much pleasure as it’s given me.”

  It did. Ulf loved the car, and on occasion, when feeling low for whatever reason, he would take it for a drive—not to anywhere in particular, but simply to be out on the road, comforted by the smell of the old leather upholstery and surrounded by the sounds of a perfectly functioning mechanical creation: the tick of the clock on the dashboard, the smooth hum of the engine, the well-lubricated munching sound that accompanied the changing of gear. Inevitably, he returned from such outings feeling vastly better, making him wonder whether the money he spent on his sessions with Dr. Svensson would not be better expended on fuel for more aimless, but clearly therapeutic, journeys in the Saab.

  Anna, too, enjoyed travelling in Ulf’s car, and as they drove the short distance to the old market she sat back, closed her eyes, and caressed the cracked leather of the seat. “The best part of any investigation with you, Ulf,” she said dreamily, “is being in your car.”

  Ulf smiled. “I’m sorry my company rates so lowly, Anna.”

  She opened her eyes. “Oh, I didn’t mean that, Ulf.” She paused. “You know what I mean? Being in your car is like being in the old Sweden.”

  “You mean it’s a social democratic experience?”

  Anna grinned. “Something like that. A return to a time of innocence. Everybody wants that, don’t they?”

  Ulf said that he thought some did. They could be misunderstood, though: nostalgia and reactionary sentiment could come perilously close.

  The conversation drifted. Anna told Ulf about a row at her daughters’ school. A strident parent had accused one of the teachers of making her child feel undervalued. “The truth of the matter, though, is that the child in question is actually a bit of a dead loss. I don’t mean to be unkind, but it would be hard to undervalue that kid.”

  “We have to pretend,” said Ulf. “We have to pretend about so much these days. We have to pretend to like things we don’t like. We have to try so very hard to be non-judgemental.”

  “I suppose so,” said Anna. “I suppose teachers have to pretend that every child is some sort of genius.”

  “Yes.”

  “Especially when talking to the parent.”

  “Yes,” agreed Ulf. “Especially then.”

  “Perhaps it’s for the best,” mused Anna. “Perhaps if we pretend hard enough about these things, we’ll end up believing the things they want us to believe, and everybody will be happy.”

  “Nirvana,” said Ulf. “We could change Sweden’s name to Nirvana—officially.”

  The conversation switched again—this time to an internal office memo that had everybody up in arms—and then they were there, arriving at the edge of the sprawling market. Anna got out to guide Ulf into a tight parking spot, and then the two of them made their way towards the place where they had arranged to meet the local policeman who had first investigated the stabbing.

  He was called Blomquist, and Ulf and Anna had worked with him once before, on an investigation into fake whisky that had briefly appeared in the market a year or two earlier. Blomquist remembered them, and greeted them warmly at the top of one of the lanes along which the market stalls were pitched.

  “I remember that whisky business,” he said. “That was strange, but this one!” He whistled. “This is a real puzzler.”

  Ulf shrugged. “That’s why we’re here, I suppose.”

  Blomquist nodded. “Oh, I know that you people have a reputation for sorting these things out, but I think this one is going to test you.”

  Anna glanced at Ulf. “We’ll see,” she said, assuming a businesslike manner. “Tell us what you know.”

  Blomquist pointed to a stall farther down the lane. “You see that stall over there? The one where that man is showing that woman a scarf?”

  Ulf looked in the direction Blomquist was pointing. A stout man in a leather jacket was concluding the sale of a scarf to a young woman in jeans and a vivid red top.

  “That’ll be cashmere,” said Anna. “I know those people.”

  “That’s the brother of the victim,” said Blomquist. “He’s looking after the business while his brother is in hospital. We can go and talk to him, if you like. You’ll see where it happened.”

  “How long will this man be in hospital?” asked Anna.


  Blomquist made a dismissive gesture. “Only a day or two, I think. It’s not a serious injury, but it’s in a difficult place apparently. The back of the knee. Apparently, there are all sorts of cables that run down there...”

  Anna interrupted him. “Cables?”

  “I think you mean tendons,” said Ulf. “We have tendons at the back of our knees.” He paused. “And I think in the front as well. Or certainly the sides.”

  “I play tennis,” said Blomquist. “I know all about that. If you twist your knee, you know all about it.” He looked at Ulf. “Do you play, Mr. Varg?”

  “I used to,” said Ulf. “I was never much good, but I enjoyed it.”

  “Sport is for enjoyment,” said Blomquist. “And the wonderful thing about tennis is that you can enjoy it even if you aren’t very good.”

  “As long as your opponent is roughly the same standard,” Ulf cautioned. “If you’re up against a power serve and you aren’t much good, the game gets pretty one-sided.”

  “That’s true,” said Anna. “But should we go and speak to this man? What’s his name, by the way?”

  “Oscar Gustafsson,” replied Blomquist. “And his brother, the victim, is Malte. Malte Gustafsson.”

  * * *

  —

  “I was here at the time,” said Oscar. “I didn’t see it happen, but I was here, helping my brother out. He owns the stall, you see—I work on the railways, but I’m on shifts, and in my time off I come here and help Malte.”

  Ulf looked about him. The market was quiet, and it did not seem as if there were many people who would be interested in the display of scarves and sweaters that fronted the Gustafsson stall. He reached out and fingered one of the scarves. Oscar was a stocky, thickset man with short-cropped hair; he was not someone with whom one would readily associate cashmere.

  “Cashmere?” Ulf asked.

  For a moment Oscar hesitated. Then he said, “Close enough. It depends on what you mean by cashmere.”

  Anna stared at him. “I know this is just a personal view, but when I say cashmere, I tend to mean cashmere.”

  Ulf made a placatory gesture. “That’s not why we’re here,” he said. “Tell me about your brother, Mr. Gustafsson.”

  Oscar looked relieved. “He’s been a market trader for about ten years. He was a mechanic before that, you know—quite a good one. He looked after motorcycles mostly. Harley-Davidsons. Then he had enough of that because he developed eczema and his skin reacted to soap. Working can be a problem if your hands get greasy every day and you can’t tolerate soap.”

  Blomquist nodded his assent. “Definitely,” he said. “Eczema is a difficult condition. And some of those creams they give you thin the skin, you know. You have to be careful about using them.”

  “Only the stronger ones,” said Anna. “If you use the less powerful steroids, it’s better.”

  “Malte’s had trouble with all that,” said Oscar. “Even after he stopped fixing motorcycles. He uses a soap substitute now, but he still gets patches of dry skin.”

  “Hydration,” said Anna. “You have to watch hydration, particularly in cold weather. I suppose being a market trader means that you’re out in the open a lot.”

  “He should be careful,” said Blomquist. “Cold weather and wind are a really bad idea if you have dry skin.”

  Ulf tapped the toe of a shoe on the pavement. “But Malte—tell me more about him.”

  “Malte,” began Oscar, “is a very mild guy.”

  Victims, thought Ulf, so often are.

  “He’s a few years older than I am,” Oscar continued. “I always looked up to him. You know how it is with brothers: you think your older brother can do anything. You want to be him, I suppose. And with Malte, it was very much like that because he was so good with machinery. I tried to be, but never really made much progress. I joined the railways, hoping to get a mechanical apprenticeship, but I never made it. I went into line maintenance, which is what I do today. It has its compensations.”

  Ulf nodded. “Many of us have to settle for something,” he said. “And then we find the thing we’ve settled for is as good as the thing we wanted to do in the first place.”

  “True,” said Oscar. “And that was the case for Malte as well, I think. He had to settle for market trading after his problems with his skin, and then he discovered that he liked it very much. He never looked back.”

  Ulf thought for a moment. “You said that Malte fixed Harley-Davidsons. Does he still ride?”

  Oscar replied that his brother still had two Harleys, one a 1965 model, the other a mishmash he had put together from various spare parts. “He calls the one he made from various bits and pieces a Davidson-Harley—because it’s the wrong way round.”

  Anna laughed. “Very funny.”

  Oscar looked pleased that his brother’s joke had been well received. “Some people don’t get it,” he said. “At least, some of the bikers don’t.”

  “Ah, well,” said Ulf. “Humour’s an odd thing. But tell me: Does he belong to a bikers’ group? A Harley-Davidson club, or something like that?”

  “You mean a gang?” asked Oscar. And then, smiling, he explained that although Malte did belong to a bikers’ group, the membership was very atypical of a bikers’ gang. “There are about twelve of them,” he said. “Ten of them are retired—only Malte, who’s the youngest, and one of the others are under fifty. Malte’s forty-eight, you see.”

  “So these bikers are pretty tame?” asked Anna.

  “Yes,” Oscar replied. “Their rides are very sedate. Those big Harleys can be like armchairs, you know. You sit back and take the corners carefully. They don’t go far, those guys—they like to get back home early.”

  “Back to the old ladies,” quipped Anna. “That’s what they call them, don’t they?”

  “These guys call them their wives,” said Oscar. “I told you—they’re very respectable.”

  “So you don’t think that this could have anything to do with biker issues,” said Ulf. He knew that one did not normally discuss theories with witnesses, but the question slipped out.

  Oscar’s lip curled. “Them? No chance. They’re a bunch of kitty-cats.”

  “Appearances can be deceptive,” said Anna.

  Oscar shook his head vehemently. “It’s nothing like that,” he said. “Oscar was on very good terms with all of them. He helped them with their bikes—as long as it was something he could do wearing gloves. Gloves protected his skin. They all liked him.”

  “So,” said Ulf, “if it wasn’t a biker feud, what do you think it could be? You don’t get stabbed for nothing. Was there anybody who had a grudge against him?”

  Once again Oscar was adamant. “Listen,” he said, “nobody—and I mean nobody—dislikes Malte. He’s the sweetest guy imaginable. He’d never—”

  “A dissatisfied customer?” interjected Anna, gesturing to the stock. “An argument over rejected goods?”

  Oscar gave her a contemptuous look. “Malte’s honest,” he said. “He never cheats. And his prices are fair too.”

  Ulf asked about Malte’s home life. Was he married? Was the marriage a happy one?

  “Malte got married at twenty-eight,” Oscar replied. “He and Mona recently celebrated their twentieth anniversary. She’s a kindergarten teacher. She trained late—just ten years ago—after their own kids got a bit bigger. She comes from a dairy farm about forty kilometres outside town. They make their own cheese—it’s quite a successful business.”

  “Is Mona involved in it?” asked Anna.

  Oscar sighed. “She should be. There were two of them—her and her brother. The old man still runs the place and Mona’s brother, Edvin, helps him, and does more and more these days. Mona would like to be more hands-on herself, or at least have a proper say—after all, it’s a family business—but Edvin doesn’t se
em to want her. He’s got round the old man, and so Mona is never consulted. They recently built a whole new milking parlour—state-of-the-art stuff—and they didn’t even tell her about it. Not a word. Yet she’s technically an equal partner with her brother in the business—along with the old man, of course.”

  “What does Malte think about that?” asked Ulf.

  “He was furious. He told Mona she should stand up to her brother.”

  Ulf and Anna exchanged glances. “So there’s bad blood between Malte and his brother-in-law,” he said.

  “Yes, there is. Not that it’s Malte’s fault. He took it up with the family lawyer. He complained that if the business is a company—which it is—they should run it like a proper company, with shareholder meetings and properly minuted decisions, all of that stuff. Edvin did not like that, I can tell you. He threatened Malte...” Oscar stopped himself. “I mean, he told him that he was the one who did the work on the farm and he would run it as he pleased.”

  “You said he threatened him,” Anna pointed out. “What exactly did he threaten to do?”

  Oscar’s expression was sulky. “Edvin didn’t stab Malte. I can tell you that for nothing. Edvin wasn’t anywhere near this place when it happened.”

  “How do you know that?” said Ulf. “The market can get pretty crowded.”