The Department of Sensitive Crimes

by Alexander McCall Smith

“Had he changed a lot?”

  “Not really. Some people look the same all the way through, don’t they? They get a few more lines here and there, but the face remains the same. Others find their face sags as the years go past. It seems to sink somehow. Gravity, I suppose.”

  Bim laughed. “Not yours, Mother.”

  “You’re very sweet.”

  The danger had passed. Two small lies had been told, but they would be reversed. Bim had made up her mind. She was going to end her relationship with Sixten.

  * * *

  —

  A week later, when they were sitting together in a university coffee bar, Linnea Ek told Bim that she was planning a party in her flat—nothing big, just a few friends—and she would like her to come. “Bring Sixten,” she said. “We’re all itching to meet him.”

  Bim hesitated before replying. “What day are you thinking of?” It would be easy to come up with an excuse—they knew that Sixten worked odd hours.

  But Linnea’s reply precluded such an easy way out. “You decide,” she said. “I’ve spoken to Signe and Matilda, and they say virtually any day will suit them. So, you—you and Sixten, that is—can choose the date. That’ll work fine for us.”

  Bim thought quickly. This was exactly the sort of difficulty she should have foreseen, she told herself; she should have broken up with Sixten days before this.

  She said the first thing that came into her mind. “Sixten’s gone to the North Pole,” she said. “He went last week.”

  Linnea looked at her friend in frank astonishment. “The North Pole? The actual North Pole?”

  “Well, it isn’t a pole—not a real one. It’s the Arctic.”

  “Yes, I know that,” snapped Linnea. “I’m not stupid. But what’s he doing in the Arctic?”

  Bim explained once more that Sixten was a paramedic. “There’s a Swedish research station up there. They need a paramedic in case somebody...falls through the ice, or gets frostbite, or cuts himself. All sorts of things can happen up at the North Pole.”

  Linnea took this in. “Yes, I can see that. But how long is he going to be up there?”

  “A year.”

  “A year!” exclaimed Linnea. “A whole year!” She stared at Bim, as if trying to make sense of an impossible situation. “What are you going to do?”

  Bim did not reply.

  “Bim? Is it over?”

  Bim nodded silently.

  “I’m so sorry,” said Linnea. “That’s really bad luck, isn’t it? You meet this guy—who sounded fabulous, by the way—and then he goes off to the North Pole. That’s really tough luck.”

  “I know,” said Bim. “I know. I was hoping that...” She paused. And then she began to cry. It was not contrived; the tears were real, such was her relief at the ease with which one could bring subterfuge to an end; at the ease with which one could stop lying to friends and return to one’s truthful self; at the ease with which a boyfriend might be dispatched.

  Linnea was effusive in her sympathy, as, a few minutes later, were Signe and Matilda, when they came into the coffee bar. Signe had arranged to meet one of her boyfriends in town, but could not remember which one. She would need to make a phone call to sort that out, and wanted to borrow Bim’s phone. Bim gave it to her, and then went to the counter to buy herself a Danish pastry. When she returned, Linnea had obviously told the other two what had happened, as she was greeted with looks of concern and sympathy. Handing back the phone, Signe put an arm around Bim’s shoulder. “Don’t be upset, Bim,” she whispered. “Don’t let it get to you too much. There’ll be somebody else in good time. There really will be. And if there isn’t—which I suppose is possible—then you’ll still be happy single. Single people can have a perfectly good life, you know. A bit lonely, perhaps, but not too bad, all things considered.”

  And Matilda, who agreed with this, said, “If you’ve got happy memories—and I’m sure you have—hold on to them. Don’t let them go sour.”

  “It’s not as if he left you for somebody else,” Linnea pointed out. “He...well, he went to the North Pole, didn’t he? That’s different.”

  “Still,” said Matilda. “It’s a bit selfish, isn’t it? Presumably he didn’t have to go.”

  “I suppose not,” said Bim.

  “Did the two of you discuss it?” asked Signe. “Did he say something like, ‘Would you mind if I went to the North Pole?’ ”

  They waited for her answer. She looked at them. Should she just tell them? Should she confess that Sixten never existed? No, she could not do this. The whole ridiculous episode was almost at an end; all she needed to do was to pretend for just a few minutes more. Then Sixten need never be mentioned again. She would say it was just too painful, and they would respect that.

  “We talked about it,” Bim said. “We talked for hours, in fact. He said that it was a really good opportunity for him to get more experience in polar medicine. Apparently, it’s different from ordinary medicine.”

  Signe nodded. “Yes, I suppose it is.” But then she thought of something. “But what about medical school? You said that he’d been offered a place.”

  “Yes, he was.”

  “So, he’s not taking it up?” asked Linnea.

  “When he comes back,” said Bim.

  Linnea looked puzzled. “But that’s going to be in a year’s time, you said?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Oh, well,” said Signe. “That’s men for you.”

  Then Matilda said, “My uncle’s a climatologist. He goes to that research station place from time to time. He’s sometimes away for weeks. Not a year, of course. He’ll probably meet Sixten up there.”

  Nobody paid much attention to this remark—except for Bim. She heard it, and looked away. She felt the back of her neck getting warm.

  Chapter Six

  THE SMELL OF ENVY

  It was a quiet time in the office. The report on the Malte Gustafsson affair had been written, proofread, and then sent off to a higher authority two floors above. Once that had been done, there was little with which Ulf could occupy himself until the next inquiry began. That might be later that day, or the next, or even not until the following week: the Department of Sensitive Crimes depended on referrals, and these tended to be irregular. Sometimes as many as ten days could elapse between cases, meaning that there were periods when all three members of the Room 5 team found time hanging heavily on their hands.

  “It’s an odd feeling,” Ulf observed during one such fallow period, “sitting here hoping that somebody out there does something outré.”

  Anna agreed. She had knitting in her drawer, and could have kept herself occupied with that, but Ulf had warned her that were the Superintendent to drop in on the office—and he sometimes did that unannounced—then it would not look good if one member of the team were doing her knitting and another, Erik, were tying fishing flies at his desk.

  “We have to look busy,” he said, “even if we aren’t. Otherwise we’ll suddenly hear that we’re losing a post.”

  “Me,” said Erik, raising a hand. “I’d be very happy to be made redundant.”

  “Yes, you might,” said Carl. “But I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t know what to do if I didn’t have a job to come in to.”

  Ulf followed his own advice. He put an old issue of Nordic Art into one of the folders used for inquiry files. That meant that he could sit at his desk reading about Scandinavian art without giving any visitor the impression that his mind was elsewhere.

  He paged through the magazine. There were two articles on the art of Greenland, several review articles dealing with the latest books on Swedish and Danish painting, and an analysis of the use of artistic themes by Finnish nation-builders in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Ulf perused the index; he had read most of the contents—the edition was three years old—
but found that he had forgotten most of what he had read. This was the fascination of Nordic Art: he could go back to past editions time and time again and refresh his memory of facts and opinions he no longer remembered. When I retire, he thought—not that retirement was anything but the most remote prospect—I shall spend my time reading Nordic Art, with every bit as much enjoyment as Erik will get from spending his own more imminent retirement catching fish.

  Ulf glanced across the room towards Erik, who was concentrating on winding a small piece of thread around the shaft of a hook. A tiny feather, only barely visible to Ulf, was being attached to the hook by this thread, making at the end of the process a miniature trick, a minuscule act of fraud. Why, thought Ulf, should a grown man seek to defraud a gullible fish? Here is a tasty morsel—no! A concealed hook! Foolish, foolish fish...

  Erik looked up and saw Ulf watching him.

  “We call this the Red Dipper,” he said, holding up the now completed fly. “Fish can’t resist it. They take this almost every time.”

  Ulf nodded. “Fish are very stupid, aren’t they?”

  Erik put down the fly and looked angrily at Ulf. “Fish, stupid? Oh no, far from it. Fish are very intelligent.”

  Ulf shook his head. “No, they aren’t. Fish are stupid. Their brains are...well, almost invisible, I imagine.”

  Erik drew in his breath. “With the greatest respect, Ulf, I don’t think you know what you’re talking about. Fish are not stupid. I know a lot about fish, and one of the things I know is that they are not stupid.” He paused. “Let me tell you: if you want to catch a trout in a stream, you have to stalk it.” Erik stared at Ulf with the triumphant air of one disclosing a clinching argument. “Did you know that? You don’t just stroll up to the riverbank and cast the fly. You have to try to merge in with the vegetation. Fish are watching, you see.”

  Carl looked up from his desk. He, at least, had found some work to do; the perusal of cold case files—cases the department had not solved and probably never would. But there was always the chance that something would occur to somebody reading the papers again. “How do you know that fish are watching, Erik? I’m not trying to catch you out, but how do you know what fish are doing? You can’t really see them down in the water. So how do you know they’re watching?”

  Erik shrugged. “How does anybody know anything?” he challenged.

  Ulf replied. “By observation,” he said. “That’s how we know.”

  Erik did not reply at first. Then he said, “I’m telling you—fish watch us.”

  “They watch you, perhaps, Erik,” muttered Ulf. “They watch you because they know you’re out to get them. You’ve made it personal.”

  Carl tried to mask his grin, but failed to do so. Noticing this, Erik looked away in disgust. “I find it odd,” he said, “that people who know nothing about fishing should talk about it with such apparent authority. Strange, but I suppose we live in an age of strong opinions.”

  Ulf caught Carl’s eye. “Do you think fish have opinions, Carl? I’m not sure about it myself, but I thought I might just ask.”

  Anna sighed. “I think Erik has a point, you know. I don’t think it’s appropriate for us to spend our time talking about fish. I really don’t.”

  “You’re right,” said Ulf, struggling to contain himself. “Politics, religion, and fish: three no-go areas for civilised conversation.”

  “And sex,” added Carl. “Don’t forget sex.”

  Ulf nodded. “Of course. Mind you, do fish have sex?” He addressed himself to Erik. “What do fish do about sex, Erik?”

  Before Erik could answer, Anna’s telephone rang. Picking up the receiver, she listened to a brief message from the front desk.

  “Back to business, everybody,” she announced as she rang off.

  * * *

  —

  All three went along the corridor to Room 2, the interview room. As the most senior—marginally—of the detectives, it was for Ulf to decide who should lead the interview.

  “You’re in the chair, Anna,” he said. “Whoever this young woman is, she’ll probably appreciate a female presence.”

  Anna nodded. “They said she’s a Miss Magnusson. Signe Magnusson.”

  “There was an actress called Signe Magnusson,” said Carl. “My father used to talk about her.”

  Anna remembered her. “I saw one of her films once. A long time ago.”

  “My father said she was one of the most beautiful women of her generation,” continued Carl. “He said she had great big eyes—wide eyes.”

  “Like the eyes of a fish?” asked Ulf.

  Anna threw him a warning glance.

  They went into the room. Signe, seated at a small table, her hands folded on her lap, looked up.

  Anna introduced herself, and then the others. “A few formalities,” she said. “Could we have your full name, your address, and your occupation? And your age, too, please.”

  Signe gave them the details.

  Anna’s voice was warm and, she hoped, comforting. “Now then, Signe,” she began. “What can we do for you? The police have referred you to us, you see. We’re a unit that deals with more sensitive issues.”

  Signe listened intently. Then, when Anna had finished, she said, “Is this all kept confidential?”

  “Of course,” said Ulf.

  “Completely,” added Anna. “You don’t have to worry about that.”

  But Signe required further reassurance. “Does that mean you’d never tell anybody outside—anybody you spoke to, for instance—you’d never tell them who came to you in the first place?”

  Anna nodded. “As we told you, this is a special unit for sensitive issues. We’re very well aware of people’s concerns in that regard.”

  Signe sat back in her chair. “I feel really awkward about this,” she said.

  Anna looked at her enquiringly. “Would you prefer to speak only to a woman?” She gestured to Ulf and Carl. “I can easily ask my colleagues to withdraw, if you’d prefer it that way.”

  “No,” said Signe. “It’s nothing like that.” She paused. “You see, this concerns a friend of mine—somebody I know well.”

  There was silence. Anna waited. Then, gently, she pressed Signe to continue.

  “It started about a month ago,” Signe said. “Or five weeks, actually. Anyway, something like that. This friend of mine, Bim, told us—that’s me and my friends, Linnea and Matilda—that she had met a boy. A boyfriend. We were pleased for her because she hadn’t had a boyfriend, you see, and she lived with her mother and everything. So it was good news as far as we were concerned.”

  Anna nodded encouragingly. Carl made a note on a pad of paper. Ulf listened.

  “She told us quite a bit about him,” Signe went on. “She said that he was called Sixten and that he was a paramedic. She said that he was planning to go to medical school. She showed us a photograph; he was very good-looking. She was standing next to him—I think it was a selfie. I’ve got a copy of it here, if you like.”

  Anna frowned. “How did you manage to get that? Did she give it to you?”

  Signe replied that Bim had left her phone on the table in the café while she went to the counter. While her friend was away from the table, she found the photograph and emailed it to herself. “Maybe I shouldn’t have,” she said, “but I did.”

  “We won’t go into that,” said Anna. “Please continue.”

  “Then,” said Signe, “just a couple of weeks after she had met Sixten, she told us that he had left Malmö. Just like that. So we asked her what happened and she said that he’d gone to the North Pole. There’s a research station up there. She said that they needed a paramedic and that he was going up there for a year.

  “I was really surprised. I wondered why somebody who was planning to go to medical school would go and spend a year in the Arctic. It
seemed a bit odd, to me—really odd—but I thought that maybe Sixten was a bit strange. Anyway, I felt sorry for Bim. She seemed quite upset—she cried, in fact.

  “I didn’t think much more about it for a few weeks, until one of the others—Matilda, it was—told me something that made me think. She has an uncle who’s a climatologist. He goes up north quite a bit, she said, and he had just come back from a week up there—letting off balloons or whatever it is he does. I think they use balloons to test temperatures.”

  “They do,” said Carl. “They take the temperature at higher levels that way. Meteorological balloons.”

  “Yes,” said Signe. “I know.”

  “Please continue,” said Anna.

  “This uncle of Matilda’s went for dinner at Matilda’s parents’ place. It was her mum’s fiftieth birthday and so Matilda went along too.”

  “The uncle who’s the climatologist?” asked Carl. “The one from the Arctic?”

  “Yes, him. He’s not from the Arctic permanently, of course—just occasionally.”

  “Nobody lives up there permanently,” said Anna.

  “It depends what you mean by Arctic,” Ulf said. “The Sami live up in the Arctic, but not as far north as where you’re talking about.”

  “Are we talking about the actual North Pole?” asked Anna.

  “No, not quite,” said Ulf. “But I think this research station place is close enough.”

  “Does it matter?” asked Carl.

  Anna returned to Signe. “Just carry on, Signe.”

  “Well, Matilda mentioned to this uncle, the climatologist one, that she knew of somebody who had just gone up to the research station. She told him about Sixten and about how he was a paramedic. Then the uncle shook his head and said there was nobody of that name up there. Nor was there anybody going—he knew that because he was on some planning committee that runs the station. He said they had no paramedic; rather, they had a rota of doctors who liked to spend time up there for research purposes. If you have a doctor, then you don’t need a paramedic.”