The Swedish Girl

by Alex Gray

  McGregor was now swinging nonchalantly in his chair. ‘That’s easy,’ he said. ‘Hastie’s on long-term sick leave with glandular fever. Might even have to repeat the year. And the Swedish lad was an exchange student. Probably not on the main lists you plods looked at,’ he added gleefully. ‘Only here till Christmas.’ He shrugged. ‘That all you wanted to know?’

  ‘Their home addresses and any other contact details would be useful,’ Lorimer replied mildly.

  ‘Ask the office.’ McGregor stood up once more. ‘Looks like you’re good at doing that,’ he snapped.

  McGregor was only guilty of churlish behaviour, Lorimer told himself as he walked back across the city. Yet the fear in the lecturer’s eyes had been unmistakable. What had he expected from the policeman’s unheralded visit? And was the presence of a senior police officer in that office some sort of a threat to his safe little world? He had been anxious that his wife knew nothing of his affair with Eva Magnusson, something Lorimer had managed to contain so far but without any promise that such knowledge would not come out in the future. He gritted his teeth: someone would get the sharp end of his tongue for this. Failing to search all of the student databases was just sheer carelessness.

  Kirsty would be disappointed: there were two reasonable explanations for the missing students. Yet there was still an unanswered question about Andersson: why had Eva Magnusson kept him a secret from her flatmates and, presumably, from her father?

  Colin slipped back into his cell, used now to its confines, sometimes even welcoming the peace and quiet when his cell mate, or ‘co-pilot’ as they called them in here, was away on a work detail.

  He had dreamed about Eva last night, a dream from which he had awoken with tears on his cheeks. It had felt so real, hearing her voice, as if she were really there again. He slumped onto his back on the bunk and felt under the mattress for his notebook. He had written The Swedish Girl on the front and in idle moments had decorated the title with lines and curls, the sort of thing that reminded him of doodling on his school jotters.

  Pulling the pen from the spiral binding, Colin began to write.

  It is her voice I miss as much as her very presence, he began. How can I begin to describe that voice? He paused, hearing the dream in his head once again. She sounded like a lady, he continued. Refined, but not in an English Home Counties sort of way, that was one of the beauties of it. Eva spoke like an actress, as if she had learned to wipe out any trace of an accent. He smiled to himself, remembering how they had all laughed one morning when the girl had come out with a really Glaswegian expression. What had it been? He shook his head, her exact words failing to return, only the memory of how funny it had sounded coming from her lips.

  Hers was a soft voice, melodious, the sort of voice that a singer might have had, though we never heard her sing, not even when there was music playing in the flat. He stopped, pen poised, remembering another time, his cheeks flushing as the images flooded back, unbidden. And that husky tone, he wrote, hand shaking slightly, when she had me in bed, urging me on.

  Colin stopped writing. He couldn’t go back there, no matter how much the professor wanted him to describe Eva. He simply could not relive any of that night. Yet the girl’s voice was in his head right at this moment in time, like a ghost visiting his brain.

  Did the dead hover somewhere up there? Was Eva’s spirit still able to make him feel that anguish and pain? And, he thought, putting both hands over his ears, did he really deserve to suffer like this?

  CHAPTER 36

  ‘

  A

  sim card?’ Kirsty’s head turned towards the door of Eva’s room. ‘I could try,’ she said. ‘Okay. I’ll call you back if I find anything.’

  Kirsty’s eyes gleamed as she put the phone down on the polished hall table. Now at least there was something positive to look for. Taking a deep breath she turned the key in Eva’s door and stepped in once again.

  If I wanted to hide a wee thing like a sim card, where would I put it? she wondered. Somewhere nobody would find it but a place that would be handy if I used it regularly. Late at night. When I was in my bed…

  The dead girl’s bed had an ornate white carved headboard that matched the little table to one side. Kneeling down, Kirsty saw the pair of electrical sockets just above the skirting board. The bedside lamp was plugged into one, its wire snaking behind the table. The other, hidden by the sweep of pink silken counterpane, held one of those plastic safety covers that her Aunty Joyce used when her kids were wee.

  Kirsty blinked, noticing that one side of the plastic cover protruded just the tiniest bit away from the socket. Would the scene of crime officers have pulled that out to have a look?

  She held her breath as her fingernails eased it out.

  ‘Bingo!’ Kirsty’s smile broadened as she turned the cover over to see the tiny sim card taped carefully to the inside of the socket cover.

  ‘This is Detective Superintendent Lorimer, Strathclyde Police. Am I speaking to Anders Andersson?’

  There was a short pause before a thickly accented voice replied. ‘This is Anders. What do you want?’

  ‘Mr Andersson, I wanted to ask you some questions about your stay in Glasgow.’

  ‘You got wrong fellow,’ the man interrupted. ‘This is Anders senior.’

  ‘It’s your son who was a student at the University of Strathclyde?’

  ‘That’s right. Young Anders did a… what is it… an exchange, yes?’

  ‘Yes. Can I speak to him, please? Is he there?’

  ‘This about the Magnusson girl?’

  ‘That’s correct, Mr Andersson. We are still investigating the circumstances around her death.’

  There was a longer pause before the deep voice proclaimed, ‘Anders is not here any more. Sorry. Can’t help you,’ before the click that let the policeman know the call had been terminated.

  Cursing under his breath, Lorimer redialled the number but it was already engaged.

  He imagined the father calling his son at that very moment, telling him that the Scottish police were looking for him. Biting his lip, Lorimer had a growing feeling that the elusive Anders might really have something to hide. Well, perhaps there was more than one way to find out. Dialling the mobile number he had copied from Eva’s extra sim card, he wondered if the father was speaking the truth or if he simply didn’t want to become involved.

  As the engaged signal rang out from the student’s mobile, Lorimer nodded to himself. He would bet a month’s salary that he was right and at this very moment father and son were discussing what to do about this call from the Scottish police.

  ‘The initial call to Mr Magnusson was made to his mobile,’ DS Wilson told Lorimer.

  ‘And the call was logged at what time, exactly?’

  Wilson glanced at his notes. ‘It was just after ten a.m. on the Saturday morning, sir. Fiscal had to be informed first.’

  Lorimer nodded. ‘I’ve checked out a few things. Magnusson told Dr Fergusson he had to get a domestic flight to Glasgow, but I honestly can’t see why he didn’t simply use his own aircraft.’

  ‘He has his own plane?’ Alistair Wilson’s eyes widened.

  ‘Aye,’ Lorimer said. ‘Your Kirsty told us that. And thank God she did. There’s something funny going on and once I’ve spoken to the good people at Glasgow airport we may just find out what that is.’

  ‘You’re going where?’

  ‘Stockholm,’ Lorimer told her. ‘Pity it’s not anywhere near half term or you could have come with me. You deserve it after coming up with that idea about Eva’s sim card.’

  Maggie Lorimer shook her head. ‘What do the rest of the team think of this?’

  ‘I haven’t told them all yet,’ Lorimer replied. ‘Anyway, they’re all answerable to me at the moment.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s some consolation being the boss.’

  ‘And Solly?’

  He grinned. ‘Wondered if you’d ask me that. It depends on what cover he can get for his classes. He’ll
come with me if he can. He’s still working on the profile though. Reckons it’s no coincidence that these blonde women are so alike.’ He made a face. ‘But he still sticks to his opinion that Eva was killed by someone else.’

  Maggie laid down her wine glass and looked at her husband. ‘Seriously, what do you think you’re going to achieve by flying all the way to Stockholm?’

  ‘Hopefully we will be able to speak to the Andersson boy and his father, but they’re not the only ones we need to talk to.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘No.’ His face clouded for a moment. ‘It was a remark that Kirsty made, actually. We followed it up. Seems like Mr Magnusson has his own private jet.’

  Maggie’s eyebrows rose. ‘Impressive,’ she remarked.

  ‘Well, we all know he’s a multi-millionaire,’ Lorimer replied. ‘But’ – he paused, looking his wife in the eye – ‘what we didn’t know until today is that Henrik Magnusson was in Glasgow the night his daughter was murdered. And that his jet took off from Glasgow airport shortly after two a.m. on the Saturday.’

  ‘This changes everything.’ Jo Grant ran her hand through her newly gelled hair.

  ‘Yes,’ Lorimer replied. ‘As far as we knew, Magnusson was in Stockholm that night. Even told Dr Fergusson that he couldn’t get a flight out straight away. Something’s not right.’

  ‘No.’ The DI’s sigh seemed to come all the way from her thick-soled boots. ‘How long will you be gone?’

  Lorimer shrugged. ‘As long as it takes. Might have to hook up with some of the local police in Stockholm, we’ll see. Depends on what I find.’

  ‘And Colin Young?’

  Lorimer caught sight of her face, eyes flicking away from his own. She was feeling it now, all right, a sense of unease that she had arrested the wrong man after all.

  ‘Up to the Fiscal. But I doubt there’s anything like enough evidence to release him yet. And, Jo?’

  ‘Yes?’ She met his keen blue gaze now.

  ‘Despite what Kirsty Wilson thinks, you might still be right.’

  Professor Solomon Brightman sat back and looked at the words he had typed onto the screen. He blinked, thinking about the profiles he was creating. One was of a shadowy figure that leapt out at blonde women from his hiding places in the woods. And his chosen victims were so alike. That was significant, he thought. Why a person should suddenly take it into their head to attack and try to kill suggested some sort of trigger. Something to do with a woman who resembled his victims, perhaps? Had the killer undergone a recent trauma? Or were the attacks drug-related in some psychotic way? He would think more about that later but now he wanted to concentrate on a different man.

  Solly scrolled back to read the pages that related to a previous profile: Henrik Magnusson. So far he had built up a picture of a domineering father who was trying to mould his only daughter into the sort of woman he wanted her to be. Someone in the image of her dead mother, perhaps? He stroked his beard. It was a possibility. He had asked Lorimer to find out what he could about the late Mrs Magnusson. Had she been a virginal bride? Or had he elevated her to a position of perfection as memory had faded? It happened sometimes. It was easier to forget the petty, human things that made a couple irritated with one another and only remember the good times.

  And if his theory was correct then he had to ask one important question: had Eva been a disappointment to him in some way? Solly stared at the screen. He was seeing not the words now but picturing in his mind’s eye the photograph of a girl laughing into the camera on the ski slopes, laughing for her father. Or, he wondered, had she been laughing at him? A teenage girl who had slept around as easily as Eva had in the months she had been in Glasgow was surely adept in her sexual adventures long before her arrival in the city.

  None of Jo Grant’s team had asked the question of where Eva’s father had been on the night of her murder, assuming Magnusson to have been in Stockholm. Never make assumptions, he remembered Lorimer telling his team on more than one occasion when he had sat amongst the officers. But they had, and who could have blamed them for that? The fact remained that the Swede had been in Glasgow on the night of his daughter’s murder. And now Solly Brightman had been asked by Strathclyde’s finest to regard the man as a potential suspect.

  CHAPTER 37

  S

  tockholm.

  Lorimer looked out of the window as the plane came into land, marvelling at the water everywhere, tiny clusters of houses dotted on the margins of what appeared to be islets floating down below. The sky was an icy blue, the weak sun making the snow-covered landscape sparkle; an illusion of warmth in a land in the iron grip of winter. It was like an illustration from a fairy tale, he decided as the plane banked for the final descent, these steep-roofed houses clustered together, clad in white. And wasn’t this the land of Hans Christian Andersen? Memories of childhood tales came back: the Snow Queen and the fragment of mirror that had lodged in a child’s heart, freezing it and turning him to darkness and despair.

  No, he remembered now, Andersen belonged to Denmark. And it was quite a different Andersson that he would shortly be seeking.

  Solly had been right urging him to take his warmest coat, Lorimer thought as the doors opened with a sigh, the clean sharpness taking his breath away.

  It was a short taxi ride to the small hotel he had booked online and the driver was mercifully silent. Lorimer gazed out of the window as the city streets became narrower and the traffic slowed, allowing him to admire the pastel-coloured old buildings. He had read somewhere that Stockholm was called ‘The Venice of the North’ and now he could see why as the taxi slipped down a narrow cobbled street emerging into daylight, the water glimmering nearby. It would be a lovely city to visit properly, he told himself. Perhaps one day, with Maggie…

  A quick splash in the hotel’s ample wash basin was all that was needed before Lorimer headed out once again into the streets. He had called his counterpart in the Stockholm police to let her know that he had arrived. Should anything unusual happen then he had the back-up of her force, the senior officer had assured him.

  Magnusson’s home was in the outskirts of Östermalm, the eastern part of the city, and that was where the detective superintendent was heading first. There were only six hours of daylight at this time of the year and already the afternoon sky had turned grey. Once more Lorimer looked out of a taxi window but this driver was eager to chat, wishing no doubt to impress the visitor with his beautiful city.

  ‘We go through the Old Town, sir,’ the man told him, his English flawless but overlaid with an American accent. ‘It’s called Gamla Stan,’ he added. ‘I’ll show you our royal palace if you like.’

  ‘I don’t have time for sight-seeing, I’m afraid.’ Lorimer leaned forward, seeing the disappointment on the man’s face. ‘I’m here on business rather than for pleasure.’

  ‘Well, you’ll see some of the best architecture in the world anyway,’ the driver boasted. ‘Just keep looking out the window. Best preserved city centre you’ll ever see. Medieval.’ He grimaced as though a bad taste had come into his mouth. ‘Used to be old stuff everywhere when I was a boy. Tore most of it down where I live.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yeah. Place called Klarakvarteren. Ever heard of it?’

  ‘No, sorry.’

  ‘Huh! Famous in its own way, y’know. Urban renewal, they called it. Urban disgrace most of us think!’

  Lorimer let the driver chatter on, complaining about the way developers had made their fortunes back in the sixties and seventies. Had Magnusson been part of that, he wondered? Had he made his money out of that particular part of the city? He dismissed the thought at once: Henrik Magnusson would also have been a child back then. But perhaps his own empire had been built on the success of such developments?

  ‘Posh part of town, here,’ the driver snorted, looking up at the massive apartment buildings as they passed by. Lorimer nodded silently, thinking how much they reminded him of the wealthier arrondissements of Paris
.

  Soon they had left the streets and were passing a snow-covered park, heading away from the city. Lorimer bent his head to see the sun; it lingered briefly, a ghostly outline of misty gold against the pale grey skies, before vanishing once again as though afraid to be seen. Daylight was waning now and the white fields and gardens looked bruised beneath the gathering dusk.

  The Magnusson house lay somewhere beyond the park, the driver had told him, though it was evident the man had not driven anyone there before today. So it came as a surprise when they turned into what appeared to be a farm road, banks of snow heaped on either side as though the snow ploughs made regular visits to keep this particular route clear. They passed frosted trees, their branches stark against the cold winter sky, then, as the Skoda slowed to take a corner, Lorimer could see the lights from a distant house. The driver muttered to himself as the car slipped and slithered on the icy road until at last they reached a set of large black gates. Beyond lay a solid-looking modern house, its lower windows shuttered against the night, though Lorimer could see light glimmering from the fanlight above the door.

  ‘Here, sir, this is the place you’re looking for,’ the driver said, turning his head and looking at Lorimer with a quizzical expression. ‘Expecting you, are they? Looks to me like these are locked.’ The taxi driver pointed to the security box fixed against one of the two stone pillars that flanked the metal gates.

  Lorimer followed his gaze. Had Solly mentioned this? For a moment he simply couldn’t remember. No, he decided. The psychologist had not told him about this feature, but perhaps it was something he should have anticipated, arriving unannounced at the home of one of Sweden’s wealthiest men.

  ‘Want me to wait?’

  ‘Just for a bit,’ Lorimer said. ‘See if anyone’s at home.’

  The cold hit him the moment he stepped from the taxi and the detective pulled his scarf closer to his chin as he stepped carefully over the frozen snow.