Anders Knutas 04 - The Killer's Art

by Mari Jungstedt

  As far as his job was concerned, Johan was stationed in Stockholm, and there wasn’t much he could do about it. And Emma had to take her other children, Sara and Filip, into consideration. Her ex-husband had started getting difficult again and was blocking all attempts to cooperate when it came to the children.

  It was an understatement to say that they were fighting an uphill battle. On many occasions Johan had been convinced that their relationship was over, but each time they had found their way back to each other. Now their love felt stronger than ever. Johan had accepted that Emma needed time with her own children, that she wasn’t yet ready to move in with him, even though they had Elin.

  They tried to see each other as often as possible. Johan went to Gotland at least once a week for his job, but it wasn’t enough. At the end of the summer he was going to take paternity leave, and then he would move into Emma’s house in Roma. That was going to be their trial by fire. If things went well, they would get married the following year and finally move in together permanently. That was what Johan hoped, at least. Another child was also on his wish list, but on that topic he knew he had to proceed with caution. Emma had strongly rejected the idea every time he’d tried to bring it up.

  He barely had time to drink his coffee before the captain announced that they were starting their descent into Visby airport. Johan was surprised every time at how quick and easy it was to fly over to the island. When he was back home in Stockholm and missing Emma and Elin, Gotland always felt painfully far away.

  Pia was waiting for him with the car belonging to Swedish TV when he arrived. Her black hair stuck out in all directions, as usual, and her eyes were just as heavily made-up as always. A purple gemstone glittered in one nostril. She smiled and gave him a hug.

  ‘Great to see you again. Things are really starting to cook.’ Her brown eyes shone. ‘The police put out a press release a little while ago. They suspect foul play.’ With a triumphant expression she handed over a piece of paper.

  This was what Pia loved best. Action. Drama.

  Johan read the brief statement. A press conference was scheduled for four o’clock. He took out a notebook and pen and asked Pia to turn on the radio so they could follow the news reports on the local station.

  ‘Have they said anything about how he was killed?’

  ‘God, no.’

  Pia rolled her eyes as she drove through Norderport, where she made a sharp turn and headed up the steep slope of Rackarbacken.

  ‘On the other hand, I happen to know who the victim is,’ she said with satisfaction.

  ‘Really? Who is it?’

  ‘His name is Egon Wallin, and he’s well known in the city. He runs – or rather ran,’ she quickly corrected herself, ‘the biggest art gallery in Visby. You know the one, right on Stora Torget.’

  ‘How old was he?’

  ‘In his fifties, I’d guess, married with two children. A native of Gotland, originally from Sundre, and married to a Gotlander. Seemed totally trustworthy and honest. So it’s unlikely this has anything to do with some kind of dispute among criminals.’ ‘Could it have been a robbery?’

  ‘Maybe, but if the perp was just after his money, why would he kill him and then hang his body from the gate? Doesn’t that seem a little over the top?’

  She brought the car to a halt with a lurch in the car park opposite the cathedral. Undoubtedly the car park area with the most beautiful view in all of Sweden, thought Johan as he looked out over the city with its magnificent cathedral, clusters of buildings, and medieval ruins. And forming a backdrop beyond was the sea, although at the moment it was barely visible through the grey haze.

  They hurried over to Dalman Gate.

  The street was swarming with activity. Police officers had been posted to make sure no one went inside the area that had been cordoned off. The small car park next to the gate was filled with police vehicles, and police dogs were searching the area. Johan pushed his way forward. Over by the gate he saw Knutas talking to an older man whom he recognized as the ME. He managed to catch Knutas’s eye, and the superintendent signalled for the ME to wait a moment. Johan was on good terms with the police after the serial murders of the previous summer, when he had actually helped the authorities solve the case.

  Knutas gave Johan a firm and heartfelt handshake. They hadn’t seen each other since Johan had started working again.

  ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘I’m fine now. I’ve got a whale of a scar across my stomach, but hopefully that’ll just make me more interesting at the beach in the summertime. So what can you tell me about all this?’ Johan nodded towards the gate.

  ‘I can’t tell you much except that we’re certain it’s a homicide.’

  ‘How was he killed?’

  ‘You know I can’t discuss that right now.’

  ‘How can you be sure he didn’t take his own life?’ Johan was still fishing, hoping to get the superintendent to let something slip unintentionally.

  But he was out of luck. Knutas just gave him a stern look.

  ‘OK, OK,’ said Johan, backing off. ‘Can you confirm that Egon Wallin, the art dealer, is the victim?’

  Knutas sighed in resignation. ‘Officially, no. Not all the family members have been notified yet.’

  ‘How about unofficially?’

  ‘All right. It’s true. The victim is Egon Wallin. But you didn’t hear that from me.’

  ‘Could I do a short interview with you right here and now? An official one, that is?’ Johan grinned.

  ‘Be quick about it.’

  Knutas didn’t say much more than what Johan already knew. But there was still a lot to be said for interviewing the officer in charge at the crime scene. Besides, it also showed all the work going on in the background. That was television’s strength: taking the viewer to the actual scene.

  Johan and Pia interviewed a number of people who were in the vicinity. When they were finished, Johan looked at his watch.

  ‘We’ve got time to swing by the gallery too. The place is probably closed, since it’s Sunday, but we can still get an exterior shot. Maybe I can do a piece-to-camera there.’

  ‘Sure, of course.’ Pia folded up her equipment.

  When they parked the TV car on Stora Torget, they saw flowers and burning torches on the pavement outside the gallery. A ‘Closed’ sign was posted on the door. All the lights were off, and through the dark Johan could just make out some of the big paintings hanging on the walls. Suddenly he gave a start. Out of the corner of his eye he saw someone going up the stairs inside. He peered through the window to try to get a better view, and knocked on the door several times.

  Even though he waited there for a long time, no one came to open it.

  Knutas spent all of Sunday dashing madly between police headquarters and Dalman Gate. Late in the afternoon he suddenly realized that he had forgotten to ring home.

  As soon as he heard Lina’s voice he remembered they were planning to have dinner with his parents at their farm up in Kappelshamn in northern Gotland. Damn it. He knew how particular they were about everything going according to schedule. In his mind he could already hear the disappointment in his father’s voice as Lina reported that his son wouldn’t be joining them. His father had never fully accepted the fact that Knutas had become a police officer. Not really. And his opinion still had an effect on Knutas, even though he was fifty-two years old. When it came to his parents, he would never be truly grown-up.

  Lina, on the other hand, usually accepted a change in plan with equanimity, whether it was a postponed holiday in the mountains or a parent-teacher meeting that he had to miss. ‘It’ll work out,’ she would simply say, and it always did. He was rarely made to feel guilty because of his job, and that made his life so much easier. His Danish wife had an easy-going temperament that often made him think how terribly lucky he’d been. They’d met just by chance when he went to a restaurant in Copenhagen while attending a conference for police officers. Back then she was working as
a waitress while completing her studies. Now she was a midwife at Visby Hospital.

  There was standing room only at the press conference. Since the victim was so well known on Gotland, the story was big news for the local media. The fact that he’d been found hanging from a gate in Visby’s ring wall was enough to spark the interest of the media all over Sweden. And besides, it was a Sunday.

  When Knutas and Norrby entered the room where the press conference was being held, the high level of anticipation was palpable. The reporters were seated in rows with their notepads ready on their laps. The camera people were setting up their equipment, and microphones had been affixed to the podium at the front of the room.

  Knutas went over the most important information and revealed the identity of the victim. There was no reason to keep that secret. All of the family members had now been contacted, rumours had begun spreading in Visby, and flowers were piling up outside the gallery on Stora Torget.

  ‘Do you suspect a robbery?’

  The question came from a representative of the local radio station.

  ‘We can’t rule out the possibility of a robbery at the moment,’ said Knutas.

  ‘Did the victim have anything of value in his possession? A wallet, for instance?’

  Knutas gave a start. Johan Berg, of course. He and Norrby exchanged glances.

  ‘That kind of detail is under investigation, so I can’t go into it right now.’

  ‘How can you be so certain that it’s a homicide?’

  ‘A preliminary examination of the victim has been done, and he has sustained injuries that could not have been self-inflicted.’

  ‘Can you describe the injuries?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Was a weapon used?’

  ‘I’m not going to answer that question either.’

  ‘How was he hoisted up so high in the gateway?’ asked the same aggressive reporter from the local newspaper, who had been at the crime scene. ‘You had to get help from the fire department to get the body down.’

  ‘We assume that we’re either dealing with more than one perpetrator or with a man who is unusually strong.’ ‘Are you looking for a body-builder?’

  ‘Not necessarily. Those types of guys often look much stronger than they actually are.’

  Someone laughed.

  ‘Do you have any theories about whether the perpetrator is from Gotland or the mainland?’

  ‘We’re keeping that question open.’

  ‘If the murder didn’t result from a robbery, what do you think was the motive?’

  ‘It’s much too early to speculate about that. We’re working on a broad front and keeping all avenues open. Nothing can be ruled out at this early stage.’

  ‘What are the police doing at the moment?’

  ‘We’re interviewing people, knocking on doors, and going over tips that have come in. And we’re asking the public to come forward if anyone thinks he has seen or heard anything, either on the night of the murder or the day before. We think that the perpetrator may have gone to Dalman Gate to survey the area before the murder took place.’

  ‘Egon Wallin’s gallery had a big and well-attended opening the same day that he was killed,’ said Johan. ‘What do you think is the significance of that?’

  ‘We don’t know, but we’re asking everyone who attended the opening on Saturday to contact the police.’

  Not much else was said. Knutas and Norrby ended the press conference and stood up to leave the room.

  All the reporters immediately crowded around Knutas to get individual interviews. He tried to refer as many as possible to Norrby, who gladly dealt with one reporter after another.

  Most people asked the same questions, and they didn’t vary greatly from what had been asked during the press conference.

  After an hour, it was finally over and Knutas felt completely drained. He regretted offering to participate at all. Especially at such an early stage in a homicide investigation, when it was important for him to be available to his colleagues and not to journalists. Lars Norrby could just as well have handled the press conference on his own. He was the police spokesman, after all.

  Knutas shut himself up in his office for a while after the press conference. Exhaustion overcame him as he sat there in silence. He took out his pipe and began filling it, pondering how to get Norrby to take responsibility for the press and devote less of his time to the actual investigation. Knutas didn’t feel he had the patience to deal with the media to the same extent as he had in the past. It seemed senseless for the person in charge of the investigation to waste his time on keeping the press informed, especially when the police had so little to report.

  Generally he and Norrby got on well together. His colleague could be a bit slow and long-winded, but there was nothing wrong with the way he did his job.

  Knutas and Norrby were about the same age, and they had worked together for twenty years. It was not at all clear in the beginning that Knutas and not Norrby would be the one to be promoted to head of the criminal division. That was how it had turned out, but Knutas couldn’t really explain why.

  Lars Norrby was a likeable person, divorced, with two teenage sons who lived with him. The most striking thing about his appearance was his height. He was almost six foot seven. The fact that he was thin, bordering on gaunt, made his height all the more impressive.

  If Norrby felt slighted because it was Knutas who had become detective superintendent, he concealed his feelings well. He had never shown even a hint of jealousy. Knutas respected him for that.

  *

  He stuck the unlit pipe in his mouth and rang Wittberg on his mobile, but the line was busy.

  A list of those who had attended the opening at the gallery was being put together. The employees who had been at the dinner afterwards had been contacted, and interviews were going on.

  Knutas had asked Wittberg to find the artist and his manager at once. According to the victim’s wife, Monika Wallin, who had undergone an initial interview at the hospital, both the artist and his manager were supposed to stay on Gotland until Tuesday.

  Knutas hoped to clear up various matters by speaking with them. The fact that Wallin had been killed on the very day that he held the first exhibition opening of the season, which had also attracted a great deal of interest, might not be a coincidence.

  He had asked Jacobsson to help out with the interview since his English wasn’t adequate.

  The phone rang. It was Wittberg, and he sounded out of breath.

  ‘Hi, I’m at the Wisby Hotel.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Mattis Kalvalis isn’t here. Or his manager either. The clerk at the front desk ordered a taxi to take them to the airport this morning.’

  ‘What? You mean they’ve run off?’ Knutas tapped his chin.

  ‘Apparently. I rang Gotland Air to find out if they really did take the flight to Stockholm. And they did. The plane left at nine this morning.’

  Emma had just come through the door when the phone rang. She set Elin down on the floor. Dressed in a heavy snowsuit, her daughter sat there motionless, looking like a little Michelin man.

  ‘Emma Winarve.’

  ‘Hi, it’s me, Johan.’

  Why did she always feel a burning in her stomach whenever she suddenly heard his voice?

  ‘Hi!’

  Elin started to cry. Emma kept her eyes fixed on her daughter as she spoke.

  ‘I’m in Visby. Tried to ring earlier, but no one answered.’ ‘No, I’ve been out for a long walk. But listen, could I call you back in ten minutes? I’ve just stepped in the door with Elin.’

  ‘Sure. Do that.’

  Emma quickly got Elin undressed, turning her head away when she noticed the stink of her daughter’s nappy. She took Elin into the bathroom to get her changed. She thought about Johan as she tended to Elin. She’d missed him more than usual lately. Not for any practical reason. She was doing fine, and Elin was an easy child to take care of. Sara and Filip had also adapted to
their new routine and were beginning to get used to the idea of life after the divorce. Sara was in third grade and Filip in second. There was only a year between them, and sometimes she thought they were almost like twins. Nowadays they enjoyed playing together, and they got along even better than before the divorce. The children had drawn closer together because of their parents’ separation. At the same time it was also rather sad, as if their faith and trust in their parents had diminished. At such a young age they had been forced to realize that nothing lasted for ever and nothing could be taken for granted.

  For the sake of the children, Emma was cautious about her new relationship. Of course that was the reason why her marriage had failed, but she wasn’t yet ready to throw herself into a new family arrangement. She had consciously kept Johan at a distance, even though she was more in love with him than ever.

  Her life had been turned completely upside-down since they met, and sometimes she wondered if it was all worth it. Yet in her heart she had no doubt. That was why she had decided to carry their child to term, even though the pregnancy was unplanned and Elin had come into the world at a time when her relationship with Johan was on very shaky ground.

  The fact that Johan had almost died when Elin was only a month old had shocked Emma more than she’d at first been willing to admit. Since then she had no doubt whatsoever that she wanted to live with him. It was just a matter of doing everything at the right time and in the proper order, for the sake of the children.