Magnus held a master’s degree from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. And that counted for something, especially in Oskarshamn. These days he ran his own company, and according to Lotta it was doing just fine. He was a good catch, as they said. Birgitta could see her son-in-law in front of her, always looking shiny and new from head to toe: the shoes, the pants, the shirt underneath the blazer or the lamb’s wool jersey – even his glasses shone. And he liked to smile. From one corner of his mouth. He always had done.
They’d known Magnus since he was a boy, and his family, during the summers, but mostly from a distance. “The Stockholmers,” as they were known locally in Klintemåla. The disparities and differences between them were so overwhelming that no one even tried to bridge them. The Stockholmers in their “wedding cake,” as the villagers called their summer residence, with its towers and pinnacles and a glazed veranda overlooking the sea.
And to think that it would all go to pot.… The father had been playing the stock market. But then the recession hit in the nineties and he practically lost everything. He’d taken too many risks, thought Carl-Ivar. The mother had never worked, and they were used to living in luxury; and Magnus had always had the best of everything. Now this backup was no longer there.
Carl-Ivar and she had always found the Öbergs somewhat aloof. The father was erratic, warm at times but could quickly become irascible.
The parents moved to Spain and Magnus did his best to keep up appearances, but Birgitta suspected that his contact with them was rather sparse these days.
She placed the glass on the sink and went back out into the sunlight.
She thought about the grandchildren, about little Olivia and Ludvig. About their tough upbringing.
A lump appeared in her belly. Perhaps they had just as tough an upbringing as Magnus once had, she guessed. But she’d never ask him that, what his childhood was really like. Their relationship wasn’t of that kind, more politely distanced.
Instead, her mind turned to one of her patients. Some of them were unforgettable.
The image of that little boy still pained her. They’d been remarkably similar, he and Magnus, and of the same age. The dark, curly hair and little freckles straddling the fair-skinned nose. Both were fearful of the strap, too. You could feel it.
It was at that time when corporal punishment was banned, at the end of the seventies.
She was almost ashamed now, but back then she was one of those who thought the law was unnecessary. She and Carl-Ivar didn’t need it at least, they never beat their children. A light slap on the bottom or an ear-boxing could hardly be considered violent. It hadn’t done her any harm, she always liked to add.
And in a way it hadn’t, at least compared to her brother, who their father had been stricter with. The son that was to be disciplined, as was the thing to do in those days. She felt sorry for Lasse.
But she swiftly changed her mind when the boy was admitted to the clinic, beaten half to death by his frenzied father, who refused to believe that his son would suffer from a good hiding.
Everyone who, with gentle hands, helped to care for that little child’s body was openly thankful that a law had been passed against such horrors. The boy had lost a finger, the father having snipped it off with pincers because his four-year-old son had picked up a bottle and dropped it on the floor. He’d screamed like a stuck pig, enough to bring the neighbors running to his rescue, otherwise he probably would have lost more. What the bottle had contained was never recorded, but there were convincing rumors that it had been alcohol of some kind.
The otherwise so amenable and hardworking doctor was furious, almost unrecognizably so. Birgitta remembered it with tenderness. If the doctor hadn’t been a man of little physical strength, he probably would have gone to the father’s house and thumped him.
Over the years, she’d wondered now and again what had become of the boy. The boy that hadn’t been born under a cloudless sky and with a silver spoon, like Magnus Öberg. The father no doubt received some sort of punishment and the child welfare agency probably did its bit in accordance with the arrangements of the time. Perhaps a foster home or a children’s home, both were a gamble. She’d never know.
Her hair was sticky and the sweat was streaming even more profusely. She’d forgotten both time and space. Her tummy grumbled. She got up and went inside to make herself a late lunch.
CHAPTER 8
THE ROAD WAS DRY, the sun hot overhead.
Claes Claesson had folded down the sunshade, but the light was still piercing and so he groped around in the compartment between the front seats for his sunglasses. He found then and placed them on his nose.
Klara was not making a sound. She was sitting belted into the child’s seat in the back, listening intensely. Lennart Hellsing’s “Cackle Cackle Spectacle” was playing out of the car’s speakers. To think that his lyrics still worked!
“Let’s sing, Daddy,” she said. “Play it again!”
He backed up the CD, cleared his throat and joined in:
Cackle cackle spectacle
Cousin Girton
Swinging from a curtain
With a scream and a shout
Come out! Come out!
Cackle cackle spectacle
What are you thinking about?
He and Klara both knew it by heart. Two generations with the same heritage. After a while, Klara made do with just listening.
So there he was on the E22 again on his way to Kalmar. He’d passed Mönsterås, but this time without his heart in his throat. The sky was so bright it was nudging white.
When he saw the sign for Timmernabben, a whim struck him to take the old coast road to Kalmar. It had to be years since he last went that way – Pataholm, Korpemåla, Slakmöre – but it really wasn’t an option just now. He could see the pretty oak groves down by the sea. The coast changed south of Oskarshamn as the granite rocks made way for grassy fields that stretched all the way to the shoreline, populated by countless ruminating cows.
“Are we there yet, Daddy?”
“Not long now,” he said while trying to catch her eye in the rear-view mirror, but failing, naturally, given that she was seated in a backward-facing child seat. She contented herself with his reply.
He’d put the baby seat in the trunk and was now on his way to fetch his wife and yet another offspring. Veronika had actually wanted to go home the day before, just a few hours after the birth, but had been persuaded to stay overnight to give the doctor time to examine their newborn baby girl.
He was at ease. He glanced at the seat beside him. The stain was very faint, barely noticeable, in fact, if you didn’t know it was there. Let it stay, he thought. As a memento.
He grinned broadly.
CHAPTER 9
MERVE TURPAN WAS a detective inspector, although not a detective chief inspector. Yet.
She thought about it at times, that she had a goal, and that she’d have to let reaching it take its time. She was content with her life as it was – but still she drove herself ever onward.
The only one who was displeased with her life was her mother, but that was another story.
Merve was very well aware that she was smart and capable. Not only because she’d often gained the highest grades and the most lavish praise, but also because she’d been told as much, by her boss foremost of all. True, this was partly to do with his occasional tiredness. Or indolence, perhaps. Or maybe he genuinely did have as much on his plate as he made out – her boss, Superintendent Fuat Karaoğlu, a head shorter than her and with a singular ability to supply her with work.
But he took her seriously. That was attractive and she liked him. A lot, even.
Right now, though, she would have given anything for a shower. Refreshing water streaming down over her body. As it was, cold or possibly lukewarm water was all there was available, despite the recent renovations on the apartment she’d bought a year back. She didn’t dare even think what it would be like come the winter. The lan
dlord was definitely not a man to trust.
It was a Sunday and the narrow corridor outside her office was deserted. Through the open window she could hear someone on the floor below talking on the phone. Possibly Cem, but if he wanted her for something, he’d stop by.
Cem was the youngest forensic investigator, who’d now been given an entire boat to rummage around in. It would no doubt be a fruitless exercise; Karaoğlu thought so, too, he’d even said so aloud. Cem and the two other forensic technicians had only had Saturday evening to do their thing. The captain had grumbled over the serious losses he was making with the ferry temporarily berthed, and anyway, all that was needed was for the wind to change and the rain to come for any clues to be washed away, no matter how carefully the scene had been covered by a tarp.
The traffic outside barely penetrated her room, and the calm was pleasant. She needed to concentrate.
Her boss would be turning up in an hour to read through her report to Interpol so that it could be sent off today. Hopefully, it would reach Sweden tomorrow.
Fuat Karaoğlu owned a small apartment that was almost disgustingly centrally located behind Hagia Sofia. Cem, who’d been there, said that Karaoğlu even had a view of the Marmara Sea from his roof terrace. Unfortunately, Karaoğlu’s wife was seriously ill, and couldn’t leave the apartment. That was his cross to bear, thought Merve. Maybe that was why he was always so tired, even preoccupied at times. He had help with his wife, but more often than not he had to go home to look after her.
She stood up and went to rinse her thin cotton washcloth in cold water. She wiped her face and neck. This was nothing compared to the heat of the summer, but she was tired and her mind was sluggish.
Her cell phone rang. She noted who it was, the only source of dread in her life at the present time.
“Hello, Mama.”
“What are you doing?” asked her mother, at once tender and stern.
“I’m at work just finishing something off.”
“But my dear girl, Sunday is not a day for working! You must go out and enjoy yourself. Meet some friends… maybe one of them has a brother.…?”
Merve didn’t even sigh. Her mother called her twice a day from Iznik, and that was definitely once too often. She should give up. The main problem was that Merve wasn’t married. She was an only child, and her mother longed for grandchildren.
“I don’t have time for men,” she said in an irksome tone to her mother, whose worry had been escalating ever since Merve had turned thirty-three. “Turkish men don’t want an educated, independent woman.”
But her mother was inured to all this. She sighed heavily and only after a host of endearments was she able to hang up.
“You’re my mother, you’re my best mother in the world. Goodbye!” she’d said.
Notes and reports lay scattered over her desk. The report was to be a summary, not long but concise, and partly a notification of death and partly a request that the Swedish police notify relatives of this death.
She was also meant to compose an application for the personal details on the victim, one Carl-Ivar Olsson, according to the driver’s license inside the wallet that they’d found in his back pocket. Inside had also been a wad of bank notes, both Turkish lira and euros, to a total value that would’ve been enough to fit her out from head to toe.
Her boss was, moreover, not averse to her adding an elegant postscript to the effect that help with the investigation from the Swedish police would be welcomed.
“Very much welcomed,” he’d said at first, but then checked himself. “Alright, strike very much, it might make us sound incompetent, but…” He’d been twisting his moustache, a habit of his, and was regarding her with his different-colored eyes: one blue, one brown. “This case probably won’t be that easy to solve, no matter who is working on it. It’s just too messy.”
She agreed. A murder on a boat full of people, mostly unknown passengers that they’d never track down, was indeed too messy.
Just questioning the entire crew had worn them out. It had taken all yesterday evening, plus today.
She wrote in Turkish, and then the whole thing would be translated into English in Ankara before being sent to the Interpol headquarters in Lyon, and from there to Stockholm.
Beyond that it was out of her control, the dead man’s homeland lying well beyond her radar.
He’d looked pathetic, somehow, she thought. A dapper elderly gentleman. But there was nothing pathetic or dapper about the way he’d been murdered. Or executed, more like.
CHAPTER 10
IT HAD TURNED SEVENTEEN MINUTES past nine in the evening, and it was still Sunday.
Birgitta Olsson was the duty nurse for the night and was sitting, face aglow, on a chair in the unit office. Her arms and legs, unaccustomed as they were to gardening, were aching, but it was a pleasant tenderness that testified to her having used her body for something.
She’d even had time to snatch an afternoon nap and was feeling on top of the world. And she’d called Carl-Ivar, although he hadn’t answered.
She’d then received yet another call from Magnus, roughly an hour before she’d left for work, wondering if Carl-Ivar had been in touch and if she’d possibly spotted a carpet in the hotel room or something, back there in Istanbul. She couldn’t say that she had, she said, and managed to end the conversation by telling him she had to get cycling to work. It was like she was standing treading water, she joked. She felt tempted to ask if he’d called Annelie to find out if Carl-Ivar had contacted her first.
It would, admittedly, have been embarrassing if Carl-Ivar had called his temporary help, his niece Annelie, rather than her, but there was a certain logic to it. Annelie and Carl-Ivar worked together these days, and if it was a matter of carpets then Annelie was more at home than she was.
These days… , she thought. Carl-Ivar had been looking after his little lost niece temporarily. It had been a good solution for everyone, she thought. But Annelie wasn’t that little or lost any more. Oh no, not like when she was growing up. And her son-in-law Magnus doubtless had nothing against talking to Annelie! But he would’ve been able to work all that out for himself alright without her sticking her nose in.
Down in the hospital’s basement changing room she’d discovered that she wasn’t the only one to have failed to balance exposure time and sunscreen factor. She and her colleagues had laughed at their porky pink faces and then sauntered off to their respective wards.
Now, sitting up straight with her shoulders relaxed, her hands resting in her lap, she turned her head so that she could see out through the window.
Since the children had left home, she’d started to make a habit of arriving at the ward early. She considered the few extra minutes a luxury rather than a waste of time.
She’d attended neither yoga classes nor group training in meditation, so possibly she had a natural gift for relaxation, in the same way that Carl-Ivar had a gift for working in naps now and then, preferably in front of the TV news.
She at once experienced a powerful sensation of presence. True, it was worrying that Carl-Ivar hadn’t gotten in touch, the old fool, but he no doubt had his reasons. He almost always did. He’d probably forgotten to recharge his phone. Or perhaps he turned it off or chose not to recharge so as not to be disturbed?
Doing whatever it was he was doing, that is.…
Something of course could’ve happened to him, but that was a possibility she didn’t care to entertain.
She noticed that Anne-Sofie slipped into the office, and dropped her bag on the desk with a thud. But Sofa, as everyone called her, was a together and considerate person who didn’t demand everyone’s attention for herself, so she left Birgitta in peace and disappeared out into the corridor again.
“Shall we get started?”
Tina Rosenkvist, nicknamed Rosie, slumped down panting into a chair. It was time for her to clock out for the day. Birgitta gave a start but smiled benignly. Sofa quickly joined them and together they rolled on t
heir office chairs closer to Rosie. In their hands were reports that they’d printed out from the computer listing the patients’ room numbers and beds, each accompanied by a series of abbreviations that helped them immediately identify the care that needed to be given and the tests that needed to be taken. GBU meant that a patient “gets by unaided,” HWE that they needed “help with everything,” SBR stood for “strictly bedridden,” LD for “log drinking,” LDU for “log drinking and urine.” The list went on and on, no abbreviation causing any interpretative difficulties. What was hard, on certain nights, was getting it all done.
Rosie was hardly a whiz at reporting systematically; in fact, she was more muddled than anything, but Birgitta let it go. She knew that Rosie wanted to go home. She lived near Kristdala, not many doors down from her childhood home, and her husband was probably already outside the hospital with the engine running. Everyone knew that he always made a point of picking her up, sometimes in a freezing car with both kids strapped into the back seat. Rosie said it was because they could only afford one car and that her husband needed it for work during the day. The bus wasn’t much use when you had irregular working hours, everyone knew that. But some people whispered that he just wanted to keep tabs on her.
Birgitta let Rosie babble on to make the procedure as brief as possible and counted on being able to read up on the rest. Or talk to the patients. The older she got, the more use she made of this simple method: to go to primary sources.
And it was these chats with the patients that she enjoyed most these days. In the early days of her career, there was much to get in the way. Lush doctors, among other things. And her fear of making a mistake. The coffee-break chat and all the plans for the kids back at home also drained much of her energy. They were constantly competing, the young mothers, measuring their own value with their children’s successes.
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