Patrick Hedstrom 07: The Lost Boy

by Camilla Lackberg

  ‘If we ever find it,’ said Gösta. Then his face lit up. ‘Erling said that Sverin was concerned about something in the accounts. He was going to meet with a man named Anders Berkelin, who’s in charge of finances at Badis. Maybe he has the laptop. They were working together on the project, so it’s possible that Sverin left the computer with him.’

  ‘Gösta, I want you and Paula to drive over there and have a talk with him. Martin and I will go to the flat. I want to take a look around. And we’re supposed to get Torbjörn’s report sometime today, aren’t we?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Annika told him.

  ‘Okay, then. And Bertil, you’ll take charge of things here?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Mellberg. ‘That goes without saying. And you haven’t forgotten what’s happening tomorrow, have you?’

  ‘Tomorrow?’ Everyone turned to give him an enquiring look.

  ‘It’s the VIP event at Badis. We’re invited, remember – and we have to be there at eleven o’clock.’

  ‘Do we really have time for that now?’ said Patrik. ‘I assumed it had been cancelled since we have more important matters to think about at the moment.’

  ‘What’s best for the town and the surrounding area has always been our top priority.’ Mellberg stood up. ‘We are role models for the community, and our participation in local projects is of paramount importance. So I’ll expect to see all of you at Badis tomorrow morning at eleven.’

  A resigned murmur passed through the room. They knew it was pointless arguing with Mellberg. And a couple of hours spent getting a massage and being pampered, body and soul, might do miracles for their energy level at work.

  ‘Bloody stairs.’ Gösta stopped halfway up.

  ‘We could have driven to the other side and parked in front of Badis instead,’ said Paula as she paused to wait for him.

  ‘Why didn’t you mention that earlier?’ He took a couple of deep breaths before continuing. He hadn’t managed to play enough rounds of golf this year to get himself in shape. Reluctantly he also had to acknowledge that age was beginning to take its toll.

  ‘Patrik wasn’t exactly thrilled that you went to the flat.’ They had avoided the topic on the way over, but Paula could no longer resist bringing it up.

  Gösta snorted. ‘If I remember correctly, Hedström is not head of the station.’

  Paula didn’t reply, and after a moment of silence Gösta sighed.

  ‘Okay, maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to go there without first talking to Patrik. Sometimes it’s hard for us old guys to accept that a new generation has taken over. We have experience and seniority on our side, but that doesn’t seem to mean anything.’

  ‘I think you underestimate yourself. Patrik always has positive things to say about you. But as far as Mellberg is concerned, well …’

  ‘He does?’ Gösta sounded happily surprised, and Paula hoped that he wouldn’t see through her white lie. Gösta didn’t often contribute to their work, and Patrik didn’t exactly shower him with praise. But he was nice enough, and he meant well. It wouldn’t do any harm to give him a little encouragement.

  ‘Mellberg is definitely in a class by himself,’ said Gösta, stopping again as they reached the top of the long flight of stairs. ‘So now let’s see what these people are like. I’ve heard a lot about this project, but I reckon it takes a particular breed to be willing to team up with Erling.’ He shook his head and then turned his back to Badis and gazed out across the water. It was another beautiful early summer day, and there was barely a ripple in the bay near Fjällbacka. Here and there some sparse vegetation was visible, but the grey rocks dominated. ‘All I can say is this is a damned spectacular view,’ said Gösta, sounding unusually philosophical.

  ‘Yes, it’s great, isn’t it? Badis certainly has an unbeatable location. It’s strange that it was allowed to fall into such disrepair for so long.’

  ‘It was a matter of money. It must have cost millions to fix up the place, given the state of the building. And the renovation isn’t half bad. Question is, how much of the bill are we going to be paying in taxes?’

  ‘Now you sound more like your old self, Gösta. I was starting to worry.’ Paula smiled and headed towards the entrance. She was impatient to get to work.

  ‘Hello?’ Once inside, they called out several times and after a few minutes a tall, nondescript man came to greet them. His blond hair was cut in the appropriate style, his designer glasses were the appropriate type, and his handshake was firm. It occurred to Paula that she’d have trouble recognizing him again if she ran into him on the street.

  ‘We spoke to you on the phone,’ she said after they did the introductions. They sat down at one of the tables in the dining room where documents were spread out next to a laptop computer.

  ‘Nice office,’ she said, looking around the room.

  ‘I’ve also got a cubbyhole back there,’ said Anders Berkelin, gesturing vaguely with his hand. ‘But I work better in here. It seems less confining. As soon as the place opens for business, I’ll probably have to crawl back into my hole.’ He smiled, and even his smile was perfectly appropriate.

  ‘I understand that you wanted to ask me some questions about Mats.’ He closed the laptop and looked at them. ‘It’s just so awful.’

  ‘Yes, he seems to have been well-liked,’ said Paula, opening her notebook. ‘Did you work together on Project Badis from the very beginning?’

  ‘No, only since he was hired by the local council a few months ago. Before that, things were a bit messy over there, so we had to take on a lot of the burden ourselves. Mats was like manna from heaven.’

  ‘Presumably it took him a while to get up to speed. A project like this must be very complicated.’

  ‘Well, it’s not really all that complicated. There are two financial backers. The local council and the two of us – my sister and myself. We share the expenses equally and we’ll also be sharing the profits.’

  ‘And how long do you estimate it will take before the place is profitable?’ asked Paula.

  ‘We’ve tried to be as realistic as possible with our calculations. There’s no point in building castles in the air, so to speak. We estimate that it’ll be about four years before we reach the “break-even point”,’ he said, using the English term.

  ‘Break-even?’ said Gösta.

  ‘The point when all the costs have been paid off,’ Paula clarified.

  ‘Oh, right,’ Gösta muttered, embarrassed at his lack of familiarity with English. He’d picked up a lot of phrases from the golf tournaments he watched on the sports channel, but the terms he’d learned weren’t much use outside of golf.

  ‘What sort of things did you and Mats work on together?’ asked Paula.

  ‘My sister and I are in charge of all the practical matters here. We’ve coordinated the renovation work, hired the staff, and basically taken responsibility for creating the business. Then we’ve billed the local council for its share of the expenses. It was Mats’s job to keep tabs on the account books and make sure the bills were paid. In addition, we’ve also had an ongoing discussion about project expenses and income. The council has also had a large say in things.’ Anders pushed his glasses up. It was hard to see his eyes behind the lenses.

  ‘Did you have any disagreements?’ Paula was taking notes as they talked, and one page was already nearly filled with illegible scrawls.

  ‘That depends on what you mean by disagreement.’ Anders clasped his hands on the table. ‘We didn’t agree on everything, but Mats and I enjoyed a good and constructive dialogue, even if we didn’t always see eye to eye.’

  ‘And no one else had any problems with him?’ asked Gösta.

  ‘On the project?’ Anders looked as if the idea was absurd. ‘No, absolutely not. Nothing beyond the differences of opinion that he and I had over certain details. Nothing that was so serious it would … No, definitely not.’ He shook his head vigorously.

  ‘According to Erling Larson, Mats was going to dro
p by here last Friday to talk to you about something that was worrying him. Did he do that?’ asked Paula.

  ‘Yes. Mats was here for a short time. He stayed about half an hour. But I think it’s an exaggeration to say that he was worried. There were a few numbers that didn’t add up, and the projections needed to be adjusted slightly, but that’s not so strange. We straightened it all out in no time.’

  ‘Is there anyone here who can confirm what you’ve just told us?’

  ‘No, I was the only one here at the time. He arrived rather late. Around five o’clock. I think he came straight from work.’

  ‘Do you recall whether he had his laptop with him?’

  ‘Mats always had his laptop with him, so I can be fairly sure that he did. Yes, that’s right. I remember that he brought his briefcase along.’

  ‘And he didn’t leave it here?’ asked Paula.

  ‘No. I would have noticed if he did. Why? Is his laptop missing?’ Anders gave them a nervous look.

  ‘We don’t know yet,’ said Paula. ‘But if it should turn up, we’d be grateful if you’d contact us at once.’

  ‘Of course. But as I said, he didn’t leave it here, at any rate. And we’d be quite concerned if his computer really has disappeared. It contains sensitive information about Project Badis.’ Again he pushed up his glasses.

  ‘I understand.’ Paula got up, and Gösta took that as a signal to do the same. ‘Give us a call if anything else occurs to you.’ She handed Anders her card, which he put in a card holder that he took out of his pocket.

  ‘I’ll do that,’ he said. He kept his pale blue eyes fixed on the two officers as they headed for the door.

  What if they found her and Sam here? Strangely enough, the thought hadn’t occurred to Nathalie until now. Gråskär had always been such a safe place, and only now did she realize that they could find her here if they wanted to.

  The shots were still loud in her memory. They had echoed through the silence of the night, and then everything was quiet once again. And she had fled, taking Sam and leaving chaos and devastation behind. Leaving Fredrik.

  The people he’d had dealings with could easily track her down. At the same time, she knew that she’d had no choice other than to come here and wait to be found or to be forgotten. They knew that she was weak. In their eyes she had been nothing more than Fredrik’s accessory, a beautiful jewel, a shadow who discreetly made sure that their glasses were filled and the humidor was never empty. For them she hadn’t been a real person, and now that might be to her advantage. There was no reason to chase down shadows.

  Nathalie went out into the sunlight, trying to convince herself that she was safe. But the doubts lingered. She walked around the corner of the house, gazing out at the water, past the islands to the mainland. One day a boat might appear, and then she and Sam would be caught here like rats in a cage. She sat down on the bench, hearing how it creaked under her weight. The wind and the salt had taken a toll on the wood, and the old bench leaned wearily against the wall of the house. There were many things on the island that needed attention. On the other hand, some of the flowers kept coming up in the flowerbeds. The hollyhocks were the ones she remembered best. When she was little and her mother tenderly tended the flowers, the hollyhocks had filled the entire back row. Now only a few lonely stocks had come up, and it remained to be seen what colour they would be. The roses hadn’t yet bloomed, but she was hoping it would be the ones that she loved most, the light pink variety, that had survived. But all of her mother’s herbs had long since perished. Only a few strands of chives bore witness to the fact that at one time a herb garden had thrived there, so delightfully fragrant whenever she had run her hand through the plants.

  She got up and looked in the window. Sam was lying on his side, with his face turned away from her. He slept for a long time in the mornings now, and she had no reason to make him get out of bed. Maybe he needed to sleep and dream in order to heal what had been damaged.

  Quietly she sat back down. The restlessness in her body was slowly calmed by the steady sound of the water lapping against the rocks. They were on Gråskär Island, she was a shadow, and no one was going to find them. They were safe.

  ‘Couldn’t Mamma do it today?’ Patrik sounded disappointed. He was talking on his mobile as he took the tight curve near Mörhult, driving too fast.

  ‘Tomorrow afternoon? Well, I suppose it can’t be helped. It’ll have to wait until tomorrow then. Hugs. See you later.’

  He ended the call, and Martin gave him an enquiring look.

  ‘I was thinking of taking Erica with me to talk to Sverin’s old girlfriend, Nathalie Wester. According to his parents, Mats was planning to go and see her, but they don’t know if he ever did.’

  ‘Couldn’t you just phone her and ask?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose I could. But I usually get better results meeting someone face to face, and I want to talk to as many people as possible who knew Mats, even if it was long ago. He’s a mystery. I need to know more.’

  ‘And why should Erica go with you?’ Martin gratefully climbed out of the vehicle in the car park in front of the block of flats.

  ‘She went to school with Nathalie. And Mats.’

  ‘Oh, that’s right. I heard about that. So it’s probably a good idea if she goes with you. She might make Nathalie feel more at ease.’

  They walked up the stairs and stopped at the door to Mats Sverin’s flat.

  ‘I hope Mellberg and Gösta haven’t made too much of a mess,’ said Martin.

  ‘We can always hope.’ Patrik had no illusions that his colleagues had been particularly careful. Not Mellberg, at any rate. Gösta could sometimes rise to the occasion and prove to be quite competent.

  They stepped cautiously around the patches of dried blood in the hall.

  ‘Somebody is going to have to deal with this eventually,’ said Martin.

  ‘I’m afraid that’s going to be the job of the victim’s parents. I hope they can find someone to help them. No one should have to clean up their own child’s blood.’

  Patrik went into the kitchen.

  ‘Here’s the computer cable that Gösta was talking about. I wonder whether Gösta and Paula have found the laptop by now. They probably would have phoned if they had.’ He was thinking aloud.

  ‘Why would Sverin have left it at Badis?’ said Martin. ‘No, I’ll bet it was the person who shot him who took the computer.’

  ‘It looks as if Torbjörn and his team have taken fingerprints from the cable, at any rate. If they got some good prints, maybe that will give us a lead.’

  ‘A killer who was careless, you mean?’

  ‘Luckily there seem to be plenty who fall into that category.’

  ‘But they seem to be getting more careful since TV started showing those forensics crime shows. Seems like every petty thief now knows the basics about fingerprints and DNA.’

  ‘That’s true, but there will always be idiots in the world.’

  ‘Then let’s hope that it’s an idiot we’re dealing with here.’ Martin went back to the hall and continued on to the living room. ‘I see what Gösta meant,’ he called.

  Patrik stayed where he was, standing in the middle of the kitchen.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About this place feeling like a temporary residence. It’s very impersonal. Nothing that says anything about who he was. No photos, no knick-knacks, and nothing but reference books on the shelf.’

  ‘Like I said: he’s a mystery.’ Patrik came into the living room.

  ‘Hmmm, maybe he was just a very private person. Why should that be so mysterious? Some people are more reserved than others, and I don’t find it so strange that he didn’t discuss girlfriends and personal matters at the office.’

  ‘That’s not the only thing though,’ said Patrik, slowly walking around the room. ‘He doesn’t seem to have had any friends. His flat is extremely impersonal, as you said yourself. And he didn’t tell anyone about the terrible beating he suffered
…’

  ‘You don’t have proof of that last statement, do you?’

  ‘No, I don’t. But something’s not right. Besides, he was found shot to death in his own front hall. I mean, your average person doesn’t end up getting shot like that. The stereo and TV are still here, so if it was a burglary, we’re dealing with a thief who was very stupid or very lazy.’

  ‘The laptop is missing,’ Martin reminded Patrik as he pulled out a drawer from the TV stand.

  ‘Yes, but … I have a gut feeling about this.’ Patrik went into the bedroom and started looking around. Everything Martin had said was true. There was no evidence to support the churning feeling in his gut, the sense that below the surface there was another layer to Mats Sverin that needed to be brought to light.

  They spent an hour meticulously going through everything, only to arrive at the same conclusion that Gösta and Mellberg had reached on the previous day. There was nothing here. The flat might as well have been an IKEA room set. Except that even those were more personal than Mats Sverin’s home.

  ‘Shall we go?’ said Patrik with a sigh.

  ‘Yes. There’s not much else we can do. Let’s hope that Torbjörn’s come up with something useful.’

  Patrik locked the door to the flat. He’d been hoping to find a lead that they could pursue. So far all he had were vague suspicions, and not even he was prepared to act on those alone.

  ‘Lunch at Lilla Berith?’ asked Martin as they got in the car.

  ‘That sounds good,’ replied Patrik without enthusiasm, backing the vehicle out of the car park.

  Vivianne quietly opened the door to the dining room and went over to Anders. He didn’t look up. He was typing rapidly on the computer keyboard.

  ‘What did they want?’ She sat down across from him, on the chair where Paula had been sitting. It was still warm.

  ‘They asked about Mats and the work we did together. They wondered whether his laptop was here.’ He didn’t look up.

  ‘What did you tell them?’ She leaned across the table.

  ‘As little as possible. I said we had a good working relationship, and that his laptop wasn’t here.’