The Beige Man

by Helene Tursten

“How’s Grandma?” Jenny shouted down the stairs.

  “We’ll find out over dinner, which is ready now!” Krister yelled before Irene had the chance to answer.

  She went into the kitchen and smiled at him. There was an appetizing smell of boiled fish—or poached, as her husband would have said. An aromatic symphony of dill, lemon and prawns rose from the largest pan on the stove. The potatoes were bubbling along beside it. Irene suddenly realized how hungry she was and how much she appreciated her lively, loving family.

  It wouldn’t just be empty when the twins moved out. It would also be extremely quiet.

  THE TEMPERATURE REMAINED above freezing, and the wind blew steadily. Most of the slush had disappeared by the time Irene drove into the city center on Thursday morning. The weather was supposed to stay more or less the same until Saturday, and then it would get colder. Irene hoped that by then there wouldn’t be much water left on the streets to turn into ice. Healthcare costs for the number of broken arms and legs this winter had already surpassed all records, according to the front page headline in Göteborgs Posten that morning. And spring was still a long way off, as the song said. So Gerd was just another statistic. It’s not easy getting old, Irene thought with a sigh.

  Chapter 25

  “IT’S NOT EASY getting old,” the superintendent said with a sigh.

  “I promise we’ll sort this out,” the assistant at Lindén’s bakery said.

  Andersson had been buying bread and cakes there ever since he moved to Partille almost thirty years ago. The woman behind the counter had worked there for almost as long. They had gotten to know one another pretty well, or at least as well as a regular customer and a pleasant shop assistant usually get to know each other. She was the one he chose to confess his secret to, the secret he had carried alone for several weeks. He had noticed the others exchanging glances at coffee time, but he hadn’t said anything. It was none of their business.

  “My mother had type two diabetes as well,” he admitted in a burst of total honesty.

  “It’s so common these days, and not only among older people; young kids can develop diabetes as well. But I can easily put together a box of assorted treats. I’ll show you which ones are sugar-free, and you choose from those. It’s worked before,” she said with a smile and a conspiratorial wink.

  She had a lovely smile, he had always thought so. And she had the ability to spread warmth and a sense of security—yes, that was the word!—around her. If the store wasn’t too busy he would often linger for a little chat, inhaling the aroma of freshly brewed coffee and delicious cakes as a bonus.

  She was cheerful and easygoing, curvaceous and pretty; why had he never taken a chance before? The thought suddenly occurred to him, and he was completely taken by surprise.

  “… so you can pick them up in the morning,” she interrupted his train of thought.

  “What? I mean … sorry,” he said in confusion.

  She laughed out loud, and he almost thought she might be flirting with him. Maybe she was? He smiled back, and all at once his heart felt warm and lighter.

  “I said I’d sort out the box this evening and put it in the refrigerator, then you can pick it up on your way to work in the morning. We open at seven, but you’ll have to knock on the back door. It’s probably best if you pay me now, then it’s all taken care of.”

  “Sure! That’s terrific.” He took out a number of one hundred-kronor notes and placed them on the palm of her well-shaped hand.

  As she was ringing up the prices of the cakes, she said without taking her eyes off the cash register, “So are you going to leave work? Retire?”

  “No, not at all! I’m moving to the cold cases team. You know, investigating old homicides before the statute of limitations runs …”

  “Oh, I’ve seen the TV series! I love it! Although it’s a young girl and her associates who solve the crimes,” she said cheerfully.

  Andersson arranged his features into a regretful smile. “Unfortunately there’s no young girl on the team. Just old men. Like me,” he said.

  “Nonsense. You’re not old! We must be more or less the same age, you and I. And that would mean that I’m old, too. Or maybe that’s what you think?” she said, pretending to be affronted.

  “Absolutely not! You’re … you’re … lovely!”

  Andersson blushed, feeling like a teenager on his first date. They both laughed, dispelling the slightly awkward atmosphere. The wonderful feeling in the superintendent’s chest was starting to spread right through his body. Cupid must have flown past Lindén’s bakery on this grey, miserable February morning and shot his arrow straight into Andersson’s heart.

  IRENE AND JONNY got the day off to a brisk start by questioning Niklas Ström again. This time his lawyer was present. Irene’s first thought when she saw Michaela Lackbergh was that the well-known firm of Lemberg, Lemberg & Anjou had sent an intern. She certainly looked very young, although she had to be between twenty-five and thirty if she was a qualified lawyer. Perhaps it was her almost ethereal appearance that fooled people into thinking she was younger than she actually was. She was a dainty creature, and so pale she was almost transparent. “Albino,” Jonny had hissed in Irene’s ear. “She hasn’t got red eyes,” Irene had whispered back. The woman’s eyes were anything but red; they were steel blue and laser sharp. The platinum blonde hair was pulled back into a ponytail. She was wearing a light tweed jacket over a white shirt and skinny jeans tucked into a pair of white cowboy boots. In spite of the high heels she didn’t even come up to Irene’s shoulder. Her extraordinarily long nails made it difficult for her to grasp her papers as she attempted to get them out and put them on the table. The bundle of documents wasn’t especially thick, but it was in a blue plastic folder, and the shiny pale lilac nails scrabbled against the surface of the folder as she tried once more to get a hold of them. Never underestimate an apparently harmless kitten because it always has claws, Irene thought.

  Niklas Ström looked more or less the same as the day before. He was getting virtually no sleep in his cell, judging by the circles under his eyes. Irene had gone through his case notes and discovered the reason behind his odd behavior and the restlessness that seemed to possess his body. According to the limited assessment carried out by the forensic psychiatrist the previous year when Niklas was arrested for the rape, he was suffering from Tourette’s, which can cause symptoms such as involuntary noises and an inability to keep still.

  They began the interview with some neutral questions in the hope that Niklas would feel comfortable and relaxed, at least to a certain extent. As before, Irene was leading.

  “I’m not really interested in why you and Billy took off from Gräskärr. You can discuss that with other officers. Here in the Violent Crimes Unit, we are primarily interested in what happened on the night of January seventeenth. As I told you yesterday, we are investigating the homicide of a young girl. On the night she died, you and Billy were in the vicinity of where she was found, so I would like you to tell me what happened. Hopefully we will then be able to eliminate both of you from the murder inquiry, and things will be much easier for all of us.”

  Niklas was shifting uneasily on his chair and emitting brief snorts at regular intervals. He glanced inquiringly at his lawyer, who nodded without giving him an encouraging smile. Irene provided the smile instead. Niklas looked as if he was thinking things over. Eventually, after a series of loud groans, he took a deep breath and began.

  “We had nothing to do with that girl, for fuck’s sake! We didn’t see anybody!”

  “Do you mean when you and Billy drove the BMW with the shattered windshield along the side road leading to the Göteborg Canoe Club?” Irene quickly interposed.

  “How the fuck am I supposed to know if there was a canoe club down there? We had other stuff to think about!”

  “Like what?”

  He gave her a long look before he answered. “Like how we were going to get the hell out of there as fast as possible,” he mutte
red.

  “But not because you’d killed the girl.”

  “Of course not!”

  He was getting agitated and let out yet more loud groans. His whole body jerked uncontrollably when he tried to sit still.

  “Just before you left this room yesterday, you mentioned that there was a car parked not far from where you pulled up in the BMW. Can you remember what make of car it was?”

  “An Opel Astra.”

  “Color?”

  “White.”

  “What did you do after you got out of the BMW?”

  “We torched it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we weren’t wearing gloves.”

  “So you were afraid of leaving fingerprints in the car?”

  “Mm hmm.”

  “So you set fire to it. Forensics found traces of a flammable liquid in the car. They think alcohol was used. Is that correct?”

  Niklas nodded. “Billy found an unopened bottle of Absolut vodka under the seat. So we had a little. I mean it was fucking freezing! Then we poured some into the car and set fire to it. There was a little left, and we took it with us.”

  “You took the bottle with you when you changed cars and got into the white Opel?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you have to hot wire it?”

  Niklas looked quite animated as he leaned across the table, looking directly at Irene. “No! The keys were in the ignition!” He laughed out loud at the recollection of how easily they had gotten away from their pursuers.

  “So you didn’t drive back down toward Delsjövägen, if I’ve understood you correctly?”

  “No. We drove around up there using all the little roads—even, like, footpaths. Eventually we came out in Härlanda, and we just took off.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “To Billy’s gran. She is one cool lady.”

  “And you’ve been there all the time.”

  “Yes.”

  Irene gazed thoughtfully at Niklas. The twitching and the noises had diminished now that he had spoken to her. Perhaps he had spent the night thinking about the previous day’s conversation.

  “Niklas, I’d like you to think back to that evening when you got into the Opel. Do you remember whether it was warm or cold inside the car?”

  He considered the question carefully before he replied. “Cold.”

  “Like a refrigerator, or just a little chilly?” Irene said.

  “Kind of like a refrigerator, but not like a freezer,” Niklas said, smiling at his own ingenuity.

  “Good. The outside temperature was minus sixteen, but you’re telling me it wasn’t that cold inside the car?”

  “No way. But I think it had been there for a while.”

  “Do you remember any particular smells inside the car? Cigarette smoke or alcohol or—”

  “No.”

  “Did you or Billy take anything from the car when you got to Olofstorp?”

  “No. At first we were going to take the blanket, but we decided not to. We’d have looked like the Indians in those old cowboy films if we’d gone around wrapped in blankets. People notice that kind of thing. But … we did take the vodka bottle, like I said. There was a drop left,” he said happily.

  “I thought you and Billy were off the drugs and booze?” Irene said quietly.

  “Oh … that was later. Billy’s grandma said we couldn’t stay there if we were using. And we couldn’t get a hold of anything anyway.” He shrugged and snorted vigorously several times. Irene couldn’t help smiling as she thought about the way Billy and Niklas had made a virtue out of a necessity. They couldn’t get their hands on any drugs, so that meant they were clean. No doubt it had done them some good, but at the same time it showed how scared they must have been. They had lain low in Billy’s grandmother’s house, not even daring to go out to score drugs. They were smart enough to realize that there was a major police search underway.

  “Did you follow the investigation into the accident you had caused, either on TV or in the newspapers?”

  “Both. Annika … Billy’s grandma … gets Göteborgs Posten. And we watched the local news on TV.”

  “And you just sat there hiding out. How long did you think you could carry on like that?”

  Niklas shrugged again. “Don’t know. Until things had calmed down. We were thinking of taking off somewhere … but neither of us had any cash. We didn’t even have enough to fill up the fucking car.”

  “The Opel?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was that why you hid it in the barn?”

  “Yes. It was Billy’s idea. He knew about the barn.”

  “Did you take the BMW so that you could get to Billy’s grandmother’s house?”

  Niklas became noticeably more anxious, emitting staccato snorts through his nostrils. “We were fucking freezing, okay? We’d been sleeping on the floor at this other guy’s place for a few nights, but we couldn’t stay any longer because he … whatever! We had nowhere to go, so Billy called Annika, and she was real nice. But there were no buses and we were broke anyway, and then we saw the BMW … with the engine running! We didn’t even need to fucking think about it. When the guy who was loading the car went back to the door of the apartment block, we just jumped in and took off.”

  “But if you were heading for Gråbo, then you were going in the wrong direction,” Irene pointed out.

  “I know. But there was a tram behind us, which meant we couldn’t like do a U-turn. So I drove along Skånegatan. Thought I’d drive around for a bit … it was a fucking fantastic car.”

  A faint smile passed across his tired face, but failed to reach his eyes. Somewhere deep down inside, he had given up. He had no intention of lying. He just wanted to make sure they didn’t suspect him of any involvement in the girl’s death.

  “Tell me about the drive,” Irene said calmly.

  “We … we drove past Liseberg, then on toward Delsjövägen. There was a cop car by the fast food kiosk … they saw us, and we realized they were going to pull us over. So I put my foot down and as we were passing the TV studios this old man came running along … He ran straight out into the road, for fuck’s sake! I didn’t have a chance!”

  His whole body was shaking with the strain of having to relive the fatal car chase all over again. Irene had no reason to doubt his honesty. Everything he said corresponded with the facts that had come to light during the investigation.

  “No, Niklas. You didn’t have a chance. There are witnesses who have told us that he didn’t stop, but simply carried on running without even slowing down. It was just incredibly bad luck. You were driving at high speed, and he ran out in front of you.”

  Niklas let out a sob. “Kleenex,” he said in a voice thick with tears.

  Michaela quickly produced a Kleenex out of her soft, pale brown leather briefcase. Niklas accepted it with gratitude and noisily blew his nose. Talking about the fatal accident had affected him deeply. Something told Irene that he had gone over the moment when the body thudded into the front windshield of the car many, many times. The sound of the glass as it shattered would echo through his mind for eternity even if he had tried to suppress the images.

  “It’s obvious that the police car in pursuit made the boys increase their speed. They naturally felt the urge to get away. We will be emphasizing this point in our defense,” Michaela Lackbergh said icily.

  For a moment Irene wasn’t sure who the comments were aimed at, but a quick glance at Niklas convinced her that he had found consolation in his lawyer’s words.

  At that point Jonny decided it would be a good idea to open his mouth for the first time during the interview. “Do you have a driver’s license, Niklas?”

  Everyone in the room already knew that the answer was no. Irene silently cursed the ineptitude of her colleague, who had all the sensitivity of a steamroller. Niklas chose to remain silent.

  “And you’d both been drinking vodka as well,” Jonny gurgled happily.

  “Niklas d
idn’t say that! You don’t know that for a fact.” Michaela corrected him.

  Jonny raised his eyebrows; it was unclear whether he was surprised at being taken to task, or whether he was genuinely astonished to find that the pretty little kitten had claws. “A little while ago he sat here and told us that his good pal Billy found a bottle of Absolut vodk—”

  “He didn’t say he was drinking while he was driving!” Michaela Lackbergh cut him off in mid-sentence.

  “I thought he did,” Jonny persisted.

  “Enough! We have no interest in that discussion. We are asking Niklas for his help in the investigation into Tanya’s death,” Irene said sharply, glaring at Jonny.

  He looked extremely put out and muttered something inaudible.

  “Niklas, you know as well as I do that we don’t care if you were driving without a license. It’s irrelevant. Other officers will deal with that. We are looking for a killer, and you have already helped us to close in on him. I really appreciate your willingness to tell us exactly what happened, and that will definitely count in your favor,” she said, giving Jonny a look that spoke volumes.

  This time he had the sense to keep quiet.

  “Tell me what happened after you hit the man who ran out in front of you,” she said.

  “I couldn’t see a goddamn thing … the windshield was completely fucked! We panicked! I floored the gas pedal, and we took off. Billy was hanging out of the side window and telling me where to go. We turned off at the first intersection and drove up the hill … but I told him we couldn’t fucking keep going. I nearly came off the road … and then he saw that little side road … we turned down it … and you know the rest.” He fell silent, then trumpeted into the Kleenex once more.

  “You both got out of the BMW. Poured vodka on the floor and torched it. Had you already checked out the other car and seen that the keys were in the ignition?”

  “Yeah. We couldn’t fucking believe it! Another car with the keys in on the same night!”

  “So it was just a few minutes before you were able to drive away, leaving the burning BMW behind,” Irene concluded.