The Treacherous Net

by Helene Tursten

  Sven Andersson and Leif Fryxender had spent many hours trying to track down the residents of the building on Korsvägen in 1983. They had eventually come up with a list of names: Signe Kjellberg, Staffan Molander, the Workers’ Educational Association—known as Arbetarnas Bildningsförbund or ABF—and Carl-Johan Adelskiöld. ABF had rented the offices on the ground floor from 1978 to 1985. A call to ABF produced the names of five women who worked on the admin side of the organization. Three of these women had since passed away, and the remaining two were both over eighty years old.

  Signe Kjellberg had rented a three-room apartment that she had shared with her sister Rut. They had lived there since 1960, but in May 1983 Rut had died at the age of seventy-eight. On October 1 that same year Signe moved into an assisted-living facility. The Kjellberg sisters were hardly relevant to the investigation, but interestingly their apartment had been under renovation when Mats Persson was murdered on December 9.

  Two trainee nurses had lived in the third apartment: Staffan Molander and Per-Olof Wallin. Staffan had been twenty-two and Per-Olof thirty at the time. The rental agreement had been in Molander’s name from 1982 to 1984.

  Andersson and Fryxender decided to split the work between them. Andersson would take Staffan Molander, while Fryxender would try to get a hold of the two elderly ladies from ABF.

  After some difficulty Andersson finally managed to track down the right Staffan Molander. He was working as a senior charge nurse in a post-operative care unit at Sahlgrenska University Hospital. He told Andersson that it would be difficult to find somewhere in the unit where they could talk undisturbed, so they arranged to meet in the café by the main entrance.

  Staffan Molander came rushing in a few minutes after the agreed time. He apologized, and sank down on the chair opposite Andersson, puffing and panting. The superintendent had already bought two cups of coffee and two Mazarin cakes; his own was sugar-free, of course. It was obviously the right choice because Molander thanked him profusely and devoured his cake in no time. He was slightly below average height, but slim and toned. His highlighted hair was thinning on top but was well-cut and styled. He looked fit and tan against the white coat he wore over his white T-shirt and jeans. On his feet he had white clogs.

  After outlining the details of the case, Sven Andersson got straight to the point.

  “We’d like to know if you or Per-Olof Wallin saw or heard anything that could be linked to the murder,” he said.

  Molander sat in silence for quite a long time, considering the question carefully before he spoke. “It’s hard to remember after so many years. But Perra . . . Per-Olof and I were together for almost two years. We split up in the summer of ’84. I moved in with my new partner, and Perra moved to Stockholm. He died in September ’94.”

  AIDS, Andersson thought.

  “The Estonia disaster,” Molander said, compressing his lips into a narrow line. His blue-grey eyes darkened as he looked at Andersson.

  “Did either of you see or hear anything unusual on November ninth, 1983?” Andersson continued blithely.

  “Not that I can recall. Things were a little . . . turbulent back then. We argued all the time. I used to take off and stay over with a friend when things got really bad.”

  “What did you argue about?”

  “Perra was pathologically jealous.”

  Could Mats Persson have been gay? Or did he swing both ways, bearing in mind that he was married? Was that why he had snuck off to the house on Korsvägen? And been murdered in some dramatic relationship tangle?

  Andersson was quite overcome by this unexpected train of thought. He sat there with his mouth half-open, his vacant gaze fixed on the ice-cream display at the other end of the room. Under normal circumstances he was an extremely methodical person who didn’t allow himself to be swayed by anything but the facts, but this was a burst of creative imagination!

  Suddenly he became aware that Molander was talking to him.

  “Hello! Anyone home?”

  “Sorry—I just had a thought.”

  Andersson looked at the man opposite with renewed interest.

  “Did you or Per-Olof have . . . relations with Mats Persson?”

  Molander looked surprised at first, then he tilted his head to one side. “I’ve had relations with lots of people, but not with Mats Persson. I can honestly say I never met the guy, and I’m sure Perra didn’t either.”

  “You don’t think Per-Olof might have arranged to meet up with Mats Persson?”

  “Why would he have done that?” Staffan countered immediately.

  “I don’t know . . . Maybe you’d taken off after an argument and he wanted to make you jealous, so—”

  Staffan interrupted him: “No chance.”

  “How come?”

  Andersson was reluctant to give up on the new hypothesis that had begun to take shape in his mind.

  “Perra liked really young guys. I was starting to get close to the borderline. He wasn’t a pedophile, absolutely not, but he wanted them between eighteen and just over twenty. Twenty-five at most. And as far as I remember, this Mats Persson was around forty. There’s no way Perra would have gone for someone that old,” Staffan said with utter conviction.

  “And what about you? Did you go for older guys?”

  “Age has never been important to me. I’m only interested in good looks and good sex,” Staffan replied with a smile. Then he became serious once more. “I saw a photo in the paper of that poor guy who got killed, and I can tell you there was nothing about him that would have turned me on. I was twenty-two, for God’s sake!”

  Reluctantly Andersson had to admit that there was something in what Staffan Molander said. And when he thought about it, he realized there was a weak link in his brand-new theory: How could Staffan or Per-Olof have gotten a hold of the pistol that had been used to kill Elof Persson in 1941? No, it just didn’t work.

  “So you never saw Mats Persson visiting someone else in the building, maybe walking around outside . . .”

  “No. I’ve got an excellent memory for faces. The only time I’ve seen him was in that photograph in the paper a few months ago,” Staffan said firmly.

  Andersson considered his next question.

  “What was your landlord, Carl-Johan Adelskiöld, like? As a person, I mean.”

  “He was a nice old guy. He mostly kept to himself, but he was never unfriendly in any way. He invited us for coffee and Cognac once. But it never happened again.”

  Andersson pounced on the snippet of information, sensing possible discord. “Why’s that?”

  Staffan shrugged. “I don’t know. The age difference, maybe. I mean, we returned the invitation—mulled wine and gingerbread cookies at Christmas. He came along; there were quite a lot of people there. But he didn’t stay long, said it was too noisy. But the truth was that he’d knocked back a hell of a lot of wine.”

  He fell silent, and seemed to be wondering how to go on.

  “Calle . . . he wanted us to call him Calle . . . had a bit of a drinking problem. To be honest, the guy was an alcoholic. Sometimes he was in a really bad way,” he said seriously.

  That fit with what Oscar and Astrid Leutnerwall had said. Andersson decided to change the subject.

  “As we understand it, the boiler in the cellar was changed in the summer of ’83, and apparently the builders left piles of bricks and sacks of mortar down there. Do you remember if that was the case?”

  “I’ve no idea. I never went down there, not even when I moved out. The few possessions I had were in the apartment, and I had a little washing machine in the bathroom. I believe there was a laundry room in the cellar, but as I said, I never went down there.”

  “What about Per-Olof?”

  “Hardly. We used our own washing machine and hung the laundry on a drying rack over the bathtub. The Kjellberg sisters did the same thing.”
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  Sven Andersson realized there was something very obvious that he had forgotten to ask. “Did Adelskiöld know that you and Per-Olof were . . . gay?” He could hear his hesitation over the last word; it annoyed him that he couldn’t just come out with it in a natural way. Staffan gave him an amused look before he replied.

  “He never asked us, and he never said anything. To be honest, I don’t think he cared as long as we behaved ourselves and paid the rent.”

  Andersson nodded and moved on. “Did you notice whether Adelskiöld had visitors?”

  “I guess he must have, but I only remember one occasion. There was some kind of musical event at Liseberg, and a man and a woman came to see Calle. I think he said they were relatives.”

  “Do you remember when this was?”

  “The summer of ’83. I spent that whole summer working as a junior nurse at Vasa Hospital; when I got home that day I bumped into Calle and his relatives by the front door. They were just on their way out.”

  Oscar and Astrid Leutnerwall, Andersson thought.

  It seemed as if Calle Adelskiöld had lived a pretty reclusive life in his house on Korsvägen. From choice, according to his cousins. So that he could please himself and drink in peace, if you listened to Staffan Molander. All three of them were probably right.

  It was pouring as Andersson parked the car. These days it was almost impossible to find a space within walking distance of police HQ; the whole area was more or less under construction.

  Andersson was soaked to the skin by the time he reached the station. He swiped his security card and headed toward the elevators. As he was waiting, a large puddle formed around his feet. A wet but pretty useful day, he thought.

  In spite of the fact that he had only recently left the hospital café, he went straight to the nearest coffee machine as soon as he had removed his sodden outerwear. He took two mugs along with him; Fryxender usually enjoyed a coffee during their conversations.

  As expected Andersson found his colleague in the Cold Cases Unit’s office. He relayed the key points of his conversation with Staffan Molander. When he had finished, Fryxender gazed thoughtfully at him, then let out a gentle sigh. He didn’t comment on anything Andersson had said, however, but went on to report on his own investigations.

  “One of the old ladies can’t talk. She’s in assisted living, and apparently she has Alzheimer’s. So that just left one.”

  “And where was she?”

  “In Sydney. Australia.”

  “What the hell is she doing there?”

  “That’s where she lives. Both her daughters are over there, so she emigrated fifteen years ago. Wise decision,” Fryxender said, nodding toward the window. “She doesn’t have to put up with this crap weather. I managed to get a hold of her phone number and called her late last night. She was having breakfast. There’s a time difference.”

  “I know that,” Andersson said. His colleague could be pretty long-winded, but there was no point in trying to hurry him along; Leif Fryxender proceeded calmly and methodically, at his own pace.

  “Her name is Margit Olsson and she’s eighty-four years old. Sharp as a tack. She remembered Carl-Johan Adelskiöld very well, and confirmed what we already knew: that he was seen under the influence, but very rarely. Otherwise she and the other ladies who worked at ABF regarded him as a pleasant gentleman who kept to himself. She can’t remember anything in particular happening during 1983, except for the boiler being replaced. She said they were working all through August, and made a hell of a noise. But”—Fryxender paused and took a swig of his coffee—“she did actually remember one thing. She worked late on the last day of August 1983. She’s certain of the date because she didn’t go in the following day; her car had been stolen, and that happened during the night of August thirty-first. As she was locking the office, she saw one of the young guys who rented one of the apartments come in with an older man. They went in together without noticing her. She said they were making out. It was pretty dark, and she only saw them for a little while by the light of the lamp above the front door. The older man was smartly dressed; she couldn’t recall anything else.”

  “Smartly dressed? But it wasn’t Adelskiöld?”

  “No, she would have recognized him. She thought this guy was between forty and fifty.”

  “The only person we’re aware of in this investigation who was the right age at the time is Mats Persson,” Andersson pointed out. As he spoke a feeling of triumph began to grow inside him. It was just as he’d thought! It could be down to those two fairies and their unnatural behavior!

  “It could have been anybody. All we know is that one of the guys brought home an older man,” Fryxender said calmly.

  “Well, it wouldn’t have been Per-Olof Wallin. According to Molander he always went for younger guys. Nothing over twenty-five.

  “It must have been Molander!” Andersson exclaimed. “He told me he’s only interested in appearance and sex. No . . . good looks and good sex, that’s what he said! He’s obsessed with sex!”

  “Sounds to me as if those are the criteria most people apply,” Fryxender said dryly. He thought for a moment, then continued. “We’ll have to speak to Staffan Molander again. It’s probably a good idea if I see what he’s like as well.”

  Andersson shrugged. He knew exactly what he thought.

  “I’ve been thinking about the pieces of the puzzle that don’t fit,” Fryxender said. “Whichever way you turn them, they just don’t fall into place. In fact, they don’t even seem to belong to this particular puzzle.

  Since he wasn’t quite sure what his colleague was talking about, Andersson simply made vague noises of agreement.

  “For a start, there’s this business of Stig Wennerström. As far as the time frame goes, he could fit in, but from a purely factual point of view, he doesn’t. We know he was active as a spy during the Second World War, so it’s possible that Elof Persson picked up a clue back in 1941, which he somehow revealed to Wennerström, who made sure he was taken care of. Elof Persson’s last words to his wife about some group calling themselves ‘the net’ could refer to a network of spies.”

  “That sounds reasonable to me,” Andersson said. “There must have been spies everywhere in Stockholm during the war.”

  “Absolutely. But Wennerström was in Moscow until the summer of ’41. There were already indications that he was showing an interest in things that didn’t concern him. Elof Persson was killed in the middle of September, barely three months after Wennerström’s return to Sweden. It’s hardly likely that within such a short time Persson would have come across something the security services didn’t already know about. They didn’t put Stig Wennerström under surveillance until the fall of ’43, remember. If you read the documents from back then, it seems as if the master spy was keeping a very low profile during the summer and fall of 1941. There’s nothing to suggest otherwise.”

  “So what about the books?”

  “The ones Mats Persson borrowed from the library . . . I’ve thought about them a lot, and I think they’re just another red herring. Okay, so they were about Stig Wennerström and spying and the KGB, but it’s unlikely that Mats Persson believed Wennerström had murdered his father. He was probably just interested in spies and the war. The books he ordered from the library were an inside view of the everyday lives of spies.”

  Andersson wasn’t quite so convinced. “I rest my case,” he muttered, like the old Perry Mason fan he was.

  “Take Stig Wennerström out of the picture,” Fryxender continued, “and it doesn’t change one iota. The master spy doesn’t belong here. Nor do the books.”

  “So what about the cousins?” Andersson asked.

  “They’re definitely a part of the puzzle, but they don’t really fit in with the idea of a network of spies—for the simple reason that they were too young. They’d just graduated, and neither of them had been w
orking for the Foreign Office for long. The only thing I’ve found out that’s politically interesting is that they both belonged to the National Student Society while they were at university; it had very close links with the pro-Nazi National League of Sweden.”

  “So they were both Nazis?” Andersson exclaimed with renewed interest.

  “Hmm . . . in the security service reports they’re referred to as ‘brown socialists.’ This was before the war, remember, and the brown socialists had a considerable amount of support at the universities and among the Swedish public in general. And both Calle and Oscar left the organization as soon as they’d finished their studies.”

  “Could Elof Persson have stumbled on a network of Nazi spies and not had time to inform the security service?” Andersson speculated.

  “There’s one thing that contradicts that idea: the money he had in the bank. Two deposits of three thousand kronor, paid in during July and August. Six thousand kronor was a lot of money in those days. And he’d told his wife they were going to be able to afford a bigger apartment, which suggests he was expecting more.”

  Andersson realized where Fryxender was going with this.

  “Blackmail,” he said.

  “That’s what I’m starting to think. It could explain why Elof was killed; blackmailers always live dangerously.”

  “Maybe he found evidence that would expose Wennerström! He definitely would have had contacts who could shut Elof Persson up for good!”

  “Possibly, but as I said, I don’t think so. The security service didn’t find a single piece of evidence to prove that he was working as a spy in 1941, even though they’d been tipped off. I’m sticking to my view that Wennerström doesn’t belong in our puzzle.”

  There was something in what Fryxender said. He was a skilled analyst, and Andersson had learned to respect his ability to draw logical conclusions.

  “Any other pieces that don’t fit in?”

  “The rug,” Fryxender said, leafing through the piles of paper on the desk in front of him. He found the folder he was looking for. “I read through the forensic report again this morning,” he said. “We’re looking at a very fine authentic Persian rug, made at the beginning of the twentieth century. It’s just over two meters long, but not as wide. The measurements suggest that it was a so-called runner, a rug suitable for a hallway. All the blood that was found on it came from the murder victim, which suggests that either Persson was standing on the rug when he was shot or the killer quickly laid him down on it. We’re talking about a large quantity of blood; Mats Persson died on that rug. In fact, you could regard the rug as the scene of the crime.”