Master, Liar, Traitor, Friend: a Leo Junker case

by Christoffer Carlsson (Translated by Michael Gallagher)

  I grieved for him back then, for the mentor I had lost. The rift between us was incredibly wide, at the end.

  Now he’s dead. Maybe the truth will remain shrouded in secrecy. Perhaps the toughest cases always remain unsolved.

  The air is muggy, like the grief, and I sit here on the balcony, waiting for the rain that never comes.

  My girl, my girl, don’t you lie to me someone sings out of the radio over in the office kitchen, tell me where did you sleep last night? It’s the afternoon now, and Tove should be going home.

  Instead, she’s sitting on a chair in the meeting room, waiting for the little station to muster some kind of first briefing. The windows have been wide open since early morning, to keep the room cool. It hasn’t worked — her hair is sticking to her neck, and her armpits are moist, her hands slippery.

  She did try and find the table fan, but no one knows where it is. It’s probably in Davidsson’s room.

  In the time that she’s been there, she’s learnt which objects are coveted by colleagues, and which are not: no one wants television sets anymore, but they’re not allowed to get rid of them either. Whoever ends up with one or more in their immediate vicinity considers this to be a punishment. If you want one of the big mugs, which you do, you need to be there early, because there are only a few, and whoever gets one keeps hold of it for the rest of the day.

  And so it goes on. It’s pointless, all of it, yet somehow these are the things that end up meaning something.

  The office is situated on the first and second floors of a building on Paulsgatan, just on the far side of the square. It’s a brick-built boxy hulk from the turn of the last century; one of the first to be built after the glass factory opened its doors and began its gradual expansion. On the inside, it’s all much newer than that, but uglier. Davidsson likes to explain how he was one of ten employees here when he first started. That number has already been halved, and after the restructuring they’re likely to be fewer still.

  On the table in front of her are the beginnings of a little biography of Charles Levin, which she’s compiling using details from readily available databases and those she’s received via email from the NCS. Which doesn’t amount to much.

  Christ. She could really do with a fan.

  Charles Jan Levin is born on the twenty-fifth of January 1947 and registered in the parish of Maria Magdalena, on Södermalm in Stockholm. He grows up in a family comprising his parents, and a brother, Mark Levin, four years his senior. Mark will later die of pancreatic cancer, in August 2008. Charles’ dad is a carpenter; his mother divides her time between domestic duties and a job as a cleaner, at a hotel close to their home on Wollmar Yxkullsgatan. Charles is mischievous, finds it difficult to sit still, yet still gets top marks at school — the kind that would surely have fuelled the dreams his working-class parents had for their son’s future; he starts his police training in 1966.

  In autumn 1969, he arrives at Stockholm City Police, District One, and becomes a detective soon afterwards. Besides working, Levin takes evening classes in politics, law, and psychology at the university. He goes on to graduate in political science, and is — at least by police standards — an educated and well-read man. He is, nonetheless, considered a good cop, a really good one, and he is showered with praise.

  By autumn 1971, Charles Levin is twenty-four years old and he moves job, from the Stockholm Police to the Halland regional force over on the West Coast, at which point he becomes a detective at the station in the city centre.

  At the same time, his entry on the electoral roll changes, and he’s registered as living on Alvavägen in Bruket with an Eva Alderin, born in 1949.

  They marry on the twelfth of December 1971. Eva Alderin becomes Eva Levin. A winter wedding.

  The following year, their daughter, Marika, is born.

  Tove looks at the old photograph, reads the text again. 1978.

  She turns it over, studying first the girl’s face, and then the mother’s. Eva Levin, who would die in the winter of 1980. Her resting place since then is the local graveyard.

  ‘In fifteen minutes,’ Åhlund says, standing in the doorway of the meeting room, cheese roll in hand.

  ‘We’ve just finished the door-to-door. I’m waiting for Brandén, who’s busy developing a photograph.’

  ‘A photograph?’

  ‘That’s what he said.’ He takes a bite of the roll. ‘Davidsson’s on his way.’

  Tove returns to the paperwork.

  In 1981, there’s another entry on the roll, and Charles Jan Levin is once again listed as resident in Stockholm, in a little two-bed apartment in Gärdet, along with his daughter Marika.

  Images flash past: Charles Levin’s dead body, the two cups on his kitchen table. The computer and phone chargers in the bedroom, the packing box, the wallpaper in the study. Sunesson raising his glass to Tove, the lonely rocking chair on the lawn.

  It’s one of the strangest things about this job, something you never get used to: how you get thrown into people’s lives without the slightest warning, and how you’re forced to root around in them to understand what they’ve been through.

  ‘We spoke to a witness,’ Brandén says, his eyes flashing back and forth between the pad in front of him and Davidsson’s stony face.

  Davidsson drums his fingers on the file.

  ‘And?’

  ‘Well …’ Brandén is like the messenger boy who’s somehow stumbled into the boardroom. ‘We spoke to quite a few, didn’t we? I think we crossed off about thirty people around the crime scene.’

  ‘Yes.’ Davidsson lifts his hand to his face and sneezes. It echoes round the room. ‘Fuck me.’

  ‘I think there are about twenty-five houses in the area — most of them are on Alvavägen, but several are scattered around the woods, along the lanes and the meadows around there. We checked those, too. In two of the houses on Alvavägen, there was no one home, and we haven’t got hold of them yet.’ Brandén turns a page in his notebook. ‘Pretty much none of those we spoke to had heard the gunshot.’

  ‘What do you mean pretty much …’ Tove says.

  ‘You mentioned a witness,’ Davidsson interrupts. ‘Was there something in particular about him? Or her?’ he adds, glancing at Tove.

  ‘Him,’ Brandén says, while finding the right page in his notebook. ‘And yes, in answer to both of your questions, he’s probably the only one who heard it. An Alfred Berg. Ester Annerberg gave us his name. Ester lives at Alvavägen 16, a few doors down from our crime scene. She’s eighty-two, widowed ten years ago, and is eighty-six-year-old Alfred Berg’s lover.’ Brandén clears his throat. ‘Her words. Right, anyway. Yesterday, Alfred apparently cycled over — yes, he can still ride a bike — in the afternoon, and sat with Ester until about half-past nine in the evening. He then cycled home. That takes him back down Alvavägen, the way he came, and on his way he saw a dark car, which, he says, “slowed right down as if to stop”. He can’t remember the colour of the car, though it may have been dark grey, dark blue, or black. It stops outside the victim’s address. He’s sure of that, because he turned around to have another look at the car, since he didn’t recognise it.’

  ‘So that might have been the suspect arriving,’ Tove says. ‘At half-nine.’

  ‘I believe so.’ Brandén changes page in his notebook. ‘Alfred had his old SLR camera with him, because Ester had asked him to take some photographs of her plants. She’s very fond of those plants by all accounts, and she wanted them captured now, when they’re at their most impressive. When he’d finished, he put the camera down on her kitchen table. Then, when he’s very nearly home, having cycled a little over twenty minutes, he realises that the camera’s still back at Ester’s. By now, it’s probably about ten-to ten. He doesn’t bother ringing Ester, for the simple reason that she’s almost completely deaf — something which, by the way, I can corroborate — but simply cycles straight
back. The dark car is still there when he arrives back at Ester’s house. He gets there at about ten-past ten and goes into the kitchen — he’s got his own key, since her hearing is so bad — to collect the camera. Ester is in the toilet at this point. Just as she flushes, Alfred also hears what he describes as a bang.’

  ‘A bang,’ Davidsson repeats to himself.

  ‘Yes,’ says Brandén. ‘A bang, that was the word he used. He didn’t give it a second thought, which might be perfectly natural. Instead, he goes and says goodbye to Ester again, and they chat for a couple of minutes.’

  ‘How do you chat with someone who’s basically deaf?’ asks Davidsson.

  ‘Well,’ Brandén begins. ‘Gestures. By shouting and bellowing. That’s according to Alfred.’

  ‘Go on,’ urges Tove.

  ‘Then he heads out again. It’s now somewhere between ten- and twenty-past. Just as he emerges from Alvavägen 16, with the camera around his neck, a man approaches the car parked outside Alvavägen 10. When the man gets into the car, Alfred gets out his camera and snaps this photo. As you will notice, it’s not much of a picture, but it’s all we’ve got.’

  Brandén gets out the photograph, holding it carefully between his fingertips, and places it on the table.

  It’s grainy and out of focus. Perhaps Alfred Berg was breathing out while the shutter was open. The man sitting in the car is blurred, in motion — looks like he might be bending to put something on the floor by the passenger seat. It’s impossible to discern any features. If it weren’t for the pair of shoulders underneath it, it would be difficult even to say whether or not it was a face you were looking at. He’s sitting in a newish dark Volvo. The car looks expensive, and the grille makes it look a bit like a predator.

  The registration plates are just about legible.

  ‘Why did he take the photo?’ Tove asks.

  ‘He just said that he “had a funny feeling”,’ says Brandén. ‘He’s got a little darkroom in his cellar. We made several attempts before we managed to develop the registration plates. I think, after having stared at it for a while,’ he continues, more carefully, ‘that it’s either FOR 528 or FOR 523. And FOR 523 is a thirty-year-old Opel Kadett, so I don’t think it’s that one.’

  ‘Nice work.’ Davidsson inspects the photo carefully. ‘FOR 528 then?’

  ‘Well … yes, that’s the problem, you see.’ Brandén clears his throat again. ‘That car doesn’t exist.’

  ‘Eh?’ says Davidsson. ‘What do you mean, doesn’t exist?’

  ‘Well …’ Brandén glances at the photo. ‘It doesn’t exist. As in, it’s not on the vehicle register.’

  Davidsson drops the photo, and it lands in front of Tove. The cabin light is harsh and white, so the face looks more like a silhouette than a person.

  Davidsson gets up from his chair, rounds the table with his hands in his pockets, and closes the window. Brandén studies his notebook.

  ‘False plates?’ says Tove.

  ‘I assume so.’

  The door opens — Söderlund. She has a file under one arm and doesn’t bother to shut the door behind her.

  ‘I’ve got an hour until I need to go to Halmstad.’

  She sits at the head of the table, where Davidsson was sitting. This seems to annoy him, but she either doesn’t care or doesn’t notice.

  ‘Right,’ Davidsson says as he flops down next to Brandén, onto a chair that creaks conspicuously under the strain.

  ‘In terms of evidence, this seems like a pretty tame crime scene to me,’ Söderlund says, opening her folder, then unfolding a hand-drawn floor plan of the house. ‘There’s the hall, with the toilet and bathroom straight ahead, kitchen on the left, living room on the right, and then beyond that is a combined study-bedroom, which I will refer to from now on as the study. On this side of it is a smaller room, which is empty. This investigation has turned up very few fibres, hairs, or anything else we might have hoped for. Most of the potentially interesting stuff has already been bagged up and sent off to the National Forensics Centre or Halmstad — when it gets there, it’ll end up in a queue. That’s where it’s likely to stay, for a few days at least, until such time as someone from the National Crime Unit makes a call and asks for it all to be prioritised.’

  Davidsson sniggers. Söderlund turns the floor plan around, presumably just for the sake of doing something.

  ‘There’s hardly any forensic evidence. As an example: I’ve inspected that second coffee cup very carefully, and the only person who’s touched it is Levin. Surprisingly enough, the kitchen is of very little interest in terms of evidence. There wasn’t even a bin liner in the dustbin. I’ve checked the bin itself, of course, but again, nothing but Levin’s fingerprints. This makes the study all the more interesting. Because,’ she says, pulling a photograph from the file, ‘there are a number of items missing from that room. A computer, a mobile phone, and what I believe to be a scanner or perhaps a printer.’

  The picture she hands over shows the area around the desk in one corner of the room.

  ‘How do we know …’ says Brandén.

  ‘The dust,’ says Tove. ‘Or rather the absence of dust.’

  ‘Exactly. You see, the lighter areas of the desktop — that’s dust.’

  ‘Did you say scanner?’ says Davidsson. ‘Who the hell has a scanner nowadays?’

  ‘As I said, it could’ve been a printer,’ Söderlund replies coolly. ‘Or both, one of those combined things. But, yes, judging by where it was on the desk and the size of it — a scanner.’

  ‘You don’t go killing people to get hold of a computer and a scanner,’ says Brandén.

  ‘I’d say that depends on the content,’ says Tove.

  ‘Or else you see your chance to make some cash selling it to a fence, while you’re at it,’ Davidsson suggests. ‘Stranger things have happened.’

  ‘These parts of the puzzle might actually make more sense in the light of what the other evidence might reveal, when we get word from Halmstad and the National Forensics Centre,’ Söderlund continues. ‘But then there is one more thing, a little detail that takes us outside.’

  The detail in question is small rubber tracks on the floor, like those left by a sack truck, in the bedroom as well as the living room.

  ‘Sack truck?’ says Davidsson.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What the hell is a sack truck?’

  ‘One of those little L-shaped trolleys, with two wheels, the sort of thing you’d use for moving big boxes around.’

  ‘I’m not convinced that those tracks come from one of those,’ says Söderlund. ‘I took some scrapings and sent them to NFC, so we’ll see what they have to say. We often find them in houses or apartments where people have just moved in. So it’s not worth getting worked up about. We haven’t yet found the trolley itself though, which might point to this being something else entirely.’

  ‘He might have borrowed one?’ Brandén suggests.

  ‘Yes.’ Söderlund doesn’t look like she believes that. ‘Perhaps. Or the suspect might have taken it with him. If indeed it is tracks from one of those trolleys, we’ll see. They lead to the back door in the living room, which was locked — and shows no signs of having been forced, I might add. After that, I inspected the area around the door quite thoroughly, inside and out.’

  ‘And?’ says Davidsson.

  ‘It could be that someone has left — with a trolley, for example — and gone out that door. The grass outside seems a bit flattened, like what two wheels might do to it. If it was a trolley, it must have been heavily laden to leave tracks like that. But,’ she goes on, ‘this is all speculation. I found similar tracks on the step by the front door. Let’s say that it was a sack truck, and yes, maybe the suspect did leave via that route, with packing boxes, computer, printer or scanner. But it might just as well be that someone — Levin himself, for example —
used both the front and back doors to enter the house, to move a load of heavy boxes in.’

  ‘He moved in about a month back,’ Tove says. ‘Those tracks round the back must be more recent than that though?’

  ‘That’s right,’ says Söderlund. ‘But you’ve seen what the place is like. He’d hardly unpacked anything, and, in as much as he did so at all, it looks like he did it in stages. What I want you to be aware of is that there are tracks in and around the house that are somewhat ambiguous.’

  Davidsson rolls his eyes and jots something down in his notepad.

  ‘Good,’ he says. ‘Good. Thanks.’

  Brandén seems to be stifling a yawn. Tove feels like throwing something at him.

  ‘Anyway,’ Söderlund continues, returning to her file, ‘I’ve examined the rest of the lawn, and part of the woodland behind the house, too. There’s almost a little path down there. There weren’t any similar tracks or prints. But,’ she adds, ‘the path meets others a little way in and it looks like some kind of walking route. I’ve taken several casts of shoe-prints, and even the odd boot-print, but they won’t be of any use to us until we’ve got something to compare them to.’

  Söderlund turns her piece of paper over. Davidsson coughs.

  ‘A bit further away, there’s a little clearing where dog-walkers tend to park. I’ve taken photos, and tried to get casts of some tyre tracks, but the ground’s no good for that — far too dry — so the photos are the best we’ve got, if, once again, we ever get anything to match them with. Those tracks come from at least two types of tyre, although they’re all from ordinary cars.’

  ‘Could one of them be this one?’ Brandén says, flipping the photo of the Volvo over to Söderlund.

  She looks at it briefly.

  ‘Impossible to say.’

  ‘But I mean, it’s not as though we think this Volvo was parked in the woods, as well as round at the front of the house?’ Tove protests.

  ‘I’m not one for guessing,’ Söderlund replies. ‘But, if I was going to interpret the crime scene, my considered opinion would be that the tracks outside — on the path in the woods for example, or in the clearing — are unlikely to be connected to this incident. I did make casts anyway — to rule them out of our investigation, if nothing else.’