‘What sort of companies did she work with most?’
‘Import-export,’ Henry Hollister said. He leaned towards her. ‘How did you say you knew Veronica, again?’
Her feet were starting to itch. ‘I look after My’s pony. We haven’t found a buyer for it yet. I ride it every day so it doesn’t lose its condition. It’s a lovely animal – have you ever seen it?’
The American stood up. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘but I can’t help you.’
She sighed unhappily. ‘I suppose I’ll have to try somewhere else. Do you know of any good criminal law firms?’
‘I’m sorry,’ the man repeated.
She smiled, tried to put a bit of extra sparkle into her eyes, then held out her hand. ‘Thanks for seeing me,’ she said.
Suddenly he looked worried. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘don’t tell anyone you were here talking to me. Call and book an appointment to see the new owner once he’s settled in.’
She pretended to be surprised. ‘Okay,’ she said, ‘no problem.’
They went out into the cramped hallway. On the wall outside the conference room an ornate degree certificate was framed behind glass. The Faculty of Law at the University of Oxford. Veronica’s.
‘If you know anyone who’d like to buy a really lovely pony, call the stables,’ she said, and closed the door behind her.
The light had gone out and the stairwell was as dark as before. She felt along the wall and found the switch. Then she hurried quietly down the stairs.
25
In the street she stopped, out of breath, as if she’d been rushing upstairs, not down. Then she took a last look up at the building and hurried away. She stopped outside the closed estate agency and fished her pen and notepad out of her bag. She sat on the pavement and jotted down what she had found out during her conversation with the young American.
Veronica had studied law at Oxford University. She was primarily a business solicitor, even if the sign on the wall mentioned legal services. She had never worked on Spanish criminal cases. She had handled contracts and negotiations for international businesses involved in import-export. These international conglomerates were evidently the subject of ‘accusations’ every now and then. Perhaps that was when Veronica’s legal services had come into the picture.
After her death the firm had been transferred ‘within the holding company’. So a company with a number of proprietors now controlled Veronica Söderström’s law firm, unless it had always done so. The new owner, a man, was waiting for some sort of formality before he could ‘come down’ and take over the running of the firm. Come down from where?
For the time being the office was manned by an American legal assistant who was clearly so bored that he let people in off the street, which he had presumably been instructed not to do. That much was clear from his parting remark. His smart appearance suggested sporadic contact with the outside world, or he would have been wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. Did the holding company pay unannounced visits to the office?
The building housing the office was a mystery in itself. Why was most of it shut up and abandoned? She’d read on Wikipedia that property prices here had gone through the roof. Ordinary people who worked in Gibraltar almost always lived on the Spanish side of the border, in La Línea, where housing costs were a third of what they were in Gibraltar.
She glanced up at the window of the closed estate agency. It looked as if it hadn’t been open for a while. There was a little row of dead insects along the ledge.
She got up, brushed the dust from her backside, and leaned forward to check out the cost of property in Gibraltar. There wasn’t much to choose from in the window, just faded pictures of a handful of villas and apartments, with little information and obviously no addresses. Carita had told her that Spanish houses might be on sale with ten different estate agents at the same time. No one ever had exclusive rights, so the agents always concealed the addresses in an effort to stop others muscling in.
She glanced at the pictures and realized that none of the houses or flats were in Gibraltar: they were like all the others on the Costa del Sol.
Then she stiffened. She thought her eyes were deceiving her. She took a step closer to the window and wiped the dust from the glass.
Existing Freehold Villa.
Ideal Family Home. Ideal Investment.
The picture of the villa was faded and had slightly curled corners, as if it had been there for a while. There was no indication of where it was or its price, but Annika recognized it. A mixture of two and three floors, terraces and balconies, bay windows, pillars and arches, curved balcony rails and ornate iron balustrades. At the top there was a tower with arched windows. The pool, the light, the mountainside in the background.
It was the Söderström family home in Nueva Andalucía.
The picture had to be several years old because the trees were much smaller than she remembered, and there was a cement-mixer in the bottom corner.
She moved towards the door to see if there was any indication of opening hours. Nothing. Just a brass sign referring visitors to a website.
A Place in the Sun
Your Real Estate Agents on the Coast
Visit us at www.aplaceinthesun.se
She stared at the sign and read the last line twice.
Why would an estate agent in Gibraltar have a Swedish domain address?
She took out her notepad and wrote it down. Then she moved back to the window to see if the villa had a reference number.
It didn’t.
It wasn’t surprising that it was for sale, she thought. Obviously the executors would have to sell it, like the pony. But why not use a newer picture? Unless the picture had been there since the Söderström family had bought the villa. Veronica worked just round the corner, so obviously she must have walked past and looked in the window. Maybe that was how she’d found it. Maybe she’d bought it through this estate agent, and they’d just never got round to removing the picture from the window.
She looked at her watch. It was time to head to Estepona.
She didn’t have a car.
The bus station in La Línea was in the Plaza de Europa, a roundabout just a couple of blocks from the border. There were buses leaving for Estepona all the time, the next one due to set off in ten minutes. She bought a ticket at the counter, just as the bus rolled into the station. It was noisy and belched diesel. She climbed on board and smelt oil and disinfectant. The seats were stripy blue velour and there were grubby curtains at the windows. She had a sudden flashback to the school-bus that used to take her from Hälleforsnäs into Flen and on to Katrineholm.
Just like the school-bus, the Spanish local service was slow, calling at every stop. A distance that would have taken fifteen minutes by car took an hour and a half. Outside Marina de Casares she dozed off, waking when a boy with a surfboard got on in Bahía Dorada.
The road wound along the coast. The surface of the water was white from the wind. The sky was bright blue and free of clouds. She could tell they were approaching Estepona.
It was hardly the city’s fault that Julia had thought it was so awful, she thought, as the bus turned off towards the harbour.
The main street followed the beach. Palms and orange trees lined the road, and the wind was pulling at the treetops. The sunbeds on the beach were empty, but people had started to gather for lunch at the restaurants by the shore. She suddenly realized how hungry she was.
The young jet-setting Swede she was going to meet was called Wilma. Niklas Linde had texted her the girl’s mobile number. She got off the bus at Avenida de España, pulled out her notepad and mobile, then called the number.
Wilma answered straight away, very excited about the chance to ‘tell her story in the paper’, as she put it. They arranged to meet in the beach restaurant below the bus station.
‘Annika Bengtzon?’
Annika looked up from the menu and knew at once that the series of articles had been saved.
Wilma fulf
illed all of Patrik’s criteria: young, blonde, too much makeup and a pair of seriously enlarged breasts. Annika stood up and they shook hands. ‘It’s great you were able to see me at such short notice,’ she said.
‘Well, you want to do your bit, don’t you?’ Wilma said, sitting down opposite her.
All the men in the restaurant were staring at them.
‘What would you like?’ Annika said. ‘Have whatever you want.’
‘Have you tried the almejas? They’re a sort of mussel they catch out on the reef. Or mejillones? They’re a bit bigger. They’ve got shellfish here you’ve never seen before.’ Wilma closed her menu authoritatively. ‘Shall I order for you?’ she asked, evidently not expecting to be contradicted. She leaned back and waved to the waiter. Her nipples were clearly visible through her tight T-shirt.
‘Camarero, queremos mariscos a la plancha, con mucho ajo y hierbas. Y una botella de vino blanco de la casa, por favor!’
‘Goodness,’ Annika said. ‘Where did you learn to speak so fluently?’
The girl looked at her in surprise. ‘At school,’ she said. ‘Why?’
Annika took out her notepad and pen. ‘How old are you?’ she asked.
‘I’ll be twenty in July.’
‘You know I got your name from Niklas Linde?’ Annika said. ‘He said you wouldn’t mind telling me about life down here on the Costa del Sol.’
‘I want to warn other people,’ Wilma said, smiling warmly at the waiter as he put a misted bottle of white wine and two glasses on their table. ‘Gracias, señor, quiero probarlo.’
She rolled the wine around her mouth in a practised gesture, then nodded in approval. The waiter filled their glasses and glided away.
‘It might look like life down here is all bars and nightclubs and guys with flashy cars, but there’s a completely different side of the Costa del Sol,’ Wilma said, sipping her wine. ‘The drug-dealers want to get rid of as much of their stash as possible down here,’ she went on. ‘That saves them the hassle of transport, and losing any of it on the way up through Europe. You don’t drink wine?’
Annika looked up. The girl was a walking, talking headline-generator. She just had to sit here taking dictation. ‘Er, yes, I’m just not thirsty.’ She had a symbolic sip. The wine was unpleasantly sharp.
‘You loca!’ Wilma said. ‘You don’t drink wine because you’re thirsty! It’s incredibly easy for young girls to be charmed by the good-looking guys down here. They’ve got big yachts and fast cars, and use girls as disposable goods. I see it time after time, Swedish girls turning up here thinking they’re going to marry a millionaire and live the high-life in some huge villa in Nueva Andalucía, but all that ever happens is that they get hooked on coke and end up nervous wrecks.’
‘What about you?’ Annika said. ‘Have you tried cocaine?’
Wilma nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘and I bitterly regret it. I got picked up in a raid back in February, but that probably saved me. Talk about a warning! As luck would have it, I was questioned by Niklas Linde, and he put me on the right track. I mean, he’s just brilliant. Do you know him?’
Annika picked up her glass and swigged. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’ve just interviewed him a couple of times.’
‘It actually makes you feel a lot safer knowing the Swedish police have such competent officers.’
‘Can you tell me about the raid?’
‘It was a private party down by the harbour in Puerto Banús, in rooms above one of the clubs. The police came in at half past two with sniffer-dogs and everything, and searched everyone. It was horrible, but actually really good at the same time.’
‘Are you going to be charged?’
She shook her head. ‘I only had a few grams for personal use.’
Ah, yes, Annika thought. Possession alone wasn’t a punishable offence. ‘So what were you doing at the party? What attracted you to that lifestyle?’
The waiter came over with their food, an enormous dish laden with grilled shellfish, swimming in oil, garlic and herbs.
‘Ah, qué bueno!’ Wilma exclaimed in delight, clapping her hands. She set about the food.
Annika peered suspiciously at the prawns, mussels and lobsters. She wasn’t fond of shellfish, and would much rather have meatballs with lingonberry sauce if she was given the option. She prodded a prawn tentatively.
‘I felt special, chosen,’ Wilma said. ‘Imagine, little me allowed to be here with all the beautiful and famous people. Princess Madeleine’s been – she stayed at the Marbella Club. I never met her, obviously, but I got to know a lot of other celebrities.’
‘Did you know Sebastian Söderström?’ Annika asked, trying not to sound too eager.
Wilma wolfed down half of a small lobster and nodded enthusiastically. ‘It was so awful what happened to him. Who could have imagined it? We were at his daughter’s birthday party a week or so before they died.’
Annika let the prawn drop. ‘You went to a child’s party?’ She couldn’t see Wilma eating birthday cake in My’s bedroom.
‘No, you loca, it wasn’t the little girl’s birthday. The other one, Suzette.’
‘When? Where?’
‘Actually in the same place that got raided a few weeks later. Above one of the nightclubs by the harbour. If you buy four bottles of vodka you’re automatically allowed to use it. It’s very popular.’
‘And that’s what Suzette did to celebrate her birthday?’
‘No, loca, it was her dad. He wanted Suzette to make friends, so he invited the lot of us, all the younger ones. Sebbe was always so generous, champagne, champagne, champagne all night long.’
‘Did you get to know Suzette?’
Wilma let out a deep sigh. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘that young lady really didn’t want to be there. She sat in a corner trying not to talk to anyone. I don’t know when she left, but after a while she just disappeared.’
‘And when was this?’
‘Just after Christmas. Boxing Day, I think. There were a few girls snorting lines in the toilet and Sebastian was furious. He was really anti-drugs, and he threw them all out, just like that …’
‘You know Suzette’s missing?’
Wilma gathered together the last of the mussels. ‘I read about it. It’s just so awful.’
‘Have you any idea where she could be?’
‘No.’
‘Did she have any friends?’
‘I really don’t know. I only saw her that once.’
‘So she never used to hang around the harbour partying?’
Wilma shook her head firmly. ‘Maybe once or twice, but she wasn’t a party animal. If she was, I’d have known about it.’ She drank the last of her wine and refilled her glass.
‘So what do you do now?’ Annika asked. ‘Do you work, or study?’
‘Work,’ Wilma said. ‘I’m a consultant. I help Scandinavian companies to set up on the Costa del Sol.’
Annika stared at her. ‘You?’ she said. ‘Help Scandinavian companies? What with?’
‘Finance, and getting established,’ she said.
Annika tried to focus her thoughts. ‘And business is good?’
‘Are you kidding? I know every rich old man on the whole Costa del Sol.’
Wilma leaned forward so that Annika was confronted with her massive cleavage. ‘There’s just one simple rule,’ she said, in a low voice. ‘Never sleep with them. Because then they lose all respect for you.’
Annika drank what was left in her glass and ordered a mineral water. Wilma finished the rest of the bottle.
Annika asked some dutiful questions about Wilma’s background and childhood (Vikingshill outside Stockholm, parents IT consultants, two younger brothers), then asked what advice she had for young women who wanted to try their luck abroad, what they should look out for and what they should focus on.
When the plates had been cleared, Annika said, ‘Shall we take some pictures? Maybe down on the beach?’
Wilma was thrilled. ‘That’s a brilli
ant idea! How lucky that I’ve got my bikini with me!’ She pulled a tiny piece of cloth from her handbag and dangled it in Annika’s face.
‘Great,’ Annika said. ‘We’ll try some with the bikini, and some with clothes. Then the editors up in Stockholm can decide what works best.’ She paid the bill. The restaurant seemed basic, with its woven raffia roof and open sides, but their meal had cost more than her planeticket.
They went down to the beach. Wilma wanted to start with the bikini shots, and Annika didn’t object. She pulled off her T-shirt and Annika noted that the scars from her surgery were in her armpits. She slipped on the bikini top, wiggled her hips until the thong was in place, then posed cheerily on a sunbed with Estepona in the background. They wouldn’t be able to use any of those pictures, but Annika snapped a sequence to keep Patrik happy.
‘We should probably take a few of you looking more serious as well,’ she said.
Wilma suddenly looked as stern as anyone wearing a minuscule bikini possibly could.
‘And now a few with clothes on.’ She told Wilma to walk along the shore with her heels in her hand, gazing out to sea with a thoughtful expression. It all worked very well. The sun looked hot and merciless, and Wilma was alone and vulnerable on the long, white beach.
They said goodbye outside the bus station and Annika sat down to wait for the next bus to Puerto Banús.
26
There was no sign of Lotta in the hotel lobby. Annika had no interest in any further confrontations on the subject of photography, so she went quickly to her room.
It was a quarter past six. She dropped her bag on the floor. An hour and forty-five minutes before she was due to meet Thomas. The thought made her stomach knot. She lay down and pulled the bedspread over her head. She remained there, quite still, for a while, listening to her own heartbeat. She and Thomas hadn’t sat down to talk to each other since the divorce. On one occasion he had come up to the flat in Agnegatan, that Sunday evening after she’d got back from Spain the first time. It had been a rather strained meeting. Annika had been keen to make a good impression and the children had rushed round like mad things, chasing each other through the rooms, yelling and laughing, until Thomas had told them to behave. He’d thought the flat was ‘nice’. She’d said it was ‘nice of him to call in’.
The Long Shadow Page 29
