Bogman

by R. I. Olufsen

  The man with the guitar addressed Tobias in English. “Good morning. I think you were with the fuckable policewoman on Friday night?”

  “Police officer,” Tobias corrected. “You are referring to Detective Skaarup.”

  “Detective Skaaruup, yes. The badges on the rucksack reminded me. My name is Dusty Svenson. She asked me about this.” He pulled a crumpled photo from the back pocket of his jeans and handed it to Tobias. “This image. “I remembered where I saw it.”

  Behind him, Agnes said, “I don’t want to miss my train, Dad.”

  Tobias put his hand on Dusty’s arm. “Wait a moment.” He hugged Agnes. He watched her until she disappeared through the portico.

  Dusty stared after her. “Another fuckable woman.”

  “She’s my daughter,” Tobias said curtly.

  Dusty put his hands up. “Sorry.”

  “So you’ve recognised the badge,” said Tobias.

  Dusty nodded. “I am almost sure. I will write it. Do you have a pen?”

  Tobias patted his pockets and found a pen. He gave the photo back to Dusty. “And write down where I can reach you. I might need to speak to you again.”

  “I texted my number to the good-looking detective.”

  “She might have deleted it,” said Tobias, smiling now.

  “There,” Dusty handed back the photo. “I move around with the band. The bar knows how to contact me. Dusty Svenson. Country singer.” He swept a mock bow.

  Tobias smoothed the photo and read the words “Sami Saga Nej”. In Swedish it meant “Sami Says No.” Who or what was Sami? Was it a Turkish name? Or Palestinian? He might have to call in counter-terrorism. There’d be endless meetings and paperwork. He groaned. “Is it political?”

  “It was a green protest in Sweden,” said Dusty. “We played a concert for it. I have to go. I will miss my train.”

  Tobias drove straight to East Jutland police headquarters in Fredensgade and headed for the Investigations room. Eddy Haxen was fiddling with the coffee machine.

  “I’ve been up since five o’clock this morning,” he said. “I’d hardly got into bed when I had to get out of it again. Alsing’s on leave this weekend. A stolen car. We think it might have been used by the Danske bank gang. It went missing near where the getaway van was torched. It’s been found in the car park at Skolebakken. It’s with Forensics now. But I bet it was wiped clean before it was abandoned. Katrine is still over there. What brings you in?”

  “S S N. Sami Saga Nej.” Tobias typed the name into an Internet search engine. “I met the guy who was making sheep’s eyes at Katrine on Friday night. He remembered where he’d seen the badge. It’s the logo of a bunch of greens in Sweden.”

  Eddy clapped his hands softly. “Well done, Skaarup.”

  “Get me a coffee, would you?”

  Eddy gave a mock salute. “Yes, Boss.”

  “Bugger off.”

  The Internet search brought up several links. The first one took Tobias to the website of an umbrella organisation for environmental groups in Sweden. He scanned the page looking for Sami Saga Nej. He scrolled through several pages.

  “Got it.”

  Eddy set a cup of coffee in front of Tobias and read the screen over his shoulder.

  Sami Saga Nej was formed in 1996 to fight for reindeer winter grazing rights for Sami herders and to oppose plans to dump nuclear waste at Mala in Sweden. S S N favoured direct action such as sit-ins and demonstrations. It raised money through both organized and impromptu music concerts. Their opposition to the nuclear waste facility was successful in 1997 when the plans were abandoned. The group also campaigned for the return of a sacrificial stone from the museum in Skelleftea to its original site near Mala. The stone was returned in August 1998. The occasion was marked by a special ceremony. The S S N continue to support the Sami reindeer herders’ rights to winter grazing.

  “A Laplander,” said Tobias. “What was a Laplander doing in a Danish bog?”

  “Sounds like the beginning of a bad joke,” said Eddy. “Ever been to Lapland, Boss?”

  “I went there once for cross-country skiing,” said Tobias.

  “What was it like?”

  “White,” said Tobias. “Frozen lakes, lots of trees. There was a blizzard. We didn’t leave the hotel for two days.” They’d left Agnes with Karren’s mother and gone away for a few days in the faint hope of mending their marriage. He’d felt trapped. Karren had spent most of her time in the sauna, emerging only to announce that she was leaving him.

  “Should be nice at this time of year,” said Eddy. “Land of the midnight sun.”

  Katrine came into the Investigations room. She dropped her jacket on the chair at her desk and skipped over to join Tobias and Eddy.

  “Forensics have taken the car to the garage, Eddy. You were right. All the surfaces were wiped clean. No prints. But there’s a tiny trace of smartwater on the floor under the driver’s seat. Enough for a DNA match anyway.”

  Eddy and Tobias acknowledged her with a wave. They were concentrating on the screen in front of them.

  “The boss bumped into the musician who wanted to fuck you on Friday night,” said Eddy. “He remembered what S S N stood for.”

  “He was OK,” said Katrine. “I thought he was nice. Hey.” She brightened. “So what does it mean, S S N?”

  “Samis Say No,” said Tobias. “A Swedish conservation group,”

  “Laplanders,” said Eddy.

  “I don’t think you’re supposed to call them Laplanders any more,” said Katrine.

  “The group was active from 1996 to 1998,” said Tobias. “The coin is 1997. So when did Bogman come to Denmark?”

  “Brix thought he died no later than 1999,” said Eddy. “So Bogman must have been here between 1997 and 1999. He could have come earlier than 1997. If we had a name, we could check airline and ferry records. If we check airline and ferry records we might find a name. If he went by road there’d be no record at all. Do you ever feel we are going around in circles on this one?”

  “Start looking for Swedish and Sami silversmiths with the initials B H,” said Tobias. “I’ll call Larsen.”

  Katrine found three silversmiths with the initials B H on a website featuring Swedish designers. Three of them had the initials B H - Benedict Huss, Bo Holgersson and Berit Hansdatter. Only Benedict Huss and Bo Holgersson had their own websites. Benedict Huss could be contacted only by email. But Bo Holgersson had posted his telephone number as well. Eddy telephoned him.

  “I don’t make much jewellery,” he said. “Only the necklaces you can see on my website. I can give you the telephone number for Benedict Huss. I don’t have a number for Berit Hansdatter. Maybe Benedict knows how to contact her. Maybe Benedict is the guy you’re looking for. He had some bracelets in his last show.”

  Benedict Huss told Eddy he made jewellery, but nothing like the bracelet Eddy described to him. “It’s a nice idea. But not mine.” He didn’t have a telephone number for Berit Hansdatter. “I was at college with her but we’ve lost touch. She lives up north somewhere. She doesn’t sell her stuff in any of the Stockholm galleries.”

  Katrine found an art gallery in Northern Sweden which included Berit Hansdatter in the list of artists it represented.

  “She lives in an artists’ community about twenty kilometres from Vilhelmina,” Katrine told Tobias. “They make a lot of traditional Sami stuff. Reindeer horn necklaces, braiding, some pewter. Most of the pictures on the gallery website are that kind of thing. Except for a necklace of engraved silver beads by Berit Hansdatter. There’s no telephone number listed for her, but there’s an address, and a map with directions from Vilhelmina.”

  Tobias booked a flight to Ostersund, the nearest airport to Vilhelmina. He would have to leave Aarhus before six the following morning. He went home to pack a bag.

  He was arranging a pair of socks to fit exactly into the fold of a sweater – he expected northern Sweden to be colder than Jutland, and it was cool in Aarhus despite
the lilac blossom in his neighbour’s garden - when his phone buzzed. It was his ex-wife.

  “I’m busy, Karren.”

  “This won’t take a minute. I need to speak to you about Agnes.”

  “I dropped her at the station this morning. She seems fine.”

  “Did she tell you about this crazy encampment in Jutland? Demonstrating against a wind farm? If she gets arrested you have to promise you’ll get her unarrested.”

  “I can’t do that,” Torben said. “I can’t interfere. And it’s not my district.”

  “What’s the point of being a policeman if you can’t even help your own daughter?”

  Tobias was silent. He could have reminded Karren that he’d joined the police because he’d been a penniless student and she was pregnant. That he’d wanted to get a job on his merits and not as a gift from his father-in-law. He sighed.

  “Well?” demanded Karren.

  “Agnes promised me she won’t do anything illegal.”

  “What about that crazy boyfriend with the tattoo?”

  Tattoo? Tobias hadn’t noticed a tattoo.

  “I don’t care if he gets arrested,” said Tobias.

  “Or some of the other eco-lunatics?”

  “They’re not my problem, Karren. They’re not your problem either.”

  “Why does Agnes have to be an activist? Why can’t she be green silently, like the rest of us? Hans Frederik’s father is furious.”

  “Silently green?” Tobias wanted to laugh. Karren drove a sports utility vehicle, a real gas guzzler. Hans Frederik shot pretty much anything that moved and he thought climate change was a left-wing plot.

  “We have solar panels, we have a ground heat exchanger,” said Karren. “Agnes approves of those. She believes in alternative energy. So what’s wrong with a wind farm?”

  “They’re cutting down a forest to build it. It’s a save the trees thing. Plus there’s some kind of otter that needs protecting.”

  “It’s her future Agnes needs to protect.”

  Tobias made soothing noises. He promised to speak to Agnes about sticking to her studies. He thought he might ask her about Sami conservation groups as well.

  Monday: Week Two

  North Jutland Police District

  17.

  Chief Inspector Pernille Madsen and Inspector Peter Lundquist stared at four plastic bags laid out on a desk in the Forensic Science Laboratory.

  “Is that all?” said Pernille. “You’ve been in that flat for three days and that’s all you’ve found? It’s not much for the file.”

  Magda Johanssen, who’d supervised the team which had searched the studio flat in which Jolene Karlssen had been assaulted, held up her gloved hands.

  “We went over it twice. There wasn’t much to go on. They didn’t have sex. He didn’t jerk off. There’s no semen. Jolene’s panties have her saliva, vomit and blood. There was urine on the mattress. She wet herself. The poor woman was terrified. We swept the bedroom and the bathroom for prints. Nothing. Every surface had been wiped clean,” said Magda.

  “He must have cleaned up before he followed Jolene into the alley,” said Peter Lundquist.

  “She thinks she was on the ground for no more than five minutes before he came after her,” said Pernille. “Five minutes to clean up? He’s done this before. He’s got it down to a fine art.”

  “Item one,” said Magda, holding up a bag containing a scrap of blue fabric and a button. “Jolene had this in her hand. He was wearing a blue shirt. If we can find the shirt, we can match the threads.”

  “Half the men in Sweden wear blue shirts,” said Peter Lundquist. “I’m wearing one myself.”

  “This is from a high quality shirt.” Magda held the bag up for inspection. “It’s very fine cotton and best quality thread. The button is pure bone, not plastic, and nicely finished around the edges.”

  “Not like one of mine, then,” said Peter.

  “Item two,” said Magda. “Jolene’s bra. I’ll send it to the national lab. If there’s anything on it, they’ll find it. But he was wearing plastic gloves, wasn’t he?”

  “According to Jolene,” said Pernille, “he wore clear, skin-tight, plastic gloves. She didn’t notice them at first. Pity. They’d have warned her she was dealing with a pervert. Who knows how to remove all trace of himself.”

  “He didn’t manage to remove all trace of himself,” said Magda with a satisfied air. “Item three.”

  She held up a plastic bag containing a skein of grey-blond hairs. “They were pulled out, roots and all. Jolene had them in her left hand. They were bagged and kept by the ambulance crew. We found other hairs in and under the bed but they’d been shed naturally. You can’t get DNA from them. You need follicles for DNA. So, well done, Jolene. It will take a bit of time, but I think we’ll get DNA from these.” She waved the bag in triumph.

  “He picked the wrong victim,” said Pernille. “Tenacious woman, Jolene. Did you know she used to be a female contortionist until she broke her leg?”

  “I thought that stuff was all faked,” said Peter Lundquist.

  “She tripped over a rope in a circus tent about ten years ago,” said Pernille. “Discovered there was more money in prostitution. What’s item four?”

  “I’m not sure.” Magda opened the bag and tipped a round metal object, the size and thickness of a coin, into her gloved hand. One side was enamelled pale green. The other side had a clip.

  “We found it in on the second sweep. It was in a gap between two floorboards. There was fluff and dust underneath it so it was dropped recently. It’s some kind of badge or clip. There are three initial letters embossed on it. I can make out an S but the surface is worn and there are scratches.” She slipped it under a microscope. “Have a look. See what you think.”

  Pernille peered through the eyepiece. “It looks like the badge of some institution or club. I think the third letter is N.”

  Peter took his turn at the microscope. “Yes. Some kind of badge.” He took his eye away from the microscope and blinked before taking a second look. “It could also be a golf ball marker.”

  “Golf ball marker?” said Pernille.

  “You use it to mark the position of your ball on the green.” Peter straightened up. “I’ve often pulled something out of my pocket and my ball marker has dropped out as well.”

  “Jolene’s attacker was wearing chinos,” said Pernille.

  “He might have been wearing them for golf,” said Peter. “He might have had a ball marker in his pocket. The initials could identify the club. And some companies give out golf ball markers with their company logo. It’s a form of advertising.”

  “So he’s a member of a company, or organisation, or golf club with first and third initials S and N,” said Pernille.

  “If it’s a golf club, he mightn’t be a member,” said Peter. “He might just have played there and bought the marker, or been given it on a corporate golf day, or just played at the club and picked up the marker on the course. I’m always finding markers.”

  “That’s a big help,” said Pernille drily. “Tell me something useful.”

  “You can also buy simple plastic markers with no logo,” said Peter. He dodged the fake punch Pernille threw at him.

  “I’ll tell you something useful,” said Magda. “There’s half a thumb print on it.”

  18.

  Tobias picked up a hire car at Ostersund airport and programmed the satnav to take him to where Berit Hansdatter lived in Vasterbotten county. Aarhus to Copenhagen, then Copenhagen to Ostersund. Four hours. Now he had a long drive to northern Sweden. Three and a half hours the satnav told him. And it was almost lunchtime. At least it was Spring. It would stay light until well into the evening.

  He drove through what seemed to him a haphazard sort of area. He was on a dual-carriageway lined with factories and housing estates interspersed with forest. After about half an hour, the forest appeared to be winning. Instead of factory buildings and blocks of houses, there were clear
ings with cabins. Then there was only forest. The road wound round a lake. Then forest again. Forest and lakes. Forest and lakes.

  He played over in his mind the information he’d gleaned from a search for persons missing in Sweden. Three men had gone missing between 1997 and 1999. One was fifty and an alcoholic. One was from Pakistan. One was twenty-six, but he had an artificial leg. The bones of Bogman’s legs were intact. There were no Swedish citizens reported missing in Denmark, or in any other country.

  He stopped the car in a quiet town and parked outside a lakeside bar. The interior was dark and cool. The barman handed him a menu. Tobias, who was curious about food, ordered a suovaskebab from the “local specialty” section, and a glass of beer. He usually had beer at lunchtime – and smorssbrod with herring and pickle and hard-boiled egg and salad. He looked doubtfully at what seemed to be a pitta bread sandwich when it arrived. It didn’t look very Laplandlike.

  Tobias spoke reasonably good Swedish. “What’s in it?” he asked the barman.

  “Smoked reindeer, cucumber, salad and garlic dressing,” said the barman. “Sami fusion cooking.”

  The combination was surprisingly tasty.

  Tobias sipped his beer and reviewed what he knew about Bogman. He wore a bracelet inscribed ‘Encircled By Your Love.’ He wore the badge of an environmental group. And yet no one reported him missing. Had his lover killed him? That was possible, yes. His lover, or maybe someone he picked up. But if it was some casual pickup, why didn’t the person who gave Bogman the bracelet report him missing? It didn’t make sense. He thought about the bracelet he had given Karren. She probably had more expensive jewellery now. He would know if Karren disappeared. Bad example. What about the women he’d been involved with since his divorce. If any of them went missing, would he know about it, if he wasn’t in the police? Hilde, of course. She was a neighbour. Of course he’d hear about it if she disappeared. Marli Andersen, with whom he was still on friendly terms. But the others? He wouldn’t notice if the librarian at Silkeborg disappeared – unless it made headlines. He’d given a necklace to a girlfriend at college. Mette Svensen. L O V E in gold letters linked by a gold chain. He’d been crazy about her for at least six months. Where was she now? He had no idea. But somebody cared enough about her, he was sure, to report her missing if she disappeared. Why had nobody cared enough about Bogman? Maybe he was a vagrant after all, and had stolen the bracelet. They’d have to trawl through all the stolen item reports in Denmark. The thought wearied him. Agnes didn’t know anything about S S N, or any other Sami group. But she’d heard that one person in the wind farm protest had been in northern Sweden helping Sami protect their reindeer herding rights. That might be worth following up, if he had no luck with the silversmith. He drained his beer glass. Here’s to Berit Handsdatter. His best bet so far.