Murder in Malmö: The second Inspector Anita Sundström mystery (Inspector Anita Sundström mysteries)

by MacLeod, Torquil

  ‘A friend?’

  ‘Yes. Jovan. He’s Serbian. He’s taken a shine to me and defends me when the other inmates get threatening.’ Ewan smirked. ‘And he doesn’t even want sex for his services. I just think he hates Swedes for putting him in here, and I’m a foreigner, so I must be all right. And he also likes Newcastle United, so we have a bond. Every time he sees me he puts his thumb up and says “Alan Shearer”. I mentioned that I interviewed him once years ago when I covered sport. He believes Shearer must be my mate.’

  ‘I’m pleased someone’s looking after you.’

  ‘Oh, I gave him your cigarettes. He says “thank you”.’

  Anita smiled.

  ‘How are things? Is your career getting back on track after I fucked it up?’

  ‘I didn’t know...’

  ‘Word gets round, even in here.’

  ‘It could be better.’ She felt herself relaxing. She was half-tempted to have a bitch about Moberg and company, but thought better of it. However awful it seemed to her, she knew Ewan would see the funny side of it. Maybe that was the root of his attraction.

  ‘Lasse?’

  She spread her hands out in a gesture of despair. ‘Lasse. Never have kids! He’s not even coming back for midsummer. And then he’s spending the summer in Gotland with the dreaded Rebecka.’ She found herself confiding her thoughts and frustrations about Lasse and how they were causing her more heartache than her job. She didn’t care that it was Ewan who was the recipient of her angst. He was so easy to talk to. He listened patiently.

  ‘He’s young,’ said Ewan when she had finished. ‘We all do things without thinking about other people at that age. He’ll come back to you, maybe in a different way from before. But he’ll come back.’

  ‘Do you think so?’

  Ewan leant across the table and squeezed her hand reassuringly. She let him, and found herself disappointed when he withdrew it again.

  ‘Either he’ll realize that Rebecka is a selfish madam and find someone else or they’ll both grow up. I’m sure, deep down, he still appreciates his mum. It’s just un-cool to acknowledge the fact at the moment.’

  Anita felt better.

  ‘So, why did you come?’

  She glanced away. ‘I must be going.’ She stood up.

  ‘Anita. I’m sorry. Sorry for all the problems I’ve caused you.’

  Anita knocked on the door. She felt in her bag and pulled out her snus tin. She threw it across to Ewan, who caught it.

  ‘A present for Jovan.’

  Ewan’s face lit up with delight.

  ‘I hope you’ll come back again.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ As the door was unlocked she knew she wouldn’t be able to keep away.

  Moberg now felt he had the information that he needed to pin the murder charges on Bo Nilsson. That’s why he was enjoying Nilsson’s discomfort on the other side of the table in the interview room. Nilsson had his solicitor at his side, though he didn’t seem to have gained much reassurance from his legal representative’s presence. Moberg had Nordlund for company. He realized that a combination of Westermark and himself would be unwise. One of them, inevitably, would overstep the mark.

  He had a file on the table in front of him. Inside were notes from a meeting he had had half an hour before with Westermark and Wallen. They had come back with some very incriminating information, though Nordlund’s visit to Buckley Mellor Chemicals had been less productive. There was no obvious connection, and it would be difficult to find someone to admit to supplying Nilsson with poisonous substances. He would have to skirt round that suspicion at this stage. Moberg began quietly.

  ‘You’ve admitted that you took money from Ekman & Johansson—‘

  ‘Only temporarily,’ Nilsson interrupted.

  Moberg smiled sweetly. ‘Only temporarily. However, you must have taken a lot of money, over a period of time, to warrant Ekman calling in the bank to investigate.’

  Moberg waited for a response which never came.

  ‘We know you frequented the casino and the trotting track. Why the sudden gambling? We have it from your former wife that you were a stingy sod. That’s why she left you.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous. We were just incompatible.’

  ‘It was my good friend here, Inspector Nordlund, who suggested that there must be a reason why a man like you changes the habits of a lifetime.’ Moberg flicked open the file in front of him and took out a photograph, which he slowly pushed across the table towards Nilsson. The widening of the eyes and the sweat on the upper lip reassured Moberg that he was closing in on their man. ‘Recognize her?’

  Nilsson was about to protest when Moberg flipped over the photograph so that both he and his solicitor could see the inscription on the back.

  ‘I take it that you do. Who is Milena?’

  ‘Milena is a friend.’

  ‘I can see that,’ Moberg said scornfully.

  ‘I have nothing more to say about her. You had no business to go to my apartment.’

  ‘Oh, I think we did. Milena wasn’t the only thing we discovered. You said in your statement that you were at home on the night that Martin Olofsson was murdered.’

  ‘I was,’ Nilsson said vehemently.

  ‘Not according to your neighbour.’ Moberg made great play of reading his file notes. Göran Brante. He says he ran into you leaving the apartment at half past seven.’

  ‘I was going—‘

  ‘And another witness saw you returning just before eleven. She spotted you from her kitchen window as she was making her late-night cocoa. So where were you between half-past seven and eleven o’clock?’

  Nilsson glanced in panic at his solicitor, who leant over and whispered something in his ear.

  ‘Basically, you lied to us, and now you have no alibi for the second murder. Neither do you have one for when the murder of Tommy Ekman was set up. And we’ve established you have motives for killing both men.’ Moberg looked at Nordlund before playing his ace. He was certain this would get the reaction he was after. ‘I think we might have enough evidence to charge you with the murder of Martin Olofsson.’

  The solicitor was about to intervene when Nilsson blurted out, ‘No, no, I didn’t. I couldn’t have! I was with Milena on Monday night.’

  ‘And where was this?’

  ‘A small apartment in Segevång. I bought it for her. That’s where we...’

  ‘So that’s when your money troubles started. Milena what?’

  ‘Milena Tadić.’ Nordlund wrote the name down.

  ‘I assume she’s a prostitute.’

  ‘No, she’s not!’ Nilsson answered angrily, before adding in a quieter tone, ‘Well, not now.’

  ‘We’d better have Milena in and see what she has to say, however unreliable.’

  Nilsson’s head sunk into his hands.

  ‘She’s not here at the moment.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Montenegro. That’s where she’s from. Left yesterday. She’s visiting her mother outside Podgorica. I paid...’

  ‘Of course you did. How long is she away for?’

  Nilsson was almost weeping. ‘A month.’

  ‘How convenient that your alibi is out of the country. You’re a betting man, Bo. What are the odds on your story being a load of crap? You were out waiting for Martin Olofsson that night. Inspector Nordlund, I think we have enough to keep herr Nilsson here a bit longer while we find the witness we’re after to make his stay permanent.’

  CHAPTER 25

  It was six o’clock when Anita reached Hakim’s parents’ apartment. She had decided to walk, as she thought the exercise would do her good. It had taken twenty minutes to cross the park, walk past the sprawling hospital and along the first stretch of Ystadvägen. She had hoped that the stroll would enable her to forget about her visit to the prison. It hadn’t.

  She knew this area reasonably well. It was her side of the railway line from Rosengård, where much of the immigrant population lived, but it was
still a very ethnic part of town. It was where she did most of her clothes shopping. There were two big second-hand stores that she enjoyed mooching around. Myrorna was on the other side of the street from where she was walking and further along was her favourite, Emmaus, which was housed in an old industrial complex. The older she got, the more she found herself buying clothes she liked in the second-hand chain stores than in the big retail shops in town. And also she saved money.

  The dull apartment block she was heading for was at right angles to the busy main road. It badly needed a lick of paint, there was rubbish clinging to the half-dead bushes on either side of the entrance and graffiti daubed across the walls of the bike-shed. She remembered that one of the so-called “Malmö Marksman’s” shootings had taken place round here. Not very comforting for Hakim’s parents.

  Anita rang the buzzer and waited. A couple of minutes later a nervous Hakim appeared. As a mother, she could tell that the poor young man was going through agonies. She could imagine Lasse being mortified if she had asked him to bring home his employer to be vetted. Not that that was likely for some time, as she suspected her darling son would find all sorts of imaginative and convenient barriers to taking up paid, full-time employment.

  Hakim led her up two flights of stairs, along a corridor and then onto an open-air walkway. A number of apartment blocks surrounded a central garden area. The grass was bare in places. A few ornamental trees, still in blossom, broke up the monotony of the buildings. Loud samba music was belting out of an open window on the other side of the garden. She liked the rhythm of the music but found herself immediately irritated at the volume - she was showing her age. Though the apartments weren’t exactly rundown, they had a tired feel about them. The residents wouldn’t have much in the way of disposable income.

  As soon as Anita entered the neat apartment she was greeted by the unmistakeable figure of Hakim’s father. Tall and angular like his son, the only points of difference being the thinning hairline and the thick moustache. This would be Hakim in thirty years’ time. He wore a shirt and tie despite the warm day. He wasn’t going to receive guests without showing them the courtesy of dressing smartly. Anita wished she had made more of an effort. Beside him was the bubbly figure of his wife. Her traditional clothes were vibrantly colourful and, despite her chubbiness, she had once been a handsome woman. Anita was surprised that she didn’t wear any kind of head scarf.

  Hakim’s father smiled. It was full of warmth.

  ‘Inspector Sundström, welcome to our home.’ He spoke in English. Hakim had warned her that English would be the language of choice rather than Swedish. His mother had found it difficult to learn the tongue of her adopted country despite the many years they had lived there.

  ‘Please, call me Anita.’

  ‘Very well, I am Uday and this is my wife, Amira.’

  They shook hands, which made the handing over of Anita’s gift of a box of chocolates from the supermarket a rather awkward manoeuvre. Once the preliminaries were concluded, Anita was ushered into the living room. It wasn’t very big and had a rather suffocating atmosphere, partly due to an embroidered curtain of deep reds and golds, which separated it from the kitchen. Amira noiselessly passed through a gap in the curtain and almost immediately re-appeared, accompanied by Hakim’s sister, Jazmin, with plates of sweet cakes and small cups of strong Turkish coffee. Jazmin was very western-looking, with her black hair severely shaved either side of her head, helping to accentuate the uncut mop on top. It didn’t detract from a pleasant face, which was dominated by fierce, brown eyes. She wore a t-shirt and jeans. Anita could sense her parents’ disapproval. All four of the Mirza family sat down rigidly and looked at Anita, who had been given the most comfortable chair. She couldn’t work out if she was being scrutinized as a suitable boss for Hakim or if these earnest people felt the need to prove Hakim’s worthiness to her. Then Anita realized that she must make the first move and take a cake. Once she did so and remarked how delicious it was, the family relaxed, except for Hakim who was obviously going through purgatory.

  ‘And is Hakim working diligently?’ Uday asked. Hakim’s eyes rocketed towards the ceiling.

  Anita couldn’t help herself smiling. ‘He hasn’t been with us long, but he shows a lot of promise. One day he may make a good detective.’ Amira beamed with pleasure.

  ‘Of course, we would not have chosen the police as a profession for our son. However, the young will go their own way these days. In Iraq you quickly learned not to trust the police.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘We had hoped that Hakim would become a painter. He has the talent. A wonderful eye. An understanding eye. That’s rare.’ Uday pointed at one of a number of paintings on the wall. It was a sparse desert scene with a single white house. The colours evinced the heat and the light. The sky was azure and unbroken. It was very striking. ‘I once ran one of the best galleries in Baghdad.’

  Uday went on to tell Anita about how good life had been in the Iraqi capital. It had been a great cultural centre, where east and west mixed easily. They had had a large house with a swimming pool. Uday jetted around the world meeting artists, attending exhibitions and selling works. He produced a folder with copies of paintings that he had sold from his gallery. Anita dutifully thumbed through it as Uday continued his story. Then Saddam Hussain had begun to squeeze then terrorize the intellectual classes, and Uday had taken the decision that it would be better for his family to get out altogether before he disappeared one night, as so many of his friends had done, and was never seen again. It broke their hearts, but neither their resolve nor their faith ever wavered. They left Iraq with virtually nothing. Firstly, they had lived in Rosengård, and now in this apartment, thanks to the money Hakim brought in. Yet the family appeared grateful that Sweden had taken them in, even though they were conscious that many locals now were not so keen on them being here.

  ‘My children are Swedish now, like many others who have sought sanctuary here. Yet a madman wanders the streets attacking us.’

  ‘Yes, Dad, that’s enough,’ put in Hakim.

  ‘A neighbour of ours was shot at the bus stop round the corner.’

  ‘We’re doing our best to capture this man.’ Anita wanted to sound reassuring. She knew from gossip at the polishus that the investigation was going nowhere, despite extra personnel being drafted in from other forces around the country.

  ‘The police will never find this person,’ pronounced Jazmin. ‘They don’t want to. They hate us.’

  ‘That’s enough, Jazmin,’ admonished Amira. ‘I am most sorry for Jazmin’s rudeness, Anita. Please have another cake.’

  ‘I’m sorry about my sister,’ Hakim apologised when he let Anita out of the main door of the apartment block.

  ‘No. It was fine. You have a very nice family.’ Hakim looked relieved.

  ‘Jazmin is hot-headed. She’s embarrassed that I’m a cop. Her friends rib her about me.’ He added with a self-mocking smile, ‘I’m not cool.’

  ‘She should talk to Lasse. I’m not cool any longer, either.’

  Nordlund could see that Moberg wasn’t as happy as he should be after detaining Bo Nilsson. The financial director had almost been in tears as he was taken away. All the way down the corridor he had protested his innocence.

  ‘What’s the problem?’ the older detective asked.

  Moberg pulled a face. ‘I misjudged him. I thought when I talked about charging him he would collapse and confess. He did break down but came up with an alibi of sorts; though he’ll find difficulty proving it as his whore is away in some eastern European flea-pit. I’m sure Nilsson murdered both men – he had motive, means and opportunity - but we may never be able to prove that he killed Ekman. That was such a clever murder. The use of the gas and the delayed timing makes it all the more difficult for us. If we can’t find the evidence that he did it, then it’ll become the perfect crime. That’ll bug the hell out of me until my dying day.’

  ‘The trouble is,’ said Nordlund,
‘is that no one at Buckley Mellor Chemicals is going to admit to providing Nilsson with whatever he used now they know what he wanted it for. They would become an accessory. Anyhow, according to their records, nothing has gone missing.’

  Moberg idly picked up his cup of coffee. ‘ Could Nilsson have got hold of an old container of Zyklon B? Let’s check it out.’

  ‘What are we going to do about Milena Tadić?’ asked Nordlund

  ‘We’ve no extradition treaty with Montenegro. And once she’s heard that her sugar daddy has been locked up I expect she’ll never grace our shores again. Anyhow, she’d be regarded as an unreliable witness from the prosecution’s point of view. Too much incentive to lie on Nilsson’s behalf. And the defence will probably have a job getting her back. But that’s their problem.’

  ‘One difficulty we have is placing him in the vicinity of Olofsson’s house. And we still haven’t got the murder weapon. Sonja Blom won’t get the case to court until we tie him in with one or the other.’

  Moberg drained the last of his coffee in one gulp and then put the cup down on his desk. ‘It’s bought us some time. But not much. Can’t keep the little shit locked up for very long without formally charging him. Blom will tell us to let him go if we don’t find some concrete evidence quickly. The commissioner is now putting pressure on me to tie up these murders because he wants all hands on the “Marksman” case. He’s getting serious grief from the mayor’s office now that the story’s gone international. And the bastards in Stockholm are getting twitchy because it’s painting Sweden in a poor light. Politicians make me sick.’

  They drew up outside Ingvar Serneholt’s house at about quarter past nine. It had rained overnight, freshening up the air, though it hadn’t made much impact on the faded green lawns of Serneholt’s impressive spread. The sky was a gun-metal grey, promising rain. Serneholt should be expecting them, as Anita had managed to get hold of him at about half nine the night before. He explained that he had been in Stockholm viewing some paintings that he was contemplating buying. Yet there was no answer when Hakim rang the door bell. Maybe he’d slept in, Hakim suggested. He would hardly be having a swim in this weather.