by Andy Maslen
Halfway down the garden, a pale wooden easel stood. Beside it lay a paint-splodged wooden palette threaded through with a handful of brushes.
Mattsson gestured towards the river.
‘We have a couple of comfortable chairs down there.’
The carved wooden armchairs, padded with striped cushions, were not only comfortable but afforded a superb view across a sweeping curve of the river towards the far bank, fringed by yet more birches.
‘Please make yourself comfortable,’ Mattsson said. ‘I’ll go and fetch us coffee.’ He strode towards the house, calling over his shoulder, ‘We have herons!’
Stella shaded her eyes against the sun, which was still high in the sky, and watched for herons. After a couple of minutes during which her eyes gradually adjusted to the confusion of swaying branches, reeds and lush undergrowth on the far bank, she caught a fleeting movement.
Stalking majestically out into the reeds, a grey heron appeared, its dagger of a beak pointing towards the water as it moved its serpentine neck this way and that.
With a darting movement, it stabbed down into the water. When it drew its head up again, she could see a glittering flash of silver in its beak. It tossed its head back and snapped its beak around the struggling fish before swallowing it and returning to the hunt.
You and me both, she thought.
‘Here we are!’ Mattsson said.
She looked up, forcing a smile. On a black tray painted with pale-pink peony flowers stood a coffee pot, two white mugs and a couple of small plates. The other was taken up with a plate of pale, sugar-encrusted biscuits.
Mattsson poured them both a mug of coffee. He sat down and leaned forwards, watching her. She realised he was expecting her to take one of the biscuits. She took one and nibbled off a corner. She tasted almonds, and lemon.
Stella drank some of the coffee, which, mercifully, wasn’t as strong as the normal brew she’d been offered since arriving in Sweden. But her pulse was elevated all the same. She looked at the old man opposite her. Was he Brömly’s murderer? She was there to find out.
‘How well did you know Tomas?’ she asked him, pulling out her notebook.
Mattsson blew out his cheeks. ‘We were close, once. We grew up together, you know, here in Umeå. We kept in touch during our national service and university careers, then I went into medicine and Tomas entered the civil service. After that, we drifted apart, as school friends often do.’
‘Did you have any contact after that?’
‘We exchanged Christmas cards, birthday messages, that sort of thing. But recently, not really at all. Not since he moved to London.’
‘So his letter must have come as a shock, then?’
Mattsson’s eyes widened, just for a moment, but enough for Stella to catch the expression of surprise.
‘What letter is that?’ he asked.
‘We found evidence that suggests he hand-wrote a letter to you and two others, Inger Hedlund and Kerstin Dahl.’
Mattsson pushed out his lips in an exaggerated pout and shook his head.
‘I’m sorry. I received no such letter from Tomas. All we get these days are those infernal circulars and begging letters from charities. It’s all email now, isn’t it? Do you suppose he might have drafted this letter but never sent it?’
Stella made a note. He was right about email, which also had the virtue of being traceable. Even for a letter sent by registered post, there was no practical way for anyone other than the sender to check it had ever been delivered.
‘It’s possible.’ It was indeed, and she cursed herself for leaping to the conclusion that a letter written was a letter posted, delivered and read. ‘Do you know either of the two women I mentioned?’
‘Sorry, their names again, please? My memory isn’t so good these days. Age,’ he added with a rueful smile.
‘Inger Hedlund and Kerstin Dahl.’
He furrowed his brow. Looked up into the cloudless sky. Back at Stella.
‘I’m sorry, neither of those names means anything to me.’
‘Do you have any idea why Tomas would have grouped you three together in an email distribution list?’
He shrugged. ‘I’m afraid I have absolutely no idea. As I said, we fell out of touch when he moved to London. They could be colleagues from his days in the diplomatic service, I suppose.’
Stella nodded. ‘In the letter, he mentioned something called the project. He described it as being evil. Does that phrase mean anything to you?’
Another shake of the head. He leaned forward to retrieve his coffee and took a long drink. ‘You would have to go a long way to find a man purer in thought, word and deed than Tomas,’ he said. ‘Once, at school, he found a ten-kronor note in the playground. One of the old ones with Gustav the First on it. Guess what? He handed it in to the teacher. Poor Frökken Pärsson didn’t know whether to pat him on the head or send him to see a psychiatrist!’
Stella smiled. ‘I appreciate that you hadn’t been in touch for a few years, but please try and help me out, here, Herr Mattsson. You see, in the letter—’
‘Which, as I said, I didn’t receive,’ he interrupted her, with a genial smile.
‘Exactly. But in it, he wrote that you, Fru Hedlund and Fru Dahl were equally guilty. He used the word “complicit”. I wonder, do you have any idea at all what he was referring to?’
‘None at all. I hate to ask this, but, as a medical man, I must. Do you know if poor Tomas was suffering from dementia? It can play hideous tricks on the mind.’
Stella realised they hadn’t considered the possibility at all. An oversight for which she delivered a swift imaginary kick up her own rear end.
‘We’re reviewing his medical records, but, at this point, there’s no evidence that he was in any way lacking in mental capacity.’
What a pompous phrase, she thought, as the words left her lips. Was it because she was aware of being the foreigner being addressed in her mother tongue? This falling back on stock police phrasing that wouldn’t sound out of place in the High Court?
‘People don’t always get a diagnosis,’ Mattsson said. ‘Especially in the early days.’
‘No,’ she conceded, ‘they don’t.’
Mattsson smiled and pushed down on the arms of his chair. ‘If you have any more questions, I will try my best to answer but I would really love to get back to my painting. The light is perfect at this time in the afternoon. It lends itself particularly well to painting outside. What the French call en plein air.’
Stella rose too. ‘Nothing else.’
She offered her hand. He grasped it and pulled himself to his feet. ‘Thank you. I’ll show you out.’
On the way through the hall, Stella glanced at the photos. One caught her eye. A group of four people, in their thirties, it looked like. Two men and two women. One of the men could have been a younger version of Brömly, the other Mattsson.
‘Who are they?’ she asked, pointing at the photo.
He peered and then smiled. ‘That’s me,’ he said, tapping the man on the right of the group. ‘The others were friends from medical school.’
‘Is that Tomas?’ she asked, tapping the glass over the face of the other man.
He shook his head. ‘Tomas wasn’t at school with me. He went into the civil service.’
She shrugged. ‘You all look happy.’
He smiled. ‘They were good days. By the way,’ he added, ‘did you see any herons?’
‘Yes, one,’ she replied.
‘Beautiful, aren’t they?’
She nodded her agreement as he squeezed past her to open the front door.
On the drive back into the city centre she made a list of new lines of enquiry opened up by her conversation with Mattsson. She needed to check Brömly’s medical records and speak to his GP if possible.
If he was developing symptoms of dementia then a horrible possibility would raise its head: their whole case might have been based on nothing more than the ravings of an elderly ma
n’s disordered mind. Perhaps he’d doctored his CV for some other, entirely innocent, reason. Then she’d be back to square one. And to London.
She realised with a jolt that she didn’t want to return home. The thought of being alone again frightened her, yet surely that was now more than likely given Jamie’s reaction to her confession.
She hit the steering wheel in her frustration, clipping the horn boss and earning a reproachful hand gesture from the car in front. Because Jamie had reacted as any normal person would, hadn’t he? He had every right to leave like he did. Who wouldn’t, after their girlfriend had just told them she was a stone-cold killer?
It just wasn’t fair. Soldiers could be married and they killed. AFOs did it and nobody flounced off in a huff to stay in a hotel. She felt a twinge of guilt at the way she’d characterised Jamie’s retreat from her flat. But it was true, wasn’t it?
Shaking her head, she forced herself to return to the questions thrown up by the interview with Mattsson. What about his alibi for the day of Brömly’s murder? She hadn’t wanted to go there on a first, casual meeting. But she’d come back to it when they spoke again. Because she strongly suspected that they would be. And his career. If she examined his record, would she discover a hole from 1971 to 1976? Were the quartet in the photo the four Swedes whose lives and death she was now investigating?
And Mattsson was a doctor. Now a lecturer in Genetics at the local university. They’d have needed doctors to conduct the sterilisations, wouldn’t they?
The civil servant she’d spoken to had said Brömly was on the payroll for that whole time, so was unlikely to have been simultaneously in Africa, doing good works. But what if he’d been on long-term sick leave? Had he had some sort of breakdown? Was that why he’d altered his CV?
The more she thought about it, the more she could see a completely new narrative emerging.
A highly ambitious, driven and, by all accounts, competent civil servant pushes himself too hard, has a breakdown and is put on sick leave for four years. Was that possible?
She realised she didn’t know enough about Sweden’s employment laws. But they were renowned for their high-tax, high-benefits system. She resolved to ask Oskar after seeing Hedlund.
25
Umeå
Stella pulled off the forest road onto a single-track road, little more than a grass track, really, and trundled the Volvo through still more birches, their delicate leaves shimmering pale-green then gold in the sunlight.
She had the aircon switched to full, yet guiltily opened all four windows. She inhaled a sweet, sappy smell of summer growth and smiled. Despite the pressure to find Brömly’s killer, there was something about the Swedish countryside that gladdened her heart.
Hoping she wouldn’t meet anyone coming the other way, she noticed a slender arc of flattened vegetation to one side of the road. From the tyre tracks, she saw others before her had used it to squeeze past each other.
The track widened out into a V before merging with an area of grass in front of one of the prettiest houses Stella had ever seen.
It was painted the same shade of red as Mattsson’s. The doors, windows and a balustraded veranda were picked out in a contrasting white. An old fashioned ‘sit-up-and-beg’ bicycle that looked as if it weighed as much as the Volvo leaned nonchalantly against one corner of the house. She parked beside a dusty Audi A4 saloon, its metallic-grey paintwork speckled acid yellow by pollen from a nearby tree.
Here was another summer cottage facing the pristine waterfront of Lake Nydalasjön. She thought ruefully of her own urban flat, traffic thrumming beneath her window for twenty hours out of every twenty-four, and felt a pang of envy.
A wooden slatted table and two chairs sat beneath a tree that cast dappled shade over the two people sitting there, each with a mug before them. Inger Hedlund and her husband, Erik. She recognised them from their driving licence photos, which the Swedish Government thoughtfully made available to police officers with the necessary clearance.
She called out to the old couple, not wishing to startle them.
‘Hej!’
They turned, both smiling, and rose from their chairs. They manoeuvred themselves into an upright position with that care for aging bones and stiffened sinews old people took.
‘Hej!’ they called back in unison.
Inger Hedlund’s round face was smooth and plump. None of the dry, weathered look that smokers developed or careless sunbathers. Here was a woman who had looked after her skin. Her blue eyes twinkled and she projected a grandmotherly air.
Erik Hedlund matched her in eye colour, although his skin bore the marks of a life spent outdoors. Dark patches that might once have been melanomas spattered his bald head. His face bore the effects of the sun: deep lines and a leathery, teak-coloured complexion.
With the introductions out of the way, and her police ID produced, examined and returned, Erik offered coffee and ‘a little something to go with it’.
Feeling as though she might burst if she consumed any more food that day, yet desperate not to offend the hospitable couple, Stella smiled.
‘I’ve come straight from talking to another witness. They were just as hospitable as every other Swedish person I’ve met. Would you mind if I said no?’
Erik Hedlund laughed, a warm, whisper-edged sound that spoke of a man enjoying life and slow to take offence.
‘Of course not! We Swedes like to feed our guests, but if you’re full, then of course you must say no.’
Stella smiled, glad her small piece of genuine flattery seemed to have gone down the right way.
Inger turned to Stella and placed her plump hand on her arm, just for a second. The twinkle had left her expression and the skin around her eyes had tightened.
‘This is about Tomas, isn’t it? I read all about it online. Svenska Dagbladet covered it. Dagens Nyheter, too. And of course Västerbottens-Kuriren. It’s our big local newspaper. Did you know Tomas was from here?’
Stella nodded. ‘Do you know of anyone, anyone at all, who might have wanted to hurt Tomas?’ she asked.
Inger’s eyes slid sideways to her husband.
‘Tomas was a good man,’ she said firmly. ‘I only met him a couple of times before he moved to London. But he had what we call in this part of Sweden en själ lika ren som sjövatten. A soul as pure as lake water.’
Stella nodded. ‘Everybody I’ve spoken to says more or less the same thing. Although none quite so poetically.’
Erik smiled. ‘I myself was once rather a good poet. In fact I had two collections published by Norén & Beck.’
Inger laughed and shushed her husband with a finger to her lips.
‘Erik! Honestly. The Detektivinspektor didn’t come here to listen to you boasting of your literary career.’
He spread his hands wide and looked at Stella, a smile cracking his weather-beaten face.
‘You’d think after being married for fifty-one years, she’d let me have a brief moment to relive past glories. But no! I am to be silenced in the name of modesty.’
Stella smiled. ‘Do you have copies of your books here?’
His eyes widened. ‘Of course I do! The publishers were kind enough to send me fifty of each. I think I have a couple left.’
Inger snorted. ‘A couple! Huh. He has lots. He gives them away and orders more when he runs out.’
‘I’d love to see one,’ Stella said.
Erik nodded and got to his feet with less care than before, she noticed, and walked back towards the house. She watched him go. Now she had Inger on her own, it would change the dynamic between them.
‘We didn’t release this detail to the media, and I’m sorry to tell you something that might distress you, but the murderer, after shooting Tomas, pulled his tongue out.’
Inger’s hand flew to her mouth. Stella continued, monitoring the old woman’s reaction carefully. Eager for any tell-tale sign of foreknowledge.
‘Did you receive an email or letter from Tomas in the days befo
re he died?’
There. That was the killer question. Mattsson had denied it. Would Inger?
She took her hand away from her mouth. Her eyes, so merry when Stella had first arrived, were now filmy with moisture. She nodded.
‘Do you still have the letter?’
She shook her head. ‘I burnt it.’
‘Why?’
‘It was horrible. Poor Tomas, I think he must have been acting out some sort of fantasy. It was full of all these mysterious accusations about this evil,’ she made air quotes around the word, ‘we’d all done. I couldn’t make head or tail of it, to be honest.’
Stella recalled Mattsson’s question. Do you know if poor Tomas was suffering from dementia?
She was beginning to think he might have been. Except for one thing. That reference to ‘Poor Tomas’. Inger and Mattsson both used it. That might mean nothing. It was a common enough phrase. But she’d formed the impression the trio had lost touch. It seemed a strange expression of sympathy for a man neither was particularly close to.
‘What job did you do before you retired?’ she asked, knowing the answer already from Oskar’s profile.
‘I was a lawyer for Västerbotten County Council.’
‘What did that involve?’
Inger looked up. ‘Oh, well, it was all sorts of things. In a regional government it could be drafting procurement contracts, disputes with suppliers, employment law, anything.’
Stella decided to push deeper.
‘When did you retire?’
Inger frowned, perhaps surprised at the sudden change of direction, which was Stella’s intention.
‘It was 2015. They threw me such a lovely party,’ she said with a smile. ‘I’d been there forty years, you see. We had cake, dancing. I probably drank too much champagne.’
‘Were you ever involved in settling compensation claims from the victims of the forced sterilisation programme?’
