by Andy Maslen
‘It’s possible. But my background research really didn’t suggest anything in Lynne’s past, or even the last year or two, that would suggest a motive.’
‘They lost their son, Theo, some years ago, when he was just a student. Did you know that?’
Roisin nodded. It was one of the first things she’d discovered when she began investigating the Colliers’ murder. ‘The man who killed Theo committed suicide eight years ago. His wife remarried and is living abroad. I don’t see that there’s a connection.’
Fairhill’s forehead wrinkled and she pursed her lips. ‘And do you have any idea who, precisely, this British police officer might be? Or why they might have felt it necessary to pursue Adam and Lynne Collier halfway across the world to murder them in the middle of nowhere?’
‘Not at this stage of my investigation, no, Ma’am. Although the Met seems the likeliest force in terms of supplying a possible motive.’
‘Oh, well, that’s all right then, isn’t it? That narrows it down to a mere forty-four thousand people!’ Roisin flinched. Fairhill shook her head and frowned. ‘I’m sorry, Roisin, that was uncalled for. It’s just, this is a lot to process. You’ve done a fantastic job so far. What do you need from me?’
Roisin spread her hands. ‘More time. Your continued support. And, Ma’am?’
Roisin readied herself for the big ask. The one that would give her the freedom she needed.
‘Yes?’
‘It would be really helpful if you could talk to Detective Chief Superintendent McDonald on my behalf. Tell her I’m working directly under you for the time being. Until the case is solved.’
‘You sound confident.’
‘I am, Ma’am.’
‘Despite the size of the suspect pool.’
‘Yes, Ma’am.’
Fairhill fixed Roisin with an X-ray stare. ‘And you’re telling me everything?’
‘Everything concrete, Ma’am.’
‘What about what’s not concrete?’
‘I think it’s best not to overload you with every speculative idea, Ma’am. This is obviously a highly sensitive case. The wider ramifications for the Met are losing me sleep,’ Roisin said, for once speaking the whole truth. ‘I don’t want to put you in the position of having to confirm something that might blow up in your face later if I’m off-beam in my suspicions.’
Fairhill leaned back in her chair. She smiled, though Roisin didn’t detect much mirth in it.
‘A very astute political judgment. One I’d expect to come from the lips of a much more senior officer. Leave it with me. I’ll speak to Callie for you. Anything you need, anything at all, you come to me.’ She reached into a desk drawer and pulled out a slim black leather wallet and extracted a business card. ‘That has my personal mobile. Use it. Day or night.’
Roisin accepted the card with a nod and a small smile, the phrase ‘a much more senior officer’ as loud as a siren in her head.
‘Thank you, Ma’am.’
Fairhill nodded. ‘I think you’d better call me Rachel from now on.’
Roisin parked her car beneath Paddington Green and made her way to SIU. She felt like her grin might split her face open and tried to dial it down a little in case people started wondering if DI Griffin had truly lost it.
The general office felt smaller than when she’d left. Then she realised; the whole operation felt smaller.
After just a couple of days working with the FBI, her eyes had opened to a world of possibilities that stretched far, far beyond the solving of murders. Even murders of the most horrific kind that were the bread and butter of SIU.
The budget was being cut to ribbons anyway. Would there even be a SIU in a year’s time?
She looked around, saw detectives pecking away on grubby keyboards, speaking into ancient desk phones, wandering about with chipped mugs of disgusting coffee. And she thought back to the crisp atmosphere at the FBI Chicago field office. The place radiated energy. And she wanted more of it.
Yes, she’d been economical with the truth when speaking to Rachel – Rachel! – but it wasn’t a lie to say Roisin was protecting her from any fallout if she’d called it wrong.
If? Ha! Stella was as guilty as hell. It was only a matter of time before Roisin could prove it. And then, slap on the cuffs, slam the cell door and call a press conference, ladies and gents, because DI Roisin Griffin has landed the catch of the century.
Callie was in her office. Roisin decided to make the first move. She crossed the room, nodding to Garry who was leaning back in his chair, phone clamped to his right ear.
Callie’s door was open, but Rosh knocked anyway.
Callie looked up and beckoned her in. ‘How did it go?’
Roisin gave Callie a similar story to the one she’d told Rachel. But she soft-pedalled on the idea that they were looking for a cop.
‘AC Fairhill has asked me to stay on it for now. I hope that’s OK. I know the recent cuts have left us short-handed.’
Callie groaned. ‘Aye, well that’s one word for it. It seems murder’s just not fashionable these days. All the glory – and the bloody budget – goes to cyber-crime and counter-terrorism just now.’
Roisin nodded. Formed her features into a grimace of understanding and frustration. ‘I know. Still, everything goes in cycles at the Met. We just need to wait until someone famous gets murdered then we’ll be the flavour of the month again.’
‘Sadly, I agree with you, Rosh. And that’s a very astute assessment, by the way.’
Roisin smiled. Two compliments on her wider appreciation of Force politics in one morning. She took it as a good sign.
‘Is Stella around?’ she asked. ‘I wanted to update her on where I’d got to in the States.’
Callie rolled her eyes. ‘No, and that’s another reason we’re short-staffed. She’s in Sweden.’
‘The Brömly case?’
‘The very same.’
‘Where in Sweden?’
‘Stockholm. She’s working with an Inspector Norgrim over there. It looks like the murderer’s a Swedish national.’
Back at her desk, Roisin launched a browser and started researching flights to Stockholm.
Rachel Fairhill called a contact in Scotland.
‘We may not need plan B after all. Griffin’s on Cole’s trail. She thinks she’s about to make the arrest of the century. I played dumb. She thinks I’m just brass, so far up in the clouds I don’t know what’s happening on the ground.’
‘Where is Cole?’
‘Sweden.’
‘Cops carry guns there, don’t they?’
‘Yes, they do. I have a contact over there. I’ll make sure he equips Griffin with everything she needs. If Cole decides not to come quietly, we might get lucky.’
‘Keep me posted.’
Smiling, Fairhill replaced the handset. Oh, she’d keep him posted all right. And then, maybe, this whole bloody business would be behind them once and for all.
33
Umeå
Kerstin Dahl sat beside her husband, Josef, watching the lunchtime news. The lead story jerked her upright. She slopped hot coffee into her lap and cried out.
Josef growled. ‘Ssh! I want to hear this.’
He didn’t have to worry. Kerstin had no intention of moving from her seat. She ignored the coffee burning her through her light summer trousers. It could wait.
Saskia Persson, the regular newsreader on the midday news, was frowning as she spoke. Normally a pretty young woman, with a professional blonde bob, the serious expression turned her face darker, somehow. It suited the news she was delivering.
‘Police have revealed that two residents of Umeå were murdered early this morning. Inger and Erik Hedlund, both former government lawyers, moved permanently to Umeå in their retirement. The senior investigating officer, Detective Inspector William Ekland, said that the couple, who had no known enemies, were both shot to death. We go live to our reporter, Sophie Gyllenborg, from the cottage by Lake Stenträsket. What
can you tell us, Sophie?’
Standing in front of a white plastic tent that snapped in the breeze, the young reporter assumed a serious expression.
‘Thank you, Saskia. I’m standing outside the retirement cottage on Norra Kullavägen owned by the Hedlunds…’
As the reporter twittered on inanely, adding nothing but neighbourhood gossip, Kerstin’s thoughts were racing around in her head, tripping over their own feet, colliding, splintering into dozens of new ones. All of them bad. She rose from the sofa.
‘I need to blot this before it stains,’ she said, pointing at the splotch on her thigh.
Josef grunted, but didn’t take his eyes away from the screen. She ran upstairs, took the trousers off and kicked them into the corner. Then she sat on their double bed and put her face in her hands.
What was happening? First Tomas, in London, then Inger. Erik, too. It could have been a coincidence. As a government minister in the nineties, she’d had no time for aides or civil servants, or her own ministerial colleagues, come to that, who suggested things sometimes happened for no reason, or out of coincidence.
Tomas, Inger, she and Ove had all taken part in the Project. No! Be honest, Kerstin, for once in your life! They hadn’t taken part. They had run it in Umeå.
Others had taken part. Others who’d worked for, and reported into, the four of them. And they’d all taken care to erase their involvement once Ove had seen which way the wind was blowing.
Ove was always the smart one out of the four of them. As a young, ambitious doctor, he’d manoeuvred his way to the chairmanship of the Coordinating Committee for Racial Biology and Purity in Umeå. There, he’d pursued the Project with fanatical zeal. And they’d all fallen into line behind him.
Kerstin had always feared the day would come when their wrongdoing was exposed. Those bloody hacks at Dagens Nyheter had dug and dug and dug until they’d uncovered every sordid detail.
But, mercifully, they’d focused their fire on the national politicians. Local and regional functionaries like the four in Umeå had mostly escaped the spotlight.
They’d fled from it, sometimes literally, moving abroad. Or into the great darkness, taking their own lives in shame. Or, as she, Tomas and Inger had, under Ove’s calm leadership, into corrupt anonymity, thanks to contacts, bribes and, in some cases, threats. And, for forty-six years, it had worked beautifully.
Then she’d read the news story about Tomas. They didn’t keep in touch anymore. Ove had said it was better if they stayed out of each other’s lives. But from time to time she used to look up the other three online, feeling her stomach flip with a mixture of guilt and nerves every time one of their names came up on a Google alert.
She needed to talk to Ove. He’d know what to do. Because she and he were the only ones left. And someone they’d – she couldn’t bring herself to use the actual word, even now – treated had evidently decided it was time for retribution.
She thought she knew why. They must have been watching Tomas, stalking him somehow. Maybe online. They could do anything nowadays. When he’d told them of his intention to confess, the murderer had seen the letter and acted before Tomas became a public figure again. He’d be too visible to kill and get away with it.
The only other possibility was someone who’d been a junior functionary in the Project. She, Ove, Inger and Tomas had taken care to expunge that shameful episode from their pasts, so they were in the clear. But who knew who else had been less successful and now feared public exposure and disgrace?
Josef called up the stairs. ‘You all right, love? You’re going to miss the weather.’
‘I’m fine,’ she shouted back, alarming herself at the crack in her voice. ‘Just putting some cream on my burn.’
She looked down at the irregular red mark on her thigh. Like a slap from an unseen chastiser. She scrubbed at the throbbing skin with her fingers as if she could wipe it off like ink. Or blood.
Later, after Josef had left for his regular Tuesday afternoon card game with his hunting buddies, Kerstin raised a trembling finger and tapped a number into her phone. She didn’t keep it stored in Contacts. Another one of Ove’s smart ideas. But she’d memorised it, along with the others.
His phone went straight to voicemail. She swore, but she didn’t leave a message. Something told her it was unwise to leave a record of her involvement in the Project. Even on Ove’s phone.
She went downstairs again and poured herself a glass of wine.
Kerstin did not sleep well that night. Her dreams were inhabited by young men and women, hollow-eyed, naked and screaming, clutching their genitalia. One young woman, little more than a girl, really, bony ribs sticking through her skin like a concentration camp victim, came up to Kerstin.
‘I want a baby,’ she said, over and over again, weeping snotty tears. ‘I want a baby.’
She woke at 5.47 a.m. to find her cheeks encrusted with salty residue. Wrapping her summer dressing gown around her, she went downstairs. She made coffee and took her mug into the garden. Sitting in a lawn chair, she made a decision.
Somehow, she managed to get through breakfast. She made Josef his usual oatmeal porridge, adding blueberries and raspberries, his favourite. He looked up from reading Svenska Dagbladet, and smiled in appreciation.
‘Thanks, love,’ he said, picking up his spoon.
Dear, sweet Josef. He hadn’t noticed that in place of her own regular breakfast of knäckebröd spread thinly with English marmalade, she’d limited herself to a mug of coffee. In truth her stomach was churning so much, she doubted she’d be able even to finish it.
At ten minutes to eight, she got up from the table. She kissed Josef on the top of his head.
‘I’m going into town this morning,’ she said. ‘Do you want me to fetch you anything?’
He shook his head. ‘Nothing, thanks. Anywhere special?’
‘No. I thought I might see if Gertrud’s free for fika at ten.’
‘OK, well, send her my love,’ he said, then returned to perusing the sports section while spooning porridge absentmindedly into his mouth.
Annika had been planning to confront Dahl at home. Having the husband there to witness it would make things easier, she felt. Less able to blow back at her.
From her car, an ageing, pine-green Toyota Camry, she watched the house through binoculars. She wanted to be sure they were both in before she walked up that neat suburban front path and rang on the doorbell to end their lives.
Then the door opened. Annika started, before realising that she was a good fifty metres away and only the binoculars made the woman she’d pursued all these years seem closer.
Dahl was dressed for town, in pressed trousers and a smart navy blazer with gold buttons. She’d tied a yellow and blue scarf over her hair. How patriotic!
Annika swore under her breath. Now what? Dahl extended her arm towards the gold BMW on the drive. The indicators pulsed. Dahl climbed in. A moment later, she was reversing out onto the road.
Annika started her own engine and stuck the Camry’s notchy transmission into first. As Dahl pulled away in the direction of town, Annika indicated and swung out onto the road behind her.
The police officer on the front desk seemed happy to listen as Kerstin began laying out her enquiry.
‘So, you see, because I’m not feeling safe, I really do need to speak to a detective.’
The officer smiled up at her. ‘Could you wait over there, please? I’ll see if there’s someone free to talk to you.’
Kerstin did as she was asked, flicking through the previous day’s edition of Svenska Dagbladet and trying to slow her breathing, which was speeding along like a horse in a trotting race at Solvalla stadium.
‘Mrs Dahl?’
Kerstin looked up. A young man wearing a horrid brown suit was smiling down at her. His long-lashed eyes were magnified by his glasses, giving him an eager, enquiring look.
‘My name is Mikael Olin. I’m with the Criminal Investigation Department. Would you like
to come with me, please?’
Kerstin followed the detective through a set of double-doors and along a corridor smelling strongly of disinfectant. He turned and smiled at her.
‘Sorry about the smell. A prisoner threw up late last night.’
He opened a door and beckoned her to precede him into a small but friendly room. It contained a coffee table and a couple of low armchairs upholstered in a charcoal-grey fabric. It looked stained to Kerstin as she sat, placing her hands flat on her thighs then wincing as the movement rubbed the thin fabric against her burnt skin.
Olin smiled again and took out a notebook. ‘Let’s start at the beginning. You say you’re not feeling safe. Why is that?’
She nodded, smiled and cleared her throat. She tried to remember that, once upon a time, most likely before this kid in front of her was out of short trousers, she’d been a powerful woman.
‘It’s about the Hedlunds. You know?’
He nodded. ‘What about them?’
‘I knew Inger.’
He sat up straight in his chair and scribbled a note. The casual air he’d affected vanished, replaced by something altogether steelier. Maybe she’d misjudged him.
‘When? How well?’
‘Oh, not for a long time. But I knew her very well once. The thing is, I believe she and Erik were murdered by the same person who killed Tomas Brömly in London last month. And I think they might be coming for me, too. I want protection,’ she said, trying to inject a note of authority into her voice. ‘For my husband, as well,’ she added.
He frowned. ‘We don’t really have the resources to offer protection to members of the public. What makes you think the murders are connected?’
She looked at him. So, now it came to it. Her years of peace were at an end. There would be reporters, gossip, hate-filled glares, maybe graffiti on their home. She’d have to leave social media for good. Social media? Ha! That was rich. They’d have to leave Umeå! Maybe even Sweden. Find somewhere far away to live out their remaining time together.
