ICEHOTEL (22 page)

As the bus bumped along the road to
Kiruna, I rehearsed in my mind what I would say, going over Marcellus’s
conversation with Aaron so as not to forget it.

The police station was a modest single-storied building on
the outskirts of town, its walls a regulation steel grey. The impression it
gave was that the only thing that engaged the occupants was a small number of
petty crimes.

The interior was painted in pastel shades of blue and
yellow, and smelt of floor polish. One wall was covered in posters. The more
recent obscured those beneath, rendering them unreadable, as if the sole
intention was to leave no inch of paintwork showing. A row of moulded plastic
chairs stood against the opposite wall, blue alternating with yellow in a way
that I found almost frivolous.

A young fair-haired man, dressed in the familiar blue
uniform, was typing rapidly at a computer keyboard. He stopped and watched me
approach.

‘Do you speak English?’ I said.

‘Of course. How may I help you?’

‘Is Inspector Hallengren in?’

He sat back. ‘He is certainly in.’

I forced a smile, hoping this wasn’t going to be hard work.
‘And is he available?’

He tapped a couple of keys. ‘He is free now.’

‘May I speak with him?’

‘I will check. What is your name, please?’

‘Margaret Stewart.’

He spoke into the phone in rapid Swedish. He listened
intently, his shoulders straightening. For a second, I thought he was going to
jump to his feet and click his heels.

He replaced the receiver. ‘Inspector Hallengren will see you
now. Please follow me.’

The room was at the end of the corridor. The door was open,
but he still knocked loudly.

Hallengren’s voice came from within. The young man stepped
back, motioning to me to enter, then left quickly.

If I’d expected clues to Hallengren’s private life, I was
disappointed. There were no family photographs or children’s drawings. Only
office furniture: filing cabinets, a cluttered desk, and a table and chairs. A
single bed, too short for Hallengren, was made up in the corner.

Hallengren was sitting at the desk. He got to his feet.
‘Miss Stewart, this is an unexpected pleasure.’ He motioned to a chair. ‘Would
you like some coffee?’

‘No, thank you.’ I sat down.

He lowered himself into his chair. ‘I am hoping this is a
social visit,’ he said, a smile playing on his lips.

‘It isn’t, Inspector.’ I hesitated. ‘I’ve come about the
diary.’

‘I see.’

I’d expected more of a reaction. ‘You told me it was
missing,’ I said.

‘I do not believe that I did. I asked whether you had seen
the contents. I did not say it was missing.’ He clasped his hands behind his
neck. ‘What precisely have you come to see me about, Miss Stewart?’

‘I overheard a conversation between Marcellus and Wilson
Bibby’s lawyer.’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘His lawyer?’

‘Aaron Vandenberg. I think you may not have met him.’

‘I had no idea Wilson had brought his lawyer with him.’ He reached
for a file. ‘He has not been staying at the Excelsior. I would have remembered
the name.’

‘He’s been in Kiruna since Monday. He’s at the Excelsior
now.’

He studied me, frowning. ‘So you heard him speaking to
Marcellus Bibby about the diary?’

I nodded.

‘When was this, Miss Stewart?’

‘An hour ago. I was in the church tower when they came in.
They sat in the pews and talked.’ I chewed my lip. ‘I listened behind the
door.’

If Hallengren had a view as to my behaviour, he kept it to
himself.

‘Inspector, I can only just remember what I overheard,’ I
said impatiently.

He opened a drawer and produced a portable recorder. ‘Do you
mind speaking into a machine, Miss Stewart?’

‘No.’

‘Then tell me what you remember. I will not interrupt.’

He listened intently, making notes while I recounted the
conversation between Marcellus and Aaron as well as I could remember it. When I
finished, he rose and paced the room, deep in thought.

‘Miss Stewart,’ he said, sitting down, ‘you must promise to
keep this information to yourself.’

‘Again?’ I said with mild irony. ‘Will you tell me why this
time?’

He drew his brows together, saying nothing.

‘Look, Inspector, we’re crammed into the Excelsior like
sardines, Aaron and Marcellus included. If what I’ve told you is of interest, and
I think it is or you wouldn’t be wanting me to keep quiet about it, then I
might be able to help you further. I may overhear things, but I won’t know if
they’re useful unless you tell me what’s so important about this diary.’

He must have seen the force of my argument. ‘The diary is
not missing,’ he said reluctantly. ‘It never was. But there are pages that have
been removed.’

‘I’d worked that out for myself,’ I said wryly. ‘So what’s
so unusual about pages removed? They doubled as memo slips. Memo slips are
meant to be removed.’

‘But not the carbons. All the pages from last week, the week
Wilson Bibby stayed in Stockholm, have been removed, carbons included. They
were torn out by someone in a hurry.’

‘From what Aaron Vandenberg said, you can get them from the
Swedish Minister.’

He paused. ‘Maybe not the final page.’

‘Aaron has a copy,’ I said, wondering if he’d missed this
point.

He nodded, saying nothing.

‘Inspector, do you think Aaron and Marcellus are involved in
something illegal? And it’s on that last page?’

‘If it is, Miss Stewart, then Wilson Bibby would have been
involved too. It is his diary.’

‘I suppose.’ I sat back. ‘There’s something else I should
tell you. I spoke with Aaron Vandenberg earlier, before I went to the church.
He told me he’d flown down that morning from Stockholm.’

‘What time did you speak to him?’

‘A little before eight o’clock.’

‘Then he cannot have. The first plane from Stockholm to
Kiruna is not till ten-thirty. He could have chartered a plane – I can easily
check – but, even so, it contradicts what he said to Marcellus about staying in
Kiruna since Monday.’

‘What do you think’s going on with the two of them?’

‘I have no idea, Miss Stewart.’

‘But you know that this diary is important. Otherwise you
wouldn’t have asked me to keep quiet about it.’

‘I asked you to keep quiet, because it
may
be
important.’ After a silence, he said, ‘Miss Stewart, did you look into Wilson
Bibby’s room in the morning that his body was discovered?’ He was watching me,
his eyes steady. ‘You seem surprised by the question. I cannot think why – I
understand half the guests in the Icehotel took a good look at the corpse.’

I shifted in the chair.

‘Did you notice anything unusual?’ he said.

‘About the room?’

‘About the corpse. Apart from the fact that Wilson Bibby was
not wearing his snowsuit.’

I cast my mind back to the scene. At the time, something had
seemed wrong. I couldn’t put my finger on it then, and I couldn’t now.

‘There was something else he was not wearing, Miss Stewart.
There was no locker key around his wrist.’ He waited for the information to
sink in. ‘We checked every inch of his room – we even sifted the snow – but we
could not find it. And we know that he used the locker because there are
witnesses who not only saw him leave his clothes there, but saw him use his
key.’

‘I take it he hadn’t left it in the lock.’

‘In the end, we forced the locker. All his effects were
there, according to Marcellus, the money, the credit cards.’ He paused. ‘It was
Marcellus who drew our attention to the diary. He was looking through it, and
discovered that some pages had been torn out.’

‘He volunteered this information?’

‘He was very helpful.’

I felt like saying, ‘Then why were you giving him such a
hard time when you interviewed him?’ But I said nothing; from what I’d
overheard in the church, Marcellus wasn’t exactly squeaky clean.

‘How would you account for the missing locker key, Miss
Stewart?’

‘Wilson dropped it on the way to his room?’

‘We combed the entire Icehotel.’

I recalled the anxiety in Marcellus’s voice when he told
Aaron the pages were missing. ‘Did Marcellus tell you he needs those pages
found?’

‘You understand, Miss Stewart, that I cannot divulge the
nature of my conversations with other people.’ He smiled. ‘However, thanks to
your information, we can now trace those pages.’

Then Marcellus couldn’t have told Hallengren he could get
them from the Minister. So he hadn’t been entirely helpful. But it was the last
page that seemed important. Yet something told me that Hallengren would never
find it. I pictured the scene: Aaron coolly blowing cigarette smoke into
Hallengren’s face, denying all knowledge of the pages, laughing to himself
because the last one was in an offshore bank vault.

‘Tell me what you’re thinking, Inspector.’

‘You know I cannot do that.’

‘Then I’ll tell you.’

‘Go on,’ he said softly.

‘Wilson Bibby never let that diary out of his sight, so he
would have taken care with the locker key. You’ve turned the Icehotel upside
down, but you haven’t found it. Ergo, someone must have stolen it. Someone who
wanted those pages removed.’

He leant back, and folded his arms across his chest.

‘Someone removed the key from Wilson’s wrist,’ I went on,
‘opened the locker, and tore out the pages. They replaced the diary and secured
the locker. But, they didn’t re-attach the key to Wilson’s wrist.’

‘And why would that be, Miss Stewart?’

It was difficult to think under Hallengren’s gaze. ‘He’d be
taking a great risk removing it in the first place – Wilson could have woken,
after all – so he might not think it worth the risk to return it.’

Hallengren said nothing, but a smile had formed on his lips.

‘He wouldn’t dare keep it. He’d walk onto the ice and throw
it into the water, or bury it in a drift.’

He seemed to be enjoying himself. ‘Why did he not just leave
it in the lock?’

‘Because, in the morning, Wilson would see it in the lock
and remember he hadn’t left it there. He’d raise merry hell and call the
police.’ I shrugged. ‘Actually, whether the thief left the key in the lock, or
disposed of it, either way Wilson would notice it was no longer on his wrist.
He’d check the locker and find the diary pages missing. Unless – ’

The smile had vanished.

‘Unless whoever removed the pages knew he was already dead,’
I said slowly.

Hallengren raised an eyebrow. ‘So, why did he not replace
the key around Wilson’s wrist? He was dead, after all. By not doing so, the
thief forced us to scrutinise the locker. If he had replaced the key, Marcellus
may not have discovered the missing pages for some time, possibly not till he
returned to the States. That delay may have given the thief an advantage.’

I thought rapidly. ‘It can only be because he couldn’t
return it. He was prevented from getting back to Wilson’s room. Someone may
have talked to him in the Locker Room. Or – ’ My breath came out in a rush.
‘There was a crowd that morning. The thief might have opened the locker shortly
before Karin and Marita arrived. He’d seen Wilson was dead, and taken the key.
But his timing was out. With the crowd there, it was too late to return it.’

From his demeanor, I suspected he agreed with me. ‘If
someone had wanted to remove pages from Wilson’s diary, Miss Stewart, the
Icehotel afforded an ideal opportunity. The rooms have no doors. Anyone can
creep in under cover of darkness and steal.’

‘But why not take the whole diary? Why just tear out pages?’

‘I can think of a number of reasons. Disposing of a complete
diary, especially one as thick as Wilson’s, would be time-consuming. A few
pages, on the other hand, can be flushed down a lavatory. My guess is that
those pages were destroyed well before Wilson’s body was discovered.’ He rubbed
his chin. ‘Whoever stole the key must be familiar with the contents of the
diary.’

Yet who would know what was in it? Some of Wilson’s business
associates, definitely. But who else?

‘Inspector, who do you think did it? And why?’

He lifted his arms and let them drop. ‘Who knew that Wilson
would be coming to the Icehotel?’

‘Oh everyone. Half the guests, anyway.’

He looked surprised. ‘Everyone? Everyone was remarkably
quick to tell me they had never heard of him.’

Brilliant. More interviews. That was going to make me Miss
Popularity.

His expression hardened. ‘Can you tell me who these people
are?’

I hesitated.

He picked up a pen. ‘I am waiting, Miss Stewart.’

‘Mike Molloy knew.’ After a pause, I said quietly, ‘And
Harry.’

‘And Miss Hallam?’

‘She didn’t even know who Wilson was, let alone that he’d be
coming here.’ I cleared my throat. ‘And, of course, the reporters will have
known.’

‘Will they?’ he said softly. ‘I doubt that.’ His eyes held
mine. ‘Miss Stewart, apart from the missing locker key, did anything else in
the room strike you as odd?’

‘Something did, but I can’t think what.’

A look crossed his face, a look that said he’d seen it too
and knew what it signified. But he wasn’t going to tell me.

‘Well, Miss Stewart,’ he said finally, ‘I do not need to
remind you that what has passed between us must stay within these four walls.’
He frowned. ‘You have not told your friends about overhearing the
conversation?’

‘I’ve come straight from the church. I’ve told no-one.’

‘Please keep it that way.’ He smiled. ‘If you stumble across
anything that might be useful, by all means come to see me. But do not go
seeking it out. However tempting, please do not play detective. We are well paid
to do that.’

I glared at him, my resentment rising at his patronising
manner. And after all the information I’d given him . . .