The Killer's Art (15 page)

‘Let’s just pretend that the camera isn’t here, and it’s just you and me talking,’ said Johan.

‘By all means.’

Ingrid Hasselblad didn’t move from the pose she had taken, a rigid smile on her lips.

‘OK, if you wouldn’t mind just turning to face me,’ Johan directed her, ‘and we’ll do a little practice run before we turn on the camera. Just to get in the right frame of mind.’ He signalled to Pia to start filming. ‘What did you see at the home of Egon Wallin?’

‘Earlier today I was out shopping and happened to walk past their house. That’s when several policemen came out of the Wallin storage room carrying paintings.’

‘What did the officers do with the paintings?’

‘They carried them over to a police car. The paintings were covered up, but when they placed one of them inside the car, the covering slipped off and I got a peek at it.’

‘Do you know what kind of painting it was?’

‘I’m not sure, but it looked like a Zorn.’

‘Can you describe the painting?’

‘It was of two plump women with white skin, the way they always look in a Zorn painting. There was green grass around them, and they were near a lake or a river. There was water, in any case.’

‘Have you ever noticed anything unusual going on at the Wallin house before?’

‘I’ve seen him carrying paintings in and out, but I never thought anything of it. They own an art gallery, you know. So it’s not so strange that he keeps works of art at home.’

‘Have you ever seen Monika Wallin carrying paintings?’

‘No-o-o,’ she replied hesitantly. ‘I don’t think I ever have.’

‘Is there anything else you can tell us?’

Now Ingrid Hasselblad blushed under her rouge. ‘Well, yes, there is something.’

Johan perked up. ‘What is it?’

‘That Monika, she’s been having an affair. With Rolf Sandén, who lives right next door to me.’ She nodded furtively at the wall. ‘They’ve been carrying on for several years now, meeting in the daytime when Egon was at work.’

‘Can you describe Rolf Sandén? What sort of person is he?’

‘He’s been a widower for a number of years. Oh, his wife was so nice and kind, but unfortunately she died in a car accident. Their children moved out long ago.’

‘Doesn’t he work in the daytime?’

‘He’s on a disability pension. Used to work in construction, but he injured his back. Even though he’s still a young man, only fifty. He had a big fiftieth birthday party last summer.’ She leaned forward and lowered her voice. ‘He likes playing the horses, and I’ve heard that he’s addicted to gambling.’

‘Who told you that?’ Johan was listening with interest. This was getting better and better.

‘People talk. It’s common knowledge that Rolf Sandén is a notorious gambler. Everybody knows that.’

With an effort Ingrid Hasselblad twisted around to look at Pia. ‘Shouldn’t we get started now? I think I’d better go and touch up my lipstick.’

A
s soon as Knutas returned from buying a sandwich for lunch, he could hear that Kihlgård and his colleagues from the National Criminal Police had arrived. Martin Kihlgård’s bellowing laugh was unmistakable. Loud voices and bursts of laughter issued from the conference room; it sounded like happy hour in a cocktail bar. It was always the same. As soon as Kihlgård turned up, the mood in the criminal division lightened appreciably.

No one noticed Knutas as he pushed open the door. Kihlgård was standing with his broad back to the door, and he had clearly just finished telling one of his countless stories, since everybody seated at the table was doubled over with laughter.

‘And then he went and crammed the whole thing in his mouth,’ Kihlgård went on, his voice excited as he threw out his arms. ‘Every damned crumb!’

This punchline evoked yet another burst of laughter that practically made the walls shake. Knutas deliberately surveyed the room and then discreetly tapped Kihlgård on the shoulder. The inspector’s face, when he turned around, expressed nothing but delight.

‘Hey, there you are, Knutie, old boy. How’s it going?’

Knutas almost disappeared in Kihlgård’s wide embrace. He gave his colleague an awkward pat on the back.

‘Fine. Just fine. You seem to be in top form.’

‘It’s rocking fine, as the girl said!’

Kihlgård gave another roar of laughter, and the whole investigative team joined in.

It wasn’t merely Kihlgård’s jokes that prompted laughter; everything about him was comical. His wild head of hair stuck out in all directions, as if he’d never owned a comb. He had a ruddy complexion, and he was slightly pop-eyed. He often wore brightly coloured V-neck shirts that fitted snugly around his paunch. The fact that he liked to wave his hands around when he talked and was almost always eating merely reinforced his clownish demeanour. It was hard to guess his age; he could be anywhere from forty to sixty. But Knutas happened to know that Kihlgård was three years older than himself, which made him fifty-five.

After Knutas had greeted the colleagues that Kihlgård had brought with him from Stockholm, the meeting could begin. Knutas gave his report and then cast an inquisitive glance at his colleagues from the mainland. ‘So, what do you think?’

‘There are undeniably plenty of avenues to follow up,’ began Kihlgård. ‘The part about the thefts is interesting. And they weren’t just any old paintings. He wasn’t exactly a small-time crook, was he?’

‘I wonder how long he played the role of a fence. If that was what he was doing,’ said Jacobsson.

‘It could have been going on for a long time. But I think we would have got wind of what he was up to,’ said Knutas, sounding worried.

‘To think that he dared keep the paintings in a storage room,’ said Wittberg. ‘Isn’t that odd? The place could have burned down or something else might have happened. Somebody could even have broken in and stolen them.’

‘Maybe it was just a temporary hiding place for those particular paintings. An exception,’ said Norrby.

‘But why did he still have them in his possession when he was so careful about all the other preparations? With the moving and everything else?’ wondered Jacobsson.

‘He was probably planning to sell them in Stockholm,’ Knutas suggested. ‘Presumably he had a contact over there.’

‘Did he have a computer?’ asked Kihlgård.

‘Of course,’ said Knutas. ‘Both at home and at the gallery. We searched his house today, so we’ll be going through his computer files.’

‘The sale of the gallery must have stirred up a lot of emotions, both for his wife and the employees. How did they react? Not to mention the fact that he’d sold it to that Sixten Dahl.’

‘Monika Wallin seemed quite unmoved by the sale of the gallery when I talked to her,’ said Knutas. ‘But of course she could have been just putting on a show. We’ll need to investigate the matter further. And we’ll have to ask for more help from Stockholm with finding anyone else who was working with him. Plus we need to search the flat that Wallin was planning to move into.’

‘Yes, he must have had good contacts in Stockholm,’ muttered Kihlgård. ‘Doesn’t his wife know anything about that?’

‘Not according to what she’s told us so far,’ said Knutas curtly. He was annoyed that he hadn’t thought to ask the widow more questions when he interviewed her. ‘We’ll need to talk to her again.’

‘What about the guests at the gallery opening?’ Kihlgård went on. ‘Do you have a list of who was invited?’

‘Yep, I’ve taken care of that,’ said Jacobsson, holding up a big piece of paper. ‘I’ve divided them into three groups. The first column lists all those who received an invitation. The second column shows the names of those who were invited and actually came. The third lists other guests, meaning those people the employees could remember coming to the opening without an invitation.’

‘Are there any interesting names?’

‘Absolutely. A couple of well-known art dealers from Stockholm. And we know that Wallin had business dealings with both of them. Hugo Malmberg, who has a gallery in Gamla Stan, and of course Sixten Dahl, whom we already know,’ said Jacobsson. ‘He was supposed to be interviewed this morning, but we haven’t yet heard from Stockholm how it went. Regardless, he’s of particular interest because he was competing with Egon for the Lithuanian artist, and also because he bought the gallery here in Visby, using a front man.’

‘I suppose you’ll want to bring those two over here and interview them yourselves?’ Kihlgård cast an enquiring glance at Knutas as he tore open
a bag of sweets: Ahlgren’s foam cars. There was a pause before Knutas answered. ‘Not at the moment.’

‘Considering that Egon Wallin was secretly planning to move to Stockholm, and he was also dabbling in stolen paintings, don’t you think it’s highly interesting that two art dealers from Stockholm would come to the gallery on the very day that Wallin was murdered?’ Kihlgård tossed a handful of foam cars into his mouth.

Knutas could feel himself growing more and more irritable. He couldn’t be in the same room as Kihlgård for five minutes before the man began to infuriate him. ‘That’s something we’ll have to consider eventually. But right now I think it’s important to hear back from Stockholm about the interview with Sixten Dahl.’

He gathered up his papers and got to his feet, indicating that the meeting was over.

Knutas needed some fresh air.

H
is stomach was growling with hunger. It was late, well past lunchtime. The dry sandwich that Knutas had bought had done nothing to quell his hunger pangs, but right now he had no time to think about trivial matters like food. He needed to interview Mattis Kalvalis and his manager before they returned to Lithuania.

In the lavatory he splashed some water on his face and popped a mint in his mouth.

When he came down to the reception area, they were already there waiting for him. He hadn’t met the artist before, just seen a photo of him. Mattis Kalvalis looked out of place in police headquarters, to say the least.

The most extraordinary thing about him was his hair: it was black except for his fringe, which had been dyed neon-green. From one ear hung a long chain, and he was dressed in red leather trousers and a jacket of the same bright green as his fringe. With this peculiar attire he wore a pair of light-blue high-top trainers that reminded Knutas of the kind he used to wear as a kid.

Mattis’s manager, who was sitting next to him, was the polar opposite. He looked like a Russian miner with his burly body and rough features. He was dressed in a fur cap with ear flaps and a puffy, dark-blue down jacket. His palm felt sweaty when Knutas shook hands with him.

In stumbling English, Knutas offered a few words of greeting and then led the way up to the criminal division. Luckily the meeting of the investigative team was over, so he found Jacobsson and Kihlgård at the coffee machine. He motioned for Karin to join him.

Both of the Lithuanians declined a cup of coffee as they sat down on the visitors’ sofa in Knutas’s office. Knutas allowed Jacobsson, who spoke excellent English, to conduct the interview while he listened and observed the two men sitting opposite him. It was actually an advantage to play the role of observer. He’d be able to see every change of expression that the questions might produce and notice if the person being interviewed looked shifty-eyed.

Jacobsson began by switching on the tape recorder and giving the usual introductory information.

‘Can I smoke?’ asked the artist as he dug a cigarette out of a crumpled pack in his jacket pocket.

‘I’m afraid not.’

The gaunt, eccentric-looking man paused with the cigarette halfway to his lips. Then he stuffed it back into the pack without changing expression.

Jacobsson studied the handsome features of his young, pale face, which was marred by deep furrows. There were dark shadows under his eyes. Mattis Kalvalis looked as if he hadn’t slept in several days. He seemed uncomfortable as he sat there on Knutas’s sofa, crowded up next to his corpulent manager.

After asking the standard questions to establish the identity of the interviewees, Jacobsson turned to the artist.

‘How well did you know Egon Wallin?’

Kalvalis hesitated before answering.

‘Hmm, not very well. He was easy to talk to, on a professional level, but we’d met only a few times.’ ‘Where did you first meet?’

‘It must have been a year ago,’ he said, glancing at his manager, who nodded in agreement. ‘Yes, that’s right. It was last spring in Vilnius. He was attending some sort of conference, I think.’

Again he looked at the man sitting next to him. His manager pursed his lips and nodded.

‘How did you happen to meet?’

‘We were seated at the same table at a dinner arranged by the Society
for the Promotion of Lithuanian Artists. He’d seen my work. I had a show at a small gallery in Vilnius at the time, and he said that he liked what I did. The next day we met for lunch, and he offered to be my agent here in Scandinavia.’

‘And you accepted at once?’

‘No, of course not. I was actually getting a lot of attention from that exhibition, which was my first, and there was a bunch of PR in the newspapers. I had offers from all over, but Egon Wallin’s was the best.’

That caught Knutas’s attention. He wondered how Egon Wallin could have beaten the other agents so easily. He scribbled a few words in his notebook.

‘What exactly did he offer you?’ Jacobsson fixed her gaze on Mattis Kalvalis. Her eyes were just as dark as his.

‘He wanted to sell my work over here, and he would take twenty per cent.’

‘Why was that such a good deal?’

‘Everybody else wanted to take twenty-five per cent. And besides, he seemed to have good contacts.’

Kalvalis smiled briefly. At the beginning of the interview he had acted very nervous, but now he seemed to be relaxing.

‘That certainly seems to be the case, considering it was your first show here,’ said Jacobsson. ‘As I understand it, nearly everything was sold.’

‘That’s right.’

‘And the publicity has been great,’ his manager interjected, speaking for the first time. ‘Mattis has been in every major newspaper this weekend, and commissions for more paintings have been pouring in. Egon Wallin was a good man to work with; we could tell that right from the start. Now we don’t know what’s going to happen.’