The Long Shadow (10 page)

‘Somewhere there are plenty of Swedes who’d be happy to talk to a reporter from one of the Stockholm evening papers,’ Annika said.

‘La Garrapata restaurant or the Los Naranjos clubhouse,’ Carita declared. ‘Left here, then.’

Annika pulled out but the interpreter put a warning hand on her arm. ‘Watch out,’ she said, pointing at a red Land Rover approaching from the right. ‘That looks like a Brit and they’re lethal. They always look the wrong way at roundabouts. They’re used to driving on the left.’

Sure enough, the driver pulled out in front of Annika without looking in her direction. Annika braked hard and blew the horn, and the driver of the other vehicle gave her the finger.

‘Their driving doesn’t get any better when they’ve been drinking wine all day long,’ Carita said. ‘Turn right here. The golf club or the restaurant?’

‘Preferably not the golf club,’ Annika said.

She recalled Sven’s description of golf: ‘The easiest sport in the world, hitting a ball that isn’t moving.’

The interpreter guided her through winding roads past
several golf courses, massive villas and huge apartment complexes. In one way or another they all bore similarities to the Söderström family home. Nothing understated or tasteful. Annika stared in fascination at a four-storey building in gold and white that looked like a birthday cake – there was an entrance from a road above it, which meant you could park in the attic. Next door there was a pistachio-green house with a pink roof and five gold onion domes.

‘Is this what south California looks like?’ Annika asked.

‘The flashier parts of Los Angeles,’ Carita said. ‘I grew up in Beverly Hills. This is the closest we get to the USA in Europe. Did the police say anything else about the break-in? Have they got any leads?’

Annika realized that she hadn’t actually asked them, which was ridiculously sloppy. ‘Nothing they wanted to tell me about,’ she said. ‘What sort of people are we likely to see at the restaurant?’

Carita thought for a moment. ‘Ordinary,’ she said. ‘Some who got fed up with the Swedish climate, a few who moved here for their children’s sake, and others who’ve sold their businesses and spend their time drinking wine or playing golf. What’s the ground clearance on this car, by the way? Oh, well, it’s probably okay. Head down to the riverbed.’

Annika stopped the car. ‘What?’

‘Down into the river. There’s cement at the bottom. That way we won’t have to fight our way up to the N340. There are terrible hold-ups at this time of day because of the roadworks.’ She saw the sceptical look on Annika’s face. ‘It’s not deep.’

Annika drove cautiously over the edge, through a clump of reeds and down onto the riverbed. Sure enough, the water was only a few centimetres deep. She
followed the river for a few dozen metres and emerged on the other side of the motorway.

‘You do seem to be building an awful lot of new roads,’ Annika said, looking at the dormant roadworks in the rear-view mirror.

‘The N340? New? It was built by the Romans and has hardly had any work done on it ever since. Okay, here we are. You can park.’

‘On the pedestrian crossing?’ Annika asked, but Carita was already out of the car.

They were in an older residential area with chalk-white terraced houses. Annika picked up the camera and flash and followed her towards the restaurant.

‘La Garrapata,’ Annika read, from the sign above the entrance, where the menu was given in three languages: Swedish, English and Finnish. ‘Does the name mean anything special?’

Carita was adjusting her hair. ‘“Tick”. Why anyone would want to name a restaurant after a blood-sucking insect is beyond me, but they did.’

La Garrapata was a modest establishment. The glass door facing the street had an aluminium frame that rattled when you opened it. There was condensation on the inside of the windows. Carita stepped in and let out a little squeal. She set about air-kissing all sorts of people, first the right cheek, then the left, just as Jimmy Halenius had demonstrated.

The pictures couldn’t be that bad, Annika thought. It had been dark, she hadn’t noticed any flash and there certainly hadn’t been tongues.

They were in a room with about thirty tables and a bar with space for maybe twenty guests. A large screen on the wall was showing Swedish television.

‘This is Annika Bengtzon,’ Carita said. ‘She’s been sent by the
Evening Post
to write about the poor
Söderström family, and she was wondering if any of you would like to talk to her about them … Lasse, you knew Sebastian! Tell us!’

There was deathly silence. Annika felt herself blushing. This wasn’t how she usually worked. She took pride in the way she approached her interviewees, slowly but unambiguously. She always made sure to explain the purpose of the interview clearly, so that no one could feel they had been tricked into anything. They usually did anyway, because they didn’t think Annika had portrayed them generously enough.

But Lasse cleared his throat, came over to them and started to talk about his friend Sebastian, loudly and with feeling, in front of the whole restaurant.

All very un-Swedish, Annika thought, writing so fast that her arm ached.

‘Sebbe could have picked any sport,’ Lasse said. ‘He was just as good at all of them. The fact that he ended up in ice-hockey was mainly chance – he was almost as good at golf and tennis. He knew he had a gift and wanted to give something back to the world.’

Lasse sniffed, and several of the guests nodded and dabbed their eyes with napkins.

‘He wanted to do something worthwhile with his money and time,’ Lasse went on, ‘not just sit at home polishing his trophies. That’s why he got all those talented poor kids into the tennis club and why he employed Francis to train them. He’d been given the chance to develop his talent when he was young, and he wanted to give other kids the same opportunity.’

He started to cry. ‘I remember the last time we were there with Leo and My – it must have been just before Christmas. Sebbe had organized a club tournament where the winner got not only a cup and a new tracksuit but also a place at Marbella International College
until they took their International Baccalaureate exams at eighteen.’

There was a murmur among the guests and Lasse nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘a place at MIC. The girl who won was ten years old. That prize cost Sebbe a cool half-million, but he was overjoyed. “She’s great,” he said. “She’ll go far. Imagine being able to follow her progress over the years, watching how she develops, being there when she graduates …”’

Several of the women were crying too.

Annika wondered about taking out her camera, but decided to wait until the tears had dried. Who were My and Leo? The dead children?

She glanced at the time. This mustn’t take too long. She was going to have to call Niklas Linde again to ask if they had any leads on the murderers, and she had three articles to write. She also had to make sure she got to bed at a sensible hour: tomorrow was bound to be tough as well. She said, in a loud, clear voice: ‘Sebastian’s wife, did anyone know her?’

A woman with a blonde pageboy haircut and designer jeans stood up. ‘Vivve was a Swea,’ she said, ‘so we all knew her.’

Almost all the women nodded.

‘Vivve was a
svea
’: what the hell did that mean? Annika make a note in her pad and kept her eyes down to mask her confusion, waiting for the woman to go on.

‘Even though she was so busy with the children, the school and Sebastian, Vivve always made time for her committee work, and we should remember that she looked after her mother and Suzette as well whenever she was down here.’

‘Did she have a job?’ Annika asked.

The woman pursed her lips. ‘Yes, she did, but having
a job isn’t as important down here as it is up in Sweden,’ she said, then sat down.

Oops, Annika thought. I just trod on someone’s toes.

‘I appreciate that the Söderström family were well known and very popular in the Swedish colony on the coast,’ she went on, hoping that she’d expressed herself correctly. Evidently she had, because everyone murmured their agreement.

‘Veronica – Vivve – had been here ever since she was a little girl,’ said an older woman, who was sitting alone at the table closest to the kitchen, with an almost empty wine bottle in front of her.

Annika had to crane her neck to see her. ‘Did she grow up in Spain?’ she asked.

The woman fingered her glass, and her eyelids fluttered. ‘I came here at the same time as Astrid, her mother. Astrid made everyone feel happy. And Veronica was the most beautiful child you ever saw. She went on to become a model, of course …’ She seemed to lose herself in her memories.

Astrid had to be the dead mother-in-law. ‘How long had you known Astrid?’ Annika asked.

The woman refilled her glass. ‘Almost forty years. She was my bridesmaid when I married Edgar, and she sat next to me when I buried him last year. Here’s to you, Astrid!’ The woman drained her glass and Annika felt her throat tighten. She had to cough to clear it. She stood up, went over to the woman and sat down beside her. The guests took this to mean that the group interview was over and started to talk among themselves at their tables.

Annika asked the woman’s name, how old she was, and whether she could take her picture. Her name was Maj-Lis, she was sixty-nine, and happy to have her picture taken, if it was really necessary. Annika took several
using the flash, from the front, no artistic flourishes. Then she put a consoling hand on the woman’s arm before moving on to Lasse and repeating the process.

He had known Sebastian for five years. They had met when Lasse started playing tennis at Sebastian’s club, a fairly small set-up, just five courts but with a fantastic view, up in El Madroñal. Lasse’s own children were the same age as My and Leo, eight and five, but Lasse was divorced, these days, and his ex-wife had moved back to Sweden, so he only had the kids occasionally during the holidays.

The blonde woman, who was a
svea
, like Veronica, whatever it meant, didn’t seem to know the dead woman terribly well. Neither did any of the others.

Annika took pictures of some of the
sveas
, then gathered the guests together for a sad group picture. With that, she was almost done. ‘Will this tragedy affect your lives down here?’ she asked.

A large, blond man who hadn’t said anything before stepped forward. ‘I think it just emphasizes the importance of fitting a gas detector,’ he said. ‘As you all know, I sell top-class alarms in my ironmonger’s down in San Pedro, so I’d advise anyone who hasn’t already got one to fit one now. We’re open till two p.m. tomorrow.’

All of a sudden Annika felt she couldn’t take any more of this. She went to Carita, who was deep in conversation with two men in light knee-length shorts, and tapped her on the shoulder. ‘I’m done,’ she said, and the interpreter stood up at once.

They thanked everyone, waved and left the restaurant.

‘That seemed to go well,’ Carita said, when they were back in the car. ‘Where are we going next?’

‘I need to write this up,’ Annika said, starting the engine. ‘Shall I drive you home?’

‘It’s kind of you to offer, but you’d never find your way back to the hotel. Straight ahead, the Hotel Pyr is just round the corner. Anyway, my car’s in the Corte Inglés car park. Here’s the school yearbook, by the way. Just drop me off outside. I’ll invoice for the cost of the car park, if that’s okay?’

‘Sure,’ Annika said. She took the neatly bound book printed on glossy paper.

‘Oh, Veronica was a
svea.
What does it mean?’

‘She was a member of the Swedish Women’s Educational Association, Swea. They’re all over the place. One of my mum’s friends started it in Los Angeles in the late 1970s.’

‘Are you a member?’

‘I don’t have time. Turn off here.’

A minute later Annika pulled up in front of the hotel. ‘Just one more thing,’ she said. ‘Do you think the death of the Söderström family will have any effect on the lives of Swedes on the Costa del Sol?’

‘Definitely,’ Carita said. ‘Everyone will be a lot more careful after this. See you tomorrow!’

She slammed the car door and tottered off along the pavement in her high-heeled boots.

Annika let out a deep breath. ‘Everyone will be a lot more careful after this.’

There was the last quote of the day.

Darkness fell quickly. There was a faint rumble from the motorway. The bright yellow lamps lining the roadworks cast harsh shadows across the room.

Annika put her bag, the camera and the plastic bag with all her books and maps on the bed and went to close the curtains. She paused at the window to look out at the cluttered view. There was a solitary tennis court below her window. Two of the floodlights were broken,
leaving the far end in darkness. On the other side of the motorway, buildings clambered up the valley towards a massive cliff-face. Light from windows, neon signs and streetlamps glowed and shimmered in the darkness. Then the mountains took over. The Sierra Nevada lay in the distance, with twenty peaks of more than three thousand metres, and she could see the foothills standing out like black giants against the starry sky.

She opened the window. The evening was still mild.

The children would have eaten by now. They had probably sat down to watch their favourite television programme, but it would be over. Ellen had probably been on the point of falling asleep, and if she had dropped off it would be difficult to get her to sleep again in bed. Then she’d be impossible in the morning.

She closed the window, took out her phone and dialled Thomas’s number. He answered, sounding abrupt.

‘Are you in the middle of eating?’ she asked apologetically.

‘Sophia and I are having a glass of wine,’ he said. ‘The children are watching kids’ programmes. Did you want anything in particular?’

She sat on the bed and pulled her knees up under her chin. ‘I’d like to talk to them,’ she said.

He sighed theatrically, then shouted, ‘Kalle, Mum’s on the phone,’ and Annika heard her son call back, ‘But the sport’s on.’

‘You’ve got stiff competition,’ Thomas said.