The Long Shadow (8 page)

By the slip-road to Istán the motorway made a broad sweep towards the sea. There were more houses. She thought she should probably turn off soon and try to find a hotel. At the next moment she saw one to her left. ‘HOTELPYR.com,’ she read on the sign that stood out
against the sky. She turned off towards a bullfighting arena.

The Pyr was in the middle of Puerto Banús. She got a corner room on the third floor with a glorious view of the motorway.

‘Do you know something called
lackanyarda
?’ she asked the receptionist.

‘La Cañada? It’s a shopping centre. It’s huge, on the way to Málaga. You can’t miss it. Turn off towards Ojén.’

Ah, she thought. The thing that looked like Kungens Kurva. It was half past one. She went back out to the car.

Naturally, she missed the turning. She saw the development flash past on her left just as she realized she’d gone too far. After a moment of panic she managed to avoid ending up back on the toll motorway. She searched the jungle of incomprehensible Spanish advertising slogans, road signs and electronic messages for a slip-road that would let her turn round and head back the way she had come. She found one just after the Costa del Sol hospital.

It was only as she was pulling into the jam-packed car park at the shopping centre that she noticed her shoulders were hunched somewhere near her ears. She forced them down into their normal position, squeezed the car past a British-registered Jaguar and parked beside the exit.

Inside, the mall was thick with people. On the flight, she had read in the guidebook that the days before
el día de Reyes
, Epiphany, were among the busiest shopping days of the year. Most Spanish children didn’t get their Christmas presents until Twelfth Night, and it looked like every single last-minute gift in southern Spain had to be bought here.

The temperature was the same inside as out, she
noted, as she headed across the polished granite floor. The sun was shining through the glass ceiling several floors above, reinforcing her impression that she was still outdoors. She was forced forward by the flow of people, past exactly the same shops as there were in the shopping centres back home: Mango, Zara, Lacoste and Swatch. She found a floor-plan and realized she was standing by the entrance to H&M. She couldn’t see anyone who looked like a policeman in the mass of people, so she stood with her back to the plate-glass window to avoid being trampled.

In front of her a huge Christmas tree reached up towards the roof, its bright green giving away that it was plastic. Christmas baubles, two metres across, hung from the beams in the roof, and a few palms leaned against a concrete pillar. They were so ugly that she presumed they must be real.

‘Annika Bengtzon?’

There were two of them, and their appearance screamed plain-clothes Scandinavian police. One was very fair, the other ash-blond; they were both wearing jeans and comfortable shoes, and were very fit, exuding the confidence that only men in positions of unquestionable authority possessed.

She shook their hands with a smile.

‘We’re in a bit of a hurry,’ Knut Garen said, ‘but there’s a tapas bar upstairs with an excellent view of the car park.’

His colleague introduced himself as Niklas Linde, sounding as if he was from northernmost Norrland.

They took the escalator up and pushed their way to a window table where, as promised, they were treated to a magnificent view of ten thousand cars.

‘Thanks for taking the time to see me,’ Annika said, putting her pen and notepad on the table.

‘Well,’ Knut Garen said, ‘this is the way it works. All contact between the Spanish police and the Swedish authorities has to go through us. We co-ordinate communication.’

‘To begin with, I was wondering if you know of a good interpreter,’ Annika said. ‘Preferably Swedish to Spanish, but someone who can translate from English would be fine.’

‘You don’t speak Spanish?’ Garen said.

‘
No mucho
,’ Annika said. ‘
Comprendo un poquito
.’

‘Carita,’ Niklas Linde said. ‘She’s Swedish, lives with her family down here, works with translations and stuff when she’s not interpreting. I’ll give you her number.’

Garen took out his mobile. ‘This whole business with the Söderströms is just tragic,’ he said, as he looked up the interpreter’s number in his phonebook. ‘Breakins involving gas have been getting more and more common, but we’ve never seen one go so badly wrong before. Here you are, Carita Halling Gonzales.’

She jotted down the woman’s landline and mobile numbers. ‘Will you be working on the case?’ she asked.

‘The Spanish police will be in charge of the investigation,’ Linde said. ‘We’re not actually operational here.’

‘We’re working on a different case at the moment,’ Garen said. ‘You might have reason to write something about that in the future. Greco and Udyco seized seven hundred kilos of cocaine from a warehouse in La Campana last week, and we think there’s a Swedish connection.’

‘Greco?’ Annika said.

‘The specialist Spanish unit that deals with narcotics and organized crime. We work with them a lot.’ He glanced at his watch.

‘I’ve got a few general questions about crime down here,’ Annika said. ‘I’ve read that the Costa del Sol is
also known as the Costa del Crime. Is that an exaggeration?’

‘Depends how you look at it,’ Garen said. ‘There are four hundred and twenty criminal organizations here, involved in everything from growing hash and smuggling cocaine to car theft, people-trafficking and illegal gambling. It’s estimated that there are about thirty contract killings in Málaga alone each year. The sex industry is huge, employing more than forty thousand people. There are at least a hundred known brothels.’

‘How common is the use of gas in break-ins?’

‘Extremely,’ Linde said. ‘The victims are often foreigners, as well as rich Spaniards, of course. It’s believed that the gangs identify their victims at the airport, follow them to their villas or apartments, then knock them out with gas when they’re asleep. There’ve been cases of people waking up to find their homes stripped bare, including the rings from their fingers. It often leaves them in a very bad way, and I don’t just mean the effects of the gas.’

‘Can I quote you on that?’

‘Of course,’ he said, ‘but not by name. I’m fairly incognito here.’

She let her gaze linger on him: what exactly was his role? ‘And I understand that Swedes have been the victims of gassings before this,’ she said.

‘We have a hundred or so Swedish cases each year,’ Garen said, waving over another dish of
jamón serrano
.

‘What do you think about this particular break-in?’ she asked.

The police officers looked at each other.

‘I mean,’ Annika said, ‘didn’t they have a gas detector? I’ve heard that everyone in Nueva Andalucía has one, these days.’

‘There are indications that this wasn’t an ordinary gas attack,’ Linde said.

‘I don’t know if we should …’ Garen said.

Linde leaned across the table and lowered his voice. ‘The victims weren’t in bed when they were discovered,’ he said. ‘The woman was lying dead behind a door, and the man was found across a desk. The gas detector had been set off, and that probably woke them up. Someone switched it off.’

‘And the children?’ Annika said.

‘They were on the landing outside their parents’ bedroom. Their grandmother, a pensioner, was the only one found in bed. Maybe she couldn’t move too well, we don’t know.’

Annika was thinking hard. She didn’t bother asking about details like the victims’ names and ages – the news agencies would have that sort of thing. ‘How did the gas get inside the house?’

‘Through the ventilation unit at the back of the building. The thermostats in the house were set at twenty degrees and it was cold last night, no more than eight, nine degrees. When the temperature outside fell, the heating came on and the whole house was gassed at the same time.’

Annika looked down at her notes. ‘This might sound like a strange question,’ she said, ‘but what was the man doing on the desk?’ She couldn’t bring herself to say his name.

‘The desk was right under the air-vent,’ Linde said. ‘When he was found, there was a duvet beside him. It looks like he noticed the gas pouring into the house and tried to stop it with the bedclothes, which makes this case even more unusual.’

He fell silent, and the two policemen looked at each other.

‘What?’ Annika said. ‘Why?’

‘Normal knock-out gases, like hexane, isopropanol and carbon dioxide, are invisible,’ Linde said. ‘If any of those had been used, he wouldn’t have been able to see it.’

She made a note of the gases, guessing at their spelling. ‘So this time something else was used? What?’

Linde shook his head. ‘It must have been stronger than normal, seeing as it killed them when they were awake and trying to escape, and it was probably visible. Like mist or smoke.’

Annika shuddered. ‘So they died pretty quickly?’

‘Well, they were paralysed more or less instantaneously.’

‘The children too?’

The policemen didn’t answer, and Annika could feel nausea rising in her throat. Was there anything else she needed to know? ‘Who found them?’ she asked, shuffling through her notes as she tried to suppress the urge to throw up.

‘The cleaner. She worked there five days a week and had her own key.’

‘And she definitely wasn’t the one who gassed them?’

‘If she’d wanted to rob them, she could have done it last week when the family was away in Florida for Christmas.’

‘So things were stolen as well?’

‘Everything of value. The safe’s missing. The thieves, or killers, rather, smashed down the wall that the safe was cemented into and took it with them, presumably unopened. All the artwork’s missing, along with computers, televisions and other electronic equipment, as well as any jewellery and cash. It looks like they took their time.’

‘What does “took their time” mean?’ Annika asked.

‘At least twenty minutes for the safe, and the same again for the rest of the job.’

‘Any idea what time of night it happened?’

‘The killers got into the house at three thirty-four.’ Annika’s eyes widened. ‘How do you know?’

‘That’s when the alarm on the gate was disconnected.’

‘“Disconnected”?’ Annika said. ‘Did they cut the power? Pull out the cables?’

Garen looked at his watch again. ‘The only explanation I can come up with is that the killers knew the code,’ he said, standing up.

Annika remained sitting at the table after the police officers had left and took her phone out of her bag. She began with Carita Halling Gonzales’s home number.

No answer.

She dialled the mobile number, and a woman’s voice answered: ‘
Sí, díga?
’

‘Carita Halling Gonzales?’ She could hear children shouting in the background.

‘
Soy yo.
’

‘My name’s Annika Bengtzon. I was given your name by Knut Garen. I’m a reporter on the Swedish
Evening Post
, and I could do with an interpreter for a few days. Is it right that you interpret from Swedish to Spanish?’

‘Will you please be quiet?’ she said, away from the phone, and the children’s laughter died down. ‘Yes, I’m an interpreter, but things are a bit crazy today. I mean, it’s Twelfth Night tomorrow … No! Listen to me!’

Annika pressed the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger and tried to summon some patience. She ought to have asked for some other names.

‘What sort of job is it?’ Carita Halling Gonzales asked.

‘
Está libre?
’

Annika looked up and saw three fat women pointing hopefully at the empty chairs round her table.

‘
No
,’ Annika said, lowering the phone. ‘
No libre
.’

The women started to sit down regardless.

‘
No libre!
’ Annika roared, waving her hands. The women glared at her indignantly and made their way towards the other end of the bar.

When in Spain, speak as the Spaniards do, she thought, and raised her phone again.

‘I’m here looking into a number of deaths,’ she said. ‘A Swedish family, a Sebastian Söderström, his wife and children. Maybe you’ve heard about it.’

‘Goodness, yes,’ Carita said. ‘I only found out this morning. It’s awful. We’ve been expecting something like this to happen – there’ve been so many break-ins using knock-out gas down here.’

Annika was making notes to help her remember the quote. ‘Did you know the family?’

‘The Söderströms? No, I can’t say I did, really. I’d met them, of course. Our children go to the same school.’

‘Which one?’

‘Marbella International College. What would the job entail?’

Annika scratched her head. She didn’t like travelling, and had always avoided it as far as she could. She’d never worked with an interpreter before. ‘My Spanish is too poor for me to make myself understood,’ she said, ‘and I’ve never been here before. I need help with the most basic things, talking to people and finding my way to where I want to go.’

‘I’ll check with Nacho,’ she said, ‘if I can get hold of him. He’s probably got patients now, of course.’

‘Nacho?’ Annika said.

‘My husband. He’s a paediatrician. Can I call you back?’

Annika leaned back in her chair and put her mobile on the table. She ought to ring Patrik, even though there was no point. She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the wall. She really was horribly tired. When the alarm-clock had gone off at three fifteen that morning she had almost thrown up. Now she felt her neck relax as her head lolled to one side and her chin dropped. Her entire body was heavy with sleep and she sat up with a start, blinked several times, then picked up her mobile again.

Patrik answered at once, of course.

‘I’m doing a couple of pieces,’ she said. ‘I’m writing the details of the gassing – I’ve got quite a lot of new information. I’ve spoken to a mother who’s got kids in the same school, and I’m going to do a piece about the family and their lives here as well.’

She held her breath in the hope of avoiding the clichéd ‘Idyll in crisis’ piece.