The Spring Tide (23 page)

For a long time, not moving.

She felt how the worry grew in her chest, the stinging sensation in her stomach, how it became hard to breathe. For every new question, the pressure increased. Was he alive when she started to drive? Had she done it with her car? Did I kill Elvis? Questions that would pain her for a long time to come.

She knew that.

Deep inside, she knew whose fault it all was. It wasn’t hers. It wasn’t her who had put Elvis under the bonnet. It was the bastards who’d been sent by Jackie Berglund.

She hated that woman!

And noticed that it helped a little. To direct her hate and despair towards an actual person. An old luxury whore!

She left the window, wrapped herself in a blanket, held a cup of hot tea in her hand, went into the bedroom and sank down against the headboard. On the bedspread, she had laid out all the photos of Elvis that she could find. There were quite a lot. She touched them. One by one, and it lessened the shock a little. Then the thought hit her.

Hard.

What would they kill next time?

And she continued.

Her?

It was time to drop this.

Enough was enough. Now she would abandon the beach case. There were limits, and that limit was Elvis.

Olivia sat up on the bed and put the cup down. Just as well to get it over with, she thought. That extremely tough telephone call that she must make. Just as well to do it before I break down totally.

The call to her mum.

‘Oh dear, dear!’

‘Yes, I know, it’s really hard to face,’ said Olivia.

‘But how could you leave a window open when he’s alone at home?’

‘I don’t know, I just forgot it, he has sneaked out before, and…’

‘But then he’s been down in the yard, hasn’t he?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you’ve had a look down there? A proper look?’

‘Yes.’

‘Have you reported it to the police?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good. It really is a pity, darling, but I’m sure he’ll come back soon! Cats can stay away for many days!’

Olivia burst into tears the second she ended the conversation. She just couldn’t hold herself together any longer. She had managed to tell her mum the only reasonable version she could think of. That Elvis had disappeared. It just felt simply impossible to tell her what had really happened, and it would have led to thousands of follow-up questions concentrated in a single one.

‘Did you kill him with your car?’

She didn’t want to hear that question. Not from mum. She couldn’t cope with that. So it ended up with a big fat white lie and they would both have to live with that. Elvis would be a missing cat and she would mourn losing him.

A sort of family secret.

She huddled up with all the cat photos around her on the bed and sobbed in sorrow.

MISSING COMPANY DIRECTOR FOUND MURDERED

The news about the murder of Nils Wendt hit the headlines. At the time of his disappearance he was a partner with Bertil Magnuson in their jointly owned company Magnuson Wendt Mining. There had been speculation that the disappearance had been caused by a conflict between the two major owners. Even whether Magnuson himself was involved in Wendt’s disappearance. But nothing was clarified.

Then.

Perhaps it would be now.

And naturally there were new speculations today. As to whether the murder could be linked to today’s MWM. And where Nils Wendt had been all these years. After all, he had been missing since 1984.

And was suddenly found murdered.

In Stockholm.

Bertil Magnuson had sunk down on a cane armchair in one of the sitting areas in the Sturebadet spa. He had just spent twenty minutes in the steam room and felt nice and tender. On the glass table beside him lay a pile of newspapers. All with some amount, large or small, of coverage on the Nils Wendt murder. Bertil scrutinized every article, to see if there was any mention at all in any paper about where Wendt had been living before he turned up in Stockholm. But he couldn’t find anything. Not even any speculation. What Wendt had done between 1984 and today was still unknown. Nobody knew where he had been living.

Bertil ran his hands along his towelling dressing gown. He had a glass of cold mineral water by his side, misted up, he was pondering his situation. He had just got rid of an acute
three-day
problem and got a first of July problem instead. A bit more time. But still. Time went quickly when the trigger was cocked.

Suddenly, Erik Grandén came in, he too was wearing a white towelling dressing gown.

‘Hi Bertil. I heard that you’d be here.’

‘Are you going to the sauna?’

Grandén looked around and could see that they were alone. Even so, he lowered his well modulated voice.

‘I read about Nils.’

‘Yes.’

‘Murdered?’

‘Evidently.’

Grandén sank down on the cane armchair next to Bertil. Even sitting, he was almost a head taller. He looked down at Bertil.

‘But isn’t it extremely, how should I say, unpleasant?’

‘For whom?’

‘For whom? What do you mean?’

‘You have hardly missed him, surely?’

‘No, but we were old friends after all, a long time ago, one for all.’

‘That was a very long time ago, Erik.’

‘Yes indeed, but nevertheless? Don’t you feel anything?’

‘Oh yes.’

But not in the way you think, ran through Bertil’s mind.

‘And why was he suddenly here? In Stockholm?’ said Grandén.

‘No idea.’

‘Could it have anything to do with us? With the company?’

‘Why should it?’

‘I don’t know, but in my present situation it would be extremely unsuitable if people started digging into the past.’

‘And find out that you were on the board?’

‘Any of my association with MWM. Even though there is nothing at all amiss, it can happen so easily that one thing can spill over into another.’

‘I don’t think this is going to spill onto you, Erik.’

‘Nice to hear.’

Grandén got up, took off his towelling dress gown and exposed a trim body which was almost as white as the
towelling
. At the base of his spine he had a very small blue-yellow tattoo.

‘What’s that?’ Bertil asked.

‘A budgerigar. Jussi. He flew away when I was seven. I’m going to the steam room now.’

‘Do that.’

Grandén vanished in the direction of the steam room. When the door closed behind him, Bertil’s mobile rang.

It was Mette Olsäter.

Stilton had struggled to ignore it. For quite a long time. But after yet another night of throbbing internal pains he had given up and made his way to Pelarbacken. A clinic run by Christian lay workers from Ersta Diakoni, and which was focused on the homeless.

There they established that Stilton was suffering from a few different things. However nothing so serious that it required a hospital bed. They weren’t keen on taking up a bed unless it was absolutely necessary. His inner organs hadn’t been damaged. The outer wounds were patched up. It was with a certain degree of surprise that the young doctor poked – with a rather long instrument – in the weird yellowy-brown goo that was smeared over most of the wounds.

‘What is this?’

‘Healing resin.’

‘Resin?’

‘Yes.’

‘Right, yes? Remarkable.’

‘What?’

‘Well, there has been a decidedly rapid healing of the edges of the wounds.’

‘Yes?’

What did he think? That only doctors knew anything about medicines?

‘Can you buy this anywhere?’

‘No.’

Stilton got a new and clean bandage for his head. He left the clinic with a prescription that he didn’t intend going to the chemist’s with. Out on the street, the images came back into his head. The images of bleeding cheered-on boys fighting in cages. Revolting images. He pushed the images out of his mind and thought about Mink. That little Jack-of-all-trades had actually saved his life. More or less. If he had been left lying on the ground out in Årsta the rest of the night he would have been really deep in the shit. Mink got him home, put the ointment on his wounds and covered him with a blanket.

Hope he got a lift home, Stilton thought.

‘Did he get a lift home?’

‘Who?’

‘Mink? The other night?’

Olivia had phoned when Stilton was standing in the Stockholm City Mission centre on Fleminggatan. He was trying on some new clothes. The old ones were rather covered in blood.

‘No,’ she said.

‘Why not?’

‘How are you feeling?’

‘Why didn’t he get a lift?’

‘He wanted to walk.’

Nonsense, Stilton thought. More likely they had fallen out as soon as they left the caravan. He knew what Mink could be like, and the little he had seen of Rönning told him that it wasn’t exactly her thing.

‘What do you want?’ he asked. ‘I thought we were done with each other.’

‘Do you remember when I told you in the caravan about when I was on Nordkoster, about a man who turned up there, first up by the beach and then at my cabin?’

‘Yes. And?’

Olivia told of what she had seen on a news site just ten minutes earlier. Something that had really given her quite a jolt. When she had finished, Stilton said:

‘You must tell that to the person in charge of the investigation.’

The person who was in charge of the investigation sat opposite the murdered man Nils Wendt’s former partner Bertil Magnuson in the lobby on Sveavägen, on the second floor. Magnuson had given her ten minutes. Then he was forced to rush to a meeting, he claimed. Mette Olsäter jumped straight in.

‘Have you and Wendt had any contact recently?’

‘No. Should we have?’

‘He has evidently been in Stockholm and you share a past. Magnuson Wendt Mining.’

‘We haven’t had any contact. I am extremely shocked, as you will understand, all these years I’ve thought that he… well…’

‘He?’

‘Well all sorts of ideas have crossed my mind, that he killed himself, or something happened to him, mugged perhaps, or he just disappeared.’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you know why he suddenly turned up?’

‘No. Do you?’

‘No.’

Mette observed the man in front of her. A secretary looked out and gave a little wave to Magnuson. He made his apologies and explained that, when he had time, he would of course help in every way that he could.

‘We did, after all, like you said, share a past.’

From the information office at the police headquarters, Olivia found out who was in charge of the investigation of the murder of Nils Wendt. When she tried to get in touch with Mette Olsäter, she met with a brick wall. No telephone numbers could be given to her. There was, however, a number and an office you could contact if you had any tips.

Olivia wasn’t interested in that. She phoned Stilton again.

‘I can’t get hold of the person in charge of the investigation.’

‘Who is it?’

‘Mette Olsäter.’

‘Oh, I see.’

Stilton pondered a few seconds. He knew that what Olivia wanted to say was something that Mette Olsäter needed to know. As soon as possible.

‘Where are you now?’ he said.

‘At home.’

‘Pick me up at Kammakargatan 46 in two hours.’

‘I haven’t got a car.’

‘What?’

‘It’s… there’s something wrong with the engine.’

‘OK, meet me at the terminal for the Värmdö buses then, down at Slussen.’

It was already beginning to get a bit dark when they got off the 448 bus and started to walk through a district with lovely old houses. The sign at the bus stop had said Fösabacken. This was not an area that Olivia was familiar with at all.

‘In here.’

Stilton nodded with his bandaged head. They walked down a little road with bushes on either side, a road leading down to the sea approach to Stockholm. Suddenly Stilton stopped beside a privet hedge.

‘It’s there.’

He pointed across the road towards a large old house which had seen better days. It was painted yellow and green. Olivia looked at the house.

‘Does she live there?’

‘Yes, as far as I know.’

Olivia was slightly confounded. A victim of her own
stereotype
understanding of how and where senior detective chief inspectors should live. Anywhere but in a dilapidated old mansion like this. Stilton looked at her.

‘Aren’t you going to go in then?’

‘Aren’t you coming too?’

‘No.’

Stilton wasn’t going with her. Not all the way. Olivia would have to do this herself.

‘I’ll wait here.’

Why, that he wasn’t going to explain to her.

Olivia took a few steps up to the big wooden gate and went in. Somewhat surprised, she passed all manner of weird small constructions in the large plot. They looked like
playhouses
that had run wild, with ropes hanging from them and large-meshed nets and plank paths. And all sorts of coloured lamps here and there. From a circus that had closed down? she wondered. Beside a large children’s swing, a couple of
half-naked
children played. Neither of them reacted to Olivia’s
presence. Rather hesitantly she climbed the old fan-shaped wooden steps up to the front door, and rang the bell.

There was a slight delay. It was a large house. In the end, Mette Olsäter opened the door. She had been working since early morning, got the investigation into Wendt’s murder up and running and divided the group so that they could work day and night. She would do the night shift tomorrow. Now she looked out through the door with a dismayed expression on her face. It took a few seconds, before she could get everything in place in her head. The young girl who had asked about Tom. Olivia Rönning? That’s it, and what did she want now? Asking about Tom again?

‘Hello?’ she said.

‘Hello, they wouldn’t give me your phone number at the police headquarters so I asked Tom Stilton and he took me here and…’

‘Is Tom here?’

‘Yes, he…’

When Olivia turned slightly out towards the road, Mette followed the turn. She caught a glimpse of a figure just down the road.

No more was necessary.

‘Come in!’

With a couple of rapid steps she had passed Olivia. Her
well-built
body moved surprisingly quickly across the garden and out through the gate. Before Stilton had covered many metres she had caught up with him. Now she stood in front of him. Silent. Stilton looked away. He had a habit of doing that. Mette stayed where she was, like Vera used to. After a while she put an arm under Stilton’s, turned him round and started to walk towards the gate again.

They walked along like an old couple. A tall bandaged man looking the worse for wear and a voluminous – to put it mildly – woman with a few drops of sweat on her upper lip. In through the gate. At that point Stilton stopped.

‘Who’s there?’

‘Jimi’s playing computer games with the kids, they’re upstairs, Jolene’s asleep. Mårten’s in the kitchen.’

Olivia had heeded Mette’s words and stepped inside. Into the hall, or whatever one could call it. A fairly cluttered area where she had to step over this and that to make her way to the room where the light was on. What sort of room it was, Olivia found it hard to think of the correct word. But it was large. She was after all in what had once been quite a stylish mansion. With beautiful wooden panelling on the walls and ceilings with white stucco details and strange objects here and there.

They weren’t strange to the people who had collected them, during innumerable journeys around the world. Philippine bridal crowns decorated with tiny feather-clad monkey skulls. Multi-coloured textiles from the ghettos of Cape Town. Large tubes with ground bones which sounded like spirit voices when you lifted them. Objects that one of them had taken a fancy to and thought there would be room for in the huge house. It didn’t really matter where. Here, for example, in this room.

Olivia gaped at it all.

Is this how people lived? Could you live like this? The distance to her parents’ prim terraced house in sober white out in Rotebro must be a couple of light years, at least.

She carefully navigated through the room and heard a light clatter from further in. She made her way towards the clatter, via a couple of other exotically furnished rooms which reinforced Olivia’s feeling of… well, she didn’t really know what. But there was something in the room which embraced her. Which combined the fascination with something else that she was unable to put into words.

She ended up in the kitchen.

An enormous kitchen, by her standards. Filled with strong aromas that coiled their way into her nostrils. Beside a modern gas cooker stood a plump man with straggly grey hair and an apron with a chequered pattern. He was sixty-seven and just turned towards her.