The Spring Tide (33 page)

‘Yes, I was never there.’

‘Were you there any time earlier that day?’

‘No. I never set foot up there, I was staying on a luxury yacht down in the harbour and you know that, it says so in those interrogations.’

Mette proceeded calmly and methodically. She explained, teacher-like, to the very hard-skinned former escort lady that the police, with the help of DNA on a hairslide, could prove her presence on the beach where the murder took place.

‘We know you were there.’

There was silence for a few seconds. Jackie was cool and she had plenty upstairs, and she realised that she must switch strategy.

‘We had sex,’ she said.

‘We?’

‘Me and one of the Norwegians, we were up there and had sex, it must have been then I lost that hairslide.’

‘Just one minute ago you said that you had never been there. You said the same in two interrogations in 1987. Now you suddenly say that you were there?’

‘I was there.’

‘Why did you lie about it?’

‘So as not to get mixed up in that murder.’

‘When were you there to have sex with the Norwegian?’

‘In the daytime. Or perhaps towards the evening, I can’t remember, it’s more than twenty years ago!’

‘There were two Norwegians on the yacht. Geir Andresen and Petter Moen. Which one did you have sex with?’

‘Geir.’

‘So he could verify your story?’

‘Yes.’

‘Unfortunately he’s dead. We checked that just a while ago.’

‘Right. Then you’ll simply have to believe me.’

‘Will we?’

Mette looked at Jackie, just caught out with a couple of pretty hefty lies. Jackie looked just as stressed as she felt.

‘I want a lawyer,’ she said.

‘In that case we’ll end the interrogation here.’

Mette turned the tape recorder off. Jackie got up quickly and went towards the door.

‘Do you know Bertil Magnuson? The managing director of MWM?’ Mette suddenly said.

‘Why should I?’

‘He had a summer house on Nordkoster in 1987. Perhaps you bumped into him?’

Jackie left the room without answering.

Olivia had walking around restlessly in Kronoberg park. She thought it was taking ages. What were they doing in there? Would they remand her in custody? Suddenly she found herself thinking about Eva Carlsén. Ought she to tell her? It was largely thanks to Eva that she herself had clung on to the Jackie thread.

She phoned.

‘Hi! Olivia Rönning here! How are things?’

‘Fine. The headaches have gone.’

Eva gave a little laugh.

‘How are you getting on?’ Eva asked. ‘With Jackie Berglund?’

‘It’s going really great! We’ve got hold of some DNA which shows she was on the beach on Nordkoster. The same evening as the murder!’

‘We?’

‘Yes, well, I’m working together with a couple of detectives now!’

‘Come off it! Really?’

‘Yes. Jackie’s being interrogated by the National Crime Squad!’

‘Right? Gosh. So she was on the beach that evening?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s remarkable. And now have the police started up the investigation again?’

‘I don’t know, not properly perhaps, so far it’s mainly me and the guy who was in charge of the investigation back then, it’s us.’

‘Who was that?’

‘Tom Stilton.’

‘OK, so he’s taken it up again?’

‘Yes. Reluctantly!’

Now it was Olivia who laughed and just then she saw Jackie Berglund slip out from the entrance to the National Crime Squad.

‘Eva, can I call you back a bit later?’

‘Yes, do that. Bye.’

Olivia hung up and saw Jackie climb into a taxi. Just as it drove away, she saw that Jackie looked out. Straight at her. Olivia met her gaze. Cat murderer, she thought, and felt her entire body tense up. Then the taxi disappeared.

Stilton came out from the same entrance and Olivia rushed up to him.

‘How did it go? What did she say?’

On her way from the interrogation room, Mette was stopped in a corridor by a senior police commander. Oskar Molin.

‘Was that Jackie Berglund you had in there?’

‘Who’s said that?’

‘Forss saw her going in.’

‘And phoned you?’

‘Yes. And he claimed that Tom Stilton slipped past in a corridor, was he in there too?’

‘Yes.’

‘When you interrogated Jackie Berglund?’

‘Yes.’

Oskar looked at Mette. They had often worked together and had a solid respect for each other. Luckily for her, Mette thought, as this could all look rather dodgy.

‘What was the interrogation about? The murder of Nils Wendt?’

‘No, of Adelita Rivera.’

‘And who the hell is that?’ said Oskar.

‘The woman who was drowned on Nordkoster in 1987.’

‘Are you working on that?’

‘I’m helping.’

‘Helping who?’

‘Is it sensitive? With Jackie Berglund?’ said Mette.

‘No? In what way?’

‘It seemed to be in 2005, when Stilton was getting close to her.’

‘Why should it be sensitive?’

‘Because both you and I know what she does, and perhaps there’s something in her register of clients that shouldn’t be there?’

Oskar looked at Mette.

‘How’s Mårten?’ he said.

‘Fine. Do you think he’s in the register?’

‘You never know.’

They both smiled. A rather forced smile.

Oskar Molin would presumably not have smiled at all if he’d known that Mette had succeeded with what Stilton couldn’t manage in 2005. She had got a search warrant for Jackie Berglund’s place. Perhaps not entirely by the book, but Mette had her channels.

So Lisa Hedqvist went into Jackie’s flat on Norr Mälarstrand when Jackie herself was in the interrogation room. It was after all about a murder for which someone could still be prosecuted. Among other things, Lisa opened Jackie’s computer and copied all the folders onto a little USB-stick.

Oskar Molin would not have liked that.

She had been walking around Flemingsberg for hours looking for Acke. Asked all the young boys she’d met if they’d seen Acke Andersson. Nobody had seen him.

Now she was sitting in Acke’s room holding a pair of worn-out football boots in her hand. She sat on his bed. Her gaze had fastened on the broken skateboard. Acke had tried to repair it with brown tape. She dried her tears again. She had been crying in here a long time. An hour or so earlier, Mink had phoned and had nothing to report. Acke was missing. She knew that something had happened to him, she could feel it throughout her body, something to do with those fights in the cages. She saw all his bruises before her, all the wounds on his little body. Why had he done it? Fighting in cages? He wasn’t like that. Not at all! He never fought! Who had tricked him into doing it? Ovette squeezed the football boots between her thin hands. If only he’d turn up, she would buy new boots. Straight away. And go to the Gröna Lund theme park. If only he… she turned round and picked up her mobile.

She would phone the police.

The skip stood outside a building on Diagnosvägen. It contained some old stained mattresses, a partly burnt leather sofa and lots of junk from a cleared-out cellar. The girl who peered over the edge of the skip caught sight of a DVD box among the rubbish. Perhaps there’s a disk inside? With some effort, she managed to climb over the side of the skip and land on the sofa. She carefully stepped across to the DVD box. It might be empty, it might be a real find. Just as she was stretching down to pick up the case, she saw it. A bit of a little arm sticking up between some sofa cushions.

Further down the arm the letters KF had been drawn, with a ring round them.

Stilton stood outside Söderhallarna shopping gallery and sold magazines. It wasn’t going too well. He was rather exhausted. He had walked almost two hours up and down the stone steps the previous night. During most of that time he had thought about Marianne’s visit to Vera’s caravan. Now one of them was dead and the other happily married. He assumed. Before he had fallen asleep in the caravan, he had thought about Marianne’s hand on his. Was it just a gesture of sympathy?

Presumably.

He looked up towards the sky and saw how dark clouds were on their way. If it was going to start pouring, he wasn’t going to stick around here. He packed the magazines in his rucksack and moved off. Mette had just phoned and said she had to put Jackie Berglund to one side for the time being. She would get in touch if and when it was time for more interrogations.

‘Just be careful,’ she had said.

‘What?’

‘You know what Berglund’s like, now she knows who’s after her.’

‘OK.’

Stilton hadn’t told Mette about Olivia’s experience in the lift. Perhaps Olivia herself had told her? Or was it just a general warning?

When he left his pitch on Medborgarplatsen he was reminded of his hypothesis. The one he had described to Janne Klinga. That they perhaps picked out their victims here outside the shopping mall.

He was too tired to think any more about it.

He walked slowly through the last part of the forest. He was exhausted. With a long sigh, he opened the door of the caravan.
The caravan that was to be moved. But the council had not said anything since the murder so it was still there.

This evening he wasn’t going to walk up any stone steps.

The Ingenting forest isn’t really much of a forest, compared with the huge expanses of forest up in the north, but it is large enough and with plenty of rock outcrops it can easily hide a person who wants to hide. Or more than one. In this case some figures in dark clothes. They were completely hidden by the forest.

Behind a grey caravan.

Stilton pulled the door shut. Just when he was stretching out on one of the bunks, Olivia rang and wanted to talk about Jackie. Stilton was too tired.

‘I’ve simply got to kip down,’ he said.

‘Yeah, OK… but you can at least keep your mobile switched on, right?’

‘Why?’

‘Because… if anything happens.’

Had Mette been talking to her too? Stilton wondered.

‘OK. I’ll keep it turned on. We’ll be in touch.’

Stilton hung up, sank back down on the bunk and turned his mobile off. He didn’t want to be disturbed any more. The interrogation with Jackie the day before had taken a heavy toll. And being inside that building where he had spent so many successful years as a murder investigator, that had really got to him. Opened lots of old wounds. Having to sneak in there like a rat so as not to have to look any of his former colleagues in the eye.

That hurt.

He felt how raw all those wounds still were. The ones that came about when he was forced to accept that he had been removed from the case. More or less written off as a detective.
OK, he did have a psychosis. It had been anxiety hysteria, he had needed treatment. But that wasn’t the core of the problem.

According to Stilton himself.

In his opinion he had been manoeuvred out of the force.

Of course, some colleagues had supported him, but all the crap that had been talked about him behind his back – that had got worse by the day. He knew who was stoking the fire. And in an organisation where you work in close contact with each other it doesn’t take long to poison an atmosphere. A dark word here. A vague insinuation there. People who looked away, people who didn’t come near when they saw you sitting alone at a table in the canteen. In the end you simply had to give up.

If you had any pride at all.

Stilton did.

He filled a couple of boxes, had a short chat with his boss and left.

Then it was a downhill journey.

Now he slipped into an exhausted torpor on the bunk.

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door. Stilton gave a start. Another knock. Stilton supported himself on his elbows. Should he open the door? Yet another knock. Stilton swore, got up from the bunk, took a couple of steps to the door and opened.

‘Hello. My name is Sven Bomark, I’m from Solna Council.’

The man was in his forties, with a brown coat and a grey cap.

‘Can I come in?’

‘Why?’

‘To talk a little, about the caravan.’

Stilton stepped back to the bunk and sat down. Bomark pulled the door shut behind him.

‘Can I sit down?’

Stilton nodded, and Bomark sat down on the opposite bunk.

‘Are you living here now?’

‘What does it look like?’

Bomark smiled a little.

‘Perhaps you know that we need to move the caravan?’

‘When?’

‘Tomorrow.’

Bomark spoke calmly and in a friendly tone. Stilton observed his white unused indoor-hands.

‘Where are you going to take it?’

‘To a rubbish tip.’

‘To burn it?’

‘Presumably. Is there anywhere else you can live?’

‘No.’

‘You know that we’ve got a hostel in…’

‘Was there anything else?’

‘No.’

Bomark remained sitting. The men looked at each other.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Bomark and got up. ‘Can I buy one of these?’ He pointed at a little bundle of
Situation Sthlm
that lay on the table.

‘Forty kronor.’

Bomark pulled out his wallet and handed over a 50-kronor note.

‘I haven’t got any change,’ said Stilton.

‘It doesn’t matter.’

Bomark took the magazine, opened the door and disappeared out.

Stilton fell back onto the bunk. He hadn’t got the energy to think. The caravan would be got rid of tomorrow. He would be got rid of. Everything will be got rid of. He felt himself fall deeper and deeper.

The two dark figures waited until the man with the grey cap had gone. Then they sneaked up with the plank. It was a thick plank. Together they jammed it under the door handle, quietly.
One of them then put a large stone as a brake at the other end of the plank. They quickly unscrewed the top of the little can they had with them.

Stilton turned and twisted on the bunk. He felt a slight prickly sensation in his nose. He was still in a deep torpor, too tired to react. The prickliness got worse, the smell made its way deeper and deeper into his subconscious, violent fragments of fire and smoke and the screams of women passed through his drowsy brain. Suddenly he sat bolt upright

Then he saw the flames.

High yellowy-blue flames that licked the outside. Heavy, acidic smoke that started to seep inside. Stilton panicked. With a terrified scream he jumped up from the bunk and hit his head on one of the cupboards. He collapsed on the floor, managed to get up again and threw himself at the door. It didn’t open.

He screamed and threw himself at the door again.

It didn’t open.

A bit further away in the forest, the dark figures stood looking at the caravan. The thick plank against the door handle worked fine. The door was completely blocked. Besides, they had poured a proper dowsing of petrol round the caravan. The fire was literally eating its way into the walls.

A normal caravan can resist fire for quite some time, before the plastic starts to melt. A caravan in this condition turns into a blazing inferno in no time.

‘No time’ was now.

When the entire caravan was engulfed in roaring flames, the figures turned and ran off.

Into the forest and far away.

Abbas el Fassi was on his way out of the plane. There was a bit of a crush in the exit corridor and he was tired too. He still
had some pain from when he had been hit on the head. And on top of that, his body had just suffered another gruelling flight.

A very heavy attack of perspiration together with a couple of unexpected air pockets over Denmark had forced him to pull out the material under his sweater and put it inside a plastic bag. He was carrying that in his hand now. A blue plastic bag. Otherwise he had no luggage in this direction either.

He was not a man who bought a lot of things.

He had given the knives to two little boys in Mal Pais.

In the plexiglass corridor between the plane and the arrivals hall, he pulled out his mobile and rang Stilton. No reply.

As soon as he got to the end of the corridor, he was met by Lisa Hedqvist and Bosse Thyrén. He knew who they were. Together they walked into the arrivals hall. Both Lisa and Abbas pulled out their mobiles. Lisa phoned Mette and said that everything was under control. They were on their way out.

‘Where shall we go?’

Mette thought about that a couple of seconds. She considered it reasonable that Stilton should be there when Abbas showed his material from Costa Rica. It concerned the beach case to the greatest degree, she had already understood that much from Abbas’ short call between two planes. The police headquarters is not a good idea, she thought.

‘Take him to his flat on Dalagatan. We’ll meet you outside.’

Abbas talked on his mobile with Olivia.

‘Do you know where Stilton is?’

‘In the caravan?’

‘He’s not answering.’

‘Really? But he’s there, I phoned not so long ago and he was there then. He seemed very tired, I think he was going to get some sleep. But he said he’d keep his phone turned on. Perhaps he’s too tired to answer?’

‘OK. We’ll keep in touch.’

Abbas come out into the arrivals hall with Bosse and Lisa on either side. They went straight to the exit. None of them noticed the man standing by a wall and looking at the croupier from Casina Cosmopol who was just cutting across the hall. K. Sedovic pulled out his phone.

‘Is he alone?’ asked Bertil Magnuson.

‘No. He’s with a guy and a girl. Plain clothes.’

Bertil processed that information. Were they people he had met on the plane? Or people he was working with? Were they plain clothes police?

‘Follow them.’

Olivia sat in her kitchen clutching her mobile. Why hadn’t Stilton answered when Abbas phoned? He wasn’t going to turn his mobile off. Of course he would have answered when he saw that it was Abbas phoning. Had he turned it off after all? She tried to phone Stilton. No answer. Had his credit run out? But even so you ought to be able to phone him. She wasn’t quite sure how it worked.

Her imagination set to work.

Had something happened? Had he been beaten up again? Or is it that bastard Jackie Berglund? Stilton had been in the interrogation room.

She jumped up.

When she came out onto the street she was very upset and made a decision.

The Mustang!

She ran across to the residents’ parking area and stopped when she reached her car. She had very mixed feelings. She hadn’t sat in the car since that day with Elvis. Now Elvis was dead and the car was unpleasant. She had loved both of them, and now it had all changed. It wasn’t only Elvis and the car that they had taken from her, it was a bit of Dad too. But now it was
about Stilton. Something might have happened to him! She unlocked the door and sank down behind the wheel. When she put the key in and turned the ignition, she felt her whole body trembling. She forced herself to put the car in Drive and set off.

There was a natural explanation for why Stilton didn’t answer. His mobile lay like a little twisted plastic sausage in the ashes of what was once Vera Larsson’s caravan. Now transformed into a black smouldering ruin, surrounded by fire engines that were busy winding in their hoses. They had hosed water over the last burning remains and made sure nothing spread to the forest around. And they had cordoned off the area. Mainly to keep curious locals at a proper distance.

Those same curious locals who now in whispers noted that the eyesore of a caravan was no longer there.

Olivia parked her car some way away. She ran to where some trees had been cut down, and had to argue her way up to the cordon. But then she was stopped. Some uniformed police officers standing there prevented her from getting closer.

Just behind them stood two plainclothes investigators: Rune Forss and Janne Klinga

They had just arrived and noted that the site of Vera Larsson’s murder was no more.

‘Some rowdy kids out for a bit of fun…’ said Forss, thereby making Klinga face a dilemma. If he said that Stilton had moved into the caravan, he’d have to explain how he knew that. And that was something he couldn’t really explain.

Not to Forss.

‘But someone else might have moved in, after her,’ he said.

‘Possibly, the technicians will tell us that. If there was someone here when it burned then there won’t be much left to interrogate. Will there?’

‘No, but surely we must…’

‘Is there anybody in the caravan?’

It was Olivia who had pushed her way a bit closer. Forss looked at her.

‘Should there have been?’

‘Yes.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Because I know the man who lived there.’

‘Who was it?’

‘He’s called Tom Stilton.’

Klinga immediately felt he’d been let off the hook. Forss, however, was speechless. Stilton? Had he lived in this caravan? Had he died in the fire? Forss looked at the smouldering remains.

‘Do you know if he was there?’

Klinga looked at Olivia. He remembered that they had bumped into each other in the door to the caravan a couple of days earlier, and realised that she knew Stilton. What would he say?

‘We don’t know, our technicians must go through the remains to see if…’

Olivia abruptly turned round and ran towards a tree. There she collapsed in a heap, completely crushed, and hyperventilated. She tried to convince herself that Stilton hadn’t been in the caravan. There was no reason he had to be there. Just then. When it started to burn.

She made her way back to the car. Confused, shocked. Behind her, the fire engines slowly drove away and curious onlookers left in various directions, chatting. As if nothing had happened, she thought. She pulled out her mobile with trembling hands and dialled a number. It was Mårten who answered. With a heavy stammer she tried to tell him what had happened.