Third Voice (14 page)

Stilton went inside.

A thin, red-bearded, stressed waiter was standing behind a tiny bar a couple of metres in.

‘Une coupe?’

The waiter looked at Stilton while pouring different drinks into different glasses. Stilton didn’t know what he meant, so he shook his head and peered into the restaurant. Two of the nine plastic tables were occupied by families, six were empty and Abbas was sitting at the ninth. Right at the back, at a window table looking out at the bay. Stilton went in and sat down opposite him.

‘You smell like sex,’ Abbas said.

Stilton had only just sat down, but he knew that it was probably true. He’d had no time to shower, he knew that he was soaked in bodily fluids.

‘I needed it,’ he said.

‘Someone you knew?’

‘No.’

‘What did Jean-Baptiste say?’

Stilton summarised his conversation with Jean-Baptiste, leaving out the bit about the knives.

For now anyway.

He had to do that when he didn’t smell of sex.

‘When do you think he’ll be in touch?’ Abbas wondered.

‘When he hears something. What are you having?’

The waiter had hurried past with a couple of small chalkboards with today’s menu. Stilton had a look at it – rabbit, fish, seafood risotto, artichoke, calamari fritti.

‘Calamari fritti,’ Abbas said.

Stilton wasn’t too partial to squid so he ordered the risotto. Both of them drank Perrier. Abbas didn’t speak. Stilton felt that the current hierarchy demanded him to report back first. The issue of the large policeman was dealt with, but not the large policewoman.

‘Mette called,’ he said. ‘She said she’s been trying to reach you.’

‘Yes, I saw that. I didn’t feel like talking to her.’

‘She wants to know what we’re doing down here, she’s worried.’

‘And you think she’d be less worried if she knew why we were here?’

Stilton didn’t have to answer as the red-bearded waiter had just placed a plate of thin crispy calamari in front of Abbas and a bowl of black sludge in front of Stilton. Abbas squeezed some lemon over his plate and picked up one of the squid rings with his fingers.

‘What did you say to her?’ he said as he put the crispy sea creature into his mouth.

‘That it was a long story and that it was yours, and that you needed to tell her when you felt ready to.’

‘Was she satisfied with that?’

‘I ended the call. I had to run to catch a taxi to come and meet you.’

‘Did you get lost?’

‘No, why?’

‘You were running, I saw you through the window.’

Stilton pushed a heaped forkful into his mouth.

‘How’s the squid?’

‘Excellent. And that?’

‘That’ tasted pretty much how it looked. Stilton had a few more mouthfuls and then realised that he’d clearly ordered tasteless black porridge. The black stuff was made from squid too.

‘It’s good, a bit spicy perhaps,’ he said. ‘Did you get hold of your friend?’

‘Yes.’

Stilton assumed that Abbas would elaborate. He didn’t, not immediately. He finished his food first. When his plate was empty he put it on the empty table next to them and drank up his water. He put that on the other table too. Stilton watched him. He realised that this was some kind of ritual that he was observing, one which demanded that everything around him was cleared away. When the waiter asked whether they would like anything else, Abbas replied: ‘It would be great if we weren’t interrupted for a while.’

The waiter’s body language did the talking – he headed back to his safe haven behind the bar. Then Abbas looked out through the window, at the darkness outside, the sea, the sky and tried to say it as directly as Marie had said it.

‘Samira did porn films.’

Abbas let the information sink in, rather like Marie had done, and sink in it did. In a way that surprised Stilton somewhat. He’d never known Samira, and he knew nothing about her other than what Abbas had told him. But it was enough. He knew Abbas. And when Abbas turned away from the window to look him in the eyes he saw everything he needed to know. In particular, he saw the darkness of Abbas’s pupils.

‘She had an agent,’ Abbas began. ‘Philippe Martin. An arsehole. I’m thinking of looking him up.’

‘I understand. To talk?’

‘You coming?’

Mette sat on the toilet seat and watched her husband brushing his teeth. Mårten had a special technique, he brushed each tooth individually. The front, the back, the chewing surface, and then he flossed both sides. As all his teeth were still in good repair, at the age of sixty-eight, that meant thirty-two individual brushings before Mette was given access to the washbasin. That was one of the reasons why she was nagging him about redoing the bathroom, so that they could have a double washbasin.

‘Apparently it’s about a murder.’

Mette tried to distract Mårten, who was working on tooth number twenty-six. He pulled out the toothbrush and looked at her.

‘The trip to Marseille?’

‘Yes. I called a colleague down there I vaguely know. Well, no… It’s Tom who knows him, but we’ve had some contact. He said it was about a murder and that Abbas knew the victim.’

‘Oh shit.’

Mårten sank down on the edge of the bath with the toothbrush in his hand and Mette took the opportunity to occupy the washbasin.

‘How does that tie in with the past that he talked about?’ she said.

‘The victim might be someone he knew when he lived in Marseille?’

‘I thought that too, at first.’

‘But?’

‘It’s been ages since he lived there and as far as I know he hasn’t been in touch with a single person since he left,’ Mette said and started brushing her teeth.

‘No. Could it be a relative?’

‘He’s got no family left, you know that.’

‘His mother,’ Mårten said.

‘What about her?’

‘She disappeared when he was seven. She might still be alive.’

‘And now been murdered?’

‘Yes.’

‘A mother who abandons her son when he’s seven and never makes contact would hardly cause the adult son to rush down to Marseille at zero notice and take someone like Tom with them?’ Mette said. ‘Even if she’d been murdered.’

‘No, perhaps not. I have six teeth to go.’

‘I’m almost done.’

Mårten took the opportunity to drift off into thought while he waited. Abbas and Tom in Marseille with a French murder and Abbas knew the victim, a victim from the past, a past he hated. What were they planning to do? He didn’t really want to know as he had no chance whatsoever of influencing it.

So he focused on his teeth.

‘So have you called Olivia?’ he said. ‘To apologise?’

Mette turned around with her toothbrush in her mouth, and as she didn’t take it out, he didn’t understand what she said. But he saw.

She hadn’t.

‘I think you’re being a bit of a wimp,’ he said, peering down at the washbasin.

Mette pulled the toothbrush out of her mouth.

‘Please can you stop getting involved in things that are nothing to do with you!’

‘Absolutely. Sorry.’

Mårten had reclaimed pole position by the washbasin and began working on tooth number twenty-seven. Mette suddenly threw her toothbrush into the bath and left. Mårten watched her go in the mirror. What kind of reaction was that? It couldn’t only be about Olivia? Or Abbas and Tom?

That was a sign of imbalance based on something else.

Her heart?

Mette had recently had another check-up. Her heart wasn’t in great shape, and the doctor had issued her a couple of serious warnings: minimise all stress and do something about your weight.

She’d ignored both of them.

Olivia generally kept a healthy distance from journalists. It had not turned into contempt, as it had among some of her colleagues at the Police Academy. She respected the Fourth Estate of the Realm. She’d seen astonishing examples of the value of investigative journalism, but she’d also grown up in a media-obsessed society where journalism often pushed the boundaries. It undermined the credibility that press freedom depends on, often because of certain journalists’ total lack of respect for their own profession.

She hoped that Alex Popovic did not belong to that category. He’d asked her to come to the editorial office of
Dagens Nyheter
. He had to be there to monitor something or other.

He’d given no indication as to what.

But he had an interesting voice, Olivia thought, regarding her reflection in the entrance door at Gjörwellsgatan. She pushed her smooth grey knitted hat down on her head. It was a nice hat, not like the one that Maria had forced upon her in Rotebro. She should probably have taken it off as she was going indoors, but she liked the appearance it gave her. Her long black hair fell down over her shoulders. She leant in towards her reflection.

There was something contradictory about her healthy tanned complexion and her winter attire.

Alex Popovic had just turned forty-two and he’d been employed by the large newspaper for the last eight years. His desk was right at the far end of the editorial office. He’d just sent an email to the Swedish embassy in Senegal asking them to confirm that there were no Swedish citizens on the tourist bus that crashed down into a ravine a couple of hours earlier. When he looked up he saw a young woman in a grey hat being escorted in by a man from reception. He also saw that some male colleagues had registered her arrival. A few backs were straightening up behind their screens. The woman carried on in and leant down
to talk to a female journalist. She nodded, turned around and pointed straight at him. The young woman started walking towards him. Is that Olivia Rivera? he thought.

Olivia approached Alex. He greeted her with an outstretched hand and gestured towards the chair next to his desk. Both of them sat down.

‘Nice tan,’ he said and smiled, while removing some nicotine gum from his mouth.

‘I’d just got back from Costa Rica when you rang.’

‘Bengt’s house?’

‘Yes.’

‘What were you doing there?’

‘In Costa Rica?’

‘At Bengt’s.’

‘I wanted to collect a laptop.’

Alex’s expression revealed that Olivia needed to clarify certain things, so she told him about her relationship with Bengt Sahlmann and his daughter and why she had gone to collect a laptop.

‘I told Sandra that you’d called the house. She said that you’d known Bengt for ages.’

‘Yes.’

‘How long?’

‘We went to Lundsberg together.’

‘The boarding school?’

‘Yes.’

Alex gestured as though it was not the first time he’d had to explain the fact that he’d gone to Lundsberg.

‘Well, we both fitted in equally badly there,’ he said with a smile. ‘But then we kept in touch over the years. Bengt was a good friend. You gave me a double shock – first that he’d committed suicide and then that he’d been murdered.’

‘Both things were true when I said them. Why did you call?’

Alex was an experienced journalist and he was used to asking the questions. Now he found himself being questioned by a total
stranger, an attractive one, but nonetheless a stranger. He’d googled her name and found nothing about this Olivia Rivera. Perhaps it wasn’t her real name? Why? What did she want?

‘Why do you want to know that?’ he said.

‘Because I’m curious.’

‘That’s not enough.’

Olivia looked at Alex. She liked him. She didn’t know whether it was his voice or attitude or his short dark hair, it was probably just the energy he was radiating.

So she tried to find an acceptable answer.

‘Bengt Sahlmann has been murdered. It’s a tragedy for Sandra. She’s a family friend and I want to do all I can to help her find out what happened. And why.’

‘Are you a police officer?’

‘Yes and no. I’ve done my police training, but I don’t work there. The National Crime Squad is investigating Bengt’s murder.’

‘Why them?’

‘I don’t know. So why were you calling?’

Alex started chewing on some more nicotine gum and saw that it was his last one. He had had far too many. He brushed his hand over the short stubble on his cheek. What should he say?

‘Maybe you don’t want to say?’ said Olivia, as though she’d seen it in his eyes. ‘Maybe it’s sensitive? Private?’

‘It’s private.’

‘OK.’

A few seconds of silence followed. They both looked at each other. Alex averted his gaze first and looked over Olivia’s shoulder to check that there was no one sitting too close. He wanted to answer. He wanted to keep the dialogue going with this alert woman. So he leant over towards Olivia.

‘Bengt had got in touch a few days before and said that he had some seriously explosive material he knew I’d be interested in, as a journalist. He didn’t want to talk about it over the phone, he was going to send it to me. I was calling to ask whether it was on its way as I hadn’t received anything.’

‘So you don’t know what it was about?’

‘No. But I know that he wouldn’t call me like that unless it was serious. And he sounded stressed. I asked him whether something had happened and it had, he said, and then he ended the call.’

‘Maybe it had something to do with the theft at Customs and Excise.’

‘What theft?’

Olivia knew that she should have kept quiet if everything had been as normal. But things weren’t normal. Nothing had been normal since Tom Stilton had divulged the truth about her murdered mother. Now everything was abnormal and Olivia didn’t really know what she was doing. Right now she was having a semi-private conversation with a journalist she didn’t know.

Things hadn’t gone very well last time she did that.

Well, that’s how life was sometimes, she thought, and told him about the disappeared stash of drugs at Customs and Excise and Bengt Sahlmann’s internal inquiry. She didn’t know that much, hardly anything.

But of course Alex became more and more interested.

‘How large was the stash that disappeared?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘And I thought it was about something completely different.’

‘What? I thought you didn’t know what kind of material he was talking about.’

‘No, if I’d known I wouldn’t have said it. I only have assumptions.’

‘About?’

Alex understood that she’d disclosed something she probably shouldn’t have, about Customs and Excise, so he did the same, because he liked her too.

Her energy in particular.

And moreover, his intuition told him that this contact would come in useful in the future.

‘Bengt recently had a violent outburst at a party, well, more of a dinner. There were a few friends from school and he got quite drunk and suddenly started talking about his father’s death, in a nursing home, and made loads of accusations and claimed that he’d still be alive today if he’d received proper care. It was really awkward, so we put him in a taxi.’

‘And you thought he wanted to give you information about that?’

‘It just struck me, considering how upset he was. But that thing about the drugs sounds more solid.’

‘Yes, perhaps.’

Suddenly it was time for Alex to leave – he’d been waiting for the press conference with Jimmie Åkesson. A couple of Sweden Democrats had gone around the city centre beating people up with iron bars. Alex excused himself. Olivia got up, took off her grey hat, shook her long hair, wrote down her mobile number on a pad and left. Alex watched her go.

That’s the third time I’ve heard about Bengt’s father’s death, Olivia thought to herself on the way down. From three different people. He must have been extremely upset about it. She got out her mobile and called Sandra. She answered quickly.

‘Hi. Have you found the computer?’

‘No, sorry, but I’m sure the police are busy looking for it. How are you?’

‘So-so. I’m not sleeping well.’

‘You know you can call me any time if you can’t sleep.’

‘Yes. Are you calling about something in particular?’

‘I’m just calling. I’m thinking of you, all the time.’

‘Thanks.’

‘But there is something I was wondering. What was the name of your grandfather’s nursing home?’

‘Silvergården, in Nacka. Why?’

‘I’m just curious. It sounds like your father was pretty upset after your grandfather died.’

‘Yes?’

Yes. And? Olivia felt that she was messing this up.

‘So, how is it living at Charlotte’s?’ she said, changing the subject.

‘Fine, I suppose… she said we could move home to Rotebro if I wanted, but I don’t. Maybe later…’

‘Yes, the most important thing is that you do whatever feels best for you.’

‘That’s what Charlotte says too. Sorry, can we speak tomorrow? A school friend just arrived.’

‘Sure! Call me when’s good for you.’

‘Thanks, I will.’

Olivia ended the call and felt pretty crap. She’d only been ringing to obtain information, not to see how Sandra was feeling. But she did want to know. We’ll talk for longer tomorrow, she thought, and headed towards the glass doors at the entrance. As she looked out she saw people hunched over, trying to make their way through the icy wind and rain.

Horrid.

She put on her knitted hat and stepped outside into the storm.

She took the car out to Nacka.

Thus far she’d used the missing laptop and her relationship with the orphaned Sandra as the reasons for her actions. She could do that a while longer, without ‘trampling’ on Mette’s investigation. The meeting with Alex Popovic had fired her up.

She turned off the motorway and skidded on the corner. The roads were soaked in icy rain and she still had her summer tyres. Time to change those, she thought, and headed towards Jarlaberg.

The nursing home lay at the end of the road, a modern, grey, two-storey building. She parked near the entrance and hoped that she wouldn’t need any door codes to get in.

She didn’t.

She pushed the glass doors open and walked into a deserted entrance hall. There was no one there, except a small white cat
brushing against the wall. A cat? She passed through another glass door, which didn’t shut in time to prevent the cat from squeezing through. Shit! Should she take it out again? She couldn’t – it had already gone. Was it normal for cats to be in nursing homes? She walked through a short corridor towards yet another glass door. There was still no one to be seen. She pushed the next door open and stepped into a larger corridor with an empty reception to the right. A stark fluorescent light reflected off the white walls, almost dazzling her. She carried on in and was struck by the silence, as though it was sound-proofed. Her own footsteps were hardly audible. She walked a few more metres. Then a strange feeling came over her and she turned her head. There was a man sitting on a wooden chair, in a corner, just behind her. He was wearing grey flannel pyjamas. There was not a hair on his head and his skin was covered in bluish-black spots. His skeletal hands were holding onto the armrests. He sat completely still, his eyes fixed on Olivia. She suppressed her initial shock reaction and approached him.

‘Hello, my name is Olivia. Do you know where the staff are?’

The man just sat there, completely still. In fact, his face was entirely motionless, his body frozen. Olivia had seen human statues in both Barcelona and Mexico City, people standing as though they were made of stone, for hours on end, only moving their eyes. This man wasn’t even moving his eyes. Was he even breathing?

Olivia turned away and walked on through the deserted corridor. When she’d almost reached the end, she turned around. The fossil in the chair still hadn’t moved. Olivia turned the corner into another bright corridor, just as empty as the other one. She passed a number of doors, many of them with a key in the door. She stood still in the middle of the corridor. This was ridiculous. Surely there had to be someone here?

‘Hello?!’

She heard her own voice bounce along the walls a couple of times before it faded away. And then it was silent again.

Then she heard the scream, an unpleasant drawn-out scream, like a howling fox in the night. It came from one of the rooms further down. Olivia walked towards it. The door was ajar, so she carefully pushed it open. The room was dark, the blinds were drawn. She saw a woman inside squatting on the floor. The woman was wearing a white coat. Had she been the one screaming? Olivia stepped into the room. The woman looked straight up at her.

‘Is the ambulance here?’

‘I don’t know. What’s happened?’

Olivia took another step forward and then she saw a second woman, a very old woman in a white robe. She was lying on the floor. Blood was running from a cut on her forehead. Her legs were moving up and down as though she had cramp. Her hands were thrashing about in the air. The woman in the white coat took hold of her hand and tried to keep her arm still.

‘There’s help on its way, Hilda, soon…’

The woman let out another scream, this time much longer and more piercing.

‘I’m here now, Claire is here… everything will be all right in a moment.’

The old woman, Hilda, started lashing out with her other arm, her body arching like a bow on the floor. The woman in the white coat looked up at Olivia.

‘Please help me!’

‘What should I do?’

‘Take the other hand.’

Olivia sank down onto the floor and took hold of Hilda’s other hand. She felt how strong the old woman was, Olivia could hardly hold her flailing arm. Suddenly Hilda turned her body on the side and pulled her head up from the floor. Her eyes were staring straight up at the ceiling, her whole body was screaming, without a sound. Claire tried to stroke her forehead.

‘Is there no one else here?’ Olivia said.

‘No, not in this ward. I’ve called the ambulance and the doctor.’