Third Voice (27 page)

‘How are you doing?’ Bosse had asked as soon as she opened the door.

‘Fine. Come in.’

And that was all that was said about Mette’s condition.

There was all the more talk about Clas Hall and Gabriella Forsman, particularly Forsman. The forensics team had basically given her computer an enema and found some rather mind-blowing information. Emails in particular. Both to and from Bengt Sahlmann. The email conversations revealed that they had had some sort of private relationship, a relationship with strong emotions, largely Sahlmann’s.

‘She got him on the hook,’ Lisa said.

‘You think that’s how it was?’

Bosse wasn’t entirely convinced. That Sahlmann had harboured strong feelings for Forsman was pretty clear, but to what extent they were reciprocated was unclear as far as he was concerned. She might well have been in love with him too.

Lisa didn’t think so.

‘I think she used him. I think she wrapped him around her red fingernails and consciously seduced him.’

‘To do what?’ Mette asked.

‘To engage in criminal activities behind his back.’

‘Is there any evidence of that?’

‘Yes.’

Lisa took out a couple of printed documents from Forsman’s computer detailing an email conversation between Forsman and Sahlmann. The first email was from Sahlmann:

‘My body is yours’?

Mette had to read the email with her own eyes. She had of course met Gabriella Forsman and was fully aware of this woman’s ways, but ‘My body is yours’?

‘What soap does she think she is she living in?’

The next brief exchange of emails suggested that Sahlmann and Forsman had met up and that some kind of agreement had been made. Sahlmann used a rather different tone this time.

It was Mette who summarised the information. She was the boss.

Heart attack or no heart attack.

‘So Sahlmann had discovered that Forsman had stolen the missing stash of drugs. She’d confessed and blamed it on Hall. Sahlmann had given her an ultimatum, probably because of
his feelings for her: unless the stolen drugs were back at Customs and Excise on Sunday at the latest he’d go to the police on Monday.’

‘Which he did not do as he was murdered on Sunday night,’ Bosse said.

‘By Clas Hall?’

‘Or Forsman?’

‘Or both?’

‘Good work!’ Mette said.

Lisa and Bosse thanked her. They hadn’t done very much, it was the computer technicians who’d got all the information. But they revelled in Mette’s praise.

‘So now we just have two problems,’ she said. ‘The first one is that our suspects remain at large. They won’t be much longer, they’re amateurs. The second, and rather more tricky one, is Sahlmann’s laptop. The one that was stolen. Where is it? Not at Hall’s or Forsman’s, right?’

‘No,’ Lisa said. ‘But if they stole it because they thought that Sahlmann could have information on it about the theft then they probably wouldn’t have just dumped it somewhere.’

Mette was just about to counter this with a couple of objections when she saw Mårten’s car outside the kitchen window. Now? He’d only been gone an hour. Mette jumped up, without leaning on the table for support, something that both Bosse and Lisa noticed.

‘You have to go now. Mårten’s coming.’

Bosse and Lisa had just managed to pack up and open the front door when Mårten came in through the gate.

‘Hello?!’ he said. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘They brought me some flowers!’ Mette shouted from the hallway. ‘They’re such sweethearts!’

She waved at Bosse and Lisa who slid past Mårten and towards the gate. Mårten watched them. ‘Sweethearts’? He walked up the steps and gave Mette a kiss on the cheek.

‘What kind of flowers did they bring?’

As usual the central station was full of people. Olivia was standing by the so-called ‘spittoon’, Stig Lindberg’s beautiful metal ring in the middle where you can look down at people rushing to and from the commuter trains one floor down. When she travelled on those trains she always avoided walking right underneath: that was ingrained in her after growing up in suburbia. Of course it was Lenni who’d taught her. The first time they’d gone into the city together, Lenni had grabbed her by the arm as she was about to walk straight into the line of fire.

‘Are you crazy? Are you going to walk under that?!’

‘Why not?’

‘Can’t you see people standing up there loading up?’

‘Loading up with what?’

‘Spit! Everyone knows that! Those people up there are spitting pros. They use chewing gum like a performance-enhancing drug to get their saliva production going and then they choose their victim. It’s bloody revolting!’

Olivia had looked up, but didn’t see anyone looking down, or even chewing, but ever since that day she’d avoided walking underneath the spittoon. Now she was standing there watching who had learned about this potential hazard and who had no idea. There were quite a few. She looked at the clock. Ove had called in the morning and was on a stopover in Stockholm on his way to Koster: there was some lecture in the afternoon and a conference in the morning, but if he had time he would meet up with her for a little while. Around about now in fact.

‘Hi!’

Olivia turned around. There he was. Tanned, bleach-blond hair and crumpled clothes. Seriously hot actually, as Lenni would have said.

‘Oh hi! I didn’t see you!’

Much to her annoyance, Olivia felt herself blushing under her tan. Why was she doing that? She also felt a bit uncertain about whether to hug him or not.

So Ove got in there first.

‘It’s great to see you again! In real life!’

Olivia manage to utter ‘You too’ during the hug and cursed Lenni. If Lenni hadn’t talked about Ove as some kind of presumptive boyfriend she wouldn’t suddenly have started blushing or feeling awkward in his presence.

She never had done before.

‘Where are we going?’ he said.

Ove had about an hour to spare before he had to head off to his lecture so they decided to have a beer at the Royal Viking Hotel just next door to the station, where they’d met for the first time a year and a half ago.

As they sat down at one of the long tables in the lobby with a beer each, Olivia suddenly stopped feeling nervous. Good. It was entirely groundless. Those other feelings were only there in Lenni’s imagination. Now it was all back to normal and they were talking and laughing. Ove told her about his arduous journey home and that he was looking forward to getting back to Nordkoster. She talked about what had happened since they last skyped, about her experiences at Silvergården and that it had something to do with Bengt Sahlmann’s murder.

But she didn’t mention her visit to Borell’s.

‘There’s something I want to tell you,’ Ove suddenly said.

Olivia looked at him. The corner of his mouth was twitching a little. It always did when he was a bit nervous.

‘Oh right, sounds serious? It’s nothing to do with your dad, is it?’

‘No, no, it’s something completely different.’

Now he was twisting and turning in his seat as well. What was it that was so difficult?

‘I’ve met a girl,’ he said.

A bombshell. Olivia had just put the beer glass to her mouth and a few shameful drops came spluttering out. She immediately wiped them away.

‘Oh right, how cool!’ she said.

She heard herself how fake it sounded and focused on putting her glass down without spilling any more.

‘She’s a marine biologist too, American, Maggie’s her name. You’ll like her. We worked together in Guatemala.’

Ove carried on talking while the images started racing around in Olivia’s head without a chance for her to stop them. Ove and this Maggie on a beach, hand in hand, engaged in lively discussions about the problems of the dying coral reefs in the world’s seas. The perfect couple. She cursed herself for not going to meet up with Ove when she was on her long trip. He’d wanted her to stop by in Guatemala on her way from Mexico to Costa Rica. She’d said no, she wanted to be alone during this cathartic trip. Now she regretted it. If she’d said yes then maybe it would have been her walking hand in hand down the beach with Ove. But then again that was not something she wanted. Or was it? It was all running through her mind. What did she actually feel? Was Lenni right after all?

No, she wasn’t!

Olivia got a grip of herself after this chaotic burst of emotion. She was just surprised. She hadn’t had any idea. He could have prepared her for this! They were bloody well supposed to be friends and friends tell each other everything! Then Ove started talking again.

‘She’s going to be at the conference here and I would love for you to meet her,’ he said.

‘Me? Why?’

Was he going to force her to meet this Maggie now as well?

‘Because I’ve told her about you, of course.’

‘Why?’

‘What’s the matter with you? Are you annoyed that I didn’t tell you before?’

‘No, not at all.’

‘Yes, you are, I can see it written all over your face. But we’ve only just met. Me and her. I wanted to tell you about her last time we skyped, but then we got cut off.’

‘Oh right.’

‘And it doesn’t change anything between us, does it?’

Olivia looked at Ove. He looked at her pleadingly, as though he didn’t really believe what he was saying himself. She certainly did not.

‘Really?’

‘No. Maggie has loads of male friends. She has no problem with us spending time together.’

She didn’t give a shit whether Maggie had ‘male friends’, which actually sounded bloody ridiculous. Olivia felt that she wanted to leave. She had no desire whatsoever to listen to Ove talking about his newfound love. They hadn’t been friends long enough for that, she thought. So she looked at her watch, as though it could save her.

‘I’m sorry, but I don’t have time to meet her.’

‘But I didn’t mean now. She’s not arriving until tomorrow. Can we come and meet you then?’

Olivia stopped studying her watch and moved onto her nails. ‘We.’ It was ‘we’.

Already.

‘Sorry, I’m going away. Tomorrow. With my mum.’

Ove leant back in his armchair.

‘Tell me the truth instead. You don’t want to?’ he said.

Olivia looked up and met Ove’s gaze. Why should she lie to him?

‘No, I actually don’t. And now you need to go if you’re going to make it.’

Olivia got up. Rather too quickly. A wave of disappointment swept over Ove’s eyes as he looked at her.

‘Please, Olivia, sit down.’

‘You’re in a rush.’

‘Not that much. Sit down, please?’

Olivia sank back down into the armchair and stared out through the window.

‘We’ve become very good friends, right?’ Ove said.

‘Yes.’

‘And there’s never been talk of anything else?’

‘No.’

‘Particularly not from your side. You’ve been very clear about that the whole time.’

What did he mean by that? Had he had feelings for her? Had she missed that?

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘And it has to happen some time. That one of us meets someone, I mean.’

‘Of course. It could just as well have been me. Well, it has already. I met a guy in Mexico. Ramón. I fell head over heels in love. Or rather: we did.’

And then she started laughing. Very unnaturally. Why did she say that? To get her own back? She hadn’t told anyone about Ramón except for Lenni. And she definitely hadn’t planned on telling Ove. But then again she saw that Ove sank down a little in his chair and she noticed that she enjoyed it. She had got her own back.

‘Ramón?’

‘Yes, but then I moved on and that was that, but we’re in touch.’

Which was also a lie. Just like that head over heels bit. The relationship with Ramón was simply about an exchange of bodily fluids.

For both parties.

‘OK,’ Ove said.

Reversed roles. Now you’re the one who’s bothered and it feels much better, Olivia thought.

‘I can make sure that you meet if you’re on your way past Cuatro Ciénegas,’ she said.

Now she was almost going overboard, she realised that. Ove looked at her quizzically and she felt she had to leave. Quickly. Before she said anything even more ridiculous.

‘I’m sorry, but I really have to go now. I’m meeting Lenni and I’m late already.’

Ove got up. Just as she was about to go past him, he grabbed hold of her and pulled her towards him. And just at that moment she admitted to herself that she wished that everything was just a bluff, even on his part.

‘You mean a great deal to me,’ he said. ‘I really don’t want this to destroy anything between us.’

‘Of course it won’t,’ she lied. ‘It was just a bit sudden. But I actually don’t want to meet her, if that’s all right with you. Maybe another time.’

Olivia freed herself from Ove and attempted a smile.

‘Let’s stay in touch! Take care!’

Olivia stepped out onto the rain-soaked street. Through the window she watched Ove put on his coat and proceed to the exit. She thought he seemed sad. Not that strange perhaps. Olivia was convinced that things could never be as they were between them. She’d lost a good friend and she would miss their confidential chats and perhaps a little more. She quickly started walking towards the tube station so that Ove wouldn’t have a chance to catch up with her. Once she’d got down the stairs and through the barriers she got out her mobile and called Lenni.

‘You’re right. Ove Gardman is a fucking ugly name!’

She heard that her voice sounded overly brisk. And Lenni heard it too.

‘What’s happened?’

‘He’s met a girl.’