Third Voice (6 page)

‘Hi, it’s Tom.’

‘Hi! Are you in the city?’

‘Yes. I want to deal with Rune Forss.’

‘Really? Oh!’

‘Are you surprised?’

‘No. But I can’t speak at the moment. I’ve just been asked to join the steering committee for an international drug operation and I need to email out a million things. Can we meet up tomorrow?’

‘I could come and see you at home this evening?’

‘That’s not very convenient.’

‘Why?’

‘I’ve invited Olivia for dinner.’

‘So?’

There was silence at the other end of the line and Stilton knew exactly what it was about. Olivia had blamed Stilton for a load of shit that happened in connection with the Nordkoster case. Her mother’s murder. With some justification, he knew that. He’d buried his head in the sand and hadn’t dared to tell her the truth about some things. When he eventually did she was furious, and she probably still was.

Again with some justification.

So he understood what Mette meant.

‘So when can we see each other tomorrow then?’ he said.

‘Eleven.’

‘Where?’

‘Here.’

‘At the office?’

‘Yes, I don’t have time to traipse all over the city. Have you heard from Abbas, by the way?’

‘No, why?’

‘I’ve tried ringing him so many times, but he’s not answering.’

‘He’s hoovering.’

‘Hoovering?’

‘Or he might be in the other world, the world yonder.’

Abbas had once tried to explain to Stilton what Sufism was about. Stilton had listened. When Abbas began talking about a world yonder, Stilton suggested that they should play a game of backgammon.

And that was that.

‘But I can give him a ring,’ he said.

‘Thanks. Bye.’

Stilton ended the call.

He folded up the collar on his leather jacket and walked towards Odenplan. He fancied a sausage and thought that there was a sausage stall there.

There wasn’t.

Olivia sat in the beautifully aged kitchen relishing Mårten’s latest stew experiment. She’d really longed to come here, to the semi-chaotic, green and white, dilapidated old mansion out in Kummelnäs on the island of Värmdö, with children and grandchildren milling around. It was a long time since she’d been here last. The wounds had not yet healed then, and she’d still had
that long journey ahead of her. Yet it all came flooding back as soon, as she stepped through the gate. It was here in this house that everything had been revealed, just over a year ago. Both Mette and Mårten had been there, but it wasn’t them who had shocked her. It was Tom Stilton. He wasn’t here now – if he had been she would have left.

She put a warm, delicious-smelling spoonful into her mouth.

‘Tom seems to be back on his feet again,’ Mette suddenly remarked while topping up Olivia’s glass with red wine.

‘Oh, really. What a delicious stew, Mårten! What spices did you use? Lots of garlic?’

‘Yes,’ Mårten said. ‘And some cayenne and garam masala.’

‘He’s been living out on Rödlöga for almost a year now,’ Mette continued.

‘Are we going to talk about Tom Stilton?’

Olivia sounded a bit blunter than she’d intended and regretted it. She knew that Mette only meant well, but she didn’t want to talk about him. And Mårten could see that right away.

‘Tell us about your trip,’ he said.

She was happy to. A couple of glasses of wine later, Mette and Mårten had been updated about most things that had happened during her trip.

The exception being Ramón.

When she’d finished Mårten looked at her.

‘So are you going to change your surname?’

‘Yes, but I haven’t dealt with the formalities yet.’

‘And where are you going to apply for a job then?’

It was Mette who asked and Olivia had been dreading that question. She knew it was coming, of course, she also knew that Mette wasn’t Maria, who’d just said ‘good’. Mette was a detective chief inspector at the National Crime Squad.

‘Nowhere,’ Olivia replied.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I don’t know if I want to join the police. Not the way I feel now anyway.’

‘But you’ve just completed your training!’

‘Yes.’

‘But why don’t you want to join?’

Mårten saw how upset Mette was and Olivia felt the mood around the table change. But she’d made a decision and she was standing by it.

‘I want to do other things.’

‘Like what?’

‘Study history of art.’

‘Are you just going waste all that training?’

‘Mette.’ Mårten put his hand on Mette’s arm. ‘That’s up to her,’ he said.

‘Sure.’ Mette spoke directly to Mårten without looking at Olivia. ‘But I thought she was passionate about this. That she wanted to do something. Make a difference. Accomplish something. Apparently I was wrong.’

‘That’s not very nice,’ Olivia said. Mette was about to answer, but Olivia went on: ‘You have no reason whatsoever to sit there and judge me. You have no idea what I want and what I can achieve. There are plenty of people who make a difference and who aren’t in the police. I thought you were a bit more broad-minded.’

Mårten looked at Mette. It was quite a while since anyone had dared to speak to her like that to her face. Particularly a young person. His respect for Olivia grew immensely, but he made sure not to let his wife know that. Mette watched Olivia for a few seconds, her hand moving up and down her wine glass while Olivia’s words sank in.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘You’re right. It’s just that I got so disappointed. I know how skilled you are, and what kind of person you are. We need people like you. It feels like a waste. You could have become an amazing murder investigator.’

‘I haven’t said that I’ll never join the police. I might change my mind.’

‘I’ll keep my fingers crossed.’

Mette raised her glass to Olivia and both of them had a sip of wine. Mårten felt that a ceasefire had been reached.

A ceasefire of sorts.

Mette wasn’t going to let this go.

‘One of our neighbours hanged himself yesterday,’ Olivia said, mostly to change the subject. ‘Out in Rotebro.’

‘Bengt Sahlmann,’ Mette said.

‘Yes. Did you know him?’

‘Not personally, but I know who he was. He worked at Customs and Excise. We were in touch when they did a major drug crackdown a while ago. I just heard the news this morning. He was a good person.’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you know him?’

‘Maria did. I used to babysit his daughter Sandra ages ago. She was the one who found him.’

‘Awful.’

Mårten got up and started clearing the table. He wanted to give the ladies a chance to reach some neutral ground. And Olivia wanted that too. Mette meant a lot to her, both professionally and as a friend. She didn’t want there to be tension between them, so she said something that she thought would catch Mette’s attention.

‘But I do think there’s something weird about his suicide,’ she said.

‘What?’

‘Many things.’

Olivia saw Mette topping up her glass and pulling her chair up a bit closer.

‘Tell me.’

It caught her attention straight away.

‘The first thing that struck me was that he knew that Sandra was on her way home. He knew that she was going to find him. Hanging from the ceiling. His only child. Isn’t that a bit odd?’

‘Yes.’

‘He’d also promised Sandra to buy her favourite food for dinner, which he did. Everything was in the kitchen.’

‘Did you go into the house?’

‘Yes. After the suicide. We were taking care of Sandra, she slept at Maria’s. She asked me to go and get her laptop, so I went.’

‘And that’s when you saw that he’d bought all the food?’

‘Yes. And then he takes his own life?’

Mette took a sip of wine.

‘Do you have more?’ she asked.

‘Yes, there was no suicide note, for one thing.’

‘People don’t always leave one. In Sahlmann’s case, knowing that his daughter was on her way, there should have been. But you never know. Anything else?’

Mette was clearly paying attention now. Out of general curiosity, but also for reasons unbeknown to Olivia.

‘The laptop,’ said Olivia. ‘Sandra said that they shared a computer, and that she had some school projects saved on there that she needed. It was supposedly in the office.’

‘And it wasn’t?’

‘No. I looked, but it I couldn’t find it anywhere.’

‘What was Sandra’s reaction?’

‘She thought it was weird. Apparently he always kept it in the office.’

‘Maybe he’d taken it to work?’

‘Yes, maybe.’

‘But you don’t think so?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘Do you think it was stolen?’

‘If it was stolen then maybe it wasn’t suicide.’

‘No. But we don’t know that.’

‘Not yet,’ said Olivia.

‘Now you sound like the murder investigator you don’t want to be.’

But Mette smiled a little as she said it and Olivia smiled back and Mårten felt that the situation was sufficiently defused that he could tempt them with a cheese board.

Olivia gave both Mette and Mårten a warm hug in the hall as she left. There was enough of a bond between Mette and her to withstand a bit of confrontation.

As soon as Olivia had disappeared through the door, Mette got her mobile out. She had intentionally kept information from Olivia. Police information. Things that were no longer any of Olivia’s business – she was going to study history of art. Otherwise Mette would have told her that a large stash of drugs had recently disappeared at Customs and Excise. Part of the major drug haul earlier that autumn. No one knew where the drugs had gone. There was an internal inquiry underway that until yesterday at least was being run by Bengt Sahlmann.

Who’d just hanged himself.

In circumstances that had roused Olivia’s suspicions.

And now also Mette Olsäter’s.

The conversation was brief. Mette requested that Bengt Sahlmann’s autopsy be speeded up. When she rang off, Mårten was staring at her with that look on his face. A look that seemed innocuous to all but his partner of thirty-nine years.

She knew exactly what that look meant.

‘Yes, I pushed her, I know, but I apologised.’

‘Only because you had to.’

‘Yeah, maybe. But I think that she’s a fool. One of the most promising and talented future detectives I have ever met “doesn’t feel like joining the police”. It’s just typical.’

‘What do you mean “typical”?’

‘Kids! They want to travel, think about stuff, jump from one thing to the next, everything is possible without any obligations, everything is just focused on themselves. It annoys me.’

‘Now you’re doing her an injustice. She’s had exceptional issues to deal with and you know it. She, more than anyone, needs to find her own path. If she can.’

Mette nodded slightly. Mårten was absolutely right.

‘In any case, I think it’s definitely the wrong way to get her to come back to the force,’ he said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘By provoking her. She’s like Tom. She goes on the offensive. She hates to be questioned. You’ll have to think of something more cunning if you want to get anywhere.’

‘Cunning is your department.’

‘Thanks.’

Mårten pulled Mette towards him and was just about to give her a slightly tipsy kiss, when the door burst open and one of their sons came in with a laughing Jolene in tow.

‘I scored!’

Jolene was twenty and their straggler. She had Down’s syndrome. A week ago she’d started playing basketball with the Skuru Specials and tonight she’d managed to get the ball in the basket.

It was a big moment for her.

Olivia sat on the bus back home. She felt the effects of the red wine. It was the second night in a row and she wasn’t used to that. She felt slightly queasy as the bus lurched up the motorway to Slussen. That faint aroma of urine wasn’t making things easier. She’d decided to sit right at the back, she always did if it was free, and it seemed that someone had taken a piss back there. She got up and moved forward a few rows. There were only three passengers other than her. She sank down into the window seat and tried to focus her gaze.

‘You could have become an amazing murder investigator.’

Mette’s words resonated in her head. They were big words from one of Sweden’s most experienced murder detectives, hardly known for dishing out compliments willy-nilly. Am I
making a mistake? Maybe I should go down the police route after all? I’ve wanted that the whole time. Suddenly she felt tired, sad and drunk.

Then her mobile rang.

‘Hi, it’s your BFF!’

Lenni’s voice could be heard almost as far as the bus driver. Olivia was forced to hold the phone away from her ear.

‘And I really want to see you while you’re still nice and tanned!’

‘Of course,’ Olivia smiled. ‘We’re going to see each other tomorrow.’

‘But I want to see you now! Where are you?’

‘On my way home?’

‘Good. Because I’m sitting on your doorstep.’

Lenni’s sudden urge to see Olivia turned out to have its reasons. She’d locked herself out and was in no mood to go to her mum’s in Sollentuna to get the spare key.

Olivia just about managed to step out of the lift on Skånegatan before her face disappeared in a blonde, freshly washed ball of frizz and she was enveloped by Lenni’s giant hug.

‘You’re never allowed to leave me for this long again! Promise!’

‘I promise,’ Olivia giggled.

‘But my God you stink of booze!’

‘Wine, not booze.’

Olivia extracted herself from the hug and looked at Lenni.

‘And you’ve cut your hair since we last skyped.’

‘Yes, I decided that I should have a fringe.’

Lenni quickly tried to pat down her messy fringe with her fingers.

‘It suits you! You look great,’ said Olivia.

‘And what about you! You’re so bloody tanned! There’s no way you’re walking next to me for the next few weeks.’

Olivia laughed again and felt the sadness fade away. God, she’d missed Lenni! Their friendship was so straightforward and natural. And despite their differences, both outward and inward,
Lenni was one of the few people whom Olivia still trusted. She fished her keys out of her bag and opened the door. When she stepped into the hallway and switched the light on, she saw that half of Lenni’s lipstick was now on her cheek. She smiled and rubbed it off with her hand. Lenni appeared behind her in the mirror.