Meet me in Malmö: The first Inspector Anita Sundström mystery (Inspector Anita Sundström mysteries) (18 page)

‘I have no idea. He just lost it for second.’

Anita said ruminatively, ‘I wonder whether he attacked you, not because of Malin, but because it was you.’

‘Sorry, you’ve lost me, Inpsector Sundström.’ She had no idea what Ewan was making of this turn of events, but he was playing the game and not giving away the fact that they had been in danger of becoming friends, or even something more, only yesterday. Westermark fidgeted and she was aware that he was growing impatient. She knew where he wanted her to go next.

‘You know how Malin Lovgren was killed?’

Ewan nodded his head up and down slowly. ‘I know she was strangled. That’s what the papers say and, remember, I did see the body at very close hand. Unless she had died of a heart attack, there couldn’t have been any other way.’

‘Malin was grabbed from behind. She was caught in what is called a chokehold. The airway was blocked at the front of the neck. She was throttled.’ Anita paused. ‘But you know all about that. Inspector Westermark has been investigating your police record.’

‘Northumbria Police were helping me very much.’ Westermark smiled, his lips curling maliciously. ‘They say you tried to kill a man.’

‘But I didn’t kill him.’

Anita opened up the file again. ‘December 20
^th
, 2004.’

‘I was drunk. It was another journalist.’

‘And the circumstances?’

‘It was a Christmas get-together. He was winding me up.’

‘What is “winding up”?’ Westermark queried.

‘Taking the piss. Ollie was making fun of me. We had worked together on the sports desk and, when I moved over to
Novo News
, he thought it was a pathetic come-down. Sports reporters like to think they’re a bit harder than the rest of the hacks. He was mocking me for covering crappy craft fairs and vacuous social events. He was right, actually, but I didn’t want to hear that at the time. Not after a lot of drink.’

‘So you lost your temper,’ Anita suggested.

‘He just pushed me too far and I snapped.’

Anita made a play of studying the file again. ‘According to the report, you grabbed an Oliver Turner round the neck. A chokehold, in fact.’ Ewan contemplated the table. He said nothing. ‘The same as Malin Lovgren.’

Ewan raised his eyes. ‘I didn’t kill her. And I didn’t kill Ollie either. He dropped the charges. I got a bollocking from the management, but wasn’t given the bullet.’

Anita closed the file again. ‘Why round the neck? Why did you grab Oliver Turner round the neck?’

‘I don’t know. Heat of the moment. Just instinctive. It’s better than punching someone. You might get punched back. Ollie’s quite a big bugger.’

‘When I asked you before, you said you hadn’t done any military service. But have you done any sort of combat training? Or martial arts?’

Ewan licked his dry lips. ‘Is this going to incriminate me?’

‘You need to tell the truth.’

He sighed. ‘Yes. At university. In my first year I did judo.’ Anita and Westermark swapped glances. ‘I joined up with Mick. We thought it would be a laugh. It wasn’t actually, because he was far better than I was. He kept throwing me all over the place.’ Anita stared at Ewan. He couldn’t read her thoughts. Westermark was smiling smugly to himself. ‘These things don’t prove I killed the woman. Why should I? I haven’t got a motive? More to the point, you can’t find one.’

‘That’s all for the moment,’ said Anita leaning over to turn off the tape.

‘I can go?’

‘No,’ smirked Westermark, as he eased himself off his chair. ‘You will be our guest,’ he mocked. ‘Now I’m going to be examining your computer. What secrets are you are keeping there?’ He left the room. Anita hung back.

‘Anita. Honest to God, I didn’t kill her. You’ve got to believe me.’

Anita was having difficulty keeping it official. ‘We can keep you here for the moment, while we carry out further investigations.’

‘This can’t be happening to me.’

‘You can have a lawyer present. Shall I arrange one for you?

His laughter was hoarse. ‘I don’t trust them. My brother’s one!’‘Ewan, I advise you to get one.’

‘No. I’m not guilty. Getting a lawyer smacks of desperation. I’ll get out of this because I’m innocent.’

‘It is your decision. But I will inform the British consul in Malmö.’

A young policeman came into the room to escort Ewan to the cells.

‘Can I make a phone call? I had better ring my editor. Now he
really
has a story.’

Anita nodded to the policeman. ‘
Telefon
.’

‘Thanks.’ Ewan sounded grateful. ‘Anita. Do you think I’m guilty?

She didn’t give an answer. She hadn’t got one.

Anita took off her glasses and squinted at the mirror. The ladies’ washroom was empty. She was thankful that she didn’t have to pretend to pass the time of day with one of her colleagues. Was it because she had begun to warm to Ewan Strachan that she was finding it difficult to believe that he could have cold-bloodedly murdered Malin Lovgren? He had a temper, which she had witnessed flashes of at their first meeting in the apartment and now in the interrogation room. But the slaying hadn’t been carried out by someone who had lost control. The opposite, in fact. There had been nothing frenzied about it. Ewan’s attack on his fellow journalist had been caused by a combustible combination of drink and derision. A moment of macho madness. Malin’s death appeared more calculated, which brought her back to Nordlund’s investigations in Stockholm. Ewan had the means – his judo experience would have equipped him for such a murderous manoeuvre. Yet the clinical nature of the act, and the lack of forensic evidence, apart from the obvious, suggested a professional hand at work. Only Mednick’s intervention had muddied the waters and distracted them from finding the real killer.

Anita doused her face in cold water. It was bracing, without banishing the tiredness she felt. She had hardly slept before dragging herself out in the pitch dark to get to the polishus for half five. She slowly dabbed her face with a paper towel before slipping her glasses back on. She wondered how Ewan would be feeling. Shocked? Bitter? Bewildered? If he was innocent, then he would hardly forgive her for arresting him. Strangely, that made her feel sad. But she must remain professional. She fished a brush out of her black hole of a bag and ran it through her hair. All they had was circumstantial evidence against Ewan. He was right, they had no motive. And he certainly couldn’t have planned it. It was only at Roslyn’s suggestion that he was in Malmö in the first place. So why had he he lied about the call to Malin? There was no obvious reason to keep it quiet.

Was Ewan their man? Their fledgling personal relationship complicated matters and only succeeded in kick-starting her natural instinct to worry. It was inextricably linked to the self-doubt which had haunted her throughout life. She could only grudgingly admire the total self-belief of colleagues like Moberg and Westermark, who took it for granted that they were right, even when they were proved wrong. Anita’s self-doubt both helped and hindered her in the job. It acted as an internal check on her assumptions on the one hand, while becoming a corrosive force that undermined her thoughts and actions on the other. Whether that helped to make her a decent cop, she wasn’t sure. She certainly didn’t fall into the maverick, Miss Marple or menopausal boozer categories that most female detectives found themselves pigeon-holed in in popular crime fiction and on TV shows.

She put the brush away and stared at the mirror. The person looking back wore a confused expression. She frowned, but it didn’t make her appear any more decisive. She wondered whether Westermark’s trawl through Ewan’s computer would throw up any new clues. Though she felt the urge to flop into bed and try and catch up on some sleep, she knew she had to do something positive. She would go back and see Mick Roslyn. Now the woman in the mirror looked like someone who had made up her mind. She was going to find out once and for all what it was that Ewan and Roslyn had been unwilling to tell her. What had gone wrong in Durham?

Distraction. That’s what he had read. Deep breathing was also meant to help. It didn’t. His mouth was dry, his palms sticky. He felt nauseous and his heart was thumping and the panic attack was almost upon him. The moment the cell door had slammed shut, all his claustrophobic fears began to run amok. This small room with its barred window, wooden bed, table clinging to the blank walls - and smell of oppression - was the nearest he had come to hell on earth. He wanted to scream for someone to let him out. He would go mad if he had to remain in here for more than a few minutes.

Distraction techniques. Think of something positive the article had advised. Something that had brought you pleasure or happiness. A birthday celebration, a moment of personal triumph or picturing a loved one. He had given up on the first, there had been precious few of the second, and the third only kept producing Anita. Her laughing face from last night. The image grew stronger. The shimmer of light on her glasses giving way to the delight in her eyes. His breathing became more controlled. Why was he thinking of her when she was the one who had put him in this hellhole? Had she been suspicious of him all along? Was she so calculating that she could impassively spend an evening drinking with him when she thought him capable of murder?

Or was it that shit Westermark who was behind all this? There weren’t many people he loathed at first sight, but the weaselly Westermark hit his hatred spot instantly. Ewan cursed himself. His instinct had been to get out of Sweden as soon as he knew the police had finished their initial inquiries and he was no longer needed. He had ignored it and had let himself be seduced into staying so he could be near Anita.

How could all of this have happened? It was the classic nightmare of the little man caught up in the big situation. Whom could he turn to? Brian had been no bloody use. After congratulating him on the two murder pieces, Brian’s excitement hadn’t allowed Ewan to get a word in edgeways until he bellowed down the phone,’ ‘They’ve fucking arrested me!’

‘What for?’

‘Murder.’

A stunned silence followed. Ewan waited for the recriminations, the vilifications and the inevitable sacking.

‘That could make an interesting angle.’

‘What?’ Ewan choked incredulously.

‘Reports right from the epicentre of the case. What it feels like fighting to clear your name, battling for justice.’

‘I don’t believe this.’

‘You didn’t kill her, did you?’

‘Of course I bloody didn’t!’

‘There you are. I’ll get things moving this end. I’ll get onto upstairs. They love what we’ve done so far. Put the weight of the group behind it. Massive exposure. Will you be able to send reports out?’

‘I don’t bloody know. As soon as they realize they are barking up the wrong tree I’m out of here for ever.’ Ewan had slammed down the phone. Now he was in the cells. Maybe he should let Anita bring in a lawyer. Then again, if he didn’t they might conclude that he really was innocent. Showed he wasn’t hiding behind the law. Or was he just being damned stupid and naïve? At least he still had one card left to play. It was just a matter of picking the right moment to use it.

‘Ewan? For real?’ Mick was staring out towards the field at the back. He had been outside the farmhouse when Anita arrived. Wrapped in a thick coat, he was smoking a cigarette. He hadn’t accepted Anita’s invitation to talk inside as he was sick of seeing the walls of what he now regarded as his own prison. ‘He’s in custody?’

‘Yes. This morning.’

‘I can’t believe it. Are you sure?’

‘No.’ Anita could see her breath. Her eyes were watering from the raw chill. It made her realize that she wanted to go home, put a duvet on the sofa and snuggle up under it with her book. ‘We know he called Malin on the night of the murder. He lied about that. He has no alibi for the time of the killing. He could have carried it out because he told us that he did judo at university.’

Mick flicked away his cigarette. It glowed momentarily on the rock-hard ground. ‘So did I. We both joined the judo club at the same time.’

When she was detailing the main points of evidence to this third party - albeit the most interested party in the case – she could see how flimsy it all appeared. The case against Ewan Strachan was not strong.

‘We can’t find a motive,’ she said, almost apologetically.

Mick took out of his coat pocket an expensive silver cigarette lighter and absently flicked it on and off. Little shoots of flame reared up and then were immediately extinguished. Anita had no idea what was on his mind.

He put the lighter away. ‘I can provide you with one.’

‘Debbie Usher.’

It was as though Anita had given Ewan an electric shock. All colour drained from his face. For a moment his eyes bulged and he looked around the bare room wildly as though he was trying to find an escape route. There wasn’t one. The huge figure of Chief Inspector Moberg sitting opposite him was the most obvious obstacle

‘How do you know about her?’ His question was barely audible.

‘Tell us about Durham and Debbie Usher,’ Anita urged.

The fact that Moberg was sitting in on the interrogation was a bone of contention with Westermark. He had done the background checking on Ewan Strachan and felt he should be in there. Moberg brusquely overruled him at the meeting they had had an hour before. Once Anita had told them about her conversation with Roslyn, Westermark was even more convinced that the journalist was their killer. He didn’t bother disguising his venom when discussing him. He had reported that the search of the computer hadn’t thrown up anything significant. ‘Hasn’t even any porn on there, so he’s probably a poof,’ he said with a knowing glance at Anita.

Afterwards, by the coffee machine, Westermark had collared Anita.

‘I saw Strachan’s articles he had written about the case. He makes it sound like you were the only one working on it. He must love you,’ he said nastily. ‘Trying to get into your knickers?’

Anita was feeling uncomfortable, but it didn’t stop her hitting back. ‘Not likely if he’s a poof!’

That reptilian smile appeared again as she was attempting to move away from the machine with a coffee in her hand.

‘I found something else. Your email address.’

‘What of it? I suspect your email address book is full of journalists’ contacts. I’m sure that bimbo on the
Sydsvenska Dagbladet
is in there.’

‘I bet you’re better in bed than she is.’

‘Were you born a creep or did you have to work at it?’

‘But your
boyfriend
started to write you an email last night. It was in the
draft
section. Thanking you for the “wonderful evening”.’

 This wasn’t something Anita had expected or wanted to hear, and definitely not from a snake like Westermark.

‘Is that why you were soft on him in the interrogation?’

Anita was furious that her professional integrity was being questioned.

‘I did my job properly in there. Just because you were acting like a testosteroned tosser.’

Westermark ignored the insult. ‘I don’t know what you got up to,’ the insinuation was clear, ‘but it puts you in a difficult position, Anita. You’re interrogating someone who you’ve just had a “wonderful evening” with. If the boss gets wind of this you’ll be straight off the case.’

‘And will he get wind of it?’ Anita challenged.

‘That depends. Maybe if you were more accommodating? I wouldn’t say no to having a “wonderful evening” with you.’

‘Karl, you are the biggest piece of shit I’ve ever come across.’

She stormed off to her room. When she shut the door behind her she was breathing heavily. She knew she had made a real enemy.

Ewan had retreated into his mug of coffee before he spoke. ‘You must have got that from Mick.’ Anita nodded confirmation. ‘It was the first time I’d been away from home. At Durham. It was all so exhilarating.’ He manipulated the mug with his fingers. ‘And Mick was exciting. Women flocked to him. He was very handsome. Still is.’

‘What is this having to doing with this girl?’ interrupted Moberg exasperatedly. He was anxious to get to the detail. Anita wished he would belt up for a change: they’d get what they wanted if they were patient.

Anger flared in Ewan’s eyes as he regarded the massive chief inspector. ‘Because you will not understand.’ He spoke the words with fierce deliberation. ‘You will not understand unless you know things.’

Moberg held up his hands in acknowledgement.

Ewan’s gaze returned to the mug. ‘The girls loved him. He loved them…then left them. I fed off the scraps from the great man’s table. When Mick entered the room at a party every head turned. I trotted along behind. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t mind in the least. I basked in his reflected glory. For two years. After the first year we lived out of college. We moved into a house together. We shared it with another guy. Trevor from Bristol. Have no idea where he is now. Bristol probably.’

Anita could feel Moberg growing fidgety beside her. Though his English wasn’t very good he could understand more than he could speak. Yet some of what Ewan was saying would be going straight over his head.

‘It was the end of our second year,’ Ewan continued. ‘Summer term. Amazingly, I found myself at a party without Mick. But Debbie was there. Oh, she was. Even in my inebriated state I could see she was something special. Not in an obvious way. She wasn’t drop-dead gorgeous. But she was pretty. Long, rich red hair. Real red, not ginger like mine.’ Ewan suddenly glanced up at Moberg. ‘Ever fallen in love at first sight?’ Moberg was taken aback at being put on the spot. He shook his head, as though Ewan was mad.

Ewan smiled to himself. ‘Funnily enough, I can’t see Swedes doing that. You’re too damn practical a nation.’ His eyes caught Anita’s. She tried not to flush as she used her notes as an excuse not to engage his stare.

‘Love finds you in the most unexpected places. It jumps out and grabs you by the throat.’ Ewan turned his attention back to Moberg. ‘A bad choice of metaphor in the circumstances. But that is what happened that night in the chaplaincy. And do you know what the most extraordinary thing was?’

Moberg and Anita were both now feeling awkward, for different reasons. Moberg hated men talking about their emotions, unless it concerned football. Anita realized that Ewan’s feelings were strong and genuine and that she had been the target of them until the arrest. Neither answered.

‘Debbie felt the same about me. I couldn’t believe it. She liked me… loved me for what I was. I wasn’t smart, or witty. And certainly not sexy. Just average. But that was enough for her. It was so good after that. We had a fantastic summer together. Travelled around Europe on one of those student rail cards. France, Italy, Greece. Best time of my life. The next term we moved in together. It was a horrible little student flat in a grotty terraced house, but I didn’t care. Life couldn’t get any better. But it couldn’t last.’

‘Why not? Anita found herself asking. ‘You said you loved each other.’

‘Ah, you forget Mick. And no one is allowed to forget Mick.’  

‘So what did Mick do?’ Anita found herself being sucked into taking sides. Ewan versus Mick.

‘Nothing at first. He was fine. I thought he was even pleased for me that I had found someone. But the more he met Debbie, the more he discovered how special she was. She was a genuine person. No side to her.’

‘This I am not understanding.’ Moberg was struggling again.

‘She didn’t think badly of people. Unlike the police, she only saw the good in everyone.’ Even Moberg had to smile.

‘You may find it hard to believe, but I was a bit like that, too. I was just being naïve. Pathetically naïve. Anyway, because Debbie never showed any interest in Mick, he began to see her as a challenge. Men like that do. The thrill of the chase. Suddenly he was always coming round to the flat. Sometimes I’d come back and he was there, talking to her.’

‘You were jealous?’ Anita was struck by the inevitability of his tale.

‘Strangely, not at first. Pride at first. I had something that Mick wanted. But then pride was replaced by irritation, and irritation by jealousy. Deep, gut-wrenching jealousy. Ever felt that? I became nervous whenever Mick appeared. I suddenly became tongue-tied. His jokes were effortless, mine were forced. My confidence drained. It was so corrosive. I got edgy, moody. Debbie and I started arguing about the silliest of things. Stupid stuff.’

Ewan took a gulp of his coffee. It tasted horrible, but he needed something to break the spell of despair he was recreating in his head. He pushed the mug away. ‘Then the inevitable happened. I came back from a lecture early because I had forgotten to take an essay in. Debbie and Mick… I’m sure I don’t have to paint a picture for you. That was the end.’

‘It was not the end.’

Ewan’s eyes searched Anita’s face for sympathy. He needed help right now. She sat impassively. How could she be so unmoved?

‘No. It wasn’t the end. Debbie…Debbie moved out and shacked up with Mick. I didn’t ask why she had done it. I knew the answer already. But once Mick had made his conquest he lost interest and dumped her.’

‘Did you see her again?’

‘Once.’ Anita could see he was now close to tears. She hoped he wouldn’t break down in front of Moberg. ‘Well, I didn’t actually see her. Debbie came round to the flat. She wanted to talk to me.’ His voice lowered and became ragged as he forced the words out. ‘I wouldn’t let her in. She cried and screamed outside the door, but I wouldn’t open it. She kept saying how sorry she was. I couldn’t face her. She had betrayed me, and I could never forgive that. Everything between us had been destroyed.’

Ewan’s head slumped into hands. ‘God, I should have opened…’

Anita and Moberg watched him fighting his demons. But Moberg wasn’t going to give him any respite. ‘This Debbie? What happened to her?’

‘To Debbie?’ Ewan sounded surprised by the question. The answer that came out was very matter-of-fact. ‘Debbie jumped off the main tower of Durham Cathedral.’

‘And you blamed Mick?’ Anita was now back to her most businesslike.

‘Of course I did!’ His voice was raised and reverberated round the enclosed room. ‘Wouldn’t you? I blamed Debbie, too, for giving in to him. In some ways her sin was worse. But it was Mick who destroyed us.’

‘It gives you a strong motive to kill Malin. His woman for your woman.’

Ewan was startled by the accusation. ‘Wait! No. It’s not. It happened well over twenty years ago. If I was going to do something I would have done it then. Why wait until now?’

‘Opportunity. You admitted to me that you had lost touch with Mick after university. Maybe this was your first chance to get even. You might not have planned it. I’m sure you didn’t. But suddenly you get the chance of revenge. Mick was away. Malin was alone, which you established by the phone call you failed to tell us about. You could have slipped out of the hotel at any time. Inspector Westermark has checked out the side door round from Carlsgatan. Maybe she actually invited you round. When you get there she offers you a cup of tea. You do drink tea in the evening. Even in Newcastle United cups, a team you and Mick support. Suddenly you have an opportunity, after all this time. All that resentment that had been welling up for years. The way that you have described the events at Durham, they are obviously still raw, despite the years. Here was a chance to even the score.’

Ewan’s mouth had dropped open as she catalogued the case against him. He couldn’t speak, but just kept shaking his head from side to side.

‘Malin turns her back on you to boil the kettle. You did judo at university, so a chokehold is not difficult for you. And, as we know, you have used that grip before. You have a history of violence.’

‘No, no, no, no, no, no.’

‘You drag the body out of the kitchen into the living room and place it on the sofa. Mick is meant to find it in the morning. Sitting there, lifeless. Like a trophy. Then maybe you were disturbed. We know Halvar Mednick went in and found the body. Were you still in the apartment? Or hiding on the stairwell and watching him go in before slipping out of the building? Anyway, your ploy does not work out because Mick is not there when you arrive. But you think quickly. You go in and it gives you the chance to touch the body, so that there will be an explanation for your fibres and prints when they are found, as they would inevitably be. That is why Mick attacked you. He must have had an instinct that you had killed her, and exactly why you had done it.’

‘Look, you’ve got this all wrong.’

Westermark saw Anita returning to her office. He wondered how best to get back at Anita. The stuck-up bitch. Her accent, her polished English, her attitude to him all drove him mad. Yet she was a challenge. Women did not turn him down, even if they tried to. What made it worse with Anita was his desire for her. The need to conquer her. He fantastized about them fucking. And it was definitely fucking and not making love. She was all woman, and with a body that had matured to a peak. He was fed up with screwing all those young tarts that he picked up at clubs and bars. They were easy. Anita was special. The glasses, too, made her even sexier in his eyes. He would insist she kept them on when he got round to having his evil way.

But she had rejected him out of hand and she had to pay. He knew the best way. He had observed how Strachan looked at her. And Anita’s unease confirmed that she might have feelings for him. He would ensure that the prick would go down for the murder, despite any efforts Anita might make to save him. He was guilty anyhow. That wasn’t just down to his natural antagonism towards anyone whom Anita showed an interest in, but because he was convinced that Strachan had killed Malin Lovgren.

‘Well, you didn’t beat about the bush,’ Moberg said approvingly when they met in his office afterwards. A sullen Westermark and a bright-eyed Olander were also there and Moberg had given them the gist of what had happened. This cheered Westermark up.

‘So it’s obviously him.’

‘According to Anita it is,’ said Moberg as he flipped open the large pizza box that had been brought in for him.

Westermark shot Anita a surprised look.

‘But do you think he did it?’ said Moberg, who was sizing up his meal.

‘Strachan certainly has given us the rope to hang him. He volunteered the information about the judo and he served up a motive on a plate. Would you do that if you’re guilty? And he still doesn’t want a lawyer. To tell you the truth, I just don’t know.’

Moberg took a slice. ‘The trouble is that we can’t place him at the murder scene on the night.’ He didn’t bother to offer any pizza around.