Meet me in Malmö: The first Inspector Anita Sundström mystery (Inspector Anita Sundström mysteries) (6 page)

The blue body lay crumpled on the floor. The blond hair kept flapping up and down as though blowing in the wind. But there was no wind because he was inside a windowless room. And standing over him was the big fat detective who kept shouting, ‘You’ve murdered her, you’ve murdered her!’ And he was trying to explain what he was doing there in the first place but the fat man wouldn’t listen. He was now cowering in front of the policeman who yanked him up roughly from the floor. As he was held in a vicious grip he looked down. The dead blonde opened her eyes and slowly raised her arm; a thin finger unrolled in his direction. She was about to speak when…

Ewan sat up bolt upright. He was covered in sweat. He rubbed his eyes, trying to become accustomed to his strange surroundings. Yes, he was in his hotel room, but it didn’t make him feel any better. He dragged himself out of his bed and without turning a light on he walked to the window. He drew back the curtain. Snow was falling. All was quiet outside. He gathered his scattered thoughts. He tried to order them but they still added up to one thing – he had stepped into a nightmare.

Anita saw him sitting by himself in the corner, toying with some cold meat. As she approached he looked up in surprise as though taken aback to see her in the hotel dining room – and at that time in the morning.

‘I am sorry to disturb your breakfast, Mr Strachan.’

His bloodshot eyes surveyed her suspiciously before he forced a smile. ‘Saves me eating this stuff. Not my idea of breakfast.’ She could see he was nervous. Her presence seemed to be intimidating him.

‘You look tired.’

‘Couldn’t sleep. Given the circumstances…Sorry, please take a seat.’

He even stood up as she slipped into the chair opposite.

‘Would you like a coffee?’ She nodded. Ewan filled a spare cup from the coffee pot. She watched him carefully. Compared with his friend Roslyn, he wasn’t much to look at, though he had a pleasant face when he smiled. He obviously didn’t take much care of himself. Too much English beer?

‘I’m afraid the coffee is not as strong as you probably like it. I asked for it to be weaker this morning.’

‘I thought the British always had tea for breakfast.’

‘Coffee wakes me up in the morning. I take tea at night to send me to sleep, if the booze doesn’t do the trick.’

Anita tried not to betray the fact the coffee was far too insipid for her liking. After her first sip she pushed the cup gently away. Though she had Moberg’s natural dislike of journalists, she thought the aggressive approach would be counter-productive. She preferred to wheedle information out of suspects. She left the heavy-handed treatment to Moberg and Westermark.

‘Are you ok? It’s been difficult for you.’

She could see him visibly relax.

‘Yes. It’s all been a bit of shock.’

‘I understand. We will need you to come down to the polishus…the police headquarters…for you to make an official statement.’ Ewan produced another weak smile. ‘Then you might be able to go back to England in the next day or two.’

To her surprise he grinned at her. ‘That is no longer a problem. My idiot editor thinks it’s a great idea if I cover the murder story for my magazine. I’m an official reporter. I’ve got a real crime to report. So, if you’re not careful, it’ll be me who’ll be interviewing you.’

The twinkle in his eye was mischievous and oddly appealing.

‘Well, the sooner we discount you as a suspect, the sooner you can start reporting.’

‘Suspect?’

‘Everybody connected with the case is until we decide they are not.’

Ewan made another stab at his cold collation before giving up.

‘I was talking to your friend Mr Roslyn last night.’

‘Poor guy must be in state.’

‘What is he like?’

‘Mick? He’s a good guy. Full of himself, of course. Certainly used to be and I doubt his success has made him any humbler.’

‘And you know him from…?’

‘University. We were at Durham together in the early eighties.’

Anita couldn’t help the smile that formed. ‘Durham. I know Durham.’

‘You do?’

‘I lived there when I was younger. We went there when I was about ten. My father was chief designer at Electrolux. At the factory in Spennymoor. But we lived in the city. I went to school there.’

‘That explains your English. It is incredible.’

‘I also had a year seconded to the Met in London a few years ago. That helped, too.’

‘God, how did you survive that sexist mob? An attractive blonde like…’ He spluttered to a halt and stared down at the table. He began fiddling with his fork. She noticed, with amusement, that his face had gone red from embarrassment.

‘Mr Roslyn. Did you know him well at university? Or was he just someone you came across occasionally?’

He tore his eyes away from the fork. ‘Oh, no. I knew Mick very well. We shared a room in our first year. Did everything together. Inseparable. He was a laugh.’

‘As you knew him so well, would you say that he is an honest person?’

Ewan took a sip of coffee before answering. ‘I suppose so.’

‘You would trust him?’

There was a pause before he answered. ‘Yes.’ Then he added as an afterthought. ‘Except with your girlfriend.’

‘Ah, as you say in England, a ladies’ man.’

He laughed. ‘A ladies’ man. He was always that. At Durham, anyhow. I can’t tell what he’s like now. He must have settled down because he’s been with Malin Lovgren quite a number of years, I believe.’

‘Thirteen years.’

‘There you are. He’s changed his ways. In the old days he was never short of female admirers. Funnily enough, I always thought that he’d never settle down and I would.’ A momentary sadness flickered across his face.

‘No wife?’ she asked.

‘A couple of near misses.’

‘Maybe you didn’t meet the right women.’

‘Oh, I met the right women, but I think the problem was that I was crap in bed.’ Anita screwed up her face, almost as though she hadn’t heard him correctly. Then she saw his amusement at her response and she found herself laughing. ‘You see, that’s exactly the reaction I kept getting.’

Anita remembered why she had felt at home in Britain. She always loved their self-deprecating sense of humour. She would never have heard such a confession from a Swedish man, even in jest.

She asked a few more questions about Roslyn but his answers were of little use. He hadn’t seen him for over twenty years since they left university, so there was no fresh light he could shed on the Roslyn of recent times – nor on his relationship with Lovgren. She checked her watch and stood up.

‘I need you to come to police headquarters. Porslinsgatan. The big modern building by the canal. At about three?’

‘I have nothing else to do. Will you be taking my statement?’

‘No. My colleague, Mats Olander, will.’ He actually looked slightly disappointed at the news. She was about to go when she stopped. ‘One last thing. You say you hadn’t seen Mr Roslyn until you met him in Edinburgh. When you saw him for the last time before that, did you part as friends?’

‘That’s a strange question.’

‘I still ask it.’

‘Yes. Why shouldn’t we? We just went in different directions after we left university. He went off to London. I stayed in the north-east. Didn’t keep in touch. One of those things.’

Outside the hotel, Anita stepped into the thin layer of snow. She was convinced that Ewan Strachan wasn’t telling the whole truth – just like Roslyn.

Olander came into the office bearing two cups of coffee. Anita drank it greedily. Black and strong. It made her feel better. Without coffee she didn’t think that Sweden would be able to function in the mornings.

‘Get anything new out of the journalist?’

‘Not much. Except he was a bit too keen to let me know that he and Roslyn were great friends. Just seems strange that such great firends hadn’t been in touch since university days until a few weeks ago?’

‘Is it relevant?’

She took another long sip of coffee and let it glide down her throat. She sighed. ‘Probably not.’

‘Neither can be serious suspects. Strachan has no reason to kill Lovgren. He had never even met her. And Roslyn was in Stockholm.’

‘You’re right. What lies behind their relationship is between them and doesn’t affect Lovgren’s death. However, I wanted to get some background on Roslyn because there may be something in his relationship with Lovgren that throws up a motive for someone else. Did she have a lover? Did he? Was their marriage as wonderful as we are led to believe? That would change the picture.’

‘Could be nothing to do with any of those things. Just some mad fan.’

Further speculation was curtailed by the arrival of Eva Thulin. She had a file under one arm. She flashed a tired smile.

‘Working all night, Eva? Coffee?’

‘I’ve had enough to keep me up for the next week.’ She dropped the thin file on the desk in front of Anita.

‘Pathology report and preliminary findings. Malin Lovgren was strangled. But we can rule out any sexual motive. No sign of sexual assault or activity.’

‘That’s something. We needn’t follow up the usual list of perverts. So, man or woman?’

‘Probably a man, but it could be a woman if they had done something like judo. Whoever killed her used a chokehold. Normally it’s a restraint hold in martial arts. The arm goes round the neck…look, I’ll show you on Olander.’

Thulin stood behind Olander, who bent down slightly because he was taller than she was. She wrapped her right arm round his neck and locked his neck in the crook of her elbow, both hands clasped just above Olander’s left ear for leverage. ‘If I’ve got the strength, or right technique, I can then apply real pressure. I can cut off the supply of blood to the brain as a result of the compression on the sides of the neck. The airway is blocked at the front of the neck. In martial arts and combat sports it’s a self-defence system. Normally it doesn’t go as far as strangulation, but it has in this case. The person who did this knew what they were doing.’ Thulin let go of Olander, who felt his neck gingerly. ‘Sorry,’ she said smiling apologetically.

‘Malin Lovgren was small, so, as long as the killer was taller, a man or a woman, with the right knowledge, could have done it?’ pondered Anita.

‘I think so.’

‘So we’re looking at…?’

‘Could be someone with a military background or maybe a person who was into martial arts. Certainly combat sports.’

‘Then she was moved?’ asked Olander.

‘Definitely. As well as discernible scrape marks on the wooden flooring there was bruising under her upper arms that is consistent with the body being dragged. I’m pretty sure the murder was committed in the kitchen. Forensics found a single link from a chain under a unit.’

‘From the pendant?’ Anita asked

‘Could be.’ Thulin paused and pursed her lips. ‘I went back to the scene of crime first thing this morning to have another look. That’s when it really got interesting.’

The avenue of high trees opened out into a massive grassy arena. It was circular in shape with more trees all the way round. It was an awe-inspiring space to find in the middle of a city. It was known locally as
talriken
, the plate. Ewan was soon discovering that Malmö was a city of parks. ‘It’s gorgeous in the summer,’ David enthused. Pildammsparken was the biggest, an easy walk south of the old centre of the city. David explained that the park had been built for the Baltic Expo in 1914, but hadn’t been completed until the 1920s. Now they held a huge bonfire and party here every 30 April. Known as Walpurgis Night, it is the celebration of the arrival of spring.

They took another tree-lined path out of the green arena and came to a large man-made lake. The water’s edge was covered with geese and ducks, happily immune to the extreme chill. Some were being fed by a couple of hardy, well-wrapped-up souls. David mentioned that the goose was the symbol of Skåne, Sweden’s southernmost province of which Malmö was the main city. That was probably why Mick’s film was called
The Geese
. But Ewan didn’t really take in what David was saying as his mind kept replaying his breakfast chat with Inspector Sundström.

Her appearance at the hotel had disconcerted him. Caught him off guard. Had he been too effusive about his old friendship with Mick? Had she read things into it that weren’t there? He was having difficulty enough coping with the situation without a suspicious policewomen adding to his troubles. He just wanted to get back to the relative safety of North Shields. Yet, if he was to cover this case, Sundström might be a useful contact. She was more approachable than her bully-boy boss. Be pleasant and co-operative and she might slip him some usable information. He also found her a rather good-looking woman. When she had left his breakfast table he had noticed her arse. That was attractive, too.

They turned away from the lake. David pointed ahead of him. ‘One place you’ve got to see is Malmöhus.’

‘What’s that?’

‘The castle. It also served as a prison. One of the most famous prisoners was one of your lot.’

‘My lot?’

‘Yea. A Scotsman.’

The main members of the investigation team were gathered in Moberg’s office. Anita, Nordlund and Westermark. There was quiet as they digested the information that Anita had passed on from Thulin.

‘Let me get this straight,’ Moberg said. He was squeezed in behind his desk in a seat that was too small for him. ‘According to Thulin, Malin Lovgren was left sitting on the leather sofa. So how did she end up on the floor? Did the journalist lay her down there?’

Anita was trying to make sense of it herself and chose her words carefully. ‘Eva reckons that the dead body was placed on the sofa and that it slid down before it became stiff. The position of the body on the floor wasn’t consistent with just being dumped there after being dragged in from the kitchen. It does fit with the body sliding onto the floor from the sofa. Eva found fibres on the back of the sofa so she must have been sitting there that evening. Of course, it may have been earlier on.’

Moberg interrupted: ‘So, what she’s saying is that Malin was placed on the sofa and then slid off?’

‘Eva doesn’t think so. She’s pretty sure that the body didn’t reach the floor by itself. Left alone, the body would have been more likely just to flop over to one side, not forward. Eva believes it’s possible that it was handled again and slipped down into the position in which Strachan found it. By the time he discovered the body rigor mortis had set in.’

‘Could the killer have placed it there and then changed his mind? Let the body fall to the floor?’ This was Nordlund.

‘Eva doubts it. However, she’s can’t be totally sure. Still awaiting more from forensics. Prints et cetera.’

Moberg picked up cup of water and sipped it thoughtfully. ‘We are now certain that the murder took place in the kitchen. The murderer then drags the body through to the living room and puts it on the sofa. Before, it didn’t make sense why he’d moved it. But if he set it up like that, it was deliberate. Was he making a statement?’

‘The killer wanted the body to be found by Roslyn?’ Anita suggested.

‘It would be the obvious room for him to go into,’ put in Westermark. ‘You’d be unlikely to go into the kitchen first.’

‘If Roslyn had turned up on time he would have found the body,’ added Nordlund.

Moberg tried to shift in his seat, but there was no leeway for such a manoeuvre. ‘It seems that our murderer wanted to create the maximum impact on, we assume, Roslyn. So, whatever the motive, someone seems be to trying to get at Roslyn. Given the business he’s in, he must have upset a lot of people along the way. We could have a whole cast of bloody suspects.’

‘Upsetting egos is one thing,’ said Anita, ‘killing is another.’

‘If this murder is for his benefit Roslyn must know the person or, if he doesn’t, it’s someone who dislikes him more than Malin Lovgren. Maybe she’s just the unintended victim in all this.’

There was a further silence as they absorbed this permutation.

‘From what Strachan told me this morning Roslyn was a big hit with the ladies at university.’

‘Once a babe magnet, always a babe magnet.’ Westermark smirked.

‘That’s something you won’t know anything about then,’ said Anita sarcastically. Westermark was about to come back with some smart-alec comment when Moberg cut in.

‘If he hasn’t changed, then there may be a few infuriated husbands or boyfriends out there as well. Better check his background, too. Let’s make sure he was in Stockholm last night.’

‘The only other problem,’ said Anita slowly, ‘is that there may be a second person involved. If Eva’s right and the body was disturbed, then someone else was in the apartment that night.’

Malmöhus was a large, squat mass of red brick, low-lying with grassy ramparts and two circular keeps. Ewan and David made their way in over a moat. It had been an important stronghold in the days when Skåne was part of Denmark. Even today, Malmö had more in common with Copenhagen than a distant Stockholm. Within the castle’s walls were a number of museums – too many for Ewan to take in during one visit. He just wanted to get a flavour of the place for his piece. He did visit some of the furnished rooms with an assorted mix of Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo and Neoclassical styles. Downstairs there were lots of stuffed animals, including a gigantic elk. Ewan was staggered to see the size of the beast.

The castle itself, though the interiors were spartan, Ewan found much more interesting. Here he could sense the history, as he hadn’t been able to in the fabricated areas that they had already visited. You could feel the cold strength of the building. The inhabitants would feel secure within these thick walls. And the prisoners would fear that they would never get out. People like Scotland’s own James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, who was imprisoned here by the Danes between 1567 and 1573. Ewan knew him well from Scottish history: the roguish and unscrupulous third husband of Mary Queen of Scots. He had been implicated in the murder of the queen’s second husband. Ewan knew he had done a bunk when they had been defeated at the battle of Carberry Hill. After one final embrace, Bothwell and Mary never set eyes on each other again.

Not long after, Mary fled to England and what she thought would be the open arms of her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I. Mary was eventually executed but Ewan wasn’t sure what had happened to Bothwell, a swashbuckling but probably highly unpleasant figure. How had he ended up in a Danish prison?

Ewan himself was now feeling trapped in Malmö. He wanted to go home, yet circumstances – and Brian – had condemned him to stay on.

‘Let’s start with Malin Lovgren’s movements. Henrik?’ Nordlund was the only one whom Moberg would defer to. He was the most experienced member of the team but hadn’t had the ambition to go on to be a chief inspector. He was a cop’s cop. Though nearing retirement, Nordlund still showed a commendable professionalism without the corrosive cynicism that many of his colleagues had for a system that they felt didn’t support the authority of the police. They often felt exposed to unfair criticism from the media, the public and above all, self-seeking politicians.

Nordlund took out a notebook. ‘Malin Lovgren did her interview on Channel 4 during the seven o’clock national news slot. It was a short piece about her painting; nothing to do with films. She left the TV studio in Södergatan at 7.41 – checked out by reception. She walked up to Stortoget and met an old friend, an Ebba Carlsson, at the Scandic Kramer Hotel for drinks and a meal. According to Carlsson, they left shortly after nine and Lovgren was going to walk home. During the meal, Lovgren did mention that her husband was away but someone he knew from England was interviewing him next morning. Carlsson was under the impression that Lovgren was just going back to relax and wasn’t expecting any visitors.’

‘How long would it take to walk back from Stortorget?’ mused Moberg. ‘Fifteen to twenty minutes at the outside. So, she should have been back at her apartment by about half past nine.’

‘We can’t be sure she went straight home,’ cautioned Nordlund. ‘Basically, after she left the hotel restaurant, her movements are unknown. We’re still asking around. Someone may have spotted her entering the block.’

‘Did you ask her if Lovgren had any extra-curricular male friends?’

Nordlund grimaced. ‘Yes. She was very cross when I mentioned it. Very protective. She said that once Malin had met Mick, that was it.’

‘Mmmm,’ murmured Moberg sceptically. ‘Keep an open mind on that one. What about anybody who might want to harm Lovgren – or people she didn’t get on with?

‘The only person she mentioned was a guy called Bengt Valquist. He’s Roslyn’s film producer.’

‘He came in here with Roslyn when we had that chat,’ said Anita.

Moberg frowned at the memory. ‘What about Valquist?’

‘Not much. Malin didn’t think much of him. Too highly strung, apparently. She always referred to him as “Mick’s poodle”.’

‘All right. What about Roslyn?’

Westermark perked up. ‘He was booked on the first flight down to Sturup on Tuesday morning. But there is less good news about Jörgen Crabo. Our Stockholm colleagues went to his home and discovered he wasn’t there.’

‘Shit!’ exclaimed Moberg.

‘Hasn’t been seen for three days. Neighbours don’t know where he is.’

‘I hope they’re going to keep looking.’

‘Oh, yes,’ Westermark said smugly. ‘Once they found out that Malin Lovgren was dead they were crapping themselves. They’ll find him.’