Authors: Torquil MacLeod
‘It wasn’t really out of character as such,’ she said slowly. ‘It was more down to economics. It’s not what we could afford. My salary at the Cumberland Infirmary isn’t bad. But since Graeme gave up teaching, he hasn’t made that much as an heir hunter. We’re comfortable. We
were
comfortable,’ she said suddenly realizing that she was talking as though her husband were still alive. Then, for a moment, a hint of a smile flickered across her face. ‘Graeme’s mum always said he should have been born a duke. He had expensive tastes, but we never had the money to indulge them.’
‘So, the fact that he thought that this trip to Sweden was the “jackpot”, in his words, would particularly appeal to him.’
‘I suppose so. He gave up teaching history because he thought there was more to life than dealing with kids who had no interest in the past. History was a passion of his and that’s why he first went into genealogy. Tracing family trees and that sort of thing. He loved it, but there wasn’t much money in it. Then he moved on to probate research. It was a natural progression, as you use many of the same research techniques and sources to trace the families of those who’ve died intestate. The heir hunting produced a better financial return on his time, though it was a bit hit-and-miss. He was always delighted when he managed to make a successful claim to the Treasury on behalf of the relatives he’d found. But often he might put in weeks of work for nothing. Either he couldn’t find anybody, or another company had beaten him to it. It can be a very competitive business. He was a one-man band up against quite large firms with massive research resources. Or, sometimes the people he’d found decided to put in a claim on their own, cutting out the heir hunter and his percentage. That would really anger him, as often they hadn’t even been aware of their connection to the dead person in the first place. Just greed on their part.’
‘Was he a driven person?’
Jennifer Todd took a sip of wine before answering.
‘Yes. He was very dedicated to his work. Once he got his teeth into a project, he wouldn’t let go.’
‘And as a husband?’
She didn’t answer immediately. ‘We rubbed along together. It wasn’t the most romantic of marriages. We married quite late. We met when he was still teaching in Wigton. I was thirty-eight by then, Graeme forty. Not love’s young dream.’ She touched her wedding ring thoughtfully. ‘Twenty-one years. I was going to retire next year so I could help him with the business.’
‘Have you any family?’
‘You mean kids?’ She sighed. ‘I would have liked to be a mum. But by the time I married, it was too late really. As a nurse, I’ve seen the problems some older mothers have had. And their newborns. Not that we ever discussed it. I don’t think Graeme would have been interested anyway.’
For a moment, Anita wondered where the hell her own “kid” was. She hadn’t seen him all day. He was still in bed when she left for Ystad that morning and he wasn’t around when she had returned with Mrs Todd.
‘And how would you describe Graeme to someone who didn’t know him?’
‘His character? I haven’t really thought about that for a long time. You just get so used to each other that...’ She started to fiddle with her wedding ring again. ‘He was considerate. At times. Didn’t have much of a sense of humour. You know at work we’re always having a laugh. Nurses together tend to be silly. Laugh at suggestive things. Probably a coping mechanism. Graeme didn’t like that sort of thing. Bit of a prude, actually. Stubborn, too. Once he got a bee in his bonnet. Never liked to admit he was wrong.’
‘I know a few people like that.’
‘A little conceited, perhaps. Pedantic. Oh, dear! I don’t seem to be painting a very good picture. But Graeme was loyal... very loyal. And I know he loved me. Not in a demonstrative way. He wasn’t tactile. But we were right for each other. That’s all I can say.’
‘Thank you, Jennifer. I know it’s difficult, but everything you tell me is useful.’ Anita glanced at her guest’s nearly empty glass. ‘Some more?’
‘No, thank you. I’m not really a drinker. Graeme liked the odd pint at the Queen’s Head. That’s the village pub.’
‘You say Graeme was stubborn. I know this isn’t easy, but do you think he was the type of person to be strong, even if he was being threatened?’
Her head jerked up. ‘You mean the horrible things they did to him?’
Anita nodded.
‘He was certainly pig-headed. He wouldn’t be bullied. And he wasn’t afraid to upset people. Some of the decisions he made as chairman of the Parish Council didn’t go down too well in the village. Whatever these people wanted, Graeme wouldn’t... you know...’
‘I understand.’ Anita looked around for her snus tin. She must have left it in her bag. It would have to wait. ‘You mentioned about probate companies in competition for business.’
‘Could be quite cut-throat. Some estates could be very lucrative.’
‘It may sound stupid, but could all this be to do with business rivalry?’
‘No,’ was the emphatic answer. ‘That was the whole point about this case. It had been investigated by a big London outfit. But they drew a blank and dropped it. It was only then that Graeme took it up. Not because it was worth a lot. More due to the fact that it was so local. We’re only half an hour from Carlisle. It was also a challenge.’
‘A challenge?’
‘Yes, because he wanted to succeed where a whole team of posh London researchers had failed. That was typical Graeme. Prove people wrong. But Yorkshiremen are like that.’
While Jennifer Todd went to the bathroom, Anita boiled up a pan to make them another cup of tea. By the time she came back into the living room, Jennifer had returned. Her face was flushed, and Anita suspected that she’d been crying again. She was trying to be sympathetic, but she knew she had to try and discover everything that this woman knew about the case that her husband had been working on. There might be some seemingly insignificant detail that she hadn’t mentioned before because it had slipped her mind. Anita had to cajole her memory; shake free some forgotten snippet.
‘Jennifer, can you take me through everything you can remember about the Doris Little investigation, however trivial it might seem.’
‘That Penrith inspector asked me the same. Ash, I think his name was. Called in last night.’
That sounded encouraging. Detective Sergeant Ash had got straight onto the case. She would phone him later about the break-in.
‘Doris Little?’
‘Yes. It must have been about six months ago that Graeme first mentioned her name. She lived near Dixon’s chimney in Carlisle.’ Anita looked nonplussed. ‘It’s a well-known landmark in the city. At first, it appeared that she owned her own house. That’s usually what heir hunters look for first. It means a financial asset, and that’s what most estates are made up of. Not many people leave thousands in the bank. The house would have attracted the London firm in the first place, otherwise it wouldn’t have been worth their while. I remember she was eighty because that was the age my own mother died at. Doris had lived in a small terraced house. It was worth about sixty to seventy thousand pounds. Not huge, but a percentage of that would be worth the effort. I know Graeme did his usual research – birth, marriage and death certificates, and censuses. She never actually married. That makes it more difficult. Sometimes you have to go back a hundred years to trace a modern relative.’
‘Are these the sort of things he would have had in a hard file?’
‘Yes, normally, that’s where he would put them. He always had back-up photocopies too. Very thorough.’
‘There’s not much else to say. I wasn’t involved after he’d made his initial enquiries. He didn’t seem to be having any luck with finding blood relatives, and ran into the same barriers that the London firm must have come across. The weird thing is that I thought he’d dropped the case, because it turned out that Doris Little had sold her house to a building society in the 1990s a few years before her death. It was some equity release scheme.’
‘What’s that?’
‘They advertise these schemes in Britain a lot. People who own their homes tend to be property rich, but often cash poor. So, what they do is sell their home to a bank or building society or property company while still living in the house. They end up with plenty of disposable income and when they die the property reverts to the building society. It’s particularly appealing to retired people because it means they’ve money to enjoy their final years. Doris Little was one such. I’ve no idea what happened to the money. I do remember that Graeme was pretty downhearted when he discovered this, because there wasn’t much left in her building society account. As I say, I thought that was the end of it.’
‘But you told me he was secretive about it.’
‘He was. It must have been about a month later that he was obviously getting quite energized about something. He wouldn’t say what it was about, other than there had been a development in the Doris Little investigation.’
‘Do you remember exactly when that was?’
‘Late July, early August. That’s right. He went away for a couple of days.’
‘Where to?’
Jennifer Todd shook her head. ‘I don’t know. He wouldn’t say. That was really the start of him keeping everything close to his chest.’
‘And that was unusual?’
‘Very. But I just let him get on with it. I was having problems at work with our department being restructured and everyone having to re-apply for their jobs. A horrible time. Dispiriting for all the staff. Morale was really low.’
‘And no clues as to what he was up to?’
‘Not really. There was this air of excitement about him, though. But he sometimes went through these enthusiastic phases. I just thought it was one of them. That’s it.’ She suddenly frowned. ‘Wait though.... He did once say it was better I didn’t know anything. It would be safer.’
‘Safer?’
‘Yes. Safer.’
CHAPTER 20
‘That was the word he used to her.’
Anita was recounting her conversation with Jennifer Todd to the team in the meeting room the next day. This time Nordlund and a very sullen Westermark were in attendance. Anita couldn’t figure out Westermark at all. He wasn’t his usual slimy, bombastic self. Quite the opposite. He hardly uttered a word. Maybe he was pissed off that Anita had such a central role in the investigation and he was only going to be a bit-part player. Anyway, she had enough on her plate without worrying about him.
‘So, Graeme Todd must have been aware of some sort of danger.’
Moberg scratched his ample stomach. It was a recognizable sign of tension. ‘It still doesn’t really get us any further forward. In many ways we’ve gone backwards because this old lady doesn’t seem to have had much money. Did she have any connections with Sweden?’
‘We don’t know. I spoke to Detective Sergeant Ash this morning after I put fru Todd on the train to Kastrup. He’s been to Todd’s house and has started to make initial enquiries into the Little woman’s background, so something may emerge there. But he does think that there was a break-in at the Todds’ house in Fellbeck. He says that the burglar had a good idea how to get in without disturbing the occupant. However, nothing was taken, unless it was Doris Little’s file. And we’re not a hundred percent sure that there was a file in the house. Conceivably, Todd could have had it with him, though his wife doubts that. Ash also checked Todd’s office computer, and there was nothing about the old woman on that.’
‘What about this mysterious trip of Todd’s before he came over here?’ Nordlund was a man of few words but he was good at getting to the point.
‘His wife has no idea where he went. It certainly seems to have been the catalyst for what happened subsequently. However, we’re pretty sure that it wasn’t Sweden. Hakim’s been checking flights from Britain from early August, when Todd went away.’ She glanced at Hakim, who nodded. ‘He couldn’t find anything.’ So, it’s likely to have been somewhere in Britain. Todd’s bank details may throw something up if he made a cash withdrawal or used his credit card for some purchase. That’s another thing that Ash is looking into... and I will when I go over there tomorrow.’
‘Mirza,’ said Moberg. The young man looked at the chief inspector expectantly. Was he going to ask him about his part in the investigation? He wanted to prove how heavily involved he was. ‘Go and get some more coffees.’ Hakim’s face fell.
The coffees didn’t help get them any further forward. The consensus was that they were going to have to concentrate their Swedish search in the Ystad area. That meant having to liaise with the force in Ystad without letting them muscle in on the case. Anita would have to work closely with the local British police and try and discover why Todd had come over to Sweden – and, more importantly, who he was planning to meet.
‘One last thing,’ said Anita as the meeting was breaking up. ‘Jennifer Todd wants to know when we can release the body so it can be flown home. The British consul in Malmö is coming in soon, as he wants to make arrangements.’
Moberg grunted. ‘The forensics people want to hold onto it for a few more days. I’m afraid the widow will have to wait.’
While the team was filing out of the room, Anita managed to catch Nordlund’s eye. He waited until everyone else had gone.
‘Henrik, can I ask you a favour?’
‘Of course.’
Anita started to gather up the plastic coffee cups that had been strewn around the table.
‘Can you keep an eye on this Greta Jansson thing?’
‘Your ex’s girlfriend is still missing?’
‘Yes. Still unofficial, as no one, including Björn, has actually reported her missing.’
‘But you’re worried about it?’
‘I thought it was a simple case of her going off to see her family, or being fed up with a job she couldn’t cope with. Then it occurred to me that she might just be escaping from Björn. He seems obsessed with her.’ Now all the coffee cups were stacked up. Anita took them to a bin in the corner of the room and dropped them in. ‘Her disappearance is too sudden. I mentioned the fully stocked fridge to you before. And it turns out she seemed to be enjoying the teaching, according to the colleague I spoke to. But as Björn points out, a man rang the school up and said she had to leave for family reasons. Both her parents are dead yet her “father” was supposedly looking for her at the time she disappeared. Even her best friend hasn’t heard from her, according to Björn. It’s starting to nag.’