Murder in Malmö: The second Inspector Anita Sundström mystery (Inspector Anita Sundström mysteries) (26 page)

It only took a second to get to his feet. He was now clear of disembarking passengers at this end of the platform, but could see a crush of people at the far end leaving by the other exit. He instinctively knew he couldn’t outrun the Arab and he would be held up by the crowd ahead. He sidestepped behind one of the colossal, grey, cement pillars supporting the lofty roof. He could hear the Arab slowing down. He nipped round the back of the pillar just as the Arab reached it. He grabbed the panting young man from behind and held his gun to the young policeman’s head.

As Anita gave chase she managed to get her mobile out with one hand and speed-dialled the polishus. She could see Hakim way in front of her and then two shots rang out. She saw Hakim stumble and thought for a horrible moment that he must have been hit. He regained his footing and continued running after the retreating figure of the gunman. The bloody idiot. She knew he wasn’t armed. She got a voice on the phone. The gunman had vanished into the station. ‘Sundström here,’ she yelled. ‘Get any armed officers you can to Triangeln station now! There’s a gunman just gone down there.’ She didn’t have time to give any more information. She knew the response would be quick because the force had been on high alert since the last “Malmö Marksman” killings.

When she got to the top of the first escalator she purposely regulated her breathing and psyched herself up for whatever may be ahead. Fortunately, her runs round Pildammsparken meant she was fairly fit. She hurried down the slow-moving staircase. By the time she reached the top of the last escalator frightened passengers were seething towards her in the opposite direction. It only took a few bounds and she was on the platform. She was just in time to see Hakim slowing down and then being grabbed by the throat and wrenched backwards, out of view. The gunman was four pillars down. With her pistol held in both hands, Anita made her way carefully to the next pillar. Her mouth was dry, and she could feel sweat starting to trickle down her back. Her hands began to shake ever-so-slightly. She had never wanted to be in this position again, after that dreadful day on the top of the Turning Torso. Now she was called upon to use a gun again, this time deep beneath the city, instead of high above it. She felt rising panic. She forced herself to stay focused by fixing Hakim in her head. It was him that mattered, not her. He was her responsibility. How could she face his parents if he didn’t come out of this alive? She had no idea who she was dealing with. Was this the “Malmö Marksman” or some other mad gunman? All she knew was that Hakim was in grave danger. A boy not much older than her Lasse. The thought made her angry. Her anger carried her to the next pillar. By the third pillar her fury was replaced by steely determination.

‘Hakim?’ she called out as she pressed against the side of the pillar.

‘Don’t come any nearer or I’ll blow his head off.’ The voice was gruff. Was that a Norrland accent? It wasn’t local anyway. Larsson had got that wrong.

Then the man appeared. His arm round Hakim’s neck, his gun tilted under the young man’s chin. She would always remember the fear etched on Hakim’s face. In contrast, the gunman was almost relaxed. And he looked so ordinary. About forty, was Anita’s immediate calculation. Drab clothes, undistinguished blond hair, square-set jaw – no wonder he hadn’t been noticed. He was like a million others.

Anita had already slipped her pistol down the back of her jeans, out of sight under the flap of her jacket, before stepping out to face him. She held her hands up to show that she wasn’t carrying a weapon.

‘I’m unarmed.’

‘Where’s your gun then?’ He knew she had one.

‘I dropped it back there in the confusion.’

‘If you let me walk out of here I’ll let him go.’

‘You’ll never make it. The station will be surrounded by police by now. Do the sensible thing and hand over the gun.’ Anita surprised herself at how calm she was.

‘No way. Any false move and I’ll kill you both.’ He suddenly laughed. ‘That’s what the voice told me to do.’

The man was ranting.

‘What voice?’

‘The voice. She told me.’

Anita had no idea what he was talking about. He was unhinged. Now she was playing for time. Slowly the gunman began to edge backwards along the platform, with Hakim clamped to the front of his body like a shield.

‘Look, we can help you. We have people who can deal with any problems you may have.’

‘You don’t understand. There’s nothing wrong with me. This is a job.’

Anita didn’t know what to make of this maniac. Job? What on earth was he babbling on about?

‘Take me instead of him.’

The gunman pondered the offer. ‘That might be an idea. No one is going to shoot me with a female cop as my captive.’

He motioned with his gun for Anita to come forward. Behind the man there was a sudden commotion. Armed police were piling down the far escalator. The gunman was distracted for a split second. Both Hakim and Anita sensed it. Hakim broke the gunman’s grip and threw himself forward onto the ground a split second before Anita whipped out her pistol from behind her back and fired. The bullet hit the man’s left shoulder and he twisted round like a top. He fired his gun but had lost his balance. The report was drowned by the whoosh of an approaching train as he tried to regain his footing and fire once more. Anita let off a second shot, aiming for the hand that held the weapon. It missed. The gunman tried to take avoiding action and moved too near the platform edge. Too late, he lurched backwards just as the 12:14 for Copenhagen swept into the station. The driver couldn’t stop in time.

Anita didn’t know whether to hug Hakim or clip him round the ear. She met up with him at the hospital in the late afternoon. Uday’s arm was in a sling. The female cyclist had superficial wounds, and had already left the hospital. The mental scars would last a lot longer.

‘Are you OK?’ she asked Uday.

‘I am, thank you. Today was like being back in Baghdad,’ he added with a grin.

‘Hakim, take your dad home and I’ll see you tomorrow.’

‘I’m sorry I rushed after him like that.’ Hakim scratched his head distractedly. ‘I was just so mad.’

‘You were unarmed, you...’

‘I know. It won’t happen again.’

‘I’ll hold you to that,’ she said sternly.

Hakim grimaced.

‘Is it the “Marksman”?’

‘They don’t know yet.’

The underground station was closed for four hours as they cordoned off the whole area. The gunman was virtually unrecognizable when they brought the body back up off the track. His head had been retrieved separately. The train driver was in shock and had been taken away. Larsson had appeared with his team and had interviewed her. The man’s gun was now with forensics. If they could match it to the bullets recovered from previous victims, then they had the “Malmö Marksman”. To complicate matters, the man had no identification on him or even a mobile phone. It was going to be difficult to identify him unless they could trace where he had bought the gun.

Anita had recalled the few words that they had exchanged. She thought that there’d been a trace of a Norrland accent, though she couldn’t be totally sure. She told them what the man had said about the voice. Her impression was that the gunman was deranged, but that that was hardly an informed medical opinion. Larsson had smiled. What she hadn’t understood were the gunman’s words “this is a job”. Larsson suggested that maybe he considered killing immigrant Swedes as his life’s work. They may never know because now they couldn’t ask him. Certainly the
Möllevångstorg location, with its largely ethnic population and market, fitted the pattern of the previous shootings. All Larsson was really concerned about was identifying the man as the “Malmö Marksman”. If it was him and they were spared the expense of a trial, then everyone was happy.

It wasn’t until she had left the station and come up into the daylight that the enormity of what she had been through hit her. The incident on the top of the Torso, which had so emphatically changed her physiological take on survival, suddenly crashed in on her again. Before then, it had all been virtual, now it was all too palpable. She felt nauseous. Now another man had died because she had shot him. OK, the bullets hadn’t actually killed him, but they had led directly to his death. The only crumb of comfort was that she had saved the impulsive Hakim from a lunatic’s clutches. She knew she had taken the right action. It didn’t make her feel any better. What was her psychologist going to make of this?

Hakim nodded to his father and Uday began to walk slowly down the corridor. His son hesitated for a moment.

‘Thank you.’

The next day was frustrating for everyone in the polishus. They were waiting excitedly for news from forensics about the gun. Anita had never known a police station in such a state of heightened anticipation. A number of staff had come in to congratulate her. She didn’t miss the irony that many of those same colleagues had been avoiding her since her return to work. She and Hakim had even been graced by a very brief visit from Commissioner Dahlberg. Significantly, Westermark was nowhere to be seen, though Moberg couldn’t keep the smug grin off his face. If his small team had solved the problem of the “Malmö Marksman” – albeit totally by accident - he would never let Larsson hear the end of it. After all, his colleague had had an army of cops at his disposal and come up with zilch.

But euphoria is often a precursor to despondency. There was still so much to do, and Anita seemed to be hitting a brick wall. She was becoming exasperated. Hakim had gone to the pharmacist’s and picked up their CCTV footage covering the inside of the shop: the counter and the door area. If Elin Marklund had been there, they would find out. Anita couldn’t phone Canada to ask about Marklund’s husband until five at the earliest because of the time difference. While Hakim was out she had taken a photo of Jesper Poulsen, cut out of the Ekman & Johansson company brochure, along to the Moosehead bar in Lilla Torg. That had produced nothing, as the two people serving on the lunchtime in question were not due in until the evening shift. While she was out, she even checked if Gabrielsson had returned. The gallery was closed.

The first murmurs of excitement spread from Larsson’s office along the corridor late in the afternoon. Then the news came that confirmed that the gun at Triangeln station matched up to the bullets from the other crime scenes where the “Malmö Marksman” had struck. There was a sense of exhilaration as well as relief. Someone opened a book on how quickly Commissioner Dahlbeck would get himself on TV claiming the credit for finding the gunman. Anita slipped away to a side room where Hakim was going through the CCTV footage. The sense of dejection hadn’t left her. It was hard being upbeat. They trawled through the film until they came to the period that Marklund should have been inside the pharmacist’s. They went through the sequence three times. Elin Marklund was nowhere to be seen.

Anita sent Hakim home early. He still seemed in state of shock after all he had been through the day before. He had nearly lost his father and his life. He had to learn what a career in the police is all about but, despite all the training and rule-book procedure, nothing quite prepares you for a real life-or-death situation. Some officers were lucky – she had colleagues who had spent thirty years in the force and had never had to face a dilemma such as Hakim had yesterday. But she knew the world was changing – and the old, comfortable Sweden was changing with it.

She phoned Fraser Oil International at ten past six. The person she had to speak to wouldn’t be around for another hour. While she waited, Wallen popped her head round the door.

‘Coming for a drink? There’s a big celebration going on. We’re heading for some bar in the centre.’

‘I’ve got to wait around to make a call. Might join you later.’

Wallen smiled. ‘You’re back in favour.’

That’s why Anita had no intention of joining them.

While she waited, she picked up the small photograph of Lasse she had on her desk. She was still gazing at it when she tried to phone his mobile. She was put on to his voice mail. She didn’t bother to leave a message.

Suddenly she sat up. She stared at the photograph. That’s it! That’s what was missing!

At seven she rang Canada again and spoke to someone who could help. She didn’t prevaricate. The questions were well-rehearsed and to the point. By the time she put the receiver down she was wearing a very thoughtful expression. She stared at the phone for at least a couple of minutes before picking it up again. She punched in a number and waited.

‘Chief, Anita here. Sorry to disturb you at home but there’s something I think you need to know.’

‘He doesn’t exist?’

Moberg shook his head in disbelief. They were sitting in his office. The call had come at a good time for him. His wife was about to serve yet another unpalatable meal. Something healthy with leaves. He would get a big carry-out on the way home.

‘Fraser Oil has never heard of a Pontus Stennevall,’ Anita explained. ‘Or a Pontus Marklund. And none of their employees were over in Norway the weekend Elin Marklund says her husband made his flying visit. It figures. When I went to her home on Saturday there was something that didn’t seem right. Then it came to me. She had family photos everywhere, but none of a husband. She had plenty of her grandparents, particularly of her grandmother. But not one of the person who in theory was most important to her - her husband. They can’t have been married that long. I don’t reckon they’ve had time to fall out.’ Moberg wasn’t so sure. He had two lots of wedding photos stuffed out of sight somewhere. A third would surely follow soon.

‘But what about that stuff about her not wanting her husband to find out she had been screwed by Ekman?’

‘That’s why she wasn’t looked into more closely.’

‘That would make her a very cold-hearted bitch. A farewell fuck. A quickie in the office and then send him off home to a hideous death.’

Anita realized how hungry she was and she was aware of the faint rumble in her stomach. ‘Marklund no longer has an alibi for Olofsson’s murder. And on the day of the presentation she didn’t call into the pharmacist’s, as she claimed she did. We have CCTV footage that proves the lie. By her own admission she went past Ekman’s apartment, so she would easily have had time to plant the jelly in the drain with the poison pellets or crystals. It would only take minutes.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Yes. Poulsen says that he introduced her to running. She’s probably our jogger. She’s quite tall, so is about the right height from the descriptions we have.’

She could see Moberg weighing up the evidence in his mind.

‘Do we have a motive?’

Another stomach rumble was on the way. ‘I can’t think of one, unless “The November 6th Group” is a political organization and Marklund has a good reason to destroy it.’

Anita thought Moberg’s grimace wasn’t encouraging.

‘We can’t find Ander Genmar. He’s gone to ground in Spain. Even the Spanish police can’t locate him. His villa’s empty.’ Then he surprised her. ‘What would you do next?’

‘I think we should search her house. And her home computer if she has one. If she’s working off that list, she must have got it from somewhere. Could she have taken it off Ekman’s computer? It would explain the empty
Sjätte November
folder. If she could get the keys from his office, she could also have got into his computer.’

Moberg stood up decisively.

‘Right. Tomorrow morning we double check that Marklund isn’t married. Official records here and in Denmark. Marriage registration. All that stuff. Ask the ad agency people if they’ve ever seen the husband. Discreetly. We don’t want to alert her. I’ll go and see our tight-arsed prosecutor to get a search warrant. We’ll hit her just as she gets home from work.’

Anita smiled. They were getting somewhere at last.

Moberg heard her stomach rumble.

‘Hungry? I know just the place.’

Nordlund took the call. Wallen had rung through to say that Elin Marklund had left the office. She was making for her car. Nordlund turned to Anita. ‘She’s on her way. With the rush hour traffic, it should take about forty minutes.’

Anita felt that surge of excited anticipation. A difficult case was on the verge of a major breakthrough. The more the team had dug that morning, the more obvious it was that there was no husband called Pontus Stennevall. Four Pontus Stennevalls did exist and all were checked out. None of them were married to Elin Marklund. And no one that they spoke to at Ekman & Johansson had actually seen or spoken on the phone to Marklund’s husband. Now Anita was sitting in Nordlund’s car, with Hakim in the back, waiting for Marklund to show up. There were also four uniformed officers in a police car parked behind them. The search was going to be thorough.

Only Westermark had been sceptical at the lunchtime meeting. ‘I interviewed the woman. She wouldn’t have killed Ekman after making love to him. Women just don’t do that. It can’t be her.’ Westermark was losing out to Anita, and he knew it. Moberg sensed something wasn’t right with Westermark. He decided not to let him go down to Skanör.

While they waited for Marklund to return from Malmö, Nordlund filled Anita in on the latest news of the “Malmö Marksman”. They had taken fingerprints from his left hand – his right had been too mashed up by the train. They had put the prints into the national data base and found a man called David Löfblad. He had been arrested a couple of times for gun-related incidents in some place north of Umeå. And had one conviction for grievous bodily harm. He had been out of the country for about three years in the late 1990s. One of his neighbours thought that he might have been a mercenary, because Löfblad occasionally came out with tales about Africa and hinted at armed action. Bit of a loner. Another neighbour described him as “weird”. Most significantly, his disappearances from his home coincided with the dates of the shootings in Malmö.

‘Why Malmö? Why come all this way? He could have found plenty of immigrant targets nearer home. He could have a field day in Stockholm.’

‘It seems strange,’ Nordlund admitted. ‘God knows what goes on in some people’s heads. You reckoned he was babbling? A voice instructing him? Some religious fanatic?’

Any further speculation was curtailed when they saw Marklund’s red Saab approach. She parked it on the grass verge. Anita and Nordlund got out of their car and walked down the road towards Marklund as she was putting a key in the lock of her front door.

‘Excuse me, fru Stennevall,’ said Anita.

Marklund swung round. Her eyes betrayed her alarm at seeing so many police officers.

‘Or should I say, fröken Marklund?’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Where’s your husband?’

‘In Canada. You know that.’ A hint of resistance entered her voice.

‘Fraser Oil International has never heard of him. And you lied about visiting the pharmacist. That’s why we’re going to search your home.’

‘What? This is intolerable. You’ve no right—’

‘We have every right.’ Anita held up the warrant. She turned to the uniformed officers. ‘In you go.’

The four uniformed officers filed past Marklund, whose confidence suddenly seemed to deflate. ‘After you,’ Anita indicated, and Marklund stepped though the door.

Elin Marklund sat in the living room as though in a daydream, as the police officers noisily went about their business.

As Nordlund organized the search on the ground floor, Anita and Hakim went upstairs. There were two bedrooms and a bathroom. The higher level replicated the lower. Old-fashioned furniture and fittings. One room – obviously used by Marklund – had a sturdy double-bed. In the large wooden wardrobe hung Marklund’s trendy designer clothes. The contrast between receptacle and content couldn’t be more marked.

‘Found it!’ Hakim called from the other bedroom. ‘A laptop.’

Anita went through. This room contained a single bed and a small table on which the laptop was positioned. Hakim had already turned it on. The screen lit up, the icons blipped on, one click, and there was the Google homepage.

‘She hasn’t even got a password on this. Crazy lady.’

Anita left him to it and went into the bathroom. There was a laundry basket on the floor next to the shower. Anita put on a pair of plastic gloves and rummaged through it. She pulled out a dark blue hooded top. She called to one of the uniformed officers, who could be heard in the bedroom next door. He came in.

‘Bag this lot.’

Anita went back downstairs. Marklund was still sitting in silence, as though she was unaware of the activity all about her. Anita almost felt sorry for her. Her composure had been replaced by vulnerability.

‘Was this your grandparents’ house?’

Marklund looked up uncomprehendingly.

‘This house? Was it your grandparents’ home?’

Marklund nodded slowly.

Anita went over to the black and white photograph of the young woman. She pointed at it.

‘Is this all about her?’

Marklund gazed at the photograph without answering. When she spoke she was barely audible.

‘What you’re after. It’s buried out the back.’