The Other Son (34 page)

They asked the driver to wait, then went through the gate and up the gravel path to the front door. Antonia remembered that the veranda where she had met Sophie and her son Albert last summer was at the back of the house.

Miles rang the doorbell.

A man in his fifties opened. He looked sporty, and was wearing a smile that said
Don't disturb me
.

“We're trying to find Sophie Brinkmann,” Miles said.

“She doesn't live here anymore.”

“Do you know where we could find her?”

His strained smile was still in place.

“Who wants to know?” he asked bluntly.

Antonia held up her police ID.

He leaned forward slightly and looked at it.

“We bought the house from Sophie Brinkmann a few months ago; I don't know where she moved to.”

“No idea at all?” Antonia asked.

He was curious now.

“What's this about, has something happened?” he asked.

“No, we just want to get ahold of her, ask her a few questions. So you haven't had any contact with her since you moved in?”

“No, not at all,” he said. “If there was something, we'd have gone through the real estate agent. But I don't think there was.”

“What was the real estate agent's name?” Miles asked.

The man thought for a moment.

“Peter Nilzon…with a
z
,” he said.

“Do you have his number?”

“No,” the man replied bluntly.

“Is there anything else you remember? It's very important that we get in touch with her.”

“I'm afraid not.”

Miles and Antonia turned and walked down the porch steps. The door closed behind them. They were heading down the gravel path toward the gate when the door opened behind them again. They stopped and turned around.

“This might be a bit of a long shot,” the man said. “But I think that real estate agent was doing a double deal. Selling this house and sorting out a new place for her at the same time. But I'm not really sure.”

“What makes you think that?” Antonia asked.

“I just got that impression. He seemed very eager to please, all nervous and submissive whenever she was around on the few occasions that we actually met.”

“But you don't really know?” Miles asked.

“No, no idea, just a feeling.”

They were driving
through the suburbs in the taxi. Antonia dug out the real estate agent's home address. He lived in the same district, on the other side of the motorway.

“We could just phone, couldn't we?” Miles suggested.

“No, they just hang up. Face-to-face confrontation is better,” she said.

The taxi pulled up in front of a four-story block in a small residential estate. They got out and walked toward the door.

She took hold of Miles's arm.

“Are we doing the right thing, Miles?” she asked.

He stopped.

She thought hard about something, then went on: “I had Tommy in my apartment, and I had my pistol. I could use that and turn it against him, bring him in. We could talk to the senior bosses. You can tell your story as well. We could get him that way.”

Miles looked at her skeptically.

“What's changed?” he asked.

“Nothing's changed,” she said. “I just get worried sometimes. It's just how I am.”

It was obvious she was telling the truth.

He nodded.

“Me too. But we've got little enough chance as it is, Antonia. This isn't going to end well. Our lives will never be the same as they were.”

“So what are you saying?” she asked.

“That there's no way to make it any easier for ourselves. Let's just carry on along the path we've already started on.”

“Which is what?”

He gave the question a few moments, then said: “Suppose you'd drawn your pistol and aimed it at him?”

Antonia listened. Miles went on.

“Could you have pulled the trigger?”

She looked down, then shook her head.

“In which case it was good that you walked away,” Miles said. “Because Tommy will kill us the moment he gets hold of us. We're going to get out of this alive, Antonia.”

Miles turned away and walked toward the illuminated entrance.

Peter Nilzon was
about to go to bed, and opened the door in his robe. His hair was neatly combed and full of gel. Antonia and Miles held up their police IDs.

He showed them into the kitchen.

“Can I get you anything?” he asked.

“No thanks,” Antonia said.

They sat down at the table, and Miles took over.

“You sold a villa in Stocksund a couple of months ago. Sophie Brinkmann. Do you remember?” Miles said.

Peter put his hands on the table.

“Yes, of course I remember. I remember all my jobs. Why?”

“Tell us about the sale,” Antonia said.

“There was nothing special about it. It was quick, but houses out here always sell fast. We've got a long line of potential buyers. And her villa fulfilled a lot of the criteria that our buyers—”

Miles interrupted.

“You didn't help her find a new place to live?”

“No, I didn't. I just sold the house.”

“Do you know where she moved to?”

“No, no idea.”

“Did she already have somewhere lined up?” Antonia asked.

“I don't know.”

“Isn't that the sort of thing you'd talk about?” Miles asked.

“What?”

“As a real estate agent, wouldn't you want to know? Try to get another sale out of it?”

“Well, it does happen.”

“But not with Sophie Brinkmann?”

Peter shook his head. He was trying to act normal, that much was patently obvious. Antonia and Miles went on staring at him until he became uncomfortable.

“Do you know what surprises me?” Antonia said.

“No, what?” Peter replied.

“That we've showed up to see you late in the evening, and you're acting all relaxed and calm, as if this meeting was entirely normal.”

He laughed.

“That's what I'm like,” Peter attempted. “I'm very easygoing, I have to meet people all the time….”

“My colleague works with the Economic Crime unit,” Antonia interrupted, pointing at Miles. “I'm a detective with the National Crime division. We can examine your work and all your sales down to the last krona. We'll dig up a whole load of shit there, enough to make your life extremely difficult. And then the taxman will come knocking on your door, and…well, you can imagine.”

Peter was about to protest, but Miles got there first.

“So tell us, did you arrange something for her? Off the books? Did you sell her a new place? We really don't care about that. We just want an address.”

“I don't know, and I think you should leave. And I don't think police officers should be making that sort of threat….” he said feebly.

“Tell us what you know, and we'll leave.”

“I've sworn an oath of confidentiality,” the man in front of them said.

Antonia laughed.

“What did you say?” she asked.

He didn't answer. He was looking away from the pair of them.

“Peter Nilzon with a
z
,” Miles said very clearly. “You're not a psychiatrist, you're a real estate agent. Now, tell us what you know.”

Peter sat there in silence, staring down at the table.

“Peter, you haven't got a choice. We're not going to give up,” Antonia said.

“I made an agreement,” he said quickly, and glanced up, as though surprised at his sudden admission.

“What kind of agreement?” Miles asked.

Peter regretted saying anything, and sat there motionless.

“An agreement not to say anything?” Antonia asked.

He looked up at her briefly, then back down at the table.

“Were you given money?” Antonia asked.

Peter Nilzon seemed consumed by doubt.

“What were the terms of the agreement?” Miles asked.

Peter was grappling with a mass of thoughts. He bit one of his fingernails. “No,” he said. “I can't do this. I want you to leave.”

Peter Nilzon gave them a crooked smile and tried to sound stern.

“Did the money come with an unspoken threat?” Antonia asked.

They were close now; both Miles and Antonia could feel it.

“I'm going to ask you some questions,” Miles went on. “A
no
is a
no
. A
maybe
is a
yes
. And, as my colleague said, we're not going to give up. We want an address where we can contact Sophie Brinkmann. This is your best opportunity to get this out of the way; we'll walk out of here and you'll never hear from us again.”

The real estate agent sat there in his robe and neat hairstyle, staring down at the table. Someone had scared the life out of the poor sod.

“Did you help Sophie Brinkmann find a new place to live?”

Peter Nilzon looked up, met their gaze, cleared his throat, and said, “Maybe….”

Ann Margret was worrying about her work and feeling guilty. She felt she wasn't getting any real feedback.

She had taken some work home. Her laptop, a printer, and a few files were lined up on the kitchen table. She wanted to dig deeper, give Tommy something more, show her appreciation for his faith in her, know that she had been important, good at her job…someone who could be trusted. She needed it….

Ann Margret was drinking a glass of wine, her fourth. Wine boxes—such a good invention.

Bosses liked summaries. That was what she was busy with at the moment, a clear overview of the situation, neatly gathered now in one file.

Eros Ramazzotti's hoarse voice was playing on the old stereo from the last century. Ann Margret put some printouts in the file, then drank another glass.

If she had been sober, analytically minded, or had looked at her summary with so much as a hint of doubt and curiosity, she might have seen a pattern, if only a small one.

But Ann Margret was instead driven by a desire to show how clever she was, which had its roots in self-interest. That sort of personality trait often involved a degree of tunnel vision.

Then she called him, and—emboldened by drink—apologized for calling so late in the evening. She said she'd been working at home on a summary, and she was wondering if he'd like to see it sooner rather than later. He was welcome to come over to her place and go through it, have a glass of wine, or else he could see it at work tomorrow?

“
I'll come over,
” Tommy said gruffly.

Ann Margret brushed her hair in front of the bathroom mirror, put some lipstick on, checked that her underwear wasn't visible through her white slacks, and sang along phonetically with Eros's Italian, seeing as she didn't actually understand a word of it. She sprayed some perfume on the right side of her neck, rubbed it in with her wrist, then pulled a self-deceiving attractive face in the mirror. Then she drank a bit more wine from the box, which was suddenly and inexplicably empty. She was just as surprised every time.

Ann Margret found another one in the fridge, opened it with a practiced hand, and topped up her glass.

Half an hour later the doorbell rang. She glanced quickly around the apartment to make sure everything was decent.

Tommy was half-smiling, his eyes hazy, when she opened the door.

“Hi, Maggie!”

He was evidently half-drunk as well.

She did a rather sexy walk as she led Tommy into the kitchen.

They sat down next to each other at her kitchen table. The candles smelled of violet. She offered him some wine and began to explain her summary. She realized that she was actually laughing, and was pleased to see Tommy wasn't angry.

Tommy wasn't listening, he was staring at the wall. Some letters had been stuck to it.
Carpe Diem
. He looked at the words, but had forgotten what they meant.