Bea Erlandsson drew into the polishus car park and switched off the ignition. At this time of year it was easier to find a space. The rain was heavier now. She was about to get ready for a dash to the front of the building when the passenger-side door opened and Anita swiftly took the seat next to her. Before speaking to the surprised Erlandsson, Anita shook the rain away from her hair.
‘Sorry about that,’ she said, as she could see that she’d partially sprayed the dashboard. ‘Anyhow, how’s the case going?’
‘Big developments since we last spoke.’
‘Oh, yeah?’ Anita was immediately intrigued.
Erlandsson outlined the two interviews with Larissa, and the confession which resulted in the fact that no one had an alibi after all. Zetterberg and Szabo were now up in Stockholm on the trail of Carina Lindvall and Ivar Hagblom. And in the meantime, Lars-Gunnar appears to have done a runner.
When she’d finished, Anita gave a soft whistle. ‘That’s incredible! So, the story they all stuck to has unravelled after all this time. We should have been able to break them down. Not that we had much chance of that.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘I can’t really tell Zetterberg this as it’s not my case. The last thing she’ll accept is me interfering.’
‘But?’
‘I went to see Renmarker on Sunday. He was the prosecutor back in 1995. At the time, he wouldn’t let us proceed with the case against Linus Svärd because of lack of evidence. It was frustrating in the extreme. It turns out that the Hagblom family put him under pressure through a journalist on one of their papers. Basically, they blackmailed him to stop the investigation getting any further. In fact, Renmarker actually met Ivar. Not that we knew any of this at the time, of course. I’d like to ask Ivar why the family put the squeeze on Renmarker, but I can’t. Maybe you can.’
Erlandsson didn’t take long to understand the implications. ‘Even with an alibi, albeit a false one, he was making sure that you wouldn’t get anywhere near the truth?’ Erlandsson stared at the windscreen and wiped it with her hand, as it was starting to steam up. ‘I know what! They won’t have had a chance to speak to Ivar yet; they were going to Carina’s first. I could ring Szabo and let him bring it up. He could just say I’d found out, but not go into detail.’
‘It might be enough to spook Ivar. Unfortunately, Renmarker won’t go public with the information, so it can’t be used officially.’ Anita put her hand on the door and was about to open it. ‘Oh, you could also get Szabo to ask Ivar why he didn’t use the Björnstahl letter in his PhD. It was a God-given gift, yet he didn’t use it. I’d be interested in hearing his answer.’
‘So would I,’ Erlandsson said thoughtfully. ‘So would I.’
‘Danny Foster is safe for the time being,’ said Wallen, opening a resumé of where they were with the Egon Fuentes case. ‘We’ve set up a rota of officers to be down there. We’re trying three at a time, but numbers are short at the moment, so it may end up being only two.’
‘I want one of the team here to be with him most of the time,’ said Moberg. ‘He’ll probably need reassuring as long as McNaught is out there.’ He thumped the table. ‘For fuck’s sake! It can’t be beyond the resources of the Skåne County Police to find some bald Brit in the city!’
‘I take it there’s no news,’ said Anita, who was catching up after her Moberg-sanctioned lie-in.
‘No.’ Moberg jerked his stubby thumb over his shoulder at the map of Malmö and an increasing number of red pins. ‘Loads of false leads. The problem is trying to do it without alarming the public too much.’
‘They’re pretty used to shootings and grenade attacks these days,’ said Brodd brightly.
‘That’s hardly the point, Brodd. A foreign gunman is more likely to get international attention. And you know that sort of thing puts upstairs and the mayor’s office into a spin.’
‘I haven’t found out much more about McNaught. A bit of juvenile crime in and around Dumbarton,’ said Anita consulting her notebook. ‘Sounds as though the army was the making of him. I spoke to his ex-commanding officer at the Queen’s Own Highlanders who said he was a “highly efficient soldier”. You can read into that what you will. He couldn’t say what he did after he left the regiment, as that was classified. We’re trying to track down his mother, who’s still alive. There’s also a brother somewhere. We’re working on that.’
Moberg’s temper wasn’t much improved when he moved onto the next murderer on the agenda. ‘And Tyrone Cassidy... have we any good news on that front?’
‘I’m stumped as to how he got in and out of the country,’ shrugged Hakim. ‘I’ve drawn a complete blank, both over here and in Britain.’
‘That’s a great start. We can’t even prove he was here. What about the camp you found late on yesterday?’
Brodd spread his arms. ‘Bit early to say. Latest update is that forensics have found traces of blood at the site. It’s being analysed as we speak. I suspect it’ll only confirm that that’s where the victim, Jack Harmer, was killed. They couldn’t get any footprints – they’d be deliberately obliterated before the camp moved on. There were tyre marks from the caravans and other vehicles, one of which was a Land Rover. We do know that a convoy of caravans and trucks crossed the border into Norway on Wednesday the tenth; two days after the murder.’
‘Maybe Cassidy came in through Norway,’ suggested Wallen.
‘It’s a hell of a long way from the border to Höör,’ countered Moberg. ‘But I suppose we’d better check it out. Hakim?’
‘OK,’ Hakim said resignedly.
‘Anything else?’
‘I’ve got a friend of mine, Detective Sergeant Ash, looking into the matter privately.’
‘This your boyfriend?’
Anita coughed. ‘Friend. Anyway, he’s with the Cumbria Constabulary and has nothing to do with the Met, so should get in under their radar. He’s already heading to London to make discreet enquiries. Hopefully he can turn up something.’
‘I hope so.’ Moberg didn’t sound convinced. ‘He’s our best bet.’
‘Who was that?’ Zetterberg asked as Szabo took his seat opposite her on the train to Uppsala. Szabo had taken the call on his mobile near the wagon door, as he was expecting to hear from his relatively new girlfriend and didn’t want to answer it in front of an over-inquisitive boss. It had been Erlandsson. She’d passed on Anita’s information. She said it was up to him how he brought it up. He decided to keep it to himself for the moment. He’d felt like a spare part during the Carina Lindvall interview. Zetterberg wasn’t remotely interested in him contributing, and he was there simply as a back-up and extra intimidation – outnumber the suspect. He wanted to prove himself, and now he had something up his sleeve.
‘It was Bea. She’s trying to track down Lars-Gunnar. No success yet, though she’s found out that his wife’s parents have a summer place on Öland. That might be a possible bolthole.’
‘The sooner he’s found, the better,’ Zetterberg huffed. ‘I’ve got a funny feeling about Lars-Gunnar. Being out of it at the time of the murder is just a trifle too convenient for me. It meant that all the people who saw him just assumed he was too far gone to do anything. It’s a great cover.’
Szabo stretched his leg in the aisle. He felt the muscles strain. It was a relief. He’d done a lot of sitting today. ‘So you don’t think it’s Carina?’
Zetterberg’s lips fluttered at she let out a gasp of air. ‘Far from it! She’s not the sort of woman you can trust. We already know she’s a liar. She lives in a world of silly stories. Her account of her movements could be complete fiction. Working in her room is hardly an alibi.’
‘But if she is telling the truth, she’s given Larissa one.’
‘Only partly. Thumping about in the kitchen is hardly concrete. And remember, it would only have taken minutes for either of the women to leave the cottage, cross to the chapel, commit the murder, hide the skewer in the field and get back to her room.’
‘Except Larissa doesn’t appear to have a motive. Disliking someone is hardly a reason for murdering them. On the face of it, Ivar doesn’t seem to have an obvious motive either, other than he and Göran being highly competitive.’
‘Don’t forget, Göran hit on him on Malta, showing that he didn’t care as much for Linus as everybody thought. Ivar didn’t like the way Göran was treating his best friend, and the advance just exacerbated that dislike.’
Szabo moved his leg to let a mother and young child past as they headed for the toilet. ‘What do we hope to get out of Ivar?’
‘Why he got two women to lie for him. And still lie for him twenty-one years on.’
Szabo now knew that Ivar Hagblom had a lot more questions than that to answer.