It basically took a week to complete the identification – from the moment Barbarotti and Backman found themselves staring down at the dead body by the earth cellar out at Lograna to when Miroslav Rakic made his resolute but tearful declaration that it was indeed the body of his son lying in front of him on the cold steel table and that he would personally see to putting a bullet through the brain of the fucking Swedish bastard who had killed him.
Miroslav Rakic was fifty-four years old. He had lived in Sweden since 1989 and had been brought from the prisoner detention facility in Österåker, where he was currently serving an eight-year sentence for armed robbery, attempted murder, actual bodily harm and assorted other breaches of the law. Stefan Rakic’s mother had died three years previously, and there were no siblings or other close relatives.
In addition to this identification, which took place on the morning of Monday 6 October, they also had a match to dental records, so there could no longer be any doubt who it was they had found out there in the rain with a gaping knife wound to the stomach.
The residual doubts they had were attached entirely and exclusively to the perpetrators. Or at any rate to the odd couple whose departure from the old crofter’s cottage at Lograna had occurred at the time of the murder of Stefan Rakic – it was impossible to know if the crime had been committed by some other person of whom the police were unaware, but no one in the investigation group led by DI Eva Backman was inclined to think it likely.
Ante Valdemar Roos and Anna Gambowska, they were who this was all about. They were the ones who had to be found.
But where the hell had they got to?
And how could they be tracked down?
‘Anyone reckon they could have changed to another vehicle?’ asked Eva Backman.
Nobody did.
‘Good,’ said Eva Backman. ‘Nor do I. So they are travelling in a blue Volvo S80 with registration number UYJ 067. They could essentially be anywhere in Europe, and as they are using neither credit cards nor mobile phones they can keep out of our way for a long time if they want.’
‘They’ve got plenty of cash, too,’ pointed out assisting officer Wennergren-Olofsson.
‘Yes, that ought to last them a good while,’ said Eva Backman.
‘Masses of the bloody stuff,’ elaborated Wennergren-Olofsson.
‘But there’s a warrant out for their arrest,’ his fellow assistant Tillgren reminded them. ‘Presumably all we have to do is wait for them to be found?’
‘How many cars do you think there are in Europe?’ asked Backman.
‘Masses of the bloody things,’ supplied Wennergren-Olofsson.
‘And if they’ve, say, hidden it in some barn down in Skåne and continued by train,’ suggested Barbarotti, hoisting his leg onto a chair, ‘it could take a long time for anyone to find it. But it’s true there’s not a lot we can do. How many of us do we need sitting here waiting? Two? Five? Ten?’
‘Sooner or later they’re going to run out of money,’ said Wennergren-Olofsson.
‘Or they’ll slip up and use a card,’ said Tillgren.
‘You reckon?’ said Barbarotti.
‘Maybe not,’ said Tillgren.
‘Well we can keep refreshing our alert,’ sighed Backman. ‘So our colleagues on the continent get that we mean business. The EU is all well and good, but it hasn’t made Europe any smaller in a geographical sense.’
‘Er, you’ve lost me,’ said Wennergren-Olofsson.
‘I’ll explain afterwards,’ said Backman.
‘Hm,’ said Barbarotti. ‘Where’s Sorrysen? Has it . . .?’
‘Not yet,’ said Backman. ‘But they went in early this morning, so sometime during the day, I expect.’
‘A kid?’ said Wennergren-Olofsson.
‘You’ve got it,’ said Eva Backman. ‘A baby.’
Barbarotti stayed on in Eva Backman’s office after the assistants had trooped out.
‘You’ve got something else,’ he said. ‘I can tell.’
‘We-ell,’ said Eva Backman, ‘I don’t really know.’
‘What don’t you really know?’
‘How to evaluate it. I talked to that girl up in Örebro this morning. Marja-Liisa Grönwall, the one who rang in about Anna Gambowska. Schwerin has interviewed her, too, of course, and her picture of the girl is rather different.’
‘A different picture of Anna Gambowska?’
‘Yes. Though she’s a sort of friend, so I’m not sure how impartial she is.’
‘And what does she say?’
‘She says Anna’s a kind, gentle girl, a bit soft, not at all the tough type we’ve been hearing about.’
‘A sort of friend . . . was that what you called her? What does that mean?’
‘It means I don’t think they knew each other all that well. But Miss Grönwall has clearly been in a relationship with our victim, too. And she had a good deal to say about that.’
‘Let’s hear it,’ said Barbarotti.
‘I’m waiting for Schwerin to send down his interview with her, I only got to talk to her for ten minutes . . .’
‘It’s a start. What did she have to say about Stefan Rakic? You must have got some kind of impression, anyway?’
Eva Backman initially said nothing, her face expressing ambivalence, Barbarotti thought. Or maybe it was just fatigue. ‘She said he was a complete arsehole,’ she said eventually. ‘That was the gist of it. She used words like scary, dangerous, psychopath . . . the whole caboodle. The problem’s just that . . . well, you know.’
‘That she’s his former girlfriend.’
‘Exactly. It’s hard to say how credible she is.’
Inspector Barbarotti thought about it.
‘What does this essentially change?’ he asked. ‘If she turns out to be telling the truth, that is.’
Eva Backman went on looking ambivalent/tired.
‘Everything and nothing,’ she said. ‘Purely clinically, it perhaps doesn’t make much difference. I mean as far as work on our investigation goes. But for anyone interested in psychology, it makes a huge difference. I’m right, aren’t I? I thought you were keen on thrashing out this sort of problem?’
‘Yes I am,’ said Barbarotti. ‘But the manageress and that double guy the girl attacked in the car, they were both singing from the same hymn sheet . . . weren’t they?’
‘Undoubtedly,’ said Eva Backman. ‘Yes, there’s something that doesn’t quite fit here, and it seems likeliest Marja-Liisa Grönwall is the shaky one.’
Gunnar Barbarotti nodded. ‘Let me know when the interview comes in from Schwerin. There must be other people who could give us their take on the girl’s character, mustn’t there?’
‘Let’s hope so,’ said Eva Backman.
There was a knock at the door and Tillgren put his head into the room.
‘Sorry to barge in, but we’ve just tracked down her mum.’
‘Anna Gambowska’s mum?’ asked Barbarotti.
‘That’s right,’ said Tillgren. ‘She’s at a hospital in Warsaw. Her mother – that’s Anna’s grandmother – has just died, apparently.’
‘Oh God,’ said Eva Backman.
It took them fifteen minutes to get a phone number for her to call Krystyna Gambowska on, but she sat there at her desk for a further ten minutes before she could bring herself to do so.
As far as Backman could ascertain, no one had told Krystyna Gambowska about her daughter’s current situation, and given that she had just lost her mother there was good reason to think over what one was going to say. And very carefully, at that.
But Anna’s mother had a right to know, of course; keeping the truth from her out of some kind of misguided humanitarian consideration would merely postpone the problem. Eva Backman had misjudged such situations in the past, and she knew there were no comfortable solutions.
Of course, it was not only Eva Backman’s duty to provide information that made her want to talk to this Polish-Swedish woman. There was indubitably a legitimate investigative interest too.
Although telling someone who had just lost her mother that her daughter was on the run and wanted in connection with a murder case . . . well that was a scenario requiring a certain amount of mental preparation.
It was a very crackly line.
‘Krystyna Gambowska?’
‘Yes, that’s me. Krystyna.’
Backman explained who she was and where she was ringing from.
‘I can’t hear you very well,’ said Krystyna Gambowska. ‘So you’re from the police?’
She had a faint but unmistakable Slav accent. Eva Backman cleared her throat.
‘Yes, I’m a police officer. I know you’ve just lost your mother but there’s something I’ve got to tell you.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Krystyna.
‘We’ve been trying to get hold of you for quite a while. How long have you been in Poland?’
‘Oh,’ said Krystyna. ‘Several weeks. I was told my mum was in a bad way and might not live much longer, so I came here on . . . well I think it was the tenth of September. My mum died early this morning.’
‘Yes, I heard,’ said Eva Backman. ‘I’m really sorry.’
‘She was old and sick,’ said Krystyna. ‘I’m glad I was able to be with her for these last days.’
‘I can understand that,’ said Eva Backman. ‘I’m ringing you now about your daughter. Have you been in touch with her recently?’
‘Anna?’ Her voice was suddenly filled with anxiety and apprehension.
‘Anna, yes. When did you last hear from her?’
There was a long silence at the other end of the line.
‘I haven’t had much time to devote to my daughter these past few months,’ explained Krystyna, her voice sounding close to tears. ‘What’s happened?’
‘We don’t really know,’ said Eva Backman. ‘But we’d very much like to get hold of her. There’s been a death here in the Kymlinge area, it seems she might have been involved.’
‘Involved?’ gasped Krystyna. ‘In somebody’s death? How? I don’t understand what you’re saying.’
‘Stefan Rakic?’ said Eva Backman. ‘Do you know the name?’
Another silence. Then a tentative: ‘I think so.’
‘He’s dead,’ said Eva Backman. ‘He was found a week ago, but he’s been dead longer. You recognize the name?’
‘Dead?’ whispered Krystyna, her voice now barely audible. ‘Did you say he was dead?’
‘Yes,’ said Eva Backman. ‘Stefan Rakic is dead. So you didn’t know that?’
‘No, of course not,’ declared Krystyna in a slightly stronger voice. ‘How would I know that? How . . . how did he die?’
Eva Backman decided not to go into detail. ‘How do you know Stefan Rakic?’ she asked instead.
Krystyna took so long to answer that Eva Backman thought for a few moments that she’d lost the connection.
‘Hello?’ she said.
‘I’m still here,’ said Krystyna. ‘I’m sorry, this just doesn’t seem real. First my mother and now . . . yes, he was Anna’s boyfriend, this Steffo. I think he was, anyway, but not any more. That was before . . . well, they haven’t been together for quite a while.’
‘We know Anna had been admitted to a residential centre,’ said Eva Backman.
‘Yes,’ said Krystyna. ‘That’s right, she was at a home—’
‘Was?’ asked Backman. ‘You say was.’
‘Yes, she . . . I think she ran away from there.’
‘How do you know this?’
‘She rang and told me.’
‘When?’ asked Backman.
‘Why . . . why are you asking all this?’ asked Krystyna. ‘Has anything happened?’
Eva Backman found she was clearing her throat again. ‘We don’t exactly know what happened. But Stefan Rakic is dead, as I said, and your daughter has disappeared, and we think there’s a connection.’
‘Disappeared?’ said Krystyna.
‘Yes, it seems that way,’ said Backman.
‘Oh . . .?’
Eva Backman waited, but nothing more came. Just silence and a slight crackle on the line. Why isn’t she asking more questions? thought Backman. Wouldn’t that be natural?
‘I shall need to speak to you face to face,’ she said in the end. ‘I’m terribly sorry I had to ring you up at a time like this, but I only got your phone number a few minutes ago. What I primarily want to know is when you were last in touch with your daughter. I mean I’d like you to tell me now – we can leave all the rest until later.’
‘I see,’ said Krystyna after another pause. ‘Well, I spoke to Anna just after I got to Warsaw. That’s about three weeks ago . . . just over three weeks.’
‘And since then you haven’t heard from her?’
‘No.’
‘The two of you spoke on the phone, is that right?’
‘Yes, she rang and told me . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘She told me she wasn’t at that home any more.’
‘All right,’ said Eva Backman. ‘Did she say where she was?’
Krystyna Gambowska took some time to think about it.
‘I think she said she was at a place called Lo– something.’
‘Lograna?’
‘Yes, that was it. Lograna. I don’t know where it is.’
‘And when was that, would you say? When she rang . . . it was just one call, was it?’
‘Yes, she only rang me once. It must have been some time in the middle of September, when I’d just arrived in Poland. My son Marek, Anna’s brother, came out to join me a week later. We’re staying with some relatives down here . . . he’s only eight.’
‘Did Anna say anything else when she called you?’ asked Backman. ‘Where she was living or anything?’
‘She said she was living at somebody’s house . . . and that she could stay there for a while.’
‘Did she give you the name of the person whose house it was?’
‘No.’
‘Or say if it was a man or a woman?’
‘I think it was a man. No, wait . . . she didn’t say that . . . maybe I just assumed.’
‘Did she say anything else?’
‘No, nothing else.’
‘Not how she was or anything like that?’
‘She . . . she said she was fine. But she told me she didn’t like it at that home, and that . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘She said that I . . . wasn’t to worry.’
Here Krystyna’s voice suddenly broke and she started to cry. Eva Backman apologized again for having called about this on such a day, but she had had no choice.
A few seconds went by and then Krystyna apologized, too, blew her nose and came back on the line.
‘Can I ring you later?’ she asked. ‘This evening or maybe tomorrow? I feel as if I’ve got to pull myself together a bit first.’
Eva Backman said she should feel free to call any time, gave her mobile number and said goodbye.
After that she hunted out a paper tissue from the bottom drawer of her desk – it was her turn to blow her nose.
And then she just sat there staring out of the window for ten minutes. She could see two pollarded limes; they were the ones she always looked out at and it struck her that after she was dead, someone else would sit in this very chair and look at them.
Or perhaps a different chair, but the window and the trees would be the same.
It was not a particularly profound thought but it stuck in her mind. The transitory nature of things and the accumulation of passing days. It probably wasn’t her turn to leave life yet, but her father might not have long. He was eighty-one, and even if he lived on for a number of years, there was another kind of darkness waiting for him. His mind had been unusually clear when she went to see him the other day – as if what he had seen at Lograna was a memory he needed to tell someone about before it could disappear. It really seemed that way; he had rung her late last night and seemed more muddled than ever, with no recollection of seeing her just a few days ago.
But she would drive out there and go for a walk with him; she had made that promise to him and to herself.
She wondered why she had not told Barbarotti about her father’s testimony. It was a matter of boundaries, she supposed. Boundaries between the private and the public. Should she drag her father to town and let someone else interview him, or what? It would be pointless in terms of helping the investigation. He wouldn’t remember, but just sit there overwhelmed by anxiety and shame at not knowing what was going on. What was being demanded of him. It would be . . . humiliating for him? Yes, humiliating was exactly the right word.
But she might have to tell Barbarotti about it eventually. Just him, no one else. Her father was a witness to murder, when all was said and done, or manslaughter at the very least, but for now it was sufficient for this knowledge to stay inside his daughter’s head. Whether it still existed in his own was less certain.
Now what was that thought she had decided to chew over with Barbarotti?
Why do people have to age so much quicker than the imprints they leave behind them?
That perhaps wasn’t a particularly original question either, she realized, but she would still have liked to talk it over with Barbarotti. Was it an optimistic reflection or a pessimistic one, for example?
And then another question presented itself, unannounced. How come I would never even consider discussing these things with my husband?
That was more serious, considerably more serious.