WERE YOU THE one who assaulted, tortured and raped your wife to death last night?
Silence. Hesitation.
I don’t recall. But I can’t say I didn’t.
Stubbs continued to flip through the interview Irene Lilja had conducted with Conny Öhman the day after the murder of his wife on 5 April last spring. So far, she hadn’t been able to entirely comprehend the case, or, for that matter, figure out what had caused Hugo Elvin to take a particular interest in it, apart from the fact that Molander had been in an unusually good mood the next day.
What was clear was that Öhman had had a truly terrible day at work, which had included being yelled at by his boss in front of all his co-workers. He had then gone to Harry’s in Ängelholm for a few drinks and when he got home approximately three hours later, he’d immediately become annoyed at the old bat, as he insisted on calling his wife. According to him, she’d been unsympathetic and rude about his work situation and, simply put, hadn’t known her place.
So what did you do? Take to the bottle?
It usually helps.
Helps? In this file I have four police reports made by Kerstin, accusing you of assault, and that’s just from the past six months.
The day before, she’d only been able to work for a few hours before Mona-Jill had grown impatient and reminded her she’d promised to help weed the garden, and then they were supposed to listen to Sommar on the radio together before riding their bikes around Kranke Lake.
It was only now, well past midnight, when Mona-Jill was at the deepest point of her sleep cycle, that she’d been able to sneak back out to the boat and continue her work.
Yes, I’m an alcoholic, if that’s what you’re asking. I’m not denying it. But I keep it under control.
You call this under control?
(Conny is confronted with photographs of his battered wife. Silence.)
What I mean is that I decide when the bottle gets opened, not the other way around. No one can say otherwise.
I would actually say these pictures are pretty clear proof you were out of control last night. Wouldn’t you agree?
(Silence.)
Yes.
(Silence.)
But I didn’t really drink that much. I know that sounds like I’m lying, but it’s true.
So you’re saying you did this to your wife while you were sober?
No, I’m saying I got drunk much faster than usual. Properly pissed, if that’s even what it was. I don’t remember. I remember almost nothing. And just so you know, I never black out. It’s odd, actually. As if the booze was… Never mind, I don’t know.
Öhman’s answer was circled with red felt-tip pen, and the last sentences were underlined too. It was so typical of Elvin to highlight a bunch of stuff without the slightest explanation in the margin.
What did you drink?
Explorer. Always Explorer.
Stubbs looked up from the transcripts and scanned the cabin until she found the evidence bag with the Explorer bottle in one of the boat’s storage compartments, next to the shoebox with the surveillance owls. So Elvin had gone to the crime scene. Even though he hadn’t been working the case, he’d made his way out there and confiscated the bottle.
It was slightly more than half full, and if it was the only bottle Conny Öhman had drunk from after coming home, it could well be true that he was far from intoxicated enough to black out and have complete amnesia. Elvin must have thought the same thing.
And if that were the case, it might mean Molander had been there before the night of the murder to spike the spirits. Probably with Xyrem or some other fast-acting GHB compound that caused a powerful, alcohol-like intoxication but would be out of the victim’s system within hours and therefore not show up in a urine sample. The pieces were finally coming together.
Anything else you want to add?
No, other than that I don’t see the point of this interview. You’ve clearly already made up your minds it was me.
Wasn’t it?
(Silence.)
Should I take your silence as a confession?
(Silence.)
I guess I should.
Because if you have anything to say to the contrary, this is the time.
(Silence.)
I suppose you could check her phone. She always started filming whenever I got a bit upset.
We already did, and as you say, there’s some incriminating things on there. But unfortunately, nothing from last night. I wasn’t there, obviously, but I can imagine there were reasons she wouldn’t have had the ability to take out her phone and start recording. Or what do you think?
(Shrugs his shoulders.)
Why hadn’t they thought of that? Stubbs put the transcript down and pushed her reading glasses up into her hair. Elvin must have had a mobile phone. It should have been in his flat. But there had been no sign of it there, and nowhere else either, as far as she knew.
Had Molander taken it? And if so, why?
So far, she’d left the computer alone. Usually, a computer would be one of the last things she tackled at a crime scene. The most important evidence was almost always physical. What’s more, depending on the size of the hard drive, going through one was often so labour-intensive it required several days’ work, especially when you had no idea what you were looking for.
But this time, she did know when she sat down in front of the computer, booted it up and clicked her way to the DCIM folder. That was where pictures were stored. It didn’t matter if you shoved in an external memory card full of photos or connected a phone via the USB port. That was always where they ended up.
And there were pictures in it, a seemingly endless number, and one day, she would have time to go through them all one by one. But not today. So she sorted the pictures from newest to oldest and scrolled down to Thursday 5 April. But there were no pictures from that date. Nor from Friday 6 April, the day Molander had conducted his crime scene investigation, according to the case file. Nor from the following weekend.
But there was a video.
On Sunday 8 April at 7.17 a.m., Elvin had recorded a video that was four minutes and forty-three seconds long. That was two and a half days after the murder and could have been of practically anything. But it wasn’t.
She’d only driven past Munka-Ljungby once or twice. She’d certainly never been to Munka Pizzeria. According to the report, Kerstin and Conny Öhman had rented out part of their house to it, and judging from the footage, which was bobbing up and down as if Elvin was holding the phone while walking, that was where he was going.
He’d probably parked his car some distance away to avoid getting too close to the dark blue Audi whose number plate Elvin was now pointing the phone at. She paused the playback, did a quick search for the registration number and confirmed what she had suspected.
The Audi belonged to Molander.
According to the case file, he’d finished the crime scene investigation on Friday the sixth. And yet there he was, a full day later. Granted, there was nothing irregular about a forensic scientist returning for one last once-over before calling in the cleaners. She’d done it herself countless times. But never in her private car and definitely not without informing the lead investigator, in this case Irene Lilja.
Elvin moved on from Molander’s car and walked across the gravel to the back of the house, where he quietly opened the back door and entered. Since he was still holding the phone in his left hand, the video didn’t show much beyond a dirty green rug, his orthopaedic Ecco shoes and the bottom of his jeans as he made his way into the house.
But there were plenty of sounds. The creaking floor, the panting breaths and the squeaky door to the living room.
‘Hi there,’ said Molander’s voice, and a second later the man himself became visible, standing at the top of a ladder with one hand in the ceiling lampshade. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Oh, nothing. I just happened to be in the neighbourhood and thought I’d have a look.’
‘How does anyone just happen to be in Munka-Ljungby at half past seven on a Sunday morning?’ asked Molander, who seemed to slip something into his jacket pocket.
‘Believe it or not, I’ve actually been out fishing in Skälder Bay. I even caught a codfish that weighed over six pounds. And you? I thought you were done here two days ago?’
‘You know what it’s like. We were in a hurry, and I didn’t want to risk overlooking something.’ Molander hurriedly climbed down the ladder and disappeared from the shot.
He was clearly tense, acting as though Elvin had burst in and caught him red-handed. But why was he there, and what had he pulled out of the ceiling light?
‘No, I suppose that makes sense,’ replied Elvin, now pointing the phone at the floor, which seemed to have been scrubbed clean of blood – so the cleaners had already been by to scrub away any remaining evidence, which made Molander’s visit even stranger. ‘I guess I didn’t realize there were things that needed clearing up.’
‘Who said anything about clearing things up?’ The phone was turned up and once again showed Molander, but this time from below. ‘There’s nothing to clear up here.’
‘So we’re sure that Conny bloke, or whatever his name is, did it?’
The phone was pointed back down at the floor, where two of Molander’s aluminium cases were sitting open, revealing technical instruments stored in bespoke compartments.
‘Of course he did it. There’s never been any doubt about that, as far as I know. Who else could it be? There are no signs of a third person having been present. Her blood was on his hands, clothes and groin. And according to Lilja he’s more or less confessed.’
‘Calm down. You don’t have to sell me on it.’
‘I’m not trying to. I’m just filling you in on what’s going on.’
‘All right then. So everything’s good, in other words.’
‘Yes, everything’s good. There’s no need for you to fret.’
Silence fell and Stubbs heard the sound of the aluminium cases being closed while Elvin continued further into the room and pointed his phone up at the half-empty Explorer bottle on the mantel.
‘So, did you find anything?’
‘Find? What do you mean, find?’
‘In the ceiling light. What else were you doing up there?’
‘Oh, that. Yes, that’s a valid question. No, I realized I’d forgotten to check it and as I said, I just wanted to make sure.’
‘I suppose we have to hope the cleaners missed it, too.’
‘No need to worry. It was almost as dusty as your house up there.’ Molander let out a forced laugh that faltered when Elvin stayed silent. ‘Well, I have to get home. So if you wouldn’t mind making your way out so I can lock the door, that would be great.’
‘Are you in a hurry?’
‘I guess you could say that. Gertrud will be up in half an hour and she can be foul-tempered if I don’t greet her with coffee and croissants. You know what it’s like.’
‘I don’t, actually. But you go on, I’ll lock up.’
‘So you’re staying. That makes me curious. May I ask why?’
‘No reason, really. Like I said, I just happened to be in the neighbourhood. Do you have a problem with me hanging around?’
‘No, why would I? As far as I’m concerned, you can stay as long as you like. Conny Öhman is unlikely to be back anytime soon.’ Molander forced out another laugh. ‘All right, well, I guess I’ll head out, then.’
‘Sure, you don’t want to be late. And don’t forget to send my love to Gertrud.’
Molander picked up his bags and left the room, and the second the front door closed, Elvin aimed his phone at the mantel again. Not at the bottle of vodka this time, but rather at a number of small black plastic objects lined up in a row.
Stubbs instantly recognized them as surveillance microphones of the exact same model Elvin had used in his owls. So he’d stolen both the idea and the equipment for bugging Molander’s living room from Molander himself.
It was also worth noting that as soon as Molander opened his cases, he must have realized that, in his haste, he’d left some of his gadgets at the crime scene. He’d probably felt compelled go back, only to realize Elvin had taken both the microphones and the vodka bottle.
That had probably been all the reason he needed to do away with him.