Autumn Killing (38 page)

‘Different methods,’ Sven says. ‘But I still think we’re dealing with the same murderer.’

Malin nods.

‘There are too many connections between the murders. The location, the victims’ histories. I’d be astonished if it weren’t the same perpetrator.’

‘Maybe the first murder was committed out of rage, and the second planned?’ Zeke ponders.

‘Unless Fredrik committed the first murder and was himself murdered in revenge,’ Sven says. ‘We simply don’t know. But the chances are that we’re dealing with one and the same murderer.’

‘And we can write off the parents of the kids in the car crash,’ Malin says. ‘They had no reason to want Fredrik dead. If they wanted to kill him for organising the party, they’d have done so long ago.’

They mention Jochen Goldman, agree that the connection is a long shot, but that they can’t dismiss the possibility entirely.

The three detectives are silent for a while, considering all the possible scenarios, sensing how elusive and multifaceted the truth is.

‘You two go and tell Axel Fågelsjö,’ Sven goes on. ‘Johan and Waldemar can inform Katarina.’

‘And question them. We’ll handle the old man,’ Zeke says. ‘After all, they could well have had something to do with this.’

‘True enough,’ Sven says. ‘They might have wanted Fredrik out of the way because of his business dealings, or they could be guilty of Petersson’s death and he was on the point of cracking and talking.’

Malin shakes her head sceptically, but says nothing.

‘And we’ll have to take a closer look at Fredrik’s life. His dealings with the bank,’ Sven says. ‘Maybe he didn’t only lose his own family’s money? He could have enemies. More work for Johan, Waldemar and Lovisa in Hades.’

‘What a bloody mess,’ Zeke says. ‘How the hell are we going to get anywhere with all this?’

‘They can check all the business stuff in Hades. A bad deal seldom occurs in isolation,’ Sven says, then he gives Malin a sympathetic look that annoys her and makes her want to say: ‘Stop worrying so fucking much. I’ll be fine,’ then she thinks: What if I’m not, what if I can’t hold on? What happens then? And then the indistinct concept of rehab pops into her head like a small firework.

‘And we’ll have to talk to Fredrik’s wife,’ Zeke says. ‘She hasn’t reported him missing.’

‘You do that,’ Sven says. ‘He might have told her he was going somewhere. Any other thoughts?’ Sven goes on. ‘The car crash?’

‘Dubious. But we have to ask ourselves why he was laid on the family vault naked,’ Malin says. ‘Almost like a sacrifice.’

‘Do you think the murderer’s trying to tell us something?’

‘I really don’t know. Maybe he or she is trying to make us believe that there’s something to tell. Get us to look in a particular direction. Possibly towards the Fågelsjö family themselves. It’s all been in the papers, after all.’

‘You mean it could be someone in the family who wants to be discovered?’

Zeke, questioning, beside her.

‘More the opposite,’ Malin says.

‘How do you mean?’

‘I don’t know,’ Malin says. ‘It just feels like there’s something here that doesn’t make sense.’

‘You’re right about something not making sense. Well, we’ll have Karin’s report tomorrow, and we’ll take it from there,’ Sven says. ‘And we need to map out Fredrik’s last twenty-four hours. We haven’t exactly got very far with Petersson. Unless there really isn’t anything to fill in that we don’t already know about, apart from his encounter with the murderer.’

‘So how do we think Fredrik got here?’ Zeke asks.

‘Forensics are going to have a look for tyre tracks around the castle. See if they can find any that don’t match the solicitor’s car. There’s nothing to suggest that anyone’s been inside the castle. The alarm was on when they arrived. Well, go and see Axel Fågelsjö now. Before the media announce it.’

‘It’s already out,’ Zeke says.

Cars from the
Correspondent
and local radio. The main national broadcaster, SVT. TV4. Local television news.

Over-eager vultures. Even if they don’t mention any names, the victim’s relatives can always put two and two together, and no one should find out about a death through the media.

Still no Daniel out there.

In his place an older reporter that Malin, oddly enough, doesn’t recognise, and the photographer, the young girl with dreadlocks that Malin knows takes good pictures. What is it she’s trying to capture here?

Death?

Violence? Evil. Or fear.

Whatever you do, don’t take any pictures of me. I look like a pig.

Sven’s mobile rings.

He hmms a few times beside them. Hangs up.

‘That was Groth in Forensics,’ he says, turning towards Malin. ‘The examination of the pictures of your parents didn’t come up with anything, I’m afraid.’

Malin nods.

‘Shit,’ Zeke says quietly. He was furious when he found out about the pictures this morning. ‘Couldn’t the pictures have something to do with all this?’

‘Somehow it all fits together, doesn’t it?’ Malin says. ‘It’s just a question of how.’

Malin leaves the kitchen and goes out into the main hall, stopping once more in front of the huge painting of a man rubbing suncream onto a woman’s back.

Thinks that the picture is beautiful and tawdry at the same time.

She feels something as she looks at it, but she can’t put her finger on what.

Sven walks past her.

She says: ‘I’d like Zeke and I to deal with Katarina Fågelsjö.’

‘OK, if you think that’s a better idea,’ Sven says. ‘Waldemar and Johan can talk to Fredrik Fågelsjö’s wife instead. But start with his father. And not a word to the bloody media.’

Axel Fågelsjö is standing quietly in front of the sitting-room window. The fog that drifted in when the rain stopped is obstructing the view of the Horticultural Society Park, the naked trees are like thin silhouettes of bodies, and Axel seems to be looking for something, as if he has a feeling that someone down in the park is watching him from a distance and was just waiting for the right opportunity to attack him.

It was as if he knew why they were there, as if he knew what had happened, and, while they still were in the hallway, he said, ‘Out with it, then!’ to Malin and Zeke, as if he had spent all night waiting for them. They asked him to go through to the sitting room and take a seat, but the old man refused: ‘Just say what you’ve got to say here,’ and Malin sat on a worn old rococo stool by the door and said straight out: ‘Your son. Fredrik. He was found dead in the chapel at Skogså this morning.’

The terrible meaning of the words blew away her insecurities.

‘Had he killed himself? Hanged himself?’

And in Axel Fågelsjö’s face, in the pink confusion of wrinkled skin stretched over fat, Malin saw a hardness, but also something like clarity.

I despised my son. I loved him.

He’s dead, and perhaps now his sins can be forgiven. His sins against me. Against the memory of his mother. His ancestors.

And, deep in his shiny pupils, grief, yet still somehow hidden behind layer upon layer of self-control.

‘He was murdered,’ Zeke said. ‘Your son was murdered.’

As if he wanted to provoke a reaction in Axel, but he merely turned away, went into the sitting room, and over to the window where he is now standing, his back to them as he answers their questions, apparently unconcerned by the circumstances. Malin wishes she could see his face now, his eyes, but she is sure there are no tears running down Axel Fågelsjö’s cheeks.

‘We can tell you the details of your son’s death if you want to hear them,’ Malin says. ‘We know a fair amount already.’

‘How he was found, you mean?’

‘For instance.’

‘I’ll be able to read about it in the paper soon enough, won’t I?’

Malin still tells him what they know, without going into any great detail. Axel remains motionless by the window.

‘Did Fredrik have any enemies?’

‘No. But of course you know that I wasn’t happy with him after the financial debacle.’

‘Anyone who might be trying to get at you?’

Axel shakes his head.

‘What were you doing yesterday evening and last night?’ Zeke asks.

‘I was at Katarina’s. We were talking about the possibility of buying back Skogså from the estate. Just her and me. It was late when I walked home.’

Father and daughter, Malin thinks. They’re together on the night when Fredrik, the brother, the son, is murdered. Why?

‘Nothing else you think we should know about Fredrik? Any other business deals that might have gone wrong?’

‘He didn’t have that level of authority at the bank.’

‘No?’

‘He was a middleman.’

‘Could he have had anything to do with Jochen Goldman?’

‘Jochen Goldman? Who’s that?’

‘The embezzler,’ Zeke says.

‘I don’t know of any Goldman. But I can’t imagine Fredrik had anything to do with an embezzler.’

‘Why not?’

‘He was too cowardly for that.’

Malin and Zeke look at each other.

‘What about Fredrik’s wife? What was their relationship like?’

‘You’ll have to ask his wife about that.’

‘Do you want us to arrange for someone to come and be with you? We’d prefer not to leave you alone.’

Axel snorts at Malin’s words.

‘Who would you send? A priest? If you don’t have any more questions you can go. It’s time to leave an old man in peace. I need to call an undertaker.’

Malin loses patience with the old man.

‘I don’t suppose your family had Jerry Petersson killed, and then Fredrik was on the point of cracking up and confessing? So you murdered him?’

Axel laughs at her.

‘You’re mad,’ he says.

And Malin realises how much it sounds like a conspiracy theory.

‘We’re going to see Katarina now,’ Malin goes on. ‘Perhaps you’d like to call her first?’

‘You can tell her the news,’ Axel Fågelsjö says. ‘She stopped listening to me long ago.’

Malin and Zeke take the stairs back down, their steps echoing in the stairwell. Halfway down they pass a black cleaner washing the steps with a damp mop.

‘He’s a cold bastard, that one,’ Zeke says as they approach the door.

‘He can shut off completely,’ Malin says. ‘Or rather, shut himself in.’

‘He didn’t even seem upset. Or the least bit curious about who might have killed his son.’

‘And he seemed even less concerned about Fredrik’s wife,’ Malin says.

‘And his grandchildren. He didn’t mention them at all,’ Zeke adds.

‘Presumably he’s too old for rage,’ Malin says.

‘Him? He’ll never be too old for that. No one gets that old.’

Axel has sat down in the armchair in front of the open fire.

He clenches his big, spade-like hands, feels his eyes well up and the tears run down his cheeks.

Fredrik.

Murdered.

How could that happen?

The police.

No one to talk to, the fewer words spoken, the better.

He sees his grandchildren running through the living room out at the Villa Italia, chased by Fredrik, then they run on through the pictures inside him, children’s feet running across the stone floors of the rooms of Skogså. Who are the children? Fredrik, Katarina? Victoria? Leopold?

I want my grandchildren here with me, but how can I approach her, Bettina? His wife, Christina, she’s never liked me, nor I her.

And really, what would they want me for?

The truth, Axel Fågelsjö thinks, is for people who don’t know any better. Action is for me.

You’re a widow now.

Your two children fatherless.

Johan Jakobsson looks at the woman sitting in front of him on the sofa in the large living room of the Villa Italia, hunched up and tear-streaked, yet still radiating a sort of faith in the future. She must be financially secure, and Johan has seen this before in women with children when he arrives to break news of their husband’s death, the way they immediately seem to focus all their energy forward, onto the children, and the work of limiting the damage to them.

Johan leans back on the sofa.

Christina Fågelsjö looks past him, towards Waldemar Ekenberg, who is sitting on a stool by the grand piano, rubbing the bruise on his cheek.

Christina has just explained that she decided to spend the night at her parents with the children after drinking wine at dinner. That she often ate dinner with the children at her parents without Fredrik, ‘they’ve never got on very well, Frederik and my parents’, and that her parents can confirm that she was there.

‘You didn’t call home?’ Waldemar asks.

‘No.’

‘And he wasn’t here when you got home?’ Johan asks, and he is struck by the idea that Christina could have murdered her husband to get a share of the recent inheritance before it was spent trying to buy back Skogså.

A long shot, he thinks. The woman in front of him is no murderer. And the inheritance must have gone mainly to Axel. But she does appear to be right-handed. Along with practically everyone else.

‘I assumed he must be at the bank.’

‘Did he have any enemies?’ Waldemar asks, and it strikes Johan that it’s just the right moment for that question, phrased in that way, and reluctantly he has to admit that he and Waldemar work well together as police officers. He is convinced that Christina is telling the truth when she replies.

‘Not that I know of.’

‘His father? His sister?’

‘You mean because of the debacle?’

Christina shrugs her shoulders.

Waldemar Ekenberg strikes one of the keys of the piano gently. Light in Christina Fågelsjö’s eyes.

‘I know we’ve asked before,’ Johan says. ‘But do you know why he tried to escape from us? Could it have . . .’

‘We talked about it the day he was released. He got scared, panicked. Anyone might have done in those circumstances.’

‘Do you think it occurred to him that driving under the influence of alcohol is illegal as well as dangerous?’

‘Sometimes he thought he was above that sort of thing. Sometimes rules were meant for other people.’

‘What was your marriage like?’ Johan goes on, and Christina answers without thinking.

‘It was a good marriage. Fredrik was a generous man. The Fågelsjö family are good at love.’