Missing in Malmö: The third Inspector Anita Sundström mystery (Inspector Anita Sundström mysteries) (14 page)

‘Inspector Sundström, I presume. Welcome to Cumbria.’

Inspector Henrik Nordlund stood on the jetty in the mid-afternoon. The atrocious weather of the previous night had long abated and there were even hints of blue sky between the scudding clouds. The body of the young woman had been removed a few of hours earlier by the forensics team. All that was left was the official tape cordoning off the scene. He didn’t mind being there, as he hadn’t planned to do anything special this weekend. He never had plans. No children to visit. No one to share his weekends with. He knew why he had come back to the scene of the body’s discovery. Simply for something to do. Truth be told, he wasn’t sure how he was going to fill his time when he retired at Christmas. All the plans he had made with Hannah had disappeared in that faceless hospital cancer ward. That last night he had stayed in the small bedroom until the dawn broke. He had squeezed onto the bed to hold her one last time. He had no idea whether she knew what was going on. She had breathed her last as the first light peeked through the drawn blinds, and he’d stayed on the bed, clinging to her, not believing that all their dreams were now dust. Sailing round the Baltic had been their great retirement plan. He hadn’t gone near a boat since she died.

The water slapped at the edge of the jetty. He glanced around. To his left, two red pilot boats swayed gently in the swell. Just beyond was a large confection of concrete and glass – offices. Behind him was the unexceptional Bylgahuset, which housed Sweco and VASYD. Again, offices. The simple conclusion was that when the body was dumped, it had most probably been done at night when no one would be around. And dumped it had been, according to Eva Thulin’s preliminary findings. It had been battered by the storm and had experienced a huge amount of trauma, but Thulin had said there was the strong possibility of strangulation being the cause of death. The likelihood was that hands had been used, so someone had been strong enough to throttle the life out of the victim. There wasn’t much else she could tell him until she had had time to investigate further. She couldn’t give him an idea of how long the body had been in the water because of its severely bloated state, through the inevitable loosening of the skin. She hazarded a guess that it was over a week. One thing in their favour was that, despite the mauling and the effects of the water, the head was still just recognizable, though one of the eyes had been eaten. She explained with relish that though on land the head degrades first, at sea it is often the reverse. However, if the victim had lingered in the water much longer, it would have been increasingly difficult to identify the remains. One important point of interest was that she was still wearing one small hooped earring in her pierced left ear. The other earring was missing, either coming off in the sea or during the attack. Thulin suggested it was a case of checking missing persons – a natural blonde female aged between twenty and thirty. Westermark was already on it. As there wasn’t a great deal that they could do on the Todd murder until Anita unearthed some clues over in Britain, Moberg had put him, Nordlund, on the new case, with Westermark helping. It wasn’t a situation that he was entirely happy with, as he knew Westermark would try and take over and bulldoze his way through the investigation. But Nordlund did trust the younger man’s instincts. In fact, he had been surprised that when Westermark had been hauled in by Moberg, he hadn’t complained about his weekend being ruined. He seemed up for the task. Nordlund reflected that this would be his own last case. He was determined to crack it before they handed him his leaving present on Friday, December 21st, a date seared on his brain. At least he had a good start; he was pretty sure he knew who the girl was. Greta Jansson.

CHAPTER 23

When Anita drew the curtains, she saw the rain had set in. The room in the Carrock Guest House was traditionally comfortable without a hint of modern flamboyance. It was situated in a Victorian terrace in the centre of the town. Ash had explained that it would be more comfortable and have more character than the local Travelodge. For that she was grateful. Ash had taken her briefly to the county police headquarters at Carleton Hall, on the edge of Penrith, where he was based. In a cramped office, he had shown her the few bits of information he had managed to gather so far. He’d got hold of copies of Doris Little’s birth and death certificates from the General Register Office in Carlisle. Nothing obvious had leapt out from the documents, but they would form the core of their research. He had also obtained building society details. On her death, Doris Little had had £5,633.76 in her account. That was the full value of her estate. Ash remarked that he could understand the London probate researchers giving up so easily after finding their reward would be so paltry. On the other hand, it certainly didn’t explain why Graeme Todd had got so excited. Afterwards, Ash had dropped Anita off at the guest house.

Anita had gone out and had a pizza at an Italian restaurant close by. Before finding somewhere to eat, she had wandered round the centre of the small town to get her bearings. It was based around the market square with its distinctive Musgrave Monument clock tower. Behind the square, she had found St. Andrew’s Church. Originally 13th-century, all that remains of the medieval building is the tower. The elegant Georgian nave and chancel had a soothing ambiance, and Anita had spent a few contemplative minutes sitting in one of the pews. Ewan seeped into her thoughts. She couldn’t get his phone call out of her head. She found herself about to offer up a silent prayer for him before mentally admonishing herself. Her father would have been most disappointed. When Anita was at her most impressionable, his fierce atheism had won out over her mother’s limp Christianity. It had been an easy battle, and nothing in her life had given her cause to recant. After her meal, she had retired early to her room. It had been a long day. She was in bed by nine o’clock.

She was reading a book she had picked up at Kastrup airport when her mobile buzzed. As she took the phone from the bedside table, she assumed it was Lasse. He must have had an argument with Hakim. She was surprised to see Henrik Nordlund’s name on the screen.

‘Hi, Henrik. It’s late over there.’

‘Hope I’m not interrupting anything, but it’s important.’

Of course; with Nordlund it would be. She waited for him to tell her just how important.

‘A young woman’s body has been found. Nyhamnen.’ Anita’s mind raced to Greta Jansson. ‘Thrown up by the storm.’

‘Blonde?’

‘Yes.’

‘Age?’

‘Between twenty and thirty.’

‘You think it’s—’

‘Greta Jansson? Yes. Westermark has been through recent missing persons of roughly the same description and nothing has come up. Of course, it might be someone who, like Greta, hasn’t been reported missing yet.’

‘But unlikely.’ Anita was wondering how Björn would receive the news if the body really was Greta’s. He was a wreck already. This would finish him.

‘Accident?’ she asked without conviction.

‘I’m afraid not. It’s not easy working with a corpse that’s been in the water for some time, but Thulin reckons she’d been strangled.’

‘Oh, God!’ Anita’s heart sank. This was another missing victim that she hadn’t taken seriously.

‘There’s another thing.’ Anita wondered if it could get any worse. ‘It appears that the young woman was probably raped first.’

‘Shit!’

‘Problem is, there’s no semen because she’s been in the water too long.’

‘So no attacker’s DNA.’

‘The first thing we need to do is establish if it is Greta Jansson. Who do you think we should contact for identification purposes? The body’s in a bad way.’

Björn was an obvious choice, but Anita didn’t want to put him through the experience in his present emotional state. It was going to be difficult enough telling him. Anyway, he was up in Uppsala.

‘For speed, I’d get one of Greta’s colleagues in the English department at Kungsskolan. The one I spoke to was a Scottish guy called Alex Fraser. I haven’t got a number for him, but you’ll probably find him at The Pickwick pub on Malmoborgsgatan.’ Anita glanced at her watch. It would be half past ten in Sweden. ‘He’ll probably be there now. It’s his regular haunt.’

‘Thanks, Anita.’

‘Henrik. If it is Greta, can you tell me as soon as it’s confirmed? It’s best that’s it’s me who breaks the news to Björn.’

‘I will.’

She couldn’t believe that her mother had asked her to take it round to the policewoman’s apartment. Her bloody brother. He was so damned perfect. She never got a look in. Constantly criticized. And yet he was able to escape for the weekend to stay at his boss’s fancy pad. He was only going to be gone two days, and yet her mother had badgered her to take round the plastic box filled with couscous. Just because it was his favourite! Ponce! It wasn’t even Iraqi. But he thought eating North African food was more sophisticated than what they usually ate. She was happy with the McDonald’s on the other side of the main road. Now she was having to trudge round to the edge of Pildammsparken. She had a good mind to throw the box away. It would serve him right. He was too big for his boots now he was a policeman. What an awful thing to be – they’re all racist and fascist. Why couldn’t he have stuck to painting? He was good at that. He was a serious embarrassment. Her friends were always taking the piss, especially the boys. Some wouldn’t even speak to her because they knew what he was. They didn’t trust her. In a moment of anger, she flipped off the box’s lid. She could see the food by the light of the street lamp. She looked for somewhere to tip it out. Then she checked herself. She was bound to be found out when Hakim came back, and her father would go berserk.

She approached the apartment. It was on the ground floor. She could see there was a light on. It wasn’t as smart as she had expected, but it was a hundred times better than their run-down block. She sauntered up to the door and rang the bell. She knew that the policewoman was away. At first she just wanted to hand over the box and get away, but now she was here, curiosity got the better of her. See how Swedes really lived. The only homes she had ever been in were those of other immigrants. She had no white friends. Maybe she would get Hakim to show her around.

When the door opened, she was taken aback not to see her brother. A tall, blond young man with grey-green eyes was standing in a pool of light. He smiled.

‘You must be Jazmin.’

Suddenly she found herself tongue-tied. She had been preparing something rude to say to her brother. Now she was struck dumb. She could only nod stupidly.

‘Do you want to see Hakim?’

‘Not if I can help it.’ It just came out in a rush.

Lasse laughed. ‘It’s OK. He’s not in at the moment.’

Jazmin held out the box of couscous. She wished he would just take it and she could escape. For some reason all she could feel was embarrassment.

‘Why don’t you bring that in?’

Jazmin hesitated. For one daft moment she became very conscious of her hair, severely shaved at the sides and with an outcrop running across the top of her head. Like so many white kids, Lasse had blond, floppy locks.

He smiled again. ‘You can bring that Red Cross food parcel in only if you promise not to mention the sodding police.’

Jazmin tried hard to suppress a grin as she stepped inside the apartment.

Though Anita had turned off her bedside light at about ten o’clock, the chance of an undisturbed night’s sleep was now out of the question. Voices drifted up from the street outside, before tailing off. There was a pub at the end of the road, so there was probably more Saturday night noise to come. Not that it mattered. Her mind was racing anyway. She started to worry about Fraser. It wasn’t really fair that he was going to have to identify a dead body when it should be Björn, but it would be quicker. He was on the spot. She would owe him a few pints if he stayed on speaking terms with her.

But it was Björn who really occupied her restless thoughts. Hearing about Greta Jansson’s body turning up had been a shock. She had had a bad feeling about the business for a few days now. As she turned in her bed, her mind went back to Greta’s apartment, and the little signs that hadn’t meant a great deal at the time took on a new significance. The contents of the fridge. The made-up bed. Some things had gone, but others hadn’t. Someone had cleared up afterwards. And the only person she knew who had been there was Björn. She was now sure that he hadn’t told her the truth about his present relationship with Greta. She knew, from their last couple of fraught years together, about his propensity for lying when it came to young women. The key. She had given it to Nordlund, along with the photo of Greta. Again, that nagging thought — how had he got hold of it?

What was worse was the unthinkable – was the man she had lived with for over a decade, and the father of her child, capable of rape and murder?

CHAPTER 24

The next morning was cold and grey. The weather matched Anita’s mood. She stood outside the guest house waiting for Ash to pick her up. They were going to drive out to Fellbeck to see Jennifer Todd. Ash had offered to show her round the area on that Sunday and then begin the job on Monday. She had declined the offer and said that she would like to begin the investigation as soon as possible. He hadn’t looked very happy at having to give up his day off, but he had been given strict instructions that he had to do everything in his power to help the representative of the Skåne County Police. He must be seen to be as co-operative as possible.

Anita may not have had much sleep but at least she wasn’t hungry. She had had an enormous full English breakfast – bacon, eggs, sausages, mushrooms, black pudding, fried bread and baked beans. In fact, she felt bloated. She did enjoy British food, and had developed a taste for pub food like steak and ale pie, and sticky toffee pudding during her time in London, but she could never understand the huge breakfasts. One colleague in the Met had a cooked breakfast every day. Yet he managed lunch and, presumably, an evening meal when he got home. British arteries must be under constant pressure. A couple of coffees and some yogurt should be enough for anyone first thing in the morning. That was another thing – she had forgotten how weak the coffee was over here. A further irritation was that she had forgotten her snus. She was always disorganised when it came to packing. The same with everything really, except her police work. In her mind’s eye she could see the round tin on the kitchen table. Now, she was craving its soothing nicotine fix. She was awakened out of her reverie by a car horn. A silver Honda Civic drew up at the pavement. Inside, Ash gave her a cheery wave.