Missing in Malmö: The third Inspector Anita Sundström mystery (Inspector Anita Sundström mysteries) (19 page)

‘Her university friend thought she was already in a bar when she rang to cancel their drink together.’

‘I’ve dragged in Hakim to help. He’s got a good eye.’

Anita sighed. ‘Poor sod.’

‘He’s strong enough to cope with Westermark.’

‘I hope you’re right.’ Anita was being overprotective again.

‘Oh, one bit of potentially bad news.’

‘You mean there’s more?’ she said warily.

‘Your ex-husband is staying at your apartment.’

‘Brilliant!’ Anita put her glasses back on. ‘That’ll cause ructions which I won’t be there to sort out.’ She suddenly thought about Hakim holing up there. That would put an end to his little domestic escape. ‘Thanks for keeping me in the loop, Henrik.’

‘You’d better call Moberg. He wants to know what on earth – not that he used that phrase – you were up to investigating Greta Jansson on your own. I’m afraid Westermark jumped on that.’

‘I’ll call him in the morning,’ she groaned. ‘Maybe I can distract him with the Todd case. We’ve made some progress. We’ve been told about a living relative but we’ve no idea where she is or how any of it is connected to Sweden. Not that that will please our beloved chief inspector.’

‘Good luck.’

She was about to finish the call. ‘Henrik. Do you think Björn killed Greta Jansson?’

‘I don’t know. But it’s not looking good for him.’

Westermark sat alone in his office. He was lost in thought. He was still brooding over Nordlund letting Björn Sundström go. The old fucker didn’t know what he was doing. Putting that bitch Anita’s ex-husband away would be a great way to get back at her. Despite everything that had happened in the past, she had re-emerged ahead of him in the team’s pecking order. He could understand it if she had flashed her tits to get there, but she was above that. Too principled for a tough job like ours, he thought bitterly. He was more than happy to cut corners to get quick convictions. Moberg didn’t care as long as nothing rebounded on him. Westermark flicked through Björn’s mobile for the umpteenth time. He had made a lot of calls to Greta Jansson’s phone. Many after she was dead. His mind went back to Anita. Even he had to admit that her results were impressive, but she was a lucky cop. She got those breaks that others didn’t get. However, he knew that what was really gnawing away at him was that he wanted to get into her knickers, and she had evaded every attempt. He wasn’t used to women turning him down. He didn’t like it. The more Anita spurned him, the more he wanted her. He couldn’t count the number of times he had imagined ravishing her over his desk. He had looked on in dismay when he could see that she had fallen for Ewan Strachan. His satisfaction at Strachan’s conviction and subsequent imprisonment had been tempered by Anita’s visits to the jail. He had failed to use that to his advantage, and instead of getting her into bed as he had planned, she had managed to turn the tables. It was time she paid.

Westermark threw the mobile back onto the desk. He would head for home, take the CCTV footage from Moosehead and Mello Yellow with him, and flick through them over a whisky or two. He had left the other bars in and around Lilla Torg to the Arab. That would keep the little wanker out of the way.

Though the handsome professor was definitely in the frame, he wasn’t going to overlook Fraser. Another fucking Anita connection. Someone was going to go down for Greta Jansson’s murder. He would see to that. And if it hurt Anita in the process, all the better. But the first thing he was going to do was apply a little pressure on her ex. He picked up the phone.

‘I’m at home.’ Anita had thought it best to check on how Hakim was. ‘You know your husband has come to stay? But thanks for letting me use the apartment, anyway.’

‘Sorry about that.’

‘It’s not a problem. I appreciated the break from home.’

‘How is Björn?’

‘A bit shaken up, actually. It can’t have been easy for him being stuck in an interview room with Westermark.’

Anita refrained from asking him whether he thought Björn was guilty. She might not get the answer she wanted. ‘Is Lasse OK about his dad staying?’

‘I don’t know. He was out. He was hardly there over the weekend.’

That didn’t sound good. She thought it better to get back to business. ‘I hear you’ve been put with Westermark checking out CCTV.’

‘Yes. But we’ve split up the bars, so I don’t have to work with him. I’ve found no sign of Greta Jansson yet. Maybe Westermark will turn something up.’

‘Any luck on the Graeme Todd front?’

‘Wallen went back to Ystad, but hasn’t unearthed anything new. She’s been liaising with the Ystad police. What about over there in England?’

Anita gave him a brief account of their latest findings. Not that there was much she could tell him. By the time she hung up, she felt quite deflated. Her case was at that infuriating stage where nothing seemed to be happening. One step forward, two steps back. And the Greta Jansson murder was even more unsettling. She thought about ringing home to see if Lasse and Björn were all right, but she resisted the urge. She couldn’t cope with Lasse giving her grief about his father and she didn’t want to compromise herself by talking to Björn. After all, she couldn’t escape the fact that he might well be a killer.

Billy Hump drained his glass and thumped it down on the bar. ‘Another,’ he slurred unsmilingly at the barmaid. She took a fresh glass and started to pull a pint. She did little to disguise her contempt for the regular she had learned to loathe over recent months. Why he had come back to the area, she had no idea. His family had disowned him and they wouldn’t be seen dead drinking in the same pub as him. When she looked up, he was no longer at the bar. He was over by the door.

‘Just ganning for a fag. I’ll pay when I gets back.’

If he came back. Once the drink was in Billy Hump, there was no knowing what he might do. He’d already had six pints and wasn’t very steady on his feet. They’d had to call the police on a couple of occasions when he had got aggressive. The landlord said he was on a last warning. If she had had her way he would have been barred months ago, but she suspected the landlord was a bit afraid of him.

Billy Hump wandered outside. The two other smokers immediately threw their stubs onto the pavement and vanished back inside the pub. He was alone on the street. Painstakingly, he took out his crumpled packet of cigarettes. He fumbled with the pack until he managed to squeeze out the last one and slide it into the side of his mouth. He flicked his plastic lighter and managed to unite the cigarette with the flame. He didn’t notice the car further up the street rev into life. Billy Hump stared up into the starry sky. He watched the smoke funnel out of his mouth into the night air. It was only when he heard an engine gunning that he half turned round, just in time to see a car mounting the kerb and heading straight towards him. With a booming thud that alerted the regulars of the Cross Keys, Billy Hump was thrown up into the air. He landed in a broken heap on the dry, cold pavement. His cigarette rolled to the pub doorway. It was still burning.

CHAPTER 29

‘Where do we go from here?’

Ash looked enquiringly across at Jennifer Todd. Along with Anita, they were sitting in the Todds’ dining room. On the long, mock-Georgian dining table was a new, rudimentary family tree. Doris Alma Little’s name was in the middle, highlighted in yellow. Jennifer had double-checked that Doris’s sister, Belle, had been her only sibling, and she’d filled in all the names and dates of known blood relatives.

‘Summing up,’ said Jennifer, looking down at the left of the diagram, ‘Florence’s mother died when she was only two. Father unknown. So no relatives there that we’re ever likely to find.’

‘So who is this lot?’ Ash said, pointing to the names on the right-hand side of the tree.

‘I thought I’d look into the Ridley side of the family.’

‘Can any of them inherit?’ Anita asked.

‘Not Richard Ridley, our Stanwix butcher. He married into the family, so he’s not a blood relative and neither are relatives on his side.’

‘So what’s the point?’

Jennifer folded her arms emphatically. ‘Well, we’re faced with two alternatives. One, we know Carol Emily Ridley, born April 10th, 1959, is the main heir, but we can’t find her. Two, we can go back a couple of generations to James Little’s parents and find someone there.’

‘Shouldn’t we do that then?’ Ash’s suggestion seemed to make sense to Anita.

Jennifer pursed her lips. ‘I think the London heir hunters would have tried that route before they decided the financial returns weren’t worth the effort. That suggests they found nothing there. And they probably didn’t bother with the Ridley side of the family. They won’t have messed around. With their staff and resources, they would’ve taken about a day to sort all this out and make the decision to go no further. And you can bet that if they’d got as far as Carol Emily Ridley – and they must have done; they would have checked out everyone that’s in this country. But they obviously cut their losses. That’s why they didn’t bother sending someone to interview Doris’s neighbour. Their nearest agent is probably based in Manchester or further south, so the cost of getting someone to dig around on the ground wasn’t worth it. Again, that decision would’ve been made within hours.’

‘Do they work
that
quickly?’ There was a hint of admiration in Ash’s voice.

‘Oh, yes. Remember, they’re often competing with other large probate research outfits, so if they don’t find heirs within the first day or so, their rivals will. That’s why I believe Graeme found Carol. Or found out something about her.’

‘OK. So, how far have we got?’

‘Well, as you can see, Richard Ridley had two brothers, William and Douglas. William died in the Korean War. He wasn’t married.’

‘This lot have been unlucky in war,’ observed Ash.

‘Douglas, the youngest, had a son called John, who was born in 1960. I phoned the Register Office and they have a record of a John Douglas Calthwaite Ridley marrying in Carlisle in 1984. The Church of Scotland on Chapel Street. His bride was a Vanessa Janette Johnson. The thing is, John’s Carol’s first cousin and there’s only a year between them in age. I thought, if we can find him, maybe we can find her.’

‘That’s where we can take over. I’ll get onto headquarters.’ Ash was about to whip out his phone when Jennifer Todd held up her hand with a broad grin on her face.

‘No need. John’s names helped. He was obviously named Douglas after his dead uncle, but it was Calthwaite that was unusual. Probably a family name going way back. Anyway, I put John Douglas Calthwaite Ridley in a couple of search engines and came up with a match. An obituary.’

‘That’s no fuc...bloody use,’ cursed Ash, quickly correcting his oath.

Jennifer was still smiling. ‘The obituary was from two years ago. It was in the Worcester Evening News.’

Anita clapped her hands. ‘Well done, Jennifer!’

‘So why did Graeme go down to Worcester if John was dead?’

‘Isn’t it obvious? He went to see the widow. Vanessa Ridley.’

The sun was shining when Fraser emerged from the main entrance of the school. He was glad to be out. The listening lesson hadn’t gone well. The students hadn’t listened. He wandered over to the centre of Kungsgatan, the long, tree-lined pedestrian avenue that swept up to St. Pauli Kyrka and beyond. Curling, brown leaves were fluttering down and another autumn was imperceptibly taking hold of the urban landscape. The weak sun still had some warmth in it, and Fraser plonked himself down on a bench next to a green lamppost, and closed his eyes. He was grateful that he hadn’t ended up further north. Swedish winters could be unrelentingly severe on both body and soul but were easier to cope with in Skåne. Often the season was no worse in Malmö than he’d experienced growing up in Glasgow. It just seemed to go on longer and sometimes seemed to skip spring altogether before jumping straight into summer.

‘Can I join you?’

Fraser glanced up. He didn’t bother suppressing a heavy sigh. ‘What do you want?’

‘Another chat.’ Westermark sat uncomfortably close. Fraser shifted along the bench. Westermark was pleased with himself.
Sydsvenskan
had run a short but prominent piece on the Greta Jansson murder and had alluded to a romantic connection to an unnamed professor from Uppsala. The other papers would soon be on the trail, and he knew that they would be camped outside Anita Sundström’s apartment. Of course, Moberg had gone berserk when he saw the article, claiming that he would castrate the person responsible. The chief inspector might well suspect him of the leak but he wouldn’t be able to prove it. For Westermark it was a win-win situation. The spotlight was on Anita’s ex-husband – that would put pressure on the professor and embarrass Anita. And his tip-off to the attractive reporter at
Sydsvenskan
would be worth a quid pro quo shag.

‘Last time we spoke, you said you fancied Greta Jansson.’

‘No.
You
said that.’ Fraser couldn’t control his temper. He wondered if Anita Sundström had said something to this sleazy cop. It had been indiscreet to mention that he had asked Greta out on a date.

‘Touchy, aren’t you? Anyway, the day she left the school for the last time was Friday, September 28th. Do you remember what you were doing that night?’

Fraser tried to calm himself. ‘Not specifically.’

‘It was only just over a fortnight ago.’ Westermark managed to inject a dollop of disbelief into his voice.

‘Most Friday nights I have a drink with colleagues after work. Then I usually end up at my local, The Pickwick.’

‘You English are obsessed with pubs.’

‘I’m Scottish.’ This guy was really winding him up.

Now Westermark knew why he didn’t like this man. Another bloody Ewan Strachan.

‘Did you go anywhere near Lilla Torg that night?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Are you sure?’ barked Westermark.

Fraser looked startled. ‘Well... I think—’

‘You were in Mello Yello early that evening.’

‘I can’t rem—’

‘We’ve got you on CCTV. Six twenty-two.’

With a flicker of panic in his eyes, Fraser backtracked. ‘Yes, of course. I was going to meet some pals there. But they didn’t turn up, so I went off to The Pickwick.’