Missing in Malmö: The third Inspector Anita Sundström mystery (Inspector Anita Sundström mysteries) (7 page)

‘Well, it sounds as though it must be a family matter with her father turning up.’

‘Yes. That’s obviously it.’

Anita put away the remains of her lunch in her bag and got up. Nordlund followed suit. He saw her hesitate.

‘Are you heading back?’ he asked, his thumb pointing in the direction of the polishus.

She still hovered. Nordlund smiled.

‘The school’s just over there. But I wouldn’t be too long.’

CHAPTER 10

The school was a large, red-brick building with uniform rows of windows over four floors, which managed to make it slightly less severe. In a street with many elegant blocks, the school didn’t make much of an effort to fit in with its neighbours. Anita went up some steps and entered the foyer through one of the two double glass doors. She sought out someone who could direct her to the English department, and was taken along a seemingly endless corridor by one of the school secretaries. Anita hadn’t made a fuss when she arrived as this was not an official enquiry.

She was ushered into a classroom. There were rows of empty desks.

‘That’s Alex Fraser over there.’ The secretary pulled an apologetic face. ‘He’s British,’ as though that was the only explanation for the tall, young man with the goatee beard and the long, curly black hair swept back in a pony-tail, who was bending over an iPad in the corner of the classroom. It gave Anita a jolt. She recognized him from her occasional visits to The Pickwick pub in the centre of town. It was the haunt of ex-pats. She knew that Fraser was one of the two Britons whom Ewan had briefly befriended on his arrival in Malmö. He was the sort of person who stood out in a crowd.

Fraser looked up enquiringly as Anita approached. His smile was friendly, but he obviously didn’t know who she was.

‘Sorry, are you a parent?’ he said in Swedish. For a moment, a worried frown creased his face as though there might have been a meeting that he’d forgotten about.

‘No, I’m here about Greta Jansson,’ she replied in English.

‘Ah.’ He fiddled with his iPad distractedly for a moment. ‘Just a second,’ he said, reverting to English. She heard the unmistakable Scottish brogue in his voice. He completed his manoeuvre. ‘That’s it. Tough class this afternoon,’ he added as explanation.

‘I’m just here to ask a few questions about Greta.’

‘In what capacity?’ he asked suspiciously.

‘Sorry. I’m police. Inspector Anita Sundström.’

He stared at her. Then his expression creased into recognition.

‘Haven’t I seen you in The Pickwick?’ He clicked his fingers. ‘And weren’t you the policewoman who was involved in arresting Ewan Strachan?’

Anita didn’t answer either question. ‘I’m here unofficially. On behalf of a friend of Greta’s.’

‘She’s OK, isn’t she?’

‘Hopefully. I only want to establish the circumstances around her leaving.’

Fraser ran a hand over his head. ‘Bit abrupt.’

‘So I understand.’

‘She gave no indication that she was about to leave on the Friday afternoon. I thought she was enjoying the job. Well, maybe “enjoying” is too strong a word. Surviving, more like,’ he grimaced. ‘She only started this term. I know it’s difficult here, but she seemed to be coping.’

‘The Friday afternoon?’ Anita prompted.

‘Yes. She was quite upbeat. Going to meet a friend from Stockholm, who was down on business. University connection.’

‘Sex?’

‘Pardon? Oh, I see. Female. Can’t remember the name. Might have been Ulla.’

‘So how did you know she wasn’t coming back?’

‘A call came in on the Monday morning. Said she wasn’t returning. Some family thing, apparently. I suppose it wasn’t a total surprise. This place takes its toll. There’s always a big turnover of staff. This is my second year, and I’m the most senior English teacher in this section.

Anita gazed around the classroom. The smell. Memories of her own school days in Simrishamn started seeping back. Not entirely happy recollections.

‘Do you know who rang in?’

‘No. But the secretary who took the call said it was a man. Of course, it left us in the shit and we had get cover quickly. Extra bloody lessons for me, for starters. I thought Greta might have given us some warning.’

‘Would she have a computer?’

‘Yeah,’ Fraser said, pointing to the one he had just been working on. ‘We all get issued with an iPad. Actually, Greta should have handed it back if she was leaving.’ He shrugged. ‘Not that anyone round here will probably notice. Chaos most of the time.’

‘Thank you, Alex.’

‘Any help?’

Anita nodded. ‘Seems to fit. Her father turned up that weekend.’

She made her way back to the doorway.

‘Don’t be a stranger!’ he called after her. She turned. What did he mean? He grinned. ‘The next time you’re in The Pickwick, come and say hello’.

Hakim was beaming when she returned to the office.

‘I sense someone’s been a clever boy,’ said Anita as she threw her bag over the back of her chair.

‘You could say that. I’ve found him!’ he announced triumphantly. He pointed to his screen. ‘He got off the train at Triangeln.’

Anita squeezed round the desk and stared at Hakim’s computer. It was frozen on an image that she now had firmly planted in her mind. Hakim clicked the mouse, and Graeme Todd began to move along the platform. On the screen, the time started spooling from 14.44. He was wheeling a small suitcase along the platform, and slung on his shoulder was a computer bag, presumably containing a laptop.

‘He’s heading out towards the shopping centre side,’ Hakim confirmed.

Anita watched Todd as he got on the escalator.

‘He couldn’t be going to the Hilton, could he? That’s the nearest hotel.’

Hakim’s grin widened.

‘Yes. He booked in that afternoon.’

‘You have been busy.’ Anita was learning to admire her young colleague’s thoroughness.

‘I’ve arranged to go down and see someone at the hotel. Want to come?’

The Hilton abutted the glass facade of the Triangeln shopping centre. Towering over the rest of the complex, it was one of the tallest buildings in the city. Anita and Hakim stood in the massive glass atrium. Outside, the street was packed with shoppers. Inside was hushed calm. An elegant staircase wound its way through the centre of building, while a glass lift, with a blue illuminated undercarriage, glided up from the foyer, ferrying guests silently to the upper floors. To the left of the reception area was a bar and restaurant. Anita had often looked through the window from the street and wondered if she would ever meet someone who could afford to take her there for a meal. They sat down in the comfortable chairs on the other side of the reception. Anita felt she was in a goldfish bowl. Hakim looked around in awe. This was definitely how the other half lived. Anita was more interested in the fact that someone like Graeme Todd had booked into a place that, according to his wife, would normally be beyond their means.

They stood up as they were approached by a small, dark-haired woman in a neat black skirt and jacket. The woman switched on a meet-and-greet smile. She was immaculately turned out, and Anita was conscious of her own, more casual, appearance, as a manicured hand was held out for her to shake.

‘Erica Tufvesson, deputy manager,’ she introduced herself. ‘The manager, herr Nørgaard, is back in Denmark for a two-day conference. Can I get you some coffee?’

‘No, thanks.’ Anita wanted to get straight down to business. ‘I believe that you had a Graeme Todd staying here last week.’

Tufvesson produced a black, leather-bound notebook and flicked through some pages.

‘Since your colleague rang, I’ve done some checking. Yes, a herr Todd did book in on Monday, October 1st.’

‘For how long?’

Tufvesson again consulted her notebook. ‘Three nights. He was due to leave on Thursday, the 4th. But he never checked out.’

‘When was he seen last?’ asked Hakim.

‘He had breakfast here on the Wednesday morning but he didn’t come back that night. Certainly his bed wasn’t slept in.’

‘Did he leave anything behind?’ Anita was quite happy for Hakim to take over the questioning. He had got them this far.

‘Yes. A small suitcase. I have it in my office.’

‘We’ll take that with us, if you don’t mind,’ Anita put in. ‘Was there a laptop with his belongings?’

‘No. After he failed to turn up, we cleared out his room and kept everything in case he returned. But we had to get the room ready for another guest arriving on the Thursday.’

‘So the room was totally cleared?’ This was Hakim again.

Tufvesson nodded. ‘Sorry.’

‘Were his bathroom things still there? Toothbrush, toothpaste, that kind of stuff?’

‘Yes. Everything’s in the suitcase.’

‘So it seems he was expecting to return from wherever he went that morning,’ Anita mused.

‘It doesn’t appear that he was just avoiding paying his bill,’ Hakim added.

‘Do you mind if we have a word with whoever was on reception or serving breakfast, so we can get a description of what Todd was wearing last Wednesday?’

‘Of course.’ Tufvesson’s smile was appropriately toned down.

After talking to the staff, they took the suitcase back to the polishus. It only confirmed that he had packed for a short break and not a long-term stay. There were no documents or files that could hint at what he was doing or whom he was going to meet. The only significant item was in one of the zipped compartments. It was a photocopy of his return Easyjet boarding pass, dated for Thursday, October 4th – destination Manchester. He had certainly planned to return home. So why hadn’t he? And where had he disappeared to? As far as Anita was now concerned, Graeme Todd was officially missing in Malmö.

CHAPTER 11

Moberg wasn’t too pleased when Anita reported back to him that Graeme Todd really was missing. ‘The commissioner will get his knickers in a twist over this.’ However, he did agree that they needed to get Todd’s description out via the press and television. They had the photo of him and they now knew what he was wearing when he left the hotel – beige slacks, buff-coloured jacket with a lime green jersey and a white shirt underneath.

‘You‘d better inform his wife,’ Moberg added. Anita had already had that planned, though it wasn’t a call she was looking forward to making. ‘And see if you can get more information out of her about what Todd was doing over here.’ Anita doubted that she would extract anything more revealing than she had already. Basically, Todd had kept his wife in the dark. Why he had done so was a mystery in itself.

Hakim had a coffee waiting for her when she returned to the office.

‘Do you think something bad has happened?’ he asked as he settled down to his drink.

Anita stared out of the window.

‘I don’t know. If we knew what he was doing in Malmö, we’d be in a position to speculate.’

‘He could have had an accident. Should I widen my search of the hospitals? He might have being going somewhere else in Skåne.’

‘Yes. Good idea. But I don’t think he could have gone too far afield as he was obviously coming back to the hotel.’

She sipped her coffee thoughtfully. She knew that what she was really doing was postponing the phone call she had to make. All she was going to do was confirm Jennifer Todd’s worst fears.

It was with a glass of red wine in her hand that Anita sat down in front of the television to watch the local news. There was a brief mention of Graeme Todd at the end of the broadcast. The photo that Jennifer Todd had emailed to Anita was used, and it filled the screen for twenty seconds while the newsreader said that the police were appealing for any information concerning the whereabouts of this British national, last seen on Wednesday, October 3rd. Then the weather forecast came on. The warm weather they had just been enjoying was about to change – colder, cloudier and the chance of showers. Anita flicked off the TV with the remote.

‘Is that yours? The missing English guy?’

Anita hadn’t noticed Lasse standing in the doorway.

‘Didn’t know you were in.’

Lasse strolled over to the armchair and slumped down. His long legs stretched out across the floor.

‘Yes. That’s mine.’

‘Didn’t think you did missing persons.’

‘Neither did I, but my lovely boss thought that as this particular missing person was British, I was perfect for the job.’

Anita’s mind flashed back a couple of hours to the call she had made to Jennifer Todd to tell her that they now regarded her husband’s disappearance as official. At first, Jennifer had been quite hysterical and it had taken Anita a few minutes to settle her down. In between floods of tears, Jennifer kept repeating, ‘I knew something was wrong.’ Then she was ready to rush down to Manchester to catch a flight to Sweden. Again, Anita managed to persuade her that there was little that she could do while they made their enquiries. Were there any relatives around that she could turn to? It transpired that she had a sister in Lancaster who had come up to be with her for a few days. Jennifer explained that she was nervous staying by herself as she had had a break-in over the weekend; though the burglar must have been disturbed as nothing seemed to be missing. Anita promised that the moment she heard anything she would be straight on the phone.

As for getting any further with Graeme Todd’s reason for visiting Sweden, Anita drew a blank. Other than that it was something to do with the old lady who had died in Carlisle a few years previously, there was no clue as to who Todd had been hoping to meet. Jennifer was just as baffled as they were.

‘What about Dad?’ said Lasse. ‘Did you find anything out about his girlfriend?’

‘Damn. I’d forgotten about that. I’d better phone him. It’s something or nothing.’

Anita took a swift gulp of wine before taking the home phone out of its cradle. Despite everything that had gone on between them, she still had Björn’s number on her phone. It was purely practical as they had had to communicate from time to time about Lasse and his holiday visits to Uppsala when he was still at school.

Björn answered almost immediately. Anita decided to get straight to the point so she didn’t have to talk for long.