Missing in Malmö: The third Inspector Anita Sundström mystery (Inspector Anita Sundström mysteries) (8 page)

‘Greta Jansson has definitely left the school she was teaching at and, according to the neighbour, her father came to visit her. She gave him the key to Jansson’s apartment. And the school said that she wasn’t returning for family reasons. So it all fits. You’ve nothing to worry about.’

There was silence at the other end of the line.

‘Did you hear what I said, Björn?’

At last he spoke. ‘Greta’s father died of cancer last year.’

CHAPTER 12

During the morning, two reported sightings of Graeme Todd came into the polishus. The first was from the city library and the second was from the Malmöhus museum. Both were for the day before he disappeared. But both needed to be followed up. Anita decided to send Hakim to the castle. It was a tourist attraction and therefore an obvious place for a first-time visitor to Malmö to go. Over the centuries, it had been a fort, a royal mint, a prison and now a rather eclectic museum, which featured everything from period furniture to a stuffed elk. She decided that she would take the library as it was a more intriguing place for Todd to visit.

Anita walked through the drizzle along the canal towards Slottsparken. The weather matched her mood. Her brief conversation with Björn had thrown up more questions than the simple answer she thought she had uncovered. Greta Jansson’s whereabouts were no longer a straightforward matter, but she knew she had to shove that to the back of her mind. Graeme Todd was the priority. It was official. Reluctantly, Anita had again promised Björn that she would ask around, but only when she had time. It had been enough to get him off the phone. It was after overhearing the conversation that Lasse had poured out his confused feelings for his father. Lasse had been upset at seeing him in such a drunken and maudlin state. During his teenage visits to Uppsala, he had met a succession of increasingly youthful girlfriends. The fact that they were far nearer his own age than Björn’s had been amusing at the time. What unnerved him was that he had never seen his father so besotted. All these years, he had harboured the dream of many children of divorced parents that there would be some sort of reconciliation. Of course, Lasse now knew that he had been deluding himself, and that his mother would never turn back the clock. He still hoped that his father would realize that he had made a mistake, change his philandering ways and try to mend their fractured family. But seeing Björn so upset by the disappearance of his latest girlfriend brought home the harsh reality that his father had moved on and would never come back. He would never change. He saw him now as an old man who was making a fool of himself over a girl only a couple of years older than his son. Björn made him feel sick.

Anita was torn. She was saddened that Lasse had such negative feelings for his father, who was behaving like a complete idiot. She hated to see her son so upset. It was a tough lesson having to reassess a parent. Yet she was pleased that they had been able to talk together again, as in the pre-Rebecka days. It was their first proper conversation since Lasse’s return home. And when he had broken down in tears, she had taken him in her arms. She had missed that human contact, which had decreased as he’d grown up and he’d shunned her attempts to hug him. After she had gone to bed and left him watching his box set of
Curb your Enthusiasm
, she hadn’t been able to sleep because she was so furious with Björn. His selfish actions were alienating a devoted son. What’s more, he was intruding into her life again. She had fought so hard to banish him from her feelings that his reappearance was aggravating beyond measure – all the disappointments and resentments had come flooding back. Well, he could wallow in his self-pity. Fuck Björn and fuck Greta Jansson.

The city library was on the edge of Slottsparken. The older part of the building reminded Anita of a solid German schloss. She entered the foyer of the modern 1990s annex, which had a certain fascination, despite its incongruity. The sheer glass walls captured each beam of light and threw it triumphantly over the central staircase. It was a bright and welcoming space, conducive to all activities, from both light browsing to intensive research. At the reception, she asked if she could speak to the librarian who had phoned the police about the missing person mentioned on the local news last night. The young man on the desk knew immediately who Anita was referring to. No doubt it had been a topic of conversation over the water cooler that morning.

‘That’ll be Paula. Paula Wennås. You’ll find her up the stairs there,’ he said, pointing up to the glass box. ‘Reddy brown hair, shaved on one side,’ he added for identification.

Anita thanked him and made her way up the flight of stairs. At the top were rows of book shelves. Beyond was a structure which reminded her of man-sized pigeonholes on three levels. Each carrel must have housed a thousand books and had an individual work area. Because of the transparency of the wall beyond, it seemed as though those studying were suspended in mid-air. Anita spotted Wennås pushing a trolley past one of the bookcases on the main floor. The librarian stopped and put a couple of books back onto a shelf.

‘Paula Wennås?’

The young woman turned. She had a pretty, round face and a lovely smile. ‘Yes.’

‘Anita Sundström. I’m here about the call you made to the police this morning.’

Wennås automatically picked up a book off the trolley and held it aloft, halfway to the shelf. ‘The man you were looking for. I recognized him from the television. I remembered him because we don’t get many British visitors.’ She slotted the book into its place. ‘It was a good excuse to speak some English.’

‘When did Graeme Todd come in?’

Wennås trundled the trolley along to the next bookcase. Anita followed her.

‘It was last Tuesday. Yes... a week ago today.’

‘Time?’

Wennås smiled. ‘A bit before half eleven. I remember because it was just before I went for a coffee break.’

‘As you talked to him, I assume that he was after something specific.’

‘Maps.’

‘Maps?’

She fished another book off her trolley. ‘Local maps.’

‘Anywhere in particular?’

‘Well, Skåne.’

‘Do you know where in Skåne? It could be really important.’ Anita was feeling that at last this could give her a clue as to where Todd had intended going.

Wennås adopted an apologetic expression. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t find any maps for him. All I did was point him in the direction of the section where he could find them.’

Anita inwardly groaned.

‘Nothing.’

‘Snap,’ said Anita in reply to Hakim.

‘The man at the Malmöhus shop said he bought a couple of postcards. He thought it was about four o’clock, so we have no idea how long he was in there. I could look at the CCTV footage if you want.’

‘Not at the moment. He was probably doing some sightseeing while he was here. Filling in time.’

‘What about the library?’ Hakim asked.

‘He was after maps of Skåne. Trouble is, we don’t know any locations as the librarian only sent him off to the relevant section.’

‘At least it shows that he was probably leaving Malmö on the Wednesday.’ Hakim fiddled with his computer keyboard thoughtfully. ‘He must have been looking for detailed maps. Ordinary maps he could pick up at the tourist information or a bookshop. It sounds as though he might have been looking for a specific building or house.’

‘Why not use Google Earth then?’

‘Maybe he hadn’t got a name to work with. I don’t know. But he’s out there somewhere.’

‘But where?’ Anita went to the window. The drizzle had now morphed into heavy rain. The leaves on the trees over on Kungsgatan were changing colour. Winter was on its way.

Then she turned decisively. ‘Back to the train and bus stations.’ Hakim gave a mock groan. ‘We know he left the hotel after breakfast. So we’ll start at Triangeln again. Then the bus station on Spårvägsgatan. That’s the nearest to the Hilton. I’ll see if Klara Wallen is available to help. Moberg should be OK with that, given that Todd has now been missing for six days.’

Anita sat down at her desk and picked up the phone.

‘Do you think he could be dead?’

She glanced over to Hakim and shrugged her shoulders. She was starting to think that that might be a possibility.

CHAPTER 13

The good news was that Klara Wallen had been assigned to help. The bad news was that Chief Inspector Moberg was now going to oversee the case of the missing British heir hunter. With a flapping Commissioner Dahlbeck looking over Moberg’s shoulder, it was going to be the foot soldiers who would end up in the firing line. The more pressure Moberg got from above, the more he would pass on to the team. At least Anita wouldn’t have to work with Westermark, who was helping Nordlund with the investigation into the savage beating of an old man in Segevång.

Hakim was down at Triangeln station, while Wallen had gone to the bus station. The task that Moberg had given Anita was to once more ring up Jennifer Todd to see if she could provide any further information. She knew it was a pointless exercise, but she also knew that Moberg would check to make sure she had done it. This time Jennifer Todd’s sister answered the phone. As a friendly warning, she explained how desperately worried Jennifer was at the moment. Anita said she understood, but insisted on speaking to her, even though she hadn’t any fresh news of her husband’s whereabouts.

Jennifer sounded calmer than during their previous conversations, and admitted that her feelings were ambivalent about the fact that there was no news. This took Anita aback. Though the possibility that Todd was dead had obviously crossed her own mind, she had expected the wife to assume that he was alive until told otherwise.

‘I’m a nurse. I face death every day in the hospital. I have to be prepared.’

‘I’m sure Graeme is fine.’ She knew it didn’t sound convincing.

‘You don’t have to soft-soap me, Inspector.’

‘Call me Anita.’

‘OK, Anita. What do you really think has happened? You’ve had a few days to think about it.’

Anita wasn’t sure how to answer. ‘If I’m honest, I have no idea. If we had any clues as to where he intended going, who he was trying to meet—’

‘I think everything he had about the Doris Little case is on his laptop. I’ve checked his main computer, which is in his office downstairs here in the house, and there’s nothing on that. I’ve also looked in his filing cabinet – nothing there either.’

‘Did he usually have a physical file?’

‘Oh, yes. He’s a stickler about that. There’s often lots of paperwork. Copies of birth and death certificates, census sheets downloaded from the internet; that sort of thing.’

‘So you’d expect him to have a paper file on this woman?’

‘Very much so. And I doubt he’d take it with him. When meeting a claimant, he usually puts all the relevant information on his laptop. Easier to go through than having lots of bits of paper floating around. Of course, official forms he’d need for signing up an heir, he’d take with him. That would give him permission to put in a claim on the beneficiary’s behalf.’

Anita had a thought. ‘You mentioned you had a break-in.’

‘Saturday night. But nothing was taken.’

And then another thought: ‘Could the burglar have been after the file?’

There was silence at the other end.

‘Look, Jennifer, we’ve found out a couple of things about Graeme’s movements. He was staying at the Hilton hotel.’

‘What?’ Jennifer sounded incredulous. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes.’

‘But we can’t afford that. What was he thinking? He’s normally very careful with money.’ She sounded cross.

‘The other thing we discovered was that he paid a visit to the city library on the Tuesday. He wanted to find the map section.’

There was a little knowing snort at the other end of the line. ‘That sounds more like Graeme. Loves his maps. Whenever we go on holiday, he spends hours poring over road atlases and ordnance survey maps to plan our routes and activities. Bit of an obsession. He’s a bit obsessive. The Little case became an obsession.’

‘So you wouldn’t read anything significant into his wanting to look at some maps?’

‘No,’ she almost laughed. Anita took it that the map thing was a family joke. Another blank, she thought.

‘But he does like to find out everything beforehand about a place we we’re going to visit. He usually Googles it, but he just loves proper maps. He’s got quite a collection of them here.’

‘All we know is that he was interested in maps of Skåne. Trouble is, that’s about like the size of your Yorkshire. Oh well, we’ll carry on digging. As soon as we know anything, I’ll be straight back on to you.’

There was a pause at the other end of the phone. ‘Thank you for all your efforts, Anita.’ Anita felt helpless as she had no idea what they were going to do next. Todd could have gone anywhere.

She was about to put the phone down when she had a thought. ‘Apart from visiting Sweden for this case, was there anything about the country that interested him? I don’t know... history, architecture, food, films.’

‘Not really.’ Then a moment later. ‘Oh, there are the Wallander novels of course.’ She pronounced the W as a W and not as a V. ‘We saw some of the TV series. That actor. Brannigan? No, Branagh. Not really my thing, but Graeme had to read all the books. He took the last one with him to read on the flight.’

‘Another obsession?’

‘Once he’s into something...’ At least Jennifer Todd was being positive. She was still using the present tense.

Anita popped a sachet of snus under her top lip. She was glad the office was empty; she wanted time to think. Two potentially significant pieces of information had emerged from her conversation with Jennifer Todd. Firstly, the obsessive Graeme Todd might well have gone to Ystad, home of the fictional detective, Kurt Wallander. There was now quite a tourist trail built around the character, who featured in Henning Mankell’s books and various TV series. The easiest way for him to travel to Ystad would be by train, direct from Triangeln. It was only forty-five minutes away. He could do that in a morning, and then be back in Malmö for his meeting, whoever that was with. Unless the meeting was out of town. The moment Hakim got back with the CCTV, she would get him onto that. As they had nothing else to go on, they might as well pursue that as a possible angle.