Still Waters (Sandhamn Murders Book 1) (16 page)

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37

Erik and Thomas looked around the Systemet warehouse. There were bottles as far as the eye could see in all directions. The walls were lined with pallets stacked with boxes containing wines and spirits.

“I’ve never seen this much booze in my life,” Kalle said. “If you don’t turn into an alcoholic working here, you never will.”

He walked over to one of the boxes and peered at the bottles. “Look, it’s Dom Pérignon. A bottle like this costs over a thousand kronor, I think. Not bad for just five or six glasses, right?” He picked up a bottle and pretended to drink from it.

Thomas laughed; it was almost inconceivable that so much alcohol could be gathered in one place. He wondered what the total value of the contents of the warehouse might be. An enormous amount, no doubt. He hoped Systemet was well insured against fire; it would be no joke if the place burned down. It would probably provide the biggest fireworks display since the millennium party.

Krister’s boss came over to them. He introduced himself to Erik, who had some difficulty in suppressing a smirk when he heard the man’s name: Viking Strindberg. The name suggested a tall, well-built figure of a man, but in reality Viking Strindberg was small and skinny, with round glasses perched on the end of his nose. He looked as if he belonged behind a desk rather than in a place like this, surrounded by bottles and forklifts.

He asked if they would like coffee and pointed to a machine in the corner.

Thomas declined. The machine looked alarmingly like the one in Nacka’s police station. Erik, however, who would happily drink engine oil if it were offered, accepted a cup without hesitation.

They followed Viking Strindberg to a conference room at one end of the depot. There was an oval desk in the center of the room, surrounded by blue chairs. Along one wall a range of Absolut spirits was displayed on a narrow table.

Erik and Thomas sat down across from Viking Strindberg.

“I thought you’d found out everything you wanted to know last time we spoke,” Viking Strindberg began, glancing at Thomas.

“Not quite. We’d just like to check one or two more things,” Thomas said as he worked out how to phrase his first question. No point beating about the bush. “Do you have any reason to believe Krister Berggren may have been involved in any kind of organized crime related to Systemet?”

“Absolutely not,” came the swift response. “It’s out of the question.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“If you’d met Krister, you’d understand. He just wasn’t the type. I don’t think he would ever have had the nerve to do such a thing. He might have taken the odd bottle home from time to time, but that’s not something I’ve looked into. Certain things just aren’t worth making a fuss over,” he said with a shrug.

“If I worked here I think I might be tempted to start selling booze on the side. So that wouldn’t be picked up, then?” Thomas said with a meaningful look at Erik.

“We have excellent security procedures, I can assure you.”

“But you just said Krister probably took home the odd bottle—your security procedures didn’t pick that up, did they?”

Viking straightened up and took a sip of his coffee. To be on the safe side he took another sip before putting the cup down on the table. He didn’t seem all that happy with the turn the conversation had taken.

“I’ve already spoken to you about Krister Berggren. I don’t understand what else there is to say.”

“I think there’s plenty to say.” Erik joined in. “You mean there’s no wastage here?”

“Of course there is, but I don’t see what that has to do with Berggren’s death.”

“That depends what kind of volume we’re talking about.” Thomas leaned forward. The little man’s arrogance was annoying him. He could at least cooperate with the police in an investigation into the death of an employee. “According to my research, Systemet sold something in the area of two hundred million bottles of wine last year. Let me see,” he said. “If my calculations are correct, that means that as little as one percent of that volume corresponds to two million bottles. Just half of one percent equals one million. Most companies within the retail sector allow for a considerably higher level of wastage than that.”

Viking Strindberg was looking at Thomas like he wanted to kill him. “I can’t tell you the exact level of wastage or the sums of money involved,” he said. “That’s confidential information. But I don’t think it’s anything serious. Definitely not.” He tapped the desk with the palm of his hand to emphasize what he had just said.

Thomas wasn’t impressed. References to confidential information were irrelevant in the middle of a murder investigation. “Please bear in mind that you’re talking to the police. Now let me ask you again: Do you have any wastage here?”

Strindberg didn’t look quite so cocky now. He took off his glasses and put them back on again. Then he ran his hand over the small amount of gray hair he had left. “We do have a certain amount of wastage, of course; it’s unavoidable. Particularly in this trade. But we have very good procedures for dealing with that kind of thing.”

“If someone could sell hundreds of thousands of bottles on the side, how much would they be able to make?” Erik asked the question as if it were routine.

It took Viking Strindberg a long time to answer. He ran his hand over his head once again before he spoke. “It’s hard to say. Obviously it depends on how much you charge. We could be talking about big money.”

“Big enough to murder someone over?” Erik asked.

Viking Strindberg looked quite ill now. “I can’t possibly answer that.” He glanced around. “You’ll have to contact our security department if you want to discuss that kind of thing.”

Erik wasn’t prepared to give up. “Who would be interested in buying cheap booze?”

Beads of sweat appeared on Strindberg’s forehead. “I’ve no idea what they get up to in the catering business. It has nothing to do with me.”

S
ATURDAY, THE THIRD WEEK

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“Turn that damn music down!” Henrik shouted from upstairs.

“What did you say?” Nora shouted back.

“I said turn the music down!”

Nora smiled. Bruce Springsteen was reverberating through the house. The neighbors’ windows were probably rattling. She shouldn’t really be playing such loud music in a densely populated area like Sandhamn village, but today she couldn’t care less.

The regatta was over at long last, and there were celebrations that evening. Prizes would be awarded by King Harald of Norway, who had participated in the competition, and then there was a gala dinner at the Yacht Club.

Nora would be wearing a new dress in shades of turquoise, together with white high-heeled strappy sandals. After the terrible events of the past few days, she was desperate for some frivolity. She was looking forward to spending an evening with her husband, who hadn’t exactly honored the family with his presence lately. Nora felt a powerful urge to enjoy herself, to get slightly tipsy and forget everything. She had wondered whether it was appropriate to attend the dinner in view of the recent deaths. The Yacht Club board had evidently been considering the matter, too; she had heard rumors that they were thinking of postponing the whole thing. However, they had eventually decided to go ahead as planned. After all, this was an international sailing championship, with participants from all over the world. With a bit of luck, many of the overseas participants might have missed all the commotion on the island, since they didn’t read the local papers or watch Swedish television.

Nora just wanted something else to think about.

When she got over the initial shock of finding Jonny, she tried to fill her mind with anything but the sight of his dead body. She had slept for almost twelve hours straight and had felt much better afterward. A long walk in the forest had also helped clear her head. But the best medicine of all had been a game of Monopoly with the boys. Sitting there with Simon on her knee as they tried to decide whether to buy Norrmalmstorg, the most expensive lot in the game, was pure therapy.

Thomas had been careful not to release her name to the press, so hardly anyone knew that Nora had found the body and dragged it ashore. She blessed his thoughtfulness and his ability to keep tabs on something like that in the middle of everything that was going on.

She went into the kitchen to pour herself a glass of wine before she got changed. The boys were staying over with her parents, so she and Henrik would have the night to themselves.

Ever since she was a little girl and used to go there with her parents on Sundays, Nora had loved having dinner in the Royal Swedish Yacht Club’s old clubhouse, where the traditions of competitive sailing were a part of the very fabric of the place. Wonderful old photographs showed elegant ladies in full-length dresses strolling along with their parasols as they admired the beautiful wooden boats, which in those days were regarded as the greyhounds of the sea.

The contrast with today’s competitive sailing craft, which didn’t even have as many bunks as crewmembers because the crew worked in shifts, was almost laughable. In the old days, sailing had been all about sleek boats that combined beauty with speed. Today the major competitions were a complex and commercial machine, where technology and sponsorship were of equal importance.

But the old clubhouse retained the atmosphere of those bygone days, and it wasn’t difficult to picture its inauguration under the patronage of Oscar II, with bearded gentlemen and gleaming mahogany sailboats.

Nora and Henrik’s party would be seated on the eastern veranda, with a perfect view of the sea. On a clear day you could see all the way to the lighthouse at Almagrundet, which lay some ten nautical miles southeast of Sandhamn.

She did a little dance of sheer joy. It had been ages since she and Henrik had gone dancing. These days they mostly went to dinner with other families, and the conversation centered on the children, how tired they all were, and how difficult it was to get everything done. Once they were all agreed on such matters, it was time to go home.

She picked up her glass of wine and went upstairs. Henrik was lying on the bed, gazing idly at some sports program on television.

“Shouldn’t you be getting changed?” Nora asked.

Henrik grinned and winked at her. “I’ve got a better idea. Come here!”

Nora perched on the edge of the bed. “And what might that be?” she said with a teasing look.

“I was thinking of claiming my conjugal rights.”

“Have we got time?” She couldn’t help glancing at the clock. The drawback of being a mother. No wonder people said that having small children stopped you from having any more.

“Of course we’ve got time.” He pulled her gently onto the bed. “When you’ve got kids you have to make the most of every opportunity!” His hand found its way under her top. Nora put down her glass and moved close to him. She kissed the hollow at the base of his throat and breathed in his familiar scent. He had virtually no hair on his chest; it had always been that way. She used to tease him and say he was like David Beckham, minus the razor.

Everything was going to be all right, she thought. Whatever happened with the job.

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By the time they arrived at the Yacht Club, the pier was already full of happy people. The naval flags hoisted on the tall flagpoles fluttered in the wind. Waiters carried trays of champagne flutes. Everyone was dressed for the occasion, and there was an air of excitement.

Several of the sailors were in uniform, old-fashioned ceremonial dress that reminded Nora of the 1930s. Henrik had once said, half in jest, that he was thinking of buying one, but Nora’s somewhat acid comment about looking like a circus performer had made him change his mind.

She had no problem with nostalgia, but there had to be a limit when it came to romanticizing the past. She also thought the Royal Swedish Yacht Club with all its traditions could be rather too much of a good thing sometimes, but she kept that to herself.

Henrik had grown up in a sailing family; his father was a prominent figure in the Yacht Club, so all the business of kissing each other on the cheek and preserving traditions was second nature to him. Nora, on the other hand, had never felt at home in this environment.

Admittedly, she had spent every summer on the island since she was born, but her view of Sandhamn was completely different. To Nora, Sandhamn meant proximity to the sea, great expanses of silence broken only by the cry of the gulls. You caught your own fish and picked blueberries in the pine forest. On sunny days, you took a picnic down to the beach. In the evening, you fired up the barbecue down by the jetty. It was the simple life that Nora loved, the peace and quiet. The children could run free without anyone having to worry about traffic. Everyone knew everyone else. It was a feeling reminiscent of the novelist Astrid Lindgren’s Bullerby books, and it wasn’t so easy to find these days.

Deep down she regretted the development that had turned the island into a symbol of expensive sailboats and the beautiful people who followed in their wake. At the same time, it helped to keep the island alive. Far too many islands in the archipelago were already depopulated, and it wasn’t easy to find work here. Regattas and other events made sure that Sandhamn was on the map, creating permanent jobs year-round.

You had to take the rough with the smooth.

Since Henrik loved sailing and felt completely at home at the Yacht Club, there wasn’t really much to say. In any case, Nora couldn’t imagine spending the summer anywhere other than Sandhamn, so what did she have to complain about?

The huge table was covered with silver cups of all sizes, and bottles of champagne were lined up at the ready. The odd paparazzo wandered around, searching for famous faces. Members of the royal family sometimes took part in various sailing competitions, so there was a good chance of success for the photographers.

Henrik spotted his crewmates and skillfully piloted Nora through the crowd to reach them. He scooped up two glasses of champagne in passing without so much as breaking his stride.

Nora cheerfully greeted Henrik’s friends and their respective partners. She had met the other wives before, but they weren’t close friends like the men. Most of the women either worked part-time, or not at all. Those who did work had some “appropriate” occupation, such as standing behind the counter at an interior design shop.

Nora, who struggled to combine her full-time job as a legal adviser with the bank and her role as the mother of two young boys, always felt slightly out of place in their company. She would think carefully before saying anything about how she spent her days. If someone had just been talking about the difficulty of getting an awkward customer to choose a particular fabric for her sofa, the contrast would be quite marked when she started describing negotiations involving loans worth tens of millions of kronor.

She always had the feeling that the others secretly shook their heads at her ambition, her determination to pursue a career.

As they took their places at the table, Nora realized how hungry she was. She polished off the ridiculously small starter of whitefish roe on toast in just a couple of bites while attempting to converse with Johan Wrede, one of the guests at their table.

Johan and Henrik had studied medicine together, and their families had known each other since forever. When she and Henrik got married, Johan had given a long and boring speech detailing every single sailing incident they had been involved in, none of them of any interest whatsoever to anyone else.

“So, how are the children?” Johan asked as he raised his glass to Nora.

“Fine, thanks,” Nora said, nodding to acknowledge the gesture. “They love spending the summer here.”

“Have they got many friends?” Johan asked. His children were younger; he had a three-year-old girl and a little boy of nine months.

“Tons. The island is crawling with kids. There’s no shortage of playmates around here.”

“It seems as if quite a lot of new summer residents are coming over these days. There have been a fair number of houses for sale lately, hasn’t there?”

Nora could only agree. Despite the sharp price increases, low interest rates in recent years had led to dream deals on attractive properties with a sea view. Unfortunately, this also meant that many siblings could no longer afford to buy each other out when their parents passed away, so even more properties came onto the market for prospective buyers to fight over. The buyers were often rich Swedes who lived abroad, spending just a few weeks each summer on the island. For the rest of the year the houses stood silent and empty, making the little community even more desolate in winter.

“You’re right. Several old houses that have been in one family for generations have been sold over the past few months. I think it’s really sad,” Nora said.

Johan looked at her, curiosity shining in his eyes. “Wasn’t there some place that went for six or seven million last year?” He gave a long, low whistle. “Just for the summer!”

Nora grimaced and nodded. “Yes. And another in the middle of the village went for almost as much. It’s crazy, when you think about it.” She speared a piece of steak with her fork and went on. “It’s a terrible state of affairs. Soon ordinary people won’t be able to buy out here at all.”

Johan held out his glass to a passing waitress for a top off. “So what are they like, these people who spend millions on a house?”

Nora thought for a moment. She pictured several of the families who had come to Sandhamn over the past few years. “They’re like anyone else, I suppose. But with more money. Some of them try to fit in as best they can, while others have no sense of community at all. Some families spend a fortune restoring the property they’ve bought, while others ruin the place by getting rid of everything and doing it up to fit in with the latest trends. Or they build ghastly extensions that don’t look right at all.” She fell silent, thinking about a house that had been particularly dilapidated. “One or two have turned out really well, I must admit. So in a way you could say it’s a kind of cultural bonus.”

“If you spend that kind of money on a place just for the summer, I suppose you can do what you like,” Johan said.

Nora shook her head. She didn’t agree with that at all. “If you come to a place like Sandhamn, you have to adapt and follow the unwritten rules. For example, it’s always been tradition that everyone can walk right around the island. You can’t just buy a house and build a fence right down to the water’s edge, even if the land forms part of your property. If you don’t like the local customs, then you can take your millions and buy an island of your own. I mean, they obviously have the resources.” The last comment came out more sharply than she had intended. But she couldn’t hide her frustration over recent developments and the careless attitude many of the new owners displayed toward both permanent residents and visitors who had spent their summers on the island for many years. Suddenly the original benefits, like the opportunity to fish or hunt, had begun to be valued in a completely different way. Many things that in the past had been an integral part of life on Sandhamn were now being reassessed, and came with a price tag. It gave Nora the unpleasant feeling that everything was for sale. Everything could be bought or sold.

But there was no point in sitting here at a wonderful dinner and getting annoyed. She quickly raised her glass to Johan in order to take the sting out of her words. “Let’s drink to the excellent results of the regatta,” she said with a smile.

As usual, the restaurant got hot and stuffy as the guests dived into the main course; the ancient clubhouse had never had much in the way of air conditioning. The waiters scurried between the tables in spite of the temperature being around eighty-six degrees, and the gentlemen had removed their jackets long ago.

Everyone was laughing and chatting. The atmosphere was perfect.

No one even mentioned the recent deaths.