Linda, As in the Linda Murder

10

To begin with Bäckström and Rogersson had planned to escape into town and eat lunch at some discreet place where they could have the beer that they so richly deserved. But when they caught sight of the crowd of journalists outside the entrance to the police station they rapidly changed their minds and turned on their heels, and went and sat down in the staff canteen. They found an empty table at the back, and each ordered special of the day and a low-alcohol beer.

‘What the hell’s going on inside these people’s heads, serving fried sausages, macaroni bake and Småland cheesecake with jam as dessert when it’s almost thirty degrees outside? It looks like worms,’ Rogersson said, poking his fork suspiciously at the macaroni.

‘Don’t ask me. I’ve never eaten worms,’ Bäckström said. ‘I think it’s okay.’

‘Sure, Bäckström,’ Rogersson said tiredly. ‘But if you’re a normal person like me...’

‘If you’re worried about worms, maybe you should have a word with Egon.’ And good luck with that, Bäckström thought, because Egon was even less talkative than his colleague Rogersson.

‘What fucking Egon?’ Rogersson asked.

‘My Egon,’ Bäckström said.

‘You give him worms?’ Rogersson was looking at him suspiciously.

‘Maggots, fly larvae, same thing. But only on special occasions. Have you got any idea how much a tub of fly larvae costs?’ There have to be some limits, even for Egon, Bäckström thought. After all, we both have to survive on an ordinary police salary.

‘Do you want coffee?’ Rogersson sighed, standing up.

‘Large, milk and sugar,’ Bäckström said. Best cheesecake I’ve eaten for ages, he thought.

After lunch Bäckström set about organizing things with renewed energy, making sure that his investigative team did a decent job. Their senior colleague Olsson showed up, took a turn about the room and tried to ingratiate himself with as many people as possible as he did so, but as he was approaching Bäckström to waste his valuable time Bäckström pulled the telephone trick, picking up the receiver and humming in concentration as he listened to the dialling tone on the line and waved his right hand in a holding gesture. For safety’s sake he had a pad and pen clearly visible on the table in front of him. So Olsson returned to his room and shut the door while Bäckström called officer Sandberg over and took the opportunity to rest his weary eyes on the person who would be doing the actual work.

‘The victim’s sex life, Anna. Are we starting to get any idea of that?’ he began, nodding towards her. The ponderous, professorial nod that he usually employed when he had to talk about difficult subjects. Decent tits on this little lady, he thought.

‘We’ve found out a few things,’ Anna said neutrally.

‘Anything interesting?’ Bäckström said. ‘In terms of the investigation, I mean.’ Walking on very thin ice. Got to watch my words carefully if I don’t want to fall through.

Up until spring that year Linda had had a boyfriend, whom she had met a year earlier when he was studying economics at Lund University. As soon as he finished his exams, just before Christmas last year, he got a job in a company based up in Stockholm. He had moved there and before too long his relationship with Linda had run into the sand.

They hadn’t managed to find out anything negative about either him or his relationship with Linda, and for once it turned out that he seemed to have a cast-iron alibi for the time of the murder. He had been at a party together with his new girlfriend and a few other friends. He had contacted the Växjö Police himself as soon as he heard what had happened to Linda, and then, on his own initiative, he had contacted the Stockholm Police, who had already interviewed him. He was shocked, naturally, but simultaneously more willing to cooperate than anyone had any right to expect. For instance, he had volunteered to give them a DNA sample to stop the police wasting any unnecessary time on him.

‘What an accommodating young man,’ Bäckström said. ‘So how did he find out about it so quickly? That Linda had been murdered, I mean,’

‘His mum lives here and knows Linda’s family, and she called him yesterday afternoon, as soon as she found out. Her son was somewhere in Sandhamn. Way out in the Stockholm archipelago, apparently. Well, you know that, of course. Where it is, I mean. Evidently she knows the family in Sandhamn as well, so that’s where she called, in case you were wondering. I’ve just spoken to the officer who interviewed him. He’s convinced the boy didn’t have anything to do with the murder. But he still took the DNA sample, and he’s sending it to the National Forensics Lab,’ Anna concluded.

‘Well, then,’ Bäckström said. ‘I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see. Have you found any other boyfriends since she broke up with the economist?’

‘Nothing,’ Anna said, shaking her head. ‘And we’ve spoken to her three best friends and a number of her classmates at police college. We’re thinking of talking to her parents as soon as they’re in a fit state.’

‘No short flings, nothing peculiar about her sexual preferences and so on?’ Bäckström persisted.

‘No.’ Anna shook her head firmly. ‘At least nothing that anyone we’ve spoken to knew about. According to what they’ve said, Linda seems to have been a completely ordinary girl. Ordinary boys, ordinary sex. Nothing odd.’

‘Six months without a boyfriend, or even a fling.’ Bäckström shook his head doubtfully. How likely is that, he thought. A pretty young girl of twenty. Even if she was too skinny for his taste.

‘It’s probably much more common than people think,’ Anna replied, giving the impression that she knew what she was talking about. ‘I think she was attacked by a madman. If you ask me, I don’t think it’s any more complicated than that.’

‘Really?’ Bäckström said slowly. ‘It’ll sort itself out,’ he added, and smiled at her. And they all have something hidden away somewhere, he thought.

Officer Sandberg didn’t say anything. Merely nodded and looked rather surprised.

That gave you something to think about, didn’t it, dear? Bäckström thought, watching her as she went back to her desk. He sighed. All work and no play. He went and got a cup of coffee, then pulled Knutsson and Thorén into an empty office so that he could see how they were getting on with the surveillance in peace and quiet.

‘So, tell an old man.’ He had decided to adopt a relaxed and lofty posture. ‘Have we found anything interesting?’

‘You mean at the crime scene?’ Thorén asked. ‘They seem to be finding things there all the time.’

‘I don’t mean the crime scene,’ Bäckström said, just as calmly and pedagogically. ‘I mean everywhere apart from the crime scene. Along the route the victim walked home that night. In the vicinity of the crime scene. Along the presumed escape route of the perpetrator. Or anywhere else in Växjö. Or Sweden... or the rest of the world.’

‘I see what you’re thinking,’ Knutsson said. ‘You mean...’

‘I can’t imagine that you do,’ Bäckström interrupted, having already built up a head of steam. ‘I’m thinking about the tiniest scrap of paper on the road outside the crime scene, rubbish bins, skips, gutters and drains, nooks and crannies, stairwells, hiding places, other flats, attics and cellars, scrubland, and all the perfectly ordinary spaces in between. I’m thinking about peculiar neighbours, troublemakers in general, peeping toms, flashers, sex maniacs and psychiatric cases. And I’m thinking about all the ordinary citizens who might just have suffered a short-circuit in their little brains because it’s so fucking hot and it doesn’t seem to want to end.’

‘In that case, we haven’t found anything,’ Thorén said.

‘But we’re still looking,’ Knutsson said. ‘I mean, what you said in the meeting was clear enough. So I think everyone’s doing their best.’

‘But we haven’t found anything yet?’ Bäckström gave them a questioning look.

‘No,’ Thorén said.

‘No,’ Knutsson agreed, shaking his round head in confirmation. ‘Doesn’t it seem a bit odd that a nutter can run away from the crime scene without his underwear, jumping out of a window just because the paper comes through the letterbox, not to mention all the semen and blood traces and fingerprints he seems to have left behind him, only to disappear into thin air the moment he gets outside?’

‘It’s certainly a bit strange,’ Thorén said.

‘That struck me as well,’ Knutsson concurred. ‘But I don’t suppose his underwear was all he was wearing when he attacked the victim. Only joking,’ he added quickly when he saw the look on Bäckström’s face.

‘You never know,’ Bäckström said. ‘You never know. Considering what he evidently spent a couple of hours doing to her, and what he did after he’d killed her. Because he seems to have taken a shower and done a bit of thinking.’

‘He seems more than crazy enough, I agree with you there,’ Thorén said.

‘But apparently not crazy enough to leave any evidence outside the crime scene?’ Bäckström said.

‘Maybe he felt better once he’d relieved the pressure,’ Knutsson said with a chuckle.

‘I find that hard to imagine,’ Bäckström said. ‘If I see something that looks like a glow-worm, and moves like a glow-worm, and gives off a mysterious glow, what am I looking at?’

‘A glow-worm?’ Thorén said, looking at his boss quizzically.

‘Excellent, lad,’ Bäckström said. ‘Have you ever thought about joining the police?’

Before they went back to the hotel that evening, Bäckström and Rogersson took a detour via the crime scene to have a look at the flat. A number of representatives from the media were naturally in position behind the extensive cordons, and to judge from the number of telephoto lenses in evidence they were clearly prepared for all eventualities. Bäckström had sat behind the wheel without changing his expression at all even though one of the photographers was practically up on the bonnet before he backed off. At last they moved through the cordon and Bäckström parked the car immediately in front of the building to avoid having to walk too far and have his picture taken unnecessarily.

‘Fucking vultures,’ Rogersson said as soon as they entered the building. ‘I’m surprised they haven’t set up a fast-food kiosk as well.’

‘It’s probably too hot,’ Bäckström chuckled. Mind you, an ice-cream would have been nice, he thought.

The two forensics technicians there were taking a break when they arrived, but when both Bäckström and Rogersson declined a cup of coffee they quickly put theirs down and offered to show them round.

‘Do you want the large or the small tour?’ the younger one asked.

‘The small one will do,’ Bäckström said, pulling on plastic gloves and, with some difficulty, protective plastic covers over his shoes, using the wall to stop himself from losing his balance.

‘Four rooms, kitchen, bathroom, a separate lavatory, plus the hall we’re standing in. In total eighty-two square metres.’ The older of the two technicians gestured as he spoke. ‘The living room’s straight ahead. Approximately twenty-five square metres, in the centre of the flat. Facing the road we’ve got the kitchen and an adjoining room that the victim’s mother evidently uses as a workroom. By the way, you’ve had the plan of the flat, haven’t you?’

‘Yes,’ Bäckström said. ‘We’ve seen it, but it isn’t the same as putting your ear to the rails yourself.’

‘Quite. I couldn’t agree more,’ the older one said with a smile. ‘At the back of the building we’ve got the bedroom where she was found, leading off the living room. Alongside the bedroom is a fairly large bathroom with a bath, shower cubicle, toilet and bidet, reached through a door in the bedroom. On the other side of the bathroom is a smaller room that the mother seems to have used as a sort of junk room or storage space. There’s an ironing-board and a couple of big laundry baskets in there as well, among all the other clutter, and you reach that through this corridor,’ he said, pointing with his arm. ‘The passage also contains a number of built-in cupboards.’

Neither too flash nor too poor, Bäckström thought as he walked round the flat with the others. Neither tidy nor particularly messy when you considered what the forensics team had already been up to. It looked just as he imagined the home of a middle-aged, middle-class female teacher would look like. A single woman with a twenty-year-old daughter who seemed to have stayed there sometimes.

A living room with a large sofa, with three removable cushions, the middle one of which was missing. In front of it was a coffee table and two armchairs. A small dresser stood against the wall beside the sofa, and because the flat was occupied by a woman Bäckström felt no great desire to inspect what was hidden behind the cupboard doors. Probably just glasses and napkins and other crap, he thought.

Bookshelves along the walls with a fair number of books, which was perfectly natural considering the woman’s profession, and of course a television, fairly large, strategically positioned in relation to the sofa. A small chandelier hanging from the ceiling, a couple of floor lamps, and a total of three rugs on the floor, some Oriental design that Bäckström didn’t recognize. A stereo with two separate loudspeakers positioned at chest height on the middle bookshelf. Pictures on the walls, all of them landscapes or portraits.

‘We’ve taken the middle cushion from the sofa away,’ the younger technician said. ‘And the now renowned pair of underpants, which I dare say we will shortly be able to read all about in our beloved evening papers, not merely referred to as a typical item of male clothing, were found crumpled up on the floor under the sofa.’

You’ve got a fine way with words, Bäckström thought. I wonder if you’ve been on a course? But there would be better opportunities for that sort of remark, so he contented himself with a nod of agreement, while his friend and colleague was as taciturn as usual.

In the bedroom their colleagues from forensics had evidently been busy. The mattress and bedclothes were missing from the wide pine bed, and there were traces of both fingerprint powder and various chemical substances on everything in the room. They had also removed a large section of the carpet covering the floor.

‘Well, this is where most of it seems to have happened,’ the older technician said. ‘The centre of events, if you like. Anything that hasn’t already been sent to the National Forensics Lab in Linköping is back at base, if you want to take a look at it.’

‘Well, thanks very much,’ Bäckström said, smiling collegially. High time for a lager or two, he thought.

Bäckström and Rogersson had ordered their dinner up to Bäckström’s room. A quick glance at the dining room had been enough to confirm that it would be the very worst place to be in the whole of Växjö if you were a police officer from National Crime who simply wanted to get a bite to eat in peace and have a beer or two, with maybe the odd chaser.

‘Well, cheers, then,’ Rogersson said, raising the little glass even before Bäckström had had time to pour out their beers.

He seems considerably happier now, poor old soak, Bäckström thought. He wasn’t the sort to argue about the fact that they were still drinking his vodka.

‘Cheers,’ Bäckström said. Saturday at last, he thought, draining the first short and feeling the warmth and peace spread through his stomach and head. I’m a fortunate man.