Linda, As in the Linda Murder

22

That evening, after dinner in the hotel, Bäckström gathered his core team in his room to discuss the case in peace and quiet without a load of rural sheriffs trying to impose their cretinous opinions.

‘If we take this point by point, maybe you could take notes, Eva?’ Bäckström said, turning to the only woman in the group. What the hell’s the point of scrawny women? he thought.

‘Ready, boss,’ Svanström twittered, holding up her notepad and pen.

‘Okay, point by point,’ Bäckström said. ‘How did he get in?’ And she’s ingratiating, he thought.

‘She let him in,’ Rogersson sighed. His mind seemed to be elsewhere. ‘Just after she got home he rang on the door, and she let him in. It’s not just someone she knows, it’s someone she likes.’

‘Or trusts, at any rate,’ Thorén said. ‘Or at least isn’t scared about letting in.’

‘Mind you, he might well have tricked her,’ Knutsson said.

‘Are you completely stupid, Erik?’ Rogersson said, glaring at Knutsson. ‘You too, Thorén,’ he said, glowering at him as well. ‘She’s planning to go to bed. It’s three o’clock in the morning. The first thing he does is take off his shoes and put them in the rack. I don’t think we’re talking about dear little Gross wanting to borrow a bit of Nescafé.’

‘On an entirely different subject,’ said Bäckström, who had been struck by the same thought that was probably troubling Rogersson, ‘how about a little evening beer?’ If it comes to the crunch, I can always put it on expenses, he thought.

For once they all seemed to be in agreement. The age of miracles didn’t seem to be quite at an end either, because Thorén and Knutsson offered to get some of the supplies they had in their rooms.

‘We bought a whole case on Friday, but haven’t had time to drink any,’ Thorén explained.

They’re both completely mad, Bäckström thought.

‘Okay,’ he said five minutes later, licking the froth from his top lip. ‘So what do you think, Jan?’ He nodded at Lewin, who also seemed to have his mind elsewhere. Pull yourself together, you randy bastard, Bäckström thought.

‘I agree with Rogersson,’ Lewin said. ‘It was someone she knew and liked. I don’t think they planned to meet, either. He just turned up unannounced.’

‘I agree with Janne,’ Svanström said. ‘Someone she really likes just turns up out of the blue.’

And who the fuck asked you? Bäckström thought.

‘So how did he know she was at home?’ Thorén said.

‘Her car was parked outside, maybe he saw lights on inside the flat, maybe he was just trying his luck.’ Lewin shrugged.

‘Okay,’ Thorén said, apparently prepared to negotiate. ‘But I still think he tricked her.’

‘Considering the way it ended, you mean?’ Rogersson said, now sounding more ironic than annoyed. ‘In that case, I agree with you entirely. I don’t think Linda reckoned it was going to end the way it did when she let him in.’

‘So what happens in the living room?’ Bäckström said. They’re like children, he thought. Squabble, squabble, squabble.

‘She takes her clothes off, he takes his off. Then they get started,’ Rogersson said. ‘Entirely voluntarily, if you ask me. She starts with a basic handjob. He comes all over the sofa, after all, and it doesn’t look like they found any of her saliva.’

‘Hang on,’ Thorén said, stopping the flow by holding up his hands. ‘We don’t know that. Maybe she just wanted to sit down and talk for a while.’

‘Exactly,’ Knutsson said. ‘He says he wants a glass of water, goes out to the kitchen, and sees the knife. He goes back and says he’s had enough of talking.’

‘Fuck, that’s complicated,’ Rogersson sighed. ‘What’s wrong with a bit of voluntary sex?’

‘I’m inclined to agree with Rogersson again,’ Lewin said. ‘Neatly folded clothes, the fact that she probably took the key to the flat out of her trouser or waistcoat pocket before folding them over the edge of the armchair. That’s not the sort of thing our perpetrator would have done, or something she’d have thought of doing if she had a knife at her throat.’

‘I agree with you, Janne,’ Svanström said.

‘But he does seem to have been in more of a hurry than her,’ Knutsson said. ‘We can agree on that, can’t we? He pulls off his trousers, drops his pants on the floor. But the girl, Linda, takes it much more slowly.’

‘Maybe she was trying to get him excited,’ Rogersson said with a shrug. ‘Considering what happened when they ended up in her mum’s bed, I’d say she succeeded beyond all expectation.’

None of the others said anything. Knutsson and Thorén contented themselves with just looking sceptical. Lewin seemed mainly interested in the ceiling of Bäckström’s room, while Svanström was busy making notes.

‘Do you mean she went along with that as well?’ Bäckström asked. ‘That it was some sort of sex game that got out of hand?’ Even though she seems so straitlaced, he thought.

‘The first thing that happens in the bedroom could easily be normal intercourse,’ Rogersson said. ‘According to our esteemed medical colleague, she didn’t have any significant injuries in or around her vagina. I don’t think it’s out of the question that he tricked her into putting on a couple of the ties without her objecting. Either then or later.’

‘Then what happens?’ Bäckström asked. Rogge’s good, he thought. Even though he drinks like he worked for our colleagues in Tallinn.

‘Then I think things get way out of hand,’ Rogersson said. ‘When he decides to take her up the arse. But by then it’s too late. Properly tied up, gagged so she can’t scream, then out with the knife to get her to do what he says. And that’s when she gets the injuries that our esteemed medical colleague described in such detail. Small tears to the anus, scratches round her neck, on her upper arms, wrists and ankles. When he’s pulling her about and she’s struggling to get free.’

‘The inhibitor in our perpetrator’s brain has gone,’ Bäckström said.

‘Every single fucking fuse in that bastard has blown,’ Rogersson said with feeling. ‘By the way, is there any more beer?’

‘So who is he, then?’ Bäckström asked his team. ‘Who are we looking for?’

‘The perpetrator is probably a man,’ Thorén said solemnly. ‘I’m joking, of course,’ he added. ‘I was thinking of our colleagues in the CP group. Isn’t that what they usually put in their profiles? “The perpetrator is probably a man. In all likelihood he already knew the victim, but we can’t rule out that he had no previous connection to the victim and met her in conjunction with the offence in question,” ’ he went on in a sombre voice.

‘Are you thinking of changing jobs?’ Bäckström said. ‘A young man who already knew Linda,’ he went on, looking at the others encouragingly.

‘Young? Peter didn’t actually say young,’ Knutsson said.

‘So how old is he, then?’ Christ, they’re just like stroppy teenagers, Bäckström thought.

‘Well,’ Knutsson said, ‘between twenty and twenty-five, something like that, a few years older than Linda.’

‘Fine,’ Bäckström said. ‘I thought that’s what I said?’ Idiots. ‘So how well does he know her?’

‘This is what I think,’ Lewin said, sounding as though he’d given the matter some thought. ‘Eva and I were actually discussing this before dinner.’

‘I’m listening,’ Bäckström said. So you talk to each other as well?

‘A young man, twenty-five, thirty or so. He knows Linda well, although they don’t meet very often. But she’s still very fond of him even though it’s been a while since they met. Someone she’s had sex with at least once before. Probably perfectly ordinary sex, because I get the impression that’s what she likes. I don’t think she’s particularly sexually experienced either. I actually asked the medical officer after the meeting, and according to him there’s nothing to suggest that she had ever engaged in anal sex or any of the more violent sadomasochistic practices before. No healed wounds or old scar tissue, nothing like that. And I think she trusts him. And they haven’t seen each other for a while. Then he suddenly shows up again. In the middle of the night.’

‘She’s still fond enough of him to let him in,’ Svanström said. ‘I don’t think he’s necessarily that young, either. He could easily be a bit older.’

I didn’t expect that of Lewin, Bäckström thought. That he’s still got that much going on. ‘He still manages to come four times in not much more than an hour,’ he said.

‘Yes, that was a while ago,’ Rogersson said. It sounded as if he were thinking out loud.

‘I get the impression that he was high on something,’ Lewin said. ‘That he’d taken amphetamines or something like that.’

‘Yes, or maybe a slightly older man who’s been at the Viagra,’ Thorén added.

‘Someone who uses drugs?’ Rogersson said hesitantly. ‘I can’t quite get that to fit with our victim. Especially not if I buy the bit about her trusting him. I think she trusts him more or less unconditionally. Would she really have that sort of trust for someone with a drug problem?’

‘Not a drug problem.’ Lewin shook his head. ‘It doesn’t work if that’s the case. Someone who’s tried it a few times. Maybe just uses it for sex.’

‘Someone that Linda knows and trusts,’ Bäckström said slowly. ‘So where does he live, then?’ Makes sense to change track, he thought.

‘Here in town,’ Knutsson said. ‘In Växjö.’

‘Or close to the town, Växjö and the surrounding area,’ Thorén elaborated.

‘A man of twenty-five or slightly older, someone she knows already, likes, and trusts completely. Who lives in town or at least nearby. Who isn’t an addict but occasionally takes amphetamines because he knows the way they work, which is to help him lose his inhibitions and make his cock go like an electric toothbrush,’ Bäckström summarized. ‘You don’t think things could be so bad that we’re looking for a fellow officer? Some crazy bastard who manages to hold it together apart from one fateful day?’

‘That thought has been at the back of my mind ever since I got here,’ Rogersson said. ‘All the crazy fuckers you meet in the force. All the stories you hear. They can’t all be made up, sadly.’

Lewin was shaking his head dubiously. ‘Admittedly, worse things have happened in the force,’ he said slowly. ‘The thought’s occurred to me as well. But I still don’t quite believe it.’

‘Why not?’ Bäckström said. Because he isn’t like you, he thought.

‘He seems a bit too uninhibited for my taste,’ Lewin said. ‘All the evidence he left behind. Wouldn’t a police officer have tidied up after him?’

‘Looks like he wiped the knife,’ Bäckström said. ‘Maybe he didn’t have time to clean up if he thought someone was coming.’

‘There’s something about this that just doesn’t feel right.’ Lewin shrugged. ‘But of course I’ve been wrong before.’

‘Anything else?’ Bäckström said, looking round the room. Or am I going to have the good fortune finally to be able to collapse in bed with a bit of liquid assistance before I fall asleep?

‘I think he’s good-looking,’ Svanström said suddenly. ‘Our perpetrator, I mean. Linda was very attractive,’ she went on. ‘And she seems to have taken a lot of trouble over her appearance, not least her clothes. Have you any idea how much clothes like that cost? The things she was wearing. I think he’s the same. Birds of a feather. Isn’t that what people say?’

Yep, and you and Lewin are both fucking scrawny, Bäckström thought.

Before Bäckström fell asleep he called his little reporter from local radio. To help keep her on the boil, if nothing else.

‘I understand you’ve had the results of your DNA samples,’ Carin said. ‘I don’t suppose that’s something you’d like to tell me about?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Bäckström said sternly. ‘You got home okay the other night?’

Evidently she had, without going into detail. Then she suggested that they ought to meet again soon. And they still didn’t have to talk about work.

‘Sure,’ Bäckström said. ‘That sounds good. But things are pretty busy, so it might not be for a day or two,’ he added. Way too easy, he thought.

‘Should I interpret that to mean that things are coming together?’ Carin said, her voice suddenly sounding eager.

‘You will be the first to know,’ Bäckström said, in his best television American.