Linda, As in the Linda Murder

32 Växjö, Sunday 20 July

Late on Sunday evening Knutsson and Thorén knocked on the door of Bäckström’s hotel room. Their colleagues in Stockholm had finished their preliminary investigation into the mobile phone belonging to trainee police officer Erik Roland Löfgren.

‘What, they’ve been working over the weekend?’ Bäckström said in surprise.

‘I suppose they want the overtime, like everyone else,’ Knutsson replied.

‘So is he still here, or has he scarpered?’ Bäckström asked. Hope the fucker’s scarpered, he thought, suddenly feeling the familiar tingling again.

‘Judging from the call log, he’s been on Öland since the middle of the week,’ Thorén said. ‘Before that, it looks like he was in Växjö.’

‘The most recent search locates him close to a phone mast in Mörbylånga,’ Knutsson clarified. ‘His parents have a summer house nearby, so he’s probably there sunbathing.’

‘So have you found anything interesting?’ Bäckström asked. Cretins, he thought. Why would someone like Löfgren want to go sunbathing?

‘I think so,’ Thorén said, looking pleased with himself.

‘What, then?’ Bäckström said. ‘Unless it’s a secret?’

‘Officer Sandberg seems to have tried calling him several times,’ Thorén said. ‘The first time on the day Linda was murdered.’

‘Yes,’ Bäckström said with a sigh. ‘Which isn’t so bloody strange considering that she was the one who questioned him over the phone.’ Utter cretins, he thought.

‘That’s what we thought to start with,’ Thorén said.

‘Until we thought about it a bit more,’ Knutsson explained.

‘Really?’ Bäckström said sourly. Who the hell do they think they are?

According to the interview report that Sandberg had written and signed, she had questioned trainee police officer Roland Löfgren between 19.15 and 19.35 on Friday 4 July.

‘She called his mobile. Probably from her own extension in the police station in Växjö, seeing as the call went through the station’s exchange,’ Thorén said.

‘I’m not that stupid,’ Bäckström said. ‘So what’s the problem?’

‘For one thing, the conversation’s a bit short,’ Knutsson said, giving Bäckström a crafty glance. ‘It ends after just four minutes. At 19.19.’

‘So what?’ Bäckström said. ‘That could just mean he asked her to call the landline instead. Bad reception, battery running out. How the hell should I know?’ Christ, how stupid could you get? ‘Have you checked his landline?’

‘It’s being done,’ Thorén said. ‘It’s a normal Telia connection, to his student lodgings. In some big house on Doktorsgatan in the centre of Växjö, owned by a doctor with a private practice here in town. Probably one of his dad’s old friends. The account is under his father’s name, not the boy’s, which makes getting permission to see the records a bit tricky.’

‘Well, they’ll just have to get it sorted,’ Bäckström said. ‘What’s the other problem?’

‘Well, to put it briefly,’ Knutsson said...

To put it briefly, the problem was as follows: at 19.20 someone had made another call from the police station exchange to Löfgren’s mobile, but he didn’t answer. Another five incoming calls had been logged, all from the same number, and all of them — to judge by the length of the call — had gone straight to voicemail. The last of the calls was made just after midnight. During the following fifteen days, a total of ten more calls had been made to Löfgren’s mobile from the police station exchange. All of them apparently unanswered.

As if this weren’t enough, Sandberg had also called him from her official police mobile on five occasions, and those calls also seemed not to have been answered. Finally she had also called him one more time from her personal mobile.

‘That was on Thursday afternoon, just after lunch,’ Knutsson said. ‘And they actually seem to have talked to each other that time. The call lasted nine minutes.’

‘Weird,’ Bäckström agreed. What the fuck’s she playing at? Wasn’t that when she had a go at me in the canteen?

‘Yes, definitely a bit weird,’ Thorén said.

‘Pretty mysterious, if you ask me,’ Knutsson said.

‘Let’s sleep on it,’ Bäckström said. What the fuck’s going on?

‘One more thing,’ Bäckström said, before they had time to disappear through the door. ‘Not a word about this to a single damn soul.’

‘Course not,’ Knutsson said.

‘Very hush hush,’ Thorén agreed, winking with his right eye and holding his right index finger to his lips.

‘What?’ Bäckström said. Are the bastards freemasons as well?

‘Very hush hush,’ Knutsson repeated. ‘Like that film about cops in Los Angeles in the fifties. LA Confidential.’

‘One of the characters says that, very hush hush,’ Thorén explained. ‘It’s a good film. Based on a book by James Ellroy. You should see it, Bäckström.’

There’s no other explanation. They have to be poofs, Bäckström thought just before he fell asleep. Since the rest of humanity had got hold of television and video, only poofs still went to the cinema. Poofs and old women, of course. Not even kids went to the cinema any more, Bäckström thought, and that must have been when sleep caught up with him, because when he opened his eyes it was already light outside and the same merciless sun was searching for gaps in the curtain, trying to get into his room.

Today I’m going to make glue out of the bastard, Bäckström thought as he stood in the shower, letting the cold water prepare him for yet another new day in his life as a murder detective.