Linda, As in the Linda Murder

33 Växjö, Monday 21 July

Detective Superintendent Jan Lewin had taken to reading the Småland Post. He still had to read at least one newspaper to stay informed about the media view of the world in general, and the murder of Linda Wallin in particular.

Obviously, Linda’s murder dominated the news in the big local morning paper, but they also had room for other stories, some small comfort amidst all the human misery, and on this particular Monday morning this came in the form of an article about what was probably the largest strawberry in the world.

There was a picture of the strawberry on the front page, with the classic matchbox alongside for scale, from which it was possible to deduce that the strawberry was the size of a cauliflower, or perhaps a man’s fist. Inside the paper was a lengthy interview with the man behind this horticultural feat, Svante Forslund, 72, and a slightly shorter one with his wife Vera, 71.

Svante Forslund had been retired for almost ten years, after a career as a biology and chemistry teacher at the high school in Växjö. He and his wife now spent all year in what had once been their summer cottage outside Alvesta. The Forslunds’ great hobby was gardening. Their plot was almost an acre in size, and contained most of what could be grown for both culinary and visual delight. Flowers, herbs, medicinal plants, fruit and all other forms of greenery. Potatoes and every other root vegetable, and other nutritious things. Obviously also beehives, to guarantee the pollination of their private paradise. And, last but not least, there were numerous varieties of Fragaria ananassa, because strawberries in particular were Svante Forslund’s great passion in life.

The strawberry in question was a recent American hybrid, Fragaria monstrum americanum, the American monster strawberry. Forslund had noticed this particular strawberry during the week after mid-summer, and even then it had been considerably larger than others in the same row.

Forslund had immediately decided to embark upon a special growth programme. Other strawberries on the same plant had been removed to avoid any competition for nutrients, a special watering and feeding regime had been introduced, and the plant had been given particular protection from insects, grubs, birds, hares and deer. A fortnight later, when Forslund estimated that his strawberry had reached its optimal size, it had been picked, photographed, and ended up in the paper.

Aside from the purely horticultural interest, Svante Forslund also saw huge economic potential in his giant strawberry. Professional strawberry cultivation in Sweden currently occupied 2,350 hectares, and in Forslund’s opinion it would only take a couple of years of systematic focus on his giant American strawberries for annual fruit production to increase by some 400 per cent. From the same area and with considerably lower watering and fertilizer costs than was currently the case.

His wife Vera had also had her say, and she was far less enthusiastic. In summary, she thought her husband’s monster strawberry was both watery and tasteless, and, to put it bluntly, she wouldn’t dream of using it in the kitchen. In Vera Forslund’s world, a proper strawberry should taste like they did when she was little. Her own favourite was a local variety that produced a dark red and fairly small fruit with firm flesh, a sweet taste, and a pronounced flavour of the wild variety. She had inherited the plants from her parents, and although her husband was a latter-day Carl von Linné, even he had been unable to classify their origins. Nevertheless, their fruit still formed the main ingredient of the famous strawberry tart that she always made for her children, grandchildren, and friends each summer, and the readers of the Småland Post could make for themselves by following the accompanying recipe: a base of thinly sliced sponge, a few splashes of homemade strawberry liqueur, a large quantity of jam made from the same strawberries, a lot of whipped cream, thinly sliced strawberries all round the sides and a particularly fine whole strawberry to crown the creation.

It sounded simple and tasty. Rather like the tarts his mother used to make when he was a child, Lewin thought, deciding to cut out the article and add it to the rest of the material he was collecting from his trip to Växjö.