Linda, As in the Linda Murder

59

About a week earlier Bäckström had deputed two younger colleagues from Växjö Police to try to trace the origin of the blue cashmere fibres that for the sake of simplicity he had decided to call the fabric line of inquiry. The fact that they were both women was no coincidence. It was pretty much in the nature of the task, and Bäckström thought it was excellent that the little things had something to do, so that they didn’t cause any serious trouble for him and the real police officers.

Nevertheless they appeared to have taken the task seriously. According to the National Forensics Lab, they were probably dealing with a thin pale blue sweater, and the officers searching for it had spoken to everyone who might, in the light of their professional experience, be able to help them find it. They had spoken to fashion designers, fashion journalists, fashion photographers and fashion experts generally, to manufacturers, wholesalers and representatives of a large number of boutiques selling more exclusive clothes. One of them had even begun by talking to her aunt, who was almost obsessed with what she wore.

Assuming that they were dealing with a man’s jumper, there were ten possible designs to choose between. The most likely, a V-neck sweater with long sleeves made in Britain, Ireland, America, Italy, Germany or France, had a price tag of between two and twelve thousand kronor, depending on the label. If it had been bought in a sale, or possibly at a factory outlet, or anywhere other than a boutique, the price would have been lower. But anything under a thousand kronor was unlikely, and would have been a serious bargain, according to the people they had spoken to.

But it didn’t appear to have been sold anywhere in Växjö or the surrounding area. None of the shops there had stocked a man’s sweater of that sort in recent years. All they had, or had had in the past, were a few for women, but to judge from the available delivery notes and stock figures none of them had been the right colour. Which left some twenty shops and department stores in Sweden, almost all of them in Stockholm, Gothenburg or Malmö. Unless it had been bought abroad. That was just as likely, according to the people they had spoken to, and, considering the price, often a better buy. Both supply and demand were considerably larger abroad than they were in Sweden. But that was about as far as they had got.

Which left the possibility that it had been stolen. With the help of the police computers they had brought up lists of all thefts of exclusive clothes reported by importers, wholesalers, warehouses, department stores and boutiques in the south of Sweden in recent years. Then they had looked through all the normal household burglaries, thefts and lost property reports which had found their way into police files. No men’s cashmere sweaters.

‘I’m afraid it doesn’t look like we’re going to get much further than that,’ one of the two fabric detectives said when she and her colleague reported to Bäckström.

‘It’s not the end of the world,’ Bäckström said with a cheery smile. ‘The main thing is that you girls have had some fun while you were at it.’

Women have no sense of humour. A couple of proper attack-dykes, Bäckström thought when they left his office a minute or so later. He glanced at his watch, which already showed almost three o’clock. It was Friday and high time for the first beer of the weekend. But certainly not for that little poof Olsson, who was suddenly standing in his doorway, wanting to talk to him.

‘Have you got a couple of minutes, Bäckström?’ Olsson asked.

‘Of course,’ Bäckström said, smiling warmly. ‘We’ve got a long way to go before we can think of calling it a day.’

Olsson was evidently up for spending half the evening discussing the voluntary DNA samples, unless Bäckström managed to put a stop to him at an early stage. Olsson was worried, and the county police commissioner shared his concerns. So to settle his anxieties he had decided to go round and, in true democratic spirit, find out what the key members of his team thought about the matter.

‘We’re actually getting close to seven hundred voluntary DNA samples now,’ he said, having just received the current figure from Thorén.

‘Yes, it’s going very well,’ Bäckström agreed enthusiastically. ‘We’ll soon have the bastard. Any time now.’ So there, you little coward, he thought.

‘I’m sure you’re right, of course,’ Olsson said, even though he didn’t seem to have been listening to what Bäckström said. ‘The problem is that both JO and CJ are on to us. I’m not particularly concerned about what gets written in the papers, of course, but I have tried to take account of the criticism.’

‘Yes, well, you are the head of the preliminary investigation,’ Bäckström emphasized cheerily.

‘What do you mean?’ Olsson was looking at him suspiciously. ‘Well, you’ll be the one sitting up to your ears in shit if they get it into their heads to cause trouble for someone, and that can’t be much fun,’ Bäckström said, smiling his most sympathetic smile.

‘Well, of course that’s not the main reason why I think we should adjust our approach on this matter, at least for the time being,’ Olsson said nervously.

‘What about proceeding on a broad front, relentlessly?’ Bäckström asked innocently.

‘Naturally I’ve taken that into consideration, Bäckström, but I’m also starting to get a definite sense that the investigation is starting to point in a more focused direction, if I may say so.’

‘So you’re giving up the idea of getting DNA samples from the whole town?’ Bäckström said brightly. ‘In that case, I—’

‘What I mostly had in mind was the car,’ Olsson interrupted. ‘That we should suspend the DNA sampling programme in order to focus hard on the line of inquiry offered by the car.’

‘You mean that hundred-year-old who’s forgotten when she was born?’

‘Ninety-two,’ Olsson said. ‘Maybe not her, exactly, but we’re far from finished with the door-to-door enquiries out in Högstorp, and Enoksson and his colleagues usually have something to offer us once they’ve finished their examinations. What do you think, Bäckström?’

‘I think we should send in the heavies to deal with the old woman. Maybe the Sala League.’

‘The Sala League?’ Olsson said. ‘I’m afraid I don’t quite understand.’

‘Charming characters, very busy in central Sweden back in the thirties,’ said Bäckström, who had garnered all his esoteric knowledge from the Crime-Police Yearbook. It was the only book he read, mainly to check that he was mentioned in sufficiently flattering terms in the case descriptions that certain of his half-demented colleagues insisted on sharing with the general public. And all at no cost, seeing as he usually stole a copy from work.

‘Yes, I know that. But what have the Sala League got to do with our witness?’ Olsson was looking doubtfully at Bäckström.

‘Nothing, sadly,’ Bäckström said. ‘Besides, they’re dead now, but back in the thirties they gassed an old woman to death before robbing her. They got a sum total of six kronor and thirty öre that she kept hidden under her mattress. A lot of money in those days, Olsson.’

‘You’re joking,’ Olsson said.

‘You never know,’ Bäckström said. ‘You never know.’ Maybe we should let Rogersson loose on the old bag, he thought.