Linda, As in the Linda Murder

6

Half an hour before dinner they all met in Bäckström’s room to catch up. Entirely natural, seeing as he was in charge, and if they met anywhere other than in the boss’s room there would be mutinous talk. Bäckström knew this of old, from both sides, having been both captain and crew member during his years in violent crime. But so far everything seemed calm. All of his team had turned up. Alert and happy and almost a bit expectant, as if this were just some ordinary conference trip to Finland rather than a murder investigation.

First into Bäckström’s room was his old colleague, Detective Inspector Jan Rogersson, whom Bäckström had known ever since his days on the old violent crime division in Stockholm. He had travelled down alone and taken a detour via the police station in Nyköping to hand back some case notes on an investigation that had gone reassuringly cold. The victim’s widow had finally turned up her toes and stopped writing to complain to the judicial ombudsman. Rogersson had turned up at the hotel in Växjö a couple of hours after Bäckström. A good bloke, in Bäckström’s opinion, and practically the only one of the people he worked with that he could bear to spend time with outside work.

Bäckström felt alert and in the best of moods, freshly woken and freshly showered as he was, and he and Rogersson had taken the chance to down a couple of lagers and a bracing chaser or two before the others trooped in and disturbed the peace. Knutsson and Thorén arrived together, naturally. Knutsson had been at the police station, where he had met their new colleagues and been given a mass of documents. Thorén had handed in Bäckström’s dirty laundry and visited the crime scene, and neither of them was offered either beer or anything stronger when they turned up. On the contrary, as soon as they knocked on the door Bäckström had tucked away both bottles and glasses before opening up. They could do their drinking in their own time, he thought.

Last to arrive was Detective Superintendent Jan Lewin, who had driven down with their civilian assistant, Eva Svanström. It was a bit odd, because they had set off from Stockholm together before all the others and goodness knows how it could take seven hours to drive four hundred kilometres, but they all knew the answer so no one asked straight out.

‘Hope you had a good drive,’ Bäckström said with an innocent expression, looking at the only woman in the group. Alert, rosy and recently fucked, he thought. But far too skinny for his taste, so he might as well keep his mouth shut and let them get on with it.

‘It was very good,’ Svanström twittered. ‘Janne had a couple of things to do on the way, that’s why it took so long.’

‘I see,’ Bäckström said. ‘Well, maybe we should take the opportunity to get something done while we’re on our own, so that we can have a bite to eat without having to talk about the case among all the vultures down there. Erik, you brought a load of papers with you. Have you got copies for everyone?’ Completely useless, he thought.

Knutsson had brought with him pretty much everything that was available and ready when he visited the police station. And six copies of everything, enough for one each. In their bundles they each had the initial alarm call, a report from the first responders, various photographs of the crime scene and the surrounding area, a sketch of the flat where the body had been found, a short description of the victim, and a log detailing what their colleagues had already had time to make a start on.

Bäckström felt slight disappointment when he glanced through the file. They didn’t seem to have missed anything obvious. Not yet, at least, and considering that he was about to take charge things would doubtless be fine.

‘Any questions?’ he asked, to a unanimous shaking of heads.

‘Well, it’s not time for food yet,’ he said with a crooked smile. Lazy fuckers, he thought. All they think about is food, drink and fucking.

‘Do we know when we might get anything from the medical officer and forensics?’ Rogersson asked.

‘The post-mortem’s tomorrow,’ Knutsson said. ‘They’ve evidently driven her down to the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Lund. The forensics team are hard at work but the one I spoke to thought that they’d managed to get samples of semen from the perpetrator, as well as blood from the windowsill outside the bedroom. There were also some clothes that they think belong to him. Things he left behind when he ran off. Looks like he was in a hurry, and the officer I spoke to is pretty sure he jumped out of the bedroom window. That’s probably when he cut himself on the windowsill.’

‘You mentioned something about clothes,’ Bäckström grunted. ‘Don’t suppose we’re lucky enough that he ran off without his trousers?’

‘Looks pretty much like it,’ Knutsson replied. ‘Well, I don’t know how he was dressed when he arrived, but it looks as though he left without his underwear.’

‘That was rather careless of him,’ Bäckström said. ‘Still, I don’t suppose that’s where he kept his driving licence, because that would be a bit too much to hope for.’ Hardly anyone’s that stupid, he thought, although this one seemed stupid enough, and that was usually a good sign.

‘Bäckström,’ Rogersson said, apparently in a very good mood all of a sudden. ‘Do you remember that idiot who strangled that woman in her flat on Högalidsgatan? The Ritva murder. That was her name. He spent ages cleaning up after him, wiping away fingerprints and pretty much scrubbing the walls, floor and ceiling before he left. The idiot spent hours at it. It was just a shame that little Ritva who lived there didn’t get to see the benefit of having everything so clean.’

‘I remember,’ Bäckström said. ‘We were both on the case, and it’s pretty much the only one you’ve ever talked about in the past twenty years.’ Must be all the drink, Bäckström thought.

‘Now, now, there’s no need to be like that,’ Rogersson said, no less cheerfully. ‘I wonder how he felt when he slammed the door behind him and suddenly realized what he’d forgotten.’

‘I don’t suppose he felt too great,’ Bäckström said. He nodded towards Thorén. ‘Peter, you’ve been to look at the crime scene. What does it look like?’

‘What was the point?’ Thorén asked. ‘Forgive a young man’s ignorance, but what was the point?’

‘What do you mean, the point?’ Bäckström said. What the hell’s he going on about? How about answering a perfectly simple question instead?

‘With the bloke on Högalidsgatan?’ Thorén persisted.

‘Oh, him,’ Bäckström said. ‘Well, he’d forgotten to pick up his wallet, with his driving licence and all the other things people usually have in their wallets. He left it on the victim’s bedside table. But apart from that he’d left everything beautifully neat and tidy. Forensics didn’t actually find a single strand of hair. But to get back to the matter in hand...’

‘I don’t believe it,’ Knutsson exclaimed, looking almost as happy as Rogersson.

‘Our case,’ Bäckström reminded them. ‘What about the crime scene?’

According to Thorén, it looked the way crime scenes usually looked. Just as miserable as they always were when a woman had been raped and murdered. Possibly slightly more miserable this time, as the perpetrator had been alone with the victim in her home and seemed to have had complete control over her, and had evidently had plenty of time.

Unfortunately none of the usual classic suspects had been identified. No former or current boyfriend, nor anyone else that she knew and trusted. She didn’t appear to have had a boyfriend for a while, and there were no known madmen or particularly suspicious characters either in the neighbourhood or among the people she knew. Which left the typical police nightmare. A perpetrator who was unknown to the victim. Someone she had never met before, and, in the worst cases, someone no one else had ever met either.

‘So it looks like it’s going to be a proper murder investigation after all,’ Thorén concluded.

‘Okay,’ Bäckström said. ‘We’ll sort it out. You can all read through the file in peace and quiet before going to bed. Make sure you look after them, so I don’t have to see it in the paper. This whole building’s crawling with reporters and other body-snatchers. Well, I for one could do with some food now. I haven’t eaten a thing since this morning and I’m hungry as hell.’

‘If you all write your names at the top of your file and give them to me, I’ll lock them in my safe while we eat,’ Svanström said.

‘Excellent idea,’ Bäckström said. You jumped-up little nightmare, he thought. And he was right: she was far too skinny as well.

After dinner they had all gone back to their rooms to start studying the case. At least that’s what they told Bäckström they were going to do, and Knutsson and Thorén were naturally going to do it together. Even Rogersson, who was usually a perfectly normal officer, seemed to have been afflicted by the desire to do some reading. Although he had accompanied Bäckström back to his room first and borrowed a couple of export-strength lagers from him, he had declined Bäckström’s invitation to join him in a postprandial snifter.

‘You’re not coming down with something, are you, Rogge?’ Bäckström asked. ‘I’m starting to worry about you.’ Feeble little bastard, he thought.

‘No,’ Rogersson said, shaking his head. ‘No need to worry. I just need to get a few hours’ sleep so I can keep up tomorrow.’

So they had gone their separate ways, which was just as well really, considering that Bäckström was thinking of taking a discreet little walk round the town. To check the lie of the land, if nothing else, and that sort of thing was best done alone.

He had snuck out of the back of the hotel, and spent a while strolling at random round the centre of town. He had never visited Växjö before, either on business or privately, and now he wandered past the governor’s residence and the cathedral, past all the nice old buildings that had been restored the way buildings like that demanded, and past a number of outdoor bars full of people dressed for summer who didn’t look particularly upset by the event which had brought him here. How on earth could anyone kill someone else in that way in a place like this, Bäckström wondered. It must be the first time in local criminal history.

There were several pleasant hostelries along his route, and even though it was after eleven o’clock in the evening it was almost twenty degrees, but Bäckström had been steadfast in resisting temptation until he got back to the hotel.

There he ordered a beer on the terrace, and went and sat in the gloom of the far corner so he could have some peace. Not too many people about, either, he thought. His colleagues were conspicuous by their absence, and the simplest explanation was that they had all actually done what they had promised to do. He had his doubts as far as Lewin and little Svanström were concerned, because he doubted that reading came very high up their list, but Knutsson and Thorén were probably more straightforward. They would be sitting in one of their rooms talking about murder cases, and they’d probably carry on like that half the night if no one stopped them. Who on earth would do something like that, Bäckström wondered. And they’re stone-cold sober as well, the little idiots, he thought, sipping his beer.

‘Is this seat taken?’

The person asking was a woman. In that indeterminate age between thirty-five and forty-five, and obviously past the best-before date for women, but at least she was verging on the well-rounded side, Bäckström thought.

‘That depends who’s asking,’ he said. Journalist, he thought.

‘Yes, maybe I should introduce myself,’ she said, putting her own beer on the table and sitting down in the empty chair. ‘My name’s Carin Ågren.’ She handed over a business card. ‘I’m a reporter for local radio here in town.’

‘What an astonishing coincidence,’ Bäckström said with a smile. ‘So what could I possibly help you with, Carin?’ Other than giving you a shot up the snatch up in my room, he thought.

‘Yes, isn’t it?’ she said, smiling and showing her white teeth. ‘Funny the way things turn out sometimes. I actually recognize you. I’ve seen you before, when I was working for TV4 in Stockholm a couple of years ago. I was covering a trial and you were one of the witnesses. Three Russians who’d robbed and killed an elderly couple. Might I ask what National Crime’s murder unit is doing in town?’

‘I haven’t the faintest idea,’ Bäckström said, taking a large gulp of his beer. ‘I was thinking of paying a visit to Astrid Lindgren’s childhood home.’

‘Maybe we could meet some other time,’ she said with a smile. Just as broad as before, the same white teeth.

‘Maybe,’ Bäckström said, and put her card in his pocket. He nodded and finished the last of his lager. Then he stood up and gave her his most effective smile. The battle-scarred cop from the big city. Tough against the tough guys but the nicest man in the world if you were gentle enough and stroked him in the right way.

‘I’ll take that as a promise,’ she said. ‘Otherwise I’ll have to start stalking you.’ She raised her glass and smiled at him for a third time.

Definitely up for it, Bäckström thought quarter of an hour later as he stood in front of the bathroom mirror brushing his teeth. It was just a matter of taking it slowly and in the right order, and she’d soon get a taste of the Bäckström super-salami.