Linda, As in the Linda Murder

65 Växjö, Monday 18 August

By the Monday when the hunt for Linda’s killer entered its eighth week, Bäckström was starting to feel rather tired of the whole business. They weren’t able to take any more DNA samples, although even an idiot like Olsson ought to have realized that if they weren’t going to catch him any other way, they would do so eventually if they carried on with that. Nor was there anything tasty for him to get his teeth into either. No juicy breakthroughs or promising thugs to get hold of. All they had was crazy hundred-year-olds who couldn’t remember when they were born and thought the perpetrator looked like someone who didn’t exist. Not to mention all the other so-called witnesses who hadn’t seen, heard or thought anything, let alone the usual lunatics and head-cases with their premonitions and messages from the other side. What the hell was he doing here? It was entirely the wrong place for a proper policeman, and high time to pack up and go back to work in Stockholm.

Besides, the town he’d ended up in was fucking awful. To top it all, every newspaper, television channel and radio station now seemed to devote all its time to telling him and his colleagues how they should do their job. And of course the bosses were conspicuous by their absence when it came to standing up for the common foot-soldiers. Like, most recently, that bastard Lapp, whom even the biggest of the evening papers hadn’t managed to find in order to get a quote out of him. If you could believe what they themselves were claiming, that is, and Bäckström thought that in this instance you probably could.

As if all this wasn’t more than enough, his colleague officer Sandberg suddenly appeared in his office. She closed the door behind her, and just managed to whisper the reason why she was there.

‘There’s been a complaint about you this morning.’

‘So what have I done this time?’ Bäckström asked. ‘Apart from just trying to do my job?’ I expect I’ve exceeded the National Crime budget for the purchase of cotton-buds, he thought.

Attempted rape, according to the complainant. Sexual harassment, according to the colleague who had received the complaint and, for safety’s sake, had put it in a little pile all of its own.

‘Are you pulling my leg?’ Bäckström said, although he had already worked out what was going on. Of all the crazy bitches on this planet, he thought.

Sadly not, according to Sandberg. The report claimed that late in the evening of 15 August, Bäckström had, in his room at the Town Hotel, done what he had actually done, and a number of other things that he hadn’t actually done. The victim was a female reporter for local radio in Växjö named Carin Ågren, forty-two years old. The person who had filed the complaint was a close friend of hers, the coordinator of the women’s helpline in town, by name Moa Hjärtén. The only positive was that they hadn’t been able to get hold of the alleged victim, Ågren, and that, as was so often the case, there were no witnesses.

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ Bäckström said. ‘I never touched the woman.’ Which was entirely true, he thought.

‘Not my case,’ Sandberg said, shaking her head defensively. ‘I just thought it might be useful for you to know about it.’

‘I have a vague recollection of that Hjärtén woman,’ Bäckström said. ‘Is she the little fat woman who scuttles about in an old pink shift? I’ve met her here at the station. Evidently some close acquaintance of our colleague Olsson.’

‘Well, I’ve told you now,’ Sandberg repeated.

‘Good of you, Anna.’ Bäckström smiled his most relaxed smile. ‘In this job you have to put up with a lot of crap.’ And they haven’t got any witnesses, he thought.

The female anaesthetist hadn’t been very easy to get hold of. As soon as she got back to work her services were required in the operating theatre, and it wasn’t until later that afternoon that she had time to see Lewin. Assuming it was important enough. Assuming that it wasn’t about anything that conflicted with her oath of confidentiality, and assuming that he came to her and not the other way round, seeing as he evidently didn’t want to tell her what this was about over the phone.

But once he was sitting in her office at the hospital, the whole thing was remarkably painless, and far better than expected. White coat, stethoscope in her pocket. Short blonde hair, thin, in good shape, attentive blue eyes and a look in them that darted between alertness, insight and humour. An attractive woman, Lewin thought.

Without going into the reasons in any detail, Lewin quickly explained what was troubling him. Had she received any strange phone calls? He was particularly interested in any such calls she might have received the night before she went on holiday or early in the morning of the day her holiday began.

‘This is about the murder of that trainee police officer, isn’t it?’ She looked at him inquisitively, and the activity behind her blue eyes was obvious.

‘I didn’t say that,’ Lewin said with a faint smile. Almost too attractive, he thought.

And he really hadn’t. She was the one who had said it, and she didn’t expect an answer. But she was capable of working it out for herself. Twenty-four hours ago, when she had just got back from her holiday abroad, she hadn’t had any idea of the Linda murder. After catching up on her old newspapers and taking a couple of trips to the staffroom at work, she now knew as much as everyone else.

‘I’ve never met a real murder detective before. Least of all one from National Crime,’ she told him.

‘That must be nice,’ Lewin said.

‘So now that you’re here, I’m almost pleased.’

‘Thanks.’ Where’s this conversation going? Lewin thought.

‘You seem to be made of the right stuff. Isn’t that what you lot usually say? The right stuff,’ she repeated. ‘Anyway, I think I might be able to help you. Not that I understand why, but this is what happened.’

She seldom got calls from people she didn’t know, and almost all the calls she did get had something to do with work. She had had a few wrong numbers, but she usually forgot those pretty quickly. And she’d never had to put up with any unpleasant calls since she moved to Växjö almost two years ago.

‘No heavy breathing,’ she explained. ‘Hopefully because my number’s ex-directory, and not because I’m too old.’

That was one reason why she remembered the call. The other was that she had had to agree to being on call on the Friday morning, before she left for Copenhagen airport, because the father of one of her colleagues had suddenly had a heart attack.

‘The phone rang in the middle of the night, and I just assumed that my holiday was about to go up in smoke.’

In the middle of the night? She couldn’t remember more exactly what time it was?

‘According to the alarm clock beside the bed, it was 02.15,’ she said, smiling at Lewin’s look of surprise. ‘I can see you wondering why I remember that,’ she added.

Lewin smiled back. I suppose I could always ask you a few control questions about your date of birth, he thought.

Times were important in an anaesthetist’s life, especially when it came to nocturnal phone calls, which she always assumed must be from work. Besides, she had an excellent memory for numbers, and, fortunately, a notepad and pen beside the phone. The first thing she did was note the time of the call. Then she had picked up the receiver and answered it.

‘Because I was so sure it was work calling, that was a reflex,’ she explained. ‘And just to make sure they realized that they were about to sabotage my holiday as well as my beauty sleep, I did my best to sound like I was still asleep.’

‘You didn’t say your name when you answered?’

‘No. All they got was a very sleepy and drawn-out hello, even though I was wide awake. I thought that would serve them right, I suppose.’

‘So what did the person on the other end say?’ Lewin asked. ‘Do you remember?’

The person calling her was a man. He sounded happy, pleasant, sober, and to judge by his voice roughly the same age as her.

‘First he said something in English. Long time no see, or something like that, then he said he hoped he hadn’t woken me. I still thought it was someone from work trying to be funny. Because I was going to America on holiday. Then I suddenly started to wonder.’

‘Why was that?’

‘Because I assumed my holiday was going up in smoke, I was probably a bit short. I asked how many people, and what had happened to them this time,’ she said. ‘When they call at that time of night, it’s almost always a car crash.’

‘So what did he say?’

‘He suddenly sounded rather taken aback as well. It was like he realized he’d got the wrong number. He asked who he was talking to, and then I asked him who he was trying to call, and it was round about then that I realized that it wasn’t anyone from work, just a wrong number in the middle of the night.’

‘Did he say anything else?’

‘Yes. First he asked if this was the right number for Ericson. I thought that was a rather odd way of putting it, which is why I remember it so clearly. I actually remember thinking about that phone company there was all that fuss about, and that it might still have been someone messing around. By that time I was pretty annoyed, so I just said he must have got the wrong number. And then he apologized and all that, and it sounded like he really meant it, and I suppose I was fairly cheerful again because my holiday was safe. So I said it didn’t matter, as long as he promised not to do it again.’

‘And that was all?’

‘No,’ the anaesthetist said, shaking her head. ‘He said something else, and because he said it in such a charming way, I remember it.’

‘Try to be as accurate as you can,’ Lewin said, checking that his little tape recorder was working properly.

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘He more or less said that he didn’t suppose it was the right moment to ask for a blind date. Yes. “I don’t suppose this is the time to ask you out on a blind date”, that’s what he said. Or something like that, but before I had time to say anything he had hung up. A shame really, because he actually sounded charming and nice.’

‘Happy, sober, nice, charming,’ Lewin summarized.

‘Yes. If he hadn’t called in the middle of the night, who knows where it might have led. I remember I actually had trouble getting back to sleep. I suppose I was lying there fantasizing about him being as nice and charming and handsome as he sounded.’

‘You were hoping he might call back?’

‘Well, I’m not quite that desperate. Not yet, anyway.’

‘And he hasn’t called back?’

‘Not while I was on holiday,’ she said with a shrug. ‘Just the usual boring messages.’

Maybe he had other things on his mind, Lewin thought. Otherwise he would probably have done so, if he’s the sort I think he is. ‘If you remember anything else, I hope you’ll let me know,’ he said, handing her his card.

‘Of course,’ she said, looking at the card before putting it in the top pocket of her white coat. ‘And if you’d like me to show you the delights of Växjö, give me a call. After all, you’ve got my number.’

As soon as Lewin got back to the police station, he called an old friend and former colleague who now worked as an inspector with the Security Police, and also happened to owe him a favour or two. To begin with they chatted idly about this and that, and then, once they had got the social bit out of the way, Lewin got to the point.

Not a matter of national security, but a serious crime none the less. It was a matter of tracing a particular phone call, but for once he knew the exact time it had been made, and the number that had been called. What he wanted to know was the number from which the call had come, who that account belonged to, and — if it wasn’t asking too much — who had made the call.

‘I don’t suppose I’d be wrong if I guessed that this is about the murder of that trainee officer?’ his old friend said. ‘Seeing as you’re the one asking, and you want to know about a call made to a number in Växjö, I mean.’

‘That’s the one,’ Lewin said. ‘How long do you think it’ll take?’

Assuming that Lewin’s information was correct, and that the call was made at quarter past two on the morning of 4 July to the number given, it ought to be possible to find out almost immediately.

‘I’ll be in touch tomorrow,’ his friend said. ‘So keep your fingers crossed. As I’m sure you know as well as me, they nearly always use those pay-as-you-go mobiles these days, and then it’s almost impossible to trace who made the call.’

‘I’ve got a feeling we’re not talking about one of those,’ Lewin said. Not this time, he thought.