Linda, As in the Linda Murder

74

As soon as he had hung up, Jan Lewin did exactly what he always did in similar situations. First he closed his door and made sure the red light was on. Then he took a sheet of paper and a pen and tried to make sense of everything that was going through his head. It always got easier when he could see it on paper. And for once he didn’t have to worry about either Olsson or Bäckström. Olsson had taken some time owing and gone out to the country, and there was really no need for Lewin to disturb him with the little he had to tell him. Bäckström’s general absence was conspicuous, and with a bit if luck he was already packing for his return to Stockholm.

Which left the facts, Lewin thought. Which facts spoke for and against Bengt Månsson, Bengt Axel Månsson, thirty-five years old, responsible for so-called special projects in the culture department of Växjö Council, father to the daughter of the pilot’s younger daughter, a person he had never met, spoken to or even glimpsed, who appeared nowhere in his investigation, and evidently not in any other police case either... What evidence was there to suggest that he either did or did not murder Linda Wallin? And where had he come across his name before Eva Svanström and then his old friend at the Security Police had given it to him? And then he had suddenly thought of his first proper bicycle. A red Crescent Valiant. And can it really be possible? he thought as he recalled the old article in the Småland Post about the local cultural dispute that had broken out in Växjö just a week or so after the murder, and which, all things considered, shouldn’t have anything to do with his investigation.

Let’s begin with the profile, and for once let’s try to be a bit professional, Lewin thought, clearing his head of all extraneous thoughts. To suggest that Månsson didn’t match the profile was a considerable understatement, even from the little that Lewin already knew about him. The only thing that didn’t seem to be utterly wrong was that he lived on Frövägen in the part of town known as Öster, about two kilometres south of the crime scene. But half the population of the town lived within that radius, so it was of little help for anyone looking for a perpetrator. To put it mildly, there was nothing that matched, and according to the CP group’s profile, Månsson was entirely unthinkable as the perpetrator.

Yet the fact that his mobile had been used to make the mysterious wrong number call to the anaesthetist indicated that he could have something to do with the murder. Of course, it could be the case that he simply called a wrong number, and so far there was nothing to suggest that he knew either Linda or her mother, but the coincidence of a call to that number at that time on that night was undeniably highly peculiar.

The idea that his mobile might have been lost or even stolen was also rather strange, considering the timing and the context. If someone had stolen it, why would they only have made two calls, one of which was the supposedly mistaken call to the number that the victim’s mother had had a few years before? People who stole phones weren’t usually so restrained. And suspected perpetrators seemed to be struck remarkably often by crimes in which perfect strangers for some reason chose to relieve them of possessions which might otherwise prove highly problematic for their owners.

Then there was the stolen car as well. It could be linked forensically to the perpetrator they were looking for. Bengt Månsson could not, admittedly, be linked directly to the car, but he was the biological father of the car-owner’s grandchild, and if their 92-year-old witness had actually seen what she said she had, then the natural next step in the investigation was to present her with a set of photographs including one of Bengt Månsson.

The sooner the better, and with a bit of luck she didn’t go to bed as early as she got up, Lewin thought.

First he spoke to Eva Svanström, who promised to arrange the practical details at once, then he talked to Anna Sandberg. Partly because she had actually found their witness, partly because he had a feeling that she needed something else to think about, and partly because he was, in practice, in charge in Olsson’s and Bäckström’s absence.

‘I’ve got a feeling that you’re absolutely right,’ Anna Sandberg said, suddenly not seeming to spare a thought for her difficult domestic situation.

‘Well, we’ll find out soon enough,’ Lewin said.

‘That’s him. Him, the son. That’s what I’ve said all along,’ Mrs Rudberg said an hour later when they were sitting at her kitchen table and she had just put her finger on the picture of Bengt Månsson.

‘Like that Errol Flynn, who was in all those pirate films, but without a moustache,’ the witness went on. ‘He does look like him, doesn’t he? But why on earth would a father deny that he has a son? Maybe he’s illegitimate.’

Not the son, but the son-in-law. In the modern way that applied in today’s Swedish society, Lewin had explained as gently as he could, however you were supposed to do that to a 92-year-old woman. And from Småland, he thought.

‘Well, that’s it then,’ the witness said as soon as Lewin had finished. ‘I don’t know how many times I’ve seen him pushing the child in that pushchair.’

Which probably indicated that it was a few years ago, Lewin thought. But what difference would that make if you were close to a hundred years old yourself?

‘That blue cashmere sweater,’ Anna Sandberg suddenly said when they were sitting in the car on their way back to the police station. ‘I’ve suddenly realized that it’s exactly the sort of sweater a pilot might have bought on one of his trips abroad.’

‘Not a bad thought,’ Lewin agreed. The same thought had occurred to him even before their witness put her finger on Bengt Månsson, but naturally he wouldn’t dream of saying so to Sandberg. It would have been both immodest and completely unnecessary.

‘What do you think about going to see him and showing him pictures of various sweaters, and asking if he’s ever had or bought or given away anything resembling any of them?’ Sandberg asked, evidently keen to carry on.

‘We should definitely do that,’ Lewin agreed. ‘But first we have to do something else.’

‘Never wake a sleeping bear,’ Sandberg said. ‘Not too early, anyway.’

‘Exactly,’ Lewin said. ‘First we find out as much as we possibly can about Månsson without having to ask anyone who might tell him about it.’