Dark Secrets (60 page)

Sebastian nodded to himself in the room next door. So he had been right when he felt as if Beatrice had seduced him and not vice versa. But it was worse than he thought. She must have gone through hell over the
past few years. Living day after day with a man who overtly rejected her, who made it clear that he wanted nothing to do with her, and a son who blamed her for all the problems that had befallen the family. Presumably Beatrice was completely frozen out. Hardly surprising that she accepted love and affirmation wherever it was offered.

“How did Lena Eriksson find out about your relationship?” Torkel interjected. Beatrice had stopped crying. It felt good to talk to someone. She even thought the young woman opposite was looking at her with more sympathy. She would never defend Beatrice’s actions, of course, but perhaps she could understand what had driven her.

“I don’t know. All of a sudden she just knew. But instead of trying to stop it, she started trying to get money out of Ragnar and the school. That was how he found out.”

“And he paid up?”

“I think so. He valued the reputation of the school above everything. I would be allowed to work for the rest of the term; we’d already lost our janitor halfway through the term, and if someone else went… it wouldn’t look good. But he made me end the relationship with Roger, of course.”

“Did you end it?”

“Yes. Well, I tried. Roger refused to accept that it couldn’t continue.”

“When was this?”

“About a month ago, I think.”

“But you saw him again that Friday?”

Beatrice nodded and took another deep breath. A little color had returned to her cheeks. She might have done a terrible thing, and the people in this room were right to condemn her, but it was such a relief to talk about it. Tell them everything.

“He rang on Friday evening and wanted to meet up one last time. We needed to talk things through, he said.”

“And you agreed?”

“Yes. We arranged that I would wait for him in a particular place. I told Ulf and Johan I was going for a walk. I borrowed the school’s car
and met Roger. He was upset when he arrived; he’d been in a fight and his nose was bleeding.”

“Leo Lundin.”

“Yes. We talked and I tried to explain. I drove him to the soccer field. He was still refusing to accept that we couldn’t see each other anymore. He wept and pleaded and got angry. Said he felt abandoned.”

“What happened?”

“He got out of the car. Furious and upset. The last I saw of him, he was running across the field.”

“You didn’t go after him?”

“No. I took the car back to the school.”

Silence fell once more. A silence that Beatrice immediately interpreted as disbelief. They thought she was lying. Tears welled up in her eyes.

“I had nothing to do with his death. You have to believe me. I loved him. You can think what you like about that, but I loved him.”

Beatrice began to cry, hiding her face in her hands. Vanja and Torkel exchanged looks. Torkel gave a brief nod in the direction of the door, and they both got to their feet. Torkel said they would be back shortly, but it was doubtful if Beatrice heard him.

They had just opened the door when Beatrice stopped them.

“Is Sebastian here?”

Both Torkel and Vanja looked as if they must have misheard the weeping woman in the chair.

“Sebastian Bergman?”

Beatrice nodded through her tears.

“Why?” Vanja tried to remember whether Sebastian and Beatrice had even met. There was that time at the school, of course, and the day they called around to ask where Ulf and Johan were camping, but those were only brief occasions.

“I need to speak to him.”

“We’ll see what we can do.”

“Please. I think he’ll want to speak to me too.”

Torkel held open the door for Vanja and they went into the corridor.

A second later Sebastian emerged from the other room. He got straight to the point.

“She has nothing to do with the murders.”

“What makes you think that?” Torkel asked as the three of them walked down the corridor. “You were the one who worked out that she was driving the car and that she’d had a relationship with Roger.”

“I know, but I jumped to conclusions. I started with the premise that the person who was driving the car was also the murderer. But that isn’t the case.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes, I do. There is nothing in her story or her behavior to indicate that she’s lying.”

“That’s not really enough to allow us to put her in the clear.”

“The forensic evidence in the car matches Beatrice’s account of the evening. That’s why we haven’t found any traces of blood in the car.”

Vanja turned to Torkel.

“For once I have to agree with Sebastian.”

Torkel nodded. He was of the same opinion. Beatrice had sounded highly credible. Unfortunately. Vanja was thinking along the same lines. She couldn’t suppress an air of both fatigue and disappointment.

“That means there’s another car. So we’re back to square one yet again—how many times is that?”

“Not necessarily,” said Sebastian. All three of them stopped. “If you deceive someone, that means someone is deceived. What do we know about her husband?”

H
ARALDSSON WAS
in shock.

It was impossible to describe his current state in any other way.

His plan.

His revenge.

Destroyed.

He was sitting alone in the staff room with a cup of rapidly cooling coffee in front of him as he tried to work out how it could have gone so wrong. He must have said more to Radjan when he rang him than he could recall. He must have babbled. About how those who are guilty run away, and how there was more to Axel Johansson than just bootlegging. Perhaps it was nothing to do with Roger Eriksson and Peter Westin, but there was definitely something. The booze talking.

Too much, apparently.

Radjan had not only copied the file, he had also read it with fresh eyes. Read it, and just like Haraldsson he had searched for all the available information on Axel Johansson. Radjan Micic was not a bad police officer. It hadn’t taken him long to reach the same conclusion that Haraldsson would draw several hours later. Other officers in Gävle and Sollefteå had noticed the similarities between the various rapes, as had colleagues in Västerås, suspecting that the same perpetrator was involved, but without a name to bounce the information off, that wasn’t much help.

Haraldsson had a name, and he had given it to Radjan.

Radjan who, Haraldsson now realized, had a considerably wider network of contacts in town than he had. The word around the station was that it had taken fifteen minutes from the time when Radjan and his colleague Elovsson left the station until they had an address. They had picked up Axel Johansson at ten thirty. Just about the same time that Haraldsson had set off for the station. When it became clear that they were going to take a sample of DNA, Johansson had confessed. Just like that. And to more rapes than they had on record. He denied, however, having anything to do with the murders of Roger Eriksson and Peter Westin. He even had an alibi for the time of Roger’s murder, which given the current circumstances appeared valid. Even so, it had been a good morning for the Västerås police.

Fifteen cases of rape had been cleared up.

By Micic and Elovsson.

Rumor had it that they would be seeing the chief superintendent later that afternoon. Haraldsson could feel his eyes burning, and he pressed his fingers against them. Hard. Held back the tears. Colors appeared in the darkness. Flashing lights. He wanted to sink deeper. Away from reality. Hide behind his eyelids. Footsteps approached and stopped by his table. Haraldsson lowered his hands and gazed blearily at the figure standing beside him.

“Come with me,” Hanser said tersely.

Haraldsson followed her obediently.

They had gathered in the conference room again, all five of them. Billy and Ursula had spent the morning putting all the information relating to the investigation back up on the wall. There was a general feeling of sluggishness in the room. For a while they had thought—or had wanted to convince themselves—that they were done. That everything had been cleared up. It was as if they had just won a long-distance race, only to be told that they had to run another ten miles. They didn’t really have the strength.

“Ulf and Beatrice Strand separated six years ago, and remarried eighteen months ago,” said Billy, who had put together as much information as he could find on Beatrice’s husband in the time available.

Vanja sighed. Sebastian glanced at her and quickly realized that the sigh had nothing to do with boredom or lack of interest. It was an expression, if not of sympathy, then a certain empathy with an act of self-sacrifice that had in many ways led to a wasted life, or so it seemed.

“There are two complaints against Ulf Strand in our records,” Billy went on. “Threatening behavior and assault. Both from 2004, both made by one Birger Franzén, who at that time was in a relationship with Beatrice Strand.”

“Was he the one she had an affair with?” As soon as she heard the sound of her own voice Vanja knew her question was totally irrelevant and had been prompted only by curiosity. She also knew she wouldn’t get an answer. She was right.

“It doesn’t say. It just says they were in a relationship but not living together at the time of the complaints.”

“And what happened?” Torkel asked impatiently. He wanted to move on, get out there, get this finished.

“The first one resulted in a fine and a suspended sentence, the second in a restraining order. Preventing him from going anywhere near Franzén, not Beatrice and Johan,” Billy clarified.

“So he’s the jealous type.” Sebastian leaned back in his chair. “The fact that his wife was going to bed with his son’s best friend might just have upset him a little bit.”

Torkel turned back to Billy.

“Go on.”

“He has a gun license.”

“Any guns?”

“A Unique T66 Match is registered in his name.”

“Twenty-two caliber,” Ursula said, stating a fact rather than asking a question. Billy still nodded to confirm the point.

“Yep.”

“Anything else?”

“That’s more or less it. He works as a systems administrator for a recruitment company and drives a 2008 Renault Mégane.”

Torkel got to his feet.

“Okay, let’s go and have a chat with Ulf Strand.”

Vanja, Ursula, and Sebastian pushed back their chairs and stood up. Billy stayed where he was. When they returned with Strand they would want all the available material ready and waiting. That was his job. The four of them were about to leave when there was a knock on the door and Hanser poked her head in.

“Could you spare a moment?” She walked in without waiting for an answer.

“We’re just on our way out.” Torkel couldn’t quite manage to suppress the irritation in his voice. Hanser heard it and chose to ignore it.

“Anything new in the Roger Eriksson case?”

“We’re just going to pick up Ulf Strand. Beatrice’s husband.”

“Just as well I got here in time, then. I’ve been talking to the chief superintendent, and—”

Torkel broke in.

“He must be very pleased. I heard about Axel Johansson. Congratulations.”

Torkel gestured toward the door, indicating that they could talk as they walked. Hanser didn’t budge.

“Thank you. He is pleased, but not as pleased as he could be.”

Torkel knew where this was going and suspected he knew why. His suspicions were immediately confirmed.

“We made a pretty big thing of saying the case had been cleared up yesterday.”

“That’s not my fault. Yesterday there was a great deal to suggest that it was Ragnar Groth, but on closer scrutiny the evidence didn’t hold up. These things happen.”

“He’s rather annoyed because you brought in Beatrice Strand without informing us. He wants a representative of the Västerås police present if and when you make an arrest.”

“I am under no obligation to inform him about what I or my team do.” Torkel’s voice hardened. He wasn’t one for marking his territory, but he wasn’t prepared to listen to this crap just because the chief superintendent was pissed off after a PR cock-up.

“If he has something to say about my job, why doesn’t he come here himself?”

Hanser shrugged her shoulders.

“He sent me.”

Torkel realized he was just shooting the messenger. He gritted his teeth and quickly thought through the situation. What was there to be gained, and what did he have to lose?

“Okay. Fine. We’ll take someone with us.”

“We’ve got a demonstration about a youth club that’s gotten slightly out of hand and an accident on the E18, so we’re a bit short of manpower in the station at the moment.”

“I’ve no intention of waiting, if that’s what you mean. There are limits.”

“No, there’s no need to wait. I just wanted to explain why I’m sending this particular officer with you.”

Torkel thought he saw a fleeting expression of sympathy before Hanser nodded in the direction of the open-plan office. Torkel followed her gaze. He turned back with an expression that suggested he had just been the victim of a practical joke.