The Gallows Bird (29 page)

Neither Hanna nor Gösta said a word. Hanna looked down at the table and Gösta thought he saw her eyes glistening. He understood. Even though it had been years since he had cried in the presence of the grief-stricken. But they were here to do a job, so he continued cautiously, ‘And the name Rasmus Olsson doesn’t ring a bell?’

Kerstin shook her head and warmed her hands on her coffee cup. ‘No, I’ve never heard that name before.’

‘Then we won’t take up any more of your time. If you think of anything, please call us.’ Gösta got up and Hanna followed suit. She looked relieved.

‘I’ll be in touch in any case,’ said Kerstin, remaining seated.

In the doorway Gösta couldn’t resist turning round and telling her, ‘Go out and take a walk, Kerstin. It’s such nice weather. And you need to get some fresh air.’

‘Now you sound like Sofie,’ said Kerstin, smiling again. ‘But I know you’re right. Maybe I’ll take a walk this afternoon.’

‘Good,’ said Gösta and closed the door. Hanna didn’t look at him. She was already headed for the station.

Patrik carefully set down the plastic bag containing the knapsack on his desk. He didn’t know whether it was necessary, since the Borås police had already gone through the contents three and a half years earlier, but for safety’s sake he put on rubber gloves, and not only for forensic reasons. He didn’t like the idea of touching the dried blood on the knapsack.

‘What a lonely life. So tragic,’ said Martin, who stood next to him, watching.

‘Yes, it seems as though her son was the only person she had in the world,’ said Patrik with a sigh as he unzipped the knapsack.

‘Couldn’t have been easy. Having a kid and raising him all by herself. And then the accident . . .’ Martin paused, ‘and the murder.’

‘And then no one believed her,’ Patrik added as he took an object out of the knapsack. It was a music player with built-in headphones. He doubted that it still worked. It seemed to have been damaged in the fall from the bridge, and it rattled ominously when Patrik picked it up.

‘How far did he fall?’ asked Martin, pulling up a chair and sitting down next to Patrik’s desk.

‘Ten metres,’ said Patrik, still concentrating on emptying the knapsack.

‘Ugh,’ said Martin with a grimace. ‘Couldn’t have been a pretty sight.’

‘No,’ said Patrik. The photos from the scene flashed before his eyes. He changed the subject.

‘I’m worried about having to divide up our resources now that we have to work on two investigations at once.’

‘I know,’ said Martin. ‘And I can guess what you’re thinking. That we made a mistake letting the media force us into a situation where we dropped the investigation of Marit’s death. But what’s done is done, and we can’t change anything now. Except distribute our favours more wisely.’

‘Yeah, I know you’re right,’ said Patrik, taking out a wallet which he laid on the desk. ‘But I’m still having a hard time forgetting about all the things we should have done differently. And I have no idea how to proceed with the Lillemor Persson investigation.’

Martin thought for a moment. ‘All we have to go on are the dog hairs and the videos we got from the production company.’

Patrik opened the wallet and began going through it. ‘Yeah, that’s about what I was thinking. The dog hairs present a very interesting lead that we have to keep working on. According to Pedersen it’s a rather unusual breed of dog; maybe there’s a list of owners, clubs, something we can use to trace the owner. I mean, with only two hundred dogs like that in all of Sweden, it should be relatively easy to trace an owner in this area.’

‘Let’s hope so,’ said Martin. ‘Do you want me to do it?’

‘No, I was thinking Mellberg should do it. Then it’ll be done properly.’ Martin gave him a dirty look, and Patrik laughed. ‘It was a joke! Of course I want you to do it!’

‘Ha ha, that’s hilarious.’ Martin turned serious and leaned over the desk. ‘What have you got there?’

‘Nothing particularly exciting. Two twenties, a tenkrona, an ID card, and a piece of paper with his home address and his mother’s phone numbers, both home and mobile.’

‘Is that all?’

‘No, here’s a picture of him and Eva.’ He held it up for Martin. A young Rasmus had his arm around his mother’s shoulders, and they were both smiling at the camera. Rasmus towered over his mother, and there was something protective about his pose. It must have been taken before the accident. After that their roles had been reversed. Patrik carefully put the photo back in the wallet.

‘There are so many lonely people,’ said Martin, staring into the middle distance.

‘Yes, there certainly are. Are you thinking of anyone in particular?’

‘Well . . . I was thinking of Eva Olsson. But also of Lillemor. Imagine not having anyone to mourn you. Both of her parents dead. No other relatives. Nobody to notify. The only thing she leaves behind are a couple of hundred hours of recorded reality shows that’ll gather dust in some archive.’

‘If she’d lived closer I would have gone to her funeral,’ Patrik said quietly. ‘No one deserves to be buried without someone mourning her. But I hear the funeral is in Eskilstuna, so I won’t be able to attend.’

They sat in silence for a while. They could both envision a coffin being lowered into the ground, with no family and no friends present. So inexpressibly sad.

‘A notebook,’ Patrik suddenly exclaimed, breaking the silence. It was a thick black book with gold edges. It seemed that Rasmus had taken good care of it.

‘What’s in it?’ asked Martin.

Patrik leafed through some of the pages, which were covered with writing. ‘I think they’re reminders about the animals at the pet shop. Look here: “Hercules, pellets three times a day, give fresh water often, clean cage every day. Gudrun, one mouse per week, clean the terrarium once a week.”’

‘Sounds like Hercules is a rabbit or guinea pig or something, and I would guess that Gudrun is a snake.’ Martin smiled.

‘Yes, he was certainly meticulous, that Rasmus. Just as his mother said.’ Patrik went through all the pages in the notebook. They all seemed to be notes about the animals. There was nothing to arouse their interest.

‘That seems to be everything.’

Martin sighed. ‘Well, I didn’t expect we’d find anything earthshattering. But we could always hope.’

Patrik was putting the notebook at the bottom of the knapsack when a sound made him react. ‘Wait, there’s something else in here.’ He took out the notebook again, put it down on the desk, and reached his hand into the bag. When he pulled out what was lying on the bottom, he and Martin gave each other an incredulous look. This wasn’t anything they’d expected to find. But it proved beyond all doubt that there was a connection between the deaths of Rasmus and Marit.

Ola didn’t sound particularly happy when Gösta rang him on his mobile. He was at work and would have preferred that they wait to interview him. Gösta, annoyed at Ola’s superior attitude, was not in a generous mood; he told Ola to expect them at the Inventing company within half an hour. Ola muttered something about ‘the power of authority’ in his melodic Norwegian-Swedish, but he knew better than to object.

Hanna still seemed to be in a bad mood, and Gösta wondered why as they got into the car and headed for Fjällbacka. He got the feeling that she might have problems on the home front, but he didn’t know her well enough to ask. He only hoped that it wasn’t something serious. She didn’t seem at all interested in small talk, so he left her alone. As they drove past the golf course at Anrås, she looked out of the window and said, ‘Is this a good golf course?’

Gösta was more than willing to accept this peace offering. ‘The best! The seventh hole is notorious. I once made a hole-in-one here – not on the seventh though.’

‘Well, I’ve learned enough about golf to know that a hole-in-one is good,’ said Hanna with a smile, the first of the day. ‘Did they break out the champagne in the clubhouse? Isn’t that the custom?’

‘Indeed,’ said Gösta, his face lighting up at the memory. ‘They did offer me champagne, and all in all it was the most fantastic round of golf. My best to date, actually.’

Hanna laughed. ‘Yes, it’s probably no exaggeration to say that you’ve been bitten by the golf bug.’

Gösta looked at her with a smile, but he had to shift his eyes back to the road when they entered the narrow road past Mörhult. ‘Well, I don’t have much else to do,’ he said, and his smile died.

‘You’re a widower, I understand,’ Hanna said kindly. ‘No kids?’

‘No.’ He didn’t elaborate. He didn’t want to talk about the boy, who would have been a grown man by now, if he’d survived.

Hanna didn’t ask anymore, and they rode in silence all the way to Inventing. When they climbed out of the car they saw many curious eyes turned towards them. An annoyed Ola met them as soon as they stepped inside the doors.

‘Well, this had better be important, now that you’re disturbing me at work. Everybody is going to be talking about this for weeks.’

Gösta understood what he meant, and actually they could have waited another hour. But there was something about Ola that rubbed Gösta the wrong way. His reaction might not be dignified or professional, but that’s how he felt.

‘Let’s go into my office,’ said Ola. Gösta had heard Patrik and Martin describe Ola’s extremely orderly home, so he wasn’t surprised when he saw the office. Hanna, on the other hand, hadn’t heard that information, and so she raised an eyebrow. The desk was clinically clean. Not a pen, not a paper clip marred the shiny surface. The only thing on the desk was a green blotter to write on, and it was placed in the exact centre of the desktop. Against one wall stood a bookcase filled with binders of correspondence. Arranged in tight, upright rows, with neatly handwritten labels. Nothing was out of place.

‘Have a seat,’ said Ola, pointing to the visitor chairs. He sat down behind the desk and leaned his elbows on the desktop. Gösta couldn’t help wondering whether he was going to get shiny spots on his suit from all the polish that must have been applied. He could probably see his face in it.

‘So what’s this about?’

‘We’re investigating a possible connection between the death of your ex-wife and another murder.’

‘Another murder?’ asked Ola, seeming for an instant to drop his controlled mask. A second later it was back in place. ‘What murder is that? Not that bimbo who was killed?’

‘You mean Lillemor Persson?’ said Hanna. Her expression showed quite clearly what she thought of Ola speaking so disparagingly about the murdered girl.

‘Yes, yes.’ Ola waved his hand dismissively, showing with equal clarity that he didn’t give a toss about Hanna’s opinion of the way he expressed himself.

Gösta had an overwhelming urge to provoke the guy. He would have liked to take his car keys and put a big scratch across the top of that shiny desk. Anything to knock Ola off balance and disrupt his repulsive perfection.

‘No, we’re not talking about the murder of Lillemor Persson.’ Gösta’s tone was icy. ‘We’re talking about a murder in Borås. The victim’s name was Rasmus Olsson. Do you have any knowledge of him?’

Ola looked genuinely shocked. But that didn’t mean a thing.

‘Borås? Rasmus Olsson?’ His words sounded like an echo of the conversation they’d had with Kerstin an hour earlier. ‘No, I don’t recognize that name. Marit never lived in Borås. And she absolutely didn’t know any Rasmus Olsson. At least not as long as we were together. After that I have no idea what she did. Anything is possible, considering the depths she had sunk to.’ His voice was dripping with contempt.

Gösta stuck his hand in his pocket and touched his car keys. His fingers were itching to disfigure that desk.

‘So you don’t know of any connection between Marit and Borås, or the person we mentioned?’ Hanna repeated Gösta’s question and Ola looked at her.

‘Am I not making myself clear? Instead of forcing me to repeat everything, maybe you should take notes.’

Gösta took a tighter grip on his car keys. But Hanna didn’t seem fazed by Ola’s sarcastic tone. She went on calmly, ‘Rasmus was also a teetotaller. Could that be the connection? Any sort of temperance group or the like?’

‘No. There isn’t any connection, and I don’t understand why you’re making such a big deal about the fact that Marit didn’t drink. She simply wasn’t interested.’ He stood up. ‘If you don’t have anymore relevant questions, I’ll get back to work. Next time I’d prefer that you visit me at my home.’

Lacking any more questions and sincerely wanting to leave the office and get far away from Ola, Gösta and Hanna stood up too. They didn’t bother to shake his hand or say goodbye. All such pleasantries seemed a waste of time.

The meeting with Ola hadn’t yielded any new information. And yet there was something that kept bothering Gösta as he and Hanna drove back to Tanumshede. There was something about Ola’s reaction, something in what was said, or not said, that continued to nag at him. But for the life of him he couldn’t put his finger on what it was.

Hanna was silent as well. She stared out at the landscape and seemed wrapped in her own world. Gösta felt like reaching out his hand to say something consoling. But he let it be. He didn’t even know if there was anything to console her about.

With her father at work it was nice and peaceful in the flat. Sofie preferred to be at home alone. Her dad was always nagging at her about homework, asking where she’d been, where she was going, who she had talked to on the phone, how long she’d talked. Nag, nag, nag. And besides, she had to check all the time that everything was neat and orderly. No rings from glasses on the coffee table, no dishes left in the sink; her shoes had to be in straight rows in the shoe rack, there mustn’t be any hairs in the bathtub after she showered. The list was endless. She knew that this was one of the reasons why Marit had decided to leave; Sofie had heard the arguments and by the age of ten she knew every nuance in their quarrels. But her mother had seized the opportunity to leave. And as long as Marit was alive, Sofie had enjoyed a breathing space every other week, far away from the strict perfection demanded by her father. With Kerstin and Marit she could put her feet up on the coffee table, set the mustard in the middle of the fridge instead of in the door compartment, and leave the fringes of the
rya
rug in a blessed mess instead of in straight, combed rows. It had been wonderful, and it also made her able to endure the following week of stern discipline. But now there was no more freedom, no escape. She was stuck here among everything shiny and clean, where she was always being interrogated and questioned. The only time she could even breathe was when she came home early from school. Then she permitted herself little rebellious pranks. Like sitting on the white sofa with her O’Boy chocolate drink, playing pop music on Ola’s CD player, and messing up the sofa cushions. But she made sure to put everything back in place before he came home. Not a trace of disarray was in evidence when Ola came in the front door. Her only worry was that he might come home early from work one day and catch her. Although that was highly improbable. Her pappa would have to be sick unto death even to think of leaving work a minute early. As the manager of Inventing he felt he needed to set an example, and he had zero tolerance for tardiness, taking sick days, or going home early – not for himself or his subordinates.