The Swedish Girl (19 page)

P
rofessor Solomon Brightman stood outside the flat, watching for the girl’s shadow to appear beyond the glass.

‘Hello,’ Kirsty said brightly as she opened the door wide to let him in. ‘You’re early.’

‘Thought I would come up while Abby’s having her afternoon nap,’ he explained. ‘She doesn’t keep any particular timetable,’ he apologised, ‘but she does usually have a sleep some time after lunch.’

‘Know the feeling.’ Kirsty made a face as she rubbed her stomach. ‘Mum’s been force-feeding me all holidays as though I’ve been starving in a garret. I mean, c’mon,’ she laughed as she pulled down a baggy jumper to hide her bulging tummy, ‘do I look like an underfed waif?’

Solly laughed with her but not before he saw a trace of sadness in the girl’s eyes. Had it been hard being the plain Jane here alongside a beauty like Eva Magnusson?

‘Cup of tea? I’ve got camomile or spearmint,’ Kirsty went on, leading Solly through the long hallway and into the kitchen. ‘And there’s some home-made cherry cake as well.’

‘Mint tea would be lovely, thanks, but I’ll pass on the cake,’ Solly told her.

‘Ah well, the boys’ll just have to polish it off.’

‘Boys?’

‘Oh, did you not know? Gary came back early.
Said
he had work to catch up on but I guess he was finding it hard going at home just him and his mum.’

‘And Roger’s been here since just after Christmas.’ Solly nodded to himself.

‘When are you off to Sweden?’ Kirsty asked, cutting a large slice of cherry cake and picking up the crumbs with her fingers. ‘Mr Lorimer told me you were going there to deliver a paper.’

‘The day after tomorrow,’ Solly told her. ‘No rest for the wicked.’ He chuckled.

‘I bet it’s lovely there,’ the girl said dreamily. ‘All snowy and crisp, a proper Christmassy sort of landscape, not like this,’ she added in disgust, glancing outside where the wind was driving the rain, rattling in gusts against the kitchen window.

Solly smiled but did not reply. His trip to Stockholm might turn out to be far less pleasant than the idealised picture that was in Kirsty Wilson’s mind at this moment.

‘You said on the phone that there was something you wanted to talk to me about,’ Kirsty went on, fishing a teabag from a green packet and plonking it into a flowery mug.

‘Yes, there is,’ Solly replied, then paused as they went into the lounge where a warm fire crackled in the grate. He sat down, rubbing his hands before he spoke again. ‘I wanted to talk to you about Eva Magnusson. I know I’ve asked you this before, Kirsty, but what was she like? I mean, what was
your
impression of her?’

‘Oh.’ Kirsty put down the mug she was holding with a sigh. ‘What can I tell you?’

‘Just the truth,’ Solly said simply.

‘She was like no one I’d ever met before,’ Kirsty said.

She had chosen to sit on the floor by his feet, her arms wrapped around her knees, hands almost lost under the long sleeves of a shapeless brown garment that might have been a knitted tunic.

‘She was the sort of person you would imagine going to the ambassador’s party, you know what I mean?’

Solly frowned and shook his head.

‘That Ferrero Rocher advert, you know. The one where the flunkey comes in with these gold-wrapped sweeties all piled up high like a croquembouche.’

Solly smiled, still shaking his head.

‘Well, you get the idea. She was the sort of girl who could go anywhere, be with anyone and still carry it off. Posh places give me the willies but Eva, no, she was meant for the high life.’

There was no bitterness in the girl’s tone, Solly thought as he listened to her. Kirsty Wilson might sound a little wistful for snowy Christmas scenes but there did not seem to be a trace of envy in her manner as she described the dead girl.

‘What was she like around her father?’ he asked.

‘Oh, now you’re asking, Professor.’ Kirsty nodded over her mug of tea. ‘Mr Magnusson definitely brought out a different side to our Eva.’

‘Describe that for me, will you?’

Kirsty looked into the middle distance as though trying to recapture a moment lost in time. ‘He was always very polite, you know? But it was as if she was standing to attention whenever he was around. Does that sound strange? I mean she was kind of stiff, like a doll, going through the motions just for him. Like she was playing the part of the perfect daughter and doing just what he wanted her to do.’

‘Go on.’

‘Well, she even dressed differently the couple of times he was here. I mean, Eva had nice clothes,
lots
of nice clothes,’ she added in mock gloominess, ‘but she’d always put on something kind of demure, you know. Not quite twinset and pearls but the kind of dress that most students would consider pretty old-fashioned.’ She twisted the empty mug back and forth in her hands as she spoke. ‘Then when he’d gone she would put on something short and flimsy – she had loads of chiffony things, stuff like her Ghost blouse.’ She glanced up at the professor’s puzzled expression and sighed. It was clear that such niceties of fashion were lost on the psychologist. ‘Good designer labels, see?’ Kirsty explained.

‘And she’d be different in herself, more carefree, less the ladylike doll that her father expected her to be,’ she added sourly.

‘Didn’t you like Mr Magnusson?’ Solly asked in surprise.

She shook her head. ‘Please don’t get me wrong, Professor Brightman, I feel terrible for the poor man, but you did ask me. I really didn’t like the way he seemed to… I don’t know…’

‘Dominate his daughter?’ Solly suggested.

‘Yeah, you could put it like that, though she wasn’t cowed or anything, it wasn’t as bad as that, just… Oh, I don’t think I’m doing a very good job of explaining what I mean. God! And you should have seen the state he was in when he came up here after the post-mortem! Poor guy!’ Kirsty shook her head again silently and Solly was moved by the sight of tears in her eyes.

‘When will Gary be in?’

Kirsty smiled. ‘Who knows? Depends when he gets away from Detective Superintendent Lorimer. Poor Gary,’ she laughed. ‘Bet you anything that he’s wishing right now he’d stayed at home!’

He couldn’t blame the boy for not wanting to visit A Division again and so Lorimer had agreed to meet him at the pub on the corner.

He recognised Gary Calderwood from the description Kirsty had given him.
He’ll be sitting outside on the smokers’ bench, a pint of lager in one hand and a cigarette in the other
, she had said with a short laugh. And that was almost true. As the detective superintendent approached the dark-haired young man he could see him nervously picking at a ragged nail, the dregs of his drink on the table in front of him.

‘Gary?’

The student looked up, an expression of alarm on his face that was swiftly replaced by a pasted-on smile.

‘I’m Detective Superintendent Lorimer. Can I get you another?’ He nodded towards the near empty glass.

‘Yes, thanks. Pint of Carlsberg,’ Gary replied, his eyes never leaving the detective’s face for a moment.

Lorimer felt rather than saw those same eyes boring into the back of his head as he left the student sitting there and entered the pub. The bar was a curved old-fashioned affair and so Lorimer stepped around to a space where he could place the order and still see out of the window to where Calderwood was sitting.

As he waited for the drinks to arrive, a quick glance showed him that the student was busy on his mobile phone. Texting or tweeting, perhaps? Or was he letting someone know that Detective Superintendent Lorimer had arrived? The idea took hold as he carried the drinks back outside, Calderwood hastily slipping the phone back into his coat pocket as the detective approached.

‘One Carlsberg, one cranberry juice and two packets of cheese and onion. Okay with you?’ Lorimer asked cheerfully, laying the drinks down and taking the crisps out from his own pocket.

‘Thanks,’ Calderwood said, lifting the glass. ‘Cheers.’

‘
Slainte
,’ Lorimer replied with a grin. ‘Right, Mr Calderwood. You prefer to sit out here with your fags rather than enjoy the warmth of your flat upstairs?’

‘Oh, yes.’ Calderwood flicked ash into a sand bucket by his side. ‘The tenants aren’t supposed to smoke, you see.’

‘Bet you didn’t let on to Magnusson at the beginning,’ Lorimer said, his tone deliberately light, putting the younger man at his ease.

‘Course not,’ he replied equally lightly, blowing a line of smoke heavenwards. ‘No need to upset the apple cart.’

‘Okay,’ Lorimer began again, leaning forward so that only Gary Calderwood could hear him, ‘here’s what I want. All the information you can give me about Eva Magnusson from the time you met her until the night she was killed. Understood?’

Gary Calderwood sat up a little straighter and nodded mutely.

‘Your flatmate has been arrested on suspicion of murder. That’s a damned serious charge, Gary. And we want to find out if there is any reason why it might not stick. Got me?’

The student looked a little doubtful at the policeman’s sudden change from affable to bullish.

‘But I thought that Colin…’

‘You thought Colin what?’

‘He was charged so he must have done it.’ Gary shrugged but there was a new note of doubt that had crept into his voice.

‘Tell me,’ Lorimer said. ‘Start with Colin. What was he like around Eva? What kind of guy was he to share a flat with?’

Gary Calderwood raised his eyebrows in thought before replying. ‘Colin was all right. A bit geeky, maybe, but he mucked in with the chores and all that sort of stuff. Had a proper crush on Eva, anyone could’ve seen that,’ he smirked.

‘And you?’

‘What about me?’ Calderwood’s chin jutted upwards, defiantly.

‘Well, rumour has it that you and Eva were more than mere flatmates, Gary.’

‘Don’t know what you mean,’ the boy replied.

‘Come on, Gary. They all knew about it,’ Lorimer bluffed. ‘Creeping upstairs afterwards, making sheep’s eyes at her over the breakfast table?’

The young man reddened suddenly, more through a sudden surge of temper than embarrassment, Lorimer guessed.

‘So, what if we did? No harm in that, is there?’

‘None at all,’ Lorimer said evenly. ‘Nor was there any harm in her sexual relations with Roger or Colin or Uncle Tom Cobley.’

‘What…?’ Calderwood’s jaw dropped as he stared at the police officer.

‘She was playing with you, Gary,’ Lorimer smiled. ‘A beautiful girl like that could have her pick of bedmates. Couldn’t she?’

Gary Calderwood ran a hand across his dark hair, rumpling its perfectly gelled style. He seemed genuinely stunned, Lorimer thought. Too egotistic to have contemplated that Eva Magnusson was simply using the boys for her own gratification, Gary had evidently considered that he was somehow special to the Swedish girl. So special that he had become jealous of anyone else?

‘You didn’t know about what she and Colin were up to the night of the party?’

Calderwood was looking at the ground, now, shaking his head silently.

‘You know something, Gary?’ Lorimer leaned closer to him. ‘I don’t believe you. I think you knew fine what was going on in that bedroom.’

The eyes that flicked up to meet his held an expression that Lorimer recognised as fear tempered with uncertainty. He’d seen this countless times before, this doubt in a man’s eyes during an internal struggle to tell the truth or blurt out a lie. Which choice would this young man make? he wondered.

‘Okay.’ The word seemed to be drawn out of him like a long sigh. ‘I did know she was flirting with him, dancing, all that… Oh Christ!’ He put his head in his hands. ‘I thought…’

‘You thought she was trying to make you jealous?’

He saw the dark head nodding up and down and heard a stifled groan as Calderwood bent forward, eyes closed against having to face a truth that he had previously denied.

‘When did you leave the party, Gary?’

Calderwood took his hands away from his head and sat up again, mouth open.

‘You don’t think that
I
had anything to do with Eva’s death, surely?’

‘Perhaps I should be asking that question down at A Division,’ Lorimer answered quietly. ‘We have plenty of time to go down there if you like. And I would also have the facility to record your answer.’

The colour drained from the young man’s face as he realised the seriousness of his position.

‘You want me to go back there?’

‘Perhaps it would be best,’ Lorimer agreed. ‘I think you might actually have a bit more to tell me about Eva Magnusson than you let on to my colleague DI Grant.’

Billy Brogan tied the white laces together in a simple knot, an expression of regret on his face. These Reebok ERS trainers were pretty nice ones and he’d miss wearing them, but they were a small sacrifice to make for the bigger plan he had in mind. Sam had paved the way with the lad, giving him occasional treats, acting like a kindly uncle, so that Young was completely under his spell. The old man was useful in that way. Now, a wee pressie like the trainers would be a bargaining chip in the negotiation that he had to make with the prisoner in A Block. Brogan grinned to himself. The student thought he had nothing more to do than to sweat it out until his trial but Billy Brogan would make sure that he earned his keep in here, just like the rest of them. Brogan might be inside HMP Barlinnie but his drug distribution business was still ticking over nicely outside.

‘It’s one of the things that keeps him awake at night, Chancer,’ Maggie said, tickling the ginger cat under his chin so that he purred loudly while kneading his claws into her jeans. ‘If that boy didn’t kill Kirsty’s friend, then who did?’ she mused, her fingers smoothing Chancer’s soft fur as he settled on her lap.

They had lain awake far into the night, Maggie listening as Lorimer unfolded the whole story, not even missing out the parts that involved Dirk McGregor. Gary Caldwell had admitted to having had a fierce row with the Swedish girl at the party. He’d been really upset, Lorimer had told her, especially when he’d admitted it had been him that Roger had heard Eva shouting at in the bathroom. But that had been the last time he had seen her, he had insisted, his lasting memory the bitterness between them.