Babylon (31 page)
It all came down to jealousy, Tell concluded, replaying his interview with Alexandr Karpov in his head. Rebecca Nykvist’s jealousy, and now Alexandr Karpov’s. Although they had found different forms of expression.
Karpov had seemed so tormented by guilt that Tell had misinterpreted his responses during the first few minutes of their conversation, wanting to believe that Karpov was confessing to the murder of his ex-wife and her boyfriend.
‘I never really believed she’d left me for good. Can you understand that? When you’ve lived together for all those years, when everything has got tangled up: love, work, friendship, I thought it was a whim.’ He gave a hollow laugh. ‘Presumptuous, I know, but now I realise I was just waiting for my chance to save the day, or at least to show her the safety net she would lose if we divorced.’
‘Are you saying that you did in fact hire your assistants to break into Ann-Marie’s boyfriend’s house?’
‘Ann-Marie came to me in despair,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know what to do.’
His expression grew opaque, as though he was considering what he actually meant. ‘She was afraid. After I heard the fear in her voice I couldn’t just stand back and do nothing.’
‘So did Ann-Marie ask you to arrange the break-in and theft?’
‘No! She told me about the situation she’d ended up in. She didn’t know what to do. Her relationship with this man had taken an unpleasant turn. She thought he was unpredictable and she’d tried to finish with him, but . . . More and more people knew about or suspected their relationship and he was putting pressure on her to go public. He had everything to gain. Ann-Marie was afraid of her reputation being tarnished.’
A touch of rancour that Tell hadn’t noticed before had crept into Karpov’s voice.
He clarified. ‘In order to be a good teacher, it’s important to maintain a high level of integrity. Ann-Marie risked losing that integrity.’
‘But—’
‘Henrik Samuelsson was planning to get rich by selling stolen goods from Baghdad. And he was stupid; he had these pipe dreams that would lead them both to destruction. Ann-Marie had tried to change
his mind, of course. If it all came out, her head would be on the block. She would lose everything: her job, her identity. Since a UN resolution was passed after the war, it’s actually illegal to be in possession of artefacts plundered from Iraq. When she tried to end the relationship, he got desperate and threatened to say they’d smuggled the items together.’
‘So when Henrik threatened to bring things to a head . . .’
‘It wasn’t an empty threat; he had firm intentions and told her all about his plan. He showed her the item he’d tried to have valued so she would realise he was serious; he’d hidden the rest somewhere. She panicked. She turned to me as you would turn to a friend. I just wished there was something I could do.’
His voice broke and tears pooled in the bags beneath his eyes; he took off his glasses and wiped his face with his sleeve.
Tell gazed at him. ‘Alexandr. I have to ask: did you pay your assistant, Knud Iversen, to get rid of Henrik Samuelsson? For Ann-Marie’s sake? Is that what happened? I realise you would never deliberately allow harm to come to Ann-Marie, but maybe something went wrong? Was the plan just to kill Samuelsson?’
Karpov opened and closed his mouth, his face a picture of astonishment.
‘No,’ he said eventually.
No, thought Tell. ‘How did your assistants come to be working for you?’
‘They were employed by the museum, not by me.’
‘But they worked for you?’
‘Dorte came as a . . . Oh, what’s it called? She was on some kind of work experience scheme. She had an internship for the first year and managed to make herself indispensable. When it was decided to increase the number of assistants, she suggested her boyfriend Knud. The posts were eventually made permanent.’
‘Dorte said that the fact she and Knud were allowed to stay on at Glyptoteket was largely down to your goodwill.’
Karpov protested. ‘I couldn’t have managed without them. My remit had expanded, and I became more reliant on practical help. Everyone deserves a second chance. And most of us get one. I was in a position to offer that chance, and it was my duty to do so.’
He hesitated. ‘With hindsight, I can see that it was reckless and
injudicious of me to speak to Knud and Dorte about Ann-Marie’s problems but, believe me, it was never my intention that things should go this far.’
‘But, Alexandr,’ said Tell, wondering if he was right to say what he was thinking. ‘I believe you’re protecting them now, just as you’ve protected them for over a week by not telling me about your suspicions. Dorte said you never asked them to steal the goods; that Knud went ahead behind your back. He hired two people to do the job – they would take all the risk. I don’t suppose you were even aware of that?’
‘No, no, but I was the one who sowed the seed,’ Karpov said firmly. ‘Without malicious intent, admittedly, but it’s still my fault that things turned out as they did. I put the idea into their heads. I should have known they wouldn’t be able to resist, besides which you have to remember that in their eyes, I’m an authority figure. I think they would do just about anything if I asked them. They were like . . . they are like . . . I won’t say the son and daughter I never had, because that’s a big thing to say. But if I don’t say that, I don’t really know what else to say.’
‘But you didn’t ask them to do it. And that’s the important thing right now.’
The following day, when the team assembled in Tell’s office, the mood was somewhat low. They had followed the wrong leads, and had gone down a blind alley. It felt as if they were starting again from scratch in the case of the Linnégatan murders.
Only Bärneflod seemed cheerful, uncharacteristically so.
‘How the hell did you come up with that?’
It wasn’t every day Beckman heard admiration in her colleague’s voice.
‘I heard Rebecca talking on the phone to a workman about getting rid of the broken boiler. Then everything just fell into place.’
‘Even so.’
Karlberg waited as Bärneflod thumped Beckman encouragingly on the back.
‘Henrik Samuelsson,’ he began tentatively; he didn’t want to bring everyone down when an effort had been made to lift the mood. ‘He’d stolen these extremely valuable artefacts and stashed them away at home. Why didn’t he sell them as soon as he got back from Istanbul? And why did he hide twenty-eight items inside the boiler and one behind the books in the bookcase?’
‘One piece had to be easily accessible for valuations.’ Tell shook his head. ‘Henrik Samuelsson had no criminal record. He had no contacts in the underworld. People describe him as naive; it’s not surprising he hadn’t factored in how difficult it would be to sell hot stolen goods from a museum without getting caught. And no, he didn’t necessarily steal them. In fact, I don’t think that’s very likely. He probably bought them at a knock-down price. They’ve most likely passed through several pairs of hands, but these artefacts
are
stolen property. I’ve been in touch with a Cecilia Lindgren, who is going to keep them safe at the Röhsska Museum for the time being. Can someone organise that, please? By the way, I presume nobody has a problem with the fact that I’m taking a few days’ leave?’
‘I can take the museum,’ said Karlberg. ‘Not that I’m particularly comfortable with the idea of carting around stolen property worth a million or so.’
‘Send a car. By the way, where’s the stuff now?’
‘In a safe here,’ said Gonzales.
Beckman took a sip of iced water. ‘But surely we’re investigating—’
‘The murders,’ Tell interjected. ‘I completely understand the frustration everyone here feels because our main line of inquiry so far has not led us anywhere. I feel exactly the same way. But that’s just how it is. Apart from the action points I just mentioned, we are abandoning all inquiries in the case of the stolen goods, as long as there is no risk of any connection with the murders.’
‘And the Danish police are fully up to speed on this now?’ asked Beckman. ‘Karpov, Pedersen, Sørbækk and Iversen. Our motley crew.’
‘We’ve said we’ll keep in touch. But what do you all think? For the time being we are assuming that Sørbækk and Iversen have no link to
the murders. We should have proof of that before too long. As things stand, we have no reason to doubt that Sørbækk was telling the whole truth when she confessed.’
‘In other words, all the key connections between the cases were pure coincidence, a theory that you refused to believe,’ said Bärneflod, throwing a screwed-up piece of paper into the bin.
Tell didn’t respond.
‘But the person who . . .’ Karlberg began as he worked on a particularly complicated doodle in the margin of his notepad. ‘The person who actually links these coincidences is Alexandr Karpov, isn’t that right?’
Silence fell around the table. Karlberg grew more animated. ‘How come he’s never been our main suspect? He’s the one with the textbook motive: jealousy. He has no alibi to speak of, he was at home in bed, alone. He’s the link between all the key figures in the case. Is it because of his status, or because we regard him as honest and likeable?’
‘His assistants swear that Karpov had nothing to do with the break-in at Henrik’s house,’ Tell reminded him. ‘They’re taking all the blame.’
‘But what about the murders?’ Karlberg persisted.
‘We’ve just established that the murders had nothing to do with the museum lot,’ said Bärneflod. ‘I’d actually like to make the same point about Rebecca Nykvist, if we’re talking about motive and opportunity. She has no alibi either; she was at home alone. In which case, why did we let her go? I’ll tell you why: because we were working on the vague theory that there was a link between the murders and the break-in. If we’re thinking differently now, which we are, then surely Rebecca should be . . .’
‘I hear you,’ Tell mumbled. ‘But we certainly haven’t dismissed her. We’ve had her in mind and under surveillance all this time; it’s just that she isn’t behaving suspiciously. But you might still have a point, Bärneflod. Maybe we shifted our focus away from Rebecca a little too quickly. Karlberg, can you and Gonzales work on the Alexandr Karpov angle for a bit longer; Bärneflod, you take a look at Rebecca.’
Tell chewed his lip absent-mindedly. ‘I’m going. But I want to be kept in the picture. I’m on email and I’ll be back in a few days.’
Beckman nudged him. ‘Off you go on holiday with Seja, and don’t give us a second thought. Most of us can manage a couple of days without you.’
Tell laughed politely. Out in the corridor Höije walked past. Tell didn’t acknowledge him.
Falkenberg
They drove from Gothenburg to Falkenberg at first light to avoid the early summer traffic, with the husky voices of Mary Gauthier and Marianne Faithfull on the stereo.
When the engine fell silent on the drive of the B&B, they were rewarded by the first glimmer of morning sun breaking through the mist. They felt relaxed, glad they had decided to come away, even though they only had a few days. They couldn’t check in yet; it was too early. Seja reached for Christian’s hand and put her bare feet up on the dashboard. The dawn broke as a peculiar radio play reached its conclusion.
The veranda of the B&B jutted out over the water like a jetty. They could hear the lapping of waves from their room and had an unbroken view of the horizon. They went for a walk along the shore and Seja took a dip to freshen up after the journey. Christian shook his head – no chance.
The wind coming off the sea was chilly. The water tore and scratched at her skin; it had none of the smoothness of Älsjön, the lake back home. Seja leapt out, howling, in a shower of salty spray, fell into a sand dune and wrapped herself in a big towel. The sand was fine and soft and warm, it made her want to bury herself in it, just as she had on childhood holidays in Løkken, where they used to slide down the dunes between the dry tufts of grass.
They shared a bottle of white wine with lunch as they planned their afternoon; they wanted to visit two exhibitions. Christian felt like his father as he carefully marked the map.
‘It doesn’t matter if we get lost,’ said Seja. ‘That’s when you find the best places.’
He put the pen down. ‘We’ll do whatever you want.’
Seja took a deep breath and pushed aside her doubts about Christian and whether their relationship was what she needed, trying to revel in the moment. Only last week she had done a number of errands for the Melkerssons while their car was being repaired, so she didn’t feel guilty about asking them to feed the cat and keep an eye on her cottage. And it was nice to get away; they were together in a beautiful place.
‘It’s difficult,’ she mumbled.
‘Difficult? What’s difficult?’
‘Oh, nothing really,’ she said evasively. ‘It’s just work. I wonder how things will turn out. What should I do – can I really carry on living in the cottage on my own? Will I have the courage and money to do what I want to do? I’m not likely to get a permanent job writing, that just doesn’t happen. And sometimes I feel I’ll go crazy touting myself around all the time.’
‘But you’ve always said you want to be independent. To be able to write about whatever you like. Don’t give up on that. You had a fantastic response to those articles you did on the Granith family – though of course I must mention that you wouldn’t have got to know them were it not for a certain someone . . .’
‘No way. I found the dead body, then I stuck with the investigation and wrote the articles without any help from you.’
‘Don’t remind me. But you could say that you got the scoop thanks to my incomprehensible naivety. That I was blinded by love. Among other things.’
Seja took a sip of her wine and smiled. ‘I can’t believe you’re trying to take the credit for my only success.’
‘I’m joking. You know I think you’re fantastic.’
‘Yeah, yeah, whatever . . .’
She twirled the glass absent-mindedly between the palms of her hands, apparently absorbed for a while in her anxiety about the future. He couldn’t blame her. It was hard to succeed as a journalist; she wasn’t twenty-one any more, and she had acquired a great many things to take care of, not least financially: the cottage, the stable, the animals, the car . . .