Babylon (6 page)

‘If nothing jumps out, we can leave that until later,’ Tell decided without any great enthusiasm. ‘We need to pay a visit to Kungsladugårdsgatan first. I’ll take that.’

Turning up on someone’s doorstep to announce the death of a loved one was an awful task; it was impossible to predict what would happen.

‘I’ll come with you,’ Beckman said quickly, ‘but I just need to call in at the station first. I’ll meet you there in a couple of hours, if that’s OK? And before I forget: the neighbour just told us she’d forgotten to mention that Ann-Marie Karpov had a
gentleman caller
last night. But we knew that already. Apparently it happened from time to time.’

They walked through the passageway connecting the kitchen and the old servants’ bedroom with the rest of the apartment and went into the living room.

‘If she heard them talking, then presumably she heard the shots as well,’ said Tell. ‘What time?’

They stopped in front of Samuelsson’s parody of a surprised expression. It was obvious he had been caught unawares in front of the TV.

‘Around one o’clock in the morning,’ said Beckman, flicking through her notebook. ‘She heard screams, loud thuds, as if something had fallen over, and a while later she decided to ring Karpov. She got worried when no one answered and called the police. A patrol car came out, but everything was quiet when they got here, and no one answered the door, so—’

‘It must have been the woman who screamed and fell over,’ said Bärneflod after glancing around the tidy room. ‘There’s no sign of a struggle anywhere else.’

‘I think it’s strange,’ said Karlberg. ‘It’s obvious that the woman was surprised by the murderer. She opens the door to a known or unknown attacker and
bang
. But the guy on the sofa – why didn’t he try to get away?’

‘We should work on the assumption that the assailant used a silencer,’ said Tell. ‘But I don’t know . . . the man doesn’t realise what’s happening at first, he gets up and turns towards the doorway, it might only have been a matter of seconds before the killer was there, he’s shot and thrown back down onto the sofa.’

They shook their heads in mutual agreement, suddenly moved by the horror of it all. Karlberg was the first to break the silence.

‘So there’s an ex-husband; we’d better get in touch with him as soon as possible. We need someone to ID the body, if nothing else.’

9

‘Rebecca Nykvist?’

‘Yes?’

The woman on the stairs was rigid with impatience and her voice didn’t sound as if it had been used that day. She was half-clad in a very short, not particularly clean silk dressing gown and her curly red hair was tousled around her puffy face. She had been crying.

Tell was momentarily confused. Had she already found out? That was impossible; only a few hours had passed since the bodies had been discovered. Imperceptibly he shifted his weight to the other foot.

Rebecca Nykvist had a strong aura of integrity. Neither Tell nor Beckman stepped forward to give her shoulder a reassuring squeeze, which was often the best response they could muster at moments like these. No situation made Tell feel more powerless. And, of course, the current situation was more complicated still. It seemed likely that this woman’s husband or partner had been deceiving her, and this was how she would find out.

‘Detective Inspector Christian Tell. This is my colleague, Karin Beckman. May we come in?’

Rebecca suddenly looked afraid. She tugged at the hem of her dressing gown. A single tear slid out of the corner of her eye.

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I’m ill. I’ve got a splitting headache.’

Her voice was no more than a whisper. What was going on inside her head?’

Beckman moved quickly up the stairs to the door. ‘I’m afraid we do need to come inside, Rebecca,’ she said, leading the woman gently by the arm.

Tell followed them into the messy hallway. Shoes had been piled up along the walls and outdoor clothes dumped on the nearest piece of furniture. He noticed that a pale-reddish liquid, which might have been red wine, had soaked into the floorboards at the bottom of the stairs. Shards of glass had been brushed over towards the wall and crunched beneath his shoes. A succession of darker red stains led into the kitchen, where Rebecca had been persuaded to sit down at the table.

Beckman discreetly moved a half-full bottle of wine to one side and looked in the cupboard, where she found a packet of painkillers and a litre of lemonade. Rebecca Nykvist was sitting with her chin pressed to her chest, shaking her head almost imperceptibly.

‘I’m so tired . . .’

Dark-red stains were spreading around her feet.

‘You’re bleeding,’ Tell said. He went into the bathroom and rummaged in the cupboards for something to wrap around her feet. Rebecca seemed completely at a loss as he bandaged her stiff legs. Tiny shards of glass had lacerated the soles of her feet and she was bleeding profusely. He pulled a thin shard out of her heel.

‘I think you need to get this looked at by a professional,’ he said eventually.

Beckman poured a glass of lemonade. They waited in silence as Rebecca took it and drank.

‘So,’ Tell began. ‘We . . .’

He paused before he had even begun what he had to say. Then he tried again, with fresh determination.

‘What is your relationship with Henrik Samuelsson?’

She looked at him over the rim of her glass, her eyes cloudy.

‘Have you found him?’ Her voice was completely expressionless.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘He’s my partner.’

‘When did you last see him?’

‘Last night.’ She shook her head slowly. ‘I . . . I thought he was with
another woman, he’d said he was going to do some revision with a friend, and . . . Sorry, I . . .’

She blinked several times, as if she’d just realised that the police officers in her kitchen must be there for a reason.

‘I’m afraid we have some bad news.’ Beckman sought Rebecca’s gaze. ‘We’ve found a murder victim, and we have reason to believe that this man is your partner, Henrik Samuelsson. I’m very sorry.’

She reached out and grasped Rebecca’s hand firmly. Her eyes were darting all over the kitchen; Tell and Beckman both thought she was about to faint. Then she appeared to pull herself together.

‘Where did you find him?’

‘In an apartment on Linnégatan. We—’

Rebecca interrupted her with a thoughtful ‘Hmm’, and no longer seemed particularly surprised. The shock was making her act irrationally, Tell thought. She hadn’t asked what her partner was doing in Linnégatan in the middle of the night.

‘We’re going to need your help with this,’ he said. ‘As soon as you feel up to it. But first of all I want you to get these cuts looked at. And I’d like someone to come over and stay with you for the next day or so. We can make arrangements for you to see a psychologist or a doctor.’

He waited a few seconds, then went on: ‘I’m sorry to have to ask you this, but I need to know where you were when your partner was murdered. You can answer now or later, but the sooner the better.’

Rebecca got to her feet abruptly and went over to the worktop, where she stood with her back to Beckman and Tell. She wiped her eyes and nose with a piece of kitchen paper and twisted her red hair up into a knot.

‘I was at home last night.’

‘You didn’t leave the house?’

‘No.’

‘Were you upset?’

‘I rang the friend Henrik was supposed to be revising with. Axel Donner. And I rang a couple of other people on his course.’ Rebecca Nykvist turned her head and surprised Tell by looking him straight in the eye. ‘You can check that, I made the calls from here, round about eleven o’clock. No, I rang Axel later as well.’

‘Is there someone we can ask to come over?’ he asked.

‘No. I have a friend who’s a nurse. I’d prefer to ring her myself.’

Tell and Beckman exchanged glances. Rebecca’s demeanour had changed considerably. Neither was particularly keen to leave, but she didn’t seem like the kind of person who would be easily swayed.

‘OK,’ Tell said eventually. ‘DS Beckman will be in touch, probably this evening or tomorrow. And of course you can call us when you feel up to talking. We’ll just wait outside for a while until your friend arrives.’

‘I’d like to be alone now.’

They settled down to wait in the car. Tell picked up the phone to ring Seja, weighed down with guilt, but before he had the chance to key in her number, Gonzales called. Henrik Samuelsson had a record: violence against police officers and resisting arrest during an anti-racism demonstration some years ago. Samuelsson had spent the last few years at university, reading a wide range of subjects: literature, religion, social anthropology, history. Rebecca Nykvist worked as an administrator. Gonzales had tried to run a search on her, but had encountered difficulties, he would check with Renée, the team administrator, to see why it was taking such a long time, whether it was just the computer playing up, or . . .

‘Thanks,’ Tell interrupted Gonzales’ diatribe just as Nykvist’s friend, after some twenty minutes, clambered over the low garden fence with a horrified expression on her face and went into the house without knocking.

Tell suspected Rebecca had only called her friend to get rid of them.

10

Karlberg blew his nose on the same tissue for the third time. With a feeling of revulsion, he pushed it into an empty sweet packet, which he screwed up and tucked into his pocket.

He tried to perk himself up a bit before ringing the doorbell; the sign said K. von Dewall in ornate script.

‘I’m sorry to disturb you, I’m a police officer. Andreas Karlberg.’

‘What’s this about?’

‘May I come in?’ Karlberg showed his ID. The man was convinced, and pushed the door shut to remove the security chain.

‘You can’t be too careful these days.’

‘We’re asking people in this building whether they saw or heard anything unusual last night,’ said Karlberg. ‘If I could come in for a few minutes, I’ll explain.’

‘What’s this about?’ von Dewall asked again.

Karlberg was seized with a childish desire to ask the man if his ears were blocked.

‘Ann-Marie Karpov, your neighbour, has been murdered.’

At last the man looked more amenable. ‘Oh my God. I . . . But I didn’t really know her all that well.’

‘Perhaps you could answer the question anyway. Did you notice anything unusual last night?’

‘I just need to get my head around this first.’ Von Dewall placed a hand over his heart and took several deep breaths.

‘Do you need to sit down?’ Karlberg said. ‘Put your head between your knees, maybe?’

‘No . . . I was sitting working until two, half-past two in the morning . . . The thing is, I did see someone in the courtyard. A woman. I noticed her because she spent quite a long time shuffling around down there. And it was an odd time. She . . . she seemed to be looking for something. She tried to get in. I think she spotted me at the window, because she moved out of the light. I didn’t give it much thought until I was on my way to bed. I heard something on the stairs. I peeped out, only because it was the middle of the night, and . . . There was someone standing outside Ann-Marie Karpov’s door, kind of . . . lifting up the flap of the letterbox. I thought it was strange, at that time of night.’

‘Hang on . . . Was this the same woman you saw in the courtyard?’

Von Dewall shook his head frantically. ‘I couldn’t possibly say. This person was standing sort of at an angle with their back to me, almost as if they knew they were being watched, and besides, they were wearing a hood. I mean, it could just as easily have been a man. Then the light on the stairs went out, and nobody switched it on again.’

‘Can you give me the exact time? Or a description of the woman you saw downstairs – was she tall, short? What was she wearing? A hooded jacket?’

‘Well . . . it was definitely late. Maybe two, half two as I said. I was absorbed in my work. Unfortunately I didn’t notice what she was wearing, but the woman in the courtyard definitely had red curly hair. It was glowing in the lamplight.’

In the stairwell a while later, Karlberg glanced anxiously at his watch. He was well on the way to being late for the team meeting back at the station. Tell got really annoyed when someone was late. With a headache pounding behind his eyes, he ran down the stairs, across the courtyard and out into the street. He had forgotten to display his police parking permit and found a ticket tucked behind the windscreen wipers. He put it in his pocket and was just about to get in the car when something occurred to him. He went back inside. He went up to the first floor, hoping the residents of the apartment he had chosen weren’t in as he tried peering through the letterbox in the way von Dewall had just described. He bent down, conscious of every movement, trying to push the flap inwards with his knuckle or the side of his index finger while holding the external flap open with his thumb and index finger in order to get the clearest possible view.

On the way back outside he rang Tell to explain that he would be late, to report on what von Dewall had said and to share his recently gained experience of peering through an old-fashioned letterbox.

‘Shouldn’t we get the letterbox dusted for prints?’

‘That must have been done already,’ said Tell.

‘Yes,’ Karlberg persisted, clamping his mobile between his ear and his shoulder as he pulled out and changed gear, ‘but I’m thinking about the
inside
. The
back
of the flap, the bit that opens inwards into the apartment. Maybe we could take a closer look at that.’

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about. But I’m sure we could.’

On the way to the station Karlberg went over what he had learnt from that afternoon’s door-to-door enquiries.

Most of the time, people had neither heard nor seen a thing, something that had ceased to surprise him a long time ago. People tended to be blind and deaf, and disinclined to spy on each other. However this time they had both von Dewall and fru Stenius and, through their
fragmentary accounts, a decent picture of events was beginning to emerge. He was pleased with his contribution.