Dark Secrets (42 page)

“Isn’t the idea of meeting up at a motel a bit… advanced when you’re only sixteen? Surely you usually hang out at somebody’s house at that age?”

“Perhaps that wasn’t possible, for various reasons.”

Nobody spoke. The same skeptical looks from Billy and Vanja. Sebastian threw his arms wide.

“Come on! We’ve got a horny sixteen-year-old and a motel. Surely it’s worth checking out, at least?”

Vanja got to her feet.

“Billy.”

Billy nodded, and together they left the room.

Edin’s Budget Motel was built in the 1960s and looked scruffy and neglected. There were only three cars in the oversize parking lot. The place was completely inspired by America and consisted of two long floors with flights of steps on the outside, so that each room had its own entrance with direct access from the parking lot. In the middle of the ground floor was a small reception area with a neon sign glowing outside:
VACANCIES.
Billy and Vanja had a feeling it was a long time since it had been switched off. If you wanted to meet someone on the quiet, this was the perfect place.

They walked in through the double glass doors, which bore a handwritten notice:
WE DON’T TAKE AMERICAN EXPRESS
. It was quite dark in reception, which consisted of a tall, curved desk made of dark wood, a dirty dark-blue fitted carpet, and two armchairs next to a round coffee table. The room felt oppressive and stank of smoke; the small fan humming away at one end of the desk had no chance of making any impact on the atmosphere. Behind the desk sat a woman of about fifty-five with long blond hair that was probably bleached. She was reading one of those cheap gossip magazines that are packed with as many pictures as possible and very few words. Beside her lay the current edition of the evening paper,
Aftonbladet
, open to an article about Roger. Vanja had glanced through it earlier. Nothing new, except an interview with the principal of Palmlövska High in which he spoke about how proactive his school was in its efforts to stamp out bullying and isolation, and how Roger had found a home away from home there, as he put it. The catalog of lies he had come out with had almost made Vanja feel ill. The woman looked up at the new arrivals.

“Hello, can I help you?”

Billy smiled at her. “Were you on duty last Friday?”

“Why?”

“We’re from the police.”

Billy and Vanja showed their ID and she nodded, slightly apologetically. Vanja took out a picture of Roger and placed it beneath the lamp in front of the woman so that she could see it properly.

“Do you recognize this boy?”

“Yes, from the paper.” The woman touched the open newspaper. “There’s something about him every day.”

“But you don’t recognize him from here?”

“No—should I?”

“We think he might have been here last Friday. Just before ten.”

The woman behind the desk shook her head.

“But of course we don’t see all the guests; usually it’s just the person who pays. I mean, he could have been in one of the rooms with somebody else.”

“Has he been in one of the rooms?”

“Not as far as I know. I’m just saying he
could
have been.”

“We’d like to know a little more about your guests that evening.”

At first the woman’s expression was skeptical, but after a little while she moved over to the computer, which was far too old. At least eight years old, Billy noticed. Probably older. An antique. The woman started tapping away at the yellowing keyboard.

“We had nine rooms occupied, Friday into Saturday.”

“Were all nine occupied at around nine thirty?”

“In the evening, you mean?”

Billy nodded. The woman carried on checking. After a while she found what she was looking for.

“No, only seven.”

“We need all the information you have about those guests.”

The woman’s brow furrowed with anxiety.

“I’m pretty sure you need some kind of authority for that, don’t you? Some kind of warrant?”

Vanja leaned forward.

“I don’t think so.”

But the woman had decided. Not that she knew much about the laws regarding privacy and that kind of thing, but she’d seen it on TV: the police always needed a warrant for everything. She didn’t have to give information about her clients just because they asked. She would stand up for her rights.

“Yes, you do. You need a warrant.”

Vanja gave her a dirty look, then glanced at Billy.

“Okay, we’ll come back with a warrant.”

The woman gave a satisfied nod.
There you go.
She had protected the private lives of her guests and thus the entire issue of freedom of speech.

The policewoman went on:

“And we’ll bring an auditor with us when we come back. And perhaps someone from Environmental Health—I presume you’re responsible for the restaurant as well?”

The woman’s expression was a little uncertain as she looked at Vanja. They couldn’t do that, could they?

The male officer looked around and nodded before adding in a serious tone of voice, “And let’s not forget a fire safety officer. There are a number of escape routes to check, I notice. And you do seem to be very keen to protect your guests.”

They headed for the door. The woman behind the desk hesitated.

“Hang on. I don’t want to make things difficult for you. I’ll give you a copy now.”

She smiled foolishly at the two officers. Her gaze fell on the open newspaper. She suddenly recognized him. It was a strange feeling. Excitement and triumph. A chance to pick up some bonus points. Perhaps she could make them forget that stuff about Environmental Health. She turned to the female officer, who was on her way back to the desk.

“He was here last Friday.”

The officer came over, a curious look on her face.

“What?”

“He was here last Friday,” she said, pointing to the newspaper.

Vanja gave a start as she saw the photograph.

T
HERE WAS
an air of excitement in the big room that had been missing before. There were many questions, the case had opened out in several different directions, and now they had to start prioritizing. The latest news was that the motel receptionist was certain she had seen Ragnar Groth, the principal of Palmlövska High, at the motel that Friday night. And it wasn’t the first time either. He was there at regular intervals. Always paid cash and called himself Robert something-or-other. That Friday she had caught a glimpse of him as he walked past outside, heading toward the rooms on the west side, but he hadn’t checked in himself. She had always assumed he was there to meet a mistress. After all, there were a number of people who used the motel for that kind of thing; you might not read about it in the ads, but it was a fact. Sebastian was gloating to himself; this was just getting better and better. To think that the pedantic Ragnar Groth might turn out to have some serious skeletons in the closet. Torkel looked at Vanja and Billy with an approving nod.

“Okay, well done. This means that the principal becomes an obvious priority. As I see it, there is a strong possibility that he and Roger were in the same place on the night Roger was murdered.”

Billy took out a picture of Ragnar Groth and passed it to Torkel.

“Could you put this up? I haven’t had a chance to check him out yet, but the interesting thing is that both Roger and Peter Westin have links to Groth. Westin had an arrangement with the school and Roger was a student there.”

Torkel pinned up the picture of Groth and drew arrows pointing to Roger and to Westin.

“Perhaps we should pay our principal another visit. With some new questions.” Torkel turned to the others. There was a brief silence.

“I think we need to proceed carefully, gather more information before we confront him,” said Sebastian. “After all, so far he’s proved very adept at keeping quiet about relevant details. So the more we know when we do see him, the more difficult it will be for him to duck and dive.”

Vanja nodded in agreement. That was her analysis too.

“Particularly as we still know too little about Peter Westin. We don’t even know for certain if he is the person in the bedroom, or how the fire started,” Vanja went on. “Ursula is still at Rotevägen and has promised a preliminary report as soon as possible.”

“What about the break-in at Westin’s practice? Did we get anything from the scene?” Torkel chipped in.

“No. No forensic evidence, no notebook. So we’re at a standstill there. Westin’s colleague said he wasn’t the type who made extensive notes. Perhaps the odd keyword here and there, but he used to jot those down in the notebook, which of course is missing.”

“We’re not having much luck,” Billy said with a sigh.

“Which means we just have to work harder,” Torkel replied, looking at his team with an encouraging expression.

“Luck comes through hard work, we know that. For the moment we assume the break-in is linked to the fire and that Peter Westin’s notebook has been stolen because of what was in it. Until we find out otherwise. I’ve asked Hanser to organize door-to-door inquiries in the vicinity of Westin’s practice, to find out if anyone saw anything suspicious last night.”

“And what about Axel Johansson?” Billy nodded toward the picture of the janitor that was pinned up in the corner. “Anything there?”

Torkel laughed and shook his head.

“Ah well, everybody’s favorite detective, Thomas Haraldsson, has been undertaking a little private surveillance there.”

“What do you mean?”

“Where do I start…”

“You could start by admitting I was right. We should have gotten rid of him as soon as we met him in the lobby,” said Vanja with a little smile. Torkel nodded.

“I can’t argue with that, Vanja.”

A uniformed officer knocked on the door, poked her head in, and asked for Billy and Vanja. She gave them each an envelope. Billy peered into his.

“Shall we go through these now?” He looked at Torkel.

“What are they?”

“Preliminary reports on the guests Vanja and I think are worth a closer look.”

Torkel nodded.

“Absolutely. But just to bring you up to date on Axel Johansson: we have no fresh leads there. Thanks to Haraldsson, he now knows we’re looking for him, so there’s a risk that he’s left Västerås. Hanser has promised to put all their resources into finding him, so we’ll leave that to her. She’s a little bit embarrassed, by the way.”

While Torkel was speaking Billy had gone over to the wall with the new pictures. Once Torkel had finished, he began.

“Okay, at nine o’clock on Friday evening a total of seven rooms had been rented out. We have eliminated three families with children, plus an elderly couple who stayed until Monday. It’s hardly likely that Roger or Ragnar Groth were visiting any of the families or this elderly couple. If we put them aside, that leaves us with three names which could be of interest.”

The pictures showed two women and one man.

“Malin Sten, aged twenty-eight; Frank Clevén, fifty-three; and Stina Bokström, forty-six.”

The others moved closer to get a better view of the enlarged passport photographs.

Malin Sten, née Ragnarsson, was the youngest of the guests; she
was an attractive woman with long, dark, frizzy hair. According to the information received, she was married to one William Sten. The middle photograph showed Frank Clevén, a father of three who lived in Eskilstuna. He had short dark hair that had begun to recede and turn gray. A lined, weather-beaten face. He looked determined in the photograph. The last picture was of Stina Bokström; she had a narrow face with short blond hair and quite an angular appearance. Unmarried. Billy pointed to the brunette.

“I managed to get hold of Malin Sten; she’s a sales rep who stayed over after a meeting in town. She says she didn’t see anybody, she just had an early night. Lives in Stockholm. I haven’t spoken to the other two yet, but as you can see neither of them lives in Västerås, not according to the electoral register.”

Torkel nodded and brought in the whole team.

“Okay, good, we need to get hold of the other two guests. Start with the assumption that they have something to hide. That applies to Malin Sten as well.”

They all nodded except for Vanja. She was leafing through the papers she had just received. She looked up.

“Sorry, but I think that will have to wait.”

They all turned and stared at her. Even Sebastian. Vanja enjoyed her moment center stage and paused dramatically before she went on.

“It occurred to me that the gun that was used to shoot Roger was a twenty-two caliber. Which is a classic weapon for shooting competitions, isn’t it?”

Impatience was written all over Torkel’s face.

“And?”

“I’ve just received the members’ list from Västerås Gun Club.”

Vanja paused again, and she was unable to suppress a smug smile as she looked at the others in turn.

“Our esteemed principal Ragnar Groth has been a member since 1992. An extremely active member, apparently.”