Frozen Moment (14 page)

    'Something
wrong with the car, of course,' Beckman suggested. 'He asked Waltz to come over
and listen to the engine while he sat in the car and pressed the accelerator,
and then, when the victim was close enough, he simply grabbed hold of him and
put the gun to his head.'

    'Which
suggests that the murderer wasn't known to the victim,' Bärneflod pointed out.
'I mean, otherwise he wouldn't have bought the idea of there being something
wrong with the engine, and he wouldn't have gone over to the murderer's car.'

    'What
do you mean?' Gonzales exclaimed. 'He could have known the murderer really
well,
he just didn't expect him to put a bullet through his
skull. Doesn't it suggest that it
was
an acquaintance, sitting in the
car and sounding his horn rather than parking and going inside to look for the
mechanic, like a normal person would? Wouldn't Waltz be suspicious
if-
'

    Without
managing to conceal his impatience, Tell cut short the discussion. 'Can we move
on? We don't know if he was suspicious; we don't even know if that's how it
happened.'

    He
regretted his reaction at once. An open discussion and speculation might be a
way of moving the investigation forward. In addition,

    Tell
ought to be encouraging Bärneflod to keep hold of the team leader's baton.

    Beckman
had spoken to Lise-Lott Edell at her sister's house in Sjovik the previous day.
She reported briefly on the meeting, which had gone on for two long hours,
including several pauses for tears and lost threads, due to the strong
tranquillisers with which Angelika Rundström had supplied her sister.

    The
interview had resulted in a grief-stricken portrait of Lars Waltz. Lise-Lott
had also agreed to write down the names of some of her husband's acquaintances.
Beckman suggested they compile a priority list for these interviews; the key
was to get a picture of who Waltz was, and what would make someone want to see
him dead.

    'I'd
also recommend another chat with Lise-Lott later on, when she's more alert. She
needed to talk about Lars in her own way yesterday, and it was difficult to
steer the conversation. And of course we mustn't underestimate the therapeutic
effect of these interviews,' said Beckman.

    Tell
bit his tongue in order to avoid saying what he really thought, namely that
Beckman's job wasn't to act as some kind of therapist, but to ask the questions
that could help them find the murderer as quickly as possible. Instead he
merely nodded, but out of the corner of his eye he glimpsed a meaningful look
from Bärneflod, who was less discreet.

    For
some reason Bärneflod often sought his collusion when it came to new-fangled
ideas versus good old honest police work. Tell had no idea why, and to be
perfectly honest it frightened the life out of him. He was only forty-four. In
his eyes Bärneflod was a comfortable old fogey who was more interested in the
past than the present, on top of which he was capable of demonstrating a clear
lack of intelligence in many situations. Despite the fact that Tell could
easily get annoyed at Beckman's way of breezily relating most things to issues
of gender, and despite the fact that he was sceptical about all this talk of
quotas and the advantages of bringing a female way of thinking into the police
service, Bärneflod's jokes about 'bluestockings' and 'man-haters' made him feel
depressed. He didn't want to find himself in agreement with someone like
Bärneflod. For that reason he gave Beckman a word of encouragement. But, to be
honest, he also thought it would be a strategic move in the long term.

    It
had come to his attention that Beckman had had a series of discussions with
Ostergren the previous year, regarding the macho atmosphere at the station. At
first this had perplexed him. Was he a male chauvinist pig without even knowing
it?

    'I've
never perceived the language used in the station as particularly male,' he had
responded, with a slightly defensive air, 'even if it's a bit rough at times.
It's more to do with the job. Police jargon, that's all.'

    He
felt perfectly at home with it after twenty years in the job and was tempted to
say that if someone didn't feel comfortable in the corridors of the police
station, perhaps they should consider a change of profession.

    'There's
nothing to say that macho jargon within the police service is constructive, or
has anything to do with actual work,' Ostergren had pointed out brusquely.

    He
chose to remain silent.

    'I'm
glad Karin Beckman brings such competence to the job and is not afraid to say
what she thinks,' she went on, 'just as I'm glad we have Michael, who is
young
and green and brings a fresh pair of eyes. As well as
Bengt, who is older and has a different perspective. In the same way, I'm glad
you have such drive, and Andreas is more reflective.'

    She
tilted her head to one side. Tell had the unpleasant feeling that she wanted
something from him that he didn't understand. He pulled himself together and
muttered a few words that could be interpreted as agreement. Of course he would
keep an eye on the team and smooth the way for both the male and female
perspective. It seemed eminently
sensible,
he just had
no idea how to go about it.

    After
giving their conversation a great deal of thought, he had gone to see Ostergren
the following week and said that he too was pleased to have Karin Beckman in
the team, but that he had never regarded her primarily as a woman, or even a
woman police officer, but quite simply as a police officer.

    'And
a bloody good one, when it comes down to it.'

    Ostergren's
expression, which had been tense and concentrated as she prepared the annual
statistical report, softened and she broke into a smile.

    'Thank
you, Christian,' she said. 'That's what I wanted to hear.'

    Tell
had gone back to his office with the feeling that he'd been given top marks for
behaviour by his teacher without really understanding how it had happened.

    He
was brought back to reality as Beckman rapped the whiteboard with her knuckles.
In the centre was a Polaroid photograph of the dead Lars Waltz.

    'I've
found out a few things about his background…
Born in
Gothenburg in 1961, in Majorna to be precise.
Parents separated when he
was about ten, limited contact with his father subsequently. The family didn't
have much money. Mother worked nights at the Sahlgren hospital as a nurse. One
older brother…'

    She
moved her glasses down her nose and leafed through her papers.

    'That's
it. Sten Roger Waltz, known as Sten. He's seven years older and evidently lives
in Malmo.
Unmarried, no children.
The brothers didn't
have much to do with each another.'

    'Who's
going to contact Sten?' asked Tell.

    'I've
already spoken to him. They hardly had any contact, but of course he was still
very shocked. Off the top of his head he couldn't think of anyone who might
want his brother dead. But he also said he didn't really know him any longer.'

    'Well
done, Karin. We'll follow another angle,
then
we can
decide if we need to go to Malmo later. What about his mother - does she still
live in Gothenburg?'

    'No.
She died a couple of years ago.'

    'Carry
on.'

    'He
attended the Karl Johan School, then the Schiller Grammar School. Took a gap
year and stayed on some sheep station in Australia. Since his twenties he's
worked on all kinds of different things, including car repairs and… well, just
about anything you can think of. He's done a few courses in marketing,
something to do with art, and a one- year photographic course.
Developed an allergy to computer monitors when he was thirty after
a couple of years as an art director, and was signed off sick for eighteen
months.'

    Beckman
drew a somewhat sloping line on the whiteboard and filled in years and headings
to represent the different phases in the life of Lars Waltz.

    'And
then he met Lise-Lott Edell,' Bärneflod concluded, throwing his pen down on the
desk as if he'd been busy making notes up to that point.

    'Well,
sort of. He'd actually been married before. Lise-Lott wasn't sure about dates
and so on. She's only known Lars for six or seven years. He published a book of
photographs at the beginning of the 90s and was evidently working on a new one;
it was going to be about the decline of the agricultural area around their
farm, from some kind of environmental perspective. Anyway, he ran the car
workshop part time to provide an income so that he could carry on with his
photography. He got work from the district council in Lerum from time to time,
information leaflets, that kind of thing.'

    
A sweeping movement with her arm.
She jotted
Lerum
District Council
next to the resulting circle and
2000-2006
inside
it.

    'Is
this what they call mind-mapping?' said Bärneflod sarcastically, picking up his
pen to carry on with his own notes. Nobody bothered to reply.

    'It
seems there was some kind of conflict between Waltz and the person at the town
hall who gave him work,' Tell added.

    Beckman
nodded. 'Yes. But Lise-Lott didn't really know anything. She thought it had all
been sorted out.'

    'Bengt,
you talk to him,' said Tell, waving his hand in Bärneflod's direction.
Bärneflod responded by pointing meaningfully at his watch, but Tell made it
clear that he had no intention of stopping for a coffee break just because it
was ten o'clock.

    'What
else? There was an ex-wife and kids.'

    
'An ex-wife and two boys in their late teens.'

    'I'll
take them,' Tell decided.

    Gonzales
sprawled across the desk to reach the whiteboard, groaning with the effort, and
wrote M. G. -
Reino Edell.

    'He's
our most interesting character, as I see it,' he said, rapping on the table
with the board marker. 'He's the younger brother of Lise- Lott's ex-husband and
has been involved in a well-documented quarrel with Lise-Lott. I've checked it
out, and there are shelves full of legal proceedings to choose from. Well,
there are some at least. He thinks Lise-Lott has stolen his inheritance. He's
bloody furious, and most people who murder other people are bloody furious.'

    'Sure,
but not everybody who's furious goes off and commits murder,' said Bärneflod smugly.
'Besides, I can't see what Edell would get out of murdering Waltz - he doesn't
have any legal right to the farm.'

    'No,
he doesn't, but he's got a grudge against them as a couple. Mainly Lise-Lott,
he's bloody livid with her for clinging on to the farm like a leech. Then all
of a sudden Waltz turns up, waltzes in (no pun intended), takes the place of
his beloved late brother and seems quite happy to stay on the farm and let the
agricultural side go to rack and ruin. Instead he spends all his time screwing
Thomas Edell's wife and taking photographs of rusty old ploughs. So of course
Reino Edell is going to be angry with this
guy
. And
perhaps he was intending to get rid of Lise-Lott, but instead it's Waltz who's
coming towards him and…'

    'To
be honest, I'm more interested in the ex-wife,' Bärneflod persisted. 'I mean,
Waltz just clears off after twenty years of marriage and immediately moves in
with a new woman. That's got to hurt, and we already know she was volatile
after the divorce. And isn't this a particularly female way of murdering
someone? Shooting the
guy
and then running over him?
It doesn't require any strength, just a decent car.'

    Bärneflod
paused for breath.

    'Of
course we need to check on the vehicles of anyone who crops up in the
investigation, and compare them with the scene of the crime,' said Tell. 'We'll
leave that to the Angered boys.'

    Karlberg
accidentally nudged Beckman, who spilled coffee on the old overhead projector.
A fuse blew, and the electric Advent candle in the window went out.

    Tell
sighed. 'OK. We'll leave it there for today.'

    The
passageway between the garage and the outside door sloped gently and was well
gritted. As Seja passed the dining-room window she sensed movement. She had
been spotted. But she still had to wait while Kristina carefully slid the cover
off the spyhole. Seja waved a little wearily.