Frozen Moment (63 page)

    
'Right.'

    Tell
could feel his brain revving up, emerging from the alcoholic haze.

    'Beckman,
you go up and join Karlberg. I'll talk to Sebastian Granith and see what I can
get out of him. The rest of you, keep going through

    Maya
Granith's life from when we broke off the other day. The investigation into the
accident took place in 1995. Start from there and work backwards. Bärneflod,
you can bring me a preliminary report later.' He fell silent for a moment. 'By
the way, has anyone spoken to Ostergren?'

    Bärneflod
looked thoroughly confused. 'Isn't that your job? Isn't that why you get paid
more than us?'

    Tell
got up, shoving Bärneflod past on his way out of the room.

    'Stop
moaning and get on with it.'

    The
door of Ostergren's office was closed. Tell decided not to call her at home
just yet.

    
Half an hour later Tell walked into Bärneflod's office.

    'I've
got Gonzales following up a couple of leads. I thought you and I should go and
see Ma Granith.'

    
'Borås, then?'

    'Borås
it is.'

    'Can't
Björkman take it?'

    'No,
he bloody well can't. This one's ours. Get a move on.'

    Just
as they were passing Landsvetter, the traffic jams started. Tell was forced to
slow down and eventually came to a standstill. He swore. They heard on the
radio that a lorry had overturned right across the motorway, and the vehicle
still hadn't been removed. It would probably be a couple of hours before the
traffic was flowing normally again.

    After
a forty-five-minute wait and countless curses, they were able to crawl along
for what seemed like an eternity before turning off at the exit for Kinna and
Skene, taking the minor roads towards Borås.

    Considerably
later than expected they arrived at the address, a relatively central but
depressing block of flats. On the second floor the curtains were closed.

    They
went upstairs and came to a door marked S. GRANITH. A scraping noise from
inside the flat persuaded them to wait, even though no one answered at first.
Bärneflod hammered on the door with his fist. He pushed open the letterbox and
caught sight of stocking-clad feet.

    'We're
from the police, fru Granith. Could you please open the door and let us in?'
After a further delay the key was turned and a woman with messy hair peered
out.

    'What's
it about?' she said with affected surliness, clearly trying to conceal her
anxiety. Tell showed her his ID. When she failed to react he took a step into
the flat, followed by Bärneflod. The woman backed away.

    Tell
had to remind himself that the woman's son had just been arrested on suspicion
of murder. She looked terrible: her unwashed grey hair hung in clumps around
her neck, and her face looked as if it had been distorted by too much anger,
humiliation or perhaps weariness. She was tugging frantically at her sweater,
which was much too short - a band of pale wrinkled skin showed above her
waistline - and faded tights hung loosely around skinny legs.

    
'My apologies for the late hour.
May we come in?' asked Tell
once again.

    'You're
coming in anyway, aren't you?' the woman spat but led the way into what seemed
to be the living room. It was bursting at the seams with an incredible amount
of mismatched furniture. Tell counted four tables of different sizes. The
policemen
squeezed their way past and each sat down on a
two-seater sofa. Solveig Granith remained standing at first, as if to say she
didn't expect them to stay long. When Tell and Bärneflod didn't appear to take
the hint, she sat down on the armchair nearest the window.

    'Your
son is Sebastian Granith, is that correct?' said Bärneflod, brushing the dust
off the back of his sofa with an expression of unmistakable disgust.

    The
woman nodded peevishly.

    'You
have been informed that he is being held in
custody,
and that during the night he confessed to the murders of Lars Waltz and Olof
Bart.'

    Solveig
Granith turned to the window without the slightest change of expression.

    Bärneflod
and Tell looked at one another. This woman wasn't going to be an easy nut to
crack. She was probably in shock, but something about her behaviour told them
there was more to it than that. Tell decided to get straight down to business.

    
'As we understand it, your son lives here, which gives us reason to
ask where he was on the evening of Tuesday 19 December, and early on Thursday
28 December.'

    He
wrote the dates on a blank page in his notebook and passed it over to Solveig,
who squinted at the paper before staring out of the window again.

    'Please
take your time if you need to give it some thought.'

    Through
a gap in the grubby curtains he could see the neon-lit facade of the building
opposite.

    'Let
me put it this way: on the night between 19 and 20 December last year, did he
come home?'

    'How
the hell
am
I supposed to remember?' she asked
scornfully.

    A
door closed, and Bärneflod raised his eyebrows, wondering where the noise had
come from. Tell stiffened and instinctively placed his hand close to his
holster.

    'Is
there anyone else here?'

    Solveig
Granith shook her head. Bärneflod glanced at Tell and stood up. Granith chewed
nervously on her lower lip.

    'OK,
I'll ask you this instead,' said Tell, seizing the opportunity. 'Where were you
last night?'

    'I
don't have to answer your questions,' she said without conviction. Her eyes
darted between Tell and Bärneflod, as if she expected one of them to agree with
her and put an end to the unpleasantness.

    'Where
were you at the times written on the piece of paper in front of you?'

    'I
don't remember!' she screamed.

    With
her eyes wide open and a deranged expression on her face, the feeble woman took
two steps forward and stuck her chin out at Bärneflod, who was nearer to her.
He was unprepared for her agression and knocked an ornamental dove to the
ground.

    Fragments
of porcelain flew across the scratched parquet floor, and one shard ended up at
her feet. She crouched down with some difficulty and placed it in the palm of
her hand. For a second Bärneflod thought she was crying.

    'I
don't remember,' she whispered, placing the sharp fragments she was now
collecting in her cupped hand.

    'But
I'm sure you remember what you were doing yesterday evening,' Tell went on
inexorably.

    He
had to repeat the question before she answered. 'I suppose I was here. I'm
always here.'

    'Is
there anyone who can confirm that?'

    'No.'

    Tell
felt a draught across his neck. A window or a balcony door must have been
opened in another room. He was now certain that there was someone else there,
listening to every word that was spoken. He gestured to Bärneflod to get ready
to search the flat.

    When
Solveig stood up again, Tell decided to put his cards on the table.

    'I
believe that Olof Bart and Lars Waltz, who was mistakenly assumed to be Thomas
Edell, were murdered as a result of the alleged attack on your daughter twelve
years ago. That is the explanation your son has given for the murders. At some
point during the last twenty- four hours the third attacker, Sven Molin, was
also murdered. The problem is that your son was in custody at the time.'

    And
how is that a problem for me?
Or for you?'
Solveig
Granith was talking to herself. She seemed increasingly distant.

    'It's
a problem because we don't believe it's a coincidence that Molin has also been
murdered. And since your son was under arrest at the time, it means that
someone else, somebody who presumably also had strong feelings for Maya, has
avenged her in his place. I'm not saying that person is you; I'm simply asking
if there is anyone who can confirm that you were at home yesterday evening.'

    She
tugged at the neck of her sweater as if she couldn't get enough air.

    'I
can confirm that she was here.'

    The
woman who appeared in the doorway had bright red lips and a severe bob, dyed
black.
Possibly a wig, Tell noted after establishing that she
didn't constitute a direct threat.
She was tall and wore an old-
fashioned grubby suit that had once been expensive.

    'And
who are you?' Bärneflod was openly scrutinising the woman from head to toe. She
may have been in her forties.

    'I…
I help Solveig with the shopping and so on. As a home help,' she explained. 'I
can confirm that Solveig was at home yesterday evening.'

    Solveig
Granith had turned gratefully to her helper, as a distressed child turns to its
mother.

    'And
during the night?' asked Bärneflod suspiciously.

    Several
things didn't make sense. The fact that the room was in such a mess didn't
square with the assertion that Solveig Granith had a home help. Equally, the
suit the woman was wearing didn't suggest that cleaning was her job. Perhaps
cleaning wasn't included in 'and so on'.

    'Oh,
so you work evenings and nights too?' growled Bärneflod after glancing at the
clock. He made no attempt to hide his suspicion.

    'I
do work in the evenings sometimes, yes. People don't only need help during the
day,' she said unconvincingly. 'But yesterday evening I was here for a
different reason: I'd left my watch on the draining board. I take it off when I
do the washing up and didn't want to be without it, so I… rang Solveig to ask
whether it was too late to-'

    'I
stay up late,' said Solveig mechanically.

    'And
what time was this?' said Bärneflod in the same tone as before. He looked at
the younger woman.

    Her
gaze didn't falter.
'Around nine.
I stayed until a
quarter to ten.'

    Bärneflod
grunted as he passed over his notebook and asked her to write down her name and
where she could be reached.
'Just in case we need to get hold
of you.'

    After
a moment's hesitation she bent her head over the notebook, he caught sight of a
tattooed snake emerging from the collar of her shirt. He shuddered.

    Michael
Gonzales had made the same exasperated noises as his colleagues during the
crisis meeting, but in reality he was excited about the turn the case had
taken.

    He
was young to be working in CID, and at the beginning he had heard the same
things again and again. Some people would praise his enthusiasm and pat him on
the back; others would banter about him being leadership material. Sometimes the
comments weren't so friendly. Not everyone was impressed by the fact he was
climbing the ladder more quickly than usual, whether they believed the reason
was unusually high motivation or the need to fill quotas. This was a favourite
topic among members of the police service who were not burdened with an overly
high IQ.

    This
ill-concealed hostility made him angry and aggressive at first. He had been
brought up not to take any crap by his mother, who, while she was as proud as
Punch that her son was in the police service, would never allow him to kowtow
to anyone to get on. Initially he had gone into battle for her sake. Not that
he would define himself as a foreigner - he had lived in Sweden all his life -
but the battle his mother had fought against racism since her arrival in the
mid-seventies had to count for something. However, it was possible to choose
your battles, and Gonzales had got the hang of this after a while. He was
positive by nature. Over the years he had developed the ability to use his
charm: it could smooth over misunderstandings, disarm his opponents and thus
give him control. And so he never became a victim of his own anger.

    And
he didn't want to be anywhere else; he had always wanted to be a detective.
That was why he always had his nose in a crime novel when he was a teenager,
and had watched every detective series on TV. He had no problem identifying
with the lonely, obstinate and self- sacrificing detective, whether portrayed
by Henning Mankell, Colin Dexter or Michael Connelly. That was also why he had
applied to the police training academy twice before he finally got in.