Silenced (12 page)

‘No, but we could tell her we needed to speak to her,’ said Ellen.

‘They gave me her work email address,’ said Joar. ‘But there’s no guarantee she’ll be checking that while she’s on leave. Her work mobile’s switched off.’

No one said anything. Alex turned over in his mind what he had heard, wanting his thoughts to fall into place so a clearer picture emerged.

‘There’s still something not right here,’ he said emphatically. ‘Why on earth would she break news as dramatic as her sister’s death to her father and then leave the country? Without exchanging a word on the subject with her mum?’

Joar nodded, mainly to himself.

‘It sounds odd, even when we take into account that the family knew about her sister’s drug abuse so the death was not entirely unexpected.’

‘Which leads us to another strange thing,’ Fredrika went on. ‘How could anyone in their circle of acquaintances still have been oblivious to Karolina’s addiction? She’d been heavily into drugs for a long time.’

‘I think Ragnar Vinterman gave us a clue to that,’ said Alex. ‘Karolina’s addiction was something they chose not to talk about out loud.’

‘But if they’d had time to get used to the fact that she might die, that makes her father’s reaction very strange,’ said Joar, steering the discussion back to the same old track. ‘According to Ragnar Vinterman, Karolina’s drug habit had been wearing her parents down for a long time, and we’ve also learnt that Johanna wasn’t exactly distraught when her sister died.’

‘Perhaps they weren’t that close?’ suggested Fredrika. ‘Do we know anything about their relationship?’

‘Or Johanna’s relationship with her parents, for that matter,’ Alex added. ‘Why did she go off directly after breaking the news? She knew how unstable her father could be. Just because you keep your distance from your family, as we’ve heard that she did, it doesn’t mean you behave completely irresponsibly towards them.’

They were all absorbed in their thoughts. Alex drummed his fingers impatiently on the desk.

‘But we mustn’t confuse one thing with another,’ he said sternly. ‘The fact that their family relationships were rather odd is neither here nor there in this case, really. I don’t see that any of the points we’ve been discussing change anything crucial.’

The others nodded in agreement. Out of the corner of his eye, Alex could see Fredrika fiddling with some other sheets of paper she had in front of her. He had almost overlooked the unidentified man.

‘We’ll email Johanna Ahlbin at the address we’ve got,’ he said. ‘And we’ll ask her employer to approach some of her colleagues, see if she was friendly with any of them outside work, in case they know where she is at the moment. And Joar and I will go to that other house, the one registered in the sisters’ names, and see if we can turn up anything useful there. What do we know about the place, Fredrika?’

Fredrika put aside the sheaf of papers she was holding and shuffled through another one.

‘The house is out at Ekerö,’ she told them. ‘It’s been in Marja Ahlbin’s family for a long time: it was originally bought by her maternal grandparents in the 1930s. Ownership was transferred to Marja in 1967, and then to Karolina and Johanna four years ago.’

‘Have they got equal shares in it?’ asked Joar.

Fredrika nodded.

‘Yes, according to the registry Johanna and Karolina Ahlbin own half each.’

‘And Marja’s parents?’ said Alex. ‘They’re no longer with us, I hope, because otherwise we’ve forgotten to let them know that their daughter’s been shot in the head by her own husband.’

Fredrika’s vigorous nodding confirmed this.

‘Yes, Jakob’s and Marja’s parents have all been dead for some years,’ she said. ‘Jakob had a brother, too, but he emigrated to America. Marja had no brothers or sisters.’

‘Is this house out at Ekerö a big place?’ asked Joar, looking thoughtful.

‘I printed out a map,’ said Fredrika, showing them. ‘The house is at the far end of a little road. It’s got a lot of ground with it and the property as a whole is valued at two and a half million kronor.’

Alex whistled.

‘So I assume the house goes to Johanna now Karolina’s dead?’

‘I suppose so,’ said Fredrika. ‘But I don’t know if it could be called a windfall. There’s still a big mortgage to pay off.’

‘Why was it transferred to their names so soon?’ asked Joar. ‘Why would you put assets like that in the hands of a drug addict?’

‘We’d better take a closer look at the conveyancing,’ said Fredrika.

‘Let’s look at the actual house first,’ declared Alex. ‘Then we can go into the paperwork.’

He glanced over at Fredrika to check she had not taken exception to his rather authoritarian tone. They had had a few communication problems of that nature when she first joined the group.

But Fredrika did not look in the least bit ruffled.

Alex went on.

‘How are you getting on with our unidentified man?’

Fredrika briefly summarised her results. The fact that the man had written various place names and addresses on scraps of paper, and wrapped a ring in another bit of paper with a woman’s name on it. The woman did not seem to be in Sweden, or at least, there was no asylum seeker from Sadr City in Baghdad registered under that name in the database.

‘There isn’t necessarily anything strange about it being a Forex bureau,’ Alex said tentatively. ‘He may just have had money to change, or something like that.’

‘But why do it in Uppsala?’ wondered Fredrika.

‘Because he lived there?’ suggested Joar with a smile.

A faint smile crept across Fredrika’s otherwise sombre, earnest face. It had struck Alex on numerous occasions that she was actually rather beautiful.

‘So what was he doing on the main road outside Stockholm University in the middle of the night?’ she went on. ‘I get the feeling our man lived here, not in Uppsala.’

Alex pulled himself upright.

‘Is there anything at all to underline suspicions that he was killed deliberately?’ he asked bluntly.

‘No,’ said Fredrika. ‘Not as things stand. But I’m still waiting for the CID to get back to me about the fingerprint check, and I haven’t had the autopsy report yet, either.’

‘All right,’ said Alex, ‘wait for those two reports, and then we’ll decide how we’re going to continue the investigation.
If
we’re going to continue the investigation,’ he added.

Whether it was the effect of her pregnancy or for some other reason, Fredrika did not seem to have any objections to that arrangement, either.

She’s not herself, thought Alex, and started to brood. She generally advanced her ideas more tenaciously.

A knock at the door interrupted the meeting, and Peder came in. He did not look anyone in the eye, merely sank into a spare seat at the table.

‘Hi,’ he said.

One step behind him came a man whom Alex knew was from the technical division.

‘Sorry to disturb you,’ he drawled, standing in the doorway. ‘I thought you might like to see this,’ he went on, passing Alex some sheets of paper.

‘What are these?’ asked Alex.

‘Print-outs of emails sent to Jakob Ahlbin’s church email account,’ said the technician. ‘We were given access today. He seems to have been receiving threats for a while now. He’d saved the emails in a separate folder.’

Alex raised his eyebrows.

‘Really?’ he said.

The technician nodded.

‘See for yourself,’ he said. ‘They were threatening to do some really nasty things, if Jakob didn’t stop his activities. He seems to have got involved in some dispute he ought to have kept out of.’

Joar got quickly to his feet and moved so he could read over Alex’s shoulder.

‘Look at the dates,’ he said, pointing. ‘The last one came less than a week ago.’

Alex felt his pulse racing as he read the print-outs.

‘So he was receiving threats, after all,’ he declared.

And with that, the case of the late Jakob and Marja Ahlbin took a new turn.

BANGKOK, THAILAND

Her friend had told her to wait until he got back to her with instructions. He had promised to be in touch by two o’clock the next day. She looked uneasily at the time; it was just after three. Back home in Sweden it was nine in the morning.

For the hundredth time she took her mobile out of her bag and checked it. Still no missed calls. But then, timekeeping had never been his strong point.

The proprietor of the internet café offered her another cup of coffee. He recognised her now, and looked sorry when she declined.

‘Can I help?’ he asked.

She tried to smile and shook her head.

‘No, but thanks anyway.’

Her eyes went back to the computer screen. She instinctively wished that her problems were the kind that could be solved by the intervention of a Thai café owner. She had carried on ringing her parents, but to no avail. The only thing that had changed since yesterday was that her mother’s mobile was now cut off, too. Her email was still not working and Thai Airways still maintained they had never heard of her booking.

‘Don’t worry,’ her contact said. ‘I’ll get this mess sorted out for you. If you can just hang on till tomorrow you’ll see, it’ll all be okay.’

She wondered if she should ring him again, ask why he had not rung back.

Her stomach was rumbling and her head felt heavy. She ought to eat and drink something, top up her energy levels. She decided on the spot to go back to the hotel and try to find something to eat on the way.

The heat hit her as she came out onto the pavement. She went along Sukhumvit, the great artery through Bangkok city, relieved to know that her hotel was only two blocks away. Her handbag was rubbing her shoulder and she upped her pace. She slipped into a side street to get out of the sun. Her head turned from side to side as her eyes looked out for the first suitable place to eat.

Her mind on food, she was not concentrating and did not see him until it was too late. Suddenly he was there on the pavement with his knife drawn and his lips compressed. The cacophony of cars and people was less than thirty metres away, but in the side street it was just the two of them.

I’m not going to get out of this, she thought, and did not initially feel any fear.

The fear only came when he started to speak.

‘Your bag,’ he spat, threatening her with the knife. ‘Your bag.’

Standing there, she felt like crying. Not so much because she was being robbed for the first time in her life, but because she would now face even greater problems. Everything was in her bag. Her purse, her Visa card, her mobile. That had been her decision for the whole trip; she had judged it more risky to leave anything of value in the hotel than to carry it with her. The only exception was the computer, which she could not face lugging round with her. But that had been emptied of all information.

Her breath came in gasps. The bag reluctantly dislodged itself from her shoulder and slid down to her elbow.

‘Quick, quick,’ the man with the knife exhorted, gesturing to her with his free hand to let go of the bag.

When she did not immediately do so, he launched himself forward and forced her to take two rapid steps back to avoid a stab wound to her arm. She tripped on an uneven bit of tarmac and fell over. The bag slipped to the ground and in a second the man was standing over her, grabbing it.

But he did not go. He unzipped the bag and started going through the contents.

‘USB,’ he demanded.

She stared at him uncomprehendingly.

‘USB,’ he shouted. ‘Where is it?’

She swallowed several times, shaking her head frantically.

‘I haven’t got one,’ she answered in English, trying to shuffle backwards along the pavement, still on her back.

The man leant forward and yanked her to her feet. She struggled to get free, twisting like a snake. Then the knife lunged at her again, very close this time. He pressed it to her face and she gave an involuntary jerk as she felt the cool metal against her skin.

Stressing every syllable, he said again:

‘Where is it?’

In silent panic she weighed up the alternatives. There were none, she realised as she saw the man’s expression. It was angry and aggressive, but very controlled. He knew all too well what he was looking for.

She fumbled for the memory stick on the chain round her neck. He was still gripping her, far too hard. When he saw what she was doing, he wrenched at the chain and it broke. The memory stick fell onto the tarmac and he dived after it.

There would be no better chance of escape than this.

She ran faster than she had ever run before, her sandals slapping on the tarmac. If she could just get out onto Sukhumvit she’d be safe.

‘Stop!’ shouted the man from behind her. ‘Stop!’

But naturally she did not stop, convinced as she was that it would be the most dangerous thing she could possibly do. This man had been employed by someone, and his assignment was not just to rob her. She had realised almost at once what was strange about his behaviour. Muggers do not usually go through a handbag hunting for a USB stick. And how could he have known? How did he even know there was a USB stick to look for?

She ran all the way back to the hotel, taking a route that meant she could keep to the bigger streets all the way. She did not know exactly when he had given up the chase, but he stopped shouting after she put on a spurt along Sukhumvit. She did not turn round until she was in the hotel lobby, almost fainting and drenched in sweat. He was not there.

She sank to the lobby floor in despair.

A security guard and one of the receptionists came dashing over. Was she all right? Could they help her?

She wished with all her heart she could have laid the whole story in their open arms. She was tired now, incapable of summoning up the inner resources to see her project through. Coming on this trip alone suddenly seemed like a really stupid idea. What had she been thinking? Hadn’t she understood the risks, sensed imminent danger?

‘I’ve been robbed.’

The hotel staff were dismayed. Robbed? In broad daylight in Bangkok? A white woman? They looked shocked, said they had never heard of such a thing before. The female receptionist went to get some water and the guard to ring the police.