The Spring Tide (28 page)

‘On Monday, 13th June, at 11.23 in the morning, Nils Wendt phoned from his mobile to a mobile with this number.’

Mette held up a piece of paper for Magnuson to look at.

‘Is it correct that this is your mobile number?’

‘Yes.’

‘The conversation lasted eleven seconds. The same evening, at 19.32, another call came from Wendt’s mobile to the same number. That conversation lasted nineteen seconds. The following evening, on Tuesday the 14th, came the next conversation and that lasted about the same time, twenty seconds. Four days later, on Saturday, 15th June, at 15.45, came yet another call to the same mobile, from Nils Wendt. That conversation was a bit longer, it lasted just over one minute.’

Mette took her reading spectacles off and looked at the man in front of her.

‘What were those conversations about?’

‘They weren’t conversations. I received calls on those occasions you have named, I answered, got no reply, there was silence at the other end and then the call was cut off. I assumed it was an anonymous caller who was trying to convey some sort of threat to me, or frighten me, there has been some ill-feeling against our company of late, perhaps you know about that?’

‘Yes. The last call was longer?’

‘Yes, that… well, to be honest I got angry, it was the fourth time somebody phoned and didn’t say anything so I myself said some well-chosen words about what I thought of that type of cowardly way of trying to intimidate, and then I hung up.’

‘So you had no idea that it was Nils Wendt who phoned?’

‘No. How could I? The man has been missing for twenty-seven years.’

‘Do you know where he has been?’

‘No idea. Do you?’

‘He was living in Mal Pais in Costa Rica. You have never had any contact with him there?’

‘No. I thought he was dead.’

Magnuson prayed to the gods that his facial expression didn’t reveal what was going on in his brain. Mal Pais? Costa Rica? That must be the ‘unknown place’ with the original tape recording!

‘I would appreciate it if you don’t leave Stockholm in the coming days.’

‘Am I subject to travel restrictions?’ Magnuson wondered.

‘No, you definitely are not,’ said his lawyer suddenly.

Magnuson couldn’t help but smile. That smile vanished quickly when he saw Mette’s gaze. If he had been able to read her thoughts, it would probably have vanished even quicker.

Mette was convinced that he was lying.

There was a time, not so very long ago, when the district around Nytorget square was full of all manner of small shops with all manner of weird goods for sale. And often with proprietors who were just as weird. But like a shadow of the ethnological demise most of them were swept away when new residents with different requirements took over the district and
transformed it into a catwalk for hipsters. Now only a handful of the original shops were still holding out. Just. And they were mainly regarded as curios and picturesque elements in the street scene. One of them was a little shop selling old books, and run by Ronny Redlös. It was just opposite the building on Katarina Bangata where Nacka Skoglund used to live. It was there when Nacka was born, during his lifetime and when he died, and it was still there today.

Ronny had taken over the place from his mother.

The shop itself looked the same as most other antiquarian booksellers that have survived. Chock-full of books. With shelves from floor to ceiling, and piles of books on tables and stands. ‘A glorious mess of treasures’ as it said on the little sign in the window. Ronny himself had a well-used armchair beside one wall, with a standard lamp from the First World War leaning over it. Now he was sitting there with a book on his lap.
Klas the Cat in the Wild West
, about a popular albeit somewhat eccentric Swedish cartoon character.

‘Beckett in cartoon format!’ said Ronny.

He closed the book and looked at the man who was sitting on a simple stool across the room. The man was homeless and was called Tom Stilton. Ronny often had visits from homeless people. He had a big heart and a degree of solvency which enabled him to buy the books that had been found in skips or dustbin rooms, or wherever else they’d been found. Ronny never asked. He paid a bit for each book and helped a homeless person. Quite often, he then threw the books into a skip somewhere or other, and then a week or two later he would be looking at the same books again.

It went on like that.

‘I need to borrow an overcoat,’ said Stilton.

He had known Ronny for many years. Not only in his capacity as a homeless person. The first time they met, Stilton had been on duty with the Arlanda Airport Police and had been
obliged to take into custody a couple of Ronny’s fellow travellers on a flight from Iceland. Ronny had arranged a little group trip to the Penis Museum in Reykjavik and two of his mates had drunk a little bit too much of the hard stuff on their way home.

But not Ronny.

He didn’t drink alcohol, at least not more than once a year. On that occasion he drank till he dropped. That was the day his girlfriend disappeared under the ice in Hammarby docks and drowned. That day, the anniversary of her death, Ronny went down to the quay where she had jumped out onto the ice and drank until he was completely incapacitated. A ritual that his mates were very familiar with, and were careful not to disturb. They kept their distance until Ronny was completely drunk. Then they transported him home to the bookshop and tipped him into his bed in the inner room.

‘You need an overcoat?’ said Ronny.

‘Yes.’

‘Funeral?’

‘No.’

‘I’ve only got a black one.’

‘That’ll do fine.’

‘You’ve shaved.’

‘Yes.’

Stilton had shaved, and even cut some of his hair. Not too neatly, but enough so that it wouldn’t hang down on all sides. Now he needed an overcoat, so that he would look reasonably respectable. And a bit of money.

‘How much do you need?’

‘Enough for a train ticket. To Linköping.’

‘What are you going to do there?’

‘Help a young girl with something.’

‘How young a girl?’

‘Twenty-three.’

‘I see, then she won’t be familiar with
The Wild Detectives
.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Masturbation on a high literary level. Just a moment!’

Ronny disappeared into a cubby hole and returned with his black overcoat and a 500-kronor note. Stilton tried the coat on. It was a bit too short but it would have to do.

‘How’s Benseman?’

‘Poorly,’ answered Stilton.

‘Are his eyes OK?’

‘I think so.’

Benseman and Ronny Redlös had quite another relation than that between Stilton and Ronny. Benseman had read widely, Stilton hadn’t. On the other hand, Stilton wasn’t an alcoholic.

‘I heard that you’ve had a bit of contact with Abbas again,’ said Ronny.

‘How did you hear that?’

‘Can you take this with you for him?’

Ronny held out a thin book with paper covers.

‘He has waited for this for almost a year, I only got hold of it the other day,
In Honour of Friends
, Sufi poems translated by Eric Hermelin, the baron.’

Stilton took the book and read the front cover:
Shaikh’Attar, From Tazkiratú-Awliyã
I
, and shoved the book into his inner pocket.

To repay a favour.

He had just got an overcoat and 500 kronor.

Marianne Boglund was on her way towards her whitewashed terraced house on the edge of Linköping, approaching the gate. It was almost seven in the evening and out of the corner of her eye she saw a figure leaning against a lamp post on the other
side of the street. The light from the street light shone down upon a thin man with his hands in a rather too short black overcoat. Marianne hesitated for a moment and looked at the man who held up his hand in a greeting. It can’t be, she thought. Although she already knew who it was.

‘Tom?’

Stilton crossed the street without taking his eyes off Marianne. He stopped about two metres in front of her. Marianne didn’t stand on ceremony.

‘You look dreadful.’

‘You should have seen me this morning.’

‘No thanks. How are you?’

‘Fine. You mean…’

‘Yes.’

‘Fine… or better.’

They looked at each other a second or two. Neither of them felt like delving into Stilton’s health status. Especially not Marianne. And especially not out on the street outside her home.

‘What do you want?’

‘I need help.’

‘With money?’

‘Money?’

Stilton looked at Marianne in a way that made her wish she’d bitten her tongue. She had spoken very insensitively.

‘I need help with this.’

Stilton pulled out a little plastic bag with the hairslide from Nordkoster.

‘What is it?’

‘A hairslide, with a hair in it. I need help with DNA. Can we walk a little?’

Stilton pointed down the street. Marianne turned slightly towards the terraced house and saw how a man moved through a half-lit kitchen. Had he seen them?

‘It won’t take long.’

Stilton started to walk. Marianne stayed where she was. Just typical Tom, turning up as an unannounced wreck of a man and simply assuming that he is in command.

Again.

‘Tom.’

Stilton twisted round slightly.

‘Whatever you want, this is the wrong way to go about it.’

Stilton came to a halt. He looked at Marianne, lowered his head a little and then straightened up again.

‘Sorry. I’m out of practice.’

‘Yes, it shows.’

‘The social rules. I’m sorry. I really do need your help. You decide. We can talk here or later or…’

‘Why do you need DNA?’

‘To be able to compare with DNA from the beach case. On Nordkoster.’

Stilton knew that would hook her, and it did. Marianne had lived with Stilton during the entire investigation of the beach case. She knew very well how committed he had been and what it had cost him. And her. And now he was there again. In a physical condition that tore rather hard at a part of her soul, but which she pushed back. For many reasons.

‘Tell me.’

Marianne had started to walk without thinking about it. She fell in beside Stilton when he started to tell the story. How the hairslide had been found on the beach the same evening that the murder happened. How it had ended up in a little boy’s box of beach finds where he had suddenly discovered it a day or so ago and then given it to a young police student. Olivia Rönning.

‘Rönning?’

‘Yes.’

‘The daughter of…’

‘Yes.’

‘And now you want to check if they match, the hairslide and the DNA from the victim on Koster?’

‘Yes. Can you do it?’

‘No.’

‘Can’t do it or won’t do it?’

‘Take care of yourself.’

Marianne turned round and started to walk towards the terrace house again. Stilton watched as she walked away. Would she turn round? She didn’t. She never had done. When it was decided, it was decided, no loose ends. He knew that.

But he had tried.

‘Who was that?’

Marianne had been thinking about how she should answer that question all the way to the front door. She knew that Tord had seen them through the kitchen window. Seen them walk off down the street. She knew that this would demand special treatment.

‘Tom Stilton.’

‘Really? Him? What was he doing here?’

‘He wanted some help with some DNA.’

‘Hasn’t he left the police force?’

‘Yes.’

Marianne hung up her overcoat, on her own hook. Everyone in the family had a hook of their own. The children had theirs and Tord had his. The children were Tord’s from his previous marriage, Emilie and Jacob. She loved them. And Tord’s devotion to order, even in the hall. He was like that. Everything in its place, and no experimenting in bed. He was an administrator in charge of Linköping’s sports grounds. He was in good physical condition, in good mental balance, well-mannered… in many ways like a younger Stilton.

In many ways not.

The ways that had led her to throw herself head first into a morass of passion and chaos and finally, after eighteen years, led her to give up. And leave Stilton.

‘He wanted some private help,’ she said.

Tord still stood there by the threshold. She knew that he knew. On one level or another. What she and Stilton had had between them, she and Tord didn’t have. And that was enough to make Tord wonder. A little uncertain, she didn’t think it was jealousy. Their relationship was too stable for that. But he was wondering.

‘What do you mean, private?’

‘Does it matter?’

She felt that she was being a bit too defensive. That was stupid. She had nothing to defend. Nothing at all. Or did she? Had the meeting with Stilton affected her in a way that she hadn’t been prepared for? His dreadful physical condition? His focus? His total lack of emotion at the situation? Confronting her outside her own home? Possibly, but that was definitely not something that would reach her husband.

‘Tord, Tom decided to seek me out, I haven’t spoken to him for six years, he’s involved in something that I don’t care about, but I was obliged to hear him out.’

‘Why?

‘He’s gone now.’

‘OK. Well, I was just curious, you were on your way in and then the two of you went off. Shall we have a stir-fry for dinner?’

Stilton was sitting alone in the station café in Linköping. That was an environment in which he felt fairly comfortable. Mediocre coffee, no disapproving looks, you went in and drank your coffee and went out again. He was thinking about Marianne. And about himself. What had he expected? Six years had passed since they had last had contact with each other. Six
years of uninterrupted decline, on his part. In all respects. And her? She looked exactly the same as she did six years ago. At any rate in the half-light of that residential area. For some people, life just goes on, he thought, for others it slows down and for some it ceases completely. For him, things had started to move again. Slowly, jerkily, but more forwards than downwards.