‘Where’s Erica?’ asked Martin, looking around.
‘Hmm?’ said Patrik absentmindedly. ‘Oh, she left for the library a couple of hours ago. More research for her new book.’
‘I see,’ said Martin. Then he went back to entertaining Maja so that Patrik could read through everything undisturbed.
‘So you think Erica is right?’ he asked at last, looking up. ‘You agree that there may be a connection between the two murders?’
Martin paused for a moment before nodding. ‘Yes, I do. I don’t yet have any concrete proof, but if you’re asking me what I think, I have to say that I’m practically convinced there’s a connection.’
Patrik nodded. ‘Well, it’s undeniably a strange coincidence.’ He stretched out his legs. ‘Have you asked Axel Frankel and Frans Ringholm about the phone calls they received from Britta and Herman’s house?’
‘No, not yet.’ Martin shook his head. ‘I wanted to talk to you first, make sure I wasn’t crazy because I’m looking for some other solution when we actually have a suspect who has confessed.’
‘Her husband, right…’ said Patrik. ‘The question is: why would he say that he killed her if he didn’t do it?’
‘I have no idea. Maybe to protect somebody else?’ Martin shrugged.
‘Hmm…’ Patrik continued leafing through the documents on the coffee table.
‘What about the investigation of Erik’s murder? Are you making any progress?’
‘Well, I wouldn’t exactly call it progress,’ said Martin, sounding discouraged as he bounced Maja on his knee. ‘Paula is working on finding out more about Sweden’s Friends, and we’ve talked to all the neighbours, but no one remembers seeing anything out of the ordinary. The Frankel house is in such a secluded location that we didn’t really have much hope that anyone would have noticed anything, and unfortunately that seems to be the case. Otherwise, that’s all we have.’ He pointed to the documents spread out like a fan on the table in front of Patrik.
‘What about Erik’s finances?’ He shuffled through the papers, pulling out some from the very bottom. ‘Anything seem odd?’
‘No, not really. Mostly just the usual bill payments, some small withdrawals, that sort of thing.’
‘No large sums moved in or out?’ Patrik studied the columns of figures.
‘No. The only thing that caught our eye was a monthly transfer that Erik made. The bank says that he’d been making the transfer payments regularly for almost fifty years.’
Patrik gave a start and stared at Martin. ‘Fifty years? Did he transfer the money to a person or a company?’
‘A private individual in Goteborg, apparently. The name is on one of the pieces of paper in the folder,’ said Martin. ‘We’re not talking large sums of money. Of course, the amounts increased over the years, but the most recent payments were around two thousand kronor, and that doesn’t sound like anything major. I mean, it couldn’t be blackmail or anything like that, because who would keep making payments for fifty years?’
Martin could hear how lame that sounded, and he felt like slapping his hand to his forehead. He should have checked up on those transfers. Well, better late than never. ‘I can call him today and find out what it was about,’ he said, moving Maja on to his other knee.
Patrik was silent for a moment. Then he said, ‘You know what? I need to get out of the house and take a drive.’ He opened the case file and took out the piece of paper. ‘Wilhelm Friden. Apparently he’s the one who received the money. I can go over there tomorrow and talk with him in person. This address -’ he waved the piece of paper – ‘is it current?’
‘Yes, that’s the address I got from the bank. So it should be up to date,’ said Martin.
‘Good. I’ll go over there tomorrow. It may be a sensitive matter, so I think that would be better than phoning.’
‘Okay. If you’re willing to do that, I’d be really grateful,’ said Martin. ‘What about…?’ He pointed at Maja.
‘I can take her with me,’ said Patrik, giving his daughter a big smile. ‘Then we can drop by and see Aunt Lotta and the cousins too, all right, sweetheart? It’ll be fun to see your cousins.’
Maja gurgled in agreement and clapped her hands.
‘Could I keep this for a few days?’ asked Patrik, pointing at the folder. Martin paused to think about it. He had copies of most of the documents, so it shouldn’t be a problem.
‘Okay, keep it. And let me know if you discover anything else that you think we should look into. While you’re checking on things in Goteborg, I’ll have a talk with Frans and Axel to find out why Britta or Herman phoned them.’
‘Let’s not ask Axel about the payments for the time being. Not until I have a little more information.’
‘Of course.’
‘Don’t be discouraged,’ said Patrik as he and Maja walked Martin to the door to say goodbye. ‘You know from experience how it goes. Sooner or later a little piece will slide into place and end up solving the whole puzzle.’
‘Sure, I know that,’ said Martin, but he didn’t sound convinced. ‘I just think that it’s a hell of a time for you to be on leave right now. We could have used your help.’ He smiled to take away the sting of his words.
‘Believe me, you’ll be in the same boat someday. And when you’re washing nappies, I’ll be back at the station, working my head off.’ Patrik winked at Martin before closing the door behind him.
‘So, we’re off to Goteborg tomorrow, you and I,’ he said to Maja, dancing around with his daughter in his arms.
‘We just have to sell the idea to your mother first.’
Maja nodded her agreement.
Paula felt exhausted. Exhausted and disgusted. She’d been surfing the Internet for hours, looking for information about Swedish neo-Nazi organizations, and Sweden’s Friends in particular. It still seemed likely that they’d had something to do with Erik Frankel’s death, but the problem was that the police had nothing concrete to go on. They hadn’t found any threatening letters. All they had were the hints in the letters from Frans Ringholm, saying that Sweden’s Friends didn’t appreciate Erik’s activities and that Frans could no longer shield him from these forces. Nor was there any technical evidence linking any of them to the crime scene. All the board members had voluntarily, albeit without disguising their contempt, provided their fingerprints, with the kind assistance of the police in Uddevalla. But the National Crime Lab had concluded there were no matches with any of the fingerprints found in the Frankel library. The matter of alibis hadn’t given them any leads either. None of the board members could offer an airtight alibi, but most had one that wouldn’t be worth challenging unless the police found evidence that pointed in their direction. Several of them had confirmed that Frans had been visiting a sister organization in Denmark during the relevant days, and that gave him an alibi too. Another problem was that the organization was so big, much bigger than Paula had imagined, and they couldn’t very well check up on the alibis and take fingerprints of everyone associated with Sweden’s Friends. That was why they had decided, for the time being, to focus their attention on the board members. But so far without results.
Annoyed, Paula continued her search on the Internet. Where did all these people come from? And where did their hatred come from? She could understand hatred that was directed at specific individuals, at people who had wronged them in some way. But to hate others simply because they were from a different country, or because of the colour of their skin? No, she just didn’t get it.
She herself hated the thugs who had murdered her father. Hated them so much that she wouldn’t hesitate to kill them if she ever had the chance, assuming they were still alive. But her hatred stopped there, even though it could have reached upwards, outwards, expanded further. She had refused to succumb to that much hatred. Instead, she had limited her animosity to the men who held the guns that fired the bullets into her father’s body. If she hadn’t limited her hatred, it would have eventually made her hate her native country. And how could she do that? How could she hate the country where she’d been born, where she’d taken her first steps, where she’d played with friends, sat on her grandmother’s lap, listened to songs in the evening, and danced at fiestas? How could she hate all that?
But these people… She scrolled down, reading one column after another proclaiming that people like herself should be eradicated, or at least sent back to their home-lands. And there were pictures. Plenty of them from Nazi Germany, of course. The black-and-white photos that she’d seen so many times before – the heaps of naked, emaciated bodies that had been tossed aside like trash after the people had died in the concentration camps. Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Dachau… all the names that were so horribly familiar, for ever associated with the worst
