Linkoping. The forest around the cottage opens up to give space for a field that looks more like a large vegetable patch. They’ve stopped on their way back to the city, something inside Malin told her that they ought to talk to the person living there, that they shouldn’t leave it to the uniforms.
‘The dog will be OK.’
Malin has one hand on the car door.
But before she can open it the cottage door flies open.
Malin jerks back. Zeke throws himself down, already outside. The barrel of a shotgun is pointing right at them, and behind it stands a short, grey-haired old woman.
‘So who are you?’ she croaks in a hoarse voice.
Malin backs away a bit further, and from the corner of her eye she can see Zeke feeling for his pistol.
‘Easy, easy,’ Malin says. ‘We’re from the police. Let me show you my ID.’
The old woman looks at Malin.
Seems to recognise her.
Lowers the gun.
Says: ‘I recognise you from the local news. Come in. Sorry about the gun, but you never know what you’re going to get around here.’
Inside the car the dog has started barking again.
‘Hang your coats in the hall. Coffee? It’s lunchtime, but I haven’t got anything to offer you.’
The old woman, who’s just introduced herself as Linnea Sjostedt, leads them into the kitchen.
The way she walks makes me look like an invalid, Malin thinks, the thought of lunch making her feel sick.
The old woman puts the shotgun down on a rustic table standing on a yellow and green, almost certainly home-woven, rag-rug. An old Husqvarna stove. Collectable plates on the walls.
An old person’s smell, sour but not unpleasant, and a strong sense that time will have its due, no matter what anyone might want.
‘Sit yourselves down.’
For the old woman the business with the shotgun is already long forgotten, but Malin can still feel the adrenalin pumping in her veins, and Zeke’s clothes are wet from the grass he landed on. They watch her put an old-fashioned coffeepot on the stove and take out some blue-flowered cups.
‘You can’t go around pointing guns at people like that,’ Zeke says as he sits down.
‘Like I said, you never know what you’re going to get around here.’
Uncomfortable ladder-backed chairs, hard on the backside.
‘Do you mean anything in particular?’ Malin asks.
‘Who knows what evil might come up with. Something must have happened, seeing as you’re here.’
‘Yes,’ Malin says. ‘Jerry Petersson, the new owner of Skogsa, has been found dead.’
Linnea Sjostedt nods.
‘Murdered?’
‘We believe so,’ Zeke replies.
‘That doesn’t surprise me,’ the old woman says, pouring out the coffee.‘I haven’t got any cake. It makes me fat.’
‘So we’re wondering if you saw anything unusual yesterday, or last night, or this morning. Or anything else you thought was odd recently?’
‘This morning,’ Linnea says, ‘I saw Johansson and Lindman heading towards the castle. It must have been about half past seven.’
Malin nods.
‘Anything else?’
Malin takes a sip of the coffee.
Boiled coffee.
So strong it makes the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.
‘Sometimes, when you’re as old as I am,’ Linnea Sjostedt says, ‘you don’t always know if you’re dreaming or if what you see or think you see has really happened. I’m sure about Johansson and Lindman, because I’d already had my first cup of coffee by then, but could I have seen something before that? I’m not sure.’
‘So you did see something before that, Linnea?’
Malin is making an effort to sound serious. As if dreams really did exist.
‘Well, I think I saw a black car driving towards the castle at the crack of dawn. But I’m not sure. Sometimes I dream that I’ve got up, and this could have been one of those dreams.’
‘A black car?’
Linnea Sjostedt nods.
‘Any particular make or model?’
‘Maybe an estate car. It was big. I’ve never paid any attention to makes of cars.’
‘Do you rent this cottage from the estate?’ Malin asks.
‘No, thank heavens, my father bought it from the Fagelsjos in the fifties. I moved in twenty years ago when my father passed away.’
‘What about Petersson, what do you know about him?’
‘He called and introduced himself. Nice young man, even if he probably wasn’t always as nice as that. All that business with Goldman and so on.’
‘Goldman?’
‘Yes, Jochen Goldman. The one who conned all that money out of that financial firm up in Stockholm, several hundred million, then fled abroad. They’re supposed to have worked together. I read about it on the Net. Don’t you know anything, officers? That Goldman’s supposed to be a really nasty piece of work.’
‘Nasty?’ Malin asks.
Linnea Sjostedt doesn’t answer, just shakes her head slowly.
Embarrassing, Malin thinks. Put to rights by an eighty-year-old woman. But she was right, Goldman did feature in the article in the
But she remembers Jochen Goldman. How he emptied a listed company of money with the help of some French count, how he’s spent ten years on the run, getting loads of media attention, publishing books about his life evading the law, until now; for the past year or so, his crimes can no longer be tried thanks to the statute of limitations.
And none of them remembered the connection between the financial crook and their victim during their meeting in the castle?
Strange. But presumably their detective brains hadn’t woken up properly by then. Just as foggy as this autumn weather.
Irritated, Malin asks: ‘What were you doing last night and this morning?’
‘Inspector, do you really think I had anything to do with Petersson’s demise?’
‘I don’t think anything,’ Malin says. ‘Just answer the question, please.’
‘I got home at about four o’clock this morning. With Linkoping Taxis, so you can check that. I spent last night with my lover, Anton, he lives in Valla. You can have his number as well.’
‘Thank you,’ Zeke says, ‘but I don’t think that will be necessary. Is there anything else you think we ought to know?’
The old woman’s eyes sparkle.
She opens her mouth to say something, but changes her mind before any words pass her lips.
Zeke is about to start the car. He’s just patted the dog’s head, talking to it, calming it down, settling it back down on the floor again. It doesn’t seem to want to look at the forest and fields.
My brain isn’t working properly, Malin thinks.
It wants more drink.
Goldman.
One of the biggest fraud cases in Swedish history, and he managed to stay hidden until the time limit for charges being pressed had elapsed.
