The Disappeared (34 page)

‘We found it in an area that was being excavated in Midsommarkransen,’ she said.

Helena raised her eyebrows.

‘Excavated?’

‘I’m sure you’ve heard about it on the news,’ Peder said. ‘The body of a young woman was found there at the beginning of last week. Her name was Rebecca Trolle.’

Helena leaned back in her chair.

‘You found a man’s body too.’

‘Yes, and unfortunately we haven’t been able to identify him so far,’ Peder said. ‘But we found this watch a short distance away from him, and we believe it was buried at the same time.’

He spoke quietly and in a matter-of-fact tone.

‘And you think the watch might have belonged to this man?’

‘Yes,’ Fredrika said.

Helena Hjort weighed the watch in her hand; she seemed to disappear to a place where she was no longer accessible. The watch had brought back memories, and Peder no longer had any doubt that she was the one who had bought it.

‘I bought it in 1979,’ she said. ‘For my husband, Elias Hjort. It was a present for his fiftieth birthday. We had a big party in our apartment; lots of people came.’

Helena got up and fetched a photograph album. Peder watched the way she moved; she was a lot more supple than most of the eighty-year-olds he had met.

She put down the album in front of Peder and Fredrika, showing them a picture of her husband Elias on his fiftieth birthday. A tall, imposing man with a forbidding expression. The watch was on his wrist.

‘Elias was always a melancholy soul, all the way through our marriage. Perhaps it was the fact that we didn’t have children, but I think he suffered from depression as well. In those days, things were very different when it came to psychiatry; you didn’t seek help because you were feeling low. You just gritted your teeth and carried on.’

Peder looked at the photograph of Elias Hjort; he felt as if he recognised him.

‘What did he do?’

‘He was a solicitor.’

It looked as if Helena had intended to say something else, but decided to keep quiet.

‘Where is he living now?’ Peder asked.

Helena gazed at the watch, still in her hand.

‘He moved to Switzerland in 1981, the year after our divorce went through.’

She raised her head and looked Peder straight in the eye.

‘But you think it’s his body you’ve found in Midsommarkransen, don’t you?’

‘We think so, but we’re not sure. Now we have a name for the recipient of the watch, we hope to be able to confirm his identity with the help of dental records.’

Helena put down the watch, a thoughtful expression on her face. She didn’t seem upset: Had she already had an idea that he had never emigrated at all?

‘Did you have any contact after he moved to Switzerland?’ Fredrika asked, as if she could read Peder’s mind.

‘No,’ said Helena. ‘No, we didn’t. We didn’t have any contact at all, in fact.’

‘When was the last time you saw him?’

‘February 1981. He came to see me in our old apartment and told me he was moving abroad.’

‘Did that surprise you?’

‘Of course it did. He’d never even mentioned it before.’

‘Did he say why he was moving?’

A smile flitted across Helena’s face, disappearing so quickly that Peder wasn’t sure if he’d really seen it.

‘No, he didn’t. And we had no contact after that, as I said.’

Fredrika straightened up, rested her hands on her knees and reflected in silence on what she had learned about the couple’s marriage from the police database.

‘Isn’t that a little odd? I mean, you were married for over twenty years, after all. Did he never come back to Stockholm? Didn’t you write to one another?’

Helena grew pensive.

‘I’m not sure I find it acceptable that I should have to defend the fact that I had no contact with my ex-husband after he left the country. We didn’t have all that much contact after the divorce, while he was still living in Stockholm. I think we both felt we needed a clean break.’

But why did a couple who had been married for over twenty years suddenly decide to get a divorce? What could cause such a split that there was no further communication? Peder thought of Ylva and their temporary separation. If it hadn’t been for the boys, would they have broken off all contact? He didn’t think so.

‘Why did you divorce?’ he asked, hoping the question was neither too direct nor insensitive.

‘For several reasons. We no longer had any common interests or shared values.’ She hesitated. ‘Over the years he developed a lifestyle and an attitude to life that I didn’t wish to be a part of.’

‘Were you the one who instigated the divorce?’ Fredrika asked.

‘Yes.’

Peder sensed that Helena was getting impatient; she had had enough of their personal questions. He changed direction.

‘Did Elias have any enemies?’

Helena brushed a hair from the leg of her trousers.

‘None that I know of.’

‘We’re asking because he was a solicitor,’ Fredrika explained. ‘Perhaps he upset one of his clients?’

‘Who killed him and buried him in Midsommarkransen?’

Fredrika didn’t respond.

‘No,’ Helena said. ‘I don’t think he had any enemies like that.’

‘Was he part of a larger firm, or did he have his own practice?’

‘He worked on his own; he had no colleagues.’

‘Did you have any mutual friends who might have been in touch with him after he left Stockholm?’

Helena shook her head.

‘I couldn’t say. Our mutual friends turned out to be his friends after the divorce,’ she said drily. ‘But while we were married, he was something of a recluse; perhaps our mutual friends weren’t really friends at all.’

Peder saw Fredrika make a note on the pad she always carried with her. They had only one question left.

‘Rebecca Trolle,’ he said. ‘Have you ever met her?’

For the first time he got a reaction from Helena.

‘The girl who was found dead? No, definitely not.’

‘Are you quite sure?’ Fredrika asked.

‘Quite sure.’

There was no hesitation in either the tone of her voice or her choice of words, unfortunately. Something was niggling away at Peder; he couldn’t for the life of him think why he recognised Elias Hjort.

‘In that case, we won’t disturb you any longer,’ he said. ‘Could we possibly take one of these pictures of Elias with us?’

When they got back to HQ, Fredrika headed for her office while Peder went to see Alex. He wanted to discuss Spencer Lagergren, to find out how they were going to divide up the rest of the working day. Fredrika saw where he was going and followed him.

‘I was just going to discuss something with Alex,’ Peder said. He stopped, not wanting her to go with him.

He saw the change in her expression. She had looked tired and worried before they went to see Helena; but during their visit, she had brightened up considerably. But now, that brightness faded once more. Peder knew she must be wondering about all these meetings that were suddenly taking place behind closed doors.

‘What?’

‘Just something we talked about earlier.’

Peder felt under so much pressure that fear almost spilled over into irritation. It was a reflex defence mechanism, and his therapist had told him he must work to stop it happening.

‘Something that I and the rest of the team are not allowed to share?’

Peder didn’t know what to say.

Fredrika’s eyes suddenly shone with tears. She had had enough.

‘Is it to do with Spencer?’

Peder stiffened. He raised his head and met her gaze.

Alex had heard their voices and came out into the corridor. He looked from one to the other.

‘Has something happened?’

‘That’s exactly what I’m wondering,’ Fredrika said.

In the tense silence that followed, Peder finally realised where he had seen Elias Hjort before.

‘Elias Hjort was a member of Thea Aldrin’s film club.’

44

It could of course be a figment of her imagination, but Thea had the distinct feeling that she was being watched. She peered discreetly out of the window, trying to see who was moving around out there. It could be one of the young people from the assisted living project across the garden. If that was the case, she would feel much calmer.

The memory of Torbjörn Ross’s visit still lingered, almost as palpable as a smell. He had changed; he was more driven than he used to be. It was as if everything had been ramped up several notches, become more of a strain.

Why couldn’t he just let go, leave everything alone?

Thea had never understood how Rebecca Trolle had managed to get so far with her research. She had, of course, not managed to go all the way, but she had got close enough. At first she had just talked about
Mercury
and
Asteroid
, about Box, the firm responsible for their publication, and about the film club. She would have been able to read up on all that in old newspapers.

But then she had begun to talk about the unmentionable. About the film and the police investigation. About Elias Hjort. And that was when Thea had realised the girl was in trouble.

Elias Hjort, the stupid solicitor who hadn’t done a single thing right in his entire life. Who had not carried out the task with which Thea had entrusted him, but had tried to use it to his own advantage instead. Thea was certain it was his body the police had found in Midsommarkransen. They should have identified him by now, worked out who he was and what role he had played in the drama that was still claiming its victims thirty years on. Her thoughts turned to Helena, Elias’s wife, who deserved better. They could have been good friends, Thea and Helena, if only Helena hadn’t l listened to gossip and started to imagine things.

The film club had been Morgan Axberger’s idea, in spite of the fact that the media claimed at an early stage that it had been Thea’s. He was right in the middle of his delayed teenage rebellion, and was more eccentric than all the rest of them put together. Thea recalled that her first impression of him had been positive. He was one of the few who didn’t condemn the fact that Thea and Manfred wanted nothing to do with the institution of marriage, and that they intended to bring a child into the world without getting married.

‘What’s important to one person is of no importance to another,’ Morgan had said.

It was Morgan who recruited Elias into the film club. And then Spencer Lagergren. Spencer had always been too young, in Thea’s opinion. He wasn’t rich enough to catch up with the others. He was bright – sometimes brilliant – but far too inexperienced to bring anything of value to their discussions. Besides which, Morgan and Elias thought he drank too little.

Thea sighed, wishing all those old memories would go away.

She got up and switched on the TV; she wanted to watch the lunchtime news. The police had confirmed the rumours: another body had been discovered. They were not prepared to give any details regarding age or gender. Thea followed the story, wide-eyed. How long would it take before they worked out how everything hung together?

She felt sick as she thought about the latest body that had been dug up. If she had been younger she would have felt embarrassment and revulsion over what would now be revealed about her past, but she was over seventy, and couldn’t have cared less. The only thing that bothered her was her son.

However, if they hadn’t managed to find him in thirty years, there was no reason to believe they would find him now.

45

They couldn’t deal with everything at once, even if that would have been desirable. The realisation was painful, and Alex was finding it almost impossible to prioritise. In the end, he decided it was high time to prepare to question Valter Lund, but first he wanted Spencer Lagergren brought in so that they could find out once and for all what the man knew, and eliminate him from their inquiries. Now that they had found another body and identified the man with the gold watch, Spencer was no longer so interesting. In spite of his connection with the film club, he was too young; he hadn’t been a member for long enough. However, he still had to be questioned.

Alex had a serious conversation with Fredrika on the matter.

‘You withheld information,’ he said. ‘That’s professional misconduct. I could have you out of here like that.’

He clicked his fingers.

‘I didn’t withhold anything,’ she said. ‘I chose to save us from following yet another lead, if Spencer had nothing to do with all this.’

‘And how were you planning on finding out whether he had anything to do with it or not?’

Fredrika hadn’t been able to come up with an answer to that question, so their conversation was quite short.

‘What are you going to do?’ she asked.

Her expression was anxious; no doubt she was terrified of losing her job.

‘I ought to report you,’ Alex said. ‘But unfortunately, I can’t afford to lose a member of the team who is more or less brilliant the rest of the time.’

That had come from the heart, and his words went straight to Fredrika’s heart in turn. She was, however, removed from any further contact with Spencer Lagergren as far as the investigation was concerned.

‘You are not to call home and tell him about this,’ Alex said, stressing every word. ‘You carry on working on your other tasks, and Peder and I will take care of Spencer as soon as possible.’

‘Saga,’ Fredrika said.

‘I’ll let you know when we’re going to bring him in,’ Alex said. ‘You can go home and look after her for as long as necessary.’

That had been Alex’s intention before lunch, when he still believed that time was on his side. But as two o’clock approached and they started trying to track down Spencer Lagergren to ask him to come to the police station straight away, it proved impossible to get hold of him. His mobile was switched off, and no one answered the door when they sent a patrol car to Fredrika and Spencer’s apartment.

For some reason, Spencer’s silence worried Alex. He couldn’t shake off the feeling that he had missed something obvious, and he couldn’t settle. He didn’t really want to ask Fredrika if she knew where Spencer might have gone.