MALICE IN MALMÖ Read online

  MALICE IN

  MALMÖ

  The sixth Inspector Anita Sundström mystery

  by TORQUIL MACLEOD

  Copyright © Torquil MacLeod

  2018

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without express written permission of the Publisher.

  Published by Torquil MacLeod Books Ltd.

  eBook edition: 2018

  ISBN 978-0-9575190-8-4

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  www.torquilmacleodbooks.com

  eBook conversion by www.eBookpartnership.com

  Also by Torquil MacLeod:

  The Malmö Mysteries:

  Meet me in Malmö

  Murder in Malmö

  Missing in Malmö

  Midnight in Malmö

  A Malmö Midwinter (novella)

  Menace in Malmö

  Jack Flyford Misadventures (Historical crime):

  Sweet Smell of Murder

  Contents

  Dedication

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51

  CHAPTER 52

  NOTES

  Acknowledgements

  About the author

  Dedication

  To Fraser and Paula, and Calum and Sarah. With love.

  PROLOGUE

  Eila knew she had been chosen because she was a girl. And pretty. It wasn't due to any great insight on her part; she was only six. Anders had told her. He knew these things because he was eight. Not that it made her feel any better. Nothing could compensate for the bewilderment and misery she had experienced at being wrenched from her home and loving parents and hastily despatched like a parcel to a foreign land. From what she could now remember, her life had been happy. Her mother and father had cared for her, though she’d sensed that they’d been behaving differently in the weeks before she’d left their small apartment. There’d been a number of hushed conversations. People called Russians were mentioned a lot. And then they appeared in the sky. And there were the peculiar and frightening sounds of wailing sirens, loud explosions and crackling fires in the buildings not far from their home. The faces of the people in the streets looked different, too. It was her first recognition of fear.

  During the nights before the awful day of her departure, lying half asleep in her tiny bedroom, she could hear her mother crying through the thin wall. Her father, who had worked in an office in the centre of the city, usually left in an aging suit after breakfast. One day, he suddenly appeared in a new uniform. Eila had been startled at first but strangely thrilled. She thought he looked ever so handsome. Not that her father seemed pleased – or proud. He wore a glum expression, which wasn't like him at all. The evening before he left, he came into her bedroom to read her a story. When he’d finished, he hugged her like he’d never done before. She thought he might be sobbing, as his shoulders heaved gently as he clasped her to his chest. After saying goodnight, he hung around the door. She could still remember his silhouette hovering there for a good few minutes. The next morning, he was gone. Her mother said he’d been called away to fight the Russians. Again, she didn't understand why these people were being so horrible and why her father had to go and fight them. When they’d gone for a walk in the park later that day, Eila had picked a yellow flower to give to her mother to try and cheer her up. It had only made her weep more. Eila felt awful because she thought she'd done something wrong.

  The night before she was taken to the big railway station with the two huge, scary figures either side of the entrance, her mother had packed a suitcase with her things in it, including her favourite doll. Eila assumed that they were going on a holiday, as they’d packed the same suitcase last summer when they’d gone to the lake. That had been fun. Her father had smiled all week, sitting at the edge of the water smoking his favourite pipe. When it came to bedtime, her mother told her to get into the big bed in her parents' room. That was exciting. She’d never done that before. She’d woken up when her mother came in. Her mother had snuggled up to her and she’d fallen asleep in her arms.

  When they got to the station, there were lots of other children of all ages gathering with their parents. She was still puzzled as to why her mother hadn't brought her own suitcase. None of the parents seemed to have suitcases – but all the children did. Eila began to panic as her mother shoved her towards the line of children.

  A large lady, who smelt of mothballs, grabbed her arm. Her mother was holding a handkerchief to her eyes and her own tears started to flow as she realized something was terribly wrong. She broke free of this woman and rushed back to her mother. They hugged tightly. ‘I’m so sorry, my darling,’ her mother kept saying over and over again. The large lady, in her bulky, hairy fur coat, looking like an ogre from one of the stories her father used to read to her, roughly prized her away. Eila was now screaming, and the large women told her to calm down and be a good girl. When she turned to call out to her mother to save her, all she could see was her back as she scurried away.

  That was over a year ago. Now she was in a place called Sweden. She was living with Anders and Isabell and their parents. It had been so hard at first. They spoke a funny, half-familiar language, but she gradually began to understand it and to speak it herself. She had been taken to the same school as Anders, where some of the other children had said horrid things to her because she was a Finn. They made the word sound as though it was a disease. They laughed at her attempts to speak Swedish. Often Anders joined in. She could feel that he wasn't happy to have her around in their grand home in the country. Eila tried to keep away from him as much as possible. Isabell was totally different. She was just a few months younger than Eila, and they played together a lot. Isabell was Eila's only friend in the world. She was sweet and blonde and had sparkling, blue eyes. Anders often reduced those beautiful eyes to tears with his nasty jokes and bullying behaviour. His parents never seemed to scold him. He was their favouri
te. His mother's favourite, anyway; Anders' father was rarely at home. He was an important businessman, and he left for work in the nearest town early each morning. Often, he was away for days on end ‘on business’. Eila couldn't understand why he wasn't fighting like her father was having to. Then again, no one seemed to talk about Russians in Sweden.

  The most exciting thing to happen in her life was a letter arriving from her mother every two or three weeks. These letters were written in Swedish so Isabell’s mother could read them out to her. Mamma always said the same thing: everything was well; her father was still away, but she was sure he would be fine. She said how much she missed her little girl, which would bring Eila to the edge of tears, though she tried not to cry in front of Isabell’s mother. Then Eila was allowed to keep the letters, though she couldn't really read them. She kept them under her pillow so that when she was asleep, she was close to her mother and father. Then one day, she found that the letters had gone. Later, she found Anders in the garden. He’d lit a small fire and Eila realized that he was burning her mother's letters. As she tried to save them, he pushed her roughly away and laughed. Isabell shouted at her brother, but he ignored her. When the flames died down, he walked off to the house, still laughing. Eila ran and hid behind the wooden summer house and curled up into an unhappy ball. How could he do such a cruel thing? Isabell found her and tried to comfort her, but Eila's sense of loss was deep. Even at six, she felt a great well of loneliness.

  Then, the terrible day. It was a month later, just after midsummer. The family had friends over for Sunday lunch, and the children were sent off to play in the garden as soon as the meal was drawing to a close. Eila remembered the flowers were at their brightest and the leaves on the trees were still at their most brilliant green. After her early life in an apartment, she’d learned to love this beautiful garden and the natural world that had only been fleetingly available to her in the park at home and her family’s annual trip to the lake. Here, she could enjoy it every day. Her hobby was pressing flowers, and Isabell eagerly helped her pick them for a while until she grew distracted and ran off to find Anders, who hadn't been in a good mood after the adults had sent them packing from the house. When Eila had finished gathering her flowers, she looked around for Isabell. The afternoon sun was hot, and she wandered over to the shade of the two old oaks in the middle of the garden. One had a tree house built into the branches with a rope ladder dangling from it. It had been made specially for Anders that spring. There was no sign of either Isabell or Anders. Then there was a heavy rustling of leaves above her head. She squinted up. The next moment, a shock of fair curls and a flailing of limbs crashed past her and hit the ground with a thump. She dropped her flowers in fright. They fluttered to the ground, and some of them wafted over the motionless form of Isabell. Eila stood rooted to the spot, unable to understand what she had just seen. Then she sank to her haunches and tentatively reached out for the strands of hair that shimmered on the green grass. She looked around helplessly. Then she felt the first hot tears of despair slipping down her cheeks.

  CHAPTER 1

  Bernt Hägg was happy with his pace. Brisk but not flat out. He prided himself on his level of fitness despite the fact that he had slipped into his fifties a month ago. He could pass for someone a lot younger, and many of his female colleagues were genuinely surprised to discover he had reached his half century. And this had pleased him ridiculously. Even more so because he felt his wife of twenty-three years no longer appreciated him as much as he thought she should. And that was another reason why he left their apartment at six every morning to do his forty-minute run; early-morning pleasantries with Petra were becoming more and more of an effort. A quick shower followed by a swift breakfast, and he was out of the family home by half past seven on his way to the office. This routine also meant he could avoid his two teenage sons before they emerged for school. He had been so keen to have a family when he’d first married. But he hadn’t factored in the probability that they would turn from lively, interesting youngsters into self-absorbed, thoughtless, slightly terrifying adolescents. They seemed to swing between listlessness and aggression, and he realized that his control over them was waning. He was no longer the centre of their world, and he felt he was becoming an unwanted appendage in their lives, until they wanted money, of course. Petra undermined his efforts to stand up to them and he invariably ended up forking out just to keep the fragile family harmony from crumbling.

  Out on the virtually empty streets of Malmö, he could escape into a world of his own; create his own rhythm. He could resurrect the dreams he’d had as a young man and pretend they could still be fulfilled – a career that mattered; a home life that fitted the mellower Sweden of his youth; even some sporting success. He’d always been a good runner and a passable handball player. In his mind, he could still be someone people looked up to. Admired even. Taken notice of at least. One day...

  The route never varied. He always aimed to cross the canal on Fersens bridge at around 6.30. And then it was only ten minutes to the entrance of his apartment block. Today was a crisp, late-March morning, and the sun was beginning to cast early shadows from the buildings he trotted past. Coming up on his left was Kungsparken. The first spots of spring colour were emerging from their winter hibernation, though it would be some weeks before the trees came to life. As a Swede, he was grateful for any signs that summer would eventually return. Bernt Hägg slowed his pace as he approached the crossroads at Regementsgatan. One car glided by before he launched himself over the road and closed in on the bridge. He glanced at his watch – 6.29. Perfect timing. As he crossed the bridge, out of habit, he glanced to his right towards Gamla Kyrkogården cemetery. Beyond the tree-lined avenues, guarding the grave stones of the great and the good of Malmö’s past, was Gustav Adolf torg. The cemetery was always deserted at this time of day as it didn’t open its gates until 7.15. Suddenly, he broke his stride, and by the time he’d reached the other end of the bridge, he’d stopped altogether. Surely he was mistaken! There was a large bundle of something on a bench next to the high hedge that encircled the maintenance area. But he could have sworn he saw it move! Though he was loath to break his routine timings, he found himself drawn back to the gate of the cemetery. He hopped over the fence and made his way carefully along the pathway. To his right were a couple of family plots surrounded by low, intricate cast-iron fencing. As he approached the bench, he could see that the bundle was wriggling. Bernt now made out a human figure, its face completely covered in a hood of some kind, its ankles bound, and its hands tied behind with black tape. The person was completely trussed up, but renewed its wriggling on hearing Bernt’s footsteps on the cinder path. A mumbling noise emerged from under the dark cloth hood, which resembled a cushion cover.

  Bernt Hägg tentatively approached the figure and carefully lifted the hood. A face appeared, the mouth covered in black gaffer tape. The frantic eyes of the man implored Bernt to peel the tape off. Bernt found his fingers shaking as he tried to find the edge of the tape. After a few seconds of fumbling, he ripped it off, and the man gave a sharp cry before gulping in the fresh air. There was something about the man that Bernt found familiar; he racked his brains but couldn’t come up with an answer.

  ‘Thanks,’ the man gasped.

  Bernt could only nod mutely. The experience was so bizarre. They weren’t going to believe this when he got to the office.

  ‘Could you untie me?’ the man said, breaking Bernt’s momentary reverie.

  ‘Sure.’ Bernt went round behind him and began to unpeel the tape that was binding his wrists together and to the back of the bench. As he was wrestling with the sticky bonds, he asked the obvious question ‘What happened?’

  ‘Kidnapped. I was kidnapped.’

  It was the voice. That smooth growl that he’d heard on television interviews. And, looking at the face that he now placed from the business magazines he’d pored over in the office, Bernt knew who the man was.

  CHAPTER 2

&nb
sp; The monotony was broken by Pontus Brodd rustling his newspaper, accompanied by a chuckle. He shook his head. ‘He’s done it again!’ There was admiration in his voice.

  Surveillance was bad enough at the best of times, but having to spend hours on end cooped up in a car with Brodd was not Inspector Anita Sundström’s idea of a fun experience. She suppressed a yawn, took off her glasses, placed them on the dashboard and rubbed the bridge of her nose. She caught herself in the rear view mirror and winced. The crow’s feet around her eyes were much more noticeable these days. And they weren’t the only lines that were causing concern. Her neck was no longer as smooth as it had been. She didn’t even want to think about everything sagging south of the shoulders. Things weren’t as firm as they used to be despite regular runs round Pildammsparken. She was feeling old. She’d be hitting fifty in a year and half. Then it was definitely downhill all the way. Sitting here in a stuffy car wasn’t improving her mood. They’d been surveilling the 1950s brick warehouse for four hours and nothing had happened. Nothing had happened yesterday, or the day before that when the supposed raid on the warehouse stuffed with lucrative electrical goods was actually meant to have taken place. The tip-off had been way off the mark. On the first night, Chief Inspector Moberg had turned up himself to oversee the operation. It had occurred to Anita that they’d been deliberately sent on a wild goose chase and that Moberg’s anonymous source was using this as a distraction while the job was happening elsewhere. Of course, this suggestion hadn’t gone down too well with Moberg, who was becoming increasingly irascible of late. His temper had always been quick to surface; now the team were constantly walking on eggshells to prevent the rumblings turning into an eruption. As it turned out, Anita’s theory hadn’t been right either. There had been no reports of any other warehouse raids. Another waste of time.

  She glanced across at Brodd. His eyes were screwed up, reading his newspaper by the light of his mobile phone. How she wished she was with her young colleague and friend, Hakim Mirza. But that had all changed six months ago. The case they’d been working on had involved slave labourers and had ended in an exchange of gunfire resulting in Hakim’s recently engaged fiancée, Liv Fogelström, receiving a bullet wound. It had left her paralysed from the waist down. Hakim had blamed Anita for Liv being at the scene of the shootout as she should have been off duty that night. Anita couldn’t escape the fact that she had instigated it, though Liv had been more than willing, and her professionalism couldn’t be faulted, saving the life of the young man she was there to protect. But that hadn’t washed with Hakim who, Anita realized, needed a scapegoat. He’d hardly spoken to her since, which made it awkward as they were serving in the same team. Now she tended to be paired with Brodd, while Hakim made it obvious he’d rather work with Klara Wallen, the fifth member of the Skåne County Criminal Investigation Squad.