Лейф Перссон - Another Time, Another Life

“Yes, I heard you say that,” said Holt, “and it—”

“Although on the other hand she declined the snack later,” Mattei interrupted.

“How do you know that?” asked Holt with surprise.

“She’s crossed off the list,” said Mattei. “They had an early dinner at six o’clock,” said Mattei, “and there were eleven different participants listed of which one is attorney Helena Stein. But then cheese and fruit and red wine were served as a kind of evening snack at ten o’clock, and seven of them signed up for that. The others had to go home, I guess to take care of the kids, and one of the seven who signed up was Helena Stein.”

“But then her name is crossed out?” Holt clarified. For her own sake, she wasn’t going to get anything turned around.

“Yes,” said Mattei, “and I think she must have declined at the last minute.”

“I do too,” said Holt slowly.

“She must have been in a hurry if she was going to kill Eriksson at eight o’clock,” Mattei observed in a most unsentimental manner.

Fifteen minutes later Martinez called Holt and reported that her contact at the tech squad had called and wanted to share his findings regarding the hand towel, provided they could come to see him at the tech squad of course.

Nice to get to move a little, thought Holt, who was not accustomed to running investigations from a desk. If anyone had asked her before this strange story got going in earnest, she would certainly have said that solving a case sitting behind a desk was an impossibility. You conquered out in the field — every police officer worth the name knew that. She had never been part of an investigation that had moved with such speed and vigor while she sat in front of her PC or at her desk. We have a breakthrough, and soon we’ll be basking in police department glory. Assuming that Johansson doesn’t decide to take the credit, of course.

“Sit down, girls, and make yourselves at home,” said the colleague at tech, who had both a beer belly and an old-fashioned, courteous manner.

“Thanks,” said Holt, although she actually wanted to say something else.

“Well... let’s see now,” said their technician, pushing up his glasses on his forehead and taking out his copy of the report from the forensic lab, which was now covered with his own notes. “It’s rather amusing to be sitting here with three female colleagues in my office—”

“It’s nice that you think so,” said Holt neutrally, because she was still a chief inspector. She wanted to say something before Martinez could blurt out something less appropriate.

“Yes, considering the conclusions that I’ve drawn regarding the finds that our colleagues in Linköping SCL secured on the hand towel in question,” the colleague continued, looking shrewd.

“I don’t really understand,” said Holt.

“I’ll get to that,” said the colleague with a sober expression. “So we have vegetable and animal oils, esters, vegetable fat in solid form, traces of wax plus three different coloring agents, and in addition...”

“What he means is that the chemical stuff they found on the hand towel comes from an ordinary lipstick,” said Mattei innocently.

The meeting with the colleague from the tech squad had been brief, and in the corridor outside his office Martinez had embraced an embarrassed Mattei and kissed her right on the mouth. Then all three, giggling happily, returned to their project room.

“I had no idea you knew that kind of chemical hocus-pocus too,” said Holt, looking at Mattei. Johansson can eat his heart out, she thought. Little Mattei will soon be doing turns around him.

“I don’t,” Mattei objected. “But I did run it on the computer. There are standard programs for searching chemical finds. This one in particular is a crib sheet I swiped from the FBI.”

“This is completely insane,” said Martinez happily. “Did you see the bastard’s expression? It’s an ordinary lipstick,” Martinez imitated. “I thought our old colleague was going to freak out.”

“Oh well,” Mattei objected. “We shouldn’t be unfair. He actually has pulled out both the color of the lipstick and the most likely brand. Dark cherry red, cerise, high quality, expensive, probably French manufacture, and in any event not American, because their health laws prohibit the use of one of the coloring components. Probably Lancôme bought in France and not intended for export,” Mattei stated with the help of the technician’s handwritten notes.

And regardless of the price, it was hardly something that the blonde Jolanta would use, thought Holt, who to be on the safe side also intended to ask the cleaning lady about it.

“I think it’s high time we have a chat with our esteemed boss,” said Holt. “What do you think about that?”

Holt had to have her conversation with Johansson without the company of her closest coworkers, because both Mattei and Martinez decided they had other, better things to do.

“Shoot,” said Johansson. He leaned back in his chair and nodded encouragingly at his female chief inspector and assistant chief detective, who recounted the status of the investigation in less than five minutes.

“So, that’s the situation,” Holt concluded. And what do we do now? she wondered.

“It’s starting to lean toward our needing to have a talk with Ms. Stein, I’m afraid,” said Johansson.

“Isn’t it a little too early?” Holt objected.

“Will we get much further then?” asked Johansson. “Wouldn’t it be perfect if we could get her to deny that she ever set foot in Eriksson’s apartment?” Regardless of the fact that this is not a murder investigation we’re involved in, he thought, and besides, his best friend Bo Jarnebring and a few hand-picked colleagues of his from homicide in Stockholm could take care of that work. Nothing could be better than to solve this in such a fashion, he thought.

“I understand how you’re thinking,” said Holt. “The risk is that then she’ll suddenly remember that sometime before — but she’s not sure which day it was — she happened to stop by Eriksson’s by pure coincidence. Perhaps because she saw her cousin Tischler and he was the one who suggested it. And I can imagine that he’d be willing to swear to that.”

“Yes,” said Johansson, “but she’s going to think of that explanation sooner or later no matter what, if this gets serious.” And at least then she will have talked with her attorney, he thought.

“You’re looking for an opportunity to be rid of the whole case and send it down to Stockholm,” said Holt. Say that you aren’t, she thought.

“Yes,” said Johansson seriously, “I actually am, because this is starting to look suspiciously like something that shouldn’t be on our table anymore. But I’ve also realized that you really, really want to have a talk with Stein, so I’m willing to discuss the matter.”

“Then I have an idea,” said Holt.

As soon as Holt had left, Johansson told his secretary that under no circumstances did he want to be disturbed. Then he ordered coffee and a much too large bag of Danish pastries from a nearby bakery, and because his wife was traveling for work he had the whole afternoon and evening to himself to go through the crime scene investigation from Eriksson’s apartment and the autopsy report in peace and quiet.

When he got up from his desk a few hours later to stretch his legs, he was completely convinced that he knew what had gone on down to the slightest detail when Kjell Göran Eriksson was murdered almost ten and a half years ago.

Oh shit, thought Lars Martin Johansson, who had never really been able to come to terms with the experience of holding another person’s entire existence in his hands. Maybe I could call Jarnie. After all, he was the one who found Eriksson, he thought, and the mere idea made his mood feel lighter.