Alex Gray - The Swedish Girl

‘Hello?’ Kirsty was standing on the landing below the flat, mobile phone pressed to her ear, wondering at the unfamiliar number on the tiny screen.

‘Hello, Kirsty Wilson. It’s me, James, your new best friend.’

Her mouth arced in a smile as she listened to the Geordie accent. My new best friend, she thought gleefully.

‘Hi, James, how’s things?’ she replied, affecting a coolness that belied the sudden dryness in her mouth.

‘Oh, well, you know…’ The lad tailed off for a moment, leaving Kirsty wondering why he had rung her so quickly. ‘Completely forgot to tell you about Anders,’ he said at last.

‘Anders?’

‘Aye.’ There was a pause. ‘He hasn’t come back to uni either.’

‘Sorry, James, you’ve lost me. Who’s this Anders?’

‘Did you never meet him? That’s odd.’ James Spencer’s voice expressed surprise. ‘He was a pal of Eva’s from Stockholm. Hung about with her a lot, but they were just pals, everyone could see that. Are you sure she never had him up to the flat?’

‘James, I’ve never heard of an Anders,’ Kirsty replied firmly. ‘And there were never any Swedish boys up here. Worse luck ,’ she added in a whisper.

‘I heard that, Kirsty Wilson,’ James said reprovingly. ‘Anyhow, do you not think that’s really strange? I mean, why would she keep a friend from back home a secret from you all?’

There was silence between them as Kirsty slowly climbed the final flight of stairs to reach the front door of the flat.

Who the hell was this Anders? And why had Eva never mentioned him?

‘Does this mystery man have a second name?’ she asked.

‘Oh, aye, Anders Andersson. Dead easy one to remember, eh? Oh and the other guy, the weedy chap? His name’s Brian Hastie.’

‘Right, thanks, James,’ Kirsty said slowly, fumbling with her free hand to find the key in her coat pocket.

‘Not a problem, Kirsty Wilson.’ There was a pause as Kirsty listened, waiting for him to say more, hoping that he would.

‘Any chance of meeting up some time?’ he asked, and Kirsty grinned, liking the wee hesitation in his voice.

‘Aye, sure, just not at weekends though, cos I work. But I’m usually free on Thursdays,’ she said.

‘Great. Can I come up for you then? Take you out for a drink somewhere?’

‘Yes. Thanks. That would be great,’ she said. ‘I’ll text you the address, okay? Got to go now, bye.’

Kirsty pulled the door open, trying not to let out a whoop of excitement. A date with a nice-looking fellow! She pulled off her duffel coat and hung it on the back of her bedroom door, heart thudding unreasonably.

‘But what the heck is all this about a mysterious Swede?’ she said aloud.

And, biting her lip, Kirsty knew the first person she needed to speak to about this was Detective Superintendent Lorimer.

Lorimer stood at the front of the muster room, leaning his tall frame against a table. It was the end of the day and the officers gathered for the meeting were all looking towards DI Grant who was fixing a new photograph onto the wall behind her. He would listen to her report first, before sharing what Kirsty had told him.

‘There,’ she said, turning with a glint of triumph in her eyes. ‘Lesley Crawford as she is now.’

‘Jesus!’ someone said as they all regarded the blown-up photograph of the injured woman.

‘Aye, grim,’ someone else remarked.

‘Well she’s lucky to be alive,’ Jo said, standing to one side to let them all compare the two images of the young woman; the smiling blonde on the left and, next to it, the puffy face full of bruises and stitches, head swathed in white gauze bandages, no sign of the blond tresses that had been clipped off for emergency surgery.

‘I’m just back from the hospital,’ Jo told them. ‘She remembers her assailant quite well, as it happens. Even though she was guttered and it was dark. She can’t give us much about his height, only that he seemed taller than she was. But he was white, about twenty-five to thirty, probably dark haired, though he was wearing a hoodie.’

‘Narrows it down a bit,’ someone offered, getting a general guffaw from the room.

‘She says she can remember what his face was like,’ Jo went on, glaring at the offending officer. ‘So we’ve got our artist going up to see her tomorrow morning. Soonest we could manage,’ she said, looking at Lorimer. ‘And the hospital insisted she had to have a rest tonight.

‘So, lads and lasses, you can expect every front page in the country to carry it as soon as the artist and our victim come up with a decent image.

‘Meantime, we need to ask questions of the different hospitals and clinics to see if any of their patients have been signing themselves out in the past few weeks.’

‘Why’s that, ma’am?’ a voice asked.

‘Professor Brightman reckons that the profile of this man fits someone who has come off medication suddenly.’

‘Schizophrenic?’

‘Could be. “A sudden cessation of medication can result in dramatic behavioural changes”,’ said Jo, reading from a paper she held in her hand.

Lorimer hid a smile behind his hand. He could imagine the psychologist’s serious tone as he spoke to the detective inspector.

‘Ordinarily, patient files are completely off limits,’ Jo went on, ‘but information about someone who has been taking medication or having treatment then disappearing into the night can be given to us by the medics.’

‘And Brightman reckons it’s a nutter?’ one of the officers asked.

‘Well, what do you think?’ Jo asked sarcastically. ‘Two separate attacks on defenceless women with the same MO?’

‘Or three if you count Eva Magnusson,’ someone whispered behind their hand out of Jo Grant’s hearing. Lorimer had shared his suspicions with them that the Swedish girl’s death was part of this pattern. Rumour had it that he was angling for her murder to be investigated again in the light of the current cases and that DI Grant was less than happy about her case being stripped apart.

‘But maybe it’s just a druggie mugging them for what he can get?’ another voice piped up.

‘Fiona Travers had her wallet taken, and her iPod,’ Jo agreed, ‘but nothing of Lesley Crawford’s was missing. So we can’t assume that was the motive.’

‘Maybe the thug heard the church officer and scarpered?’

‘Perhaps,’ Jo said, and Lorimer could hear the first signs of exasperation in her voice.

‘Thanks for that, Detective Inspector Grant. And I’m sure we’re all relieved that this young woman is not only fit enough to give us information about her attacker but that she appears to be heading for a full recovery, even though that photograph might suggest otherwise,’ Lorimer said, stepping forward to stand beside Jo.

‘May I have a word?’ he added quietly.

‘Sure,’ she nodded, scooping up the papers on the table before addressing the men and women in the room once again.

‘There’s a man out there targeting a particular type of young woman. And we want to get him before he does any more damage,’ she said, trying to force herself to sound enthusiastic when she knew they were all as bone weary as herself. ‘So, let’s concentrate on finding him, okay? See you all tomorrow,’

Lorimer held the door open, watching his detective inspector as she headed towards him. Jo pushed one hand through her short dark hair and he could see that the woman was trying to stifle a yawn. She had been working for fourteen hours straight, Lorimer knew, and was at that stage of tiredness when most of her inner resources had been used up. Would his news pile even more fatigue onto those sagging shoulders? Or had his detective inspector now come to terms with the possibility that someone other than Colin Young was guilty of Eva Magnusson’s death? As Jo walked through the open doorway, he looked back at the before and after photographs of Lesley Crawford, a reminder to them all of just why they did this job. Sometimes it was a thankless task and the long winter days seemed to sap what little energy they had, but a result in this case would renew their strength, giving them the impetus that every police officer needed to deal with whatever fate threw at them.