Alex Gray - The Swedish Girl

‘Brian Hastie and Anders Andersson. Names mean anything to you?’

Lorimer could see the frown between the woman’s eyebrows. But she hadn’t shaken her head.

‘Hastie, yes,’ Jo replied at last. ‘The party the Magnusson girl was at.’ Her expression cleared suddenly. ‘It was at his flat. At least, the flat he shared with another two boys. Why?’

Lorimer told her.

‘And what was it they called him?’

‘“Her puppy”,’ Lorimer said.

‘Some kind of stalker?’

Lorimer shrugged. ‘Could be. On the other hand, perhaps he was simply a lad with a crush on an exceptionally pretty girl.’

‘We took statements from all the students at that party,’ Jo told him. ‘Hastie’s will be among that file.’

‘And what about the Swedish boy?’

‘Never heard of him. Didn’t appear anywhere on our radar.’ She frowned.

‘You didn’t check the student database? According to this Strathclyde student he was a friend of Eva’s from home.’

Jo shook her head, eyebrows raised. ‘That name didn’t come up on the list Strathclyde gave us. Sorry, he’s as much a mystery to us as he seems to have been to her flatmates. Did you speak to the boys or is this just Kirsty’s version of things?’ she asked, not disguising the acerbic tone in her voice.

Lorimer nodded. ‘None of the flatmates has heard of this Swedish boy. And I’m guessing that Dirk McGregor just wants to keep his head down and hope this all goes away.’

Jo Grant raised her eyebrows. Lorimer had already told her how the Strathclyde lecturer had been adamant that he didn’t want his wife knowing about his affair with the Swedish girl.

‘Someone must have known about this Andersson lad,’ Lorimer went on. ‘And I think I might just make a call to Mr Magnusson, see if he can throw any light on it. And there’s something else, Jo, something that Kirsty let slip.’

Jo looked at him sharply, hearing the intensity of his tone.

‘It was when we were discussing how often Eva’s father visited Glasgow. She made this throwaway remark about how Henrik Magnusson could afford to come back as often as he liked seeing he had his own private jet.’

‘We didn’t know that, did we?’ Jo said slowly. ‘There was never any mention about that, was there?’

‘No.’ Lorimer’s jaw tightened. ‘Look, I know this whole case has given you a real headache but is there any chance the team can look into Magnusson’s movements around the time of his daughter’s death? Check the logs at Glasgow airport, for instance? Okay?’

The DI sighed volubly. ‘Right, sir. Anything else?’

‘No. You go home and get a decent night’s kip, Jo. You’ll need it before you face the press tomorrow.’

‘Thanks, sir, goodnight.’ Jo stood up and he watched her as she left his room, a woman on the edge of exhaustion. How many times had he been there himself? Too many, a little voice replied. Maggie would be waiting for him, something good cooked for his evening meal, he thought. What was Jo Grant going home to? A microwaved dinner or a takeaway?

He glanced at the clock to see that it was now approaching seven-thirty. Magnusson could have left his own office by now. One telephone call, that was all, Lorimer told himself, then he too would step out into the winter night and head for home.

‘Mr Magnusson, Detective Superintendent Lorimer, Strathclyde Police.’

‘Y-es?’ A single word, but the voice on the other end of the line sounded anxious.

‘Sorry to trouble you, sir, but it has come to our attention that a Swedish student called Anders Andersson was at the University of Strathclyde and we’d like to contact him.’

There was no disguising the intake of breath from Magnusson. ‘Who did you say?’ he muttered at last.

‘Anders Andersson.’

The pause that followed was just a shade too long for Lorimer’s liking before the Swedish man replied. ‘Sorry, don’t know him. Should I?’ Then, before Lorimer could reply, Magnusson added, ‘Line’s breaking up, sorry, can you hear me?’ Then there was a click and the continuous loud hum of a disconnected call.

Lorimer put down the phone, staring at the instrument as if it could tell him something. There had been no trace of static or anything else, he thought. The man had deliberately made that up and cut the connection. For a moment he wondered about redialling the number but decided against it. Still staring at the phone, Lorimer shook his head. He was experienced enough to know when someone was lying. And he was sure that Henrik Magnusson had lied about not knowing the mysterious Anders Andersson.

‘But why would he do that?’ Maggie asked, settling herself into the seat opposite her husband.

‘Don’t know,’ Lorimer replied, spooning the second helping of chicken broth into his mouth. He paused, spoon in mid-air. ‘If Eva was trying to keep the lad a secret from her father then she wouldn’t have told her flatmates about him either, would she?’

‘She didn’t want Daddy knowing her boyfriend had followed her to Scotland.’

‘Something like that, maybe.’

‘You think this Swedish boy’s the real murderer?’

Lorimer laughed. ‘Whoa! You’ve been watching too many crime dramas on the television!’

‘Well, that’s the sort of thing that makes you think, isn’t it?’ Maggie persisted. ‘Stranger in town, secret lover…’

‘Yet he wasn’t a stranger to the other students at Strathclyde, was he?’ Lorimer mused, tilting his plate and scooping up the last of Maggie’s delicious soup. ‘And according to that Geordie lad Kirsty’s been speaking to they were merely pals, not lovers at all.’

‘And he wasn’t at the student party?’

Lorimer shook his head. ‘No. There were some of Eva’s class there, and other pals of Hastie’s flatmates. Plus the three lads from Merryfield Avenue. But no Anders Andersson. We’ve got a full list of names, addresses and the particular courses the students were on.’

‘You know what, though,’ Maggie said thoughtfully. ‘If this lad was an old friend from back home, Eva would have had his mobile number, wouldn’t she?’

‘Nothing on it according to the records. It’s one of the first things that’s checked,’ Lorimer replied.

Maggie chuckled.

‘What?’

‘You have to think like a teenage girl sometimes to get inside their heads,’ she said. ‘I wonder if Eva had the same scheme going as Daisy Taylor?’

‘Who?’

‘One of my third years,’ Maggie explained. ‘Inventive wee besom when it comes down to breaking the rules, is our Daisy. Thought she had cracked the no-mobile-phones-on-school- premises policy till I found her sim card taped inside her Macbeth folder. Wee rascal had her phone going red hot at lunchtimes till then. Charged her classmates sweetly to use it, as well!’

Lorimer stroked his chin thoughtfully. Just how thorough had the scene of crime officers been in scouring Eva’s room? And was this just the sort of tiny thing he had wanted Kirsty to find? A spare sim card to keep in contact with Anders Andersson while avoiding her father’s eagle eye might answer a lot of questions.

‘Here you are, Sir.’ The cheery-faced lady handed Lorimer the plastic bag containing Eva Magnusson’s phone.

‘Just sign here, please,’ she continued, handing him a clipboard with a sheet of paper attached. There were already several names and signatures appended for this particular production: it was an essential procedure that every person examining an object taken from a crime scene had to sign his name and give the date on which the object was removed from the store. Failure to do this could have disastrous results. One careless omission from the chain might bring the weight of a defence lawyer crashing down on an unsuspecting officer, the accusation of tampering with evidence throwing an entire trial into disarray.