Alex Gray - The Swedish Girl

‘Hello,’ Lorimer called out. ‘Are you Anders?’

The lad stood up, rubbing his hands down his jeans. Lorimer caught the tumble of blond curls and the frank open expression as the boy turned to look at him.

‘Yes, I’m Anders, who are you?’

‘Detective Superintendent Lorimer. Strathclyde Police. Can we talk?’

Anders Andersson looked him in the eye and nodded. ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘But I need to get someone to cover for me. I can’t leave the place unattended.’

He took a swift look around then beckoned to a girl at the cheese counter opposite. Although he had called out to her in Swedish, Lorimer could understand the gist of the request from their body language. Come over and let me get away for a bit, can you?

‘This is a friend from Scotland,’ Anders lied, smiling jauntily at the girl who was already behind the counter. ‘We won’t be long, Brigitte.’ And, giving her a wave, he led Lorimer away from the stall and into the mêlée of the marketplace.

‘A coffee?’ Anders asked, nodding towards one of the many seated areas that were dotted amongst the wooden-fronted shops.

‘My treat,’ Lorimer grinned. ‘Seeing as I’m an “old friend”,’ he added wryly.

Anders shrugged. ‘What did you expect me to tell her? That the cops are after me?’ The boy laughed, showing white even teeth.

They sat down at a table for two and immediately a waitress was at their side and Anders was speaking to her in his native tongue. He looked at Lorimer questioningly.

‘Want anything to eat with your coffee?’

He was about to make a polite refusal when he noticed the tempting array of cakes behind the clear plastic display counter.

‘A Danish pastry, please,’ he murmured to Anders. The waitress smiled and nodded, then disappeared to deliver their order.

‘Well, Detective Superintendent Lorimer, here I am, you found me.’ Anders gave a resigned smile.

Lorimer raised his eyebrows. ‘I was beginning to think you didn’t want to be found,’ he replied mildly.

The young man’s smile faded as he cast his eyes down. ‘Know what it’s like,’ he said. ‘You lose someone special and it’s hard to want to talk about it.’

‘Yes, but the manner of losing Eva was and still is a police matter, Anders. It would have been helpful if you hadn’t tried to avoid talking to me.’

‘But I thought you’d got someone for her murder? That boy in her flat?’

‘There are ongoing enquiries,’ Lorimer said vaguely. ‘Things we still need to determine. Especially about Eva. And that’s why I’m here: to talk to you about your relationship with her.’

Anders made a face. ‘Didn’t have a relationship,’ he mumbled.

‘Don’t give me that, son, I know all about how Magnusson threw you out of the house and gave your dad the sack.’

Anders blushed, lowering his head. ‘That was ages ago,’ he mumbled. ‘Eva and I stopped being an item shortly after that.’

‘Really? So why follow her to Glasgow if you weren’t seeing her?’

Anders shrugged. ‘Suppose I was hoping for another chance,’ he said. ‘But Eva wanted different things.’

‘Wasn’t it awkward being around her at the university?’

The boy looked him in the eye again. ‘We were just friends by then. Hung around together a bit. But no romance.’ He gave a short laugh. ‘Eva was having far too much fun with her new friends,’ he continued. ‘That lecturer for one, and then the lads in her flat. She told me all about them. Used to call me up late at night,’ he added, continuing to hold Lorimer’s gaze in a way that told the detective he was being told the truth.

‘And you weren’t jealous?’

Anders laughed again. ‘This is Eva Magnusson we’re talking about, right? The girl who could have anything she wanted?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Look, she was spoiled rotten all her life. Daddy gave her everything she could ask for.’

‘But he didn’t let her have you , did he, Anders?’

The boy shook his head and sighed. ‘You can’t blame Eva. She was enjoying her first taste of freedom from that man. What beautiful girl wouldn’t have wanted to play around a bit? And that’s all it was, really. Eva wasn’t in love with me, Superintendent. In fact, I doubt if she had ever felt what it was like to really love another soul,’ he said, his voice dropping to a murmur.

‘You make her sound cold-hearted.’

‘No! She was never that! She was a lovely girl and one day she would have found someone she could feel strongly about, I’m sure of that,’ Anders said vehemently, sudden tears springing to his large eyes.

‘And if you’d waited long enough that might have been you?’

Anders shook his head sadly. ‘I’ll never know now, will I?’

‘Tell me,’ Lorimer asked, ‘why did she keep you a secret from the rest of her flatmates?’

‘Oh, that’s easy enough,’ Anders told him. ‘There was no way she wanted Daddy finding out I was in Scotland. Besides’ — he gave a nonchalant shrug — ‘she wanted to screw these boys one after the other and having me around would’ve messed that up for her.’ He looked up at a clock behind the counter. ‘Look, I really have to get back, Brigitte isn’t going to be able to stay much longer.’ He stood up. ‘You’ve got my number, haven’t you?’

‘Yes,’ Lorimer told him, looking up at his earnest young face. ‘And you will answer if I call you, won’t you?’

Anders had the grace to blush and nod before standing up and turning to walk away.

Lorimer looked down at the table. His black coffee was cold and the pastry lay untouched on his plate. He sighed, wondering if his journey had yielded anything of importance that would help to free Colin Young or if what he had learned about Eva might simply reinforce his DI’s suspicions.

‘The table next to the vending machine,’ Sam had told him. ‘That’s where they’ll be sitting. Just go up and say “Billy says next Tuesday”.’

Colin stood with the other prisoners waiting in the cold corridor between the main prison and the annexe that held the visiting room. It was deliberately designed to disorientate the men, he had decided; a maze of narrow corridors twisting this way and that between lots of locked doors. And the visiting room itself was windowless, not allowing anyone to get their bearings at all. Despite the chill in the air he could feel sweat trickling through his hair and down the side of his face. He glanced behind him but the prison officer wasn’t looking his way so he gave the offending wetness a swipe with his sleeve.

Then the doors were opened and the men trooped into the large colourful room. Colin ignored the smile from his father who was half out of his own chair as soon as he spotted his son and headed instead as if to make a purchase from the machine that held all sorts of crisps and chocolate bars.

‘Billy says next Tuesday.’ He bent forward suddenly, whispering the words to the man and woman sitting by the machine, then, patting his pockets as though to find them empty, he turned back and strode across to his father, heart pounding, afraid to glance up at any of the officers who might have been watching his little performance.

‘Colin, how are you, son? Here, I got you some sandwiches for later.’ Alec Young pushed the packet across the table. He must have been here early, Colin thought, rushed to the front of the vending queue and back to wait for his son.

‘Well done, Dad, you’re learning.’ Colin tried to grin at his father, though he was finding it hard not to look across at the other table.

‘Well, maybe we won’t have to go through all this for much longer, son,’ Alec Young said. ‘Here, I’ve been thinking. Soon as you’re out of this place why don’t you and me and Thomas go for a wee holiday? Somewhere you can get a bit of sun about you.’