Lars Kepler - Cop Killer

‘What does Bengtsson say?’

‘Don't know. I haven't talked to him. Two detectives from Trelleborg were out there, but he wasn't at home. Then they decided to call you in and more or less ordered me not to do anything. Didn't want me to anticipate events, as it were. Bide my time and wait for the experts. I haven't even written up a report about my talk with Signe Persson. Do you think that sounds slipshod?’

Martin Beck didn't answer.

‘I think it's pretty slipshod,’ said Allwright with a little laugh. ‘But I'm a little wary of Signe Persson. She was mixed up in the worst case I ever had. Must be five years ago. She claimed a neighbour had poisoned her cat. Made a formal complaint, so we had to investigate. Then the other old lady made a complaint against Signe Persson, because the cat had killed her budgie. We dug up the cat and sent it to Helsingborg. They couldn't find any poison. So then Signe claimed the other woman had bought two cigars at the tobacconist's and boiled them. She'd read in some magazine that if you boil cigars long enough you get nicotine crystals, which are deadly poisonous and don't leave any trace. The neighbour actually had bought two cigars, but she said they were just to offer guests and her brother had smoked them. I asked her how the cat had managed to kill the budgie, since it was always in its cage. And she claimed Signe got the damned cat to scare the budgie to death, because the bird could talk and had uttered some dreadful truths. Signe said it was quite true that the budgie had called her a whore on no fewer than five occasions. There was a police cadet here at the time who was a real go-getter, and he investigated this theory about the cigars and decided it was theoretically possible, and that if the victim was a habitual smoker then poisoning couldn't be proved. So when Signe Persson came in for the tenth or twelfth time I asked her if her cat had been a heavy smoker. After that she wouldn't even say hello to me for several years. We closed the case, and the cadet stayed home boiling cigars until they gave him the sack. Then he settled down in Eslöv and became an inventor.’

‘What did he invent?’

‘The only thing I heard about was that he applied for a patent for a potty with a luminous rim and for a nicotine detector that meowed if you dipped it in poisoned cabbage soup. That didn't work out, so he tried to rebuild it into a mechanical cat that ran on batteries.’

Allwright looked at his watch.

‘So that was point of interest number one. The bus stop. Plus the story of our witness Signe Persson and of a man who had his life ruined by a cigar-smoking cat. I must say, the thought of a case where Signe figures as the key witness does not make me happy. We'd better move on. The bus will be here pretty soon.’

He put the car in gear and looked in the rear-view mirror.

‘We've got someone behind us,’ he said. ‘A green Fiat with two men in it. They've been sitting back there ever since we stopped. Shall we show them around a little?’

‘Okay by me.’

‘Interesting to be shadowed,’ Allwright said. ‘New experience for me.’

He was driving at less than twenty miles an hour, but the other car made no attempt to pass.

‘Those buildings up there to the right, that's Domme. That's where Sigbrit Mård and Folke Bengtsson live. Do you want to drive up?’

‘Not right now. Has anyone done a proper crime lab job up there?’

‘At Sigbrit's? No, I can't say we have. We were there and had a look around, and I took that picture off the wall above her bed. And I suppose we left some fingerprints here and there.’

‘If she were dead …’

Martin Beck stopped himself. It was a fairly stupid question.

‘And if I had killed her, what would I do with the body? I've thought about that myself. But there are just too many possibilities. Lots of marl pits and tumbledown old houses. And shacks and sheds. A long coastline on the Baltic, empty summer cottages. Woods and acres of storm debris and thickets and ditches and every other damned thing.’

‘Woods?’

‘Yes, up by Börringe Lake. The police used to have a pistol match up there every year in a clearing on the east shore. Since the storm in sixty-eight, it's such a mess up there you couldn't get in with a tank. It'll take a hundred years to get rid of the debris. Besides…By the way, there's a map in the glove compartment.’

Martin Beck took out the map and unfolded it.

‘We're in Alstad now, on Route 101 heading for Malmö. You can get your bearings from that.’

‘Are you planning to drive this slowly all the way?’

‘No. Jesus! Pure absentmindedness. Just wanted to be sure we didn't lose those hotshots behind us.’

Allwright swung off to the right. The green car followed.

‘Now we've left the Anderslöv police district,’ he said. ‘But we'll be right back in it.’

‘What were you going to say a minute ago? Besides…what?’

‘Oh yes. Besides, it's the general belief that Sigbrit Mård was picked up by someone in a car. There's even a witness who says so. If you look at the map you'll see there are three major roads through the district. The old Main Road, which we just left; Route 10, which follows the coast from Trelleborg to Ystad and then goes on all the way to Simrishamn, and, in addition, a section of the new European Route 14, which connects with the ferry from Poland in Ystad and then runs on through Malmö and God knows where all. And on top of that we've got a network of back roads that probably doesn't have its equal anywhere else in the country.’

‘So I see,’ said Martin Beck.

True to form, he was beginning to get carsick.

It did not, however, prevent him from studying the landscape they were travelling through. He had never been in this part of the country before and didn't know much more about it than what he remembered from old Edvard Persson movies. The plains of Skåne have a soft, rolling beauty. This was more than a populous rural idyll, it was a singular piece of countryside with a kind of inherent harmony.

He suddenly remembered a disconnected sentence from the general chorus of complaints about conditions in the country. ‘Sweden's a rotten country, but it's a very pretty rotten country.’ Someone had said that or written it, but he couldn't remember who.

Allwright went on talking.

‘The Anderslöv district is a bit unusual. When we're not pushing paper, we're mostly concerned with traffic. For example, we put fifty thousand miles a year on the patrol car. We've got about a thousand people in town and maybe ten thousand in the whole district. But we've got over fifteen miles of beach, and in the summer the population grows to over thirty thousand. So you can imagine how many buildings are standing empty at this time of year. Now so far I'm talking about people we know, and pretty much know where we can find them. But I'd estimate there's another five to six thousand people we don't have any check on at all, people who live in old houses or caravans and then move away and other people take their place.’

Martin Beck turned to look at an unusually pretty whitewashed church. Allwright followed his gaze.

‘Dalköpinge,’ he said. ‘If you're interested in picturesque churches, I can supply at least thirty of them. In the whole district, of course.’

They came to the coast road and turned east. The sea was calm and greyish-blue. Freighters stood along the horizon.

‘What I mean is, if Sigbrit's dead, there are several hundred places she might be. And if someone gave her a ride, Folke or someone else, then there's a pretty good chance she's not in this district at all. In that case, the possibilities are in the thousands.’

He looked out over the coastal landscape and said, ‘Magnificent, isn't it?’