Stone Coffin Part 39

"What do you mean by dragging my poor mother into this? It's unbelievable. You're capable of anything, aren't you."

"Your mother came of her own free will," Lindell said calmly.

"You don't have anything to do with this, do you?" he asked and turned to his mother.

She looked at him with a pitying gaze. "You could use a little help," she said. "You always have."

"He isn't very strong," she went on, and for some reason turned to Riis, who was leaning against the wall. "To lose two of your best friends isn't easy."

"You mean Sven-Erik and Josefin?" Lindell said.

"Josefin." Mortensen's mother snorted. "There was never much to that woman. I couldn't for the life of me understand why you were once interested in her. No, I mean Gabriella."

Mortensen raised his eyes and stared at his mother.

"Did you know Gabriella?" Lindell asked.

The mother stared at Lindell.

"Know her? Of course. She and Plle have been best friends since they were little."

There was hushed silence. Jack Mortensen stared at the floor.

"Who is Plle?" Lindell asked.

"My son, Jack," his mother said. "We've called him Plle ever since he was little. He and Gabriella were inseparable when they were little. We were neighbors in Simrishamn for at least ten years. Look at Plle's teeth! It was Gabriella's father who straightened them so nicely. Before that, he looked like a rabbit."

She stopped suddenly. Mortensen was shaking.

"What is it?" his mother asked, and now for the first time Lindell heard a softer tone in her voice.

Everyone looked at Jack "Plle" Mortensen. He sat with hands raised in front of his face, sobbing.

"Plle, what is it?" his mother repeated and placed her hand on his arm.

"Let go of me, you old b.i.t.c.h," he yelled and jumped up from the chair.

Riis reacted in a flash, throwing himself forward and grabbing Mortensen.

"Calm down," Riis said in low voice but with a smile on his lips. Lindell saw his muscles tense up under his shirt. Mortensen's mother sat completely frozen.

"Sit down," Lindell ordered.

Riis lightened his grip and Mortensen sank heavily and helplessly back in the chair.

"You knew Gabriella well, something that you denied earlier."

Mortensen let out a sob. His mother stared at him in disbelief.

"You did go there that night, didn't you?" Lindell asked again.

He said nothing, staring down at the floor. Beads of sweat formed on his brow. Lindell shot Haver a look.

"Answer them," Mrs. Mortensen said. "What's the point of denying that you knew Gabriella."

Mortensen's cheeks twitched. Riis stood behind him, prepared to jump in.

"I did know Gabriella," Mortensen said hoa.r.s.ely. "I liked her very much."

His mother stared at him with an astonishment mingled with what Lindell took to be disgust, an impression underscored by her aristocratic appearance. She was watching her son being interrogated by the police as well as suffering inner anguish, and her facial expression indicated no empathy.

"I liked her," he repeated and looked at his mother. "You didn't know that. There's so much you don't know."

Mrs. Mortensen was about to say something, but Mortensen gestured for her to keep quiet and continued.

"She lied to me. She told me when she became a widow that she would never be with another man."

"You knew that she and Cederen had a relationship?" Lindell asked.

Mortensen turned to her with what appeared to be a great effort. His labored movements matched the slowness with which the words were leaving his mouth. She had seen this before, the paralysis that came over some people in stressful situations where lying was no longer an option. They slowed to quarter speed, and it could be incredibly frustrating for an interrogator who wanted to hasten toward their goal, but Lindell knew to remain patient.

"Yes," he said finally, "of course I did. I came across them, saw them in Stockholm by chance."

His mother laughed unexpectedly.

"Poor Plle," she said. "First Josefin and then Gabriella."

"Shut up," Mortensen said harshly, and she looked as if she had been struck in the face.

"Did you go to her on June twenty-ninth?"

Lindell put her question to him in a low voice. Mortensen nodded.

"Can you please answer so that I have it on tape?"

Mortensen smiled sarcastically, leaned over the desk, and clearly enunciated "yes." Then he shut his eyes and fell back against the chair.

"Did you fight?"

"Answer her," said Mrs. Mortensen, who appeared to have recovered.

"Get rid of her!" Mortensen screamed and pointed to the door.

"It may be best if you wait outside," Lindell said and turned to Mrs. Mortensen, who got to her feet without a word. Large patches of sweat had appeared under the armpits of her light-colored summer dress. She stared icily at her son.

"You d.a.m.n devil-b.i.t.c.h!" Mortensen screeched. "You have always ruined everything. Your f.u.c.king textiles that no one cares about. Who is interested in rags? And your d.a.m.ned breakfast rolls that you come in with every morning. Just to check on what I'm doing. You hated Gabriella and you hated Josefin. You stuck your nose into my business, talked s.h.i.t, and schemed."

He sank down, and the silence felt like an icy wind flowing through the room. Lindell saw Riis start to hold out his hand as if to place it on Mortensen's shoulder, but he stopped himself. She had the impression that he felt a certain sympathy for Mortensen. She, on the other hand, simply felt drained by the emotional turbulence in the room. Forty years of acc.u.mulated hatred that had been held in check by nothing but a kind of dependence. Mrs. Mortensen had taken advantage of his weak personality and bent him according to her wishes. Now he was striking back.

"f.u.c.k it," he said and banged his right hand on his knee repeatedly as if he had realized that he had spoken up too late-much too late.

"You poor thing," she said before she left the room, followed by Riis, who stopped in the doorway and gave Lindell an approving look.

As soon as the door closed, Mortensen launched into his confession. He had driven out to the cottage on the evening of the twenty-ninth. Gabriella had again been threatening to go public with the truth about MedForsk's illegal experimentation. She had hesitated because she hadn't wanted to smear Cederen's memory, but she had decided to tell the police everything.

"And she died because she wanted the truth to come out?" Lindell asked.

"She hated me," Mortensen said quietly. "She accused me of Sven-Erik's death."

"But you weren't guilty of his death."

"I wanted to support her after he died. She was alone again. But all she did was go on and on about Sven-Erik and the experiments. I thought she liked me."

He paused and looked down at his hands. His breath was the only sound in the room.

"We knew each other so well!" he exclaimed suddenly.

The sharp odor of sweat emanating from him made Lindell have to stand up. Haver looked at her with a watchfulness in his gaze betraying his inner tension. His words fell like heavy stones in the bare interrogation room.

"I strangled her," Mortensen mumbled.

"Where?" Haver asked.

"In the kitchen."

"What did you do with the body?"

"I buried it in a pile of rocks. At first I was going to put it in the car, but I got scared."

"Scared of what?"

"Everything was calm, but I thought I heard sounds in the woods the whole time. I got scared. Gabriella..."

He broke off. Both Haver and Lindell waited for a continuation. He began to cry softly and stroked his hand over his face. A murderer's hands, Lindell thought.

"Did you kill Josefin and Emily?" Haver asked. He sat down where Mrs. Mortensen had been sitting earlier.

"No, never," Mortensen said loudly. "I would never have hurt her."

"But you hurt Gabriella. You killed her."

"But it was different with Josefin."

In what way, he did not specify. Lindell let it go for the moment. There would be time enough for him to explain later.

"Who killed Josefin and Emily?"

"I don't know," Mortensen said.

"I don't believe you," Haver said calmly.

"It's true! I don't know! I would never have allowed such a thing. An innocent woman and a child."

"You murdered Gabriella," Haver pointed out.

"Do the names Urbano and Olivares say anything to you?" Lindell asked.

Mortensen denied any knowledge of them, saying he had never heard their names, much less hosted them during the two days that they had been in Sweden. Lindell believed him.

"Josefin was pregnant when she died. Was it your child?" Haver asked.

Mortensen looked alarmed but shook his head.

"Did you have a relationship?"

Another shake of the head.

"We only talked," Mortensen said. "Josefin wasn't happy."

"But you knew that the destruction of the Cederen family was planned by your colleagues in Spain?" Lindell asked.

Mortensen sat quietly as if weighing his answer.

"They called me afterward," he said finally.

"Who?"

"De Soto."

"What did he say?"

"He said that it was necessary for Sven-Erik to disappear."

"Why?"

"Because Sven-Erik wanted out."

"The purchase of the land in the Dominican Republic, how do you explain that?"

Mortensen now looked completely exhausted. Lindell heard rapid footsteps in the corridor and then Riis's voice. Perhaps Mrs. Mortensen was still out there. Mortensen stared at the door as if he expected or feared that she would come back in. His gaze was gla.s.sy. The former impression of boyishness was completely gone, and Lindell guessed that he would break down completely at any moment.

"Did it have anything to do with the illegal animal experiments conducted there?"

Mortensen looked up with surprise.

"Yes, I know that you conducted illegal experiments there," Lindell said.

He gave her a look of amazement and a half smile.