Stone Coffin Part 8

"But," and she cursed herself, "here he is. Why did he have to call and record his d.a.m.ned message?"

"And look at you," she told herself, her brow against the windowpane, "here you are moping around.

"But without Edvard. Without his eyes, hands, and lost love. You pour two gla.s.ses of red wine into yourself almost every night. Go out with the girls and get drunk, falling into bed with a man that you hardly remember what he looks like the next day. What kind of life is that?"

Her inner monologue was interrupted by the sound of the phone, and it occurred to her that she had been allowed a full fifteen minutes of peace with her thoughts.

She lifted the receiver. It was Jack Mortensen.

Seven.

Ola Haver immediately set his plan in action. He managed to tear two officers away from Patrol and four from Surveillance.

They came together for a meeting after only an hour, the lists of restaurants in front of them. Haver was pleased to be able to leave the station, and it was clear that the others felt the same way.

"I can never afford to go out to eat," said Malm, who was from Patrol. "So I guess this is the only way I can do it."

"There are eight places in all," Haver began. "Svensson's Orient at the Saluhallen; a Greek restaurant across from V-Dala; Trattoria Commedia, the Italian joint around the corner; the Wermlands Cellar; two Chinese joints on Kungsgatan; Fowl and Fish in Tunabackar; and Kung Krl by the Old Square. I suggest we each take one. There are seven of us. I'll take both of the Chinese restaurants. They're practically next door to each other."

"I'd like to take the Wermlands Cellar," said Valdemar Andersson, who was from Surveillance. "It's so expensive I'd never get there otherwise."

They parceled out the other establishments, each equipped with photos of Sven-Erik Cederen, Josefin, and the three women at MedForsk.

"First we'll show the photo of Cederen and see if any of the staff recognizes him. If they do, we'll ask about any female companions. Try to get them to remember some detail-appearance, clothing, anything-and whether they appeared intimate with each other. Try to get them to describe the woman first and show the pictures later. Okay?"

Two of the investigators exchanged a glance, which Haver caught.

"Old hat, I know," he said with a smile. "I'll give you each my card in case any of the restaurant staff thinks of something later on and wants to call."

Soon the seven-person group fanned out across the city. The sun was shining brightly, the sky was blue, and the streets were bathed in light. They walked quickly. All of them were thinking of having a beer-at least a light beer.

In many ways it was a task that corresponded to what the public thought was police work: going around to businesses, showing a photo and trying to evaluate people's reactions, watching memories surface, seeing doubt and also distrust. It was the fictional version, underscored by American police movies and television series, but it was also their own dream of how their work could be: clean, sharp, smart, and relatively straightforward.

For once they had a chance to leave their paperwork and move among the people. They also had the possibility of exercising real skill or just having the kind of luck that led to the unraveling of a knot or even the whole case. In spite of the restructuring that they preemptively dismissed, they wanted to do a good job. They wanted to have breakthroughs. Quick, perceptive insights. Luck, a lot of luck.

All of them walked with light steps except Magnusson, who was on his way to Svensson's. He turned his head nervously side to side when he reached Sankt Petersgatan, looking up toward the center of town. As he pa.s.sed Dragarbrunnsgatan, his senses grew even more alert. This was the part of town his son tended to hang out in.

He desperately wanted to avoid running into him. Erik suffered from several varieties of drug dependency, and Magnusson suspected he was also HIV positive. There was nothing left of the Erik he had loved.

Once he had gone down to the intake area and observed his son. He had hardly recognized him. The colleague who had tipped him off about his son being brought in had stood a couple of meters away. When Magnusson turned away from the two-way gla.s.s, they looked at each other. The odds weren't good. Both of them knew it. "I'm sorry," the other had said.

Relieved, Magnusson pa.s.sed the Domkyrka Bridge. Erik didn't usually go west of the Fyris River.

Svensson's was closed. Magnusson gave the door a couple of shakes and pressed his face against the gla.s.s. It was supposed to open in half an hour and he was convinced that the staff was already there, so he banged on the door one more time.

A man appeared, pointing meaningfully at the sign. Magnusson took out his ID badge, pressed it against the gla.s.s, and was let inside.

Three waiters studied the photo, no trace of the initial nonchalance in their faces.

"I recognize him," one of the men said. "He's been here several times."

Magnusson watched him strain to remember more.

"He's been here several times, is always complimentary about the food."

"What about you?"

The other two shook their heads.

"He was here with a group of people once. I remember it because one of the women spilled a bottle of wine."

Magnusson took out the shots of the women from MedForsk.

"Was it any of these?"

"Her," the waiter said quickly and pointed to Teresia Wall. "Maybe," he added.

"Has he ever been here with only one woman?"

"It's possible. I'm not sure."

Magnusson held up a snapshot of Josefin. "Do you recognize her?"

The man looked at the five photos on the table and let his gaze wander from one to the next.

"I have a memory for people," he said. "I think he was here at the end of May, but not with any of these women."

"Do you remember anything?"

The man stood quietly.

"What did they eat? How were they dressed?"

"I think the woman had something like sushi. Not meat, at any rate."

"Was she a vegetarian?"

"No, she ate fish."

Magnusson waited, letting the waiter try to coax the images from his mind.

"She was blonde, I remember that much. Long blonde hair. Something blue as well. Maybe a wide headband or her dress."

He looked unsurely at Magnusson, who nodded. The waiter smiled.

"This is hard," he said. "What is this about?"

"How old?"

"Maybe thirty or thirty-five. Fresh-faced. If I saw her again, I think I would recognize her. I do have a memory for people," he repeated.

"Could it have been the fifteenth of May?" Magnusson asked after peeking at the list of Cederen's credit card purchases.

"It's possible."

Sven-Erik Cederen was known at two other establishments, Akropolis and Trattoria Commedia. It turned out that he frequented these places several times a week for lunch, something that many MedForsk employees corroborated. Often many of them accompanied him there. No one, however, was able to identify Josefin or recall an unknown woman at Cederen's side.

When Haver considered the information, it was only the visit to Svensson's that had yielded anything, even if this was regrettably thin: a blonde woman in her thirties who ate fish but not meat, fresh-faced, perhaps with a blue dress.

"There must be tens of thousands who would fit the bill," Haver said.

"That many fresh-faced ones?" Magnusson said.

Haver realized that he had overlooked something important.

"How stupid," he said. "We should have asked for an account of any temporary staff. There must be extra hands at a place like that."

"And most likely paid under the table," Magnusson said.

"Can you look into it?"

Magnusson made a face that Haver interpreted as a yes.

Soren Magnusson tackled it immediately. As he had imagined, most places denied having any temporary employees. You're lying, he thought bitterly as he received his fourth negative answer in a row.

The last one on the list, however, the Wermlands Cellar, came up affirmative. Certain evenings and sometimes on the weekends they had a young woman come in. She was studying French at the university, the kitchen manager said, and worked as much as she could. She was good, so he called her in any time they were short. She had worked some ten or twenty evenings during the spring, he believed.

"Can you see if she was working on the twenty-second of May?"

It took a while before he returned to the phone.

"Yes, she was here from six o'clock until we closed."

"Do you pay taxes for her?"

"What the h.e.l.l do you mean?"

"Just joking," Magnusson said and explained the reason for his question.

Afterward, Magnusson looked down at what he had written down: Maria Lundberg. He dialed the number that the kitchen manager had given him and wished desperately that she would pick up. He was really hoping to have something to come back with.

She answered immediately, at first clearly taken aback. She sounded very hesitant.

"Did you get my number from the Wermlands Cellar?"

"Yes, and I'm from the police."

"How do I know that?"

"You don't, but we can hang up, you can call the station, ask for me, and then we'll see where you end up."

It struck him that he lived in a society full of suspicion.

"That's okay," she said. "If all you want is to show me a couple of pictures, that's okay."

He came by the student apartment area some twenty minutes later. Maria Lundberg was outside her front entrance, waiting.

"Are you Magnusson?"

"The one and only. Soren Edvin Magnusson," he said and smiled. "Here's my badge."

The young woman examined it and he examined her. Twenty-five, short hair, and a bit of an underbite. Magnusson had a weakness for underbites. His first love had had one.

"That's okay," she said.

"What have you been through that you don't trust people who call and want to see you?"

She looked at him and he sensed something like fear.

"I was raped three years ago," she said. "Where are the photos?"

"I'm sorry, I didn't know," Magnusson said.

"No, you can't tell on the outside."

He took out the snapshots, showing her the one of Cederen first. Maria nodded at once.

"Him, I know," she said firmly.

"Are you sure?"

"Completely. His name is Sven-Erik. I don't know his last name, but his father-in-law's name is Johansson."

"How do you know all this?"