Stone Coffin Part 24

The sense of intimacy between the two colleagues was intensified by fatigue and frustration. Few outside of those in their unit were able to comprehend the pressure of their constant exposure to violence and human misery. They didn't want to force their way into all of these bedrooms and kitchens, snooping in people's things. Perhaps at the very beginning of their careers all of this had felt exciting and new, but now they mostly harbored vain hopes for normalcy, a life where they could meet people unaccompanied by violence and death.

"I think that Gabriella was lonely out here in the woods. She chose this isolation, but she also loved Cederen."

Exactly right, Lindell thought, who recalled Gabriella's voice and her conviction that Cederen was innocent.

"Can her dependence on Cederen have blinded her judgment?"

"Maybe," Haver said.

"She was taking tranquilizers and had been on disability. Maybe that affected her."

"But you can't forget that she was murdered," Haver objected.

He got up abruptly. Lindell sensed his displeasure. Gabriella Mark had been his lead, his idea. Her death immediately after they had finally found her was a considerable setback.

"Keep going," Lindell said, but she remained sitting.

"There's the question of a motive," she went on thoughtfully. "There has to be a strong one."

"Money," said Haver, kneeling to search the area under the bed.

"Yes, I don't think the animal rights activists would strangle a young woman," Lindell said. "But there may be a connection."

"How?"

"If their accusations are on target, if the primates are being mistreated-that is to say, if MedForsk is involved with animal abuse-then there is a lot to fear. Public opinion could quickly turn on them if this was the case. MedForsk is a company riding high, and they don't want to sully their reputation."

"But killing people to do so is a little extreme," Haver said.

Lindell sank into thought and Haver resumed his searching. He was in the process of taking out the books one by one and shaking them to see if there were any papers stuck between the pages.

"I'm going down," Lindell said. "We can let Ryde loose in a bit. I'm going back to town. Will you call me?"

"Sure. I think Bronkan's team has arrived."

This unit was trained to secure leads outdoors and had started combing the area.

Lindell had just stepped into the car when Edvard called. She felt some relief at being able to say that she was busy with a fresh murder when he suggested that they meet later that afternoon. If he was disappointed, he didn't show it. He wished her good luck.

"Maybe we can see each other over the weekend?" he asked.

"Maybe," Lindell said.

Even though she would have been able to take the time to talk to him, she led him to believe she was in a hurry and they ended the call.

"Coward," she muttered.

Lindell gave the house a final glance as she started the car. Out of the corner of her eye she caught sight of movement in a window upstairs. It was Haver, gesticulating. He was struggling to open the window. Lindell turned off the engine and climbed out of the car at the same time as the window shot open.

"Wait!" Haver shouted. "I've found some notes."

"I'm coming up," Lindell said and shut the car door. Notes, she thought, finally something personal. An image of Josefin Cederen's diary flashed in front of her eyes.

When she reached the bedroom, Haver was sitting on the bed, thumbing through the pages of a small light-colored almanac decorated with flowers. It was a kind that Lindell had not seen in many years and that she did not think was sold any longer.

"Come here," Haver said and held out the almanac, which was open to June 29. There were two sentences on the page: "What role does Plle play? Can I trust him?"

Lindell looked at Haver.

"Yesterday," she said, and Haver nodded. "Where did you find it?"

"In the box under the nightstand."

"Are there any more notes?" Lindell asked, turning the pages and seeing for herself brief notations on roughly every other page. All were written in pencil and-from what Lindell could tell-in Gabriella's handwriting.

"Plle," Haver said. "Who is that?"

"Plle," Lindell said slowly. "It's a nickname."

She had not come across it before anywhere else in the investigation.

"He knows Gabriella, is agitated, and wants to see her. He has most likely been here before. For some reason she doesn't want him to come," Haver summarized.

"Is he mentioned anywhere else?"

"Not that I've seen so far," Haver said.

Lindell was quiet and tried to imagine Gabriella with the notebook in front of her.

"It must be a person that she has a relations.h.i.+p to, a person who means something," she said. "Who is called Plle?"

"A Paul, Peter, Per-Olof, Petter," Haver began.

"Plle, Plle," Lindell repeated.

Lindell looked at a couple of more pages at random. It was not a diary in the traditional sense, more a collection of comments. Some were about the planting of vegetables, others about the weather. Sven-Erik's name appeared in many places. "Sven-Erik is coming" from May 20, and "Sven-Erik in Spain" on February 14.

"Okay," Lindell said. "Why don't you finish checking this and write up all of the notes that may be of interest. Skip the plants and the weather; take down all the names and their frequency."

"Plle," Haver said musingly, as if he were trying to visualize this acquaintance of Gabriella's.

Lindell continued to turn the pages. On May 28, Gabriella had noted something that baffled her:"The calf is looking worse. Poor thing." She showed it to Haver.

"What calf?" he said. "Did she have cows?"

"I don't think so," Lindell said. "Maybe there's a neighbor who has some."

Lindell felt more satisfied as she got into the car to leave the cottage for a second time. Gabriella had been given a voice, even if only a few words in an journal. Who was Plle? Lindell felt certain that he was a close acquaintance; otherwise Mark wouldn't have used this nickname the way she did.

Was Plle the killer? It sounded like the name of a horse, Lindell thought, and imagined a large Ardennes draft horse with enormous hooves, a generous mane, and a long, rough tail.

Twenty-one.

Uncovering the details of Gabriella Mark's life and circle of acquaintances was a simple enough task, but frustrating nonetheless. She had been a very lonely woman. This was the conclusion Lindell arrived at upon reading Beatrice's report.

Born in a little village outside Simrishamn. Her father was a dentist and her mother a dental hygienist at the same practice. Both dead for five years: her mother from cancer and her father by drowning off the coast of Sri Lanka. Lindell's colleagues in Simrishamn had gathered a half page of information. There was nothing of a sensational nature.

Mark had no siblings. Her closest relatives were three cousins, one in Ystad, one in Tomelilla, and the third in Malmo. The first two had never had any real contact with Gabriella Mark. The third was the only one who had been in sporadic contact with her through the years. They wrote and called each other, according to the cousin in Ystad. They had not yet been able to get ahold of the Malmo cousin. The Malmo police had gone to her apartment, but no one had opened. A neighbor had said that she left for vacation a week ago and planned to be gone for fourteen days. She was hiking in the Dolomites.

The last time the four of them met up was three years ago. The meeting had been in regard to an inheritance from their grandparents. Gabriella Mark had traveled to Simrishamn and selected some decorative items.

Gabriella had always been a little unusual, as one of the cousins put it. Not unfriendly exactly, but reserved. Neither of them had ever heard of Sven-Erik Cederen.

The company that Gabriella had been working for most recently had gone out of business. Beatrice had managed to trace the former owner to Holland, where he was now involved in real estate transactions. He had sounded genuinely distraught when he was informed of Mark's death.

"She was a wonderful person," he had said on the poor connection from Boskoop.

Lindell thought it was comforting that someone had said a positive word about anyone in the investigation.

"She was also a very fine project manager," he said. "She had good ideas and was able to implement them, which is more than can be said for most people. She was hard to discourage, as stubborn as a mule, and very single-minded."

"Why did she quit?" Beatrice had asked.

"She didn't. She went on disability after the car crash that killed her husband. She never really rebounded from that blow."

The man had paused, and Beatrice thought she had been cut off, but he had then made a comment that Beatrice and Lindell later discussed the significance of.

"Gabriella always wanted to be fair. She hated injustice, whether it was whose turn it was to make coffee or something that she had read about in the morning paper. I think she got this from her father, who had been a bit of a do-gooder and truthsayer. She often talked about him."

Beatrice had thought it was refres.h.i.+ng to speak with a real estate swindler who was so adept at discussing personal relations.

"She lost everyone who meant anything to her," Lindell said as she and Beatrice went through the facts about Gabriella Mark. "Her husband died, her parents, and then this with Cederen."

"It's no wonder she was taking oxazepam," Beatrice said.

"She hated injustice," Lindell said thoughtfully.

She had liked Gabriella. Too bad we didn't get to talk more, she thought.

"She would have made a good police officer," Beatrice said.

"Yes, we are also project managers," Lindell said. "Project Justice."

The physician who had prescribed medication to Mark did not have much to add. They had not had any extended contact. Apparently she had not confided in him, just turned to him as a way to get tranquilizers and sleep aids.

Financially she had been comfortable. The cottage was paid off. She had inherited a certain amount from her parents and could be characterized as financially independent even though she had been on disability for such an extended period. Her monetary a.s.sets had been close to eight hundred thousand kronor. She was saving for her retirement and had no debts as far as they could tell.

"So she wasn't after his money," Beatrice said. "She had enough of her own."

"I wonder if she knew about Cederen's affairs in the Dominican Republic? Did she know that he had bought land out there? Maybe it was a joint project?"

"I don't think so," Lindell said. "Although you have a point. Do you remember the fragments of that letter we found? That Pieda who wrote that they were suffering? Could that have been from the Dominican Republic? With Mark's sense of justice, it's not hard to imagine she would have wanted to put things right."

Their meeting was set to begin in fifteen minutes. The Cederen investigation was now being viewed differently. Lindell closed her eyes and tried to find some kind of logic in all of these loose threads. Where did Pieda's letter fit? The attack of the animal rights activists at TV4? What had Gabriella known that was so dangerous she had to be silenced?

When she opened her eyes, Beatrice was watching her with an expression of both concern and curiosity.

What does she see? Lindell wondered. Their eyes met for a brief moment. They were not particularly close, even though they were the only women in the unit and should therefore have felt a certain kins.h.i.+p. Was there perhaps a streak of compet.i.tion between them? Beatrice was not easy to get close to. That was probably necessary in this line of work. She could be acerbic. Many of their male colleagues thought of her as a b.i.t.c.h, and even Lindell sometimes wished she were a little softer.

"At least the guy who was injured on the stairs at the television station is going to be okay. The paralysis in his legs is gone," Beatrice said.

"That's great," Lindell said. "But our paralysis is increasing."

"Is it a man?" Beatrice asked.

Lindell nodded. "Yes. I think a woman would have trouble strangling another woman."

"He must have known her."

"I think so. This is definitely no maniac who appeared out of the woods and choked her to death for the fun of it. He knew her and wanted to keep her from talking."

Lindell felt the nausea come on in waves and stood up. Her lack of concentration bothered her. How long was she going to feel this way?

"If we a.s.sume Mark's theory that Cederen was murdered, what would the motive be?" Beatrice went on.

"Perhaps financial," Lindell said.

With an effort she managed to repress the nausea and turned back around.

"Maybe," Beatrice said doubtfully. "But MedForsk was doing well. They had consistently great results and new medical breakthroughs. They were at the brink of a significant expansion."

"The point at which things are starting to go well is often when desperation becomes the greatest-if there's something wrong with the picture. Maybe Cederen was the problem?"

Lindell felt suddenly close to tears. Again she had to turn her back to Beatrice. Images of Josefin's and Emily's bodies by the side of the road in Uppsala-Nas flashed before her. Above all, the girl's dress and her little hands that had been picking flowers.

"How are things?" Beatrice asked. "You seem a little down."