The Long Shadow Page 7

  ‘They were on the landing outside their parents’ bedroom. Their grandmother, a pensioner, was the only one found in bed. Maybe she couldn’t move too well, we don’t know.’

  Annika was thinking hard. She didn’t bother asking about details like the victims’ names and ages – the news agencies would have that sort of thing. ‘How did the gas get inside the house?’

  ‘Through the ventilation unit at the back of the building. The thermostats in the house were set at twenty degrees and it was cold last night, no more than eight, nine degrees. When the temperature outside fell, the heating came on and the whole house was gassed at the same time.’

  Annika looked down at her notes. ‘This might sound like a strange question,’ she said, ‘but what was the man doing on the desk?’ She couldn’t bring herself to say his name.

  ‘The desk was right under the air-vent,’ Linde said. ‘When he was found, there was a duvet beside him. It looks like he noticed the gas pouring into the house and tried to stop it with the bedclothes, which makes this case even more unusual.’

  He fell silent, and the two policemen looked at each other.

  ‘What?’ Annika said. ‘Why?’

  ‘Normal knock-out gases, like hexane, isopropanol and carbon dioxide, are invisible,’ Linde said. ‘If any of those had been used, he wouldn’t have been able to see it.’

  She made a note of the gases, guessing at their spelling. ‘So this time something else was used? What?’

  Linde shook his head. ‘It must have been stronger than normal, seeing as it killed them when they were awake and trying to escape, and it was probably visible. Like mist or smoke.’

  Annika shuddered. ‘So they died pretty quickly?’

  ‘Well, they were paralysed more or less instantaneously.’

  ‘The children too?’

  The policemen didn’t answer, and Annika could feel nausea rising in her throat. Was there anything else she needed to know? ‘Who found them?’ she asked, shuffling through her notes as she tried to suppress the urge to throw up.

  ‘The cleaner. She worked there five days a week and had her own key.’

  ‘And she definitely wasn’t the one who gassed them?’

  ‘If she’d wanted to rob them, she could have done it last week when the family was away in Florida for Christmas.’

  ‘So things were stolen as well?’

  ‘Everything of value. The safe’s missing. The thieves, or killers, rather, smashed down the wall that the safe was cemented into and took it with them, presumably unopened. All the artwork’s missing, along with computers, televisions and other electronic equipment, as well as any jewellery and cash. It looks like they took their time.’

  ‘What does “took their time” mean?’ Annika asked.

  ‘At least twenty minutes for the safe, and the same again for the rest of the job.’

  ‘Any idea what time of night it happened?’

  ‘The killers got into the house at three thirty-four.’

  Annika’s eyes widened. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘That’s when the alarm on the gate was disconnected.’

  ‘ “Disconnected”?’ Annika said. ‘Did they cut the power? Pull out the cables?’

  Garen looked at his watch again. ‘The only explanation I can come up with is that the killers knew the code,’ he said, standing up.

  5

  Annika remained sitting at the table after the police officers had left and took her phone out of her bag. She began with Carita Halling Gonzales’s home number.

  No answer.

  She dialled the mobile number, and a woman’s voice answered: ‘Sí, díga?’

  ‘Carita Halling Gonzales?’ She could hear children shouting in the background.

  ‘Soy yo.’

  ‘My name’s Annika Bengtzon. I was given your name by Knut Garen. I’m a reporter on the Swedish Evening Post, and I could do with an interpreter for a few days. Is it right that you interpret from Swedish to Spanish?’

  ‘Will you please be quiet?’ she said, away from the phone, and the children’s laughter died down. ‘Yes, I’m an interpreter, but things are a bit crazy today. I mean, it’s Twelfth Night tomorrow … No! Listen to me!’

  Annika pressed the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger and tried to summon some patience. She ought to have asked for some other names.

  ‘What sort of job is it?’ Carita Halling Gonzales asked.

  ‘Está libre?’

  Annika looked up and saw three fat women pointing hopefully at the empty chairs round her table.

  ‘No,’ Annika said, lowering the phone. ‘No libre.’

  The women started to sit down regardless.

  ‘No libre!’ Annika roared, waving her hands. The women glared at her indignantly and made their way towards the other end of the bar.

  When in Spain, speak as the Spaniards do, she thought, and raised her phone again.

  ‘I’m here looking into a number of deaths,’ she said. ‘A Swedish family, a Sebastian Söderström, his wife and children. Maybe you’ve heard about it.’

  ‘Goodness, yes,’ Carita said. ‘I only found out this morning. It’s awful. We’ve been expecting something like this to happen – there’ve been so many breakins using knock-out gas down here.’

  Annika was making notes to help her remember the quote. ‘Did you know the family?’

  ‘The Söderströms? No, I can’t say I did, really. I’d met them, of course. Our children go to the same school.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘Marbella International College. What would the job entail?’

  Annika scratched her head. She didn’t like travelling, and had always avoided it as far as she could. She’d never worked with an interpreter before. ‘My Spanish is too poor for me to make myself understood,’ she said, ‘and I’ve never been here before. I need help with the most basic things, talking to people and finding my way to where I want to go.’

  ‘I’ll check with Nacho,’ she said, ‘if I can get hold of him. He’s probably got patients now, of course.’

  ‘Nacho?’ Annika said.

  ‘My husband. He’s a paediatrician. Can I call you back?’

  Annika leaned back in her chair and put her mobile on the table. She ought to ring Patrik, even though there was no point. She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the wall. She really was horribly tired. When the alarm-clock had gone off at three fifteen that morning she had almost thrown up. Now she felt her neck relax as her head lolled to one side and her chin dropped. Her entire body was heavy with sleep and she sat up with a start, blinked several times, then picked up her mobile again.

  Patrik answered at once, of course.

  ‘I’m doing a couple of pieces,’ she said. ‘I’m writing the details of the gassing – I’ve got quite a lot of new information. I’ve spoken to a mother who’s got kids in the same school, and I’m going to do a piece about the family and their lives here as well.’

  She held her breath in the hope of avoiding the clichéd ‘Idyll in crisis’ piece.

  ‘What about the “Idyll in crisis”, then?’ Patrik asked. ‘That’s what you’re there for, to describe the panic in the Swedish colony.’

  Is it? Annika thought.

  ‘Idyll-in-crisis is my middle name,’ she said. ‘Every word will be dripping with horror. No te preocupes.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Patrik said, not sounding convinced.

  Two bleeps on the line told her she had a call waiting. ‘I have to go,’ she said, and took the other call.

  It was Carita Halling Gonzales. ‘Hi,’ she said, ‘it’s all okay. I can take the job. I charge forty euros an hour, plus expenses.’

  ‘Er, okay,’ Annika said, presuming that was the usual rate for interpreters. ‘What does “expenses” mean?’

  ‘If I’m going to be driving you around, I’ll charge for petrol, that sort of thing.’

  ‘I’ve got a car,’ Annika said. ‘Well, it’s only a Ford. Can you start
straight away?’

  ‘Oh, hang on, a police car …’

  There was a crackle on the line followed by a long silence.

  ‘Carita?’ Annika said tentatively.

  ‘Sorry, they’ve gone now. You’re not allowed to use your mobile when you’re driving. Nacho got a sixty-euro fine last week. Where are you now?’

  ‘Lackanyarda,’ Annika said.

  ‘Poor you, on a day like today. Do you want to meet there or somewhere else?’

  ‘I’m staying in a hotel called the Pyr. It’s—’

  ‘Let’s meet up there in fifteen minutes or so. See you soon!’

  ‘Wait!’ Annika cried. ‘Can you bring the latest school yearbook?’

  Carita Halling Gonzales looked exactly like the women shopping in La Cañada: thin, blonde and suntanned, slightly older than Annika. Gold earrings and rattling bracelets. A tight low-cut top and a leopard-print bag.

  ‘Nice to meet you,’ the interpreter said, shaking her hand warmly as she dropped a gold-cased lipstick into her bag. ‘What do you want to do first?’

  ‘Head out to the villa where they lived. Do you know where it is?’

  Carita Halling Gonzales raised her eyebrows. ‘Somewhere in Nueva Andalucía,’ she said. ‘You haven’t got a more specific address, or a supermanzana?’

  Annika stared at her: a what? A super apple?

  ‘Block, district,’ the interpreter said.

  ‘Oh,’ Annika said, pulling out her notepad. She leafed through it until she found the details Berit had got from Paginas Blancas. ‘Las Estrellas de Marbella,’ she read out.

  ‘The Stars of Marbella,’ Carita said, shaking her head. ‘No idea. We’ll have to call Rickard.’

  ‘Marmén?’ Annika said.

  ‘Do you know him?’ Carita Halling Gonzales said in surprise.

  ‘Doesn’t everyone know Rickard?’ Annika said, digging out the number from her notes.

  Oh, yes, Rickard knew where Las Estrellas de Marbella was, all right. He’d run a decorating business in the not-too-distant past and managed to make a few deliveries there before the company had gone bust.

  Carita wrote the directions on Annika’s pad. ‘Thanks, big kiss,’ she said, then handed the phone back to Annika.

  ‘Do you want to drive or shall I?’ Annika asked.

  ‘You drive. I’ll have my hands full trying to make sense of these directions.’

  They got into the car and passed beneath the motorway.

  ‘Go past the bullfighting arena,’ the interpreter said, pointing a varnished fingernail. ‘What sort of articles are you going to write?’

  ‘I’ve already met a couple of police officers who told me some of the detail about the actual murders,’ Annika said. ‘Now I want to have a look at the house, so I can describe the area it’s in, maybe talk to some neighbours. Then I was thinking of trying to meet up with some of the Swedes living here, see if they can tell me how this sort of event will affect their lives, if at all.’

  ‘Murders?’ Carita said.

  Annika glanced at the woman beside her, who was looking in a compact mirror and picking something off her teeth. ‘The police don’t think this is an ordinary breakin. The thieves used some strange kind of gas that killed the family almost instantly.’ She thought for a moment. ‘They didn’t actually call them thieves, but murderers.’

  ‘How awful,’ Carita said. ‘Left at the roundabout.’

  The road meandered between high concrete walls, dense cypress hedges and thickets of hibiscus and bou-gainvillea. Behind the walls and vegetation they could make out roofs of terracotta tiles, paved gardens and close-cut lawns.

  ‘What huge houses,’ Annika said.

  ‘Expensive too,’ Carita said. ‘That one up ahead, for instance, is on the market for nine and a half million.’

  Annika peered at the black wrought-iron gates as they drove past. ‘That’s a lot, of course,’ she said, ‘but it’s what villas out in Djursholm cost.’

  ‘Not kronor, euros,’ Carita said, looking at the directions. ‘Right here, I think.’

  They drove on for another kilometre or so. The interpreter was looking around, very alert.

  ‘That part up there must have only just been finished,’ she said, pointing up to the left. ‘I don’t think I’ve seen it before. Watch out for that pothole!’

  Annika had to swerve sharply to avoid it. ‘Bloody hell,’ she said. ‘How can the developers leave the roads in this state?’

  Carita sighed. ‘A few years ago the whole of Marbella Council was arrested. That hole has probably been dealt with and paid for several times over, but the work probably took the form of renovations on the home of the head of the highways department … Ah, here it is.’

  A grand gateway that looked like something from an old Western appeared as they drove alongside a tall hedge. Las Estrellas de Marbella, it said, in curling gold lettering. An angel with marble wings was playing a harp right at the top. Two pink stone lions roared silently.

  ‘That’s the most tasteless thing I’ve ever seen,’ Annika observed.

  ‘It’ll pass,’ Carita said. ‘After a couple of years down here you’re pretty much inured to it.’ She opened the passenger door and got out of the car. ‘I wonder how you get in.’

  There was a post containing a keypad in front of one of the stone lions. Annika pointed at it. Carita skipped over and tapped in a few numbers at random. Nothing happened. ‘We’ll have to wait for someone to go in or out,’ she said.

  Annika switched off the engine, grabbed the camera and went out into the afternoon sun. ‘What weather,’ she said. ‘Is it always like this?’

  ‘From November to March,’ the interpreter said. ‘Then it gets warmer again.’

  Annika took a few shots of the gateway. ‘Have you lived here long?’

  Carita frowned and counted on her fingers. ‘Almost seven years now,’ she said. ‘My husband’s Colombian, and we couldn’t live there for a number of reasons, so we moved to Sweden first, but that didn’t work. Do you know what happens in Sweden?’

  Annika shook her head and listened to the wind. She could hear a car approaching.

  ‘Nacho, who’s a qualified paediatrician, couldn’t even get a job delivering papers. The government employment agency wanted to send him on a course so he could work as a hospital cleaner. Have you ever heard anything so ridiculous?’

  A silver Jaguar cabriolet swung in towards the gate and a man pressed a remote control. The gates glided open. Annika and Carita jumped back into the car. Carita waved cheerily at the man in the Jaguar as they drove in.

  ‘So we moved here instead,’ she said. ‘Nacho got a job at the hospital straight away. We’re very happy. It’s a bit like south California.’ She looked at the directions again. ‘Down here,’ she said. ‘It’s supposed to be on the left-hand side of the road, a little way down the hill.’

  The house loomed above them, heavy and solid. It stood on its own in a cul-de-sac, facing south towards the sea, with a mountain to the west. The drive was blocked, partly by a large gate and partly by a police cordon.

  Annika parked next to the pavement further down, beside an overgrown plot with some abandoned foundations in the middle. They got out, and she took the camera from the back seat. They walked rather solemnly towards the house.

  The drive continued to climb behind the gate and swung off left towards a carport. Two cars were parked there, an urban jeep and a smaller soft-topped vehicle. Annika raised her camera and took a few pictures.

  The house stretched up towards the sky, a mixture of two and three floors, in an irregular and elaborate design. It was all terraces and balconies, bay windows, pillars and various types of arch, curved balcony rails and ornate iron balustrades. At the top there was a tower with arched windows. The garden was full of fruit trees and large palms. In front of the house was a paved pool area.

  The whole plot was in shadow. Annika suddenly became aware that there was a cool breeze from the mountain. She
fired off a series of shots of the house against the sun in the evening light. ‘Have you any idea how long the family lived here?’ she asked, folding her arms to keep warm.

  Carita looked up at the house. ‘It can’t have been long,’ she said. ‘The estate’s so new.’

  ‘But the trees?’ Annika said. ‘They look very mature.’

  ‘Down here you buy palms when they’re ten metres tall. They deliver them on lorries with articulated digger attachments. Do you think this is a bell?’ She pressed something that looked like a switch on one of the gateposts.

  A few seconds later the terrace door opened and a uniformed police officer came out onto the sun deck. Carita waved frantically. Annika hid the camera behind her back. The man came towards the gate and stopped a reasonable distance away.

  Carita rattled off something in Spanish and the policeman sounded irritated when he answered. Carita pointed at Annika and said Suecia and amiga in a pleading tone, as well as a lot more that Annika didn’t understand. The policeman looked friendlier now, but shook his head sadly, hoy no, imposible, mañana si.

  ‘You can get inside the house early tomorrow morning,’ Carita said, taking her sympathetically under the arm and giving her a consoling pat on the shoulder with her other hand. ‘I told him you were a friend from Sweden, that you’re devastated by the tragedy and that you’d like to go in and say a last farewell to your friends here, in their home.’

  ‘I don’t usually lie about what I’m doing or who I am,’ Annika said, ill at ease.

  ‘I don’t think the constable reads the Evening Post,’ Carita said, heading back towards the car.

  Annika had put the camera into its case and was about to get into the driver’s seat when her mobile rang. She looked at the display. Bosse calling.

  Bosse?

  ‘Hello?’ she said hesitantly.

  ‘Annika? This is Bosse. Bosse Svensson.’

  Of course. The reporter for the other evening paper – she’d done some serious flirting with him. She still had his number in her phone. She turned away from the car and took a few steps into the abandoned plot. ‘What do you want?’ she asked quietly.

  ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘it’s about work. I’m holding a picture that I was wondering if you’d like to comment on.’