‘What the hell do we do?’ Peder said.
Alex had been thinking about that very question almost all night. He had got home far too late and far too wide awake after visiting Diana. It was rare for those who were grieving to pass on energy to another person, but Diana did.
‘This is what I’ve decided: I’ll speak to Fredrika; then you go and pick up Spencer Lagergren. Unless anything else has emerged that changes the situation, in your opinion.’
Peder shook his head sorrowfully.
‘I don’t understand how she could have kept this information from the team.’
‘I do,’ Alex said drily. ‘She wanted to look into Spencer’s involvement herself, rather than bringing in the rest of us, because she’s convinced he’s innocent. To be honest… we would have done the same.’
Peder didn’t really want to think about that; he chose to carry on feeling annoyed.
‘Did you manage to find out any more about that film club?’ Alex asked.
‘A bit,’ said Peder. ‘It seems to have been a grade A gathering for snobs, if you ask me. Very few members with a very low turnover. The first time they were noticed was in 1960, when the four of them turned up at a premiere here in Stockholm, then slated the film in a review in Dagens Nyheter the following day.’
‘1960? It sounds as if they were active for a long time.’
‘Almost fifteen years. And there were never more than four members. Thea Aldrin was there from the start, as was Morgan Axberger. Thea was twenty-four at the time, and Axberger was twenty-one. Did you know that he defied his father for the first few years after his military service, and spent all his time writing poetry?’
Alex was surprised. Morgan Axberger’s father had founded the empire his son now headed; Alex had no idea the regime change had been preceded by some kind of rebellion.
Peder noticed his reaction.
‘I know, I was surprised too. Anyway, Morgan Axberger had his first collection of poetry published after completing his military service, and it attracted a considerable amount of attention and some very good reviews.’
‘And that’s how he became a member of The Guardian Angels,’ Alex concluded.
He could imagine that Axberger’s rebellion would have made an impression on someone like Thea Aldrin, paving the way for all kinds of things.
‘Who were the other members?’
Peder took out a sheet of paper with a poor copy of a black and white photograph taken at a film premiere.
‘Thea Aldrin and Morgan Axberger.’
He pointed, and Alex followed his finger.
‘And this guy on the left, can you guess who he is?’
‘Haven’t a clue.’
‘That’s Thea Aldrin’s ex, the man she later stabbed to death in her garage.’
Alex let out a whistle.
‘He’s bloody tall.’
‘And she’s bloody short. Did you know that he acknowledged paternity of her son?’
Memories of his fishing trip with Torbjörn Ross came back to Alex. The weekend at his colleague’s summer cottage had left an increasingly bitter aftertaste. Alex had seen a new side of Ross – a side he didn’t like. A side that suggested things weren’t quite right.
‘So I’ve heard,’ he murmured in reply to Peder’s question. ‘What was his name, Thea’s ex?’
‘Manfred Svensson. Apparently, there was a real scandal over the fact that they were expecting a child and had no intention of getting married.’
Alex looked at the picture again.
‘And who’s the fourth man?’
‘A literary critic who died of a heart attack in 1972. Not exactly a celebrity. He was the one Lagergren replaced, by the way.’
‘Do we know how Lagergren became a member?’
‘No,’ Peder replied. ‘No idea. We can ask him when we interview him.’
The unpleasant feeling returned. Interviewing the partner of a colleague was something to be avoided, if possible. Suspecting that a colleague had withheld information during an investigation was even worse.
Alex broke the silence.
‘So who replaced Thea’s ex when he left the film club after they split up?’
‘That’s the only person I haven’t been able to identify. Some other high flyer, no doubt.’
‘And the film club kept going until Thea ended up in prison?’
‘Apparently not. For some unknown reason, it was dissolved a few years after Lagergren joined. I don’t know why.’
What was the connection between a film club and the disappearance and death of a twenty-three-year-old woman? Why did these odd characters keep on coming up in the investigation, over and over again?
‘We started with a bitter ex-girlfriend and a male friend who had a somewhat skewed view of reality, to say the least. We looked into the rumour that Rebecca was selling sex over the Internet; that turned out to be fabricated, but we still don’t know why. Then we found a supervisor who got into all kinds of trouble after Rebecca’s disappearance, and that led us to Spencer Lagergren. And now the cast has been increased with the addition of one of the country’s most noted businessmen. Two, if we include Morgan Axberger.’
Peder considered Alex’s summary, and added:
‘And in the middle of the spider’s web we have a silent writer who was convicted for the murder of her ex, and whose son is missing.’
A thought drifted through his mind; Alex only just managed to catch it.
‘Actually, it’s Thea Aldrin who links this whole mess together.’
He frowned.
‘According to her diary, Rebecca went to see Thea. You have to wonder why; her silence isn’t exactly a secret.’
‘We ought to go and see her as well,’ Peder suggested.
‘Later. We’re not going to try to interview a woman who has remained silent for several decades until we know exactly what we want to find out.’
‘Where does she live?’
‘I haven’t checked yet; a care home, I think.’
‘Isn’t she too young to be in a home?’
‘Yes, but she had a severe stroke during her last year in prison, and I don’t think she can look after herself.’
There was a knock on the door. Fredrika walked in, catching them red-handed. Alex caught himself hunching his shoulders as if he were ashamed.
Fredrika’s face, full of questions. Unease in her dark eyes. Far too intelligent to be easily deceived.
‘Hello, there!’
Alex’s voice grated as he spoke; he grinned nervously. And ‘hello there’ – what was that about?
‘Hi.’
Her expression was non-committal.
‘Am I disturbing you?’
‘No, no, come on in.’
She sat down at the table. She was carrying a sheaf of papers; it looked as if she wanted to discuss something important.
‘What did Diana say when you spoke to her?’
Alex didn’t know what to say. Diana? How did Fredrika…
‘You were going to ask her about Valter Lund and the trip to Copenhagen,’ Fredrika clarified.
The relief was so great that he almost burst out laughing.
‘As I understood it she had no knowledge of the trip, but she had actually found it strange that Lund came to listen to Rebecca sing in church.’
‘There are a number of strange things about Valter Lund,’ Fredrika said.
She told them what she had found out from their colleagues in Norway.
‘We ought to interview him,’ she said. ‘And Morgan Axberger. I want to find out more about this film club, and everything that happened around Thea during those years.’
Alex and Peder exchanged a glance, reaching silent agreement.
‘We’ll wait until we find the woman who bought the gold watch,’ Alex said slowly. ‘Let’s get together after lunch and see where we stand.’
Fredrika was suddenly alert.
‘Has something happened?’ she asked.
‘We’ll discuss it after lunch,’ Alex insisted.
There was another knock on the door, and Ellen came in.