Emigrated. Both Peder and Fredrika had reacted to that piece of information, as if they had expected it to say ‘buried’. If people really did think he had emigrated, and if he had no other ties to Sweden, it was less surprising that no one had reported him missing.
‘We need the names of friends and acquaintances,’ Fredrika said as they made their way up the stairs. ‘We must be able to trace him somehow.’
‘You don’t think it’s his body we found?’
‘I think we might have found his watch. If Helena bought the watch for him in the first place. But it seems odd that a man who emigrated could lie dead for thirty years without anyone missing him.’
Peder’s jaw muscles tensed; he would have liked to run up the rest of the stairs.
Helena Hjort was an old woman, almost eighty. There was a distinct possibility that she wouldn’t be as much help as they might have wished.
Lonely, Peder thought as they rang the bell. She must be incredibly lonely.
The door opened and an elderly woman appeared. She was the epitome of a Bohemian singleton who had survived the winter. Her clothes were so colourful they were almost painful to look at.
Peder allowed Fredrika to take the lead; she introduced them and explained why they were there.
‘We wondered whether you’ve seen this before.’
The gold watch on Fredrika’s open palm made Helena Hjort take a step backwards.
‘Where did you find that?’
‘Perhaps we could come inside?’
The apartment was enchanting. The ceilings were almost four metres high, wonderful stucco work, white walls and freshly polished floorboards. Discreet works of art on the walls, with only a small number of personal photographs on display. The curtains would have made Peder’s mother green with envy, as would the authentic rugs on the floor.
Helena Hjort showed them into the living room, indicating that they should sit down on the large sofa facing the window. She sat down on one of the armchairs opposite.
Fredrika passed her the watch, observing Helena as she examined it.
‘We found it in an area that was being excavated in Midsommarkransen,’ she said.
Helena raised her eyebrows.
‘Excavated?’
‘I’m sure you’ve heard about it on the news,’ Peder said. ‘The body of a young woman was found there at the beginning of last week. Her name was Rebecca Trolle.’
Helena leaned back in her chair.
‘You found a man’s body too.’
‘Yes, and unfortunately we haven’t been able to identify him so far,’ Peder said. ‘But we found this watch a short distance away from him, and we believe it was buried at the same time.’
He spoke quietly and in a matter-of-fact tone.
‘And you think the watch might have belonged to this man?’
‘Yes,’ Fredrika said.
Helena Hjort weighed the watch in her hand; she seemed to disappear to a place where she was no longer accessible. The watch had brought back memories, and Peder no longer had any doubt that she was the one who had bought it.
‘I bought it in 1979,’ she said. ‘For my husband, Elias Hjort. It was a present for his fiftieth birthday. We had a big party in our apartment; lots of people came.’
Helena got up and fetched a photograph album. Peder watched the way she moved; she was a lot more supple than most of the eighty-year-olds he had met.
She put down the album in front of Peder and Fredrika, showing them a picture of her husband Elias on his fiftieth birthday. A tall, imposing man with a forbidding expression. The watch was on his wrist.
‘Elias was always a melancholy soul, all the way through our marriage. Perhaps it was the fact that we didn’t have children, but I think he suffered from depression as well. In those days, things were very different when it came to psychiatry; you didn’t seek help because you were feeling low. You just gritted your teeth and carried on.’
Peder looked at the photograph of Elias Hjort; he felt as if he recognised him.
‘What did he do?’
‘He was a solicitor.’
It looked as if Helena had intended to say something else, but decided to keep quiet.
‘Where is he living now?’ Peder asked.
Helena gazed at the watch, still in her hand.
‘He moved to Switzerland in 1981, the year after our divorce went through.’
She raised her head and looked Peder straight in the eye.
‘But you think it’s his body you’ve found in Midsommarkransen, don’t you?’
‘We think so, but we’re not sure. Now we have a name for the recipient of the watch, we hope to be able to confirm his identity with the help of dental records.’
Helena put down the watch, a thoughtful expression on her face. She didn’t seem upset: Had she already had an idea that he had never emigrated at all?
‘Did you have any contact after he moved to Switzerland?’ Fredrika asked, as if she could read Peder’s mind.
‘No,’ said Helena. ‘No, we didn’t. We didn’t have any contact at all, in fact.’
‘When was the last time you saw him?’
‘February 1981. He came to see me in our old apartment and told me he was moving abroad.’
‘Did that surprise you?’
‘Of course it did. He’d never even mentioned it before.’
‘Did he say why he was moving?’
A smile flitted across Helena’s face, disappearing so quickly that Peder wasn’t sure if he’d really seen it.
‘No, he didn’t. And we had no contact after that, as I said.’
Fredrika straightened up, rested her hands on her knees and reflected in silence on what she had learned about the couple’s marriage from the police database.
‘Isn’t that a little odd? I mean, you were married for over twenty years, after all. Did he never come back to Stockholm? Didn’t you write to one another?’
Helena grew pensive.
‘I’m not sure I find it acceptable that I should have to defend the fact that I had no contact with my ex-husband after he left the country. We didn’t have all that much contact after the divorce, while he was still living in Stockholm. I think we both felt we needed a clean break.’
But why did a couple who had been married for over twenty years suddenly decide to get a divorce? What could cause such a split that there was no further communication? Peder thought of Ylva and their temporary separation. If it hadn’t been for the boys, would they have broken off all contact? He didn’t think so.
‘Why did you divorce?’ he asked, hoping the question was neither too direct nor insensitive.
‘For several reasons. We no longer had any common interests or shared values.’ She hesitated. ‘Over the years he developed a lifestyle and an attitude to life that I didn’t wish to be a part of.’
‘Were you the one who instigated the divorce?’ Fredrika asked.
‘Yes.’
Peder sensed that Helena was getting impatient; she had had enough of their personal questions. He changed direction.
‘Did Elias have any enemies?’
Helena brushed a hair from the leg of her trousers.
‘None that I know of.’
‘We’re asking because he was a solicitor,’ Fredrika explained. ‘Perhaps he upset one of his clients?’
‘Who killed him and buried him in Midsommarkransen?’
Fredrika didn’t respond.
‘No,’ Helena said. ‘I don’t think he had any enemies like that.’
‘Was he part of a larger firm, or did he have his own practice?’
‘He worked on his own; he had no colleagues.’
‘Did you have any mutual friends who might have been in touch with him after he left Stockholm?’
Helena shook her head.
‘I couldn’t say. Our mutual friends turned out to be his friends after the divorce,’ she said drily. ‘But while we were married, he was something of a recluse; perhaps our mutual friends weren’t really friends at all.’
Peder saw Fredrika make a note on the pad she always carried with her. They had only one question left.
‘Rebecca Trolle,’ he said. ‘Have you ever met her?’