Red Wolf_ A Novel - Liza Marklund [27]
‘You might have got the duty officer to read out the details of cars stolen from Bergnäset on Saturday night,’ he said.
‘So it’s correct, then?’
His silence was all the confirmation she needed.
‘Now I’d like you to tell me something,’ he said.
She hesitated, but only for the sake of it. Without the inspector she didn’t have a story.
‘I spoke to someone,’ she said, ‘who says they saw Benny Ekland get run down on Skeppargatan in Svartöstaden. There was a gold-coloured Volvo V70 parked in the entrance to the football pitch, the front facing the road, with a man at the wheel. When Benny Ekland stumbled past the engine started, the car pulled out and drove at Ekland at full speed. My witness says Ekland tried to get out of the way, running from one side of the road to the other, but the car followed him. The collision happened more or less in the middle of the road.’
‘Bloody hell,’ the inspector muttered.
‘It gets worse,’ Annika said. ‘Ekland hit the car twice, and was thrown into the air, landing in the middle of the road. The car stopped, reversed and drove over him again, and then over his head. After driving over his skull the driver stopped – definitely a man – got out of the car and dragged the body up the slope towards the football pitch. There he wiped down the body somehow, then drove off towards – what’s it called? – Sjöfartsgatan, down towards LKAB’s ore terminal. What was the damage to the car?’
‘Front and windscreen,’ Inspector Suup said without hesitation.
‘You must have worked out that this was no ordinary accident. The skull was crushed and his back was broken, all the internal organs mashed up.’
‘Quite right, the results of the post mortem came through this afternoon. So someone saw the whole thing?’
‘The witness wants to stay completely anonymous.’
‘You can’t persuade the person in question to contact us?’
‘I’ve already done what I can, but I’m happy to try again. What do you think?’
‘If the witness information is correct, which it may well be, then we’ll have a premeditated murder on our hands.’
Annika typed the quote directly onto her laptop.
‘Can you think of anything off the top of your head that Benny Ekland wrote that could explain why someone wanted him dead?’
‘Ekland wasn’t afraid of controversy and unpleasantness, so it’s not impossible. But I wouldn’t be doing my job if I speculated like that at this point. If the witness information is correct, and I mean if, then obviously we’d be open to any possible motive.’
‘Are you in charge of the investigation?’
‘No, I’m only the PR guy these days, but I’m the one you need to talk to. The preliminary investigation was allocated to Andersson, in the prosecutor’s office, I think, but she’s been in court all day so I don’t imagine she knows anything about this yet.’
When they had hung up Annika found her way to the newsroom. In a narrow room full of long tables and static electricity she found a group of lethargic editors, all white faces and evasive eyes.
‘We have to talk,’ she told the night editor.
With surprising ease the fat man got up and walked ahead of her through the room, past the sports desk, and opened the door to a small space that functioned as the smoking area.
Annika stopped in the doorway; the stench was awful. The man lit a cigarette and coughed violently.
‘I gave up nine years ago,’ he said, ‘but yesterday morning I started again.’
She took a step forward, leaving the door ajar. The walls closed in around her. She was having difficulty breathing.
‘What’s this about?’ Pekkari said, blowing a sad little plume of smoke towards the ventilation unit.
‘Benny was murdered,’ Annika said, her heart racing. ‘I have a witness who saw how he died. The police have confirmed that the witness’s story matches what they know so far. Do we have to stay in here?’
The editor stared at her like he’d seen a ghost, holding his cigarette motionless, halfway to his mouth.
‘Please?’ Annika said, unable to wait, as she pushed the door open and staggered through it.
She went over to the other