The Swedish Girl Read online

  ‘Thanks, sir. But don’t think I’ll need it,’ Jo replied with a grim smile on her face.

  All the way back down the corridor Jo felt a spring in her step. To get a result so quickly was ace! And having a quick collar for a case that had threatened to become high profile was exactly what she had wanted. No having to waste time with the ladies and gentlemen of the press, no fannying about with a whole lot of student interviews and best of all, closure for the poor father. Still, she had to bring the lad in first as a detainee for twelve hours, during which time she’d aim to wring a confession out of him. Pausing by the office door for a moment to gather her thoughts, Jo hoped against hope that Colin Young hadn’t gone and done a runner.

  ‘You awake, son?’

  Colin opened his eyes to the darkness of the room and for a moment he was at a loss to know just where he was. Then, as he recognised the familiar objects of his old bedroom at home – his worn brown desk with the stack of poetry books that had gathered over the years, the wardrobe with the right-hand door that never closed properly, its inside mirror reflecting the narrow band of light from the space between the curtains – he remembered why he was here and all the events of the past few days came flooding back.

  ‘Is that you, Dad?’ he yawned, flexing his arms before tucking himself back below the duvet once more, huddling sleepily into its warmth.

  ‘Aye, son.’ There was a pause, then Alec Young moved closer and sat on the edge of the bed.

  Colin’s eyes were closed and so he did not see the rush of tender concern that filled his father’s face as he looked down upon his boy. And was he even aware of that small sigh filling the space between them before Alec spoke?

  ‘Son, there’s a couple of polis here tae see ye. Think ye better get up, eh?’

  Colin sat bolt upright, grabbing the edge of the cotton cover to hide the fact that he was naked. ‘What?’ He blinked stupidly. ‘To see me? Why?’

  Alec shifted uneasily, looking down at the floor now and not at his younger son. ‘Don’t know, Col. They jist said to get you up. Think they want you to go intae Glasgow again with them.’

  Colin shivered as the cool draught from the open doorway reached his skin. ‘Okay. Give me a minute to get dressed. Tell them I’ll be right there,’ he said.

  For a moment their eyes met and Colin wondered what was going through the older man’s mind. There was no reassuring smile, just a sort of watchfulness as though his father was appraising him, trying to see something in this boy of his that Alec Young had never seen before.

  Then Colin reached out and took his father’s hand, feeling its calloused roughness. ‘It’s all right, Dad. I haven’t done anything wrong. I’m jist helping them, ken?’ he added, slipping back into the familiar vernacular of his childhood.

  His dad nodded then sighed. ‘If yer mither wis here…’ he began.

  ‘Dad,’ Colin said sharply. ‘C’mon. I’ve got to get up. Okay?’

  Alec rose from the bed and left the room, closing the door behind him. For a moment there was silence, then Colin could hear the sound of unfamiliar voices coming from the living room.

  Gathering up the clothes he had discarded the night before, Colin hastily pulled on a T-shirt, only pausing to rummage through his rucksack for a fresh pair of underpants and clean socks.

  Why had they come? They’d said that they wouldn’t be needing him any more, but maybe they had found something…

  Colin stopped, his hand on the buckle of his belt, wondering. What if they’d found something in the post-mortem? A shudder went through him.

  Trembling, he glanced desperately at the small square window of his room. It had been stuck fast for years except for a couple of inches where you could ease it up for air in the summertime. Bloody death trap, his brother Thomas had said often enough. Death trap. The words in his head resonated as though someone had actually spoken them out loud.

  His shivers continued as he fastened his belt and yanked a jersey over his head, eyes emerging to stare at the door that separated him from the people who were waiting to take him away.

  There was no way out. No way to escape whatever was waiting for him behind that door.

  As if in a dream, Colin left his old bedroom behind, the place that was filled with so many childhood memories, then walked into the hall, seeing the ancient carpet, its red and yellow leaf pattern worn and faded now from so many feet over so many years. Nothing had been changed since Mum had died, despite the boys’ efforts to persuade their father to smarten the place up. Now, for the first time, as a vision of his mother’s laughing face came back to him, Colin understood why. It was seeing familiar things like this scabby old hall carpet that kept some of the memories alive for Alec Young.

  Behind the living room door Colin could hear the voices and his steps faltered for a moment. His hand turned the door knob and he stepped in to see three faces turned towards him, staring silently as though he had been the subject of a conversation that had abruptly stopped the moment he had entered the room.

  Then Colin Young heard words that he had never expected to hear in his life as a uniformed officer stepped forward to enclose his wrist in that cold hard cuff: ‘… detained on suspicion…’

  It was all happening too quickly. There was no protest from the father who stood there, arms limp by his sides. Colin tried to see what was in Alec Young’s expression. Mute amazement? Horrified disbelief?

  Then the moment had passed and he couldn’t look back to see any more as he was being led out of the front door, leaving his dad behind them.

  A small crowd of people had gathered several paces away, watching the little drama, eyes feasting on the handcuffed figure being led towards the police car. Colin searched in vain but there was no friendly face that he recognised amongst their stares. One of the police officers put his hand onto Colin’s head as he was helped into the back seat and clipped into his belt, then the car began to move away from the pavement.

  Someone in the crowd called out but the words were lost in the sound of the car’s engine and all Colin could see as he twisted around to look out of the window was his father’s face, white and strained, as he stood framed in the doorway of their home.

  Perhaps he could write a poem about it once they realised their mistake, Colin thought. He was sitting at a well-scrubbed Formica-topped table in an interview room that was almost identical to the one he had been in before, but he had nothing with him to write down any thoughts, not even a pencil stub, and his notebook was back home in the rucksack that he’d been carting about for days ever since he had left Merryfield Avenue.

  They had arrived at the back of the police station this time and Colin had been led up a sloping metal pathway barred on each side and through a red door to the Charge Bar, where a man behind the counter had asked if he wanted to call his legal representative or not. Colin had shaken his head, still bewildered at the turn of events.

  ‘You need to have someone with you, son,’ one of the uniformed officers who had taken him from his home explained. ‘We can get you a duty solicitor if you like but if there’s anyone you know, like a family solicitor…?’

  Colin had shaken his head and mumbled, ‘We don’t have one…’ and that had made the man bark out, ‘Duty solicitor then, Sergeant!’ Then he had been taken through a maze of corridors until they had reached this interview room.

  The uniformed police officer standing guard by the door didn’t look much older than he was, but looking at his closed expression, Colin did not feel inclined to engage the other man in conversation. Detective Inspector Grant would be with him shortly, he had been told, and that must have been at least quarter of an hour ago, Colin thought, glancing at the watch he’d remembered to slip onto his wrist. He fingered the metal strap, recalling the morning of his eighteenth birthday when he had opened up the slim parcel and found it inside. A good-looking grown-up watch, something he’d wanted for ages, something that would last him a lifetime.

  Colin hung his head as the
thought of a lifetime twisted itself in his brain. Eva. She’d had such plans for the rest of her life, hadn’t she? And now none of them would ever come to pass. He swallowed hard, blinking away these treacherous tears. What on earth would that detective inspector think if she came in and found him crying again?

  The sound of the door opening made him look up and there she was. Colin glanced at the police officer, his mind setting out words to describe her as though she were a character in one of his stories. Today she wore a dark charcoal trouser suit, nipped in at the waist, and a pair of high-heeled ankle boots. The open-necked shirt revealed a single line of pearls at her throat. Pearls are for tears, he remembered his mum telling him, and the memory of her voice made his throat ache with a renewed desire to weep. Just behind the detective inspector was another woman, older and more careworn, wearing a simple black suit over a black and white striped shirt and carrying a matching black briefcase. She came forward looking at him seriously.

  ‘I’m Mrs Fellowes, the duty solicitor. You may request to have your own legal representative here if you wish, Mr Young,’ the woman said, standing by the side of an empty chair as though waiting for Colin to make a decision.

  ‘No, that’s all right,’ he said, an innate politeness making him wish for this stranger to be at her ease. She came around the table and sat in the empty seat next to his – not close, he noticed, but near enough for him to be aware of her presence.

  ‘You remember me, Mr Young?’ DI Grant had seated herself opposite them after fiddling with a box over near the wall, something that Colin recognised as a recording machine of some kind. Colin nodded. His head felt muzzy as he listened to her words, unable to really make out what they meant. Then a peculiar sensation came over him, as though he were outside looking down on these people instead of being one of the figures himself. Small details seemed to loom large, like the piece of sticking plaster curled around the detective’s index finger where she must have cut herself; the way the lawyer’s hair curled around her tiny shell-like ears, and his own sweating hands clasped tightly together as though ready for prayer.

  DI Grant introduced herself and Mrs Fellowes to the tape machine and gave the date and time then turned to face Colin.

  ‘You know why you’re here?’ she asked.

  Colin nodded, letting himself be part of this dreamlike state.

  ‘Speak for the machine, please,’ she told him crisply.

  ‘Yes,’ Colin said gruffly, then cleared his throat.

  ‘Yes,’ he said again, more loudly this time, and as if the utterance of the word had broken a spell, he was suddenly aware of the padded seat pressing against his back and the coarseness of the material under his buttocks as though he had landed from a great height.

  ‘It’s to do with Eva,’ he continued helpfully.

  DI Grant leaned forward slightly. ‘We have had results from our laboratory, Mr Young,’ she began, then gave a small smile of satisfaction. ‘DNA results that show that you were the person who had sex with Eva Magnusson shortly before her death.’

  Colin nodded once again.

  ‘Please speak for the machine,’ DI Grant said again with a sigh that made Colin feel awkward and ashamed.

  ‘Yes, that’s right. We did have… sex,’ he mumbled, feeling his face reddening, not wishing to discuss intimate things in front of these two women. Suddenly he was angry. What right had she to peer and pry into his private life? Looking up he could see DI Grant’s smile continue, though her eyes were hard and cold.

  ‘We’d done nothing wrong,’ he protested, then swallowed hard, hearing his own voice come out small and shrill.

  ‘Consensual sex?’ DI Grant persisted. ‘Or did you force the girl against her will? Hit her hard to make her more compliant? Eh?’

  ‘Detective Inspector—’ Mrs Fellowes began but Colin could see the police officer wave her hand brusquely in the air as though to simply brush aside any possible protest.

  Colin’s mouth opened in astonishment, then he closed it again. She didn’t know. How could she? Well, he wasn’t going to be the one to tell her what had really taken place. Eva was dead. It would do nobody any good to reveal to anyone what life had been like for him over the past few months, especially to her father.

  He sat back in his seat, suddenly exhausted as though the last vestiges of energy had drained out of him.

  ‘No comment,’ he said at last, forcing his eyes to remain focused on his hands that were bunched together on his lap, fingernails digging into the palms and making them bleed.

  ‘Here’s what I think happened, Colin,’ DI Grant continued, leaning forward so near to him that he was aware of a pungent scent that might have been tea-tree oil. ‘I think you fancied Eva, fancied her a lot. A pretty Swedish girl whose warm sunny nature makes her popular with everyone she meets, a girl way out of your league, Colin. Wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘No comment,’ Colin whispered to his hands again, the scent emanating from the woman’s fingers making him feel sick.

  ‘Speak up, please.’

  ‘No comment,’ Colin said again, anger with this stupid woman and her stupid machine making his ears burn.

  ‘See, Eva could have had her pick of the lads, so why pick you, Colin?’

  He kept his eyes down, refusing to rise to her bait, refusing even to answer.

  ‘Did you force her to have sex? Or was she so sorry for you that she let you have your way? And what happened afterwards? Did you come too quickly? Did she laugh at you? And then did you have a moment of utter rage when you hit her on the head? Such overpowering rage that you had to take her throat and squeeze it so hard that you killed her?’ Grant’s voice grew louder with every question.

  ‘No!’ Colin sat up suddenly, thumping the table between them. ‘I didn’t kill her! You can’t believe that I did!’ he gulped.

  ‘Sure about that, Colin?’ The woman was smiling at him still, her cats’ eyes gleaming as though she had scored a point by making him answer her at last.

  ‘Of course I’m sure,’ he said, clasping his hands together to stop them trembling, eyes cast down to avoid the detective inspector’s stare.

  ‘You see, we think that you did,’ DI Grant continued. She paused for a moment and he looked up despite himself to see her regarding him thoughtfully.

  ‘We think that you killed the girl in a moment of… what shall we call it, a moment of madness, if you like. Some killers do tend to use that particular phrase, you know,’ she said drily.

  Colin wanted to turn to the solicitor in mute appeal but a sudden thought made his skin prickle with sweat. She had made no noise of objection on his behalf. Was she part of the ‘we’ that the detective inspector was referring to? Was this some kind of conspiracy against him?

  Colin shook his head again. ‘I did not kill her,’ he said slowly, enunciating each word as though to make the detective understand. ‘I don’t have a temper. I’m not that sort of person.’

  The detective inspector shared a wry smile with the other woman, one sardonic eyebrow lifted as though to say, Well what was all that shouting about then?

  ‘No? What sort of person are you then, Colin?’ She was sitting back in her seat now, arms folded, looking at him with interest.

  ‘You’re so sweet, Colin,’ Eva had said, tracing his lips with one finger. Her eyes had looked into his, melting him with that blue gaze. He had smelled her scent, something that reminded him of gardens after the rain, fresh and lovely, just like Eva herself. He had run his hands over her hair, gently, caressing her—

  ‘What sort of person do you think you are?’ the woman said, rephrasing her question.

  ‘Don’t know,’ Colin shrugged. Not a killer, not someone who would ever have hurt that girl, any girl, he wanted to scream. But all he needed right now was to get out of this room and away from the persistent voice that was accusing him.

  ‘Okay, let’s try again,’ DI Grant said, folding her hands upon the table between them and staring at him intently. ‘Let’s
begin at the beginning when you first met Eva Magnusson.’

  Colin opened his eyes, hoping that he was wakening from the nightmare that had engulfed him. But what he saw as he looked around the place reminded him that it was all too real. Although the sky was dark, the white-painted walls glowed from the street lights outside and the metal toilet gleamed in the corner of his cell. Something smelled stale and sour and Colin realised with a sense of shame that it was coming from his own unwashed body.

  He had slept fitfully on top of the blue mattress, trying hard not to let his emotions get the better of him, hearing voices calling in the nearby cells, often accompanied by banging against the blue metal doors. Once he could have sworn he had woken himself by crying out, for an officer had opened the door and asked if he was okay. Someone seemed to stop by that door at regular intervals, always disturbing his sleep. Tomorrow he would be taken from this place to the court where his defence – Mrs Fellowes? – would try to get him released on bail.

  ‘Don’t bank on it,’ the solicitor had told him quietly. ‘This is a grave charge and you might be refused bail, even though you have no previous record.’

  He had stared at her, wide-eyed from all the hours that he had spent being quizzed by that detective inspector. His head had been aching afterwards and the cold calmness of being alone in this cell had come almost as a relief. What would happen next? Would he be taken from the courts and allowed to go home to his father? Colin Young squeezed his eyes tightly shut, forcing himself to discount any other possibility.

  CHAPTER 15

  ‘

  I

  can’t believe it!’ Kirsty Wilson slumped into the armchair, looking at her father’s face as though he were making some sort of sick joke. ‘It can’t be true! Colin wouldn’t hurt a fly!’ she protested, the tears suddenly springing back into eyes that she thought had wept themselves dry.

  ‘Sorry, love,’ Alistair Wilson murmured, coming to sit on the arm of the chair and pat his daughter’s shoulder.