Page 35 of Hidden in Memories
He would definitely have connected through the TV screen when he was a minister.
As she carries on googling, the screen is filled with headlines about Forsberg’s time as an active politician, and his new career as a lobbyist. He seems to work for a communication company called Excellence. According to its home page, the aim is to support businesses that want to “establish and maintain good relations with the community and decision-makers.”
A glance at her watch tells Hanna she has five minutes before the meeting begins.
She opens a new window and goes into Flashback. The site is certainly one of Sweden’s most visited, but it has no responsible publisher and therefore allows wild and sometimes unethical speculation.
She types in Charlotte Wretlind’s name, and is confronted with a number of contributions, all critical of the dead woman. Then she tries Stefan Forsberg. Most of what is written concerns his political activities, but there is one thread claiming that he is a ladies’ man who regularly cheats on his wife, a high-ranking judge.
Hanna thinks for a moment, then enters both names together. She immediately finds several comments claiming that Charlotte Wretlind and Stefan Forsberg were more than business associates.
They were allegedly in a relationship.
28
A few minutes later Hanna hurries along to the conference room. It is time for the special unit to meet again. She sits down with Daniel, Anton, and Raffe at two thirty, and they link up with Östersund.
Birgitta Grip begins by reporting on the press conference that took place earlier.
“Just so you know, the media is going crazy. The murder has also been picked up by the international press, and our communications department has its hands full.”
Hanna shakes her head as she thinks about the journalists in the hotel foyer yesterday, crowding around Daniel on the stairs. She tries to catch his eye, but his attention is on Grip, who has moved on to the current situation. They discuss the conversation with Filip Wretlind and the interviews with hotel guests and employees. Unfortunately not much has emerged from this process; no one staying on the same floor saw or heard anything from the victim’s suite on Sunday night. Their colleagues are now speaking to those staying on the floor below.
Hanna prepares to share what she found on Flashback.
She does a quick mental recap on the information they have gathered so far on Charlotte’s private life. Since the divorce in 1999, she doesn’t seem to have had any long-term relationships in the public eye, focusing instead on her job and her son. A secret boyfriend wouldexplain why details of her love life are so sparse. If she was having an affair with a public figure who was married and therefore worried about their reputations, they would of course want to stay under the radar.
Maybe Henry Sylvester knows something about that.
Or Filip.
“I found a couple of pointers about Charlotte Wretlind’s private life on Flashback,” she begins, and runs through the posts on Stefan and Charlotte’s relationship.
“Well done,” Grip says. “We’ll ask our colleagues in Stockholm to check out his alibi right away.”
Then she turns to Raffe.
“Did you get anywhere with the Storlien project and its finances?”
“We’ve only just started, but we have found some interesting things about the deceased and her business partner, Henry Sylvester.” He jerks his head toward Anton, who has also spent the day looking into the finances surrounding Storlien. After a brief pause, Raffe continues. “Charlotte Wretlind’s company, SEG, has taken out substantial loans in order to build the new hotel in Storlien; the project is being run by a separate company. If anything went wrong, she stood to lose a great deal of money.”
“So she must have been desperate to push it through,” Daniel comments.
Anton nods. “Exactly. The fact that she was prepared to take such a huge personal financial risk says a great deal about her commitment.”
“The question is, how far was she prepared to go in order to succeed?” Hanna wonders. “With such high stakes?”
“Are you thinking it might be a motive for murder?” Grip says.
“I am. It doesn’t sound like you’d want to get in Charlotte’s way.”
Hanna looks at her boss on the screen. When Hanna first came to Åre, it took her a while to get used to the digital meetings, which wereessential because the team is so far apart. After a year of working at home, it has become the norm all over the world.
Everyone is following the example of the Norrland police,she thinks with a faint smile.
“Have you had time to take a look at Henry Sylvester’s company?” Daniel asks.
“We have, and that’s interesting too,” Raffe replies. “It’s called Pecunium AB, and they’ve been investing in various commercial property projects throughout Scandinavia for a long time, but they’ve never put capital into a hotel before.”
