The Växjö vault

The bell above the door of ‘A Touch of Antiquity’ jingled its cheap, tinny tune. Inside, the air was thick with the smell of beeswax and neglect. A young constable, new to the Växjö force, held up a faded ledger, his brow furrowed. “Inspector? The sums here… they don’t make sense. Who buys this many unmarked, mid-century ashtrays?” Inspector Mats Lundström, his coat smelling of autumn rain and old coffee, ran a finger over a dust-free shelf. The dust lay thick everywhere else, but here, on this specific stretch of oak, it was pristine, as if something heavy and rectangular was regularly moved. He didn’t answer the constable. He just smiled, a thin, weary smile. The hunt, he thought, was finally getting interesting.

* * * * *

The call came in at dawn. A body, found slumped over the steering wheel of a beaten-up Volvo in the woods just outside Växjö. Not a local. A Latvian national, according to his passport. No visible wounds, no signs of a struggle. Just dead. In the glove compartment, amidst greasy napkins and a road atlas, was a single, crisp hundred-pound sterling note and a receipt from ‘A Touch of Antiquity’ for a “Victorian Silver Snuff Box – 5,000 SEK.”

“Five thousand for a box that probably held someone’s great-grandfather’s sinus relief,” Lundström muttered to his partner, the earnest and relentlessly modern Detective Anja Borg. “Seems a bit steep, even for the Swedes.”

Anja scanned the car with a tablet. “No forced entry. Looks like he just pulled over and died. Heart attack?”

“Heart attacks don’t usually travel with untraceable foreign currency, Anja,” Lundström said, his gaze drifting towards the town, its church spire piercing the low grey sky. He thought of his son, David, in Oxford, and the hefty tuition fees paid in similar, crisp notes. The world was connected by invisible threads of money, and this dead man was a loose end.

The antique shop was their first port of call. The owner, Stig Larrson, was a small, neat man with fingers that fluttered like anxious birds. His shop was a curated chaos of porcelain, dark wood, and tarnished silver.

“Ah, the snuff box,” Stig said, wringing his hands. “A cash sale. A private collector. I never got a name.”

Lundström picked up a heavy, ormolu clock. “Business good, Stig?”

“It… ebbs and flows, Inspector. One must have a discerning clientele.”

“Discerning enough to pay five thousand for a snuff box that’s clearly Birmingham, 1890, not Victorian,” Lundström said, placing the clock down with a thud that made Stig jump. “The hallmark is wrong. A discerning man would know that.”

The tension in the shop was as palpable as the dust. As they left, Lundström noticed a sleek, black German sedan parked a little too conveniently down the street. It didn't belong.

The plot thickened with the forensics report. The Latvian, one Aleksei Petrov, had a faint, almost undetectable pinprick on his neck. A toxin. Sophisticated. Untraceable in standard screenings. A professional job.

“So, not a heart attack,” Anja stated the obvious, a new respect in her eyes for her superior’s initial scepticism.

“No. A silencing,” Lundström corrected. He stood by the map in the incident room, a red pin marking the antique shop. “Petrov was a courier. He picked up something from that shop. Not a snuff box. Something else. And he was killed before he could deliver it.”

Their break came from an unlikely source: the town gossip, Mrs. Persson, who lived opposite the shop and had nothing but time and binoculars. “Men in expensive coats, Inspector,” she whispered over tea and pepparkakor. “They come after dark. They never carry anything in. But they always leave with a small box. Always the same size. Like a shoebox.”

Lundström and Anja staked out the shop. For two nights, nothing. On the third, the black German sedan appeared. Two men in long, dark coats entered. An hour later, they emerged, one carrying a plain cardboard box.

“Follow them,” Lundström ordered Anja, who slipped into an unmarked car. He stayed, watching the shop. A light flickered in the back room, then went out. Stig Larrson was scared. And a scared man was a vulnerable one.

Lundström decided to apply pressure. He visited Stig alone, late the next day.

“The men in the coats, Stig. Who are they?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Stig stammered, his eyes darting towards the back of the shop.

“Aleksei Petrov is dead, Stig. Murdered. And you’re laundering money for the people who killed him. That doesn’t make you a businessman. It makes you an accessory.”

Lundström’s phone buzzed. It was Anja, her voice tight with excitement. “The car led me to a summer house by Helgasjön. High-end. Registered to a shell company in the Caymans. I ran the plates on the other cars there. One is registered to a known associate of the Riga Syndicate.”

The Riga Syndicate. The name landed in the room with the weight of a tombstone. Stig’s face crumpled. “They’ll kill me,” he whispered.

“They might,” Lundström agreed calmly, leaning on the counter. “Or you can help me stop them. Your choice.”

The dam broke. Through choked sobs, Stig explained. The shop was a front. The ‘antiques’ were massively over-invoiced. A customer, the Syndicate, would ‘buy’ a worthless item for an exorbitant price. The dirty cash would enter Stig’s legitimate business account. He’d take a cut, then wire the clean money to another shell company. The cardboard boxes contained the cash for the next cycle of laundering. Petrov had gotten greedy, tried to skim from the top. He’d been made an example of.

“The next drop,” Lundström pressed. “When?”

“Tonight,” Stig whispered. “Midnight. They’re closing the operation. Moving me out. The box tonight… it’s the final one. The big one.”

It was a trap, and Lundström knew it. The Syndicate was cutting its losses. Stig was a loose end, just like Petrov. They weren't moving him; they were eliminating him.

The final act was set for midnight. The police surrounded the shop, hidden in the deep shadows of the Växjö night. Lundström was inside with Stig, the air cold and still. The only light came from a single desk lamp, illuminating the dreaded cardboard box on the counter.

The bell didn't jingle. The door was opened with a key. The two men from the German sedan entered, their movements efficient and cold. The taller one, a man with eyes the colour of a winter sea, smiled at Stig. It didn't reach his eyes.

“The final payment, Stig,” he said, his Swedish accented. He glanced at the box, then back at Stig. “You have been… reliable.”

“And you have been murderous,” Lundström said, stepping out from behind a tall armoire. He held his service pistol, steady and level. “Växjö Police. You’re under arrest.”

The tall man’s smile didn’t falter. “Inspector. A shame.” His hand moved towards his coat.

“I wouldn’t,” Anja’s voice rang out from the doorway, her weapon aimed at the second man. Outside, blue lights flashed to life, painting the street in stark, pulsing strokes.

It was over in seconds. The fight was short, brutal, and decisive. The Syndicate men were professionals, but they were outnumbered and outmanoeuvred. As Anja cuffed the tall man, he spat at Lundström, “This is a small town, Inspector. You have no idea the storm you’ve brought down on it.”

Lundström holstered his weapon and picked up the cardboard box. It was heavy with bundled notes. “No,” he said, his voice quiet but firm. “This is my town. And we have enough storms of our own.”

* * * * *

A week later, the rain had returned. Lundström sat at his desk, the paperwork on the ‘Antique Shop Case’ finally complete. Stig was in witness protection. The two enforcers were singing, hoping for leniency, their information reaching back across the Baltic to Riga. It was a small victory, but a clean one.

On his desk was a postcard from his son, David. A picture of the Bodleian Library. On the back, it read: ‘Thanks for the transfer, Dad. All settled. Don’t work too hard. Love, D.’

Lundström allowed himself a genuine smile, the weary one reserved for rare moments of peace. He looked out at the wet, gleaming streets of Växjö, quiet and deceptively calm. He took a sip of his coffee. It was cold, but it didn’t matter. The ledger, for now, was balanced.

END