Stubbs looked around. ‘There’s certainly a lot of stuff in here. But that’s not to say any of it is binding. If it had been, wouldn’t Elvin have acted on it and gone public?’
‘Maybe he was about to.’
‘And what’s to say Molander doesn’t have an alibi? Just like this Willumsen. I mean, that would instantly make the whole case against him fall apart.’
‘As a matter of fact, he does have an alibi for the day Inga Dahlberg was murdered. He was celebrating his anniversary with Gertrud in Berlin that weekend. But take a look at this.’ Fabian pulled out the binder with Berlin written on the spine and flicked through it until he found a printout of two boarding passes. ‘These prove that he flew from Berlin to Copenhagen and back again with just enough time to commit the murder.’
‘That’s good, but is it good enough? If I were to play devil’s advocate, I’d say it might not have been Molander who bought those tickets. It might have been someone else who was out to set him up. But let’s assume it was him. That he even went so far as to check in. That doesn’t prove he got on the plane. And even if he did, it might have been for a different reason than to kill Inga Dahlberg.’
‘Absolutely, you’re right. It’s not watertight. But I’m completely convinced that with your help, I can find more than enough to have him locked away for life. Take this, for example.’ Fabian held up a translucent figurine no more than two inches tall in the shape of an owl. ‘It looks just like the crystal owls Gertrud collects. But it’s made of plastic and Elvin has drilled a tiny hole in the base just big enough to fit a microphone with a transmitter and a battery.’
‘I had no idea he was into DIY.’
‘Nor me. I actually think he stole the idea from Molander himself because he used the same audio software.’ Fabian walked over to the computer, turned it on and clicked his way to the last of a long series of recorded audio files. ‘This was recorded at 11.49 last night, when I happened to be here.’ He clicked the triangle symbol and the time marker started to move across the screen.
‘Hold on a minute. What did you talk about?’ Molander could be heard saying. ‘Gertrud, I said wait!’
‘Ingvar, you’re scaring me.’
‘I want to know what you talked about!’
‘I’m going to have to ask you to calm down.’
‘I am calm! I just need to—’
‘No, you’re not! And besides, it’s late. We’ll have to discuss this some other time, because I’m going to bed in the guest room. And I would appreciate it if you would respect my privacy.’
‘I’ll give you all the privacy you want, as soon as you tell me what in God’s name Fabian Risk was doing here!’
They heard Gertrud sigh.
‘If you really want to know, he was here because I asked him to come over. And I did that because he and I were going to try to come up with an idea for surprising you at work this winter for your birthday. There’s no need to look so incredulous. You’re turning sixty, after all. And as you know, I don’t like doing things at the last minute, so I’m actually well under way with plans for a big party for all your friends and colleagues. But I guess it’s not going to be a surprise. Not any more. And now if you excuse me, I’m going to bed.’
They heard Molander clap his hands together. Once, twice, three times, in slow motion.
‘Wow! A stunning performance. You’re quite the actress. I almost believed you.’
‘Whatever do you mean? Invar, what—’
‘You’re lying! Don’t you think I can tell when you’re lying? I want the whole truth, and until you give it to me, you’re not going anywhere!’
‘What truth are you talking about? The one about what our anniversary trip to Berlin was really about? Is that the truth you’re referring to?’
‘I don’t see what our trip to Berlin has to do with—’
‘Oh no? Are you sure about that?’
‘I have no earthly idea what you’re talking about, and if you think you can get out of this by changing the subject—’
‘Ingvar, I don’t know what you’re up to.’ Gertrud’s voice was breaking. ‘But I know one thing. If anyone’s being dishonest here, it’s you.’ They heard her burst into tears. ‘Oh my God, and you’re supposed to be my husband…’
‘Gertrud, hold on.’ Molander’s voice was sounding more distant. ‘Gertrud, don’t walk away from me. Don’t you walk away when I’m talking to you!’
They heard a door slam shut. Then silence.
Fabian looked up from the computer and waited for a reaction from Stubbs.
‘Have you made sure she’s okay?’
‘I called a few times this morning, and she finally replied with a short text asking me to leave her alone and saying I should contact Ingvar if I have any further questions.’
‘She’s afraid, and no wonder. The easiest thing for her to do right now is to stick her head in the sand and pretend like none of this happened.’
Fabian nodded.
‘On a different note,’ Stubbs continued, turning to Fabian. ‘I’ll admit I was nodding off up there in the cockpit and might have misheard, but I thought I heard a car parking nearby just a few minutes before you came. That wasn’t you, by any chance?’
‘Probably.’
‘So you drove right up to the boat?’
‘Yes. Why?’
Stubbs closed her eyes and shook her head. Then she was on her way out, and before Fabian could get up to the cockpit, she’d already climbed down the ladder and was jogging towards his car, which was parked a stone’s throw away.
He was about to call out after her and ask what she was doing, but then the penny dropped and he hurried towards the stern instead. Suddenly, his fateful mistake was so glaring it hurt.
How long?
The question echoed through his mind as he ran towards the car. When he got there, Stubbs was already on her back, pushing her head in under the rear of the car. A vague worry had been building inside him for a while, and over the past few days it had grown in strength like an approaching storm. And even so, the thought hadn’t occurred to him.
He couldn’t say how long he stood there waiting before Stubbs was finally done and got back on her feet.
‘Just as I thought,’ she said tersely.
He felt every word like a slap in the face. Four blows in quick succession.
She held out the small black plastic hockey puck. ‘I honestly don’t know what you were thinking.’
He stared at the battery-powered tracker in her hand, and the question that had echoed in his head since she climbed off the boat reached a crescendo.
How long?
How long had it been there?
How long had Molander known?
7
HE STUDIED THE picture of the meticulously groomed white poodle sitting on its hind legs, staring into the camera with black eyes and tilted head. As per the instructions on the website, its owner, a woman – it was almost always a woman – had placed it in front of a solid-colour backdrop.
Not that he had anything against dogs as such, but poodles were probably his least favourite breed. Their only purpose in life was to prance around looking cute, and they didn’t even manage to do that. And yet, in the pictures he received, they outnumbered every other breed by a wide margin. And he uncomplainingly cut them out and inserted them into one of the many backgrounds available on his website.
Four thousand kronor he charged for his services. Clients who wanted their picture printed out and put in a gold frame as well had to fork out at least another fifteen hundred, depending on the size. So no, he didn’t complain. Indeed, on the whole, he had very little to complain about.
Since he had first rolled the dice five weeks and one day ago, life had been one long thrill ride, which was exactly what he’d wanted. Every task the dice had set him he’d undertaken to the best of his ability, and even though some had seemed virtually impossible, he’d completed them.
On occasion, he’d felt the
dice had been wrong, had wanted too much at once, had made things unnecessarily complicated or had been too mean and unfair.
Now, though, he could clearly see it had been right every time. If not for all the Xs that had added so many extra requirements, the police would probably be further along in their investigation. He might already have been under arrest.
His only failure so far was the six-year-old girl, Ester Landgren. She should have been drowned, but she was still alive. The problem was that the dice had ordered him to let someone else complete the task. If he had been trusted to do it himself, that little girl’s parents would have been planning her funeral now.
And yet, he’d found the perfect candidate in Assar Skanås, who had been wanted by the police at the time. Aided by the most improbable lucky break, with chance firmly on his side, he’d managed to find him before the police did. Up until that point, everything had been going his way.
But then, things had started to go pear-shaped. Among other things, that lady detective, Irene Lilja, the one who had called him in for an interview, had suddenly been outside his door, ringing his doorbell while Skanås was tied up on his bed, listening to the voices in his head.
He couldn’t understand how they’d found him, and after going over everything he’d done and said and not said during that interview, he’d concluded that the only reasonable explanation was Skanås’s mobile phone.
He’d overlooked it until the moment he helped Skanås out of the car in front of the building. The battery had been on its last legs, but apparently it’d had enough juice for the police to track its last known location.
He had decided to make sure the phone was fully charged and turned on when he sent Skanås off to complete his task. The idea had been for the police to locate it again and this time to find and arrest him. But only after he was done with the girl. Not mid-act. How was he supposed to know the paedo freak needed more than two hours to get things done?
Regardless, it had been an error in judgement on his part, a failure that irked him like a pebble in his shoe, which was why he’d been unable to shake the thought that it had to be put right. But there was no rule to say he could just go back in and tidy up after the fact. Besides, on a fundamental level, it hadn’t been his assignment; that was the whole point of the addition from the X notebook.
On the other hand, it could hardly hurt to ask the dice and see what it had to say, could it? After all, it was in charge, and it might agree with him that something had to be done before they could move on.
He tried to think of something else and resumed his work on the poodle, whose owner had decided to place it in front of the Palace of Versailles. But the moment the picture was done and sent off, his thoughts stubbornly returned to the incomplete assignment, and he finally accepted that only one thing would shut them up, so he took out his collection of six-sided, anodized aluminium precision dice.
One of them would tell him if he should proceed at all. A one, two or three meant yes, a four, five or six meant no. After shaking the dice for a long time, he dropped it onto the green felt.
A two.
In other words, the dice wanted to be consulted. He picked it up again, closed his eyes and shook it for a long time before making his throw. All he had to do now was open his eyes and see if it said yes or no. Not that it was trivial, he mused, his eyes still closed. For Ester Landgren, a childhood and most of a lifetime was at stake.
He was just about to open his eyes when the grating sound of the doorbell reverberated through the flat, penetrating all the way into his secret room. No one ever rang his doorbell, and even though he could easily just ignore it and carry on with what he was doing, the moment was ruined.
He needed peace and quiet to enjoy the outcome of his throws. If it was something he just rushed through, there was no point to it. He got up and walked through the bedroom to the hallway, where the doorbell was ringing aggressively.
He cautiously peeked behind the curtain blocking the door, and after making sure the person on the other side wasn’t looking through the letter box, he slipped between the curtain and the door and pressed his eye to the peephole.
As soon as the doorbell had started ringing, he’d had his suspicions. That was probably why he hadn’t been able to continue his game of dice. Now, those suspicions were confirmed, but that didn’t make him feel better in the slightest.
It was that fucking detective Irene Lilja again. For the second time today, she was standing out there ringing his doorbell, as though she were determined to carry on until he opened up. He couldn’t understand how she’d found him. Fine, she’d been by once, looking for Skanås. But he’d been arrested days ago.
The whole thing was very odd. If the police suspected him, wouldn’t they have sent several uniformed officers instead of a lone detective?
He’d considered disconnecting his doorbell after her most recent visit, but that could be taken as proof he was in the flat and risked piquing her interest further. Instead, he retreated from the hallway and lay down on the sofa to pass the time until she gave up again. If she continued to terrorize him, he would have to do something about it.
Seven minutes later, the flat was silent once more, and as soon as he had calmed down, he got up from the sofa and returned to his dice.
And there it was, its answer. Its verdict.
A one.
He chuckled softly and wiped the sweat off his forehead. The dice had given him a resounding yes. It was finally on his side again. The mistake was finally going to be rectified and order restored.
Finally.
8
FABIAN WAS SITTING alone in the conference room, attempting to adopt an air of calm before the others arrived, which was easier said than done. The battery-powered tracker Stubbs had found under his car had very effectively brought home the imminent threat against him.
There was no longer any doubt Molander was aware of his investigation and was coming for him. The question had instead become what his colleague’s next move was going to be, when and how he was planning to strike and whether there would be enough time for them to secure binding evidence against him.
His immediate inclination upon seeing the small black tracker had been to throw it on the ground and stomp it to pieces. But Stubbs had stopped him, insisting that was the worst thing he could do. Not only would Molander know his cover had been blown, he would also be able to see exactly where the signal had been interrupted, which might motivate him to investigate that location.
Listing one argument after another, she’d eventually succeeded in persuading him that the best thing he could do would be to replace the tracker and keep using the car like nothing had happened. Their only advantage right now was that Molander thought they didn’t know he was on to them.
In case he was also triangulating the location of Fabian’s mobile, they’d agreed to purchase new, pay-as-you-go phones as soon as possible. They also had to move Elvin’s boat, and since Stubbs drove a big Jeep equipped with a tow bar, she’d offered to drive it over to her friend Mona-Jill in Harlösa, east of Lund.
‘Blimey, you’re early!’ Astrid Tuvesson exclaimed as she entered the room with sunglasses in her hair and a coffee in her hand. She looked bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, particularly considering she’d fallen off the wagon and been well and truly inebriated when he called her late the night before to inform her about Molander.
‘Yes, I wanted to make sure I was on time. Since I have to leave around three.’
‘Right, what was that about, again?’
‘Theodor and I are going over to see the Danish prosecutor, remember?’
‘Quite right. I hope it goes well. If there’s anything I can do, just say the word. Okay?’
Fabian nodded.
‘Lilja’s off today, too, so we’ll see how this goes.’ She took a sip of her coffee and put the cup down. ‘From what I’m told, this murder in Klippan is unlike anything we’ve seen.’ She shook her head. ‘And here I was, thinking we were fi
nally going to have some peace and quiet. Had I known this was coming, I wouldn’t have given you or Lilja time off. By the way, on a completely different note, since we’re the only ones here.’ She closed the door and turned to him. ‘Did we speak on the phone last night? Because I have a vague memory of you calling and waking me up.’
Fabian considered how to respond before realizing he was already shaking his head. ‘Not that I recall,’ he said with a shrug. ‘Why would I have called you?’
‘That’s what I was wondering.’
‘Maybe it was a dream.’
‘Dream?’
‘You said I woke you up. Maybe it was just a dream.’
‘Sure, maybe.’ Tuvesson gave him a very sceptical look. ‘Or maybe there’s a different explanation. One in which you actually—’
She was cut short by the door opening to admit Klippan and Ingvar Molander.
‘Crikey, you’re both early.’ Klippan set his laptop down on the table. ‘We might even have time for my run-through of the CCTV footage from Ica.’
‘Let’s start with the murder in Klippan, and then we’ll see where we are when that’s done. Fabian has to leave around three, so we may have to push Ica to tomorrow.’
Klippan sighed and shook his head.
‘Sigh all you want,’ Tuvesson said. ‘But tomorrow’s actually better, because Lilja will be back, too.’
‘What’s the rush?’ Molander’s question was almost inaudible, and to Tuvesson and Klippan, who knew nothing, apparently completely innocent.
In truth, it was a poison barb, fired across the room.
‘I’m going to a meeting with my son,’ Fabian replied, and was unable to stop himself adding: ‘Why do you ask?’
‘Oh dear, aren’t we in a good mood today.’ Molander put on a big smile.
‘Ingvar, maybe it’s none of your business,’ Tuvesson interjected.
‘No, maybe not,’ Molander said, without taking his eyes off Fabian.
‘So let’s get going instead.’ Tuvesson waited for Klippan and Molander to take a seat before continuing. ‘As you all know, we have another murder on our hands. One that doesn’t look like any of the others. I’ve just been in touch with Flätan, who tells me Evert Jonsson died approximately four weeks ago from asphyxiation caused by the hermetically sealed environment inside the cocoon, or whatever you want to call it.’
X Ways to Die Page 4
