‘They died on the same day, yes. But Wessman was poisoned a full twenty-four hours before.’
‘Fine, but unless I’ve misunderstood, the bath happened in the evening and the yacht late at night.’ Klippan refilled his cup. ‘Milwokh might, for example, have picked up the rubber dinghy sometime in the afternoon and brought it over to the South Harbour and walked from there to the flat in Planteringen. Then when he was done, he could get straight back in the boat and head out to sea with his sword.’
‘Do you know what time the power went out in the building?’ Fabian asked.
‘No, but it should be listed on the power company’s website.’ Klippan went over to the computer and did a search. ‘Tryckerigatan, right?’
Lilja nodded.
‘Cable fire. That must be it, and if this is to be believed, repairs will be completed “within an hour”.’
‘Does it say when it happened?’
‘The report was received at eighteen minutes past six last night. So sometime after six would be a reasonable guess.’
‘I’ll leave the proper examination of the rubber dinghy to Molander, but I did find this in one of the storage compartments.’ Fabian pulled out a folded plastic document sleeve containing several sheets of paper.
‘What are they?’ Lilja took it.
‘Insurance papers and some general information from the boat rental company. And there are copies of the first two payments from Monday and Tuesday along with the final payment of three thousand eight hundred from yesterday.’
‘And when was that payment made?’
‘Fourteen minutes past six. Which is more less exactly when the cables caught fire.’
‘There goes the theory that he picked up the boat first,’ Lilja said.
Klippan nodded. ‘Okay, so he must have done the bath first and then gone out to Rå river to get the boat.’
‘How long would it take to get from Planteringen to the Råå Marina?’
‘I’d say no more than ten minutes by car,’ Klippan replied.
‘But there’s nothing to suggest he rented a car.’
‘Fine, say he took a bike and add five minutes. So, fifteen minutes, no more than that.’
‘That means he must have left the flat absolutely no later than six,’ Fabian said.
‘It’s tight, but possible,’ Klippan said. ‘Depending on how long it took the bath to fill up, he could theoretically have left half an hour, forty-five minutes earlier.’
‘You’re saying he didn’t stay to watch the bath fill up and his victim make his choice?’ Lilja asked.
‘I don’t know.’ Klippan shrugged. ‘I guess if time was short, something had to give.’
‘I’m not going to claim I know how his mind works, but shouldn’t part of the point of devising and executing such an elaborate death dilemma be to sit and watch how it comes out?’
‘Sure, but again, maybe he didn’t have time.’ Klippan pulled out his phone. ‘Maybe something made the whole thing take longer than planned. Maybe the victim got home an hour later than expected. And who knows? Maybe the dice said no, forcing him to leave the flat.’
‘Either way, he must have left the tap running if he left the flat before it was over,’ Fabian said. ‘But if he stayed to watch, he could have turned the water off when it was done. But that would mean he couldn’t possibly have made it to the boat rental company in time.’
‘Which supports your theory about a second killer.’ Lilja sighed and shook her head. ‘I just have a hard time imagining that there would be a second lunatic out there capable of something like this. I know you don’t agree, but I still say it’s too similar to the other cases to indicate a different perpetrator. A lot of the details are different, sure, but we can’t ignore the fact that there’s a running theme from Evert Jonsson, who was rotting inside a hermetically sealed plastic cylinder, all the way to Mattias Larsson, who was either drowned or electrocuted in his own bath.’
‘Could it be a copycat inspired by the other murders?’ Klippan asked, with his phone pressed to his ear.
‘I guess, but we’ve made virtually none of the details public. If it’s a copycat, it has to be someone with insight into our investigations. Besides, shouldn’t there be a limit to how many serial killers we can have in this country? Until two years ago, we hadn’t had a single one. Now, they’re suddenly springing up like mushrooms.’
The silence that followed begged to be filled with words. But Klippan was staring at his phone again and Fabian was so preoccupied he had a hard time keeping up.
There was only one person with insight into all the investigations who might have done it. Ingvar Molander. He would have no problem planning and staging something like the bathtub murder. Moreover, it fitted with the murder of Inga Dahlberg and a few years later the attempted murder of Ingela Polghed. They had both been similar to other open cases, which had effectively pointed them to other perpetrators.
Could that be why he’d been absent all afternoon and evening? Had the grief at being left by Gertrud been an excuse so he wouldn’t have to account for his whereabouts?
‘Who are you calling?’
Lilja broke the silence, and the moment he realized what Klippan’s answer would be, he also realized it was too late.
‘Molander,’ came Klippan’s answer, like an echo of his own thoughts. ‘He was first at the scene, so he should be able to tell us if the tap was on or not.’
‘Should we really be bothering him in the middle of the night, considering everything he’s going through?’ he said in an attempt to redirect Klippan.
‘Since when do you care about things like that?’ Lilja said.
‘I just figured we could call Tuvesson instead, since she was there, too.’
‘Hi, Klippan here. I hope I didn’t wake you… Oh dear. I understand.’ Klippan made a face at the others and made a weighing gesture. ‘The thing is that we were discussing the bathtub murder and certain signs point to there being a second perp. A copycat. Hold on, it’s better if we can all hear you.’ He turned on the speakerphone and put the mobile down on the desk. ‘Hello, Ingvar, can you hear us?’
‘Yes, unfortunately,’ Molander replied in a weary voice.
‘It’s just a quick question, then you can go back to your beauty sleep.’
‘First, I’d like to know exactly what things point to a second perpetrator.’
‘The relative timing of the Öresund attack. He can’t have been in two places at once.’
‘What do you mean, at once? One thing happened in the evening and the other several hours later.’
‘Right, but we have a receipt for the final instalment of the boat rental fee – but maybe Fabian should explain. It’s his theory.’ Klippan nodded to Fabian.
‘Hi, Ingvar,’ he said, and he cleared his throat to shake off the fatigue. ‘So, according to a receipt I found, he picked the boat up at more or less exactly the same time the power went out at Tryckerigatan.’
‘So? What’s to say the timestamp on the receipt is correct? Maybe they just forgot to set the internal clock to daylight saving time. Or he could have left the flat long before the water rose high enough to short-circuit the cables.’
‘That’s what we were saying, too,’ Klippan said. ‘So what we wanted to ask you was whether the tap was running when Tuvesson and you arrived, or whether it had been turned off.’
The silence that followed wasn’t long, but noticeable.
‘It was running,’ Molander said finally. ‘Not fully turned on, but maybe halfway.’
‘Okay, great,’ Klippan said. ‘That’s all cleared up, then. Or what do you reckon, Fabian?’
‘Absolutely,’ he replied, even though Molander’s reply didn’t make the slightest bit of difference.
‘I’d actually assumed the point was to give the victim plenty of time to choose,’ Molander said. ‘But maybe the real reason was that he wanted to do two things at once?’
He knew exactly what he had to do now.
35
EARLY DAWN WAS in full bloom when Fabian turned his bike down Tryckerigatan from Västra Fridhemsgatan and saw the white van from the power company pull out of the car park and drive off in the opposite direction.
He wanted nothing more than a few hours of sleep. But that had to wait. Since Klippan had called Molander and spilled the beans, it was time to spring the trap. Not a few days or a week from now. This was it.
As ever, it all came down to the evidence. The case against Molander would have to be more than adequate. If he were to stand a chance of persuading the rest of the team of their colleague’s guilt, it would have to be watertight, and then some.
If his suspicions turned out to be correct, this could be the proof he’d been looking for. And time was on his side for once. Unlike previous cases, where he’d had to make do with old case files and pictures, this crime scene was only a few hours old. In other words, there was a good chance there might still be fresh clues to find.
To be safe, he’d left the car at home and taken his bike instead, which had turned out to be surprisingly efficient. He’d made it in fifteen minutes and, as a fringe benefit, the fresh air had blown away some of the cobwebs.
He entered the building and noted that the power company had been true to their word. Two steps into the lobby was enough to trigger the motion sensor controlling the flickering fluorescent lights overhead.
He found the door marked M. Larsson on the second floor. The lock had been changed, as was regular procedure, so he could use his crime scene key to get in.
To avoid attracting unnecessary attention, he left the lights off and made do with a flashlight. He wasn’t there to do a thorough search of the whole flat. At least, not right now. The murder had taken place in the bathroom, and that was where he was going.
It was located a few steps down the hall on the left. Flätan, or one of his guys, had already removed the body. But it didn’t matter. Whether the victim had drowned or burned to a crisp from the inside was completely beside the point as far as Fabian was concerned.
The only thing that interested him was the tap.
Right now, everything hinged on that tap.
Had the killer left it running or had he stayed until the bath was full before turning it off and leaving? According to Molander, it had still been running when Tuvesson and he arrived. If that turned out to be true, most things pointed to this being Milwokh’s handiwork. If not, he had everything he needed to make an arrest.
He leaned closer to the bath and aimed his torch at the three stripped cables taped to the inside. One at the bottom and the other two about an inch from the top at either end.
The fact that they’d been placed higher than the bath’s overflow drain, which had consequently had to be sealed with silicone, indicated that the killer had wanted the bath to fill to the brim before the top two cables came into contact with the water. Possibly to make it easier for the victim to drown himself. Or, more likely, to drag the whole thing out so the victim had plenty of time to agonize over his decision.
But those were just more or less likely suppositions. What was beyond doubt was that if the killer had left the tap running, the water must have overflowed and flooded the floor in the hours that followed.
He squatted down and scrutinized the narrow gap between the edge of the bath itself and the decorative panel suspended underneath. But he could neither see nor feel any damp, which was perhaps no wonder since it had been quite a while since Molander claimed to have turned off the tap.
He put the flashlight down on the floor, carefully unhooked the panel and leaned it against the wall. Then he got down on his hands and knees and leaned over until his head hit the floor so he could see all the way to the wall in the light from the torch.
A foot or so from the edge of the bath, there was a floor drain through which the water from the bath was expelled via a pipe. That would explain why the bathroom and large areas of the flat had not flooded – if indeed the bath had overflowed at all – but the drain itself wasn’t what interested him.
It was the dust.
There was quite a lot of it. In places, it had gathered into large dust bunnies that drifted across the floor in the draught of his breath.
His suspicions seemed to be bearing out. To be completely sure, he took out his phone, aimed it in under the bath and took a series of pictures that he could then zoom in on and study in detail.
A thick, untouched layer of dust covered almost the entire area under the bath, and there was no sign of water having trickled through it anywhere.
That indicated the killer had stayed and turned the tap off once the cables had short-circuited and everything was over. Which in turn meant the killer couldn’t be Pontus Milwokh.
Molander had lied to the three of them and the pictures on his phone proved it. The idea had likely been to make it look like another Milwokh killing, and it would have succeeded if Milwokh himself hadn’t struck again at practically the same time.
He found Tuvesson’s number, dialled it and listened while it rang. There was no reason to hold off any longer.
Molander was probably at home, asleep. He had keys, so getting into the house and catching him off guard wouldn’t be a problem.
‘You’ve reached Astrid Tuvesson’s voicemail. I’m unable to take your call right—’
Fabian ended the call and redialled. He’d give it three more tries. If she didn’t pick up, he’d have no choice but to go over to her house and—
‘If I were you, I’d hang up as quickly as I could.’
He recognized the voice, but couldn’t place it. He understood, and yet he didn’t. Not until he turned around and stared straight into the long cylindrical silencer attached to the gun in Molander’s hand.
‘Yes, hello…’ came Tuvesson’s incoherent voice from his phone. ‘Who is this… Bloody hell, it’s the middle of the… Hello?’
The bike. He’d taken his damn bike. The thought kept echoing through his head, louder and louder, as he watched Molander wave his gun at the phone in his hand. He was stunned and felt like an oil tanker that had to make a sudden 180-degree turn to avoid running aground. But it was already too late. Long before he’d even had a chance to throw the engines in reverse and start turning, it was too late.
‘Is that you, Fabian? Are you calling me again? Hello?’
Should he scream? Was that the right thing to do? Scream and tell her as much as he had time to before Molander emptied his magazine? But how much of it would she be able to catch? Would she even remember that he’d called when she woke up in the morning?
He held up his phone in the dark and pushed the red phone symbol.
‘There we go. Good boy. That’s wasn’t so hard, now, was it?’ Molander shot him a smile. ‘But then, we already knew you’re a good boy. Or you wouldn’t be here.’ He pulled a stool out of the far corner. ‘Have a seat.’
Fabian glanced at the stool and then at Molander with the gun in his hand. Had he been in the flat the whole time? Waiting in the dark for him to turn up. To end things.
In a way, it was the logical conclusion to this story. He was next. And Stubbs. Had he already found and done away with her? Was that why she hadn’t picked up when he called earlier?
Regardless, he couldn’t just give up. Whatever happened, whatever Molander had planned, it was time for this to end. The problem was that they were standing too far apart for him to knock the gun out of Molander’s hand without taking a step forward first. And his own gun was in its holster underneath his jacket. No matter how fast he moved, he’d never make it.
‘There’s no point. I wouldn’t even consider it.’ Molander raised the gun and aimed it at Fabian’s head. ‘Don’t take it personally, but I wouldn’t hesitate. Granted, this isn’t how I planned to do it. But it wouldn’t present too much of a problem. So I’ll tell you again, for the last time. Please, have a seat.’
‘You’re never going to get away with this.’ Fabian did as he was told and
sat down. ‘You do know that, right?’
‘And your phone, please.’ Molander held out his free hand and Fabian gave him his phone.
‘Just like I took over after Elvin, someone’s going to come after me.’
‘And last but not least, that little peashooter of yours. Would you mind opening your jacket with your left hand while you hold your right hand above your head.’
Fabian let Molander undo his chest holster, take his gun and empty it before sticking it down the back of his trousers.
‘There, now. Much better! No more unnecessary tension. Right? Now, let’s just delete those pictures sitting there taking up precious memory. What’s your pin?’
‘Ingvar. Wouldn’t it be better to just give up? You can’t go on like this.’
‘Your pin.’ Molander took a step forward and pushed the muzzle of his gun against Fabian’s left temple. ‘If you don’t mind.’
‘7 3 8 5.’
Molander unlocked the phone and deleted the pictures of the dust under the bath.
‘Now what? What are you going to do now?’
‘Don’t worry. You’ll understand in due course. All in due course.’
Molander walked over to the bath, took the showerhead down and slung it over the edge of the bath. Then he turned on the tap, which started splashing onto the floor and in under the bath. ‘I honestly hadn’t thought about the dust under the bath. And I usually think of everything.’ He stepped away to avoid getting splashed and moved in behind Fabian. ‘But you did – so much so, you came out here in the middle of the night to check if your theory was correct. It’s impressive, I have to give you that. Very impressive.’
‘Why?’ Fabian said, as Molander started to take off his jacket. ‘You’re not the first person to have an affair. And I’m sure you’re not the first person to be caught by their father-in-law.’
‘I’m probably not the first to kill my father-in-law, either,’ Molander chuckled as he started unbuckling and removing his holster. ‘Far from it. But you want to know the truth, do you?’
X Ways to Die Page 19
