‘Please,’ Fabian nodded, as Molander drew his arms behind his back. ‘Explain to me how things went so very wrong.’ Moments later, he felt a cable tie tighten around his wrists.
‘What makes you so convinced things have gone wrong?’ Molander walked around and sank into a squat in front of Fabian. ‘Apart from a detail here and there, I’d say most things have gone to plan.’
‘You might not be best placed to make that assessment objectively.’
‘Tell me.’ Molander took a few more cable ties out of his jacket pocket. ‘Which colour of Ahlgrens bilar sweets do you prefer? White, green or pink?’
‘And what does that have to do with anything?’
‘Answer me.’ Molander aimed his gun at Fabian’s head once more. ‘White, green or pink?’
‘Neither. They taste exactly the same. The only difference is a bit of food colouring.’
‘That’s right. But you’re forgetting something important. The visual impression actually affects the perception of flavour. At least in this case. I personally prefer the green. The white are okay, but the pink ones. Never.’
‘And how does that justify murdering your father-in-law?’
‘We were discussing who is wrong and who the more objective.’ Molander tied Fabian’s legs to the stool. ‘You, who can’t taste the difference, or me, who would be able to tell them apart blindfolded?’ First the right, then the left. ‘As far as Einar Stenson is concerned, he had it coming.’
Molander stood up and put the gun back in his holster. ‘Did you know he had the temerity to summon me to his summer house and confront me with a bunch of pictures of me and Inga? Talk about doing the wrong thing. Sneaking around, spying on me. As though my life were any of his business. As though he didn’t screw around like a bloody rabbit on all those trips he went on.’
Molander shook his head and had to compose himself before he could continue. ‘He even tried to blackmail me into divorcing Gertrud. He threatened to tell her everything if I refused. I just lost it and stabbed him with a kitchen knife.’
Fabian was on the verge of saying something, but was silenced by a raised hand.
‘I know exactly what you’re thinking, and from a certain vantage point, you’re right. It was clearly an overreaction. But looking back, I feel no remorse whatsoever. And you know what?’ He leaned down until his face was level with Fabian’s. ‘I’m convinced you would have felt the same in my position. Einar Stenson was an evil bastard. You couldn’t tell from looking at him, but behind that warm, friendly smile… Nasty brute, that’s all I have to say.’ He straightened up, turned his back on Fabian and went over to the bath, where he repositioned the showerhead to make the water flood different parts of the floor. Then he reached for one of the three cables taped to the bath.
Maybe this was his chance. Now, when Molander’s back was turned and he was focused on the cables. The thought came to him in the form of a question, but the decision had already been made. He threw himself down and started slamming the stool into the floor as hard as he could, again and again.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Molander turn around. Maybe he’d pulled out his gun, too. He couldn’t tell, and it didn’t matter. He just had to keep banging the stool against the floor. If he could break it, he should be able to kick Molander’s legs out from under him and escape into the stairwell.
But the stool refused to break and then Molander was on top of him, holding his legs down until lactic acid rendered them useless.
‘Take Gertrud, for example,’ Molander went on, nodding for him to sit back up. ‘He abused her psychologically from the day she met me. Treated her like air. And that’s nothing to how he treated me, even though I did everything a perfect son-in-law should. Everything.’
Fabian tried to sit up, but with his hands tied behind his back and his legs tied to the stool, it was impossible, and in the end Molander had to help him.
‘I went to every goddam Sunday dinner. I sat through them, nodding and pretending to listen to his tedious ramblings. I worked on the house with him and replaced his entire roof. One summer, I dug up the entire bloody foundation by hand because he needed to install drainage but was too stingy to pay a professional. My back has never been the same since.’
Molander turned to a toiletry kit that hung on a hook behind him and took out a small syringe and a tiny glass phial. ‘And do you think he ever thanked me? He most certainly bloody didn’t.’ He pushed the needle into the phial, filled the syringe and squirted a few drops out to remove the air bubbles inside.
‘What’s in the syringe?’
‘The chemical formula is very complex and would require a medium-sized whiteboard to explain. So you’ll have to satisfy yourself with knowing that it’s a substance I was hoping not to have to use. Unfortunately, however, your behaviour leaves me no choice. Where were we?’
‘He was ungrateful,’ Fabian supplied, not taking his eyes off the syringe until Molander disappeared behind his back.
‘Right. Thank you. So I stood there, watching him thrash around on the floor with the kitchen knife in his stomach, and the bigger the pool of blood grew, the happier I felt.’
Fabian could feel Molander pull his shirt out of his trousers, stick his cold hand into the gap and feel his lower vertebrae.
‘Once the old man kicked the bucket, I cleaned up and rearranged the scene. For instance, I polished the floor no less than three times to make sure it was extra slippery. Then I placed him face down across the open dishwasher door, on top of the cutlery basket. I collected as much of the blood as I could and made sure to keep it moving in the blender to keep it from coagulating until I could pour it over the dishwasher. Stay still now, please.’
There was a pinch when the needle plunged in between his vertebrae, followed almost immediately by a searing pain that quickly intensified. As though it were some kind of acid, corroding everything in its path.
‘In a way, it was similar to the way I approach crime scenes as a forensic scientist,’ Molander continued, as he pulled another glass phial from the toiletry kit and filled the syringe. ‘Just in reverse. It was one of the most fun things I’d ever done. For once, I was in full control and knew exactly what to do.’
The pain subsided, morphing into a dull, thudding numbness.
‘It was as though I could see into the future to when Ragnar Söderström from South-west Götaland Police would arrive at the scene.’ Molander turned to the toiletry kit again. ‘I could almost hear him concluding it was a tragic accident in which Einar Stenson slipped on the newly polished floor and fell onto the cutlery basket, where the kitchen knife happened to be standing point up. It was magnificent.’
When Molander turned around, he was holding a pair of pointed tweezers, and he suddenly stabbed Fabian in the thigh, without warning. ‘And you know what it’s like. Once you’ve taken a bite of that apple, it’s hard not to take another.’ He pulled the tweezers out with a smile and wiped the blood on Fabian’s trousers. ‘There we are.’
Fabian watched the blood bloom into a dark stain that kept expanding. But he could feel almost nothing and realized he couldn’t move his legs.
‘It’s a shame you’re not pregnant. Then we could have delivered you while we’re at it.’
An epidural. Of course that was what he’d given him. He looked up at Molander. ‘So you kill your father-in-law, realize you enjoy it and just keep killing people,’ he said, feeling his lower body grow increasingly numb. ‘What’s wrong with you?’
Molander laughed and went over to the bath, where he gently pulled the three cables free, one after the other. ‘You have no idea how easy it is to cross over to the other side. There’s a line, no doubt about it. But unlike what most people think, it’s neither wide nor demarcated by a high wall you have to climb. No, as a matter of fact, it’s incredibly fine.’
‘Maybe for you, Ingvar. For the rest of us, for healthy people, that line’s pretty clear.’
‘I happen to be the one who
has experienced both sides,’ Molander retorted while he studied the three cables and removed another half-inch of insulation with a small knife. ‘And I can promise you, I know what I’m talking about. The difference is marginal.’ He pulled a roll of thick tape from the bag hanging next to the toiletry kit and once again disappeared behind Fabian’s back. ‘From my perspective, it’s the same bodies and more or less the same scenarios. The same suffering. The only difference is that this is so much more fun.’
‘And Inga Dahlberg?’ Fabian said, as he heard Molander tear off a strip of tape. ‘Did she threaten to expose your little affair, too?’ Then he felt a cold wire being pressed against his right wrist and secured there with tape.
‘In a way, she did, actually,’ Molander replied, taping the other cable to Fabian’s left wrist. ‘You know how it goes.’ He came around to stand in front of Fabian, holding the last cable. ‘At first, it’s novel and exciting. Then it starts to feel more and more like a chore, and without really knowing how you got there, you find yourself in some kind of polygamous marriage.’ He sighed and shook his head. ‘I tried to end it amicably. But she refused to let go and became increasingly – well, how to put it – fanatical and crazed, so in the end, I had no choice.’
‘But you didn’t just leave her. You didn’t even just kill her. Apparently, you felt a need to rape and torture her as well.’
‘Yes, perhaps I did overdo it, but still, I feel pretty good about it. I pulled off a virtually impossible plan without making a single mistake.’
‘You must have made some kind of mistake. If you hadn’t, why would Elvin have started investigating you?’
At the mention of Elvin’s name, Molander’s eyes suddenly darkened. ‘The intended scapegoat happened to have an alibi, a ridiculous little alibi that wasn’t even half as good as my Berlin one. It was unfortunate, and I suppose it aroused Elvin’s suspicions.’ Molander shook his head. ‘It was the first time something didn’t work out as planned.’
‘And the second time?’
‘Ingela Ploghed. But that was entirely my own fault.’ Molander squatted down and pulled up Fabian’s left trouser leg a foot or so. ‘It was stupid and unnecessary, but what can I say?’ He spread his hands in a resigned gesture. ‘I’m only human.’ He pulled down Fabian’s sock and tore off a piece of tape. ‘The problem was that I got sloppy, which in turn fanned Elvin’s suspicions. I don’t know if you remember, but you voiced concern about it not matching the other murders yourself.’
‘I do remember,’ Fabian said, as Molander taped the last wire to his exposed shin. ‘And now what? What are you going to do now? Are you going to kill me, too? Like you killed Elvin?’
‘Never start with the dessert, as my mother liked to say.’ Molander stood up and shook his head. ‘True, I could do it now, no problem. Just a quick flick of that switch over there.’ Molander nodded to the light switch on the wall. ‘That’s all it would take to start ten minutes of hell that would turn you into nothing but a memory in the minds of your loved ones.’
‘And you seriously expect everyone to buy it? That I came over here in the middle of the night and committed suicide by hooking myself up to electrical cables? Or that I tied myself up first? And how are you going to explain that I managed to hit a switch all the way over there?’
Molander answered with a smile. ‘The dust under the bath. I’ll give you that one. But that’s the only thing I’ve overlooked. How was I to know our little Asian friend was going to strike again last night? If it wasn’t for that, the dust wouldn’t have mattered.’ He shrugged. ‘But everything else, and I really do mean everything else, has been planned out down to the smallest detail.’ He levelled Fabian with an intent stare. ‘For the past few days, I’ve directed your every move. Practically every thought you’ve had was put in your head by me. Or maybe you thought you came here of your own free will?’ He chuckled. ‘Nothing could be further from the truth.’
‘I came here because of the dust. Your mistake. Nothing else.’
‘Are you sure of that? Granted, the events out on Öresund had you questioning the timeline, which in turn led to the question of whether the tap was left on or not. But the only difference that made was that you got here tonight instead of sometime tomorrow like I’d planned. Luckily, Klippan’s call tipped me off, so I made it here in time.’
‘Why would I have come tomorrow, if not for what happened out on Öresund?’
‘Maybe because the fact that the victim was given a choice of how to die had your antennae up?’ Molander waited, studying Fabian’s reaction for a few seconds. ‘Yes. I thought so. Lilja, Klippan and Tuvesson swallowed it, hook, line and sinker. But not you, and you weren’t meant to. I know you well enough by now. That thought would have festered and eventually you would have remembered those notes and electrical formulas and calculations you found on my nightstand when you came to my house yesterday.’
Molander knew he’d been there. Even though he’d left his car at home, he knew.
‘There we go. The penny finally drops. I even think I wrote something about the impedance of the human body, didn’t I? You don’t have to look so shocked. If you give it some thought, I’m sure you don’t actually believe I would let something like that lie about in plain sight. Come on, you know me.’ Molander spread his hands. ‘But let’s instead ponder the fact that I and the other members of our team will find you here in a few days’ time, slumped over the edge of the bath with a wire clutched in either hand.’
‘How are you going to explain that to the others?’
‘The logical explanation is that you came here, on your own initiative as usual, and were examining the electrical set-up with your prying little hands at the very moment the power was turned back on.’
‘And this wound?’ Fabian nodded to his thigh where the dark bloodstain now measured four inches across. ‘You don’t think Flätan’s going to notice? Or the missing hair where you pulled off the tape?’
‘I’m sorry to have to disappoint you. But you’re not going to end up on Flätan’s table. I’m going to make sure it’s his less meticulous colleague, Arne Gruvesson, who examines you, to the best of his ability, let’s hope.’
Molander was probably right. No one would think it was anything but a tragic accident, that he’d obstinately insisted on acting on his own without informing anyone else on the team, as usual. ‘So what are you waiting for?’ he said. ‘Why don’t you just go over and flick that switch and get it over with?’
Molander brightened. ‘Ah, yes. We’re finally making some progress. Let me lay it out for you. As you are well aware, we’re in the middle of a complex murder investigation involving a perpetrator who has no qualms about killing an innocent child for his own amusement, and if I’m right about you, you want to see it wrapped up at any cost.’
‘Well, then I can inform you the case is pretty much wrapped up already, since most signs point to him having drowned.’
‘That’s true. At least it looks that way. But we don’t know. Not for sure. Isn’t that right? And until we do, until we find his body, or at least some part of it, washed up on a beach either here or in Denmark, I want us to keep working together.’
Fabian wasn’t sure he’d heard him right. Was he actually seriously suggesting they keep working together after this?
‘Fabian, you are without a doubt the sharpest member of our team. My ego might not allow me to show it much, but the truth is that you often both surprise and impress me in our meetings. You draw conclusions and see connections the rest of us miss, and I’m completely convinced we won’t be able to finish this without you.’
‘You really believe I’m just going to cycle on home and go to bed after this?’
‘Of course, what else can you do?’ Molander smiled. ‘And when you wake up tomorrow, you’re going to eat your breakfast, hug your beautiful wife and kiss your daughter’s forehead, just like you always do, before getting in your car and driving over to the station.’
‘And
what makes you think I won’t inform the others and have you arrested the first chance I get?’
Molander replied with a smile. ‘As much as this investigation needs you, it will never succeed without me.’
‘We’re going to catch him with or without you.’
‘Of course you will. But he won’t be convicted. You’re only going to be able to hold him for three days. Then Högsell’s going to realize there’s no binding evidence and demand that you release him immediately.’ Molander leaned in closer. ‘Every fingerprint and every DNA sample. Every little hair I’ve found tying him to the different crime scenes. Poof.’ He described a small explosion with one hand. ‘So it’s up to you if he gets to carry on or not.’
‘Like I said, a lot points to him having drowned.’
Molander snorted derisively. ‘You don’t even believe that yourself. That he ‘accidentally’ fell out of the rubber dinghy after first taping the throttle down while also managing to take all his gear with him. No, what you should be thinking about right now is your own life. And Sonja’s, of course. Not to mention little Matilda’s.’
‘If you lay so much as a finger on either of them, I’m going to—’
‘What? Tell me. What are you going to do when you’re in a freezer, waiting to be cremated? How are you going to stop me from having my fun with them? Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t Matilda starting to grow breasts?’
Fabian started to struggle furiously against his bonds.
‘And then there’s Theodor,’ Molander went on. ‘What will become of him when he gets out and you’re not there? If he ever does get out, that is.’
With his arms tied behind his back and a lower body that no longer belonged to him, Fabian was helpless.
‘Or wait, I have an idea.’ Molander held up a finger. ‘It’s a good one, too. Both Sonja and Matilda believe in ghosts, right? So maybe you’ll be able to help them from the spirit realm.’
Fabian studied Molander, who was laughing at his own joke. The yellow teeth packed in so tightly they almost didn’t fit. The eyes that were both weary and manic. The victory he was already savouring.
X Ways to Die Page 20
