He let go of him and sank into a squat. ‘I’m sorry, I just feel so… I’m just trying to help you. Look…’ He closed his eyes and tried to calm down. ‘I understand if you’re angry and disappointed, I really do. With me, with everyone here, with the entire system, but can’t we at least try to talk to each other? I promise, you’ll feel a lot better.’
Theodor turned to Fabian.
‘We belong together, right?’ Fabian went on. ‘You and me. We’re on the same team. Remember that.’
Theodor looked at Fabian for several long, silent seconds. ‘That might just be the most cloying thing I’ve ever heard. Like a line from some eighties’ B-movie where the directions are telling us to embrace each other.’
‘Well, I’m sorry you choose to take it that way. But cloying as it may sound to you, it’s exactly how I feel, and that’s why I’m—’
‘Please, stop, for your own sake, just stop.’ Theodor stood up and took a step back. ‘Do us both a favour and leave and we’ll forget this ever happened. It’s just embarrassing.’
‘So?’ Fabian shrugged. ‘I guess we’ll live with the embarrassment.’
‘You don’t even fucking believe it yourself!’ Theodor turned towards the door.
‘Theo, wait.’ Fabian hurried after him and grabbed him by the arm. ‘Whatever you think, I’m here to—’
‘You’re here for one reason and one reason only. Your own guilty fucking conscience!’ Theodor wrenched free of Fabian’s grasp and pushed the button for the guard to come and get him. ‘There’s nothing you can do, and you know that as well as I do.’
Fabian sighed and nodded. ‘This wasn’t what we thought was going to happen, I’ll be the first to admit it.’ The door opened and the guard entered. ‘But you have a good lawyer. One of the best. The problem is that she can’t help you unless you cooperate. Don’t you get that? You have to do what she tells you and try to bear it. It won’t be long before all of this is over and—’
‘Over? What do you mean, over?’ Theodor held his arms out to the guard, who started putting the handcuffs back on. ‘It’s barely even started.’
‘Can we, please, hold off on that for a minute.’ Fabian pushed in between Theodor and the guard. ‘Listen to me. Right now, you’re at the bottom of the pit. It doesn’t get any worse than this.’ He grabbed Theodor’s shoulders. ‘Being locked up in here with all the criminals just because you want to testify and tell the truth. Because you want to help and do the right thing. It must suck. It does suck.’
‘Whatever. I’m leaving.’ Theodor tried to sidestep Fabian so the guard could cuff him. But Fabian kept him where he was.
‘Please, don’t make things worse than they already are. Just try to keep it together until the trial resumes. If you can just do that, I promise you everything’s going to be—’
‘Where the fuck do you get off promising me anything?’ Theodor broke in.
‘Because I’ve been around the block a few times and I know how these—’
‘You have no fucking idea! Admit it! You’re as lost as the rest of us!’
‘I’m not, actually, and neither is your lawyer. She’s anything but lost, and according to her you’re digging your own grave, the way you’re behaving.’ His son was right. There was no telling what was going to happen during the trial. ‘Theo, I know what I’m talking about. You have to do what she says.’ But that didn’t change the fact that Theodor had no choice but to tell them truthfully what he knew and hope for a fair judgement.
‘Are you seriously standing here promising me everything’s going to be all right, so long as I obey her, step into the witness box and tell the truth? Is that what you’re doing?’
Fabian was painfully aware of how right Theodor was. He wasn’t in a position to promise anything. It was all empty words and wishful thinking at this point. But if there was one thing his son did not need right now, it was prevarication.
So he nodded and did his best to put on a reassuring smile. ‘Theodor, there was no warrant out for you. The police weren’t looking for additional perpetrators. You came forward of your own free will, and the reason you did was because you wanted to testify and tell the truth. Nothing else. A truth that shows you have nothing to hide.’
Theodor shook his head, fighting back tears now.
‘Hey…’ Fabian stroked his cheek. ‘Do you really think I’d be standing here promising you something if I wasn’t sure?’
Theodor shrugged.
‘You have to trust me.’
‘Do you really mean that?’ Theodor was unable to hold back his tears any longer. ‘You’re not just saying it to make me feel better?’
Fabian shook his head and hugged him. ‘Just keep it together for a while longer and before you know it, you’ll be back home and we can put this behind us once and for all.’
‘Promise?’ Theodor hugged him back with a fervour Fabian hadn’t felt before.
‘Yes, I promise, Theo. I promise.’
Theodor nodded and ended the hug with tears streaming down his cheeks. Then he turned to the guard and held out his hands to be cuffed and led out of the room.
52
LILJA TURNED THE water off and tested the temperature. The bath had an old-fashioned mixer tap, with separate handles for cold and hot water, which at times made it impossible to strike the right balance. Nor did it seem to matter how hard she turned the handles. The tap still dripped, and not at a steady rhythm, either, which made it even more annoying.
But at least she had a bath now, and when she slowly let her feet get used to the heat, she could feel her whole body do the Mexican wave out of sheer joy. She’d missed hot baths.
There had been no bath in the house in Perstorp. Apart from having to live there being generally awful in itself, a bath was probably what she’d missed the most. They’d had a sauna. But she’d never been one for sitting around in the nude, sweating and struggling to breathe.
Hampus, by contrast, had seen it as a big plus when he decided to buy the house and had rambled on and on about how his new healthy lifestyle was going to include nightly runs followed by a good sauna. But there hadn’t been any running, and the sauna had mostly been used for storage.
Hampus… She’d barely given him any thought since packing up her things and leaving. Mainly because there had been no time. She’d been on her feet pretty much non-stop the past week.
Burning out had never been her thing. At least, that was how she used to see it. She was someone who dealt with whatever problems came her way instead of curling up in the foetal position. But that was then, before she’d lost herself in this case and before, thanks to Sweden Democrat Sievert Landertz, she’d found herself in the middle of a band of neo-Nazis out to make her life hell.
Now, she didn’t know. But she was undeniably fragile, more so than ever, and this was the first time she’d allowed herself to relax and take a break even though there was still a mountain of removal boxes left to unpack. They were going to have to wait, if she wanted to avoid a mental breakdown. A long, hot bath and a few hours of sleep and hopefully she’d be fit for fight again.
She was reaching for the soap when she heard the distant sound of a toilet flushing. It didn’t sound the same as last time, when she’d finally realized it was coming from the flat next to hers. This time, she could clearly hear the water rush through the pipes in the ceiling. Even so, she opened the vent and listened, but couldn’t hear anything other than the steady whoosh of air.
What were the odds of her moving into this of all flats and becoming neighbours with Pontus Milwokh of all people. And yet they’d managed to let him get away, which in turn meant they now had yet another gruesome murder on their hands.
Molander and his assistants were already processing the Hallberg-Rassy, and if anyone should be close to burning out, it was him. If things carried on like this, they would soon have more crime scenes than they could count. As far as she knew, they’d had to put the examination of the flat in Planteringen on hold
to tackle the boat instead.
She didn’t know how the processing of Milwokh’s flat was coming along. She actually hadn’t heard anything about it, which was worrying and suggested they were far from done, and might in fact not even have started. Could that really be the case? Who was in charge of prioritizing? Tuvesson or Molander himself?
If it were up to her, the flat next door would have been first in line. There should be all kinds of interesting things in there, definitely more than what she’d been able to infer from the old dice and photo albums in the box from his parents’ basement.
His flat was a mirror copy of her own. That thought had struck her when she first entered, but it had subsequently been lost in the commotion, and it was only now, as she relaxed in the bath, that it resurfaced.
Nothing odd about it, as such. Because of the pipes, bathrooms or kitchens were often placed wall to wall. In this building, the bathrooms were connected to the same mains. The kitchens were at opposite ends. Everything added up, except for the bedroom, which for some reason had seemed considerably smaller in the flat next door.
Milwokh’s bed had taken up almost the entire room. She could comfortably fit both an armchair and a big desk by the window in her bedroom. There was probably a logical explanation, though. Maybe she’d just been mistaken. Now that she thought about it, the wallpaper in the bedroom had been dark and the ceiling had been painted black, which was bound to contribute to the claustrophobic feeling.
More than anything, she wanted to let it go, sink into herself and let the sleep she was in such dire need of take over. But she knew herself well enough to realize that no matter how hard she tried, this would bother her until she could find an explanation.
53
HE OPENED THE box as though it were the first time, picked up the two-hundred-year-old, white marble icosahedron and weighed it in his hand. He’d been looking forward to this moment, and more than once during the past few days he’d been convinced it would never come.
It had been a week since the last time he’d held it. That time, its weight had felt like a burden, and he hadn’t been sure he was even worthy of holding it in his hand. But his last task had turned him from a blind caterpillar into a resplendent butterfly.
He studied the twenty sides, twenty equilateral triangles whose perfect geometry formed his most valuable dice. It didn’t just set the pace, chart the course and determine the agenda for what lay ahead. With its nineteen engraved numbers, plus the ten, which had been replaced with an X, it ruled on whether there would be any more tasks at all.
Rolling a two or higher gave him the number of days until the next deed had to take place, counting from today. A one meant it was over, and not just for now, but for ever and ever.
There had been times when he would have had no problem accepting that outcome. But not this time. He couldn’t explain why, but it felt like everything he’d gone through and endured had only been preparation for what was to come. As though each of his tasks had in fact been lessons, tailor-made to help him develop the skills he would need.
The dice was getting warmer in his hand, and his entire body itched to perform the first throw. To make sure there was no dirt that could affect the outcome on the green felt board, he dragged his hand across it before shaking the dice until he was convinced there was nothing to impede chance.
Then he let the dice fall and watched it bounce on the felt before coming to a stop.
A twelve.
He was relieved but also slightly disappointed. It wasn’t over yet. Another task was going to be set, but it would be almost two weeks before he could complete it. The question was whether he’d be able to wait that long. Maybe there was a point to it, though. Maybe the preparations were going to be so extensive he’d need the time.
He moved on to the next step to find out who his victim was going to be this time. For that, he needed his collection of six-sided, anodized aluminium precision dice. He picked up one of them to determine if he was supposed to use one or two dice and shook it in his hand before releasing it onto the felt.
A three.
In other words, one dice. He picked it back up, shook it and rolled.
A one.
He turned to the map of Skåne pinned to the wall in front of him. The map was cut into a square that was further divided into 144 smaller, numbered squares. Twelve columns numbered west to east and twelve rows from north to south.
For the first time, he was going to execute his mission in the first column, which extended south from Mölle on the beautiful Kullaberg peninsula, in many ways a perfect setting for a murder.
He picked up the dice again, shook it and did another pre-roll.
A four.
That meant the row was going to be determined by two dice. He picked up another one, shook both and released them onto the felt.
Two sixes.
He didn’t even need to check the map to know the southernmost square in column number one was Copenhagen. The idea of getting to do something in Denmark had been there since the day he drew the grid on the map, but that it would be the bottom-left square had been beyond his wildest dreams.
An online search revealed that there were approximately 2,300 street names in Copenhagen, and to find out which letter the street name should start with, he once again did a one-dice pre-roll.
A five.
This time he could use up to six dice, so he took out five, shook them in his cupped hands and rolled.
A three, a four, a five, a one, a six.
Together that made nineteen, which corresponded to the letter S.
The column of street names starting with S was much too long to fit on the computer screen, so he repeated the procedure to determine the subsequent letters T O L. That narrowed it down to Stoltenbergsgade, and a few more rolls gave him street number 9.
The street was fairly centrally located, and judging from Google Maps, the building in question had six floors including the attic, which looked like it had been converted into flats. A few rolls later, the dice had settled on the flat to the far right on the third floor, and he was able to do a search on Krak.dk to find out who it was that had only twelve days to live.
At first, he didn’t understand what it said. How that could be someone’s name. When he realized a few seconds later that it wasn’t the name of a person at all, but rather of a Danish government agency, something sparked to life inside him.
The National Police of Denmark.
No wonder he’d need time to prepare. Just determining who exactly the intended victim was would require going there and letting the dice decide at the scene.
He’d only had three people to choose between on the boat. At Ica Maxi, there had been so many potential victims, he’d made the colours of their clothes correspond to numbers on the dice. That had worked out okay. But there, he’d been able to walk around unnoticed.
Repeating the same procedure in an office building full of police officers was something else entirely.
To find out how that was supposed to work, he picked up one of the dice again and shook it. First, he needed to know which category he was doing next. An uneven number meant getting out the list of murder weapons, from rifle to slingshot. An even number meant the list of different ways to die.
A four.
He took out the list of twelve possible causes of death and did a pre-roll.
A four.
So he had to use two dice.
A five and a four.
According to the list, the chosen victim, whoever that might be, was supposed to die in a fire twelve days from today. Something that at first glance might seem relatively straightforward. The difficulty lay in isolating the fire so no one else got hurt. But it was nothing that couldn’t be solved with some preparation. After all, he had twelve days.
He already had several ideas of how to proceed and felt eager to get started. But before he did, he needed the final confirmation from the icosahedron. So he picked up the marble dice, which had gone col
d, and warmed it in his hands. Then he shook it thoroughly before making his throw.
This time, it rolled around for a long time before looking like it was going to settle on twelve, but then, for some unknown reason, it tipped over and landed on X. The chance – or, if one preferred, the risk – of that happening was one in twenty. And yet this was the fourth time he’d rolled an X.
Every number on the dice except X meant the task was set in stone and that he could get started on the preparations. Now, instead, he was going to have to get out the notebook in which he’d written down 120 different additional tasks and then roll the icosahedron again.
Twenty.
The outcome meant he was supposed to use no fewer than twenty six-sided dice to determine which of the additional tasks would be required. It was the absolute maximum number. He took out another box of anodized aluminium precision dice and counted out twenty.
They barely fitted in his cupped hands, and more than once he dropped one while trying to shake them and had to start over again. But after a while, he felt convinced they were sufficiently randomized and released them onto the felt.
He looked at the dice – no, he stared, utterly speechless. What lay before him on the green felt was inconceivably improbable. It looked like someone had deliberately adjusted each dice.
All twenty dice had come up six.
Twenty sixes, which added up to 120.
He’d never heard of anything like it, much less experienced it himself. But there they were, each one with its six pips pointing up, as though it were the most natural thing in the world. But it was anything but.
X Ways to Die Page 28
