“We should be just about there now,” Embla informed her colleagues. She stopped after a few yards more, opened the side window, and peered out. “Can either of you see anything that resembles a house?”
“No,” they answered in unison.
The other vehicles parked behind the Volvo. Even with the help of their headlights, Embla couldn’t see a thing. With a sigh she realized they were going to have to get out.
The search party gathered next to the minibus. The leader of the Home Guard divided them into groups and told them which way to go, exhorting them not to leave big gaps between them. Before they set off he issued a final instruction:
“Maintain radio contact.”
The four groups moved away, leaving Göran and Flod, whose first name was apparently Bengt, by the vehicle.
Each team consisted of five people. Embla and Hampus were with Patrik Lind and Alice Åslund from Strömstad, plus a young guy from the Home Guard who introduced himself as Linus. He was in his early twenties, below average height and pretty skinny. His green uniform was several sizes too big. He didn’t say a word as they plodded along by the beam of their flashlights, tapping the ground with sticks as they went.
Suddenly the radio crackled to life.
“Group West have found an old house with a small shed next to it.”
Then came Flod’s voice: “Okay—how far from our location?”
After a mumbled consultation, the first voice said: “No more than a hundred yards. There’s a narrow path.”
Embla was in Group North. They stopped and discussed how best to proceed. While they were talking she swept her flashlight over the surrounding undergrowth. She saw a glimmer, and the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end when she saw someone shining a flashlight at her. Then she realized it was her own reflection in a windowpane.
“There’s a house here, too,” she said.
They reported back to Bengt Flod and Göran before pushing their way through the vegetation to take a closer look.
It was a completely derelict structure. The porch roof had fallen down and lay in a heap on the top step. One of the two windows was broken, and scraps of gray fabric that must have been a lace curtain were fluttering in the wind.
“No one’s been here for a very long time,” Patrik Lind said with certainty.
“This could be the dilapidated cabin Pernilla mentioned,” Embla suggested.
They scanned the area, and the beam of Hampus’s flashlight picked out an old outhouse. The roof had fallen in and the door was hanging drunkenly on one hinge. A few feet away there was a small shed. The door was barred, but there was no padlock. When Embla went over and opened it, she was met by the acrid smell of rotten wood and mold. However, there was another odor that she immediately recognized. Her stomach turned over—not because of the stench, but because she knew they’d found the boy. Although of course it could be a dead animal. Hopefully.
Cautiously she stepped inside. An old cart took up most of the space; the wheels were missing, so it was propped up on large stones. There were a few rotten poles in one corner; otherwise the place seemed to be empty.
But that smell . . .
Slowly she shined her flashlight over the earth floor and the walls. Below the roof on one side she saw a wide shelf. Near the edge was a paper bag with something inside it. When she stood on tiptoe she could just see a blue-and-white patterned blanket right at the back, by the wall.
Pernilla Andersson reacted with surprising composure to the news that they’d found Viggo. Embla had expected a total collapse, floods of tears and hysterical outbursts, but instead she became silent and still. Her face stiffened into a mask, and her eyes looked like two pools with not a ripple to stir the water.
A patrol car came to take her to the mortuary for the formal identification of her son. Before leaving she put on a long black cardigan instead of the bathrobe she’d been wearing for over a week, but she didn’t bother changing the black tights and faded yellow T-shirt.
First she identified the blue blanket with white dots as Viggo’s comfort blanket. Her voice sounded strangely toneless. She then followed Embla and Hampus into the room where the little body lay beneath a sheet. Hampus folded back the top section and moved aside to let Pernilla step forward. She stood there motionless for a long time, staring at her son’s ashen, sunken face. Then she turned on her heel, grabbed her sobbing mother by the arm, and pushed her toward the door.
“Okay, that’s it,” she said without a trace of emotion. She paused in the doorway and looked back at Embla and Hampus. “I want to talk to you. Right away!”
Her voice was thick with something that could be interpreted as grief and suppressed tears, but the fire in her eyes revealed a burning rage.
Pernilla didn’t say a word during the drive home; the only sound was her mother’s weeping. Embla parked the Volvo by the gate. Viggo’s toys were still strewn around the yard, as if a little boy might run out and start playing with them at any moment.
Without further explanation Pernilla invited them in. She marched upstairs, straight into the master bedroom. The double bed was unmade, and judging by the stale smell, the room hadn’t been aired out for a long time. Pernilla went over to a low door and opened it. As Embla had guessed, it led to a built-in closet, very common under the sloping roofs of older houses.
Pernilla turned and jerked her head toward the closet.
“In here.”
She reached inside and switched on a bare bulb. Another jerk of the head told Embla and Hampus that she wanted them to follow her in. Hampus almost had to double over to avoid banging his head on the door frame. Pernilla was already over by the far wall, pressing on the tongue-and-groove paneling. After a moment there was a click, and she pushed one piece of wood to the side, revealing a space big enough to hold the sports bag they could now see.
“Ted’s grandfather built this house. I presume this secret compartment was made to hide his homemade schnapps. And Ted . . .” Her voice broke and she fell silent.
Göran, who was still in the doorway, passed each of his colleagues a pair of plastic gloves. “Put these on before you bring out the bag, and take plenty of photographs before you touch anything at all.”
Hampus went to the car to fetch a sterile plastic sack, then they carefully edged the Adidas bag inside. It seemed pretty new. They decided not to open it until they got back to the Shore House.
Embla gently led Pernilla down to the kitchen. Her mother was sitting at the table, seemingly incapable of doing anything. Please don’t let her have a heart attack or a stroke, Embla thought.
Pernilla went over to the stove and said in that curious monotone, “I’ll make some coffee.”
Embla didn’t have the heart to ask for tea. As the coffee began to drip through the filter and into the glass pot, Pernilla came and sat down. She clasped her hands and placed them on the table.
Impulsively Embla covered Pernilla’s hands with her own. “Thank you for showing us the hiding place,” she said.
There was no reaction from those dead eyes, but a slight tremble passed through Pernilla’s body.
Encouraged by this, Embla continued. “Does Ted realize you know about it?”
Pernilla glanced at her, a defiant glint in her eye. Then she slowly shook her head. “No. He thinks he’s so fucking smart, but he forgot to close the compartment one day back in the fall. I got home from work and went into the closet to look for something, and I saw it. I didn’t say a word, so no, he doesn’t realize I know.”
It was good that she’d started talking again. There was a little more color in her pale cheeks, and her expression had changed. Embla was still afraid she would break down completely when the shock subsided, but at the moment she seemed reasonably calm.
“The compartment was empty, but a week or so later I went back to see if I could open it. Ted was in
Norway, and Viggo was asleep. It was really difficult, but I managed it—and that time the bag was there.”
“Did you look inside?”
“Yes. There was a set of scales and a whole lot of little plastic bags, plus an empty jar Ted had asked me to bring home when I was working in the candy section. There were some packets of powder in the jar. I knew . . .” She stopped abruptly, and her face stiffened once more.
Embla quickly stepped in to keep the conversation going. “You knew it was drugs.”
Pernilla lowered her head and looked at Embla’s hand, still covering hers. Slowly she withdrew her hands and hid them on her knee beneath the table.
“I’ve thought for a long time that . . . that he was on something. He’s been . . . strange. But you don’t want to believe . . .” She straightened up and stared at Embla, eyes wide with fear. “You won’t tell him it was me who showed you . . .”
“No. We’ll say we found the bag when we searched the house,” Embla reassured her.
However, it was as if fear dug its claws into Pernilla when she thought about the possible consequences of what she’d done. She stood up and began to pace back and forth, then suddenly she turned to Embla and snapped, “Can’t you just finish up and get out of here!” She shot out of the kitchen and they heard her stomping up the stairs.
Her mother, speaking for the first time, said quietly, “Losing a child . . . it’s the worst thing that can possibly happen.”
Back at the Shore House they opened the sports bag. They lifted two sets of fresh prints, one from Pernilla and one from Ted. The others were blurred and presumably belonged to whoever had sold the bag to Ted. The bag contained a set of electronic apothecary’s scales, a pack of latex gloves, several sturdy mouth guards, a scoop, lots of small plastic bags, two round tins with dream dust on the side, and a plastic jar. The smell of marshmallow bananas still lingered in the jar. Göran counted the bags: three hundred and seven. In a side pocket they found twenty-four more.
Göran tested the contents of one of these with his portable kit and was able to confirm that it was cocaine. He was also able to establish that it was purer than the coke normally sold on the street. He tested one of the bags from the jar; as he suspected, this coke had been cut with something else. It seemed likely that was where the Dream Dust came in.
The team agreed to keep the news that they’d found Viggo from Ted Andersson until the medical examiner provided a preliminary report on what had happened to the boy. Ted already knew his son was dead; they would have to try to find out in subsequent interviews how he had died. Meanwhile they decided to go for David Hagen and Ted on the murder of Robert Halvorsen.
During Wednesday night and all through Thursday the two men were questioned at length in the custody suite at Trollhättan. Both realized they were in trouble, and blamed each other for the stabbing. However, the investigators were more inclined to believe Hagen. The very fact that he was prepared to talk provided a clear indication of how worried he was at the prospect of going down for homicide.
According to him, the New Year’s Eve party had gotten off to a good start, with plenty of food and drink. After midnight some people started asking where they could get more cocaine because they’d used up all they’d brought with them. Hagen had called his friend Ted, knowing he’d have a supply at home.
Both men worked on baggage transporters at Gardermoen Airport in Oslo, and had known each other since they were kids, when Hagen was living with his mother in Strömstad. They’d lost contact when he went to join his father in Oslo in his early teens, but they’d met again at Gardermoen and embarked on a fruitful joint enterprise. They had been smuggling drugs, mainly cocaine, via passengers’ luggage for many years. Usually the narcotics were inserted in a particular suitcase immediately before it was loaded onto the aircraft. Someone at the plane’s destination would be told which case to look out for. It would be quickly removed as the baggage was unloaded, then reported missing. It would usually turn up again before too long, with the explanation that it had somehow ended up on the wrong carousel. The owner would be relieved, and that was the end of the matter.
Hagen’s gang also imported narcotics from Denmark by sea, and Ted was responsible for taking some across the border into Sweden. When he traveled home on his days off he carried a delivery from Oslo to Strömstad for further distribution down the coast and in Gothenburg. An extra income, easily earned, even if it did involve a certain element of risk.
Hagen called Ted around an hour after the clock struck midnight and asked him to bring over some coke. Ted assured him it was no problem; his wife and son were asleep, so he could set off right away. Halvorsen came over just as Hagen ended the call. He was furious and accused Hagen of stealing coke from him. There were inconsistencies involving those Hagen was supplying, plus he’d had complaints that the coke had been cut too much and was too weak. Hagen in turn immediately suspected Ted, but couldn’t put the blame on him in order to protect himself because Halvorsen was unaware of Hagen’s “little arrangement” with Ted.
When Ted arrived at the party, Hagen told him about Halvorsen’s accusations. They both knew how dangerous it was to incur the Norwegian’s anger. Ted had given Hagen the coke and said he’d fix things.
Around half an hour later, Hagen heard a woman screaming in the hallway. Everyone rushed in and found Halvorsen unconscious and bleeding from several deep stab wounds to the stomach.
There was no sign of Ted, and Hagen thought it was best to disappear before the cops showed up.
His willingness to talk about Halvorsen’s murder was surprising, even though it was likely that not everything he said was true.
He claimed that Ted had given him the expensive hunting knife when they met in Strömstad the day after the fire, and that Ted had said something to the effect of, “I want you to scare the shit out of Kristoffer Sjöberg—in fact why don’t you fix him for good? Don’t forget I fixed Halvorsen for you.”
Pedophiles and those who murder small children aren’t too popular in criminal circles, which was why Hagen agreed, after a brief hesitation. Kristoffer might still be a teenager himself, but according to Ted he was definitely a child killer, and Hagen believed him. However, during the interviews he insisted over and over again that he’d never intended to kill Kristoffer, but only to frighten him into keeping quiet by threatening him with the knife.
Embla didn’t believe him, not for one second.
You were worried about yourself, too, she thought. If Kristoffer survived he’d be able to identify you as one of the men who were at Breidablick the night his father was burned to death.
When questioned about the arson attack at Breidablick, Hagen refused to say a word.
However, they should be able to charge him with inciting the murder of Robert Halvorsen, drug smuggling, and probably arson and the attempted murder of Kristoffer Sjöberg. All of which added up to a lengthy sentence, but at least he wouldn’t go down for killing Halvorsen. That would make his life behind bars a little easier; being convicted of taking out a gang leader is never good if you want to survive a spell in jail.
Göran sighed as he ended the call. He stared gloomily into space for a few seconds, then pulled himself together and turned to Embla and Hampus. “That was the medical examiner. Preliminary tests show that Viggo’s body is full of cocaine.”
Cocaine? A six-year-old child? Why would Ted give his son cocaine? All three pondered this extraordinary news, but couldn’t come up with an explanation. They were sitting in a depressingly bare room at the police station in Trollhättan. The walls were painted in a horrible shade of gray-green, with mottled gray vinyl flooring. After Göran’s revelation the place felt even more claustrophobic.
“We’ve got the tow bar from Ted’s car with Viktor Jansson’s blood on it. He’s definitely linked to that murder. We have a knife that’s a perfect match with Halvorsen’s injuries. We know the kni
fe was stolen on the night Halvorsen was stabbed. That was confirmed by Hans Joffsén, who owns the house where the party was held. We also know that Ted was there, thanks to the photograph taken at the party. David Hagen has told us that Ted “fixed” the problem of Halvorsen. Ted will be charged with at least those two homicides, and he’s going down—I don’t care how good his lawyer is.”
As if by chance he glanced at Embla, and to her chagrin she felt herself blush.
Göran frowned, then suddenly he slammed down his hand on the table so hard that the others jumped. “Enough! Time for Ted Andersson to start talking! I want to know exactly what happened on the day Viggo died.”
The time he’d spent in custody had taken its toll on Ted. He was still trying to be cocky, but it was obvious that he didn’t feel well. He didn’t have much of an appetite as a result of stomach pains, and had lost a few pounds. His face was gaunt, his complexion had taken on a sallow tone, and his eyelids were swollen. During the interview he sweated profusely and kept complaining that he couldn’t sleep.
When he was told that Viggo had been found, he fainted. Before anyone had time to react, he slid off his chair and onto the floor. When he came to, he started yelling, “Why haven’t you arrested that fucking pedo? It’s Kristoffer fucking Sjöberg who should be sitting here, not me!”
Göran calmly cut him off. “He has a cast-iron alibi for the time of Viggo’s disappearance. You don’t.”
There was no point in Ted’s continuing to blame Kristoffer. He knew that the autopsy on his son would reveal the cause of death.
A six-year-old whose body was full of cocaine, wrapped in his comfort blanket, and hidden in an isolated location to which Ted was connected. There was no way out.
However, despite the compelling evidence against him, it took several lengthy and difficult sessions before Ted finally accepted that continuing to lie would get him nowhere. He was suspected of having deliberately poisoned his son with cocaine. Faced with that accusation, he gave in and began to tell his story. The thought of being convicted of the murder of his own child was unbearable, even for him.
Winter Grave Page 23
