Hunting Game

by Helene Tursten

  Everyone spoke to her in a friendly way. She nodded and mumbled affirmatively when she was expected to, and shook her head when that seemed to be appropriate, but she didn’t feel like she was present.

  Sometimes it felt as if she had floated up toward the ceiling. From a lookout point in one corner she gazed down on the people in the room. Unmoved she saw needles and probes being put into the body that was lying on the cot. She was indifferent about what happened to it. No, she was not there.

  The physical injuries would not kill her. The gunshot wound in her arm was rather superficial and closed with a couple of stitches. The abrasions from the rope were washed clean and dressed with soft compresses and bandages. All the tears and cuts she had all over her body got the same treatment. The whole time they were testing her degree of consciousness. The bump she had on the back of her head was large and through the murmur of voices she picked up that she had a mild concussion. Professional care, she thought, without feeling grateful. It was as if the cold inside her would not let go. Between her and the people around her there was a thin wall of ice. It enclosed her from all sides; she found herself inside an ice cube with no way to get out. She did not know for sure if she really wanted to. Right now she was doing fine inside the cube. There were no feelings there.

  Late that night she was taken to a hospital ward. A nurse gave her an injection so that she could sleep. It was marvelous to be able to slip into sleep and oblivion. Float away into nothingness.

  After the morning rounds a psychologist stopped by. Embla assured him that she was already feeling much better and that she would soon get to speak with one of the police department’s own psychologists, and she could manage until then. Of course she would need to be taken off duty immediately and go on sick leave, she added. The psychologist nodded along and then left.

  Göran Krantz came to pick her up when she was discharged in the afternoon. His eyes were shiny as he gave her a cautious hug. Not even that could melt the ice inside her, but he was giving her a searching look, so she tried to smile and act normal. Presumably she wasn’t able to fool him, but he didn’t say anything.

  When they were in the car he told her that Sixten’s condition was still serious, but the doctors said he was stable. At the same time he took the opportunity to report that little Greta was doing fine and would soon be coming home from the hospital.

  It was worse for Peter. He had inhaled large quantities of blood into his lungs and went into respiratory arrest right before the ambulance arrived at the hospital. He had lost a lot of blood besides due to the gunshot wound and his broken nose. And as if that weren’t enough, he was struck by a massive cerebral hemorrhage and had to have emergency surgery. The blows he had incurred when he struck the back of his head twice—first against the desk and then against the stone foundation of the barn—had caused the hemorrhage. The outcome was uncertain because he was in such bad shape before surgery.

  The information did not move her a bit. Not the slightest change was perceptible within the ice crystals.

  Over the following days she was questioned by several different colleagues. Certain things she lied about, but she still tried to stay as close to the truth as possible.

  She never intended to admit that she had willingly had sex with Peter.

  She said that he raped her and assaulted her. She never intended to take back that lie. It would be a murderer’s word against a policewoman whom he had tried to kill. No one would believe him.

  Because several persons knew about her feelings for him, she said they had been flirting with each other since the first days of the hunt. For that reason she had been happy when he invited her to Hansgården to have dinner. She underscored that on her part it was mainly about confirming whether he knew what happened to his sister and if they’d had any contact in recent years. But the hope of a first date had been there, she admitted.

  She told them about running out of gas and everything that happened after that. The injuries she had and the findings the techs made in Peter’s house corroborated her story.

  Both of the mugs of cold tea had still been sitting on the stool by the side of the whirlpool. The technicians found the rape drug Rohypnol in the red mug. There was no trace of any drugs in the blue mug.

  Yet another lie came when they asked about the shot at Peter. She said that he was the one who had shot out the outdoor light on the barn. Sixten was wounded on the floor but she didn’t dare go up to the window because Peter kept shooting in through the window of the study. In order to get a better view she had slipped up to the top floor. Despite the darkness and the rain she could still make out a movement when she looked through the telescopic sight and fired off a shot. Obviously she had aimed where she thought his legs were but unfortunately the shot hit higher up.

  After ballistic investigation and a fingerprint search, they established that Peter had been shot with Embla’s rifle, which did not have a night-vision sensor. Sixten’s rifle had not been fired.

  The conversations with the police department’s own psychologist were also a balancing act on a slack line. With a tearful voice she told them how Peter had flirted with her and duped her. In retrospect she realized of course that he had just wanted to get close to her so he could stay informed about the progress of the investigation into his various crimes. The female psychologist tried to console her when she squeezed out a few tears, and to manage that she had to summon all of her acting ability.

  To her worried family and all her friends she also had to playact. They invited her to dinner, came to visit with presents and flowers, sent her text messages and emails. In every way they showed that they loved her and cared about her. She sobbed and showed gratitude, exactly as was expected of her.

  Played along.

  But inside her everything was still quiet, cold, and dark. It felt as if her heart was surrounded by a carapace of ice. A permafrost that would never thaw.

  She was on medical leave for a week and then she was given administrative duties while the exchange of gunfire at Sixten’s farm was investigated. Hampus and Göran kept her informed about the investigation. It was through them that she learned about the Rohypnol in her mug.

  There had actually been several attempts at poisoning. When the veterinarian got the results from the tests he had taken on Frippe, they showed positive for glycol. Because glycol tastes sweet, dogs will eat it readily without suspecting trouble. But it is a deadly toxin and it was sheer luck that Frippe recovered without any major injury. The investigators’ theory was that Peter probably gave the dog doctored sausage during the lunch break when the hunting party gathered by the grill. He had wanted to guarantee that the dog would be away from the house overnight.

  Peter’s secret room was pathetic. In it were a lot of things from his childhood home. You didn’t need to be a psychologist to realize that he had tried to gather up the fragments of his traumatic childhood.

  The Lady in White turned out to be an inflatable doll, dressed in a Lucia gown and with a long blonde wig. A black suit, with long, tight workout pants and a long-sleeved hoodie hung on another hanger. To get the doll to stay upright Peter had constructed a light metal stand that was hidden under the gown; that would explain the round impression in the soft earth by the precipice. Thanks to the stand he could easily carry the plastic doll around. He wore the black suit himself, which made him virtually invisible in the dark; it was the white female figure you saw.

  In one of the albums they found a photo of Camilla, taken the year before she disappeared. Wearing a crown of lit candles, she stood at the head of her retinue of maids on the stage in an auditorium. Her eyes radiated joy, her long hair was hanging loose and glistened like spun silver. She was truly beautiful. The resemblance to Peter was clear. They had the same high cheekbones, beautiful smile, and blue eyes.

  The night before All Saints Day, Peter died. Double pneumonia had developed into general blood poisoning. The doctors were powerless. No antibiotics worked on his severe infections.
At last he was pronounced dead and the respirator was turned off.

  The consulting physician on the ward called Göran Krantz to ask if they had any information about his family. No relative or friend had visited him during the time he was in the hospital, and they didn’t know who to contact. Göran told him how it was, namely that the police had been unable to produce the name of any close relative. He did not even have any cousins or aunts or uncles because both his parents were only children.

  Embla said he had mentioned a live-in relationship that had fallen apart. When Göran searched the addresses where Peter had been registered during the past fifteen years, there were no names listed other than his own.

  An uncommonly lonely person, thought Göran. But he never shared the results of his investigations with Embla. She had enough problems of her own.

  The investigation of the shot that hit Peter showed that it was an unfortunate chance that Embla’s shot struck him in the shoulder. But it was not the gunshot wound that was the cause of death, and she was cleared completely.

  At her own request she had her final meeting with the police psychologist, who said that Embla could make contact again any time she felt the need for it. She nodded and looked grateful but knew she would never reach out. She had already crammed that nice person with enough lies.

  The next day she was back at her regular duties at VGM. It had all worked out. It was over.

  A few days later, Göran made a peculiar discovery when he started going through one of Peter’s computers. In an unprotected file named “The Boy Who Saw,” they found a story that may have been a draft for a book. The narrator was an unnamed eight-year-old boy, but it was obvious Peter had been writing about himself. Embla read the story with a growing lump in her throat.

  When she was done she swallowed several times but did not dare trust her voice, so she remained silent.

  Göran looked thoughtfully at the screen. “Strange that as a security expert he didn’t have a password for the file.”

  “As if he wanted someone to read it. An explanation. Or a cry for help,” said Hampus.

  Because it asked me to.

  Embla cleared her throat a few times to be sure that her voice would hold.

  “I’m sure you’ve also realized where Camilla is buried,” she said.

  Together with two police technicians, Hampus and Embla crawled around on the floor in the butchering shed. All four of them were equipped with flashlights and magnifying glasses. They each proceeded from a corner of the shed. Before long one of the techs shouted, “Over here!”

  The other three went over to the first tech, who gestured to a group of screw heads in the floor that had fresh nicks on them that glistened in the beam of the flashlights—evidence a screwdriver had been taken to them. After a while they had a limited area that measured about one-and-a-half by two meters. With the help of a battery-operated screwdriver they quickly removed the screws and lifted up the boards. The ground below showed clear traces of having been dug up recently. Embla and Hampus took a break while the techs photographed and documented what they had found. When they were done they started digging carefully.

  Both of the bodies were there. At a depth of almost one-and-a-half meters they were lying next to each other in a double grave.

  From the medical examiner’s report it emerged that von Beehn had been buried alive. There were large quantities of dirt particles in his respiratory passages. His hands were tied behind his back with a cable tie and there was duct tape over his mouth. Beside him was his unloaded rifle. They found the ammunition under his body.

  “The floorboards in the new shed weren’t nailed like in the old shed but were fastened with screws instead. Peter could easily and quickly remove the floorboards. There are fresh marks on the screw heads. Because we’ve read his story we know how he found Camilla’s grave. So he suddenly remembered what he saw in the monocular back then as an eight-year-old. As an adult he could draw certain conclusions. He probably got into the shed when it wasn’t hunting season. That was no problem because as a member of the hunting party he had his own key. Once inside he had searched until he found his sister’s grave. He expanded the grave, then screwed the floorboards back on,” Göran said.

  “So von Beehn went into the shed at gunpoint, got a blow in the head and was then placed in the grave beside the skeleton,” Hampus summarized.

  “That’s the most-likely scenario, yes. Or else he was struck at the Hunting Castle and managed to come to again.”

  Buried alive. What an unbearable thought.

  “And Camilla? How did she die?” Embla asked.

  “There is a break on the hyoid bone, according to the medical examiner. Strangled, that is. There is also a severe fracture on the zygomatic bone on the face. And she was wearing handcuffs. Real police handcuffs.”

  “Ola Forsnaess,” Hampus and Embla said in unison.

  “Very probable, considering what we know about his sexual preferences.”

  Hampus grimaced and said, “And the other musketeers helped conceal his crime. One for all, and all for one!”

  “Exactly. And besides that, the skeleton had a silver chain around the neck. On it was a charm in the shape of a big M.”

  “You were right,” Embla said.

  “Yes. Milla . . . And I’ve also found out that Peter Hansson has been a member of the Gothenburg Herpetology Society since he was fifteen.”

  A large, brown snake and a smaller black one flashed past in Embla’s mind.

  “The viper in the outhouse. I was the one he wanted to get rid of. Of course he didn’t like having a police officer in the vicinity when he intended to murder two men. The night before Karin was bitten, he and I were out on a walk with the dogs and he told me he could hold the dogs in case I needed to use the outhouse. I didn’t need to. And that evening Karin and I peed behind the bushes. It was pure chance that she was the one who happened to go out first that morning. It could just as well have been me. Which Peter naturally was hoping. When that didn’t work he tried with the foot-hold trap. But he had bad luck again when the fox got caught in it.”

  When all the attacks against me failed, he bet on charm and I went for it, she thought.

  She could barely conceal how sickened she felt at the thought.

  When she got home to her apartment in the Kålltorp district of Gothenburg that evening she felt completely drained. She could not even bear to bend down to pick up the mail on the floor inside the door, and simply shoved it aside with her foot. She went straight to the kitchen and put on the kettle. Manually. No fiddling with a cell phone. Her home was extremely un-smart and would stay that way. She took out the tea kettle and spooned some organically grown Darjeeling into a tea strainer. While the water boiled she went to the living room and lit a few block candles that were on the coffee table. When the tea had finished steeping she took the teapot in one hand and a mug in the other. On top of the mug she set a flatbread sandwich. Total concentration was required for her to balance it all the way out to the living room. Once there she set everything down on the coffee table and collapsed onto the sofa.

  As she reached for the teapot she watched without comprehending as her hand started to shake uncontrollably. The next moment the tears gushed out. She curled up on the sofa and cried openly. The ice that had been inside her cracked and in its place a black hole arose. A vacuum. An empty nothing. Helplessly she was sucked into the hole along with all the nightmare images and voices: Peter. Sapphire gaze. I caused the injuries that killed him. The night-vision sensor. Blood. Blood! That crazy dog. Peter was a murderer. He tricked me. Idiot. I’m an idiot. And a liar. Lollo. No one must know. No one!

  The concept of time disappeared. She cried until it felt like her whole body would fall apart.

  Toward the morning hours she fell asleep from pure exhaustion.

  When she awoke, dizzy and nauseated, she staggered over to the bathroom. The image she encountered in the mirror gave her a real shock. Her face was grotesquely sw
ollen. She called in sick, saying she had a cold. In the freezer she had bags of frozen vegetables that she placed against her face to reduce the swelling.

  One day’s absence was enough. Everything was back to normal, apart from the fact that she now had a new nightmare that haunted her. It was fused with the images from the apartment where the dog had fed on his dead master. As always she aimed toward the dog and shot it, but when she approached, the man lying in a pool of blood was Peter.

  What the hell! Why did you shoot the dog?

  Because it asked me to.

  The situation for Sixten had been critical for several days, but at last he started to slowly recover. His left shoulder was totally shattered and his arm would be completely unusable in the future. The nursing staff determined it would be impossible for him to manage by himself in the house. To everyone’s astonishment he let them convince him to move into municipal housing for the elderly. Rather soon he settled in and seemed more than content. The food was good, he got help with things he couldn’t manage after his injury, and the staff was pleasant. Besides, he already knew most everyone who lived there. And with dinner you were allowed to have a glass of wine or a beer. It was actually not that bad.

  He never mentioned a thing about the night-vision sensor that had ended up back in the locked gun cabinet. Embla hoped he had forgotten it was on the rifle she borrowed from him.

  The week before Christmas she managed to find a T-shirt online with Iron Maiden and a skull, just like Elliot wanted. It was several sizes too big, but better that than too small.

  The day she was going to pick up Elliot’s shirt at the post office she herself got a package slip. With surprise she saw that the sender was Sixten Svensson. She had not known him to have ever given anyone a Christmas present.

  It turned out to be an oblong, rather heavy but relatively small package.

  Well packed in bubble wrap was the night-vision sensor.