Watching You

by Arne Dahl

  ‘But we haven’t got anything like that in Ellen’s case,’ Samir said.

  ‘Something’s happened,’ Berger said. ‘Something that’s made him change his method.’

  ‘This sounds like the sort of vague idea that Allan hates,’ Deer said. ‘So you’ve found something that means you dare make your secret, unofficial investigation public. Sharpened teeth?’

  And then that look.

  Berger couldn’t help smiling. Bloody Deer. He pointed to one of the photographs on the whiteboard.

  ‘Here, my dear Deer – this was when you and I were standing on the porch outside that bloody house in Märsta, right after the raid. You remember?’

  ‘You took pictures then? Why?’

  ‘Because I got a feeling. Don’t ask me to explain. Intuition is nothing but a concentration of experience.’

  ‘Old jungle saying,’ Deer said tonelessly.

  ‘Let’s start here instead,’ Berger said, pointing at a fairly grainy photograph featuring a number of motorbikes and biker jackets. ‘One week before this photograph was taken, fifteen-year-old Julia Almström vanished from her home in Malmaberg in the north-east of Västerås. It was March 17, a year and a half ago. Because her disappearance was confirmed in the morning, Julia was assumed to have disappeared from her home during the night. She certainly had the opportunity, and eventually a secret email correspondence with a young man was uncovered, in which he claimed he wanted to flee from a criminal past to “somewhere the sun never stops shining”. Which, taken literally, is everywhere on the planet, because otherwise we’d all be dead.’

  ‘Was the boyfriend identified?’ someone wondered aloud.

  ‘No,’ Berger said. ‘There were hints that he’d recently been released from prison, and among men who had been let out within a plausible time frame, there were at least eight who had disappeared without trace. A completely ordinary phenomenon. Fake passports are easy enough to buy these days. In other words, a perfect choice of persona.’

  ‘Persona?’ Deer said.

  ‘Exactly,’ Berger said, pointing at her. ‘That’s exactly the sort of prompt a sidekick with perfect timing should be asking.’

  ‘Leave it out,’ Deer said calmly, accustomed as she was to that sort of line. ‘What do you mean by persona?’

  ‘That this young criminal was a persona, a mask. That he never even existed. That the whole email exchange was fake. That it was all a matter of constructing a narrative which in hindsight looks pretty similar to the phone call which led us to the house in Märsta yesterday, the call from our so-called Lina Vikström. Who is standing right here.’

  With that he drew a thick circle in red marker pen on the busy photograph featuring a biker gang.

  He looked round. Never before had he seen so many furrowed brows in one room.

  ‘But,’ Deer eventually said. Her jaw had fallen open.

  ‘A raid on a local biker gang in Västerås,’ Berger said. ‘One week after Julia Almström’s disappearance, before the email exchange was discovered. There were suggestions that the gang offered “fresh meat”. In many ways it was a fortuitous raid – a large amount of cocaine seized, two underage Ukrainian girls, and assorted stolen goods worth a total of three million kronor – but no Julia Almström. Among the curious onlookers: this woman. Blonde, snub nose, mid-thirties, on a bicycle.’

  The room was still thick with frowns, but at least now there was a certain focus to them. Berger pointed at the next photograph.

  ‘Almost one year later. Now we’re in the depths of the Värmland forests. February this year, the forest between Kristinehamn and Karlskoga, so maybe not the deepest depths. Either way: fifteen-year-old Jonna Eriksson from Kristinehamn has been missing for a few days. Because her boyfriend, Simon Lundberg, disappeared at the same time, the investigation has been fairly half-hearted. Jonna and Simon aren’t exactly angels, they were both raised in foster homes and had a history of running away and then coming back with their tails between their legs. But then someone raises the alarm about a freshly dug grave in the forest, right on the boundary between Värmland and Örebro, in the new police district of Bergslagen. In the twenty-four hours that follow each of the former police forces succumbs to the temptation of blaming each other, even though they’ve actually been part of the same district for a month or so. It’s basically a disaster from a policing perspective: what ends up being disinterred from the snow-covered grave in the forest is nothing more than an illegally shot elk calf.’

  Berger paused and looked round at his subordinates. Then he continued: ‘The investigation evidently leaked like a sieve, because local media from at least two cities were there, and in the pictures taken by both police and press you’ll notice more curious bystanders than we had during yesterday’s rain-soaked Sunday morning on the outskirts of Märsta. Do you see?’

  They saw. Although they weren’t really sure what they were seeing.

  Berger raised the marker pen and drew another heavy red ring.

  ‘One of the police’s own photographs. Note the bicycle. OK, the head is covered by a big fur cap, and the bottom of the face is wrapped in a thick scarf. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it’s the same damn woman in the crowd. One year later, 160 kilometres from Västerås. With a bicycle, in the middle of a wintery forest.’

  The frown had actually disappeared from Deer’s face as Berger pointed to the third photograph and said: ‘So, back to the porch of our house in Märsta, just after yesterday’s raid. And here we have a blonde, snub-nosed woman in her mid-thirties with a bicycle.’

  And his red pen circled another figure.

  Then Berger put the pen down and shook his head.

  ‘I’d discounted women,’ he said. ‘For my part, I was convinced that this bastard was a man, a lone, dysfunctional man isolated from everyone, especially the opposite sex. I seem to recall a somewhat older colleague in this building saying that it’s refreshing to have your prejudices turned upside down.’

  ‘He’s not in the building any more,’ a forceful male voice said from the direction of the corridor.

  Berger looked up and met the gaze, which had a distinct chill to it, even at a distance.

  ‘He’s off in Europe,’ Allan went on. ‘Europol. God knows why.’

  ‘Allan,’ Berger said coolly. ‘Good to have you here.’

  ‘Go on,’ Allan said, adopting an apparently relaxed posture as he leaned back against a pillar. ‘We can deal with the rest later.’

  Berger took a deep breath and was just about to continue when Deer said: ‘Was it that simple? So incredibly fucking banal? Going back to the scene of the crime?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Berger said, glancing over towards the pillar. ‘But now I get to do a bit of an Allan: “Don’t let’s draw any hasty conclusions.”’

  ‘Such as this woman with the bike being Sweden’s first female serial killer?’ Samir suggested evenly.

  ‘We don’t know what role she plays in it all,’ Berger said, with a sharp sideways glance at his most heavily bearded underling. ‘But we need to get hold of her. As I implied, I think she was the woman who called us pretending to be Lina Vikström. That would have put her in the right place at the right time. She probably steered the police in the other two cases as well, so that she could be there to watch. But in those cases she led the police astray, to the biker gang in Västerås and the buried elk in Värmland. This time she’s started by leading us in the right direction. To the point that it’s actually extremely frustrating. Now she can humiliate police officers into the bargain – that knife mechanism is something new, after all. Julia and Jonna are almost certainly already dead, but Ellen is still alive, I’m convinced of that. Something has changed, and I can’t help wondering what.’

  ‘How do we proceed?’ Deer asked.

  ‘What do you say, boss?’ Berger asked impertinently.

  Allan made a tolerant and inviting gesture, but his face was saying something completely different.

  ‘I’ve already
started,’ Berger said eventually. ‘I’ve emailed the pictures to Robin so that his people can clean them up as much as possible and get a face that we can then run through every facial-recognition software going. There may be more photographs, shots that weren’t used by the media. And that’s where Syl comes in.’

  A stern-looking woman in her forties cleared her throat and said sharply: ‘Feel free to call me Sylvia.’

  ‘I’ll happily call you Hera or Gaia or the Virgin Mary, as long as you’ve got something for me.’

  ‘Freja, to keep things Nordic?’ Deer suggested mildly.

  Berger gave her a dark look. The sort of look a one-eyed god might give.

  ‘I’ve found out the following,’ Syl went on in a neutral voice. ‘A number of names of press photographers who were present at the three crime scenes – I’m calling them crime scenes, seeing as unlicensed hunting is also a crime. I’ve also got all the police photographs. And lastly, I managed to get the two television stations from yesterday to hold off deleting any unused footage. There’s also a rumour that there was a TV crew present at the biker gang’s headquarters in Västerås, but nothing was ever broadcast. I haven’t had time to look into that rumour.’

  ‘Excellent,’ Berger said. ‘Keep at it, Syl. And those of you who are out in Märsta, get back there and knock on some more doors with photographs in your hands. If I know Robin’s team at all, these pictures are likely to get a lot better soon.’

  ‘Surely we ought to release the pictures to the media?’ Deer asked.

  Berger looked at her. ‘That’s one of the most delicate questions I’ve ever been faced with.’ He scanned the now largely frown-free gathering and went on. ‘Our only real task is to find Ellen Savinger as quickly as possible. While we’re talking, somewhere out there she’s going through hell. Every word we utter, every step we take needs to be anchored in this innocent girl’s pain. Every second counts.’

  He pointed to the picture of a smiling Ellen Savinger. That was the smile that the team had been faced with every day for almost three weeks now, a slightly reserved smile which still seemed to hint at a future of unlimited possibilities.

  Beside the photograph were pictures of the clothes Ellen had been wearing when she disappeared, including an elegant if slightly too summery floral dress.

  Berger went on: ‘We could probably find bicycle-woman much quicker if all media outlets published her picture simultaneously. But then we’d also be tipping her off. And I don’t want to risk a repeat of Märsta. Right now we have the advantage of knowing something that she doesn’t know. And it has to stay that way for as long as possible. As long as we have the slightest advantage, we need to make the most of it.’

  He stopped himself, but it was clear that he hadn’t finished.

  He pointed at the two photofit pictures of Erik Johansson and then stuck an enlarged photograph of bicycle-woman’s face next to them.

  ‘This is the best picture we’ve got of her at the moment,’ he said. ‘And her relationship to him is unclear. She exists. Whether or not he does remains to be seen.’

  Another pause. Then he said: ‘There’s just one thing that matters. We have to catch her.’

  Berger still wasn’t quite finished. The team stopped halfway out of their chairs and stared at him.

  He looked over towards the pillar by the corridor and said, emphatically: ‘OK, people, we’re not supposed to say it out loud, but we’re chasing a serial killer.’

  As the meeting split up a powerful baritone rang out.

  ‘My office,’ Allan said with his eyes fixed on Berger.

  Not unexpected.

  10

  Monday 26 October, 11.34

  Bosses’ offices are almost always impersonal, but Allan seemed to have taken pains to break the record. No books worthy of the name on the bookshelves, just unmarked files and folders with militaristic abbreviations on yellowing labels, not a single photograph on the desk, not a single object that hinted at the slightest decorative instinct, not even any diplomas on the walls. No golf clubs, no fishing rod, no football lapel pin, not even a lawnmower manual.

  ‘So?’ Allan said, flashing a glance across the desk.

  ‘I did exactly what you said,’ Berger said. ‘To the letter. I didn’t say a thing until I had evidence. And if that bicycle-woman isn’t evidence that these three cases are connected, then we may as well abolish the word evidence.’

  ‘And then you said the S-word.’

  ‘To my team, not the media. They’re under the same oath of confidentiality as you and me.’

  ‘Even if they’ve got less to lose.’

  ‘I’m not sure I’ve got much to lose,’ Berger said. ‘Detective inspector with special responsibilities?’

  ‘Your life,’ Allan said.

  ‘My life? How can you say that, Allan, with this emotionally dead office as the centre of your world?’

  ‘So what does your workplace look like?’

  ‘I don’t have any walls to decorate.’

  ‘But you do have a framed photograph, I know, it looks very cosy there in your corner. Is it the Arc de Triomphe?’

  ‘Stop it,’ Berger said.

  ‘They’re no longer part of your life. They’re gone. Your life is here now. Here, and nowhere else. And you don’t want to lose that.’

  ‘What are you trying to say, Allan?’

  ‘As everyone knows, I’ll be retiring soon. And I’m assuming that you’ll be taking over. You have got a lot to lose, Sam. You shouldn’t have said the S-word. But because you did, we’ll be reading about it in the papers within the next few days.’

  ‘Three missing fifteen-year-olds.’ Berger said. ‘One of them gone for more than a year. This is a serial killer, I promise you, a serial killer who for some reason has decided to specialise in fifteen-year-old girls.’

  Allan looked at him intently. Then he turned away and pulled a sheet of paper out of a pile on his desk.

  ‘The knives,’ he said with a gesture that was hard to read. ‘Homemade, according to Robin. So now there’s something as unusual as metallurgical analysis underway at the National Forensic Centre. Forging iron at home is so rare that some part of the process ought to be traceable.’

  ‘Possibly also the skill itself,’ Berger said. ‘How the hell would anyone know how to forge knives so that they fly straight instead of spinning? You’d have to be an expert.’

  ‘That’s under investigation too,’ Allan said. ‘Robin has been very busy, he’s got a whole list, topped with the heading “Do it again, do it right”. Does that ring any bells?’

  ‘No,’ Berger said serenely.

  ‘The list consists of the following: knives, knife-throwing mechanism, mooring rings, newly built wall, vacuum cleaner, labyrinth.’

  ‘Not toxicology analysis?’

  ‘I haven’t got to the Forensic Medical Unit’s analysis yet. I’d like to go through Robin’s list point by point, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘I don’t mind,’ Berger said. ‘Labyrinth?’

  ‘So that caught your interest?’ Allan said scornfully. ‘Just be patient, we’ll go through the list in order. So, the knife-throwing mechanism.’

  At that moment Berger’s mobile phone had the good sense to ring. And happily it was actually a call requiring his attention. Without any great haste he took his phone from the inside pocket of his jacket, and while it squealed like a stuck pig he said: ‘I ought to take this.’

  Through the hysterical grunting sound he watched Allan, who eventually made an impatient but consenting gesture.

  Berger answered by saying his name, then said nothing more for the duration of the call. He merely stood up, put his mobile back in his inside pocket and said: ‘We’re going to have to do this later, Allan.’

  Looking perfectly calm, Berger walked out. He strolled slowly down the corridor until he was confident he was out of sight of Allan’s office. Then he speeded up.

  He threw himself down the stairs and ran through the co
rridors. After several more flights of stairs and corridors he reached an anonymous door and yanked it open. Three men were sitting in a confined area filled with bare desks and framed by bookcases. They all looked up when Berger stormed in, but with a complete lack of interest. He raced on to a set of doors beyond the bookcases and jerked open the one on the left. A stern-looking woman in her forties turned to face him from a veritable phalanx of computers, looking slightly less stern than usual. Her thin, mousy hair was sticking out in all directions.

  ‘Syl,’ Berger panted.

  ‘Sambo,’ Syl said in a subdued tone.

  ‘Talk to me,’ Berger said.

  ‘Västerås,’ Syl said, pointing vaguely at the nearest screen. ‘The bikers’ clubhouse. Local television were there after all, but they dropped the item to make way for sport. Ice hockey, apparently. The edited version no longer exists, but the photographer found a backup disk containing some of the raw footage.’

  ‘You said you had something to show me,’ Berger said curtly.

  Syl looked at him in a way that didn’t feel altogether comfortable. Then she clicked her mouse and a very shaky image appeared.

  The first thing that came into view was a winter landscape with a number of moderately overweight men in leather waistcoats pinned to the ground by police officers, at least a couple of officers per biker. Five buildings were just about discernible, and from the middle one a pale, undernourished young girl was being led out with a blanket round her shoulders. As she approached the camera, Syl said: ‘Oksana Khavanska, fourteen years old. She was actually given asylum in Sweden afterwards. Said to be living in Falun with a new identity, attending high school. But look at this.’

  The camera swept past a number of people on the other side of the cordon before coming to rest on a young man with a microphone who tried to stop people and talk to them. After a particularly unsuccessful attempt to communicate with one of the officers in command, who firmly pushed the microphone back into his face, the reporter turned towards the onlookers with his pride visibly dented. Syl speeded the film up while the bystanders got to churn out a few pointless remarks to a saliva-spotted microphone, but the sound had vanished. Then the lens turned and captured a bicycle.