The Last Lullaby

by Carin Gerhardsen

  He started at the familiar sound of the key being turned in the padlock. Now a new round of kicks and blows, scorn and degradation was in store. He made no effort to change position when the big man’s silhouette showed in the doorway. Nothing could change what was to come and he intended to take his punishment with dignity, without defending himself. But at the sight of his kidnapper he automatically started stretching the rope behind his back. With tiny, tiny movements he tried to get the stiff rope to stretch a little. He must have done it ten thousand times at this point.

  ‘Now we’ll have a film showing,’ said the man in a smooth but threatening voice. ‘And then I thought we should film you a little. You’re starting to look weak, Einar. We have to film you before this is over.’

  With his functioning eye Einar met his gaze, without turning away. He was no longer afraid of him, had nothing to fear. The man stepped up to where he lay on the floor and put his hands under Einar’s arms. Then he dragged him to the far end of the shed and sat him up against the wall. Then he sat beside him and took a small video camera from his jacket pocket. Deftly he opened the display and turned on the power.

  ‘This will make a nice change, right?’ the man said softly. ‘I thought that maybe you don’t believe me, so I brought visual evidence with me. Look closely now, and we’ll see if this is familiar.’

  Einar was finding it difficult to breathe. He sensed the worst; he had already been informed in graphic detail about what had happened in the apartment on Trålgränd, but he had not allowed himself to believe that it was true. Despite the cold in the shed, the sweat poured down his face. He closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths; he did not want to faint now, had to force himself to see the devastation he was the cause of.

  The film began. With his good eye he saw Kate, a vision of loveliness, lying on the bed beside her children. Little Linn was between her mother and her brother, apparently sleeping with her thumb in her mouth, and Tom lay next to her in his Spider-Man pyjamas; he too seemed to be sleeping peacefully. But then Einar noticed the blood, the massive pools of blood around them. The camera approached them slowly, zooming in on their upper bodies until finally the whole screen was occupied by Kate’s lifeless face and slit throat. Einar swallowed again and again, he wanted to vomit, faint, cease to exist, but he forced himself to keep looking. The camera wandered over to little Linn. Blood was still running from the gaping wound across her throat, in fine streams down along what remained of her neck. Then Tom. His head was barely attached to his slender body.

  He could control himself no longer, his whole body was in revolt. Convulsing violently, he vomited, sweating and shivering at the same time. Then everything went black.

  Not knowing whether he had been unconscious for seconds or hours, he became aware of the kicks and blows.

  ‘Don’t go to sleep now, you wretch. You’re going to have plenty of time to rest.’

  When he opened his eye the man was standing astride his legs with the video camera in his hand, kicking him in the stomach and ribcage. With every kick Einar’s head struck the wall. The buzzing sound from the camera told him that his suffering was being recorded.

  ‘Tell me now how you killed my brothers.’

  Einar moaned feebly.

  ‘I know your voice is gone, but it’s okay to whisper. Look into the camera.’

  The man crouched down, holding the camera near his face. Einar took a deep breath and with his functioning eye looked right into the lens of the video camera. Then, for the first time in his life, he told the whole story of how one lovely May day long ago he had been planting flowers with his beloved wife on the balcony, how the doorbell had rung, and everything that had happened after that. He spoke straight from the heart, with no evasions or embellishments, omitting no details from that fateful day. Caring nothing about the baleful man behind the camera, he opened wide the door to what was inside him and told only for himself what he had never expressed before. In a hoarse whisper, he described smells and feelings, smiles and caresses. With his broken vocal cords he described all the words, the screams and the great guilt, the guilt that had bounced back and forth between people but which at the same time had settled like a scaffold over them all.

  Einar Eriksson then described the day an angel had come to him, an angel in the guise of a lost Filipino woman with two small children who gratefully accepted his help and attentions, and thereby lightened his heavy burden a little. Nor did he shrink away from the new guilt that had been placed on his shoulders, the selfishness that had driven him into the lives of these poor people and the consequence of his actions: the punishment he was now serving.

  While he told his tale, the man crouched in front of him and documented his life story with his quietly buzzing camera. When he eventually stood up and in silence gave him a final well-aimed kick in his already mangled face, Einar Eriksson received it with a newfound joy and a feeling of liberation that he had not experienced since the time before the terrible accident so many years ago.

  When the man angrily slammed the door and left him bleeding on the floor of the tool shed again, Einar watched him go with a smile.

  * * *

  After another visit to inspectors Edin and Möller at the police station in Arboga, to scan and email the two photographs of Mikael Rydin to Sandén, Sjöberg got in the car to return to Stockholm. After a few minutes it started snowing. It had been above freezing in the morning, but now the display on the dashboard showed just below zero. With a sigh he said to himself – for the umpteenth time this year – that spring really seemed to be long overdue. He worked his way gradually along the side roads to the motorway, but when he got there he had to drive much slower than he had hoped as a result of the snowfall.

  He took his phone from the breast pocket of his shirt and entered Sandén’s number.

  ‘Did you see the email I sent you a while ago?’ he asked.

  ‘No, I’m completely occupied with trying to hunt down Mikael Rydin,’ Sandén answered drily.

  ‘All the more reason to check your email. I attached a couple of pictures of him. Thought that might make it easier. Are you at the office?’

  ‘Just back in the building.’

  ‘One photo is three years old. I included it as a curiosity. The other photo was taken recently. When you compare the two pictures it becomes rather obvious what this chap has been up to the past few years.’

  ‘Has he had a sex-change operation?’

  ‘He’s been taking steroids,’ Sjöberg answered, not allowing himself this time to laugh at Sandén’s joke. ‘From nothing to tattooed muscleman in three years. It doesn’t happen that quickly without illegal supplements.’

  ‘Oh hell. What did you get out of Ingegärd Rydin?’

  ‘Christer Larsson is his father. Something that neither of them is aware of. Like her ex-husband, she struggled to produce the right parental feeling – the maternal in her case. The kid apparently had to mostly take care of himself. She considers him helpful and loyal. From her description I would more likely define him as a young man who is desperately seeking affirmation of his mother’s love. Three years ago she was diagnosed with COPD, and it occurred to her that her days were numbered. Only then did she tell him about his brothers and the accident. He became very agitated and forced her to show him pictures of them. He also saw old photos of Einar. Those pictures are gone now. She said herself that he must have taken them.’

  ‘Which consequently makes you even more convinced that Mikael Rydin is our man?’ Sandén said thoughtfully.

  ‘Anabolic steroids have known side effects, such as mood swings and uncontrolled outbursts of rage,’ Sjöberg continued stubbornly. ‘If you want to feel numb and immortal as well, you can enhance that with a little Rohypnol, which you buy from the same pusher. Jens, I’m quite sure of this. Einar is not having a good time right now. If he’s alive.’

  There was total silence on the other end. Sjöberg felt that now for the first time he had enough meat on the bones t
o convince Sandén of Einar’s innocence.

  ‘Jens?’

  Still no response.

  ‘Are you there, Jens?’

  After a few more seconds of silence Sandén finally spoke.

  ‘I give up, Conny.’

  His tone of voice was now completely different from the sarcastic, bantering tone that normally characterized his happy-go-lucky personality.

  ‘Not a day too soon.’

  ‘And I know how he managed to sniff out Einar.’

  Sjöberg noticed that Eriksson had now suddenly become Einar to Sandén. Evidently he finally saw the significance of his disappearance.

  ‘I’m sitting at the computer now, Conny. Mikael Rydin works as a cleaner at the Larsson children’s preschool. I saw him when I was there to deliver the news of the deaths.’

  ‘I’ll be damned …’

  Sjöberg was so astonished at this new discovery that he interrupted himself in the middle of overtaking another car and moved back to the inside lane again.

  ‘It may have been a moment’s impulse,’ Sandén said excitedly. ‘Perhaps it’s not the case at all that Rydin has chased after Einar for three years like an avenging angel. Perhaps he just happened to catch sight of him with the Larsson children at the preschool. Pumped up with dubious substances he was struck by fury and a sudden longing to pay back that apparently happy father of two children.’

  ‘But after that everything was probably carefully planned,’ Sjöberg developed his colleague’s line of reasoning. ‘He followed Einar, found out where he lived, charted his habits and struck at a suitable moment. What could be better revenge than taking away from Einar the two small children he cared about most in this world?’

  ‘There we also have the explanation for the emotional coldness in the murders,’ Sandén interjected. ‘He bore no grudge against Catherine Larsson and her children. The whole thing was aimed at Einar, the poor sod. As you said, Conny. What do we do now?’

  ‘Find him,’ said Sjöberg. ‘Inform Westman and Hamad and find him. Now.’

  * * *

  In the absence of any other ideas and after careful consideration Hamad sat in front of his computer and tried to summon the energy to look at the damned film one more time. The door to the corridor was closed and he sat weaving the flash drive between his fingers, unable to bring himself to put it into the port. Right now that was the best he could come up with: look at the film again and try to draw some new conclusions from it. He really did not want to see Petra that way, but he worked hard to convince himself that it was not her, that that drugged woman in a rape situation was not the real Petra. The Petra Westman he knew was strong and stubborn, impossible to bully and would never let herself be exploited.

  Like in the boxing room, he thought, smiling to himself. Perhaps it was not the most beautiful side of herself she had shown there, but it was genuine. And she had acted based on what she believed was just. Not right, but just. The image came to him of Petra in the corner, how from his position on the mat he had seen her at a slight angle from below, physically fit and good-looking with a cruelly triumphant smile on her lips. Extras like statues all around: the heavy Holgersson leaning over him with a helping hand outstretched, the referee Malmberg hanging over Petra, Brandt in the doorway flourishing his mobile. Even the sounds stayed with him: a kind of ominous silence that was broken so brusquely by the ringtone from a phone; Malmberg’s voice when he answered. And then the draught as Petra passed him, completely unmoved. He preferred seeing her that way.

  He sighed and, gathering his strength, put the flash drive in the USB port and navigated through the folders until he found the clip of Petra. He decided to turn on the sound, which hitherto he had always turned off, and let the sequence play.

  The video camera must be a recent model – the image was high quality, even if the content wasn’t. There was a wealth of detail, despite the semi-darkness of the bedroom. The interior was unfamiliar, the male body unfamiliar – well, would he recognize a man’s body even if he had seen it before? It didn’t matter however; that was not what he was looking for. But nothing he saw or heard told him anything about the person behind the camera. No shadows, no clothes tossed anywhere, no one sneezing or coughing. There was plenty of sound, but no voices.

  After two minutes and fifty-eight seconds it was over. The video camera emitted two tones that announced that would have to be enough and was turned off.

  At that moment Sandén came barging into his office without warning and put him to work. Hamad was only just able to bring up a different image on to the screen before Sandén was leaning over the desk.

  * * *

  As the new image of Einar Eriksson began to appear to Sandén, an unfamiliar sense of loyalty to his colleague grew stronger. It produced adrenaline, which in turn resulted in determination. And it was contagious: Westman and Hamad were also finally convinced by the arguments Sjöberg had lined up.

  In Sjöberg’s absence Sandén had taken command and he was a man of extremes. True, Sjöberg had flatly refused to sanction breaking into Mikael Rydin’s home, but that was this morning. During their latest conversation he had clearly stated that the most important thing was to find Rydin, and as soon as possible. In consultation with his two assistants, Sandén decided they should go into the student room after all.

  Westman stayed behind at the station and continued the hunt for people who might conceivably have some idea where Rydin was. Sandén and Hamad made their way back to the student housing high-rise on Öregrundsgatan at Gärdet. Rydin’s student room was more like a small apartment, roughly twenty-five metres square with a bathroom and a galley kitchen. That every apartment had its own kitchen made it easier for the two policemen to get in unnoticed. No one had been out in the corridor, and Sandén had picked Rydin’s lock in less than thirty seconds.

  The bathroom was simple: shower, toilet, sink and a cabinet containing a basic assortment of toiletries. It was reasonably clean, as was the kitchen. No luxury here either: just a chair, a table and an easily tended potted plant that looked like some kind of fairy-tale tree in the window. The most conspicuous thing was a poster on the wall depicting the Swedish national football team circa 1994, and on the kitchen table an empty ice-cream tub which was now full of bottles and blister packs of pills. Vitamins and other healthy things, according to the labels.

  In the main room a bed and a desk competed for space with a bookshelf and stereo deck. He had gone to the expense of a flat-screen TV, DVD player and a stereo with a pair of rather good-sized speakers, but they could be considered among the necessities of life these days. Hamad sat down at the desk and turned on Rydin’s laptop, while Sandén went through the CDs, DVDs and books on the shelf, without finding anything of interest. If you did not think that rap music, violent films and action thrillers automatically led to acts of violence. Or legal textbooks, for that matter. In the corner by the foot of the bed was a guitar, and on the wall was an old Kiss poster that must surely have come from his teenage room in Arboga.

  Hamad found a few documents on the computer, but they were exclusively study-related texts of an older vintage. He went through various email folders – inbox, saved, sent and trash – without finding anything remarkable. Judging by the Internet history, it was mostly tabloids that interested Rydin, as well as various sports sites that mainly seemed to deal with martial arts and strength sports. The Google history pointed in that direction too. Though he didn’t seem to be particularly interested in photography, he had saved a hundred or so photos on the computer, and Hamad reviewed each and every one of them in the hope that he might come across something significant.

  Sandén continued working his way towards the bed and was about to trip over a pair of dumbbells when he caught sight of a mobile phone charging on the floor under the bed. It could mean that Rydin was nearby and likely to show up at any minute, which might create problems for them. On the other hand it could mean simply that the phone had been out of power when he was about to le
ave the apartment. Sandén chose to assume the latter, and when he picked up the phone it turned out to be on. He browsed through the lists of incoming, outgoing and missed calls and carefully noted all the numbers. He did the same with the text messages. Then he went through Rydin’s contacts, of which there were only a few, but found nothing that stuck out. The calendar was not used, and there were no interesting notes stored in the phone either. However, Rydin did appear to use it as a camera occasionally, because a dozen or so photos were stored in the phone.

  Sandén glanced over towards Hamad at the computer and noted that he too was devoting himself to photos.

  ‘Are you finding anything?’ Sandén asked.

  ‘Don’t think so. He doesn’t take that many pictures. A few Ibiza pictures from last summer are probably the most interesting. Christmas at home with Mum. Drinking party with his workout buddies.’

  ‘The Ugly Duckling, do you know what that is?’ Sandén asked.

  ‘A fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen. Aren’t you done with the bookshelf yet?’

  ‘It sounds like a preschool or something,’ Sandén said thoughtfully.

  ‘Maybe a café,’ said Hamad. ‘Think someone said that.’

  ‘So you’ve heard of it?’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t say that. It was something that was mentioned in passing the other day.’

  ‘By who?’

  ‘Don’t remember. It was someone at work, I think. What about it? What are you doing?’

  ‘I found a picture on the phone of a sign with that on it.’

  ‘Let me see.’

  Sandén gave him the phone.

  ‘It’s hanging on a gate,’ Hamad thought out loud. ‘It looks as if it could be an open-air café actually.’

  He browsed further among the pictures.

  ‘Doors. Windows. He could have snapped these pictures when he was planning the kidnapping. To improve security. The locks, I mean.’

  Suddenly the tension in the room rose, both of them felt it. It was a straw. But perhaps they were on the trail of something.