Lifetime

by Liza Marklund

  ‘Have you read the documents I sent you?’

  She nodded – she had glanced through them. At least, the ones at the top.

  Filip Andersson rested his elbows on his thighs and leaned forward. Annika moved back slightly.

  ‘I was convicted even though I’m innocent,’ he said, emphasising every word. ‘The application for a retrial proves that.’

  Had the application for a retrial been among the papers he had sent her? She didn’t think so. ‘In what way?’ she said, drawing a small question-mark on her notepad.

  ‘The mobile phone,’ he said, nodding emphatically.

  She looked at him, at his bulging stomach and pale arms. The earlier impression of him being muscular had probably been wrong, the result of very well-tailored suits. Maybe he used to dye his hair. She knew he was forty-seven, but he looked considerably older than that.

  ‘What?’ Annika said.

  ‘The police never checked the call log! I wasn’t in Sankt Paulsgatan when the murders were committed.’

  ‘So where were you?’ Annika said.

  He opened his eyes wide, then narrowed them to thin slits. ‘What the hell has that got to do with you?’ he said, and Annika felt her pulse race again. She had to make an effort not to draw away from him.

  ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘It’s got nothing to do with me.’ Her voice sounded far too high.

  Filip Andersson lifted a finger and pointed right at her face. ‘You don’t know shit!’ he said, with a ferocity he couldn’t quite live up to.

  Suddenly Annika’s heartbeat slowed. She looked into his damp eyes and found desperation and hopelessness, someone clutching at straws.

  He’s like a cornered dog barking, but he can’t bite in here. There’s no danger.

  The man stood up quickly and went over to the door, two short steps, then turned and came back. He put his hands on the arms of the chair and leaned over her. He had bad breath. ‘You’re here to write about my application for a retrial,’ he said. ‘Not to ask a load of fucking questions!’

  ‘You’re wrong there,’ she said, not bothered by the fact that she was talking right into his face. ‘I’m the one who asked to visit you, so this is on my terms.’

  He let go of the chair and straightened.

  ‘If you calm down and listen, you’ll find out what I want,’ Annika said. ‘If you carry on making demands, I’ll leave.’

  ‘Why should I listen to you?’

  ‘I know a lot more than you think,’ Annika said. ‘I was there.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I was there.’

  He sat down on the bed with a little thud, his mouth half open. ‘Where?’

  ‘I was in the patrol car that was first to arrive on the scene in Sankt Paulsgatan that night. I didn’t see much, but I noticed the smell.’

  ‘You were there? What did you see?’

  She didn’t take her eyes off him.

  ‘The blood. It was splattered all over the walls, and it was dripping down the stairs. Slowly. It was thick, bright red. The walls were yellow.’

  ‘You didn’t see anything else?’

  She glanced up at the dock-workers, struggling under the weight of heavy sacks in Torsten Billman’s picture. ‘Her hair. It was dark. She was lying on the landing, moving her head. Julia Lindholm was first up the stairs, then Nina Hoffman, and then me. I was last, Julia first, but Nina took charge of the situation. She was the one who drew her gun.’ She looked back at him.

  Filip Andersson was staring at her. ‘Did she say anything?’

  ‘She shouted, “Police!” and then “There are guns aimed at you. Julia, get the door. Annika, get out of here.” I turned and ran.’

  He was shaking his head. ‘Not the police. Olga.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The dark-haired woman.’

  He means the victim.

  Annika swallowed. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I don’t think she said anything. She died before the ambulance arrived.’

  The silence in the room had changed now: it was no longer uncertain, but heavy and suffocating.

  ‘What do you know about Algot Heinrich Heimer?’ she asked, and Filip Andersson started, just a little twitch around his mouth, but Annika saw it.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘He’s dead, but that’s hardly your fault. How did he know David?’ Annika already knew this, at least in part. They had both been involved in the parachute-equipment business.

  The financier looked at her with empty eyes.

  ‘If you haven’t got anything more to say to me, I’ll go now,’ Annika said.

  ‘They were childhood friends,’ the man said quietly. ‘David was like a big brother to Henke.’

  Henke?

  ‘But things went badly for Henke?’ Annika said.

  ‘David really did try to help him, but it was no good.’

  ‘Why was he shot?’

  Filip Andersson shrugged. ‘Maybe he did something stupid.’

  ‘Or he was just a way for someone to get back at David. Mike Stevens is in here, do you know him?’

  Another shrug.

  ‘What about Bertil Oskar Holmberg, then? Who’s he?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘I didn’t do it. I wasn’t even there. I wasn’t in Sankt Paulsgatan.’

  Annika studied the man before her, trying to see his eyes.

  The pupils are an opening into the brain. I should be able to see his thoughts.

  ‘If you’re telling the truth, that means someone else did it.’

  He stared at her.

  ‘If you’re telling the truth,’ Annika said, slightly louder now, ‘that means you know who the real killer is, but you’d rather sit in here serving life than say what you know. And do you know why?’

  His mouth was hanging open.

  ‘Because at least you’re alive in here. If you say what you know, you’re dead. Aren’t you? And why did you ask about Olga? Are you worried she had time to talk?’

  He didn’t answer. She stood up, and he followed her with his eyes.

  ‘I can just about accept,’ she said, facing the door, ‘that you’d rather keep quiet about who really beat those people to death in order to save your own skin, but there’s something else I just don’t understand.’ She turned round and looked at him. ‘Why was David Lindholm the only person who thought you were innocent? Well? How come one of the most famous policemen in Sweden was the only one who believed you? Was it because he was so much better than all the other cops? Did he see something else in the investigation that the prosecutor, the defence and the court missed? No, that’s not it, is it?’

  She sat down on the low cupboard that held the sheets and blankets.

  ‘The only reason David believed you was because he knew something that nobody else did. He believed you because he knew who really did it, or thought he knew. Is that right?’

  Filip Andersson didn’t move.

  ‘I can understand you keeping your mouth shut,’ Annika said. ‘After all, you’re where you are. But there’s one thing I just can’t understand. Why did David keep his mouth shut?’ She stood up again. ‘No one believes you,’ she said, ‘but David had every chance in the world to say what he knew. He would have been the hero of the hour yet again. There’s only one reasonable explanation for the way he acted.’

  The man was staring straight ahead at the curtains. He didn’t answer.

  ‘I’ve thought a lot about this over the past few weeks. David must have been terrified as well,’ Annika said. ‘Not of being killed, he doesn’t seem to have been scared of death. No, he was scared of something else.’ She went over to the chair and sat down again, leaning to one side to catch Filip Andersson’s eye. ‘What was important to David?’ she asked. ‘What meant so much to him that he would keep quiet about a mass-murderer? Was it money? Reputation? His career? Or girls? Sex? Drugs? Was he an addict?’

  Filip Andersson fumbled with a handkerchie
f.

  ‘What exactly were you and he involved in? What’s the connection? He knew you before the murders. You were in touch long before then, weren’t you? I have no idea whether or not you’re guilty of carrying out those executions, but you’re pretty damn crooked. How were you involved with a famous policeman? And why on earth did he risk his career by associating with you?’

  Filip Andersson sighed deeply. ‘You really haven’t understood a single thing,’ he said.

  ‘So tell me!’ Annika said. ‘I’m all ears.’

  He looked at her with great sadness. ‘Are you really sure you want to know?’ he said. ‘Are you willing to pay the price of knowing?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Annika said.

  He shook his head and stood up slowly. He didn’t look at her as he put one hand on her shoulder and called for the guards. ‘Believe me,’ he said, ‘it isn’t worth it. We’re done now.’

  This last sentence was directed at the Stentofon.

  ‘Don’t go,’ Annika said. ‘You haven’t answered anything at all.’

  The look on his face was almost tender. ‘You’re welcome to write about my application for a retrial,’ he said. ‘I think there’s a real chance they’ll consider it. I was in Bromma when the murders took place.’

  Annika picked up her notepad and pen. ‘Your mobile phone was there. What’s to say that you were the one using it?’

  He stared at her but didn’t have time to reply because the door opened and he left the room, his plastic slippers slapping on the floor.

  What is it I’m not getting here? There’s something else, something I should have asked him about. Shit!

  23

  She drifted towards the exit, through the hundred-metre-long metal enclosure. A gale was blowing, but otherwise it was completely quiet.

  She stopped when she reached the outside gate. The fence stretched off into the distance on either side of her, and suddenly she felt so giddy that she had to grab hold of the gate. She pressed the intercom, time after time in quick succession, like a child.

  ‘Can you let me out, please?’ she cried. The lock clicked and the gate swung open and she was standing outside the metal fence. The air was instantly colder and clearer. ‘Thanks,’ she said, to the mute surveillance camera above her.

  She let the steel door click shut behind her, then walked and walked along the edge of the enclosed site until finally she was back in town again. She turned left into a road called Stenevägen, which went on and on, with different schools on either side, then wooden houses, brick houses and even a few prefabs. Eventually she could see the railway line ahead of her. She stopped and shook her sleeve to uncover her watch.

  An hour and twenty minutes before her train.

  She looked towards the station. She’d had quite enough of Sibylla’s fast-food kiosk. To her right lay something called Svea’s Café. She took a deep breath and went in. She settled down at a window table with coffee, biscuits and the local newspaper.

  A woman on a bike had been knocked down and slightly injured at the junction of Fredsgatan and Skolgatan in Örebro just before one o’clock the previous day.

  Another woman was demanding seven thousand kronor in damages because someone had spat on her in a pub.

  A Social Democratic Youth Group in Pålsboda had been awarded a council grant of ten thousand kronor to build a music room.

  She closed her eyes and could see the stairwell on Sankt Paulsgatan before her.

  She pushed the biscuits away from her and went to get a glass of water instead. She sat down at the table again and looked out at the fast-food kiosk.

  Are you really sure you want to know? Are you willing to pay the price of knowing? Believe me, it isn’t worth it.

  She rested her forehead on the palms of her hands. He had actually confirmed what she had said. It wouldn’t hold up in a court of law, but he had more or less confirmed the scenario she had outlined.

  David Lindholm had been involved in some sort of shady dealing with Filip Andersson, although exactly what remained unclear. But they had known each other for a long time and were somehow mixed up in the axe murders on Sankt Paulsgatan, both of them.

  Now David had been murdered as well. And Filip Andersson had chosen to spend the rest of his life in prison rather than be killed too.

  It couldn’t just be coincidence. It had to fit together somehow.

  The three victims on Södermalm had been beaten to death with an axe.

  David had been shot.

  No similarities there.

  Apart from the excessive cruelty. The symbolic castration.

  She gasped.

  Thou shalt not steal. Off with their hands. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Off with his cock.

  If Filip Andersson is innocent, then the real killer is still out there somewhere.

  Bloody hell! It could be the same person!

  The next conclusion crashed into her head.

  Which means that Julia didn’t do it! So maybe Alexander’s still alive!

  She pulled out her mobile and called Kronoberg Prison in Stockholm. There was no point in trying to go through Julia’s useless lawyer. The restrictions placed on Julia Lindholm had been lifted, so there was no legal reason why she couldn’t visit her.

  ‘My name is Annika Bengtzon. I’m a reporter from the Evening Post,’ she told the officer. ‘I spent a night in a patrol car with Julia Lindholm four and a half years ago. We were both pregnant at the time. I believe she’s innocent and I’d like to interview her. Could you pass on my request, please?’ She left her mobile and home phone numbers.

  Then she got up and ran over to the station, even though the train wasn’t due for half an hour.

  She changed trains in Hallsberg, as she had on the journey down. She forced herself to think calmly, trying to structure her ideas and evaluate them objectively.

  Am I really on to something, or am I just chasing shadows?

  According to her first-class ticket, she was in carriage one, seat ten. Only when she had made her way through all the carriages did she realize that there was no first-class compartment anywhere in the entire train. All the seats looked exactly the same, squashed together like sardines, without so much as a folding table on the seat in front.

  Typical of Swedish railways. Taking your money but not coming up with the goods.

  The only seat that happened to be occupied in carriage one was number ten. A large man had settled down, spreading his briefcase and thick coat over her seat. She sat down in an empty one. The train moved off with a jolt. Just thirty seconds later they had left the town behind them. She stared out at the landscape rushing past, naked woodland with blackened branches, barns, an abandoned car, a yard full of firewood, red cottages, ploughed fields. The Swedish drawing-pin factory, stone-walled farms, and endless forests of fir trees.

  She took out her mobile, thinking carefully as she formulated the text message. Didn’t want to promise too much. Have met Filip Andersson. Food for thought. Think Julia may be innocent. Can we meet?

  She leaned back in her seat with a sigh.

  She caught a glimpse of some brownish-grey water in Kilsmo, and three deer ran across a patch of felled woodland. She stared after them, trying to see them through the undergrowth and scrub, but they were already gone, the moment had passed and she was overwhelmed by the familiar landscape, the Södermanland she had grown up in, with its stubbornness and watchful isolation.

  The train slowed as it went through Vingåker and she opened her eyes: a football pitch, a car park, a block of flats with brown and white panelling. She blinked and then they were gone. A bird of prey in a tree, more water – could that be Kolsnaren?

  Where will my children have their firm foundations? Where will they find security? In which smells? In which rooms? In what space, in which music?

  A scrapyard, a residential suburb: they were approaching Katrineholm.

  Time is all that anyone has. Like youth, and life, it seems obvious as long as you have it.
Then it’s just gone.

  It was getting dark and she could see her own reflection in the window: she looked tired and thin. Not beautifully emaciated like Hollywood stars, but bony and hard.

  The train stopped, near the Savings Bank and McDonald’s and all the buildings round the square, so painfully familiar and out of reach. She had belonged there, but she had chosen to leave. These would never again be her streets, and they would never be her children’s.

  She turned her head away to shut out all the people flooding into the carriage.

  Think Julia may be innocent.

  Nina read the text again before deciding what to reply. Think may be.

  Irritated, she clicked to get rid of the message.

  She had taken two weeks’ holiday, and was going back on the night shift at ten o’clock that evening. First she had spent three days supporting Holger and Viola through the trial, then a week with them at their farm outside Valla. She had walked the fields with Julia’s father and watched television serials on the sofa with Julia’s mother, and all the while the space in the rooms and stables had been dominated by a total and overwhelming emptiness.

  They’ve only got me now.

  She sank back on her bed, looking round her cramped one-room flat.

  Holger and Viola had decided to stay in Södermanland and not drive up to Stockholm to watch the sentence pronounced. She had said they could stay at hers if they liked, just as they had done during the trial, but they had declined. They’d thought they’d just be in the way, even though she had assured them that wasn’t the case, but they didn’t really want to leave the farm, although they no longer had any livestock to look after.

  People were talking behind their backs. Nina had seen that with her own eyes. The way people turned away demonstratively in the local supermarket. They had both got older and more frail over the past six months. Viola’s hair was completely white now, and Holger had developed a limp.

  The sentence was due to be pronounced at one thirty tomorrow.

  The trial had been stiff and conventional, the same as usual. For Holger and Viola, the formalities had been a drawn-out nightmare. Surreptitious questions from both of them when they thought the other couldn’t hear.