She pulled him even closer. She was worried. He looked at her. She never used to be afraid. She was the brave one. Now she just wanted to get away, humming helicopters meant misfortune.
Far away, at the edge of the forest. He noticed him before she did. A police officer with a dog. They were moving along the trees, the dog was searching for something, moving to the west, away from them, toward the helicopters.
“That, too.”
“It might not be related.”
But it was related.
They knew now. Something had happened here, in their forest, during their break from everything else.
They hurried down from the hill, through the thick bushes. Gone were the slow steps, the communal breathing. They wanted to get away from somebody’s hunt, from somebody’s misfortune.
————
It was Margareta who saw it first.
So red.
A child’s shoe. A little girl’s shoe.
Bright-red patent leather and a metal buckle, the decoration that dominated.
They went as fast as they could, and the pain in her knees stabbed angrily, but she ignored it. When Rune asked if she was okay, she nodded and pointed forward, the fastest route back, a shortcut away from the usual paths, hilly or not. The helicopter was so close, the policeman and his dog, she didn’t want to think about the darkness but was convinced it surrounded them. She just knew. She could see that Rune was worried by her reaction, and she shook her head. She couldn’t answer. Sometimes there are simply no explanations.
She was forced to let go of his hand as they walked on either side of a big spruce. The path was covered with brush, and they couldn’t fit beside each other. They’d moved quickly across almost a kilometer, and it wouldn’t be long until they were back to their starting point, to the asphalt and the houses.
She glimpsed it underneath the broad branches of the spruce. Thought at first it was mushrooms, kicked it gently. She lifted it then, turned and twisted and understood. She looked around. Where is she? Is she here? The girl.
She didn’t scream, she wasn’t surprised, just held the red shoe gently and handed it to Rune when he arrived.
Lennart Oscarsson sat in his office watching Aspsås prison wake up through his window. A beautiful day, just as warm as yesterday, just as warm as every day of the last week. He sighed loudly. It could have been beautiful. But an extremely dangerous sex offender was moving freely out there—and it was his fault. He left his office and hurried down the stairs, down to his department, nodded toward two new recruits with six months of service in front of them. He knew they all wanted to end up anywhere but in the sex crimes department, that they rejected the people they were supposed to be caring for, he understood that and didn’t make more of it than what it was—they all felt the same, spitting on the pedophiles all the way to the bank to cash their paycheck.
It was empty, quiet, a deserted corridor with closed cell doors—everyone was in the workshop, they had an obligation to work and got a few bucks an hour for making wooden rings and triangular wooden blocks, building parts for educational toys. Say what you want about sex offenders, they didn’t make much fuss about doing their jobs, went there quietly and produced whatever inanities they were asked to, unlike the normal units’ mix of junkie convenience-store robbers who alternated between going on strike or going to the infirmary.
He walked into the hallway, along a wall of metal doors. He came to a halt in front of number eleven. Bernt Lund’s abandoned cell. Soon, Lund would be one and a half days on the run. They didn’t usually last that long—without sleep, without betraying themselves, staying vigilant every moment. It took an enormous amount of energy and money to hide, and with a couple of dozen police officers on your tail and an informed public, the number of hiding places shrank with every breath.
Door, locked. The key ring was in his pocket—it was always there. He unlocked the door.
It looked the same as it did when they’d closed it the previous day: the entire room filled with objects in a row, two centimeters apart. A big pile on the floor, he could still see that madman Grens sweeping all the objects off the bed with his pocket diary. The lean one whose fortieth birthday it was, Sundkvist, had looked aghast for a moment. At first he’d glanced anxiously at his colleague and then sighed loudly as Grens did it again, measured and swept things down a second time.
Lennart Oscarsson sat down on the now crumpled bedcover, blurry streaks on dark ground. After a while he lay down, trying to see what Lund had seen every day, every night. He stared at the white, patchy ceiling, investigating the too-bright fluorescent lamp, his eyes wandering around the doorjamb. What had he done in here? Lain here masturbating, while he shut his eyes and thought of little girls? Planned and fantasized about dominating and controlling, about a child’s naiveté, which he would end the moment he chose to violate it? Or, had Lund understood, had he dared to approach the consequences, a child’s feelings, fear, humiliation? Locked up in this eight-square-meter room with his guilt, alone with it evening, night, morning, it would be suffocating, it might have been so suffocating that he had to run, had to escape, had to beat up two guards in front of the entrance to an ER.
His eyes rested on the closed door, from the inside. Someone knocked.
Who? The door opened. Bertolsson, the governor.
“Lennart?”
“Yes?”
“What are you doing?”
Lennart got up quickly, straightened the hair on his neck, which always got messed up when he lay down.
“I don’t know. I came here. I lay down. I think I wanted to know more.”
“Do you?”
“Not a thing.”
Bertolsson stepped in. He looked around.
“What a lunatic.”
“No, that’s just it. I realized that just now. He doesn’t understand at all. He feels no remorse. He is incapable of understanding any perspective other than his own.”
Bertolsson kicked at the pile lying on the floor, then looked at the shelves, at what was left by the window. He couldn’t make sense of it. The chaos on the floor and everything else lined up in the cell, conformity that had no end. He looked at Oscarsson, who turned away, too tired to explain.
“Forget it then. I sought you out to talk to you about another lunatic, one of his colleagues. One of the seven in Lund’s pornography club.”
“Yeah?”
“His name is Axelsson. Håkan. Convicted for small-time stuff before. He’ll be sentenced tomorrow. And he’ll be locked up. Not as long as he should, but enough to miss both Christmas and Easter.”
“Yeah?”
“He’s coming from Kronoberg jail, and he should, of course, be placed here. But you’re full.”
Lennart Oscarsson yawned long and loudly. He thought for a few seconds then lay down again.
“You’ll have to forgive me. They tire me out.”
Bertolsson pretended not to notice that one of his unit heads was resting on a bed that belonged to an escaped inmate.
“You’ve only got this cell. Which is empty. But Lund should be back here damn soon.”
“You see. You see. Sex crimes are trendy. Perverts all lined up.”
Bertolsson angled the blinds, letting in bright sunlight. Outside, a day was in progress. It was easy to forget. Inside the prison, time wasn’t divided into days, everything flowed together, turning into waiting and clumps of months and years.
“We’ll have to place him in one of our normal units. A few days, a week until we can find something out in the country.”
Lennart winced. He was silent, then rose up on his elbow, facing Bertolsson.
“Arne, what the hell are you saying?”
“You know he doesn’t have to take his sentence into the unit with him.”
“They won’t give a shit about that. They’ll find out why he’s there, and then you know how it goes.”
“Just a few days. Then he’ll leave them.”
Oscarsson drew
in his elbow and sat up.
“Arne. Stop it. I know you know. If he leaves a normal unit he’ll be doing it by ambulance, nothing else.”
It didn’t smell like anything. He knew that. But it didn’t matter. He’d been here before, and even now, on the steps outside, his nose, his brain could smell death.
Sven Sundkvist had visited Forensic Medicine in Solna more times than he could remember. A detective in Stockholm has to do this, he knew that, but he also knew that he would always hate this part of the work, never learn to look at a dead person lying on a gurney, who had just been breathing and talking and laughing, that a man—most were men—in a white coat had sawed, opened, used their hands to lift what was inside into the bright light of the lamps in order to investigate it and then throw it back into the hole in the chest, chaotic, before sewing it shut again, before the dead person was covered in fabric to seem less offensive to their families, who would soon come, who would soon see their loved one and explain that this shell lying before them was the very person they’d just spoken to, filled with hope.
Ewert Grens didn’t work that way. He stood next to Sven, also waiting for the coroner who’d answered the intercom, and Sven thought about the times they’d been here together. It was as if Ewert didn’t understand that this was about death, as if he couldn’t see the bodies that way, as if, when death replaced life, they were no longer human beings to him. Every time they came here, he ended up lifting the fabric that covered them, searching the dead skin, pinching the body, and saying something funny, as if to prove that this was just a thing and nothing more than that lying in front of them, that it was impossible to hurt it.
The coroner stood on the other side of the glass door. He was looking for his keycard, found it in the inside pocket of his white coat, a clicking sound as the door opened. Ludvig Errfors, fifty-plus, one of their most experienced coroners. Sven was glad they’d chosen Errfors, a child must be much more difficult to dissect, or, at least, you’d have less practice. But, if anyone could do it, if anyone had been here long enough to do this, it was Errfors.
They said hello, Errfors asked about Bernt Lund, and they told him they still knew nothing. He shook his head and made some short reference to the last time, to four years ago. He’d been the one who worked on those two small girls from the basement murders. He spoke loudly, while Sven and Ewert followed him down the stairs, explaining that he’d never before seen such senseless violence, definitely not done to children.
He stopped in mid-step, turned around, serious.
“Not until now.”
“What do you mean?”
“I recognize the injuries. It was definitely Lund’s work.”
They continued to the stairs that led to a short corridor. It was the first room to the right, where Errfors usually worked.
There in the middle of the room—the damn table. It smelled, it did, but not much. Sundkvist realized if he didn’t know this was an autopsy room, he wouldn’t know it was a dead body he was smelling. The ventilation system was effective. The muffled hum ran all the time, changing the air, changing the smell. They should have dressed in green sterile clothing, but Errfors had waved dismissively. He was old enough to know when he could break the rules.
He turned off two lamps on the long sides of the room, kept on a single, bright one in the middle, large enough to cover the entire table. It was dark behind them, concentrated light on a dark stage.
“We can see better this way, all those shiny instruments reflect the light and make it harder to see.”
The child in front of them looked peaceful. Her face, asleep. They recognized her from her parents’ photographs.
Errfors lifted up a plastic folder that was lying next to her. He opened a glasses case, powerful glasses in thick black frames.
He pulled out two sheets of paper.
“Well, she’s not peaceful underneath the fabric.”
It was quiet, an almost soundproof room. The sound of papers rustling took up space.
“Traces of sperm were found in the vagina, anus, on the body. The perpetrator has ejaculated on her after death as well.”
He lifted the cloth to show them. Sven turned his face away, couldn’t stand to look, while Ewert searched the girl’s body, trying to follow Errfors’s report. He sighed.
“Like last time.”
“It was rougher, but yes, you’re right, the procedure was the same.”
The coroner took out the other paper.
“I’ve determined the cause of death. A sharp blow, presumably from the edge of the hand, directed toward the throat.”
Ewert looked at her neck. A large mark. He turned to Sven, who was still looking away.
“Sven.”
“I can’t.”
“You don’t need to. I’ll look.”
“Thank you.”
“But you should know that we have him.”
“We don’t have shit.”
“When we pick him up it will be a sure thing. Semen everywhere. Just like last time. We still have that. Just a single DNA sample for comparison and we’ll know that it was him.”
She’d been lying there, in the woods. Sven saw Margareta and Rune Lantz ahead of him. Two elderly people, two people who loved each other, who held each other’s hands, didn’t leave each other, their eyes, the tears flowing the entire time they were being questioned—hers had been worse, coming quietly at every answer, every time she was forced to describe.
I think we should sit down here. On this stone.
Okay.
I want us to do the interview here, so we can see the site. Is that okay?
Yes.
I want to know everything. From the beginning.
Can he stay here?
That’s fine.
I don’t know.
Try.
I don’t know if I can.
For the girl’s sake.
We take a walk every evening.
Every evening?
If it’s not pouring.
Here?
Yes.
The same route?
Different ones. We usually try to vary it.
This path?
Yes?
Do you usually take it?
No. This was probably the first time. Was it, Rune?
I’ll talk to Rune later. Right now I just want to hear from you.
I didn’t recognize it.
Why did you choose this one?
We didn’t choose it. It just happened. When we heard the helicopter.
The helicopter?
I thought it was horrible. That and the police dog. We were in a hurry.
And that’s how you ended up on this path?
It seemed the closest.
What happened when you got here?
Do you have any tissues?
Sorry?
Or a handkerchief.
Unfortunately not.
I’m so sorry.
No need to apologize.
We were holding hands.
When you were walking?
Yes. Until we got here. By the tree. Then we let go.
Why?
It was too big. We had to walk on either side of it.
Who went first?
We went at the same time. On either side.
What happened then?
I thought it was a mushroom. It was so red. I kicked at it.
It?
The shoe. I realized that when I kicked it. That it was a shoe.
What did you do then?
I waited. For Rune. I knew something wasn’t right.
How did you know?
Sometimes you just know. The helicopter, the dog, a shoe. I felt there was something horrible about it.
What did you do?
Lifted it up. Showed it to Rune. I wanted him to see it.
And then?
Then she was just lying there.
Where?
In the grass. I saw that she’d been destroyed.
Destroyed
?
That she wasn’t whole. I saw it. Rune saw it, too. That she wasn’t whole.
She lay in the grass? Did you touch her?
She was dead. Why would we touch her?
I have to ask.
I can’t do any more.
Just a couple more questions.
I don’t want to.
Did you see anyone here?
The girl. She was lying there looking at me. Completely ruined.
I mean someone else. Somebody besides just you and Rune?
No.
Nobody at all?
We saw the dog. And the policeman.
Nobody else?
I can’t. Rune, tell him that I can’t do this.
The coroner spent a long time looking for a third paper in his folder. He couldn’t find it. He walked away from the mortuary gurney to a shelf behind him. He found what he was looking for there.
“There’s one more thing. Another connection to the last time.”
He covered her up again. Sven turned back toward the gurney and to the fabric covering the body.
“Notice that when she arrived her feet were completely clean, while the rest of her was bloody and broken. We tested her feet. We found traces of—”
Ewert interrupted.
“Saliva. Right?”
Errfors nodded.
“Saliva. Just like last time.”
Ewert looked at her face. She didn’t exist. She lay there, but she didn’t exist.
“Bernt Lund’s version of foreplay. He licks their shoes. And feet.”
“Not this time.”
“You just said he did.”
“There was no foreplay this time. This was afterward. He licked this girl’s feet after she died.”
————
He hadn’t seen her for several months. They talked to each other on the phone every day, but only about Marie, about what time she woke up, what she ate, if she was using new words, playing new games, if she cried laughed lived—each step in a child’s development that the absent parent was robbed of, they tried to compensate for with those calls. If it had to do with Marie—and only then—there was no bitterness, no accusations, no lost love.
Her beautiful face, he knew what it looked like when she was crying, how it swelled, how her features smeared together. He put his hand on her cheek, and she smiled at him, hugged him.
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