Victim Without a Face

by Stefan Ahnhem

  On Sunday they hung up their paintings, organized the books in alphabetical order, helped Matilda get her room in order, and, to Theodor’s great joy, managed to get the wireless router up and running. Everyone helped out, and it finally started to feel as though they had really moved in. They went to Pålsjö Krog for a celebratory dinner in the evening.

  Fabian’s phone hadn’t rung once all weekend; he hadn’t received so much as a text message. But he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Mette Louise and about what Molander would find in the Peugeot. He thought about Lina, who still hadn’t called, and questioned whether he should get in touch and apologize. He remembered dancing with her to “Rivers of Babylon” at his twelfth birthday party, sure that the two of them would spend the rest of their lives together.

  The silence was broken on Monday morning.

  “You have to come in. Right away...”

  19

  GUSTEN PERSSON LOVED EARLY mornings, and this one was no exception; the sun was shining as if it would never stop. But Gusten was already in a bad mood as he turned off Gruvgatan and drove into the employee parking area of Åstorp Construction Supply.

  His vacation was over, and he had spent the entire weekend fixing the veranda without receiving so much as a smile from his wife, Inga. His old joke about “no kisses from the missus” had long since lost its lustre with her. He had heard from friends that menopause could be extra difficult for some women, but no one had said anything about how excruciating it could be for men.

  He unlocked the door to Åstorp’s large warehouse and walked inside, locking the door behind him. There was still more than an hour left before the store officially opened after being closed for the two-week vacation break. If he didn’t lock the door, there was a risk that the building would be full of customers fifteen minutes before the store opened.

  He started thinking about Thailand. Glenn had asked Gusten to join him there this coming winter. Apparently there were more willing — and, most importantly, cheap — girls than one could possibly imagine. Gusten had declined, feeling distaste at the thought of paying for sex. He had never done it and wasn’t about to start.

  But after this weekend, he wasn’t so sure anymore. Why shouldn’t he get laid now and then? Weren’t his urges just as natural as Inga’s menopause? If things had been the other way around and men went through menopause while women just got hornier and hornier, prostitution would surely be acceptable. Yoga weekends would be replaced by sex weekends, and gossip magazines with porn. He wasn’t even sure if Inga’s issues were even related to menopause. Recently, it had felt more likely to him that she was using it as an excuse. As he went to turn off the alarm, he decided that he was definitely going to ask Glenn if he could still come along.

  Employees had forty-five seconds to turn off the alarm after the door was opened. If you didn’t make it in time, the alarm would sound, bringing with it a minor hell of phone calls and codes before order was restored. Gusten hardly dared think about how much such an ordeal would cost. In his early days at the company, he had always worried that he wouldn’t make it to the box in time, so he’d run as soon as he opened the door. Over the years he developed a firm, instinctual understanding of exactly how long forty-five seconds was, and could now take his time getting to the box. It had almost become a game for him — to get as close to forty-five seconds as he possibly could.

  But the alarm was already off today, which was unusual. Gusten wondered whether he had forgotten to turn it on when they’d closed up for vacation, or if someone else had already been here and opened the door before him. He definitely hadn’t seen any other cars in the parking lot. And the morning shift was not popular — in all the years he had been responsible for opening, the only time he had managed to get someone to cover for him was when he’d been off work for a month after a bypass operation.

  Gusten walked further into the building and went on his usual morning rounds: turning on the ceiling lights, starting up the presentation videos, and putting merchandise back into place. He didn’t understand for the life of him why it was so difficult for customers to put things back where they’d found them. It was almost as incomprehensible as Inga’s grouchiness.

  He stopped and looked at the window. It was definitely closed, but the hasps weren’t secured. He walked over and felt the window, which opened upward. The cable that ran to the alarm contact looked okay. There had been a lot of break-ins at the store over the years, but not a single one since they installed the new alarm system, which had cost several hundred thousand kronor almost three years ago. Gusten had been very sceptical at the time, thinking that it would be cheaper just to have a few thefts now and then. But they had made up the cost last spring, and since then they had been in the black.

  He interrupted his rounds and walked to the office. He turned on the coffeemaker while waiting for the computer system to start up. He signed into his computer with his personal security code and checked the log. Glenn Granqvist had turned off the alarm last Thursday night at 2:33 a.m. Gusten was bewildered. Glenn, of all people? He picked up the phone and called Glenn.

  Gusten listened to the Robert De Niro greeting on the machine, but didn’t leave a message. Glenn was probably still sleeping and needed a few more rings to wake up. He called again, but hung up after the sixth ring. Had he accidentally dialled the wrong number?

  Gusten had Glenn’s number programmed into his cell phone, but he had called from the store’s landline. After all, this was a work call and there was no reason he should have to pay for it. He dialled Glenn’s number once more, checking each digit carefully. But he didn’t make it to the last one. Instead, his eyes were on the monitor, which had come to life and was switching from one security camera to the next.

  There was a forklift in the middle of the doors and windows department, blocking the entire aisle. What was it doing there? It belonged down in Aisle C. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but there was something odd about the angle, too. He leaned closer to the monitor in order to get a better look but it quickly switched to another camera.

  Gusten couldn’t recall the last time he had run anywhere. The store had scooters to get around faster, but he always felt unsteady when he tried to balance on them, so he preferred to walk; he considered it his exercise. Now he wished he hadn’t given up so easily. The doors and windows department was at the other end of the building, and he was already seriously out of breath.

  A rat scurried past him on the cement floor. They had plenty of rats, he knew that, but they usually didn’t show up in plain sight. Soon, another one appeared under a pallet of plasterboard, and went in the same direction as Gusten was running. What had happened? It occurred to him that he might be on Candid Camera, but he dismissed the thought almost immediately. This was no practical joke.

  His heart was hammering like a machine gun and he was panting like a dog in forty-degree weather. He finally rounded the corner and could see the forklift, which was definitely in the middle of the aisle. Gusten assumed that this could have been what a burglar was after. And why not? Doors and triple-paned windows were some of the most expensive items the store carried.

  Four more rats showed up from different directions and disappeared around the other side of the forklift. He could clearly see what he had suspected in the office: the forklift was reared back. The front wheels were hanging in mid-air, fifteen centimetres above the floor. The prongs were lowered, and he saw Glenn’s squashed boots between the wheels and the ground. He would know Glenn’s steel-toed, badass Doc Martens anywhere. But not even Doc Martens could withstand that much pressure. Gusten’s mind was swirling; he was as confused as a compass at the North Pole.

  He heard a sound and it helped him regain focus. It was coming from the other side of the forklift. At first he couldn’t figure out what it was — a creaking or chirping? Then he realized the floor was full of rats, all running back and forth to something on the other side of the vehicle. He collected himself and walked around to take a
look. The sight he encountered would haunt him for the rest of his life. Deep down, he had already realized that Glenn was dead, but what the rats had done shocked him.

  November 26

  When we showered after gym they said I was gay and that I was looking at their cocks. I didn’t say anything but they just kept on talking, saying that I wanted to suck their cocks. I heard them laughing in the locker room, but I was scared to leave before they were gone. My coat was missing from my locker once I got there. My almost brand new down coat that Mom said was too expensive. I found it in the toilet. It was disgusting.

  I went to JC and found the same coat. I walked up to the register to pay and watched them take off the alarm, and stick the coat in a bag. They wanted the money, but I just ran out of the store without looking back.

  I haven’t been to school for a few days now. My fucking stupid teacher called tonight and told on me. Dad wasn’t home but Mom got super mad. I didn’t know what to say so I didn’t say anything. She asked why I was being so quiet, but I still didn’t say anything. I’ve gotten pretty good at being quiet.

  Mom said she’s going to come all the way to school with me next week and sit there for several of my classes because my teacher called. I told her not to come. Then she was the one who didn’t say anything. If Mom comes to school, the guys are going to think I told on them and they will beat the shit out of me. I know it.

  Tonight we had stuffed cabbage for dinner. I totally hate stuffed cabbage and she knows it. But Mom told me I had to eat it all. Then Dad came down and started yelling about how important it is to go to school. Jesus, I hate them so much. They don’t understand a goddamn thing.

  P. S. I put my own piss in Laban’s water bottle. At first he refused to drink it, but then he did. It’s so fucking nasty.

  20

  THE POLICE TAPE WAS already up when Fabian Risk arrived at Åstorp Construction Supply. Some curious onlookers, likely employees, were huddled together in a group, watching what was happening. Klippan was questioning Gusten Persson, who still hadn’t recovered from what he had seen in the doors and windows department.

  “Apparently he’s the guy who opens every morning,” Molander said as he took Fabian aside and showed him in under the police tape.

  “Where’s Tuvesson? Shouldn’t she be here?”

  “She had to go to Malmö.”

  “Malmö?”

  “Crisis meeting about how to handle the conflict with the Danes. Apparently they’re all pissed off because we went above the bosses’ heads and sent out officers without telling them.”

  “We did call them. They didn’t answer.”

  “Not according to them.” Molander shrugged and walked into the building. Fabian followed him between the crammed shelves, which extended all the way up to the ceiling. They arrived at a long central aisle that ran through the entire warehouse. Molander stopped and nodded toward the far end of the aisle. “There you go.”

  The forklift was about ten metres away from them, its front wheels dangling in the air. Molander’s assistants were walking around in blue coveralls, taking pictures and gathering evidence. Glenn’s body was lying face up, his feet caught underneath the prongs of the forklift. Fabian could tell there wasn’t much left of him. The rest of the body was hidden behind the medical examiner and his assistants.

  “How are things going for them?”

  “Just fine, I’m sure, but it will probably take some time before he can officially be identified.”

  “I can identify him.” Although Fabian hadn’t seen any recent pictures of Glenn, he was sure he would have no trouble recognizing him.

  “I don’t think so.” Molander placed a hand on Fabian’s shoulder. “Anyway, I’d prefer not to have any more people than necessary over there before my men and Braids are finished. The rats have already made enough of a mess.”

  “The rats?”

  Molander nodded. “But they also did something useful. Let me show you.” Fabian followed Molander from the murder scene to the other end of the warehouse.

  “Rats are drawn to food, and if we follow their tracks we’ll find some real goodies over here.” Molander turned away from the central aisle, walked between two shelves, and stopped at a hidden corner under a small, unlocked window. “I think he spent the night here, and — most importantly — ate something.”

  Fabian looked at the concrete floor, but couldn’t see any traces of food. “Did the rats eat up all the scraps or something?”

  “They left one thing behind.” Molander held out an evidence bag with a McDonald’s wrapper inside. “If I’m not mistaken, this is a Chili McFeast Deluxe — really yummy, for McDonald’s. It’s only sold one day a week at select locations. With a little luck, he bought it at a McDonald’s nearby.”

  “Hey, you pigheads! Full speed ahead,” they heard a crackly voice say on Molander’s two-way radio. Both men turned back toward the rearing forklift.

  “What’s he like? The medical examiner...”

  “Einar Greide? He looks like a hibernating hippie who spends all his time chilling out and smoking up, but he’s one of the best pathologists in the country. Even just the fact that he insisted on coming out here before we move the body speaks for...”

  Molander stopped talking once he noticed Greide walking toward them. His long, silvery grey hair was styled in two braids, his beard in one. There were several different amulets hanging around his neck, and the colourful, crocheted pants beneath his protective plastic smock reminded Fabian of a Twister Popsicle.

  “Well, anyway, he’s one of the best.” Molander vanished with one of his assistants.

  “Hi! I’m Einar Greide. And you must be Fabian Risk.” Greide extended his hand, which had at least one ring on each finger, and shook hands with Fabian. “We have an exciting time ahead of us,” he continued, tugging at his beard braid. “This perpetrator knows exactly what he’s doing.”

  “What have you come up with?”

  “One thing at a time, and this is first on the list.” Greide held up some crumpled blue shoe protectors and a hairnet. Fabian pulled the shoe protectors over his Converse, put on the hairnet, and followed the medical examiner to the other side of the forklift, where the lifeless body lay supine.

  Both of Glenn’s arms were bound to his thighs with straps. His shins disappeared under the prongs of the forklift, and there wasn’t much more to the feet and boots than a whole lot of blood that had pooled onto the concrete floor and coagulated. Fabian let his eyes wander along the corpse, and understood why Molander kept talking about the rats, and why he didn’t think Fabian could identify the body.

  It wasn’t just the feet that were gone — the face was, too. It had been eaten. Everything was missing: the eyes, the lips and mouth. All that was left was a meaty, red mass. Besides the hair, the protruding nasal bone, cheekbones, and teeth were the only other evidence that they were dealing with a human. The mass was so far from a face that it was hardly even repulsive.

  Fabian stood up, feeling no doubt whatsoever that it was Glenn. Even if it was impossible to tell for sure, all the clues added up: they were at Glenn’s workplace, he had been reported missing, and he had used his feet whenever he and Jörgen attacked Claes.

  Einar Greide nodded at his men, who carefully rolled the body onto its side. He crouched down and pointed to a small head wound.

  “As you can see, he received a powerful blow to the back of the skull, which almost always means an awful lot of blood.” Greide pointed at the blood that had coagulated in the hair around the wound. “But if you look here at the floor under the wound, there’s no blood at all.”

  “So he was hit there earlier?”

  Greide lit up. “He’s good, this new guy,” he called out to anyone in the area who was listening, and he gestured at his assistants to lift the body into a cadaver bag. “Follow me. My doctor says I don’t get anywhere near enough exercise.”

  Fabian followed Greide on a walk through the deserted building, its shelves full
of dreams of new, more beautiful homes.

  “So there’s a chance he was dead even before he got here?”

  “No, just that he received the blow to his head at an earlier juncture,” Greide said, taking a whole fistful of candy from a dish on the counter in the paint department. “But he died somewhere in the ballpark of three or four days ago.”

  “We’re talking last Thursday or Friday?”

  Greide nodded. “And even if it’s not written in stone yet, it looks like the cause of death is blood loss from his face.” He peeled the wrapper from a piece of candy and stuck it in his mouth. “He would probably still be alive if the rats hadn’t keep his wounds open.”

  “So he should be grateful?”

  “It depends on how you look at it.”

  “If we assume the perpetrator wanted the victim to die, the rats were no accident?”

  “I need more time, but I wouldn’t be surprised if his face had been covered in something that drew in the rats.”

  “Like what?”

  “Honey? Kalles Kaviar? Liver paste? They’ll eat practically anything.”

  Fabian’s phone rang. It was Tuvesson.

  “They found the girl.”

  21

  WHY? ASK FABBE.

  Fabian was sitting across from Tuvesson in her office, staring at the handwritten note.

  The question was more than justified. How could he have been so stupid? He had dragged an innocent girl into the investigation and put her in mortal danger. Now she was dead, and the killer couldn’t have put it more clearly: Mette Louise Risgaard hadn’t been part of his plan.

  “The Danes found her in the trunk of the car,” Tuvesson said, struggling to hold back her rage.

  “What about the note?”