The same could not be said for Dunja. She had positively oozed uncertainty and guilt. If he’d been unsure who had tipped off the evening paper before, he wasn’t any longer. He stood up with renewed energy, smoothed his hair back, left the elevator, and headed straight for Henrik Hammersten’s office.
“Well, this is quite the mess,” Hammersten said as he greeted Kim, who always thought that stepping into the police commissioner’s office felt like going back in time a hundred years. It had recently been renovated, but Hammersten had insisted on high, dark-wood panelling, hand-painted decorations on the ceiling, Chesterfield chairs, and an old globe that doubled as a cocktail cabinet.
“Have a seat.” Hammersten nodded at the visitor’s chair in front of the large mahogany desk, which had been bought at the Bruun auction house for the tidy price of 55,000 kroner.
So, not the easy chairs this time, Kim thought, bracing himself for a difficult meeting. He had to play his cards right if he had even the tiniest chance of coming out of this tête-à-tête with his job still intact. He threw up his hands and sat down. “Well, Henrik, what can I say? You sneak out the back door for a quickie and suddenly everyone’s after you.”
Hammersten nodded and walked over to the globe to get two glasses and a bottle of Gammel Dansk. Kim was pleased with his decision to get straight to the point instead of beating around the bush. Hammersten undoubtedly knew the value of a quickie now and again — he was the person who’d tipped him off about Jenny Nielsen and her extraordinary ability to provide for one’s needs in the first place. But he wasn’t about to open that door. It would be far too obvious.
“Do you know who leaked this to the papers?” Hammersten asked as he filled Kim’s glass to the brim with amber liquid.
“Hougaard. Who else? She’s had it in for me since the day I started working here.”
Hammersten nodded and raised his glass for a toast. Kim swallowed his in one big gulp, feeling the fire first in his esophagus and then his stomach. It was just what he needed. He realized Hammersten’s glass was still full when it was far too late. Shit.
Hammersten filled up Kim’s glass again. He grabbed for it a bit too eagerly and spilled a few drops on the desk.
“I’m sorry, I’ve had hardly any sleep.”
“No problem,” Hammersten insisted, returning with a rag so quickly that Sleizner was afraid he had expected him to spill his drink. Shit. Of course that was why he’d filled the glass to the brim.
“It’s too bad about Hougaard,” Hammersten said. “She’s a damn good policewoman.”
“Sure she is,” Kim said, not touching his glass. “But she’s had her share of problems. On the other hand, who hasn’t?”
“What kind of problems?”
“Obeying orders, for one. And I think she has a drinking problem. The other day she had what I would call a serious hangover.”
Hammersten nodded, slowly sipping his drink. “As long as she does her work.”
“And therein lies the problem.” Kim took his glass and forced himself to take the smallest sip, although his body was screaming out for more.
“What did Viveca say?”
He shook his head. “She threw me out, and I don’t blame her, to be honest.”
“And that’s how we ought to be today, isn’t it?” Hammersten looked into Kim’s eyes. “Honest.”
“Why, I’m sure we always —”
“Kim,” Hammersten interrupted. “I’m afraid I have to do the same.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“You know how much I admire you and everything you’ve done for the department, but this situation is escalating quickly and it risks becoming a stain on the entire police force. To be perfectly frank, I have no choice.”
It had all been a charade. Hammersten got him to believe that they were in the same boat, when in actuality the old bastard had already made up his mind. Kim had nothing left to lose. He drained his glass and slammed it onto the mahogany desk. “What the hell are you saying? What do you mean you have no choice? Who the hell makes the decisions if not you?”
“Kim, I understand that you’re upset. But —”
“Do you really?”
Hammersten sighed. “Kim, you and I both know what we’re dealing with here. If the public loses confidence in the police, we’re all in trouble.”
“Henrik, this is nothing more than a groundless media witch hunt. Okay, so I wasn’t there to take that damn call. So what?! That girl would have died anyway. What if I had answered? What then? There’s no chance I would have been able to get a backup team down there in time, and that uniform from Køge would have still gone after the perpetrator himself. But sure, I can take the blame, if that makes people happy. No problem.”
Hammersten considered Kim’s argument in silence.
“Henrik, for Christ’s sake. Give me a day or two and I’ll right this ship again, I promise.” At the last second, he stopped himself from pressing the most obvious button — Hammersten’s weak spot. It lay there like a rolled-out red carpet, just waiting to be stepped on. But he didn’t need it. They were both thinking about it anyway.
“You have until tomorrow.”
57
HE HAD BEEN WAITING in the car for almost two hours when the right moment popped up. He could see the children playing outside the preschool through the small camera that was mounted on the rear window. They fought over the bikes, threw gravel, and cried with their snotty noses.
He didn’t have any kids. He had never liked them, not even back when he was a kid. He’d done everything he could to fit in with them back then: he wore the right clothes and said the right things, but no one had noticed his desperate, tiny attempts, and his desire to be normal had turned into disdain for people his own age. These days, kids mostly just disgusted him. Their list of problems was never-ending: snot, pimples, scabs, warts, lice, eczema. Children were small, helpless reservoirs of infection that had no reason to exist, except to be mean. He had only truly understood the cruelty of children once he had grown up. In contrast to kindness, which had to be taught, nurtured, and developed, evil existed naturally from birth and grew more cunning throughout the years.
At 4:07 p.m., he left the car to pick them up. There were enough parents around by then that the staff wouldn’t have time to pay much attention to him. He knew what Lovisa and Mark, three and five years old, looked like from Facebook. He found them straightaway in the playground, and they swallowed his explanation without protest: he was a colleague of their mother’s and she was stuck in a meeting she couldn’t get out of before preschool ended. The promise of McDonald’s helped to cement his story as truth.
It wasn’t quite so simple with the staff. The heavy one was suspicious, and bluntly asked him who he was, making it clear that they couldn’t hand the kids over to a stranger. He declared in an insulted tone that he wasn’t a stranger but the children’s father, feeling fortunate that the children weren’t standing nearby. The heavy one grew flustered and embarrassed.
He explained that he travelled a lot for work and usually wasn’t able to come pick them up. Today was a surprise. In the end, Fatso accepted his explanation but pointed out that he should let them know in advance if he was going to surprise them again.
Now they were in the back seat, deep in a drug-induced sleep. He waited for their mother to arrive. On the camera screen in the back window he saw Camilla Lindén slamming her car door and hurrying over to the preschool, late as usual. She came rushing back three minutes later and started poking at her phone, unaware that she was about to hear an automated message telling her that the number she was trying to reach was not in service.
He watched as she punched the number in again and listened to the same message. She threw her handbag into the passenger seat, got behind the wheel, and tore off, tires screeching. He was more relaxed than she was — he turned the key in the ignition, began to follow her, and activated the camera’s automatic face detection, which would guide the swive
l-mounted laser with the help of the algorithms he had programmed himself.
If everything worked as he had planned, they would never be able to figure out what had happened.
58
A NURSE EYED ASTRID Tuvesson and pointed at the sign depicting a crossed-out cell phone.
“Okay, do that. I have to go now.” Tuvesson ended the call and turned to Lilja. “That was Molander. They haven’t discovered anything in Ramlösa Brunnspark.”
“Nothing?”
“Just a few strands of the victim’s hair in the bushes where she was found, but nothing useful for our purposes — no clothes, footprints, or tire tracks. I’ve sent him back to examine the crime scene around Claes’s body.”
“But there’s always something. Have you ever known Molander not to find anything?”
Tuvesson shook her head. “I guess the perpetrator has just done an unusually good job of cleaning up after himself. He’s planted all of the clues we’ve found so far, right?” She turned to Fabian for a reaction just as the doctor arrived.
“You can follow me,” he said.
The doctor updated them on Ingela’s condition as they walked through the corridor. “She has recovered quite a bit, but she’s still weak. In other words, this can’t be a long visit, just so we’re clear.” He showed them to a door that was guarded by two uniformed officers. “I’ll be back in ten minutes.”
The doctor walked off and Tuvesson opened the door to go in.
“Hold on a second,” Lilja said. “Is it really a good idea for Fabian to come in?” Tuvesson looked at her. “I thought he was off the case.”
Tuvesson turned to Fabian. “She’s right. What you do on your vacation is up to you. But if you want to see Ingela, you’ll have to do it after we’re finished.”
“That’s fine,” Fabian said, turning back toward the elevators with his mute officers. He already had the answers he needed.
Tuvesson and Lilja walked up to the bed, which was propped up so that Ingela was half sitting. Except for the dark circles under her anxious eyes, she was as pale as the sheet she was lying on. Her hair was greasy and stringy, and her hands trembled like an old woman’s as they rested on the blanket. What can you expect from someone who lost that much blood from an involuntary, highly invasive operation by an amateur surgeon? Tuvesson thought as she pulled up a chair and sat beside the bed.
“Hi, Ingela. My name is Astrid Tuvesson and I’m a detective superintendent with the Helsingborg police. This is Detective Irene Lilja.”
Lilja greeted her with a wave.
“We have a few questions we’re hoping you can answer.”
Ingela shook her head. Her quivering chin let on that she was teetering on the edge of tears. “I don’t have any answers. I’m sorry, but I don’t remember anything.”
“Ingela, I want to start by saying that we’re terribly sorry for what you went through. It must have been utterly horrible. But unlike the other victims, you’re still alive.”
“Alive? You call this alive? If I had the choice, I would rather be dead. Someone was inside me... with a knife and... and...” Her face contorted and she burst into silent tears.
Tuvesson took her hand. “I know this is difficult. But all we want is to apprehend the person who did this to you. Any information you can provide will help us achieve that goal.”
Ingela nodded. She calmed herself, dried her tears, and took a sip of water from the glass Lilja offered her.
“What’s the last thing you remember from Wednesday night?”
“I was out with Mona and Cilla.”
“Who are they?”
“Friends. We usually go out the first Wednesday of every month.”
“And where were you the day before yesterday?”
“First we went out to eat at Haket, and... then we went to the S/S Swea and had a few drinks.”
“What happened after that?”
Ingela shook her head and shrugged.
“Do you remember what drinks you had?” Lilja said.
“A caipirinha and a White Russian.”
“This place, the S/S Swea, can you dance there?”
Ingela nodded. “I remember feeling dizzy all of a sudden, even though I’d only had two or three drinks. They were playing Lady Gaga and everything started spinning.”
Tuvesson and Lilja exchanged glances.
“Did the same thing happen to your friends?”
“I don’t know. I couldn’t find them. It was so crowded, everything was spinning — I just wanted to get out of there, but I couldn’t even find the door. Even though it’s a pretty small place, it felt like a big maze.”
“So you don’t remember leaving?”
Ingela appeared to be making a very large effort to stay composed. The doctor came back into the room and pointed at his watch.
Tuvesson held up a hand to stave him off. “We’re almost finished. Everything was spinning and you tried to find your way out but couldn’t. What’s the next thing you remember?”
Ingela thought about it, then shrugged. “I guess when I woke up and had no idea what was going on. I didn’t know where I was or even who I was.” Her lower lip began to quiver and Tuvesson squeezed her hand.
“Did you feel any pain?”
Ingela shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
“Do you remember how you were lying when you woke up? Were you on your stomach, your back, or —”
“I don’t know. Please, I don’t know. Aren’t we done yet?”
“Ingela, this is important. Try to remember exactly what happened when you —”
“I don’t know! I told you, I don’t know!” Ingela started to cry. “Please, can you just leave me alone? I want you to leave.”
“Ingela —”
“Just go away! Go!” Ingela cried, starting to hit herself in the stomach.
The doctor rushed over and tried to stop her from hitting herself and tearing at anything within reach.
“Just leave me alone!”
Lilja and Tuvesson each grabbed one of Ingela’s flailing arms and held them down as the doctor filled a syringe and emptied it into her thigh. Ingela stopped resisting and looked at the doctor and the police officers with glassy eyes.
“Please... can’t you just let me... disappear...” Her eyelids grew heavier and heavier.
“I think we’re done here, wouldn’t you say?” the doctor said, opening the door for them.
“When can we meet with her again?” Tuvesson asked as they walked down the corridor.
“As you can see for yourself, she’s been through severe trauma and she’s still in shock. She needs to rest.”
Tuvesson stopped and turned to him. “So I’ll ask you again. When can we meet with her?”
The doctor let out a long, ostentatious sigh. “To be honest, I don’t really see the point. It seemed to me that she told you everything she remembers.”
“I’d like to be the judge of that. When will she be back on her feet?”
He shrugged. “She should be able to at least sit up by tomorrow.”
“Good. We’ll come pick her up. I’m planning to take her for a drive, and it’s totally fine by me if someone from the hospital wants to come along.”
The doctor tried to protest, but Tuvesson and Lilja were already on their way out.
59
CAMILLA LINDÉN COULDN’T RECALL the last time this had happened: maybe two, three, or even four years ago. Although she’d solemnly sworn to herself that it would never happen again, she always made sure to keep a pack in her handbag, just in case she had an incredible urge and couldn’t resist.
And who could blame me for needing one now, she thought as her right hand dug through her purse in the passenger seat. She knew it was somewhere among the lipsticks, keys, cell phone, toothpicks, and tampons. Finally she felt the soft, crinkly pack with her fingertips and brought it up to her mouth. She bit off the plastic, grabbed a cigarette with her lips, and pulled it out. The lighter was
already glowing, and she soon took a badly needed drag.
She always used to feel calmer as soon as she took that very first inhale. But it didn’t have the same effect this time. Dammit, I won’t do this again, she thought as she pulled into the left lane, hit the gas, and passed the burgundy Volvo that was lazing along in front of her. She inhaled as deeply as she could so the smoke would reach all the way to the tiniest capillaries, and the E6 highway flowed ahead of her like a 3-D computer game. She was going ridiculously fast, but she didn’t give a flying fuck. Let the police pull me over, she thought. At least they could come along and give her a hand if they did.
This wasn’t the first time that Björne had suddenly shown up and taken the kids somewhere without telling her first. Once he had driven them to Tivoli in Copenhagen, and another time he had decided to bring them on an outing to Ven Island. But this was the first time he had blocked his own number. The first and the last time, Camilla thought.
She’d had enough. She wouldn’t settle for getting a little mad and letting it go. This time she would go all the way — a trial, revoked visitations, the whole goddamn shebang. She would make sure to put up a fight; he would get so badly burned he would never dare approach them again.
She stayed in the left lane, realizing her speedometer already read 150 kilometres per hour. Her speed didn’t bother her, she just needed to make sure not to miss the exit for Strövelstorp, where he lived — that ass. She took one last drag on her cigarette, pushed it out the crack in the window, and lit another.
How could she have been so naive? There had been so many warning signs throughout the years, so many chances to walk away. Instead, she had chosen to ignore them, and had turned the other cheek, pretendeding that nothing was wrong. As if he could stop drinking once he started. As if his bad moods were really her fault. This had all started before they’d even had any kids. If there were a championship in stupidity, she would win it without even trying.
She exhaled a big puff of smoke, which got caught in her throat and made her cough like an old woman. She noticed the burgundy Volvo passing her in the right lane. She glanced at the speedometer, which was down to 140 kilometres per hour, and moved into the right lane behind the Volvo.
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