He had spent three hours looking at the car — three hours with no results to show for it.
Molander had stopped smoking almost fifteen years ago. Since then, he only had a cigarette on special occasions. He didn’t know whether this particular occasion could be considered special, but the smell of cigarette smoke in the car had convinced him that abject failures were also worth a smoke.
He opened the top drawer of his workbench, found the tin of Fisherman’s Friend, took a cigarette from the pack of John Silvers, and sat on a chair outside the garage in the evening sun. He lit the cigarette and pulled the smoke as deep into his lungs as he could, trying to find pleasure in defeat.
His phone started to ring. He didn’t want to answer it in the middle of a smoke break, with no concept of when he might be able to have another one. The annoying melody persisted; nothing would shut it up, not even limited battery life or a third world war.
“Yes... hello?”
“Hi, it’s Irene. I’m just curious how it’s going with the car.”
“Badly.”
“Aren’t you finished yet?”
“I am.”
“But...”
“I can’t find anything that indicates there was foul play.”
There was a brief silence. Molander took the opportunity to take another drag of the cigarette, away from the phone; he noticed a tow truck turning into the police lot.
He heard Lilja sigh on the other end. “Then it’s probably even more important for me to be here.”
“Where is here?”
“Forensic medicine. Braids is going to show Elsa Hallin’s body to me. While I’m here I can try to convince him to take a look at Camilla Lindén’s body too.”
“Haven’t they already looked at her?”
“Braids hasn’t. She came in as a regular car accident victim.”
Now it was Molander’s turn to sigh.
“You don’t think his autopsy will turn up anything?” Lilja said.
“I don’t know what to think anymore.”
“Are you suggesting that Camilla Lindén wasn’t murdered?”
“Car crashes happen. Maybe the perpetrator heard about the accident and told the press he was behind it. And while we’re busy putting our resources into trying to find evidence that doesn’t exist, he can continue his preparations for the next victim.”
“You’re thinking of Hallin?”
“Could be — or someone else. After all, our working hypothesis right now is that he won’t be finished until the whole class is packed like sardines in the morgue.”
“You might be right, but that doesn’t change anything for us. All we can do is continue the investigation. I have to go now: Braids is here.”
Lilja hung up. Molander stuck the phone back in his pocket, took one last drag, and stubbed out his cigarette on the asphalt. The tow truck backed in and stopped outside his garage. He hadn’t realized until just now that it had Danish plates and was towing a Peugeot.
“Are you Molander?” the Danish driver asked.
Molander nodded, signing the delivery slip.
“This is also for you,” the driver said, giving him a handwritten note.
Dear Ingvar Molander,
Fabian Risk has spoken highly of you. I hope you can find something conclusive in this car, since nothing is being done here in Denmark.
Best wishes,
Dunja Hougaard
Homicide Unit of the Copenhagen Police
Molander already knew of Dunja Hougaard: she was a competent detective sergeant. But she certainly didn’t have the authority to send evidence to Sweden, which meant she had taken a great risk. He looked at the Peugeot, which slid silently to the pavement as the tow truck’s cable let it down. He wondered what secrets the car might be hiding. The GPS had already directed Risk to the crime scene over at Söderåsen. Could there really be more?
The perpetrator had put a lot of work into trying to get rid of the car, which suggested that there was more for him to find. The crime scene had been designed to be discovered, with or without a GPS. Risk had surely found it earlier than planned, but the arrangement had been there all along. The killer had likely intended for them to find a planted lead when the time was right. He’d wanted the scene at Söderåsen to be a demonstration of power: to show them how far behind, and above all how helpless, they really were.
But it didn’t explain the enormous risk the perpetrator must have taken during the chase with Morten. There must be something else in the car, something that the killer wanted to keep them from finding at all costs.
*
IRENE LILJA LET HIM have his way. Without interruption, Einar Greide — who was wearing four braids in honour of the day — showed her in great detail how the incision running from under Elsa Hallin’s chin down to her sternum had been done with surgical precision. She tolerated his overly exhaustive explanation of the way the perpetrator had avoided the aorta in order to keep the victim alive for as long as possible. She even let him demonstrate just how the killer might have pulled out Elsa’s tongue and draped it across her chest.
She didn’t drop the bomb until he was finished.
“Einar, I’m not here to discuss Elsa Hallin.”
“Excuse me... what?” Greide looked like a well-trained dog that had just performed its best trick without being offered a treat afterward.
“I know the Colombian necktie is an impressive procedure if you want your victim to suffer as much — and for as long — as possible. And I know you’ve never seen anything like it; incidentally I haven’t either. But I want to talk about someone else.”
“Who the hell are you here to talk about, then?”
“Camilla Lindén.”
“Who on earth is Camilla Lindén?” Einar reminded her even more of an angry mongrel.
“She died in an accident on the E6 yesterday. We suspect our guy is behind it.”
“She was in the same class?”
Lilja nodded. Greide started fiddling with one of his braids, something he only did when life wasn’t going his way. She knew the last thing she should do right now was pressure him. The slightest attempt to rush the process would have the opposite effect: he would dig in his heels and refuse to lift a finger.
She got the response she’d been hoping for two minutes later. Greide let out a melodramatic, tired sigh accompanied by a restrained shake of the head, and left the room, forcing Lilja to jog after him in order to keep up as they went through the long underground tunnel.
“Arne must have looked at her. You know what his motto is, don’t you?” Greide spat. “‘Why make things more complicated than they have to be?” he said, adding air quotes. “But in his case it actually means: Why do your job at all?”
“Einar, we’re not even sure if it’s true at this point. It’s possible it was just an accident.”
Greide shook his head. “How could it not be true? This isn’t the first time Arne has missed something. His vacation doesn’t start until next week, but two weeks ago he was already thinking about as clearly as a mouldy dishrag. Normally I double-check his bodies, but this time I was —”
“Full up with a Colombian necktie.”
Greide gave her a look, stopped outside the morgue, and swiped his security pass. Once inside, Lilja went straight over to the wall of cold boxes, while Greide searched for a copy of the autopsy report.
“Here it is. Blah blah blah... Substantial blow to the head, left posterior... Blah blah blah... Fractured skull, meningeal haemorrhage, cerebral swelling, cerebral haemorrhage, clear signs of increased cranial pressure... Hmm.”
“That doesn’t sound totally out of left field, does it?” Lilja asked, pulling out the box identified as CAMILLA LINDÉN in scrolling letters.
“No, but it is Head Injury 101. If you’re in an accident this violent and you manage to avoid becoming a hamburger, you’re very likely to hit your head so hard that you’ll die of a cerebral haemorrhage. This report could have been written with
out even examining the body and still be accurate in eight out of ten cases. The problem is that there’s nothing else here.” Greide held up the document between his thumb and index finger, waving it with disdain.
Lilja pulled back the sheet covering the naked body.
“There isn’t even the smallest description of any distinctive marks on the body,” Grede continued. “He’s provided no insight or argument of his own. There’s not a single observation here beyond the obvious.”
“So you don’t think he really examined her?”
“I don’t think it, I know it.” He let go of the report, which fell to the floor like a piece of trash. He walked over to stand on the opposite side of the body from Lilja.
The eyes were closed, and violent blows and impacts had left obvious marks on the face. Greide pulled on a pair of plastic gloves, rolled the stiff body onto its side and looked at the back of the head, revealing a severe wound and a ring of coagulated blood in the blonde hair. He released the body again, and started fiddling with one of his braids.
“Did you find what he missed?” Lilja regretted the question as soon as she’d asked, but it squeezed out like a mouse through a cracked door; she couldn’t help it.
Greide let go of his braid and glared at her as if she deserved to be shot at daybreak. Then he laid his hand across Camilla’s closed eyes and opened her eyelids.
Both of her eyes looked like someone had put out a cigarette on them.
76
“I’M GOING OUT TO hit a few balls at six thirty, so let’s keep this as short and efficient as possible,” Henrik Hammersten said as he took a seat at his desk.
Dunja nodded and sat down in one of the visitor’s chairs, with Sleizner beside her. She wanted nothing more than for this meeting to be over so she could continue the investigation and contact the Swedes.
“Dunja, you requested this meeting. So I suggest you start us off.”
“That’s right.” She cleared her throat, which was very dry. “I contacted you because I thought that the recent incidents in Kim’s private life had overshadowed everything in this department and were keeping him from leading us in a way that moved our investigation forward.”
Hammersten nodded, looking at Sleizner. “Kim? What do you have to say? Is there anything to Dunja’s critique?”
Sleizner nodded. “Absolutely. The past few days have been overwhelming, to say the least. My private life has been turned upside down and I’ve been publicly hung out to dry. My wife left me and took our daughter with her. The fact is, my work is all I have left, and I intend to do my best to perform at the highest level. By the way, we haven’t played for a long time. What’s your handicap these days?”
“Eighteen point seven.”
“Wow. You must have practised quite a bit.”
No one can lick boots like Sleizner, Dunja thought. It didn’t matter how much shit those boots had walked through, as long as he could benefit from it, he would lap away. Hammersten turned to Dunja. “How are things at the moment? Still the same?”
Dunja thought about it. She wanted to nod, but shook her head. She just wanted to get this over with and get back to work.
“Should I take that to mean you are retracting your statement?”
“As long as I can focus on my work, at least.”
“And you’re able to do that now?”
“I hope so.”
Hammersten moved his gaze over to Sleizner. “And Kim? How do you feel? Do you have anything to add, or are we finished?”
Sleizner ought to have realized that her silence was a gift and the right thing for him to do was to bring the curtain down on their disagreements, sparing Hammersten any further spectacle. But he didn’t. Instead, he shifted in his seat, raising one hand to indicate that he was going to start talking.
“Unfortunately, I have to say that my confidence in Dunja is as good as non-existent.”
“And why is that?”
“Maybe she can answer that herself, because to be honest I don’t understand it either. I’ve always considered her to be an excellent detective, and there’s no question that she has been a great asset to my department. But, unfortunately, I can no longer trust her, and nothing good comes from not being able to trust your co-workers. I believe that wholeheartedly.”
“Why can’t you trust her?”
She knew it. She’d had a feeling, heard the alarm bells, and yet she’d walked straight into his trap.
Sleizner exhaled. “I don’t know where to start. For one thing, Dunja bears most of the responsibility for this whole situation. She’s the one who decided to do a search on my phone, and when it turned out to be in the vicinity of Lille Istedgade she called a tip in to Ekstra Bladet, which is not what I would describe as ‘focusing on my job.’”
She wanted to protest and shout right back at him. But there was no point. It would only reflect badly on her and make her appear even more pathetic in their eyes.
“What’s more,” Sleizner continued, “when it comes to the work itself, she has gone behind my back on several occasions and acted in complete disregard of my orders. Not only did she forge my signature, she also sent important evidence off to Sweden before our own technicians had time to conduct their examinations. And to top it all off, most recently she tried to withhold the fact that we have a picture of the perpetrator. All things considered, I believe it is out of the question for Dunja to remain with my department.”
“Dunja, is it true that you forged Kim’s signature?”
Dunja nodded.
“What were you thinking?”
“It was for the sake of the case. Kim was doing everything he could to impede the Swedes’ investigation.” She could tell Hammersten wasn’t listening. He had already made up his mind.
“And his claim that you had a search done on his phone records — is that true as well?”
Dunja nodded again. “But not for the reason Kim thinks. I did it to check whether —”
“That’s enough.” Hammersten held up his hand and looked at his watch. “Dunja, I’m sorry. I’ve always thought you were a fantastic police officer, but to be perfectly honest I have no idea what you thought you were doing. I have no choice but to take Kim’s side.”
He looked at Sleizner, who placed a completed form on the desk with a pleased expression.
“Here is your resignation. It gives you three months’ severance. All you have to do is sign it — preferably with your own signature.”
“And if I don’t?”
“I’ve heard they need people in the Faroe Islands.”
Dunja scribbled her name on the dotted line and left the office.
77
ASTRID TUVESSON COULDN’T STOP thinking about Ingela Ploghed and how she had jumped from the Kärnan tower. There were far too many questions, all crowding her brain to get to the front of the line. Was it her own fault? Had she put too much pressure on the woman? And had Ingela really been one of their guy’s victims? Or was Risk’s theory right — could an entirely different person be responsible? All these questions made it seem even more important for her to find out what had really happened.
She started by using Google Maps to look at all the buildings that might be secluded enough for the perpetrator to perform the operation on Ingela Ploghed undisturbed, but still close enough to the tracks for her subconscious to register the sound of the trains. In the several hours she’d been working the lead, she had managed to visit ten out of the twenty-seven places she planned to see.
Aside from three houses that she’d been able to cross off the list immediately, the rest were mostly offices and workshops, the majority of which were closed for the summer. As a result, she’d spent a lot of time climbing over fences, peeking into windows, and digging through garbage cans, but all she’d ended up with were dirty fingernails, smelly clothes, and an itchy scalp.
Molander was right. The perpetrator was almost definitely in the midst of planning or committing yet another cunning murder, and here
she was looking through the grubby windows of closed businesses.
She turned onto Gamla Rausvägen and took a left. The road was narrow and wound through thick vegetation; it would have been nearly impossible for two cars to pass. She parked the car and walked up to the closed gate to look into the lot. Google Maps had told her that it contained several ponds and separate buildings of various sizes, but she hadn’t been able to decipher if they were private homes or if they belonged to some sort of company. Either way, she certainly got the feeling that she wasn’t supposed to be there. The place reeked of “Do not trespass. Thanks, but no thanks.” The fence was topped with barbed wire, and a sign on the locked gate said AUTHORIZED PERSONS ONLY. She got back in her car, and parked as close to the gate as she could. Then she climbed onto the roof of the car, jumped over the fence, and tried to land as gently as possible to avoid dislocating her hips.
There were three ponds as large as swimming pools to the left of the gravel road, which ran straight ahead, and a pond on the right that was as big as the other three put together. It almost looked like a small lake. An abandoned fishing boat sat directly on the ground beside the road, and she noticed old fishing rods, nets, and trolling spoons strewn about. She counted five separate buildings and decided to start with the furthest one on the other side of the three small ponds because it had initially caught her attention on the computer. It was right at the edge of the lot, only thirty metres from the train tracks. As she approached the building she could see it most closely resembled a barracks of about twenty square metres.
A white enamel sign on the green door read KRIGSHAMMAR. A green rectangle around the sign wasn’t quite as sun-bleached as the rest of the door, and a few old screw holes revealed that the sign had recently been replaced, probably at the same time as the shiny new locks. She put on a glove and felt the door handle to make sure it was locked.
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