He walked over to the bathtub and stuck his hand in — his suspicions were immediately confirmed. He could feel a leg and a hand; a foot, but no shoe; two necks and two faces.
Two guards — both dead.
He was here.
Torgny Sölmedal was here. Of course he was. Where else would he be? The thought hadn’t even occurred to Fabian, nor apparently to anyone else.
But who was he? He probably wasn’t Jafaar or one of the women. Stefan A or Stefan M? Seth? Nicklas? It had to be one of them.
Fabian left the bathroom and walked back through the sleeping area as quickly as he could without raising suspicion. He went past his bed on his way to the exit. The door was locked, and he couldn’t find an alarm button. He didn’t have a phone, and probably none of the others did either. He rubbed his temples; he felt far too tired to deal with this all. Could the killer have used one of the guards’ keys? Had he already left?
He walked back to his bed, looking around at the others while he did so. There was a person in every bed, except for his own. Sölmedal was still here. He opened his toiletry bag, carefully popped out the mirror inside the lid, and walked over to the row of beds across from his own.
There was a man lying on his back with his mouth open in the first bed, furthest to the right against the outer wall. Although he’d gained a lot of weight, Fabian immediately recognized him as Jafaar Umar. He crouched down beside the bed and thought of how entertaining Jafaar had always been during Student Hour in school; he’d always talked about becoming a comedian. He held the little mirror close to his mouth and tried to remember if he’d ever seen him or heard about him, but he couldn’t think of a single time.
There was no fog on the mirror.
To be safe, he gently pressed Jafaar’s carotid artery.
Nothing.
Jaffe was already dead, and Fabian wasn’t surprised. The only question was how many of the others he’d already got to.
He walked to the next bed, where Stefan Andersson was lying on his side. He held the mirror against his mouth and didn’t get any fog either. Shit. He was too late. He hurried to the next, where Seth Kårheden lay: there was no mistaking that moustache. He’d had it as long as Fabian could remember. He held the little mirror above his mouth and discovered the same results. He wiped the mirror against the leg of his pants and tried again, but the mirror was still unchanged.
Could he really have had time to kill everyone? And if so, why was Fabian still alive? Had he only woken up because the murderer had been in the process of visiting all the beds across from him? Fabian was too tired to think clearly, and he felt powerlessness spreading like a virus. He really just wanted to give up: to go back to his bed, lie down, close his eyes, and wait for his turn.
He placed his hand on Seth Kårheden’s carotid artery to confirm what he already knew, but there was something else that wasn’t quite right.
The moustache.
It was crooked. Almost as if it were... He cautiously felt it, and sure enough, it wasn’t attached at all. He looked at it closely in his hands and discovered that it was incredibly well made for a fake moustache, until he realized that it wasn’t a fake at all. He dropped it as if it were contagious and looked back at Kårheden, realizing that the dead man in the bed in front of him wasn’t Seth Kårheden.
It was Nicklas Bäckström.
He tried to figure out what was going on, but he couldn’t think straight; he sensed something moving on the floor on the other side of the bed, but he couldn’t see what it was. In the next instant he felt a sting on his left shin. He tried to get away, but he couldn’t move. The hands under the bed had already caught hold of his ankles, and were pulling at him.
Fabian fell to the floor, his neck brace hitting the edge of the bed where Stefan Andersson lay. He saw the arms slinking out from under the bed like two tentacles. While he was trying to kick himself loose, he noticed the syringe sticking straight out from his shin. The person attacking him wanted this syringe, but he couldn’t reach it; it was too far down. All he could do was keep kicking and putting up a fight.
He made contact with something hard and felt the eager hands loosen their grip. He tried to pull his legs up toward his body, but they didn’t move. If he didn’t escape soon, those hands would be back. He turned onto his stomach and tried to get up on all fours, but his legs refused to obey him. Soon the hands would reach the syringe and inject the poison.
He reached for the leg of Andersson’s bed, but couldn’t quite get there. Just another few centimetres... He wriggled around and heard the bed behind him overturn. He got a grip on the bed leg and tried to pull himself toward it using all the strength he could muster.
He dragged himself across the floor with his arms, trying to get away from whatever was behind him. He needed to get to the door at any price. He was losing more and more feeling, and although he didn’t believe he would make it out before it was too late, he continued to methodically slither across the shiny linoleum floor. Was he the only one left, or were some of the others still alive?
He filled his lungs to scream, but at that very second he was pulled back and turned around: Torgny Sölmedal stood up, with one leg on either side of him, smiling. Sölmedal jumped straight into the air. Fabian realized what was about to happen and tried to roll away, but he could no longer move; Sölmedal landed knees first, right onto his chest.
He heard several of his ribs crack, and felt an intense pain spreading through his lungs. He coughed and tasted blood. He gasped for breath but couldn’t get any air. Sölmedal’s smile grew bigger as he leaned toward him and whispered into his ear: “There’s no point in fighting anymore. It’s over.”
He was right. There was nothing left to do but watch as Sölmedal reached for the syringe in his leg. What was he waiting for? Why hadn’t he injected him with the poison already, during the struggle? Fabian coughed up more blood, and he could hear a whistling in his chest every time he tried to inhale.
Sölmedal’s hand trembled as if it were struggling to reach the syringe. Sölmedal’s other hand was up at his own neck, trying to loosen a belt that was getting tighter and tighter. Who was strangling Sölmedal? His face was growing paler and had almost turned blue, but he continued to struggle, as if he refused to accept that it was only a matter of time until it was over.
Fabian couldn’t tell if the battle went on for seconds or minutes — it seemed to go on forever. Lena, Cecilia, and Annika were behind Sölmedal, pulling on the belt, and at times it looked like they wouldn’t succeed. Fabian heard them screaming for help, but he didn’t see anyone coming. Instead, the colour returned to Sölmedal’s face, and with it the strength to reach the syringe. Fabian made one last effort to move his leg away, but he could no longer move.
Instead, as if out of nowhere, another hand appeared and yanked the syringe from his leg. Fabian was perplexed — but it was Lina. A moment later she injected it into Sölmedal’s neck.
It was finally over. He lay there — dead — tongue hanging from his mouth.
They all helped to drag the body off Fabian’s chest. Then the ceiling lights came on and he heard someone running across the room. He had to close his eyes. The light felt like needles. He saw more blood, and heard agitated voices shouting over each other.
Tuvesson, Lilja, and Klippan were there. Someone put a hand to his throat and shouted something in Danish. He didn’t know what it was, but it sounded serious. She shouted again, but he wasn’t sure anyone was listening.
He coughed. He could taste blood in his mouth and felt it flowing down his neck. It didn’t hurt anymore. The pain was fading away, just like the voices.
At last it was just quiet — dark and quiet.
110
IT WAS STILL EARLY morning, but the sun was shining and nudging the temperature quite a bit past twenty degrees. It looked like another day of record heat. The traffic could still be considered sparse, but it was growing heavier by the minute and the ferry terminal already had a long, windi
ng line of cars packed for vacation.
The first beachgoers were already arriving down at Fria Bad, putting their blankets out on the sand to secure the best spots and enjoy a few final minutes of peace. In another few hours, the beach would transform into a cacophony of yelling families, with kids dropping their ice creams and exhausted parents.
The stores along Kullagatan wouldn’t open for a while yet, but the girls at Fahlmans Konditori on the corner of Stortorget were already busy putting out tables and chairs.
Yesterday’s billboards were still posted outside convenience stores; aside from the murders on the E6 highway and at the library, they boasted sunscreen tests and tips for avoiding arguments while on vacation.
On the whole, it was a perfectly normal Saturday morning in mid-July. Except for one thing: everyone was talking about the same story, all throughout the country.
The face hadn’t yet made it onto the front pages, but they all saw his face as soon as they left their homes — on buses and bus shelters, advertisements and commuter trains.
Those who had already been online were able to explain the whole situation to anyone who was curious. It wasn’t some peculiar ad campaign: the face belonged to Torgny Sölmedal.
It was him.
111
FABIAN RISK SHUDDERED AND realized that his eyes were closed. He was alive. He tried to move his toes, but he didn’t know if he’d succeeded. He really ought to be happy and relieved, but all he felt was a big black hole of sorrow. He thought about the numbers again; numbers that refused to give him any peace.
He was shaking from the cold, even though he was tucked under a thick blanket. He tried to think of something else, but the numbers were stubborn; like an obsession, they came back and repeated themselves ad nauseam.
Lina, Cecilia, Annika, and Lena had saved him: four people had survived. There were five including him — five out of twenty-one. Sixteen of his former classmates had lost their lives, if you counted Ingela Ploghed — seventeen, if you counted their teacher. It was an unparalleled catastrophe. There were question marks next to the three people who were far from Skåne, but Fabian didn’t hold out much hope for them. For the most part, Torgny Sölmedal had succeeded in what he’d set out to do.
Fabian himself had failed in every imaginable way.
Twenty people were dead if you included the Danish police officer and the two guards.
And that wasn’t even counting Mette Louise Risgaard.
He opened his eyes and saw a ceiling with fluorescent lights and perforated tiles that were the same colour as a smoker’s teeth. It looked familiar. He had been here very recently. He turned his head as far as the pain would allow and saw Theodor in the bed next to his. He was awake; he looked back and made eye contact — neither of them said anything. It was as if silence were the most precious thing they had right now and it mustn’t be broken under any circumstance. There was so much yet to be said, but it would all come in good time. So many meaningless apologies. So many strained explanations. Promises that would never be fulfilled.
Theodor extended his hand; as Fabian took it in his own he felt the warmth spread through his arm and into his body.
Epilogue
ANDERS ANDERSSON WAS STILL on vacation with his family at an all-inclusive hotel in Alcudia, Mallorca, eight days after the incidents in the Helsingborg jail. Although he hadn’t read a single newspaper, it had been impossible to miss the news of what had happened back home. Everyone was talking about it, and it only took two days before everyone at the hotel knew that he had been in that class and started saying things about guardian angels and blessings in disguise.
Anders himself didn’t believe in that sort of thing, but what did he know? Maybe they’re right, he thought, and ordered another beer from the bar. He opened the last pack of snus he had brought along, unaware that it had been penetrated with a syringe three weeks earlier.
Despite the doctors’ heroic measures, he died shortly thereafter.
Three days after Lotta Ting’s vacation was officially over, she was found locked in a box in her attic at Colbjørnsens gate 12 in Oslo, arms and legs bound behind her. According to the forensic investigation, it had taken fewer than five days for her to die, thanks to the high summer temperatures.
On Sunday, July 11, Christine Vingåker and her husband left the house they had been renting in Lysekil to go home and back to work for a week before an island-hopping vacation in Greece with their children. Christine got into her Nissan Micra early on Monday morning and drove to her office, which was on Drottninggatan in Helsingborg. She had brought along the bottle of supplements she took each morning and evening. She couldn’t actually afford them, but she hadn’t been sick once since she’d started taking them, just as her friend had promised, and she was in her fifth year of good health.
No one else was injured when the driverless car ran into one of the concrete pillars in the parking garage under Knutpunkten.
People ripped down Torgny Sölmedal ads or sprayed nasty words over them. An increasing number of voices joined the appeal to take the posters down and replace them with something else, but it was easier said than done in the middle of vacation season, so Torgny’s face continued to adorn Sweden for the two remaining weeks of high summer.
~
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Thanks
About Stefan Ahnhem
About Rachel Willson-Broyles
An invitation from the publisher
Thanks
Mi
For all your help and thoughts. Without you and your belief that it was unquestionably possible, it never would have been happened. I love you for that and all the rest.
Kasper, Filippa, and Sander
For putting up with it all these years.
Peter and Mikael
For your time, and for your opinions. It meant more than you know.
Jonas, Julie, Adam, Andreas, and Sara
For your fantastic energy and professionalism down to the tiniest detail.
Café String and Lilla Caféet in Söder
For all the times you let me sit in my corner and make a cup of tea last until it was long since cold.
About Victim Without a Face
Two gruesome murders have shocked the Swedish town of Helsingborg. The first victim, a thug who liked using his fists, died with his hands sawn off. His sidekick, a fan of steel-capped boots, was crushed feet-first by a JCB. Both men were bullies in the same class at school. Is someone serving justice after thirty years?
The killer leaves no trace behind. But for lead investigator Fabian Risk, the lack of forensic evidence is not the only problem. He too was a student in that class – which makes him both a potential victim and a potential suspect…
Full of unremitting suspense and unexpected twists, this is a sensational thriller from a superb new storyteller. Translated by Rachel Willson-Broyles, who has recently translated The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden by Jonas Jonasson.
Reviews
‘Full of surprise, suspense, and the shadows of the past. I read it in one sitting.’
Åke Edwardson
‘The next great thriller king.’
Crimetime Award Jury
‘Grabs you from the very first page and refuses to let you go.’
Michael Hjort and Hans Rosenfeldt
About Stefan Ahnhem
STEFAN AHNHEM is an established screenwriter for both TV and film, and has worked on a variety of projects, including adaptations of Henning Mankell’s Kurt Wallander series. He also serves on the board of the Swedish Writers Guild. Victim Without a Face is his first novel. He lives in Stockholm.
Follow him on Twitter: @StefanAhnhem
Of find him on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ahnhem.stefan
About Rachel Willson-Broyles
RACHEL WILLSON-BROYLES is an American trans
lator specializing in literature. She has a Ph.D. in Scandinavian Studies from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and recently translated The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden by Jonas Jonasson, Mona by Dan T. Sehlberg, and Room No. 10 by Åke Edwardson. She lives in Madison, Wisconsin.
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The story starts here.
First published in Sweden in 2014 by Bokförlaget Forum
This edition first published in Canada in 2015 by House of Anansi Press Inc.
First published in the UK in 2015 by Head of Zeus Ltd
Copyright © Stefan Ahnhem, 2015
English translation copyright © Rachel Willson-Broyles, 2015
The moral right of Stefan Ahnhem to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
The moral right of Rachel Willson-Broyles to be identified as the translator of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
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