by Karin Nordin
In the middle of the football field, sprawled almost bullseye of the field’s centre circle, was the body of a woman. Her skin was a deathly shade of purple that was enhanced by the gloom of the low-hanging clouds. She lay on her back, arms and legs naturally limp and bent as though she’d merely fallen backwards and never gotten back up. Her wavy black hair was matted along the sides of her face and in the muddy grass. And dead centre of her forehead was the explanation for the shock on her face.
A bullet hole the size of a small coin.
‘We’re going to have to get shoe and fingerprints from everyone on the road. There’s no telling which of them ran out here for the money shot. And who knows if they touched the body or not.’
Kjeld shoved his hands into the pockets of his coat. Esme heard his phone vibrate, but he didn’t answer it. He didn’t even look to see who it might be. He merely stepped around Esme to the side of the body.
‘Another woman,’ Esme said, more out of sadness than observation. She felt an odd sense of defeat at that realisation.
Esme drew her brows together. The dead woman’s eyes were open and cloudy. She was fully clothed and didn’t appear to have been in a struggle. It reminded her of a few comments an old colleague of hers back in Malmö used to make. The kind of comments that began with ‘Well at least she didn’t suffer.’ As if murder wasn’t bad enough.
‘This looks like a gang killing. We used to get a lot of those down in Malmö.’ She felt a tiny caffeine headache begin to pinch at the front of her head. ‘On the way over here I was really worried that this was going to be another Louisa, but this MO is completely different. This doesn’t look like the same killer.’
‘You’re right, it doesn’t.’ Kjeld crouched down and angled forward on his haunches. There was what appeared to be a frothy foam at the corner of the cadaver’s lips, but it was too minute to determine whether it had come from within the body or was a result of exposure to the elements.
‘The location is weird, too. It’s so open. Anyone could have witnessed the murder.’ Esme took a careful step forward. ‘Hopefully Frisk will be able to give us an accurate time of death.’
Kjeld stood up and glanced around the scene. He had a look on his face that Esme had grown all too accustomed to seeing. That vague sense of recognition where he tried to puzzle out a question he wasn’t ready to ask.
‘What is it?’
‘Who walks through a football field in the middle of the night?’
Esme shrugged. ‘Maybe she was a night owl or had trouble sleeping.’
‘It was raining pretty hard last night.’
‘Maybe she works late. She could have been heading home.’
Esme glanced down at the ground. Heavy foot traffic in combination with the rain had made the grassy area around the body muddy and soft. Softer than might have been expected. But that aside she couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Deep in the mud was the remains of a half-smoked cigarette. She waved the crime scene photographer over to take a picture before getting a technician to bag it up.
Kjeld stepped outside the tent and she followed. He walked a short distance away from the crime scene and stared off at a row of old flats that bordered the edge of the field. Esme narrowed her eyes, trying to see whatever it was Kjeld saw, but she drew a blank.
‘If she was heading home then she probably lives in one of those buildings over there. Seems counterintuitive to walk through the grass though.’
‘Maybe she was shortcutting to somewhere else.’
‘Maybe.’ Kjeld shoved his hands in his pockets. ‘I used to work this area a lot when I first started out. It was almost nonstop domestic calls.’
Esme frowned. ‘What kind of calls?’
‘Domestic abuse, gang violence, drugs. I’m certain there were more than a few murders as well,’ Kjeld said. ‘I think there even used to be another row of flats where this park is. The city probably thought that by tearing them down they’d reduce the amount of crime in the area.’
‘It probably just pushed the crime to another neighbourhood.’ Esme thought back to the woman’s face, blue lips open, eyes frozen in fear.
‘We need to find out who this woman is.’
‘I’ll make sure Frisk rushes the fingerprints, but first we need to talk to Henny Engström. I don’t believe for a second that it was a coincidence she was the first on the scene. She knows something.’
A chill swept through Esme’s body. The murders didn’t appear to be related, but she still felt wary. Two murders in the span of a week would draw a lot of attention to their department and after the debacle with Nils that was the last thing they needed. The public would be watching their every move. They’d have to be extra careful and thorough. And stave off any baseless rumours that this could be a serial murderer.
But most importantly, they couldn’t afford to make any mistakes. Certainly not in view of the press.
Chapter 15
Kjeld hated the press.
When they entered the room, Henny was leaning back in the hard-plastic chair, arms crossed impatiently. She all but ignored Esme, who sat down and immediately began arranging a file and notepad on the table in front of her. But her eyes were glued on Kjeld in a firm glare.
Kjeld took a seat beside Esme before acknowledging Henny with a glance.
‘Would you like anything to drink?’ Esme asked.
‘No, thank you.’ Henny’s lips pursed in a thin line.
Kjeld watched her carefully, but Henny either hadn’t yet realised how serious this conversation was or didn’t care. She was in defiant mode and probably hoped that by crossing her arms and sneering her disdain she might distract them from their questions.
Esme opened up the notepad to a blank page and unclipped a pen from her shirt pocket.
‘Am I under arrest?’ Henny asked.
‘No,’ Esme replied.
‘So, I don’t have to answer your questions if I don’t want to?’ Henny shook her hair back over her shoulders.
‘You don’t have to, but if you don’t it will be noted. And if we discover later that your failure to cooperate in any way impeded our investigation then that’ll be a different matter.’
‘Do I need a lawyer?’
Esme raised a brow. ‘Have you done something illegal?’
Henny hesitated. ‘No.’
‘Then you don’t need a lawyer.’ Esme pressed the record button on the table. The camera in the corner of the room flashed green. ‘This is Detective Sergeant Esme Jansson interviewing Henny Engström. Also present is Detective Inspector Kjeld Nygaard. The time is 6.32 p.m.’
Henny tapped her fingernails along the side of her upper arm. ‘I suppose you’d like to know how I found the body.’
‘That would be an excellent place to start.’
Henny fidgeted in her chair. She crossed her legs in the opposite direction and clicked the nails on her thumb and middle finger together. She was nervous. She suddenly refused to make eye contact with Kjeld and he tilted his head to the side, watching to see if she offered any signs that she wasn’t going to tell the truth.
Esme watched her as well, but with a more formal expression. She held her pen above the empty notepad as though she planned to write, but Kjeld didn’t think she would. Esme didn’t need to take notes while the recorder was on. She was doing that on purpose to ease Henny’s nerves. To make her forget that this interview was being taped.
Henny sighed before finally giving up an answer. ‘I got a tip that someone had dumped a body in the football field.’
‘What kind of tip?’ Esme asked.
‘Someone called me. I didn’t recognise the voice and the number came up unknown.’
‘What did they say exactly?’
‘I can’t remember exactly, but it was short. Something like: “There’s a body in Sunnerviksparken. It’s the same person who murdered Louisa Karlsson.”’
Her answer jolted Kjeld out of his thoughts. He shared an uncertain glance with Esme who s
howed signs of surprise, but also disbelief. Was it possible there was a link between these two cases? Kjeld didn’t think so, but he immediately began running through the crime scenes in his head, trying to find any mental clues that might connect them.
Henny uncrossed her legs and scooted the chair closer to the table. ‘Is that true? Was the other body Louisa Karlsson?’
‘The caller mentioned Louisa Karlsson by name?’
‘Yes.’ Henny focused an urgent look on Esme. ‘It’s true then?’
‘I can’t verify that at the moment.’ Esme scribbled something on the pad of paper. ‘Was the voice male or female?’
Henny looked down in thought. ‘Male.’
‘You’re certain?’
‘I had the impression he might have been trying to disguise his voice, but it was definitely a man. But like I said, it was a short message. There wasn’t much to listen to. Once he gave me the information he hung up.’
‘And you didn’t try redialling?’
‘The number came up unknown. I couldn’t redial.’
‘Can you show me?’
Henny took out her phone and pulled up the call log, holding it up for Esme to see.
Esme reached out and took Henny’s phone, scrolling through it.
An uncomfortable silence filled the room and Henny shot a glare at Kjeld. ‘Are you going to say something or are you just going to sit there like a creep?’
‘Calm down, Henny,’ Kjeld said.
‘Fuck you. Don’t you tell me to calm down. I have a civic duty to inform the public of your incompetence. That’s why I do what I do. Because the people of this city have the right to know that the police don’t give a shit about them.’
‘All right. So, a strange man calls you, a man you claim you don’t know, and tells you that the killer has murdered someone and you just trust him?’
‘I had no reason not to trust him.’
‘If you thought he was telling the truth why didn’t you call the police?’
Kjeld didn’t need her to answer that question. He knew the reason. It was because she wanted the headline. She wanted the story. She wanted to be a real journalist instead of a two-bit crime blogger. Or worse, she wanted to find the person responsible for the murders before the police, proving that they were incapable of properly doing their jobs. Which would, naturally, get her even more exposure. More headlines. More attention. But Kjeld also knew she would never admit that. She couldn’t because then they could charge her with obstruction.
‘I thought it best to verify the credibility of the information before involving the police. Wouldn’t want to send you lot on a wild goose chase over nothing. Not that it would matter. Seeing as you’re so busy doing shit-all to protect the people of this city.’
‘You were livestreaming to thousands of viewers before informing us.’
‘Yes, well, that wasn’t intentional. Shortly after I arrived at the scene other journalists from established stations began swarming the area, snapping photographs and setting up links to their networks. I assume they received messages similar to the one I did. And you know how cut-throat this industry is. Especially for someone working from the ground up.’
Bullshit, Kjeld thought.
Esme placed Henny’s phone on the table and Henny snatched it up, shoving it back in the pocket of her coat. She looked over at the two-way mirror. Kjeld thought he saw an anxious glimmer in her eyes. Then she returned her focus to the table, twirling a long strand of hair between her fingers.
She looked rattled.
Good.
‘You got to the other crime scene pretty quickly, too. How did you find out about that?’ Esme asked.
‘My cameraman, Karl, heard about it from a friend of his who works for SVT Väst,’ she said. She didn’t look at either of them when she spoke and Kjeld sensed she was lying. ‘I took a chance that he wasn’t giving us the run-around and drove out there. Turns out it was a good lead.’
Henny turned to Kjeld and the corners of her lips curled in a pointed smirk. ‘You have a very obvious tell. Do you know that? You tug at your ear. The one with the scar. I bet you’re a shit poker player.’
Kjeld clenched his fist beneath the table. He could feel Esme’s eyes on him and knew that he had to keep his calm. If not for his own sake then for the sake of the investigation. One day he’d have the opportunity to tell Henny what he really thought of her. But now was not the time.
‘Do you think you would recognise the voice if you heard it again?’ Esme asked.
Henny shrugged. ‘Maybe.’
Esme slipped a card across the table. ‘If you hear from him again, call us first.’
There was a pleading tone to Esme’s voice that surprised Kjeld and he wondered how much of it was pretence.
Henny reached for the card, but Esme held on to it, forcing Henny to pay attention to her next words.
‘I’m serious, Henny. This isn’t a game. If you want to help protect people then make the right decision next time.’ Esme let go.
Henny shoved the card into the same pocket as her phone. ‘Is that it? Can I go now?’
‘Interview terminated at 6.57 p.m.’ Esme pressed the stop button on the recorder. ‘You can go.’
Henny snatched up her purse from the floor and crossed the length of the interview room in two long strides. She stopped at the doorway as though she might say something else, but didn’t. She left without looking back at them, the door slamming behind her.
Esme slouched back in her chair with a sigh.
Kjeld leaned forward on the table, casting a sidelong glance in her direction. ‘Well?’
‘I don’t disbelieve her,’ she said.
‘But you don’t believe her either?’
‘She’s holding back.’
Kjeld tugged absently at his earlobe. Then he was reminded of Henny’s jibe and stopped. ‘Is it possible that these two murders could be connected?’
‘It doesn’t seem likely, does it? Louisa’s murder was so gruesome and personal. This other one was the complete opposite. Not to mention the murder weapons were different, as well as the scenes.’
‘But we can’t discount that there could be something to what she’s saying. We need to figure out who the woman in the field is and see if there’s something that connects her to Louisa.’
Esme clipped her pen in the spiral of the notepad. ‘We can’t rule out that Henny’s informant is just trying to give us the run-around either. Or that Henny isn’t telling us the whole truth.’
‘She might know more than she’s letting on.’
‘That could be it.’ Esme furrowed her brow. ‘Or it could be that she’s just not comfortable talking in front of you.’
‘Me? I didn’t do anything.’
‘That’s your problem, Kjeld. Sometimes you don’t have to.’
Chapter 16
Jonny rolled over in bed and slipped his mobile phone out of his pillowcase. Technically he wasn’t supposed to have the phone. It was a fragment of his old life, a memory of the existence that almost killed him. There weren’t really any hard-and-fast rules about possessions at the commune, but every resident was expected to do their best to purge themselves of the person they’d been before. And Jonny was completely on board with that. But every time he tried to throw out his phone he felt a twinge of uncertainty twist in his gut. What if he changed his mind? What if he decided he did want to return to his old life? His family? His friends?
He was being overly dramatic, of course. There was nothing forcing him to stay at the commune. There weren’t any armed guards at the gates or vicious dogs let loose from their leashes at night to scout the perimeter. It wasn’t a cult, after all. It was a respite. A place that offered people like Jonny the opportunity to rediscover themselves again. And then, if they chose to, the opportunity to start anew.
And Jonny desperately wanted to start anew. To have a second chance at the life he was given. He’d already made great strides in doing so. He’d been clean and
sober for almost six months. No drugs. No alcohol. He hadn’t even smoked a cigarette. But he still had his mobile phone. Because that’s where he had his mother’s number, videos of himself with his girlfriend who was dead going on four years now, and photos of his dog. He felt bad about leaving his dog. But the dog had been a gift from his mother after the incident. The event as many people referred to it. And as such the dog was a constant reminder of his life before. The life he didn’t want anymore. The life that he’d barely survived.
Malte, the twenty-seven-year-old former car thief he shared a room with, rolled over in bed, turning his back to Jonny. Malte knew Jonny had a mobile phone with internet access, but he didn’t tell anyone. He hadn’t made it past the third step yet either, the one about material possessions, and so he knew it wasn’t his place to judge. He had his own shit going on – although Jonny had never asked him to his face what had brought him there. He simply assumed they’d all fucked up somewhere in their before-lives and Malte was probably no exception. Malte also mostly kept to himself. Jonny appreciated that.
One of his first concerns about joining the commune was the fear that it would be like any other rehabilitation centre. That everyone would be trying to tell him what to do and how to live. But that wasn’t the case. The commune let you follow your own path. For some people that path led to a chance at a new identity. For others it led them back to the person they’d always been.
But Jonny knew he couldn’t go back. There was nothing but nightmares and pain in his past. He wanted something different for his future.
He tugged the duvet up over his head to block the dim light of the phone’s screen from disturbing Malte’s mumbling sleep. He scrolled through his messages, most of which were from his mother begging him to come home. He swiped the messages away without answering and pulled up the local news page. That had become one of his more compulsive tendencies since the incident. An unabating obsession to know what was going on. To make certain it hadn’t happened again. Not that it could. They were all dead, after all. He was the only one left. But he checked just the same.
