Last One Alive

by Karin Nordin

  The breaking news alert at the top of the page jolted him. His fingers stiffened on the phone, clenching it like a knife. The headline was bold and black against the white background: CELLAR SADIST’S FINAL VICTIM MEETS TRAGIC END IN POTENTIAL COPYCAT KILLING. Beneath the headline a photograph of Louisa stared back at him with sad blue eyes and Jonny’s heart skipped a beat.

  No, no, no, no, no. She couldn’t be dead. She couldn’t be. Not after everything she’d been through. Not after the promise they’d made to each other.

  Jonny scrolled through the article, his heart racing in his chest when he realised it was true. And worse, the police had no leads and no suspects in custody. A horrifying panic gripped him, flooding memories of the incident to the forefront of his mind.

  Because if Louisa wasn’t safe then none of them were.

  Chapter 17

  ‘One shot. Point-blank. Bullet was still in the skull.’ Ove shook a small dish that held the blood-stained bullet before setting it down on the counter. The bullet rattled against the metal edges for a few seconds before finding a resting spot against the side of the tray. ‘Sorry it’s still cold as a boar in here. The thermostat says it’s two degrees warmer than yesterday, but I think it’s broken.’

  ‘That suggests she saw her killer.’ Kjeld crossed his arms over his chest, tucking his hands up into his arm pits for warmth. Despite Ove’s assurance that it was a few degrees warmer, the temperature in the morgue seemed colder than it had been the other day and it assaulted his gloveless fingers with a bitter chill.

  ‘It’s a good shot, even at close range,’ Esme said. She leaned over the head of the body to get a better look at the entrance wound. ‘I’d say she definitely got a good look at the person.’

  ‘But it was early morning. Still dark. Who allows someone to walk up to them so closely like that?’

  ‘She could have known them,’ Esme said. ‘Or they could have surprised her.’

  ‘She was found in the middle of a field. Hard to surprise someone when you’re at the centre circle.’

  ‘Maybe she was meeting them there? Something happened. Things went wrong.’

  Kjeld glanced over at Ove. ‘Anything to suggest that there was a physical altercation before her death?’

  Ove shook his head. ‘No offensive or defensive wounds. And no bruising. Nothing recently anyway. She has a few track marks on her left arm though and some old scarring. But there’s nothing to indicate she got into a physical fight. In fact, in all my years working forensics, this is the closest I’ve come to seeing what looks to be an honest execution.’

  ‘It’s not a professional hit though,’ Kjeld said.

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘A professional wouldn’t risk a single shot to the head. They could miss and lose their opportunity. Or the victim could survive.’

  Esme canted her weight to the opposite leg. ‘You said track marks on her arms. What about a drug deal gone awry?’

  ‘That would be the most likely explanation. What about her identity? Have we gotten a name for her?’

  ‘Ah, yes! I almost forgot.’ Ove hiked up his belt and waddled over to the side table where he kept an antiquated laptop that looked like it weighed more than a brick. The keyboard was covered in a layer of plastic. Without taking off his gloves he pulled up a screen with an arrest photo of the woman on the slab followed by a list of aggravations. ‘I had forensics do a rush on the fingerprints. Took them less than a minute to come up with a match. Lady and gentleman, I present to you … Andrea Nicolescu. Convicted of armed robbery, drug dealing, resisting arrest, and former resident of Högsbo Institution, prison for inmates of drug and substance abuse.’

  ‘Which increases the possibility that this is drug-related.’ Esme tucked her hair back behind her ear. ‘This has to be unrelated to Louisa’s murder.’

  ‘But what about the tip Henny received? The one who said this was the same killer.’ Kjeld didn’t know if or how this murder was linked to that of Louisa Karlsson, but he felt in his gut that there was something about this homicide that wasn’t as easy as it seemed. It was too cut and dried. And even though there was no evidence at the moment to suggest a connection, his instinct told him it wasn’t a coincidence that someone had tipped Henny off to the crime.

  ‘Maybe it was simply someone who wanted to yank our chain? You know how people get when a high-profile crime is committed. Everyone wants their fifteen minutes of fame. Or maybe it’s someone who wants to send Henny on a wild goose chase. You can’t be the only person she’s burned in the last few years.’

  ‘I don’t know. Anything is possible, but the timing doesn’t feel right. So close to the other murder? I agree that it’s unlikely to be the same killer. But even though the method isn’t the same there are similarities. Both are women, both were discovered with little evidence as to who else might have been involved. And we have to consider the possibility that Henny is telling the truth and someone, the killer perhaps, told her about the link between the two crimes.’ Kjeld stared down at Andrea’s face. She was older than Louisa, but couldn’t have been much older than himself, if that. It was difficult to tell because of the lines around her eyes and lips. She looked as though she’d lived a hard life. But Esme was probably right. This crime could have been a coincidence of timing. Just what they needed. Two difficult and unrelated murders.

  ‘Tox screen?’ Esme asked. ‘Just to rule out any possible connections?’

  ‘I’ve pushed it ahead to the front of the line, but it’s still going to take some time. My good looks only get me so far.’

  Esme glanced up at Kjeld. ‘We should look into her drug arrests, see if she had any enemies or connections that might also link back to Louisa.’

  Kjeld nodded in agreement, but he didn’t think they would find anything. Louisa didn’t strike him as someone who would get into drugs. And even if she had, she wouldn’t have been able to hide it from her family. They had been obsessively protective of her. They practically had her under a microscope.

  ‘What happened to her hand?’ Kjeld asked. ‘Is she missing a finger?’

  ‘Ah, yes. That’s an older injury. Fairly clean cut. Looks like whoever stitched it up did a decent job. There’s a scar, but it’s mostly faded. Hard to tell how it happened, but definitely not related to the shooting.’

  Something about the missing finger felt familiar to Kjeld. He was almost certain he’d seen that before. ‘Hm.’

  ‘What are you thinking?’ Esme asked.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Kjeld said after a pause. ‘But we need to find out where Andrea was before she ended up in that field.’

  ‘There weren’t any cameras in that neighbourhood. She could have come from anywhere.’

  ‘Then I guess anywhere is where we start.’

  ‘Sure, let me just type “anywhere” into Google Maps and see what pops up.’ Esme’s heavy-handed sarcasm was a gentle reminder to Kjeld that he needed to lighten up a bit. And it wasn’t undeserved. He’d been a bit of a grump since, well, since he shot a colleague.

  ‘You know what I mean,’ he said, failing to hide the small quirk of a smile. ‘Let’s find out if Andrea had any living relatives who might be able to give us an idea of her movements over the last few days before her picture ends up on Henny’s gossip rag. Then we’ll work on finding a connection between her and Louisa, if there is one. I feel like we’re missing something here, but maybe that’s just wishful thinking.’

  ‘Sounds to me like you could use a holiday.’ Ove sniffled against the cold of the room and tugged on the waistband of his slacks, which had slipped below his belly again. ‘You wind yourself up any tighter and you’re liable to snap.

  ‘Kjeld just got back from holiday,’ Esme said.

  ‘Oh yeah? Go anyplace nice?’

  ‘Jämtland,’ Kjeld said flatly.

  ‘Jämtland?’ Ove shook his head. ‘Who the hell goes to Jämtland on holiday?’

  Chapter 18

  A few hours aft
er Kjeld and Esme had shared the pathological findings with Axel and Sixten, Kjeld finished typing up his part of the initial report on the Nicolescu case and headed home. The microwave pinged and he took out the ready-made meal with his bare hands. He’d left it in for a minute longer than the suggested directions on the packaging and the plastic tray nearly burned the tips of his fingers. He tossed it on the counter before ripping off the plastic sheath. The steam that exhaled from the package carried with it the scent of overcooked lasagne and burnt cellophane.

  Oskar, Kjeld’s overweight ginger cat, waddled up to his legs and brushed against his calf. He let out a pathetic mewl as though he hadn’t eaten in days despite the fact that Kjeld had fed him less than ten minutes ago.

  ‘I’m not falling for that trick, Oskar. The vet says you need to lose weight. No more between-meal snacks.’

  Oskar slumped onto his side, blocking Kjeld’s path to the silverware drawer.

  ‘Don’t be so dramatic.’

  Kjeld stepped over Oskar and snatched a fork from the drawer. Then he used a paper towel to pick up the microwave dinner by the edges and made his way to the living room to sit on the couch. He had a kitchen table, but it was covered in paperwork and boxes that he’d brought back from his father’s house in Varsund. Boxes he’d meant to go through months ago, but still hadn’t touched. They reminded him of the guilt he felt for not having gone back to visit his father for the holidays. He’d tried to call at Christmas, but the nurse on duty said his dad was extra confused that day. He missed his house and his routine.

  Putting him in a care facility had been the right decision, but Kjeld regretted not doing more. And just when he’d forget about the shame he felt for the unresolved tension with his father, he’d see those boxes and old wounds would tear open again. For all his attempts at moving forward, there were some things he simply wasn’t prepared to put behind him.

  Kjeld’s apartment was unremarkable. It was a two-bedroom flat in the Majorna district that he’d moved into after he and Bengt separated. Normally it would have been out of his price range, as it was completely remodelled on the inside, but the previous owner had died under uncomfortable circumstances and gossip frightened away most of the prospective buyers. He’d always intended for it to be a temporary living situation, until he found something with a more appropriate outdoor space for Tove. Three years later it still looked like he’d only recently moved in.

  The living room, which was open plan to the kitchen, was the only space that looked remotely lived-in. And that was a term he used lightly. He had a stack of IKEA Billy bookshelves on one wall, filled to the brim with books. On the floor he had a row of vinyl records and the record player itself sat on a low side table beside the television. In the corner of the room stood a fake Christmas tree, brightly illuminated with multicoloured lights that twinkled to a tune that didn’t play anymore. The string of paper Swedish flags that wrapped around the plastic branches had been tugged off by Oskar and dangled to the floor, half eaten.

  Kjeld meant to take the tree down after the holidays but left it up because Tove liked it. This led to a new tradition they’d created over the last few weeks where Kjeld sometimes hid a present beneath the tree on her weekends with him. He wasn’t sure if that was a sign of better parenting on his part or bribery, but Tove enjoyed the surprise. And he enjoyed seeing her happy.

  He stabbed his fork into the lasagne and used the edge like a knife to cut through it. The top layer of pasta was hard and crispy and he had to leverage the plastic tray against the coffee table to push the fork through. He took a sip of beer while he waited for the lasagne to cool. Spread out across the coffee table were the documents he’d asked Axel to compile: Louisa’s phone records, recent emails, work schedule, as well as the transcripts of statements from the family and the neighbours who’d discovered the fire.

  There must have been something in all of this that could give them a clue as to who was responsible for Louisa’s death. Or, at the very least, why someone would want to kill her. He refused to believe what the media were speculating – that she was a target simply because of her “fame” of having been the final and only surviving victim of the Cellar Sadist. That insinuated a killer who had no reasoning behind the crime other than notoriety. But Louisa’s death felt more personal than that. She hadn’t just been killed, she’d been tortured. And while Kjeld couldn’t ignore the possibility that this was simply a copycat looking for recognition, he felt that there was more to it.

  He took a bite of lasagne. The inside was still scalding and it burned the roof of his mouth, but he chewed through it anyway and swallowed it down with another sip of beer. The rain pattered against the metal overhang on his outdoor patio. Oskar meowed in the kitchen, tapping his paw on the lip of his empty food dish so it clinked against the floor.

  Kjeld scanned through the printout of Louisa’s work schedule. Her entire life was so organised. So monotonous. On paper it looked as though she did the same thing every day. She worked the same shift Monday through Thursday and rode the same bus line to and from the library. On Friday mornings she had group therapy. And, if her family was to be believed, and Kjeld had no reason to suspect otherwise, she spent most Saturdays and Sundays at home reading. She didn’t go out with friends. Correction, she didn’t have friends. She didn’t join her colleagues for a drink at the pub after her shifts. She rarely went out to public places and when she did she was almost always accompanied by her father and sister. And her online presence was less than minimal. It was almost non-existent.

  Axel was right. She was a shut-in. He could have probably set his watch to her schedule. And it wouldn’t have taken much for someone else to figure that out.

  But as Kjeld read more carefully through Louisa’s recent work shifts he noticed some irregularities he hadn’t seen earlier. On at least four separate occasions over the last month her shift was filled by another one of her co-workers, Linnea Thorsen. The first had been on a Thursday and the other three had been on subsequent Tuesdays.

  Kjeld flipped through the documents, but couldn’t find anything to account for Louisa not attending her shifts. No dentist appointments. No therapy sessions. And while Sixten had spoken to Louisa’s manager, the head librarian, and the two female colleagues who’d last seen her the night of the murder, none of them had the name Linnea. Which begged the question, who was she? Why was she covering Louisa’s shifts? And, more importantly, where had Louisa been on those days if she wasn’t at work?

  Chapter 19

  Torsdag | Thursday

  The next morning Kjeld called Högsbo Library and learned that Linnea Thorsen was working the early shift. When he caught up with Esme at the coffee machine, he found out she’d spent her evening tracking down Andrea Nicolescu’s next of kin. It hadn’t been as easy as she’d expected. Together they agreed it would be best to cover more ground. While Kjeld drove to the library on his own, Esme and Sixten set off to deliver the bad news to Andrea’s family.

  When Kjeld arrived at the library, Linnea was waiting for him. It was early and there weren’t any patrons as of yet. The library was usually quiet until after lunch, Linnea explained, so they sat down at a study table near the children’s book section. Normally Kjeld preferred to talk to witnesses and suspects without warning. It gave them less of an opportunity to plan their answers. But it was impossible to hide the investigation into Louisa’s death. Even if Linnea hadn’t known that all of her colleagues had already been questioned, she would have been able to guess from the media’s persistent chatter and speculation about the case.

  ‘This was Louisa’s favourite part of the library. She loved helping children find new books to read.’ Linnea’s words were solemn and sympathetic, but her expression was difficult to read due to her serious face and the thick-lensed glasses that unnaturally magnified her eyes. ‘She ran the Monday morning reading hour for pre-schoolers. She was quite popular with the parents.’

  ‘What about with her colleagues? Did Louisa get alo
ng with them?’ Kjeld asked.

  ‘Sure. Everyone liked Louisa. She was polite and she always cleaned up at the end of her shifts. She didn’t gossip like some of the other ladies who work here. That’s what you get sometimes when you work with all women. I know. I used to work in a crafts store and it was the same thing.’

  ‘What kind of gossip?’

  ‘The usual thing. Family, boyfriends, annoying customers.’

  ‘Did Louisa have any peculiar customers? Anyone suspicious or someone who might have been bothering her?’

  Linnea shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. She didn’t talk to people much. Except the kids. She was good with kids. I’m not. I prefer working in the adult science fiction and fantasy section. Most people who read those genres leave you alone.’

  It didn’t surprise Kjeld that people might avoid trying to talk to Linnea.

  He took out the piece of paper that showed the shifts Linnea had covered for Louisa. He’d circled all four of them with red pen. ‘You covered four shifts for Louisa over the last month.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because she asked me to.’ Linnea’s gaze slipped to the side and Kjeld got the impression she wasn’t telling him the entire story.

  ‘Wasn’t it odd for her to take a day off? Let alone four days off in a single month? According to the head librarian she almost never missed a shift.’

  Linnea snorted a laugh. It was high-pitched and echoed loudly in the quiet space. Then she shrunk back into her chair, embarrassed.

  ‘Is something funny?’ Kjeld asked.

  ‘Just this idea that everyone thinks Louisa was so perfect and innocent.’

  ‘Wasn’t she?’

  Linnea chewed on her lower lip. ‘I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead.’