Last One Alive

by Karin Nordin

  Esme grew quiet, drawing into herself as though she’d just been scolded for saying something wrong. She knew that was an overly dramatic way of thinking about it, but she couldn’t help but feel hurt by Kjeld’s refusal to talk to her about his private life. It was as though he was drawing a line in their relationship. And while that had never bothered her in the past, it bothered her now.

  She changed the subject.

  ‘What about Henny? Has she done anything peculiar lately?’

  ‘I ran into her at the coffee shop the other day and overheard her talking to someone. She was agitated. It sounded like whoever was on the other end of the line wanted her to do something she wasn’t comfortable with. It felt suspicious because she was very particular not to mention any names. Maybe it was nothing. I don’t know. If she’s involved then she’s being careful.’

  Kjeld nodded to the whiteboard. Esme had created a list of potential victims from his old cases. ‘Who did you come up with?’

  ‘There weren’t many that fit the requirements. Assuming of course that our theory is correct. We narrowed it down to five but one no longer lives in the country. None of them appear to have any connection to Second Life and only one could be considered a true survivor of a mass killing.’ Esme stood up and circled a single name on the board.

  Daniel Santelmann.

  ‘He was the one from that financial conglomerate, wasn’t he?’

  Esme nodded. ‘He was helping a firm launder money from their clients. It was a type of pyramid scheme. They were taking off small increments at first, but over time the money added up. Lots of people went bankrupt because of the fake investments. One of the investors burst into the boardroom and shot everyone before shooting himself. Daniel survived by hiding under the body of the company’s CEO and pretending to be dead.’

  ‘I remember he was still there when we were called to the scene. Scared the shit out of me when we saw him move. I thought he was dead.’

  ‘Sixten and I are going to drive over to his house and speak with him. Ask if he’s seen anyone unfamiliar in his neighbourhood. He works from home so if he is on the killer’s list that’s where he’ll be most vulnerable.’

  Kjeld nodded but didn’t say anything. Esme took that as quiet approval.

  An awkward silence fell between them. Almost a minute passed before Kjeld spoke up.

  ‘When are you speaking with him?’

  ‘Tomorrow, I hope. We’ve been trying to get a hold of him, but no luck. We sent a patrol car over to his house this morning but the officer said it looked like he wasn’t home. No signs of any foul play and the neighbour confirmed he travelled a lot. I just hope we’re not too late on this one.’

  ‘Let me know if I can help.’

  Esme quirked a small smile. ‘And have the chief take me off the case and put me on the phone lines? I don’t think so.’

  Kjeld leaned into her, playfully bumping their shoulders against each other before standing up. ‘You’ll be fine, Esme. It’s the right choice. It’s the same thing I would do.’

  ‘I know you would. Because I’d be the one telling you to do it.’

  Kjeld grinned. ‘You always were the smarter of the two of us.’

  An unexpected warmth glossed her cheeks and she untucked her hair from behind her ear to hide it. ‘Obviously.’

  Chapter 48

  Torsdag | Thursday

  Less than three hours into his so-called holiday, Kjeld realised he couldn’t let the case go.

  After he left the office, he walked to the Sixt car rental services at the central station and picked up the mid-size sedan his insurance was covering until he found a replacement. Then he returned home and tried to fill his time with everyday chores that were never finished because he was always working. He tossed out all of the past-date food in his fridge, threw in a load of laundry, and made an appointment with his barber for a trim next week. Still he couldn’t switch off his thoughts.

  He was halfway through writing up a grocery list when his mind started running through the evidence. Ever since Kjeld had spoken to Vidar he’d been thinking about the information he gave him. Andrea, Olsen’s investigation into Second Life, and Jonny’s death all had a drug connection to them. There were simply too many coincidences to ignore. And even though Esme and Sixten had already spoken to Jonny’s mother when they notified her of his death, and Kjeld had gone over their notes before he was officially removed from the case, it wasn’t enough. There had to be more to the story. And he was determined to find out what that was.

  He was driving back from the supermarket when he decided to call Jonny’s mother, Monika Lindh. She remembered him immediately, which made talking to her easier. He didn’t lie to her. The chief had technically closed the case because of lack of evidence. All indications pointed to a suicide, even if nobody believed that. Kjeld admitted that he wasn’t technically on her son’s case, but because of his history working the previous investigation Jonny was involved in he wanted to reach out to her and make sure there wasn’t anything his colleagues had missed. Monika admitted that she would be home for the rest of the day, but the tone of her voice indicated she didn’t have high hopes that it would improve her spirits. Kjeld drove directly to her house anyway, forgetting about the perishables in the back seat.

  The last time Kjeld had seen Monika Lindh, she’d been a vibrant woman with a full head of thick blonde hair and a fresh modern style. She was the kind of mother that teenage boys used to tease their friends about. The kind of woman pubescent boys considered too attractive to be a mum. That was four years ago. Since then she looked as though she’d aged more than a decade. Her hair was thinning along her temples, she’d put on a considerable amount of weight for her small frame, and she looked like she’d fallen out of a laundry basket. Her clothes were wrinkled and mismatched. But it was her eyes that struck Kjeld the most. Baggy and bloodshot.

  She welcomed Kjeld into her home, a small but upscale house in Hovås, a posh suburban neighbourhood on the southern side of Gothenburg Kommun. A long-haired German shepherd raced out of the kitchen and began barking at Kjeld.

  ‘Hush, Balder!’

  The dog looked up at Monika and whimpered. Then he sniffed around Kjeld’s legs.

  ‘Sorry about him. He’s Jonny’s dog.’ She paused. Her breath was accompanied by the thick stench of sour wine. ‘Was Jonny’s dog. I got him for Jonny after … you know. I thought it would help him with the grief. All I got out of it was a neurotic dog that can’t walk on a leash.’

  ‘You don’t have to apologise,’ Kjeld said, trying not to make too much of a face as he carefully walked around the canine and followed Monika into the kitchen. He felt a twinge of shame for being there. He was risking the integrity of the investigation by speaking to her and, in truth, there probably wasn’t much more he could learn that Esme and Sixten hadn’t already uncovered in their talk with her. And when the dog looked up at him with its sad eyes he felt even worse. But Kjeld couldn’t let it go.

  Monika slumped down at the kitchen table without offering Kjeld anything to drink. Kjeld sat across from her. Balder lay on the floor beneath the table, resting his head on Kjeld’s shoes.

  ‘I know I should be surprised,’ Monika said. ‘But I’m not. Not really. If you’d asked me five years ago if my son was capable of committing suicide I would have argued until my throat was raw. But the truth is Jonny wasn’t the same person after all those kids died. People used to tell me it was because he lost his girlfriend. She was at the party too, you know. Young love and all that. But it wasn’t that. Sure, that was part of it, but it was so much more. It was just …’

  ‘Traumatic?’

  Monika nodded. Her face twisted like she might cry, but her eyes were dry and red. ‘I can’t be angry with him. Not really. I might have done the same thing if I were him.’

  ‘You said he was different after the incident at the cabin. How? Was he depressed?’

  ‘Oh, God, no. If it had just been depression I could
have handled it. No, he was uncontrollable. Eccentric highs. Heavy lows. And then there were the drugs.’

  ‘Tell me about the drugs.’

  ‘I hate to say it, but that was the only time I could actually stand to be around him afterwards. When he was high, that is. At least then he acted as though he was happy. They made him feel like things could be better. And that gave me hope, too. But it was short-lived. Once the high wore off he was unmanageable. Angry all the time. Once he went outside in the middle of the night and chopped down the cherry blossom tree next door. I convinced the neighbour not to call the police, but I had to replace it. Not that money was an issue, but none of the neighbours have spoken to me since.’

  She hung her head.

  Balder let out a whine and licked at Kjeld’s shoes.

  ‘Do you know where he was getting these drugs?’

  Monika shrugged. ‘Probably at that damn job of his. I was excited at first when he told me he’d found a job. It hurt me when he dropped out of university, but I didn’t tell him that. I couldn’t imagine what he was going through and knew he had to find his own way. But then he said it was at a club and I knew it would lead to trouble. He used to be such a good boy. He never drank. He never smoked. That’s why he didn’t die with the rest of them, you know. Jonny never drank. Not until after.’

  ‘Which club was this?’ Kjeld asked, searching his pockets for something to write on. But when Monika responded he realised he didn’t need to.

  ‘Portside.’

  Kjeld raised a brow. ‘Portside? The one in the warehouse district?’

  ‘I know it’s a hotbed of drugs and prostitution. I read about it in the newspaper.’

  Kjeld had never been to Portside, but he’d heard some of his colleagues in the narcotics squad talk about it as a potential hub of gang activity. Nothing ever seemed to stick, however. The owners, assuming they were involved in any illegal activities, knew how to cover their bases. To Kjeld’s knowledge there’d never been a successful raid on the popular nightclub.

  ‘What about in the weeks leading up to Jonny’s death? What was his mood? Was he hanging around any new people?’

  Monika choked a laugh. A tear fell down her cheek and she wiped it off with the back of her hand. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to laugh. But that’s the cruellest thing of it all. I barely saw Jonny for the last six months because of his new friends. If you can call them that.’

  ‘Where was he?’ Kjeld asked, his instinct already prepared for the answer.

  ‘He joined that cult. I can’t remember if I told the other officers that when they spoke to me. I was such a mess.’ Monika sniffled. ‘And I know they say it’s not a cult. But what kind of place takes someone’s boy away for six months and tells him he’s not allowed to contact his friends and family?’

  ‘They took him?’

  ‘Well, no. He was an adult so I suppose that means he joined them willingly. Or, at least, that’s what I’m sure everyone would say. But they must have said something to convince him. To manipulate him somehow. Why else would he go there?’

  ‘Maybe they thought they could help him with his drug problem?’

  Monika scoffed. ‘What could a bunch of weird cultists – sorry, hippies – do for my son that I couldn’t? They pushed him towards this. I know they did.’

  Kjeld took out his phone and pulled up a photo of Louisa for Monika to see. ‘Did you ever see Jonny in the company of this woman?’

  Monika leaned forward, looking at the photo for a solid ten seconds before shaking her head.

  ‘What about this photo? Do you recognise her?’ Kjeld scrolled to a photograph of Andrea.

  ‘Yes, that woman came by the house once.’

  ‘Do you remember why?’

  Monika shook her head. ‘Nothing good, I’m sure. I just assumed she was the one getting him the drugs. She looked like the type. But I don’t know for certain. As soon as they saw me she left.’

  Kjeld slipped the phone back into his pocket. ‘I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me today, Fru Lindh. Especially in light of everything. But if it gives you any solace I don’t agree with my colleagues. I think Jonny was murdered.’

  Monika sighed. ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘It does to me.’

  Kjeld pushed out his chair and stood up. Balder crawled out from under the kitchen table and began clawing at his pant leg. Kjeld reached down and scratched the dog behind his ear. Then he turned his attention back to Monika. ‘Is there anything I can do for you before I go?’

  Monika frowned. ‘No, thank you.’ She paused. ‘Not unless you want a dog.’

  Chapter 49

  Bengt hunched over the kitchen table, rearranging the dates in his agenda to account for Tove’s appointment with the therapist. It hadn’t been easy getting her in on short notice, but Liam had made some calls to a few colleagues and managed to fast-track her for an evaluation session with one of the city’s leading child trauma therapists. Of course, the appointment was smack dab in the middle of the day, which meant that Bengt had to not only pull her out of school for the afternoon but also reschedule his own meetings.

  He made a note to call that gallery owner he was working with in Stockholm about postponing the opening of the exhibit by a few weeks. That would give him the opportunity to spend more time with Tove and ensure that the incident hadn’t caused any lasting emotional damage. Perhaps he could even have the paintings from his studio shipped ahead of time to save on extra travel. Then he could still attend all of his studio lectures at the university and make it to the meeting for the parents of the pupils of Stella’s School of Dance.

  Liam set a glass of white wine in front of Bengt and pulled out a chair to sit beside him. ‘You’ve been poring over that calendar for hours. Why don’t you take a break?’

  ‘I think I’ve just about fit everything in.’ Bengt crossed off a dentist appointment that he’d moved to the following week.

  ‘I can take some of that responsibility off your hands, you know.’

  ‘It’s important to me that I work it out myself,’ Bengt said quickly. A second later he realised that he might have sounded cold or ungrateful and turned his attention to Liam. A crooked smile crossed his lips. ‘Not that I don’t appreciate it. You do too much as it is. I already don’t know how to repay you.’

  ‘You don’t have to.’ Liam took a sip from his own glass before setting it down on the table.

  Bengt closed his diary and pushed it to the side of the table. Then he picked up the glass and took a sip. Dry, just as he liked it. He took another sip, allowing the intense aromatic flavour of honey and citrus blossom to roll over his tongue, before setting it back down. The taste was delicious and he felt a twinge of guilt for enjoying it. Liam had been nothing but attentive to him since the day they met and Bengt couldn’t help but feel slightly undeserving. He enjoyed being doted on. Loved the romantic gestures. That was something that he’d never received from Kjeld. Not overtly at least. But despite how much he craved the attention, he couldn’t help but be awkward about it. Not to mention quietly ashamed for wanting it. And for wanting more.

  ‘Have you thought about my proposal?’

  Bengt ran his fingers back through his hair, sweeping that chunk of white, which had grown over the front of his dark hair away from his face. His hair was thinner than it used to be, but he was grateful to have it. Of all the traumas that came with radiation, the hair loss had been the one to truly break him. He could handle the aches, the pains, the gaps of lucidity from the abundance of medications, and the general lethargy that made even the simplest of tasks unbearably difficult. But seeing himself in the mirror, gaunt and hairless, had been the worst.

  When his scans finally came back clear after months of waiting, he’d purposefully put on an extra fifteen pounds above his normal weight just to avoid seeing his cheekbones press out against his skin. And when his hair came back he refused to trim it above his ears as he used to wear it. Anything not to look like tha
t shadow of a man he’d once been. It was vain, he knew, but he didn’t care. He still had nightmares of accidentally pulling out clumps of hair in his sleep.

  ‘Hm?’ Bengt looked up at Liam, his thoughts distracted.

  ‘London.’

  ‘Oh.’ Bengt took another sip of wine to avoid answering too quickly. The truth was he hadn’t thought much about Liam’s suggestion that the three of them move to London. Not because he didn’t want to. London was an artist’s dream. And the change would have been good for his relationship with Liam. A fresh start, so to speak. But the entire thing took him by surprise. And Bengt didn’t know how to broach that subject with Kjeld. Nor did he think it was entirely fair for him to do so. ‘I don’t know if it’s the right time. It feels so sudden. And with everything going on with Tove …’

  ‘A new experience would be exciting for her. We could put her in a private school that would help her hone her interests and talents. She’s still young so she’d learn the language quickly. And we could get a nice house with a garden. Maybe even a dog?’

  Bengt cringed. ‘No, not a dog.’

  ‘I’ve been offered an amazing position at Guys’ Hospital as clinical director of their cancer centre. Aside from being incredibly prestigious the salary is extraordinary. Tove would want for nothing.’

  ‘She doesn’t want for anything now.’ Bengt ran his thumb over his lower lip, wiping off a stray drop of wine. ‘Besides I really don’t think it’s fair.’

  ‘Fair?’

  ‘To Kjeld.’

  Liam scoffed and leaned back in his chair. ‘And when has Kjeld ever been fair to us?’

  ‘Liam …’

  ‘I’m serious. He has been a thorn in the side of our relationship since the very beginning.’ Bengt opened his mouth to speak, but Liam cut him off. ‘And before you say that it was your fault for not breaking it off with him before getting together with me, let me remind you why you cheated on him in the first place. Because he didn’t put your needs and Tove’s needs above his own. That man is selfish and irresponsible when it comes to other people’s emotions. You’ve said it yourself that he’ll never change. Why should you, and Tove for that matter, spend your entire lives waiting for him to get his act together? If he truly cares about what is going on in your life and in his daughter’s life then why isn’t he here?’