Unseen ak-1

by Mari Jungstedt

He greeted them solemnly. “Come in.”

  The interior of the apartment was in sharp contrast to the shabby entryway. It was big and bright with high ceilings and beautiful parquet floors that shone in the sunlight. If you leaned to one side to look out the window, you could see the glittering waters of Arstaviken. Extending out from the living room was a big modern kitchen with a refrigerator-freezer and stove hood made of stainless steel. Decorative tiles arranged in a pattern covered the walls. Knutas noticed a fancy blender. A long counter with bar stools on both sides separated the kitchen from the living room, which was furnished with sheepskin chairs and a table topped with a colorful mosaic. An elegant top-of-the-line stereo system took up one wall. The opposite wall was covered with CDs in an attractive birch rack. Bergdal apparently had very expensive tastes.

  “I’ll get right to the point,” said Knutas. “As I’m sure you know, three women have now been murdered on Gotland. In each case the method used was the same. We believe the same perpetrator was responsible for all three deaths. We’re here to look for some connection between Helena and the second victim, Frida Lindh. Frida lived here in Sodermalm. To be more precise, she lived on Brannkyrkagatan until a year ago, when she and her family moved to Visby. Her husband is from Gotland. Both Frida and Helena worked out at the Friskis amp; Svettis gym here. We wonder if they might have met each other there, or whether it was at the gym that they met the killer.”

  Knutas paused and studied Bergdal’s face intently. He looked shocked.

  “So you think the murderer is here in Stockholm?” Bergdal asked.

  “Yes, that’s a possibility. Do you know any of the people that Helena met when she worked out?”

  “Not really,” he said hesitantly. “She usually went over there with a couple of her friends who live in the neighborhood. I don’t know if she used to meet anyone else there. I can’t remember anything special. Of course she sometimes mentioned the people she met. Someone she happened to talk to. Occasionally she would run into an old colleague from work, but I don’t think there was anyone she was seeing more often. You could ask her friends who worked out with her. They might know.”

  “Okay. We’ll get in touch with them. Do you recognize the name of Frida Lindh from before?”

  “No.”

  “Was there anything else that happened prior to Helena’s death? Something that may have come to mind since then?”

  “I’ve hardly done a thing except think about Helena and who could have killed her, but I can’t come up with anything. I just want you to catch him, so this horrible nightmare will be over.”

  “We’re doing everything we can,” said Knutas.

  “There’s one thing I should show you that I found up in the attic yesterday. Wait here a minute,” said Bergdal, and stood up.

  He came right back with a cardboard box. He opened the lid and took out a bundle of papers.

  “I don’t know whether it’s of any importance to you anymore, but I was absolutely right about this.” He handed the bundle to Knutas.

  Knutas glanced through the papers. They were love letters and notes, and e-mails that Helena had printed out and saved.

  “The box was hidden at the very back of the attic. Inside an old cabinet. That’s why I didn’t find it earlier. My brother just moved into a big house, and he wants to have the cabinet. I opened it to see if there was anything inside. That’s when I found those.”

  The e-mails were four years old. They were written over a month’s time, in October. An autumn romance novel, thought Knutas, and a steamy one. The sender was Kristian Nordstrom.

  So that was how things stood. The question was why Nordstrom had so stubbornly refused to admit that there was anything between him and Helena, in spite of repeated queries when he was interviewed. It was incomprehensible.

  Knutas phoned Kihlgard and asked him to call Nordstrom in for another round of questioning at once. He cursed himself for not staying in Visby. He would have given a great deal to conduct that interview himself.

  That wasn’t possible, though. They were in Stockholm, and they might as well continue with what they had come here to do. It wasn’t certain that the affair with Nordstrom would have any significance in the investigation.

  They took the box of letters with them.

  After getting the names and phone numbers of Helena’s workout friends, they went over to the Friskis amp; Svettis gym. In spite of the summer heat and the fact that it was only three in the afternoon, the place was crowded with people. They entered the bright, airy reception area, going past benches with a large number of shoes placed underneath. Through a glass window they could see into a room where thirty or more tanned individuals were jumping around to Latin music, led by a muscular girl without an ounce of fat, wearing a tight leotard.

  They walked over to the receptionist, a blonde woman in her forties. She looked very healthy in a white T-shirt with the company’s logo printed on the front. Knutas introduced Jacobsson and himself and then asked to speak to the boss.

  “I’m the boss,” said the blonde.

  “Then you know that we’re looking for someone who can tell us something about two women who came here to work out,” said Knutas. “Do you recognize either of them?” he asked as he took an envelope out of his inside pocket. He pulled out two photographs. “This is Helena Hillerstrom. She was the first one murdered.”

  The woman behind the counter cast a brief glance at the photo. She shook her head. “No, I don’t know her. I’ve already seen that picture. So many people come through here. It depends when she worked out. She might not have come here when I was working.”

  Knutas showed her the picture of Frida Lindh.

  The woman’s expression changed. “Yes, this one I know. Frida. Frida Lindh. She came here to work out for several years.”

  “Did she come here alone?”

  “Yes, I think so. Almost always.”

  “Did you know her well?”

  “No, I don’t think you could say that. We used to chat a bit sometimes when she was here, but that was about it.”

  “Do you know whether she was friends with anyone else here?”

  “No, I don’t know. She usually came alone, but once in a while she would bring a friend along.”

  “Male or female?”

  “Just girlfriends, as far as I remember.”

  “Thank you,” said Knutas.

  None of the other employees had anything new to add. Most of them recognized the two murdered women, but they couldn’t come up with anything special to say about them.

  An hour later the detectives left the gym with Ricky Martin’s “She Bangs” echoing in their ears. Nordergravar, part of medieval Visby’s defenses, was located on the other side of the main road, as seen from the school, completely outside the northern part of the ring wall. Today was Friday, and he skipped out of the so-called rest hour, saying he had a dentist appointment but had forgotten his note from home. It gave him the chance to leave school earlier than everyone else. His teacher had believed him and let him go. He thought it was incredible that she hadn’t noticed anything. Didn’t she know what the others did to him? Or was she just pretending not to notice? He wasn’t sure. As he left the school behind on this Friday afternoon, he felt lighthearted. Almost happy. It wouldn’t be long before summer vacation started, and then all his classmates would disperse. He would be starting middle school on the other side of town, and then he would be rid of his tormentors. Right now he was thinking of celebrating by giving himself a reward. He had found a ten-krona bill lying on the floor under a dresser at home. He took it with him. Now he was going to buy some candy-and not just some ordinary candy. He was on his way to the candy store on Hastgatan, near Stora Torget. It was an old-fashioned shop with big lumps of rock candy hanging in the window. Going there was one of his favorite things to do. When he and his sister were little, they often went there on Saturdays with their father. Nowadays that seldom happened. His father had withdrawn from them more and mo
re, growing increasingly silent and surly as the children got older. The candy store was like a dream, and he jogged across Nordergravar. He had chosen that route because he thought it was exciting. He used to imagine medieval battles between the Swedes and the Danes, and how the wars were waged right here, down to the very last drop of blood. As he ran, all alone, up and down among the hills, he completely forgot about his horrible daily life. He picked up a long stick and began jabbing it in the air. Pretending that he was one of the soldiers fighting for the Swedish king against Denmark’s King Valdemar Atterdag, who conquered Greenland and claimed the island as a Danish province in the fourteenth century. He was so immersed in his game that he didn’t notice the four kids standing at the top of the hill, watching him. With a sudden bellow, they bounded down the slope and threw themselves on him. Since there were four of them, it was easy to wrestle him to the ground. He didn’t have a chance. He was totally taken by surprise and couldn’t even make a sound. “Now you’re really scared, aren’t you, little fatty,” hooted the worst of them, the leader. The others snickered spitefully as they held his hands in an iron grip. “You’re not thinking of pissing yourself this time, are you? No, we’ll see to it that you don’t wet your pants so that Mamma gets mad. Uh-uh, you don’t have to do that,” she taunted him. And to his surprise, she took hold of his belt and unfastened it. When she started unbuttoning his pants, he got hysterical. This was just about the worst thing that could happen. He tried to struggle as best he could, kicking and screaming. He didn’t have a chance. Triumphantly the leader pulled off his pants. He was ashamed when his stomach and legs were uncovered. He tried to bite the hands that were holding him. “Look, what a fat little pig. It’s about time you went on a diet, don’t you think?” Then the leader seized hold of his underpants and took them off, too. “What a tiny dick!” she shouted, and the others laughed loudly. The humiliation burned like fire, and he was panic-stricken. He closed his eyes and screamed as loud as he could until he felt something soft being stuffed in his mouth and smelled his own underpants. The leader and one of the other hated demons were pressing the cloth into his mouth. “Now you’re going to shut your trap, goddamn it,” snarled the leader, and her hard hands clamped onto his mouth to keep the underpants inside. He thought he was going to suffocate. He couldn’t get any air, and he was struggling desperately under their hands. Everything went black before his eyes. From far away he could hear one of the voices. “Stop it. Let him go. He can’t breathe.” The hands released him, and he heard them leave. He lay there for a while, keeping his eyes closed in case they changed their minds and came back. When he finally dared get up, he didn’t know how long he had been lying in that hollow. His underpants were on the ground next to him. Quickly he got dressed. When he stuck his hand in his pants pocket, he discovered that the ten-krona bill was gone.

  Helena Hillerstrom’s parents lived in the well-to-do neighborhood of Stocksund just north of Stockholm. Jacobsson and Knutas had decided to go out there themselves to talk to the parents. Hans and Agneta Hillerstrom were home, and the father had said on the phone that they were welcome to come over.

  Neither of them had ever been out to Stocksund before, and they were impressed by the big houses with the generous yards. They passed Vartan, with its glittering water. The well-dressed inhabitants of Danderyd were out, strolling along the shoreline promenade. The turn-of-the-century house belonging to the Hillerstroms stood on a hill with an enormous plot of land around it. They could glimpse parts of it through the huge lilac hedge.

  Helena’s father opened the door. He was a tall, lanky man with thinning hair, a fresh complexion, and plenty of wrinkles on his suntanned but solemn face. “Good day,” he greeted them with a certain formality. “Please come in.”

  They stepped inside the hallway, which had an impressively high ceiling. Round columns framed the grand wooden staircase that led up to the second floor.

  Jacobsson sighed to herself. What a magnificent house.

  From the hall they caught a glimpse of the living room and several sitting rooms with a row of big windows facing the yard. Agneta Hillerstrom appeared at once. She, too, was tall and slender, with steel gray hair cut in an attractive page-boy style.

  They sat down on a soft, comfortable sofa group in the living room. Dainty coffee cups and a plate of cookies were on the table. Coconut balls, Knutas observed, and put one in his mouth. How strange. Somehow that type of cookie didn’t really fit in with the rest of the setting. That’s what he and the twins usually baked for their birthday. His kids loved them.

  “We know that you’ve talked to the police several times before, but I wanted to meet you in person,” he said. “I’m in charge of the investigation on Gotland. At the present time, we do not have a suspect, but a good deal of information has come to light during the investigation, and I’d like to talk to you about some of it. Is that all right?”

  “Of course,” they said in unison, giving him an inquisitive look.

  Knutas cleared his throat. “To get right to the point. It has come to our attention that your daughter had a relationship with one of her high school teachers. A PE teacher by the name of Jan Hagman. Did you know about this?”

  The husband was the one who answered. He spoke in a resigned tone of voice. “Yes, we knew about it. Helena told us after it had been going on for a while. She ended up getting pregnant by that scumbag. She was only seventeen.” Hans Hillerstrom’s expression grew tense, and he began wringing his hands.

  “She was pregnant?” Knutas raised his eyebrows. They didn’t know about this.

  “The whole thing was hushed up. She had an abortion, of course. We forbade her to see him ever again. We talked to the principal, and Hagman was asked to leave. He got a job at another school, someplace down south in Sudret. The man was married and had two children. That swine even had the nerve to call us here at home. He said that he loved Helena. What a fool. He was more than twice her age. He said he was ready to leave his family and take care of Helena and the child. I threatened to kill him if he ever tried to get in touch with her again.”

  “How did Helena take all of this?” asked Jacobsson.

  “She was deeply depressed at first. She had fallen in love with that idiot, and she was mad at us for not letting her see him anymore. She didn’t think we understood. The abortion wasn’t a nice experience, either. She was sad for a long time afterward. We took a trip to the West Indies so that she could get away from the whole thing. In the fall, she started her third year in school as planned. Things didn’t go well at first, but she recovered quite quickly. Helena has always had lots of friends, and I think that was really important,” he said thoughtfully.

  A brief silence followed. Both Knutas and Jacobsson felt rather low-spirited. It was a sad story. On the wall hung a big portrait of Helena in a gold frame, a photograph from her graduation. She was smiling, and her long dark hair framed her face. Knutas felt a pang as he looked at it. It was terrible that her life should end the way it had.

  He broke the silence. “How was your relationship with your daughter?”

  “Not without its problems, I suppose,” replied Hans Hillerstrom. “As she got older she stopped talking to us about anything important. She became more reserved. Not with other people, just with us. We didn’t understand why.”

  “Did you try to find out what the reason was?”

  “Well, not directly. We thought that with time it would pass.”

  “From what I understand, you continued to go out to the cabin in the summertime, and you still have family on Gotland. Do you know whether Helena ever saw Jan Hagman again?”

  “Not as far as we know,” replied the father. “We never discussed the matter.”

  Now the mother spoke for the first time. “I tried to talk to her about it a few times. Tried to find out how she felt and how she was doing. She said that she had gotten over it. She realized that it was impossible for them to continue the relationship. As for the baby, she said that she tho
ught it was the right thing to do, to have an abortion. She couldn’t have taken care of a child on her own. She didn’t want to, either. She viewed it mostly as something bad that had to be gotten rid of. Like an illness.” She pressed her lips together.

  “How were things between her and Per?” asked Jacobsson.

  “Things were good. They were together for a long time, and in my view he seemed to be very much in love with her. The fact that he was at first suspected of committing the murder was really hard on us. I think she was everything to him. I’m sure they would have gotten married. If all this hadn’t happened,” said the mother, and her voice faded away.

  “Do you know whether she ever met anyone else while she was with Per? Whether she had any kind of crisis for a period of time? They were together for many years, after all.”

  “No, I don’t know about anything like that. Things always seemed so good when we asked. Weren’t they?” Agneta Hillerstrom gave her husband a questioning look.

  “I never heard anything, either, about there being any problems,” he concurred.

  “We’ve found some new connections between Helena and the second victim, Frida Lindh,” said Knutas. “For one thing, they both worked out at the Friskis amp; Svettis gym in Hornstull. Have you ever heard mention of anyone she might have met there?”

  Both Hillerstroms shook their heads.

  “Why didn’t you say anything about the Jan Hagman story before?” asked Knutas.

  “We didn’t think it was important,” said the father. “It happened so long ago. Do you think that Hagman murdered Helena?”

  “We can’t rule out anything, and everything that has to do with Helena is of importance to the police. Is there anything else in Helena’s past that you haven’t told us?”

  “No,” said Hans Hillerstrom. “I don’t think so.”

  “Nothing that happened recently, either?”

  “No.”

  Knutas wondered how the previous interviews with the couple had proceeded. How could it be that none of this had come out right from the beginning? He decided to discuss it with Karin later on. If all the interviews are equally incomplete, we’re going to have to do them over, every last one of them, he thought grimly.