The Gingerbread House

by Carin Gerhardsen

  ‘Welcome, everyone, this is Chief Inspector Conny Sjöberg, Hammarby. We’ll have to speak loudly and clearly because we’re on a conference call. Are you there in Katrineholm, Sigtuna and Skärholmen?’

  Affirmative responses in raspy voices were heard from the speakers on the table.

  ‘To start with, I hope that those of you who aren’t in the Hammarby district have sent all the fingerprints to Stockholm by courier?’

  This had been done, and the fingerprints would be in Hansson’s hands at the lab later that morning.

  ‘Then I propose that we go through the names on the list in the order they appear and then have the party responsible for each person report on what they found out yesterday evening. Are you all with me?’

  There were no objections, and the verbal reports were given in the proposed order. The names were dealt with one by one, and, as it turned out, almost all had been at home. Of the twenty-three individuals who had been in Ingrid Olsson’s preschool class, four, of course, were dead. No attempt had been made to get hold of the three living in Gothenburg, Oslo and Lund, and two who were still registered in Katrineholm. One person living in Stockholm could not be reached. In summary, thirteen individuals had been questioned the evening before, and six had not yet been found.

  Of those the police had been able to speak to, the majority were completely average people, who reacted as expected to the visit by the police and did not seem to have anything to hide. A few had scattered memories from their time in preschool, but most of those questioned recalled little or nothing. A few of those who were still living in their home town knew, or knew of, each other, but none recalled that they had also gone to the same preschool.

  One of the men who lived in Katrineholm, Peter Broman on Rönngatan, turned out to be an alcoholic, and when the police barged into his apartment a party with some twenty people was going on. They had not welcomed the appearance of the police and a fight broke out, but fortunately no one was injured. The man had been convicted of a number of petty thefts, as well as other similar violations, but never of any violent crimes.

  When they came to Thomas Karlsson, it was Hamad who initially spoke for himself and Westman.

  ‘Thomas Karlsson reacted very strangely to our visit. One moment it was as though he was petrified, and the next moment he was shaking like a leaf. He was sweating profusely and incoherent. He had a hard time understanding and answering our questions. Would not look us in the eyes. As we were leaving I thought he was about to start crying. To start with, he claimed not to remember anything from preschool, but then it came out that he used to play with someone named Katarina. That must be this Katarina Hallenius in Hallonbergen.’

  ‘We haven’t got hold of her yet, but we’ll try to confirm that with her when we do,’ Sandén interjected.

  ‘I got the feeling he was lying,’ Hamad continued. ‘But it wasn’t just that. He was, like … really strange too, don’t you think, Petra?’

  ‘Yes, he was,’ Westman agreed. ‘I don’t think he’s really right in the head.’

  ‘And he has no friends either,’ said Hamad. ‘No family. No one who could confirm his whereabouts at the time of the murders. “I’m always alone,” he almost screamed at one point.’

  ‘Does the guy have a job?’ asked Sjöberg.

  ‘He works in the post room at a company in Järfälla. We’ll have to check what they have to say about him there. In summary, he was a very odd duck, this Thomas Karlsson.’

  ‘We took prints of his shoes,’ said Westman. ‘He had one pair of shoes in the hall. He had almost no possessions. The apartment was nearly bare. No pictures, no flowers, no curtains, nothing. A few pieces of furniture, but just the bare necessities, a few books and magazines, that was it.’

  ‘Did he appear threatening in any way?’ Sjöberg asked. ‘Is he capable of murder?’

  ‘He was absolutely not threatening,’ Hamad replied. ‘On the contrary, he almost gave the impression of being scared to death. Is he capable of murder? What do I know about what goes on in his mind? Fear can be a reason to kill people. No idea.’

  ‘Okay, he seems to be our likeliest candidate, so far anyway. Now we’ll wait for Hansson’s analysis of fingerprints and shoe prints. We’ll continue the hunt for the remaining people and Sigtuna will make contact with Oslo, Lund and Gothenburg. Now let’s break. Thanks, everyone.’

  Sjöberg ended the conference call and Hansson gathered up the fingerprint samples that the officers who were present had collected the evening before. She also took Westman’s competently acquired shoeprint with her to the laboratory. The remaining police officers, in the company of Prosecutor Rosén, lingered in the conference room for a while longer.

  ‘Now we have a few hours’ wait ahead of us before Bella gets back to us with the initial analysis from the lab,’ Sjöberg began. ‘I propose that Eriksson run all these individuals against the crime register and so on to see what we can find on any of them. Westman will make another visit to Ingrid Olsson. Now that we have all the students’ names, perhaps we can bring some dormant memories to life. Go through each and every one and try to get her to remember anything from that year. Hamad and Sandén will continue to search for the remaining person, Katarina Hallenius in Hallonbergen.’

  ‘This Thomas Karlsson,’ said Rosén, ‘shouldn’t we assign a couple of men to keep an eye on him?’

  ‘I think it’s too early at this point,’ Sjöberg replied. ‘We’ll wait for the lab results first, and make a decision on that later. We don’t know anything about him. Maybe he’s just shy and unsure of himself.’

  Rosén agreed and the meeting was over. Petra once again tried to make silent contact with the prosecutor. He took his time gathering his papers, without raising his eyes. When he was finally ready, everyone had left the room except Petra, who had waited behind. He looked at her in silence for a few seconds and then said, revealing nothing by his facial expression or tone of voice, ‘This is more important. Do what you have to do. At five we’ll meet in my office.’

  * * *

  When he woke up the next morning he wasn’t sure where he was at first. In his dream he had walked on a long pier. Below the pier there was presumably water, but you could not see it because a thick layer of fog covered it and billowed up around him like big clouds of smoke. It was twilight and cold, he had on a red quilted jacket, ski pants and a pair of clumsy black ski boots with blue laces. With every breath he took, steam came out of his nostrils. Behind him he heard the children’s voices. They did not see him in the fog, but they knew he was out there because the voices were coming closer. The end of the pier could not be seen, but as he walked and walked it became clear that the pier was very long. Suddenly, there was no longer anything under his feet and he fell, arms flailing, into the cold, damp void. He opened his eyes and found, to his surprise, that it was completely light around him. He lay there quietly for a while, waiting for reality to return to him. The dream slowly released its grip and he discovered that he was on top of the covers with his clothes on. The lights in the room were on and the blind was not pulled down. He did not move, did not even look at the clock, just lay there for a long time, completely relaxed, looking into himself.

  At last hunger got the upper hand. His stomach growled discontentedly for breakfast, and he stretched and sat up on the edge of the bed. He could see through the window that it was already light outside, which meant he would be late for work. That didn’t matter, because he didn’t intend to go there anyway. Today he was going to look up a woman he had not seen in a very, very long time. Just thinking about it caused a surge in his belly, as if he were riding a roller coaster.

  * * *

  She took hesitant steps on the wet pavement, as if she was waiting for something or as if every step hurt. Now and then she stopped and poked with her foot among some old, rotting leaves, or in one of the small, blackened snowdrifts that were scattered reminders of yesterday’s winter weather. In one hand she carried a small suitcase; th
e other was plunged deep in the pocket of her coat. Her collar was folded up as protection against the cold wind. As she passed the familiar black iron gate she stopped and stood for a long time, gazing across the large garden with its fruit trees. Although it was midday, the outdoor lights were on and the old pink house looked welcoming, despite the high, dense hedge that surrounded it. Then she started walking again, with the same slow steps, but she did not go far. After fifty metres she turned and slowly walked back to the iron gate, where she remained standing, deep in thought.

  Thomas followed her, with some excitement. He had not seen her in many years, but she was not all that different. Soon he would get up the courage to make himself known, but first he wanted to watch her for a while.

  He was well hidden. He could not be seen at all from his position crouched behind a car parked across and further down the street, even if the woman were to look unexpectedly in that direction. She walked around a little more and finally she laboriously opened the heavy gate and stepped on to the gravel path that led to the house. Thomas got up from his hiding place and crossed the little street with aching knees. Resolutely, he followed the pavement towards the gate. Just as he was leaning down to avoid some low-hanging tree branches, he heard a car engine behind him. He turned reflexively to look at the car and found, to his amazement, that it was the policewoman from last night who was behind the wheel. She slowed down, came up alongside him and rolled down the window. Thomas felt the fear from yesterday come over him again and, without knowing why, he started running.

  * * *

  Petra Westman was in the car on her way to Ingrid Olsson’s house in Gamla Enskede, worried about what would be said in Hadar Rosén’s office at the end of the day. She felt extremely uncertain about him. He was not the type to show his feelings much. Unless he was furious. Either he would recommend that the disciplinary review board give her a warning, or he would accommodate her request and have Peder Fryhk arrested. Either alternative was a good enough reason for nail-biting, a habit she was not prone to. On the other hand, her stomach was in an uproar and she had already been to the toilet more times this morning than she normally would all day.

  As she turned on to picturesque Åkerbärsvägen, she was able to put aside her anxieties temporarily and thought instead that this is how she would like to live one day. In a beautiful old house with a mature garden and abundant climbing roses, a small vegetable patch to potter in, and a lawn for the dog to run around. And maybe children too, if she ever had any. Nice neighbours you could sit with under the fruit trees and drink wine. And organize barbecues and play croquet. At this time in November it looked empty and deserted, but in the spring and summer the area would liven up, you could be sure of that. People in minimal clothing, and kids playing football and skipping on the little street.

  Suddenly she saw a man crouching on the pavement. He looked familiar, but before she could think about how she knew him he turned towards her and looked her right in the eyes. It was that character from yesterday, Thomas Karlsson! What business did he have in this neighbourhood? Instinctively, she drove up to him and rolled down the window. Before she could open her mouth, he took to his heels and started running. She jumped out of the car and took off after him. He had a lead of fifteen or twenty metres, and she thought that she probably should have driven after him instead, but it was too late for that now. He raced up the street, without turning around. He was a man and she was a woman, but she was in good shape and had always been a good runner. Despite her bulky winter clothes, she started gaining on him, but she had no idea what she would do with him if she caught up. She had left her service pistol in the cupboard at the police station – no orders had been issued on being armed for a visit to Ingrid Olsson. She had a pair of handcuffs in the glove compartment of the unmarked police car, but how would she get to them?

  She caught him up before the crest of the hill. She threw herself at him with all her weight, and he fell flat on his face on the wet asphalt. She straddled him and wrenched his arms behind his back. Then she caught her breath for a few moments before she took her mobile out of the inside pocket of her jacket. She entered Sjöberg’s number, and he answered before she even heard the ring.

  ‘It’s Petra,’ she panted into the phone. ‘I’ve caught Thomas Karlsson outside Ingrid Olsson’s house. I need reinforcements, quickly.’

  Then she ended the call and put the phone back in her pocket.

  ‘You are arrested on suspicion of the murders of Hans Vannerberg, Ann-Kristin Widell, Lise-Lott Nilsson and Carina Ahonen Gustavsson. Now lie quietly and calm down, do you understand?’

  * * *

  Thomas said nothing and did not move but, with tears streaming down his face, he felt the icy cold of the asphalt spreading from the skin on his face and into his body, where it finally squeezed his heart until only a sharp little piece of ice remained.

  Twelve minutes later he was sitting in handcuffs, shaking with cold, in the back seat of a police car.

  Monday Afternoon

  Once again Sjöberg was at his desk with a sandwich in front of him, and once again he had a hard time finishing his meagre lunch. Some constables were now in a car on their way to the city with a suspected serial killer in the back seat. A forty-four-year-old man who had never been convicted before, who had never been in trouble with the law, had never stood out in any way, but instead lived a quiet life in solitude in a little apartment on Kungsholmen. He had always paid his bills on time, never been in contact with the social services or mental health system, and yet he was being held as a suspect in no fewer than four sadistic murders.

  This was astonishing. What could have happened to bring out such a dark side of him? The victims were people he most likely hadn’t seen since he was a child, a very young child at that.

  When news of the arrest reached Sjöberg, after first arranging reinforcements for Westman, he called Sandén and Hamad in from Hallonbergen. They were still searching for the only person on the list who had not yet been located. By now they were presumably in their car, on the way back to the police station, preparing for the initial interrogation of Thomas Karlsson, who would be charged as a suspect in the murders. Sjöberg felt tense as he waited for the confrontation with Karlsson, and wondered how he would manage to handle Karlsson’s alleged fear and nervousness. Perhaps they ought to have a psychologist on hand? No, that sort of thing would have to wait. The main thing now was to prevent any further victims by ensuring that they had indeed arrested the guilty party.

  The phone rang yet again – all morning he had been flooded with calls from colleagues involved in the investigation around the country, journalists wanting an update on the developments in the Vannerberg case, the prosecutor, the police chief and so on – but he answered dutifully anyway. It was Mia, his sister-in-law, who wanted to speak to him.

  ‘I’ve done some research, as we agreed, and now I have a little information that I think will interest you.’

  Sjöberg had forgotten, in the general confusion after Petra Westman’s breathless voice had requested reinforcements, about having asked his sister-in-law for help. The idea of trying to form an impression of the atmosphere in Ingrid Olsson’s preschool class almost forty years earlier felt superfluous now.

  ‘Go on,’ he said politely. ‘We’ve arrested a suspect for the murders, but tell me anyway. I’ll be seeing him in a little while, so it might be good to have something a bit more concrete to go on.’

  ‘It’s not Thomas Karlsson you’ve arrested, by any chance?’

  Sjöberg remained silent for a moment, but then said, ‘I can’t answer that.’

  ‘Of course you can, otherwise I can’t tell you what I’ve found out. And it will interest you, because I knew his name, right?’

  ‘Okay, okay,’ Sjöberg sighed. ‘Now tell me.’

  ‘I talked with that friend in Katrineholm I love to talk about childhood memories with. Just because he has such a good memory. He’s the same age as me and it turned out that
his little brother, Staffan Eklund, was actually in that preschool class. My friend and his mother both remembered things from that time. On the other hand, his little brother didn’t remember a thing. The police had already been in contact with him, but he was completely blank.’

  ‘Get to the point, please,’ Sjöberg encouraged her impatiently.

  ‘Okay, here it is. At that time they lived in a pretty bad area. They were building a house and were going to move away from there as soon as the new house was finished, but for the time being little brother was in that preschool. There was evidently a crowd of really nasty kids and his mum was not at all happy about his playmates. They got into fights and misbehaved and two of the children, above all, distinguished themselves as real brats. Guess what their names were?’

  ‘No, tell me.’

  ‘Hans and Ann-Kristin.’

  ‘You don’t say …’

  ‘Hans and Ann-Kristin dominated that group of children completely and stirred up the others against a couple of poor things they put at the bottom of the pecking order. One of them was Thomas Karlsson, the other was a girl, and they both got beaten up every single day. And the whole class was in on it, Staffan too, to his mother’s great disappointment. Probably due to peer pressure, he couldn’t really see what was right and wrong. They did horrible things to those children, each worse than the last. Besides beating them black and blue, once they almost drowned one of them, they cut off their hair, ripped their clothes; they laid one of them in front of a car on the street. There were teeth knocked out, and serious mental abuse along with it. Can you imagine? They were only six years old!’

  ‘What kind of person do you become if you’re subjected to such things?’ Sjöberg asked.

  ‘In a small town like Katrineholm it works this way,’ Mia continued. ‘Once you’ve been labelled, it’s like it can’t be washed off. I imagine that the bullying wouldn’t have stopped; instead, it would have carried on into school and presumably after, in some form or other, until one day you move away. So it’s hard to rehabilitate yourself. Maybe these children started it, but then others would have taken over and carried on the pattern.’