The Gingerbread House
Page 28
‘I think she’s tied up,’ she whispered excitedly to Sjöberg. ‘Her feet jerked when you knocked, but then she was still again.’
‘Let’s go in now,’ Sjöberg hissed to the police force now gathered at the bottom of the steps. ‘You two go to the left, you to the right, you up, and you down into the basement. You stay put outside. Weapons drawn, understood?’
The officers nodded in response and took their guns from their holsters. Sjöberg stepped up to the front door, while the others took a few steps to the side. He placed himself to the side of the front door, took a deep breath and pushed down the handle. The door flew open and the police rushed into the house. Sjöberg ran into the living room and indeed – there was Ingrid Olsson, bound hand and foot, staring at them, her eyes wide with terror.
‘What’s going on here?’ asked Sjöberg as he got down on his knee beside the couch, where the shaken old woman was lying.
‘She went out,’ said Ingrid Olsson in a weak voice. ‘It can’t be more than fifteen minutes ago.’
‘What does she look like?’
‘Long, blonde hair and a navy-blue coat.’
‘Take care of Mrs Olsson,’ Sjöberg ordered one of the young constables.
Then he hurried back into the hall and called out to the officers.
‘She’s out there somewhere,’ he said. ‘Unfortunately, she happened to be outside when we arrived, but we’ll get her. She has long, blonde hair and a navy-blue coat. We’ll send the dog after her.’
‘Wait a minute,’ said Hamad. ‘There’s a little bench around the corner. I saw a bottle of sherry or port wine and a glass. Let the dog sniff that first.’
‘Good idea, Jamal. Show the dog handler,’ said Sjöberg, then he gave the sign to the police officers to go out again.
The large German shepherd sniffed the glass curiously for a few seconds, then she started tugging eagerly on her leash. She rushed over to the hole in the hedge and quickly ran through. The dog handler had a tough time following her without letting go of the leash, and it was not much easier for the other officers. At last all the police were through, but at this point the dog and her handler were far ahead.
After that it got easier. The hunt went through a dozen gardens, until they finally found themselves back at the main road. Then it continued across the road, over a fence and into a small patch of forest, where she seemed to have wandered around before deciding which way to go.
Back in another residential area they thought they caught sight of her, but it proved to be another blonde woman out for a walk pushing a pushchair, and she looked in amazement at the line of panting police officers running past. The detached houses came to an end, and a group of poorly maintained apartment buildings took over. They hurried on between them and across a playground, and Sjöberg felt his age starting to take its toll. He considered giving up and letting the younger officers continue without him, but when he caught sight of the stocky Sandén some fifty metres ahead of him, in a thick overcoat and loafers, he changed his mind.
They soon came to a small street parallel to Nynäsvägen, which at first glance seemed to be an entry ramp to the main road. When he had run a hundred metres along the small street, and the dog handler and several other officers had already disappeared from view ahead of him, he suddenly realized that it was not an ordinary entry ramp he was on, but instead a street that led up to a bridge over Nynäsvägen. Far off on the bridge, almost at the opposite side, in the glow of the orange lamps hanging on large, ghostly steel frames over the road, he saw a figure trying to climb up on to the railing. Despite the dim light, there was no mistaking it: a woman was hanging on to the railing, and she had long, blonde hair and a dark coat.
The dog handler, who was quickly approaching the solitary figure, now let the dog loose, and she reached her in a few leaps. Barking, she jumped up towards the woman several times and finally caught hold of a corner of her coat.
‘Stop, Katarina! Don’t do it!’ Hamad shouted. He was the officer closest after the dog handler.
With the dog lunging at her, Katarina almost lost her balance and fell back down on to the bridge, but at the last moment she managed to wriggle one arm out of her coat. She heaved herself once again up over the railing, clinging on firmly with her free hand, and let the coat slide off the other arm too.
When he caught sight of Katarina on the bridge, Sjöberg stopped where he was, where he could view the whole drama from below. He watched the coat glide down to the ground and settle in a small heap, right next to the railing. Katarina heaved herself up with strong arms and brought herself nimbly into a standing position on the narrow railing.
There she stood now, her eyes sweeping over the cars below, and he could have sworn their eyes met. Then her gaze ran along the line of still running police officers until at last it settled on Hamad. The whole time she had a triumphant – and, as he would recall it, very beautiful – smile on her lips. She raised her hand as if in greeting.
‘No!’ shouted Hamad. ‘No! No! No!’
It was as if time stopped, and everything became quiet around them while the traffic moved in slow motion down on Nynäsvägen. She raised her arms like wings and then left the railing, the police and life behind her and flew out into the cold night air.
An awful thud broke the spell. The sound of brakes, broken glass and crushed metal cut through the air after Katarina Hallenius’s final act.
Stockholm, December 2006
Once again Thomas was sitting at his kitchen table, and once again he was looking dreamily out of the window. But nothing was the same any more. Something terrible had happened – four people he once knew had been murdered. Four people who had lived different kinds of lives, some happy and some, perhaps, unhappy. It was hard to say.
But he was sure of one thing: none of them wanted to die, and none of them deserved to either, at such a young age and so inconceivably brutally. They had done terrible things, but they had only been children, very small children. They probably had no idea what damage they were doing. They were children who, without adult supervision, had been free to do what they needed to secure their own little territory and social position.
And Katarina had struck back. She had done it for her own sake, but Thomas felt that somehow it was for his sake too. For that reason, he received the news of the resolution of the whole tragic story with mixed emotions. Katarina had no doubt been a very sick person, but she had been a person. Their lives had run in parallel, without either of them knowing it. If only they had met! If they could have sat together and talked about childhood and life, been company for each other for a while. Perhaps they could have become friends, united by a broken childhood and a life of solitude. Maybe everything would have been different then, for both of them.
Nevertheless, Thomas felt that Katarina had given him redress. Her outrageous, unforgivable actions had freed something inside him. He despised what she had done, but he could not despise her. He understood her, but not completely. She was the stronger of the two, the one who came straight-backed out of a humiliating situation. She had always looked happy and proud, apparently easily able to put up with the harassment, while he sank deeper and deeper into depression. But somewhere along the way she had taken a step in the wrong direction, and her choice had been devastating for everyone involved.
He himself was not guiltless. His testimony in connection with the first two murders would have been of great value to the police. By telling what he knew he could have prevented further bloodshed, but it had not occurred to him until he read about the murder of Lise-Lott Nilsson, and then he had been paralysed by his own marginal involvement in the whole thing.
Yet it was as if a stone had been lifted from his shoulders. Katarina had liberated him from his burden, though she perished herself. Now it was time to start over, to try again. Take responsibility for his own life. For Katarina’s sake.
He felt a sudden longing to go out. It was a quarter past five and the streets were filled with peopl
e, people on their way home from work and people getting a head start on Christmas shopping. Sunday was the beginning of Advent and it was snowing again. Snow was falling in large flakes, whirling beautifully in the light under the streetlamps. He wanted to be out there, he wanted to be part of the throng of people down there on the street, and he didn’t intend to be scared of them any longer.
He put on his shoes and jacket and jogged down the steps, out on to the pavement and across the street. Then he turned and looked up at the façade of his own building. His eyes wandered from window to window and stopped at last on his own. A warm, welcoming light radiated from inside the kitchen, softened by the lined curtains – blue checks against a warm yellow background, just right for a kitchen. And, in the middle of the window, between two thriving poinsettias, an Advent candle spread its friendly rays. He turned his face up towards the sky, closed his eyes and let the snowflakes melt against his warm skin.
THE BEGINNING
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First published in Sweden by Ordfront 2008
This translation first published by Stockholm Text Publishing 2012
First published in Great Britain in Penguin Books 2013
Copyright © Carin Gerhardsen, 2008
This translation copyright © Paul Norlén, 2012
Cover: trees © Stephen Shepherd/Getty Images, Dmitry Mordvintsev/Getty Images; house © Shutterstock.
All rights reserved
The moral rights of the author and translator have been asserted
Typeset by Jouve (UK), Milton Keynes
ISBN: 978-1-405-91379-9