The Intruder

by Hakan Ostlundh

She paused again. He heard her swallow.

  “I speak for myself, I guess I have to say. This is not something I’ve talked about with Elisabet and Dad.”

  A small, careful point of warmth sprang up in Henrik’s belly. What affected him was not so much the words but the nervous flutter in Alma’s voice. It must have been a big step for her to make this call.

  “I understand,” he said quietly.

  “We are siblings after all,” she said.

  Anger flared up in him. Siblings. Bring that up now after half a lifetime. He felt the edges of the cell phone as his grasp hardened. He never should have come back. He had turned his back on them, just as they had turned their backs on him. He didn’t need them. He didn’t need Gotland. The whole world had been at his feet. Yet he had come back. Like some kind of wretched beggar.

  But the fury subsided. The little word “sibling” drilled through the bitterness. A hand was being extended toward him. It was tempting to take it. But should they really get off so easy?

  “Yes,” he said quietly, “I accept that.”

  “Perhaps this sounds strange to you, but I would like for us to meet. Right now perhaps is not the right moment, or maybe it is. I don’t know. But … well, you can think about it.”

  He had spoken with Alma at the funeral. He could not say that he liked her, far too much bitterness and anger had stood in the way, but even so she had seemed … okay.

  “Yes, of course,” he said without being sure exactly what that meant.

  “There is so much I would like to ask you about,” said Alma with a kind of uncertain tenderness.

  Alma Vogler, your sister.

  “Why not,” he said. “When I’ve got things a little more organized. I don’t really know when we can move back to the house.”

  He didn’t know why he lied, it just came out. He didn’t want to reveal that they were back.

  “No, I understand that.”

  “But then, sure.”

  They exchanged a few fumbling words about Fårö, if he would be able to do his work from there now when he was alone. He didn’t know. True, he was thinking a lot about how he could survive, but in a much more immediate way. Day to day, hour to hour.

  They said good-bye and he ended the call.

  Alma Vogler, your sister.

  The little point of warmth suddenly grew to a claw that tore in his chest. His heart stood still. He could almost not breathe. Would he always be a little boy in Fårösund?

  Henrik fought back the pain, took a couple of deep breaths. He had to manage this for Ellen’s sake. That had become a mantra without substance, but he continued to repeat it to himself. He had to manage this for Ellen’s sake.

  He turned toward the room, thought about how it would be to have a family. A sibling who came to Sunday dinner.

  Then he got scared. How did it happen that she called right now? Did she already know he was there?

  82.

  It had rained during the night. The streets in Visby were still wet. When Fredrik got out of the car he had to make detours around big puddles that reflected the blue, cloud-strewn sky. There was a damp spray from the tires on the traffic driving past on Norra Hansegatan.

  As he came up to the department, he caught sight of Göran’s back en route to the conference room and hurried to catch up with him.

  “Has Malmö gotten hold of her?”

  “No,” said Göran, shaking his head. “But they have questioned the woman she rents a room from. I’ll cover the rest in there.”

  Fredrik followed Göran into the meeting. He was last to arrive and slid down on a vacant chair next to Gustav. Ove and Sara did not notice him. Ove was in the middle of a story and both of them were concentrating on Ove’s hands, which he was holding out in front of him with the fingertips against the table. Like a chubby little fence.

  Göran set his cell phone on the table.

  “Malmö has questioned Sonja Krstic, from whom Katja Nyberg rents a room,” he began. “Nyberg came back from a trip last Monday, with a new haircut and new hair color.”

  For a moment there was total silence in the room. They looked at each other.

  “She took off again the day before yesterday without saying where she was going,” Göran continued.

  “Sounds like she’s run off,” said Ove.

  “A search warrant for her was put out yesterday evening. We’ll have to check credit card and bank accounts. If she’s bought tickets, made any major withdrawals, et cetera. Will you do that?”

  Ove held up his right hand as confirmation.

  “Krstic also reported that Nyberg does not seem to have been feeling very well recently and that she’s been worried about her,” Göran continued. “One night not long ago she found her almost unconscious in the bathroom. Nyberg apologized afterward and said that she had been out at a bar and was treated to drinks and got way too drunk. Nyberg also hinted that she suspected that someone had spiked the drinks in some way, but Krstic had a feeling the whole story with the drinks was made up and that Nyberg herself had taken something. Drugs or some medicine. Was there anything else?”

  Göran stroked his wrist across his forehead while he searched his memory.

  “No, I guess that was all,” he said. “Besides the incident in the bathroom, Krstic has not had any problems with her tenant. She says that she and Nyberg have gone out together a couple of times, but that they still stayed more as superficial acquaintances. The past few months Nyberg has kept more and more to herself.”

  Göran had a few questions that he could not answer and it was noticeable that he wanted to get the meeting over with.

  “Malmö will provide technicians, but we’ll go there and question Krstic and look more closely at the apartment itself. Fredrik, Sara: you have the whole picture, you’ll take the next available flight.”

  Sara seized her notepad as if she intended to dash off to the airport before the meeting was over.

  “We know that Nyberg does not have her own car, she must have borrowed or rented one. Maybe Krstic knows. We’ll check the car rental agencies in the meantime.”

  Göran looked at the watch with the yellowed watch face that he wore on his left wrist.

  “Gustav, you can take the mother, Hillevi Nyberg,” he continued. “If Katja Nyberg is already in flight we have more to gain than to lose. Malmö got Nyberg’s current cell phone number from Sonja Krstic. Maybe we can locate her that way.”

  * * *

  Sara and Fredrik sat squeezed into the little coffee bar between the store and the departure hall at Bromma Airport. Sara took the opportunity to send a text. The barista set a double espresso down in front of Fredrik, who looked up and said thanks before again being absorbed by the tabloid. They had scrutinized the coverage of the “Fårö murders” on the way up to Bromma, traded newspapers halfway, so there must be something else that caught his interest.

  This was the second weekend in a row that was lost to Sara. She did not complain, you didn’t do that where murder was concerned. Besides, she really wanted to be here. She had been there from the very beginning, sat at home with Malin and Henrik, held that awful picture in her hand. It felt right that she got to be there when they opened the door to the perpetrator’s home.

  Micke had dismissed her apologies, it was clear that it didn’t matter. He would manage. And of course he did, he was an adult. But it couldn’t be much fun sitting alone in Visby where he didn’t know a single person besides Sara. For the second weekend in a row. He had gone there to see her, after all. What if he got tired and stayed home next weekend?

  Her cell phone buzzed. She looked at the display. It was from Micke: “Just had breakfast. Thought about taking a walk in town. See if I can find some trendy clothes at the wool boutique.”

  Sara laughed to herself, evidently loud enough to get Fredrik to look up from the newspaper and give her an inquisitive look.

  Sara wrote a response, a crude joke about sheep and female sex organs. She regretted it when she
saw it on the display. It was a bit too crude, only modestly funny besides. She deleted it and wrote instead that he should be careful not to get an overdose of estrogen.

  In the loudspeakers of the departure hall they were announcing the flight to Malmö. She nudged Fredrik.

  “It’s time.”

  The airport was in a no-man’s-land halfway between Malmö and Ystad. Håkan Täll, one of Malmö’s crime-scene technicians, was waiting for them with a car outside the terminal.

  The car was unmarked and Täll was not holding a sign with their names, yet Fredrik realized at once that he was there to meet them. He had parked in the no stopping zone and stood waiting calmly with his arms crossed a few feet from the car, as if he had a right to. He appeared to be forty at most and was wearing glasses with thick, black bows that seemed one size too big. His hair was cut short at about the same length as his close-cut beard.

  He greeted Sara and Fredrik and opened the door to the passenger side for Sara. You could plainly hear that he was a native of Skåne.

  They got into the car. Fredrik had to open his own door. Täll started and pulled out from the sidewalk. It did not take long before they were surrounded by forest.

  “It will take about twenty minutes to get there, I would say,” he said.

  On the way into Malmö they told Täll about the murders in Kalbjerga and what had preceded them, and what they knew about Katja Nyberg. Täll seemed familiar with north Gotland.

  “We were in Ihreviken during the summers when I was little,” he explained. “We rented a house there. Must have been seven summers.”

  He looked at Sara, then quickly backward at Fredrik.

  “But you’re not really Gotlanders, right?”

  “No,” said Sara. “Both of us are from Stockholm.”

  “The others don’t want to leave the island. That’s why they sent us,” said Fredrik.

  He saw Täll grin in the rearview mirror.

  They were approaching Malmö, passed under the shopping center in Rosengård that was like a bridge over the road.

  “What do you know about this Krstic, or however it’s pronounced?” said Håkan Täll, pronouncing the name with a hard k at the end.

  Fredrik assumed that it would be with sh, but said nothing.

  “She came here from Yugoslavia nineteen years ago,” Sara said. “She works at a travel agency and has had Nyberg as a tenant since last summer. Nothing in the register.”

  “But on Nyberg?”

  “No, not on her, either.”

  Håkan Täll slowed down and parked by the curb.

  “Here it is.”

  Spånehusvägen 41 was a three-story yellow-brown brick building across from a school. On both sides were similar buildings from different periods. Some were simple functional row houses, others from the 1910s or ’20s.

  * * *

  They were expected. Sonja Krstic quickly opened the door. She met them with dark, friendly eyes and extended her hand.

  “Hi, Sonja.”

  “Fredrik.”

  He shook her hand and stepped into the apartment, which smelled of roses. Håkan Täll put on a pair of blue shoe protectors and a pair of protective gloves.

  “Håkan is going to look at Katja’s room, so we can talk in the meantime,” said Fredrik.

  “As you like,” said Sonja in perfect Swedish. “Katja’s room is over here.”

  She showed them over to a walnut veneer door that their Malmö colleagues had sealed when they had been there in the morning. Håkan Täll carefully broke the seal so as not to scratch the door frame and pushed down the black Bakelite handle.

  “Do you want to take a quick check before I start?” he said, looking at them.

  “Sure,” said Sara. “In case you intend to make a mess.”

  Täll stepped aside and they went into the room. It was sparsely furnished with a bed with a flowery bedspread, a white nightstand, and a small desk with a laptop computer. To the right inside the door was a large armchair with white cotton fabric that Katja clearly used as a closet. It was covered with clothes in a single heap. A lot of green, black, and striped. All the furniture appeared to come from IKEA.

  “Is this your furniture?” Sara asked Sonja.

  “Yes,” she said from out in the hall. “Everything except the ceiling lamp. Katja bought that.”

  She stuck in one hand and turned on the ceiling light.

  Fredrik looked up. The lamp was five-armed and the plastic light globes were shaped like simple upturned flower petals.

  The room made him gloomy. A home of 130 square feet, with another person’s rejected furniture. Who was it who lived here? What had gone wrong? What had made her so totally incapable of handling her disappointments that she had to kill? Was there an explanation or was it simply an unfortunate lack in the brain of some neurotransmitter with a silly little name?

  But the majority of depressed, bitter people did not kill. Possibly themselves, not others. What made Katja Nyberg in particular cross the line?

  “You have to look at this.”

  Sara stood at the desk and pointed at a white card that was pinned on the wall next to some yellow Post-it notes.

  Fredrik went up to the desk. The card she had pointed at was a note card from Hotel St. Petri in Copenhagen. The hotel’s name was in blue in the top left corner. In the middle of the card was a message in pencil. He was forced to lean over to be able to read the faint text: See you this evening? The brief message was signed H.

  83.

  Henrik came to life slowly on the living room couch. Ellen had fallen asleep first, tired and soft beside him. He sat up abruptly when he realized that Ellen was no longer there. He looked around, heard her steps out in the hall.

  The next moment a fragment from his dream made him understand what had woken him. The doorbell.

  “Ellen, wait!”

  He got up from the couch and was out in the conspicuously desolate hall in three long steps. Ellen had stopped a few feet from the door. She looked at him in terror.

  “There’s no danger.”

  He tried to make his voice gentle and soothing, despite his agitation.

  “Come here.”

  He reached out his hand to her. She tiptoed over to him with lowered head.

  “There’s no danger, I said.”

  He glanced quickly at the door.

  “Forgive me for shouting.”

  He lifted up her chin with a bent index finger. She met his eyes.

  “Come.”

  He pulled her with him over to the alarm control panel at the back of the wardrobe closet, raised the protective cover on the display, and browsed forward to the camera by the front door.

  “What are you doing?” said Ellen.

  The picture on the screen was disturbingly like the picture that the police had shown him. There was an explanation for that, of course, he tried to convince himself. It was taken with the same type of camera and stored in the same system.

  He observed his sister glancing uncertainly toward the windows in the living room. She was there. She was standing outside and had rung the doorbell.

  “Ellen.”

  “Yes.”

  “If you go up to your room awhile I’ll come soon.”

  Ellen protested. She did not want to.

  “Yes, but please do as I say now. You can sit and draw or something.”

  Ellen sighed.

  “Do as I say now, okay? I’ll be there soon.”

  Henrik guided her toward the stairs. She obeyed but went up with dramatically lingering steps.

  “Okay, go now.” He hurried her.

  When he saw that she had gone up, he went over to the door. His hand hesitated at the lock. Was he doing the right thing now? Maybe it was simpler to pretend that he hadn’t heard and let her leave. Then he decided, turned the lock, and opened.

  Alma smiled broadly at him.

  “Hi.”

  “Hi,” he said, considerably more guarded.

  She s
hivered.

  “It’s colder than I thought.”

  Did she want to come in?

  “Sorry to stop by like this but…”

  Her hands slipped in under her open jacket.

  “It’s okay,” he said.

  She looked so friendly, he thought. The blond hair with a little natural wave, the open face. She seemed so innocent somehow. It was strange to be standing in front of her at such a short distance. At the funeral it had been different. Then there had been lots of people around them the whole time. Now it was just the two of them.

  “I brought something with me,” she said, stepping down from the stoop.

  “I see, what is it?”

  “It’s simplest if you come with.”

  She looked more serious now, took another few steps away.

  Henrik hesitated a little and cast a glance toward the stairs.

  “Sure,” he said. “I’ll just put on my shoes.”

  He went after a pair of jodhpurs that he knew were in the closet outside the bathroom, mostly because that was quickest, and pulled on the jacket he had tossed aside on one of the kitchen chairs. He stepped out on the stairs and locked the door behind him.

  Alma looked at him and started walking up the rise.

  “It’s in the car.”

  He felt unreal as he walked there a little behind her. She was moving agilely, walking with one hand inside her jacket and the other swinging in time with the rapid steps. The rainclouds had scattered and a pale blue, slightly hazy sky was arched over them. He coughed and thought that it echoed far away across the deserted landscape. There was a cold wind, she was right about that.

  Alma turned around now and then and smiled at him. The last bit up toward the gate she walked backward. As if she wanted to be sure that he was following.

  She stopped and held open the gate, but he signaled to her to go ahead.

  “How did you know that I was back?” he said panting slightly with his hand on the rough unpainted wood.

  She laughed.

  “Here everyone knows everything about everybody.”

  He tried to work out what that meant in practice. Was it Ann-Katrin Wedin who had seen there were lights on and could not refrain from calling a few girlfriends? That would be enough, he assumed, so that soon the whole island would know.