by Viveca Sten
He had met that woman in the bar. They’d had a few beers together after he’d sat down at her table. After a while, he asked if she wanted to come back with him for a couple of drinks. They picked up their jackets and paid. The sun had gone down, but it wasn’t really dark outside.
They went back to his place, which was no more than ten minutes’ walk from the bar. He opened the front door and let her in. She looked around and said something about his plants. He fetched a couple beers from the kitchen, and they sat down on the sofa in the TV room. She lit a cigarette and asked if he wanted one.
She chain-smoked, complaining that she had a pain in her stomach. She moaned so much his ears had practically started bleeding.
Both of them got pretty drunk.
After a while he moved closer to her on the sofa and realized that she understood him.
If only she had listened to him, everything would have been fine. It would have been so easy to do what he wanted. So damn easy.
CHAPTER 19
Could there be a better way to spend a beautiful Saturday evening in the middle of summer than sitting in a meeting in a police station that was closed for the weekend? Thomas wondered.
He stared at his notes and came to the conclusion that the weekend was probably a lost cause. While the crime scene was being examined, he had called Margit to inform her of the latest developments. She hadn’t appreciated the news.
DCI Persson had decided they should meet at seven o’clock on Saturday evening. That had given Thomas enough time to finish on Sandhamn and get back to the mainland. He was now sitting at one end of the conference table. Margit was on his right, with Carina next to her. Two younger officers, Kalle Lidwall and Erik Blom, had also had to give up their weekend.
Persson summarized the situation. “OK, so we have one victim who appears to have died as a result of a violent blow to the head. She is the cousin of the dead man whose body washed up on Sandhamn a couple of weeks ago. We still can’t be sure, but there is nothing to indicate that Krister Berggren was intending to take his own life. Nor have we found anything to suggest that he was deliberately killed. It will be a few days before we know the exact cause of Kicki Berggren’s death; the pathologists have promised to do their best, but they’re short-staffed right now.”
“Do the cousins have any connection to Sandhamn?” Margit asked. “Was it somewhere they used to go in the summer?”
It was obvious that she needed a vacation. She looked tired, and so far the summer sun hadn’t made much of an impression on her face. She exuded an aura of impatience, as if she didn’t really care about the fact that they had two unexplained deaths to investigate. All she wanted was for everything to be sorted out quickly, so she could begin her much-longed-for annual leave.
Thomas ran his hand through his short hair. “Not as far as I know. At the moment there’s no clear link between Krister and Kicki Berggren and Sandhamn. But it’s a bit of a coincidence for two cousins to be found dead on the same island within such a short period. We need to go through every possible connection. We’ll see what we find in Kicki Berggren’s apartment. Nothing we know about Krister Berggren links him to the island.”
Persson cleared his throat. “We have one murder investigation on our hands at any rate. Margit, you’re leading this one. Thomas, you’re supporting Margit. Erik and Kalle will provide additional resources; Carina, help out wherever needed.”
Carina turned to Thomas. “You only have to say the word, you know that.” She pushed back her hair with a coquettish gesture. She was the only person in the room who was smiling.
Margit sighed; her expression was grim. “I’m supposed to be starting my vacation on Monday—have you forgotten that? We’ve rented a house on the west coast.”
“Margit, we have two deaths and at least one is almost certainly murder.”
Margit was on the warpath. She rarely gave in right away. Now she was fighting for her vacation as if it were a matter of life and death, rather than four weeks in July in a country where the temperature reached seventy degrees at best in the summer.
“And I also have a husband and two teenage daughters who I am responsible for. Have you ever heard the expression ‘work-life balance’? I need this vacation. I’ve worked damn hard all year, you know that.”
She stared at Persson, waving her pen around. He stared back, equally determined.
“May I make a suggestion?” Thomas said.
Persson and Margit paused their battle of wills and looked at him.
“If Margit would make herself available by phone, I could at least start on the investigation. If things take a turn for the worse, she can always get in the car and drive up, can’t she? I know Sandhamn very well, and I can easily postpone my vacation for a week or two if necessary.”
Margit raised her eyebrows at Persson, who sighed before responding.
“When I joined the police there was none of this garbage about work-life balance. You worked until the case was solved—that was all there was to it.” He pondered for a moment, then capitulated in the face of the light of battle shining in Margit’s eyes. “Very well. Margit, you can go, but you have to come back should it become necessary. And the final responsibility is yours. Until then, you and Thomas can talk by phone.”
Margit looked relieved. “Of course. Thomas, you can call me anytime. I’ll give you my husband’s cell phone number as well, just to be on the safe side. Come to my office, and we’ll go over what needs to be done.” She gave him a grateful wink as she gathered up her papers and got to her feet. “This will work out perfectly,” she said. The comment was clearly addressed to Persson as she turned and left the room.
By the time Margit and Thomas had finished drawing up their plans for the next stage of the investigation, it was late on Saturday night.
Kalle and Erik would travel over to Sandhamn the following morning to start their inquiries; Thomas would join them later in the day. During the evening they had gone through all the material on the cousins. Carina had checked every possible record on the computer to complete the picture.
Since more than 80 percent of all murders or attempted murders in Sweden were perpetrated by someone the victim already knew, they needed to get a picture of both cousins’ lives and work situations, methodically going through the people around them, listing those the police would need to contact. It was like doing a jigsaw puzzle, hoping a picture of someone with a possible motive would gradually emerge.
As soon as the weekend was over they would also request all their relevant financial information. It was surprising how much you could find out by studying the ways in which people used their credit cards.
On Sandhamn, the investigation would focus on mapping Kicki Berggren’s last twenty-four hours: what time she had arrived on the island, where she had gone, whether she had been seen with anyone else.
They had to find out everything they could about the people she had met during her stay. They would also contact the ferry company and the taxi firm that picked up passengers from the boat. A member of the crew might remember when she had traveled or know where she had gone. Every witness statement, however insignificant it might appear, could contribute to solving the case.
But first Thomas wanted to visit Kicki’s apartment.
A home was like a silent witness to the owner’s life. You could find out a great deal about a person’s character, the way she lived, her friends and enemies. Perhaps he would find something that would reveal a connection between Kicki and Sandhamn.
Thomas also needed a better photograph of Kicki than her passport photo, which looked nothing like her. Door-to-door inquiries would start on Sandhamn as soon as possible, and a good likeness was essential.
After some thought, Thomas asked Carina to go with him to the apartment. In a case like this it could be useful to have a woman involved. She would see things he might miss. He was the firs
t to admit that he wasn’t exactly an expert on women.
That was one of the points Pernilla had made painfully clear to him during their last argument before the separation. He had walked into the bathroom to find Pernilla standing there holding a little nappy. It had been left behind when they were clearing away Emily’s things.
“It wasn’t my fault,” she had said. Her eyes looked wild, as if she hated him at that moment.
And perhaps she did.
Thomas was thunderstruck. “I never said it was your fault,” he eventually said.
She looked at him wearily, a small muscle twitching at the corner of her mouth. “For six months you haven’t said a single unnecessary word to me. You don’t even touch me anymore. When you do look at me, which is rare, I can see the accusation in your eyes. Do you think I don’t know what’s going on inside your head?” The tears began to fall, and she wiped them away. “It wasn’t my fault,” she repeated. “I wasn’t responsible for what happened.”
The chasm between them was too deep to be bridged with words, and in any case Thomas had no words at his disposal. He had never been the kind of person who was comfortable talking about his feelings, and now his emotions were in lockdown. Even the idea of trying was impossible.
He understood that Pernilla desperately needed reassurance, to know that he didn’t blame her. But every time he opened his mouth to tell her, the words stuck in his throat.
Deep down, he was convinced that someone must have been responsible for Emily’s death. Every time he saw her little body in his mind’s eye, he was consumed by the need to blame someone. And if it wasn’t Pernilla’s fault, then whose fault was it?
The gnawing doubt just wouldn’t go away. He couldn’t stop wondering what would have happened if Pernilla had woken up that night. She was breastfeeding, after all. Shouldn’t she have known instinctively that something was wrong? A part of him was aware that there was no logic to his reasoning, but he couldn’t get the thought out of his mind. Why had she slept on as her child died beside her?
That was the last time they talked about Emily. A few weeks later he had moved out. The divorce had gone through quickly.
Thomas got to his feet abruptly, running his hand over his forehead as if to erase the memories. What was the point of brooding about the past? He had gone over those final hours of Emily’s life so many times, and every time it was just as painful. He had to make a fresh start.
With a sigh he went over to the window and stretched to shake off the stiffness in his back. Through the window he could see one of the police launches setting off from the jetty at Nacka Strand. He caught himself wishing he were standing there at the wheel, with nothing to think about except patrolling the islands.
Then he looked away. He had a murder to investigate.
SUNDAY, THE THIRD WEEK
CHAPTER 20
When Thomas went out to Sandhamn on Sunday, he had a photograph of Kicki Berggren with him. They had found it in her apartment early that morning. It was the only useful thing he and Carina had found so far.
Kicki had lived close to her cousin, in a similar residential block in Bandhagen. Her three-room apartment wasn’t large, but it was well planned and considerably more homely than Krister’s. It consisted of a bedroom, a living room, and a small dining room.
One corner of the living room was occupied by the computer and TV; there was also a sofa and a coffee table with piles of celebrity magazines all over the place. Thomas recognized pictures of everyone from the royal family to the Beckhams. The bookcase was from IKEA; he had the same one, but in a different color. Just like Krister’s apartment, it was filled with magazines and DVDs, although there were a few books on the top shelf.
It was obvious that Kicki Berggren had been away. Her suitcase was still in the hallway, and a film of dust covered the furniture.
Thomas opened her computer to see if there was anything that might help them, but her e-mails mostly involved chats with girlfriends and the usual Internet jokes. He recognized several of those from his own inbox.
A number of websites were listed as favorites. Thomas flicked through them and noticed that she had recently visited the Waxholmsbolaget homepage, presumably to find a timetable for the ferries to Sandhamn.
None of the other pages provided clues as to the reason for her visit to the island. There were no saved documents or other information that might help them. There was nothing whatsoever on Kicki Berggren’s computer that could shed any light on the matter.
Why did she go over there? Thomas wondered as he perched on the edge of her bed. The duvet cover was pale green with a pile of matching cushions in the middle of the bed. There was an ashtray containing a stubbed-out cigarette on the bedside table.
When Kicki had come to the police station, she hadn’t said anything about the possibility of visiting Sandhamn, and yet she had gone there two days later. So there must have been some reason that she hadn’t mentioned to him—possibly someone she had decided to visit? But why hadn’t she told him? Had she already known what lay behind Krister’s death?
Carina went through her clothes, most of which came from H&M and KappAhl. A number of black skirts and white blouses tied in with her profession as a croupier. The bathroom contained neatly arranged jars of moisturizers and other beauty products. An overflowing laundry basket on top of the washing machine had obviously been left for later. The bathroom cabinet contained a pack of condoms, along with painkillers and lozenges.
There was also a plethora of assorted brands of nasal drops; Carina wondered if it was the poor air quality in the casino that caused problems. She didn’t know much about the life of a croupier but assumed it wasn’t the healthiest working environment. Thomas had no idea.
After a while Carina called Thomas over and showed him a box she had found inside a closet.
“Look at this.”
Thomas bent down; the box was full of photographs, many in black and white. He went through them at random. “Do you know who this is?” He held up a photo of a young woman.
“No.”
“Krister Berggren’s mother—Kicki’s aunt.”
Carina took the photograph and studied it carefully. “She’s so beautiful. She looks like a 1950s film star!” She held up a wedding photo. “I suppose this must be Kicki’s parents. The groom looks as if he’s related to the girl in the other picture, doesn’t he?”
Thomas leaned over to see. The groom seemed less than comfortable in his formal suit, but the bride looked happy and in love. She had a typical fifties hairstyle: neat curls and lots of hair spray. Her dress was simple but lovely, and she was holding a small bouquet of roses.
Thomas took the box into the kitchen and looked through the photographs. Many showed both Kicki and Krister at different ages, from childhood to adulthood. Neither of them had aged particularly well. The pictures of Krister as a little boy revealed a sullen child, usually peering at the camera from beneath his bangs. He rarely looked cheerful.
Kicki had been quite a pretty teenager, with long dark hair in a ponytail and only slightly too much makeup. But the pictures taken in recent years showed a woman who didn’t seem happy. Her cheeks sagged, and instead of laughter lines around her eyes she had developed deep creases by the sides of her nose.
She seemed to have lived a single life for a long time; neither her e-mails nor her apartment suggested any long-term relationship. The freezer was well stocked with Weight Watchers meals for one, and the kitchen was less than well equipped.
A typical single person’s household in the city, where more than 60 percent of the population lived alone and had no family.
Just like Thomas.
He saw himself with Pernilla, back in the days when they were happy and still married. When they were expecting Emily, full of anticipation and plans for the future. He hadn’t imagined that just a few years later he would be approaching forty
and divorced, while all his friends were fully occupied building their families. Or that he would be making regular visits to a small gravestone marking an even smaller grave and wondering what he had done wrong.
And who was to blame.
Once again, and for the umpteenth time, he reminded himself that he had to move on, to put the past behind him. He just didn’t know how to go about it.
Carina gently touched his arm, concern in her eyes. “Come on, let’s go. We’re done here.”
As soon as Thomas met up with Kalle and Erik on Sandhamn, they provided him with a brief update, and the three of them then divided up the necessary tasks.
While Erik continued knocking on doors, Thomas and Kalle visited all the shops and restaurants, starting at the north end of the island and working toward the Yacht Club. When they reached Värdshuset, the landlord shook his head. He couldn’t say whether Kicki Berggren had been in the bar or not. Both the bartender and the waitress who had been working on Friday evening were temporary staff who only worked weekends. They wouldn’t be back on the island until the next Friday. Thomas took their numbers but realized he would have to go and see them in order to show them the photograph of the dead woman. With a bit of luck they would be in Stockholm and could meet him at the police station.
He and Kalle carried on talking to staff in the shops and bars in the harbor area. Thomas counted a total of eleven establishments where you could buy or eat something. Not bad for a little island way out in the archipelago.
Just as they were leaving the Yacht Club’s restaurant it struck him that there was one more place: the old hotel by the harbor that had been renovated a few years ago and reopened under the name the Sands Hotel.
He turned to Kalle. “Listen, we’ve missed the Sands; we need to go back and talk to them.”
