by Viveca Sten
Kalle bent down and emptied his shoes for at least the tenth time. “How much sand is there on this island?” he said. “Is there no end to it? I thought the Stockholm archipelago was made up of rocks and pine trees. This is a clone of the Sahara.”
“Stop whining; you could be stuck in a boiling hot police station, and instead you get to enjoy the beautiful archipelago,” Thomas said.
“Easy for you to say; you’ve spent every summer running up and down the sand dunes.”
Thomas ignored the comment and set off toward the hotel. “We’ll have coffee when we get there.”
To be on the safe side, they both had a Danish pastry as well, and then it was time to make a start on the door-to-door inquiries. The routine was always the same. Ring the bell, introduce themselves, show the photo of Kicki Berggren, ask the same question over and over.
By the time they had visited some thirty houses, Thomas was beginning to lose heart. Nobody recognized Kicki Berggren. It was as if she had never set foot on Sandhamn. A lot of people weren’t home, which was hardly surprising on a beautiful summer day, but that just made the task all the more time-consuming since they had to make a note of the houses they would have to revisit.
Thomas realized this would take the entire following day. He wished he could call for backup, but the depressing truth was that everyone was on vacation. The moral of the story: try to avoid falling ill or getting yourself murdered in July, he thought. There are no hospital beds and no police officers. All those who could possibly take their annual leave had disappeared. With the possible exception of the press.
Persson had sent a message to say that they would be holding a press conference on Monday. The district commissioner was showing a vested interest in the case and would be attending. The newspapers were desperate for information; the combination of an idyllic locale and a summer murder was irresistible.
The media had also discovered the connection between the two people who had died. There was wild speculation about what was behind the “Killing of the Cousins on Sandhamn,” as they referred to the case. The fact that it still wasn’t clear whether Krister Berggren had died of natural causes was obviously irrelevant.
It wasn’t difficult to spot the journalists on the island. When they weren’t hanging around outside the Mission House, which was still cordoned off, they were swarming all over the village. Soon there wouldn’t be a single person who hadn’t been interviewed and expressed his or her views on the case.
CHAPTER 21
Jonny Almhult wanted to throw up. Sour bile surged up his throat and into his mouth. He broke out in a cold sweat on his forehead and the back of his neck. For a moment he could barely stay on his feet. He swallowed hard and grabbed ahold of the doorframe to keep his balance.
When the police had knocked on his door to ask whether he’d had any contact with Kicki Berggren, he had only just managed to hold himself together. He was already half-drunk, and it was only two thirty on Sunday afternoon. Since his mother woke him up on Saturday and told him a woman’s body had been found at the Mission House, he had been drinking nonstop. He didn’t dare be sober.
He had been spending all his time lying on the sofa in the living room, the thoughts going around and around in his head. From time to time he dozed off. When he woke up he suppressed the fear with more booze.
Occasionally he got a whiff of his body odor. It wasn’t very nice.
Anxiously he wondered whether the cop had been able to tell that he was lying through his teeth. He had shown Jonny a photograph of the woman from the bar and asked whether he had seen her before.
Jonny had been adamant. He had never set eyes on her. He had crossed his arms so the cop wouldn’t be able to see that his hands were shaking.
He had felt like the fact that she had been in his apartment was written all over his face. But the cop had merely apologized for disturbing him and wished him a nice day.
He could take his fucking nice day and shove it.
Jonny staggered back to the living room and flopped down on the sofa. He reached for the lukewarm can of beer on the table. What should he do if the cop came back? Stick to his story? Make something up?
No doubt Inger, who had served them in the bar, had already been busy gossiping about the fact that he had been sitting with that woman.
So unnecessary.
He had only wanted to have a chat with her. Nothing else. And then things had gotten out of hand. Because she didn’t get it. Stupid cow.
How the hell could she go and die like that?
He went over what had happened yet again. They had been sitting on the sofa when she had started acting out. He’d had to do something. He’d had no choice.
He hadn’t hit her very hard. Definitely not. Just a little slap to make her understand. He wasn’t the violent type.
He knocked back the last of the beer and dropped the can on the floor with a metallic clang, and it rolled under the sofa. Why hadn’t she done as she was told from the start?
And now he’d ended up in the middle of a nightmare.
He swallowed several times. He couldn’t stay here. It was only a matter of time before the police realized they needed to question him. He had no intention of being caught. It wasn’t his damn fault. He had never meant to kill her. That hadn’t been the plan.
Without wasting any more time, he made his decision. He would head for the city. He threw a pair of jeans and a few T-shirts into a bag. He was pretty sure there was a direct ferry at three. If he got a move on, he should be able to catch it.
In the kitchen he grabbed a carton of milk and chugged it. He saw two cans of beer sitting in the fridge. Might as well take those with him. He swallowed a painkiller with the last of the milk and left the apartment.
He wondered whether he should leave a note for his mother but decided it would be simpler to call her later if he felt like it.
Jonny hurried down to the pier as quickly as he could. The Cinderella was waiting there, packed with tourists who had spent the day on the island and were heading home. Strollers and backpacks were everywhere. He suppressed the urge to run. Nice and calm, he thought. Don’t draw attention to yourself.
The rapid walk had left him out of breath, but he made an effort to breathe quietly so no one would look at him. Keeping his head down, he boarded the boat and found a seat toward the stern. He pulled his hood down over his forehead and pretended to be asleep.
When he finally heard the three short toots indicating that the boat was departing, a sense of relief flooded his body. Then he had to rush to the toilet to throw up. Some of the vomit splashed on the floor, but he didn’t care. He just about managed to clean himself up.
He spent the rest of the trip sitting in his corner, making sure he didn’t make eye contact. He was desperate for a hit of snuff but didn’t dare go down to the cafeteria to buy a tin. He nodded off from time to time, but it was a superficial, uneasy sleep that brought him no rest. Only a reminder that his body wanted nothing more than to drift away to a world where the events of the past few days had never happened.
The captain of the Cinderella steered toward Stockholm with a practiced hand. After the narrow passage through Stegesund, where the old traders’ houses had been recently renovated, they reached Vaxholm, where a number of passengers disembarked. The boat then rounded southern Lidingö, with a brief stop at Gåshaga, before the familiar buildings of inner-city Stockholm appeared.
From his place at the stern of the quarterdeck Jonny watched as they sailed between Djurgården and Nacka Strand before finally docking at Strandvägen.
He picked up his bag and rummaged in his pocket for his ticket, which he handed over as he went ashore.
Now where should he go?
CHAPTER 22
The placards outside the newspaper kiosk sent shivers down Nora’s spine.
“Sex Killing on Sandhamn—Naked W
oman Found Dead,” they said in thick black letters.
Usually the placards were advertising articles on how to improve your tan or get a flatter stomach for those bikini days, but this afternoon there was only room for sensational headlines. The evening tabloids had quickly translated the body of a dead woman into sex attacks in paradise, ecstatic at having found something to fill their summer editions, which under normal circumstances were seriously lacking in news. This story was an absolute gift for an editor who was on the ball and wanted to boost his sales figures.
Nora wondered whether she should refrain from buying the evening papers, but she just couldn’t help herself. She almost felt ashamed as she picked up both.
She walked home with the papers under her arm, then made herself a cup of tea and went to sit in the garden. She picked a few mint leaves and dropped them into her cup; she liked the taste with the hot tea.
She could hear the boys laughing in Signe’s garden. They were good at begging for a glass of Signe’s black currant juice and homemade buns, and she always obliged when they scampered over, their expressions like that of a pleading cocker spaniel. Signe also baked incomparable jam tarts, which the boys loved, especially Adam.
However hard Nora tried, she just couldn’t bake as well as Signe. Perhaps you had to be born before the war, she had thought with a sigh the last time her efforts hadn’t found favor with Adam.
“It’s not that they don’t taste nice,” he had said, gazing at her with those blue eyes, “it’s just that they’re not as nice as Auntie Signe’s. But I still love you, Mommy,” he had said with a wet kiss.
Picking up her cup, she opened the first newspaper and began to read. Two double-page spreads were devoted to the murder. There was an article about the unfortunate cleaner who had found the body and an almost frenzied interview that went into minute detail. The appearance of the half-naked body when it was discovered was greedily described, along with the reaction of the cleaner. They had also included speculation by the manager on the victim’s life and why she had come to Sandhamn.
They had dug out an old photograph from Kicki Berggren’s driver’s license, in which she stared straight into the camera with a stiff expression and a dated hairstyle. Nora wondered why everyone looked so terrible in driver’s license photos.
There was also a fact box giving information about the increase in violent crimes of a sexual nature in Sweden and information on attacks that had taken place in other parts of the country in recent months. The newspaper hinted that the police were unable to guarantee the safety of women. A politician had been interviewed and made authoritative statements about the importance of women being able to feel safe everywhere, particularly in the summer.
Nora was astonished by the description of Sandhamn. There was no way this could be the place where she had spent every summer since she was a child. Suddenly her beloved island had morphed into a locale for danger, for violence against women.
The second newspaper concentrated on the link to the Royal Swedish Yacht Club and all the famous sailing competitions that took place around Sandhamn.
“King Celebrates at Murder Scene,” the headline screamed. A picture of His Majesty on board a boat in front of the Yacht Club restaurant dominated an entire page. The article gave a detailed account of various regattas with royal connections, before eventually moving on to a description of the crime itself.
Many of the Yacht Club’s board members were well-known public figures; the newspaper had somehow managed to obtain a meaningless comment from several of them. They all expressed serious concern about what had happened.
All men, of course.
Nora sat there with the newspaper open in front of her. She thought about the connection between the deaths of Kicki Berggren and her cousin. Why would someone kill the two of them, and why on Sandhamn? She remembered the net needle Thomas had mentioned; it had been marked with the initials GA.
On an impulse she went into the kitchen and found the Sandhamn telephone book; it was produced by the Friends of Sandhamn and distributed only to its members. She started to go through the last names beginning with A. There were approximately thirty, and she carefully checked each one to see if anyone had a first name beginning with G. Then she did the same with those whose last names began with G. There were slightly fewer of these, and she searched for people whose first names began with A.
After a while she had a list of people whose initials were either GA or AG: a total of fifty-four people had a last name involving G or A.
She looked at the list. She knew many of them, or at least she knew of them. Sandhamn wasn’t that big. As soon as she saw Thomas again, she would give him the list. He probably hadn’t realized there was a special phone book that only covered Sandhamn.
Nora went back to the papers and their speculations. She was so absorbed in one of the articles that she didn’t hear Henrik’s footsteps when he came back from his run. She gave a start as he sat down opposite her.
“Are you reading that garbage?”
“I couldn’t help it. It’s so awful.” She held out one of the papers so he could look. “It’s like reading about a different world.”
Henrik leaned forward and studied the articles. He shook his head. His T-shirt was striped with sweat, and his dark hair was damp. He wiped his forehead with the towel draped around his neck, then he pulled off his T-shirt and hung it over the white fence to dry.
“I ran past the Mission House. The whole place is cordoned off with blue-and-white police tape. They’ve closed it down until further notice. Not the best timing in the middle of the tourist season. On the other hand, perhaps we won’t get so many tourists if this continues. I imagine people will decide to go somewhere else. I mean, what would you do if you didn’t already live here?”
Henrik carried on flipping through one of the papers. He whistled when he recognized several of the board members from the Yacht Club.
“The Divers is full of reporters, by the way. Cameras everywhere you turn. Perfect for anyone who wants to get their face on TV.”
He got up and turned to go inside for a shower. Nora stopped him. She had been thinking about the phone call from the bank all day and wondering when to mention it to him. She really wanted to know what he thought; hopefully he would be happy for her, in spite of everything.
“Hang on. I’ve got something to tell you.”
Nora told him about her conversation with the HR director and the post they had discussed.
“It sounds exciting, doesn’t it? Imagine working in Malmö! And the terms sound great.”
Henrik looked at her with total incomprehension. The towel was still around his neck, catching the drops of sweat trickling down from his forehead. “But we can’t move to Malmö,” he said. “I mean, I work in Stockholm.”
Nora smiled. “Yes, but you can get another job in Malmö,” she said. “There are lots of good hospitals in the Öresund area. Besides, it’s a terrific opportunity for me.”
“But our life is here. Surely you can’t be thinking of uprooting the entire family?”
He moved toward the house. She recognized the furrow in his brow. It always appeared when he was annoyed.
“We can talk about this later. I need a shower. The competition starts tomorrow, so I’m going down to the harbor to go over a few things with the crew.”
Nora felt terribly disappointed. And upset. She had thought he would sit down and talk things over with her—instead he had simply walked away.
They had lived in Visby for several years because of his job. At the time there had been no question of anything other than finding a solution that worked for both of them. Now she had been offered her dream job, and he didn’t even seem to want to discuss it.
It wasn’t fair.
CHAPTER 23
The teenage couple was fully occupied with exploring each other’s bodies. They had slipped
away behind the lifeboats on the boat deck, and the boy’s hand had found its way beneath the girl’s white top. Her hands were caressing his back, and a subdued giggle was the only thing that gave away their presence.
The sea air was making the girl’s nut-brown hair curl; it was cut in a modern style that framed her tanned face. She was still perspiring after energetically dancing at the club.
“Slow down, Robin,” she said into his hair. “What if someone comes?”
The pink cocktails she had downed during the course of the evening were beginning to make her feel tipsy. She swayed slightly, and the words didn’t come out all that clearly.
The boy didn’t seem to have heard what she said. His hand continued to feel for her breast as he planted a series of little kisses on her throat.
The girl twisted out of his grasp and moved over to the rail.
“Slow down, I said. We’ve got all evening. Come and look at the view.”
He tried to put his arms around her again, but she slipped away.
“Look, Sandhamn. One of my classmates lives there. I went to stay with her last year. There’s lots going on there in the summer, but they did ask for ID to get into the club, even though there were tons of people in there who were obviously underage. Weird!”
The boy wasn’t interested in talking, but the girl carried on gazing toward the shore.
“I wonder if you can see Ebba’s house from the ship. It was in a fantastic spot by the water, right by the beach. Perfect for the summer.”
The boy pulled her close to kiss her again. His hands gently caressed the area around her navel, which was exposed by her cropped top, which didn’t even pretend to cover her stomach. His hands continued their journey upward once more, toward those soft, tempting breasts.
She saw the body falling down the port side of the ship just as his lips approached hers. At first, the sound of the engines prevented her from hearing anything.
