Eighteen Below

by Stefan Ahnhem

  Thus far, everything matched the rumours he’d heard, including the wardrobe full of sex toys, some of which seemed to border on instruments of torture. The only truly puzzling part was the fact that two of the four cables had been severed. Not worn down or frayed, but severed. Had Halén’s last victim somehow freed themselves and attacked their tormentor?

  “Mom! Dad! Come here!”

  Cliff had no idea why the girls were screaming from upstairs.

  But when the words finally penetrated his concentration, he knew exactly what had happened.

  “Hurry! Einstein got loose and he’s digging up the lawn in the backyard!”

  70

  “I don’t know how you do things in Denmark,” said the receptionist Florian Kruse, who sat in front of Dunja with his laser-straight side part and button-down shirt and tie. “But in Sweden we arrange meetings before we arrive for them. So, no, I can’t help you.”

  “If you’d just listen to what I have to say,” Dunja pleaded in Danish.

  “No, you listen to me —”

  “Okay, apparently I must have stepped on your toes or something. Whatever it is, I’m very sorry.” Dunja looked over at Magnus, who was standing off to the side, playing with his phone.

  “Do you think I enjoy sitting here, unable to help you? Sorry to disappoint, but that’s not the case. I don’t find this amusing at all. But the criminal investigation team is currently working on a very complicated case, and their chief, Astrid Tuvesson, has expressly forbidden anyone from disturbing them.”

  “I understand that, but like I said, I know Fabian Risk and I’m certain he’ll want to see me. So why don’t you help me find his number, and I’ll call him myself.”

  “Why don’t you just do it yourself? If you’re such good friends, you must have his number in your phone.”

  “Yes, I do. But I can’t look it up right now.” She held up her phone and showed him that the battery was completely drained. “See, it’s totally dead.”

  “Well, look at that. It can happen to the best of us.”

  Dunja felt the exhaustion hit her like running into a concrete wall. She hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep since Monday night, but most of the blame belonged to the sergeant-major behind the desk, who now had the audacity to put on a pair of headphones and start blasting some old synth crap so loudly that she could even make out some of the words.

  Whether it was the music, the exhaustion, or the entire situation, she didn’t know. But something inside Dunja cracked, and — as if it were someone else entirely — she watched herself yank the cable of the headphones. They flew off and landed on the floor.

  “Hey, what the hell? Do you know what those headphones cost?”

  “No, but I do know that you have made me so fucking angry that I feel like smashing them. And I also know that I’m not leaving until you apologize and start helping me.”

  “Dunja, maybe we should just head back home,” said Magnus, who had approached the reception desk and laid his hand on her shoulder. “It’s getting pretty late.”

  “Magnus, if you think I’m about to let this child here decide what I can and cannot do, you have another thing coming.”

  “But Dunja, we —”

  “Go right ahead, if you’re so ready to leave. But I’m planning to stay here until he apologizes and helps me get a hold of Risk.”

  “I’m sorry to inform you lovely folks that the reception desk will be closing in ten minutes.”

  “What are you planning to do, kick us out?”

  The receptionist aimed a tired look at Dunja.

  “Do you really believe you can handle the both of us?”

  “Why, Dunja Hougaard! Hi!”

  All three turned to see Fabian, who was on his way out of the elevator, walk up to give her a hug.

  “What are you doing here? Why didn’t you call?”

  “That’s a good question. Why not ask this troll here? He seemed to think that was a very bad idea.”

  “Yes, well, Tuvesson said that you weren’t to be —”

  “Florian,” Fabian interrupted, turning to the receptionist. “This is Dunja Hougaard from the Danish police. She should always be let in, okay?”

  “Yes, but Tuvesson said —”

  “It doesn’t matter what Tuvesson or anyone else says. If Dunja comes here and asks for help, we help her, even if she just needs her boots polished. That’s all there is to it.” Fabian turned to Dunja. “What’s going on?”

  “My colleague Magnus and I are here on a case, a little under the radar, and we need to find out who lives at a number of different addresses. Not far from where you live, actually.”

  “Sure. No problem. Just follow me,” Fabian said, showing them to the elevator.

  And even though she knew she shouldn’t, that it would bring punishment in some form or another, Dunja couldn’t help tossing an annoying little smirk back in the receptionist’s direction before she stepped into the elevator.

  Fabian entered last and was just about to press the button for the top floor when his phone started ringing. He took it out and saw that it was Cliff. “Hey, I’m a little busy. Can I call you back?”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t get hold of Tuvesson, and this can’t wait.”

  71

  Will this never end? Fabian thought, making another failed attempt to contact Tuvesson while he studied the finds from the grave, which had been laid out on the folding table. A pair of large red headphones lay beside a greyish-blue running shoe — an Asics, size 36. Below them lay a severed finger that was dark with decay and adorned by a gold signet ring.

  How many victims would they uncover? Fabian stretched out his back as his eyes swept the ongoing work of digging a large hole in the lawn behind Johan Halén’s house. A hole filled with new bodies and new questions. They had the suspect in custody, and they had a witness who could identify him. But it still felt like they were chasing a phantom.

  According to Cliff, Molander and his men had been working for nearly three hours. The man of the house, Peter, had been absolutely beside himself when they showed up with the equipment and started cordoning off his perfect lawn. He’d tried to stop them, repeating his demand for some form of documentation that stated in black-and-white that they were allowed to destroy his yard, and if it hadn’t been for the arriving dinner guests, they likely would have been forced to arrest him.

  “I want to know who’s in charge of all this.”

  Fabian turned to the man, who had returned and was within the cordoned area, his eyes suggesting he’d imbibed at least a couple of beers and a bottle of wine. “That would be me,” he said, to take the pressure off Cliff, who’d been in the man’s crosshairs until this point.

  “Then maybe you can explain to me what the hell is going on.” The man nodded at the hole and the large pile of dirt next to it.

  “I understand that this must be quite a shock, and I’m sure you have a number of questions. But I need you to respect the fact that we’re in the middle of a complicated homicide investigation and we can’t —”

  “I want you to tell me who is going to pay to put all this back to normal!”

  “First of all,” Fabian said, taking a step toward him. “You are not authorized to be within the cordoned-off area. Please step back to the other side of the tape. Now.”

  “Authorized? What the fuck kind of talk is that? This is my property, dammit.”

  “No, currently this is a crime scene.”

  The man was about to say something, but thought better of it and backed out of the cordoned area.

  “Thank you. Second, my colleagues and I are the ones who ask the questions. Your only job is to answer them and be as helpful as you possibly can in every way as long as we’re here.”

  “Listen, if you think you can just…” The man trailed off, staring past Fabian, who turned
to see Molander climbing out of the hole wearing a full-body protective suit and carrying a severed arm.

  “Fabian, could you grab the camera from the case over there?” Molander gently placed the arm next to the other objects on the table. “It’s about time to take some pictures.”

  Fabian nodded and walked over to the metal case, opened it, and removed the camera from its form-fitted compartment.

  “No, you stay over there,” Cliff called from behind him.

  Fabian turned around, but he was too late to stop the man from tearing away the police tape and approaching the edge of the hole.

  “Oh shit…what is this? What the hell is this?”

  Fabian rushed over to the man to back him away from the edge. But when he saw the bodies at the bottom of the pit, he stopped in his tracks. He counted three of them — a man in a ripped body bag and two women, cast off like trash at the dump.

  One woman was in jogging gear and was missing parts of her left leg. The man’s head was wrenched out of joint, his jaw hanging down by his chest. And a thick white blanket of maggots was crawling all over everything, well on their way to breaking the bodies down to the point where they would become unrecognizable.

  But it wasn’t the decomposition that had thrown him off balance. It was the woman who lay furthest to left, still largely buried under the dirt. Her face, too, was covered in the writhing white mass, but Fabian didn’t need to see it to know who it was. All it took was her colourful clothing, her sneakers, and her blond dreads, held in place with a thick hair tie. The red headphones belonged to her.

  Molander, Cliff, and the others turned toward Fabian, puzzled. He saw their lips moving, asking why he was standing there staring like it was the first time he’d seen a dead body. But he couldn’t respond. Not yet.

  His brain, his whole system, was out of order and needed to reboot. He needed to start over from the beginning and recap the two meetings he’d had with the woman. First, out at Chris Dawn’s house, and later, at the jail during the lineup. He had to replay both conversations in his mind. Word by word. Syllable by syllable.

  All so he could understand.

  The woman in the grave was Dina Dee.

  They weren’t dealing with one perpetrator, but two.

  72

  The Danish policewoman had stood outside the door for almost twenty minutes. Twenty endless minutes. All Theodor and Alexandra could do was wait her out, wait for her to give up and go away.

  Instead, she walked across the lawn to the front of the house, where she came up on the deck and looked straight into the living room. They’d thrown themselves to the floor and hidden behind the sofa, hoping she hadn’t seen them. They lay there literally shaking with fear until they finally heard the sound of the car driving off.

  They didn’t dare to get up again for another fifteen minutes. Theodor went straight to the kitchen, found a meat cleaver, and chopped that fucking phone into pieces on the butcher block until all that was left were tiny, sharp plastic bits, which they scooped into a plastic bag and took with them.

  As they walked down Johan Banérs Gata toward the water, it felt like they were about to smuggle half a kilo of drugs through customs. The bag of plastic pieces made Theodor’s jacket bulge like a pus-filled boil, and everyone they met along the way looked like an undercover cop, ready to arrest them at any moment.

  Once they reached the water, they climbed over the wall and onto the breakwater, searching for a suitable crevice to pour out the contents and get rid of the bag. But there were people everywhere, enjoying the last few rays of evening sun, and the very idea of taking the bag out was scarier than jumping into the Sound and swimming as far as they could, filling their lungs with water, and taking the bag with them as they sank down.

  Only when they reached the big patio at Gröningen did they feel brave enough to spread the contents among several different trash cans, before walking to the marina where happy boat owners were washing, scrubbing, and painting their vessels as if the approaching summer was going to be the best ever and the future had never looked brighter.

  The optimism in the air infected them, and when they reached the other side of Kvickbron in Norra Hamnen, Alexandra suggested they grab a coffee. A sunny table had just become available, and it felt like the red carpet was rolling out in in front of them once more.

  They ordered a cappuccino each and shared a piece of apple pie with vanilla sauce, and there, gazing into each other’s eyes, they decided never to talk about the incidents of the past twenty-four hours again.

  That was when he called. Just as they lowered their defences and began to think that there might be a future for them after all, they were forced back to reality. Alexandra stared at her phone like it carried a deadly disease; Theodor answered it.

  “Well, if it isn’t our little lovebird,” Henrik said, before Theodor told him never to call them again. “Aha, you saw the video. I suspected as much. Did you like it?” Theodor told Henrik about the Danish police and how the phone with the video on it was destroyed, gone forever, and the other end of the line went dead silent. So silent that he started to think Henrik had hung up and might actually leave them alone after all.

  “We need to meet.”

  Though Theodor wanted to brush off those four words and tell Henrik to go to hell, he reluctantly agreed.

  Theodor and Henrik sat in the stench of sweat at the martial arts club, glaring at each other as if only one of them would leave with his life intact. That was where it was, in the eyes; Theodor had learned that back in middle school. If he looked away now he would be lost, beyond help. Alexandra was to his left, and she took his hand, showing everyone whose side she was on.

  “Look at that, they’re so cute, holding hands,” said Henrik, and his two sidekicks immediately slapped sneers on their faces. “Sure you don’t need pacifiers too? And maybe diapers so you don’t piss your pants?” More sneering.

  “Let me know when you’re done, and maybe we can start talking about what we’re here for,” said Theodor, making sure not to let go of Alexandra’s hand.

  “What we’re here for,” Henrik repeated. “Hmm…that’s a good question. You want to know? You want to know why we’re here instead of at home watching porn? Because you’re so goddamn stupid that you went home with the phone on.”

  “Oh, so we messed up? You’re the ones who made an innocent man get in a shopping cart so you could shove him onto the highway. So fucking sick.”

  Henrik’s face lit up with a huge smile and he laughed. “I don’t know if you can tell from the video, but this is what he looked like when he figured out what was going on.” He opened his eyes and mouth wide and high-fived his two buddies. “And then just — boom! Perfection.”

  “You’re fucking insane. You know that, right? Or is that beyond you? How many people have you killed?”

  “Not a single one.” Henrik met Theodor’s eyes. “I’d say they’re more like cockroaches or rats. And even though no one would admit it out loud, I can promise you that most people agree with me and think it’s great that someone finally came along to clean things up. You know, like when you finally get rid of pubic lice. Who the hell doesn’t want that? You have no idea how bad they smell. Like a fucking drainpipe full of shit. Talk about sick. Yeah, we definitely need to wear gas masks next time. Don’t you think?”

  The other two grinned and nodded.

  “There isn’t going to be a next time,” Theodor said. “It’s over.”

  “What the fuck makes you say that? Are you going to tattle to your daddy?”

  “If I hear about any more homeless people getting hurt, that’s exactly what I’ll do.” He stood up and Alexandra followed his example. “And one more thing: if you or Beavis and Butthead so much as look in our direction again, I will not hesitate for a moment.”

  “What about your little lovebird? What are you planning to do with h
er?”

  “She was the one holding the phone and filming. That’s bad enough, but she’s prepared to accept her punishment.”

  “How sweet.” Henrik clapped his hands. “I’ve almost got tears in my eyes. I just have to ask, out of pure curiosity. How can you be so sure that all she did was film it?”

  Theodor regretted it the second he turned to look at her.

  “Aw, look, that never even occurred to him.” Henrik stood up. “But just for fun, let’s say she’s telling the truth. What makes you think the police would be so starry-eyed? We always wear masks, so it will be your word against ours. Speaking of which, who’s to say you weren’t there too?” He stepped forward and poked his index finger into Theodor’s chest. “Personally, I wasn’t in Denmark last night; I was at the movies watching Avengers.” He took a torn ticket stub from his pocket and held it up in front of Theodor’s face. “And considering all the shit you’ve been involved in, it’s way more believable that you’re behind these sick things than anyone else in this room. Which the Danish police are probably already aware of.”

  Theodor wanted to respond with something smart that would knock down Henrik’s argument and prove that he had nothing to worry about. But he couldn’t.

  “And Alexandra,” Henrik went on. “It’s really none of my business, but you don’t seem to have your cute little necklace on anymore. I hope you didn’t lose it somewhere. This gentleman here would be very sad about that, if I know him. Let’s cross our fingers that it’s not somewhere on the highway. I mean, who knows what conclusions the police might come to if they found your fingerprints on it?”

  Henrik was right. As difficult as it might be to admit, Theodor knew that sick bastard was right.