‘And what did you find there?’
‘Primarily more blood, but also her jogging clothes and some of those unusually long self-drilling screws.’
‘So that was where he took her clothes off?’
‘Yes, and screwed her on to the pallet on all fours. She must have woken up after the blow with the spade and somehow believed that she would survive if she obeyed him. He made use of washers, so the screw heads wouldn’t go through her hands and shins.’ Klippan stopped talking and shook his head.
‘Then what happened?’
‘He raped her and sent her out on to the river. According to the medical examiner, her lungs were filled with salt water, so she must have miraculously survived all the way out into the Sound before she tipped over.’
In many ways, it was a typical Willumsen murder. He was undoubtedly a thrill-seeker who needed to push himself further every time, and, if this had happened today, Dunja would have been completely convinced that it was him. But the set-up was far too elaborate for the other crimes he’d been committing two-and-a-half years ago, with the help of a Doberman Pinscher and a spiked club. Even without the strong alibi, she didn’t think it could have been him.
Her thoughts were interrupted when Molander called to them.
‘Have you found him?’ said Klippan.
‘You’re more damned impatient than my grandchildren on Christmas Eve. Check this out.’
Dunja stood beside Molander, who showed them notes on his paper.
‘This is Aksel Neuman’s registration number.’ He pointed to AF 543 89. ‘If we proceed from Dunja’s theory that Willumsen stole the car from Aksel and then changed the licence plate with a little electrical tape, it would be easy to turn an F to an E, and nine to an eight, which would give us three new numbers.’ He showed them AE 543 89, AF 543 88 and AE 543 88. ‘Or, the five could become a six, which gives us another four variants,’ he continued, showing another four numbers: AF 643 89, AF 643 88, AE 643 89 and AE 643 88.
‘Shouldn’t we see if they get any hits?’ said Klippan.
‘And what do you think I’ve been doing? Jesus!’
‘How long will this take?’ said Dunja, regretting her question immediately when she saw Molander’s face.
‘I don’t know how fast the computers are in Denmark, but—’
‘Wait a moment, what’s this?’ Klippan pointed at a blinking registration number AE 643 89 on the screen. ‘Is that what I think it is?’
Molander looked at the blinking number and nodded. A few commands later and they had a map with a number of different markings on it.
‘Do those dots indicate the route he’s taken?’ Klippan pointed at the screen.
‘Yes, but can you please not touch the screen?’ Molander sighed and removed Klippan’s hand. ‘As you can see here, he drove along route 17 between Landskrona and Eslöv.’
‘Is it possible to see at what time?’ said Dunja, feeling that they were finally starting to reduce his head start.
Molander zoomed in on the map and clicked on one of the markings. ‘At about quarter to two, which would make sense if he drove off the ferry at twenty past one.’
‘It looks like he’s on his way to Eslöv,’ said Klippan.
‘No, then he would have been recorded on more cameras. Somewhere between Teckomatorp and Marieholm, he turned on to a back road.’
‘Where there aren’t any cameras,’ said Klippan.
‘You guessed right.’
Dunja studied the map and noted that there was only one road that Willumsen could have turned on to from route 17, which was route 108 that led straight down to Kävlinge. ‘Maybe he’s on his way to Kävlinge?’
‘Yes, he could be,’ said Klippan. ‘I suggest we send the registration number out to all the gas stations around Skåne. There’s a chance he stopped to fill up.’
Molander nodded. ‘Okay, but it will probably be tomorrow before we get an answer.’
‘Then I say we call it a day. It’s already five thirty. Dunja, I’ve booked a room for you at Mollberg’s. I can drive you there,’ said Klippan.
‘No, thanks, I can walk. I need a little fresh air.’
‘Sure, but I’ll pick you up there a little later, because tonight you’re coming to my place for dinner. I’ve already asked Berit to make her lamb stew. And I can promise you, there’s nothing better.’
Dunja nodded, while she wondered how to get out of the situation. The last thing she had time for now was more socializing.
46
SOFIE LEANDER WAS CONFUSED. The last thing she’d expected when the doctor stuck the needle in her arm was that she would ever wake up again. She’d been quite certain what was coming, so certain that she’d accepted her fate.
Now she no longer knew. She wasn’t even sure if she was still alive.
She felt as if she’d ended up on loop because she was still tied down on the plastic-covered table in the middle of the room, looking right up at the ceiling, just as she’d been for the past few days.
Or maybe that wasn’t what she was doing at all. Perhaps this was what it felt like to die, old memories played one last time before they were erased and flowed out into eternity. But the fact that she didn’t float up towards the ceiling and couldn’t look down at herself suggested that she was still alive. Besides, the pain in the wound was getting worse and worse, which indicated that the anaesthetic was starting to wear off.
But why?
What was the point of all this planning, and the work that must have gone into it, if she wasn’t here to die? She tried, but couldn’t think of a reasonable explanation. Instead, she reviewed what had happened, but could only remember how she’d heard the louvre gate open and the surgical instruments being set out on the metal table. Then a needle was guided into the crook of her left arm and she faded away, quite convinced that she’d reached her end.
She thought about her husband and wondered how far he’d got in his search for her. He’d obviously contacted the police long ago, but it was impossible to say what leads they had produced. They must have started by going through the surveillance tapes from Stockholm South General Hospital and seen how she was rolled out of the ward and into the elevators, but how much they had to go on after that was even more uncertain.
The police had undoubtedly released her photograph to the newspapers and asked the general public for leads. But what if no leads had come in? What happened then? How long would she be their highest priority if they didn’t make any progress? Maybe she wasn’t even in the headlines any more. Maybe the police had already started prioritizing other cases, and put her in the growing pile of forgotten fates.
One of the machines beside her started making a sound. It was out of view, but she had no problem figuring out what it was: it was the exact same bubbling sound that she’d been forced to endure four times a week during all the years that she couldn’t do anything other than wait for the opportunity that might never come. How she hated that sound, so much so that she’d at last decided to give up waiting and take matters into her own hands.
But here it was again. The difference was that now she had no idea what she was waiting for.
47
ALL HE COULD SEE were the empty holes staring back at him. Fabian had lost control over his own gaze and couldn’t look anywhere other than at the carved-out holes that looked as if they were made of dark material with an infinite gravitational force. There should have been eyes there – eyes that looked, blinked, wondered, and reflected personality and the soul. Now there was nothing.
He couldn’t help the feeling of discomfort that crept beneath his skin as he studied the photographs that had been taken surreptitiously on the bus. It was almost as if he could feel the blade of the scalpel penetrating into the tear duct and pressing all the way behind the eyeball, severing the optic nerve and popping out the eye.
‘God, it’s hard to see what she looks like when the eyes aren’t there,’ said Malin, who was leaning over the images spread out
on Fabian’s desk. ‘Besides that she has long, brown hair and appears to be about fifty.’
Fabian nodded and took out a magnifying glass that could help him focus on details other than the cut-out eyes. He noticed a reddish-brown hair clip, a crying child, the hands on a watch displaying a quarter past five, building exteriors in various colours, a kiosk, the gold chain around her neck with a hexagram and an iPod with white earphones.
‘They’re wearing coats and jackets but no hats, so I would guess that this was taken in the autumn or last spring,’ Malin continued.
‘Why not last autumn?’
‘Wait, do you mean that—’ She stopped herself and took hold of her belly.
‘What is it? Are you okay?’
Malin nodded with eyes closed and took a few calming breaths. ‘It’s just the Karate Kid here who can’t stop kicking me under the ribs, even though I’ve threatened to disinherit him. Have you found anything?’
‘Look at the billboards at a kiosk.’ Fabian put his eyes against the magnifier and searched for it again. ‘“Carola Losing Her Voice” was Expressen’s headline.’
‘And Aftonbladet’s?’
‘“Swedish TV’s Order to Jury Can Stop Carola”.’
‘It must have been before the Melody Festival final.’
‘The question is when: Carola’s been in the final almost every year.’
‘No, far from it. She’s actually only been in it four times – five, if you count 2005 when she performed “Through It All”.’
‘Hello? How could you forget 2006? She went on cortisone because she’d lost her voice during rehearsals.’
Fabian shook his head and wondered who was the bigger fan: him or Malin?
‘It wasn’t certain whether she could even finish the competition,’ Malin continued. ‘And then she went on to win it. It’s unbelievable, when you think about it. Isn’t it?’
Fabian nodded, and leaned back in his chair. ‘Spring of 2006 – that means the photos were taken over three-and-a-half years ago.’
‘Talk about meticulous planning. Can I take a look?’
Fabian handed one of the photos over to Malin. ‘It’s not the impression I get of Kremph. Do you?’
‘I agree. But if he is extremely methodical, maybe part of his plan is to give a false impression of himself?’ said Malin while she studied the picture.
‘You mean he’s just pretending to be mentally ill?’
Malin shrugged. ‘Why not? This kiosk.’ She looked up and met Fabian’s gaze. ‘Isn’t this on Mariatorget?’
Fabian took back the photo and looked. ‘Yes, you’re right. What buses go by there?’
‘The 43 for sure. I always took it when Anders and I lived at Tanto—’ Malin took hold of her belly again. ‘Oh, now they’re having a little kickboxing match.’ She sat down on her chair and took a few deep breaths. ‘By the way, have I ever said how much I hate this?’
‘Hmm,’ said Fabian without looking up from the magnifying glass.
‘There isn’t a single part of my body that likes being pregnant.’ She turned on her computer and pulled up an SL map on the screen. ‘Now let’s see: the 43 and 55, plus a number of night buses seem to go by there.’
‘And this is definitely Norrmalmstorg,’ said Fabian, holding up one of the other photographs.
‘In that case it’s the 55, because the 43 continues north on Regeringsgatan.’
‘Where does the 55 go after that?’
‘Stureplan and then out toward Hjorthagen.’
‘On a completely different note, have you noticed that the weather is different in several of the pictures?’
‘You don’t think they were taken on the same day?’
Fabian nodded.
‘So she takes the same route every day on her way to work,’ Malin continued. ‘Is the time of day indicated anywhere?’
‘Yes, at Mariatorget it’s quarter past five.’
‘She must work late, unless she’s on her way home.’
‘Doesn’t the 55 start in Sofia?’
‘Yes, and it’s almost only apartment buildings in that area. If we assume she lives there and works in the city—’
‘Check how long it takes to get from Sofia to Mariatorget by bus.’
‘That’s just what I’m doing,’ said Malin. ‘Here it is – twenty-seven minutes to Slussen, which is the next stop.’
‘So it starts at quarter to five from Sofia?’
‘Well, four forty-seven p.m. to be exact.’
‘What time is it now?’
Malin looked at the clock. ‘Four thirty-three.’
They exchanged glances and immediately hurried off.
48
HILLEVI STUBBS ALMOST NEVER had any major problems interpreting a crime scene or a perpetrator’s residence. Mostly the places spoke for themselves, and usually it took no more than an hour or so before she had worked through what had happened and who was involved.
Ossian Kremph’s apartment on Blekingegatan was different.
Yes, it had spoken to her, even if she didn’t understand what it was saying. Or maybe she did, in a way at times. But however she tried, she couldn’t make it fit together. Each time she had an idea she found something that shot it to the ground, like a bar of soap in the shower that kept slipping out of your hands just as you got hold of it.
Finally, she asked her assistants to leave the apartment and take a coffee break. She had never done that before, and both of them looked as if a UFO had just landed in front of them. But she needed to be alone and let her thoughts operate completely undisturbed. Not until she heard the front door close behind them could she relax and start working for real.
Ever since she had first stepped into the apartment, she felt like there was something that just didn’t add up, although she couldn’t put her finger on it. The apartment was so overloaded with garbage that it looked like a storage space that had never been emptied, but at the same time it was relatively tidy and pedantically organized in several places. Someone with an enormous need for control lived here, a person who was constantly fighting against the chaos.
For example, the newspapers, where every single eye in the pictures had been carefully cut out, were in neat piles so high that they almost reached the ceiling. The shirts were arranged by colour in the closet, and almost everything that had a label was in alphabetical order, such as the books on the shelf, the spices in the kitchen and the row of pill containers in the bathroom.
Yet there was a layer of chaos over everything. Clothes had been carelessly tossed here and there. There were leftovers and unwashed dishes in the kitchen. And foul-smelling black garbage bags were starting to leak on to the floor. They’d made the majority of finds in this chaos, including a roll of the same type of protective plastic that had lined the table in the condemned apartment; the scalpel that had not even been washed clean among the kitchen knives; and the container of hexane gas that had possibly been used to put Adam Fischer to sleep in his car.
It almost appeared as if he hadn’t even tried to conceal his tracks. Or had he simply not anticipated that they would find him this quickly? He had fairly carelessly run right into the arms of Risk and the others, whereas the execution of his crimes was so thoroughly calculated.
Now that she was finally alone she could lie down on the floor, close her eyes and find the key to how this whole thing fitted together.
When she opened her eyes again and looked at the clock, she discovered that she had slept for more than eighteen minutes, which was a much more effective energy kick than all the coffee in the world. She sat up and waited for her blood pressure to normalize, before standing and looking around the apartment. It didn’t take long before she realized the obvious explanation for everything.
Ossian Kremph’s entire home replicated his schizophrenia: part of him sought structure and order, and another chaos. And so far they had only found the secrets of the careless side. With any luck, she would now discover the stickler’s.
&
nbsp; It wouldn’t be as easy. He had devoted a good deal of thought and energy to identifying places where nobody other than him would think of searching. But they were there somewhere, she had no doubt whatsoever. She started with the most obvious spots, such as behind the books on the shelf, on the underside of the desk, inside the ventilation grate in the bathroom and in the binders behind the pasted-in newspaper clippings. But she didn’t find anything, not even in the water tank in the toilet.
It was only once she opened the door to the broom closet that she got her first bite, written in faded red ink on the underside of the loose linoleum mat: Högdalen Corridor D 6895. To her own great surprise, she knew immediately what it was because she’d also had one for many years. It had started as a temporary solution following her separation from Gert-Ove, but a few years ago she had reluctantly accepted that it was something she would be forced to pay dearly for every month for the rest of her life. Hers, however, was in Solna not in Högdalen.
She searched the information on her phone and immediately got a hit. It was not only accessible by car and had a large covered unloading area, but also had twenty-four-hour access.
49
IT HADN’T TAKEN DUNJA Hougaard much more than five minutes to navigate her way through the pedestrian and bike tunnels to the Statoil station where she could rent a car. No GPS was available, so she bought a road map of Skåne, some chocolate bars and two bottles of Christmas sweet cider, which she understood was as Swedish as surströmming. Sales of Coke dramatically decreased in the country every year around Christmas.
The Ninth Grave Page 20
