Okay? Was that all he had to say? ‘What are your thoughts about that? You weren’t exactly enthusiastic about him examining the body again; luckily I stuck to my guns.’ She regretted saying the last part, but it was too late now.
Hesk shrugged. ‘As far as I can tell, it doesn’t argue for or against Willumsen.’
‘No?’
‘No, I wouldn’t describe it as a significant finding.’
‘He didn’t take any organs from a single one of his previous victims.’ Dunja took a step towards him. ‘Yes, he has raped, tortured and mutilated people, but the bodies were all found intact. Right now, we have a kidney missing from one victim and a lung from another. How the hell can you stand there and say this isn’t a significant discovery?’
‘It just means that he doesn’t repeat himself, which, in my understanding, was his thing. He used to let the dog rip his victims apart, now he takes a trophy from them. Next time maybe he’ll grind them up and use them as fertilizer on his lawn.’ Hesk laughed and finished his coffee.
Dunja knew that she shouldn’t take his bait, but she couldn’t help it.
‘I don’t think there’s any point in letting him continue down there much longer,’ Richter shouted, and Dunja turned around. ‘The car is evidently completely clean!’
‘What a surprise,’ said Hesk, shaking his head.
‘Just make sure he gets the licence plate number!’
‘He already has: HXN 674. It’s Swedish, just as we suspected.’
Dunja did a thumbs up and forced a smile. Then she turned to Hesk and dropped the act. ‘You’re not taking this seriously at all, are you? This is just a game for you.’
Hesk shook his head.
‘Admit it! You’re like a bitter old bitch putting all your energy into working against me. You don’t seem to care that there’s a perpetrator still on the loose.’
‘No, Dunja, it’s not that way at all.’
‘No? So how many more victims will it take for you to wake up? Three? Ten?’
‘None, actually. There won’t be any more victims because someone punctured both his lungs and heart.’
‘But that’s not—’
‘Dunja! It was him, okay? No one – and by that I mean no one – in the whole fucking department believes in your ghost, except for you, of course! Everyone else is convinced that it was Willumsen. The only reason we’re standing here freezing our asses off is because Sleizner thinks you’re sexy and wants to screw you.’
Dunja didn’t understand what’d she’d done until she’d heard the sound, but it was already too late to undo it. It came out of nowhere with almost infinite acceleration and surprised her as much as Hesk.
But that wasn’t the worst part.
Her palm against his cheek.
The circulating blood that made it turn red.
The look that said everything.
The worst part was that he was right.
77
MALIN REHNBERG TURNED FROM one side to the other. It was a movement that normally wouldn’t take more than a second or so, but with her very pregnant, pre-eclamptic belly from hell it took at least a minute and a half. She didn’t know how many times she’d turned over, other than it was a depressing amount. She couldn’t lie still for more than five minutes before she started imagining festering bedsores and maggots, and had to turn her carcass over once again.
But she couldn’t complain about the new room that Fabian had insisted she be moved to. In many ways it was much better than the first one. Not only was it newly renovated with framed pictures, curtains and a TV, which, admittedly, wasn’t plugged in, but it was a single room so she didn’t have to share the toilet with anyone else – one of her absolute least favourite things on earth. She never went to the washroom at work, even after she was afflicted with acute pregnancy incontinence. If she could have had her way, she would have her own washroom, just like Ingmar Bergman had demanded.
The problem was that she was bored. She’d been woken to have her blood pressure checked at four o’clock and been lying awake ever since. Now, almost three hours later, she was so bored that she was unsure whether she could survive another five uneventful minutes. She could already picture the headline.
Pregnant Detective Inspector Dies of Boredom
It would have been so much better if she could at least go home. There shouldn’t be any reason why she couldn’t lie at home with a drip and take her blood pressure herself every two hours.
‘My love,’ she got a kiss on the forehead. ‘I’m here now.’
She looked at the man above her and realized that it was her husband, Anders. She must have fallen asleep. ‘What time is it?’
‘Almost eight thirty. How are you doing? Were you okay last night?’ He sat down on the edge of the bed.
‘Let’s talk about something else instead. Did you bring the stuff I asked for?’
Anders held up her computer bag. ‘I’ll give it to you on one condition: you don’t start working.’
‘Yep, sure. Give it to me now.’ She reached for the bag, but he held it away.
‘My love, I’m serious. I spoke with the doctor yesterday, and he said that—’
‘Anders, the investigation is over. I’m not going to work, I promise. I just want to read a few newspapers and Skype with Mum.’
He reluctantly set the computer bag down beside the bed. ‘And has that Fabian been here to visit?’
‘That Fabian?’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t understand what you have against him. And, no, he hasn’t been here. But if he had stopped by it would have been to see how I’m doing, not to work.’ She met his sceptical gaze. ‘Yes, that’s actually how it is, so you can calm down.’
‘I can’t be calm until this is over.’ He placed his hand on her stomach. ‘And according to the doctor it’s very important that you—’
‘Rest. Anders, I know. All I’m doing is resting. I’ve rested so much that I’m tired of resting! By the way, don’t you have to leave now?’
‘Yes.’ He looked at his watch and got up. ‘But—’
‘See you later.’
‘Okay. Try to take it easy now, so—’
‘Bye-bye, honey.’ She waved to him, while he backed towards the door and left.
Malin was desperate to pull the bag up into the bed and get started immediately, but she knew her husband too well and waited until he had ‘surprised’ her by sticking his head in one last time before she tore out the computer, turned it on and connected her cell phone to a hotspot.
Finally, she could start working.
78
FABIAN SCRAPED THE LAST of the ice from the windshield, got in the car and waited for the engine to heat up. In the meantime, he tried to shake off the feeling that he was falling further and further down a steep hill. He had tried to unwind by taking a two-hour walk around Södermalm with The Cure’s Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me in his headphones, but it hadn’t worked.
It felt like no matter what he did, everything was slipping out of his hands. At least Sonja seemed less agitated and had taken both of the kids out to stay with her sister Lisen on Värmdö where they would all celebrate Christmas in three days.
There was nothing Matilda liked more than going to see her cousins and her aunt, who was always at home and made sure there were freshly baked rolls and things to do. Fabian was sure that even if Matilda wouldn’t admit it, she wanted nothing more than to exchange him and Sonja for Roland and Lisen.
Roland seemed to earn loads of money from his various companies, and Lisen had decided to give up her legal career to become a stay-at-home mum. No wonder the kids liked it. Even Theodor had gone along without protest. Everyone was there getting ready for Christmas, wrapping presents and hunting for a tree out in the forest.
Everyone except him. And he’d promised himself that he would never be a parent without time or energy who felt relief as soon as the kids were somewhere else and someone else’s responsibility. He lowered the sun visor, opened the cover for
the mirror and noted that he looked like one of those parents too.
On all levels he’d become like his father.
Sonja had given it a lot of consideration and decided that they should go their separate ways. She thought they both deserved something better than this seemingly never-ending rough patch. But he’d seen in her eyes that she didn’t really mean it. He could tell that she wanted him to step up and convince her that they still had a future.
But his pockets were empty of reasons, and even though he’d lain awake almost all night and walked all the way around Södermalm, he still didn’t know where he stood – where Sonja or Herman Edelman were concerned.
He had no idea how he could get his boss to agree to open up the investigation again without revealing too much. The only thing he was sure of was that he was in one of the most complex homicide investigations of his life with a perpetrator that everyone thought was identified and dead, but who was still at large, and did not show any signs of being finished.
*
PHOTOGRAPHS TAKEN BY A long-range lens were distributed around the table; they showed a dozen scantily clad women with shifting, worried gazes being dragged out of a truck and shoved in through a grey back door.
‘These images were taken a little over two months ago outside the Black Cat. What you see here is a so-called “goods delivery” during which the women go through an initial screening,’ Markus Höglund reported, and Jarmo Päivinen, Tomas Persson and Herman Edelman all nodded around the table.
‘Does anyone know if Risk is on his way in?’ asked Inger Carlén, who was standing beside Höglund and blowing her nose into a handkerchief that appeared to have passed its prime long ago.
‘No, get started now,’ said Edelman. ‘I don’t have all day.’
‘All right,’ said Carlén, suppressing a sneeze.
‘Our sources tell us that the women are brought up on to a stage inside the club one by one where Diego Arcas “examines” each of them personally and decides which brothels they’ll be taken to,’ Höglund continued, taking the last Danish cookie from the tin.
‘Examined how?’ Tomas asked, even though he looked as if he already knew the answer.
‘For understandable reasons we haven’t been there and seen it with our own eyes,’ said Carlén, ‘but I’m pretty sure even you would feel sick if you saw it.’
‘We’ve received information that another delivery should be coming any day now.’ Höglund rinsed down the cookie with coffee. ‘And that’s when we’ll strike.’
‘So you don’t know when exactly?’ said Edelman, pulling on his beard.
‘No, other than it will definitely be within the next few days. As of now, we’ll have to work in shifts and have the response team ready.’
‘Okay.’ Edelman nodded. ‘I’ll let them know. How many officers do you need?’
‘At least thirty-five,’ said Carlén.
‘Thirty-five?’ Edelman looked up from his phone.
‘We want to strike the club and the small brothels simultaneously,’ said Höglund, just as Fabian opened the door and entered the room.
‘Fabian.’ Edelman turned towards him. ‘We were just wondering where you were. Has something happened?’
‘Do you have time to talk?’ said Fabian without looking at the others. ‘Preferably right away.’
*
‘WHAT’S GOING ON?’ ASKED Edelman, closing the door behind him.
Fabian looked at him. He had hoped to start calmly and cushion his request with other news, but his late entry to the morning meeting had already ruined any such possibility. ‘We have to reopen the investigation on Grimås and Fischer.’
Edelman looked as if he’d misheard him and took off his small round eyeglasses. ‘And what makes you believe that? Sit down.’
‘Herman, we’ve been on the wrong track. Ossian Kremph was nothing more than a decoy to lead us in the wrong direction,’ Fabian said, sitting down on the worn leather couch.
‘Do you think in all seriousness that Kremph is innocent?’
‘And that the perpetrator is still loose. Yes, that’s exactly what I believe.’
Edelman laughed, shook his head and took two beers out of the refrigerator, holding one up enquiringly.
‘No, thanks. I’m fine,’ said Fabian, even though it was just what he needed.
‘I see. Well, speak up if you change your mind.’ Herman opened one bottle, emptied it into a glass and sat down in the reading chair by the window. ‘Fabian, this theory has come out of the blue. You know I think you’re a good investigator – one of the best.’ He sipped his beer, took out his pipe and started packing it. ‘But to be completely frank, it sounds like you’ve lost your bearings.’
Fabian let him light the pipe and fill his lungs with the silver-coloured smoke before he continued. ‘Do you remember that woman on the bus? The one whose eyes were cut out in all the pictures.’
‘Yes, she was a possible victim.’
‘Exactly. And now I suspect that she’s dead.’
Edelman nodded and drank some beer with a sense of calm that was the opposite of what Fabian had expected.
‘That is to say, I’m fairly convinced that she’s dead,’ he added, feeling that the whole conversation was about to derail.
‘You’re quite right about that.’ Edelman treated him to a satisfied smile. ‘Because dead is exactly what she is.’
‘What do you mean, have you found her?’ This wasn’t going remotely as planned. Instead of Edelman being surprised and unsettled, Fabian was the one who had to struggle with his balance.
‘Her name is Semira Ackerman. The captain of the commuter ferry between Södermalm and Hammarby Sjöstad sounded the alarm last night, after discovering her floating between the blocks of ice. Evidently she decided to walk across the ice.’
‘Who could possibly be so stupid as to try to walk over the ice there? That’s right across the channel.’
‘Maybe she wasn’t planning on crossing, but just went out to have a little look, and unfortunately it ended badly.’ Edelman shrugged and puffed on his pipe. ‘It actually happens every other day this time of year. See for yourself – there’s a photo on the desk.’
Fabian went over to the desk and picked up the image of the frozen woman being pulled up on deck. It was definitely the same woman, but this was no accident. At least now he had an explanation for the tub of brackish water.
‘Fabian, how are you doing, really? You look very, how should I say—’
‘Last night I searched through Kremph’s apartment one more time,’ Fabian interrupted him. ‘And I found, among other things, a passageway that led directly over to the condemned apartment, which explains a good deal. And in—’
‘Yes, that was probably his way of getting out to—’
‘No, it was the perpetrator’s way of getting in to his place.’
‘And why would anyone want to—’
‘To replace his medication with placebos. Herman, he’s had Kremph under constant surveillance. In one of the books on the shelf…’ Fabian stopped himself. He was about to lose control and say too much. He took a deep breath. ‘Who is examining her in forensics? Thåström?’
‘No, she doesn’t do accidents. Fabian, her lungs were filled with water. It’s no more complicated than that. I don’t understand where you want to go with all this information. You think Kremph is innocent and that there might be someone else who… You’ll have to excuse me, but it sounds bizarre.’ Edelman sighed out the smoke.
‘So you don’t believe me?’
‘It’s not about what I believe. Every piece of evidence in this investigation, including the motive, points to Kremph – even that passageway you’re talking about. You don’t seem to have had a wink of sleep this whole week and then you stomp in here and maintain his innocence. I’m sure you understand that if I’m going to cast off the previous conclusion, I’ll have to have something more specific from you.’
‘Herman. The table was wet when I w
ent into the condemned apartment. It was still dripping. Someone had just been there, and everything indicates it was where Semira drowned.’
‘And what makes you so sure that it wasn’t just some homeless person who dragged a lot of snow in and took a nap in a warm place?’
‘Who also set a tub there and filled it with brackish water? I don’t think so. And as far as this investigation is concerned, I’m convinced that there’s sufficient evidence to support my theory. The problem is that it’s missing.’
‘What do you mean, “missing”?’ For the first time during the meeting, Edelman looked sincerely surprised.
‘Someone must have been here over the weekend and tidied up.’
‘The investigation is over and because there’s no talk of a trial, it must have been sent to the archives.’ Edelman walked over to the desk and woke up his computer with his mouse.
‘Not from what I could see. But perhaps you have another good explanation?’
‘Excuse me?’ Edelman met Fabian’s gaze.
For the past few hours Fabian had been convinced that his boss knew considerably more than he let on. But now he suddenly felt uncertain. Perhaps Edelman still believed that Kremph was behind it all. Before he could go on, he had no choice but to paint his old mentor into a corner.
‘Here it is, just as I thought.’ Edelman looked up from the screen.
‘What do you mean, you found a file number?’
‘0912–305/H152 Scope: 0.4 shelf metres.’
‘Oh, right,’ said Fabian, without disclosing that there hadn’t been a number assigned to it last night. ‘I probably couldn’t find it because I was too tired. Actually, maybe I should have that beer.’
‘Please do, but you’ll have to drink it up quick. I’m on my way to a budget meeting with Crimson.’ Edelman turned off the computer and stuffed a few sticks of gum in his mouth, while Fabian opened the beer and drank.
‘You’re probably right. I’m likely just a little overworked.’
‘Not that I’ve ever celebrated it,’ Edelman adjusted his tie in front of a mirror, ‘but I think the whole department is going to benefit from a little Christmas and time off.’
The Ninth Grave Page 32
