She sat, shrunken and defeated, with her feet as far from each other as the chain would allow. Her dress had hiked up, revealing that she had no panties on, and her long, golden-brown hair hung down and covered parts of her face. The syringe was still in the crook of one arm, evidence of how right he’d been.
Jarmo had maintained that there wasn’t anywhere for her to flee, but that’s exactly what she had done. Fabian had managed to prevent the first attempt, but this time she’d made it all the way, and now she was so far gone that no one would ever be able to arrest her and bring her to justice.
The others came in one by one and looked over his shoulder, asking the expected questions. He nodded, but neither Tomas nor Jarmo seemed to trust him. Instead they squeezed past him and determined that the body was still warm, so they started searching for her pulse and checked her breathing. Convinced of what they would discover, he turned his back to them and went over to the plastic-covered table under the powerful lamp where Sofie Leander was strapped down in her bloody hospital gown.
A feeding tube was taped to her mouth. One arm was connected to a drip and the other to a droning dialysis machine. Her dirty hair was plastered to her sweaty forehead. Other than the dark circles under the closed eyes, her face was as pale as a porcelain doll. If it hadn’t been for the barely perceptible movement of her chest and the weak taps against his fingertips, he would have assumed they’d arrived too late.
‘What do we know about her?’ Jarmo stood beside him at the table.
‘So far nothing other than that her name is Sofie Leander and that she’s had her kidney, which she purchased illegally, removed.’ Fabian carefully lifted the hospital gown. Based on the blood on the bandage that was wrapped around her waist several times, the wound likely extended from the inside of the hip all the way up along the one side. ‘But Niva is working on it and—’
He was interrupted by the ping of his cell phone. He looked at the screen, but could not help wondering whether she was eavesdropping on him somehow. ‘Speak of the devil,’ he continued, quickly reading the text message: ‘She was born in 1969 and was on the waiting list for a transplant from 1993 to 1998. Somewhere during that time, she must have gone off the waiting list and left Sweden to settle in Israel. She only returned last summer with her husband, Ezra Leander. Her contact with the Swedish healthcare system ever since has solely been for her amenorrhoea, her ovaries, or general gynaecological visits.’
‘What’s amenorrhoea?’ said Tomas.
‘Absence of menstruation,’ said one of the paramedics, who was on his way in with his partner.
‘Maybe she wanted to get pregnant,’ said Jarmo, taking a step to the side to make room for them to come and examine her.
But Fabian didn’t answer. Instead he repeated the name ‘Ezra’ to himself while he stared at the screen and read the message again.
‘Fabian, what’s going on?’ asked Jarmo at last, and Fabian looked up.
‘She’s married to… her husband… is Gidon Hass.’
‘Gidon Hass? How can you know that?’
‘Ezra is his middle name. It can’t be a coincidence.’
‘What are you trying to say?’ said Tomas. ‘That she’s married to that transplant expert?’
Fabian nodded. The revelation, and what it all meant, made him feel sick.
‘Okay, so he arranges a new kidney for his wife,’ said Jarmo, who still appeared to be struggling to understand how this fit ted together.
‘Unless that’s how they met,’ said Tomas.
‘But there’s one thing I don’t understand,’ said Jarmo. ‘She must have been here a long time, maybe for several weeks. If she’s married to Hass, surely he must have missed her, and been fully aware of what she’d been subjected to.’
‘You’re wondering why he didn’t report her missing,’ said Fabian.
Jarmo nodded.
‘He probably didn’t want to risk the truth coming out.’ Fabian lowered his eyes towards the unconscious woman strapped down between them.
‘So he sacrifices his own wife instead,’ said Tomas. ‘What a fucking swine.’
‘Is it okay if we take her out now?’
Fabian nodded and helped cut away the straps and disconnect the feeding tube, the drip, and the dialysis machine. Then the paramedics moved her over to the stretcher and disappeared through the opening.
‘I don’t know what the rest of you think,’ said Tomas. ‘But if she’s not in immediate danger, shouldn’t we leave and bring in that asshole right away?’
‘Wait a minute,’ said Fabian, scanning the compartment, without knowing exactly what he was looking for. He wasn’t ready to leave – not yet.
The reason was Malin Rehnberg.
Aisha Shahin had promised to tell him where she was. Let’s wait with her. Malin is probably still sleeping, and as long as she continues to do so, she’s in no danger, she had said, and he’d trusted her.
Now he was stuck, without so much as a clue as to how he would find her, assuming Shahin hadn’t left any clues behind. Maybe there was a key to a third compartment? He started searching more thoroughly under the plastic-covered tables, among the hoses that led down into various buckets and containers, through the surgical tools and the rolls of gauze bandages, and in the piles of documents that described every step of the operation in detail.
‘Fabian, excuse me, but what the hell are you doing? Are we going to leave?’
‘Soon, I’m just going to—’ Fabian crouched down in front of Shahin and opened her hands.
‘I’m just going to what? How big a head start should we give him?’
‘Tomas is right,’ said Jarmo. ‘There’s no reason to—’
‘Dammit! Can’t you shut up so I can concentrate?’ Fabian shouted, taking a few deep breaths while sensing that Tomas and Jarmo were exchanging glances behind him. He rolled the body over and felt below her with his hand, but he couldn’t find anything there either.
He had searched everywhere and couldn’t think of a single place that he hadn’t looked in. Yet he couldn’t make himself leave the compartment. There was something that didn’t add up; something that irritated all his senses and was making his body itch; something that made him feel completely duped.
The missing piece was a brown stain on the back of the foot shackle by her right ankle. Suddenly, everything fell into place: the suicide attempt in the washroom and her controlled calm. How could they have missed it? Had they been that stressed? He turned to Tomas and Jarmo, who were sighing impatiently.
‘It’s not her.’
‘What do you mean, “not her”?’ Tomas said sceptically.
‘What in the hell are you saying?’ said Jarmo, hurrying up behind them.
‘She’s changed places with her victim, that’s why she brought us here,’ Fabian continued. ‘See for yourselves.’ He drew his fingernail over the brown shin so that the white skin below emerged. ‘It’s just brown cream. And this…’ He took hold of the long, golden-brown hair and tore it loose from Sofie Leander’s close-cropped head.
109
THE WINDSHIELD WIPERS WERE working at top speed, but could not sweep away the snowflakes, which were as big as crushed coconut balls, fast enough. The paramedics hadn’t been in Shurgard for longer than forty-five minutes, and the roads were already completely snow-covered. If the snow kept up like this, thought Måns, it was doubtful that they would make it to Stockholm South General Hospital at all.
Although it was his turn to sit behind the wheel, they were both aware that Stefan was a much better driver, so he didn’t protest when Stefan got into the driver’s seat. Driving in the dark was one of his least favourite things, especially when the weather was so bad that it was impossible to turn on the headlights without being blinded by all the snow
They hadn’t said a word since they got into the ambulance, which was probably a first in the almost five years they’d worked together. They usually talked about everything under the sun or listened to the radio
and made snide comments about the music.
Most of the time they agreed on what they liked, except when something by Coldplay was on. Personally, he thought they were the greatest, but for some reason Stefan couldn’t stand them and always insisted on changing stations or pointedly turning the radio off.
He’d confronted him once and got a long explanation about the guitarist Jonny Buckland’s shortcomings when it came to Chris Martin’s song writing. After that Stefan started to rattle off a long list of guitarists who did meet his expectations. Somewhere between John Frusciante and Jonny Greenwood he’d decided never to ask again.
But now they weren’t even listening to the radio.
To a certain extent, it was probably due to the weather. But that wasn’t the whole truth. It wasn’t the first time they’d visited a homicide scene and seen a dead person. They’d seen much worse than what was inside the storage compartment.
No, it was something else. He had a strong but nagging worry that was creeping under his skin, and he was sure Stefan felt the exact same way. He’d seen it in the policemen’s eyes, especially in those of one of them.
There was something about this case that didn’t add up.
Suddenly they heard a bang, as if something in the back had fallen to the floor, something hard, metallic. He turned to Stefan, who met his gaze.
‘Did you hear what I heard?’ he said, and Stefan nodded.
‘Should we stop and check it out?’ said Stefan.
‘Maybe we should just try to get there as soon as possible.’ He wanted nothing more than to drop off the unconscious woman in the back and finish his shift.
Then they heard it again. The same metallic bang that echoed throughout the vehicle. This time Stefan slowed down, put on the hazard lights and stopped by the side of the road on Huddingevägen.
He sighed in protest before he pulled on his hat, opened the door and jumped down into the snow. He left the door open so that Stefan would feel the biting cold too, and walked along the side of the ambulance while he considered the source of the noise. Maybe one of the doors hadn’t been properly closed or it was a punctured tyre.
But there was nothing to suggest that either of those things had occurred. Everything looked exactly as it should. Then he heard another sound. This time it wasn’t a bang, but more of a scraping, almost like someone was moving inside. He must have heard wrong. The victim was unconscious and strapped down. But clearly something in there was making a sound.
He put his hand on the ice-cold door handle, and immediately regretted his decision not to put on gloves. Then he opened the doors and climbed into the ambulance. He turned on the overheard light, and could see that the woman was lying on the stretcher and appeared to be sleeping just as deeply as when they found her in the storage unit.
The only things that didn’t look right were the straps. The one over her legs looked loose and the two that were supposed to be over her body were hanging down with their buckles on the floor. This might explain the two bangs, but it certainly wouldn’t explain the scraping sound. He gazed over the tools and instruments that filled the walls, but could see nothing that deviated from the norm. One of the emergency bags was hanging a little crooked and wasn’t completely closed, but that was the only thing that was remotely off.
He looked at the woman again and tried to understand what had happened – if anything at all. At last he gave up with a sigh, leaned over to pick up the strap and tightened it across her hips. When he was done he straightened her hospital gown and accidentally grazed the inside of her thigh.
It might have been the soft, warm skin or simply the fact that no one would notice anything anyway. Maybe it was the heat of the moment. But something made him carefully lift the gown and look under it.
She had no panties on, which he hadn’t expected. Actually he didn’t really know what he’d anticipated. Although he did think it should be hairy and bushy. After all, she’d been strapped down in that compartment for some time. But it wasn’t. She could have removed all her hair permanently with one of those laser treatments.
He dismissed his forbidden thoughts and pulled the gown down again. Suddenly he noticed what was in her left hand – the syringe that explained everything. It accounted for the unclosed emergency bag and why the straps had come loose. It even explained her shaved vagina.
Unfortunately, much too late.
110
THE SNOW WHIRLED AROUND the snowploughs with yellow flashing lights that inched along three abreast, making it impossible to pass them. In truth, it didn’t really bother Fabian that much. He was driving aimlessly towards the city so that he could be alone.
The revelation that it was Sofie Leander and not Aisha Shahin lying dead on the floor of the storage unit had come as a shock not just to him, but to Tomas and Jarmo as well. Keeping your victim alive for weeks simply to ensure that her body would be still warm when it was discovered was so calculated that even Tomas had been on the verge of collapse and kept repeating that this was absolutely the worst thing he’d ever seen.
It took several minutes before they were able to talk more or less sensibly with each other. After a number of failed attempts to get in contact with the ambulance they agreed to split up. Tomas and Jarmo would make their way as quickly as possible to Stockholm South General Hospital and try to find out what happened to the ambulance, and Fabian would go home and continue working with Niva from there.
But what would he do at home? If he needed to talk to Niva he could just call her. And as soon as Tomas and Jarmo arrived at the hospital his phone would almost certainly light up, he thought, only realizing now that he and the three vehicles in front of him were on their way up Västerbron. At this speed it would take several minutes before they were completely across. He decided to defy the no-stopping rule, turned on his hazard lights and lowered the seat.
After Shahin’s suicide attempt in the washroom he’d been convinced that death was her escape route. He’d wrongly assumed that she had nothing left to live for now that she was finished with her revenge. But it had only been an act to trigger that exact response. He thought about the text on the gravestone, framed on the altar in Aisha’s apartment, and realized that the answer had been right in front of him this whole time.
Never again will I love another
Never again will my heart beat for any other
You and no other
As long as I love, and on into eternity
Soon you’ll be whole again, and I will be too
Then we’ll meet again
My promise to you
He knew it by heart and repeated the third last line out loud to himself: Soon you’ll be whole again, and I will be too.
She wasn’t finished yet. The organs may have been collected, but it wasn’t until they had become part of his body once again that he, and by extension she, too, could be whole. She was on her way to his grave.
But where was it? Was she planning on flying out of the country? And in that case under what name? Or was she already on board one of the ferries to the Baltic countries? Perhaps she would try fleeing north across the Finnish border. The possibilities were endless. She’d fooled him not just once, but several times over.
The same thing had happened with Malin Rehnberg. He’d counted on the fact that she would tell him before it was too late. Now he no longer knew what to believe. Malin is probably still sleeping, and as long as she continues to do so, she’s in no danger, she had said. But what would happen when she woke up?
His cell phone started to ring and he quickly picked up.
‘Jarmo here. The ambulance never made it to the hospital.’
‘And what happened to the paramedics?’
‘The only thing we know is that they’re missing. But the vehicle is equipped with GPS, so Niva is already working on tracking it down. Where are you, by the way? Niva said—’
‘I don’t have time to explain.’ Fabian hung up, put the seat back and called Niva.
‘What a
re you doing up on Västerbron? Something exciting, or are you just stuck in the snow?’
‘Don’t you have an ambulance to locate?’
‘What says that one thing cancels out the other?’
‘Because time is something we don’t have right now.’
‘It’s on Pontonjärgatan 10.’
‘Pontonjärgatan. Isn’t that close to Hantverkargatan?’ It was only a few minutes from where he was, so he immediately turned off his hazard lights and shifted into gear.
‘Yes, it looks like she’s back at Black Cat. Wait a second—’
‘What?’
‘Let me just check something… Yes, it’s true.’
‘What?’
‘Malin Rehnberg’s cell phone just turned on again and it’s in exactly the same spot.’
Fabian hung up and immediately called Malin’s phone as he tried to keep one eye on the road.
‘Hi, Fabian. That was quick.’
He hadn’t held out any hope that Malin would answer, yet still he felt the disappointment spreading like poison through his body when he heard Aisha’s voice. ‘What have you done with her?’
‘Is it that Niva again?’
‘You promised, and I trusted you.’
‘Who you choose to trust is completely your responsibility. Besides, I didn’t say anything except that she could wait.’
‘Wait? How long will that take? She’s in her last trimester, dammit!’
‘Until I’m sure that you will leave me alone.’
He turned right on the exit ramp at the end of the bridge and continued around Rålambshovsparken on to Rålambshovsleden east. It wasn’t far now. In only a minute or two he would be there. ‘And what makes you think I’m ever going to do that?’
‘I’m not the only one who made a promise.’
She must have heard his conversation with Anders at the hospital. How many cameras had she actually planted? ‘And what happens when she wakes up?’ He turned left on to Polhemsgatan. ‘You said there was no danger as long as she was asleep.’ He didn’t expect a response. The important thing was just to make the time pass.
The Ninth Grave Page 44
