In the Heat of the Moment (Sandhamn Murders Book 5)

by Viveca Sten

  Walking along the shore was hard work, and after only a few steps, Thomas had sand in his shoes. However, they soon reached the spot.

  A large area had been cordoned off; the blue-and-white police tape was looped around a series of tree trunks, enclosing an area of a few hundred square yards. A child’s abandoned orange life jacket lay in the shadow of a pine, making Thomas think of Elin.

  Life and death, side by side.

  The helicopter had already taken off again and was now no more than a small dot in the sky on its way back to the mainland.

  Thomas and Sturup ducked under the tape and joined Staffan Nilsson, who was standing in front of a flourishing alder. He was holding a camera; the other technician was busy examining the area.

  “Morning,” Nilsson said. “Shall we take a look?”

  CHAPTER 21

  When Nora heard the front door open, she hurried into the hallway. Jonas was standing there with his head down, and she went over and gave him a big hug. They remained there for a little while in silence. Then she let go and stepped back.

  “Have you found her?” she asked, even though she already knew the answer.

  “No.”

  He took off his jacket, went out onto the veranda, and sat down in one of the wicker chairs. Suddenly he slammed his fist into the arm of the chair. “Where the hell is she?” he yelled.

  Nora reached out and stroked his cheek. “I’m sure she’ll be back soon,” she murmured, without a shred of conviction.

  “I have to call Margot,” Jonas said gloomily. “She’ll go crazy.” He sighed. “Have you gotten any sleep?” he went on, reaching for Nora. He pulled her close, and she perched on the armrest and leaned her head against his. Jonas’s light-brown hair was slightly damp and smelled of the sea.

  Nora shook her head. “I had a little rest on the sofa, that’s all. It’s not easy to switch off.”

  She pointed to the jetty where the Buster lay, tugging at its moorings as the swell from the morning’s first ferry came rolling in. “Thomas is here. That’s his boat.”

  “Thomas is here?” Jonas straightened up. “Why?”

  He reacted exactly as she had done earlier. The anxiety was only just below the surface.

  “I don’t know,” she whispered. “He didn’t say.” She glanced at the clock—almost seven thirty. Less than an hour had passed since she spoke to Thomas. Jonas shifted around, as if the nervous energy made it impossible for him to sit still.

  “I asked if he’d heard anything about Wilma,” Nora went on, “but he didn’t even know she was missing. He promised to keep in touch.”

  “Do you know when he’s coming back?”

  “No.”

  Jonas got up and went over to the window. He stared at Thomas’s boat without speaking. Nora went and stood behind him; she wrapped her arms around his waist and gently nuzzled the back of his neck.

  “Why don’t you try and get some sleep? You’ve been out all night. You must be exhausted.”

  “I don’t know if I can.”

  “Well, how about something to eat then? A cheese sandwich?”

  “That would be good.”

  Jonas shook himself. Then he said quietly, as if he were speaking to himself and didn’t care whether Nora heard him or not, “That goddamn kid.”

  CHAPTER 22

  Pernilla read the note Thomas had left on the kitchen table.

  Something’s happened on Sandhamn, will call you when I know more.

  The untidy scrawl made her smile. It was terrible, bordering on illegible, but over the years, she had learned to interpret it.

  Something on Sandhamn, what could that mean? Admittedly Thomas had been on call over the weekend, but so far, he hadn’t been contacted, against all odds. They had spent a lovely Midsummer together on Harö.

  Elin had gone back to sleep after her morning feed, and Pernilla was enjoying the peace. Every moment with Elin was precious, but Pernilla was only too well aware that she wasn’t a young mom. She would be forty-one in November, and the sleepless nights took their toll. Thomas did his best to help, but she was the one with the food supply.

  The chance to sit down and take time for herself was something she longed for, even though she hardly dared admit it. Having that desire felt like a betrayal of both Elin and Emily.

  She switched on the coffee machine and took a mug out of one of the old-fashioned cupboards. The summer cottage was a converted barn on a piece of land that had been part of the property belonging to Thomas’s parents. A few years ago, when they had been designing the conversion, the open-floor layout with the spacious loft bedroom and views over the water had seemed perfect.

  Now, with a small baby, it was clear that they were going to have to come up with a way to make proper bedrooms for themselves and Elin.

  Pernilla heard the coffee start dripping into the pot and took a carton of milk out of the refrigerator.

  During the difficult years, when she and Thomas had been driven apart by their grief for Emily, she hadn’t allowed herself to think about the house on Harö. They had spent the best of times here, and when the divorce went through, she decided she would never come to Harö again. Nor to Sandhamn—it was too close. Her heart ached every time she heard the name of the place.

  Thomas had kept the summer cottage, and Pernilla had taken the apartment in Stockholm. It had been a natural division, and neither of them had wanted to prolong the painful process by arguing about possessions. She had rented out the apartment and moved to a new job as project leader with an advertising agency in Gothenburg.

  The dark memories were still close to the surface, but she and Thomas had somehow managed to find their way back to each other. They had Elin, and Pernilla was determined not to let the past take over. When she had told Thomas she was pregnant, he had found it hard to process the information. Emily had been the product of several years of fruitless attempts and IVF treatments. After that, the possibility of Pernilla getting pregnant naturally hadn’t occurred to either of them.

  Pernilla had been very conscious of how long it had taken Thomas to fully grasp what had happened. It hadn’t been until the midwife held out Elin, with her crumpled face and her eyes shut tight, that he had dared to show for the first time how happy he really was.

  A sound from the crib sent Pernilla hurrying over to her daughter. Elin was lying there with her eyes open, smiling and showing her toothless pink gums. Pernilla picked her up and nuzzled the baby’s soft skin.

  “Nothing bad will happen to you,” she murmured. “Nothing bad will ever happen to you, I swear.”

  CHAPTER 23

  Thomas waited while Staffan Nilsson gently pushed aside the vegetation that had been used to conceal the body.

  The alder in front of them, with its thick, spreading branches, was just a few yards from the water. The ground beneath it was overgrown with lush plant life, and it was surrounded by tall loosestrife with unopened buds at the top of its stems and bright pink flowers lower down.

  Nilsson stepped aside so that Thomas could see more clearly.

  The body was lying on its back, with the head partly turned away and one cheek pressed down into the ground. One elbow was at an unnatural angle, as if someone had tried to compress the deceased as much as possible.

  Flies were buzzing around in the morning mist, and several had landed on the corpse. Thomas could see them using their spindly legs to pick their way through the congealed blood.

  Nilsson studied the body. Both he and Thomas were wearing plastic gloves.

  “I’d put the age at somewhere between fifteen and eighteen,” he said. “Not much more than a child. Terrible.”

  Thomas let his gaze travel slowly over toward a long picket fence running down to the water. On the other side were several gray wooden buildings, the largest with its shutters closed, as if it had stood empty over the Midsummer weekend. There was no sign of movement in the yard, no one curious to find out what was going on.

  Thomas hoped someone
had been there overnight; they needed all the witnesses they could find.

  Nilsson had finished taking photographs, and he pushed aside the rest of the branches so that the body was fully exposed. He turned the head so that the cheek was no longer resting on the ground.

  “Look,” he said. The blond fringe had flopped back, and a large wound could be seen at the left temple. Something dark had trickled down the cheek, and strands of hair had stuck to the blood.

  The wide-open eyes lacked any kind of human expression.

  It seemed as if she had only just fallen asleep when the phone rang, and when Nora turned to look at the clock, she realized that was indeed the case.

  The display showed twenty past eight; she had slept for thirteen minutes at the most. She was so tired. She glanced at Jonas; he was still sleeping, fortunately. He was even more exhausted than she was, and he needed a few hours’ rest.

  She grabbed the phone. “Wait!” she hissed and hurried down the stairs. “Hello?” she said when she reached the kitchen. The sun was shining from the southeast, and the room was already warm.

  “Nora, what are you doing? Why did you answer the phone in such an extraordinary manner?”

  Monica.

  Of course it was Monica, calling just when Nora was trying to get some sleep before Felicia’s and Ebba’s families came to collect their daughters. Soon Simon would wake up and want to know why there were two strange girls in Wilma’s room.

  It was going to be a long day.

  “Good morning, Monica.”

  “Have you collected the girls? Why haven’t you called to let me know how things are?”

  Nora realized that Monica must have been worried, too, but she’d completely forgotten her ex-mother-in-law over the past few hours. Their relationship was still fractious after the divorce, and Nora tried to avoid her as much as possible so that all the bad memories wouldn’t come flooding back.

  With her right hand, she pushed open a window to let in some fresh air.

  “The girls are asleep upstairs, and I’ve spoken to their parents,” she said. “Everything’s under control out here.”

  “I’m disappointed that you didn’t call me. Don’t you realize I sat up all night, waiting to hear from you?”

  There was an acerbic comment on the tip of Nora’s tongue, but she took a couple of deep breaths and said, “I didn’t mean to upset you. It’s just that it’s all been a bit much.”

  “I’ve just spoken to Henrik, and he can’t understand why you didn’t call me back.”

  The woman had dragged Henrik into this!

  “Monica, I really don’t see what any of this has to do with Henrik. I’m doing my best right now. You’ll just have to trust me.”

  “We’ll be over on the eleven o’clock ferry. It’s the least I can do under the circumstances. I owe it to my dear friends.”

  “You’re coming over?”

  Nora pulled out a white kitchen chair with dried-on stains that spoke to Simon’s fondness for ketchup.

  “Of course. Harald and I are happy to help, and it will be lovely to see Adam and Simon as well. We’re so looking forward to seeing you all. Please don’t go to any trouble. A light lunch with a glass or two of white wine will be perfectly adequate.”

  Nora tried to come up with a pleasant but firm way of stopping her ex-mother-in-law from coming to the island.

  “Listen, Monica, there’s really no need. The girls’ parents will be here in a few hours, and I honestly don’t think that the situation will be improved by you and Harald coming all the way to Sandhamn.”

  “Nonsense, my dear. We’ve already made up our minds. It would be nice if you could meet us from the ferry at twelve.”

  Monica ended the call. Nora closed her eyes and tried in vain to find some sense of inner peace.

  CHAPTER 24

  Thomas crouched down and looked at the dead body.

  “Do you recognize him?” Staffan Nilsson asked.

  “I have no idea who he is.”

  The teenage boy had fair hair and blue eyes. The straight nose was a little red, as if he’d spent too much time in the sun, and he was wearing a beige Lacoste polo shirt. His Bermuda shorts were covered in grass stains, and there was a watch similar to a diver’s watch on his left wrist.

  “Expensive,” Nilsson said, nodding in the direction of the timepiece.

  “Mmm.”

  Thomas straightened up and moved around to get a clearer look. Then he stepped back a yard or so and turned and looked up at the rocks on the other side of the tree, where Nilsson’s colleague Poul Anderberg was meticulously examining the ground. Thomas went over to him.

  “We’ve found a towel with vomit on it,” Anderberg said. “It’s too early to say whether there’s a connection, but it doesn’t smell great, so it’s pretty fresh.”

  “OK.”

  “There is something here,” Anderberg went on, pointing to an isolated stone sticking up out of the ground around eighteen inches from the rocks. It was about thirty inches tall and fifteen inches wide, and the top tapered to a point. Several dark stains could be seen on the gray granite.

  “Is that blood?” Thomas asked.

  “Looks like it.”

  Thomas bent down and peered at the surface. “If the boy fell or was pushed, he could have hit his head on this stone,” he said. “Which might explain the wound on his temple. It’s on the left-hand side, so he must have been standing with his back to the water.”

  Thomas stood in the same position and looked all around. The large gray house was situated diagonally to the left, and in front of him was the pine forest.

  “Then what?” he said pensively. He turned back to Anderberg and answered his own question. “The boy dies, or at least he’s badly injured, possibly knocked unconscious.”

  Thomas took a few steps toward the alder. The vegetation had been flattened, as if someone had dragged something heavy across the ground. The marks stopped exactly where the body lay.

  “So the perpetrator hauls the boy under the tree to hide him.”

  “Seems that way,” Anderberg agreed.

  “Would you hide a body if it was a pure accident?” Thomas pondered out loud. “Surely you’d call for help?”

  “In my opinion, it’s a very slapdash job,” Anderberg said. “It was only a matter of time before the body was discovered. In a couple of days, the plants and leaves used to hide it would have withered, and the camouflage would be gone.”

  “In other words, it wasn’t well planned.”

  “Not particularly.”

  “Which also suggests that the perp was in a hurry,” Thomas said, “both when it came to hiding the body and getting away from here.” Frowning, he studied the ground. “Any chance of securing footprints?”

  “Let’s hope so, but the conditions are far from ideal. I’ll do my best.”

  Nilsson was still on his knees by the body.

  “Thomas, come here a minute,” he shouted. He had moved the body so that the back of the head was now visible. He pointed to another bloody indentation slightly higher up, above the right ear.

  “Several blows,” he said. “The perpetrator made a considerable effort to kill his victim. The wound to the temple wasn’t enough; he hit him with something hard as well.” He took out a magnifying glass and examined the injury. “This isn’t just from that rock. I’d bet a month’s salary on it.”

  “So what do you think it might be?” Thomas asked.

  The forensic technician sounded hesitant. “Hard to say, but presumably a blunt object. Maybe the butt of a gun?”

  Thomas’s gaze fell on the pebbles at the water’s edge. They were everywhere on Sandhamn, in every conceivable size and shape. A lot of people used them in their gardens as ornamental edging. “Could it be an ordinary pebble, a decent-size one?”

  “It’s not impossible.”

  Thomas stared out across the water. “I wonder if he threw it in the sea afterward . . . that’s what I’d have done.”r />
  “In that case, you can ask one of your younger colleagues to take off their shoes and get their feet wet,” Nilsson said. “It wouldn’t do any harm to wade around for a little while. I mean, that’s what visitors do on Sandhamn, isn’t it? Enjoy the fresh air and have a dip in the sea?”

  There was more than a hint of irony in Nilsson’s words, but his expression didn’t change.

  “Any idea of the time of death?” Thomas asked.

  “I’d say ten or twelve hours have passed since he died, maybe more. The body’s cold, but that’s also due to the overnight temperature, as you know.”

  Thomas glanced at his watch: quarter to nine. “So we’re looking at yesterday evening,” he said.

  “Probably, but you’ll have to wait for the autopsy report if you want a more precise time.”

  A small yacht passed by, tacking into the wind. The sail fluttered in the breeze, the sound drifting through the air.

  “Why did he hide his victim here?” Thomas wondered.

  “Maybe he was in a hurry, like you said, if it’s close to the scene of the murder,” Nilsson suggested. “It’s pretty isolated.”

  Thomas turned his head. On the way down, he had passed a group of tents, but now he realized they couldn’t be seen from where he was standing. This spot was well hidden, except from the vacation homes a short distance away. If you wanted to hide a dead body in Skärkarlshamn, there was probably no better place.

  “The simplest option, in other words.”

  “I guess so.”

  Thomas was about to head over to the gray house when Nilsson called to him again. “I’ve found something. Come and take a look.”

  Carefully he eased a cell phone out of the dead boy’s pocket. It was an Ericsson, and not one of the cheaper models.

  “There you go, that should enable you to identify him.”