Anders Knutas 04 - The Killer's Art

by Mari Jungstedt

  ‘Well, it’s possible,’ said Wittberg. ‘Provided it wasn’t the wife, of course.’

  ‘Or both of them,’ growled Sohlman in a ghoulish voice, holding up his hands like a vampire ready to attack.

  Knutas stood up abruptly. Sometimes all the wild speculating that went on got on his nerves.

  ‘The meeting is adjourned,’ he said and left the room.

  Between interviews, Johan and Pia stopped by the Regional News office to pick up some batteries for the camera and check on the latest news. Just as Johan was about to switch on his computer he received a text message on his mobile. It said: ‘Yes, I will. Soon.’

  He sat in his chair, staring at the message with a silly smile on his face.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Pia, noticing that he had stopped what he was doing. Without saying a word, he handed her his mobile.

  Pia read the words but merely looked puzzled. ‘What does it mean?’

  ‘That Emma said she will.’ He turned to face Pia. ‘She said she will!’ he shouted happily. ‘Don’t you understand? She’s ready – at last!’ He pulled an astonished Pia out of her chair, gave her a big hug, and then danced her around the room.

  She laughed. ‘But “will” what? What’s this all about?’

  Then it finally dawned on her.

  ‘Wow. Do you mean it? She wants you to move in with her? Get hitched for real?’

  ‘Yes!’ shouted Johan. ‘YES!’

  A few colleagues from the radio division stuck their heads in the door to see what was going on. Johan’s joyous outburst had been heard in half the offices.

  Pia grabbed his mobile again. ‘And it says “soon”. How soon? What does that mean?’

  ‘No idea, but I’d marry her tomorrow if I could. This is fucking fantastic!’

  In his mind Johan saw images flit past at breakneck speed. Standing next to Emma in a church, with all of their relatives and friends; the big wedding party afterwards with Emma in a romantic white gown, cutting the wedding cake; Emma in overalls with a kerchief on her head and a big belly, expecting their second child; peacefully baking a cake in the kitchen while Elin played on the floor; with Emma and the children on a sun-filled holiday somewhere; parent meetings at the school; and buying a summerhouse so they could sit on the porch in their old age, each holding a cup of coffee while their grandchildren ran around on the lawn. Johan rushed over to his colleagues from the local radio station and gave each of them a hug before he picked up his phone to ring Emma.

  She sounded out of breath, and he could hear Elin gurgling and babbling in the background.

  ‘Is it really true? You will?’ he cried, his face radiant.

  Emma laughed. ‘Yes, I will. I’m sure about that.’

  ‘That’s crazy. I mean, it’s wonderful, sweetheart! I’ll go and get my things and move in today – is that OK with you?’

  ‘Sure, do that,’ she said with a laugh. ‘Then we can start living together right away.’

  ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can tonight.’

  ‘Ring when you’re on your way.’

  ‘Hugs and kisses.’

  ‘Kisses. Bye.’

  ‘Bye …’

  Slowly he put down the phone, hardly daring to believe what he’d just heard. Had she really said yes after all the vacillating back and forth? He stared at Pia with tears in his eyes. ‘You think she means it?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, of course she does,’ said Pia, smiling. ‘She really means it, Johan.’

  Erik Mattson usually left his job at Bukowski’s Auction House around five. On the way home he often stopped at the Grodan Restaurant on Grev Turegatan to have a drink. The bar had just opened when he stepped inside, but it wouldn’t take long before it was filled with well-to-do residents from the Östermalm district, having a drink after work. People like himself. At least in appearance.

  He and his closest friends met here as often as they could. On this particular evening Per Reutersköld, Otto Diesen and Kalle Celling were having a beer when Erik came in. They’d all known each other for years, ever since they went to secondary school at Östra Real.

  Now they were over forty, which was more obvious on some than others. The difference nowadays was that most of his friends made do with a beer or two and then went home to their families. On a couple of evenings each week Erik, on the other hand, would just stop by his flat for a quick shower before he was back in the neighbourhood around Stureplan.

  He had children too, but he was divorced and the kids had grown up living with their mother. The reason for this was Erik’s abuse of alcohol and drugs. He managed to keep his habit relatively in check, but not entirely. After having several relapses while he was taking care of the children, he’d lost joint custody. The divorce had deeply affected him, and he’d landed in a terrible depression. At the time the three children had been very young, and presumably they hadn’t noticed how chaotic his life had become or the bitterness that had welled up between their parents.

  Over time things had improved. Erik succeeded in controlling his dependence enough that it wouldn’t have an impact on the children, and after a while he was allowed to spend time with them every other weekend. Those days were priceless. Erik loved his children and would do anything for them. Almost. He couldn’t completely give up drinking. That was asking too much. But he kept it to an acceptable level, as he said to himself.

  He did his job well, except on those occasions when he partied too hard, which happened at regular intervals. His boss accepted that if he wanted to keep Erik on his staff, he’d have to tolerate those times when he simply didn’t show up for work. Erik’s expertise was well known and he was a definite asset to Bukowski’s already excellent reputation. He also saved the company money because he was so fast. Yet he could never be promoted to curator because of his drinking problem. This was a fact he had accepted long ago.

  Erik was also a pleasant and sociable man, always impeccably dressed, quick-witted and with a sly smile. He liked to joke, but never at anyone else’s expense.

  Outwardly he might be perceived as an outgoing person, but he actually possessed a strong sense of reserve that made it difficult to get to know him. He looked much younger than his forty-three years. He was tall, muscular and elegant. His dark hair, combed smoothly back, his big grey-green eyes and his regular features all contributed to his attractive appearance.

  Occasionally he seemed distant, and those who knew him well interpreted this as a symptom of his alcohol use. In a strange way he seemed untouched by things that went on around him, as if he were living in his own world, cut off from everything else.

  In his social circle, most people knew everything about each other’s families, but Erik was an exception. He was perfectly willing to talk about his childhood, but he never mentioned his parents by name or spoke of them at all.

  Yet it was generally known that he was the son of a big shot in the business world. Certain people wondered how he could afford his extravagant lifestyle on the salary paid to an assistant at Bukowski’s; he couldn’t be earning very much. But such questions were promptly answered by Erik’s friends. They explained that even though he had a poor relationship with his parents, he received a monthly allowance, which meant that he was able to throw around a lot of money. Apparently he was financially set up for life.

  Now he stood there, nonchalantly leaning on the bar, dressed in a pinstriped suit, with a glass of beer in his hand. He looked around the place absent-mindedly as he listened to Otto Diesen’s story about how he’d been lucky enough to crash head-first into a luscious brunette on the ski slopes while on a business trip to Davos. The episode had ended with them lying naked in a hotel suite, massaging each other’s aching bodies. The fact that Otto was married didn’t concern him in the least, or any of his friends either. Sometimes Erik was struck by how everybody behaved as if they were suffering from arrested development whenever they got together.

  They told the same old stories that they’d been telling for years
. No matter how much their lives had changed with regard to new jobs, families and so on, time seemed to stand still when they met. He told himself that there was actually something refreshing about that. It was somehow comforting that nothing ever changed between them, no matter what went on in their lives outside. It gave Erik a sense of security, and when they parted an hour later with the usual pats on the shoulder and thumps on the back, he was in a good mood. He stopped at the sushi bar on the corner and bought himself dinner to take home.

  His flat was on the top floor of a beautiful building on Karlavägen, with a view of Humlegården and the Royal Library. He went in, finding a big pile of mail in the hall. With a sigh he picked up the hodge-podge of advertisements and window envelopes, all of them bills. What his friends didn’t know was that his monthly allowance had been stopped, that he was living well beyond his means, and that he was seized by fear every time a new month rolled around and his bills had to be paid.

  Without opening a single envelope, he tossed the mail aside and put on a CD of Maria Callas. His friends found it enormously amusing that he was so fond of her. Then he took a shower, shaved, and changed his clothes. For a long time he stood in front of the mirror, putting gel on his hair.

  His body felt relaxed and a bit tender; he had gone to the gym during his lunch hour and put himself through an extra long training session. The exercise served to counterbalance his vast alcohol intake. He was aware that he drank too much, but he didn’t want to stop. Now and then he mixed alcohol with pills, but that was usually only when he lapsed into one of his depressed periods, which happened several times a year. Sometimes they lasted only a few days, but they could also go on for months. He had grown accustomed to these periods and dealt with them in his own way. The only thing that really bothered him about these depressions was that while they were going on, he preferred not to see his children. It made things easier that nowadays they understood the problem; by now they were all grown up. Emelie was nineteen, Karl was twenty, and David was twenty-three. Yet Erik tried at all costs to avoid showing them that he was depressed. He didn’t want to burden them or make them worried. Mostly he pretended that nothing was going on, merely saying he’d be away on a trip for a while or that he was extremely busy at work. They also had their own lives, with girlfriends and boyfriends, their studies and sports activities. Sometimes weeks would go by when he heard nothing from his children, except for David, whom he was particularly close to. Maybe it was because he was the oldest.

  Erik Mattson lived two lives. One as a respected and esteemed colleague at Bukowski’s, with a social circle that included many friends, elegant parties, travels, and his role as a father, however sporadic that might be. His other life was completely different. Secret, hidden and destructive. And yet it was essential.

  An hour later, Erik Mattson left his flat. He already knew that it was going to be a long night.

  Knutas awoke with an aching head. He had slept badly. The image of the dead Egon Wallin had haunted his dreams, and he spent the hours he lay awake thinking about the murder investigation. During the day there was hardly any time to ponder matters, so it was at night that he worked through his impressions. The investigation was constantly being interrupted by so many other things that were a daily part of police work, and it was driving him crazy. The fact that the media seemed so well-informed was worrisome.

  Sometimes he wondered how wise it had been to allow his deputy superintendent, Lars Norrby, to be the police spokesman. Maybe it would be better if he didn’t know so much. The more involved a spokesman was in the actual investigative work, the greater the risk that he might reveal more than he should. It would really be best to take him off the investigative team, but that would undoubtedly provoke an outcry.

  The famous photograph of the victim hanging from Dalman Gate had opened a can of worms. Not surprisingly, the picture had been taken by Pia Lilja. She and Johan Berg were a team that he would have preferred to avoid. Of course he respected Johan; the reporter was aggressive but never asked irrelevant questions that led nowhere. And several times in the past he had offered help that had allowed the police to solve a case much faster. That inevitably meant that the officers at headquarters, including himself, were more inclined to accommodate Johan. To top it all off, during the last murder investigation, Johan had risked his own life, which only served to increase the goodwill of the police towards him. In many ways that was not a good thing. Berg was a reporter to be avoided if Knutas wanted to do his job undisturbed.

  Even worse was Johan’s cameraperson, Pia Lilja. Humility and respect for police integrity were not exactly watchwords for her. She tramped about, never bothering to show any consideration for anyone else. Her looks alone were alarming, with her black hair sticking out like a scrubbing brush, the worst sort of warpaint on her eyes, and then that ring in her nose, although he’d noticed that lately it had been replaced by a tiny gemstone. That at least was an improvement. Of course, Knutas understood the value of maintaining a good relationship with the press, but sometimes journalists encroached so much on his work that he wished they’d all go to hell.

  Knutas reached for the alarm clock. It was only 5:45. Another few minutes before it went off. He lay on his side, facing Lina. She had on her pink nightgown with the big orange flowers. On the arm raised above her head, he could see thousands of freckles sprinkled over her pale skin. He loved every one of them. Her curly red hair was spread out over the pillow.

  ‘Good morning,’ he whispered in her ear. She merely grunted in reply. Cautiously he pressed his hand on her waist to see how she would react.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she mumbled in Danish. When she was tired she sometimes spoke her native language. She was from the Danish island of Fyn, but they had met in Copenhagen fifteen years earlier. It was said that love changed over the years. That a relationship became something else, that the feeling of being in love disappeared and was replaced with something deeper, though not as obvious. Some people said that spouses became good friends, that the passion died out and was transformed into a feeling of security. That was not true of Knutas and his wife. They quarrelled and made love with the same frenzy as they had from the very beginning.

  Lina loved her job as a midwife, although being surrounded all day long by blood and pain, both indescribable joy and the deepest despair, did take its toll. She cried often, but she was also quick to laugh; she spoke frankly, and nobody could claim that she didn’t make her opinions and feelings clear. In many ways that made it easy to live with her. At the same time, Knutas occasionally tired of her emotional outbursts and stormy moods. Her ‘unmotivated ire’, as he called it, which just made her even more angry whenever he made the mistake of saying it out loud.

  But right now she lay here next to him, sleepy and relaxed. She turned to face him, looking at him with her green eyes. ‘Good morning, sweet-heart. Is it already time to get up?’

  He kissed her forehead. ‘We’ve got a while yet.’

  Fifteen minutes later he got up and put on the coffee. It was still dark outside. The cat rubbed against his leg, and he lifted her on to his lap, where she immediately curled up. He thought about the previous day’s conversation with the victim’s widow. Why didn’t she say anything about her affair with Rolf Sandén? She should have realized that it was bound to come out sooner or later.

  I need to ring her again, he thought, reaching for his old notebook. He used it for writing down ideas relating to his police work and reminders of things he didn’t want to forget. He skimmed through his notes from their conversation, but could hardly make out what he’d written. And the book was getting so worn that several pages had already fallen out. He was going to have to buy another one.

  He glanced at the kitchen clock on the wall. The daily meeting had been postponed from eight to nine, since Knutas had agreed to participate in the live broadcast of Swedish Television’s morning talk show. Now he wondered why he’d said yes. Being on TV made him nervous, and afterwards he alwa
ys thought that he looked awkward and indecisive. He had a hard time finding the right words when he stood there under the relentless spotlight, expected to spout perfectly formulated, well-balanced and thoughtfully weighed replies that would satisfy both the TV reporter and his police superiors. And that was really an impossible task. Not to reveal too much, yet at the same time to say enough so that the police might get some tips.

  The truth was that right now the police needed help from the general public. They had little concrete evidence to go on. So far not a single witness with anything substantial to say had come forward, and nothing in Egon Wallin’s life had surfaced that might indicate a possible perp. There was no apparent motive. No one thought it was a robbery, even though both his wallet and mobile had yet to be found.

  Egon Wallin had tended to his gallery for all these years, working hard and with a purpose. He had good relationships with his employees and had never been in trouble with the law. And by all accounts he had never had any quarrel with anyone else.

  The interview went better than expected. Knutas sat in a small TV studio, with a direct hook-up to the host of the morning show. The interviewer was suitably cautious and didn’t ask any probing questions. When the three-minute interview was over, Knutas was completely sweaty, but quite satisfied with how it had gone. The county police commissioner rang his mobile just a few minutes after the show, confirming that he had managed to successfully manoeuvre his way through the interview.

  When Knutas got back to police headquarters, he rang the forensic psychologist that he’d consulted the previous year. He was hoping that she would be able to interpret the perpetrator’s modus operandi and help them to move on. But she thought it was too early in the investigation and asked him to contact her again later. And no doubt she was right. Yet Knutas did manage to squeeze some information out of her.

  She didn’t rule out the possibility that it might be a first-time criminal. On the other hand, she didn’t think it was a random murder; rather, a good deal of planning had been involved, perhaps undertaken over a long period of time. The killer was probably aware that Egon Wallin was thinking of leaving the house again, and that he would be alone. That meant, in turn, that the perp had been keeping his victim under surveillance.