‘I knew the man. Henrik, he was on the same course as me. I must have mentioned him, you might even have seen him around. And the woman was a tutor in our department.’
‘Oh my God . . . No, there were no details in the paper, it just said they’d been . . . Well, there’s no point in going into all that now. Do you need someone to talk to?’
This time she couldn’t hold back the tears. ‘You were the first person I thought of.’ She tried to pull herself together. David looked at her searchingly. ‘Is there something else? Sweetheart . . . How are you coping?’
Her fears suddenly seemed contrived, paranoid. She didn’t answer him straight away.
‘I’ll get through it.’ She shook her head slowly. ‘Of course it’s horrible, I liked Henrik. And we used to hang out together, there were a few of us who . . . It’s worse for the others than it is for me. His partner Rebecca. And Axel, his best friend – he was on our course too. He invested so much in Henrik, it was as if he didn’t have anyone else, it was almost laughable sometimes . . . As if he only existed when Henrik was around. He seems so helpless, you know. I really do understand that he’s completely devastated and confused. I mean, I really do feel sorry for him and . . .’
David nodded, broke in. ‘Stop, Annelie – you’re in shock. You’ve come home to terrible news. I’d . . . I’d really like to say that I’m here for you, but you know I’d be lying if I made a promise like that. You know how things stand.’
He pulled her towards him anyway, into his arms, stroking her back, smelling just the way he always did. She let the tears come, resting her cheek against his shoulder; all she wanted to do was to stay there, but because she knew that he would push her away at any second, she decided to get there first, in just a few seconds more . . .
He pushed her away gently. His voice was unsteady too. ‘Go and see a friend. Or go back to your parents for a while. Have a rest, let them look after you. And stop worrying about everybody else. You can’t help Henrik’s partner anyway, nor this Axel . . .’
‘He sits outside my apartment.’
It was too late to take it back.
‘What did you say?’
Surprise and a shadow of doubt on David’s face.
She took a deep breath. ‘He sits outside my apartment block looking up at my window. I’ve seen him several times.’
‘But what does he want?’
She shrugged, trying to feign nonchalance. ‘I don’t know, like I said I think he’s really upset about Henrik. I haven’t wanted to go down and speak to him, because . . .’
In the silence that followed, her hands felt like lumps of lead, dragging her down towards the floor. He was waiting for her to carry on, to provide a clarification she wasn’t sure she could give.
‘I don’t know. There was a kind of . . . desperation about him. I first noticed it on the trip to Istanbul, you remember that? A terrible loneliness – he’s very quiet and a bit of an oddball, and . . . I got the feeling that his friendship with Henrik filled an enormous void, do you know what I mean?’
‘And?’ David said impatiently, unsympathetically, and she felt her face close down, felt herself clamming up because he didn’t understand.
‘And nothing. I’m just trying to work out why it feels peculiar. Now he hasn’t got Henrik, he must be devastated.’
‘Hang on a minute,’ said David. ‘He’s watching you? He sits and stares up at your window, but doesn’t try to talk to you? That doesn’t sound very healthy to me. Why the hell are you putting up with it?’
‘So what do you think I should do?’
‘Go to the police, of course.’
‘Oh, please . . .’
David waved his hand. ‘What? There’s something the matter with this guy, he might be one of those stalkers who’s decided to come after you instead, now Henrik’s gone. If you don’t do something right away you’ll soon have him inside your apartment, and then you’ll never get rid of him. What’s the problem – I mean, you said you thought he was unpleasant?’
She sighed, tipped back her head and gazed up at a crack running across the ceiling. ‘No . . . Well, yes. Maybe a bit. I don’t know what he wants. And there was something about her grip on reality when we were in Istanbul; it wasn’t very stable. I’m sure he feels like shit, but I just can’t carry someone else right now.’
‘And you’re not even going to try, Annelie.’ David took her hands and looked into her eyes. ‘Go home now and call the police. Tell them exactly what’s going on, that there’s a man who won’t leave you alone, that you don’t want to talk to him and that you feel uncomfortable. What he’s doing has to be illegal. The guy needs to have his card marked, if only for his own sake! And you don’t owe him any particular loyalty, do you?’
‘Well . . . only the loyalty we owe our friends.’
‘Friends don’t creep around in the bushes without saying hello. No, the police will pick him up and speak to him. He might even be able to get some help. Trauma counselling, or whatever the hell it’s called. Why do you always have to take the weight of the world on your shoulders?’
Annelie smiled instinctively as David placed his hand on her cheek, but suddenly she wanted neither his embrace nor his good advice.
‘Now go and do what I said.’
The doorbell alerted them to the arrival of a woman, followed by a man in an anorak.
‘A packet of tobacco,’ the woman said hoarsely. ‘Lucky Strike and the evening paper please.’
Annelie took the opportunity to back away towards the door. David made a vague gesture, his little finger to his lips and his thumb to his ear, call the police? Or did he mean that she should ring him? That they should keep in touch? As friends?
It was perhaps just as well that question remained unanswered. She realised that her unease had nothing to do with David, but that she had found no solace in him either. She would do better to rely on herself. Or a girlfriend. As soon as she got home, she would ring a friend. Ask her to stay over, cook a meal together and chat.
For the first time since her return from India, she had the feeling that there was water under the bridge between her and David. That in spite of everything, she was well on the way to putting the pain behind her.
She would run the final stretch back home.
Annelie and David had been standing in front of the counter for a long time, deep in a conversation.
He had taken up position a short distance away on the other side of the street. If he moved any closer to the glass wall of the shop they would see him, and he hadn’t thought that far ahead. He screwed up his eyes so that he could make out their expressions; he was standing so close by now that he could see Annelie shaking her head, wiping tears from her eyes and cheeks.
Her body trembled in David Sevic’s arms.
He moved closer, step by step. It had become a game: in the end he was so close to the glass that he felt like moving from the corner right up to the window and breathing on the glass. Writing his name: Here I am.
Was he really invisible?
David Sevic had his arms around Annelie, he was stroking her back, over and over again.
Gradually she relaxed.
But David didn’t seem able to accept the hopelessness of his situation, to admit that he could do nothing to change his fate. It wasn’t long before he pushed Annelie away and adopted an expression which suggested he wanted to find a solution, to take charge of the situation like a man. Was he going to ring the police? The shopkeeper waved his hand in a gesture that spoke more of agitation than resignation; it was just so typical of him! Now he was angry! Anger was his solution.
He suspected that Annelie had noticed him outside her window but was deliberately ignoring him. Did she feel hunted? Was she also thinking back to Istanbul?
When David let her go, Annelie slumped slightly, as if he had been holding her up.
He heard footsteps and the low murmur of conversation behind him. A couple walked past; they tied their dog to the lam
p post outside the shop and went inside. David had to remind himself that he was working; he straightened up and moved behind the counter. Annelie backed away towards the door. As she stepped onto the pavement her former lover rang up a packet of tobacco and an evening paper on the till, put his little finger to his lips and his thumb to his ear as though he were on the telephone and nodded: I’ll call you?
He slipped back around the corner and made himself even more invisible. His nails were digging into the palms of his hands.
It was so easy to give in to his impulses; he could already feel vague urges bubbling away inside him. He had done it before. David was suddenly a problem which had to be dealt with. Annelie wasn’t going to disappear; he had no doubt he could make her understand.
She looked over her shoulder but didn’t appear to notice him as she crossed Kabelgatan. She ran the final stretch back home.
He hadn’t planned it in advance.
In the shop he surprised himself by asking David about Annelie. His approach was clumsy, and obviously David reacted. He must have meant for David to react! He wanted confirmation that Annelie had told David all about him!
‘I know who you are and what you’re up to,’ David said, his jaw tense. ‘Leave Annelie alone! Understand? I’m calling the police. We’ve just decided to call the police, so you’d better sling your hook. And don’t come back.’
By way of a warning, he placed his hand on a blue telephone next to the till.
We?
David was standing with his arms folded over his broad chest, it was a show of strength; like Father he was a big man, his gaze steady. Only his slightly parted lips and the tiniest twitch of a muscle in his face spoke of his fear.
‘I’m calling the police.’
‘What makes you think you deserve to live?’
He placed his hand very gently on the gun he had stolen from his father a long time ago; it was hidden in a towel in his bag. ‘You’re betraying your son and his mother. The boy is suffering, perhaps the mother takes her own suffering out on the boy. But what would you know? And what about Annelie? She’s naive, she’s not stupid but she is easily led. You have done your best to destroy her. I repeat, what makes you think you deserve to live, or that I will allow you to destroy my life?’
They were interrupted by another customer, a little girl who spent an age choosing sweets before counting out the exact money. Once again David had to pull himself together to serve her. Interrupting the conversation felt strange to both of them.
He had left the shop, crossed the road and gone up the hill where he knew he could watch the shop without being visible from it.
David hadn’t said much, but what he had said was important. He turned the words over and over in his mind, tasted them: the order to leave Annelie alone, the threat that otherwise we would ring the police. A wave of nausea rose in his throat at the thought of we, of that evening in Istanbul when he opened up to her, lost control and told her about him and Henrik. How she had seen the real him, then made fun of it.
And in the end she had been afraid. Henrik had been sitting just next to them, it was crazy; it was as if he almost wanted Henrik to hear.
But Henrik had been so absorbed in Ann-Marie, he hadn’t heard a thing.
He had never belonged. He got angry but calmed down in a couple of minutes. He sat there looking down at the shop: the man behind the counter, the girl’s brown plaits, her white dress bobbing up and down, the door leading to the office at the back, then into the storeroom.
As soon as the girl had left the shop, he went back down the hill, quickly crossed the road and shot David with the gun he had kept hidden ever since his visit to England, ever since Carla. David had put back the jars of flying saucers, fizzy cola bottles and foam bananas and was just turning around, his hand reaching in vain for the telephone. There was nowhere to hide. It was easy, just like the last time. The bullet hit his temple. It didn’t make much noise, you could easily imagine that nothing had happened. David didn’t make any noise either, he didn’t have time to scream or cry. Silently he doubled over and sank to the floor, then his top half fell to one side and it was almost as though he were stretching, as though he wanted to go comfortably into death.
There was no need to run. This time he didn’t panic, even though he hadn’t realised what he was about to do, nor did he feel that terrible exhaustion.
He wiped the gun, wrapped it in the towel and calmly left the shop.
55
Gothenburg
After the excitement of Copenhagen, Gonzales found it difficult to deal with the more mundane aspects of the investigation. The murders of Samuelsson and Karpov felt distant, particularly after the focus had shifted to the burglary. He wasn’t in the right frame of mind.
He had gone through the newspapers as he always did, looking for smaller articles on the Linné murders, which been splashed across front pages before the blood was even dry. And now not a word. It really was yesterday’s news.
He folded up the paper and tossed it away. The thought of backtracking to the point when Rebecca Nykvist was still the main suspect, back to Professor Alexandr Karpov or the gossiping students, held absolutely no appeal.
The Danish police were relaying information on a regular basis. As they expected, both Knud Iversen and Dorte Sørbækk had an alibi for the time of the murders.
And Tell was on holiday.
He tried Annelie Swerin’s number again, almost out of habit, and was almost shocked to hear a human voice instead of an answering machine.
‘Annelie Swerin.’
‘Michael Gonzales, police. I’d like to talk to you in connection with our ongoing inquiry into the murders of Ann-Marie Karpov and Henrik Samuelsson. This is purely a matter of routine; we’re speaking to everyone who knew them. Could we arrange a time to meet as soon as possible?’
Höije appeared in the doorway.
‘Excuse me a moment.’ Gonzales placed his hand over the mouthpiece.
Höije pointed down the corridor. ‘Could you come to my office when you have a moment?’
Gonzales nodded, suspecting that it wasn’t really a question, and went back to Annelie Swerin, who had just returned from her dig. She didn’t sound particularly surprised to hear from him, which led him to assume she had already been informed about the deaths, probably by one of her fellow students. She had actually been thinking of ringing the police herself, she said; she talked quickly and sounded a little on edge.
Höije was still standing in the doorway, which made Gonzales nervous, and he tripped over his words.
‘I’ll get someone to contact you as soon as possible.’
To give himself something to do with his hands, and appear more efficient, he opened a Word document and started typing, nodding and making appropriate sounds of agreement.
‘No, you mustn’t feel stupid. Of course you don’t have to put up with that sort of thing if it makes you uncomfortable.’
Höije raised his eyebrows and Gonzales started to feel annoyed. What did the man actually want?
By the time he hung up, the boss had finally vacated the doorway. Gonzales headed for his office.
Höije was on the phone when Gonzales knocked, but waved him in.
‘Yes, of course we’ll consider all the options, yes, mm. Yes, that’s our target, that’s correct. But of course we must take into account . . . Yes, yes. I can definitely confirm that . . .’
Gonzales suddenly realised how tired he was, and that he was feeling slightly unwell. Perhaps the prawn salad he’d eaten last night had been off. He wondered how Höije would react if he bent over and threw up on his desk.
At that point Höije put the phone down.
‘Michael.’
He turned to face Gonzales, his fingers steepled beneath his chin. ‘I must applaud you for your efforts in Copenhagen.’
‘I didn’t do much.’
‘How long have you been working here now? As part of the team?’
What the fuck is th
is all about?
‘A couple of years, I think. Two. Just about.’
Höije nodded thoughtfully. ‘And you’re happy? In the team?’
‘Yes?’
Gonzales wondered feverishly what Höije was getting at. He hadn’t had many dealings with the new boss, but he didn’t believe for a moment that this conversation was about his feelings. Nor did it seem as if Höije wanted an update on the investigation.
‘You get on well with your colleagues?’
‘I think we all complement each other very well.’
He felt the urge to add a provocative ‘sir’. The whole situation felt stressful. He was struck by the thought, perhaps unfairly, that a conversation like this would never have taken place under their former boss. Ann-Christine Östergren had been Gonzales’ superior for just a year. That year had been enough for her to win his trust.
‘And your superiors?’
Ah, so that was it. Gonzales stretched and adopted what he thought was a neutral expression. If Höije was after gossip, he’d come to the wrong person.
‘Well, you haven’t been in the post all that long, and we haven’t had a great deal to do with each other, but so far—’
‘I wasn’t talking about myself, but about your immediate boss.’
You think I don’t know that?
‘Tell?’
‘Christian Tell, yes.’
‘It’s fine.’
‘Fine?’
‘Fine.’
Höije seemed to be waiting for something more. Gonzales was waiting too – for him to carry on.
‘You’re . . . quite young to have got this far, to be where you are now.’
‘Yes.’
‘Part of this team.’
‘Quite.’
‘Hm. I can’t make any promises, of course, but . . . from what I’ve seen so far, I think you could have a very promising career ahead of you.’
Gonzales hadn’t the faintest idea what he was supposed to say to that.
‘I’ve always wanted to work in this team.’ If there’s something you want to say, let’s have it. ‘I’ve never wanted to do anything else.’
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