The Final Word

by Liza Marklund

  Ah, so that was it, the old prosecutor speaking his mind.

  Anders Schyman stood up. He had got rather sweaty in the sun and the wind was soothing. ‘What would you like us to do to put things right?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m the only person who can say that I’m not guilty. I have to retract my confessions or there can’t be a retrial in the Supreme Court.’

  Anders Schyman felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. This was unquestionably one of Fate’s little ironies.

  The notion of a mysterious serial killer in the suburbs of Stockholm had arisen during a particularly dull editorial meeting at his own paper. If he wasn’t mistaken, Patrik Nilsson had come up with the idea, and they had pushed the issue in their prime news pages, persisting with it to the point that the police were eventually obliged to consider it, if only for the sake of appearances. Naturally, the whole thing would have run into the sand if the unfortunate Gustaf Holmerud hadn’t suddenly decided to confess to the murders, then manage to be convicted of all five. He was probably guilty of one, a chiropractor called Lena with whom he had had a relationship. Schyman had spoken to her mother at some point.

  ‘It must have been extremely hard for you,’ he said, ‘being convicted of all those murders when you were innocent.’

  Gustaf Holmerud was definitely sniffing now. ‘They tricked me,’ he said. ‘The police lured me into confessing and the doctors drugged me with powerful medication. They were interested and kind as long as I kept saying what they wanted me to say. I wanted to feel important. I wanted to be helpful . . .’

  Anders Schyman’s stomach was churning. ‘So you’re entirely innocent?’ he said, forcing himself to sound trustworthy and neutral.

  ‘Completely,’ Gustaf Holmerud said. ‘I’m going to be demanding serious compensation from the Swedish state for snatching all these years of my life from me.’

  Well, it wasn’t that many, Schyman thought.

  ‘You’re very welcome to speak out in the paper,’ he said. ‘I can send a reporter to Kumla first thing tomorrow, if you like.’

  ‘I want you to write it.’

  Of course.

  ‘My reporters write what I tell them to. They do as I say.’

  There was silence on the line. The water lapped against the rocks, and the boat engine was coming back. ‘Hello?’ Schyman said.

  ‘Okay,’ Gustaf Holmerud replied. ‘But I need to approve every single word.’

  ‘Naturally you’ll be able to check any quotations attributed to you. You’ll need to arrange the visit with the authorities at your facility. Let us know when that’s done and we’ll come and see you.’

  Silence again.

  ‘You’re all liars, really,’ Gustaf Holmerud said, and hung up.

  Anders Schyman stood where he was, gazing out to sea. It had been an immense responsibility, but it would soon be over. Whether or not they closed the Evening Post, it was in its death throes. The notion that journalism was omnipotent was obsolete. With the internet and social media, power and responsibility had been placed in the hands of each individual. Everyone was their own Creator, and the only place that was likely to lead was straight to Hell.

  But if he could end his days as a journalist with an appeal in the Supreme Court, then, in spite of everything, it wouldn’t all have been in vain.

  He put his shirt on.

  Now that he came to think about it, he was extremely hungry.

  Thomas used to love mingling. Before the hook, he could glide through a room with a glass of red in one hand, the other nonchalantly in his trouser pocket, his jacket and shirt slightly open, his hair tousled and his eyes full of laughter. He could talk and flirt in a state of constant movement, sailing across the floor, talking to anyone and everyone, striking a chord with both sexes. The men wanted to be him; the women wanted to be with him. Now he didn’t even know how to handle his glass. If he held it in his right hand he couldn’t shake anyone’s hand. Okay, he could tuck it into the hook, but that would look mad.

  He took a sip, then put his glass on the dresser in the hall. The flat was full of people, kitchen, living room and dining room: Sophia’s unbearable financial-services friends, stockbrokers and analysts, business lawyers and risk capitalists, and the occasional failure who did something arty. They thought they were so special, that they’d succeeded in life, but none of them had anything to say, no influence. None had any real power.

  He moved towards the kitchen, unimpeded. The hook was in his trouser pocket, and he hoped he wouldn’t meet anyone he knew. The kids, thank God, had installed themselves in the small bedroom, the one that had been Kalle and Ellen’s room when he’d lived there with Sophia. Apparently an old PlayStation was still gathering dust in there.

  ‘Are you having a good time?’ Sophia had slid up alongside him, her hand reaching under his left arm and giving it a familiar squeeze.

  He stiffened. What if she felt the hook? He smiled and pulled away. ‘One thing’s for sure,’ he said. ‘You’re very good at organizing parties!’

  She laughed. ‘Don’t you want anything to drink?’

  He tilted his head and pretended to think. ‘A whisky, maybe?’

  He could down it in one and, God knows, he’d need the alcohol if he was going to stick this out until Annika showed up.

  Sophia smiled her most beautiful smile. ‘Coming right up. Don’t go anywhere!’

  He went over to the wine-rack and inspected the bottles. Incredibly, she still hadn’t got round to buying a wine fridge. He recognized a few bottles from when he had lived there – probably undrinkable by now.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ she said, handing him a glass containing two fingers of deep golden liquid.

  He raised an eyebrow and took a sip of the whisky, which tasted like diesel.

  ‘I’m going to buy a wine fridge,’ she said, ‘but I might keep it at Säter. I’m thinking about moving up there.’

  He forced himself to swallow his mouthful, then put the glass on the counter rather too hard. Säter was the Grenborg family’s estate in northern Uppland. ‘Are you abandoning the city? What are you going to do out there in the sticks?’

  She gave a melancholy smile. ‘Dad can’t look after the estate by himself now, and I’ve probably been treading water as a bureaucrat for long enough.’

  A woman with very obvious breast implants pushed between them and showered Sophia with flowers, hugs and alcohol-addled birthday wishes, then turned to Thomas with clear interest in her over-made-up eyes. ‘And who have we got here, then?’ she said, running her tongue over her lips.

  From the corner of his eye Thomas saw Sophia’s face cloud, and he held his hand out to the woman as he moved closer to Sophia, so close that their bodies touched. ‘Thomas Samuelsson,’ he said, with a smile. ‘An old friend of Sophia’s.’ He said this in an insinuating way, and with warmth. The woman picked up the hint and drifted off.

  Sophia stayed where she was, her bottom pressed against his thigh. ‘Okay,’ she said quietly. ‘What was all that about?’

  He ran his hand through her hair, and at that moment he saw Annika step through the front door. She looked tired and sweaty, and her hair tumbled in front of her face as she bent down to take off her shoes (who took their shoes off at a cocktail party?). She was holding a plastic bag from the duty-free shop at Kastrup airport.

  ‘Happy birthday!’ she said, giving Sophia a hug, and ignoring him.

  ‘Oh!’ Sophia said, as she pulled a bottle of champagne out of the bag. ‘Thanks very much. That’s so kind.’

  ‘Hi, Thomas,’ Annika said, glancing at him quickly. ‘Did it go okay with the kids?’

  Sophia put the bottle on the table with the other gifts.

  ‘Fine,’ he said, downing the whisky. He had ordered a taxi to pick them up, all four children, and had paid for it when they turned up at Sophia’s.

  ‘Thanks very much,’ she said. ‘I really appreciate it.’

  He leaned over her. ‘I know these
are supposed to be my days to have the kids, but I’ve got such a lot on at work . . .’

  For a moment he thought she was going to topple over.

  ‘I’m going to Kumla first thing tomorrow morning,’ she said.

  ‘I understand,’ he said, ‘but—’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I can take them home with me. It’s no sacrifice.’

  ‘Great,’ he said. ‘You know I’m always happy to help, but . . .’

  She gave him a thin smile. ‘Thomas, I said it was okay. Okay?’ She turned and went off to the room where the children were.

  The warmth of the whisky spread through his stomach. There were plenty of people who did appreciate him. Maybe he should have another whisky.

  Nina padded quietly down the dimly lit corridor. Most of the signs on the doors had fallen off, and she counted them in silence as she went. She stopped at the ninth door on the left and listened as she reached for the handle. Quick steps echoed behind a plasterboard wall, and a fluorescent light crackled and hissed. The ventilation system sounded like a never-ending inhalation, and the regular bleeping of a security camera reached her from some distance away.

  She didn’t bother to knock.

  The room lay in semi-darkness. The night-time lighting was on, a few yellow lamps over in the far corner casting long shadows over the ward. Eight beds, positioned close together in a very small space, but there was no point in complaining. The patients would never make a fuss: none of them was aware of their situation.

  She went over to her usual place, pulled up the chair and saw that the book was still on the bedside table where she had left it. Then she looked at the man in the bed. He had been shaved and seemed well cared for. She didn’t recognize the pyjamas. His remaining eye was peering, half closed, at the ceiling.

  ‘Hello, Ingemar,’ Nina said, stroking his cheek. ‘It’s me, Nina. I see you’ve had a shower.’

  He didn’t react. She took his hand and warmed his cold fingers. ‘The trial continued today,’ she said quietly. ‘Everything seems to be progressing as it should. We’ll just have to see if it’s enough.’

  Ingemar Lerberg was no longer in any pain. The torn muscles in his groin had been repaired, his broken ribs had healed, and his shoulders were back in their sockets. The vitreous fluid in his shattered eye could never be replaced, but it wasn’t causing pain.

  ‘I’m worried about the DNA results,’ she went on. ‘Johansson says it’s fine, that it’s fairly common not to get more than a ninety-nine per cent match, but the defence lawyer’s playing that card so hard that it’s troubling me.’

  Right from the start she used to come to the care-home in case he had woken up. Ingemar Lerberg was a key witness in the case against Ivar Berglund: if he could identify the man who had assaulted him, several crimes could be cleared up at once. She sat by his side, evening after evening, listening to his heartbeat, watching him breathe. He was the epitome of absolute loneliness, shut inside his own catastrophe. No one knew if he had any idea of what was going on around him. Probably not, but as time passed she found a peculiar consolation in the total freedom of being able to talk without it making any difference at all.

  She reached for the coconut hand-cream she had bought at the airport in Amsterdam last winter when she was on her way back from a Europol conference in The Hague. She squeezed some out and started to massage Ingemar Lerberg’s stiff right hand.

  ‘I met Ivar Berglund’s younger sister today,’ she said. ‘She must have had a tough time growing up. I wonder what they did to her for her to end up the way she is.’

  She put the man’s right hand down gently, then reached over and picked up the left; a bit more cream, soft, gentle movements.

  The door glided open and a nurse came in. ‘Hello, Nina,’ she said.

  ‘Hello, Petra,’ Nina said. ‘These are nice pyjamas. Are they new?’

  Staff Nurse Petra went over to Larsson, one of the patients on the other side of the room, pulled the covers back and set about changing his colostomy bag. ‘Yes, they’re lovely, aren’t they? We had a new batch yesterday. Have you got coffee?’

  ‘I’m fine, thanks,’ Nina said.

  Petra smiled and tucked Larsson in again. ‘Just say if there’s anything you need,’ she said, and walked out.

  The door closed.

  Nina stood up and massaged Lerberg’s feet. The scars from where he had been beaten shone in the yellow light, and she traced them with her finger, hard and smooth. Then she sat down with the book in her lap. ‘En esto, descubrieron treinta o cuarenta molinos de viento que hay en aquel campo, y así como don Quijote los vio, dijo a su escudero . . .’

  This was her favourite part of Cervantes’ classic novel, the eighth chapter, about how the impoverished but pure-hearted nobleman went into battle against the evils of the world, and attacked thirty windmills. She knew that Ingemar Lerberg had once studied Spanish, but this text from the 1600s probably went way over his head, even if he was aware of her reading it. She had decided that it didn’t matter: she was reading for her own sake, for the chance to speak her mother tongue aloud, to hear her own voice as it sounded in her head, and perhaps also to remember Filip when he’d read to her, and his soft whisper afterwards, when she was already drifting off to sleep: Maybe they really were giants, Nina, disguised as windmills. Always try to see the truth!

  She had reached Don Quixote’s battle-cry, ‘Non fuyades, cobardes y viles criaturas, que un solo caballero es el que os acomete,’ when her mobile rang. It sounded like a fire alarm and she hurried to answer.

  ‘Where are you?’ Johansson asked.

  ‘Reading,’ Nina replied.

  ‘We’ve had a reply from our Spanish colleagues,’ Johansson said.

  ‘That was quick,’ Nina said. ‘Who investigated the crash?’

  ‘The crash?’

  ‘In the Alpujarras mountains.’

  ‘The local police in Albuñol, but that’s not why I’m calling. We’ve got a match for Berglund, one of the old cases. No doubt this time. The result is beyond question.’

  Her pulse and breathing picked up. Nina looked at Ingemar Lerberg’s half-closed eye. ‘Where?’

  ‘A murder in San Sebastián, eighteen years ago.’

  She stood up, then sat down again. ‘The Basque country?’

  ‘They assumed ETA was behind it, which is why it’s taken so long.’

  She breathed out through her open mouth. ‘And it’s definite this time? The DNA match is a hundred per cent?’

  ‘Even better than that,’ Johansson said. ‘We’ve got a fingerprint as well.’

  She clenched her right fist in triumph. Fingerprints were unique, even in identical twins. ‘Thanks for calling,’ she said, and Johansson hung up.

  She waited until she had calmed down. Then she put away the book, checked that the lid of the hand-cream was on properly, and stroked Ingemar Lerberg’s arm.

  THURSDAY, 4 JUNE

  The walls began at the end of the smart residential area. They stretched off towards infinity, as life sentences must do for the inmates inside. Layer upon layer of concrete and electric fencing, boredom and frustration, barbed wire and steel gates: Viagatan 4 in Kumla, commonly known as the Bunker.

  Annika turned into the visitors’ car park and found a space, put the handbrake on and switched off the engine. The car radio fell silent, cutting off Adam Alsing mid-sentence. The heat was making the engine click.

  She was a bit late. Ellen had a sore throat and she’d had to wait to see if the paracetamol helped before sending her daughter to school. Not that a few minutes made much difference: Gustaf Holmerud wasn’t likely to be going anywhere. Schyman had warned her that Holmerud would probably be difficult, and arriving a quarter of an hour late was hardly going to change that.

  She got out of the car and the wind tugged at her hair. The weather was hot and muggy, carrying with it the threat of thunder and lightning. She had been to Kumla before, and knew she couldn’t take anything inside
with her. All she had was a notepad that fitted her back pocket.

  She announced her arrival via the entry-phone, and was welcomed by a female guard. The gate gave an electronic click and she entered the long passageway through no man’s land, a gravel path a hundred metres long, lined with steel fencing, that led to the visitors’ entrance. Her feet scraped the gravel. Another entry-phone. The same guard. This door was extremely heavy, she remembered that, and wondered why. Was there some sort of hidden symbolism at work? She used both hands to open it, which felt oddly reassuring.

  The waiting room was empty. A few keys were missing from the white lockers lining the walls so she wasn’t the only visitor that Thursday morning. A third entry-phone, still the same voice.

  She waited, not bothering to draw the curtains from the window: she knew what was behind them. White bars and a gravel courtyard. The noticeboard next to the entry-phone contained information about visiting times and how to book the overnight flat.

  She brushed her hair from her forehead, struck by life’s absurdities. The fact that she was there just then was partly her own fault, and possibly deservedly so, depending on how you chose to look at it. Last autumn, just after she had returned to the newsroom after her stint as the paper’s correspondent in Washington, she had compiled a list of all the murders of women that had been committed in Stockholm and its suburbs during the previous six months. There were five, all carried out close to the victims’ homes or workplaces, all with different types of knife. In every case it was the women’s current or previous partners who were suspected of killing them, which meant that the media silence surrounding the deaths was practically impenetrable. (There seemed to be an understanding within the media that murdered wives weren’t real murders, just sordid domestic tragedies, in the same deep-frozen category of news as alcohol-fuelled murders in drug-dens and genocides in Africa.) Naturally, Patrik had dismissed the list as devoid of interest, until Annika uttered the random words that she had regretted so many times since: ‘What if there’s a serial killer on the loose whom everyone has missed?’