The Final Word

by Liza Marklund

  She unlocked the small door and sensed immediately that something was different. The air that met her inside was full of sawdust and turpentine. She switched the lights on.

  The warehouse was full of planks and machinery.

  ‘Why rent three warehouses and only use the one in the middle?’ Inspector Rodríguez asked himself. ‘What purpose do the others serve? Buffer zones?’

  Nina planted both feet squarely on the floor and took in her surroundings.

  The warehouse was the same size as the other two, ten by fifteen metres, six metres tall. Along the right-hand wall was a rack of timber containing planks sawn to various sizes, sorted by thickness, thin at the top, thick at the bottom. To the left she saw what looked like a shipping container, a sort of building within a building, approximately five metres long and two metres high, with a closed door in the middle.

  In front of them was a large industrial saw, a workbench and, in the middle, a tall, stainless-steel cylinder.

  Rodríguez, who had pulled on a pair of sturdy gloves, pointed at the floor. ‘Looks like he normally drives his car in here.’

  Nina looked down at the concrete. Beneath their feet she saw faint tyre-tracks from a small car. So, the Berglund brothers didn’t park in the street.

  There was a pile of offcuts beyond the end of the rack of timber; the stainless-steel machinery was attached to various pipes, and ran off into a drain.

  ‘What’s this?’ the inspector asked, walking over to the cylinder.

  A row of tools was arranged on the bench. Nina picked up a saw in her gloved hand. The steel blade shone under the bright lighting. She put it down and picked up a pair of pliers.

  No marks whatsoever.

  Inspector Rodríguez had opened the cylinder and stuck his head inside it.

  ‘It’s a dishwasher,’ he said, his voice sounding tinny.

  ‘A sterilizer,’ Nina said. ‘They wash their tools here, to get rid of any traces of DNA.’ She tried the door of the shipping container, but it was locked. She got the key out again, but it didn’t fit. ‘Inspector Rodríguez,’ she said. ‘The crowbar.’

  The policeman went out to the car, and Nina heard him open the boot, then close it. He came back to the sealed door, inserted the end of the crowbar, held it in place, then pushed. The lock snapped at once.

  Rodríguez opened the door. A dull smell of old rubbish hit them. The Spaniard felt for a light switch. A lamp in the ceiling flickered, considerably weaker than the lighting out in the warehouse. ‘It’s a little den,’ he said.

  Nina stepped inside the container. A small kitchen, two chairs, a table and two beds. A toilet and shower cubicle faced each other at the far end. The smell was coming from a bag of rubbish that had been left beside the sink. It couldn’t have been there for more than a week, two at most.

  So this was where Arne Berglund had been hiding while his brother was in custody in Sweden. Unless it was the other way round. Had Ivar been here while Arne was in custody?

  Rodríguez went over to the beds. ‘Señor Berglund prefers blondes,’ he said.

  Nina joined him. On the wall above one of the beds a number of pictures of a beautiful young woman had been taped up. The quality was fairly poor – they looked as if they’d been taken with a mobile phone, then printed on an inkjet printer.

  ‘It’s the same woman in all the pictures,’ Rodríguez said.

  Nina looked hard at the largest, on a sheet of A3. The woman was wearing summer clothes and was sitting on an outdoor terrace, looking into the camera. She was laughing, and her hair was blowing in the wind. There was also a map of Malmö, pictures of a shop named MatExtra, and a block of flats in what appeared to be a suburban setting.

  ‘Do you know who she is?’ Inspector Rodríguez asked.

  Nina looked at the other photographs, some of which had evidently been taken by the woman herself, using her mobile. Towards the corner, the character of the pictures changed: they were clearly of the same woman, but showed her as a young girl. One had been taken on the grassy fringe of a sandy beach: the blonde girl was sitting on a blue rug with an ice-cream cone in her hand, wrapped in a large towel, and beside her sat another girl, slightly bigger, with darker hair. The blonde was smiling at the camera with her head slightly tilted; the darker girl was looking away so only her profile was visible.

  Nina gasped. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I know who the woman is.’

  The rain stopped abruptly, as if a tap had been turned off.

  Annika parked on the forest track that led to Lyckebo, and the car’s wheels sank into the waterlogged ground. She hesitated, then decided to leave her bag on the front seat: no one was likely to steal it out there. Her mobile hadn’t picked up a signal since the lightning strike, but she put it into her back pocket anyway.

  She locked the car. The countryside around her was dripping, the air clean and clear as glass. She passed the barrier, moving quickly through the vegetation, her feet and shins soaked almost instantly. There was still lightning off to the north-east, but she could no longer hear the thunder.

  She wondered why Birgitta had gone to Lyckebo. She had never really liked being there, always moaning about the ants, wasps, stinging nettles, the lack of ice-cream and television. Maybe she had decided, like Annika, to confront her demons. Maybe her relapse and Steven’s ultimatum had made her reconsider her life, sort things out and start again.

  Annika hoped so.

  Together they could put their sibling rivalry behind them, come together and move on. They had so much in common: their background and childhood, experiences that had made them who they were. She quickened her pace. The rocks were slippery as soap. She lost her footing and almost fell.

  The cottage came into view in the clearing and Annika felt a warm glow spread through her. It looked as unremarkable and abandoned as before, the gutters dripping. Was there anyone else in the world who felt as she did about the place?

  She strode across the old meadow towards the closed door. Tentatively she reached for the handle, and the door swung open on squeaking hinges.

  ‘Birgitta?’

  She stepped into the semi-darkness of the hall, and blinked to get used to the gloom. She kicked off her muddy sandals and walked into the kitchen.

  It was empty.

  Surprised, she stopped in the middle of the floor. The kitchen was as bare as it had been when she was last there. And there was no trace of her sister.

  ‘Birgitta, where are you?’

  She caught sight of an old yellow suitcase in one corner. It hadn’t been there earlier in the week, she was sure. Was it Birgitta’s?

  She began to walk towards it, but before she could reach it the front door closed with a slam. She spun round, but wasn’t afraid: she knew it was just the wind.

  Then she saw the man standing in the doorway.

  She felt reality lurch. This was impossible. ‘Ivar Berglund?’ she said.

  It was him: those tiny eyes, that compact frame. She had watched him walk into the custody hearing at Stockholm District Court a year ago, and his picture had adorned the front page of the newspaper as recently as that morning. He wasn’t going to be released for the next forty years, yet here he was.

  ‘Hello, Annika,’ he said. ‘How good of you to come.’

  Surprise gave way to fear, making her throat contract. How could he know her name? She took a step back and her heel hit the suitcase.

  Ivar Berglund turned round and locked the front door, then put the key into his back pocket. ‘Sit down,’ he said, pointing at one of the wooden chairs.

  She remained standing, feeling panic build. An easy seven, maybe an eight. ‘What have you done with Birgitta?’

  He didn’t answer, and sat on one of the other chairs, looking at her calmly. ‘Are you aware of the Vidsel Test Site?’

  His voice was surprisingly warm and melodic.

  She stared at him. ‘The missile-testing facility?’

  ‘It’s called the Vidsel Test Site these days. Th
ey test bombs there.’

  ‘What . . .?’

  ‘There aren’t many people down here in southern Sweden who know about it. They think Norrbotten is full of Lapps and seagulls.’

  She glanced at the window. Could she open it and jump out? No, the old-fashioned double-glazing was still there, screwed into place.

  The man watched her. He couldn’t be here. It was impossible. He was going to be extradited to Spain.

  ‘My family comes from up there,’ Ivar Berglund said.

  Annika concentrated on breathing.

  ‘The place you come from is important. It shapes you,’ Berglund went on. ‘We’d lived there for centuries, but now the land is used to develop weapons of mass destruction. That’s all it’s good for. That’s all we’re good for, those of us who come from there. We were raised in the shadow of wholesale slaughter.’

  She took a pace back and stepped over the suitcase.

  We have iron in our blood.

  ‘Anyway, are you familiar with Nausta?’ he asked.

  Nausta? Should she be?

  ‘It’s a village in the forest,’ Ivar Berglund said. ‘Father and Mother were born there. They grew up in the village, but they were moved when the bombs came. Simulated nuclear explosions were carried out there, and after that they weren’t allowed to return. That made Father’s mind a little peculiar.’

  He nodded.

  ‘The village is still there, or parts of it, inside the test area. It’s the size of Blekinge – did you know that?’

  She didn’t answer.

  ‘They measure the effect of explosions on nature and different materials, see how badly the forest is damaged. The Swiss built a big bridge over nothing, simply so they could blow it up. They’ve developed unmanned aircraft there, and advanced drones. More than forty different ones. They’re everywhere now. Iran has them, Pakistan . . . and Tunisia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Venezuela . . .’

  ‘Where’s Birgitta?’ Annika asked, her mouth dry.

  He pursed his lips. ‘In Nausta,’ he said. ‘Or, rather, in the forest outside it.’

  Her mobile buzzed in her back pocket. She had reception again. If she could just reach it . . .

  Then the implications of what he had said hit her.

  ‘Birgitta? Has she . . . Why has Birgitta gone . . . there?’

  He nodded again. ‘You can get there – it’s cordoned off but there’s no fence. Just warning signs. No one goes there. It’s deserted.’

  Black dots started to dance in front of her eyes. Soon the panic attack would hit. ‘Why?’

  He folded his hands, a gesture she had seen him make during the custody hearing. ‘I’m a simple person,’ he said. ‘I like justice. That’s my guiding principle. People get what they deserve. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. A sister for a brother.’

  Annika gasped. She fumbled for support and grabbed one of the chairs, ending up next to the table without its waxed cloth. ‘You’ve abducted her?’

  He put his hands on his stomach. ‘A two-week-long trial,’ he said. ‘Like my brother. She was made to answer for her sins, and yours.’

  She stared at the man: his brother? Arne Berglund. But he had been dead for twenty years.

  ‘It’s your fault,’ he said, nodding emphatically to underline his words. ‘Because of you, my brother is behind bars. So because of you, your sister had to pay.’

  What did he mean? Her coverage of the murders in Nacka last year? Or her articles about Viola Söderland, which put Nina Hoffman on the right track and led to Ivar Berglund’s arrest?

  ‘Birgitta was very fond of you, but you weren’t a very nice sister. She deserved better.’

  She stared at the man. Why was he using the past tense? ‘You’re lying. She’d never have gone anywhere with you.’

  His eyes were perfectly calm. ‘Everyone comes with me,’ he said. ‘It’s very easy. Chloroform, if they’re being difficult. Then water containing a sedative when they come round. They all drink, once they’re thirsty enough.’

  She could still breathe.

  ‘You waited until she was drunk,’ Annika said. ‘You took her when she was at her weakest and most vulnerable. Aren’t you ashamed?’

  He folded his hands. ‘Not at all.’

  ‘You drugged her. In the car, outside Konsum in Malmköping.’

  ‘We were on our way north and stopped to get some shopping. It’s over a thousand kilometres to Nausta.’

  The abandoned village was evidently important. Annika nodded as though she understood. ‘A two-week-long trial, you said. Why?’

  ‘My brother’s trial is due to last two weeks.’

  ‘You kept her prisoner here in Hälleforsnäs. Where?’

  He nodded towards the north. ‘In a summer cottage not far from here. You were actually supposed to come earlier. To stand witness. But you didn’t answer your messages.’

  ‘I’ve changed my number,’ Annika said.

  He seemed completely normal, an ordinary, unremarkable man in his fifties. She’d never have noticed him in the street.

  ‘So you’re Ivar Berglund’s brother,’ she said. ‘I thought you were dead.’

  ‘Yes,’ the man replied. ‘Everyone thinks that. Unless I’m Ivar, and it’s my brother who’s dead.’

  She ignored his attempt to confuse her. ‘And where’s Birgitta now?’

  ‘That’s rather difficult to say,’ he said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It’s best to leave bodies for the animals to deal with. Then they disappear in just a few days.’

  Nausea climbed to her throat.

  ‘The forests are full of old bones,’ he said. ‘No one ever gives them a second glance. But the skull, hands and feet have to be dealt with separately – they’re too recognizable. She’s resting peacefully in a forest glade.’

  Annika threw up over the table, a brown sludge of cappuccino from the discount store’s café. The man watched her quietly.

  ‘It’s a shame you didn’t get in touch sooner. You could have said goodbye. Well, the two of you can share your eternal rest.’

  He stood up and went to the suitcase in the corner. It wasn’t locked, and just had the usual catches on it. He opened it, revealing its contents.

  It was full of tools. Pliers of various sizes, two large hammers, sharp awls, metal wire, a saw, a long, thin knife and a chisel.

  ‘Do you recognize this?’ he asked Annika, holding up a chrome-plated pipe, thirty centimetres long, with a red hook at one end.

  Instead of waiting for an answer, he took out a round blue capsule, which he attached to one end of the pipe. ‘It’s a bolt gun,’ he said. ‘Also known as a slaughterhouse stun gun. This blue cartridge can handle a large ox. She didn’t suffer. Death is instantaneous.’

  She stared at the pipe. A slaughterhouse stun gun. A tool used to kill livestock.

  ‘It was a miscalculation that you two sisters didn’t get on,’ the man said, polishing the implement.

  She glanced at the window again, an old-fashioned mullion window: could she throw herself through it? Or was the wooden frame too strong?

  ‘Up in Vidsel, people stick together. Being apart causes us pain. We can’t be shut in, we’re born to be free . . .’

  There was a noise on the other side of the cottage wall, and Annika started. Footsteps through mud? Ivar Berglund didn’t appear to have heard anything. Had she imagined it?

  A moment later there was a knock at the door.

  ‘Birgitta? Are you in there? Annika?’

  It was Steven. Berglund glanced towards the hall with interest.

  ‘Get out of here!’ Annika yelled, but her voice was so hoarse that it came out as a hiss. ‘Run! Get the police!’

  ‘Annika? I got your text. Is Birgitta here?’

  Ivar Berglund walked towards the door. Fury raged through Annika, like a blue flame, and she screamed so hard her voice cracked: ‘Birgitta’s dead! Get the hell out of here
!’

  ‘Are you okay, Annika?’

  Ivar Berglund, or his brother, took the key out of his trouser pocket and opened the door.

  ‘Welcome,’ he said. ‘Come in!’

  ‘Don’t come in!’ Annika shouted.

  Behind Berglund’s head she could see Steven’s worried face.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘He’s mad! He’s killed Birgitta!’

  Steven stepped into the narrow hall, pushed Berglund aside and looked anxiously at Annika. ‘Are you all right?’ he said. ‘Has he hurt you?’

  Annika started to cry. ‘Steven,’ she said. ‘You shouldn’t have come here.’

  ‘Of course I should,’ he said, and turned to Berglund.

  Berglund took a step towards them, raised the bolt gun and aimed it at Steven’s neck. For a dazed moment, she was back in the blast furnace. Her cat was flying through the air, its guts unravelling from its split abdomen. The world turned red and she grabbed the rusty iron pipe. No, it wasn’t an iron pipe but a hammer from the old suitcase. Ivar Berglund pressed the murder weapon hard against Steven’s forehead, he screamed, then there was a bang. Berglund had fired. With both hands round the heavy shaft, Annika swung the hammer towards the back of Berglund’s head. Steven sank to the floor in front of her, his eyes open, a round hole in his forehead. Berglund swung round and looked at her, and she hit him hard in the temple with the hammer. The killer’s knees buckled and his eyes rolled back. She raised the hammer again. Flakes of rust scratched her palms. She wanted to hit him and hit him and hit him until all the life ran out of him.

  Then you’ll have to live with that.

  She stopped herself mid-swing.

  Berglund groaned. The cat was dead. There was no way to put his guts back into his body.

  She stumbled over to the suitcase and grabbed the wire. Berglund was heavy. He had fallen on to his stomach with his hands at his sides. She bound them together behind his back with the wire, then opened the hatch to the cellar. With sweat dripping into her eyes she dragged him to the hole, pushed his feet over the edge, dropped his legs into the darkness, then shoved his unconscious body into the cellar. She heard him whimper – he had survived the fall. She closed the hatch and sank on to the floor beside Steven.