Killer's Island Page 3

  “He wasn’t exactly bullied at school, but at the same time he wasn’t really one of the group,” Ulf offered. It was as if the air was slowly deflating now, and he could no longer find a reason to scream at Katarina. He sank into an armchair by the door. The worst of his fury seemed to have spent itself. “Tell us what happened.”

  As mercifully as possible Maria described the assault without going into any details about the assailants. Apprehending them was a matter for the police.

  “We’re going to put all our resources into finding these people. I won’t be able to work on the investigation, but I will be a witness. I feel just like you, Ulf, I’d like to beat the life out of them. But if you feel like that you can’t do a good job as a police officer. My chief, Tomas Hartman, is a highly competent police officer. He’ll do his utmost.” Maria realized her words were not sounding very convincing. There was an unpleasant determination in Ulf’s voice. She really hoped he would calm down and trust the police to do their work.

  “Thanks for having the courage to… for trying to save Linus.” Katarina gave Maria a heartfelt embrace and looked at Ulf. But he could not show any gratitude; he was too blinded by his hate.

  “There was a witness, you said, a man who passed by without helping you. Can you describe him better?”

  CHAPTER 3

  WHEN LINN BOGREN KNOCKED OFF her shift at the hospital it was almost eleven o’clock. Just before the end of the night shift, a case came in from the intensive care unit. They were in the middle of the run-through. If the decision had been made an hour earlier it would have been much smoother. The medical department would have taken charge of a man with multi-symptom illness – inserting a catheter, putting him on a drip, and measuring his urine. He was given blood electrolytes, proteins, and fat; also oxygen, a respirator, and a pain pump they’d never seen before. There wasn’t even a set of instructions for it. It took a while to get him installed and inform his next of kin that he’d been moved out of intensive care because of a lack of space. The ICU had taken custody of a badly injured boy that night, who was more in need of the bed. Of course it wouldn’t quite be put in this way to the old man’s family. It was better if they interpreted the whole thing as good news. The situation has stabilized: “Our view is that he can now be moved to a normal ward.” In the old days when finances had been better, there’d been extra personnel available. The old man could do with constant monitoring, given the confusion he was in. In the short term he’d been in the ICU he’d already had time to pull out the needle twice, so that blood and drip solution leaked into the bed and they had to change the sheets. Of course the man needed a room of his own, so they had to rearrange half the section. One lady was moved into the corridor. She was a bewildered old thing, who also needed individual attention.

  Linn walked homeward at a brisk pace under the streetlights along the beach promenade by the city wall. Far away on the ice-blue horizon she could see the Gotland ferry like a white sugar cube on its way into the harbor. She tried to disconnect from her thoughts about work, tried to breathe calmly and relax, but it was impossible. She thought about the badly injured boy. A colleague in ICU had told her he’d been assaulted and that his injuries were life-threatening. She’d seen his parents on the stairs. Their evident despair had shaken her deeply.

  But she must stop agonizing about work, had to calm down before she got home, so she could sleep. Tomorrow she was back on duty at seven o’clock. At best she’d get about five hours of sleep. Once you started checking your watch it was already too late: five more hours to get some sleep, four hours, three, two, one, zero. Just before the alarm went off she usually fell asleep like a dead person. Her old job at the health center had been better. Just a straight week, 8–5. But she’d committed to the hospital over the summer. They needed people. She’d been very hesitant about going back for a number of reasons. But in the end she’d given in. She was in dire need of money; this year she’d have to make do with a week’s holiday in November.

  She lingered a little by Kärleksporten in the city wall. Twelve years ago she’d gotten engaged in this very spot, on a sunny but cold spring morning as the waves lashed against the rocks on the beach. She’d been so happy… or was that true, in fact? At that time she was a young girl, perhaps more in love with love than the actual man she was getting engaged to. He’d wanted this and his willpower was so strong. He was older, he knew best, he was so much surer about everything. They suited each other, he’d said. She’d been hesitant about it even then. But so many things in life were like this. She hardly ever knew what she wanted, and in the end you had to decide on something, right? If you didn’t choose someone to live with, you ended up alone and nothing could be more frightening than that.

  She passed through Kärleksporten and turned into Studentallén. There were a lot of people out and about, mostly young people celebrating the end of term. The time had not quite come yet for the big tourist influx, and Medieval Week was much later in August, but the mild weather had brought people out of their hollows to socialize. A bride in white was standing outside the Wisby Hotel with all her entourage. They were all laughing and talking, hugging and being silly. It looked like the reception had been a success. The bride was very beautiful. Linn felt a pinprick in her heart and thought about Sara. The bride looked so similar to her beautiful, irresistibly courageous Sara, with that light red, wavy hair and those lively gray eyes.

  Sara had first come to the hospital diagnosed with cystic fibrosis. Incurable. Unfair. With every passing phase her breathing deteriorated. Her days had been filled with physical therapy and massive courses of antibiotics. She’d had a great need to communicate. Linn had often stayed on far beyond her normal working hours because she wanted to, wanted to stay more than anything. And not just for Sara’s sake either… it wasn’t a sacrifice on her part. They became close friends. They went to the theater and movies together, listened to music long into the night, shared experiences and discussed them. One shouldn’t socialize with one’s patients. It’s no good. One has to keep a watertight seal between work and leisure. Anything else spells disaster, every professional nurse knows this. But her feelings ran away with her. Each time there had been a further deterioration when Sara came into the hospital, it felt like a personal loss, a punch to the stomach. Sara often called ahead before she came in – “I can’t stay at home any more, I have a temperature again.” The intake of oxygen was increased every time. Her infections hit harder and harder. Her lung capacity dwindled and death put its mark on her cheeks. She was so young, not even thirty. The only possibility left to her was a lung transplant: new lungs would give her new life. She was placed on a waiting list. There was a slim chance, the waiting list was long. The lungs had to be compatible. The organ donors were few, and the wait was macabre in its way – the very idea of hoping for someone else’s death in order to live oneself! Linn had not wanted Sara to think so negatively, so crassly, about it. Something good can come of another person’s meaningless death, a part of the body can live on, can give life. The weeks passed and Sara did her best to stay in shape. She maintained a good diet, worked out, stayed positive, slept as much as she could, rested and worked out again. It was going to be all right. It had to be all right.

  Then the day came. A new pair of lungs were available. She was due to be flown to the Karolinska Hospital. A life-or-death journey. Linn stayed with her at the hospital that night. Neither of them could have slept anyway. There was a full moon and the lights were all out in the ward. In the silvery glow she’d seen Sara’s white face, the gleam in her black eyes. Her skin was worryingly shiny. At around midnight the fever broke out, and Sara had a shivering fit. Her face grew red, her eyes glittered, her forehead dripped with sweat. That night another person on the waiting list was given a chance to live. If you’re sick you can’t have an operation. Sara deteriorated even more. Lost weight. In the end she was taking fifteen liters of oxygen through a mask and still she breathed as if she’d just run a marathon. Sh
e wavered between life and death in a sweat-soaked struggle with the infection that would not give in.

  You have to go home, said Linn’s colleagues. You really must sleep if you’re going to be able to do your job. The clinic manager, Sam Wettergren, had a long talk with her. He had realized how things stood and now offered his own interpretation. It made everything sound so ugly, the way it came out of his mouth – everything that had been care and commitment. He said straight away that she should resign. If she refused, he’d transfer her. A nurse cannot have a personal relationship with a patient. There was no way this would be allowed in his clinic.

  Rather than playing the coward and denying her feelings for Sara, she abstained from commenting on what he’d said. She was not going to make a victim of herself. If he put any ultimatums on her, she’d counter with certain things that were less pleasant for him. He, who was supposed to be a good example to all. It would be enough to allude to one particular fateful error he’d made, which could be enough to ruin his career for ever.

  “What are you going to do about it?” Sam Wettergren had said, and she’d seen the fear sweeping over his haughty face.

  “Nothing – if I’m just left in peace,” she’d replied. The first round ended in a draw, then. As long as he kept in line she wouldn’t share what she knew with others.

  “Does Sara know anything about the medical research? Have you said anything to her?”

  “No, you’re her doctor and she trusts you. I don’t want to undermine the confidence she has in you. I won’t say anything to Sara if you take care of your business and leave me to mine.”

  After a week, there was a turnaround. Sara improved once again; it was miraculous. Her temperature returned to normal and the oxygen levels were reduced, although she remained at the hospital. With incredible determination, Sara continued exercising. Cycling with oxygen, mile after mile, while waiting for the last chance. Rest – exercise, rest, exercise, and a total avoidance of contact with people who might have a cold or any other contagion. Linn had waded in and read the riot act to a consultant senior physician who’d been about to go into the ward even though his nose was running.

  And the chance came again… one rainy November evening when Linn was on duty. She would never forget that evening. Not for as long as she lived. The telephone call came through from the coordinator. There was going to be an operation. New lungs had come in. Linn got her instructions about oxygen tanks for the helicopter journey, orders for preparation of the patient, forms to fill in. She called in the doctor on duty. Her whole body trembling, she’d woken Sara to give her the marvelous news. They’d laughed and cried. The fear and joy washed over them like breaking waves. Now everything had to work to perfection. Linn calculated oxygen volumes and asked her colleague to double-check. She was on pins and needles. The ambulance crew was there in no time at all. “See you very soon!” Linn had said. See you! She’d hugged Sara. This might be their last embrace, Linn’s last glimpse of her still alive.

  “I love you, Linn. For real,” Sara had whispered into her hair.

  “I love you, too. More than anything else in my life.” And thus it was out in the open. The forbidden thing had been spoken; a bridge constructed over the void. A tremulous joy, a vertiginous fear. May it give Sara the courage and strength to live.

  For the rest of that shift Linn had neglected the other patients. She had Sara in her thoughts the whole time. It was a wonder that nothing more serious went wrong than a significant delay in the administering of evening medicines, and the fact that many patients fell asleep without their sleeping pills.

  When Linn came home that night she’d been unable to sleep. She’d sat by the window, staring into the rain and praying to that God she didn’t even believe in – asking for Sara to live, for the operation to be a success, for Sara to cope with the medicine that calmed her immune system so that the lungs were not rejected. I love you, Sara. Only now had she spoken those words to herself. What she’d known all along deep inside without even daring admit it to herself. Against all common sense. A patient. A woman. Where would this lead? No, there had been no sleep that night. Not a wink.

  Marvels can be accomplished while you wait, miracles take a little longer, as magicians like to say. At first they didn’t recognize her: a fresh young woman in a summery skirt and hair hanging loose in red waves, who wandered calmly into the ward. Her eyes were radiant and her smile like the sun.

  “Sara! Darling Sara, let me look at you! It’s fantastic! No oxygen.” Linn hadn’t been able to hide her joy from anyone. And Sam left them in peace that day.

  CHAPTER 4

  LINN HURRIED HER STEPS toward home. Her whole body ached with tiredness. Those last few days she had not had much in the way of sleep either. Claes was at sea and before he came home she had to make the decision about whether to leave him. He’d been gone for almost a month and he’d be home for a whole month. Every spare moment he’d be there, and she’d miss being at work so she wouldn’t have to feel his hands on her body, and all the expectations of what she did not want to give him. It would be best to pack her bags and move out before he came home. And only bring what was most important. He could keep most of it. In actual fact there isn’t much one really needs: clothes, a few keepsakes, books. The thought of packing while he watched, while he tried to persuade her to stay, turned her stomach. He wouldn’t become violent or angry. He’d just give her sheepish looks – silent, cut to the quick, watching what she was doing. His implied accusations would be worse than any hard words. Maybe he’d remind her of all the things they’d experienced together, their friends, the house downtown that neither of them would now have the means to keep. The house into which they’d plunged all their money and creativity. Mostly his money, but certainly her creativity and time. As a nurse she only made half his salary. A separation would put her in an entirely different situation, she realized.

  What would her friends say? Her colleagues at work? His parents? In the thirteen years they’d spent together she’d grown so close to his family. She loved her mother-in-law, who’d become the mother she’d never had. And his siblings: they always saw each other during their holidays. At Christmas, New Year, Easter, and Midsummer they had lovely parties and every autumn she went on vacation with his sister Lotta. This year they’d been talking about going to Tenerife. All this on one side of the scales, and Sara on the other. Linn tottered along over the cobblestones. Everything was silent and still. Her thoughts whirled round and sought a hub to fix onto, a decision to stick to. She had to make her mind up very soon. Wonderful, entertaining Sara. When they were together there was not a shadow of doubt, but in her lonely moments the choice was not as simple.

  And if she did leave him? Then she’d move in with Sara. Sara would never want to leave her house in her blooming rose garden in Lummelunda. How does it feel to move in with someone and not have anything of one’s own? To be a guest in Sara’s home? To pay half and own nothing? And what would happen if Sara got ill again? Properly ill. What if she died just when Linn had left security behind and jumped over the precipice? Later there would be no way of repairing the deceit and turning back. And then the loneliness would become unbearable, with neither Sara nor Claes there. The way things were now, she had them both. No, she couldn’t be so calculating about it. Linn tried to shake herself, rid herself of such low principles. What would Sara’s family say? They didn’t know anything. They thought the reason she never met any men was because she was ill and didn’t want to involve anyone. Or maybe that the illness took so much time that she had no opportunity to meet anyone else. They had stopped asking long ago.

  There was just another week now until Claes came home. If she decided to leave she’d have time to pack this weekend. On Monday next week Claes would sign off the ship. She could still choose to stay in her dull security and pretend everything was just the same as always. Nothing had happened. Which would be deceitful to Sara and also to her own deepest feelings. Of course she also felt guilt,
but it was not only her own fault the way things had gone. She needed something else, something Claes could not give her. Maybe it was time to reassign whose fault it was, rather than just piling it all on her own head? Something in their ability to feel intimacy had been lost. He needed sex to help him drum up the courage he needed for closeness, whereas she needed closeness to even want to have sex – things could be summarized more or less like that. And then things had also grown so unbearably dull.…

  Linn looked at her watch. She should call Sara and say good night, but something held her back. They had already started planning their life together, but Linn had not been quite sincere about her hesitations. She didn’t want to make Sara upset or insecure. Surely it was quite enough for her to be obsessing over this. You decide. It’s your life and your decision, Sara had said. And that was right. Linn would not be able to avoid it.

  Linn crossed the parking area by Ordnance Tower to pick up a bag of clothes in the car. She’d been buying new clothes for her new life. She met no one, yet had a feeling of being watched. Maybe it was her bad conscience putting ideas in her head? She grew more watchful, avoided walking too close to parked cars. A door could suddenly open, and someone grab her and pull her inside. She threw hurried glances on either side of her and hurried along. In through the gate in the wall and up onto Fiskarplan. Almost home. Specksgränd lay in darkness. What had happened to the streetlights? Were they all broken? A beer can rolled across the road. It was unexpected. The rattling sound was deafening in the silence. She tried to look into the doorway from where the can had come rolling, but she couldn’t see anyone. Her knees felt like rubber. One foot in front of the other. She had to get out of here. Didn’t even dare look round. But there was someone there, just behind her. Rapid steps behind her back. From the next doorway up ahead, a shadow emerged. A tall hooded figure with a chain around his wrist. The steps behind her were clearer now. They slowed down. A glance over her shoulder and she looked into a pair of glimmering eyes. From a side street came a third man. She wanted to scream, but her voice wouldn’t do as it was told.