Killer's Island Read online

  “They must have used a couple of sheets for this.” Ek stood on his tiptoes to see if he could reach the thumbtacks securing the strips of material. The one at the top. “It must be someone as tall as me or taller.” He picked up the camera and took the photographs Erika wanted.

  “The question is why. The immediate impression one gets of these things flapping away on the hill is like a celebration. Big serpentines. Or a huge bridal veil. Did you call Hartman?”

  “Yes, Maria Wern will be handling this. I hope she’s up to it. You think she is?”

  “She is,” said Erika. “I’m pretty sure she’ll want to come up here before we move the body.” Erika went down the hill, and stopped. At the edge of the rose garden, in the shade under a mulberry tree, there were lilies of the valley growing. She bent down. One didn’t need a sharp pair of eyes to see that someone had picked some of them from a corner of the flowerbed, someone had scrabbled together a bouquet in an angry hurry. Unfortunately the path was graveled and there were no footprints.

  Maria Wern went up the hill with Erika. It was certainly a macabre spectacle. In the gathering heat there were more and more flies. The foul sight presented an almost abstract horror in the full light of day. What sort of person could do something like this?

  “I’ll be done in a minute, and then we can move the body.” Erika stepped back and took another few photographs. It was a source of wonder to Maria that she could be so unmoved. Training, most likely; an ability to disengage her feelings and focus on the detailed work. Not a dead human being, but a body. Preferably Latin names for body parts and phenomena to make it more clinical.

  “Do we know who she was or do we have to wait for someone to report a missing person? She looks about thirty. She might have children… a family.”

  “She wasn’t carrying any papers. But she was married. She has an engagement ring, it says ‘Claes 4/15/1998’ and a wedding ring with ‘Linn Claes 8/4/2001’ engraved inside.”

  “It’s a start. We’ll have to ask the newspaper for help, they can look through their engagement notices and wedding photos. She was barefoot and wearing a nightgown, a white silk lace nightie. Was she asleep when she was attacked by the murderer? Was she at home, in a hotel or maybe with the murderer himself? Or did the murderer dress her in the white nightie? The ritual nature of the crime is clear. She hasn’t been buried or hidden in a cellar… the murderer wanted to display her in his own way.”

  “To scare someone, make them do what he wanted, or just plain madness?” Erika gestured to Ek, who called the ambulance to come and take the body away from the scene. Other officers were trying to disperse the crowd so that the vehicle could get through.

  “If it was to frighten someone, why bother with the lilies of the valley? This is probably not about silencing a witness. This is something else, something much more strange. We may be dealing with a psychopath.” Maria Wern shivered suddenly, standing there in the shadow of the pavilion. Eventually one of her next of kin would get in touch. The anxiety would already be there as a premonition, and then all that sorrow would lie ahead of them. The investigation, the funeral, the welter of documentation and then the mourning process itself, when there was time for it. First they had to understand what had happened, the how and why of it. They had to take in the whole despicable thing and accept that it had happened. What if she had children? How do you explain to children that their mother has been murdered?

  “You want to come with me down to the station?” she asked Erika once the body had been removed in a body bag and the crowd was dispersing.

  “Yes. Ek will stay on here a while taking witness names,” she said.

  “I’ve asked them to start knocking on doors as soon as possible. Someone could have been awake last night and seen something unusual. There are no tire marks in the gravel to suggest a car was driven up here, so the murderer must have carried her through the garden and up the hill.” Maria considered other possibilities for a short while – a wheelbarrow or bicycle? But no wheel marks had been found to indicate anything like that. “Only a person in good shape would manage it. She was either taken close to here by car or someone walked through the lanes with a big sack over their shoulder.”

  “Or along the outside of the wall… down the seafront.” Erika couldn’t judge where one ran the greatest risk of running into people in the middle of the night. “I assume the murderer parked by the Ordnance Tower and then walked along the seafront and through Kärleksporten. The hospital parking area is much further off. People are on the move there all the time. Logically speaking the hospital parking area shouldn’t be an option.”

  “If he’s a lunatic he’s not behaving logically. Anyway, Hartman said he’d handle the media. We need members of the general public coming forward. Better that we put out an early announcement than some witness giving first-hand information to the media.”

  “Very true. I found a small piece of black trash bag. Maybe he carried the body in the bag and a piece snagged on a branch and tore off. Either that or the plastic comes from some other place. We’ll check it for fingerprints.” Erika sat in the car, rubbing her sore back. “I had a date tonight but I think I can forget that. Pity. I could have done with some healing hands here and there.”

  Hartman met Maria on the stairs.

  “We have a witness who saw a man with a sack near the Botanical Gardens last night. Or I don’t know if I can say ‘a man,’ she couldn’t say for sure. A creature, anyway, wearing some sort of cape. Sort of like a monk in Medieval Week. The witness’s name is Jill Andersson. She was walking on Tranhusgatan above Paviljongsplan when she met a man with a sack on his shoulder.”

  “Is she here, I’d like to talk to her?” Maria felt the blood rushing to her face. Here was a chance of a lead on the person who’d committed this bestial crime, the person it was now her responsibility to track down. Another thing that bothered her was the close resemblance of the woman they found on Tempelkullen to Erika. A sickening thought.

  “Jill Andersson had an appointment at the social security office, which she couldn’t miss. But she’s coming to the station afterwards. She doesn’t have a cell phone.”

  Hartman took a few steps toward his room, then turned round.

  “We have another problem. Linus’s father, Ulf. He’s calling me the whole time. I understand his fury, but at the same time it worries me.”

  It was inexplicable that he had been capable of such a mistake, but they looked so similar. Two women walk out of a house. One to live, one to die. He had made one tiny error on the way, a miserable little second of carelessness and all the preparations had been in vain. He realized his mistake when he saw her curly head of hair turning up once again in the window of the health center, which he could see from the parking area. She was holding Anders Ahlström, kissing him; then left the building. He followed the wandering dot on his monitor. Was she on her way back to her home address? If he only had her name, address, and social security number: then he could examine her life on the computer screen.

  CHAPTER 13

  DETECTIVE INSPECTOR PER ARVIDSSON turned off the alarm clock. His body ached for more sleep, although he’d already slept almost ten hours. The mornings were the worst, when he had to confront the new day with its fresh demands. Just taking care of his bodily hygiene seemed a major venture in itself. He couldn’t explain it. Had it been possible, he would have pulled himself together. That was what was expected of him. Occasionally he managed it, then came the setbacks. Certainly day-to-day life had slowly improved but things were still not good; it was as if his energy wouldn’t suffice. He could start a project, feeling himself inspired and full of energy, then suddenly run into a wall and, exhausted, give the whole thing up. He’d been on medication for a while and felt better, but did not want to keep taking the medicine if he didn’t have to. It calmed his anxieties while at the same time making him impotent. It was a no-win situation: bubonic plague or cholera, take your pick! There was a constantly churning anxiety
that life was running away from him, possibilities disappearing without him catching hold of them. Right now he was worrying mostly about Maria – the result of the HIV test. She needed his support so much. Time and time again she had wanted to tell him about all the terrible things she’d experienced; in the end he screamed at her, told her to stop, because he couldn’t hear it. He hated himself for it. Maria hadn’t accused him. She understood, she said. Darling Maria, she would never fully understand the self-loathing, the feeling of being a burden and a disappointment. She said she loved him. But it wasn’t true. She loved the image of the man he had been before he was shot. There were many precious memories, many passionate moments. At this time she was devoted to him, and while this remained so he refused to let her in close. He couldn’t cope with being loved when he couldn’t love himself. Could she really put her hand on her heart and insist she loved a useless man like him? That was the reason for his hardness, his unpleasant exterior – he admitted that to himself. He kept her at an arm’s length by being thoroughly unpleasant, even though there was nothing he wanted more than to take full possession of himself again and hold her in his arms. She had brought the children along a few times when they met. Although they were well-behaved and sweet, it was too much for him. Too much noise, too many demands he could not cope with. Can you play some football with them? Listen to Emil playing the piano! He had asked them to go home. He was such a failure, such a goddamn failure and he wanted nothing more than to be alone with his shame.

  Maria had said he must seek medical advice. The days and months went by and life ran through his fingers like sand – without a sense of being alive. Time and time again the thought of finishing it all had come to him. But he had resisted that, for the sake of his own children, he told himself. In fact it was pure cowardice. Not because of the pain, not because of the shame, but because he did not know what was waiting for him on the other side. He had spoken to Maria about it as they sat on the grassy slope by the promenade overlooking the sea, drinking beer and eating grilled chicken. It was a late evening, everything fine and the wind warm. She was not afraid of death, not afraid of actually being dead. If one isn’t conscious then there’s nothing to torment one. But the actual process of dying did worry her; growing helpless and dependent on others. Losing body function, being unable to communicate what one wanted to say while at the same time feeling pain or not being able to breathe. “It frightens me and I don’t want to think about it,” she had told him. “It’s lucky we can’t see into the future. It’s better that way.”

  Arvidsson was a seeker and a brooder. What if consciousness was not located in the brain? What if there were actually a soul that had to live on? However broken and tormented? He swung between investing his hopes in the great Nothingness and a belief in the immortality of the soul. Worst of all was the thought of being able to see and experience what people around one were thinking and doing after one’s death. In his imagination he could hear Maria confiding in Erika. Hartman’s complaints. Rebecka’s relief when she was awarded sole custody of the children and no longer needed to drop them off every other weekend.

  His thoughts of death left him no peace. He did not have the strength to live, but was too afraid to die. There was a sturdy hook in the roof-beam in the living room, where the chandelier was hanging. He’d had it changed, so it would be strong enough. It was there if he needed to walk out of life by the emergency exit. It was a relief to him, knowing that he could decide for himself when it was time. He had got himself a rope, hanging on the coat hooks in the hall, behind his winter coat. He found out on the Internet how to make a slipknot that glides easily and tightens. A suitable stool to kick over was also available. But just imagine if in that moment when the stool is knocked over, one changes one’s mind.…

  He remained sitting at the kitchen table, staring at his hands. Imagined them lifeless. Pale yellow, cold and stiff. His upper arms and the muscles he could tighten now would be released forever, and then rot. His teeth would remain. An ugly grin. He gave in to a sudden fit of trembling. This could not be sustained any longer. He felt he was going to vomit, his stomach ached. Then finally he wept and it was a relief, one which he had not managed up until now. Once he started crying he felt he would never be able to stop. The deep sobs wrenched out of him like an evil spirit he’d borne for a long time – a spirit that had controlled his life. He wanted to live, he wanted so goddamn much to live a normal, straight-forward human life with a wife and kids and a job, just like anyone else. Why the hell couldn’t he allow himself this?

  In his wallet was a note Erika had written for him. A telephone number to that doctor she was having a fling with. Anders Ahlström.

  “He’s very patient-focused and thoughtful,” she’d said. “I’ve told him about you. He’s waiting for your call.”

  At first he’d been furious, of course. She had no right to interfere with his private life and discuss him with others. But Erika had taken his face in her strong hands and looked directly into his eyes so he couldn’t look away.

  “If you don’t go and see him I’ll club you and drag you there by your hair. You need help, Per!”

  Anders Ahlström was thinking about his mother. Late last night she had called because she was feeling so dizzy, and he took Julia with him in the car and drove all the way to Öja, where she lived in a little cottage. She had passed out at the end of her sewing circle meeting, just when it was time for the other ladies to go home. He took her pulse, her blood pressure, and listened to her heart without finding any anomalies. To be on the safe side, they had stayed overnight. The whole thing worried him.

  The telephone rang and cut short his train of thought. Anders Ahlström checked his watch. He was actually supposed to go and have his lunch. He had decided to start a new and better life, with regular meal times, exercise, and no smoking. For Erika’s sake. When Per Arvidsson called on his direct line to book an appointment, Anders had to skip lunch again. Only with a massive effort of will power did he stop himself from bumming a cigarette from Siv, who had just come back from her vacation.

  Per Arvidsson shook hands and spoke his name in an empty, flat voice.

  “How are you?” Anders asked the red-haired man who’d sunk down before him at the desk. He smelled of rank sweat and his hair, slicked back along his scalp, looked as if it hadn’t been washed for a long time. Proper psychological stress can make a person look like this, even an hour after stepping out of the shower. His eyes were apathetic and filled with sorrow.

  “What can I do for you?” he said when his question remained unanswered.

  Per Arvidsson burst into tears. He pinched his cheek hard, so that the pain would make him get a grip on himself. “I have this feeling of despair, I can’t take it any more.” Per fell silent, scraping his nails across the fabric of his pants, making a rasping sound. He couldn’t sit still in his chair.

  “Tell me.” Anders tried to be relaxed in his body language to clarify the fact that he was prepared to listen for a long time.

  Per stuttered out his story about the shoot-out when he was wounded, the twenty-four hours when he hovered between life and death. Yet when he could finally go back home, he no longer knew if he wanted to live. He should have been happy that he made it through so convincingly. He was physically completely restored but mentally a wreck.

  “What help have you had before?” Anders had listened without taking notes, without taking his eyes off him and thus avoiding any disruption to his story and loss of contact.

  “I went to a therapist, who was good. But he stopped and moved abroad. Then I was offered another contact. That one was a real joke, a goddamn moron who thought I should try colonic irrigation.”

  “Have you tried medication?” Anders rubbed his temples. His headache was now undeniable. He needed a cigarette to think clearly.

  “It was rat poison. I was more or less chemically castrated by it. Couldn’t get it up. Although I don’t much want to have sex now, either, so it doesn’t rea
lly matter. I suppose shitty genes like mine aren’t supposed to be passed on.”

  “Are you having suicidal thoughts?”

  “I was before, yes.” The important thing was to tell him just enough to get some medication and stay on part-time sick leave, because that was what he needed. But if he told the truth, the whole truth, he ran the risk of being put under lock and key and suicide watch.

  “So what were you thinking?”

  “I was going to hang myself. I had a new hook put up in the living room. But it’s not a concern any more. I want to try to live.”

  “A good decision. Would you be interested in some more therapy sessions? I know someone.…”

  “No, for Christ’s sake. It’s quite enough for me just to come in and let you know whether the medicine’s working. I don’t have the energy for appointments and having to talk to someone who doesn’t know which end is up. Or sitting in a group and competing with the others to see who’s feeling the shittiest. I don’t have energy for any responsibility of any kind. Every bastard out there wants to get you going again, even when you’re almost going under with exhaustion.”

  “You want to start medication again? We can try another sort, with a different chemical composition. There’s a good possibility we can find something that works better for you than what you were taking before.”

  Per drew a deep sigh of relief. “Sounds good.”

  “How’s your day-to-day life, are you living with anyone?”