X Ways to Die

by Stefan Ahnhem

  The alcohol had definitely helped. After just a few glasses, all thoughts of Theodor had grown diffuse and fuzzy. After a few more, his anxiety had more or less evaporated and he’d managed to persuade himself everything was going to be all right. But when he entered the house and was greeted by the aroma of lasagne, anxiety about what the future might hold crashed over him again.

  To avoid waking Sonja, he undressed downstairs and brushed his teeth and washed in the guest bathroom before going up to their bedroom and crawling in under the blankets. But when he rolled over towards the middle of the bed to give Sonja a hug and whisper in her ear that he was home, he discovered her side was empty.

  He sat up and looked around in the dark, struggling to sober up. Had she given up and left? Packed her bags as soon as Matilda went to bed and just abandoned them? After everything that had happened, it wouldn’t surprise him.

  He’d been telling himself they were finally doing okay. That all the trials and hardships were eventually going to bring them closer together, back to something that would, in time, be really good. They hadn’t quarrelled at all recently. They’d agreed on virtually everything. In the middle of the chaos, they had stood united and for the first time in ages were pulling in the same direction.

  Maybe it had been too good to be true. A charade. A false face put on things to lull him into a false sense of security so she could disappear at the first opportunity, leaving everything behind. Take all the time you need.

  If it hadn’t been for the distant music, he would have fallen asleep in the middle of that thought. But as it was, he got out of bed instead and went back out onto the landing. The music was still too faint for him to hear what it was. But a flickering light filtering down the stairs pointed him to the studio.

  The studio belonged to Sonja and was one of the reasons he’d bought the house. She’d always wanted a home studio. A room that was just hers, where she could go to make art whenever the spirit moved her without first getting on the metro, like back in Stockholm. While making dinner, before the rest of the family woke up or well into the small hours.

  But she hadn’t been up there in over a month now. Since her lover, who had posed as an art dealer, had instead turned out to be the killer he was hunting, she’d refused to set foot on the second floor. She’d been so badly burned that art was now a closed chapter to her.

  He’d been hoping it was a temporary crisis, that it was only a matter of time before she pulled on her dungarees, stiff with dried paint spatter, and got back to her art. But she hadn’t.

  Not until now.

  Because there she was. On her back, eyes closed, in the middle of the room, motionless in her white bathrobe. Thirty or so tealights flickered around her and out of the speakers poured Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska, one of her favourite albums, which she only ever put on when she was really sad. That was the only time it was ever played. When nothing else helped.

  ‘Sonja…’ he said, and he stepped into the room. But she didn’t respond. Instead, she just lay there, supine, her arms by her sides. ‘What are you doing?’ he continued, trying to push down the thought that maybe Greta had been referring to her. ‘It’s half one in the morning.’ But he was unsuccessful and eventually frantic anxiety broke through the haze of alcohol. Had she done it? ‘Sonja…’

  When she got up, he was unsure whether it was really happening or if he was just having a booze-fuelled dream sprung out of his deepest fantasies. He wanted to ask but stayed silent as she walked towards him with her finger pressed against her lips and let her bathrobe fall.

  She smelled wonderful and when she leaned in to kiss him, he could feel the droplets from her hair, still wet from the shower, trickle down his leg as though it were real. The kiss was slow and tentative at first but quickly grew increasingly intense and hungry.

  But why now? He didn’t understand. Had she been lying up here waiting for him, even though it was the middle of the night and their son had been remanded in custody? Or wasn’t it up to her at all? Had desire suddenly just bloomed out of feelings that had been suppressed but never truly gone? Because enough time had passed.

  She wanted him. For the first time in a long time and like never before, she wanted him.

  He kissed her back and tried to parry her ravenous lips with his own while moving his hand up to cup her breast and caress her nipple. That was his usual move. Meanwhile, he slowly inched his other hand down her stomach.

  But not this time. Without breaking the kiss, she slapped away both his hands, grabbed him by the hair and pushed him down. Down along her neck, towards her breasts, which she let him caress with the tip of his tongue.

  ‘Lick,’ she said. ‘Lick them.’

  And he licked. Again and again, he circled her nipples, painting them with his saliva.

  ‘Blow,’ she said. ‘I want you to blow on them.’

  He obeyed and felt a shiver run through her as she pushed him down between her legs.

  He’d been there many times. But not like this. Never this intensely. With her vice-like grip on his hair, she forced him ever deeper into places he’d never been before. He liked it and she liked it. Her moans were growing louder and louder. Her muscles tensed, making her body tremble for more. Seemingly insatiable.

  She’d always been so quiet. Had always wanted to turn the lights off and keep things tidy. Had always hurried to the bathroom to rinse off the moment they were done. She was like a different person.

  ‘Horny… I was so horny,’ she said, forcing him down onto the hard but warm wooden floor. ‘So fucking horny…’ She grabbed his throbbing erection and squeezed it as she started to move her hand up and down.

  ‘Me too,’ he replied, wishing she would never stop.

  ‘But not for you,’ she went on, and started flicking her tongue against the head of his penis. ‘I didn’t want you at all.’ Then she took him in her mouth, and he tried to understand what was happening. What she meant. But his questions remained unanswered and soon all his thoughts revolved around her caresses again. The way she took him deeper than ever, only to then kiss and play with it as though she wanted to taste every part.

  If she kept this up, he wouldn’t be able to hold back much longer. It had been a long time, too long. The tip of her tongue teasingly playing along the edge of the head, coupled with her hand squeezing the shaft so tightly… it was about to explode, he was so hard. He could feel it now. It was building and he wouldn’t be able to fight it for much longer.

  ‘Right then, you were the last person I wanted to let in,’ she said, and pressed her thumb into the spot right underneath the head, trapping his load. ‘Anyone, so long as it wasn’t you.’

  He was thrown back into confusion. Disappointed and yet not. The load was still in him, throbbing with each heartbeat. When she straddled him, he prayed dawn would never arrive.

  ‘When he pushed into me…’ she continued as she slowly began to ride him. ‘I had never experienced anything more satisfying.’ She leaned down and let him taste her breasts. First one, then the other. ‘It was as though he freed me… from all the things I thought I was.’ She straightened back up and started thrusting harder, up and down as though she couldn’t get deep enough. ‘There was a hardness to him I didn’t know I’d missed during all my years with you. A primal force stronger than anything else…’

  She upped the tempo and he helped with his hands under her taut bottom, pushing it up so far he slipped out of her and slamming it down again so deep and hard it must have hurt. But she moaned with pleasure and begged for more, so he thrust harder and let his hand feel its way closer to her opening, until he could feel himself sliding in and out.

  ‘I even liked it when he hit me… The throbbing pain and the rush of blood. Even then… It was as though I’d been asleep for years and was finally waking up… When I realized who he really was, it was too late…’

  Without warning, she climbed off him and got down on all fours, a position she’d never liked and thought was too po
rnographic. Now she was asking for it, with her bottom in the air and her fingers spreading her labia, and the moment he pushed inside, she moaned so loudly he was sure the neighbours must be able to hear.

  But he didn’t care, just kept thrusting into her harder and harder and faster and faster as rage boiled inside him. So many times, he’d wanted her to tell him so they could expel all the secrets that had built a wall between them. And now when she finally did, he wanted nothing more than for her to stop.

  ‘I tried to run…’ she went on, and he slapped her buttock so hard it turned red. ‘To get out of there…’ He slapped her again and heard her burst into tears. But the thought of stopping seemed as remote to her as to him. ‘But I couldn’t…’

  It was as though their bodies had taken over. ‘I was nothing to him…’ As though it were no longer up to them. ‘I was just a way of getting to you… It was all about you…’ They sped up, racing towards the climax. ‘Once I was used up, he was going to discard me…’ Every time he thrust into her, she pushed back harder. ‘So he forced me into my own piece of art… Like it was a coffin… I could hear the screwdriver tighten each screw in the lid…’

  The beginning of the end began as a quiver in her voice. ‘The hole had already been dug… He’d prepared the whole thing…’ Then it spread like a shudder through her body. ‘He was going to bury me…’ And over to him. ‘Alive…’ Until it finally took over with such force, they both screamed.

  14

  FABIAN TOOK A sip of the scalding hot coffee and rubbed his knees, which, despite a double dose of paracetamol, ached like he’d run a marathon. Waking up that morning, he’d been unable to figure out why they hurt. But as soon as he discovered the bleeding abrasions, the memories came flooding back.

  Neither the wounds nor the persistent tenderness bothered him. Quite the opposite; they were among the few things he had going for him right now. A reminder that last night’s exertions with Sonja on the floor of her studio hadn’t been a dream.

  She’d finally told him everything, filling in the gaps in the narrative of what had taken place during those fateful days when she’d left him for her new man. It had been a hard telling, for both him and her. That there had been some kind of trauma had been clear to him. But that she’d been buried alive, trapped in her own work of art The Hanging Box, was hard to take in, though it did explain why his colleagues had insisted on confiscating the wooden box for forensic examination.

  It also explained her sudden aversion to her own art. Even why she’d waited for him in the studio, of all places, and until tonight, of all nights, had been explained; she’d been informed by the police earlier in the day that they were done with the box and that she had five business days to come and collect it before it was sent off to be destroyed.

  And yet, the thought alone made him feel unclean. As though the whole night was tainted because they’d lain there, wrapped up in themselves and their own anxieties, allowing themselves to feel pleasure while their son spent his first night in police custody. It wasn’t like him, and it definitely wasn’t like Sonja.

  ‘Well, well, what do you know. Mr Risk is first to arrive again.’ Molander looked around as he entered the conference room. ‘Who’d have thought it?’

  ‘Happy to be keeping you on your toes,’ Fabian replied, playing along with a smile.

  ‘Though you do look a bit pooped. Late night?’

  ‘A bit. There’s a lot of work to be done.’

  ‘Yes, there certainly is.’ Molander put a stack of documents down on the table and took a seat. ‘So no “private excursions” today, then, I take it?’

  ‘Actually, yes, but not until this afternoon.’

  ‘Theodor again?’

  Fabian nodded. ‘And what about you?’ Theodor was the last thing he wanted to talk to Molander about.

  ‘Are you crazy? How can I fit in personal escapades with all of this going on?’ Molander gestured around the room.

  ‘I was actually thinking about last night, whether you had a late one. It was Gertrud’s birthday, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Eh… Right…’ Molander seemed to shudder briefly. ‘I’m sorry, what was that? My mind was elsewhere—’

  ‘Gertrud, your wife. I noticed on Facebook that it was her birthday yesterday. I hope you took the time to celebrate and didn’t spend the whole night working.’

  ‘Oh, right… Well.’ Molander forced out a smile and laughed mirthlessly. ‘Hope springs eternal, I suppose. I’m afraid I have to disappoint you. Luckily, Gertrud knows what to expect – she knows what I’m like when we’re in the middle of an investigation.’

  ‘Voilà! I told you so,’ exclaimed Tuvesson, who arrived together with Klippan and Lilja. ‘They’re here. Perfect. Let’s get cracking. Unless you were in the middle of something.’

  ‘Not at all,’ Molander replied. ‘We were just discussing our workload. And while we’re on the subject, I can tell you I spent the whole night in the lab, cross-matching all the samples we’ve collected from the crime scenes. And I did that even though, as Fabian rightly pointed out just now, yesterday was Gertrud’s birthday.’

  ‘So you’ll be sleeping on the sofa, in other words,’ Klippan said, and he started to plug in his laptop.

  ‘I happen to have a very understanding wife, so I think I’ll be all right.’

  ‘And what did you discover?’ Tuvesson asked.

  ‘That Fabian was right about the investigations being connected and not the work of several perpetrators with different motives, but rather of one single person.’ He held up one finger. ‘Fabian, you don’t have to look so surprised. Even you have to get it right sometimes.’ He flashed Fabian a smile and a quick wink before turning back to the others. ‘It turns out that we have unwittingly been collecting DNA traces in the form of skin fragments, hairs and saliva from a single person present at all three crime scenes.’

  ‘Does this mean we can technically link this person to the murders of Moonif Ganem, Lennart Andersson and Molly Wessman?’ Tuvesson asked.

  Molander nodded. ‘And most likely Evert Jonsson, too, though in that case I’ve only managed to match one fingerprint from the cocoon with one from the laundry room.’

  ‘This is amazing news. But why are we only discovering this now, when the evidence has been in your lab the whole time?’

  ‘There are several reasons for that. The DNA results have only just started to come in, and no one seriously considered the idea that it might be a single perpetrator until yesterday, when Fabian—’

  ‘Yes, we did,’ Lilja broke in. ‘We just couldn’t figure out a motive that fitted.’

  ‘Exactly. And given that, I didn’t prioritize cross-matching all the prints and samples we’ve collected. But sure, blame me, if it makes you feel better. Go ahead. As though I have twenty-five – or why not twenty-six? – hours a day to work.’

  ‘I actually do think a large part of the blame for this belongs to you.’ Tuvesson closed the door. ‘That’s not to say you, and the rest of us, haven’t gone above and beyond in the past few weeks. But in all honesty. Wouldn’t you agree that it’s a bit peculiar that it’s only now, after four murders, that we realize this isn’t one-offs but rather the work of a serial killer? A serial killer who is probably busy planning a fifth murder.’

  ‘I don’t know about peculiar.’ Molander shrugged. ‘I’d say everything about these cases has been and still is extraordinarily peculiar. Everything from the different methods to the choice of victims. Take the timings, for instance. Evert Jonsson suffocates in his cocoon sometime around 25 May—’

  ‘Ingvar, I’m—’

  ‘Would you let me finish, please. Then almost twenty days go by before Moonif Ganem is centrifuged to death. Three days later, Molly Wessman dies of poisoning, the same day Lennart Andersson is stabbed to death in front of a crowd of witnesses at Ica Maxi.’ Molander threw his hands up. ‘So no, given the circumstances, I would actually be inclined to say we’ve been pretty quick and efficient.’
>
  ‘I’m fully aware this investigation is unlike anything we’ve seen and that the NFC, despite us being a priority, didn’t give us the results of the DNA analyses until now. But the fingerprints, for example – you’ve had access to those the whole time.’

  ‘Yes, but as I just said, we haven’t—’

  ‘It’s not about what our theories have been. Or about how busy you happen to be or how many hours there are in a day. I have laboured under the assumption that you continuously cross-match everything you get, without me having to ask you to. Especially under these circumstances. Who knows where we might have been today if you’d realized a week ago that one of the fingerprints from the laundry room in Bjuv was also found in Molly Wessman’s flat?’

  ‘What do you want me to say?’

  ‘You don’t have to say anything. We all make mistakes and we all miss things. It just normally doesn’t happen to you. It leads me to wonder why now. Are you having problems at home? Has something happened that makes it difficult for you to focus on your work? Should I request additional resources?’

  ‘No, no, I’m fine. Perfectly well.’

  ‘Are you sure? Because I understand if you’ve been running on fumes for too long and need a break. I just need to know what I’m working with here.’

  Fabian watched Molander nod like a dog with its tail between its legs. Had his own sins finally caught up with him?

  ‘Listen, I suggest we move on,’ Lilja said, turning to the others. ‘One thing I’m wondering is if there’s just one perpetrator, he must be considered well organized and prepared, to say the least, right? So isn’t it strange that he’s leaving so many prints behind? Losing a hair here and there, fine. But saliva, fingerprints and whatnot. It doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘Are you saying it’s part of a bigger plan?’ Tuvesson said.

  ‘No idea.’ Lilja shrugged. ‘But if it isn’t, he’s incredibly careless.’

  ‘Or maybe he’s overconfident,’ Fabian put in. ‘Since the murders are so different from each other in every respect, there’s no incentive to connect the cases. On that, I agree with Ingvar – it’s not surprising we haven’t until now.’