X Ways to Die

by Stefan Ahnhem

  ‘I’m not following.’

  ‘I believe, and I stress the word believe, Milwokh let the victim choose his own death.’

  ‘And why would he do that? I don’t see the point.’

  ‘What’s the point of shoving someone into a washing machine?’ Molander shrugged. ‘It would explain the bath, the wire around his wrists and not least, the cables.’

  Tuvesson was about to cut in, but was prevented by an exasperated wave.

  ‘Please, let me finish and stop interrupting.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m just so—’

  ‘Astrid, I know. We’re all groping in the dark here. That’s why I want to get to work as quickly as possible. So if you want to hear my theory, you’re going to have to listen until I’m done before you smash it to pieces with a thousand objections. Okay?’

  Tuvesson nodded.

  ‘As you can see, the ends of the cables are placed fairly high up, close to the edge of the bath,’ Molander continued. ‘So high, in fact, that Milwokh had to seal the overflow drain to make sure the water didn’t escape.’ He pointed to the overflow, from which some kind of grey putty was sticking out. ‘So my theory is that he sedated his victim, stripped him and tied him to the bottom of the bath. Then he waited until he woke up. Only then did he turn on the tap and start filling the bath. If I had to guess, I would say he didn’t even turn it on fully, just ten or fifteen per cent maybe.’

  ‘And why would he do that?’

  ‘Maybe to give the victim enough time to grasp the gravity of the situation. Who knows? Maybe Milwokh sat right there on that stool and explained what was going to happen.’ Molander nodded to a wooden stool by the wall. ‘That the water level was going to rise all the way to the cables, and that it was up to him if he wanted to take his own life by drowning or wait for the water to electrocute him, which would be a considerably more painful way to go.’

  ‘Is electrocution really that much more painful?’

  ‘Absolutely. If I had to choose, I’d pick drowning every time. After the initial pain, you don’t feel a thing, just float away in a weightless state. Electrocution is far from pleasant. Depending on the strength of the current, you basically fry from the inside. Muscle, tissue, the internal organs. And it can take a while. Ten, fifteen minutes, if you’re unlucky.’

  ‘So he either had to drown himself or wait to be fried from the inside?’

  Molander nodded. ‘But ask me again when I’m done with the investigation and Flätan has done his thing.’

  ‘But shouldn’t the fuse have blown the second the circuit closed?’ She finally felt somewhat on the ball. ‘I would have gambled on that if it were me in that bath.’ Tuvesson flicked the light switch but no light came on. ‘The power is clearly out, so the water shouldn’t have been live for more than a second or two.’

  ‘That’s true.’ Molander nodded, looking thoughtful. ‘On the other hand, the power didn’t just go out in this flat, but rather in the entire building, which would explain…’ He left the room and Tuvesson stayed where she was, unsure of what to do.

  She’d made some valid comments, she had. Even pointed out some things Molander hadn’t thought of. But she wasn’t at her best, far from it. She had to fight for every cogent thought, and even so, she mostly felt confused.

  But she couldn’t blame it on the alcohol. Strange as it may sound, she had in fact taken control of her drinking.

  ‘Found it,’ Molander shouted from the hallway.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The fuse box.’

  ‘And? Did you learn anything?’

  Like all normal people, she’d managed to find her way back to an equilibrium and now she just had to make sure she didn’t fall off the wagon again.

  ‘I obviously need to have a closer look at this in the lab, but it looks like you’re right. From what I can see, one of the fuses has been swapped for some sort of home-made device.’

  ‘All right.’ Tuvesson left the bathroom and let her torch light her way through the hallway to the living room.

  But on Sunday, when she’d made her first attempt, she’d ended up overdoing it. There was no denying it. It was what you might call a significant relapse. But then again, she’d been good for a whole month before that, and if that didn’t earn her a relapse, then what did? And maybe it was exactly what she needed to find the equilibrium she was now maintaining.

  But there was that one conversation she couldn’t stop thinking about.

  ‘I’ll go down to the basement and check if it’s the same there. That could possibly explain why the power didn’t go straight away but only after a fifteen-minute delay.’

  She had only a vague memory of it. It had been sometime in the middle of the night and she’d been asleep on her kitchen floor after throwing up in the sink in a desperate attempt to make the world stop spinning. She had no memory at all of her phone ringing; suddenly it was just pressed against her ear and there was a male voice on the other end. Soon after, the call had ended and she’d slipped back into the fog.

  The next day, which was to say yesterday, she’d assumed the phone call had been a dream; but going through her call log had confirmed that on Monday, between 12.15 a.m. and 12.18 a.m., Fabian Risk had called her no less than three times. The last time, she had apparently picked up, and a twenty-one-second call had ensued.

  What the log couldn’t tell her was what they’d talked about. She had no recollection of it. But she had her suspicions and had immediately taken steps.

  30

  EVEN THOUGH HE’D put on an extra sweater and the sea air was mild, Fabian started to feel cold within an hour. He was tense. That was why. His whole body was on high alert and now, after another thirty minutes, as he raised the binoculars and gazed out across the inky waters of Öresund in the direction of Denmark, the cold had penetrated so deep his hands were shaking.

  But there was nothing for it. The two men from the Helsingborg coastguard who crewed the boat had long since started grumbling about wrapping up a mission they felt was nothing but a waste of time and resources.

  So no matter how badly he wanted to step down and join them in the warm cabin, he couldn’t. To them, it would be a clear signal he’d given up, too, and they would immediately seize the opportunity to turn back towards Helsingborg and their dock behind Parapeten. But so long as he was out here, shakily clutching his binoculars, they had to let him keep at it.

  At least he’d managed to speak to Stubbs, who’d told him about a murder case out in Munka-Ljungby last spring that Elvin had been interested in for some reason. She’d tried to explain, but he hadn’t fully understood. Either way, tomorrow she was meeting with a certain Conny Öhman, who was serving a lengthy prison sentence for the murder of his wife, and if it turned out she was right about him being innocent, she claimed they had all the proof they needed to arrest Molander.

  In a way, he could sympathize with the coastguard’s unwillingness to help. He’d forced them out on a virtually impossible mission. Nevertheless, the flat where Milwokh’s latest victim was still submerged in his own bath was located only a few hundred yards from Helsingborg’s South Harbour and the boat rental suggested it had been his intended escape route.

  Where he had escaped to was, however, an open question. He could have gone anywhere. He had not returned to the Råå Marina and Helsingborg Boat Rentals. They’d scoured every square foot of both it and the South Harbour. Then they’d searched the entire coastline from Landskrona in the south to Höganäs in the north and, on Fabian’s insistence, they’d even done a few forays further out in the sound.

  They were definitely groping in the dark. And yet, he couldn’t shake the thought that Milwokh was out here somewhere, bobbing along with his navigational lights turned off, waiting for them to give up.

  They knew he’d only rented the boat for two days, which suggested a short trip. Two uniformed officers had been dispatched to keep the boat rental company under surveillance, though they were well aware he didn’t n
ecessarily have any intention of returning the boat. But that would suggest he was done for good, and right now, there was nothing to support that. Quite the opposite.

  Far likelier was that he’d crossed over to Denmark and pulled the boat up on some deserted beach.

  ‘Hey,’ one of the old men called from the cabin. ‘How are you getting on? Find anything exciting?’

  ‘No, but if we could pop over to the Danish—’

  ‘Because it’s getting to be time to turn back,’ the man cut in.

  ‘Yes, so you keep saying, but I’d like to keep going just a bit longer.’ Fabian turned the binoculars south in the direction of Ven and focused all of his energy on not shaking visibly.

  ‘I’m sorry, no can do. Both me and Bengan clock out in forty minutes, and we need time to hose her down and refuel and write a report before then.’ He shrugged. ‘So you see. No can do.’

  ‘Don’t you just get paid overtime?’

  ‘Unfortunately, that’s not up to us. There have been cutbacks, you know, and word on the street is they’re closing our entire unit down and merging it with Malmö. Insane, if you ask me. But that’s the way it goes when it’s all about the bottom line.’ The man turned around and nodded to his colleague at the tiller, who started to turn the boat back towards Helsingborg harbour.

  ‘Hold on a minute.’ Fabian lowered his binoculars and stepped into the cabin. ‘Look, I hear you. But we’re dealing with a killer who in just over a month has murdered at least six people, and there’s a small chance he’s out here somewhere, just waiting for us to give up.’

  ‘There’s also a chance, a fairly big one at that if you ask me, that he’s somewhere else entirely,’ said the man at the tiller. ‘And we’ve searched the entire coast from Höganäs down to Landskrona. Not just once, but—’

  ‘Not the Danish side,’ Fabian broke in. ‘We haven’t been there.’

  ‘Denmark?’ The man at the tiller turned to his colleague for support. ‘We can’t just go into Danish territorial waters without permission.’

  ‘If that’s where you think he is, you’d be better off talking to the Danes directly,’ the other added.

  ‘Okay, so who do I call?’ Fabian made an effort to keep the frustration out of his voice. ‘About the overtime pay and the possibility of crossing the sound.’

  ‘Well, it’s not that simple,’ one of them said, and he turned to his colleague again. ‘Or what do you say, Bengan?’

  ‘I mean, they’re two completely separate issues. As far as the Danes go, there are routines, and you need the approval of their Naval Operative Command. Our overtime pay is a budget matter, so that would be Gert-Ove Helin.’

  ‘Then I suggest you start with Denmark’s Naval Operative Command.’

  The two men sighed and one of them turned to a control panel, picked up a phone receiver with a coiled cord and started dialling.

  ‘Maybe I should do the talking,’ Fabian said, and he took the receiver, where ringing could already be heard over the crackling line.

  ‘You have reached the Danish Naval Operative Command.’

  ‘Hello, my name is Fabian Risk and I’m a detective with the Swedish police in Helsingborg.’

  ‘Good evening, how can I help?’

  ‘I’m on board Swedish coastguard vessel KB 202 just north of Helsingborg. We need permission to cross into Danish territory in pursuit of a suspect.’

  ‘Fabian Risk from the Helsingborg Police. Is that correct?’

  ‘Yes, that’s correct.’

  ‘And KB 202. Okay, that’s fine. But if anything happens, I would like you to contact us again. Okay?’

  ‘Absolutely, no problem.’ Fabian hung up, pulled out his mobile and turned to the two men. ‘And what is this Gert-Ove’s number?’

  He never got an answer because just then, the shortwave radio on the same control panel crackled to life.

  ‘Emergency switchboard to KB 202. Over.’

  ‘KB 202 here. Over,’ one of the two men responded.

  ‘I tried to call, but the line was busy. Over.’

  ‘Yes, we’ve been talking to the Danes about permission to cross over to their side. What’s this about? Over.’

  ‘We’ve had a distress call from a Hallberg-Rassy at Latitude 56.288 degrees and Longitude 12.342 degrees. You wouldn’t happen to be in the area, would you? Over.’

  ‘That sounds like somewhere outside Kullaberg. If that’s the case, we’re no more than twenty, twenty-five minutes away. Over.’

  ‘Good. I think maybe you’d better stop by and talk to them and make sure everything’s okay. Over.’

  ‘Sure. What’s the problem? Engine failure? Over.’

  ‘They said something about a black rubber dinghy ramming them and something about a swo… Uh, to be honest, I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re high, so I would do both blood samples and breathalyser. The whole thing sounded pretty muddled, if you ask me. Over.’

  ‘All right, we’re on our way. Over and out.’

  ‘Hey, hang on.’ Fabian hurried over and snatched the microphone out of the man’s hand. ‘I’m sorry, what did they say, exactly?’ He waited for a reply but heard nothing but static. ‘Over.’

  ‘Who am I speaking to? Over.’

  ‘Fabian Risk from the Helsingborg Police. You said they said something about a rubber dinghy. What else did they say? Over.’

  ‘Like I said, it was pretty incoherent and muddled. But something about a person boarding their boat and attacking them with a sword. Over.’

  31

  ‘NEW HEAVEN OG Syvende Disneyland – Sexomanisk Mickey Mouse’ by Jens Jørgen Thorsen was by no means an appealing painting. It actually looked like something Sleizner could have made himself at the age of four. A riot of bright colours, to all appearances randomly splattered across the canvas, except in one section where one could, with the application of considerable imagination, possibly discern a childish portrait of Mickey Mouse.

  Thirty thousand Danish kronor he’d paid for it, convinced it would appreciate immensely. That was why he handled it ever so gingerly as he took it off the wall and placed it on the floor.

  He searched the inside of the stretched canvas with both a torch and his fingers, but found neither hidden microphones nor anything else suspicious. He’d already checked the sofa cushions. And the potted plants, the lamps, the bookshelf and the bed. He’d even turned off all the lights and shone the torch at each and every mirror to make sure they hadn’t been swapped for transparent ones with hidden cameras rigged behind them.

  But nowhere had he found anything to indicate that the flat was bugged, which was a good thing. As a matter of fact, he’d rolled strike after strike recently, not just managing to identify the Chinese fatso but also locating his place of residence and thereby stumbling across the Indian man who’d helped Dunja at the bank. In other words, he was so close he could almost taste the stale smell of her.

  He should feel relieved and able to relax on the sofa with a glass of whisky and one of the latest films from The Club. But he was too wound up, and at the moment, his whole body was itching with frustration.

  The pictures he’d found weren’t much to write home about. Grainy and in some cases completely blurry, taken in a flat, his flat. How the fuck had the miserable cunt managed it? He’d invested in both an alarm system and a top-of-the-range security door when he and Viveca moved into the flat five years ago. Now she’d moved back out and was living with some rich bloody swine out in Gentofte, and in a way he blamed Dunja for that, too.

  And yet, she’d managed to get in somehow. He was in some of the pictures, buck naked, having just come out of the shower after a workout. Talk about intrusion and crossing the line, and how had he not noticed?

  And it looked so bloody small in the pictures. It was fucking embarrassing. It was always like that after a workout, though he usually pulled on it in the shower to try to make it longer. Of course that was the moment she chose to take pictures. He was going to make her fuckin
g eat it. She was going to goddam fucking suffer.

  He walked over to the smoked-glass CD cabinet, picked an album by Sade and pushed the disc into the wall-mounted Bang & Olufsen player. If there was one thing that could make him calm down, it was Sade’s sensual vocals.

  ‘Smooth Operator’ was his absolute favourite from the album The Best of Sade. He didn’t care that it was a greatest hits album. People could look down their noses as much as they liked. He didn’t give a shit. His entire music collection consisted of greatest hits albums and to be perfectly honest, he’d never understood what was so wrong about cherry picking, about skipping the mediocre dross that was just filler anyway.

  He sat down on the edge of the sofa, right in the acoustic sweet spot, and let Sade’s sexy groove fill the room while he focused on getting his breathing back to normal.

  This was war and they were currently engaged in a game of cat and mouse where they were both trying to be the cat. That much was clear. But she’d crossed a line and now the ball was in his court.

  He was going to scout her out and pin her down before announcing himself. And she was going to realize it was already too late. And that’s when the fun would begin. Just ending it as soon as he located her would feel as sloppy and undignified as a premature ejaculation. Much as he loathed her, she was still his favourite person to hate.

  He wanted to draw it out and relish each successive step. He wanted to lull her into a false sense of security. Then, when he was truly ready, he’d pounce and enjoy seeing the shock in her eyes. Watching as it sank in that she was done for. That it didn’t matter how much she screamed for help because there was no Indian man and no Chinese fatso to rescue her.

  But that was later. Right now, he needed to find out what she’d done to his flat, and how she’d been able to get in and sneak around even when he was home. He unlocked his phone to go through the pictures he’d found at the Indian man’s house one more time, but instead he lingered on one of Dunja walking through the lobby of Danske Bank in Malmö to cash her severance pay.

  It was a picture of CCTV footage that had been both out of focus and grainy. But there she was, in her large trainers, ratty sweatpants and camouflage top. Along with the big earrings, the bright red lips and the shaved head, it was very different from what she’d looked like before. Gone were the bland, indecisive clothes, the timid eyes and the last few pounds of baby fat.