by Ian Giles
“Jeanette was tormented by a guilty conscience and sent the photos to me. I sent them to Hallin with an implied threat that I would go to the police with what I knew. If he didn’t give me the money that I erroneously assumed he had stolen. Hallin didn’t have the money, but he was terrified that the police would catch wind of this—so what was he meant to do?”
“We thought he buried his head in the sand and hoped it would go away,” Sandra said contemplatively.
“Which it did,” Kerstin added. “Given that I didn’t dare remind him of the threat or put it into practice. But perhaps he interpreted it in another way.”
Sandra felt something take a deepening grip of her throat.
“If the root of the problem could be removed from the world . . .” she said, developing Kerstin’s reasoning. “Peter Norling.”
“My thoughts exactly,” said Kerstin. “It seems like too much of a coincidence that Peter Norling was murdered so soon after the hit-and-run that he witnessed. The only question is how Hallin was able to find out that Norling was there when the accident happened.”
“For the same reason that I did,” Sandra said slowly. “He passed the scene not long before the accident and noticed the car.”
Kerstin said nothing for a while, probably hoping that Sandra would finish what she had begun.
“Can you expand on that?” she eventually said.
Sandra thought the time might be right. That she and Kerstin had so much in common in this matter that they might as well tackle it together. For better or worse.
“I was in Hallin’s car when he passed the ravine the first time,” Sandra admitted resignedly. “I didn’t know him, had never met him before. But he offered me a lift home and I accepted. He was driving like a car thief, and seemed to be under the influence. And when he dropped me off, he drank more booze. And . . .”
“And . . .?” Kerstin said encouragingly.
“He raped me. Left me on the floor like a wet rag and left.”
“I’m . . . I’m truly sorry,” Kerstin said.
“It was only when you and I began talking that it dawned on me . . . what else he might have done that afternoon. Before you said that, I didn’t know who he was.”
“That was why you were so convinced he was the one who was responsible,” Kerstin said with a note of understanding. “You knew he was drunk and what he was capable of.”
“I knew that he left my house a few hundred metres from the scene of the accident at half past three with no passengers. So there’s the answer to your question. Finally.”
“I’m so sorry,” Kerstin repeated.
“You’re the only person other than Hallin who knows this, so I’d be grateful if this could remain between us.”
“Of course, don’t worry about it.”
“There’s a lot more to tell about this,” Sandra concluded. “But let’s do that another time. If you want. We’re not supposed to talk about me, after all.”
“Of course I’m interested,” Kerstin said enthusiastically. “We’re in this together now. He’d just raped a woman, was driving drunk, and caused the death of a person. It’s not all that surprising that a guy like that didn’t call an ambulance. Because that would have meant the police turning up too. He dodged a lot of years in prison that afternoon.”
“If he’s responsible for the murder of Peter Norling, then there will be a fair few more on top of that,” Sandra said, by way of reminder. She was struggling to let go of the thought.
“Somehow, we need to make sure that bastard gets put away,” Kerstin said with emphasis.
“We’re going to do it,” Sandra said. “But for now, I wonder whether you could help me out with something?”
“Help you?” Kerstin said in surprise.
“Consider it a job offer. I’ve got a couple of questions I need answers to as well.”
45
Kerstin
THE CONVERSATION WITH Sandra had brought Kerstin new hope in her otherwise rather grim situation, but her daily existence remained the same. Jeanette was back on the bench outside the city wall by the East Gate, and people from all over were attentively checking in on her. People were sensitive enough not to mention what had happened, but it still permeated the atmosphere. The tenderness she was being shown was pretty conspicuous, and warmed Kerstin’s stony heart as she sat there watching it all.
It wasn’t the only feeling she was experiencing. Of course she was happy on the one hand about the unalloyed empathy in her friends’ behaviour, but on the other hand she was slightly affronted by Jeanette’s way of taking it for granted, and her inability to show gratitude.
But Jeanette was depressed, she reminded herself. Just a few days ago, she had made a serious attempt to take her own life, and it was down to pure chance that she hadn’t succeeded. Kerstin’s intuition, to be specific. No one else knew as much about Jeanette as Kerstin did, and it hadn’t occurred to any of the others that things were so bad.
It was nothing but base instinct that had made her wake Lubbi from his beauty sleep and drag him to the neighbourhood where Jeanette lived in her small rented flat. Kerstin had had misgivings ever since she had first heard about the body that had been found, and she had set her alarm clock early in the morning to ensure that—if possible—she heard the news before Jeanette did. That way, she could deliver it personally and catch Jeanette if she fell.
Why she had done this for Jeanette’s sake Kerstin didn’t really know. Jeanette had been—if one believed her account—a reluctant participant in the theft and everything that it involved, which was a form of mitigation. But she had allowed herself to be persuaded into leaving Karl-Erik to die, and she could have chosen differently. It didn’t seem to have been all that hard to persuade her either—blinded by love as she had been. Kerstin’s own interpretation was that Jeanette had lost her senses because of her need to be loved. And by an unscrupulous individual who only thought about himself, at that.
So Kerstin was of two minds. Jeanette was a human being made of flesh and blood who served as proof of humankind’s weaknesses. And who wasn’t weak? But there were still some limits. Jeanette probably had some fundamental values that were sensible, but unfortunately they were ones with very shallow roots. They had been torn out of the ground in a flash, along with Kerstin’s entire existence.
Just like Jeanette’s. Yet another mitigating circumstance. The question, however, was whether Karl-Erik’s death or the loss of her lover had caused Jeanette the most harm. The answer was pretty obvious. Which meant that loathing for Jeanette and her thoughtless self-absorption once again washed over Kerstin.
That was the course of her thoughts, ebbing and flowing between extremes. One moment she felt sympathy for Jeanette, the next outright hatred.
Nevertheless, Jeanette was surrounded by friends for the time being, so Kerstin didn’t have to engage. Instead, she studied her from a distance, while thoughts gnawed away inside her head.
After the conversation with Sandra, the picture had become even clearer. Jeanette was really only a minor character in the whole thing, but still an important one who could have changed the outcome of everything. Jeanette had been there when the opportunity had been presented not only to save Karl-Erik’s life, but also to put Jan Hallin behind bars for rape, drunk driving, manslaughter, and committing a hit-and-run. Which in the long term would have saved her lover’s life. When it came to that, Kerstin also felt a pang of guilty conscience, given that the murder of Peter Norling wouldn’t have happened if she hadn’t tried to blackmail Hallin. He was the natural enemy in the whole affair. His crimes were so grave that they could put him away for many years—maybe even life. And even though she had known so much about him for such a long time, it was Sandra—someone she had never met and didn’t even know the age of—who had come up with the plan that would finally see him caught.
That was what they were hoping, anyway, even if they would doubtless encounter a number of tricky obstacles along the way: the burden
of proof, a lack of witnesses, the ravages of time, and Hallin’s good reputation and wide network of contacts, to name but a few. The project made Kerstin feel quite exhilarated, and although she had something to lose, she was all in.
The compliancy that had characterised everything that had followed that fateful afternoon in January 2014 was regrettable. Jeanette, who hadn’t dared to say no, call an ambulance, or contact the police; Sandra, who hadn’t dared to report the rape to the police; and Kerstin herself, who hadn’t had the courage to get the police involved when her husband had disappeared on a well-marked stretch of road.
But better late than never: it was time to let the axe fall.
46
Sandra
IT WAS THE first day after Midsummer, and Sandra put Erik in the back seat to drive him to day care in Visby before she went on to work. The call with Kerstin had continued well into the small hours. Sandra felt tired and worn-out. Above all she was afraid.
The pieces of the jigsaw had slowly fallen into place, and together Kerstin and Sandra had managed to create a complete picture of what had happened that January afternoon four years ago, as well as what had followed. Of course they could have gone to the police with it, and of course the police would have been forced to take the accusations seriously and start an investigation. This would probably have shaken Hallin up a fair bit, but it would have been enough for him to deny everything completely and the investigation would have collapsed like a house of cards. Plus there was the fact that they would never persuade Jeanette to join them on that approach, and she was the only one who could testify as a witness to the accident. Everything that Kerstin knew or thought she knew was hearsay, apart from the grainy photos that possibly indicated something, but didn’t actually prove anything. Not even the money was around to support the theories that they could have championed without Jeanette’s help.
In summary, filing a police report wouldn’t be of any great use, but there were other ways. And now she had Kerstin with her on the journey, and that was a tremendous relief. Not least because Kerstin had filled in the gaps in Sandra’s reasoning and corrected the errors, lending far more weight to their future plans for Hallin.
So far, everything was under control, but the same errors had made her think that she would be able to corner Hallin at no risk to herself. With that kind of attitude, she might have met the same fate as Peter Norling, and that was a frightening prospect for the future, to put it mildly.
She had brushed aside those lilies as a form of minor, crude encouragement to withdraw her demands for support payments, but Hallin had succeeded with his ridiculous scare tactics. Sandra was beginning to feel really frightened, almost terrified. Hallin was clearly not a man to be toyed with, and Sandra had pushed it too far. She had a small child to care for—nothing could be allowed to happen to her.
That was what filled Sandra’s thoughts as she shifted down a gear to third; Erik was singing in the back seat and she eased her foot off the accelerator as she entered the bend by the ravine. Coming towards her from the other end was a lorry, so she braked slightly to be on the safe side.
What the hell? It seemed like her brakes weren’t working properly. Oh well, no harm done—she was already going slow enough that nobody would be in danger. She had her right foot on the brake pedal, which meant that her speed wasn’t increasing at any rate. The two vehicles passed each other without difficulty and the lorry vanished in her rearview mirror. Erik finished Little Ida’s Summer Song and moved on to Pippi Longstocking. Both were fixtures in the rather unoriginal singing repertoire of the beautifully voiced children at the final assembly before the kindergarten’s summer holidays a couple of weeks ago.
When Sandra exited the second bend, there was a short straight lying ahead of her before a long downhill section. She tried again—several times—but the brakes really were not working. And now she had reached the crest of the hill, and her speed was guaranteed to pick up on the run downhill—she had no idea how much, but it was clear to her that she would be going faster than she felt comfortable with.
And that was exactly how it was: the speedometer crept up from 30 to 40 to 50 mph. “And all the sweet mosquitoes, I want them too,” Erik sang while panic took hold of Sandra. Over and over, she pushed the pedal to the floor without the brakes responding. What the hell was she meant to do?
When she reached the bottom of the hill she was doing well over fifty, and that was much too fast because she was about to reach the crossroads where there was a stop sign, and where she could already see that there were cars approaching from left and right. She needed to bring the car to a halt—how was she going to do that?
She vainly pumped on the brake pedal, but the brake system did nothing—it was definitely not working. Erik’s song drowned out her own thoughts and panic took hold. There was one thing she could do to avoid a crash up at the crossroads. Granted, it meant putting her and Erik in danger, but it wasn’t as serious as the alternative. She had to leave the road. It was lined by ditches that weren’t all that deep. It would be okay. It had to be.
But doing over fifty—would it definitely be okay? She imagined wrecking the car and having to call for roadside assistance and take an ambulance and arrive late for work. Erik continued to screech away unconcernedly about tanned legs and freckles, while unintelligible thoughts rushed through Sandra’s head. She swore silently and struck the palms of her hands against the wheel.
And then she thought of it. It was so obvious . . . Fear had paralysed her and indecision had almost sent her into the crossroads with Erik sitting innocently in the back seat. She was such an idiot, she thought to herself as she pressed the clutch and shifted down to first so that the engine brake kicked in.
Then she drove the car calmly and in a controlled manner into the ditch, without causing any injury to life or property.
47
Kerstin
THE SUN SET slowly behind the wall, making the ancient stones on top look red hot. The wind had dropped and the flags were slack. The shops in the Östercentrum shopping centre were shuttered for the day and the people crisscrossing the square since the morning had dissipated. The plants in the beds between the benches emitted stronger scents at this time of day, and if she ignored the jabbering of her friends then Kerstin could clearly make out the low humming of the insects in the flowerboxes.
Now that the dust had settled following Jeanette’s suicide attempt, and Kerstin had managed to gather her thoughts after Sandra’s unexpected proposal, she realised that there was one thread she hadn’t followed up on properly. Something that seemed less important than people’s lives, and that she had not focussed on for that reason. But since they had found Peter Norling’s remains the question had become far more pertinent: where on earth had the money gone?
It had to be somewhere, and it was unlikely to be in a bank account, given that the money laundering laws these days didn’t let banks accept big sums like that without meticulous paperwork documenting its legitimate source. And there wasn’t any. Even if the cash had been laundered, it would be tough for anyone to justify a deposit of that size. Or an acquisition. The money had to be spent with restraint in limited amounts.
But where could it be? According to Jeanette, Norling had taken care of it and hidden it somewhere no one would find it. That sounded promising as far as Kerstin was concerned, as it was likely no one else would have stumbled across it. But it might also mean it was so well hidden that Kerstin wouldn’t be able to find it either, despite the fact that she—unlike almost everyone else—knew that it existed. As far as she understood, it was enough to fill two sports holdalls, and must weigh a fair bit. That wasn’t exactly the kind of thing you hid behind the books in your bookcase.
When it was time to head home, Kerstin fell into step with Jeanette.
“You’re not thinking about . . . doing that again, are you?” she asked cautiously.
Jeanette shrugged her shoulders as if it barely mattered to anyone else, let alone
herself.
“Not today, if that’s what you’re wondering,” she said.
Naturally it wasn’t. But Jeanette’s answer was clear enough.
“You’re still young, Jeanette. Don’t do this to yourself. There’s help out there.”
“Oh really? Some fucking shrink that I have to feed lies to—I bet that’ll help. Or I could tell the truth and end up in jail.”
Kerstin shook her head in resignation and sighed.
“You know you can talk to us at least. Do that next time you feel you can’t bear it any longer. Promise me that?”
Then she put a hand on Jeanette’s shoulder—a rather unusual gesture for Kerstin, who wasn’t exactly the biggest fan of physical touching.
“Okay,” Jeanette said without looking her in the eye.
“I lie awake at night worrying about how you feel. I don’t want to find you in the same state that I did on Midsummer’s Eve again. Or worse. Do you hear what I’m saying?”
“I promise I’ll do it in the middle of day next time,” Jeanette said dismissively. “So that I don’t ruin your night’s sleep.”
Full of herself, as usual, Kerstin thought to herself. And evil too. Kerstin took back her hand in an unobtrusive movement.
They continued to stroll in silence. After a while, Jeanette stopped and looked at her with an expression filled with regret.
“Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“Good,” Kerstin said. “Consider it forgotten.”
You don’t even understand the meaning of the word “hurt,” she thought to herself. If only you knew what you have done to me.
“I was thinking about something,” she said softly, in order to avoid seeming too keen. “About something we might do together—to divert our thoughts elsewhere, as it were.”