by Ian Giles
What they had recently read in the newspaper while at the breakfast table about Peter Norling’s body being found hadn’t particularly bothered Jan. The man had been missing for a long time and Jan hadn’t liked him much when he had been alive—why put on a show now? On the other hand, Gunilla had been very agitated. She had expressed the view that the blackmail attempt didn’t show his best side, but that she wouldn’t wish the fate that had befallen Peter Norling on her worst enemy. Not to mention the situation faced by his loved ones. A premeditated and most brutal murder—on the island of Gotland of all places. What was the world coming to?
Following Sandra’s unannounced visit, Gunilla had cried in disappointment over the misery that Jan had drawn down upon them—she had reproached him for speaking about Sandra in derogatory terms, for not treating her with enough respect. The impression that Gunilla had given at the time was that in spite of the act of infidelity, she empathised with Sandra. It was now clear to him, however, that she was even more coldhearted towards her than Jan was. Even more derisive and damning. This was because Sandra was throwing a wrench in the works for Gunilla, and that wasn’t allowed to happen.
Disgrace was not to be drawn down on the Hallin family, and major and unforeseen expenses were not welcome additions to the budget either. On that topic, Mr. and Mrs. Hallin were most certainly in agreement, but when it came to how to achieve this goal, they seemed to have diametrically opposed views. On the whole, Jan had shied away from the problem, hoping that everything would resolve itself if he simply bellowed his refusal and expressed his contempt for beggars and gold diggers and other belittling terms for people like Sandra with sufficient emphasis.
While Gunilla, for her part, had kidnapped a three-year-old. To what end? he asked himself. The ultimate aim must have been to get rid of the boy. Gunilla must have had roughly the same thoughts he had, but with the not insignificant difference that she had tangibly grappled with the task of ridding herself of the child.
It must have been so much easier for a woman than a man to leave the woods with a child in her arms. What was more, if the child had been sleeping then it was doubtful whether any outsiders would even have noticed it. Erik must have got separated from the kindergarten group, and that had left Gunilla just enough scope to do what she needed to do. A quick injection of anaesthetic or whatever it might be—something that a nurse with an imagination would be able to lay her hands on without much difficulty. Then she must have driven him away unnoticed, and what she had subjected him to after that wasn’t even worth speculating about. With one miscalculation on her part: the boy had been found again. “Exhausted, but alive,” as the media had put it—what did that mean? Had the boy miraculously survived a murder attempt? Floated ashore on a beach? Jumped out of a burning building? Escaped from captivity or recovered from an overdose of some narcotic concoction?
The latter had undeniably been close at hand—even if in Gunilla’s case this might have directed suspicion towards someone working in healthcare, and thereby potentially herself. On the other hand, no one would have suspected Gunilla, who was highly regarded in all settings that she moved in. And if there had been any traces of Erik in the car or on other Hallin family possessions then it would have been Jan who was fingered. Including by Gunilla, it had to be assumed—even if she would have done it in a highly practised and barely perceptible manner. Superficially, she would have fought tooth and nail to clear her husband of such preposterous accusations, but under cover she would have worked for the opposite outcome. If it was too late and the family succumbed to scandal, Gunilla had no intention of being pulled down with it. His planned flight was something she had naturally supported on the sole basis that given the current situation it played into her hands.
In short, Gunilla was undoubtedly highly resourceful, and that was a personality trait that he recognised in her. However, what surprised him was her propensity to take risks. The entire procedure of abducting the boy had encompassed a major and imminent risk of discovery. Merely stealing pharmaceuticals from work involved serious risk, but Gunilla had probably made sure to direct suspicions elsewhere or had given patients common salt solutions or nothing at all while keeping their prescriptions.
She had caught Peter Norling in the car park outside his place of work and had been lucky enough not to be seen. Nor had anyone paid any attention to them as they had made their way out of town in her car—her and Jan’s car—and driven all the way down to Garde. She could have been seen. The car could have been seen wherever it was parked. Facts that had clearly done little to frighten her.
Jan had apparently been living with a psychopath for almost thirty years. How the hell had he missed that? But she had saved him from one sticky situation after another—he couldn’t deny her that.
77
Sandra
WHEN SHE WOKE up again it was in a different kind of light and in a different room. It might be Erik’s room, but she didn’t have the strength to raise herself in the bed to confirm it. This was in part because she was strangely powerless, and partly because she was quailing at the prospect of discovering yet again that he was no longer there. Was it a genuine experience or something she had dreamt? Sandra didn’t dare speculate. She felt totally confused and completely detached from reality. She shut her eyes again.
Someone touched her upper arm. Softly, carefully, and completely lovingly. She cautiously turned her head. At first all she saw was a pair of glasses, which made her jump—an odd reaction given that it was her mother wearing them.
“Sweetheart,” she said. “Are you finally awake?”
“What are you doing here?” Sandra asked, dumbfounded. “Where’s Erik?”
“Erik’s with Grandpa, eating lunch in the dayroom.”
“He’s okay then?”
“He’s absolutely fine,” her mother said with a smile. “We’ve been more worried about you.”
“But why?” Sandra said impatiently. “What’s happened?”
“Somehow, you ended up with a big dose of some drug or other in your system—they’re still not sure what. But it may have been Rohypnol or something like it. You lost consciousness and they had to pump your stomach. Don’t you remember any of it?”
“I remember waking up in a different room from this one,” Sandra said hesitantly, unsure whether it was a genuine memory.
“That was the recovery room in the intensive care ward. They had you under full observation there for hours and hours. You can’t feel anything now?”
“I feel like normal, although I’ve got a sore throat.”
“That’s because of the gastric irrigation, as they call it. You’ve had a tube down your throat.”
“I began to slur my words,” Sandra remembered. “I was talking to my friend Kerstin on the phone, but she couldn’t hear what I was saying.”
“Someone called Kerstin came by this morning,” her mother said, with a strange expression on her face. “She wanted to check that you were okay. So she said. But she didn’t look . . . like she was one of your friends.”
Sandra had no response to offer to that remark for several reasons, one of which was that she had never met Kerstin.
“The important thing is that you had a visitor when you lost consciousness.”
“He was the one who . . .” Sandra began.
Then she stopped herself. She didn’t really know anything.
“He was the one who raised the alarm,” her mother said. “If it hadn’t been for him, you probably wouldn’t be alive.”
Sandra could scarcely believe her ears. Hallin? What had he done? Apart from stealing her computer, which was one of the absolute worst things that could happen to her?
“He was apparently very overwrought, and moved heaven and earth to help you. He got nurses to come running from all over the place, and the on-duty doctor turned up after just a few minutes. He claimed that your and Erik’s lives were in danger—said he was convinced you’d been poisoned, that you’d unknowingly taken an ov
erdose of some drug or other and needed your stomach pumped straight away. He called the police and insisted the room be guarded round the clock, and that the contents of the two glasses on the nightstand be analysed. Apparently he was also the one who gave the order for your dad and me to be called and brought here.”
“And . . .?” Sandra said.
She was having great difficulty taking in what her mother had just told her. It simply didn’t add up; the logic was precarious. Hallin had shot himself in the foot by saving rather than taking her life? After having liquidated Norling in cold blood and subjected Erik to attempted murder? What had she missed?
“And that’s what happened,” her mother summarised. “He did all that and then he disappeared. Before the police showed up and without anyone finding out who he was. But perhaps you can tell us about that?”
That needed some thought—apparently not everything was as straightforward as it seemed.
“I don’t actually remember anything,” she replied. Which was not all that far from the truth, when all things were considered.
“It’ll come, you’ll see,” her mother said, smiling, running two fingers over her cheek.
“My computer . . .?” said Sandra, who had already prepared herself for the worst.
“In the cupboard where you keep your valuables,” her mother said, holding up the key. “Do you want me to get it?”
“Yes please,” Sandra said, even though she had no great expectations that the manuscript would still be on it.
But she was mistaken. The large document was strangely enough exactly where it was supposed to be, and at first glance the hitherto unpublished component was seemingly untouched. With an ever-so-small addition to the end: “Check the pictures in your inbox and remember what I said. Murder and kidnapping aren’t my thing. Like I said, I’d appreciate it if you humanised me. Get better soon.”
The thing about humanising was something she recognised. Now it all began to come back to her slowly. Sporadic memories from the minutes before it had all gone dark: Hallin’s appearance at her bedside, his unexpected confession to the rape and his promise to make good, his wish not to be described as a monster. Sandra also remembered that he had accused her of abusing her authority, while at the same time he had denied the most serious crimes in this whole affair.
Could it really be true that it was thanks to the odious Hallin that she—and perhaps Erik—were still alive? That, despite all the negative consequences it would have for him, he had refrained from making the book disappear, from making Sandra disappear? It was an unexpected ending to his role in this protracted drama, to say the least. And the question was whether he had thus managed to ward off his worst fears altogether. The night’s events had allowed him to demonstrate that he had human, even downright self-sacrificing, traits.
Sandra left the message from Hallin in the document, closed it, and opened her email. The inbox contained several new messages, but only one from the colleague she had contacted during the night. There were a number of photos attached. First there was the original picture taken by Kerstin at Norling’s hunting cabin, but in far better condition. Now the car was clearly visible—without doubt a blue Audi. There was also a person visible in the pouring rain: slender, with inclined shoulders, possibly a woman—probably not the significantly broader-shouldered Jan Hallin.
Picture number two was an enlargement of the car’s licence plate. It wasn’t a registration that Sandra recognised, but it provided a clear, unambiguous reference to the car’s owner.
Picture number three showed the person’s body close-up—now undoubtedly a woman—while the fourth picture was a detailed study of her face. It still lacked sharp contours, was still partially concealed by rainwater, but it was familiar. There was no longer any doubt about who had undone the bolt on the root cellar door where Erik had been held captive.
Jan Hallin was apparently innocent. At long last it turned out that his wife was the one who had been prepared to go the extra step to protect her social status and finely polished façade. And just as Hallin had tried to explain to her, Sandra now remembered, the wrong person was identified as the perpetrator in her “fucking serial,” as he had put it.
Now Sandra also remembered who had served her that bilberry soup. If you removed the unfashionable glasses and what Sandra now realised had to be a wig, the nurse shared significant similarities with Gunilla Hallin. She was a nurse by profession—Sandra knew that. Yet she had been so short-sighted she hadn’t immediately made the connection between her body’s collapse and the bilberry soup, between the bespectacled nurse and Gunilla Hallin.
It had been careless, prejudiced, and not all that clever of Sandra. She could have died as a result of her narrow-mindedness and preconceived notions. Who knew what Gunilla Hallin would have managed to do, if Jan hadn’t thrown his weight around noisily and taken direct action in a way others might not have? What would have happened if Sandra had knocked back the apple juice too? The plan must have been to get rid of Sandra. Or Erik. Or both of them. Perhaps it had been a final attempt to clean up all the loose ends—this time in one fell swoop.
The thought made her feel dizzy. Sandra had had some forewarning, although despite all the drama that had preceded the incident, she hadn’t taken her own anxiety sufficiently seriously. But she had been lucky. She had received help from an unexpected quarter. And she had learned some important lessons about not putting the well-being of herself and those closest to her in the hands of fate: in the future she shouldn’t take obvious warning signs so lightly; she ought to avoid putting herself in risky situations.
That was what Sandra promised herself as the door opened and a three-year-old’s expectant little face cracked into a sunny smile before he ran to the bed and climbed into his mother’s arms. The joy couldn’t have been greater in either of them.
78
Kerstin
SANDRA HAD CALLED ahead and warned that she was on the way round to Kerstin’s flat in Bingeby. Kerstin was worried about what Sandra would make of the neighbourhood dominated by blocks of flats and looking so tired in the depths of July; it was a far cry from the roses and ruins of historic Visby and the slightly mad week dominated by visiting politicians taking place within the old walls. Kerstin had thus far been no more than a voice to Sandra. A voice and an assortment of life experiences. She hoped that Sandra wouldn’t be too disappointed, that she wouldn’t have to cope with the same mistrust in Sandra’s eyes that had materialised in her parents’.
Her worries turned out to be unfounded. Sandra was beaming when she turned up, and embraced her without any prior examination. Kerstin concluded that it could be one of three things: Sandra had already checked her out at a distance to prepare for their first meeting, Sandra had been prepared for the worst after what had passed between them in their calls, or Sandra didn’t care about Kerstin’s appearance since she knew who she was. Kerstin hoped it was the last.
“It’s so good to finally meet you, Kerstin.”
“Sorry,” Kerstin said awkwardly for the third or fourth time.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” said Sandra. “And there’s really no need to apologise for being unable to be in two places at once. You prioritised your friend, and you were right to do it. Unlike me, she wasn’t surrounded by medical staff, and she couldn’t help herself. I’m so sorry about what happened to Jeanette.”
“It was what she wanted,” said Kerstin. “That’s some comfort to me.”
Sandra nodded and looked around the small flat.
“This is a really lovely place,” she said. “You’ve got so many books—I like that.”
“Thanks,” said Kerstin. “I’ve got a hell of a lot of money too.”
Sandra strolled over to the bags and slung one over her shoulder with some effort.
“And you cycled with these?” she said, laughing. “Quite a job, I have to say.”
Then she looked at the spot where a tag had clearly been removed from the holdall she had pick
ed. She looked up and caught Kerstin’s eye.
“You know that was just the final straw, right?” she said. “The one that broke the camel’s back.”
Kerstin wasn’t so convinced. She shrugged her shoulders and pursed her lips.
“If Jeanette hadn’t found that tag, some other last straw.”
It was possible that Sandra was right. Kerstin wanted to believe she was, but she felt far from certain. However, there was comfort in the fact that Jeanette had made the choice herself, and that even in death she had looked satisfied with the choice she had made.
“Come on, Kerstin. You’ll have to take the other bag.”
“But I can’t . . .”
“Nonsense, of course you can. We’re going to end this together.”
It wasn’t what they had agreed to, but Sandra was so persuasive that Kerstin was unable to resist. And perhaps it was about time to get a new, healthier relationship with the long arm of the law.
HALF AN HOUR LATER, they were standing at a desk in an open plan office at Visby police station. Sandra had specifically asked to speak to the same investigator she had been assigned as a liaison while Erik had been missing, but Kerstin also knew him. He was one of the two officers who had brought her the news of Karl-Erik’s death after he had gone missing—the one who had been there when she had identified the body.
“This bag contains three million kronor,” said Sandra, heaving the holdall onto the table with a loud thud. “The proceeds of multiple robberies years ago.”
Following Sandra’s cue, Kerstin did the same thing. Several other officers had already stood up at their desks and joined the trio with ill-concealed curiosity.