Then the man uttered the words that changed – and possibly explained – everything.
‘Forget the dog. I want you to keep an eye on my daughter. The thing is, I made a terrible mistake. I left her on the train, she was asleep when I got off. I was only gone for a couple of minutes, but that was enough. Now I’m standing on the platform and she’s all alone on the train. Can you keep an eye on her?’
Henry slowly shook his head as his field of vision shrank. He was paralysed and struck dumb with shock. He couldn’t say a single word. He just wanted to know why this man had turned up to remind Henry of the biggest mistake of his life.
Can you keep an eye on her?
I thought I could. I really thought I could.
‘What do you want?’ he whispered, his voice hoarse with tension. Henry was afraid.
Terrified.
The man didn’t reply. Instead he struck Henry across the throat with such force that everything went black and his legs gave way. Lying on the floor, incapable of speaking or even swallowing his own saliva, Henry was only vaguely aware of what was happening. Unstructured thoughts filled his mind, too many to grasp. They turned into a warm flow of energy surging through his body as he felt the man grab the hair at the back of his neck and push his head forward. A few thoughts flashed with sudden clarity, broke through. Strangely enough, he didn’t think ‘Why me?’ His killer had already answered that question, for which Henry was grateful. What he didn’t understand, however, was the man’s need to mete out punishment. Not a day went by without Henry cursing what he had done and the consequences of his action.
Henry Lindgren was nothing more than a human being. And that obviously wasn’t enough.
The fire in the tiled stove was burning much too fiercely. Malin was well aware of it, but didn’t do anything about it. Not at first. She had become both numbed and over-sensitive, as if her nerves were on the surface of her skin while at the same time her capacity for dealing with a crisis had virtually disappeared. Panic destroyed the body in so many different ways. The brain was worst affected, the ability to think. And it just went on and on, Malin had realised. The panic never ended, it had become part of her everyday life.
She sat there in front of the heat and watched as the flames found their way out of the stove, yellow-red monsters briefly licking the white tiles before withdrawing equally quickly. Only when she heard her son’s voice behind her did she react.
‘Mummy – that’s dangerous!’
Malin hurried over and closed the doors of the stove. The fire would soon be suffocated. Just like everything else.
The boy wrapped his arms around her legs.
‘I’m boooored, Mummy!’
She moved across the room, dragging him behind her. He was too old to carry on like this, but it was a game he’d loved when he was little. Clinging to her legs as she walked.
‘Have you asked Hedvig what she’s up to? She might want to do something that’s fun.’
She had no idea what time it was; maybe the children ought to go to bed soon. But all that kind of thing – like bedtime routines – had become so difficult to maintain. Rules they had stuck to for years had disappeared, been forgotten. Or rather cast aside. So many things from their old life had no relevance in this new one.
Not when they were permanently terrified.
Her son let go and slumped down on the floor.
‘Hedvig doesn’t want to play,’ he informed her. ‘She wants to read.’
Please don’t let the books run out. Malin didn’t know what her daughter would do if that happened; reading was the only thing keeping Hedvig sane. Without them she would become like her mother. A wreck.
‘I was thinking of doing some baking,’ she said to her son. ‘Would you like to help me?’
She didn’t actually want his help, she just wanted to be alone for an hour, quarter of an hour, five minutes, one minute. But it never happened. One of the children was always there, around her, on top of her. All day every day.
The boy’s face lit up.
‘Cinnamon buns!’ he said.
‘Not today, Max. Today we’re going to make teacakes.’
When had they last made cinnamon buns? Last week? Or was it the week before? She didn’t know, but thought it was when the food was delivered. The days blended into one, it was no longer possible to distinguish between weekdays and the weekend. She had tried at the beginning, but now it was harder. The children’s father refused to help. He almost looked as if he was wondering what the hell she was doing, why she was bothering. She had explained, over and over again, and each time she had seen him being driven further and further away from her and the children.
Routine.
Wasn’t that what they needed most of all?
Routine.
The very cornerstone of crisis management in a situation like this.
Why was that so fucking difficult to understand?
They went into the kitchen. Malin took yeast, milk and butter out of the fridge while her son fumbled with the bag of flour.
‘Be careful – it’s full,’ Malin said.
‘I know!’
Malin melted the butter, added the milk, warmed it gently. Max crumbled the yeast into the bowl.
‘Can I pour?’
Malin nodded and the boy allowed the milk to trickle over the yeast as Malin whisked. The yeast dissolved, turning the mixture beige.
‘And a pinch of salt,’ she said.
Max ran to fetch the salt cellar. Malin glanced out of the window. It was raining, so heavily that it looked almost misty. She could still see that the trees were green, the black-currant bushes flourishing. The lawn was overgrown, the fence leaning drunkenly. Sorrow overwhelmed her, made her inhale sharply. She let out a sob as she exhaled.
‘What’s wrong, Mummy?’
The child’s pale face was tense and anxious. Sometimes Malin wondered how much he understood, how much he was suffering.
‘Nothing. I’m just a bit tired.’
Max followed her gaze and saw what she saw: the garden, the field. The fruit trees and the stillness. The desolation. And, in the distance, the forest that made them invisible.
‘I want to go outside,’ he whispered.
‘I know, sweetheart. So do I.’
MONDAY
The ground around Malcolm Benke’s impressive house had been softened by all the rain. The grass was flattened by the feet moving back and forth across the garden. Curious onlookers had already gathered by the fence, leaning over to see if they could work out why the police were so interested in the place.
‘Has something happened? Is he dead?’ asked a teenager with a skateboard under one arm.
Detective Inspector Torbjörn Ross contemplated him in silence, wondering what to say. He hadn’t seen a skateboard for years – were they still a thing?
‘Make sure they stay behind the fence,’ he said to a colleague, gesturing towards the uninvited observers.
He trudged back to the house. The last few years had taken their toll on Torbjörn Ross; he’d even considered leaving the job. However, that would please far too many of his colleagues, those who couldn’t wait to get rid of him, who regarded him as unreliable. Ross shook his head. There were always people who confused a normal sense of orderliness and perseverance with mental illness.
‘Torbjörn!’
The voice reached him on the threshold of Benke’s home. He didn’t need to turn around to see who it was. Margareta Berlin.
‘What are you doing here?’ she snapped.
‘I could ask you the same question,’ he said.
Berlin sighed.
‘This is Alex Recht’s case.’
‘I’m not sure that explains why you’re here,’ Ross countered calmly.
‘I like to get out into the field.’
It was Ross’s turn to sigh. Why did Berlin have to be the kind of boss who wanted to show the foot soldiers that she was one of the gang, that she didn’t mind getting her hands
dirty? Determined to ingratiate herself. Ross preferred a genuine approach, which he had learned to suss out.
‘I thought Recht’s team had been disbanded,’ he said. ‘Surely there’s no room for special units in our new organisation?’
The last three words were dripping with contempt. Our new organisation. Everyone hated it. The biggest ever restructuring of the Swedish police service. Executed so badly, built on shifting sands. At least according to Ross.
‘Alex’s team has proved to be a successful concept over a long period,’ said Berlin, who had obviously decided she wanted to call him Alex rather than Recht. ‘So it stays.’
Ross shook his head. He didn’t have much time for Recht’s so-called successful concept. For example, Recht had led the investigation into the murder of a young girl who was found dead after having been missing for several years. He would never have solved the case without Ross. If there was anyone who deserved to move up through the organisation it was Ross. Not Recht.
‘Seriously,’ Berlin said, taking him by the arm. ‘Go back to HQ. I have no idea how this situation arose, but of course I’m sorry you’ve come out here for nothing.’
He looked her straight in the eye; it was hard to suppress a smile when he realised she was afraid of him. If he refused to leave, she wouldn’t have a clue what to do.
He fixed his gaze on a point somewhere behind her as he considered his next move. She had no idea why he’d turned up in Nacka. She had no idea about a lot of things. Long may it continue.
‘Torbjörn?’
‘I’m going.’
The relief on her face was unmistakable. She didn’t understand that he was punishing her by cooperating. He and he alone knew the truth about the crime Recht would be investigating. Well, it served them all right. This time they would have to manage without his support. At least until they had the sense to ask his advice.
Torbjörn Ross went back to the car. He’d used his own Saab rather than wasting time picking up a car from HQ. He glanced over at his boss as he turned the key in the ignition.
Black clouds were gathering above Margareta Berlin.
If he’d been a less experienced driver he would probably have come off the road when he encountered the Saab. The brown car came hurtling along like a cannonball, way above the speed limit. And much too close to the white line in the middle. When DCI Alex Recht and the Saab met on a bend, Alex was a hair’s breadth away from swerving and ending up in the ditch.
‘Fucking idiot,’ he muttered.
He didn’t have enough time to go after the speeding driver; Berlin had sounded stressed when she called him.
‘I want you and Fredrika to take this,’ she said, before adding: ‘Right now, Alex.’
Of course. He wasn’t the kind of person to say no – not out of loyalty to his boss, but to the job. He would make that very clear to Margareta Berlin. She was capable of a meltdown on the scale of Chernobyl. A nasty piece of work. He had thought so ever since she went behind his back, questioned his competence after Lena’s death. She had continued to overstep the mark in her role as head of Human Resources; many colleagues regarded her as a bull in a china shop, which was why it had come as a surprise when she not only applied for a senior operational post a year or so ago, but was actually appointed. Alex had expected her to stay put rather than progressing within the organisation.
Naïve, to say the least.
But all that had to be put aside when duty called. He arrived at the scene in Nacka less than an hour after Berlin’s phone call. He noted the large house, the expensive cars on the drive, the attractive location by the sea. He pulled on protective clothing and went inside.
The deceased, Malcolm Benke, was sitting in a leather armchair staring blankly at a fire that had gone out long ago. He had been found that morning by the cleaner, who always came on a Monday. She had already been questioned, and Alex didn’t think she would be of any great interest. The CSIs moved silently around him. The whole place was full of people, people Benke had never met and whose only purpose was to investigate his death.
Alex crouched down in front of the dead man and studied the bloodstains on his shirt. Malcolm Benke had been shot in the chest. The bullet had passed straight through his body and through the back of the chair before burying itself in the wall.
Who gets shot sitting in a favourite armchair in front of the fire? Alex wondered.
There were no obvious signs of a disturbance in the room, which could lead to the assumption that Benke and the killer had known each other. Or that Benke had been taken by surprise, hadn’t even heard the perpetrator coming. It was this kind of tentative speculation you had to love if you were going to be a police officer. It was important not to jump to conclusions, and to avoid getting frustrated over all the things you didn’t know.
‘The bullet tore a substantial hole in his chest,’ said Renata Rashid, the medical examiner, who was standing beside him. She gently moved Benke’s shirt aside, exposing the wound.
Alex pulled a face.
‘A horrible way to die,’ he said.
Although that wasn’t really what he meant. On the contrary – he had very few objections to the way in which Benke had died. A bullet in the back of the neck or the chest seemed like a dream in comparison with the way many others met their end. However, Alex did have a major problem with the location. He was always particularly angered when people were subjected to crimes in their own home, the one place on earth where they had the right to feel safe.
‘As far as I can see there are no other obvious injuries,’ Renata said. ‘Although of course we won’t know for certain until I’ve carried out the post-mortem.’
Alex looked closely at Benke’s face. His expression was peaceful – or was it resigned? He’d seen faces frozen in horror at the moment of death. Not a pretty sight.
Benke was wearing a shirt, trousers, slippers. A jacket was draped over the back of the chair. According to records he was seventy-two years old and lived alone. He and his wife had divorced ten years earlier. They’d had two children, but only one was still alive. Their daughter had died six months before her parents split up, at the age of thirty. A quick internet search told Alex that Benke had been a successful property developer, involved in a number of notable projects in Stockholm.
A young colleague came to join him; much to Alex’s embarrassment, he couldn’t remember his name. He wasn’t part of Alex’s team, but had been deployed as an extra resource. He was bubbling with enthusiasm, the adrenaline coursing through his veins.
I was like you once upon a time. I used to think it was exciting when someone died.
‘So what do you think?’ said the young man.
‘Nothing.’
‘A disgruntled client who wanted to settle a score?’
Alex stared at him.
‘Is that how you deal with builders you’ve engaged? By shooting them?’
The other man flushed.
‘You have to think outside the box,’ he mumbled before jerking his head in Benke’s direction. ‘Was he a poof?’
Alex was taken aback. A poof? Did he have the energy to point out that this was unacceptable language? To be the stickler who demanded political correctness? Who knew what the idiot would come out with next – maybe some racist term that would make Renata Rashid hit the roof. She was married to an Iranian, and knew exactly what it was like to be perceived as different. Alex suppressed a sigh. There were days when he seriously doubted whether talking could change the world, and this was probably one of those days, in spite of everything.
‘What makes you think he was gay?’ he asked, hoping his own choice of words and his tone would convey the right message.
‘His hands.’
‘His hands?’
‘The rings. He’s wearing a lot of jewellery for a straight guy – and isn’t that a woman’s ring?’
Alex frowned. He counted three rings: an ordinary signet ring and a freemasons’ ring, plus the one that his colleague t
hought was a woman’s ring. It was on the little finger of Benke’s left hand – gold, with what Alex assumed was a small diamond inset. Reluctantly he had to concede that it did indeed look as if it had been designed for a woman. Which didn’t mean that a man couldn’t feel good wearing it, of course.
But not this man, he thought grimly.
There was something archetypally masculine about Malcolm Benke and his home. Besides, the ring was too small, even for his little finger.
‘Can we take a closer look?’ Alex said to Renata.
She removed it from the finger, and Alex held it up, examining it by the light of the chandelier. The blasted latex gloves made his hands itch.
‘There’s an inscription.’ His young colleague was so close he was almost on top of him.
ALWAYS AND FOREVER. BEATA AND RICHARD
‘Beata,’ Alex said.
‘Wasn’t that his daughter’s name?’
‘It was.’
He dropped the ring into an evidence bag and handed it to his colleague. If this was Malcolm Benke’s daughter’s wedding ring, then why was he wearing it on his little finger?
Hadn’t this been the worst summer ever? Fredrika Bergman thought so. She had searched her memory for one that could be classified as worse, but without success. She could remember summers that had evoked anxiety – who couldn’t? – but nothing like this.
I don’t want to do this any more.
That phrase was acceptable only when uttered by a child, not an adult. Sometimes when Fredrika allowed her thoughts to roam free, usually at night when sleep refused to come, she would remember how easy everything had been when she was a child. No conviction had been stronger than the one that told her anything was possible.
How she missed that feeling, that illusion.
She was over forty now, and knew all too well that so many things we wish for will never happen. Never.
The Flood Page 2