‘I need you here. This whole thing is so sick I can’t understand what the hell is going on.’
*
Alex was waiting when she drove into the car park. He was smoking. Fredrika couldn’t believe her eyes. She closed the car door and went over to him.
‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m sinning. This is my first cigarette in thirty years.’
He tossed it aside and set off.
‘Don’t say “this is the worst thing we’ve ever seen”, because we both know it can’t be,’ Fredrika said as she followed him.
Alex didn’t speak. The sun was burning down. Today of all days.
‘Who found her?’
‘A young lad who was cutting the grass. Ivan can question him later – he’s in hospital.’
‘Injured?’
‘Suffering from shock.’
Fredrika remembered how old she’d been when she saw a dead body for the first time: nine. Her uncle had died during a family dinner. She recalled the commotion, the chaos. So many adults losing control at the same time. That had frightened her far more than the death.
They reached the tennis court. Fredrika’s gaze swept the empty seats, the court itself.
‘Have they already taken her away?’
‘Oh no. She’s over there.’
There was a cordoned-off area in the middle of the open green space, but Fredrika still couldn’t see any sign of a body.
‘Come with me,’ Alex went on. ‘I told them to leave her until you got here.’
His breath smelled of cigarette smoke.
My first cigarette in thirty years.
Fredrika’s unease grew with every step. What was so bad that Alex had felt the need to smoke for the first time in three decades?
‘So what do you think?’ he asked when they were a metre or so away from the dead woman.
Fredrika gasped, then found she couldn’t exhale. She thought she was going to be sick, then she wanted to turn around and go straight back home. She crouched down, wordless and empty.
‘Are you okay?’
‘No,’ she whispered.
Someone had buried Lovisa Wahlberg beneath the smooth surface of the tennis court, but left her hands and feet sticking up out of the ground. The sharp blades of the mower had inevitably done a certain amount of damage.
‘Her face?’ Fredrika asked. She didn’t want to find out the answer by looking for herself.
‘Was far enough down, so it’s intact. We just opened up the area around her head and shoulders to get an idea of who she might be.’
Fredrika rubbed her hands over her knees. People’s inventiveness never ceased to amaze her. However, it was hardly surprising. If man could travel to the moon, then obviously he could come up with a million different ways to murder and degrade his fellow human beings.
‘How did she die?’
‘We don’t know yet,’ said a voice behind Alex and Fredrika.
Renata Rashid, the medical examiner, was holding her mobile phone. Her voice was so hoarse that many people assumed she’d smoked like a chimney for most of her life, which was incorrect. Her vocal cords had been damaged by throat cancer over twenty years ago. Fredrika knew this only because Alex had told her; Renata herself gave away very little about her private life.
Like me, Fredrika thought. Like me.
‘I’ll have a better idea when I’ve taken a closer look at her. The way things are now, I can’t make any kind of assessment.’
Alex nodded to show that he understood.
‘I wanted Fredrika to see this before we moved her. She’s all yours now.’
It was Renata’s turn to nod.
‘Do we have any idea how long she’s been here?’ Fredrika asked.
‘She was probably buried during the night. The court was in use until around nine o’clock yesterday evening.’
Fredrika straightened up.
‘I’d like to make a start,’ Renata said.
Alex and Fredrika automatically stepped back. Nobody wanted to get in Renata’s way.
Fredrika gazed down at the dead woman and her grave.
‘Didn’t the guy on the mower see what was sticking up?’
‘Obviously not,’ Alex replied.
‘So what did the surface look like when you arrived?’
‘It was pretty creepy, to be honest. Everything had been done with absolute precision. The grass was perfect; there was no sign of damage.’
‘How on earth did he or she manage that?’
‘It’s something we need to look into,’ Alex said. ‘The grass court is fairly new, so maybe it’s easy to take up the turf and replace it. Or just put it back.’
Fredrika knew absolutely nothing about grass or gardening. Spencer would have liked to move from their apartment to a house, but Fredrika had vetoed the idea with some force. He might as well have suggested relocating to Ulan Bator.
‘Why were we meant to find her here?’ she wondered. ‘There’s something ritualistic about the way she’s arranged.’
Alex had to agree. Lovisa Wahlberg lay in the ground as if she’d been crucified, directly on the central line of the court. The net had been taken down because of the mowing, but if it was put back up it would run straight across her hips.
‘Wasn’t there some trouble about this court?’ he said.
‘I don’t remember.’
‘I’m sure there was,’ Alex insisted.
Renata called them over. She and her assistant had just lifted Lovisa Wahlberg and turned her over. There was a large wound in the back of her head.
‘This could be pretty straightforward,’ Renata said.
‘You think she was killed by a single blow?’
‘Possibly.’
‘Let’s not waste time speculating,’ Alex said firmly. ‘Let me know when you’re sure.’
He and Fredrika set off for the car park, but within seconds Renata called them back.
‘You need to see this.’
She was holding up Lovisa’s wrist, showing them the underside. The skin was dirty, but traces of a tattoo were clearly visible. Fredrika couldn’t work out what it was: dots and lines, plus a few apparently unconnected letters and numbers. Renata gently brushed away the soil.
‘So she had a tattoo,’ Alex said.
Renata was clearly unimpressed by his reaction.
‘Can’t you see what it is?’
Fredrika took a closer look.
‘If I saw this in a different context I’d think it was a chemical formula,’ she said.
Renata sighed. ‘It is a chemical formula.’
Fredrika and Alex exchanged a glance, both equally grateful that the other hadn’t been smarter.
‘Cocaine,’ Renata clarified.
‘Sorry?’ Alex said. ‘She has the formula for cocaine tattooed on her . . . ?’
‘Exactly. And it looks as if it was done fairly recently. Then there’s this. It was in the grave beneath her head.’
Renata held up a red-painted face mask.
Alex frowned, and inside Fredrika’s head the possibility of associations with occult movements exploded. But most of all she was still thinking about the unanswered question: what was she doing here? What did this murder have to do with them?
We can’t do everything.
‘Why are we here, Alex?’
He didn’t answer.
‘Made in Haiti,’ Renata announced after checking inside the mask.
Fredrika put on a plastic glove and held out her hand. Haiti. A place where myths about voodoo and zombies originated. What the hell was going on here?
She turned to Alex.
‘Tell me. Why are we here?’
‘Because of this,’ Alex said. He passed her an evidence bag containing a sheet of paper.
On the paper were the words:
I’m doing it again. Putting everything right.
And looking back, this was how they would choose to recount the story of property developer Malcolm Benke’s strange death
and everything that followed in its wake.
It began with his daughter’s wedding ring on his little finger.
That was followed by a victim who was buried in such a shallow grave that her fingers and toes were sticking out.
And even when our perpetrator was kind enough to send us letters, we didn’t dare call him anything other than an ordinary, run-of-the-mill killer.
They went into one of the smaller meeting rooms and closed the door. The place stank of curry. Alex tried to open the window, but without success.
‘Is the air con working?’ Fredrika asked.
‘I think that’s why we’re in here instead of the Lions’ Den,’ Alex said.
Needless to say it was Margareta Bloody Berlin who’d decreed that the Lions’ Den couldn’t be used as long as the room temperature remained so low. Alex couldn’t see the problem. If it was too cold, people could put on a jumper. But if it was too warm – which he thought it was in the smaller room – it was hard to do anything about it, since most people didn’t find collective nudity particularly appealing.
‘Sit down,’ Fredrika said, pulling out the chair beside her. ‘We’ve got food and we’ve got time to talk, which isn’t always the case.’
She winked, and for a moment she was her old self. The relief made Alex take a seat and help himself to the lunch she’d picked up from the Thai place across the street. Chicken curry and rice – the best!
‘The mask,’ Fredrika said.
‘The cocaine,’ Alex countered.
‘Was Malcolm Benke using?’ Fredrika wondered. ‘Or dealing?’
‘I realise you’re trying to find a link between the two murders, but I’m afraid it’s not going to be that easy.’
Fredrika put down her knife and fork.
‘Alex, we’re going to have a ridiculous amount to do.’
‘I know. Berlin suggested letting someone else investigate Lovisa Wahlberg’s murder. We can keep each other informed, then bring both inquiries together when we see where the points of contact are. I think that might work very well.’
Unless Berlin snatched the case off him before then. She’d gone crazy when she heard about the new message. It had been on the tennis-club noticeboard for all to see. This wasn’t a major problem, because hardly anyone understood the cryptic note, but there was no doubt about who it was addressed to. The name ‘Alex’ was written at the top of the page, and everyone assumed it had to be Alex Recht.
‘Can you handle this?’ Berlin had said. ‘Seriously – can you keep your balance in a case that for some inexplicable reason seems to be targeting you?’
And Alex had done what he always did: he’d lied. Said that of course he could handle it perfectly well. Perfectly well. He’d been a police officer for most of his life, he knew how to keep a cool head.
The truth, of course, was that he didn’t have a clue what he was capable of, for the simple reason that, like everyone else, he had no idea what lay behind the messages. Berlin had asked him to write down the names of everyone he’d met professionally or in his personal life who might possibly be responsible for them.
So far there wasn’t a single name on the list.
I don’t have that kind of enemy.
‘Are they bothering you?’ Fredrika asked. ‘The messages, are they stressing you out?’
No one else could ask such a question and expect an honest answer.
‘I’d be lying if I said I didn’t care.’
He avoided looking at her, didn’t want to prolong the discussion. She took the hint.
‘We’re meeting Bernhard Benke in two hours,’ she said. ‘Yesterday I was prepared to regard him as a suspect, but now I’m not so sure – not while there’s no clear link between Wahlberg and Benke.’
‘Same here.’
They had proof that Bernhard had been in Vienna when his father was murdered, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t involved. However, Alex didn’t believe that was the case, not after they’d found Lovisa, debased and defiled. He couldn’t stop thinking about how her body had been treated.
Where would someone get such an idea from?
They ate in silence. He still hadn’t told Fredrika about his conversation with Noah Johansson, nor Peder’s call. He felt bad going behind her back, but that wasn’t really what he was doing. Not intentionally. It wasn’t his fault that Peder had contacted him, said things he maybe shouldn’t have said. Besides, Alex didn’t know what to do with the information, if anything. What had Peder actually told him? Only that he’d seen Spencer in an agitated state with Noah. Not much to build on. Alex reminded himself to get in touch with whoever had dealt with Noah’s original missing-persons report, but he knew he wasn’t going to make it a priority. It wasn’t important, it wasn’t his responsibility.
Why did Peder have to mention Spencer?
What the hell was Spencer doing with a funeral director?.
‘The ring on Malcolm’s finger,’ Fredrika said. ‘His daughter’s wedding ring. I keep coming back to it. The question is, if it weren’t for the ring, would we have started to look into Beata’s murder?’
It was a good point. A mouthful of curry went down the wrong way and Alex started coughing. Fredrika thumped his back. The last time she’d done that was when they were out drinking, although then it had been more of a pat than a thump. She’d said she thought the world of him.
‘No,’ Alex said eventually. ‘I think we’d have missed the link to her death.’
‘When you say link, what do you mean?’
Alex looked up in surprise.
‘I mean that father and daughter were murdered in the same way, of course, but probably not by the same perpetrator. Beata was killed by her ex, her father by someone else.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Exactly?’
Fredrika poked at her food.
‘This is more than an investigation, Alex. This is a drama. We have a murderer who doesn’t want to be misunderstood, but also doesn’t want to be stopped. That’s why the ring was on Malcolm’s finger – so that we’d know where to look. If it hadn’t been for the ring, we’d have spent a huge amount of time trying to find a client or business partner with whom Malcolm had had some kind of dispute. Or someone else who might have been angry enough to put a bullet in his chest.’
Her words found their mark, and the realisation they brought made Alex’s heart sink.
A murderer who doesn’t want to be misunderstood.
A murderer on a mission?
In which case how many more victims will there be?
He broke out in a cold sweat, then pulled himself together.
‘I’m wondering why the first letter arrived when Malcolm Benke was already dead, and the investigation was already under way, rather than at the scene of the crime, like the second letter.’
Fredrika focused on her food, stabbing at the strips of chicken as if she was trying to kill the bird all over again.
‘I said yesterday that we ought to go back to Benke’s place. I’m still convinced that I’ve seen the phrase “putting everything right” somewhere else. Maybe that’s why the letter was sent, because we’d missed a clue that was left in the house. And so the killer decided to be less subtle the next time, and pinned his message on the notice board.’
Alex’s phone rang.
‘Yes?’ he snapped.
‘Hello? Alex?’
It took a second for him to recognise Linda Sullivan’s voice.
‘Yes, hi,’ he said in English.
‘I just wanted to let you know that I’ve looked into what might have happened to Beata Benke’s wedding ring,’ she said, making no attempt to hide her excitement. Fredrika noticed the change in Alex’s expression, and put down her fork.
‘She wasn’t wearing it when she died,’ Linda went on. ‘There was a clear mark on her finger where it had been – you know how the skin is paler if you always wear a ring. It didn’t register with us at the time, nobody thought it was strange, but now you’ve t
old us it was on her father’s little finger, it’s interesting to speculate on where it’s been for all these years. Who took it.’
‘Absolutely,’ Alex said. ‘Absolutely.’
He’d known from the start that the ring was important, known that it told them something about the perpetrator.
‘Just an idea – what’s Beata’s husband doing these days?’
‘You think he could have murdered his father-in-law too?’ Linda said dubiously.
‘I don’t think anything, I’d just like to rule him out.’
‘I’ve no idea what he’s doing, but I’ll look into it and get back to you.’
They ended the call with a mutual promise to speak soon, and Alex recounted the conversation to Fredrika.
‘I don’t think Beata’s husband is involved,’ she said. ‘Nor her brother – not after what we saw today.’
‘I agree, but we need to turn over every stone, see what crawls out.’
See what crawls out. Something that might possibly explain why a murderer took the life of an elderly man and a young woman who didn’t appear to know each other. And how a ring made its way from London to Stockholm.
‘When do you want to go back to Benke’s house?’
Fredrika pushed away her carton of curry. ‘How about now?’
Alex wiped his mouth and put down his napkin.
‘Give me ten minutes to sort something out,’ he said.
*
Fredrika didn’t ask any questions. Alex went to his office, sat down at the computer and quickly found Noah’s original report. He narrowed his eyes as he searched the internal database for further information. A detective by the name of Stig Mattsson had logged several conversations with Noah. His notes were characterised by frustration and sheer condescension. His final verdict was that Noah must be both mentally ill and a fantasist. ‘Refuses to see counsellor in spite of this’ he’d written.
Alex sighed. He was beginning to understand why Noah didn’t have a very high opinion of the police. He carried on searching and found a decision not to conduct a preliminary inquiry. The investigation indicated that there was no reason to suspect that a crime had been committed, therefore there was no point in proceeding.
So why am I sitting here thinking they got it wrong?
Because that was how Alex felt when he read his colleagues’ conclusions. They had been satisfied by limited contact with Dan Johansson via email and phone, taken this as proof that he hadn’t been abducted against his will.
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