No response.
‘Give me a shout if you need anything.’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ Hedvig said.
Dan was upstairs. That was good; if she left the bathroom door open, she’d be able to hear what he was doing.
Five minutes. She could easily shower in five minutes.
Or maybe she should just have a stand-up wash at the basin?
She hesitated in the doorway. She could see Dan, sitting in an armchair in the bedroom and staring out of the window. He looked contented, almost as if a smile was playing around the corners of his mouth.
Terrifying.
And that was what finally made her reach a decision. She couldn’t carry on like this, unable to gather her thoughts. She couldn’t stay awake 24/7, day after day. She had already noticed how her heightened state of anxiety had taken its toll. Her hair was greasy and she didn’t smell good. She wasn’t eating properly either; she hadn’t bothered with breakfast.
This can’t go on.
She tore off her clothes, dropped them on the bathroom floor. If Dan saw her, he didn’t react. The needle-sharp streams of water hit her face, brought her back to life.
Three minutes.
She didn’t need ten, she didn’t even need five.
After only one minute she turned off the shower and quickly stepped out, desperate to reassure herself that Dan was still sitting in the window. He was.
Back into the shower. She soaped her body with gel, rubbed a blob of shampoo through her short hair, rinsed away the suds. Not exactly a luxurious experience. Without even picking up a towel she checked on Dan again. He hadn’t moved.
Her heart was pounding.
This can’t go on.
There was water all over the floor, and Malin shivered as she dried herself. A swipe of deodorant under each arm. She pulled on her knickers, trousers, vest top. Hung up the towel, left the bathroom.
And discovered that Dan was no longer sitting in the armchair.
‘Another death,’ Alex said when he managed to get hold of Renata Rashid, the medical examiner.
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘Are we sure this has something to do with me? Because if not, I . . .’
‘The deceased is a man aged about seventy. I’m not at all sure his death has anything to do with you, but I mentioned something I found during the post-mortem to a colleague, and he said I should call you.’
Alex leaned back in his chair, on full alert. He was in his office with the door firmly closed. A new routine that had been established over the past few days: he and Fredrika worked behind closed doors, together or separately.
Creeping around. Just like Berlin said. I hate it.
‘I’ve got a thousand other things on my plate,’ Alex said. ‘But if I can help you, fire away.’
Renata was an important person in Alex’s professional life. He tried to remember that, give her the time she needed.
‘Thank you. So as I said, we’re looking at an elderly male. Divorced, lived alone in central Stockholm. The neighbours became aware of an unpleasant smell, and eventually tracked it down to his apartment. I’d say he’d been dead for four to six days by the time he was found.’
Alex grimaced, wondering where the conversation was going.
‘It wasn’t difficult to work out the cause of death,’ Renata went on. ‘Not once I knew what I was looking for. There were contusions on his throat suggesting a violent attack, but I didn’t think that had killed him. He’d had heart problems for some time, and I was afraid that the blow to his throat had led to a heart attack.’
She paused for breath. Alex was surprised; Renata was usually much more concise.
‘But it wasn’t his heart either,’ he said.
‘No. When I turned him over I discovered a puncture wound in the nape of his neck.’
Alex opened up his computer. ‘Okay,’ he said, mainly to indicate that he was listening.
‘Someone had given him an injection,’ Renata clarified.
‘Strange place to choose,’ Alex said as he skimmed the newspaper headlines. The journalists weren’t holding back, but he couldn’t blame them; an unusual amount of blood had flowed in Stockholm over the past few days.
And I have no idea how to stop it.
‘Very strange,’ Renata said. ‘So strange that I immediately regarded it as a deviation. Almost ritualistic.’
Ritualistic?
‘Was there any kind of message on the victim?’ Alex asked.
‘Message?’
‘A piece of paper – a book, maybe?’
The brief pause told him that Renata was taken aback.
‘No. No message, no book.’
Alex thought for a moment. If there had been a message, the officers on the scene would have noticed it. Or would they? Berlin had imposed a complete lockdown on the inquiry; anyone not directly involved in the investigation wouldn’t be aware of the killer’s MO.
I need to check that. Alex made a note.
‘Anyway,’ Renata continued, sounding more than a little irritated by the interruption, ‘the injection into the back of the neck doesn’t remind you of anything?’
‘No.’
‘Not even if I tell you that the man who died had significantly elevated insulin levels?’
A faint bell began to ring in the back of Alex’s mind, and for the second time within a comparatively short period, he looked down at his scarred hands. The hands he had burned while trying to save a child. A child who would otherwise have met the same fate as two other children. They had been murdered with an overdose of insulin. In one of the cases, where the victim was a baby, the fatal injection had been given via the fontanel. The other child had been too old for that, so the overdose had been injected . . .
. . . into the back of the neck.
Alex’s mouth went as dry as dust. He wished he had something to drink.
Then he pulled himself together. From a purely practical point of view, an insulin overdose was an excellent way of murdering someone. The method used in this latest death could be pure coincidence, a red herring.
‘A few years ago – well, almost ten – we were looking for a perpetrator who murdered his victims exactly the same way,’ he said. ‘But all his victims were children. Small children.’
‘That’s what my colleague told me; he was the medical examiner back then. And of course this doesn’t necessarily mean there’s a link.’
No. God forbid.
‘I appreciate the call,’ Alex said. ‘I’ll have to ask someone else to check it out – I don’t have the time.’
‘I just report whatever I find. It’s up to you to take it from there.’
‘Thank you.’
‘There’s a lot going on,’ Renata said.
‘Way too much.’
The last thing they needed was another murder. Even though Alex knew he couldn’t take it on, he still had to ask:
‘What was the victim’s name?’
‘Henry Lindgren.’
He ran a hand over his chin, felt the stubble beneath his fingertips. Diana didn’t like it when he didn’t shave properly.
‘Means nothing to me.’
‘Good.’
They ended the call.
*
Alex sat there with the phone in his hand, reflecting on what he’d just been told. Henry Lindgren. In fact Alex had partly lied to Renata; the surname meant nothing, but the first name wasn’t unfamiliar. The problem was that he couldn’t remember in which context he’d heard it.
He had to let it go, prioritise.
The murder of Malcolm Benke.
The murder of Lovisa Wahlberg.
The murder of Noah Johansson.
His conversation with Fredrika had been interrupted before he’d had a chance to find out what she thought about the letter he’d found in Noah’s office. He was glad he hadn’t mentioned what Peder had said about Spencer, but what did she think about the letter? If it weren’t for the letter they wouldn’t have l
inked Noah’s death to the other two. And yet it could still be a false trail, because the only things in the letter that had caught Alex’s attention were the words ‘I am putting everything right’ and the reference to an author. What was coincidence and what was worth following up? Alex didn’t know.
The man who had written the letter (Alex was sure it was a man) had revealed certain things about himself.
He was dying.
He had children.
He’d been involved in an accident.
He worked in Uppsala.
And he knew of Morgan Sander.
Alex smiled. If you disregarded the first point, the writer could be Spencer Lagergren.
He immediately grew serious once more; he didn’t have time for nonsense. They had to consider the relevance of the letter, work out the possible identity of the person behind it. Alex had read it three times, and it still made his blood run cold. It was a kind of confession; the guy had run over a young woman then driven away from the scene of the crime, leaving her to her fate. There was no way of knowing when the incident had taken place. The daughter he referred to could be five years old, or thirty.
The only thing they knew for sure was what he had chosen to put down in writing.
He had done wrong.
And now he was putting everything right.
Is it him? Is this the killer we’re looking for? A dying man who once ruined a young woman’s life, and is now punishing others?
Torbjörn Ross.
But he wasn’t dying, was he?
These days it wasn’t easy for the uninitiated to know something like that. He recalled how astonishingly healthy Lena had seemed on the day they were informed that she had less than a year to live.
He decided to call Tina Antonsson, the woman Noah had mentioned. It was an unusual name; she shouldn’t be too hard to find.
He was right; Tina lived in Spanga and had both a mobile number and a landline. He tried the mobile first, and she answered almost right away.
‘Yes?’
‘Am I speaking to Tina Antonsson?’
He could hear her breathing. ‘Who’s asking?’
The counter-question surprised him.
‘My name is Alex Recht. I knew Noah Johansson.’
She let out a sob. ‘I’m so glad you called,’ she said in a subdued voice.
Alex assumed she was upset because of Noah’s death, and began by offering his condolences. His words didn’t have the calming effect he’d hoped for.
‘Sorry, sorry,’ she said. ‘But I’ve been so frightened.’
‘Frightened?’
Alex knew that simply repeating the word was stupid, but it just slipped out.
‘I think I’m safe. I don’t want to say where I am. Not yet. Noah said I could trust you, but I . . . I don’t know what to do.’
Alex summoned up his most reassuring voice.
‘Let’s start at the beginning. You’re hiding somewhere?’
There was a long silence, then: ‘Yes.’
‘I apologise if this seems insensitive, but why?’
Silence.
‘I realise you must have been scared when you heard that Noah had been murdered,’ Alex said gently. ‘He told me you were worried about Dan and his family too, that you think something’s happened to them.’
‘I know something’s happened to them. So don’t tell me I’m imagining things and need to stop worrying.’
‘Absolutely not. I’m far from convinced that Noah’s brother is in Australia.’
There was a scraping sound on the other end of the line.
‘Let’s try again. You know more than I do. So tell me – why are you hiding?’
‘Can anyone else hear us?’ Tina asked.
What kind of a question is that?
‘No. This phone isn’t monitored.’
‘I don’t mean that. I mean are you alone, or can anyone else hear what you’re saying?’
‘I’m alone in my office with the door closed.’
Alex was running out of patience; he was beginning to regret contacting Tina Antonsson. What possible reason could she have for being so scared?
‘Can we meet? So I can see your ID?’
Alex closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead.
What the fuck is going on here?
I don’t have time. I really don’t.
‘I’m a bit pressed for time. Tell me where you want to meet, but it has to be within half an hour’s drive of police HQ.’
Tina thought for a moment.
‘I’ll see you at the OKQ8 petrol station in Johanneshov in thirty minutes.’
‘Fine. Is that where you are now? By the Globe?’
‘I don’t want to say where I am.’
Then she hung up.
‘I’m not sure I ought to be calling you, but I’m doing it anyway,’ Mikael Lundell said.
Fredrika mumbled about how it wasn’t always easy to know what was right or wrong.
‘I’ve been mulling something over since we last spoke,’ Mikael went on.
Fredrika was as taut as a violin string; she couldn’t handle anyone else’s uncertainty on top of her own.
‘Go on.’
Mikael didn’t answer immediately; her lack of patience had clearly had an effect.
‘It’s not so much about events in London,’ he said slowly. ‘It’s more about the police, how you work, the organisation.’
Fredrika could have burst out laughing, but she didn’t. The organisation? Was he serious?
‘I realise this sounds stupid.’
‘No, no,’ Fredrika assured him. ‘We’ve just undergone a major restructuring, but I’m guessing that’s not what you’re referring to. Could you be a little more specific?’
‘Absolutely. You told me that the police in Sweden weren’t aware of what had happened to Beata in London.’
Fredrika shuffled uncomfortably.
‘I can’t honestly tell you what the procedure is when a Swedish citizen is murdered overseas, but if no report is filed in Sweden, then . . .’
‘That’s not what I meant,’ Mikael said. ‘It was more the fact that you had so many questions, when you could have got the answers from one of your colleagues.’
Fredrika was busy moving papers around her desk; she stopped in mid movement.
‘Sorry, I don’t understand.’
‘Malcolm Benke was in regular contact with a detective in Stockholm who gave him good advice on how to handle his daughter’s situation. A detective who was a friend of a friend, I think.’
When Fredrika didn’t speak, Mikael added: ‘At least that’s what Malcolm said.’
‘Do you remember the name of this detective? Did Malcolm mention a name?’
‘He did. It was Torbjörn Ross.’
*
Alex was nowhere to be found when Fredrika started looking for him. Ivan had seen him heading for the lifts a few minutes ago, so Fredrika tried his mobile.
‘Where are you?’
‘On my way out. There’s something I have to do.’
She thought she might actually explode. No more secrets, please. No more than those she was convinced he already had.
There’s another reason why you didn’t tell me about Noah Johansson’s missing brother until today. What was it?
‘Alex, tell me where you’re going.’
She heard the sound of an engine starting.
‘I’m meeting someone who’s too scared to talk to me on the phone.’
‘Who?’
The engine roared; Alex was on his way out of the underground car park.
‘Tina Antonsson,’ he said after a few seconds.
‘Now?’
‘Yes.’
Fredrika wanted to protest, point out that they had a thousand other things to do. They had to talk about Ross. That must take priority.
Because if Ross is the killer, then I can let go of my suspicions about Spencer.
She went into the Lions’ Den and closed the
door behind her. It was colder than ever.
‘I know why Ross thought it was Bernhard Benke who’d murdered Malcolm,’ she said. ‘He knew Malcolm, knew exactly what was going on with Beata in London.’
‘Jesus! Where did you get this from?’
‘Mikael Lundell.’
Fredrika drew her jacket more tightly around her body, trying to get warm.
‘Alex, we need to push this upstairs.’
‘You mean we need to make a formal report on our suspicions about Ross?’
‘Yes.’
‘And how do we do that? Can you provide a simple summary of those suspicions, and the reasons behind them? We have to be realistic. It’s a terrible thing we’re trying to put into words.’
So terrible that neither of them had actually said what they were thinking, Fredrika realised.
‘I still think he’s involved,’ she said.
‘Me too.’
‘His name crops up in every single case, and he has links to several of the victims.’
‘Exactly.’
‘But there’s no forensic evidence.’
‘And we haven’t the faintest idea of a motive,’ Alex pointed out. ‘If Ross murdered all these people, what’s driving him?’
‘The MO tells us something. Malcolm was killed in the same way as his daughter, Lovisa in the same way as her boyfriend. As far as I’m concerned, the motive is crystal clear: revenge.’
‘Okay, but why would Torbjörn Ross take it upon himself to exact that revenge? And what’s the connection with me?’
Fredrika thought about the letter Alex had found in Noah’s office, about the confession and the assertion that steps had been taken to atone for past sins. Tears pricked at her eyes.
Please don’t let it be Spencer, in spite of everything.
‘Maybe there are two of them,’ she said. The thought came from nowhere.
‘Two perpetrators?’ Alex’s voice was filled with doubt.
‘There must be a reason why Ross’s name keeps popping up all over the place,’ Fredrika insisted. ‘If there are two perpetrators it makes more sense.’
However, she was far from satisfied with that hypothesis – for a number of reasons.
‘Alex, how many more?’ she said quietly.
The question that threatened to destroy her from the inside.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Victims. How many more are going to die?’
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