Lifetime

by Liza Marklund

  The draught was coming from the bedroom: one of the windows must be open. The curtains were drawn, making the room completely dark. She stared into the shadows for a few moments, detecting no movement. But there was a smell, something sharp and unfamiliar.

  She reached out a hand and switched on the light.

  David was lying on his back across the bed, naked. Where his genitals should have been there was a bloody mass of entrails and skin. ‘Police,’ she said, forcing herself to act as if he were still alive. ‘You have a weapon aimed at you. Show your hands.’

  Thundering silence in response, and she noticed that she had tunnel vision. The curtains were moving. There was a half-full glass of water on the bedside table on Julia’s side of the bed. The duvet was in a heap on the floor. On top of it lay a weapon identical to hers, a Sig Sauer 225.

  Nina felt mechanically for her radio.

  ‘1617 to Control. We have one casualty at the scene, unclear if he’s still alive. Looks like gunshot wounds to the head and groin, over.’

  As she waited for a reply she went to the bed, looked down at the body and realized the man was dead. His right eye was closed, as if he were still asleep. In place of the left there was a gaping hole into his skull. The blood wasn’t flowing so his heart had stopped beating. His bowels had opened, leaving a sludge of acrid excrement on the mattress.

  ‘Where’s the ambulance?’ she asked, over the radio. ‘Didn’t they get the same alarm as us, over?’

  ‘I’m sending an ambulance and Forensics,’ Control said in her ear. ‘Is there anyone else in the flat, over?’

  Andersson appeared in the doorway, glancing at the body.

  ‘You’re needed out here,’ he said, pointing towards the bathroom door.

  Nina put her gun into its holster and hurried out into the hall, opened the bathroom door and held her breath.

  Julia was lying on the floor next to the bath. Her hair was a pale halo round her head, spread in a mess of vomit. She was in her underwear and a large T-shirt, her knees pulled up to her chin, in a foetal position. She was lying on one hand; the other was clamped in a fist.

  ‘Julia,’ Nina said gently, leaning over her. She brushed the hair away from her face and saw that her eyes were wide open. Her face was covered with pale-red splatters of blood. A string of saliva hung from the corner of her mouth to the floor.

  Oh, God, she’s dead and I didn’t save her.

  Julia jerked and gasped, then retched.

  ‘Julia,’ Nina said, loudly and clearly. ‘Julia, are you hurt?’

  She gave several dry retches, then slumped back on to the floor.

  ‘Julia,’ Nina said, putting a hand on her friend’s shoulder. ‘Julia, it’s me. What happened? Are you hurt?’ She pulled her into a sitting position, leaning her against the bath.

  ‘1617,’ Control repeated in her ear. ‘I say again, are there other casualties in the flat, over?’

  Julia closed her eyes and let her head fall back against the enamel. Nina checked the pulse in her neck. It was racing. ‘Affirmative, two casualties, one presumed dead, over.’

  She let go of the radio.

  ‘Andersson!’ she called. ‘Search the flat, every inch. There should be a four-year-old child here somewhere.’

  Julia moved her lips, and Nina wiped the vomit from her chin. ‘What did you say?’ she whispered. ‘Julia, are you trying to say something?’ She checked that there was no sign of a weapon in the bathroom.

  ‘How much do we want to cordon off?’ Andersson asked from the hall.

  ‘The stairwell,’ Nina said. ‘Forensics are on their way, and people from the crime unit. Start questioning the neighbours. Take Erlandsson first, then the others on this floor. And find out if whoever delivers the papers saw anything – he must only just have been. Have you searched all the rooms?’

  ‘Yes. Even checked the oven.’

  ‘No sign of the boy anywhere?’

  Andersson hesitated in the doorway.

  ‘Is there something you don’t understand?’ Nina asked.

  Her colleague shifted his weight from one foot to the other. ‘I think it’s bloody inappropriate, you being part of this investigation,’ he said, ‘considering—’

  ‘Well, I’m here and I’ve got it,’ she said curtly. ‘Get the cordon sorted.’

  ‘Okay, okay,’ Andersson said, and lumbered off.

  Julia’s lips were moving, but she wasn’t making any sound. Nina was supporting her head with her left hand.

  ‘The ambulance is on its way,’ Nina said, as she examined her with her free hand, following the outline of her body under the T-shirt, tracing her skin. No wounds – not even a scratch. No weapon.

  In the distance she could hear the sound of sirens and was gripped again by panic. ‘Julia,’ she said loudly, slapping her cheek. ‘Julia, what happened? Tell me!’

  The woman’s eyes flickered and cleared for a moment. ‘Alexander,’ she whispered.

  Nina leaned down close to her face. ‘What about Alexander?’ she asked.

  ‘She took him,’ Julia gasped. ‘The other woman, she took Alexander.’ Then she fainted.

  2

  As Julia Lindholm was being carried out on a stretcher from the flat she shared with her husband on Södermalm, Annika Bengtzon was sitting in a taxi on her way into the centre of Stockholm. The sun was rising over the horizon as the car passed the city limits at Roslagstull, colouring the rooftops a blazing red. The contrast with the black, empty streets hurt her eyes.

  The driver kept glancing at her in the rear-view mirror, but she pretended not to notice.

  ‘Do you know how the fire started?’ he asked.

  ‘I told you, I don’t want to talk,’ she said, staring at the buildings flashing past.

  Her house had just burned down. Someone had thrown three incendiary grenades through the windows, the first at the foot of the stairs, then one into each of the children’s rooms. She’d managed to get her son and daughter out through the window of her own bedroom at the back of the house, and now she was clutching them tightly as they sat at either side of her in the back seat. The three smelt of smoke, and her cornflower-blue top bore soot stains.

  I bring death and misery with me. Everyone I love dies.

  Stop it, she thought sternly, biting the inside of her cheek. I made it. We’re alive. Just focus.

  ‘I never usually drive anyone on credit,’ the driver said sullenly, pulling up at a red light.

  Annika closed her eyes. Six months ago she had discovered that Thomas, her husband, had been having an affair with a female colleague, an icy little blonde called Sophia Grenborg. Annika had put a stop to it, but she had never told Thomas she knew about it.

  Yesterday he had found out that she did. You’ve been lying and pretending and fooling me for months, he had yelled, and it’s the same with everything you do. You decide what the world looks like, and anyone who doesn’t agree with you is a fool.

  ‘That’s not true,’ she whispered, aware that she was about to burst into tears.

  She wanted us to meet again. I’m on my way there now.

  She opened her eyes wide to stop the tears overflowing. The stone façades of the buildings flickered and shone.

  If you go now, you can never come back.

  He had stared at her with his new, strange, narrow gaze, his dead eyes.

  Okay.

  She had watched him cross the parquet floor, pick up his briefcase, open the front door and go out into the grey mist. The door had closed behind him and he hadn’t looked back.

  He had left her, and someone had thrown three grenades into the house. Someone had tried to kill her and the children and he hadn’t been there to save her. She’d had to cope alone. She knew perfectly well who’d thrown the bombs: the neighbour on the other side of the rear hedge, the one who’d driven across her lawn and destroyed her flowerbeds, the one who’d done all he could to get rid of her. Wilhelm Hopkins, chairman of the villa-owners’ association. />
  She held the children tighter.

  I’m going to get you back for this, you bastard.

  She’d tried calling Thomas, but his mobile was switched off. He didn’t want to be reached – didn’t want to be disturbed – and she knew what he was doing. She hadn’t left a message, just breathed into his new, free life, then ended the call. It served him right.

  ‘What number did you say it was?’ The taxi-driver turned into Artillerigatan.

  Annika stroked the children’s hair to wake them. ‘We’re here,’ she whispered, as the taxi pulled up. ‘We’re at Anne’s. Come on, darlings …’

  She opened the door and the night chill swept into the car. Ellen curled into a little ball. Kalle whimpered in his sleep.

  ‘I want your mobile as security,’ the man said.

  Annika shepherded the children out of the car, turned and dropped her phone on to the back seat. ‘I’ve turned it off, so you can forget about making any calls,’ she said, slamming the door.

  Anne Snapphane turned her head to gaze cautiously at the man lying on the pillow beside her, at the dark, gelled hair sticking out over his forehead, his quivering nostrils. He was falling asleep.

  It was a long time since she’d slept next to anyone.

  How pretty he is, and how young. Scarcely more than a boy.

  I wonder if he thinks I’m too fat, she wondered, checking to see if her mascara had run. It had, but not much. Too fat, she thought. Or too old.

  For her the most exciting bit had been the taste of strong lager in his mouth. She felt rather ashamed of this. It was six months since she had touched alcohol. Was that all? It felt like an eternity.

  She rolled on to her side and studied the profile of the young man beside her.

  This could be the start of something new, something fresh, fun and good. It would look great in the little boxes of basic information the papers published when they interviewed her: Family: daughter, five, and boyfriend, twenty-three.

  She reached out a hand to touch his hair. ‘Robin,’ she whispered, almost soundlessly, moving her fingers just above his face. ‘Tell me you care about me.’

  The angry buzz of the doorbell startled him awake, and he looked about in confusion. Anne jerked her hand back as if she’d burned herself.

  ‘What the fuck?’ he said, staring at her as if he’d never seen her before.

  She pulled the sheet under her chin and tried to smile. ‘It’s just the doorbell,’ she said. ‘I won’t bother to answer it.’

  He sat up. His hair product had left a stain on the pillowcase.

  ‘Is it your old man?’ he asked anxiously. ‘You said you were on your own.’

  ‘It isn’t a man,’ Anne said, and got up, still holding the sheet, trying in vain to wrap it around herself as she stumbled out to the hall.

  The bell rang again.

  ‘All right, for fuck’s sake,’ Anne said, irritated. She’d been without a man for so long and now … Shit. She fumbled with the lock and swallowed something that might have been a sob.

  Annika was standing outside with Kalle and Ellen.

  ‘What do you want?’ Anne said hoarsely.

  Annika sighed, as if she hadn’t the energy to explain why they were there.

  ‘Do you know what time it is?’ Anne said.

  ‘Can we stay? Our house has burned down.’

  Anne glanced at the children. Burned down? Behind her she heard Robin flush the toilet. ‘This isn’t a good time,’ she said, hoisting the sheet further up her chest.

  Kalle started to cry, which started Ellen off as well. Anne felt the chill from the stairwell around her feet. ‘Can you be quiet?’ she said. ‘It’s the middle of the night, after all.’

  Annika was staring at her with moist eyes.

  Christ! Don’t tell me she’s going to start too.

  ‘We haven’t anywhere to go.’

  Robin coughed from the bedroom. Please, don’t let him go!

  ‘Annika,’ she said, ‘that’s hardly my fault, is it?’

  Annika drew a breath as if she were about to speak, but nothing came out.

  Anne tried to smile. ‘I hope you understand.’ She could hear Robin moving in the bedroom. ‘I’m not on my own right now, and you’ve no idea how much this means to me.’

  Annika’s eyes narrowed. ‘How selfish can you get?’

  Anne blinked.

  ‘I didn’t manage to get any money out of the house,’ Annika said, ‘so I can’t even pay the taxi. Perhaps you think we should sleep in the street.’

  Anne gasped. She was angry now. ‘Time for me to pay you back,’ she said. ‘Is that it?’

  Annika’s voice rose. ‘Is it really too much for me to expect some help, just this once?’

  He’s getting dressed, he’s going to leave.

  She knew it: he was going to leave her now, and to get him to stay a bit longer she went out into the stairwell and closed the door behind her.

  ‘After all the times I’ve had to listen to you!’ Anne said, trying to restrain herself. ‘Year in, year out, I’ve had to put up with your constant whining, everything going wrong, your boring husband and your awful job. I’ll tell you one thing, I’m not the one letting anyone down!’ She could feel her legs beginning to tremble.

  ‘You can’t be serious?’

  ‘All the energy I’ve wasted on you,’ Anne said unsteadily, ‘I could have spent it on myself. Then I’d have been the one who made it. I’d have been offered a presenter’s job and made shedloads of money.’

  ‘Presenter’s job?’ Annika was clearly confused.

  ‘Don’t think I’ve forgotten how bloody arrogant you were when you were offered that job – I should have got it! It was me who put in all those years at that shitty company.’

  ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

  ‘You see? It didn’t mean anything to you! Nothing I’ve achieved has ever been good enough.’

  Annika was crying, tears running down her cheeks. She’d always been such a baby.

  ‘I realize that it’s completely irrelevant to you, but now I’ve finally got a chance that could lead somewhere. Do you begrudge me that?’

  There was a brief silence. Then Annika blew her nose. ‘I won’t bother you again, ever,’ she said. She took the children’s hands and turned back towards the staircase.

  ‘Good,’ Anne said. She went back into her hall, then leaned out again. ‘Book yourself into a hotel!’ she shouted at Annika’s back. ‘You’ve got enough money, after all.’

  Robin was standing behind her as she closed the door. He had pulled on his jeans and top and was doing up one of his trainers.

  ‘Where are you off to?’ she said, trying to smile.

  ‘Got to get home,’ he said. ‘Early start in the morning.’

  Anne fought an impulse to pull the sheet tighter around her. Instead she let it fall to the floor, reaching out her arms to him.

  He tied the other lace.

  ‘But,’ Anne said, stiffening, ‘I thought you were unemployed.’

  He glanced up at her breasts. ‘I’ve got a band rehearsal,’ he said, the lie obvious.

  Anne picked up the sheet and wrapped it around her. ‘I like you,’ she said.

  He paused a fraction too long. ‘And I like you too,’ he said.

  Just don’t say, It isn’t you, it’s me.

  ‘Call me?’ she asked.

  He swallowed, then kissed her quickly on the ear. ‘Course,’ he said, then went out, shutting the door behind him.

  The doctor stepped into A&E, his white coat flapping behind him. Nina was surprised by how young he was, younger than her. He glanced at her as he walked over to the stretcher where Julia was lying. ‘Do we know what happened?’ he asked, shining a little pocket torch into one of Julia’s eyes.

  ‘She was found in her flat,’ Nina said. ‘There’d been a murder – her husband had been shot on the bed.’

  ‘Has she talked to you?’ the doctor said, moving the torch to
the other eye.

  Nina suppressed an urge to unbutton her bulletproof vest. ‘Not much. At first I thought she was dead.’

  ‘Her pupils are reacting normally,’ he declared, switching the torch off. ‘Do we have ID?’ He reached for a computer tablet.

  ‘Julia Maria Lindholm, thirty-one years old. Maiden name Hansen.’

  The young man made some notes and put the tablet down. He hung a stethoscope round his neck and Nina waited quietly while he took Julia’s blood pressure.

  ‘Slightly high, but stable,’ he said.

  Then he picked up a pair of scissors and cut off Julia’s T-shirt. ‘Were there any traces of blood where the patient was found?’

  ‘Apart from the splatters on her face, I didn’t see any,’ Nina said. ‘I don’t think she’s physically injured.’

  ‘No entry or exit wounds? No cuts?’

  Nina shook her head.

  ‘She could have been hit by a blunt instrument that hasn’t left any visible trace,’ the doctor said, as he moved his hands over her body.

  Julia didn’t react.

  He felt her neck. ‘No stiffness, pupils normal, she isn’t concussed.’ He raised her legs. ‘No fractures to the hips.’ Then he took her hand and stroked it. ‘Julia,’ he said, ‘I’m going to check your level of consciousness. I want to see if you react to pain.’

  He squeezed her ribcage. Julia’s face contorted and she screamed.

  ‘It’s okay,’ the doctor said, and noted something on his tablet. ‘I need to do an ECG, and then I’ll leave you in peace.’ He fastened some electrodes to Julia’s chest, then wrapped her in a thick blanket. ‘Do you want to sit with her?’ he asked Nina.

  Nina nodded.

  ‘Hold her hand and talk to her.’

  Nina sat on the edge of the stretcher and took Julia’s hand, which was damp and cold. ‘What’s wrong with her?’ Just don’t let her die! Tell me she’s not going to die!

  ‘She’s in a state of psychological shock,’ the doctor said. ‘They sometimes get like this, mute and paralysed. They stop eating and drinking. You can look them in the eye but they don’t know you’re there.’

  He glanced up at Nina, then quickly away. ‘It’s not dangerous,’ he said. ‘It’ll pass.’