The Dead Of Summer

by Mari Jungstedt

  THE STREET WAS silent and deserted. It was so hot that the air shimmered. An elderly woman was slowly heading along the road, taking her dog for a walk. Otherwise nothing moved in the idyllic residential area. Johan parked his car outside the house. The garden was resplendent, but the grass was much too high. Last summer he had been the one who mowed the lawn. That was when Elin was a newborn, and he was the happiest man in the world. It felt like so long ago. Like a whole different life.

  He quickly walked up the front path. The patio furniture was out, and the hammock was in place, but it didn’t look as if anyone had used it in a while. The house looked empty even though the pram stood on the porch. Perhaps she wasn’t home after all? Maybe she hadn’t taken the pram when they went to the beach.

  He rang the bell and listened to it echoing inside. Waited nervously and tried to peer through the kitchen window, but he didn’t see anyone.

  He rang the bell again. Now he heard the sound of shuffling footsteps. Slowly, someone turned the deadbolt inside. A fly was making its way up the door jamb. He stared at the painted sign: ‘Home of Emma, Filip, Sara and Elin.’

  One name is missing, he thought.

  Finally Emma opened the door.

  ‘Hi,’ he said.

  How small she looked, as if she’d shrunk in the wash. She made no motion to let him come in.

  ‘Where’s Elin?’

  He glanced uneasily at the hall behind her.

  ‘She’s asleep.’

  ‘Can I come in?’

  ‘No.’

  She folded her arms.

  ‘Please let me come in. I’ve driven all the way here from town just to see you.’

  ‘Why? What possible reason could you have for coming to see me?’

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked hesitantly.

  ‘“What’s the matter?”’ she repeated. ‘There’s nothing in particular going on with me – the question is, what’s going on with you? You’ve got a new girlfriend, right? So what do you and I have to do with each other any more? Nothing.’

  ‘Take it easy.’

  He tried to step inside, but Emma blocked his way. She stared at him with a cold expression, and her voice changed into a snarl.

  ‘You’re not welcome to set foot in this house ever again! Do you hear me? And from now on, you can pick Elin up at the day-care centre or at some other neutral location, because you’re not welcome here. I don’t want to have anything more to do with you!’

  Anger flashed through Johan’s mind. Everything that he’d had to endure descended on him all at once.

  ‘Damn it all,’ he snapped as he stepped forward, forcing her to retreat into the hall. ‘Calm down. Is it really so strange that I’d sleep with somebody else? You’ve pushed me away, treated me like I have the plague. And why did you do that, Emma? Why? Because a mentally ill man kidnapped our daughter? Was I the one who took her away? Did I have anything to do with what happened? No, but apparently you think I was to blame for the whole thing! And why do you think that? Oh right, it’s because I was just doing my fucking job! Do you really think, in your wildest imagination, that I would do anything that might harm Elin? Or you, for that matter?’

  Looking frightened, Emma backed her way into the kitchen, unprepared for the strength of his reaction. She’d never seen Johan so angry.

  ‘Well, let me tell you one thing, Emma. I’m sick and tired of longing for you, tired of hoping that everything will turn out all right. I’ve had enough. For three years I’ve done everything in my power to bring us together, but what good has it done? I can’t do it any more. So just go ahead and sit here in this house feeling sorry for yourself.’

  Emma couldn’t look at him any more. She sank down on to a chair and turned away. She held her hands over her ears and closed her eyes tight in order to shut him out. She intended to sit there like that until he finished what he was saying and left. The only thing she wanted was for him to disappear. For some strange reason, she felt perfectly calm inside. It was as if all her thoughts had now been confirmed. That it was over between them, it was definitely over. Once and for all. When Johan finally left, slamming the door behind him, she was still sitting in the same position.

  And she stayed like that for a very long time.

  THE YOUNG MAN stared at him in astonishment.

  ‘Who are you?’ he asked in English.

  ‘Wait, wait. I’m a police officer,’ said Knutas, stumbling over his words.

  The man standing in front of him suddenly looked nervous.

  ‘Police?’

  He grabbed Knutas by the arm and hauled him out of the wardrobe, calling to his companions.

  The next moment, Knutas was surrounded by all three. With trembling hands he pulled out his police ID.

  The man with the most tattoos, who seemed to be the leader, studied the ID, then turned it over and looked at the back. He cast a glance at the other two and muttered something incomprehensible.

  ‘Can I sit down?’ asked Knutas. His legs were shaking.

  ‘Yes. Come with us.’

  They escorted him down the stairs and out to the back of the house to some patio furniture.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ asked the leader.

  ‘Just checking on things,’ said Knutas. ‘Purely routine.’

  ‘On a Sunday?’

  All three men regarded him dubiously. Close up, they didn’t seem particularly hostile. Two of them were standing on either side of Knutas, holding on to his arms. They immediately started up a lively discussion in their own language.

  ‘Where are you from?’ Knutas ventured.

  The leader glared at him without replying, and the discussion grew more heated. Suddenly they were in a big hurry. They yanked Knutas to his feet and made him hold out his arms while the leader frisked his pockets. Wallet, car keys, pipe tobacco – he took everything. Then he yelled something to the others, who hustled Knutas back inside the house. He tried to pull himself out of their grasp and resisted as best he could, but he found it impossible to get away. He was terrified at the thought of what lay in store for him.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he yelled, in English. ‘Let me go! I’m a police officer.’

  With resolute expressions, they dragged him towards the front door.

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ Now Knutas had switched to Swedish. ‘I’m a police officer, damn it!’

  Were they going to kidnap him? Kill him? Cut his throat, or shoot him and throw his body off the cliff? Or maybe lock him in the boot of his own car so he’d die of suffocation?

  Knutas thought his last hour was near when the leader opened the door to a clothes cupboard in the hall and signalled to his companions to throw him inside.

  ‘We are very sorry!’ Knutas heard him say before the door slammed shut with a bang.

  FORTY MINUTES LATER, Martin Kihlgård and Thomas Wittberg roared up the drive, closely followed by several more police vehicles. There was no one to be seen. The front door of the house stood open.

  From inside they could hear a dull pounding. Wittberg was the first to run in. The sound was coming from a room in the hall. A board had been nailed across the door.

  He found a crowbar on the ground outside the house and with some effort finally got the door open.

  ‘What the hell?’ he panted when he peered inside.

  They had found Knutas.

  JOHAN SAT WITH his head in his hands, staring down at the dust-covered gravel. He was much too upset to drive, so he’d started walking along the road from Emma’s house and continued on towards the football pitch. It was deserted. He sat down on a bench and smoked one cigarette after another until his throat was burning. He had no idea how long he’d been sitting there when he noticed a woman with a pram coming closer. His stomach turned over when he saw who it was. There was Emma, with Elin, his daughter. He wanted to rush over and yank the handle of the pram out of her hands, but he restrained himself.

  Then she turned her head and
glanced in his direction. For several seconds he wondered whether she would come over to him or just keep going, pretending not to have seen him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her approach. He froze.

  ‘Oh, look, here’s Pappa,’ she cooed in a cheerful voice, holding Elin out towards Johan.

  Johan raised his head, and all of a sudden his little daughter was so close he could smell the scent of her. Those little brown eyes, that heart-shaped little face, the dimple on her chin. His dimple.

  He made an effort to smile at her as he held out his hands. The next moment he was holding her warm, chubby little body close to him. That’s when he fell apart. Johan hugged his daughter tight and wept so that his shoulders shook.

  At a loss, Emma sat down next to him without saying a word.

  KNUTAS WAS TAKEN to the hospital. He wasn’t injured, but Kihlgård still insisted that he go, if nothing else to talk with somebody about what had just happened. Knutas submitted to a medical examination and then recounted the entire course of events to a kindly doctor in the psychiatric emergency unit he happened to know quite well. Lina and the kids came back from the summer house, and Lina urged him to take it easy and stay home for the rest of the day, but Knutas refused. By two o’clock that afternoon, he was back at police headquarters.

  The entire team was on the job, as the investigation had now picked up steam. There was no time to lose.

  Knutas had barely sat down at his desk before Jacobsson stuck her head in the door.

  ‘Hi. How are you doing?’

  She came over to give him a quick hug.

  ‘What a thing to happen. I’m glad it turned out well.’

  Knutas smiled wanly.

  ‘I heard you got locked inside a clothes cupboard, but then what happened?’

  ‘They went back to emptying the house of everything that wasn’t nailed down. I’d probably been sitting there for half an hour when I heard the van drive off. I wasn’t really worried, since I’d already managed to contact Kihlgård. And it wasn’t more than ten or fifteen minutes later that they showed up.’

  ‘Could you tell what language those guys were speaking?’

  ‘I’m not much of a linguist, as you know, but I think it was one of the Baltic languages, probably Estonian.’

  ‘Do you think they were the same guys who beat up Vendela Bovide?’

  ‘It seems highly likely.’

  ‘Have you gone through the book of mug shots?’

  ‘Yup. That was the first thing I did when I got back from the hospital. I’ve already been debriefed and looked at photos of plenty of ex-cons. Nothing, unfortunately.’

  ‘How well does Vendela’s description of the men match what you saw?’

  ‘It seems likely that two of them were the guys who beat her up. But there was also a third guy out on Furillen.’

  ‘So now everything seems to indicate that the murder of Peter Bovide did have something to do with his illegal workers.’

  ‘It seems so,’ Knutas agreed. ‘At the same time, I don’t think they were the killer type.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘At first I was scared, of course, thinking they might be the ones who shot Bovide. For a few seconds I really thought it was going to be the end of me. But then what happened? They locked me in a clothes cupboard, and even apologized for doing it.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The last thing I heard them say was “We’re sorry!” Can you believe it?’ Knutas gave her a wry smile.

  ‘That doesn’t exactly sound like a cold-blooded murderer.’

  ‘No, it doesn’t.’

  ‘But if the murder isn’t connected with the illegal workers, what the heck is this all about?’

  ‘That’s the very question I’ve been asking myself over and over again.’

  MONDAY, 17 JULY

  KNUTAS WOKE UP in his bed at home on Bokströmsgatan and found himself staring at Lina’s freckled back. She was taking deep, calm breaths. Cautiously, he kissed her shoulder, and she grunted softly.

  They’d had a marvellous time. He and Lina had sat out on the porch in the warm summer evening, sipping cold white wine and talking the way they used to. They discussed what had happened out on Furillen. When he spoke the words aloud, it was as if he finally realized what a serious episode he’d been through.

  They talked about how lucky he’d been, since the whole drama had ended well, even though the three men had escaped with all the appliances and everything else. Knutas was reminded of what he and Lina actually had together. What did it matter if their sex life was going through a lull when he thought about the camaraderie and intimacy they shared? They had fun together, laughed a lot and he loved her bold outlook. It was so easy living with Lina.

  He needed to make more of an effort, do more to rekindle their love. It really wouldn’t require such major changes to improve things. He’d already made a start the previous evening by making sure they went to bed long before they were too tired to do anything but fall asleep.

  When Knutas arrived at the investigative meeting an hour later, he noticed a particularly charged mood in the room. Even though he was a few minutes early, everyone else was already there, and they all seemed remarkably focused. Knutas started off the meeting.

  ‘So the primary suspects are these three men from Estonia, according to information we received from Peter Bovide’s partner, Johnny Ekwall. Since they’re undocumented workers, the construction company only has a mobile number for one of them, whose name is Andres. We’re now using that number to search for him in Estonia. I also jotted down the licence-plate number of the van before they found me, and fortunately they didn’t find the little scrap of paper when they searched my pockets. The car is registered to someone named Ants Otsa. We’ve enlisted the help of the Estonian police, and the hunt is on for all three men, now suspected of murdering Peter Bovide. We have a statement from a witness who said that three Baltic men and a large white van were seen on the boat to Nynäshamn yesterday around lunchtime, and if that’s true, then they could be back in Estonia by now.’

  ‘What do we know about these guys?’ asked Wittberg.

  ‘I’ve talked to Interpol,’ said Kihlgård. ‘Ants Otsa is on the police books in Estonia for possession of narcotics and as an accessory to armed robbery several years ago. The other two are unknowns; we don’t even have their last names.’

  ‘How long have they been working for Slite Construction?’

  ‘About six months, according to Johnny Ekwall,’ replied Knutas.

  ‘Does Ekwall have any idea what’s behind their actions?’ asked Jacobsson.

  ‘He continues to claim that he knows very little, that he was just doing his job, and that he didn’t get involved in how the company was otherwise being run. According to him, it was a subcontractor who had responsibility for the house project on Furillen, but we haven’t yet located the person in charge. Of course, Ekwall had his suspicions that things weren’t being done entirely on the up and up, but he reasoned that as long as the company was doing well and he received his salary, he shouldn’t get involved.’

  ‘Typical male reaction,’ snorted Jacobsson. ‘Just stick your head in the sand and refuse to see what’s going on around you, and then you can’t be held responsible.’

  ‘At any rate, he had a hard time explaining how the company could have taken on so much more work than its employees could handle. I think that as soon as the examination of the company’s finances is complete, we’ll be able to charge both him and possibly the secretary, Linda Johansson, with tax evasion,’ Knutas went on. ‘She couldn’t have been unaware of what was going on, even if she too did probably try to stick her head in the sand. Provided that tactic isn’t exclusive to men.’

  ‘Has anyone talked to her husband?’ asked Kihlgård.

  ‘Yes, but from what I understand, we didn’t learn anything useful,’ said Jacobsson. ‘I don’t have the transcript here, but we can take another look at the interview.’

  ‘G
ood.’ Knutas drummed his fingertips impatiently on the table. ‘Anything else? How’s it going with the search for a safe?’

  ‘We’ve been over the house and the office again with a fine-tooth comb,’ said Sohlman. ‘There’s no sign at all of a safe or any money stashed away.’

  ‘The fraud division is continuing their investigation, although the wheels turn slowly,’ said Knutas. ‘But at least they’ve gone through the bank accounts of the company, as well as Bovide’s personal accounts. When it comes to the company, it’s obvious that he was making extensive use of illegal workers, at least during the past two years. He was clearly taking big risks, committing the firm to major projects and laying out a lot of money. But as a corporation, the company is separate from his private finances, and there we’ve been unable to find anything out of the ordinary – either too much or too little money. According to his wife, everything adds up.’

  ‘The question is whether she’s being honest,’ said Knutas pensively. ‘And whether the business partner, Johnny Ekwall, is telling the truth. Let’s bring both of them in again.’

  THE PHONE RANG as soon as Knutas was back in his office.

  A husky male voice spoke on the other end of the line.

  ‘Hi, it’s Torsten Ahlberg from Visby hospital. You wanted to talk to me?’

  ‘Yes, thanks for getting back to me.’

  Knutas quickly outlined the details in the Bovide homicide case.

  ‘He was a regular patient of mine, and I had prescribed anti-depressants for him. That’s true.’

  ‘Why? What sort of problem did he have?’

  ‘He suffered from panic attacks and needed help in quelling the symptoms, in order to avoid the real abyss, so to speak. But I’m afraid I can’t tell you what the underlying problem was.’

  ‘Was it related to his epilepsy?’

  ‘Not directly, but he started having epileptic fits about the same time as the panic attacks began. That was years ago.’

  ‘When did he first come to see you?’

  ‘I have a very clear memory of that,’ said the doctor. ‘After I heard about the murder, naturally I started thinking about my contact with Peter Bovide. I thought that was what you wanted to ask me about, so I’ve already taken out his casebook. I have all the information here. Under normal circumstances, the contents would be confidential, but it’s a different matter now that a homicide investigation is involved – and besides, the patient is dead.’