She put all the lozenges in her mouth at once as she walked to her desk. A man was sitting in her visitor’s chair. She had never seen him before, but she knew immediately who he was.
42
TUVESSON, LILJA, AND MOLANDER were sitting around the oval table, eating chicken salads out of plastic take-out containers and waiting for Klippan, who had called the meeting, to show up. Tuvesson couldn’t believe three small pieces of chicken, dry iceberg lettuce, a little canned corn, and a few olives constituted a “gourmet chicken salad” these days. She decided to balance out the scanty contents of her take-out with a cigarette after lunch.
“Has anyone heard from Risk?” Molander asked.
Tuvesson shook her head. “No, why would we? He’s on vacation.”
Molander nodded mutely.
“Ingvar, what was I supposed to do? I had no choice,” Tuvesson explained.
“I know. It’s just a little... unfortunate.”
“You’re definitely not the only one with that opinion,” she said.
“Just so you all know, I took the liberty of checking up on Risk,” said Lilja. “Did any of you know he was fired from his previous job in Stockholm?”
Molander shook his head.
Tuvesson sighed. “Shouldn’t your hands be full enough with this investigation?”
“I just wanted to know a bit about his background. I thought it would be helpful if we were going to be working together.”
“Irene, what are you suggesting? Yes, he used poor judgement and went too far, but don’t you think you might have done the same thing in his position?”
“You mean if I were in love with the victim’s wife?” Lilja said.
“That was a teenage crush. We have no idea how he feels about her now.”
“That’s exactly the problem — we don’t know. And it doesn’t seem to have been a one-time thing. I’ve seen the Stockholm police department’s investigation into him from last winter, and if you read between the lines he went rogue up there, too.”
“What did he do?” Molander asked.
“For one thing —”
“Irene, let it go,” Tuvesson said, deciding to have at least two cigarettes when she got the chance.
“But —”
“Great, you’re all here already,” Klippan said as he walked in.
Tuvesson secretly thanked Klippan for changing the subject. Lilja was right, of course: this behaviour was exactly what Stockholm had warned her about when she’d initially inquired about Risk. Most of his colleagues had been in agreement about him: Risk was a good police officer, one of the best, but he did things his own way, and you never knew what he was up to or what the consequences might be. Tuvesson had wanted those characteristics in a police officer. She thought the others had become far too comfortable, although she would never say it out loud. Her officers were certainly professional and dependable, but they acted like they no longer had anything to prove, and they’d stopped taking risks or thinking outside the box, which was where Risk came in. Their almost-zero margin of error might look good in all the reports, but the reality was another story — in certain cases, it was necessary to take risks and push the limits. Sometimes you ended up on the wrong side of the boundary.
Klippan told them a female employee from the McDonald’s in Åstorp had contacted him about someone she thought could be the perpetrator. He passed around a composite sketch based on her description. “She was working last Thursday night and didn’t recognize Schmeckel or Mällvik.”
They were thinking about Schmeckel and Mällvik as if they were two different people, two different killers, Tuvesson contemplated. And now a sketch of a possible third perpetrator was travelling around the table. How many possible suspects would they have before they were finished?
“Who are we looking at here?” Molander asked, holding up the sketch.
“Apparently he went to the McDonald’s just after midnight last Thursday. He ordered a Chili McFeast Deluxe meal, which is only served on Thursdays, but Thursday had just become Friday at that point.”
“So they refused to give him a Chili McFeast?” Lilja asked. Klippan nodded.
“I suppose they were just following orders,” said Molander.
“But this guy wouldn’t take no for an answer,” Klippan went on. “He argued that it was still Thursday when he got in line and insisted on being allowed to order his meal. The girl at the counter tried to explain to him that she didn’t make the rules. She was already serving the next customer when he gave her a warning.”
“What sort of warning?” Tuvesson asked.
“He warned her not to ignore him.”
The others exchanged glances.
“He was angry because she skipped him and served the next customer instead?”
Klippan nodded.
“What happened next?”
“He got his Chili McFeast.”
“So that’s how you do it,” Molander said with a grin.
“She didn’t think it was an empty threat. It was clear he was serious.”
Tuvesson took the composite sketch and studied it. As usual, Klippan had asked Gudrun Scheele, a half-blind, wheelchair-bound art teacher who had retired more than fifteen years ago, to do the portrait. She lived in the same retirement home as Klippan’s mother. He had seen some of her portraits once on a visit and asked if she could help them with the sketch of a rapist who had been going after jogging women in Pålsjö forest. The man was identified three hours after they published Gudrun’s picture, and they were able to apprehend him soon after. Since then, the Helsingborg police had employed her regularly, and the officers helped each other ignore the fact that she might die any day now.
Gudrun usually worked in charcoal, and today was no exception. Tuvesson couldn’t help being impressed by Gudrun’s talent. It ought to have been physically impossible for her even to hold a pencil with those trembling hands, but she sure could draw, and most of the time it took only a few strokes of the charcoal for her to bring forth a personality from a few extremely vague witness statements. Yet there was something that differentiated this portrait from all her previous composite sketches. Aside from the eyes, which were staring straight at her and looked truly threatening, the face lacked a clear personality. The man was so ordinary looking that Tuvesson thought she wouldn’t have been able to recognize him even if he were sitting right in front of her — a common problem with composite sketches. You could see almost anyone in a sketch if you tried hard enough because they were so vague, but this was the first time she had experienced it with one of Gudrun’s pictures.
“Are you going to release the sketch?” Molander asked Tuvesson.
“I’ll check with Högsell,” said Tuvesson, “but I’m leaning toward holding off. This feels so nonspecific that it could match more or less anyone. And, besides, there are too many variables in the equation. The cashier didn’t recognize Schmeckel or Mällvik; she came up with an entirely different person who happened to look threatening, which doesn’t get us very far.”
“It wouldn’t have to be a different person,” Molander said. “He’s changed his appearance before, so maybe this is a new look?”
Silence descended over the table. A few minutes later, Tuvesson realized that the composite sketch perfectly matched the feelings she was having about the perpetrator: they were searching for a phantom, an evasive creature who seemed to be just an arm’s length away one second, only to go up in smoke the next. He could be anyone: a Claes, a Rune, or whatever else he was calling himself.
43
“DID YOU SCOPE OUT the ceiling space?”
“Scope?” Danish Dunja hadn’t understood his Swedish vernacular.
“Yes — inspect?”
“Are you suggesting that he pulled himself up on top of that air duct and came into Morten’s room through the ceiling?”
“How else would he have gotten in, besides the door?”
Dunja Hougaard shook her head and tried to figure out how she c
ould have missed something so obvious. She felt stupid and wished she could sink through the floor. She tried to think of something smart to say, but her mind refused to work. Could she be any more awkward? Sure, he was good looking, but he was married and she hadn’t decided what she thought of him yet.
She’d had a negative first impression of Fabian Risk, as was the case with most Swedes. He walked around as if he owned the whole world and, more specifically, this investigation. Even though he had been formally removed from the case, he intended to keep working toward solving it. He said he would consider giving her a hand in exchange for her help.
“Is someone a bit hungover? It looks like you could use a bite to eat,” he said. Dunja realized that he might not be so bad after all. “And if I don’t get some food soon, I’ll be the next victim.”
She laughed and said: “First and foremost, it looks like you need a new shirt, unless that coffee stain is part of a new trend.”
*
THE FRESH AIR DID Dunja some good. After a visit to Illum, where an overly helpful salesperson sold Risk one of their most expensive shirts, Dunja decided to take him to Café Diamanten on Gammel Strand. It was a stone’s throw away and usually wasn’t too crowded, even though it was only a few blocks from Strøget, the main shopping street. For some reason, the tourists never found their way to Gammel Strand, although it got great sun and had quite a few restaurants. Diamanten was her favourite and was the least pretentious.
They sat down at a table in the shade of an umbrella. Risk ordered a Caesar salad and mineral water, and she got a hamburger and an extra-large Coke. A few sips in, she felt herself coming back to life. She and Risk had made mostly small talk about the weather, the Danish soccer fiasco, and why Danes had such trouble understanding Skåne Swedish. They were avoiding the real topic, and Dunja decided to take the first step.
“I hope you’re aware that I’m taking a big risk by meeting with you right now. I’m under strict orders to keep the Swedish police as far from this investigation as possible.”
“Then it’s awfully lucky I’m off the investigation and only on vacation.” They raised their glasses to cheers. Dunja couldn’t help smiling. She didn’t know why, but Risk had managed to put her in a good mood in some mysterious way.
“Did your boss Sleizner explain why we aren’t supposed to collaborate?”
“Kim isn’t the type who wastes energy on explanations. My guess is that he wants to give you all a slap on the wrist for stepping on his toes. He hates two things more than anything else in the world: people who go over his head, and Swedes. You should have called Kim before getting in touch with the station in Køge.”
“We did. I was there when Tuvesson made the call. Your boss didn’t answer.”
“Are you suggesting that he’s lying?”
“I’m not saying anything except that we called him and he didn’t answer, so we left a message on his voicemail. It was an emergency and we couldn’t spare the time.”
Dunja didn’t know what to think. Kim had come out swinging to defend himself, both internally and to the media. He had made a big deal out of the fact that no one had contacted him, and he blamed the Swedish police for Mette Louise Risgaard’s death. It was his word against theirs.
“Here’s Astrid Tuvesson’s phone number,” Fabian said, writing the number down on a napkin.
Dunja looked at the Swedish cell number. “What am I supposed to do with this? If I call her, I’m sure she’ll say the same thing you just did,” she said, dipping a French fry into the puddle of ketchup on her plate.
“I don’t want you to call her. You should get in touch with the operator who connected the call.”
Of course, she thought to herself, feeling unusually slow on the uptake today. With this number, she could find out whether the Swedes really had called Sleizner, as well as the exact time and how long the call had lasted. At the end of the day, the outcome didn’t mean much in her eyes: the girl and now the police officer were dead, and it would be best for the two countries to co-operate in order to find the killer.
“What will it cost me?”
“Access to the car.”
“No, that’s out of the question. We’re still in the middle of examining it.”
“I just want to take a quick look. Five minutes max.”
“What will I get out of it?”
“Besides my boss’s number?”
She nodded, and he laughed.
“Another Coke, and everything I know about the case.”
She pretended to consider it for a moment before smiling. “What do you know about the killer?”
“We were in the same class all through school. Back then, his name was Claes Mällvik and he was bullied pretty badly.”
“Everyone picked on him?”
“I didn’t, but others did. Two people in particular.”
“The two victims?”
“Yes, but I wasn’t that much better. I ignored it, just like everyone else.”
“Why did they pick on Claes?”
“To be completely honest, I don’t know. He had glasses and his last name was easy to make fun of, but mostly I think it was just chance that he got picked on. They wanted someone to bully, and it just happened to be him.”
“You’re sure he’s the killer?”
“Who else could it be?”
Dunja shrugged. “Well, Morten Steenstrup didn’t recognize him from the picture you released.”
“There are lots of reasons why he wouldn’t be able to identify Claes. Was there morphine in his system? Did he even see the perpetrator’s face? Could his memory have been affected by the accident?”
“He was very emphatic.”
“Was he able to describe the man?”
“Unfortunately not. He was too tired. I was planning to have him do that today.”
“So that means the perpetrator probably changed identities again.”
“Which tells us something else.”
Risk looked her in the eyes.
“He’s not done yet. There are more people on his list,” Dunja said, standing up.
Fabian watched her as she disappeared into the café, thinking about what she’d just said. A nagging feeling had been bothering him for the past few days. He had tried to shrug it off, but it had stubbornly returned. And now that Dunja Hougaard had said it so plainly, there could be no doubt. Rune, Claes, or whatever name he was going by, was not finished — not by far.
Jörgen and Glenn, the two most obvious targets, were out of the way. But who was left? Had he been bullied by others? Maybe at work? Fabian had read that adults who were bullied as children were often bullied in the workplace as well. It was like those around them could smell their weakness, a characteristic they couldn’t shake throughout their lives. He decided to call Tuvesson and ask her to send someone to question Schmeckel’s colleagues about the atmosphere at Lund Hospital, especially after the scandal when he’d forgotten to remove the clips from that patient’s bladder. Incidentally, the patient was another person Fabian should contact. But first, he needed to take a look at the Peugeot.
*
DUNJA HAD MADE IT clear to Fabian that it would be best if no one found out she had a Swedish police officer with her, so they entered the station through the back door. The Peugeot was four storeys underground. The storage area took up an entire floor of the police station and was full of confiscated items waiting to be examined or used as evidence in trial. There was everything from cars to torn underwear.
An older man was sitting in a wheelchair behind a Plexiglas window, which was perforated by holes at face level, fiddling with something made of dark plastic. Naked pin-up girls from the early 1980s were pasted on the wall behind him, revealing how many years he had been sitting there hidden from daylight. Dunja knocked on the window, but the man refused to look up. She knocked again, this time so hard that the pane rattled, and pushed her ID through the hatch.
“Hello! I don’t have all day — I’m here t
o see the Peugeot that came in a few days ago.”
“The Swede car,” said the man. “I just have to fix my catheter.”
Dunja nodded.
“And who’s that?” The man pointed at Fabian.
“My name is Fabian Risk.” He reached for his wallet to dig out his ID.
“He’s a potential witness. We’re here to see if he can identify the car,” Dunja said quickly, shoving Fabian’s wallet away.
The man’s eyes wandered back and forth between Dunja and Fabian as if he were considering an all-in poker bet. At last he gave a long, heavy sigh.
They followed the man through the warehouse. He steered his electric wheelchair so efficiently that they had to jog to keep up, but he stopped now and then to unlock a gate. Fabian had no idea how the man could find his way through the apparently endless labyrinth of aisles, whose shelves were as high as those in an IKEA warehouse, or how he knew which key fit which lock. But he obviously knew his stuff, and they were at last shown into a garage full of cars, some of which closely resembled piles of scrap metal, while others seemed brand new. The Peugeot was in the far corner.
Fabian pulled on a pair of vinyl gloves, got into the driver’s seat, and closed the door. He wanted to be left alone. Dunja seemed to understand and kept her distance. She had said that the car was still being inspected, but he couldn’t see any marks to indicate which surfaces had been inspected, or where prints or strands of hair had been found. The only possible explanation was that they hadn’t even started their examination. Fabian didn’t know Ingvar Molander well, but from the little he had seen he was convinced the man would have already completed his investigation of the car if he were in the Danes’ shoes.
Fabian opened the glove compartment and emptied it out. It contained a ballpoint pen with the Lund Hospital logo, a few AAA batteries, an extra bulb for the car headlights, and the manual and insurance papers, which listed Rune Schmeckel as the owner of the car. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary thus far. He flipped through the service records and discovered that Rune had followed the recommended schedule of maintenance appointments to a tee. Schmeckel was a scrupulous man, not the sort to be careless or improvise his way through a situation. Fabian only took his car to the mechanic when a new, alarming noise surfaced, often when it was too late — at least for his wallet.
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