“What sort of issues?”
“How should I put this... she has a pretty sharp tongue, and at times it has bordered on workplace bullying. But I can’t complain. She’s never said a bad word about me — that I know of, anyway.”
Lilja exchanged a glance with Klippan and realized that they were thinking the same thing.
“Do you have a staff break room or something like that?”
“Sure. Come with me and I’ll show you. It’s over here.” She put an UNATTENDED sign on the desk and guided them through the library. It all felt familiar to Lilja. Aside from a room full of computers and the fact that the atrium garden had been given a large glass roof, she found that nothing had changed in the past twenty years.
“Here’s our little nook.” The librarian opened the door to the staff room.
It was smaller than Lilja had expected. There was a pilled, striped green sofa in one corner, and a kitchenette with a coffeemaker and sink in the other. A few easy chairs were scattered here and there with floor lamps to match, and two desks stood along one wall.
“Where does she keep her personal belongings?”
The librarian walked over to the furthest desk and pulled out one of the drawers. Lilja looked through the contents: a few lipsticks, dental floss, a tin of snus packets, a bag of gum, a few pens, and a phone charger. She sighed, feeling that they hadn’t progressed at all. She had absolutely no idea how to move forward. She was too tired. She hadn’t gotten more than two hours of sleep the night before, and all she wanted right now was to lie down on the ugly green sofa and close her eyes.
“Are any of these Elsa’s?” Klippan asked, standing by the coat rack.
The librarian walked over to the rack, studied the coats, and held up a beige jacket. “This is hers, actually.”
“Do you know if she was wearing it yesterday?”
“Yes, I think she was. And here are her outdoor shoes.” She pointed with one hand to a pair of gold sandals, and put her other hand up to her mouth. “Oh my God! Does this mean he got her?”
“It’s too soon to say,” Klippan said as they helped the shocked librarian sit in one of the easy chairs. Once she had calmed down, he took out his phone and showed her the picture of Seth Kårheden. “Did you happen to see this man here yesterday?”
The librarian stared intently at the picture without saying anything. Only after thirty seconds did she look up at Klippan. “Is that him? Is that the murderer?”
“We don’t know. All you need to tell me is whether you saw him here yesterday.”
“I don’t know. Maybe? I’m not sure.” The librarian shrugged. “So many people come through here every day.”
Klippan nodded and walked over to Lilja, who was at the coat rack, searching the pockets of the beige jacket. She found a wallet, which contained a few bills, a bus card, two Visas, an ID card, and a thick stack of various membership cards. Klippan fished an old Nokia cell phone from the other pocket.
“Is this hers?” he asked, showing the phone to the librarian, who nodded and looked more and more anxious.
Lilja took the phone and pressed the buttons, making the screen light up. Elsa had eighteen missed calls and six voicemails. Lilja didn’t need a PIN code to navigate to the call log: thirteen of the calls were from “Jerkan,” two were from “Hollywood,” and the rest were from “Home.”
“I think we should leave,” she said, casting a glance at the librarian. They left the staff room, dialled 222, and activated the speakerphone.
“Welcome to your voice mailbox. You have six new messages...”
Received July 8, 4:54 p.m: “This is Freja from Salon Hollywood. I just wanted to check and see if you’re on your way.”
Received July 8, 5:13 p.m: “Hi, this is Freja again. I just wanted to tell you that I spoke to my supervisor, who says I will have to charge for this appointment. Just so you know.”
Received July 8, 6:07 p.m: “Hi, Mom. It’s me. Bea. Why aren’t you home? It’s scary to be home alone. And I’m hungry. You’ll be here soon, right? Bye. Smooches.”
Received July 8, 6:11 p.m: “Hello, where are you? Bea called and apparently she’s home all alone? I’m still at the gym. Call me as soon as you get this.”
Received July 8, 6:36 p.m: “Mom, where are you? [Bursts into tears.] Hello? Mom...”
Received July 8, 9:46 p.m: “I’m home now. We got a pizza and she’s finally asleep... [He sighs, it’s clear that he is about to break down.] Elsa, what the fuck is going on?”
Received July 9, 1:03 a.m: [No voice, just someone gasping in uneven bursts, and eventually bursting into tears.]
“You have no new messages.”
Klippan looked Lilja in the eye. “He either enticed her out into the park that surrounds the library, or overpowered her inside and carried her out without anyone noticing.”
“Unless she’s still here.”
67
DUNJA HOUGAARD WAS TUCKED under the blanket on her sofa listening to The Cure’s Wish on repeat. Her phone rang in the middle of “High,” one of her favourite songs. She had turned off the ringer because she didn’t feel like talking to anyone, but she couldn’t help noticing that the display lit up with Kjeld Richter’s face. She paused Robert Smith and answered.
“Where are you? It’s really late.”
“I have some things to take care of. I don’t think I’ll make it in until tomorrow. Is it important?”
“I just wanted to tell you that I’m finished, and you were absolutely right: we sure are dealing with a cold bastard.”
Dunja’s brain was working hard to get up to speed, but she couldn’t think of what he might be talking about.
“He got in through the ceiling space, but unfortunately didn’t leave any traces behind, except for the ones in the dust, of course. He must have had some sort of mask on.”
Risk had been right again. He had mentioned his idea about the dropped ceiling without even batting an eye.
“Okay, but where did he enter the ceiling?”
“Through the bathroom by the waiting room. Like I said, he’s a cold bastard. I think he even left the door unlocked, probably to avoid raising more suspicion than was absolutely necessary.”
“If he didn’t want to raise suspicion, he must have been sitting in the waiting room with the journalists,” she said, thinking aloud.
“Probably.”
She had an idea. “With a little luck, there’ll be a picture of him.”
“I thought of that too, but there are no security cameras in the waiting room, which there should be, given how much shit happens there — thefts and God only knows what else. Do you know how frequently people have sex in that room?”
“No.”
“Me neither, but I can assure you that it’s more common than you’d think.”
“I’m actually hoping one of the journalists might have something for us; they were taking tons of pictures. He might have ended up in one.”
“Of course. You’re right.”
“We’ll talk more later. I’ll come in this afternoon.”
68
ASTRID TUVESSON WAS PUSHING Ingela Ploghed’s wheelchair along the gravel paths in Ramlösa Brunnspark. Ingela was doing nothing to help, so it felt like she was pushing her up a steep hill. Tuvesson could feel herself breaking a sweat. She was also hungry and thirsty, and she was sure a headache couldn’t be far behind.
Tuvesson had been hoping that returning to the scene of the crime would spark something in Ingela’s memory, but she’d had no such luck. Ingela just sat in her wheelchair shaking her head; she couldn’t even remember that this was the spot where she had regained consciousness. Other than identifying that the perpetrator had a blue car, this field trip had given them nothing of value. In fact, they’d lost an awful lot of their most valuable resource: time. Seconds had turned into minutes, which turned into hours. Soon, yet another day would slide through their fingers. And Tuvesson was out of cigarettes.
By the time they arrived
back at the car, neither of them had said a thing for several minutes. Tuvesson unlocked the doors and helped Ingela into the passenger seat. She folded up the wheelchair and got into the car.
“You’re not angry, are you?” Ingela asked.
“No, not at all. I’m just a little tired.” Tuvesson turned the key in the ignition and put the car in gear.
“I’m sorry I can’t remember anything or be of more help.”
“Ingela, it’s okay. It’s not your fault, but if something does come back to you, no matter how tiny a detail, you have to give us a call. Okay?”
Ingela nodded and looked out the window at the old wooden building that had once housed the fine Ramlösa Wärdshus restaurant, but which had been converted into offices. Tuvesson turned on the car radio, but she couldn’t find a good station and turned it off again.
Her cell phone broke the silence. It was Molander, whose smiling face adorned the screen. The picture was from their most recent Christmas dinner — he had apparently had one or two drinks too many. She pressed the speakerphone button and placed the phone in her lap.
“Hi, Ingvar. How are things?”
“Oh, fine. Do you have a minute?”
“I’m in the car with Ingela Ploghed. But just a second, I’ll find my headset.” She leaned across Ingela. “Sorry,” she said, opening the glove compartment. “Where are you?”
“At Söderåsen.”
“I thought we were done there.”
“I thought so too. But here I am. How’s it going with that headset?”
“Take it easy...” She dug through the glove compartment with one hand as she steered with the other. “It should be here somewhere. Hold on, I’ll have to pull over.” She slowed down and stopped at the edge of the road, once again leaning across Ingela, who appeared increasingly nervous and crowded. “Sorry, Ingela, I just have to... Here it is.” She pulled the tangled cord out and started undoing the worst of the knots. Meanwhile, she could hear Molander pretending to snore loudly. “I know, I know! I hardly ever use these things.”
“Yeah, I think that’s the —”
A train roared past them on the tracks that ran alongside the road, drowning out Molander’s voice.
“What did you say? I can’t hear you!”
“Ah, screw it. Just make sure you get that headset on before the world ends.”
“God, just give me a second! Talk about impatient!” Tuvesson turned to Ingela, who was suddenly breathing in short, ragged gasps, her eyes glued to the bridge where the train was vanishing southward.
“What’s going on? Ingela, are you okay?”
Ingela exhaled and seemed to calm down.
“Houston? Are we having a problem?” Molander said.
“Yes!” Tuvesson went back to the headset and managed to connect it at last. “Hello? Can you hear me?”
“Loud and clear.”
“Tell me what’s up.”
“Well, I thought we’d searched the entire area.”
“But you hadn’t?”
“We definitely had, but what good is that when you don’t know what you’re looking for?”
“You found something new?”
“That’s right. I went up there and measured the radio waves. There was no one else nearby, and I had my own phone turned off, but there was a lot of activity at 2.2 gigahertz.”
“What does that mean?”
“That there was some form of mobile 3G unit in the vicinity.”
“Did you find it?”
“Yup. We found a wireless pinhole camera with a microphone that was hidden in a birdhouse five metres from the grassy area.”
“Oh my God,” Tuvesson said, feeling a headache brewing. “That means he knows we found Schmeckel.”
“In all likelihood, yes. It also explains why he’s always a step ahead. If he had a camera at Söderåsen, he could have one absolutely anywhere. He’s probably fully aware of exactly where we are in the investigation. For example, now he knows that I found —” Molander was interrupted by another train barrelling down the tracks, this time in the other direction.
“Hold on, I can’t hear what you’re saying,” Tuvesson yelled before discovering that Ingela Ploghed was crying, her eyes on the tracks. “Ingela, are you okay? Did something happen? Is it the train? Is that what’s making you...” She placed her hand on Ingela’s leg.
“Don’t touch me! I said don’t touch me!” She batted Tuvesson’s hand away as if it bore some deadly disease and tried to move as far away as possible.
“It’s okay. You’re okay. I’m not going to touch you. I promise.” Tuvesson held both hands in the air, but panic refused to release its hold on Ingela, whose tear-filled eyes were moving from the open glove compartment to the headset in Tuvesson’s ear to Molander’s jovial face on the cell phone screen. “Ingvar, I have to go. I’ll call you back.” She pulled the headset off and turned to Ingela, who was sweaty and out of breath.
“I want to go back to the hospital.”
“Of course, Ingela. I promise to drive you there right away if you just tell me what’s going on.”
Ingela shook her head and burst into tears. “Please just drive me back. Please.”
“Was it the trains? Is that what’s upsetting you?” Tuvesson asked as another train thundered by.
“Drive! Just drive!” Ingela cried, banging on the dashboard.
Tuvesson realized that she wouldn’t get any further and turned the key in the ignition.
69
THE FLASHLIGHT ILLUMINATED ALL the CPUs that were lined up alongside the dusty fat monitors, printers, and keyboards. Lilja released the fabric that hung across the opening in the wall, which was several metres wide. This area had originally been intended to house an oil tank for the boiler, but the rise of district heating had rendered the oil tank obsolete, and these days the room was used as a graveyard for computers that couldn’t understand anything more than Basic and MS-DOS. There was no Elsa Hallin here, in any case.
Lilja had been so sure that Elsa was still somewhere in the library, but they had almost finished searching the entire basement, and neither she nor Klippan had found even the tiniest piece of evidence to bolster her theory. Maybe the killer had decided it was entirely too risky to keep Elsa in the library: it was a public building with thousands of visitors each day, after all. On the other hand, this perpetrator seemed capable of just about anything. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this uncertain and confused by a case.
And then it hit her.
*
LILJA AND KLIPPAN RUSHED past the lending desk.
“Are you done?” the librarian called after them.
“Almost,” Lilja said, hurrying into the main building with Klippan at her heels.
“Irene, can you tell me what you’re up to? We’ve already been here,” Klippan complained, all of his body language indicating that his blood-sugar levels had completely crashed.
Lilja didn’t care; she went up the stairs to the second floor and into the non-fiction section. She felt her heartbeat quicken. She really hoped she was right this time.
It looked just as she remembered: the door, barely visible to anyone who didn’t know about it, was in the middle of the shelf, surrounded by technical books for the nerdiest of technology freaks. She heard Klippan panting behind her.
She placed her hand on the cool handle, letting it rest there for a moment before she pushed it down. The door was unlocked, exactly as it had been back when she was a kid; it swung open silently, almost on its own.
The study room hadn’t changed a bit. The same green-striped curtains hung at the windows, and the same desk was positioned in the same spot it had been twenty years ago. The only thing missing was the copulating colleagues.
Instead, there was a lone woman in a chair. Her head was bent toward her chest, and her long, dark hair hid her face and large portions of her white blouse. They approached the woman, whose legs and arms were bound to the chair with straps. A shiny, d
ark pool of blood had spread under the chair in a one-metre radius.
Lilja walked up to the edge of the blood. She stopped, crouched down, and felt the coagulated surface with one finger, which caused rings to spread through and wrinkle the glossy surface. Klippan grabbed a broom that was leaning against the wall, and held it to the woman’s forehead so that he could carefully lift her head to reveal her face.
The woman in the chair was unquestionably Elsa Hallin, but that wasn’t what made Lilja initially avert her eyes. A deep incision had been made from the underside of her chin down to the top of her rib cage. Something was hanging out of the open wound and over the white blouse, which had turned red — something that looked like a bloody fillet of meat.
“That fucker cut out her tongue,” Klippan finally managed to say.
Lilja tried to make sense of it all, but she couldn’t gather her thoughts.
“A Colombian necktie,” Klippan continued. “This is the first time I’ve seen one in real life. Doesn’t this corroborate what the librarian said?”
“What did she say?”
“That Elsa had a sharp tongue.”
That’s right, Lilja thought. Elsa Hallin had a sharp tongue, and the killer had pulled it right out of her throat until it hung down over her chest like a fat, bloody tie. According to Klippan, Colombian neckties had been a common method of execution during the Colombian Civil War. Their main purpose was to scare those who’d discovered the victim into silence. The method involved making a vertical cut in the throat while the victim was still alive and pulling the tongue out so it hung down over the chest. Death could take up to an hour, depending on whether the victim died of blood loss or suffocation.
“So she might have been sitting here trying to call for help for a whole hour?”
Klippan shrugged. “It’s impossible to know exactly how long she was alive at this point, but it wouldn’t have mattered how much she screamed, no one would have heard her because her vocal cords were shredded.”
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