Victim Without a Face

by Stefan Ahnhem

  She shot him a suspicious look. “Weird. Because that’s exactly what he asked me to do.”

  Fabian shrugged. “He probably just wanted to make sure it got done. The problem is, I can’t find them.”

  “I’m sure they’re in the usual spot, but of course you don’t know where that is.”

  “No, how could I? I haven’t been working here that long.”

  “Right, exactly.”

  Fabian’s phone vibrated.

  ALmost2oVer

  He switched back to his phone’s browser and typed in the new password. Once again he could see Theodor trapped in the narrow room. This time he didn’t lift his head: it looked like he didn’t have the strength, but at least he was still alive. Fabian could see his chest rising and falling with each breath, but he was breathing much more rapidly this time.

  “Fabian, why do you keep messing with your phone?” Lilja asked. “You can go home. I’ll take care of it.”

  He shook his head. “No, it’s better if I do it, so you can keep working on your own thing. I’m sure you have an awful lot to do.”

  “What’s going on? Did something happen?”

  “No, Molander just asked both of us to do the same thing, and it’s best if you let me take care of it.”

  “We both know I can’t let you do that.”

  “Why not?”

  He tried to look as confused as possible. She responded with an indulgent, almost sad, smile.

  “Because Molander didn’t contact you. If he had, you’d know where they were. Wouldn’t you?”

  All Fabian could do was nod and admit his mistake as he put his right hand into his jacket pocket to grip his gun. Lilja tried to back away from him, but there was no space, only a wall. She raised her arms to protect herself. He forced them away to uncover her head — surprised at how strong she was — just as he felt something hard against his leg. He lost his balance. Lilja was on top of him, shouting something about how he had to calm down.

  The blow of his handgun landed perfectly, and she collapsed on top of him. Blood welled out of the wound and dripped onto his shirt. He rolled her onto the floor and stood up. Now he knew where to look. She had glanced up at the light fixture and given herself away. He pulled up a chair, climbed onto it, and reached for the fixture, discovering the folder containing the prints on top of it.

  He stuffed it into his waistband, climbed off the chair, and looked around to make sure he hadn’t left anything behind. At last he turned his head toward Lilja, thinking that this would appear perfectly natural. He extended his right arm beyond the scope of the camera and scribbled something on an envelope. His phone vibrated.

  Show me what you’re doing with your right arm!

  Fabian obeyed the order and turned to look at the envelope. I’M SORRY. HE’S GOT MY SON. HIS NAME IS TORGNY SÖLMEDAL was written in messy letters.

  The response came immediately.

  If you care about him at all, you know what to do.

  85

  HE COULDN’T BELIEVE THAT he was actually awake. It still felt like he was in a dream. Several minutes had passed before he’d started to suspect that he really wasn’t asleep, that what he saw and felt was reality in its most brutal form: dark, hard, and above all cramped. He had tried sitting up, but he hit his head so hard he’d felt blood running into his right eye. He tried to wipe it off, but his hands were tied together and fastened to a rope binding his feet.

  Then the panic had struck. In a fraction of a second his body temperature lowered by several degrees and made him damp with sweat. He screamed as loudly as he could, right out into the darkness. It wasn’t until his lungs were emptied of air and he was quiet that his thoughts had room to move around.

  He had been sitting at his desk at home, writing in his journal. He was writing out all the rage that pumped through him, about to blast him into bits. He’d been listening to Marilyn Manson, ignoring the fact that it was far too loud. Dad wasn’t home anyway. Then he saw something out of the corner of his eye, but he didn’t react. It was a barely noticeable movement in the reflection on the window, like the shadow of a shadow. He looked up, right at the window, and saw someone coming into his room.

  His first thought had been that Dad was coming in to turn down his music and have another pathetic “talk,” but there was something strange about the clothes. In the summer, his dad generally only wore light colours. These clothes were dark, almost military. By the time he’d turned around, the man was already there, pressing a rag over his face.

  At certain points, the little room was bathed in such bright light that he had to close his eyes. He’d assumed a hatch was being opened; a sign that he was about to be released from this prison. But no one ever came to loosen his entwined hands and feet, and after it happened several times he realized that nothing was opening; it was just a bright light someone was turning on and off.

  Once, he heard someone nearby — at least he thought he’d heard someone. The sound had come through the walls, distant and muffled. He yelled as loudly as he could, screaming and banging with his elbows. But whoever it was, they hadn’t noticed; no one came to let him out. He wondered if it was the man in the military clothing.

  Since then, he hadn’t heard a single sound other than his own pulse and breathing. Is this what it felt like to be buried alive? It wouldn’t have been much of a problem to just close his eyes and go to sleep. But he couldn’t do that. Not again. The next time he heard something — if there was a next time — it might be his last chance to free himself.

  This time he’d be more prepared; he wouldn’t just shout and bang his elbows bloody against the stone wall. A few hours ago, he managed to wriggle down a little bit until he felt something cold and metallic against his feet — a hatch.

  Hope had sparked within him. Maybe he would survive after all. He banged his feet against the hatch. Although it was locked, it sounded like a bass drum and would be impossible to miss if someone were nearby. But no one came, and the silence started to seem more and more permanent. His hope diminished as the oxygen grew thin.

  At first he didn’t realize. He didn’t understand why he was having a harder and harder time focusing his thoughts, or why he dozed off at ever-smaller intervals. Not until he figured out that he was breathing like he’d just run a 10K did it dawn on him that he was slowly suffocating.

  He’d thought he would never do this, never ever, but he did it anyway...

  He clasped his hands and prayed.

  86

  SHE HAD TO LOOK away from the bright, blinding glow that came from the overhead lights. A dull pain penetrated her left temple when she moved her head. She ran her fingers across the bump above her ear and felt coagulated blood in her hair. The pain was nothing serious, but this was the first time she’d been taken down by a colleague — Risk had knocked her out.

  She’d had her suspicions about him ever since she read about the incidents in Stockholm, but it came as a total surprise that he’d go so far as to hit her.

  And now he had disappeared with the prints.

  It couldn’t be him, could it? No, he just couldn’t be the killer — right?

  She grabbed one of the workbenches for support, stood up, and left the lab. On her way back to the unit she tried to call him but it went to voicemail.

  *

  “NO, STEFAN, OF COURSE we’re not arresting all of you. This is just the only way we can protect you right now,” Tuvesson said, holding the phone at quite a distance from her ear. She rolled her eyes at Klippan, who was on his own phone across from her.

  “Great. We’ll come pick you up a bit later. It’s hard to say what time exactly, but we’ll call beforehand. Bye.” Klippan ended the call and stretched.

  “No, we certainly haven’ given up. We’re moving full speed ahead on the case, but our assessment is that you’re all in danger, which is why we... Right... Exactly. I’ll get back to you as soon as I know when we’ll be there. Bye.” Tuvesson hung up and let out a long, extended
sigh. “What an idiot. He should be grateful we’re trying to help him.”

  “Every building has its bad neighbour,” Klippan said, yawning just as Lilja came in.

  “Oh my God! Irene, what happened?” Tuvesson walked up to Lilja to get a closer look at the wound on her temple.

  “I ran into Risk down in Molander’s lab.”

  “Risk? What was he doing there?”

  “He was after the same prints as I was, and claimed that Molander asked him to run them through the database.”

  “What? Why would he do that?”

  “That’s what I wanted to know, too. Then this happened,” Lilja said, pointing to her injury.

  “He hit you?”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “But... are you okay?”

  “I was out for a little bit, but I’m fine now.”

  “I don’t understand... Do you?” Tuvesson turned to Klippan, who shook his head.

  “Have you tried calling him?”

  “He isn’t picking up.”

  “This might be far out,” Klippan said, “But just to put it out there. He can’t be... He couldn’t be...”

  The others exchanged glances, not saying anything.

  “There has to be some explanation. There just has to be,” Tuvesson said, sitting down again.

  “The thought did occur to me,” Lilja said.

  “Come on, give it up, you two.”

  “Well, what if Risk planted the class picture at the first murder scene? It got us to bring him in, and in turn gave him full insight into the case, which allowed him to guide us in any direction he wanted. Even when he was working on the investigation, he wasn’t exactly a wizard at letting the rest of us know what he was up to. Then he kept searching for the killer even though you removed him from the case; suddenly he ‘finds’ Rune Schmeckel as if he has the magical ability to sniff absolutely everything out, while remaining above suspicion.”

  “What about the boy in the class picture?” Klippan asked. “Who’s he?”

  “You mean the hair?” Lilja shrugged. “Who knows, but who pointed him out to us? And whose yearbook did we copy the picture from? I’m just saying.”

  No one spoke for quite some time. It was as if each of them needed to go through the entire case from the beginning to check and see if Lilja’s suspicions could really be valid. After several minutes, Tuvesson looked up and met the others’ gazes.

  “No, it just can’t be true.”

  “Why not?” Klippan asked. “It wasn’t so long ago we decided that no idea was too far-fetched.”

  “Klippan, I don’t know who the killer is, but I refuse to believe it’s Risk. When would he have had the time? Think back to when the girl from the gas station called: Risk was with us at Molander’s.”

  “True. But Risk took the call. We have no idea if that girl really called, or whether she was already dead.”

  “Someone ran over that Danish policeman while Risk was with us. Can we at least agree on that?”

  “Maybe there are two of them working together,” Klippan said.

  “There has to be another explanation. Irene, aside from the fact that he hit you, did you notice anything strange?”

  “I don’t know him all that well, but he didn’t seem like himself. There was something about his eyes, almost like a look of fear or panic. I don’t know how to describe it. And he kept checking his phone, like he was...”

  “Like he was what?”

  “I’m not sure how to put my finger on it.”

  “Maybe he’s in contact with the perpetrator,” Klippan said. “Even if Risk isn’t an accessory, perhaps the killer has some sort of hold on him that he was able to use to get him to confiscate the prints.”

  “Well, there’s at least one thing we can be sure of,” Tuvesson said. “Molander’s suspicion that the perpetrator is in the database must be correct, otherwise he wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble. And since he accidentally left his prints on the car, he might have done the same elsewhere.”

  “You mean made other mistakes?” Klippan said.

  “Nobody’s perfect.”

  Lilja realized that Tuvesson was right. There was at least one other place where the perpetrator might have left his fingerprints.

  And she knew just where it was.

  87

  ALTHOUGH IT WAS STILL the first half of July, it was already growing dark earlier each day. It wasn’t noticeable enough to worry about yet, but it was just the right amount to remind a person that summer would soon be a distant memory.

  Fabian Risk cut the engine and looked at the time: it was 10:13. His instructions were to park on Östhammarsgatan, a cross street of Motalagatan, where Torgny Sölmedal lived at number twenty- four. Fabian was now in Husensjö, a residential neighbourhood full of private homes, most of them from the first half of the twentieth century. He had heard the name mentioned throughout his childhood, but he’d never known anyone who lived there, so never had any reason to visit. This was his first time.

  He turned his head to look down to the right, so the camera in the cap would register him picking up the folder from the passenger seat. His phone instantly vibrated with another text. But this time it wasn’t yet another order. Instead, it was a gift — a chance to act.

  Where are you? What did you do to the camera?

  “I’m here. I’m just locking the car,” he said, testing whether his suspicions were correct.

  I assume you are aware of the danger of not following orders.

  He quickly responded to the text: Almost there. Batteries might be dead. He took off the cap and placed it on the floor in front of the back seat. Then he opened the glove compartment to take out two Sig Sauer P228 magazines that were hidden under the car manual.

  He really didn’t like to carry weapons at all, and did his utmost to avoid it. He had managed to never fire a shot at anyone. Contrary to what most people thought, that type of situation was very rare in his line of work. The last time he had been in such circumstances was the previous winter. He should have fired his weapon, but he hadn’t — he still couldn’t explain why. Two colleagues died and he was to blame. He could still vividly remember the sound of their screams. It was as if they had lost track of him when he moved back to Helsingborg and had only now caught his scent again, chasing after him like hyenas. The screams, snuffling and desperate, begging and pleading for their lives.

  And with them came the memories of his colleagues being forced to their knees in the underground room. The captors had asked where he was, but received no response from his co-workers. They didn’t know how close he had been and that he could have made a difference with the weapon in his hand. But he couldn’t manage to pull the trigger.

  He heard people shouting in English that they had come too far and seen too much. They raised their pistols toward his colleagues. Fabian took aim, he tried to shoot — to save them — but he couldn’t do it. The shots echoed. They collapsed onto the shiny new tiles, which turned red. The screams had stopped for a little while, but he could hear them again now — louder than ever.

  Would he fail this time too?

  Fabian smacked his own head in an attempt to force the memories away. He inserted one of the magazines into his pistol. He left the car with the keys in the ignition and walked along Östhammarsgatan toward Motalagatan, where he took a right and crossed the street to get to the side with the even-numbered houses. He walked up the sidewalk. After a few metres he tripped over an uneven spot on the pavement and nearly fell down headfirst.

  “You have to watch out. It’s awfully bumpy around here,” said a man in sweatpants out walking his dog. Fabian forced himself to smile at the man, and realized that parts of the sidewalk had been repaved in a manner that left quite a few things to be desired.

  “Yes, to say the least,” Fabian said, as he moved to keep walking.

  “Don’t ask me why they insist on patching and repairing it. It looks like an intern did the work.”

  Fabian
felt his phone vibrate.

  I’m not the one who’s running out of time.

  “Last winter, Kerstin in number five fell down and broke her hip. If you add that to the cost, it would have been cheaper to just replace the whole thing.”

  Fabian nodded dutifully and hurried on. He arrived at number twenty-six, where the yard was so overgrown it effectively blocked the entire view from the street. It was almost impossible to see the house behind all the plants. Sölmedal lived at number twenty-four, which was the opposite of the house next door and of Fabian’s expectations. It looked open and inviting, almost as if Sölmedal wanted surprise visitors. A low, white fence surrounded a neatly mowed lawn in front of the perfectly visible house; there was a garage on the right and a tall, thick hedge to the left.

  Fabian couldn’t make sense of it. Could this really be where this guy lived? It was very open, with neighbours quite close on either side. The mailbox said T. SÖLMEDAL, and there were lights on in the window facing the street. He stopped and pretended to tie his shoe in order to form a clearer picture of his surroundings. He quickly realized that his first impression required some modification: the sense of inviting openness only applied to the front of the house itself — the rest of the lot was a different story. A fence and the tall hedge effectively kept anyone from peering in.

  He stood up and kept walking, taking a left on Växjögatan. The lights were on in the first house on the left, and he could see shadows moving inside, likely a Friday night dinner with guests and a bottle of wine. The next house was dark and the driveway was glaringly empty. He walked alongside the house to the backyard, where there was a set of patio furniture arranged so rainwater would run off, as well as a barbecue that must have cost a month’s salary. Fabian walked diagonally across the lawn and arrived at a wall of rosebushes; he pulled his hands into the sleeves of his jacket, and used his arms to push aside the branches, forcing his way through the thorny wall.