by Karin Nordin
‘Yeah, yeah.’ Vidar waved a dismissive hand at Kjeld. ‘Always the wise guy. Next time you come in I hope it’s for a tattoo! There’s nothing I’d like more than to stick a fucking needle in that pale arse ginger skin of yours and watch you bleed.’
‘Keep dreaming.’
‘You better watch yourself, Nygaard. One day someone is going to get the fucking better of you and I sure as hell hope I’m there to see it.’
‘You’re going to have to get in line.’
‘You can bet your arse I’ll be the first one to buy a ticket when they go on sale.’
Kjeld shoved open the door but stopped in the entrance to send Vidar an obnoxious smirk.
‘To quote someone much wiser than you …’ Kjeld raised a middle finger to Vidar.
Chapter 43
Kjeld returned to the station after speaking to Vidar and spent the rest of the day going through the tip line, searching for anything that might be even remotely related to either of the cases they were working on. Unfortunately, it had been another dead end. Nothing but crazies, crank calls, and people just looking for attention. When dinnertime rolled around, he ate one of Sixten’s sandwiches from the communal fridge, leaving a handwritten IOU on his desk, and spent another hour going through the evidence from Andrea’s murder again from the beginning. When that resulted in nothing more than a headache, he drove home. Fifteen minutes later he was fitting the key into the lock of his apartment complex’s entrée when he heard a car door slam shut behind him. He didn’t pay it any attention until he heard a harsh voice calling out his name.
‘Kjeld! You son of a bitch!’
He didn’t need to look to know who it was. The use of an English expletive, accompanied by that heavy accent, told him it was Liam. And he was furious.
Kjeld hurried inside the building foyer where the postboxes were housed. He attempted to shove the door closed behind him, but it was on a slow-moving lever and Liam jabbed the toe of his shoe in between before it could shut. Then he pushed the door open further to let himself in.
‘This is a little far out of the way from your place in Lindholmen, isn’t it? Or are you here providing house calls for another one of your better-looking patients?’ Kjeld couldn’t help the spite in his tone as he shoved his key in the postbox for his flat. He took out a few envelopes, refusing to meet Liam’s eyes. He shoved the utility bills in his pocket and dropped the junk mail in the bin beside the stairwell.
‘You’re a real piece of work, you know that?’
‘I’ve been called worse.’ Kjeld turned his back on Liam and made his way to the stairs.
Liam caught him by the elbow, spinning him around.
Kjeld had a short temper and his first instinct was always to lash out. Physically, verbally. Any way he could. But recent events had taught him that he needed to learn to tone down that bad habit. As such he’d been trying to restrain that initial compulsion with people. His success had been mixed. Suffice it to say, when Liam grabbed him it took nearly every ounce of self-control he had not to land his fist square on the good doctor’s face.
The anger, however, which shot up from his gut and spread a heated glare across his face was not held back.
‘Let go of me, Liam.’
‘Not until we’ve had a little chat.’
‘You wanna chat? Call my office. Make an appointment. Or better yet, write me a letter so I can have something of yours I can put through the shredder.’
Kjeld tugged his arm out of Liam’s grip. The man’s fingers around his elbow had been firm and Kjeld thought he might have a small bruise in the morning.
‘I’m sick and tired of you interrupting our lives with your shit problems. I don’t know if it’s out of need for attention, a cry for help, or if you’re just incapable of recognising that Bengt has moved on without you. But it has to stop. I’ve done my best to stick to the side-lines and not get involved. For Bengt’s sake and for Tove’s. But you’ve gone too far.’
Kjeld gave a curt laugh. ‘My relationship with Bengt and my daughter is none of your business.’
‘It’s every bit my business. I care about them both. I care about Tove as if she were my own daughter.’
‘She’s not your daughter.’
‘And I can’t stand by anymore watching you inflict this kind of damaging trauma on her.’
‘Trauma?’
‘I saw the photograph in The Chatterbox.’
Kjeld gritted his teeth together so hard that the rigidity in his jaw travelled upwards, forming an early tension headache in his temples. ‘I would have thought a professional, such as yourself, would know to do a little fact-checking before believing what he reads on the internet.’
‘There was a picture of her at the crime scene. That tells me all I need to know.’
‘It’s being dealt with.’
‘Dealt with?’
‘Bengt and I have discussed it and talked about it with Tove. It’s under control. It has nothing to do with you.’
Confusion flashed across Liam’s face. And Kjeld knew that Bengt had kept his word about not telling Liam his plans to have Tove meet with a therapist. Liam, however, recovered quickly, hiding his surprise behind a cruel, mocking laugh that echoed in the small space of the entranceway. The sound grated on Kjeld’s ears. And it really pushed his temper to the furthest edges of its patience.
‘Under control? That’s a laugh. Nothing is under control with you. You’re a parasite. You latch on to other people, good people, and suck them dry of everything they’re willing to give you. Then when you’ve taken everything from them, you guilt them into feeling bad for you.’ Liam stepped in closer, blocking the way to the door.
Kjeld backed into the wall between the postboxes and the stairwell. He didn’t like being cornered. Liam was close enough for Kjeld to smell his aftershave. It was one of those musky devil-may-care scents. Handsomely expensive, no doubt. But worse than the uncomfortable closeness of being pushed between a cold brick wall and his ex’s insufferable paramour was being forced to listen to Liam’s well-practised speech. Not simply because the words were razor-sharp, designed to cut with every syllable. But because no one had spoken to Kjeld that way before. No one had ever said those things to his face.
And he had to stop and wonder if there was any truth to Liam’s words. Had he been guilting Bengt over the years? He’d been angry, yes. And Bengt had been the one to break the vows they’d made to each other. But Kjeld had always recognised his own fault in their short-lived marriage. Kjeld put his work before his family. And as upset as he’d been with Bengt for stepping out on him, he was more upset with himself. If he’d been more cognisant of Bengt’s needs, Liam might never have entered the picture.
Parasitic, however, seemed a bit harsh.
Liam’s dark eyes bored into Kjeld. ‘I’m not falling for your woe-is-me routine. I’ve seen you for what you are from the beginning. A user. Always taking. Never giving. And I won’t have it anymore. I’m done dealing with Bengt’s misplaced shame and Tove’s tears. I want to take the next step with them and for that I need you out of the picture.’
Kjeld blinked, struck by the turn in Liam’s words. ‘What?’
‘You heard me.’
Kjeld tried to sidestep around Liam, but the other man extended his arm in a motion that would have clotheslined Kjeld if he’d been moving more quickly. As it was, Kjeld just bumped into Liam’s forearm, shadowed in the dim yellow lighting of the ingress.
‘I swear to God, Liam, if you touch me one more time …’
‘I’m going to ask Bengt to make it official.’
The words sounded weird to Kjeld. Almost foreign. Maybe it was Liam’s stuffy accent. Or maybe it was just the way he said official, as though whatever he currently had with Bengt wasn’t real. As though it were a game. Then again, it might have just been the look on Liam’s face, a bizarre combination of arrogance and formality that in no way signalled affection for the person he spoke about, which Kjeld found uncomfortab
le.
Or he could have been honest with himself and admitted the truth.
He was jealous. And he was angry.
‘Why the hell should I care what you and Bengt decide to do in your free time? You two want to go ahead and play house? Fine. Whatever. But that doesn’t change anything with Tove.’
‘Actually, it does. The difference between you and me is that I want a family, Kjeld. And if Bengt agrees to it then I want to be more than just his partner. I want to be the second father that Tove needs. The one she deserves.’
Kjeld shook his head. He wished he couldn’t hear what Liam was saying. The thought that Liam would try to take Tove away from him caused his blood to boil. ‘Tove isn’t your daughter. She’s mine and Bengt’s. He and I will decide everything when it comes to her. Not you. Just because you’re fucking my ex does not mean you have any say in situations that concern our child. And I would never fucking agree to that. Never.’
‘Well, that might not be your choice to make. I’m quite certain a judge will only have to take one look at that photograph and article to realise you are wholly incapable of raising a child. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that the courts might even consider you a liability to her physical and emotional health.’
Kjeld’s fist collided with Liam’s face before he knew what he was doing.
Kjeld hadn’t intended to get into a fight with Liam. All he’d wanted was to go upstairs to his apartment, have a drink to stave off his nicotine cravings, watch the recording of the women’s league football match between Sweden and South Africa he’d missed a few weeks ago, and maybe – if he was lucky – have a few hours of sleep before he headed back to the station.
But his short fuse and oppressive envy got the better of him.
What Kjeld wasn’t prepared for, however, was Liam’s equally obstinate loathing for him.
Which was why Liam’s punch took him by surprise.
The fist landed on his cheek and slid up into his left eye, knocking him with a dizzying sting. Kjeld was in reasonably good shape. He was strong and athletic. But Liam was bigger. Stronger. Fitter. He had the upper hand. He also had the benefit of being more cool-headed and collected, despite the fact that Kjeld had pushed him over the edge as well. And the fight might have ended there, with that swimming rattle of his brain inside his head, if Kjeld could have latched on to some of that collectedness himself. Instead he responded to Liam’s punch by ramming his entire body into the man, an act that sent them both off balance and crashing to the wet tiled floor.
But for all of Kjeld’s scrappiness, it was Liam’s weight that won out. Liam quickly rolled Kjeld onto his stomach like a judo grappler, pinning him down to the floor, his sore eye pushing into the slick immobile tile. A dull pain shot up through his head and he groaned.
‘You’re going to stay away from Bengt,’ Liam hissed in Kjeld’s ear. ‘No more coming around uninvited when I’m not there. And if I find out that you’ve put Tove in danger again, I’ll make sure you lose more than just your weekend privileges.’
‘I could have you locked up for assault on a police officer,’ Kjeld grumbled against the floor.
Liam pressed his forearm hard against the back of Kjeld’s neck, pushing into a soft pressure point in the hook where his neck met his shoulder. ‘But you won’t. Because you’re not an upstanding member of the police force. You’re the arsehole who’s made a name for himself by getting on the bad side of the media. And you’re the inspector who covered for a serial killer.’
‘I didn’t—’
Liam jabbed his elbow into that soft spot in Kjeld’s neck. A sharp pain shot through Kjeld’s shoulder, nearly numbing his arm.
‘No one in family court would give a shit about anything other than what they can see. An unreliable man who consistently prioritises work over the well-being of his daughter.’
Liam climbed off him and Kjeld continued to lie there, using the clammy chill of the floor against his face and the gritty indentations between the tiles where his fingers scratched to distract him from his urge to go after Liam. When what little was left of his good sense returned to him he slowly pushed himself up off the ground.
Liam stared down at him with a mixture of satisfaction and disapproval. For all of Kjeld’s hatred of Liam, he’d never honestly considered the doctor to be a bad man. But that look sent an uneasy chill down the back of Kjeld’s neck.
‘Are we in agreement?’ Liam asked.
Kjeld’s face throbbed, but the sight of blood at the corner of Liam’s lip was worth the pain. He felt a sweet moment of vindication. Later, when he was pressing a bag of frozen vegetables against his face, he would regret it all. He would curse his stupidity and his short fuse and wish he’d had the self-control to not allow Liam to get to him. But it was easier to be angry at Liam than at himself. Or at Bengt, for that matter. Easier to hate the man who came between him and the only real relationship Kjeld had ever wanted to work out than to recognise his own complicity in pushing Bengt away.
Easier to pick a fight than to have a difficult conversation with someone he loved. Or to admit that Liam might have been right. He might not have been the person his daughter needed in her life.
‘Fine,’ Kjeld said under his breath.
‘What was that?’
‘I won’t stop by unannounced,’ Kjeld spat, sounding more sarcastic that he’d intended.
‘Good. I’m glad we could settle this.’ Liam made for the door. When he opened it a rush of cold damp air filled the corridor. ‘And don’t forget what I said about Tove. You pull a stunt like that with her again and I’ll make sure you won’t be allowed to see her until she’s eighteen.’
The thumping of Kjeld’s heart, quickened by rage, pulsed in his head. He could barely hear the sound of Liam’s voice over his own ragged breathing. Even when the man left, Kjeld found himself seething, both in anger and fatigue. Liam may not have been right about everything he’d said, but he was correct about one thing. Something had to change.
Chapter 44
Onsdag | Wednesday
Kjeld woke up the next morning with a splitting headache that felt like a hangover. His eye throbbed and a dark purple bruise had begun to form a crescent moon shape that curved along his orbital ridge to his cheekbone. It was sensitive to the touch, but not nearly as swollen as it could have been and he immediately regretted not leaving ice on it longer the night before. He could only imagine the look Esme was going to give him at the station. Axel and Sixten would believe the good old I walked into a door excuse without question, but not Esme. Nothing got past her.
He swallowed two paracetamol with his first gulp of coffee. The dark, long-roasted liquid nearly burned the roof of his mouth because he didn’t wait for it to cool. He chased it with half a slice of buttered toast and cheese while Oskar mewled at his feet for breakfast.
‘One of these days we’re going to have to talk about this whining behaviour of yours, Oskar. Better enjoy this kibble while you can, too. The vet’s probably gonna put you on a gross diet brand after your next appointment.’ Kjeld bent down to the lower cupboard and scooped out the kibble. Oskar was already sniffing and licking at his wrist before he poured it in the bowl. Then he refilled Oskar’s water dish.
He took another swig of coffee and glanced over at the clock.
Shit, he was running late.
Without finishing his breakfast, he grabbed his coat by the door and picked up his car keys from the credenza in the foyer. Then he headed out of the apartment.
He thought about his conversation with Vidar as he jogged down the stairs. The more it rolled around in his mind the more he began to wonder if they weren’t wrong about Andrea’s murder. Was she connected to Olsen’s drug trafficking case at the Second Life commune? And, if so, did that mean they were wrong about Louisa’s murder? Could she have been involved in drugs as well? Was that the murderer’s motive? Something about it didn’t sit right with Kjeld, but he couldn’t help but wonder if he hadn’t been too quick t
o ignore the possibility that Louisa could have turned to drugs in order to help her cope with her trauma. She was an intelligent young woman. If she’d wanted to hide it from her family, she could have. And Kjeld, of all people, should have been more open to the possibility that her family members might not have seen what was directly under their noses. Kjeld hadn’t recognised the deceptions in his own family, after all. Not until it was too late.
Once outside his phone rang in his pocket. Kjeld took it out and looked at the caller ID. It was that unknown number again. He grumbled. He was sick and tired of these telemarketers. Didn’t they have anything better to do than hound him until he picked up? Maybe if he finally answered and gave them a piece of his mind they’d leave him alone.
He stood on the pavement in front of his building and pressed the answer button.
He brought the phone to his ear just as he removed his keys from his pocket. ‘Who the hell is this? And why do you keep calling this number?’
There wasn’t an immediate answer, but Kjeld could hear breathing on the other end of the line. He waited for a car to pass before stepping out into the street.
‘Hello? Are you going to answer me?’
A voice began to speak as Kjeld pressed the unlock button on his key fob. But he didn’t hear a word they said. They were drowned out by the deafening boom of his car exploding.
Chapter 45
The thick forking vein on the side of Rhodin’s temple pulsed hard enough for Kjeld to see it from across the room. Rhodin paced behind his desk, sweat dripping from his brow despite the fact that the room was cool. He wiped it off with his sleeve. ‘I don’t even know where to begin.’
Kjeld and Esme stood side by side in the centre of his office. Kjeld felt like he was back in school, waiting to be reprimanded for skipping class or getting into arguments in the playground. Esme was quiet but concerned. Kjeld knew she was purposefully avoiding looking at him. Not because he’d done anything wrong, but because she knew what the chief was going to say.