Last One Alive

by Karin Nordin

  ‘I love you,’ Bengt said. The last word hovered in the air between them, hesitating on the unspoken second half of that confession. Kjeld knew what was coming before Bengt gathered the strength to say it.

  But.

  ‘But I can’t do this.’

  The muscles in Kjeld’s arm tensed. He didn’t let go of Bengt’s hand, but he no longer felt it. What had once been so intimate suddenly felt mechanical and performed.

  Bengt sighed. ‘Liam has been offered a position in London. He’s asked me and Tove to go with him. I didn’t feel right about it before, but after all of this …’

  Kjeld let go of Bengt and dropped both his hands in his lap. He sat hunched in the chair, thoughts drifting. He felt so many emotions simultaneously bristling beneath the surface that he couldn’t distinguish one as being more poignant than the other. Anger, sadness, grief, regret, failure. And behind all of them was an uncomfortable relief. Not that Bengt had chosen to give up on the possibility of them having a life together again, but that at least the wondering and second-guessing were over.

  ‘Kjeld?’

  ‘Hm?’

  ‘If you can promise me that we’ll be safe, I won’t go.’

  Kjeld shook his head. ‘How am I supposed to do that?’

  ‘Leave your job.’

  Kjeld looked up. There was no more sarcasm in Bengt’s eyes. No smile on his face. Only grave seriousness. He was finally doing what he’d been too afraid to do years before. He was giving Kjeld an ultimatum. Him or the job. Them together as a family or the career that had given him a purpose.

  He glanced back to the bed, watching Tove’s chest rise and fall with each sleeping breath. ‘What about Liam?’

  ‘Forget about Liam. I’m asking you if you’re willing to walk away from the police in order to be with us. We could leave the city. Find a place out in the countryside where it’s quiet. A place where we can both give Tove as much of our time as she needs. Where people aren’t being kidnapped and tortured. Where we can both sleep peacefully without the nightmares.’

  Kjeld frowned. But who was he without those nightmares? Without the constant reminder that there were other people out there like Maja? And what about their victims and their families? Was he supposed to trust that a generation of Sixtens would devote themselves to their cases the way Kjeld had? Of course, that wasn’t the real reason he did what he did. The reason he didn’t leave the job was because the job gave him meaning. It gave him resolution when he closed a case or caught the killer. It made him feel like he was doing something right in a world full of so much wrong. And he didn’t know how to convert those feelings into his personal life. Into being a father, a lover, a friend.

  Bengt was offering him everything he’d ever wanted since the day they’d separated. Everything he’d ever dreamed of. And Kjeld could see it clearly. A small cabin near a lake. Painted yellow, no doubt, because that was Bengt’s favourite colour. Tove playing in the garden. Oskar sunning himself on the porch. They could afford it. With his share of the Lindqvist fortune, Kjeld didn’t need to work anymore. And Bengt could spend the entire day painting in his studio, a semi-attached shed built off the side of the house with a view of the water, glistening brilliant shades of blue in the summertime. The sweet scent of wildflowers on the breeze.

  He would be a fool to say no.

  ‘Kjeld?’

  Kjeld blinked out of his thoughts, the pleasant image of their potential home in the country a distant fantasy at the back of his mind. His imagination had been interrupted by another image. The image of a young girl rushing into traffic.

  Bengt raised his brows, waiting for an answer.

  Kjeld smiled softly, tentative and cautious.

  ‘I love you, too.’

  But.

  Chapter 70

  Söndag | Sunday

  Kjeld stabbed his fork into the bowl of Chinese takeaway, twirling it unsuccessfully around the slippery lo mein noodles as though it were spaghetti while Esme deftly used a pair of wooden chopsticks to pick up the vegetables in her fried rice and tofu dish. An evening of greasy, salt-saturated food to celebrate the end of the case had been her idea and Kjeld was glad for the company. He took a swig of beer from the bottle and leaned back in his chair. At Esme’s request he’d removed the boxes, making it the first time in months that he’d eaten at the kitchen table. Oskar sniffed around the floor near his feet for any fallen scraps of food.

  ‘Seriously. When are you going to take that damn thing down?’ Esme nodded, mouth half full, towards the artificial Christmas tree lit up in the corner of the living room.

  Kjeld craned his neck backwards to look at the twinkling coloured lights, a good third of which were burned out, and the string of Swedish flags still dangling on the floor where Oskar had pulled them out of the branches. ‘When I move.’

  Esme raised a brow. ‘Are you moving?’

  Kjeld took another bite and shrugged. ‘I’m thinking about it.’

  ‘I still can’t believe you confronted Maja without telling me.’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking at the time.’

  ‘That was a stupid thing to do.’

  There was an aggravated edge to Esme’s tone that Kjeld knew he was meant to hear. She’d nearly lost it with him when she arrived at the scene. She’d been furious to discover that he hadn’t called in for backup, but she’d also been relieved. ‘You’re right. It was.’

  ‘Don’t do that again. We’re a team, Kjeld. We work together. Always.’ She looked him directly in the eyes. There was something pleading in her expression. ‘One of these days I hope you’ll trust me enough to believe that.’

  ‘I do trust you, Esme.’

  But he could see in her gaze that she wasn’t entirely convinced.

  ‘The chief called while I was on my way over. Sixten is finally out of the woods. Apparently he was singing your praises this morning. When he heard how you found Maja he immediately insisted Rhodin give you a promotion. Said that if any of those, and I quote, “pencil-pushing bureaucratic pricks” in administration didn’t think you were deserving then they could take it up with him. The nurses had to give him a sedative to calm him down.’ Esme smiled. ‘He was a little out of it.’

  ‘I’m glad he’s all right. You didn’t need that hanging over you.’

  ‘No, I didn’t.’ Esme looked down in her bowl, moving the food around with her chopsticks. ‘The doctors still don’t know if he’ll be able to return to active police duty. They say he’s had some nerve damage. He’s going to require a lot of physical therapy.’

  ‘He’s young and he’s stubborn,’ Kjeld said, thinking for the first time that he and Sixten shared that in common. They were both hard-headed and difficult to dissuade. ‘If he wants it badly enough, he’ll find a way to recover.’

  ‘If he heard you say that his esteem for you would probably increase twofold.’

  ‘He shouldn’t admire me.’

  ‘I know.’ Esme smirked. ‘But we don’t always get to choose how other people see us. To him, you’re a hero.’

  Kjeld huffed before taking another swig of beer. He wasn’t a hero. A hero would have found a way to save Emma Hassan all those years ago. A hero would have checked up on the victims whose lives he’d saved after their cases were closed. A hero would have trusted his partner with the truth. A hero never would have put his own family in danger. And a hero wouldn’t have put his own problems above those of someone else. If there had ever been a hero in this world, it wasn’t Kjeld. He wasn’t even close to deserving that title.

  ‘I should have seen it sooner. I’d been talking to her for months and didn’t notice a thing.’

  ‘Because she didn’t want you to notice.’

  ‘There must have been a sign. Something I missed. To allow myself to be so blind? Twice in a row?’ Three times if he counted the situation in Varsund last year, but that was still too fresh in his mind for Kjeld to think about. It was one thing to be fooled by someone who knew him well like a close f
riend or family member, but by a complete stranger? Then again, Maja hadn’t been a complete stranger. She’d been Alice. And he’d told Alice everything. She was supposed to be a confidante. Someone he could trust.

  He’d never make that mistake again.

  ‘She fooled all of us, Kjeld. Not just you. Stop taking all the credit,’ Esme said, only half sarcastic.

  They sat across from each other in silence for a full minute before Esme broke the quiet. ‘Do you think there might have been any truth to what Alice said?’

  Kjeld raised a brow. ‘Truth to what? She said a lot of things.’

  ‘That sometimes people avoid their fate. That some of us might not have been meant to survive situations in our past. That maybe we’re just living on borrowed time.’

  Kjeld stared at his partner carefully. There was an uncommon solemnity in Esme’s tone that told him she wasn’t joking. He had the feeling she was trying to tell him something else, something he probably should have noticed, but he wasn’t sure what. While Esme had the ability to visualise problems in her head, Kjeld did not. And it didn’t seem appropriate to guess or intrude. Not until she was more explicit.

  ‘I think it’s bullshit,’ Kjeld said, a tad more flippantly than intended. Then he cleared his throat and took another sip. ‘I don’t believe in fate. I believe we make our own destiny and our own choices. She chose to believe I was responsible for Emma’s death. And because of that choice she made the decision to kill three innocent people. So, no, I don’t give any credence to the things she said. She was crazy. Good at hiding it, yes. But crazy just the same.’

  But there had been something in the words she said that still stuck in his mind. One sentence in particular kept winding itself in his thoughts. Something he’d heard before from someone else.

  Esme gave him a far-off look as though not entirely convinced. After a few seconds, wherein Kjeld assumed she was dissecting his response for flaws, she nodded, her face relaxed back to its more casual self. ‘You’re probably right. You know what still bothers me though?’

  ‘The gun?’

  ‘How did Maja get it in the first place? She couldn’t have gotten into the evidence locker. She wouldn’t have had authority. Which suggests that the gun you retrieved from Emma Hassan all those years ago came from somewhere else. But that couldn’t have happened either because the gun would have been tested by ballistics in the original case to match the bullet that killed Tobias Hedebrant. So, who switched the guns and when?’

  ‘I don’t know. I still haven’t figured that one out.’ And Kjeld worried that with Maja’s death they never would find out the truth of it. He wasn’t looking forward to having that conversation with SU when they realised the same thing.

  Esme pushed her food around on her plate until she’d created a centre pile of vegetables and rice. ‘What have you decided about Bengt?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Are you going to try to make it work?’

  Kjeld stared at his plate as though he might find the answer to her question in the noodles. The truth was he hadn’t decided yet. Part of him wanted to. The same part of him that wanted to be a better man and a better father. But there was another part of him that knew he’d never be fulfilled in that kind of life.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You’ll figure it out. And you know I’ll support whichever decision you make.’

  ‘I know you will.’ Kjeld tried to offer a grateful smile, but it fell flat.

  If Esme noticed the reluctance in his voice she didn’t mention it. Instead she motioned to the takeaway carton near Kjeld’s elbow. ‘Pass the dumplings?’

  Chapter 71

  Kjeld watched from his window as Esme’s car sputtered to a start before driving off down the road. His phone buzzed in his pocket. Another unknown caller. He declined the call without answering and set his phone to silent. Then he made his way into the quiet of the living room, the smell of leftover takeaway lingering in the air from the kitchen, and slumped down on the sofa. He wished Tove were there to break up the silence with one of her silly stories or to show him what she’d learned in her dance class. Kjeld wished Bengt were there, too, although he knew he couldn’t see him until he had an answer to his question. And while Kjeld knew what he wanted, he couldn’t help but feel like he wouldn’t be ready to give Bengt an answer until he’d put all the troubles of his past behind him. And he didn’t know if that was something he was capable of.

  You think too hard about the problem. The simplest answer is often the right one.

  Kjeld recognised the logic when Maja said it, but he’d been too overwhelmed in the moment to really think about what those words meant in context. And even though the case was solved, those words rolled around in his head. They were jarring. They didn’t fit. It was as though she’d been repeating something she’d heard, almost mechanically.

  Occam’s razor. The simplest answer.

  When Kjeld thought about it now it seemed obvious. The simplest answer to the case was a mother seeking revenge for the death of her child. A mother who resented the people who had survived where her daughter had not. A mother who then blamed the most likely suspect. The man who had her daughter in his care.

  Him.

  That was the simple explanation to what had happened. But that didn’t feel right to Kjeld. It felt unfinished somehow. The motivation was simple, but the mechanism was not. How had Maja managed to orchestrate the entire thing on her own? She must have been planning it for years. Watching him, following his cases, securing a career at the station where he would eventually come in direct contact with her. While he didn’t want to minimise her intellect, she’d clearly spent many hours of her life preparing for this moment and she did succeed in fooling them up until the end, something about it didn’t sit well with him. It felt like there was something more to it than the obvious.

  He stood up and made his way to the bookshelves on the opposite wall, fingers drawing over the covers of his favourites, reread so often that the spines were broken and illegible. When he came to the small section of classics, most of which he’d inherited from his mother, he stopped.

  It was the phone calls that didn’t sit well with him. Henny’s anonymous caller. One of the first tasks Axel set himself to after Maja’s death was to go through her phone records. She’d never called Henny. At least, not from a phone that they’d discovered. And Henny had been certain that it was a man’s voice on the other end of the line.

  And then there was the gun. Maja never would have been able to replace the weapon in the evidence locker.

  The simplest answer.

  He took a book off the shelf. It was older, antique, but in good condition. The cover was hard, leather-bound. Not a first edition by any means, but probably worth something on a dealer’s market. It was the only classic not belonging to his mother. The only book he’d ever received as a gift.

  A gift on his first day as a detective.

  The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. An English edition, which was why Kjeld hadn’t yet read it.

  He opened the book. On the inside cover there was a handwritten inscription:

  Kjeld,

  Remember not to think too hard.

  The simplest answer is usually the correct one … Usually. But not always.

  A foreboding chill spread through his body as he stared at the name signed at the bottom.

  Nils.

  Chapter 72

  Måndag | Monday

  The visiting booth at the Gothenburg Detention Centre was warmer than Kjeld had anticipated, but he kept his coat on. He didn’t intend to be there for very long. The officer on duty said he could have up to twenty minutes with the prisoner on account of him being law enforcement, but Kjeld didn’t think he’d need more than five. This wasn’t a social visit. Well, on record it was. But for Kjeld it was something much more than that. It was closure.

  Or as close to closure as he was going to get while they both lived.

&nb
sp; The door on the opposite side of the glass opened and two officers entered, escorting a man wearing a grey sweatshirt and jogging pants. The man’s arms dangled in front of him, wrists restrained by handcuffs. He was taller than both his guards and the way they tugged at his elbows caused the sweatshirt to rise up and expose the white undershirt tucked into his pants. The sweatshirt was too small for him and Kjeld imagined the jogging pants were as well, but he couldn’t see his ankles to confirm his assumption. The officers shoved the prisoner into the chair on the opposite side of the glass, a motion that seemed to aggravate the man’s left shoulder, which he was favouring with a stooped lean.

  After he was seated the guards stepped back towards the far wall in a false display of privacy. The man looked down at the tiny cubicle counter in front of him, empty save for some dust in the corner near the glass that the morning cleaning crew had missed, then he raised his gaze and smiled.

  Kjeld’s abdominal muscles clenched.

  Nils Hedin didn’t look like a monster. He had a long face with a high forehead and hair that was a darker shade of blond. It was thinning on the sides, but that may have been the result of a bad trim on the part of the prison barber. He had a thinly trimmed goatee that was going white. And he looked awkward in that sweatshirt. It sickened Kjeld to admit that Nils was a handsome man. Not that unattractive people had the monopoly on serial murders, but it offended Kjeld that a man he’d once admired both physically and professionally could be capable of such grievous atrocities.

  Nils used his sleeve to wipe off the telephone attached to the inner wall of the booth before picking it up and holding it to his ear.

  Kjeld almost didn’t respond in kind. The sight of Nils looking well nauseated him. But if Kjeld didn’t speak to him now then he might never. And Nils was something Kjeld had to put behind him. For good.

  He picked up the telephone.

  ‘Hello, Kjeld.’ Nils’s voice was calm and soothing. It was the kind of voice that one wanted to trust. A voice that welcomed confessions easier than a priest. Friendly and warm. Fatherly. ‘It took you a while to come and see me.’