by Karin Nordin
‘I’ve been busy.’
‘So I’ve heard.’ Nils smacked his lips. ‘Tell me, what can I do for you?’
‘I want to know how you did it.’
‘How I did what?’
‘Don’t play games with me, Nils. I don’t know how or why, but I know you’re the one who was behind Maja Hassan. Somehow you helped her fake her death and hide all of these years as Alice Pihl. And you also provided her with the means to find surviving victims of crimes to appease her insane means of avenging her daughter. I checked the visitor list. I know she came to see you. Why? To get more names and information?’ Kjeld leaned forward, nose close to the glass. ‘How did you do it? How did you manipulate her into believing that killing other people would avenge her daughter’s death?’
‘Is that what you think I did?’ Nils raised a brow and canted his head to the side. He shrugged with his good shoulder, but didn’t offer any other confirmation of Kjeld’s theory.
‘I do. I think if you’d told Maja to walk into traffic, she would have. I think she was completely under your spell. Possibly for years.’
‘Sounds like the poor woman was simply overwrought with grief.’
Kjeld narrowed his eyes. ‘An officer almost died. Tove almost died.’
‘But she didn’t. You protected her. Just as you protect everyone.’
‘This has to stop. This isn’t a game. These are people’s lives. Lives you once swore to protect. What happened to change that?’
Nils’s lips curled a few millimetres higher on the right. ‘Why did anything have to happen? Why can’t this simply be the way it is?’
‘Because I refuse to accept that you were always this way. You were an incredible detective. You must have believed in the job at some point. What happened to change you?’
‘By your accounts, I changed. Not by mine.’ Nils paused, staring at Kjeld like a scientist might a single-celled organism under a microscope. Unimpressed. ‘But I have to admit, your concern is touching. Even if I know you’d much prefer to strangle me than hear my answer.’
Nils tapped on the glass. ‘Pity there’s this wall between us.’
‘It was you, wasn’t it?’ Kjeld clenched his teeth. ‘You were the one who left the car door unlocked. You’re the reason Emma ran out into traffic.’
Nils lolled his head to the side, bored. ‘All these accusations, Kjeld. One might get the impression you think I’m some kind of criminal mastermind.’
‘No, that’s not what I think. I think you’re bored. I think you like playing games with people’s lives and since you’re about to be locked up for the rest of your life this is the only way you can do that. By manipulating vulnerable people into doing your bidding. No, I don’t think you’re a criminal mastermind, Nils. I don’t even think you’re a genius. I think you’re a cockroach. You’re a sick, bottom-feeding insect begging for attention.’
Nils laughed. His thin lips curled into a knowing smirk. ‘I know self-reflection has never been your strong suit, Kjeld, but even you have to admit that sounds a lot like projection. Are you sure it’s not you who’s feeling ignored? Or are you just angry because you realise you’re not meant for the same kind of happiness as others? That society’s idea of the perfect little family is a concept totally unattainable to someone like yourself? Because the truth is you don’t love them as much as you love this. This game we’re playing.’
Kjeld hardened his face into a glower. Beneath the small counter, which Nils casually rested his elbows upon like they were two old friends catching up at a pub over a couple of beers, Kjeld was clenching his fist. Hard enough for him to lose sensation in his pinkie finger. But it was better than letting Nils see the frustration on his face. And it prevented him from losing his temper and showing his old colleague – his old friend – just how unhinged he’d become since the last time they’d seen each other.
‘I also know that you’re the one who switched the guns in the evidence locker. It’s the only thing that makes sense. How long ago was that? After Hermansson’s trial? Fifteen years ago? Ten? How long have you been planning this?’
‘Let me ask you something.’ Nils leaned in towards the partition, close enough for his hot breath to fog up the glass. ‘When you’re at home, alone because everyone you ever cared about has left you, and rightfully so, what is it that keeps you up at night? Is it the anger towards the people who never understood you well enough to stick by you? Is it the guilt that you put your calling before them? Or is it the realisation that you simply don’t give a damn? That given a second chance you wouldn’t have done anything differently. Is that what keeps you awake? Knowing that nothing else is as important to you as solving the case and catching the bad guy? Of trying to outdo someone like me?’
Kjeld’s fingers tightened on the phone.
‘You want to make comparisons? You’re a dog, Kjeld. A dog with a bone. As long as you have something to gnaw on you manage to keep it together. But the moment someone takes that bone away from you, you break. You always have and you always will. People think they can change, but people don’t change. People are what they are. And those who survive are the ones who accept that fact. The ones who take advantage of that self-knowledge and use it to become something greater.’ Nils breathed out against the glass. Then he drew a smiley face in the smudge, waiting for it to fade away before he continued. ‘Say what you will about cockroaches, but when mankind has long made itself extinct for its inability to accept what it is, it’ll be the cockroaches who reign supreme. We’ll be the only ones left.’
Kjeld shook his head. Then he shoved his chair out from the booth and stood up. It felt good to look down on Nils for once. But even standing and separated by glass, Kjeld had the unnerving sensation that he wasn’t the one in control. ‘You’re fucking crazy, Nils. But at least you’re crazy in here. And now that Maja is gone you won’t be able to touch anyone else.’
There was a glimmer in Nils’s eyes, reflected off the sharp lighting above the booth, but for an instant it looked like something else. Like a warning light flashing for Kjeld’s attention.
‘Crazy?’ Nils grinned. ‘Says the man who could have ended all of this if he’d just picked up his damn phone.’
Kjeld flinched. He thought back to all of those missed calls from an unknown number. Had that been Nils reaching out to him? His brow furrowed in consternation. Once he’d found Nils’s note in the book, Kjeld knew that he had been the one supplying Henny with the tips that led her to Andrea’s crime scene. Nils was the one who picked out the victims from previous cases for Maja’s revenge list. Nils was the one who orchestrated the connection to the Second Life commune. Nils had controlled everything from the very beginning. And Maja had been his eyes into the police’s progress. Because Kjeld had told her – had told Alice – everything in confidence during his therapy sessions. And she told Nils. But the realisation that those unknown phone calls had been Nils, the idea that if Kjeld had only answered the calls he might have been able to end the murders, shook him to his core.
The rage that surged through Kjeld’s body was so intense he could feel the muscles in his face twitch. And if there hadn’t been a wall of glass between them he might have done exactly what Nils predicted he would do – thrown himself over the counter in an attempt to strangle him. And it wasn’t even so much the fact that Nils had played a part in the recent killings and attempted murder of Tove that set Kjeld’s temper to boil. It was the fact that Nils was so blasé about everything. About the murders. About the job. About the friendship Kjeld thought they’d had. None of it mattered to him so long as his ego was fed.
‘Did you unlock the door?’
‘Is that what bothers you the most? The fact that I might have unlocked the door and allowed that annoying little brat to jump in front of traffic?’
‘Did you?’
‘I didn’t chase her, Kjeld. You did.’
Kjeld fumed.
‘Speaking of children, how is little Tove?’ Nils smirked. ‘
Poor thing. I heard she had a few nasty scares this week. I hope she’s not too upset by everything that happened.’
‘I hope you rot in here.’
Nils’s smirk spread wider. ‘I won’t. In fact, I don’t think I’ll be in here for very long. And when I get out we’ll have plenty to talk about.’
‘I should have killed you when I had the chance.’
‘Guess it’s lucky for me you’re a good shot and that you play by the book.’
‘That’s where you’re wrong, Nils.’ Kjeld’s face remained firm, but a hint of a smile crossed his eyes. ‘I missed.’
‘Did you?’ Nils lips parted into a toothy grin. ‘Since you think I’m so calculating, let me ask you one question. Why did you shoot me? Because it was your only choice? Or because I wanted you to?’
Kjeld blinked, a rush of fear tightening in his chest.
‘And here’s another question for you to chew on …’ Nils ran his tongue over his lower lip. ‘What makes you think Maja was the only one?’
Epilogue
Outside the detention centre a dusky haze hung in the air. The temperature had dropped at least five degrees since that morning, reminding Kjeld that winter wasn’t quite finished. It had merely been lurking behind the rain, waiting to rear its head again. The tip of his nose felt the chill first. Then his ears. He reached into his pockets for the gloves he thought he’d brought with him only to find them empty aside from his phone and an unopened pack of chewing gum. He looked at the thin paper wrapping and sighed when he realised he’d accidentally grabbed sweet mint instead of peppermint. He hated the sweet mint taste. It was too artificial. But the packaging was almost identical to the peppermint chewing gum and since he’d quit smoking he’d probably purchased the wrong flavour at least three times.
He shoved the pack of gum back into his pocket and stood on the edge of the pavement, trying to collect his thoughts and shake off the nauseating sensation Nils had left him with. It was like a stale taste in his mouth. Or an eerie shudder that sometimes prickled beneath the skin when he was alone, but felt like someone was watching him. A feeling of self-induced paranoia that Kjeld now realised wasn’t entirely unwarranted. Because Nils had been watching him. Through Maja’s eyes.
Which left him wondering about Nils’s final threat. If he’d been manipulating Maja for almost fifteen years, then who else did he hold under his spell? And how much would it take for Nils to push them out of obscurity and onto a path of devastation?
The thought chilled him deeper than the icy breeze that stung his face.
A young woman, probably in her late teens or early twenties by the state of her fashion, walked up beside him. Her hair was red like Tove’s, but straight, sharply angled to be longer in the front than in the back. She dug through her pockets, feverishly removing a single cigarette from a crumpled carton, before letting out an exasperated huff.
‘You got a light?’ she asked, fingers anxiously twirling the cigarette between her index and middle finger.
‘I don’t smoke,’ Kjeld replied.
She rolled her eyes. ‘Figures.’
After a pause, the sickening feeling of being in Nils’s presence nearly worn off, Kjeld undid the top button on his coat and reached into the inner pocket where he took out the lighter he hadn’t used in months.
The red-haired woman who, when he looked at her now barely seemed much more than a girl, gave him an approving grin and leaned towards him while Kjeld held back the breeze from the flame with his palm. She took a deep drag and exhaled, the smoke hovering in the cold air.
‘If you’re waiting for the bus you’re in the wrong place. It doesn’t stop at the entrance,’ she said.
‘I drove.’ Kjeld inhaled the acrid scent of cigarette smoke. He could almost taste it in the back of his mouth and while it did nothing to wash off the grimy taste of his conversation in the detention centre, it did help to distract him.
The girl heaved another melodramatic sigh. ‘Lucky. I hate how the bus times never match up with visiting hours. And, of course, you can’t wait inside. Not that I’d want to. Place gives me the creeps. I always feel like I have to shower afterwards.’
‘Yeah, I know how you feel.’
‘But it’s the outside that’s scarier. You know?’ She took another nervous drag on her cigarette. ‘At least the crazies in there are locked up. And you know who they are. Out here they could be anyone.’
Kjeld glanced over at her, one brow raised slightly higher than the other, his justified paranoia silently questioning if he was supposed to make more of her spontaneous chit-chat. But the girl wasn’t looking at him. She was too busy staring off into the ever-darkening clouds in the distance. Maybe she was talking more to herself than to him. She flicked the ash to the ground and leaned her weight on one leg, canting her hip in typical teenage posture, as though posing for an invisible group of friends. There was a stubborn sadness in her face that Kjeld sometimes recognised in himself. And he wondered if she’d been visiting her father.
‘You want a smoke?’ she asked.
‘I said I don’t smoke.’
She looked at the lighter in his hand. ‘Yeah, I heard that.’
Kjeld glanced at the outstretched cigarette and thought about his daughter. Bengt was right. Tove deserved to live some place safe. Some place where Kjeld’s world of murder and violent crime had less of a chance of touching her. Somewhere she wouldn’t grow up to be like this girl, jaded and angry, more afraid of the evil outside prison walls than within them. Or worse, grow up to be like him. And for that to happen Kjeld had to make a choice. Them or everyone else.
‘Well?’ the girl said, impatient. ‘You want it?’
Kjeld reached out and took the cigarette. ‘Yeah, I do.’
THE END
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Prologue
The call of the ravens was what woke him.
Stenar pulled back the curtains and peered out into the night. The clock on the nightstand read a quarter past eleven, but the engulfing darkness of the sky made it feel much later than that. Stenar rubbed his eyes and focused on the long walk between the house and the old barn thinly illuminated by the waning glow of a crescent moon. The barn and its attached rookery had been his grandfather’s doing, but Stenar had learned to love those birds. Unlike members of his own species, they had been a consistent presence in his life. They understood him. They never left him.
They were his true family.
The low guttural kraas became more frequent and mutated into high-pitched shrieks like the phantom wails of the mythological draug after it tugged mariners into the sea.
Stenar went downstairs, pulled on his heavy wool-lined coat, and stepped into his mud-stained work boots. There had been an uncommon amount of rain in the last week and the distance between the house and the old barn had become a marshy length of matted grass and slick earth. His boots stuck in the mud with each step and he wrapped his arms about him to hold back the cold. Autumn had come early this year and the shorter days made for cooler nights. He would be glad for winter. Then the ground would freeze and he could make this walk with less strain on his arthritic joints. There had been a time when he would have been able to bound across the yard in a matter of seconds. Now it took minutes. But the mud made it feel like hours.
The barn wasn’t as sturdy as it once was. It was listing to one side and there was a hole in the roof that Stenar’s son had promised to fix more than ten years ago. It hadn’t been much of a hole then, but the heavy weight of snow over the years had turned it from a crack that let in an annoying amount of rain to a window-sized skylight of
fering a view of the stretching birch trees that surrounded the edge of the property. Stenar could see the hole as he approached the barn and the thought of it filled him with a weight of spiteful regret.
The closer he came to the barn the more flustered the caws of the ravens grew. He reached into his pocket and removed an old metal torch. His eyesight had diminished over the years and the copper red colour of the barn blended into the pitch-black of the night, concealing the edges of the door. He used to be able to find it by memory. Could reach for the handle with his eyes closed. But his memory, like his knees and his eyes, had become less reliable over the years. He pressed his thumb against the torch knob but stopped when a voice cut through the calls of the ravens.
Stenar froze, his boots sinking deeper into the mud.
Didn’t he know that voice?
He slipped the torch back into his pocket and listened. The voice was muted against the high-pitched cries of the birds, but Stenar could hear anger in the speaker’s tone. Anger followed by a mocking laugh that almost mimicked the provoking toc-toc-tocs that Stenar had heard in his youth. He slowly crept around the side of the barn, his boots mucking through the thick sludge with each step, bypassing the closed door until he came to a small broken window on the side of the rookery. He peeked in through the frosted glass but was met with the flapping of sable wings, blocking his view of whoever was in the barn. He placed one hand on the side of the building and used it to guide his steps around the back where a portion of the wooden planks had rotted away, resulting in a jagged peephole. All he could see were shadows.
Another voice, sharper and more frazzled than the first, cut through the ravens’ crying and Stenar felt his heart skip a beat. He was certain he knew that voice. There was no doubt in his mind.
Stenar turned and headed back around the edge of the barn towards the door. At the corner of the building he slipped in the mud and reached out for the wall to brace himself. He impaled his hand on a loose nail. The sharp pain that tore through his palm sent him down hard on his left knee. His leg burned like it was on fire. He heard a pop and knew he’d dislocated something. He tried to stand and realised that pop was probably the hip he was supposed to have replaced last summer. A gripping cramp seized his leg but he ignored it, dragging himself through the mud towards the barn door. The birds clamoured in their pen, rattling against the mesh chicken wire and snapping at whatever intrusion had disturbed the sanctity of their barn.