Unseen ak-1

by Mari Jungstedt

  Then she saw a figure in the spotted mirror on the wall.

  She felt enormous relief. Her lungs released the air that they had been holding inside. She took a big breath.

  “Oh, it’s only you,” she said with a laugh. “You really scared me.”

  She smiled and turned around.

  “You know, I heard a noise, and it made me think instantly about that lunatic who’s been killing women.”

  That’s as far as she got before the axe struck her in the forehead and she fell over backward. As she fell, her arm pulled down the newly shaped pot that was warm from her hands.

  FRIDAY, JUNE 22

  When Gunilla didn’t answer the phone on Thursday evening or on the morning of Midsummer Eve, Cecilia started to worry. It was true that Gunilla sometimes seemed unusually naive and up in the clouds, but before, on those occasions when they had agreed to meet, she had always been punctual. Gunilla was also a morning person, and she had said that she would be leaving by eight. She had joked about waking Cecilia up with breakfast in bed, but Cecilia had just finished eating her Midsummer breakfast.

  Why doesn’t she phone? she thought. Gunilla had said she would give her a call last night. Maybe she had been working and then it got to be too late. Cecilia knew how that could happen. She was an artist herself.

  Cecilia was already at the cabin in Katthammarsvik. She had arrived the night before, loaded down with food and wine. They were going to have herring and new potatoes for lunch and later grilled salmon burgers for supper. No dance floor, no party, and above all no other people. Just the two of them. They would drink wine and discuss art, life, and love. In that order.

  She had made a little Midsummer pole that they could decorate with flowers and birch leaves. They would sit outside and eat, enjoying the peace and quiet. The weatherman on the radio had promised high pressure all weekend.

  Where on earth was Gunilla? It was past eleven, and Cecilia had called several times. She had tried her house, her studio, and her cell phone.

  Why wasn’t she answering? Maybe she had fallen ill suddenly, or even injured herself. Anything could have happened. Cecilia grappled with these thoughts in her mind as she worked on the preparations for Midsummer. When the clock struck twelve, she decided to go over to Gunilla’s house, fifteen miles away.

  Cecilia got into her car with a growing sense of trepidation.

  When she turned into the yard, all the geese were running back and forth, cackling hysterically. The door to the ceramics workshop was slightly ajar. She pushed it open and went in.

  The first thing she saw was the blood. On the floor, on the walls, on the potter’s wheel. Gunilla lay on her back in the middle of the workshop, stretched out on the floor with her arms above her head. Cecilia’s scream caught in her throat.

  Knutas’s eyes were filled with tenderness as he looked at his wife. He stroked her sunburned, freckled cheek. She had more freckles than anyone else he had ever known, and he loved every single dot on her. The sun was warming the ground, so the children could run around barefoot. The long table was set with the blue-flowered Rorstrand dishes, the napkins had been festively stuck in the glasses, and the silverware shone. Ceramic pitchers were filled with summer wildflowers: daisies, cranesbills, almond blossoms, and fiery red poppies. The herring was arranged on a platter: herring in mustard sauce and in aquavit, pickled herring, and his own homemade herring in sherry, which burned sweetly on the tongue. The new potatoes that had just been set on the table were steaming in their deep bowls, white and tender, with green sprigs of dill that brought out the sweet taste of summer.

  The bread basket was filled with crisp bread, rye crackers, and his mother’s famous unleavened flat bread that could entice people to come to Gotland just for the sake of buying some of it. It was sold only at his parents’ farm in Kappelshamn.

  He looked out at the yard, where the guests were decorating the Midsummer pole. It rose up, tall and stately, in the middle of the lawn. The children were eagerly helping.

  His sister and brother had come with their families. Both his parents and parents-in-law were there, along with some neighbors and good friends. It was a tradition for him and his wife to give a Midsummer party at their summer house.

  Something was tickling his hand. A ladybug was crawling up toward his wrist. He brushed it off. This Midsummer celebration was a badly needed break from the murder investigations, especially since he didn’t feel that they were making any progress. It was frustrating not to be getting anywhere while at the same time the perpetrator might be planning his next murder. We need to go farther back in time, thought Knutas.

  He had discussed this with Kihlgard. His colleague clearly had his own theory: He seemed convinced that the perpetrator was someone the women had met quite recently, yet he hadn’t succeeded in producing any concrete proof. On the other hand, the good inspector from the National Criminal Police didn’t hesitate to comment on the work of the Visby police. Kihlgard had an opinion on everything, from petty little routines to their interrogation methods and the way they conducted their investigative work. He had even complained that the coffee from the headquarters vending machines was too weak. Ridiculous, all of it. Right now the important thing was to focus on the hunt for the killer.

  Not today, though. He needed this break, a few hours of congenial socializing with family and friends. He was even planning to get loaded. The homicide investigation could wait until tomorrow. Then he would urge the team to search further back in the past of the victims.

  A sense of unease came over him, but it vanished when his wife brought out the frosty bottles of ice-cold aquavit and set them on the table. He felt a rumbling in his stomach. He sliced off a piece of ripe Vasterbotten cheese and quickly stuffed it into his mouth before ringing the old cowbell they always used to announce that it was time to eat.

  “Come and get it, everybody,” he shouted.

  After the guests had helped themselves from the platters, they all raised their glasses of aquavit, and Knutas welcomed everyone by making a toast to summer.

  Just as he put the glass to his lips, the cell phone in the inside pocket of his jacket started ringing. Reluctantly he lowered his arm.

  Who the hell would be calling me now, in the middle of the Midsummer holiday? he thought angrily. It could only be someone from work.

  His summer house was way up in Lickershamn, in the northwestern part of Gotland. The murdered Gunilla Olsson’s house was in Nar, in the southeast. It would take Knutas an hour and a half to drive there.

  It was just after one in the afternoon, and it was the warmest Midsummer in many years. The thermometer said that it was eighty-four degrees. Along the way he picked up Karin Jacobsson and Martin Kihlgard in Tingstade, where Karin’s parents lived. She had invited Kihlgard to their Midsummer celebration.

  The other group members from the NCP had gone home to Stockholm for the holiday. Kihlgard had stubbornly insisted on staying on the island. After all, something might happen.

  “This is exactly what we needed,” he said in the car as the summer landscape, covered with flowers, rushed past the windows. “Something new had to happen before we could make any progress. We were at a complete standstill.”

  Kihlgard had consumed both herring and aquavit, and alcohol fumes enveloped him as he talked. Knutas’s face turned white as chalk. He pulled over to some trash cans standing along the road and came to an abrupt stop. He jumped out of the car, tore open the back door where Kihlgard was sitting, and hauled him out.

  “How can you sit there and say that? Are you out of your mind?” he yelled.

  Kihlgard was so flabbergasted that he didn’t know how to react. Then he got defensive.

  “What the hell are you doing? I’m right, you know. Something had to happen, for God’s sake, because we weren’t getting anywhere.”

  “What the fuck do you mean?” bellowed Knutas in reply. “How the hell can you stand there and say that it’s a good thing a young woman was killed by
some deranged lunatic? Are you off your rocker, too?”

  Jacobsson, who was still sitting in the car, now got out to intervene. She grabbed hold of Knutas, who had a firm grip on Kihlgard’s shirt collar. Two buttons had flown off somewhere.

  “Are you both crazy?” she shouted. “How can you act like this? Don’t you see that people are watching?”

  Both men backed off and turned their glaring eyes toward the road. On the other side was a farm, and a group of people, all dressed up with flower wreaths on their heads, were staring at the police car and the angry men.

  “Oh, shit,” said Knutas, and pulled himself together.

  Kihlgard straightened his clothes, gave the audience a little bow, and climbed back into the car.

  They continued on in silence. Knutas was furious, but he decided it would be best to leave this discussion until a later time. They were all undoubtedly feeling the frustration of failing to capture the killer.

  Jacobsson was now sitting in the front passenger seat. She didn’t say a word. Knutas could tell that she was mad.

  To avoid listening to Kihlgard’s muttering, Knutas turned on the radio. Then he rolled down the window. Another murder. This was terrible. One more woman. Axe wounds and panties in her mouth. When would it all end? They had gotten nowhere. On that point he had to agree with Kihlgard. He began mentally preparing himself for the sight that would soon greet him. He glanced to his right. At Karin. She was sitting there in silence, looking straight ahead.

  “What are you thinking about?” he asked.

  “We have to catch this guy. Now,” she said resolutely. “This is going to scare people to death.”

  The police had already cordoned off the area when they arrived at the farm. Sohlman and his colleagues were busy securing evidence.

  They parked the car in the gravel-covered yard and then hurried up the steep stone steps. When they entered the studio, all three of them instinctively recoiled. Blood was splattered on the walls, the floor, and the shelves. The sweet, nauseating smell of the corpse made them hold their hands up to their mouths. Jacobsson turned around and threw up on the steps.

  “Goddamn it all,” Kihlgard managed to say. “This is the worst I’ve ever seen.”

  The woman’s naked body lay on the floor, bathed in blood. The deep wounds on her throat, abdomen, and thighs gaped wide open in the sunlight. With a great effort, Knutas forced himself to walk over to the body. It was true: In her mouth was stuffed a pair of white cotton panties. Jacobsson appeared in the doorway again, leaning on the doorframe. The police officers surveyed the scene, feeling powerless.

  There was only one entrance, and that was through the doorway they had just entered. On the floor lay a shattered mirror. The pieces glittered in the sunshine. A short distance away was a lump of clay.

  “She must have been sitting here working,” said Knutas. “Do you see that lump of clay over there?”

  “Yes,” replied Jacobsson, and then turned to Sohlman, who was squatting down next to the body. “How long do you think she’s been dead?”

  “The body’s completely rigid. Taking into consideration the rigor mortis, I’d guess she’s been dead at least twelve hours, but not much longer than that. The body is still warm.”

  “Who called it in?”

  “A friend of hers. Cecilia Angstrom. She’s in the house.”

  “I’m going over there,” said Knutas.

  From the outside, Gunilla Olsson’s house looked too big to be the home of just one person. It was a two-story limestone building that appeared to be very old.

  Knutas went in the front door, trying to shake off the image of the act of violence he had just been forced to see.

  At the kitchen table sat a young woman with her head bowed. Her long dark hair hid her face. She was wearing a light-colored summer dress with spaghetti straps. A female uniformed police officer was sitting next to her, holding her hand. Knutas greeted them. He knew the officer slightly. The young woman was about twenty-five, Knutas guessed. She looked at him with a blank expression. Her face was streaked with tears.

  Knutas introduced himself and sat down across from her. “Can you tell me what happened?”

  “Well, Gunilla was supposed to come over to my house today. We were planning to celebrate Midsummer together, at my cabin in Katthammarsvik. She was supposed to arrive right after breakfast. When I didn’t hear from her and she still hadn’t shown up by noon, I started getting worried. She didn’t answer any of the numbers that I called. That’s when I decided to come over here.”

  “When did you get here?”

  “It must have been close to one.”

  “What happened?”

  “The door to the studio was open, so I went in. I found her there. She was lying on the floor. There was blood everywhere.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I went out and got in my car and locked the doors. Then I called the police. I was scared and wanted to leave, but they told me to stay here. The police arrived in about half an hour.”

  “Did you see anyone?”

  “No.”

  “Did you notice anything strange?”

  “No.”

  “How well did you know Gunilla?”

  “Quite well. We’ve been friends for a couple of months.”

  “And you were going to celebrate Midsummer together, just the two of you?”

  “Gunilla was in the middle of working on a big commission. She’d been working really hard for the past few weeks and just wanted some peace and quiet. I felt the same way. That’s why we decided to spend Midsummer together.”

  “When did you last talk to her?”

  “The day before yesterday. She was supposed to call me last night, but she never did.”

  “Do you know whether she had planned to do anything special yesterday? Or whether she was going to meet anyone?”

  “No. She was going to work all day and in the evening, too.”

  “Do you know where her family lives? Her parents? Her siblings?”

  “Her parents are dead. She has a brother, but I don’t know where he lives. Not on Gotland, at any rate.”

  “Did she have a boyfriend?”

  “No, not as far as I know. She hadn’t been back home very long. She lived abroad for a long time. She came back to Sweden in January, I think.”

  “I see.” Knutas patted Cecilia Angstrom’s arm and asked his colleague to drive her to the hospital. “We’ll talk some more later,” he said to Cecilia. “I’ll be in touch.”

  He left the kitchen and walked through the rest of the house. His courage sank as he looked out a window. Not a neighbor for as far as the eye could see. The living room was big and bright. Colorful paintings hung on the walls, works by artists he didn’t know. He went upstairs and into the bedroom, where there was a big, inviting bed. Next door was a guest room that seemed unused, then a study, a big bathroom, and a sitting room.

  He didn’t discover anything unusual, at least not at first glance. No damage or vandalism, from what he could see. Sohlman would go over the house later, so he didn’t want to touch anything.

  The downstairs was equally bright and airy. Next to the kitchen was a big dining room with a fireplace. There was also another bedroom and one more room, filled with books and a big armchair for reading. She certainly had a lot of room to herself, he thought.

  He was interrupted by Karin Jacobsson, who appeared in the doorway.

  “Come here, Anders,” she called out to him breathlessly. “We’ve found something.” No more than five minutes left in the school day. After school he usually went straight home. Hurry up. Hurry up. The key on a string around his neck. Since the only chance he had of escaping his tormentors was to get such a big head start that they couldn’t catch him, he would always start preparing several minutes before the last class was over. Cautiously he began gathering up his things. Quietly he closed his book. Then he put his pencil in the little slot in his pencil case and the eraser in its slot. The
whole time he kept his eyes fixed on the teacher, who mustn’t notice anything. Slowly he closed the zipper on his pencil case. He thought it scraped as loudly as thunder through the classroom, but again the teacher didn’t notice a thing. It was normally dead quiet in the room because the teacher was strict and wouldn’t stand for any talking or playing around during class. Now she turned her back. Good. Carefully he opened the desk lid. Just slightly, enough so that he could slide his books inside. Then his pencil case. All right. His heart was thudding, hard and fast. The bell was going to ring soon. If only the teacher wouldn’t notice anything before then. Lisa, who sat next to him, saw what he was up to but didn’t care. She treated him like all the others did, ignoring him completely. Just like all those other chickens. No one dared make friends with him, out of fear that they, too, would fall victim to the hated demons.

  Johan slammed down the phone after talking to his source in Nynashamn. How did the old guy find out everything so fast? He wondered who it was that was willing to feed him such good information.

  He quickly grabbed his notebook, cell phone, and pens and rushed out of the room. Another murder had been committed. Three homicides in less than three weeks. It was frightening and totally improbable. His editors in Stockholm wanted him to go straight down to the farm in Nar and file a firsthand story from there for both the Aktuellt and Rapport news programs by phone. It was a matter of finding out as much information as possible before the broadcast. According to his source, it was the same scenario as the two previous cases: a murdered woman in her thirties, hacked to death and with a pair of panties in her mouth.