‘Carina Ahonen then, where does she fit into the picture?’
‘She seems to have been the one really pulling the strings. A sharp little doll who never used force herself, but who was the initiator of the mental terror. She was the one who decided who was good and who was bad, what was right and what was wrong. Everyone adored her, adults and children alike, but in reality she was the cheerleader and opinion-maker. In a negative sense.’
‘It sounds like we’re talking about a Mafia organization, not about six-year-old children,’ Sjöberg sighed.
‘People are always the same. The world runs on power and violence, at all levels.’
‘And Lise-Lott?’
‘A real ruffian. A stupid lackey with a great need for attention. I guess she behaved like most of the others, only more so.’
‘And Ingrid Olsson did nothing, I’m guessing?’
‘Exactly right,’ Mia answered. ‘Staffan’s mother tried to talk to her a number of times about the unpleasant atmosphere among the children, but she got nowhere. Ingrid Olsson thought her job was to watch over and stimulate the children during the time they were at preschool. There was no trouble on the preschool grounds and she could not control what the children said to each other. What happened outside the gates when they left was not her responsibility. The children and their parents had to manage on their own, she thought. Poor Thomas had no rights at all. At last, almost forty years later, I guess he decided to take matters into his own hands. What was he supposed to do?’
‘Nothing,’ said Sjöberg.
Thomas Karlsson was a man of normal build, somewhat below average height, with what might be called an ordinary appearance. He had brown hair, several weeks past due for a haircut, and was dressed in blue jeans and a blue cotton shirt. Sjöberg introduced himself and then sat down in the interrogation room to wait for Sandén, studying the suspect in silence. He did not seem to notice the scrutiny, but sat looking down at his hands. Nor did he appear particularly frightened or nervous, as Sjöberg had expected. Dejected, if anything. He had mournful blue eyes and his posture suggested resignation.
When Sandén stepped into the room he looked up, shifted a little in the uncomfortable chair and straightened up.
‘So your name is Thomas Karlsson,’ Sjöberg began. ‘This is Inspector Jens Sandén and we are here to question you about the murders of Hans Vannerberg, Ann-Kristin Widell, Lise-Lott Nilsson and Carina Ahonen Gustavsson. Do you know the people I’ve named?’
Thomas raised his head and looked him in the eyes for the first time.
‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘We went to the same preschool.’
‘Why did you murder them?’
When Sjöberg got no answer, he continued.
‘This is what’s called an initial interrogation. This is the first questioning that we have with a suspect immediately after the arrest. Later there will be more questioning, and then you have the right to have a lawyer or legal representative with you. Do you understand what I’m saying?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you admit that you are guilty of these crimes?’
Thomas hesitated for a moment, then answered.
‘No.’
‘Why do you think we’ve arrested you, then?’
‘Don’t know,’ Thomas replied.
‘What were you doing outside Ingrid Olsson’s house?’ Sjöberg asked.
‘I was afraid something would happen to her.’
‘Indeed?’ said Sjöberg. ‘But I’m not, because you’re sitting here with us, safely in custody. There won’t be any more murders. Are you sorry that your friends from preschool are dead?’
Thomas did not reply, but instead sat drumming his fingertips against each other. There was a knock on the door and Sandén went to open it. Westman waved him out into the corridor and their whispering voices could be heard, but not what they were saying.
‘That was a difficult time for you, so I hear,’ Sjöberg continued.
Thomas looked at him in bewilderment, without saying anything.
‘Preschool,’ said Sjöberg. ‘I’ve heard you didn’t have such a great time there. Can you tell me what they did to you?’
‘They hit me,’ said Thomas.
‘All children fight. It doesn’t sound all that bad.’
Thomas blushed. Sjöberg observed him in silence and Sandén came back into the room and whispered something in his ear.
‘But now you’ve been able to hit back,’ Sjöberg said quietly.
He saw the blood vessels on the man’s neck become visible. Perhaps there was an underlying rage festering below the insecure surface.
‘Tell us what you were doing at Ingrid Olsson’s on Monday evening two weeks ago, when Hans Vannerberg was murdered there.’
No answer. Sjöberg put on a cunning smile and continued in a silky voice.
‘We have positive evidence that you were there. We have found prints of your shoes in the garden, and soon we will have verified your fingerprints on the murder weapon. You’ve already lied to us once. You maintained that you were at home that evening, but we know you were on Åkerbärsvägen in Enskede. What were you doing there?’
Thomas’s face was now beetroot red, but he collected himself and answered the question.
‘I was following Hans Vannerberg.’
‘Okay then. You were following Hans Vannerberg. And then?’ Sjöberg smiled triumphantly.
‘Nothing. He went into the house and I waited outside, but he never came out, so I went home.’
‘Yes, that is a plausible explanation,’ said Sjöberg sarcastically. ‘But soon we will have identified the fingerprints on the murder weapon and what will you say then?’
Sjöberg received no answer, but the eyes he met were close to terrified. Sjöberg did not give up, but pressed on with another question.
‘Why did you follow him in the first place?’
‘I ran into him on the street. I was curious.’
‘And Ann-Kristin Widell, you just followed her too?’
This was taking a chance and Sjöberg knew it, but it hit the mark.
‘I went to see her.’
‘Just like that? On the evening of her murder?’
Thomas nodded in reply.
‘Curious about her too?’
‘Yes.’
Sjöberg could not believe his ears. Until now they had had no traces of Thomas Karlsson in Skärholmen and no witness reports, but he willingly admitted that he was there.
‘And what did you see then? Perhaps a savage murder? That you yourself committed?’
Thomas twisted his fingers nervously in his lap.
‘Visitors,’ he answered. ‘There were a lot of people who came to visit that evening.’
‘What kind of visitors were they? Murderers?’
After a moment’s hesitation, Thomas met Sjöberg’s gaze.
‘Customers,’ he said curtly, lowering his gaze again.
Sjöberg inspected the quiet man for a while without saying anything. Sandén, who until now had not opened his mouth, took over the questioning.
‘And then we have Lise-Lott Nilsson, what do you know about her?’
‘She’s dead.’
‘You didn’t by chance happen to be there too, when she was murdered?’
‘No. I read about it in the newspaper.’
‘You’re lying through your teeth,’ said Sandén, ‘and before long we will have identified your fingerprints at all four murder scenes. Then you can say whatever you like, but you can expect life imprisonment. Don’t you have anything reasonable to say to put an end to this meaningless interrogation?’
A shake of Thomas’s head was the only reply, whereupon Sjöberg declared the interview over and requested that Thomas Karlsson be transferred to the jail.
* * *
Thomas did not know where his sense of calm had come from, but in the car en route to the jail an unexpected feeling of security suddenly appeared. Even though he had just been sitting in a steril
e interrogation room, held for a number of very serious crimes, there were people who cared and worried about him. The police officers saw him and took responsibility for him. They talked to him and they would see to it that he got to eat and sleep, that he had clean clothes and did no harm to himself. True, they despised him, but he was a person and he had aroused their interest. He felt like a small child being rocked in a secure embrace – no one could do him more harm than he did to himself. The contemptuous condescension and insinuating questions of the police gave him value. He was a significant person now.
But during the walk to the jail cell, where he would spend the hours until the lawyer arrived, something happened that made him reconsider. Thomas, in handcuffs, and the two constables escorting him were guided through the corridors of the Kronoberg prison by a burly guard. They passed a social room, where some young men sat playing cards. One of the men called out to the guard, wanting to know who was with him.
‘A new friend,’ the guard answered curtly, without stopping.
For just a fraction of a second Thomas met the young man’s gaze, but that was enough for things to go wrong. Before anyone realized what was happening, he threw himself forward and head-butted Thomas, making him fall to the floor. The guard, who was considerably larger than the assailant, overpowered him without difficulty, while both police officers brusquely hauled Thomas up from the floor, without taking into account that he was injured. Blood was gushing from his nose and down on to his clothes. When his head cleared, it occurred to him that, in their eyes, he was at least as dangerous as the man who had attacked him. He also realized that he would not cope well with being in prison. It would almost certainly be ten times worse than preschool.
* * *
Sjöberg left the interrogation room feeling dissatisfied. He could not get a handle on this peculiar man. He had made no effort to either defend or explain himself. Maybe he wanted to go to prison. Was he one of those criminals who wanted to show off and brag about his evil deeds? His story was very strange too. That he admitted following Hans Vannerberg to Ingrid Olsson’s house was one thing, since they had evidence that he had been there, but why did he admit that he had also gone to see Ann-Kristin Widell? And why didn’t he admit that he had done the same with Lise-Lott Nilsson and Carina Ahonen Gustavsson? The story didn’t make sense. Everything seemed clear, but Thomas Karlsson’s conduct in the interrogation room was puzzling.
‘A sick bastard,’ Sandén said, when they were sitting in Sjöberg’s office a few minutes later, each with a cup of coffee.
‘Do you think so?’ said Sjöberg.
‘Of course he’s sick, he’s killed four people.’
‘What if he hasn’t though? What if the fingerprints don’t match?’
‘Of course they’ll match. You don’t mean to say you’re in doubt?’
‘No,’ answered Sjöberg, ‘of course it’s him. But he behaved really strangely during the interrogation, in my opinion.’
‘In what way?’
‘He admits that he’s been at two of the murder scenes at the time of the murders, but not at the other two.’
‘Maybe he’s confused. Maybe he doesn’t know what he’s done.’
‘You don’t believe that,’ said Sjöberg dismissively. ‘On the one hand, he’s afraid and nervous, on the other, he does nothing to deny the accusations. Or even tell lies about mitigating circumstances.’
‘I guess he hasn’t found his “true self”,’ Sandén suggested.
‘No, apparently not,’ Sjöberg answered thoughtfully. ‘He had a difficult upbringing.’
‘Where’d you get that from?’ Sandén asked with surprise.
Sjöberg told him about his sister-in-law’s private surveillance and Sandén gestured that his lips were sealed.
‘Poor devil!’ he exclaimed when Sjöberg was done. ‘Makes you wonder how that poor girl has managed in life. If he turned out to be a serial killer, what might have become of her.’
‘Probably just a normal, peaceful person,’ thought Sjöberg. ‘Many children have a hard time, but strangely most of them turn out human anyway.’
Their conversation was interrupted when the phone on Sjöberg’s desk rang. It was Lennart Josefsson, the neighbour of Ingrid Olsson who had previously testified that two men passed by outside his window on Åkerbärsvägen the evening of the murder. This time he wanted to report that an unknown woman had passed by on the street outside several times that morning, finally entering Ingrid Olsson’s gate. Josefsson had also seen the arrest of Thomas Karlsson, and for that reason he had hesitated to call in about the strange woman for quite a while, but ultimately decided to do so. Sjöberg thanked him for the tip, but dismissed the whole thing as irrelevant to the investigation. It was probably only Margit Olofsson visiting Ingrid Olsson to make sure she was coping properly back in her own home.
The phone immediately rang again. This time it was Hansson at the forensic lab with the information that Thomas Karlsson’s fingerprints did not match any of those at the murder scenes. She had been able to determine that all the samples belonged to the same person, but this person was not Thomas Karlsson. This hit both policemen and the entire investigation like a cold shower. With the conversation with Lennart Josefsson fresh in his memory, Sjöberg immediately came to the conclusion that the two men who had been observed outside Ingrid Olsson’s house on the evening of the murder must have been Thomas Karlsson and an additional person who was in league with him.
During the following hours, while they waited for Thomas Karlsson’s lawyer to arrive at the police station, further reports came in from the forensics lab. None of the fingerprints taken from the people questioned from Ingrid Olsson’s old preschool class matched those at the four murder scenes.
* * *
Katarina had not yet taken off her coat. She was sitting on her suitcase in the hall, playing the scene over again in her mind. How many times she had done so she did not know, but one thing was certain: this was not what she had imagined. This was not the way it should end, alone again, misunderstood.
After wandering back and forth on the street for a while, she had finally gathered up her courage, and went through the gate and up to the house to ring the doorbell. Her heart was beating like a piston in her chest, but she was optimistic. All her hope rested on her old preschool teacher. Miss Ingrid was fond of children, so she must be fond of people. She would understand – console her and understand. Naturally everything would have been different if Ingrid had been at home when she had first sought her out, before everything that had happened in the past few weeks. Then, perhaps, Ingrid would have been able to stop her, put her on a better path. She could have helped her find the strength to forgive and go on. But she had not been home. Katarina kept the house under surveillance for days, but Ingrid had not shown up. So she had been forced to go to work, without Miss Ingrid’s approval. And for that reason there was a little seed of doubt inside her when the door opened.
‘Yes?’
How beautiful she was. She had cut her long hair and had a youthful short hairdo instead. Miss Ingrid looked enquiringly at her with clear eyes, behind a pair of glasses that suited her finely chiselled face. The wrinkles of age were well placed and gave her a distinguished expression.
‘My name is Katarina. Katarina Hallenius. You were my preschool teacher many years ago. I would really like to talk to you.’
Ingrid inspected her without saying anything.
‘May I come in for a moment?’ asked Katarina.
‘I don’t know. I’ve been ill and –’
‘I can help you. I’ve been looking forward to seeing you, Miss Ingrid.’
The gaze that met hers was a trifle sceptical, but that was not strange after so many years. She must get the chance to show who she was, so she took a step closer to the older woman. Ingrid took a step back and Katarina interpreted this as an invitation and entered the hall. Ingrid backed up a few more steps.
‘What’s happened to you?’ asked Ka
tarina.
‘I broke my hip. Old people …’
‘You’re not old,’ Katarina smiled. ‘But I can take care of you.’
She carefully closed the door behind her and set her suitcase down on the floor. Then she took an old photograph out of a compartment on the outside of the suitcase.
‘Look here!’ she said happily, placing herself close by her old teacher. ‘Here I am. Do you remember me now?’
She felt that Ingrid Olsson’s gaze was still directed towards her instead of the picture and gave her yet another smile.
‘Look!’
Ingrid did as she was told.
‘No, I must confess that I don’t recognize you. But I just can’t –’
‘Wait, I’ll help you,’ Katarina interrupted and fetched the stool, which she placed behind Ingrid. ‘Sit down.’
Katarina sat down across from her on her suitcase and, with some hesitation, Ingrid sat down too. She said nothing and still did not return the smile, so Katarina decided to start her story.
She told about Hans and Ann-Kristin and all the other children. She told about terror, mistreatment and loneliness and what life had been like after the difficult time at the preschool. Not for a moment did she blame her old teacher for all the terrible things she had been subjected to. Yet Ingrid made only one brief comment during Katarina’s hour-long monologue.
‘What happened outside the preschool was not my responsibility. In my classroom there was no fighting.’
Katarina tried to get her old teacher to understand that it was not just about hitting and kicking, but about the whole game. She had a hard time holding back the tears, and at one point placed her hand on Ingrid’s, but the teacher resolutely lifted it away with a pained expression.
Gradually, Katarina started to worry that she wouldn’t be able to get Miss Ingrid to take an interest in what she had to say. In a final, desperate attempt to get her to react, Katarina talked about what had driven her to kill Hans Vannerberg, and how after that she had also looked up Ann-Kristin, Lise-Lott and Carina Ahonen.
The Gingerbread House Page 25