Unwanted

by Kristina Ohlsson

  ‘You all look dejected,’ said Professor Rowland with a smile. ‘But I don’t think it’ll take you long to solve this one. We mustn’t forget, either, that we can reasonably expect to find there’s a reason for his becoming such a sick person. When you do find the perpetrator, there’s every likelihood you’ll discover he had a very disturbed childhood himself, probably without one or both of his parents.’

  Alex gave a wan smile.

  ‘Just one more thing,’ Peder put in swiftly before the meeting broke up. ‘That woman Nora met him, er, seven years ago. Does that mean there were earlier murders? And why did it take him almost ten years to find a new partner?’

  Professor Rowland looked at Peder.

  ‘That’s an excellent question,’ he said slowly. ‘And I recommend that’s where you start. Where was our man in the years that elapsed between his first and second accomplice?’

  The meeting did not go on for long after Professor Rowland had left the Den to be escorted to the exit by Ellen. Everyone in the team, whether old, new or borrowed, was on tenterhooks round the table.

  Fredrika had rather the same feeling she used to get when she watched a thriller and could sense in every fibre of her body how near the plot was to its denouement, but still had no idea how it would end. Inviting Professor Rowland had been a stroke of genius. Fredrika made a mental note to tell Peder later what a great initiative it had been.

  She was pleased to see everyone in the room looking equally elated. It certainly said something about the case, the fact that so much energy could be generated even on a Saturday.

  Alex set out the two main lines of enquiry they were to follow from there. Their top priority was to be individuals who had served sentences and been released that year, or at the end of the previous year. Alex admitted they didn’t know exactly what they were looking for, but there were a number of indications as to the age of the murderer, and he was probably an educated man. He might even be a psychologist, as he had told Nora and Jelena. To get a better fix on the time, they would need to interview Jelena Scortz again about when she first met the man. They could also check with her whether he had disfigured hands or fingers.

  The other priority was investigating the pasts of Sara Sebastiansson and Magdalena Gregersdotter. At what stage of their lives had they been associated with the places where their children were later found murdered?

  The division of labour was covered in just two sentences: Peder would be in charge of the task of identifying released prisoners who fitted the criteria. Fredrika would be in charge of the task of mapping the two women’s earlier lives. Alex laid a heavy hand on Fredrika’s shoulder.

  ‘It would make things a whole lot easier if you, being so keen on cause and effect, could find a link between a bathroom in Bromma and a child losing its life.’

  He gave a tired wink as he said it.

  Fredrika found nothing to complain about in terms of the task she had been allocated. Quite the opposite: she was very happy with it. She gave a melancholy smile as she thought of Alex’s words: ‘You being so keen on cause and effect . . .’ There was nothing much she could say at times like that, she’d discovered. It was best just to go along with it.

  Fredrika closed her eyes and put her head in her hands.

  An A&E department in a town Sara Sebastiansson went to over fifteen years ago.

  A bathroom in a house where Magdalena Gregersdotter lived over twenty years ago.

  She repeated the words to herself several times. An A&E department in a town . . .

  She tried leaning back in her chair. She was filled with a feverish kind of tension. They were missing something. Something fundamental.

  Alex’s words echoed in her head again. It would make things a whole lot easier if you, being so keen on cause and effect, could find a link between a bathroom in Bromma and a child losing its life.

  Then she heard Professor Rowland’s voice. The women are probably both being punished for the same crime.

  A thought slowly began to take shape in her mind. Afraid of losing focus, she groped for pen and paper without changing her position in her seat.

  Her pulse started racing when she finally gave the thought its freedom.

  Of course.

  You just had to play around with the words a bit, and they fell into place.

  The common denominator of a bathroom in Bromma and a town in Norrland. That was what Fredrika had said with a bitter laugh when Alex rang and she went out onto Margareta Andersson’s balcony in Umeå to take the call. But Alex had said something else. Something about finding a link between a bathroom in Bromma and an A&E department in Umeå.

  Of course. It was only when the thought occurred to her that she realized what they had overlooked, and not followed up in the investigation. It wasn’t Umeå that was relevant here, but the A&E department itself.

  The wrong questions inevitably yielded the wrong answers. Bearing in mind that the other child was found in a bathroom, it seemed very odd if the intention had been for the first one to be lying outside the hospital. By that token, the baby could just as well have been left on the pavement outside the house where it was found. So the person who dumped Lilian in Umeå had made more than just one mistake. And paid dearly for it.

  With the last piece of the puzzle finally in place, Fredrika felt nothing but relief. It wasn’t the children who had links to the geographical locations where they were found, but their mothers. So Alex had said the wrong thing, and thought the wrong thing, when he asked her to see a connection between a bathroom in Bromma and a murdered child. But he had been right the first time. The connection was between a bathroom in Bromma and a woman who had once lived in the house. So the equivalent connection must be between Umeå University Hospital and . . .

  Fredrika was already reaching for the phone as she thought her idea through to its logical conclusion. There was just one more person she needed to speak to before she had a full picture of what had really kept Sara Sebastiansson up in Umeå that summer so long ago.

  It was Saturday evening, yet Peder was still at work. It was summer and it was cloudy. It was cool and it was clammy. Nothing was how it should be.

  Peder again felt himself being tossed between conflicting extremes of emotion. He hadn’t spoken to Ylva all day, and now he was anguished at feeling regret about the fact. He had begun the day feeling worthless and unproductive at work, and now he suddenly felt his career was practically at its peak. Inviting the American professor in had been a lucky throw of the dice. Above all for the investigation, but also for Peder himself. He felt so much more than adequate. He felt energized and ready.

  The car almost found its own way back to Karolinska. This time he hadn’t rung to warn them he was coming. If it wasn’t convenient, he’d just have to come back the next day.

  He tried to feel sorry for Jelena Scortz, who had suffered so much misfortune in her relatively short life. But at the same time, he was possessed of an unshakable faith in what was known as Free Will. No matter that Jelena Scortz’s life had been shit, there was a time limit on how long a lousy childhood was allowed to affect the rest of your life. And if you allowed yourself to go in for crazy things like murdering children, you were worth less than nothing in Peder’s eyes. That went for Jelena Scortz, too. That went especially for Jelena Scortz, in fact; that dark, angry look Peder had seen in her mangled face when she spoke of why the women had to be punished was burnt into his memory.

  She knew what she was doing when she held Sara up in Flemingsberg, thought Peder bitterly. She bloody well knew.

  Even so, Peder softened when he got up to the ward and saw Jelena. He was no fan, either, of anyone who could inflict such extensive injuries on a fellow human being.

  There was a nurse at Jelena’s bedside, helping her drink through a straw. The nurse jumped at the sound of Peder behind her.

  ‘You startled me,’ she said, and gave a laugh when she saw his ID.

  It wasn’t the same nurse as before.


  Peder smiled back at her. Jelena didn’t move a muscle.

  ‘I’d like to have a little talk to Jelena, if she’s up to it,’ he said. ‘I was here this morning, as well.’

  The nurse frowned.

  ‘Well I’m not sure . . .’ she began.

  ‘I’ll be quick,’ Peder added hurriedly, ‘and only if Jelena doesn’t mind.’

  The nurse turned to Jelena.

  ‘Do you think you can talk to the policeman for a minute?’ she asked uneasily.

  Jelena said nothing.

  Peder slowly approached the bed.

  ‘I’ve got a couple of follow-up questions,’ he said softly. ‘Only if you feel up to it.’

  Jelena still said nothing, but she kept her eyes on him and didn’t shake her head in protest. Peder decided to interpret that as tacit consent.

  ‘Can you tell me how long you’ve known the man?’ he asked.

  Jelena turned her head very slightly on the pillow. Was she starting to regret having run away from the man? Did she feel she had betrayed him by quitting the battle? If so, she was unlikely to say a word more to anyone in the investigation team.

  ‘Since . . . New Year . . .’

  She spoke so quietly that Peder could hardly hear what she said.

  ‘Since New Year,’ the nurse interpreted, enunciating more clearly than she needed to.

  Peder nodded eagerly.

  ‘How did you meet? Please tell me . . .’

  He was pleading. A thing he very rarely did.

  Small, solitary tears began slowly rolling down Jelena’s bruised and battered cheeks. Peder swallowed. The job could never be allowed to get personal, but you could never let yourself be so aloof that you lost your human touch.

  ‘The street,’ Jelena said, quietly but so clearly that both Peder and the nurse heard what she said.

  But the nurse still opened her mouth to clarify the woman’s words again. Peder indicated to her to be quiet.

  ‘The street,’ he repeated slowly. ‘Were you . . . Were you working as a prostitute when you met the man?’

  Yes and no questions were easier. Then she could just nod or shake her head. This time she nodded.

  Is he a kerb-crawler? wondered Peder. Is that how we’re going to find him?

  Jelena seemed suddenly very drowsy. The nurse began to look very concerned. Peder got up to go. He had the information he needed.

  He said thank you and took his leave, but pulled up short in the doorway.

  ‘Just one more question, Jelena,’ he said.

  She turned her head and looked at him.

  ‘Was there anything odd about his hands? Were they damaged in some way?’

  She swallowed several times. Peder could see she was in a lot of pain.

  ‘Burned.’

  Peder frowned.

  ‘Burned,’ repeated Jelena. ‘He said . . . they got . . . burned.’

  She was utterly exhausted. Peder stared at her until he felt his eyes were going to pop out of his head. It couldn’t be true.

  ‘He told you they got burned?’

  Another nod.

  ‘And they looked as if they had?’

  More nodding.

  Peder tried to think, though his thoughts were stampeding all over the place.

  ‘Where,’ he began. ‘How . . . ?’

  He cleared his throat.

  ‘Were the scars on the backs or the palms of his hands?’

  ‘Palms.’

  ‘Did they look old, these scars?’

  Jelena gave a weary shake of her aching head.

  ‘New,’ she whispered. ‘New . . . when . . . we . . . met.’

  Bloody hell. Was there anything this man hadn’t thought of?

  Peder swallowed again.

  ‘Jelena, if there’s anything, anything at all, you want to tell us, you can do it whenever – absolutely whenever – you want. Thank you.’

  Peder had turned to go, when Jelena made a sound.

  He looked at her enquiringly.

  ‘Doll,’ whispered Jelena, who had stopped crying now. ‘He . . . calls . . . me . . . Doll.’

  Peder thought she looked as though she was attempting to smile.

  Fredrika received a call from someone who introduced herself as Dr Sonja Lundin.

  For a moment, Fredrika was at a loss. She didn’t recognize the voice or the name.

  ‘I’m a hospital pathologist in Umeå,’ she clarified. ‘I was the one who carried out the first proper examination of the little girl who was found murdered up here.’

  Fredrika felt embarrassed at not recognizing the woman’s name. But then it was Alex who had dealt with that part of the investigation.

  ‘I don’t think we’ve been in touch before,’ said Sonja Lundin, in answer to her unspoken question, ‘but I rang to speak to your colleague Alex Recht, and they referred me to you because he’s in the middle of an important call. One of you left a message for me about a patient file.’

  Fredrika’s heart skipped a beat.

  ‘I can deal with it,’ she confirmed. ‘I was the one who rang.’

  She was profoundly grateful that Alex was unavailable, because this was not a conversation intended for his ears.

  ‘Strictly speaking,’ Sonja Lundin said dubiously, ‘this sort of information is confidential.’

  ‘Of course,’ Fredrika hastened to say.

  ‘But given the nature of the crime and the fact that your enquiry is no more specific than it is, I see no problem in answering your question,’ Sonja Lundin announced briskly.

  Fredrika held her breath.

  ‘There is a file in the name of the person you enquired about,’ Sonja Lundin informed her.

  Fredrika blinked. There, she’d thought so.

  ‘Can you give me a date?’ she said quietly, afraid of overstepping the mark and demanding too much information.

  Sonja Lundin was silent for a moment.

  ‘29 July 1989,’ she then said. ‘The patient was discharged the same day. But I’m afraid I can’t tell you what she was here for unless . . .’

  Fredrika interrupted her.

  ‘That’s all I need to know for the moment. Thanks very much indeed for your help.’

  Evening was drawing in. The sky had an almost autumnal look as the evening sun went behind a cloud. What had happened to summer this year? Alex let his eyes rest on the view from his window. It felt like a different sort of evening. An exciting one.

  Alex’s reflective mood was punctured by Peder, who came galloping into the room. Alex smiled. Whereas Fredrika was forever slipping out on secret little missions and dramatically revealing her findings at group meetings, Peder liked to report back frequently on his achievements and conclusions.

  ‘They’ve known each other since New Year,’ he announced, sinking uninvited into the armchair Alex kept for visitors.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Jelena and the so-called Man.’

  ‘And how do you know that?’

  Peder drew himself up.

  ‘I told you I was going out to Karolinska,’ he replied, with a slightly defiant air.

  When Alex said nothing, Peder went on.

  ‘He picked her up off the street; she was a prostitute.’

  Alex sighed, and propped his chin in one hand.

  ‘Wasn’t the other girl, as well? The Jönköping murder?’ asked Peder.

  Alex’s brow furrowed.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ he said uncertainly. ‘You’ll have to check with Fredrika, but I don’t think so. She was in with that sort of crowd, though, so she might very well have met him on the street, come to think of it.’

  Peder made an impatient gesture.

  ‘Oh come on,’ he said. ‘What would she be doing on the street if she wasn’t a prostitute?’

  ‘How the fuck do I know?’ Alex said tetchily. ‘It’s what her grandmother said. And if Grandma wants to varnish the truth a bit, that’s up to Grandma. But she might also be right. Nora isn’t on our files in conn
ection with any prostitution rackets.’

  ‘But how does she fit into all this?’ asked Peder. ‘I just don’t get why he bothers at that critical stage to shoot over to Jönköping and bump off an ex-girlfriend.’

  ‘An ex-girlfriend he long since let in on all his plans,’ Alex reminded him.

  ‘Sure,’ said Peder. ‘Sure. But still . . . What the hell was the point?’

  ‘I’m with you on that, but I say we leave it aside for now,’ Alex said doggedly. ‘I’ve spoken to the Jönköping police. They didn’t manage to secure a single clue to the identity of the killer except that Ecco shoeprint. The Jönköping line of enquiry isn’t going to get us anywhere.’

  ‘But we suspected for a while that he had some way of knowing what stage we’d reached in the investigation,’ began Peder.

  ‘That must have been a coincidence,’ Alex broke in. ‘At that point we scarcely knew ourselves that she’d rung in and tipped us off about him.’

  Peder shut his mouth. Then he said:

  ‘The reason they can’t find anything is that he’s sabotaged his own fingers.’

  Alex stared at him.

  ‘Are you joking?’

  Peder shook his head.

  ‘Christ almighty,’ groaned Alex. ‘What kind of pervert are we dealing with here?’

  Peder was quick to supply the information.

  ‘Could he be a kerb-crawler?’

  Alex was brought up short.

  ‘Kerb-crawler?’

  ‘That’s how he finds his girls.’

  Alex put his head on one side.

  ‘That’s not a bad idea,’ he said slowly. ‘Not a bad idea at all. And there are kerb-crawlers from all social classes, as we know.’

  ‘Right, I’ll start looking there, then,’ Peder declared.

  ‘You do that,’ Alex said with equal determination, adding: ‘And check out particularly anybody who’s been had up for gross violation of a woman’s integrity, or any other crimes of violence directed at women. This might not be the first time he’s assaulted a woman.’

  Peder gave a keen nod.

  Then they both just sat there, trying to summon the energy to stand up and get to grips with everything that needed to be done.