The door opened again.
“Hi, I’m Anna-Lena Hanberg,” she said, reaching out her hand.
“Jana Berzelius.”
They shook hands.
“How can I help you?” asked Anna-Lena, tilting her head to the side.
“I’d like to discuss some funeral arrangements. My mother has passed away.”
“Do you have an appointment?”
Jana shook her head. “No.”
“No problem. Follow me. Let’s go into this room over here.”
Anna-Lena opened the door to a smaller room and went in first. Jana looked at the blue chairs around the teak table, at the small stereo standing on a dresser and at the oil paintings on the walls.
Anna-Lena sat down and placed a folder entitled “The Eternal Rest” in front of Jana and opened a notebook in front of herself.
“I want to start by saying that it’s important that you know you and your family aren’t alone.”
“I am alone.”
“You don’t have any siblings?”
“No. And my father is unable to come here.”
“No relatives?”
“No. I’m solely responsible for the funeral arrangements.”
“I understand, and I want you to know that we’re here to support you. It’s important to allow yourself to experience grief, to dare to really feel your emotions and not close them off. Sooner or later, you have to deal with them.”
“I believe you,” Jana said.
“You should also know that we are happy to help you with all of your practical questions.”
“I really just have one question. How soon can the funeral be?”
“That depends. Most often, it takes place within two weeks of the death.”
“I want it to be as soon as possible,” Jana said.
“All right,” Anna-Lena said and opened a calendar. “From what I can see the first available date is next week Friday.”
“Good.”
“But I must ask, has your mother left any documents stating her final wishes?”
“No.”
“Have you had the chance to think about it?”
“No.”
“Then I think it’s a good idea for us to go through it step by step.”
“I want the funeral to be private.”
“Good, so that point is decided.”
“There’s more?”
Anna-Lena tucked her hair behind her ear and cleared her throat.
“There are a few more aspects to talk about,” she said, “such as how the death announcement will look, what kind of flowers and what music you’d like. Will it take place in a church, crematorium chapel, fellowship room or outside? What type of casket? Size, color, material? Bedding, decorations, your own quilt, pillow, sheet?”
“I assume I’ll be here awhile,” Jana said.
Anna-Lena smiled vaguely at her.
“The first visit usually takes around two and a half hours,” she said.
Jana looked at the clock. Anna-Lena noticed.
“I have a whole list of questions,” she said apologetically. “It’s unavoidable, really.”
“And I can’t take the list home?”
“No, unfortunately,” she said. “So what do you think? Should we get started?”
* * *
“Are you sure she knew we were coming?” Mia Bolander asked after Henrik Levin had rung the doorbell for the second time.
He nodded.
“Yes, I talked to her on the phone. She stuttered a little, but she promised she’d be home.”
Mia pushed her hands down into her pockets.
“How’s the packing going, by the way?”
“Good, I think.”
“When are you moving?”
“Next week Friday. You wouldn’t want to help, would you?”
She shrugged her shoulders.
“Sure, but only if there’s beer involved.”
“It depends,” he said.
“Depends on what?”
“On how expensive a housewarming gift you’re getting us.”
Mia raised her eyebrows.
“I’m just kidding,” he said. “We don’t want any presents. Your help is the best gift.”
Henrik rang the bell again, and they stood quietly side by side until they finally heard sounds from inside: a coughing fit, then footsteps.
When the door opened, they were met by a peculiar odor, seemingly a mixture of smoke and wet fur.
Wearing a brown dress, Maria Ashour smiled in greeting. She had an enormous bosom, which she allowed to hang freely under the fabric.
“Hu-hurry in,” she said, sticking her foot out to stop a cat trying to sneak out into the stairwell. She shook their hands before showing them into the kitchen.
“Aida is staying in the guest room. I—I’ll get her.”
Henrik and Mia sat down. There was an embroidered cloth on the table, and in the middle stood a bowl and a Russian nesting doll. The view over Norrköping would have been impressive if the drapes hadn’t been pulled closed most of the way. Henrik instead turned his gaze to the floor and caught sight of a wine bottle and three plastic water bottles, all empty, in the corner. Large tufts of cat hair lay along the wall.
“Yes, yes, that...those probably should have been thrown away a lo-long time ago,” said Maria, who had returned. She stood in the doorway with her arm around Aida.
“I—I didn’t get Sara. She’s playing in the bedroom. We—we haven’t told her yet that her mother has passed away.”
“Let her play,” Henrik said.
“Come, sweetie,” she said, nudging the older girl toward the table.
Aida sat down, looking first at Henrik, then at Mia, again at Henrik and then at Mia again.
Her hair was damp and hung down over her face. She was wearing a knit sweater, pleated skirt and a pair of black tights. She looked worn-out, yet composed.
“Hi, Aida,” Henrik said.
“Hi,” she mumbled, looking down at the table.
“Would—would you like something to drink before you start?”
“No, thanks,” Henrik said. “We won’t be staying long.”
“Let—let me know if you change your mind.”
Henrik turned toward Aida.
“We’re here to ask a few questions about your mom.”
“I know.”
“We know you’re very sad about what happened.”
Aida nodded.
“Does it feel good to stay here, with your grandma?”
“Yes, it’s good.”
“Of—of course she would stay here, with her nana,” Maria said, stroking Aida’s hair. “Tha-that’s what she calls me. I—I wouldn’t let her stay anywhere else. Never. It—it would feel completely wrong.”
“I understand,” Henrik said, folding his hands on the table.
He studied Aida, thinking that it would be difficult for someone to guess her age solely based on her appearance.
“You work full-time, I understand?” he asked.
“Yes,” Aida said. “I was lucky to get a job immediately after I graduated.”
“Aida is smart, you know. Highest grades in everything. I—I’m so proud of her.”
Henrik gave her a slight nod, showing he was impressed by the young, ambitious woman.
“We are going to need to talk to Aida alone,” he said, turning toward Maria.
“I—I’ll go,” she said. “Come here, Kitty, let’s leave them in peace.”
She picked the cat up from the floor before leaving the kitchen.
“Can you tell us a little more about your mother, Aida?” Henrik said when the door had closed. “What did she do?”
“She was a surgery nurse,” Aida sai
d, “at Vrinnevi Hospital.”
“So she worked shifts, right?”
“Yes, that’s right.” Aida nodded several times. “But never overnight,” she added. “I just started to work nights so I could help her to take care of Sara during the day.”
“What did your mother do when she wasn’t at work?”
“What did she do?” Aida repeated. “She didn’t do all that much. She mostly just stayed home. Took care of Sara and me. Cooked for us. Got Sara to school. She’d watch TV with us and stuff.”
“I know your father died some years ago. What were your mother’s friends like?” Henrik asked. “Did she have company to the house? Did she visit with anyone in particular? Did she have a lot of friends?”
Aida straightened her back and looked at him.
“No, she mostly just stayed home with us when she wasn’t working. Sometimes we would visit Nana.”
“Your mother wasn’t in a relationship, as far as you know?”
“Relationship?” Aida said, taking a deep breath.
“A boyfriend?”
“No, she wasn’t.”
“Do you have any idea who might have hurt her?”
Aida looked up at the ceiling, as if she needed to think about it. Then she shook her head. “No, I don’t,” she said, looking worried.
Henrik looked at Mia, who had pulled the nesting doll toward herself and opened it. It contained five progressively smaller dolls.
“Aida...” he said, getting the girl’s attention. “We’d like you to describe for us as best you can what happened when you came home and found your mother. What did you hear? What did you see?”
Aida began shifting in her seat.
“It’s hard to talk about that,” she said,
“We understand,” Henrik said, “but it’s important for us to hear it in your words.”
“We know it was an awful situation,” Mia said, picking up the nesting dolls again. “But can we try talking about it? You left your workplace after the night shift, you came home, and...?”
“The door was open when I came home.”
“Open?” Henrik asked. “Do you mean that it was standing open or that it was unlocked?”
“Unlocked,” she said, meeting Henrik’s gaze for a brief moment. “So I opened it and went into the hallway.”
“And what time was it then?”
“Just after eight o’clock in the morning.”
“Okay. And then?”
“I hung up my jacket, took off my shoes, and then I noticed a key in the door to our bedroom. The door was locked from the hallway and I thought...well, I just thought it was strange.”
“And when you say ‘our room,’ you mean...?”
“Sara’s and mine. We share a room.”
“Did you think it was Sara who had locked it?”
“No. I just assumed Sara was in the room and that it was locked from the outside. That’s what was so strange. Mom would never lock us in...”
Aida swallowed. “And then I heard Sara whimpering in there, and so I unlocked the door. She should have been at preschool. I could tell from the way she looked that something bad had happened, and I tried to talk to her, hug her and stuff. Then I went into the living room, and that’s where Mom...well, that’s where I found her sitting in the chair.”
“Besides Sara, was your mom alone in the apartment when you came home?” Mia asked.
“Yes.”
Henrik rubbed his hand on his chin, thinking.
“Your mom was badly hurt,” he said.
“Yes.”
Aida’s lower lip had begun trembling.
“I went up to her,” she said. “But I didn’t know what I should do. There was blood all over her, everywhere, and her hands...her hands were lying...”
Aida held her hand to her mouth to suppress a gag.
“Was she able to say anything to you?”
Aida was beginning to retch behind her hand and finally couldn’t hold it any longer. She stood quickly and left her grandmother’s kitchen.
“Sh-should I bring her back in?” Her grandmother Maria asked, appearing in the doorway.
“No, that’s okay,” Henrik said. “But we are going to need to talk with both you and Sara, too.”
It was quiet for a moment, then Maria said: “No.”
“No?” Henrik raised his eyebrows and was struck by how completely at a loss for words he was.
“You—you can talk to me, bu-but not to Sara,” Maria said.
“But we need to talk to her,” Mia said. “She was home at the time that her mother was tortured. You’ll be sabotaging our investigation if you don’t let us speak with her. Don’t you want to know who murdered your daughter and see the monster brought to justice?”
“But—but Sara is so young.”
“We have staff who are specifically trained to talk to children,” Henrik said.
“I—I understand that, but, no...” Maria shook her head.
Henrik combed his hand through his hair.
“We respect your desire to protect Sara,” he said, “but in this situation, it’s incredibly important that we learn what she knows.”
“I—I’ll think about it.”
“Please do,” he said. “I want you to know that the only thing we want is to find out who did this horrible deed to your daughter, Shirin.”
“M-me, too.”
“Do you have any ideas about who could have been involved?”
“N-no, I don’t, but whoever...”
Maria looked up at the ceiling, mumbling something to herself.
“I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“I—I said that whoever did this to my daughter will fry in the flames.”
* * *
Jana Berzelius looked at the clock and saw that the meeting with the funeral director had taken far too long. There had been too many questions, and she still hadn’t been able to decide what kind of ceremony to have and where to have it. Plus she needed more time to think of where she wanted her mother to be buried.
She had planned on heading to the Public Prosecution Office and working a few more hours, but decided instead to return home, even though she wasn’t looking forward to seeing Danilo there.
She got into her car and drove to her parking garage at Knäppingsborg. She parked and grabbed her bag, but then changed her mind and put the bag in the trunk.
Less than two minutes later, she stood outside the door to her apartment. She turned the key, opened the door a little and listened.
Slowly, she pushed the door open all the way and stepped inside.
The mail was usually lying on the floor mat, but today it had been slung onto the kitchen table. Had he gone through it?
She tried not to lose her temper, tried to breathe calmly and quietly. But the thought that Danilo had gone through her personal mail gave her an almost tangible sense of claustrophobia.
He was on the floor in the living room, doing push-ups. He stopped in the middle of a repetition and looked at her. His face was red and tense, and he seemed distant.
He opened his mouth to say something, but when she walked straight past him, he remained silent. She continued into her bedroom, closed the door behind her and sat on the bed.
Ignoring him wasn’t such a bad strategy after all, she thought, smiling to herself. Not bad at all.
* * *
Henrik Levin put his coffee cup down on the table and looked at Mia Bolander. She was staring at a point far beyond the bakery window toward the shops of Gamla Stan.
“I just don’t get this murder,” Henrik said.
“Me, neither,” Mia said in subdued voice. “Obviously we’re dealing with one sick sadist.”
“You think so?” Henrik asked wearily.
Mia looked at him.
“Why, what do you think?” she said loudly before forcing herself to lower her voice again. “The victim’s hands were cut off. Or did you miss that?”
“No,” Henrik said.
After all of these years as colleagues, Henrik had come to see that Mia had both a positive side and a negative one. On the positive side, she was a tough woman with broad experience, especially with complicated investigations. On the negative, she was an egocentric with a loud and overly blunt demeanor that was sure to rub any decent person the wrong way.
Including Henrik.
Not always, but right now it did.
But fine, he was tired, and he knew that there wasn’t any point in giving his opinion on her loud-mouthed behavior because doing so tended to make it even worse.
He took a bite of his open-faced liverwurst and cucumber sandwich, chewing slowly before swallowing. He used the time to decide that in spite of everything, Mia was right. The murder was bestial, and it wasn’t often that their investigations included severed limbs.
“What are you thinking about?”
The wrinkle between her eyes had smoothed as she raised her eyebrows and looked at him.
“About the course of events,” he said. “That someone went into Shirin’s apartment and tortured her—cut off her hands in cold blood while she was still alive—with her youngest daughter right there in the apartment.”
“Yes, pretty fucking sick,” Mia said. “If the goal had been to kill her, the murderer could have just shot her in the head. Bang. Quick and easy. Instead, he tied her to a chair and hacked her hands off.”
Henrik took another bite of his sandwich.
“Someone wanted her to suffer.”
“Someone who was likely close to her,” Mia said, “as most perpetrators are.”
“Absolutely, but whom? Shirin didn’t seem to have many friends or even a boyfriend. According to Aida, anyway.”
“Parents don’t always tell their children everything, though, right?”
Henrik picked at his sandwich with his thumb and index finger.
“But Aida seems so mature in a way,” he said. “She would have known if things were amiss. She seems down-to-earth, practical, doesn’t seem to have her head in the clouds like many teenagers.”
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