The man’s breathing came in large, sudden gasps, as if he were about to have a panic attack.
Joel listened for a moment while the man hyperventilated, and he wondered if the man was dying. His sleeves were stained red; he’d probably dried the blood from his nose on them.
“Are you armed?” Joel asked.
“No,” the man whispered.
“Are you injured? Shot?”
“Just my nose.”
“What’s your name?”
“Lucas.”
“Okay, Lucas, can you tell us what happened here?”
CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN
IT WAS LATE afternoon when Henrik Levin squeezed into his townhouse in Smedby. Emma had stacked boxes four high in the hallway.
He took off his shoes, hung up his jacket and listened to the children’s merry voices upstairs. He stopped and stood in the living room. More boxes, filled with things he hadn’t even known existed. Things that might never be unpacked again, that would be stashed away in an attic or storage closet and forgotten. Again.
He began to think of Danilo Peña. He thought how the escapee might be sitting hidden in an attic or closet. But he was probably in a more secure location. He’d probably already had a whole plan for where he would go when he left the hospital. Peña didn’t seem like a man who left that sort of thing to chance. They should also question former National Police Commissioner Anders Wester, since he and Peña were involved in the Policegate scandal. But, he thought, it was unlikely that he would give them any information they could use.
Outside the window, Henrik saw the light fog rising between the treetops. He went closer to the window and stood thinking how all too infrequently he had taken the time to appreciate the views from this townhouse.
How many years had they been there, actually?
As he counted in his head, he thought back to the day they had first stepped into the house. The sun had just begun to warm the earth, and Emma had taken off her cardigan, rested her hands on her big belly and stood beside him. While gazing through this window, they’d decided that this was where they would live for many, many years.
That had been eight years ago, he thought. Eight years since Felix was born.
He hadn’t known then that this was the life he was going to be living when he was forty years old. Now as he stood and looked out over the fog-covered yard, he was on the way to a new house, with a wife who had just given birth to his third child.
Henrik went up the stairs, and when he reached the top step, he met Emma with Vilgot in her arms.
“Hi,” she said hurriedly. “Great that you’re home. Can you make sure that Felix and Vilma pick up the Legos? I have to feed Vilgot.”
“Of course,” he said, going into Felix’s room.
The floor was chilly underfoot, and Lego pieces were everywhere. Both Felix and Vilma sat on the bed with the iPad in front of them and were watching a movie with two yellow characters dancing and singing.
“Time to clean up now,” Henrik said.
“Nooo!”
“Yes.”
“But, Daddy, can’t we finish watching first? Please.”
“No. Turn off the movie right now.”
“There’s only three minutes left. Please, Daddy, please!”
“Okay.”
“Yay!”
“But then you need to turn it off.”
Both of them nodded and turned their gazes back to the dancing yellow characters. Henrik sat down and picked through the Lego pieces as he began thinking about work again, about the possible suspects in the investigations surrounding Shirin and Katarina. There weren’t many, unfortunately.
There weren’t any, to tell the truth.
Ted Henriksson had already been cut from the list.
Still there was that car, the Audi. What had it been doing in that isolated residential area at the time of Katarina’s murder? And who’d been driving it?
Was it a doctor? Who wore a nine-and-a-half-size shoe?
Henrik lined up a row of Lego figures. He thought about the Gigli saw, the scalpel and the narcotic.
Three more clues, he thought. But where can they lead us?
* * *
Jana breathed deeply. Yes, her pulse had slowed now, but the strange feeling remained. The whole way from Motala, she experienced a mixture of anger and nervousness. She had been forced to kill three men in the shelter, play for high stakes, risk altogether too much, just to plant Danilo’s shirt somewhere far away from her apartment. But at least she was able to accomplish that and, she hoped, thus throw investigators off Danilo’s track.
When she stepped into her apartment, all of the lights were off. Only a weak light from the windows found its way into the hallway.
She pulled off her shoes by the door and lifted her gaze. His shadow appeared on the floor. He stood there, looking at her.
“I assume it went well,” Danilo said.
She didn’t answer. Didn’t feel like talking.
“But you understand that there are more conditions, don’t you?” he said.
The rage returned. She looked at him and couldn’t help but admire him—in the way you admire a cockroach you’ve stepped on that keeps on crawling. On and on. And on.
“The shirt’s been planted,” she said.
“That’s not enough. You have to call.”
“Unnecessary,” she said. “The police are already there and have probably found the bodies of the men in the same room as I planted the shirt. You’ll have three new murders on your conscience...”
“What the hell did you do?” he said with a furrowed brow.
“I had unwanted visitors at the shelter.”
He grinned doubtfully. “Okay, but I don’t trust the pigs. They don’t always come to the correct conclusions.”
“I’m not going to call,” Jana said. “I think that’s overdoing it.”
“And I think you aren’t a stranger to overdoing it. Three murders just to plant evidence that I was there?”
“I really had no choice.”
“You don’t now, either. You’re going to call and say that you saw that dangerous man, Danilo Peña, near the shelter, and that you saw him there today.”
“And you don’t think they will trace the call?”
“Not if you are quick enough.”
“And my motivation is still to get rid of you?”
“And get your boxes of journals back.”
She knew that it was pointless to continue the conversation, so she turned her back on him and began walking to her bedroom.
“I know,” he said behind her, “that you’ve gone through the alternatives. And that you don’t really have any. I’m leaving the apartment in two days. It’s too bad, really. I’ve begun to like it here.”
She went into her bedroom and locked the door. She didn’t want to call, she wouldn’t! But she realized that she had to. It wasn’t a sure thing that the police would come to the right conclusion. If she called, the possibility of getting rid of him increased considerably. He knew it, and she knew it. As long as she wasn’t found out.
She slammed her hand against the wall.
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Then she walked slowly into her walk-in closet. She opened the safe and looked in at the wrinkled journal page Danilo had given her. Then she let her gaze sweep over the bundle containing cash, knives, passport, cell phones and SIM cards.
She took out one of the cell phones and inserted a SIM card into it. She turned it on and saw that there was enough battery left, so she sat on her bed and silently rehearsed what she was going to say. She intended to sound calm and factual, but then she changed her mind. It would be better to release what she was feeling, let both the anger and irritation she felt for him
speak. It would sound more real then, more believable.
She dialed the number to the police tip line. She did it slowly and braced herself as she heard the phone ringing.
A woman answered, her voice clear and calm.
“Hi,” Jana said. “First, I want to stay anonymous. Second, I have something important to report...”
My Journal, November 1
Dear Diary,
We worked in groups again today. This time we were supposed to paint a skyline. Our art teacher tore off a large sheet of paper and placed it on the table in front of me. There were five people in my group. I said that I could paint a boat sailing along the horizon. But they gave me a brush and said I could paint the water. In one corner. I was almost done painting when Linus dipped his brush into black paint and drew a dark line through the blue.
“They’re waves,” he said. “Fucking tall ones.”
I didn’t say anything. I just stared at the table.
When it was time for break, I waited until everyone had left, as usual.
Just as I was about to leave the room, I heard their voices, Linus, Martin and the others. And I heard them loud and clear because the door was open.
When I walked out, I saw that Martin was standing with his fingers wrapped around the doorframe.
I didn’t hesitate. It was easy as pie. I grabbed the door handle and slammed the door. It didn’t bounce or anything, just made a crashing sound and then Martin howled.
It’s awful to say it, but I still smile when I think about his crushed fingers. So darn wonderful! So wonderful to get revenge. Fucking idiots!
And no one saw that it had been me, either, because I took the back way through the group room. Viveka said that the door must have slammed shut because of the crosscurrent, because a window had been open in the room.
I’m going to ignore anything Martin says tomorrow, if he even comes to school. He won’t be able to do anything bad to me. I took the power from him, the power to do bad things to me.
Do you understand, Diary? Martin is the monster now—I’ve taken away his ability to hit! It’s probably the greatest thing of all. Oh Mom, who always says that revenge doesn’t get you anywhere. Nowhere good, anyway. But it does. You can have an effect if you really want to. You can, truly.
I wish I could tell her. But it’s the middle of the night now. I should sleep, but my mind is racing. Thinking about a future that doesn’t exist. It sounds awful, I know, but there is no future. Not the future the doctor promised, anyway. Time is running out. And there’s nothing I can do about it. Nothing at all.
CHAPTER
NINETEEN
Monday
PHILIP ENGSTRÖN LEFT the crew lounge and walked toward the ambulance. It was fifteen minutes into his shift, and they had received a request for medical transport for a fifty-eight-year-old man who was having problems with his urinary catheter. Philip felt alternately cold, sweaty, jerky and thirsty, and the physical unpleasantness became even more painful when combined with his awful thoughts about Katarina.
He caught sight of Sandra walking toward him. They exchanged a quick glance before sitting silently next to each other in the vehicle. She took the wheel and turned out of the roundabout and continued at legal speed toward the E4 highway. The clouds had dispersed, and the sun’s sharp beams made the waters of Lake Bråviken glitter.
Suddenly, a voice from dispatch broke the silence.
“Dispatch to Ambulance 9110, come in.”
“Ambulance 9110, over.”
“We’ve got a call about a man with a serious leg fracture. Don’t know any more than that because we lost contact with the caller. But switch calls and go Code Three to Stavsjö, Tintomaras väg 37.”
“Copy, affirmative, over.”
“Dispatch over and out.”
“Stavsjö?” Philip asked.
“It’s near Nyköping,” Sandra said. “About ten minutes away.”
Ten minutes, Philip thought.
These minutes were long, crucial, when it was a serious case, and his heart pounded just a little as Sandra increased her speed.
“Code Three, lights and sirens, for a leg fracture?” Philip said. “What the hell happened?”
Sandra didn’t answer. She kept her eyes on the road.
Just before Stavsjö Pub and Café, on the boundary between the counties of Östergötland and Södermanland, they turned off the highway and continued into the little community.
The hill after the lake was steep, and Sandra was forced to slow down as she turned left.
The house was located on a cul-de-sac. They parked by a tall hedge and saw a neighbor who had hurried out of her house and followed them with a curious expression. Philip grabbed the medical bag and noticed the garden implements in the yard. A lawn mower, a rake and a wheelbarrow.
Wooden stairs led to the front door, and they rang the doorbell. They waited, but nothing happened.
Sandra tried the door handle, and the door swung open.
They looked into a small foyer with black-and-white-patterned wallpaper.
“Hello?” she called. “Paramedics here.”
They stepped in and saw a woman with light, chin-length hair, sitting on the kitchen floor, cell phone in hand. Her upper body was rocking back and forth. She was visibly shocked. Sandra sank to her knees and talked calmly to her.
“Here,” Sandra said, handing the oxygen bag to Philip.
Philip continued down the half flight of stairs and came to a living room and dining room. A half flight farther brought him to bedrooms, an office and a laundry room.
It was a large split-level house, and it wasn’t until he was down in the basement that he found the man sitting in a pool of blood on a chair with his hands tied and his head hanging down to his chest.
Philip would never forget the sight.
The man’s legs were missing. They had been cut off above the knees, and a shining sea of blood had formed around him.
His chest was heaving. He was hyperventilating.
Without saying a word, Philip went to him. He dropped both the oxygen bag and the medical kit on the floor, placed his hands on the man’s head and leaned it back carefully. The man was ice-cold; his skin was deathly, almost bluish green. A moaning sound escaped from his mouth. “Ph...Philip?”
The man looked at him with hazy eyes, and it was only then that Philip recognized him. The narrow mouth, liver spot on his cheek. A former colleague. Johan Rehn.
“What the hell happened?” Philip said, feeling for his pulse.
“My legs...my legs... I...” Johan closed his eyes and tried to control his breathing. “I can’t breathe...it...”
Philip opened the oxygen bag and brought the oxygen mask toward his mouth, but Johan shook his head.
“No,” he said.
“Johan,” Philip said. “Stay still.”
“No.”
“Breathe!”
“It won’t help...it...”
“Now stop with this craziness,” Philip said sternly, knowing it was his stress talking. He quickly took out tourniquets and placed them in the man’s groin area to stop the arterial flow to the legs. But he knew that it was an impossible task.
Johan had closed his eyes.
“Shit, shit shit!” he screamed. “Sandra, come here and help me, now!”
Blood was everywhere.
It would take twenty minutes to get to the hospital, and the only thing to do at that very moment was to load the dismembered Johan up and get moving. Sandra appeared in the doorway, and with her help, he released Johan from the chair. Then they placed him on the stretcher. Neighbors had gathered by the time they carried Johan out of the house. Philip immediately began working in the ambulance, connecting the pulse oximeter and beginning to insert catheters into his arm so he could administer fluids.
> Johan opened his eyes and met his gaze. One hand was looking for something to hold on to. Then he closed his eyes again.
His hand became still.
He had lost consciousness.
Philip felt the vehicle sway as he tried to read the man’s pulse.
But Johan’s heart wasn’t beating anymore. He was in traumatic cardiac arrest.
Philip began CPR. He pushed furiously with both hands against Johan’s chest. He counted to thirty and blew air into Johan’s lungs until his rib cage rose. He finished two breaths and then continued pushing on his chest.
“Don’t give up now, Johan. For Christ’s sake, don’t give up,” he said, even though deep inside, he knew Johan already had.
* * *
Mia Bolander stood in her office with her cell phone pressed against her ear. She tried to figure out what had just happened in her conversation with the salesman at the car dealership. He had talked with the mechanics who had gone through the car and found that the cylinder head gasket had blown. It wouldn’t be hard to replace, but it would take time. Then there might be other problems, that the cylinder head edge was uneven or that the cylinders had been damaged, and it was right about then that Mia had bit her lip. She’d bit it even harder when the salesman told her that the mechanics had also found other small, irritating problems such as a loose door handle and a broken fan.
“So you can probably count on the whole thing being about two thousand, if not more.”
“Well, shit!” she said.
“What happened?”
“I bit my lip. It’s bleeding, too...shit.”
She dried the blood with the arm of her sweater.
“Are you there?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry to say, but it will take at least a couple of weeks to fix your car because we’re not sure the shop has the spare parts in stock. Well, it’s very possible they don’t. The car isn’t exactly new, if I may say so.”
“A couple of weeks?”
Her phone beeped, and Mia saw that it was Henrik Levin.
“I’m getting another call, and I have to take it. Sorry,” she said.
Slowly We Die Page 22