“But I have a solution for you, Mia. We’ve just gotten in a shiny, new Fiat Lounge with a sunroof and leather seats that would be perfect for you.”
It beeped again. Henrik didn’t give up; it was presumably something urgent.
“I have to take this,” she said.
“And do you know what the best part is?” the salesman said. “This car is available immediately. So my suggestion for you, Mia, is that you trade in your old car and come here and pick up this beauty. And do you know what’s even better, Mia? That you’ll only have to pay two hundred and fifty dollars a month, and that includes basic service. And with a new car, you’ll never have to worry about your car not starting. What do you say?”
“I really have to take this,” she said.
“You can’t miss a chance like this, Mia. What do you say, do we have a deal?”
“Hold on a minute,” she said and switched over to the other line.
“Mia?” Henrik said. “Why didn’t you answer?”
“I was on the other line. What’s up?”
“You were right,” he said.
“About what?”
“That we’re dealing with a serial killer.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because there’s been another murder.”
* * *
There was blood on his collar, chest and arms. Philip Engström had pulled off his work shirt before going up the stairs to the locker room. The on-call doctor was taking care of Johan Rehn. His death needed to be confirmed with the date and time. The ambulance had to be cleaned, the medical kit needed to be filled with new medicine and the oxygen tank had to be changed.
Philip went into the silent locker room. He leaned his head against his locker and tried to comprehend what was going on around him.
Johan Rehn was dead.
Katarina Vinston was dead.
And Shirin Norberg was dead.
He knew Johan and Katarina, and he was certain that he’d also seen Shirin somewhere; she looked so familiar to him.
He felt an unpleasant lump in his throat. It couldn’t be coincidence that he knew, or knew of, all three.
When he looked at his watch, his hands were shaking so hard that it was difficult to see the time. With his forefinger and thumb, he found the pill he kept in his pants pocket. He always had a single Sobril there for when he needed to calm himself because it was easier to hide one than a whole pack of pills.
He brushed away the lint that was stuck to the coating, opened his mouth, stuck the pill as far back on his tongue as possible and swallowed.
But his body wouldn’t obey.
The pill didn’t want to go down.
He gagged.
He went to the sink, turned on the faucet and slurped the ice-cold water as it filled his cupped hands.
After retching once more, the tablet slid down.
He looked at his reflection, saw the drops of blood on his cheek and tried to rub them off with his hand. Then he noticed the blood on his neck and ear and rubbed even harder, as if it were a poisonous substance he had to get off.
It hurt, but he kept going.
Rubbing, rubbing until it was completely gone.
* * *
“So who is he?” Mia asked.
“Johan Rehn, fifty-eight years old,” Henrik said. “I’ve asked Ola to gather any and all information on him for the meeting.”
Mia looked at Anneli, who was kneeling to get fingerprints from a dresser. Henrik stood next to her, his shoulders drooping and his face weary.
The chair the man had been sitting on was covered in blood. There was blood on the floor, blood everywhere. An adult has about six liters of blood, and Mia wondered how much of that this man had lost. Far too much, clearly, since he hadn’t made it.
“Was he home alone?” she said.
“Yes, at least when it happened,” Henrik said.
“So who called it in?”
“His wife. She came home from a trip this morning and was seriously shocked when she found him without legs.”
“I’d fucking think so,” Mia said.
“The same perpetrator,” Anneli said, still kneeling by the dresser.
Henrik nodded, troubled.
“But this time he killed a man instead of a woman,” Mia said. “Why?”
“Good question,” Henrik said.
The room fell silent.
Mia observed the scene of the crime. The similarities with the brutal scenes at Shirin Norberg’s apartment and Katarina Vinston’s house were remarkable. But what did a widowed mother of two, a single working woman and a late-middle-aged man have in common? Why had these three fallen victim to the perpetrator’s violence?
“Whose footprints are these?” she said when she looked down at the prints from shoes next to the chair.
Anneli turned around and looked toward the great sea of blood.
“They’re from the paramedics,” she said. “Unfortunately, they didn’t have any protective gear and left a whole lot of traces behind them, and also potentially destroyed some. But we just have to live with that.”
“Do we know who was here?” Mia said.
“Yes,” Anneli said. “Philip Engström and Sandra Gustafsson.”
Mia nodded thoughtfully.
“Have you found any traces of anyone else but his wife?” she said.
“Not yet,” Anneli said. “But I’m not by any means even close to finishing.”
Mia looked around again, taking in the room and all of the details. She heard footsteps from the floor above and thought it must be the forensic techs doing a thorough search of the house.
“There’s one thing I’m wondering about,” Henrik said. “How did the perpetrator get in? Anyone can use a crowbar or break a window, but getting into a residence without leaving a trace is an art.”
“The victim must have known the perp,” Mia said. “There is no other explanation.”
“But how could he know that the victim would be home alone when he was going to attack? I mean, he needed a bit of time to saw off the legs, right?”
“Shirin wasn’t alone,” Mia said.
“Okay, but he locked her daughter in her room. Katarina and this man were completely alone. I’m thinking he must have had a very good sense of their schedules.”
“Like I said...he knew them,” Mia said again.
“Or he’d made a detailed investigation of their lives. We have to talk to all of the neighbors right away. Ask if anyone saw someone hanging around the area, or maybe saw an Audi A5.”
* * *
Jana hurried across the crosswalk. Her coat flapped against her legs, and the sound of her footsteps was drowned by the noise of the traffic, of the crowd, of a bustling Norrköping.
Because of the most recent murder, she had been called to a meeting at the police station, and she had promised Henrik Levin she’d be there by ten o’clock at the latest.
She was just about to ascend the steps to the entrance when she saw a bicycle chained to the bicycle rack.
She recognized it as Per Åström’s. For a brief moment, she froze, as if she was hesitating over whether to continue or not. The indecision irritated her. What was stopping her?
She hadn’t had time to answer her own question when she heard the sound of jingling keys. She looked up. Even though she had seen his bicycle, she was surprised to see him in person. Per was dressed in his usual athletic jacket over a dark suit. His bag hung on a shoulder strap.
They stood quietly and looked at each other, Jana with her briefcase in hand, he with his key ring.
All that existed was the hustle and bustle of the city.
And the two of them.
He looked tired.
“It’s just me,” he said, and walked toward his bicycle.
<
br /> “Yes,” she said. “It’s just you.”
Then she walked past him and dashed up the steps. She didn’t look behind her, but she heard him unlock his bike and pedal away. In her mind’s eye, she saw him moving along Kungsgatan, biking quickly, braking now and then to look around, maybe to continue along a cross street or in among all of the people that filled the street farther down.
She ran faster now, listening to her steps and noticing that she didn’t hear the roar of the city anymore.
* * *
Three people gruesomely killed, Philip thought. Johan, Katarina—and Shirin. Shirin had worked as a surgery nurse, that much he knew. He’d read it in the newspapers, and now he began to realize where he’d met her. It was strange he hadn’t come up with how he knew her right away.
Johan was a surgeon.
And was he...
This is crazy, Philip thought again. This can’t be about that. He walked back and forth across the floor in one of the bunk rooms at work.
No, it couldn’t be about that. Katarina hadn’t been part of it originally. Not then, when the unthinkable happened. Or had she?
He slapped his palm to his forehead, multiple times. Wake up, brain! Think!
He sat down on the bed while he tried to understand how Katarina fit into all of this. But he couldn’t piece it together.
He turned his gaze out the window, tried to focus, tried to gain control and return to reality.
But he couldn’t.
* * *
When Jana Berzelius arrived on the third floor, Henrik and Mia were standing and talking to Gunnar outside the conference room. Mia was wearing jeans and a sweater. Henrik was also in jeans, with a blue-checked flannel shirt and a silver watch around his wrist. Gunnar’s hair was uncombed; his face gray and jowly.
Jana greeted them all with a nod and thought multiple times as she approached that she wasn’t going to stop, that she would instead continue into the conference room. But just as she passed, she heard Henrik say, “According to our colleagues in Motala, there were three dead and one injured.”
“Any motive?” Gunnar asked.
“The witness whom they found injured in the bathroom said it was some sort of dispute.”
“That must have been one hell of a dispute,” Mia said.
Jana stopped. As she stood there, the same thoughts churned around in her head. Could this actually work? Would the shirt and her phone call really produce the result she was hoping for?
“What are the shelter staff saying?” Gunnar asked.
“They’ve been having problems there for a while. Some criminal gang has been active at the shelter and has subjected both guests and staff to threats and abuse. Various reports have been filed.”
“And what measures have been taken? What have the police done?” Mia said.
“Well, who should they blame?” Gunnar said.
“They probably blame the reorganization,” Mia said.
“They can blame whomever they want,” Gunnar said, looking at Jana as he rubbed his hand along his stubble. “The media will dig around in everything. Security at the shelter will be under the microscope, and what’s more, the whole immigrant question will flare up again. It’ll be worst for the shelter staff. They’re going to be up to their ears in it. Poor devils.”
“It’d be just as well to shut down the shithole even if it is new,” Mia said.
“That would be a great quotation for the newspapers,” Henrik said.
“But seriously,” Mia said. “The municipality uses taxpayer money to provide places for homeless people to sleep, and what do we get as thanks? Oh, right, we have to pay even higher taxes to deal with threats and violence and a little bit of murder, too. What’s wrong with people?”
“What’s wrong with you?” Henrik said.
“I’m just saying what I think,” Mia said. “Maybe you should try it sometime.”
They fell silent.
Jana looked at Mia, who had placed her hand on her waist, thinking how Mia always gesticulated as if she needed to reinforce what she was saying. Jana opted to stand still, and now when the irritating silence had fallen over them, she thought she should say something. She really wanted to know if her call had had any impact, if Danilo Peña had been connected with the events, but she couldn’t ask about that, of course. Instead she said: “And do we know anything about the murder weapon?”
“I only know that a pistol was involved,” Gunnar said. “Who shot whom will be revealed by the investigation. The preliminary investigation has been initiated, but Motala has to take care of all of that. We have other things to deal with.”
Henrik looked at his watch.
“Oh, we’re supposed to be starting the meeting.”
“Well, we’d better go in, then,” Gunnar said.
* * *
The corners of his mouth twitched slightly from exhaustion. Philip didn’t usually feel like his shifts were so interminably long. But now he was standing in the empty locker room, completely wiped out.
And he couldn’t escape his thoughts.
Shirin.
Katarina.
And now Johan.
He stood in the stark light from the fluorescent bulbs. The hot metal clicked. He locked his gaze on a speck of dust that danced aimlessly in the air and thought, that’s me. A fucking piece of nothing, all alone, fumbling around in a giant emptiness.
Even in his relationship with Lina, his own wife, he felt alone. He hadn’t let her in, couldn’t let her in, and he wondered how many times during their marriage he had given excuses to avoid revealing things about himself.
Avoid talking in general.
This need to hide his past, his mistake had been doomed to fail. He knew it. It would catch up with him. Everything would catch up with him. Everything always catches up.
And now the only person he wanted to talk with was dead. The only one he could talk with because Katarina had been there originally.
He didn’t want to burden Lina, and she wouldn’t want to listen anyway.
That left only Sandra.
Slowly, he began to walk toward the bunk rooms that lay at the other end of the hallway. He looked at the closed door for a moment and then knocked lightly on it.
“Sandra?”
“What is it, Philip?” she said.
Her voice was sleepy.
“Can we talk?”
“Is it urgent, or can I wake up a little?”
“It’s fairly urgent,” he said, clearing his throat.
“Come in, then,” she said.
He stepped in, making sure the door closed fully behind him, and then stood next to the bed where Sandra was sitting up, supported by her elbow.
“I don’t know who else to talk to...” he said. “I’m not paranoid...but you know the murders, the severed limbs...”
“Yes?” she said.
“I knew all three victims.”
The last statement he almost whispered.
“What do you mean?”
“I know that it sounds crazy, but it’s true.”
His eyes darted around, and beads of sweat on his forehead collected into rivulets.
“What do you mean, knew?” she said, her voice more awake now.
“We all worked together at one point,” he said. “Shirin, Katarina, Johan and I.”
“I don’t understand,” she said, rubbing one eye.
“Katarina and I...” he began, but she interrupted him.
“...had worked in the ambulance together, and I know you know her. But Shirin and this...” Sandra said.
“See...this is crazy, this is crazy,” Philip said loudly and began pacing back and forth.
“Calm down now,” Sandra said, “and tell me what...”
He stopped, standing still with one hand
on his forehead.
“I think I might be the next victim.”
“What? Hey, wait a minute, now...”
“It’s true,” he interrupted. “I might be the next victim. What should I do?”
“What would make you say that? Have you contacted the police?”
“What could I say? They probably won’t believe me.”
“Why won’t they believe you?”
“It’s completely fucked-up,” he said, turning toward the door.
“Philip, you have to...”
“No, it won’t work,” he said. “Forget what I said.”
He ended the conversation and opened the door, already regretted having said anything at all. Regretted letting Sandra in. It was a bad feeling, and he wanted to get rid of it immediately.
* * *
On the whiteboard were written three names.
Shirin Norberg, Katarina Vinston and Johan Rehn.
Henrik Levin let his gaze wander from colleague to colleague as he summarized everything they knew up to this point. He looked at Mia, who was thoughtful; at Anneli, who was polishing her glasses; and at Gunnar, who had his arms crossed over his chest.
He turned his head in the other direction. Jana Berzelius. Attentive, as always.
Ola Söderström. New cap today, purple this time.
He continued by describing the murders and knew that he should push aside the images of the mutilated bodies and not show too many emotions. Just keep his gaze forward, be analytical and bite the bullet.
“These murders don’t give me any peace,” Anneli said when he was done.
“They don’t give any of us any peace,” Henrik added.
“You’ve checked on Johan?” Gunnar said.
“Yes. He was married and is the father of two adult children who both live in Stockholm. But the most interesting thing about him is that he was a doctor. Worked as a surgeon.”
“At Vrinnevi?”
“At Vrinnevi.”
“So all three victims worked there,” Gunnar nodded.
“Yes,” Henrik said, and saw Jana write something on her legal pad. “And that’s where we stand now. We have three victims: a surgery nurse, a paramedic and a surgeon. We have Vrinnevi Hospital, the narcotic Ketalar, a Gigli saw and a scalpel. Everything points to the hospital. But how these are connected and why are still a mystery,” he said, throwing his arms up.
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