“So the hospital is the common denominator?” Gunnar said. “Could the murderer also work there?”
“In which case the next victim is almost guaranteed to be from there,” Mia said.
“There won’t be a next victim, Mia,” Gunnar said severely.
The room fell silent.
“I’ve been digging around in Katarina’s history,” Ola began. “She was unmarried and lived alone in the house in Borg. Aside from an old boyfriend, a relationship from three years ago, she’s been fairly careful about relationships...”
“Careful?” Mia said. “What do you mean by careful?”
Ola sighed.
“Well, how should I say it, then? She hasn’t had many relationships, it seems...and I’ve checked her cell phone conversations, and it’s the same thing there. She doesn’t seem to have many friends. The only thing that sticks out is that she talked to a Philip Engström fairly frequently, and he’s the last person she talked to before she was murdered. He also works as a paramedic.”
“Well, Christ!” Mia said.
“What?” Henrik said.
“I was just thinking...” she said, but fell silent as if she wondered if it were too early to complete the thought.
The others sat quietly, looking at her as if they knew she had understood something that they all should have understood right away.
“What is it, Mia?” Gunnar said.
“I just think it’s damn remarkable that Philip was called to two of these crime scenes. I don’t think he’s been completely honest with us.”
She paused before continuing: “Specifically, I think he knew Shirin. I got that sense when we interrogated him. I saw him raise his eyebrows when I mentioned her name. It would be interesting to know what size shoe he wears. And if he knows how to use a scalpel.”
Gunnar stood up, looking first at Mia and then at Henrik.
“We aren’t going to make any assumptions,” he said. “But we probably need to have a chat with this Philip Engström. Hear what he has to say about his relationship with Katarina.”
“And his relationship with Shirin Norberg,” Mia said.
CHAPTER
TWENTY
HENRIK LEVIN LEANED back in the chair in his office, took out his cell phone and dialed the number one more time. He had already made three attempts, but hadn’t gotten a hold of Philip Engström. When the voice mail picked up, he put down the phone, put his thumbs in the corners of his eyes and closed them tightly. His thoughts were racing, and he wasn’t sure what he was looking for. But he knew that he was beyond eager to get in touch with Engström.
He took his phone, dialed the number again and listened to it ringing.
When he looked up, he saw Mia suddenly appear in the doorway. She pushed her hair behind her ears.
“Are you talking to Engström?”
He shook his head.
“You already talked to him, then?”
“Christ, Mia. I’m on the phone.”
“I can see that. I’m not blind. But you don’t seem to be talking to anyone. So what did Engström say? What did you set up?”
“What?” Henrik said, putting the phone down.
“You and Engström? What did you agree on?”
“He didn’t answer.”
“Is that why you look so strange?”
“No,” he said, meeting her gaze.
“I take it back,” she said, “because now you look fucking serious.”
They fell silent. He leaned his head back and sighed. Then he glanced up at her and tried to decide if he should continue calling or not. But Mia had already decided for him.
“That isn’t going anywhere,” she said. “We’re going to his house. Where does he live?”
“In the Skarphagen area.”
“Good,” she said, hitting the doorframe lightly. “Come on, there’s nothing to sit around here for.”
“I’m coming,” he said. “But all of the company cars are taken, so we’ll have to take my car.”
“Or mine,” she said.
“Did you get it fixed?”
“Something like that.”
* * *
Jana Berzelius put her coffee mug on the table. She sat in the break room at the police station and felt like she wasn’t comfortable being anywhere. She didn’t want to go back to the Public Prosecution Office because then she risked seeing Per again. And she didn’t want to go home, because Danilo was there. And she had absolutely no desire to go to the morgue and be forced to see her mother’s pale body again. She didn’t want to face the sorrow...had already pushed it out of her mind...had decided that there was no reason to be overly sentimental.
Most of all, she wanted to be left alone in peace.
Slowly, she leaned back in the chair and thought about what a long day it was going to be. Besides the unavoidable visit to the morgue with her father and his nurse, she was going to have to participate in meetings and run-throughs, listening to preliminary reports, prioritizations, witness statements, blood analyses, clues, murder weapons, et cetera, et cetera. She usually found her work challenging and satisfying, but now all of her thoughts centered on Danilo and on confirming that the shirt she planted had been found so that she could drive him to Södertälje with a somewhat lower risk.
She still didn’t know if the police had downgraded their search for him in Norrköping. The police in Motala had begun to investigate what they called “a dispute.” But the false witness statement she had called in yesterday evening hadn’t seemed to get through. Not all the way to Norrköping, at least. It seemed unusually quiet.
What was their modus operandi in Motala? Hadn’t they found the hospital shirt? Wouldn’t that have provided fresh tracks from the escaped murderer Danilo Peña in the same room that three men had been executed in? But no one seemed to be putting one together with the other.
She pushed her coffee mug away and got up from the table.
She tried to think about something else, but she ended up in the same train of thought. What if this didn’t work? What if she never got rid of him?
* * *
Anneli Lindgren greeted the administrative assistant Britt Dyberg, who stood in the hallway with a bundle of papers in her arms. She noticed Britt’s pink cardigan didn’t fit her well at all. It hung over her shoulders and looked many sizes too large.
Anneli, on the other hand, was wearing a light blue sweater and a pair of slim-fitting jeans. Her hair swayed in her ponytail as she continued toward her office.
When she saw the light on in Gunnar’s office, she peeked in. She greeted him, and he waved to her without removing his eyes from the computer screen. She continued past, but then she stopped, backed up and went back in.
“Don’t have time,” Gunnar said when she opened the door completely.
“Yes, you do,” she said calmly.
“I’m in the middle of something important,” he said.
“Like reading the newspaper?” she said.
“The media is already all over the third murder,” he said, looking up at her.
She had hoped to be met by a smile, but that didn’t happen. Instead she was met by a tired expression and the question “So what is it you want?”
“I need...to talk to you.”
“Not now,” he said.
“I just want...to talk.”
“Talk, then,” he said.
“God, you’re in a bad mood,” she said.
“One minute,” he said. “Our private matters have already taken a minute of our workday, and that time could instead have been used to check fingerprints, footprints or whatever the hell else. We have a lunatic running around loose out there who likes to cut body parts off people, and I want us to find this lunatic damn fast. I don’t want any more headlines in the newspapers.”
; “Of course,” she said, hearing how disappointed she sounded.
“And close the door after you.”
“Of course,” she said again, closing it. Hard.
* * *
“Here it is,” Mia Bolander said. “My new ride.”
It took Henrik five seconds to close his mouth, which gaped in astonishment. Mia had been counting.
“You bought a new car? When did you do that?”
“An hour ago, on my lunch break. It was going to cost so much to fix the old one,” she said, “that I decided on a new one.”
“That sounds reasonable,” he said cautiously.
And it was fucking reasonable, she thought as she unlocked the car. Every day she’d feel the usual irritation when she saw someone driving a Lexus, BMW or Tesla. Every day, she would see them in roundabouts and at intersections, seeing them as impossible dreams, as missed chances, bad choices and limitations. Almost as if they were a mockery of her and her life.
But that was over now.
Because now she had a red Fiat Lounge.
And it had suddenly made that meaningless feeling disappear. Okay, the men at the pub hadn’t paid her enough notice, so she needed to notice herself. Simply speaking, she was worth this far-too-expensive car. She was worth it a hundred times over.
She and Henrik sat next to each other in the soft seats, surrounded by the wonderful new-car smell. She started the engine, pulled slowly out of the parking lot and left the police station behind them. Ten minutes later, they turned in at Engström’s house in Skarphagen.
Henrik was three steps ahead of Mia and had already knocked on the door when she caught up.
Engström’s wife, Lina, opened the door. Her face showed no trace of makeup. She had freckles and smooth skin and wore her hair in a braid. She was wearing a red sweater and pants that were a bit too large.
She let Henrik introduce himself first.
“And I’m Mia Bolander,” Mia said, reaching her hand out. “We’re looking for your husband, Philip.”
“He’s not home.”
“No?”
“No, not yet. Did something happen?” Lina asked, staring at them with a worried expression.
“We’ve been trying to reach him on his cell phone,” Henrik said, showing his badge. “We need to talk to him. Do you know where he is?”
“He’s probably still at work,” Lina said, beginning to breathe more rapidly. “He often can’t answer his phone. He’s a paramedic.”
Mia surveyed the hallway, the hat rack with a cap and a scarf, the hangers with a jean jacket and a leather coat. And a shoe rack.
She nodded toward it, and Henrik also noticed what was sitting there.
A pair of Nikes.
“Whose shoes are those?” he said, pointing.
Lina turned around.
“Philip’s,” she said.
“What size are they?”
“Nine and a half, ten, something like that,” she said, picking up one of the shoes.
Henrik exchanged a quick glance with Mia.
“We’re going to need to take those with us,” he said then.
“Why is that?”
“A print from that type of shoe was found at a crime scene.”
“A crime scene? But what would Philip have to do with that?”
Mia thought that was a reasonable question to ask, but she didn’t intend to answer it.
“Can we bother you for a bag?” she said instead.
“Yes...” Lina said, confused, and disappeared into the kitchen. She returned with a white plastic bag.
“But what did he do?” she said as Henrik put the shoes in the bag.
Mia looked at Henrik.
“We’re just anxious to get a hold of him,” he said. “Would it be okay if we looked around the house for a moment?”
“Of course,” she said.
Henrik and Mia went into the living room, looked at the sofa and blanket, at the flickering television, at the books lying in stacks, the laptop computer on a table.
They also saw leftover take-out food cartons and candy wrappers.
“I’m sorry,” Lina said. “It’s a bit messy. I’m studying for an exam, that’s why it looks like this.”
“What type of exam?” Mia asked.
“I’m going to become a teacher.”
Mia looked at Lina as she stood under the dim light fixture. In some way, the light and shadows brought out her wrinkles, Mia thought. Even the ones that were almost invisible stuck out.
“Poor thing,” Mia mumbled, thinking about both her choice of career and her wrinkles. Then she turned her face away, looked into the bedroom at the unmade bed and the rectangular picture that depicted a white-sand beach and clear blue sea.
In the window in front of the closed Venetian blinds stood a plastic fern.
“What sort of car do you have?” she asked.
“An Audi. Why?”
Mia turned around quickly, as if the words came out of Lina’s mouth like a whip.
“What model?” she asked.
“Hmm, what is it...”
Lina whispered to herself as Mia and Henrik held their breath.
“I think we have an Audi A5.”
Mia examined Lina, looked watchfully at her and saw that she was a bit heavy in her movements, hesitant in front of them in some way.
“Where is the car?” Mia said.
“Philip took it to work,” she said, gesturing with her hand and making the wedding ring on her finger glitter in the light from the ceiling lamp. “He always does.”
“How long have you been married?” Mia said.
“In July, it’ll be exactly three years.”
“Three years?”
“Yes.”
“Where did you get married?”
“In Saint Anna’s Archipelago.”
Mia gave Henrik a knowing glance.
“Has Philip seemed strange recently?” Henrik asked as he opened the door to the bathroom, looked in, noted the empty toilet paper rolls on the floor, and continued to the kitchen.
“No.”
“He hasn’t shown any signs of stress or trouble sleeping?”
“No.”
She stared at him nervously.
“So you don’t think he’s been affected by his colleague Katarina Vinston’s death?” Mia tested.
“Katarina Vinston?” Lina said, gasping.
“Yes?” Mia said.
“That...oh my god...is she dead?”
“Philip hasn’t told you?”
“No, but wasn’t he with her the other day?”
Mia raised her eyes, looked at Henrik and back at Lina.
“What did you say?”
“He was at her house, he was there. Dear lord...dead?”
“Did you know her?”
“No, I didn’t know her. I knew who she was. I’ve met her a few times, in town and such, but we just said hi to each other. But she and Philip were fairly good friends, I think.”
“You think?”
“I don’t know...they worked together.”
“Are you okay? You look pale.”
Lina supported herself with her hand on the white refrigerator door. “The thought that she and Philip...”
“You think they had something together?” Mia asked.
“No, absolutely not,” Lina said, shaking her head indignantly. “They couldn’t. They just couldn’t. It just couldn’t be.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m pregnant.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE
SHE STARED INTO the cold-storage room of the Vrinnevi Hospital morgue at the stainless steel drawers and wondered how many bodies lay behind them waiting to be delivered to their
graves. Then Jana walked slowly down the hall toward the visitation room.
She could hear someone approaching her from behind. When she turned around, she saw a young man with long blond hair walking toward her. He was wearing a white coat and white pants. He shook her hand and looked at her almost shyly.
“I’m Sören Erixson,” he said. “Welcome.”
“Thank you,” Jana said.
“There will be two of you?”
“My father is on his way with his caregiver, I’m sure.”
“You’re welcome to go into the visitation room now,” he said, “if you feel ready.”
“I don’t know if...”
She fell silent, looked toward the door to the room and hesitated about going in. A few seconds passed as she attempted to compose herself, then she cleared her throat and opened the door. She stood still with her hand still on the door handle as she let her gaze wander over the heavy drapes, sofa and the burning candles in the black, three-armed candelabra. She looked at the chairs and the painting hanging on the wall. Finally, her gaze rested on the gurney covered in linens that stood in the middle of the room.
She stepped in, leaving the door open, and stood a few yards away from her mother, who lay there with her eyes closed and her hands folded peacefully over her chest. Her hair was combed and her lips looked moist, probably from lip gloss or Vaseline.
Jana walked toward her, reaching out her hand and holding it over her mother’s mouth, as if she were waiting to feel the tickling of her mother’s breath that she used to look for when she was younger.
She heard steps in the hallway through the open door, so she quickly pulled her hand away. It was then that she again noticed the slight bruise marks on her mother’s nostrils.
She took a careful step closer and leaned in to examine her mother’s face more clearly. Her gaze shifted from her mother’s nose to her mouth, and then she gently lifted her mother’s upper lip and looked even more closely. Could the bruise marks really come from the normal course of CPR? She wasn’t really sure now.
Quickly, Jana pulled out her cell phone and snapped a few pictures before putting her phone back in her jacket pocket and then lifted her mother’s sweater to check her stomach. She searched for more marks, but didn’t find any.
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