Slowly We Die

by Emelie Schepp

  “Should I come and get you?” she said. “Tell me where you are and I’ll come pick you up.”

  “No,” he said. “That’s a bad idea.”

  “What makes you say that? You’re scaring me, Philip.”

  “I have to take care of this myself. Call Sandra and ask her to keep you company.”

  “But why, Philip?” she sniffed.

  “Because then you won’t be alone if I don’t come home tonight.”

  “And why wouldn’t you come home, Philip? What are you going to do?”

  He hung up and let his cell phone sink down into his lap. He felt almost detached from the feeling of fear.

  His heart pounded in his chest as he reached his hand out toward the ground and began digging with his fingers. The damp earth felt cold against his skin, and he let his fingers slip around in the cold dirt. He found a stone and gripped it. He didn’t resist the idea that he felt a little less alone that way, with his hand around a stone.

  * * *

  “So Philip was a doctor?” Mia Bolander said. She sat on a chair in Henrik Levin’s office with her legs outstretched.

  “Yes,” Henrik said, “and he wanted to specialize in surgery.”

  “How long ago?”

  “He began his education right after high school, but instead of studying in Sweden, he chose Poland because it’s easier to get into med schools there,” Henrik said.

  “But did he ever work as a doctor?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “But if we assume that he did, and we also assume that he worked at Vrinnevi, then it’s possible that he met Shirin and Johan there,” Mia said. “And if they worked in the same department, we should also check who else worked there at the time. The next victim might be on that list. Philip might be looking to erase other colleagues?”

  “Hold your horses, Mia,” Henrik said.

  “But something must have happened, right?”

  Henrik paused for a moment before turning to the door where Anneli Lindgren had just stepped in. She didn’t say hello. Instead, she walked straight up to his desk. Henrik saw that she looked both tired and upset.

  “I’ve gotten the results about the shoes you found at Philip Engström’s,” she said. “There’s no doubt that his shoes made the impression in the flower bed.”

  “Just as we thought,” Henrik said.

  “I’ve also looked into this narcotic, Ketalar, which Ahlmann found in both Shirin’s and Katarina’s bodies. It’s in the medical bag that paramedics use.”

  She examined Henrik and Mia.

  “Now, I’m no tactical investigator, but doesn’t it seem that all of the clues point in the same direction?”

  “It can hardly be a coincidence,” Mia said.

  “And I’m thinking that Philip has had every opportunity to move freely about the crime scenes,” Anneli said. “No one would question that he left traces there. No one suspects the one who comes to help.”

  * * *

  I’m truly an idiot, he thought. What the hell am I solving by sitting here? Nothing. I’m just making everything worse.

  Philip Engström had been gripping the stone for so long that his hand had begun to hurt. There was no point in running.

  He was going to become a father, and that was his most important duty right now. And he realized that there was only one alternative left in which he could anticipate even an ounce of sympathy and possibly find a solution.

  He saw the police cars and listened to the car doors opening. When he heard the yells, he felt a huge relief. He would give up; let them take him in.

  He let go of his cell phone and felt the calm rising, straight through his body.

  Then he stood, turned his back to the police and put his hands on his head.

  * * *

  She was almost to Knäppingsborg. Jana looked at the people moving around her, most of them with headphones plugged into their cell phones. Some were also carrying grocery store bags.

  She walked past a newsstand and saw that the free newspaper had dedicated multiple pages to the police search for Danilo Peña. Jana grabbed a paper and flipped to the articles that described in detail how Danilo had escaped from the hospital and how he had then disappeared without a trace. On the cover was a blurry photo of him as he lay on a stretcher. The photo had been taken in connection with his capture at the boathouse in December. The same picture was probably being circulated around the social networks. Maybe it was even trending right now on Facebook.

  That’s not good, not good at all, she thought, tossing the newspaper in the nearest trash can.

  Just then, her cell phone vibrated in her pocket. She continued walking as she answered.

  “Jana speaking,” she said.

  “We have Philip Engström,” said Henrik on the other end of the line.

  She stopped.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where did you find him?”

  “In a grove next to a field. He gave himself up without any resistance.”

  Jana raised her gaze.

  “And when will you begin the interrogation?”

  “As soon as possible.”

  “Good,” she said, turning around and heading back to the police station. “I’ll be there.”

  “You don’t need to,” Henrik said.

  “But I want to.”

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-FOUR

  HENRIK LEVIN SAT as comfortably as he could on the chair in the interrogation room. He carefully studied Philip Engström, who sat directly across from him, examining his face and noticing a certain anxiousness. The man’s lips were pressed together in a thin line, his shoulders were drawn up, and his gaze fixed on the table in front of him.

  Next to Henrik sat Jana, and behind the one-way glass stood Mia and Gunnar.

  For a moment it was completely silent in the room, and Henrik used that silence to plan the course of the impending line of questioning.

  He felt calm, relaxed, prepared. He thought about the questions he was going to ask and in what order he should ask them, without wasting energy on meaningless speculations or assumptions.

  He observed the man who was still dressed in the ambulance uniform he had been wearing when he disappeared from his workplace that afternoon. He wondered what was going through this man’s head at that moment.

  Jana crossed one leg over the other. She simply sat there, back straight and pen ready with her legal pad. Henrik cast a glance at her and was met by her steady gaze. He noted her clothes, the jacket in dark blue fabric and the pure white blouse underneath. She nodded to him as if to say that it was time to begin, and he nodded back as if to confirm her encouragement. He began the interrogation by saying the date, time and the names of those present in the room. Then he leaned back, put his forefinger under his nose and asked: “Do you know why you’re sitting here?”

  Philip Engström nodded.

  “We would appreciate it if you answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to the questions.”

  Philip nodded again, without saying anything.

  “Would you begin by stating where you have been the last few hours?”

  Philip took a deep breath, and on the exhale, his shoulders sank low enough that he didn’t look as anxious anymore.

  “I don’t have a good answer,” he said. “I think I panicked.”

  “Over what?”

  “Over everything that’s happened.”

  “So you hid in a grove of trees?”

  “It was dumb, but, yes. I didn’t know what else I should do. I really had no idea that I would end up there. Before I did, I mean.”

  “But you’re aware that it could be seen as suspicious behavior to run away like that, above all when you know investigators are looking for you?”

  “Yes,
I understand that.”

  Henrik raised his eyes a bit. “So what’s happened here,” he began, “is that there have been three murders.”

  “Yes, I know,” Philip said.

  “And for some reason, your name has come up during our investigation.”

  Philip sighed. “Yes. I know.”

  “And we think that is very strange.”

  “I understand that,” he said again.

  Henrik thought for a moment before asking: “You’re married, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you’re not wearing a wedding ring.”

  “No, I lost it.”

  Henrik flipped through his papers and held out a photo.

  “Is this your ring?”

  Philip examined the picture.

  “Yes, that’s it,” he said. “Where did you find it?”

  Henrik didn’t answer.

  “But where did you find it?” Philip repeated.

  “We’ll get to that,” Henrik said.

  Jana took a piece of paper out of her briefcase just then and passed it over to Henrik, who placed it on the table in front of Philip.

  “Can you explain what this is?” he said.

  Philip leaned cautiously forward and read what it said.

  “It’s a document from the National Board of Health and Welfare.”

  “Exactly,” Henrik said. “These are excerpts from the Registry of Authorized Health and Welfare Personnel, which covers people who sought and received authorization for careers within the health and welfare field. And can you tell me whose name is on this paper?”

  “My name.”

  “So you’ve worked as a doctor,” Henrik said, giving the paper back to Jana.

  Philip sighed again.

  “Yes,” he said finally.

  “But not anymore?”

  The room fell silent.

  “No,” Philip said.

  “Why not?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “One which we really want to hear.”

  “I don’t know if I can tell it,” he said.

  Henrik paused for a long time.

  “Okay,” he then said, “then maybe you can tell us about Shirin Norberg instead. How did you know her?”

  “I...I don’t know.”

  “But you know who she is?”

  “No, see...” Philip shook his head stubbornly.

  “Listen,” Henrik said. “Right now, you can only lose by lying. The only thing you should be doing is telling us everything you know. So don’t sit there looking at me as if I were an idiot.”

  Philip looked down at the table.

  “But...but the ring...” he said. “Where did you find it?”

  “Forget about the ring for now. We’ll get to that. I want to hear about your relationship to Shirin Norberg first.”

  Philip sat quietly.

  “Are you having a hard time talking?” Henrik said.

  Jana stepped in. “Can I ask you something?” she said. “There’s something I’ve wondered about a lot in recent days. How does it feel when a patient dies? I mean, when it’s your duty to save someone who is hanging in life’s balance, how does it feel to fail? Can you possibly...convey that feeling for us here?”

  She looked at him as if she expected some reaction, whatever reaction, but it didn’t come. He sat as if he were made of stone.

  “I always do my best,” he mumbled.

  “Even in your sleep?” she said.

  Philip looked at Henrik with a confused expression.

  “You recently fell asleep on a call, is that right?” Jana said.

  “Yes,” Philip said dejectedly.

  “I don’t know if...” Henrik said, but Jana held her hand up to signal that she wasn’t done.

  “What happened with the patient?” she said.

  “With the patient?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t know. I don’t exactly remember.”

  “Do you usually fall asleep when you’re out on a call?”

  “No.”

  “But how did it happen that you did this time?”

  “I’d been working a lot, sleeping too little...so that’s how it was.”

  “So what happened with this patient...while you were sleeping?”

  “Well, she...died.”

  “And what does that make you feel? Nothing? Do you have any reflections on it at all? Do you feel sorrow? Regret? Or maybe relief?”

  Philip raised his gaze, shifted in the chair, and Henrik saw a faint flush appear on his cheeks.

  “I accidentally fell asleep monitoring the patient in the ambulance,” he said. “Ten minutes at most. And when I woke up, the patient was dead. But Sandra could damn well have woken me up.”

  “You mean Sandra Gustafsson?” Jana said.

  “Yes, Sandra Gustafsson. We drove the rig together. She could have woken me up.”

  “But she didn’t?”

  “No, well, yes, she may have tried, but not hard enough, because I’m not such a sound sleeper that it should take ten whole minutes to wake me up.”

  Henrik looked at Jana, saw that she was pressing her lips together and thought she probably shouldn’t ask any more questions just then—especially questions Henrik didn’t understand the reasoning behind. If Philip had fallen asleep on a call or not wasn’t exactly where Henrik’s own focus lay.

  “To return to what we were talking about before—and I want you to be honest now,” Henrik said to Philip. “Who was Shirin?”

  Philip’s gaze wandered across the table.

  “She was a surgery nurse,” he said.

  “We know that,” Henrik said. “But what we want to know is how your paths crossed.”

  “We actually only met once.”

  “When was that?”

  “Many years ago. She worked in surgery at Vrinnevi.”

  “And you?”

  “I did, too. And Johan. That was where we met. All three of us.”

  “And Katarina Vinston?”

  “She was already a paramedic at the time.”

  Henrik leaned forward, set his elbows on the table, and said, “I am not following you. I don’t see how all this hangs together.”

  “I can understand that,” Philip said.

  “So you and Katarina worked together?”

  “Later, yes. When I stopped practicing medicine and became a paramedic nurse instead. Before that, Katarina had flown a rescue helicopter. But she said that she realized she preferred to be on the ground rather than in the air. So she started working with the ground ambulance instead.”

  “I still don’t get it,” Henrik said. “You worked as a doctor but decided to quit and begin working in EMS instead.”

  “Yes.”

  “But why did you quit as a doctor?”

  “A series of unfortunate circumstances.”

  “That have to do with Shirin Norberg, Johan Rehn and Katarina Vinston?”

  “Yes. But mostly with me.”

  Jana tilted her head to the side.

  “Shirin, Johan, Katarina and you worked in the same hospital,” she said, meeting Philip’s gaze. “Is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “So what is all this about?” Henrik said. “Three people have had body parts brutally severed...”

  Philip looked down at his hands.

  “A former patient,” he said. “And now someone wants to hurt us,” he said, “and I think I’m the next victim.”

  “You think or you know?”

  “I’m sure of it.”

  “Completely sure?”

  “Yes,” Philip nodded.

  “Okay, now,” Henrik said, placing both palms on the table. “This is new infor
mation for us. What would make you think that you would be the next victim? And who is this former patient you’re talking about? Is it someone you know?”

  Philip turned his eyes away.

  “Erika,” he said. “Her name is Erika Silver.”

  * * *

  Jana’s pen stopped working. She laid it alongside her legal pad and reached into her briefcase for a new pen. She had heard Philip Engström’s own confirmation that he’d fallen asleep in the ambulance that her mother was being transported in.

  The question was if it were the case because he was overworked, or if he had fallen asleep for some other reason, such as drugs.

  Or was he simply lying?

  She really wanted to meet with Sandra Gustafsson. Gustafsson was the only one who could say for certain what had happened in the ambulance and why someone had smothered her mother to death.

  Jana stretched her hand in the other pocket, and when she felt the folded napkin, she realized how she would do it. Instead of pressing Philip and Sandra, she decided to find out the truth for herself. And she knew exactly who was going to help her.

  * * *

  It was chilly in the interrogation room.

  Philip Engström pushed his hands between his thighs. He looked straight down at the table, listening to the investigator and the prosecutor breathe as they sat across from him.

  “I’d almost forgotten all this,” he said, closing his eyes. “It was so long ago.”

  But that wasn’t true. What had happened with Erika Silver wasn’t the sort of thing you forgot. Just the opposite; it had affected him more than any other specific event in his entire life.

  His body was relaxed, at least outwardly. Inside, he felt an enormous amount of anxiety about digging up the past, what had been buried and forgotten long ago. Now all that was going to whirl up again like an autumn windstorm.

  In his mind’s eye, he saw a clear picture of a woman lying in bed. Her lips were taut, and drops of foam came from her mouth. She was screaming at him: he was the one who took her life from her. Strings of four-letter words.

  He knew that he had made a mistake when he had taken her on as a patient. He’d known that from the very beginning.

  Over the brief years he was in medicine, he had seen so many terribly tragic fates. People with neck injuries, back injuries, people who were aggressive, who cried or screamed, who had been beaten, abused, who had lost their children, who had been subjected to incest or rape or who had attempted suicide. Yet it was the memory of Erika Silver that affected him most. It was many years ago now, and it had been a mistake, a terrible, life-changing mistake. Not just for her, but for him, as well.