Slowly We Die

by Emelie Schepp

  She looked at Sandra again and tried to say something, but through the tape, it only sounded like short grunts.

  * * *

  Henrik Levin let his gaze rest on the park bench where the man with the stroller had been sitting. The man had now stood up to talk to Mia. Where he’d been sitting, someone had written “I was here” in ink. Henrik looked at the words while he listened to Ola Söderström’s voice through the speaker of his cell phone.

  “Sandra Gustafsson is in her early twenties, and hasn’t had an easy life. Her biological mother died when she was two years old. Her father had sole custody and suffered from severe alcohol addiction. Two reports to Child Protective Services when Sandra was three years old. One case stated that she’d been found outside her home at three o’clock one Saturday morning wearing only underwear. Her dad was there, too, but inside the apartment, sleeping on the kitchen floor. The other case was about an injury. Her preschool had noticed a wound behind her ear, and she was reported to have said: ‘Ow, Daddy!’ about the injury. But both investigations were closed.”

  “So Sandra grew up with only her dad?” Henrik said.

  “Yes, partly,” Ola said.

  Henrik again observed the park bench, thinking that her childhood must have left its mark on her.

  “But how does Erika fit into the picture?”

  “So Erika Sandell,” Ola said, “grew up in a house just outside Söderköping. She finished school with low grades. There’s evidence that she suffered from obesity and that she sought help for it.”

  “But no other problems in the family?” Henrik said.

  “No,” Ola said. “Doesn’t seem so. She’d lived at a few different addresses in Norrköping and bought the house on Leonardsbergsvägen over twenty years ago. But, hold on now, that exact address is in one of Sandra’s journal entries.”

  “So Sandra and her father could have lived with Erika?”

  “For sure. But there’s no indication that Erika adopted Sandra or anything like that.”

  “But it’s possible that Sandra saw her as her mother anyway, like a stepmother or godmother.”

  “Yes,” Ola said. “Her father drank himself to death, so she likely only had Erika in the end. And then the whole situation with the operation happened when Sandra was a teenager.”

  They fell silent for a moment.

  “Sandra is registered at an address in Karlstad,” Ola continued. “But because she works in Norrköping, it seems unlikely that she lives there.”

  “Ask our colleagues there to check that address anyway,” he said. “Doesn’t she have any connections to other properties?”

  “I’ve checked every database,” Ola said. “She doesn’t own anything, doesn’t have any land or a summer cottage. The only thing I found was a post office box here in Norrköping.”

  Henrik sighed and turned quiet. All he could hear was the sound of a soccer ball being kicked against a brick wall.

  * * *

  Jana Berzelius stopped the car. The road had split, and she leaned forward, scanning the gravel and trying to see if there were fresh tire tracks that would reveal which way Sandra had chosen. But the road was far too dry.

  It was a fifty-fifty chance.

  The road to the right was a bit wider, she thought, and decided in the end to go that way.

  “I have no idea what you’re about to do,” Danilo said, who was now sitting up in the backseat, “but it seems to be a huge mistake.”

  Jana looked at him, just for a second, but long enough to understand that he was right. She was risking everything for this mission. But right now, she had no other choice than to finish what she’d started. She stepped on the gas and drove on, farther into the forest.

  * * *

  The sun had almost set. Henrik Levin was still sitting in the car in Skarphagen with his cell phone in his hand, sweeping his gaze over the surrounding houses. Everything was still, and he saw lights had been turned on in many of the homes.

  He repeated to himself that right now, with great probability, Sandra was on the way to a place that she had planned in advance—and that they had to find it quickly, before it was too late.

  He shuddered when he thought how thoroughly planned everything had been. How she had steered the suspicions toward Philip with small, effective elements, letting them think that he was guilty. How she had placed the wedding ring at Katarina Vinston’s house to lay the blame on him. Her slow, methodical movements had almost been invisible. She had slowly approached Philip, sought the job as a paramedic, become his colleague, become friends with his wife. She had even been with him at the crime scenes—for two of them, at least. She was so coldhearted, or was she just desensitized?

  Mia knocked on the window and waved as if to ask if it was okay to open the car door. Before he’d had the chance to answer, she’d opened it.

  “Wait a moment, Ola,” Henrik said, dropping the cell phone to his chest.

  “I talked with the guy over there,” Mia said, pointing to the man with the stroller. “His name is Jonas Ekberg and he lives at 207. He says he saw a white Volvo outside Engström’s house just a little bit ago. A young woman was driving it...”

  “Which direction?”

  “Toward the on-ramp to E22.”

  Henrik raised the phone again.

  “Ola?” he said. “Did you hear that?”

  “Yep, heard it from the speaker. But it doesn’t seem like she owns a car. There’s a car registered to Erika, though, a Volvo.”

  “Put out a BOLO on it,” Henrik said.

  Henrik looked at Mia, thinking how in one direction, E22 led to the wide E4 highway, which in turn led to Stockholm or Helsingborg. In the other direction, it led to Söderköping and continued on toward Kalmar.

  A thought returned that had previously only flickered through his mind.

  “Are you still there, Ola?”

  “Yep.”

  “You said that Erika Sandell grew up in a house just outside Söderköping.”

  “Exactly,” Ola said.

  “Do you have an address to give me?”

  “You think that...”

  “Check if there is one.”

  “I’m checking, I’m checking.”

  Henrik shifted impatiently in the seat while he searched for the car key in his pants pocket.

  “I think I might have found a house, but it seems like...”

  “The address, Ola!”

  “It’s on Lilla Ladumossen.”

  * * *

  She smelled a strong moldy odor. Lina Engström was breathing rapidly through her nose, and her eyes were wide as she attempted to understand what she was seeing.

  Sandra had pushed her into a house comprised of two rooms and a kitchen, its windows boarded up. In one room, a chair had been placed in the middle of the floor. A naked light bulb surrounded by a small steel cage illuminated the room and the chair with a sharp yellow light. The walls and ceiling were made of old pine planks, and on the floor, some of the planks had begun to warp.

  In the other room was a bed, a twin bed frame of rusty metal without a mattress, which resembled more of a camping cot or a prison bed. The wallpaper had come loose from the wall and hung like a withered flower petal above the bed.

  Lina turned her head in the other direction and saw a kitchen. Flies buzzed above a wooden table. A narrow staircase led to the floor above.

  Sandra’s eyes shone, and her gaze looked calm and innocent.

  “Walk,” she said.

  But Lina couldn’t move. Her muscles were loose and tired, probably because of whatever had been in the syringe. She fought to get enough oxygen into her lungs. She struggled with the disgusting stench of mold and with the pain in her head.

  Sandra took her under the arms and dragged her over the floor toward the room with the chair. Lina felt
completely powerless as her feet dragged along the floor.

  She hardly reacted when Sandra used a knife to release the zip ties around her wrists.

  “Sit down,” she said.

  She fell down onto the chair, thinking she might as well do what she was told.

  “Arms on the armrests.”

  Lina placed her arms on the armrests and watched Sandra as she fastened them with new zip ties. She thought she saw a smile in the corner of Sandra’s mouth.

  She suddenly remembered the first time they’d met. It was at a party, the ambulance station’s yearly staff party. She and Philip had had an argument, and she’d sat in the bathroom for over an hour, exhausted and upset. Sandra had also been there.

  Philip had been looking for her, and Sandra had offered to help. She’d come into the ladies’ room, convinced Lina to open the door, and they’d talked for a long time.

  Sandra had been funny and understanding. She had listened and asked questions. Her eyes had radiated happiness and energy.

  Now she stood here with an expression that was difficult to interpret—she wasn’t the same person.

  Sandra leaned over her and folded up her sweater, revealing her belly.

  Lina shook her head and started to move her legs, trying to make noise, trying to make Sandra stop, but Sandra didn’t even look at her. It was as if she didn’t hear her, as if she were deaf—or in her own world.

  Only when she began to cry did Sandra look down at her.

  “Calm down,” she said. “I haven’t even started yet.”

  * * *

  She turned right and went up a small hill, then continued along a straight road and finally made a left turn. Then she came to a complete halt.

  Jana Berzelius glimpsed the white Volvo between the trees. It was standing still in a little glade, parked in front of a dilapidated wooden two-story house.

  She backed up a few yards, then steered onto the edge of the road and turned off the ignition. She rolled down the window, watching, listening, and knew there was a risk they were being observed at that very moment, that Sandra had heard the car approaching.

  She jerked when her cell phone vibrated in her lap. It was Henrik Levin again. She rolled the window back up and took a deep breath before answering. She tried to sound calm and professional.

  “Sandra wasn’t at Engström’s house,” he said, sounding upset.

  “No?” she said in false surprise.

  “No, but we’re afraid she’s taken Lina. We’re on our way to Söderköping. We...that Erika...grew up...Lilla...”

  Jana gripped the steering wheel harder.

  “Where are you now? Hello, Henrik, where are you now?”

  “We...have...Norrköping...will be there in...minutes.”

  “I can hardly hear you, Henrik. Can you repeat that?”

  “We...there...”

  The conversation ended. Jana looked at her phone and saw she had no signal. She swore aloud, closed her eyes and hit the steering wheel a few times.

  “Let’s take it easy, take it fucking easy,” Danilo said. “Who were you talking to? Who is Henrik?”

  “The police,” Jana said. “They seem to be on their way here.”

  “Here? Here, where we are now?”

  “Yes.”

  “What the hell? What did you say to them?”

  “Nothing!”

  “I don’t have time for this!” Danilo screamed. “Just tell me what you said to them!”

  “I didn’t say anything...”

  “You’re going to turn me in, aren’t you? How could you be so fucking...”

  She heard him move and reacted immediately by leaning forward, but it was still too late. A muscled arm wrapped around her neck, and she was pressed backward in the seat with brutal force. Danilo’s grip on her neck was so tight that her vision almost went black.

  “How could you be so fucking stupid?” he screamed into her ear.

  She gasped for air and made a weak attempt to twist out of his grip.

  Then she felt the knife scrape against the small of her back. She pushed her hand in behind her as far as she could, but she only grazed the knife with her fingertips. It seemed impossible, yet she tried again. She twisted in the seat, curving her back, and finally got hold of the knife. She quickly pulled it out and brought the piercingly sharp blade toward his arm. But he reacted instinctively—too instinctively. He pushed the knife back far too quickly and with too much force.

  It went straight into her thigh.

  She screamed in pain and felt him immediately release his grip on her.

  It took a second for her to understand what had happened. With trembling hands, she pulled the knife out and dropped it on the passenger seat. She pressed her palms against her pants and saw the blood oozing through her fingers.

  “What the hell are you doing?” she said, meeting his gaze in the rearview mirror. She looked at him, his dark hair, the color of his skin, his panting breaths...

  “Drive,” he said.

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “I have to meet someone first.”

  She lifted her hand and swore when she realized how deeply the knife had pierced her thigh.

  She gripped the knife again. She cut one sleeve from her top and grimaced in pain as she tied the piece of fabric over the open wound.

  She replaced the knife at the small of her back.

  “Who?” he said. “Who is it you’re risking so damn much for?”

  She slowly pulled the key from the ignition, put it in her pocket and said: “For the woman who murdered my mother.”

  Then she counted down, turned her gaze toward the dilapidated house and stepped out of the car.

  * * *

  The tears ran down her cheeks. Lina Engström cried quietly where she sat alone on the chair in the empty room. When she opened her eyes, she had lost all sense of time. She didn’t know if a second had passed or a minute.

  She turned her head in all directions. She felt her hair sticking to her face. She tried to move her arms and moaned when the zip ties cut into her skin. She leaned her head to the side and tried in vain to get the tape from her mouth by rubbing it against her shoulder. It was stuck tight, but then it did begin to loosen. She leaned her head to the side again, this time against the other shoulder, and pressed as hard as she could. Half of her mouth was now free. A bit of tape fluttered when she took a deep breath.

  She heard footsteps behind her, a door opening, and then even, calm breathing. Sandra was back, now with her backpack, which she placed on the floor in front of her.

  “Oh, did you take the tape off?” she said, opening her backpack and taking out a sharp object. A scalpel.

  Lina’s eyes widened, and she began sniffling again.

  “No, no, no,” she said.

  “You might as well relax, Lina. You’re not going to be leaving this house.”

  “What...what...what are you going to do?” she said.

  Sandra’s lips parted, and she showed her teeth in a wide smile.

  “You have great superficial vessels,” she said, rolling up the arm of Lina’s sweater.

  Lina shook her head.

  “Yes, you do. But we’ll try going a little farther into your stomach than that.”

  “No!”

  Something in her desperate scream made Sandra stop. She looked deep into Lina’s eyes, drew the scalpel toward her naked belly and watched her squirm.

  “Not my belly, please, not my belly.”

  “No?” Sandra said, drawing the scalpel toward her belly again.

  “No! Stop, please, Sandra, stop,” she said. “I’m pregnant.”

  “What? You’re pregnant?”

  Sandra started laughing.

  “I can see it now. You look different. How many weeks?”

>   She laid her cold palm against Lina’s stomach. Lina squirmed like a worm in the chair, trying to get away.

  “But that’s no excuse,” she said. “You’re still going to die, just not with Philip’s child inside you.”

  She raised the scalpel.

  Lina screamed at the top of her lungs as the blade sliced through her skin. Her fingers spread in all directions.

  Sandra crouched before her. “Do you know what?” she said, giggling. “You know, I truly hate Philip. I don’t understand how you’ve been able to stand being with such a wretched, weak jerk. You should be thanking me because today I’ll be saving you from a really shitty life.”

  Then she got up, opened the door and left the room.

  Lina was hyperventilating. The last thing she saw was the blood running from her belly down to her thighs, and in the next second everything went black.

  * * *

  She limped fifty yards before stopping. Another fifty yards from her stood the white Volvo, empty and dark.

  Jana Berzelius ensured that the strip of fabric was fastened securely around her thigh before slowly continuing toward the ramshackle house. She came to a door at the back of the house and pressed herself tightly to the wall, feeling the cracked, rotted boards against her back. She laid her ear against the facade and listened tensely.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a light shining from what she thought might be the kitchen and crouched down. A light, maybe a table lamp, had been turned on. She saw a shadow flutter and sweep over the windowpane.

  Sandra.

  She cast a glance toward the door and felt the handle, but it was locked.

  Crouched down, she continued around the house. The soft grass muffled the sound of her movements.

  She crept along the front of the house and listened again, but now she heard absolutely nothing.

  She carefully laid her hand on the door handle, loosened the knife from the small of her back and opened the door. A dusty, lit floor lamp was in the corner of the entryway, and she was met by the smell of damp wood and mold.

  Besides the kitchen, there seemed to be two rooms on the lower level. The door to one was open. She looked in, but there was nothing there.