Block 46

by Bragelonne

  Bergström and Olofsson were next to arrive, followed by the Kommissionar’s secretary, whose name Alexis still didn’t know. The secretary set a tray with four cups and a tall thermos on the table and left silently, as she always did.

  Emily looked up and acknowledged her audience, checking if everyone was present. Alexis handed her a cup.

  ‘I’ve found something,’ Emily began, drinking a large mouthful of coffee. ‘I’ve run through all the data we collected yesterday and isolated a definite pattern. There is a regularity in the disappearances. From 1970 to 2013, a small boy disappeared every nine months or so on the west coast of Sweden. The children were all between the ages of six and ten, brown-haired and originating from orphanages or dysfunctional families. Over time, the pattern becomes even more precise: two orphans, then a child from a problem family, and so on and so on. In most cases, the police concluded that the kids had run away or been killed by someone close to them. None was ever found again. Not a single one.’

  ‘Why so, in your opinion?’

  Alexis and Bergström turned towards Olofsson. There was nothing ironic, unctuous or accusatory in his question. For once, the detective even seemed to be sincere.

  ‘Because, between 1970 and 2013, the bodies have been buried or kept in one or more private cemeteries. But, in 2013, something must have happened: a disturbing element, which caused the killers to change their modus operandi. They began killing in London, disposing of the bodies with less application. Now, they abandon their victims in plain view.’

  ‘“A disturbing element”?’

  Olofsson’s calm and courteous demeanour persisted. Bergström was beginning to wonder why the detective had not shown signs of similar humility earlier.

  ‘A stimulus, or perhaps stimuli – maybe the end of a relationship; the death of a loved one; a birth or the loss of a job – that might have created a stressful situation that led to crime, or forced a drastic change to the modus operandi established during the course of the previous killings.’

  Alexis intervened, rubbing her temple with the tips of her fingers. ‘So, according to you, there haven’t been signs of similar precision since 2013…’ She was trying to order her thoughts as she spoke, her eyes fixed on the cup of coffee. ‘Maybe the way the duo functions has been affected? Possibly the dominant one is ill, bedridden, maybe even dead? And, as a result, the dominated one is no longer under his influence. He has taken the opportunity to rebel.’

  Emily nodded. Bergström stood up and served some more coffee.

  Alexis continued. ‘Could it be that the dominant one, as you refer to him, began his work around 1970, long before all this…’

  ‘Exactly…’

  ‘…and found and trained his partner to kill alongside him?’

  ‘Hunting and killing together. Hunting down the prey is a crucial factor. Pleasure is triggered once the victim is identified: they follow him, study his habits so as to identify the ideal moment for the kidnapping.’

  ‘What sort of relationship did you have in mind – a father and a son?’

  ‘Yes, a sort of father-son relationship, but not necessarily an actual father and son. We could be looking at more distantly related members of the same family or group – say, an uncle, a cousin or someone close to them.’

  ‘And do you think they had already been on a killing spree in London but no one was aware of it?’

  ‘No. Their initial collaboration began here in Sweden. We can be certain of that. From the outset, their crimes were committed in Sweden and only in Sweden. In 2013, the new, disturbing element comes into play and changes the nature of their relationship, their synergy. The dominated personality adapts: his situation prevents him from coming to and killing in Sweden. So he commits crimes in London, instead. He cannot fully escape his craving for the act of killing. He badly needs his rituals: the hunt, the act of killing, the mutilations, the disposal of the body.’

  ‘So, how do we proceed now?’ asked Bergström.

  Emily leaned against the table, her arms folded, her gaze determined, like a lioness about to assault her prey.

  ‘There’s something else. I called an old colleague back in Canada, Arthur Hannah. He’s a geographical profiler. I only got in touch with him yesterday, as his methodology seldom works unless there are five or more victims. He wasn’t able to determine the domicile or physical locations of our killers, but he offered me a fascinating interpretation of some of the clues we’ve managed to gather so far. He put his finger on something specific. Something I should have noticed myself.’

  Emily picked up a felt-tip pen and traced a capital Y on the board, and then another one, smaller this time.

  ‘The capital Y that has been carved into the arms of the victims’ – she indicated the first one with her finger – ‘resembles the diminutive of the letter gamma.’ She pointed to the smaller y.

  The profiler turned the board round. She had pinned four closeup photographs of the actual letters carved into the arms of the dead children.

  ‘Let’s refer to these letters as gamma. Each has a different orientation, depending on the body. It’s a substantial variation; comparing the first and the third bodies the mark is situated at completely opposite angles.’

  Emily’s forefinger brushed against the first photograph then moved over the second one as she continued her explanation.

  ‘Following the shoulder-to-hand axis, the gamma is pointing north-east on Andrew Meadowbanks, south-east on Cole Halliwell, south-west on Logan Mansfield and north-west on Tomas Nilsson.’

  ‘Shit … What can it mean?’ asked a nonplussed Olofsson.

  Bergström and Alexis, as much at sea as the detective, looked at the inscriptions, still with no understanding of where Emily was leading them.

  Emily drew four minuscule gammas, each one oriented according to the coordinates she had just spelled out.

  ‘We have the end-points of a cross. And knowing that a capital gamma is shaped this way…’ She drew an upside down capital L, its base now topping the letter. Then, on her previous sketch, she replaced the four tiny gammas with a further four upside down Ls.

  Alexis rose from her chair in one single movement, holding her hand to her mouth. Bergström swore loudly in Swedish.

  ‘What we have now is a swastika, ring a bell?’ said Emily

  ‘And the Nazis wore their armbands on their left arm,’ Alexis said, her voice blank.

  ‘Exactly,’ Emily concluded.

  Falkenberg police station

  Thursday, 23 January 2014, 08.00

  BERGSTRÖM AND OLOFSSON were overseeing the investigations, barking out orders to the various police personnel, who were either busy on phones or sitting at their computers. Their superiors’ demand: find people linked to the Nazis or World War Two who might be living or own property in the region.

  ‘It isn’t so easy…’ a policewoman complained to one of her colleagues. ‘Do you think Nazi sympathisers wear an armband to advertise themselves, like carrying a designer handbag?’

  ‘Focus on the dates,’ said the other officer, chewing on his gum.

  ‘What dates?’

  ‘The dates we’ve been told to concentrate on. Key moments in the lives of the suspects, if I understand it correctly.’

  ‘Can you make it a bit clearer? My son spilled his orange juice inside the car, this morning. I had to go back home, change his clothes and then the bloody dog had diarrhoea and pooped all over the place. I had to miss most of the briefing.’

  ‘Another good reason I’m still single,’ her colleague commented, with a grim smile. ‘The profiler referred to “stress factors”. For example, divorces, births, loss of a close relative, of a job, or even the actual death of a suspect. Those sorts of things.’

  ‘Well, I have no doubt dying can be stressful.’

  Her colleague raised his eyes to the ceiling.

  ‘So what are the dates we have to look out for?’

  ‘1970 and 2013.’

  ‘S
o why did the English woman choose those years?’

  ‘She’s Canadian. The disappearances began in 1970, but bodies have only begun to surface since 2013. And you’d better hurry up, as neither Bergström nor Olofsson are in good moods.’

  ‘Speak of the devil…’

  Olofsson appeared behind the two officers, carefully balancing four steaming cups of coffee in his hands, walking towards the conference room.

  ‘There’s something I don’t understand…’ he said, entering the room and setting the cups down on the table.

  Alexis passed the coffees around, as the detective watched her.

  ‘…I just don’t get why our culprit makes things so difficult for himself. It would have been so much easier to just carve a swastika on the arms of the victims, surely?’

  Emily wrapped her fingers around the hot mug. ‘Our man is cultured and it might be that the resemblance between the capital Y and the small gamma amuses him – at any rate, that’s if we’re dealing with the dominated party.’

  ‘Hold on, I’m lost…’ Olofsson said, ruffling his hair.

  ‘Something in 2013 disturbed the life of the dominant one and/ or the dominated party, profoundly affecting their relationship, their habits, the way they function. At first, the dominated half of the duo feels lost, then he slowly begins to enjoy this new form of liberty. He becomes creative, although obviously remains prey to his fantasies.’

  ‘He still hasn’t the guts,’ Olofsson commented.

  Emily formed a weak smile. ‘He’s still not bold enough to listen fully to his own fantasies, so he keeps a distance, so to speak: he slightly changes the ritual his Pygmalion – the dominant half – has taught him. It’s a bit like lying by omission; it’s a minor transgression, but it gives him huge joy.’

  ‘You mean that, before 2013, the dominant half wasn’t carving Ys, or small gammas, into his victims?’

  ‘Indeed. Either he carved the full swastika or – it’s my leading theory, right now – just a single branch.’

  ‘Why a single branch?’

  Concerned, Bergström turned towards the detective. He must have something particular in mind to be so openly attentive and fawning.

  ‘The dominant personality considers each killing, and therefore each victim, as an integral part of a work of art, a painting if you wish, that he’s gradually creating with every new death. A piece of work dedicated to the glory of Nazi ideology. Just as there are four branches in a swastika, he requires four victims to complete his painting. But, let’s just return to the dominated half. I don’t think he’s allowing himself to deviate too far from the established modus operandi. So he retains the branch of the swastika dear to his Pygmalion, but changes it slightly as part of a cultured inside joke: a small gamma resembling a capital Y, a letter which also represents the sex of his victims.’

  ‘The bastard must have been laughing his head off when he carved the X into Linnéa, then…’ Olofsson looked around the room to see how the others had reacted to his remark. He regretted it immediately when he came across Alexis’ pale features.

  ‘Excuse me, Kommissionar. I’ve found something of interest…’ A young woman stood at the door. No one had heard her enter. ‘I’ve found a name that appears to fit with the details you’ve given us. I’m not quite sure if it’s the person we’re looking for, but I thought it would be worth raising it with you…’

  ‘So, don’t keep us waiting, Jacobsson,’ Olofsson roared.

  The young woman blushed deeply, and struggled to say anything else for a brief moment. Bergström forgot to chide Olofsson for his blustering attitude. He also wanted to hear the name.

  ‘I’ve found an Erich Ebner, a German living in Sweden since 1947. Born 1920 and died in 2013.’ She paused dramatically.

  ‘Did he have a son in 1970?’ Alexis barged in.

  ‘No, I found no link to 1970. But there is a problem…’ She paused again and Olofsson sighed impatiently.

  ‘…He was a deportee. He was locked up in Buchenwald concentration camp. So I was asking myself … why would a deportee carve a swastika, seeing it’s a symbol of his oppressors?’

  Emily turned to Jacobsson. ‘Have you heard of Stockholm syndrome?’

  The young woman nodded.

  ‘Maybe this Buchenwald prisoner was under the authority of a particularly cruel SS officer. He might have become so traumatised that he developed an emotional indifference to the horror around him, and even began to feel a sort of affection for his jailer: an affection that might have made him appropriate his feelings, thoughts, beliefs.’

  Bergström’s face shuddered with disgust. ‘Really, Emily? Do you believe a prisoner who went through hell on earth, a hell that repeated itself day after day, could ever feel empathy for his torturer?’

  ‘You have to consider this contaminating affection like an illness, Lennart. Like a cancer. Surviving inside a concentration camp was an unbelievable feat. People talk about the sheer barbarity of the Nazi camps, but only the survivors can truly understand the horror that lies behind those words. In order to survive, these prisoners had to submit themselves, body and soul, to unthinkable tortures. Emotional indifference to what surrounded them could be construed as a form of self-protection.’

  ‘You make it sound as if this might well be our man. What if he’s not?’ Alexis interrupted them.

  A strained silence fell on the room.

  ‘What was his occupation, by the way?’ Olofsson enquired.

  Jacobsson passed her tongue over her lips to wet them before answering. ‘Embalmer.’

  ‘An embalmer, is that a joke?’ the detective asked with a total lack of irony.

  ‘His address?’ Bergström said. He spoke more curtly than he would have wished. The nervous young recruit was almost on the edge of tears.

  ‘Here, in Falkenberg.’

  ‘The exact address, Jacobsson, please.’

  She handed a piece of paper she held between her quivering fingers over to Bergström.

  Bergström’s mouth opened wide and closed even faster. He knew the address well. And he knew the person who now lived in Erich Ebner’s house.

  Falkenberg

  July 1987

  A SHIVER RAN DOWN Adam’s spine. The hunt had proven exhilarating. His muscles still resonated from the sheer excitement.

  Father had insisted he sleep for an hour and a half towards the end of the afternoon, so he would stay alert through until morning. They had waited for the night to get pitch black before setting off, a little after eleven.

  For the first time, he had been the one to get the van ready. Father had placed him in charge of this part of the operation. Adam had then systematically checked the fuel and oil levels, the tyres and the tools they would require to manage Oskar’s extraction.

  They’d been watching him for nine months now. According to the correspondence they’d found when sorting through the rubbish bins, Oskar was now with his second host family, and it was evident things were not working out. The mother laboured night and day at the hospital; the oldest brother, fourteen years old, often went off on escapades and, when his wife was on duty, the father copied the son and went off gallivanting on his own as soon as the child had gone to bed. A perfect situation.

  Work and application ensured you live a life of abundance and excellence. So why opt for mediocrity? This was a question that Adam always asked as he followed the victims selected by Father. All these folk – shortsighted and lazy – lived like pigs, wallowing in small lives totally devoid of true pleasure. At the end of the day, with Father’s help, Oskar and the others would be spared their insignificant existence and all its attendant vulgarity. Its uselessness.

  To get hold of Oskar had been child’s play. The kid was downright stupid. He had no sense of danger. He had opened the door to Adam, had followed him and climbed of his own free will into the van. He had only begun to struggle when Adam had fastened the bag around his neck. Adam had held him firmly in place, watching as the bag stuck to th
e face, his eyes opened wide and the plastic was sucked into his mouth with every successive breath, until his head dropped against his chest.

  Father had then driven them back home.

  ‘Adam, pass the disinfectant and the wipes.’

  Not only had Oskar peed all over himself but he’d also defecated. So, naturally, they’d had to clean him. Shit was all over the place, and it was necessary to hose the dissection table down. Adam hated that part of the process, but Father dealt with it, his face impassive, as if he had immunised himself against the smell.

  Once Oskar and the table had been properly cleaned, Father cut open the bag that Adam had tightened around the boy’s neck and shaved his hair. He used clippers then completed the job with a blade. Adam would wipe the shining scalp while Father held the scalpel to draw the branch on Oskar’s left arm.

  When, five years earlier, Father had taken him into his confidence and he’d joined the project, he had been adamant: Adam should master a complete knowledge of anatomy; he had to observe and note every stage of the process in minute detail. This had required extreme concentration. He even had to memorise the exact dosages. Fear of forgetting, making a mistake and disappointing Father had disturbed his sleep for several months.

  ‘Adam!’

  Father was handing him the scalpel. Adam looked down at Oskar’s arm; it was still untouched. Disconcerted, he seized the blade in one hand, taking hold of the cold arm in his other hand and began his work. Father would be proud. He’d been practising for some time now, in secret, on hares. Penetrating the flesh to the correct depth, and then drawing the perfectly straight and perpendicular pairs of lines was not as easy as it appeared.