by Bragelonne
He walked down to the kitchen, found the notepad Father kept alongside his journal and gathered his thoughts. He had to come up with some sort of strategy. A new one. Initially, he had planned to store the majority of the bodies at his place. Recreate Father’s workshop. But he wanted Father’s approval to begin the work … and now he was dead, that bastard Jakob Svensson was waiting like a vulture to get his hands on the house. Every month, he sent his lawyers to check on Father’s health. Their last visit had been just three weeks ago.
Adam was due to return to London in less than forty-eight hours and would not be able to go back to Sweden for at least ten days. This meant he had little choice; he would have to act fast. Two days would not suffice to transport all the bodies; another solution had to be found. He knew what Father’s advice would have been: whatever you do, do it well. So he would move as many bodies as he could in the time he had to hand, while avoiding taking any unnecessary risks. He would then seal the trapdoor leading to the workshop. Once it was all done, he’d contrive for Father’s corpse to be found. There was no way that he was having Svensson’s people discovering him lying in bed in a state of advanced putrefaction.
Adam set his pen down.
Yes, the plan was perfect. And grandiose, too. With the army of dead prey locked up forever in the workshop, he would be offering Father a mausoleum, not unlike Emperor Qin Shi Huang’s. It would be a wonderful hommage to Father. He would die a hero, just as he had lived.
Grand Hotel, Falkenberg
Friday, 24 January 2014, 08.00
IT HAD BEEN A SHORT NIGHT, but her sleep had run deep. Tiredness had conquered in the struggle with anxiety.
Alexis had been obliged to cancel her dinner with Stellan the evening before, and he’d then had to leave on a business trip that morning.
She was surprised how much she missed him. She barely knew the man, after all. Incredible, she thought, how she was incapable of having the slightest emotion without feeling compelled to analyse it. She must surely learn to function differently: her mode of life was just becoming too exhausting and mechanical.
Calling on her inner resolve, she banished all the petty overthinking from her mind, the comments and remarks she could almost hear her mother already making, and focused instead on the exquisite sensation that was her craving for Stellan.
She switched her phone onto speaker and listened to her messages, then stepped over to the bathroom. Just as she was dressing, the phone rang.
‘Yes, Mother, I’m about to go out, I…’
‘Dear God, Alexis, don’t tell me you’re involved with this terrible story … But of course, you are, aren’t you?’
‘What are you talking about, Mum?’
‘It’s on every channel, Alexis! The bodies they’ve found at the sculptor’s place! Linnéa’s ex-husband!’
Alexis hunted down the remote and switched on the TV. She flicked through the channels; the same images were appearing on every network. The whole world was focused on Falkenberg.
Men carried black rubber bags, one after the other, into medical vans. The camera moved along. The scene was being filmed from afar, and the image was indistinct, but it was evident the bags contained bodies.
Alexis imagined Bergström’s fury, while her mother chattered endlessly away at the other end of the line.
‘…even the sun rises late in Sweden! Couldn’t you have gone to a spa resort or Club Med, like all single girls of your age, instead of—’
Losing patience, Alexis hung up abruptly, before she said something she would later regret.
Her phone rang immediately. It was Alba. She was obviously calling for the same reason as her mother.
‘Oh, I’m so happy to reach you, Alexis. I was so worried … Let me put the speaker on; I’m at home, with Paul.’
On the other end of the line, Alexis could hear the coffee machine purring. It was just past seven in the morning in London.
‘Are you OK? Don’t you think it’s time for you to come home now?’ Alba’s words were indistinct, masked by the sound of chewing; Alexis could imagine the thin slice of buttered bread.
‘Don’t you think this whole business is getting rather dangerous, Alexis?’
‘The whole thing is disgusting,’ Paul commented. ‘So it’s Linnéa’s ex-husband who’s behind it all?’
Alexis opened her mouth then closed it again. She wasn’t willing to answer that sort of question. ‘I’m not allowed to say anything, Paul, I’m sorry,’ she said at last.
‘I know, I know … But they’ve arrested him, I hope? Thinking of a monster like that roaming free, it’s hardly reassuring…’
‘Don’t worry her, Paul … Can’t you tell she’s in a terrible state? Do you need any help, love, anything we can do? Do you want me to come over? Or Paul?’
‘No, no, no, thank you, you’re darlings, but everything is fine. I’ll soon be back, I promise.’
Alexis put on a pair of tights, thick woollen socks and her corduroy trousers. She was pinning her hair back, as she had no time to brush it properly, when the phone rang for the third time. It was a Swedish number.
‘Alexis Castells?’
Alexis cautiously said, ‘Yes.’
‘Good morning, I’m Charlotte Linkvist. You sent me an e-mail concerning the time my father spent in Buchenwald. His name was Andreas Ulvestad.’
Alexis couldn’t recall all the Norwegian students who’d appeared on the list supplied by Hilda Thorne, but she thought it best to pretend she was familiar with the name.
‘Yes, I remember,’ she said.
‘You mentioned that you were hoping to gather information about a prisoner called Erich Ebner.’
‘That’s correct. He was a German political inmate who immigrated to Sweden after the war.’
‘My father often talked about some of his comrades, but Ebner’s name doesn’t ring a bell. However, after his liberation, he wrote a sort of journal about his deportation to Buchenwald. I came across it after he died, but have never summoned the courage to read it. I thought maybe Ebner might be mentioned in it. I don’t wish to part with the notebooks, but I can have them scanned by my assistant and send them to you by e-mail?’
Alexis suddenly found herself energised. ‘That would be so good of you, Charlotte. That would be just perfect.’
‘Just give me a second.’
Alexis heard the handset at the other end being lowered onto a desk, four equally spaced beeps, a buzzing noise, then a distant conversation.
‘If I hang up, I might forget about it, so I’m dealing with it right now. My personal assistant will take care of everything. You should have the material in an hour or so at most.’
Friday, 24 January 2014
He drags a chair towards the TV screen, sits just a few inches away from it, naked, his back straight and his hands holding his knees in a vice-like grip. The cold metal freezes his backside and his balls and spreads goosebumps across his smooth body. He watches the images being shown on every network time and again, his eyes open wide.
It’s only taken him three months to destroy sixty years of work. He closes his eyes. Sixty years in three months.
His nails dig into the flesh of his legs.
He knows the Other is furious. The Other is screaming his lungs out from amongst the dead. Vociferously claiming he isn’t worthy of his trust. That he should have fought his vanity not wallowed in it.
The Other is right.
He grips his hair and pulls, mouth open wide, cheeks drawn by his loud sobs.
HE-IS-RIGHT. With every word, a clump of hair comes loose.
He rises suddenly and runs to a corner of the room. He cowers there like a child on the naughty step, eyes fixed on his feet, arms alongside his body. He must make penance. Find forgiveness. Expiate his sins.
Almost with a jump, he moves away from the wall. Shakes his head. No, no. It’s not entirely his fault. The Other should have listened. He had a plan: transfer the bodies to his place, keep them safe. Ke
ep the collection out of harm’s way. If the Other had not been so obstinate, nothing would have happened.
And even if the Other still talks to him all the time, just like a scratched record, death has freed him from all of his obligations. And it’s such sweet freedom – much too sweet to abandon now. Oh, the sheer joy of being able to hunt alone, direct events, without having to bother with all the months of careful planning, isolated in the cellar inhaling the formaldehyde and dissecting the kids.
He has now discovered the orgasmic pleasure of sharing. His works are inspected, studied, analysed by experts. Admired, even; he is certain of that.
He squeezes his erect penis in his hand.
He must defend his territory. Chase away the intruders so he can begin hunting again.
He’ll start with that nuisance of a profiler. He will cut her breasts off and feast on her nipples. He’s heard that nipples taste like squid.
Falkenberg police station
Friday, 24 January 2014, 14.00
THE ATMOSPHERE in the conference room was gloomy.
Bergström, Olofsson and two officers were silently reading Andreas Ulvestad’s diaries. The Norwegian prisoner had written all too eloquently about the daily horror of Buchenwald.
From time to time, one would stifle a cough, or sigh with dismay.
Alexis and Emily set down their belongings, then each sat down facing a desktop computer. Not one person interrupted their reading to look up at them.
Unable to help comb through Ulvestad’s diaries, which were written in Norwegian, Emily and Alexis had been to the library to continue the research into Erich Ebner. They’d already pored over hundreds of pages, but had not come across anything of use: his name was not mentioned anywhere.
Alexis checked her e-mails, hoping someone might have picked up her message in a bottle, but all was silent on that front.
She walked over to the small kitchen to make some coffee, thinking about the young man Martha Knudsen had mentioned. She was certain he was Ebner’s son. Ebner had been a solitary man, shielding himself from the world and retreating into a haven of peace. The only person he would have granted full access to his world would have been a direct descendant. A descendant fashioned and indoctrinated by him.
‘Jag har hittat något!’
There was no need for a translation: the tone of the remark spoke for itself.
She rushed back to the conference room, the packet of coffee still in her hands.
Bergström, Emily and the two officers were gathered around Olofsson, who was brandishing his forefinger above his head, not unlike a school child calling for attention.
‘Erich Ebner, surgical student. Ulvestad and his medical student mates would meet up with him on Sunday afternoons, by the latrines, where they wouldn’t be disturbed by the SS. Why in hell the latrines?’
‘Probably because the SS avoided going there, what with the disgusting smell that came from communal toilets like that,’ Alexis explained.
Olofsson gestured his understanding and continued. ‘Err … he says the discussion often took place in English, but most of the time in Norwegian, because Ebner wanted to learn their language…’
‘Does Ulvestad say why?’ Bergström enquired.
‘No … He writes about Buchenwald before it became a concentration camp, the “opposition between culture and barbarity”. He talks about Goethe, Schiller, Liszt and Bach, who all lived in Weimar … Oh, here he goes on about Ebner again … Ebner wanted to escape Germany as soon as he could get away from Buchenwald … He was appalled by what Hitler did to the Germans and Germany … so had decided to live in Sweden … Ah! His mother was Swedish…’
‘I knew it!’ Alexis cried out.
‘…Ebner’s father was born in Falkenberg, in the state of Brandenburg in Germany. One of the Norwegians had remarked to him that there was a coastal town in Sweden with the same name. Ebner answered it was a sign from fate and that’s where he would go to settle. It was right after that that an SS officer, hidden behind the latrines, assaulted him…’ A grimace of disgust spread across Olofsson’s face. ‘Helvete! Ebner fell face down in the mud and shit … The officer took hold of him by the arms and pulled him away across the ground like a slab of meat, I quote, “who’d been hunted down”. Ulvestad writes that he never saw Ebner again following that day, but heard it said he was now part of the group of guys recruited to work in Block 46, the experiments block…’
Olofsson’s phone rang. He picked it up, his eyes not leaving the pages of the journal and handed it over to Bergström.
The Kommissionar listened to the caller, answered in Swedish, then switched the phone’s speaker on and set it down on the table.
‘It’s Linda Steiner,’ he said. ‘Martha Knudsen’s daughter. I’ve just explained to her that Emily Roy and Alexis Castells, a pair of English-speaking consultants, are working with us on the case, and she’s agreed to speak to us in English.’
‘I was telling the Kommissionar that I got your colleague’s message,’ Linda’s voice echoed from the phone. ‘I’ve just seen the news about Karl Svensson and the bodies discovered in his house, next to the old Stormare villa…’
She paused so long that Alexis wondered if the connection had been lost.
‘…I assume your questions about the summer of 1986 are connected to this affair…’
‘Can you tell us about the incident that summer, Linda?’ asked Bergström.
Again, it felt like an eternity before she finally answered. Olofsson raised his arms to the sky to show his impatience.
‘One night,’ Linda said at last, ‘without my sister seeing, I followed her after she left the house without permission. I quickly lost her in the dark. But on the beach I saw a good-looking boy, who was taking a midnight swim. I fell in love with him on the spot – you know the way you can when you’re only twelve. For the next few days, I spied on him. He lived in the house next door, so I used my telescope to see when he went out, and then found some excuse to leave our place at the same time. At first, I just watched him from a distance; but then, one day, I went out into the open, pretending I was lost. For three whole weeks following that, I would meet up with him every day – without telling my parents, of course. Until that day. It was after…’
Linda paused once again.
She hadn’t mentioned the boy’s name a single time, Emily noted. What else had Linda given him, aside from her love? Emily wondered.
‘…He made me close my eyes,’ Linda continued. ‘When I opened them again, he was holding a rabbit in his arms. He gave it to me and asked me to stroke it. While I was feeling its fur, he pulled something out of his bag … I’m not sure how to describe it … it was like two pieces of wood connected by metal dividers, with a hole set in its centre. He took the rabbit from me and forced its head into the opening. The rabbit began to struggle. I didn’t know what was happening or what he was hoping to do. I just watched, not understanding the situation at all. He told me to listen, that he was about to create a symphony, just for me. Then he took hold of one of the animal’s legs and then the other and snapped them suddenly, as if he was quite used to doing it.’ Linda exhaled, a heavy sigh streaked with sadness. ‘Then he opened the trap and twisted the rabbit’s neck. And then he burned it. He never stopped smiling the whole time he did all this.’
Another silence. As if the words were still painful enough to halt her breath.
‘I was so shocked and fearful that I did not even try and flee. I was scared that he might hurt me, I suppose. I left at the usual time – two hours later. And I promised I would meet him again the next day.’
Alexis thought she would be able to understand it if Linda’s whole life had been utterly marked and conditioned by those two hours she had spent with the young torturer.
‘Linda, this is Emily Roy speaking. What was the boy’s name and how old was he?’
‘Adam Ebner. He was fifteen.’
Olofsson thrust his fist in the air, in a sign of victory.
So Ebner had had a son. A son whose surname had not been registered, for whatever reason. But now they had a first name and could delve into the matter further, Alexis thought.
‘Did he live with his father?’ Emily continued.
‘No. He just came over for the holidays. His parents were separated. He lived with his mother.’
‘Do you know where he lived when he was with his mother? What her name was?’
‘No, he didn’t tell me, sorry.’
‘Have you kept any photos of this boy?’
Linda gave a bitter laugh. ‘Yes. Don’t ask me why.’
Falkenberg police station
Friday, 24 January 2014, 16.00
ALEXIS’ PHONE RANG just as she was putting on her coat to follow Emily to Linda Steiner’s home in Kungsbacka. When the caller had explained the reason for contacting her, she had suggested that Emily leave without her and had sat herself down again, her notepad within easy reach.
Bergström and Olofsson were following the only trail they had: the first name and the birth year of the second member of the murderous tandem. Ebner’s son had been fifteen in the summer of 1986, so the whole police station were combing through the Swedish records to find any Adam born in 1970 or 1971.
Alexis had totally forgotten their presence. She was listening to Théodore Langman explain, in his somewhat precious and pedantic French, how much he had been touched by the message from the Foundation.
‘You must understand, Ebner saved my life, Madame Castells. This was long before Fleischer had transformed him into such an inhuman monster…’
‘Fleischer?’
‘Yes, it means the butcher. His name suited him perfectly…’
Alexis was uncomprehending. ‘Who was Fleischer, Mr Langman?’