by Anna Jansson
“You sold your apartment on Signalgatan to Sandra Hagg and Lennie Hellstrom, is that correct?” Hartman’s statement evidently came so unexpectedly that Finn did not have time to think before he answered. He simply nodded curtly while he followed Maria’s work at the computer with concentration. “And you kept a key?” He nodded again.
“Where is it now?”
“I must have thrown it away, I don’t know.”
“The registry covers the entire government and everyone with key positions in society on the priority list of those who should get vaccines first. And those with the means to pay, they’re marked with a chip too? What is your role in this, Finn Olsson? Who set up the registry?”
“I’ll answer that when my lawyer gets here.”
“Okay. There are traces of blood in your car. Can you explain that?”
“I’m not answering any questions until my lawyer is here.”
Hartman’s questions fell thick and fast. “Until quite recently you had a key to Sandra Hagg’s apartment and you knew that your sister had email contact with Hans Moberg, a suitable victim who could take the blame for the murder. We think you emailed him and got him to go to the apartment after you killed Sandra.”
“Prove it.”
“I don’t think that will be very hard. Take him to the car,” said Hartman to the police officers who had entered the room. Maria was still standing as if bewitched at the computer, watching how her colleagues’ social security numbers came up on the screen as they passed through the door.
On the front pages, images of infected birds like grotesque fighter planes ready to attack the civilian population of Gotland had been exchanged for close-ups of Finn Olsson and Viktoria Hammar. Accused of the murder and intention to murder Sergei Bykov, Sandra Hagg, and Tobias Westberg. The news generated dismay throughout the island and the police spokesman submitted a report to the media every hour on the hour.
Later that evening, when Maria arrived to finally pick up her son from the sanitarium in Follingbo, she saw that Jonathan Eriksson was at his desk. She could only see the back of his head and she felt a shiver through her body. First she thought about slipping up and giving him a hug, but he was on the phone. She did not want to disturb him, so she stood quietly by the door and waited for him to finish so that she could talk with him. Say thanks and decide when they could meet again, if he wanted …
“I’m coming home soon, Nina. Have you made dinner? Sounds good … Malte has missed you … No, I’m not going to leave you, Nina. I promise to stay if you accept treatment … I promise. Yes, I promise. Malte needs both of us.”
Maria did not wait for him to turn around. Silently she slipped away. If he wanted to start over with Nina there was nothing more to say. She didn’t want him to see her like this, not when it felt like she was going to start crying. She only had herself to blame anyway, falling for a married guy. She just had to gather herself up and move on.
He must have caught a glimpse of her, because he called her name. But Maria walked faster and disappeared up the stairs.
“Maria!” Not now, Jonathan, maybe another time, she thought. “Maria!” She did not wait and his voice died away.
When she pressed Emil hard in her embrace she could not hold back the tears. He was healthy, and that was the important thing.
“Why are you crying, Mom?”
“Because I’m so happy.”
“I get to go home today, too,” said Nurse Agneta. “I get to go home and hug my kids.”
Chapter 40
Like a boiling witch’s brew the fog rolled in over the smooth cliffs; the outline of the mainland faded and disappeared from sight. The dark gray water, which turned into frothing white foam as it struck the pier and the stones, became peaceful under the blanket of clouds. Minister of Equality Mikaela Nilsson sat wrapped in a blanket on the terrace of her cottage on an island in the archipelago, where she’d asked to be left alone for a week. She was seeking solitude to grieve in peace, with no one taking her picture for the tabloids. Grief is a form of stress, and stress can express itself in many ways in your body. She was well aware of that. It could even manifest as a fever, according to a popular science magazine she’d read. She actually did feel a little tired and feverish. She had deliberately chosen not to take her cell phone along this week. No TV either, no newspapers, only radio to listen to music on P2. Perhaps it was a little foolhardy not to bring the cell phone, but she wanted to be undisturbed.
The last three days on Gotland she had kept watch at her mother’s deathbed, and only an hour or so before the plane to the mainland took off did Angela quietly pass away after a long period of illness. Leukemia. Infection had set in. In consultation with the doctor, Mikaela had decided that her mother should not be treated and prolong her suffering.
Mikaela had traveled to Gotland with her mother, despite her weakened state, because Angela wanted to have a final wish fulfilled. She wanted to see an old love again.
Mikaela had driven her to see Ruben Nilsson in Klintehamn, and waited in the car after she led her mother to the outside door. “Now I’ll manage on my own,” Angela said so firmly that Mikaela had no choice but to obey. This was a sacred moment and something in Angela’s eyes and posture showed that nothing that happened after this encounter would matter. She needed to experience the reconciliation in order to cross the threshold.
“I treated him so badly,” she said when she turned around one last time and the wind from the sea took hold of her wavy white hair, lifting it up like a veil.
“What did Ruben mean to you?” Mikaela asked Angela before they left Klintehamn. According to rumors, he was an eccentric uncle she had never met because her father and his brother had a lifelong conflict. She would have liked to go in and meet him, but Angela refused.
“He was the life I never lived,” she said, and then she fell asleep and slept the rest of the way out of pure exhaustion, with her head hanging loosely in the seatbelt.
Mikaela went into the kitchen to make coffee. She truly felt weak and strange, and she was cold, too. But it felt wrong to go lie down in the middle of the day. To keep herself awake she turned on the radio for the first time since coming to the island. She had wanted to refrain from taking in the outside world, instead trying to find herself and understand how life turned out as it did. Right now she felt abandoned and the perky voices on the radio gave her the illusion she was not nearly as lonely as she felt. Next March she would turn fifty. Many of her girlfriends had both children and grandchildren, but for Mikaela, life had no such thing in store. A few brief relationships and one longer one, a broken engagement, and many shattered hopes later she realized that love for another human being was too hard for her to manage. Perhaps it was because of her parents’ love-hate relationship; their need for control bound them together for life. Or else perhaps, as the rapist maintained, it was because Mikaela had been abandoned so often while Angela went in and out of mental hospitals, leaving the girl at foster homes or with friends and neighbors. At that time, fathers did not stay at home with their children. Perhaps they were both true, or maybe they were only rationalizations. Perhaps she just needed an explanation for a life marked by abandoning rather than being abandoned. As a little girl, Mikaela kept Angela’s photograph hidden under her pillow. My beautiful, beautiful angel mama. When you come back everything will be fine. Then there will be laughter and hugs and warmth again. But it didn’t turn out that way.
“What did Ruben mean to you, Mother?”
“He was the life I didn’t live, but I got you instead, my angel.”
Mikaela poured a cup of coffee. She wrapped her feet in the blanket and pulled on the thick knit wool sweater she inherited from Angela, while she absentmindedly listened to the radio. It was about the bird flu, a monotonous harping that she was fed up with. She was about to change the station when a new voice broke in and spoke about the government administration. The female voice said that the majority of the Cabinet members had become ill with bird flu
, probably due to the fact that someone on the airplane from Gotland had been infected, even though they had been careful to control the contacts members of the government had had. Mikaela reproached herself. She had not reported the visit with Ruben Nilsson in Klintehamn to them. It had been like a matter of honor to keep it secret … for Angela’s sake.
“Considering all the contacts members of the Cabinet have had in the past few days, we must view this situation very seriously. The infection is no longer limited to Gotland and we fear that there will be numerous cases in the days ahead. We therefore ask anyone with flu-like symptoms not to visit hospitals or health centers. Instead, county councils will set up bird flu information lines, and doctors will make house calls. There is no cause for alarm, however. We will take care of your calls in order.”
Mikaela turned off the radio. She went into the bedroom and crept in under the blankets. The photograph of a young Angela was on the nightstand in a cheap wooden frame clad in black cloth. Mikaela stroked her finger over the frame draped in mourning and fell into a deep sleep.
About the Maria Wern series
Anna Jansson’s crime series featuring Maria Wern—a complex and flawed woman with whom readers have come to know and love—are set on Gotland Island. While struggling with raising two children as a single mother and still mourning her husband’s death, Maria manages to sustain her female perspective and approach to life in a harsh and male dominated environment.
The Maria Wern series has been turned into a successful TV series that has been broadcasted in Europe and in the U.S. during 2012. The Swedish actress Eva Rose portrays Detective Inspector Maria Wern.
About the Author
Anna Jansson was born on Gotland and grew up with storytelling. Everything she writes is pervaded with the intensity typical for fairy tales and her love for mythology provides a lot of inspiration. When she began to write her drive was to tell stories about people she met at the hospital, where she worked as nurse for many years. In a genre full of sudden, wicked death, Anna Jansson also manages to keep a discussion about present ethical problems concerning people’s relation to life and death.
Anna Jansson is a master of tempo changes, from descriptive where the story needs it, to thrilling action when the investigation escalates or the relations between the characters are intensified. Anna Jansson finds a unique tone for each character.
Read the beginning of
KILLER’S
ISLAND
BY
ANNA JANSSON
To be released by Stockholm Text in
January 2014
By simply tapping the keyboard he was able to watch, via satellite, the day-to-day lives of ordinary people; how they opened their front doors and took their dogs for walks or bumped into friends on street corners, as if things were ruled by chance—for these superstitious, dim-witted beings still believed in chance. His constant observation of them made him feel powerful. He registered their habits, began to predict where they’d be and who they’d meet. It had been child’s play hacking into the Russian satellite that monitored the gas pipeline near Gotland. That its reception was so technically advanced came as a surprise. When weather conditions were favorable he could even watch their unsuspecting faces. This, perhaps, gave him more satisfaction than anything else.
Chapter 1
Friday, June 7, was an unusually hot day. Long into evening, the heat still lingered in the narrow alleys of Visby. A pale dusk lay over the creased surface of the sea, lighting up the dark bastions of the city walls and the monastery ruins hailing back to another, more powerful time. The silhouettes of the stepped gable houses that had been warehouses in Hanseatic times stood out eerily in the red-glowing evening light. In the distance someone was playing a wooden flute. A sad, medieval melody.
When Maria Wern started wandering home from Quay 5 at about nine o’clock, she immediately cursed her choice of shoes. Admittedly quite gorgeous, with sharp heels, pointy toes, and ankle-straps, they were nonetheless nearly impossible to walk in. The air was still clement. On the whole, she reflected, it had been a pleasant evening, apart from the last hour when Erika, as the situation warranted, had worked herself in a tizzy about a man. At such times she grew deaf and blind to anyone else. It was at that point that a fruity cocktail equipped with a straw and umbrella had landed on the table in front of Maria.
“Something for the lady, from that gentleman by the door.” There was a scarcely hidden, teasing quality in the waiter’s smile.
Someone had weighed up the situation and was now opportunely moving in for the kill while she sat there, left to her own devices. Maria glanced up toward the door. The gentleman in question winked at her and carefully rotated his open palm in the air—like in a comedy movie. Hey, it’s me! No, she wasn’t quite as desperate as that.
“I think I’ve reached saturation point. Tell him thanks.” Maria stood up and tried to make eye contact with Erika, now deep in conversation with her new acquisition. His name was Anders, he was a district medical officer in town and seemed unusually sympathetic. Was he married or a sociopath or a drug user or annoyingly perverse? There was usually something wrong with good-looking men who were apparently still available. When Erika invited him home, Maria couldn’t help but feel a little tingle of anxiety. As a police officer, Erika knew one could run into crazies in a bar.
“Careful!” Her text message did not seem to get through. Although, when she thought about it, it occurred to her that he might be the one in need of a warning. Erika was usually more than capable of taking care of herself. “Erika, is your cell phone switched on?” Maria whispered as she stood up.
“Mother hen! You know I won’t be calling you tonight.” Erika laughed affectionately and gave her arm a squeeze. “Everything’s totally cool, okay?”
“Exactly.” Anders cut in. “Too cool if you ask me. I’ve got my daughter at home and my old mom babysitting. She’ll be wanting a lift home at a respectable hour, so it’ll just be a peck on the cheek at the door, I suppose. After that I’ll be making my own way back through the dangerous streets of Visby.”
They all paid for themselves, then walked out into the lukewarm night. There was a gusting southeasterly wind pushing them away from the edge of the quay. The streetlights reflected in the black water. Music and humming voices could be heard from the boats in the marina, but the main seafront was almost deserted. They separated at Donner’s Place and Maria continued homewards down Hastgatan toward Klinten. Her feet were insanely sore. She tried walking barefoot, shoes in hand. Noticing the glimmer of glass and sharp bottle caps here and there, she was careful about where she put her feet. A taxi stopped and picked up a couple in party clothes. A taxi ride was not an option for Maria, whose finances were stressed. Anyway, she was almost home. She continued to Wallers Plats and then turned off down Sodra Kyrkogatan toward the Cathedral, whose black steeple could already be glimpsed over the house roofs. She avoided the main square and headed for Ryska Grand so she could take the long, steep Cathedral stairs up to Klinten as a workout—a punishment for being lazy and staying away from the gym all week.
Further down Ryska Grand, Maria heard a call for help. A pubescent voice, just at the cusp of breaking. At first it seemed unreal: three hooded men standing around someone on the ground, kicking him. The lane was dark, but she could see some of the kicks hitting his head. The figure on the ground was a boy, no more than perhaps thirteen or fourteen—just a few years older than Maria’s own son. Every kick catapulted his gaunt body off the ground. He was screaming.
“Stop that! Stop! Police!” Maria got out her police badge and tried to make her voice as strong and authoritative as possible, although she was trembling inside.
The three men looked up. They seemed to weigh her up, measure her with their eyes. If she could calm things down and make them respect her, she might just be able to resolve this without further violence. Purposefully she walked up to them. One against three. She dialed the emergency number on her cell phone.
At best this would make them leave the scene, so she could save the boy. Answer the phone! She was placed on hold, an automated voice telling her the waiting time should not exceed three minutes. Three goddamn minutes! The tallest of the three men smiled scornfully at her as he unleashed another kick into the kid’s stomach. The boy went completely silent, likely unconscious. One of the other men hit Maria hard, knocking her cell phone out of her hand and then crushing it under his steel-toed shoe. Maria bent down to see how things were with the kid. His face was been beaten to a bleeding pulp, his body was limp, and he was no longer shielding himself with his arms.
“Stop! You’ll kill him!” Only then did the fear really hit her.
A tall man in his seventies wearing a cap and a light-colored overcoat appeared in the lane. Maria cried out for help but the man hurried by as if he were deaf and blind. His long overcoat flapped around his legs. He didn’t even turn around. She saw the gray hair down his neck, hanging over his collar.
“Hello! Can you call the police! Help us! Call the police!” Her voice was still strong and authoritative.
The man disappeared. He was out of the game. Coward! Next time you’ll be the one who needs help! You’ll have to live with this for the rest of your life, Maria wanted to shout after him. He must help them, he must pick up the phone. Couldn’t he see that? She filled up with impotent anger. The next few minutes would determine whether they came out of this situation alive.
“Don’t come here poking your nose in this, fucking cop cunt!” The tall one aimed another kick at the boy. Maria didn’t know where she got her strength but somehow she managed to shove him so that he lost his balance and fell. His kick missed the victim’s head. One of them, shorter and fatter than the others, seemed to be drugged. His movements were floppy and his pupils tiny, like fly-specks. “Shit, Roy, maybe we should leave it and get out of here.” The others weren’t listening to him. The tall one resumed his attack on the defenseless boy on the ground. Maria screamed, called for help, clawed them, tugged at them, fought like a wild animal. They’d kill him if she didn’t manage to stop them. That boy was not much bigger than her son, Emil. In her mind, he might as well be Emil. Maria gave it all she had. She punched and kicked and roared for help, then managed a direct hit in the tall one’s groin, leaving him doubled up. At the same time she was kneed in the small of her back by one of the others. She fell to the ground, a hissing sound in her head. A hard fist slammed into her face. There was a taste of blood in her mouth. The pain had winded her. She crawled up again, took a kick in her back and lost her balance. Fell. Crawled to the boy on the ground and laid on top of him to protect his head, using her body as a shield. A powerful kick thundered into her side. Then another. She felt as if something inside her just exploded into smithereens. The pain was unbearable. She went into deep concentration, focusing on protecting the boy’s head and also her own.