Still Waters (Sandhamn Murders Book 1)

by Viveca Sten

  The last message was something of a shock.

  “My name is Thomas Andreasson,” she heard a deep voice say. “I’m calling from the Criminal Investigations Division in Nacka. I would like to ask you some questions about your cousin, Krister Berggren, and I’d appreciate it if you could contact me as soon as possible.” He gave a number and hung up.

  Kicki stubbed out her cigarette.

  Why were the police calling her to ask about Krister? She tried his number, but there was no answer. Krister had never bothered to install an answering machine, so the phone rang until Kicki hung up.

  She tried the number the police officer had left. She got through to an operator, who informed her that Thomas Andreasson would be available at eight o’clock the following morning.

  Kicki lit another cigarette and leaned back in her chair. Flakes of ash drifted down onto the pale-blue rug, but she didn’t care.

  What could have happened to Krister?

  They’d had a terrible fight after his mother’s funeral, and since then she had neither spoken to him nor heard anything from him for several months. At first she thought the fact that she had gone off to Kos served him right, but when he didn’t call and didn’t reply to her texts, she’d gotten really annoyed. She had even sent a postcard asking him to call her, but there had been no response.

  Fuck you, then, she had thought. He could trudge around back home in the slush while she enjoyed the Greek sunshine. God, men could be so miserable. They were like kids.

  And yet she really wanted to talk to him.

  There was only she and Krister left now. He was the closest thing she had to a brother. Even though his one-track mind and his lack of ambition irritated her, he was still family and could be good company. Sometimes he was the only company she had.

  Neither of them had children or a long-term partner. There had been many occasions when they had emptied yet another bottle of wine that he had “happened” to have with him from his work at Systemet, and she had wondered whether they would end up sitting there like this when they were retired. Lonely losers who hadn’t managed to get their act together. Old and bitter, passing their time complaining about everything.

  That was why she had hardly been able to believe it when the chance of a new life had suddenly come along. For the first time they had the opportunity to do something different, to live a proper life, far away from his work at the store and her smoky evenings in the casino. The chance for a serious amount of money for both of them.

  But Krister hadn’t had the courage. Kicki just didn’t understand it. It would have been so simple; she knew exactly what needed to be done, what needed to be said.

  After all, he had proof. Written proof.

  They had been sitting in his living room; Krister had been lolling on the sofa gazing at her, his eyelids heavy. His shirt was grubby, with several buttons undone. He pushed back his hair, which was in dire need of a wash, and shook his head.

  “You and your ideas. You know it would never work.” He topped off his glass of wine. “Want some?” He waved the bottle in her direction.

  She looked at him and sighed. “No, I don’t want any more wine. I want you to listen to what I’m saying.” She lit yet another cigarette, feeling furious. She took a deep drag and stared at him. This place was so depressing. A typical bachelor pad. “You could at least listen,” she tried again.

  But he had refused to take her suggestion seriously and had dodged the issue every time she’d brought it up. She had even dragged his mother into the argument, insisting that Cecilia would have wanted him to do it. She had gone over it time and time again.

  In the end she had lost her temper. “OK, you carry on sitting here, you fucking idiot,” she had yelled at him. “This is your chance for a decent life, and you don’t even have the guts to try!” She looked at him with utter contempt, seething with rage. “You’re such a fucking coward! You’ll end up sitting here in this dump until they carry you out in a box!”

  With that she had stormed out, and two days later she left for Kos without speaking to him again.

  And now she was regretting it.

  Things hadn’t been easy for Krister. His maternal grandparents had broken off all contact with his mother when she had gotten pregnant at eighteen. She had brought him up on her own and had provided for them both by working at Systemet. Being a single parent in the mid-1950s was no picnic, and Krister probably hadn’t been the easiest of children. When he left school with no qualifications, she had fixed him up with a job at Systemet, and he’d never left.

  He had never met his father nor his maternal grandparents. They had died without ever having seen him, embittered by the scandal to the very end.

  Kicki’s father had done his best to help his sister as much as he could, but he hadn’t exactly been well off either. When both of Kicki’s parents died in a car accident at the end of the nineties, Cecilia had tried to support Kicki, but she hadn’t been able to offer much in the way of consolation.

  Just a few years later, Cecilia had begun to have difficulty holding the bottles when she was working the checkout counter. It was as if her left thumb simply gave way. She started to drop bottles, and the manager was always on her back. She was in a constant state of anxiety and blamed the fact that she was close to retirement. A lifetime in the service of Systemet with all the heavy lifting involved had taken its toll.

  Eventually her coworkers had persuaded her to visit the company’s medical center. After a series of tests she was given a diagnosis by the doctors—she was suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a progressive and incurable motor neuron disease that slowly paralyzes nerve after nerve, muscle after muscle. When the paralysis reaches the lungs, the patient dies.

  In Cecilia’s case, it was no more than a year between the diagnosis and her funeral. She simply gave up. She lay down and waited for death, slowly stiffening in the fetal position and shrinking right in front of them. She had neither the strength nor the will left to fight.

  Krister had found it very difficult to deal with his mother’s condition. He couldn’t cope with watching her fade away. He would put off visiting her in the nursing home for as long as possible and refused to talk about Cecilia’s illness. He seemed to think that everything would be all right if he just pretended that nothing was wrong.

  After the funeral he had gotten so drunk that Kicki had been afraid of what he might do. He had sat at home sniveling and weeping with a bottle in each hand. After a while he had fallen asleep fully dressed on the sofa, his face red and puffy with the alcohol. It was as if he had only just grasped the fact that his mother was dead.

  Kicki poured herself another glass of ouzo. Her hand was shaking as she put down the bottle; her unease over Krister was gnawing away in the pit of her stomach. She must call Thomas Andreasson first thing in the morning and find out what he wanted.

  WEDNESDAY, THE SECOND WEEK

  CHAPTER 9

  Thomas spotted Kicki Berggren even before he reached the bottom of the stairs behind the reception desk in Nacka station.

  She was wearing a white denim jacket adorned with sparkling studs. Faded jeans, a tight pink top, and high-heeled sandals completed the picture. From behind, she looked like a young girl; she had a slender figure and boyish hips. When she turned around he could see that she was a middle-aged woman, closer to fifty than forty. The blond hair was too long to be flattering. She certainly wasn’t a natural blonde; the dark roots gave that away. A fine network of lines above her upper lip revealed her to be a habitual smoker. She was very tan, almost mahogany.

  He wondered how she had managed to acquire a tan like that in the Swedish summer. He also noticed that she was fiddling nervously with a denim purse. It was obvious she was dying to light up, but the sign on the wall was very clear: “No Smoking.”

  Thomas walked up to her and held out his hand. “Good morning, I’m Thom
as Andreasson. Thank you for coming in so quickly. I understand you’ve been away?”

  “I’ve been in Greece,” Kicki said. She gave the impression of being ill at ease, presumably because she was wondering why he wanted to speak to her.

  Thomas showed her to his office.

  “Coffee?” He poured two cups; coffee was a good icebreaker. “I’m afraid it doesn’t taste particularly good, but it’s all we’ve got. Please sit down.” He pointed to the chair opposite his desk.

  Kicki sat down and crossed her legs, her shoe dangling from one foot as if it might fall off at any moment.

  “Can I smoke in here?” she asked, more in hope than expectation. She had already opened her purse and dug out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter before she asked the question.

  “I’m sorry, but you’re not allowed to smoke anywhere inside the building. I hope you can manage for a little while longer?”

  Kicki nodded and closed her purse. Thomas could see the anxiety in her eyes.

  “What did you want to talk to me about?” she asked. “My cell phone broke about a week ago, and I just got home and heard your message and realized something had happened. I’ve tried to call Krister lots of times, but he doesn’t answer. It’s nothing serious, is it? What’s he done?”

  The questions came tumbling out in one long breath.

  Thomas took his time. This was the most difficult aspect of his job—how to tell a person that someone she cares about is dead. He decided to start with a question instead.

  “Are you and your cousin close?”

  Kicki nodded. “He’s my only relative. His mother was my aunt. We see each other all the time; that’s the way it’s been ever since we were kids. He’s only a year younger than me. We usually spend Christmas together, just the two of us.”

  Thomas took a deep breath. “I’m very sorry to tell you this, but your cousin is dead. His body was found on the island of Sandhamn in the Stockholm archipelago a week ago. He drowned and washed ashore.”

  Kicki’s purse landed on the floor. Her mouth opened, but she was silent for a few seconds.

  “He’s dead?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  Her eyes filled with tears. Thomas passed her a box of tissues; she took one and blew her nose.

  “Would you like a glass of water?” he asked.

  Kicki shook her head. She bent down and picked up her purse. She placed it on her knee and clutched it with both hands. Her mouth was trembling as she stared at Thomas, tension running throughout her body.

  “We think he died in the early spring. When did you last speak to him?”

  “I haven’t spoken to him since March. I’ve been away for three months, working in a Swedish restaurant on Kos.”

  “Was there any particular reason you went there?”

  “I went with a friend who worked there before. I got back last night and heard your voice mail. I called back as soon as I could.”

  “How often did you usually speak to one another?” Thomas asked, offering the box of tissues once more.

  Kicki squirmed uncomfortably. “It varied.” She looked down, studying her bright-pink nails.

  “But you were in regular contact?”

  “Absolutely. We don’t have any other family.”

  As Kicki described Krister’s upbringing by his single mother, Thomas came to the conclusion that there didn’t appear to be anything in Krister’s background to explain why he should have ended up on Sandhamn.

  “Do you have any idea why he might have been in the archipelago?” he asked. “Is there anyone he might have been visiting out there?”

  Thomas looked at Kicki, but she continued staring at the floor.

  Before she had time to say anything, Thomas went on. “Do you know if he ever traveled on the ferry to Finland? Was that something he did in his spare time?”

  Kicki started nibbling on one of her fake nails. It was obvious she was desperate for a cigarette; she was plucking at her jacket with the other hand and seemed to be silently cursing the smoking ban inside the station.

  “Yes, sometimes. Why?”

  “We’re wondering if he might have fallen overboard off one of the ferries. They pass by just off Sandhamn every evening. That might explain why his body washed ashore on the island.”

  “Krister wasn’t a good swimmer. He wasn’t particularly fond of water. But he did sometimes go over on the ferry, especially if there was a special deal. We went to Mariehamn together a couple years ago.”

  Thomas made a quick note about Krister’s capabilities as a swimmer, then decided to try a different track.

  “What about alcohol? Did he drink much, in your opinion?”

  Kicki nodded, chewing her nail with even greater intensity. The tissues Thomas had given her were reduced to a pile of shreds. One by one they drifted onto the floor by the leg of her chair. It looked like something a baby bird might have left behind.

  “He drank a bit. I mean, he worked at Systemet, so it wasn’t difficult for him to bring home whatever he wanted. Besides, he didn’t have much in the way of hobbies, or friends for that matter. He was perfectly happy in his own company, as long as he had something to drink and a decent show on TV.”

  Thomas scratched the back of his neck and gave the matter some thought. If Krister had been drunk, he might have gone outside for a breath of fresh air and tumbled into the water. That kind of thing happened far more often than people thought, but understandably the ferry companies preferred to keep it quiet.

  “Is there any reason to think he could have jumped overboard? Deliberately taken his own life?” He thought about the rope looped around the body and gazed at Kicki. His words lingered in the air. It wasn’t an easy question, but it had to be asked. If her cousin had been suicidal, it could explain a number of things.

  Kicki Berggren opened her mouth to say something, but she changed her mind and slumped down in her seat. Her mascara had run; she took another tissue from the box and wiped her eyes as best she could.

  Thomas looked at her. “Was there something you wanted to say?”

  “His mother died in February. He took it really bad. Even though he wasn’t prepared to visit her very often when she was ill, he was really upset afterward. He started drinking big-time.”

  “To the extent that perhaps he no longer wanted to live?”

  Kicki lowered her eyes. “I find it difficult to believe that he would jump off a ferry. He’s never talked about killing himself, in spite of the fact that he thought he’d had a lot of bad luck in his life. He used to say he’d never had a fair chance.”

  Her eyes filled with tears once more, and she shredded yet another tissue.

  Thomas felt sorry for her; it was evident that she’d had no idea why he’d wanted to speak to her. “It could have been an accident, of course. I just wanted to know whether you thought he might have been suicidal. It’s by no means certain that he killed himself. It might well have been an unfortunate combination of alcohol and circumstance.”

  Thomas ended the conversation by asking Kicki to call him if she thought of anything she wanted him to know. When she had gone, he made notes on the interview and placed a printout in the file.

  Kicki walked out of the building with her head spinning. She had been so angry with Krister, but now she understood. She hadn’t been able to bring herself to tell the detective why they hadn’t been in touch for the last few months. She just couldn’t tell him about the argument they’d had the last time they’d met. She was so ashamed of her outburst that she didn’t know what to do with herself. Her harsh words had been Krister’s last memory of her. Why had things turned out this way?

  She stopped and took her cigarettes out of her purse. At last. As the nicotine spread through her body she began to wonder if there might be a connection in spite of everything. Had Krister decided to act on her
idea after all? Without saying anything to her?

  But surely that couldn’t be possible. He would never have dared to do something like that alone, especially not while she was still away. Or would he?

  She took another drag on the much-needed cigarette.

  He must have gone on a weekend trip to Helsinki and had too much to drink. She could just picture him. Too many cheap drinks at the bar, his face growing more and more flushed as the evening went on. No doubt he had staggered out on deck to get some fresh air, drunk and overheated, and had lost his balance, just as Thomas Andreasson had said.

  A pure accident.

  Kicki’s eyes filled with tears once more.

  Poor Krister. A messy life, a messy death.

  Just like his mother.

  CHAPTER 10

  “I thought we might barbecue some pork steaks tonight. What do you think?”

  Nora looked at her husband, who was sitting on the garden seat splicing a rope. Repairing frayed ropes was almost a forgotten skill. A kind of bobbin lace–making for men. Perhaps it wasn’t an occupation one would normally associate with a radiography consultant at Danderyd Hospital, but it was something Henrik enjoyed doing on those few occasions when he had time to sit quietly in the garden. He was completely focused on the task at hand.

  Nora took the opportunity to nip a few wilting leaves off the pelargoniums on the gateposts as she waited for a reply.

  Which didn’t come.

  “Henrik,” she said again, feeling a surge of irritation. “You could at least give me an answer. Can we barbecue tonight?”

  Henrik looked up from the rope in his hand and gazed at her. “What did you say?”

  “A barbecue. Pork steaks. Tonight. It would help if we could decide what we’re going to eat before the shops close.”

  Henrik suddenly looked guilty. “I said I’d go for a beer with the guys.”

  Nora sighed. Henrik would be involved in a yacht race the entire following week. The European Championship was to form part of the Sandhamn regatta, the annual competitive sailing week when the Royal Swedish Yacht Club arranged races for different types of boats.