by Sten, Viveca
The muffled sniggers behind his back didn’t exactly help.
But Karolina Brand was different. There wasn’t a trace of deceit in her open expression. She always seemed genuinely pleased to see him, and sometimes she would offer a piece of the cake her mother had packed.
Karolina was the daughter of the wealthy master pilot, Alarik Brand. It was his father, Carl Wilhelm Brand, who had built the beautiful Brand villa in the middle of Kvarnberget, where the island’s windmill had stood in bygone days.
They were almost the same age, and they lived not far from each other on the same island. But that was where the similarities ended.
While Thorwald’s home consisted of a kitchen, a living room, and a bedroom, Karolina’s house was one of the largest and most luxurious on Sandhamn, with pretty lace curtains and expensive rugs. No expense or effort had been spared. There was even a claw-foot tub, a new fashion previously unheard of on the island.
Thorwald had heard his father tell the story of how the tub had been unloaded from the steamboat; it had been a heavy, substantial item, carefully packaged to avoid damage. When Gottfrid came to the end of his tale, he gave a loud snort. The Brand family clearly thought they were too hoity-toity to wash in a tin bath in front of the kitchen fire like ordinary folk.
The two families had nothing to do with each other. Karolina’s father was the fifth generation in a long line of distinguished master pilots. Gottfrid spent his time with his friends from church.
Their island was small, but the distance between them was immense.
CHAPTER 33
Thursday, March 1, 2007
Pernilla switched on the bedside lamp with a sigh and saw that it was one in the morning. At least she wasn’t working tomorrow; she didn’t start her new job until Monday, but she was tired. Why couldn’t she sleep?
She padded into the bathroom of the apartment she had kept after the divorce. Thomas had kept the house on Harö, a barn conversion on his parents’ land.
The decision had been entirely logical, and at the same time heartrending.
She’d moved to Gothenburg right after the split and had rented out the apartment. Now it felt strange to be back in the home she had shared with Thomas.
Her tenant had used the smaller room, once Emily’s nursery, as a study. The changing table had been replaced with a desk and a slim bookcase.
The transformation came as a relief to Pernilla. There was still so much here that reminded her of their baby, even though the initial, paralyzing grief had eased. These days it was more like a nagging ache, a dull pain that she always felt, but that no longer governed every step she took.
She filled a glass with water and emptied it in one go. In the cold light her feet looked white and veined against the tiles. Her stomach had been flat for a long time, with only a few barely visible stretch marks to show that she had once carried a child. Tentatively she ran her hand over the skin.
Would her womb ever nurture a new life again?
Like Thomas, she was tall and slim, five ten in socks, but she always felt small next to his impressive stature. She’d worn high heels when they’d gotten married, and the photos were beautiful. She had chosen a simple white dress, with lily of the valley in her hair and her bouquet. Thomas was in a pale suit and already had a tan, even though it was early spring. He had been with the maritime police back then, spending a lot of time outdoors. They had danced all night, and it had been the happiest day of her life.
Until Emily was born.
Pernilla refilled her glass, sipping slowly this time before replacing it on the side of the basin. When she and Thomas were still married, two ceramic mugs had always stood in that spot: hers white, his black. They had bought them in a small store on the island of Gotland when they were visiting friends. She had liked seeing those two mugs side by side, like an old couple. When she’d rented out the apartment, she had put them away, and now she didn’t know where they were.
She hadn’t had a relationship since. She had been on the odd date, and occasionally gone home with her companion, but she’d never been particularly interested. She had put all her energy into her new job, politely but firmly declining her coworkers’ invitations to experience Gothenburg’s nightlife, and had gradually learned to wake up in the morning without bursting into tears.
Her commitment and the long hours she put in had paid off. She was put in charge of some major clients, then one day, almost exactly two years after she had left the city, a top advertising agency in Stockholm called, offering an exciting job opportunity and a higher salary. She knew it was time to move back home.
And here she was.
She couldn’t really explain why she’d contacted Thomas, but she knew that she missed him, that he made her whole. Divorcing Thomas had been the hardest decision of her life.
She had fallen for him at first sight and had loved him with an intensity that sometimes scared her.
Yet, in spite of that, she’d hired a lawyer and meticulously found out exactly what needed to be done to dissolve their marriage. She had discussed the legal details as methodically as if she had been working on a project at the office.
There was no alternative.
Everything had changed after Emily’s death. Pernilla hardly remembered those first days and weeks. She was in a fog of guilt and terrible nightmares, where she dreamed over and over again that she woke up and saved her daughter.
Thomas spent all his time at the police station. On the few occasions he was home, he looked at her with eyes full of accusations. He never actually said anything, but she knew that he blamed her for having been asleep the night Emily stopped breathing.
If she had just woken up, Emily might still be with them. If she had looked after their daughter properly, tragedy might have been averted. Thomas was convinced that someone must bear the responsibility for Emily’s death. His view of right and wrong was very clear-cut; he had a police officer’s perception of cause and effect. There was always someone who could be held to account.
And if it wasn’t Pernilla’s fault, whose was it?
It was a mother’s duty to watch over her child. She was breast-feeding Emily, and got up at least once every night when her daughter cried. But that night, when no cries woke her, Pernilla had slept straight through, exhausted from night after night of colic.
In the morning, it was too late.
Pernilla had asked herself hundreds of times why she hadn’t woken up, why she hadn’t realized that something was wrong. She had reproached herself over and over again for sleeping while her daughter’s lungs collapsed and the little body grew cold.
Not even Thomas’s blame could be worse than her own thoughts.
He stopped talking to her, stopped touching her. Night after night he stayed at work so late that she was asleep before he got home. On the weekends he volunteered for extra shifts, or worked out like crazy at the gym until he was totally worn out.
They had always had a very physical relationship, enjoying each other’s bodies and the intimacy of their partnership. Even when she was heavily pregnant their sex life had continued, gentler and more cautious than before. When that disappeared, Pernilla knew their marriage was over. She couldn’t live that way, and she couldn’t fix things. Staying together was worse than living alone.
Her energy had surprised her. In less than a month she had sorted out all the necessary paperwork and found a new job in Gothenburg. Thomas hadn’t protested when she said she wanted a divorce; he had simply accepted the situation and gone with her to see the lawyer. He had raised no objection to the proposed division of their assets; it was as if he hardly noticed what he was signing.
The most difficult moment had been afterward, outside the lawyer’s office; that was the last time she’d seen him. It had been unbearably painful and had taken every ounce of her self-control.
He was the love of her life. She had no idea how she was going to cope with the loss of both Emily and Thomas.
She had wanted
to throw her arms around him and never let go. Tell him she wanted to try again, beg and plead if necessary, even though she knew it was pointless.
It was too late. Everything was too late.
Thomas was stiff and distant, an icy stranger, and when it came to the final moment, she hardly dared say anything at all. She had merely held out her hand, as if to bid a polite farewell to a passing acquaintance.
He had looked appalled; even that small gesture had been too much. Thank goodness she hadn’t tried to give him a hug, she had thought, but his coldness sliced through her, and she’d had to fight to hold back the tears.
She had carried the memory of the expression on his face for a very long time.
She switched off the bathroom light and went back to the empty bedroom.
CHAPTER 34
Mats Larsson was already sitting at the conference table when Thomas and Margit walked in. He had a stack of papers in front of him; he glanced up and smiled but went on reading.
After a few minutes the rest of the group had arrived. It was just after eight. Everyone found a seat and put down their coffee cups. All eyes were on the psychological profiler, and there was a keen sense of anticipation in the air.
The Old Man cleared his throat discreetly. His face wasn’t quite as red as usual. He nodded to Larsson, handing over the reins of the meeting.
“I’ve gone through the case material, and I’ve also studied similar cases in other countries,” Larsson began. Today he was wearing a brown tweed jacket over a knitted waistcoat. He looks like a professor, Thomas thought. Is that what happens when you train with the FBI?
“And what have you come up with?” asked the Old Man.
“We’re dealing with a perpetrator who, first of all, took the life of a young woman, then dismembered her body using a knife.”
“We already know that.” The Old Man couldn’t keep a hint of impatience out of his voice.
Larsson glanced sideways at him but continued calmly. “In terms of the killer’s personality, I’d say we’re dealing with a person who has very poor impulse control, and probably low self-esteem. That’s a trait that often characterizes this kind of murderer. Sometimes they even condemn their own actions.”
“In what way?” Thomas wondered.
“Sometimes killers distance themselves from criminal behavior in general, and specifically from acts like the ones they have committed.”
“Interesting.”
“This is something you should bear in mind during interviews and door-to-door inquiries. If an individual is excessively condemnatory, it might be worth digging a little deeper.”
Kalle made a note on his pad.
“Can you tell us more about poor impulse control?” Thomas asked. “Where does it come from?”
“Genetics, upbringing; there can be many reasons. A physical injury to the brain.”
“Brain damage?” Kalle asked.
“To the frontal lobe. It’s actually very common that criminals who are aggressive and demonstrate impulsive behavior have a lower level of activity in that area.”
Larsson got up and went over to the whiteboard. With a green pen he drew a head and circled the forehead, then he drew a thick arrow pointing to the center of the circle.
“These days it’s possible to find out whether there are injuries or disturbances in the human brain by using a PET scan. The brain is fueled by glucose. If we mark this glucose with radioactive trace elements, we can photograph the radiation that is given off, which enables us to establish the level of activity and to see if there’s any physical damage that affects behavior.”
“How does this damage occur?” Thomas wanted to know.
“Like I said, it can be there from birth, or it can be sustained along the way through physical violence or alcohol abuse.”
“Alcohol?”
“Yes. Both drugs and alcohol can cause this kind of damage. Alcohol also exacerbates brain injuries, as well as antisocial behavior.” Larsson pointed to his sketch once again. “Long-term alcohol abuse, which often occurs in these contexts, carries the risk of lowering already poor impulse control.”
Margit wanted further clarification.
“What does poor impulse control mean in practical terms?”
“To put it simply, the perpetrator lacks the barriers that normal people have.”
“Can you draw any conclusions with regard to our case?”
“First of all, I’m not convinced that the murder was premeditated.”
“Really?” Thomas was all ears.
“There’s no guarantee that the killer had planned in advance to take the girl’s life, but when the opportunity presented itself, he seized it. She may have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Sheer chance, in other words,” commented the Old Man.
Mats Larsson frowned slightly. “Or sheer bad luck, perhaps.”
“And afterward?” Thomas prompted him, remembering the lone body part in the pine forest, the severed forearm lying on a plastic sheet on the snow.
“You mean what he did when the girl was dead?”
Thomas nodded.
“Presumably he tried to come up with a rational way to dispose of the body. Dismemberment must have seemed like a feasible option for this perpetrator,” Larsson explained.
“Rational?” asked Margit.
“From his perspective, of course.”
“Pure evil,” Karin Ek murmured, but Larsson heard her.
“I wouldn’t necessarily call it evil. The deed itself is evil, of course, but we’re talking about a sick person here, or rather a deeply damaged person.”
He paused and took a sip of his coffee.
“The killers who’ve been convicted in recent years after dismembering their victims have all shown evidence of brain damage that went some way toward explaining their actions.” He shrugged. “We’re starting to get an increasing number of inmates in our prisons who should be receiving treatment rather than being locked up. Are they evil, or just sick?” He spread his hands wide.
Karin’s expression made it clear that she wasn’t convinced.
“Evil,” she muttered to herself.
“Can we move on?” the Old Man asked.
“With dismemberment, what’s the split between men and women?” asked Margit.
“Overwhelmingly men. There’s only one known case in Sweden where the killer was a woman. She was convicted back in 2000 of having murdered and castrated her eighty-one-year-old husband. She chopped him up into thirteen pieces and roasted his head in the oven to get rid of the evidence.”
Karin looked nauseous. Thomas remembered the case, which had attracted a considerable amount of attention, and had also brought something of a breakthrough with regard to DNA analysis.
“So we’re looking for a male killer with poor impulse control,” he summarized. Oskar-Henrik Sachsen from the forensics lab in Solna had also suggested the perpetrator was a man, he recalled.
Larsson nodded.
“Age?”
“Hard to say. Over thirty but under seventy. It takes a fair amount of strength to cut through a body and deal with the parts. Any idea of the girl’s weight?”
“No more than a hundred and twenty pounds,” Margit said.
“That’s still a lot to move around.”
“Is it possible to say anything about the motive?” Thomas asked.
“These individuals are often fixated on some perceived injustice in the past; it could go far back. The inability to let go of such grievances is part of the illness.”
“How long can they nurse this desire for revenge?”
“A week, or a whole lifetime,” Larsson said.
“You’re kidding me?”
The profiler shook his head.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound flippant, but my point is that these people don’t get over a grudge the way most of us do. They hide it deep down inside, and when circumstances allow, it surfaces in an act of violence.”
“So what might trigger a homicide of this type?” the Old Man asked.
Larsson’s expression was serious as he put down his pen.
“Unfortunately it can be a perfectly ordinary, even banal, occurrence. Think about the fatal shootings that have taken place because someone jumped a line or took a parking space. An apparently insignificant event can be perceived as such an injustice that it leads to a terrible crime.”
“What about a relationship coming to an end?” Thomas wondered. He was thinking of Louise’s description of Jakob Sandgren’s reaction when Lina broke up with him. Nobody dumps me, he had yelled at her.
“Absolutely. Look at Mattias Flink, for example; it was an unhappy love affair that led to the homicides in Falun. He shot seven people in just a few minutes.”
“He wasn’t very old, was he?” asked Thomas.
“No—only twenty-four.”
“This sounds crazy!” Erik exclaimed, opening his mouth for the first time.
Larsson nodded. “To us, yes. But you can’t take a sane person’s logic as your starting point. These guys don’t think like you or I would do.”
“I still don’t quite get it,” Margit persisted.
“There are deep-seated mechanisms that the perp has been carrying for a long time. Something happens that is perceived as intolerable; it’s incomprehensible to an outsider, but self-evident to the killer, who feels he has no choice but to react.”
“Hmm,” Margit said quietly. “So the perceived transgression and the poor impulse control form a lethal combination.” She looked up at the photograph of Lina Rosén, which was displayed next to close-ups of the severed forearm.
“It creates a monster.”
CHAPTER 35
Nora could see her breath. The cold reminded her of the winters of her childhood, when the ice always formed by Christmas. That was how she remembered it, anyway, even if it probably wasn’t true.
She walked briskly, heading for Västbanken, an area somewhat ironically named after the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as it had been built at a time when the fighting was particularly intense.
The sun had appeared for the first time in days: a pale disk in the sky that provided no warmth but at least made life a little brighter.