Eighteen Below

by Stefan Ahnhem

  Magnus had been disappointed when she’d lied and said she needed to stretch her legs and have a moment to herself, and she’d had to reassure him that she wasn’t angry or annoyed and that it had nothing at all to do with him. Dunja had even made him a half promise about that dinner he kept asking about.

  She popped a Djungelvrål in her mouth and sucked off the sugary layer before stepping inside the waiting room. All eyes focused on her uniform, and the relaxed mood quickly vanished. Dunja decided to get right to the point and take advantage of the fact that none of them were prepared.

  “My name is Dunja Hougaard, and as you can see I’m with the Helsingør police.” She turned slowly, trying to make eye contact with each person in the room. “But I’m not here to talk about myself — I’m looking for your friend who scared people out of their wits as she walked down Stengade yesterday.” She studied their reactions and tried to see if any stood out from the rest. “Maybe some of you even know where all that blood came from.”

  She was met with silence and lowered gazes. This wasn’t going to be easy. Especially not in this damn uniform, which they saw as a symbol of authority and harassment. “None of you are suspects at all; that’s not why I’m here.” She tried again to make eye contact. “All I want is to find out if any of you have seen or heard anything that might help our investigation. Her name and whereabouts, for example.” She unfolded the picture of the bloody woman, taken from YouTube, and held it up for all to see.

  Still no reaction. All she got were grim expressions, eyes on the floor, and more silence.

  Dunja continued to study the faces in the room, looking for any unconscious giveaways — barely noticeable signs that wouldn’t mean anything to the untrained eye, but would tell Dunja that something was wrong.

  The bleached-blond man in the corner was breathing erratically. That was all she needed. Now Dunja just had to get him to talk.

  20

  Theodor was sitting on the back of the bench with a lit cigarette hanging from his lips, searching for the Pixies’ Doolittle album on his phone. Ironic, considering how his father had gone on and on about how there were better bands than Marilyn Manson. Wouldn’t you know it, the old man had been right after all.

  He took a drag from the cigarette and gazed out across the schoolyard. As usual, it was full of jerks. Apparently, Dad wasn’t going to make his daily call today either. Theodor found them totally pointless anyway. It was all just so fake, pretending everything was thumbs up and super fucking fantastic.

  But now that Dad had stopped calling, he kind of missed it.

  Good thing he had Alexandra to look at. She was over by the basketball court, sinking one shot after the next. She was wearing her green Celtics cap. He didn’t like caps — they were hats for little kids. Grubby brats with dried snot on their upper lips. But it looked terrific on Alexandra. She could put on the trashiest threads in the world, and they would be hot as fuck.

  As if she could hear his thoughts by way of some direct line, Alexandra turned to Theodor with a smile, fixing her eyes on him as if to make sure he was watching as she took an extra-long shot and got nothing but net. He felt the urge to run over and join her, but he knew he’d just make a fool of himself if he did. And anyway, there was still a chance Dad would call.

  And then there were those fucking losers. Rille, Kalle, and Jonte, or whatever the hell their names were. Of course they were hanging out with her. He was convinced she felt the same way he did. Everything about her body language cried out that she hated them. Yet she passed them the ball and let them play. She dribbled, leaving them in the dust one after the next, then jumped up and dunked the ball into the basket as if gravity had given her a free pass. She was worlds better than them, and it was fantastic to just sit there and watch her.

  Suddenly, one of the jerks grabbed her Celtics cap and tossed it to the others. Before Theodor knew what was happening, he was off the bench and heading across the schoolyard. He hadn’t decided to act — it was like his thoughts had been put on pause and this was all down to instinct. Time seemed to be regulated by his pulse, pushing him toward the basketball court so fast that no one had time to react.

  For the past two years, Theodor had tried to remain calm.

  All it took was a firm grip on the blond guy’s hood.

  Through sheer willpower, he had resisted temptation and let the taunts run off his back.

  Then a firm yank.

  Never so much as a threat.

  Along with a well-aimed kick to his calves.

  Not even a clenched fist.

  The idiot lost his balance and fell over backward.

  A blow to the face. He could already picture it. His knuckles making contact with the jaw, which would dislocate after the third blow. The blood pouring from the broken nose would make his own pump harder, screaming for more adrenaline. But the bell rang to signal break was over, waking him up and making him let go with a balled fist and a threat. And then Theodor picked up the cap from the asphalt, and turned to Alexandra.

  She took it from him, put it on her head, and gave him a smile that made it all worth it.

  21

  All her cash and the bag of Djungelvrål. That’s how much it cost Dunja to get the blond man to talk. According to him, the bloody woman could usually be found in a deserted backyard, behind the bike store on the same street as the shelter. Luckily, Dunja only had eighty-six kroner on her. She was more upset about the salty licorice monkeys, which she had become mildly addicted to since her first visit to Sweden. That had been her last bag, and the only way to get more was to take a trip across the Sound.

  The deserted yard was across from the pizzeria where Magnus was shovelling food into his face. If he had only looked up from his grotesque pizza, he would have seen Dunja sneaking through the dark, narrow alley between the building and the garage.

  She hadn’t been aware that this backyard was a gathering place for homeless people. But considering that it was south of the city centre and the woman had been walking north up Stengade, it wasn’t out of the question that she had been coming from this very spot.

  Halfway down the alley, the air became thick with an odour of damp wool and public restroom. She stopped and took out her pistol, removed the safety, and held it in front of her with both hands before moving on.

  The yard was dark and forbidding. There were shopping carts scattered throughout. A few were overturned, full of clothes, food scraps, and other junk. Under the pleated plastic roof lay piles of old dirty mattresses, sleeping bags, and blankets; together they formed a piss-smelling mound of chaos.

  There was no one in sight. But they had left all their belongings behind, even the garbage bags full of returnable bottles, which would have taken weeks to gather. They must have left in a hurry. Perhaps they’d been forced to flee. But from what?

  Then she saw it.

  The boot.

  At first glance, Dunja thought it had just been left behind, like everything else in the yard. But when she looked closer, she realized that it was on a foot that was sticking out from under a layer of blankets. This must have been what the woman had been talking about. Someone named Jens who had never hurt anyone, and some laughing people, too many for her to intervene.

  Dunja approached the ratty boot — it was large, at least a size twelve, maybe larger — and cautiously lifted the blankets. There was another boot next to it, and two pant legs that disappeared under the pile of dirty covers. Dunja nudged the boots several times but there was no reaction, so she pulled off the last two blankets to reveal the rest of the pants, which got darker the further up she looked. She thought that maybe they were covered in urine, but that wasn’t it.

  Dunja wasn’t sure what she had been expecting. It wasn’t unusual for homeless people to die on a mattress or under a couple of blankets, especially during the winter. But it wasn’t winter. What’s more, this man hadn’
t just died in his sleep. He’d bled to death.

  She had already prepared herself for the possibility that she was dealing with a murder. That wasn’t what made her forget to breathe. Nor was it the wide-open eyes or the metre-wide circle of dried blood on the mattress underneath the body.

  Her gaze was locked on the man’s chest, which looked so unnaturally sunken that every rib must have been broken. Dunja looked away, but couldn’t shake the image of a steamroller chugging back and forth across the defenceless body.

  22

  Time to wake up now, Fabian thought as he turned into the parking lot outside the police station. He and Lilja were supposed to be on their way to Lund to meet the CEO of Ka-Ching. But thanks to Cliff’s cryptic message saying that he and Elvin thought they might have found an explanation, they’d turned back to attend an emergency meeting.

  It was Sonja calling, and by sheer force of will he managed to ignore the reptilian part of his brain that ordered him to ignore her.

  “Yes, this is Fabian Risk.”

  “Oh, come on, you knew it was me,” Sonja said with a laugh.

  “Uh…I’m in the car,” he said, immediately wishing he hadn’t ignored those reptilian instincts. “So you’re awake.”

  “Yes, it was kind of a late night.”

  He wanted to ask where she had gone and who she had been with. But something told him it was best not to. “But you had fun, I hope?”

  “So much fun. I don’t know the last time I laughed so much.”

  “Great. Listen, I’m on my way to an important meeting. We can talk more tonight.”

  “That’s sort of why I’m calling. You remember that art collector, Alex White from Arild?”

  Fabian didn’t say anything, although he knew all too well who that was. Alex White. The very name was annoying.

  “You know who I mean. I introduced you yesterday. Anyway, he’s given me free rein to do something in his house.”

  “What do you mean, do something?”

  Fabian immediately regretted his tone.

  “Anything. That’s the whole point. He promised to buy a piece. Isn’t that fantastic?”

  “Oh, of course, congrats,” he said as he walked through the lobby and past Florian Kruse, who was sitting at the reception desk with his perfect side part, absorbed in something on his computer screen. “So do you know what you’re going to do?”

  “Nope, no idea. But I was planning to head over now and take a look. He wants me to present an idea this evening, so cross your fingers that I come up with something.”

  “So you won’t be home for dinner?” Fabian sounded far too upset, but he didn’t feel like putting on a happy face anymore. He was upset.

  “No, I will, but I won’t have time to make anything. You’ll have to take care of it. Listen, I have to go now. We’ll talk later. Bye bye now.”

  Fabian stepped into the elevator. On his way up, he heard her final words echoing through him as though he were completely hollow inside.

  “Okay, let’s get started,” said Cliff, who was standing at one end of the table and waiting to begin the meeting. Elvin sat beside him in his special chair. The two of them had stubbornly refused to tell anyone what they’d come up with until the entire team had assembled. “Has everyone got some coffee and a bun?” Cliff went on, nodding at the plate that was piled high with steaming fresh cinnamon and pistachio buns.

  Fabian quickly scanned the whiteboards on the walls but was unable to spot any new images or notes that would cause everything to fall into place. Whatever they had discovered, it must be hidden in the tattered old folder that sat on the table in front of Elvin.

  “As you all know, Hugo and I have been busy mapping out Mr. Brise’s life, and although we’re far from finished, we have a theory about how everything fits together.”

  “Please feel free to share it sometime before this weekend,” Molander said.

  “Oh, I think there’ll be plenty here to satisfy you and then some. But all in good time,” said Elvin, shooting Molander a look without the slightest hint of a smile.

  “How lovely,” Molander said, responding with a similar look.

  “As you know, we’ve already established that he was wealthy,” Cliff went on, paying no attention to his colleagues’ little pissing match. “And when Irene told us about the schism between Brise and his financial manager at Ka-Ching, we thought that might lead to the solution. That the motive was money.” He walked over to one wall and made a circle around the dollar sign next to the photograph of Brise. “So we started by contacting his bank — Handelsbanken down on Gasverksgatan in Södercity. Mostly just to ask some questions about his finances and to see whether there had been any recent transactions in his accounts that seemed odd. And then, this morning, Hugo went down to meet with his personal banker, Rickard Jansson, and it turns out he’s only been Brise’s banker for the past seven weeks. I don’t know about the rest of you, but it seems a little strange to me that one week after his death — if Braids is right about the time he died — he moved all his accounts and their management from the main office on Stortorget, which is closer to his home, by the way, to the smaller branch in Söder.”

  “This Rickard Jansson, did he have a good explanation?” Tuvesson asked.

  “Just that the move was likely because he has more experience with larger accounts. Jansson has had both Scandlines and Zoégas as clients.”

  “But did he even have time to meet with Jansson?” Lilja said. “I mean, if he’s been dead for two months…”

  Elvin nodded. “Several times, according to Jansson. Most recently, last Wednesday, May 2, at two thirty in the afternoon.”

  First the real estate agent and now the banker. Fabian didn’t know what to think. Both of them claimed to have met Brise after he was already dead.

  “In case anyone still thinks Braids is wrong, I can safely say there is no longer any doubt that Peter Brise is the victim,” Lilja said, looking to Fabian for support. He nodded.

  “Did Braids have anything to add regarding the time the body was frozen?” Tuvesson asked.

  “Not really, he just reiterated what he’d said before.”

  “It doesn’t matter how off-track Braids is,” Molander said. “He would still rather die than admit he’s wrong.”

  “Well, we’re not here to discuss Braids.” Elvin looked at each of them as if to put extra weight behind his words. “And the fact is, I think the hippie is right. Just look at this.” He started up the projector on the ceiling, which began to show footage from a surveillance camera at the bank. “This was taken at the Söder branch of Handelsbanken just prior to their meeting on May 2, and here you can see him come in.”

  A man with a shaved head, horn-rimmed glasses, and a casual jacket over his T-shirt came through the entrance and glanced around the lobby of the bank.

  “But that’s obviously him!” Tuvesson blurted. “I mean, I just don’t get it. Do you?” She looked at the others. “Are you really sure this was taken last week?”

  “Look at the timestamp in the corner.” Molander demonstrated with his laser pointer.

  Tuvesson was right, Fabian thought. Sure, the footage was taken from an angle above and diagonal to the man, but if Braids hadn’t been so ridiculously sure of himself, there would have been no doubt that the man at the bank was Peter Brise.

  “And here’s Rickard Jansson,” Elvin went on as a man in an exceedingly tight shirt came in and shook hands with the visitor. “And now look at this.”

  The image switched to a different angle. This camera was mounted lower and showed the two men from the front. Elvin froze the image on the first man’s face, and in that moment it became clear to Fabian and the others in the room that Cliff and Elvin had every reason to shout it from the rooftops.

  The man shaking hands with Jansson certainly did resemble Peter Brise, but it couldn�
�t be him. The face belonged to someone who had taken not just Brise’s life, but his identity.

  23

  Chris Dawn hadn’t slept a wink all night, and now he was paying for it with a pounding headache. Of course, the plan had never been to sleep at night. Now that he finally had the whole house to himself he could go back to his old habit of sleeping all day and working in the studio the rest of the time. He loved that feeling of being the only person awake while the rest of the planet slept. It helped his creative juices flow. Every single one of his Billboard number ones had originated in the darkest hours.

  But last night had been one giant fiasco. He had tried everything, yet no matter how much he twisted and turned the knobs, the beats never came alive. The chords and melodies felt like watered-down echoes of his former songs. It was like that damn bird had flown off with all his creativity.

  Chris had given up and gone to bed around two, but there had been no sleep for him. The incident in the garage kept him awake. Part of him was sure that it really was just a bird that had flown in through the open door in the laundry room, while another part kept repeating that he had closed that door behind him.

  Chris wondered if he ought to file a police report, but he decided the problem was likely just a figment of his imagination. Yet he couldn’t help conducting a methodical search of the entire house when he finally got out of bed. Everything looked just as it always did. Everything was in its proper place. So with a renewed sense of calm, he had enjoyed a pleasant breakfast before returning to the studio.

  It wasn’t long before he’d walked over to the security monitor and begun systematically running through the footage from the many cameras. It was worse than a nicotine craving for the first few hours; he repeatedly felt the need to make sure the house was still empty. But since lunchtime, when he’d taken a long walk in the fields, he had limited himself to no more than one camera check every three hours. This helped him focus on the music, and he finally managed to come up with something that sounded promising.