The Ninth Grave

by Stefan Ahnhem

  Only now was he starting to understand why.

  There wasn’t a common thread at all. It looked like one, but in reality it was nothing more than a marked trail, a studied plan that must have been extremely complicated to set up. One that most would think was so far-fetched it went beyond what could be considered credible. But credibility was not the same as truth.

  Fabian was convinced that under no circumstances was Ossian Kremph capable of planning and executing the kidnapping and custody of Adam Fischer, much less the murder of Carl-Eric Grimås. On the other hand, he did constitute the perfect false lead.

  With Kremph out of the way and the case officially closed, Fabian could start searching for the real perpetrator.

  *

  HE FOUND AN EMPTY parking space outside Rival at Mariatorget, and hurried towards the 7-Eleven on the corner on foot. It had been dark for several hours and he realized that he had no idea whether the sun had come up at all today. He’d never liked the winter up in Stockholm, but it was getting worse with every passing year. He felt like he was living in a constant state of darkness that lasted from November to the end of February. He repeated his promise to never move so much as one metre further north as he walked past the latest tabloid billboards.

  Cannibal Man Dead After Jump from Fifth Storey, screamed one headline. Serial Murderer and Rapist Willumsen Still at Large in Denmark! yelled another.

  Fabian would have preferred to stay at the station in peace and quiet and gone through all the collected material from the case so far. Everyone else had left for the weekend, even Edelman, which meant that he would be alone. Desk lamps would be turned off, doors closed and the air freed of distant conversations, ringing phones and rumbling printers.

  And it was only there in total solitude that he could go down deep enough and think a thought through to its end.

  But it wasn’t happening tonight.

  He was so far out of Sonja’s good graces that she hadn’t even bothered to answer when he called to say that he was on his way home, which is why he had taken the opportunity to get two lattes with an extra shot and a Tosca square. Nothing could improve Sonja’s mood like a Tosca square almond pastry from the 7-Eleven.

  Personally, he preferred the princess cake, but he’d made a solemn oath to himself to cut down on calories and resisted the urge to stop by the bakery café at the corner of Swedenborgsgatan. It’s not that he was fat – far from it. For as long as he could remember he’d weighed 164 pounds, but in the past two years he’d noticed an obvious change and was now up to 168, on his way to 170. If he continued at this same rate he would weigh 220 pounds by retirement.

  He tried to get hold of Malin on his walk back to the car, but got no answer. So he made another attempt on her home number.

  ‘Hello, Fabian.’ He could not mistake Anders Rehnberg’s drawling voice.

  Fabian had met Malin’s husband a number of times, but had never really spoken with him. It wasn’t that he hadn’t tried. He’d actively approached him at dinners and various events with significant others in an attempt to find common ground, but every interaction had left him with a bad aftertaste. One laboured topic of conversation after the other had fallen flat, and blunders jumped out of his mouth that he always bitterly regretted the next day. At their housewarming party in Enskede, for example, Fabian had babbled on about how Anders didn’t need to worry because Malin wasn’t his type anyway.

  Since then they hadn’t spoken. Anders and Sonja, on the other hand, had taken a liking to each other and seemed to have quite a lot to discuss at the party. On the way home that night, he’d almost brought it up, but restrained himself, asking the driver to turn up the radio, which was playing ‘Forbidden Colours’ by David Sylvian.

  ‘I wanted to see how Malin is doing.’ He tried to sound as neutral as possible.

  ‘She’s feeling about as good as she can be, considering her job.’

  Fabian held back and remained silent.

  ‘Was there anything else?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, I was wondering if I might be able to speak with her quickly.’

  ‘Listen, I don’t think that’s a good idea. Her pre-eclampsia is so serious and advanced that she’s been hospitalized. She’ll need treatment all the way until delivery. If it gets really bad they’ll be forced to induce labour, even though she has a full two months left of her pregnancy.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I had no idea it was so serious.’

  ‘No? According to the doctor she must have shown clear signs that she wasn’t feeling well. If she hadn’t been pressed so hard on the job, it wouldn’t have got this bad.’

  ‘Anders, I’m truly sorry. I understand you’re upset. But—’

  ‘Fabian, she needs peace and quiet, so you shouldn’t call her or come to visit. The only thing you should do is stay as far away from her as possible, okay?’

  ‘Okay, but can you tell her I called?’ said Fabian, but Anders had already hung up.

  When he got home he found Theodor in his room, sitting in front of the computer. Matilda was on the couch watching The Lion King on full blast. It was so loud the neighbours must have been able to hear Timon and Pumbaa’s ‘Hakuna matata’. ‘Hi, Matilda. Isn’t Mum here?’ he said getting no response. He picked up the remote control and lowered the volume.

  ‘No, stop it! I can’t hear what they’re—’

  ‘Matilda, I asked you a question. Do you know where—’ He stopped abruptly when he caught sight of the girl standing out on the balcony smoking, her cell phone glued to her ear. He opened the balcony door and noticed that she was using his indoor shoes and had already managed to fill one corner of the flowerbox with butts. ‘You must be Rebecka.’

  She turned around. ‘Listen, I have to go now.’ She hung up the phone, pushed it down into her overly tight jeans and held her hand out in greeting. ‘Hi, there.’

  ‘I thought my wife would be home, but—’

  ‘No, she had to work, and said something about an opening the week after Christmas.’ She put out her cigarette and immediately took out the pack to get another. ‘Would you like one?’

  ‘No, and I would appreciate it if you could do something besides stand out here and smoke all the time. I assume that my wife is paying you.’

  ‘I’m not the one who doesn’t have time to take care of my own kids.’

  ‘No, you’re quite right. And speaking of which, you can leave now.’

  ‘Sonja said I could count on being paid for the whole night because she didn’t know when you would show up.’

  ‘I’ll pay you for the whole night, if you just leave right now,’ said Fabian, exerting all his willpower not to drag her off the balcony by force.

  A thousand kronor later he took out a Post-it pad and started to write.

  Dearest Sonja,

  I understand that you’re stressed, but everyone needs a break now and then.

  Fabian

  He attached the Post-it to the latte, and set it down beside the bag with the Tosca square and a CD he’d made with Prince’s ‘I Would Die 4 U’ on nineteen times in a row – one for every year they’d been together. It was the first song they’d danced to together, and it had been their own ever since.

  He remembered it like it was yesterday. He’d managed to borrow a membership card to Lido – a nightclub housed in a former porn theatre on Hornsgatan, whose members were mostly authors, musicians and actors.

  Once inside, he’d been nervous that someone would discover that he didn’t write or play in a band or – worst of all – that he was from Skåne, so he avoided everyone and hung out by the side of the dance floor, a beer in his hand. After a few hours he finally admitted to himself that it wasn’t that cool and went to coat check to retrieve his jacket.

  As he was heading for the door, the DJ put on that Prince song, and his life changed for ever. He’d turned back and ventured out on to the dance floor for the first time, even though he had no rhythm and never danced. But it hadn’t mattered because suddenl
y she appeared out of nowhere. It’s possible she’d been there the whole time, but without thinking he forced his way further into the crowd and started dancing with her.

  In Sonja’s version she was the one who’d caught sight of him, but that didn’t change anything. He’d found home, and even today he could remember how he’d felt high on happiness the moment she took his hand.

  Two minutes and fifty-nine seconds.

  It didn’t take a moment longer for both of them to understand.

  That it was them and no one else.

  Then the song ended.

  How much time would they need now? he thought on his way down the front steps to the taxi waiting to drive the bag of treats over to Sonja’s studio in Old Town.

  58

  DUNJA HOUGAARD WOKE UP abruptly from a dreamless sleep, as if someone had just plugged her in and turned on the power. She initially thought someone was trying to suffocate her by pressing plastic wrap over her face. No matter how hard she gasped for breath, she couldn’t get air, until she managed to twist her face to the side.

  Then she thought that she was at home in her own bed and had just ended up with her head under the covers. But even though it was midwinter and Carsten had swapped the lemon-yellow blinds to dark brown ones, it never got this dark in the bedroom. Besides, everything was shaking and careening around her.

  She must be in a car. But how had she ended up here and why was she folded up in a foetal position, unable to move? What had really happened? She tried to remember, but she couldn’t. The past few days, or maybe it had only been hours, were still an unwritten page waiting to be filled with memories and experiences.

  Once they came flooding in, she wished herself back into ignorance and liberating forgetfulness, but now it was too late. They were spreading like manure, dirtying all of her thoughts. The images from the investigations of the raped women who’d been tortured to death had etched themselves permanently in her mind and would never leave her again, just like the vision of the abandoned industrial building before everything went black.

  She tried to straighten her aching body, but it was too cramped. One foot still hurt from the sprain and the other had bumped into something hard. She felt pressure from every direction, as if the goal was to squeeze all the air out of her.

  She struggled against the desire to give up and tried to summon enough energy to turn on to her back, pull up both arms and push away whatever was rustling right above her face. Five minutes later she’d managed to create a little pocket of air and could finally take a few real breaths.

  Then she remembered the flashlight. She pulled it out of her jeans’ pocket and pressed the little button at the end of the shaft. The light was so weak it looked like it might go out at any moment, but she managed to determine that the rustling was coming from exactly what she’d suspected: black garbage bags.

  She put the flashlight in her mouth and poked one index finger through the plastic and made a proper hole in the bag right above her.

  First there were a few drops.

  Then it started running.

  Right down in her face.

  The corrosive stench struck her like a chemical weapon. She tried to scream so loud during those few seconds the viscous fluid entered her open mouth. Then she quickly fell silent and turned her face away from the hole, while the car braked and turned sharply.

  It was blood. But the horrific smell indicated that the blood was mixed with purge fluid. She felt nauseous and tried to vomit, but nothing came out other than a few clumps of mucous. It reminded her of getting her tonsils removed as a teenager, when one of the wounds in her throat wouldn’t heal. After a few days she’d vomited up so much coagulated blood that had collected in her stomach that she had to be taken to the ER by ambulance to have her throat cauterized.

  Until now that was the worst thing she’d experienced.

  She tried to regain a sense of calm, even though she could feel the fluid running down her neck and continuing under her blouse across her left breast. All she could do to keep panic at bay was try to think about something else, such as the first thing she would do when she got home. She wanted to take a nice hot bath and ask Carsten to order takeout from Pizza Mira, even though he thought it was unhealthy. She knew exactly what she wanted: number fifteen with tomato, cheese, onion, spinach, potato and feta cheese, with garlic sauce on the side.

  If she did ever go home again.

  After the last drop hit her face she looked back into the hole again with the flashlight and was met by dead eyes staring back at her. She wasn’t surprised. She had simply assumed they would belong to Katja Skov and not Aksel Neuman.

  So this was where he’d been the whole time: cut up and stuffed into garbage bags, just like Katja Skov, who was presumably also in the trunk.

  For some reason the perpetrator had spared her. Or had he run out of time and was on his way to another location where he could continue working in peace and quiet? No, now they were definitely stopping. She heard the engine turning off and then a car door opening and closing. She imagined the trunk opening and him pulling her out. He had probably saved her for last and had thought out something extra special to draw out her death for as long as possible. She tried to stay calm by taking a deep breath, but the air stuck in her throat. She was close to panic, and she knew if she didn’t get control of herself soon she would start screaming and never stop.

  She managed to take in a small breath and then made another attempt to stretch her legs, while she heard something being dragged across the roof of the car, but her legs wouldn’t move. Instead she started pushing aside one of the garbage bags that was below her. It felt like it contained two feet. She was finally able to stretch out her arms behind her head and further along the floor past the garbage bags. At last she could feel a rough, carpet-like wall. She groped up along the slit in the middle of the wall until she found what she was looking for: a loop that clicked when she pulled on it and lowered the seats.

  Now she could finally drag herself out of the trunk to the back seat of the car. She still couldn’t move her legs, even if the feeling was on its way back, and dragged herself to the right-side back door and tried to open it. This was her only chance to get out of the car and run away from there before he was back. But no matter how hard she pulled and tore at the handle it was impossible to open. Desperation took hold and she could no longer stop herself from screaming and banging against the windowpane until the last of her energy was consumed. Then she collapsed in tears.

  Only once she’d calmed down and opened her eyes did she catch sight of the shaft sticking under the passenger seat.

  The axe – the murder weapon Kjeld Richter and his men had never found.

  Richter would presumably be furious, but she had no other choice. She nudged it forward, picked up the axe and smashed it against the window with all the force she could muster. The axe bounced back as if it were a film on rewind. Then she hit it again, and again, and again. Ten strikes later she could finally see a crack and after twenty the glass shattered completely. She ran the blade along the edges of the window to remove the remaining shards of glass and squeezed out through the hole. Her head knocked against some kind of covering and she fell down on a cold, hard floor.

  Get away from there, she repeated to herself. Wherever she was, she had to get away as quickly as possible before he came back for her.

  She crawled under the covering and squinted from the bright lights. She slid across the rough floor, scraping the skin on her forearms. There was a large white arrow under her and hundreds of light fixtures above that lit up endless rows of cars. There were no people in sight. Had he really just left her?

  The blood had finally started to work its way into her legs, so she gathered her strength and carefully stood up on her healthy foot. Her leg was shaking and it didn’t take long before her whole body was trembling too. She was cold and missed her winter coat. Maybe it was still in the car. It didn’t matter. Nothing would get her to turn bac
k now.

  She limped forward, revealing row after row of cars. Then she finally saw the sign she’d hoped to find. The glass doors moved silently to each side and she walked in. It felt several degrees warmer in here, maybe even a few notches above freezing. She noticed a spiral staircase that went in both directions, but she made her way to the row of elevators and pressed the button.

  Almost immediately she heard a ping in the elevator furthest away from her. Even though she hobbled there as fast as she could, the doors struck the side of her already sore body as they closed. Once inside she pressed the green button, and waited for the elevator to take her up or down. She turned to face the mirror. When she saw her reflection staring back at her she realized that she didn’t understand anything.

  Not one thing.

  59

  ‘SO WHAT SHOULD WE DO?’ asked Matilda, who was still sulking because he’d turned off The Lion King.

  ‘I guess we can start by doing a little grocery shopping and making a nice dinner.’ Fabian turned towards Theodor, who had agreed to leave his computer for once and come out of his room.

  ‘Can we get candy too? Pleeease,’ Matilda whined.

  Fabian thought about the ban on candy that Sonja had introduced at the end of summer when she’d started to worry about Matilda’s weight. He’d never shared her concern, and her extra few summer pounds had already melted away anyway. ‘Okay,’ he said at last. ‘Just don’t say anything to Mum.’

  ‘And Christmas cider because we’re already out!’

  ‘Sure. And then I thought we could rent a movie that we haven’t already seen a hundred times. Does that sound good?’

  ‘Yes!’ Matilda shouted, starting to clap her hands.

  ‘And what about you, Theo? What do you say?’

  Theodor shrugged and looked right past Fabian. ‘Sure, I guess that sounds okay. But I can’t.’