‘It’s fine,’ she repeated. ‘These are the last ones anyway.’ She pointed at the canvases set up around them. ‘Ever.’
‘But what are you going to paint after?’ said Matilda.
Sonja shrugged and stood up. ‘We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.’ She followed Fabian to the door in silence and let him out. ‘Listen.’
Fabian turned around. ‘Yes?’
‘I know we’re not in the best place right now, and maybe it’s just a phase that will blow over soon, like you said.’ She sighed and lowered her eyes. ‘Anyway, I’ve been thinking a little, and I don’t know how long we can keep going like this.’
Fabian let the silence grow, well aware that it was his turn to say something. He knew that she wanted him to come out strongly and emphasize how much he loved her, and how much better everything would be soon, but this time he didn’t. He had always been so sure that whatever happened they would stick together. Sure, he’d threatened divorce once or twice, but they had obviously been empty threats.
Now, he honestly didn’t know any more. All he could do was nod, turn around and head back down the stairs.
71
SEMIRA ACKERMAN MADE A final round of the pool, picking up some towels and indoor shoes that had been left behind. The announcement informing people that the pool was about to close had already been made twice on the PA system, and most of the guests had dressed and were clearing out their lockers. But there was always someone who lingered behind, and tonight was no exception, she noted, when she heard one of the showers starting.
She didn’t usually work on Sundays because she had managed to get the day off as part of her contract, unlike all of her colleagues. And each time the new head of human resources, whose age was a mockery of the rest of the staff, asked her to ‘stand up for the team’ when someone was sick, she’d said no. It was always that annoying ‘team’.
As if anyone on the ‘team’ had ever stood up for her.
No, her Sundays were sacred. It was the only thing in her life that hadn’t regressed and completely lost its meaning. Normally she spent it at home – or, more correctly, in the armchair with her legs on a footrest, a good book in her hands and a thermos of hot tea on the windowsill. She loved reading, and the only thing that could get her out of the chair was weather so beautiful that it would be a shame not to take a walk.
She usually tried to challenge herself and walk somewhere new. In the best-case scenario, she explored a different neighbourhood. But it almost always ended with her walking down towards the quay at Hammarby Lake, taking the Lotten over to the other side and wandering around all the buildings, which, even though they were newly constructed, were beautiful. It usually took a little over two hours, but sometimes it could take even longer if she sat down somewhere to read along the way.
But this particular Sunday she was working – by choice. When she had asked the head of HR if she could work, he looked at her as if she was pulling his leg. He quickly got serious and made it clear that she would not be getting overtime. She almost retracted her offer right then and there, but stopped herself at the last moment – she simply didn’t dare be home alone for the whole day.
Nothing had been the same since that man, whom her sister thought was a cop, followed her on the bus. Although she’d managed to shake him off, she couldn’t eat, sleep, read or even consider taking the bus again. Instead she’d started walking all the way to the subway at Medborgarplatsen and changing from the green line to the red line at Old Town to get to work. She felt infinitely more secure when she was out among other people and Sturebadet, where she worked, was such a place.
She was almost ready to close and would soon be on her way home, but she couldn’t just yet because of the straggler in the women’s changing room. Usually it was the men who lingered, often armed with a shameless proposition. Mostly she just shook her head and laughed, and asked the guest to get dressed before she called the guys at Securitas. If that didn’t work, she always had the ice-cold spray of the water hose as back-up.
But women were almost never a problem, she thought on her way into the changing room, while she tried to convince herself that there was no reason whatsoever for worry.
Carnela had promised to keep her company that evening, and she intended to do everything in her power to convince her to sleep over. She would surely protest and bring up one excuse after the other, but sleeping over was the least she could do. In some ways, she was actually partly to blame for the whole thing.
Personally, Semira had been against the idea from the very beginning and had consistently refused to listen to her sister’s argument about how simple and easy it was, not to mention safe. But as her condition worsened she’d started to waver in her conviction, and by the time she couldn’t read a book without a magnifying glass, she was converted.
Afterwards, the worry manifested as a big lump in her chest and she’d had dreams so strange she didn’t even want to tell her therapist. But as the years passed, the lump had shrunk and life returned to normal. She had finally felt that Carnela was right about how safe it was.
Until now.
The shower had stopped running so she started to look around the lockers, but couldn’t find anyone. As far as she could tell, all the lockers were unlocked and empty, which was also a bit strange. She went into the shower room and noted that it too was empty. She was sure she’d heard someone showering less than a minute ago. She briefly glanced around the room and noticed one of the showers was still dripping.
She wondered whether she should call for help, but decided not to let worry get the better of her and continued towards the toilet stalls. Perhaps the person in question needed to make one final visit. But nobody was there. The last place left to check was the sauna. If it was also empty she would have to start over and search the whole facility one more time.
The door to the dry sauna was jammed, so she had to take hold of it with both hands to get it open. The wall of heat surprised her and reminded her how long it had been since she had taken advantage of the staff benefits and indulged in a few hours at the spa. As soon as this was over, she would make sure to use one of her Sundays off to make the most of it.
She went to pick up a towel that was up in the far corner, climbing up three rows of benches. The heat had changed from feeling like a warm, encompassing embrace to hard and aggressive. She reached for the towel and felt the sweat dripping down her body – and she almost never sweated. She would be soaked through before she knew it.
She climbed down again, and moved to open the door. It was jammed again and refused to budge, even though she pushed on it so hard that the sweat made her clothes cling to her body. On Monday she would have to inform the caretaker so that he could fix it right after closing. Only when she pressed her whole body against the door could she get it open.
On her way to the steam sauna she toyed with the idea of taking a shower before she turned everything off and went home, but there was no point because she didn’t have a change of clothes. Besides, she’d decided on something else.
She didn’t know how or why, she simply knew that it suddenly felt right. As soon as she got home she would contact the police and tell them everything she knew. Carnela would be furious, of course, but that wasn’t her problem. It was the right thing to do.
The door to the steam sauna opened easily, and she stuck her head into the damp fog that made it almost impossible to see whether anyone was really inside.
‘Hello? Is anyone here? We’re closing now.’ She wanted to sound as calm and neutral as possible, but as soon as she heard her own voice she realized that those were the last things she felt.
72
FABIAN TOOK THE FLASHLIGHT from the extra compartment in the trunk and closed the hatch. He pressed the automatic lock as he crossed Östgötagatan. On the way home from the studio he thought about what Sonja had said and tried to figure out where he stood. But somewhere by Slussen his thoughts wandered to Malin’s idea that there was
probably another way to get into Ossian Kremph’s apartment – a way that didn’t need a key. Malin was right. The perpetrator must have got into the apartment another way.
During the visit to the crime scene he had heard only confused babble about a radio, but despite her pregnancy and pre-eclampsia, Malin had had the presence of mind to actually listen to the words coming out of Kremph’s mouth. He had flat-out admitted that a bearded man came to his place, even though he’d changed the locks himself. It was this kind of thing that made Malin a better police officer than everyone else in their department combined, himself included.
The decision to go there now instead of waiting until tomorrow was no more difficult than making a left turn and heading down to Söderleden instead of continuing straight on Hornsgatan.
On his way up the spiral staircase he thought about the recorded cell phone call between Grimås and Edelman. He hadn’t mentioned anything about it to Malin, mostly because he still felt uncertain about how he should handle it. How much more did Edelman really know, and how would he react if he was confronted? The only thing Fabian felt sure of was that he wanted to avoid such a situation with his old mentor at any price. His best option would be to collect enough evidence to move the presumption of guilt away from Kremph and leave Edelman no other choice but to open the investigation again.
Once he arrived at the door, he unlocked it with the keys he’d got from Stubbs. He walked into the cluttered apartment and the flashlight beam floated along the walls. He wondered where he should start. The concealed entrance was actually only one of several reasons why he was there.
According to Hillevi Stubbs, Ossian Kremph’s two personalities manifested themselves as two different layers in the apartment. One was extremely organized and methodical, and the other had a head full of memory gaps and spread everything around with no idea why. The theory sounded logical on paper, but in reality was quite inaccurate.
It had helped her quickly find the clue that led them to Adam Fischer in the Shurgard storage facility. But it wasn’t, as Stubbs had assumed, the organized Kremph who had hidden the lead. He also didn’t put the scalpel in the kitchen, leave behind the container of hexane gas, or cut the eyes out of all the pictures of the woman on the bus.
That was the perpetrator.
Someone had prepared the apartment, planted all the leads, and set up Kremph for the role as the perfect perpetrator. All Fabian needed to do now was find the evidence.
He decided to start with the bathroom, which looked like most bathrooms in need of a major renovation: the tub had an edge so yellow no cleanser in the world could scrub it clean; joints in the linoleum were black with mould; and the mirror of the medicine cabinet only reflected in a few places.
He opened the mirrored door and scanned the shelves inside. On the top row, there was a small pharmacy of containers with names like Atarax, Leponex, Zopiklon and Xanor. There were various types of creams for eczema on the middle shelf. But on the bottom shelf, next to a tube of toothpaste and a roll of floss, was what he was after: the red pill box that Kremph had mentioned at the visit to the crime scene. He picked it up and studied the plastic container that locked on top and had three small compartments for every day of the week: morning, noon and evening.
The compartments were empty from Monday morning until Saturday morning, which made sense because Kremph had been arrested just on Saturday. The remaining compartments were filled with different-coloured pills. He picked one out at random, put it in his mouth and chewed.
He should have taken the pill in for official analysis, even though he already had his suspicions. Kremph had been quite sure he’d taken his pills every day, which he had been doing, but judging by the taste he’d only consumed sugar. Fabian opened one of the bottles from the topmost shelf and tasted another pill – same thing.
Kremph had unknowingly gone without medication for some time. The question was, how long? If it was months, the perpetrator had had plenty of time to both control and exploit him during the period that his dissociative identity disorder reawakened.
He took the container with him out into the living room, set it on the table and looked around the room. There was one more thing he needed to find before he could start seriously searching for the entrance. He assumed that it was located centrally to cover an area as big as possible. His eyes fell on the shelves that were filled from edge to edge with books. It wasn’t the first time he’d looked at it, but only now did it occur to him that there was something about it that didn’t add up.
Among the titles were gardening and art books, Enid Blyton’s old Famous Five series, and a lot of pink chick-lit. But not a single one of them could have conceivably interested Ossian so much that he would have put them on his nicest, most centrally located bookshelf. It could mean only one thing.
Someone else had put them there.
He started browsing through the books one by one. Once he came to the middle of the shelf, he pulled out Can You Keep a Secret? by Sophie Kinsella and found what he was looking for: the pages in the middle had been cut out so there was an empty space when the book was closed. A white, rectangular plastic box with blinking diodes, similar to the one hidden in the doll, was positioned in the space.
He turned it off with the little button, set it on the table beside the box of pills and turned his attention towards finding the concealed entrance. He was more certain than ever that this would have been how the ‘beard man’ got in after Kremph locked his doors. He started in the hall, but couldn’t find anything behind the clothes hanging down from the coat hooks or behind the reddish-brown drapery that covered part of one wall.
He checked the two windows in the living room but saw no signs that they were broken. He opened one, leaned out and shone the flashlight along the exterior of the building. A dog’s barking echoed between the façades and the Opel parked in front of his own car turned out and drove off along Blekingegatan. But he could see no signs on the façade to indicate that someone had come in that way.
Because none of the walls in the room bordered a neighbouring apartment, he continued by checking the floor: he picked up the rug and shone his flashlight under the couch. Then he aimed the beam of light towards the ceiling and searched for straight cracks at right angles. Aside from a number of spider webs and flakes in the yellowed ceiling paint, there was nothing resembling a concealed hatch. And there was nothing in the kitchen and bathroom.
He still had the bedroom to explore, but considering how much time Kremph seemed to have spent sleeping it was unlikely to be in there. The broom closet that was almost a direct connection to the kitchen and bathroom was considerably more interesting. If Kremph was sitting in the living room listening to the radio, the perpetrator could easily have made his way into the kitchen to plant the scalpel or to the bathroom to substitute medications.
He opened the door, which was covered in the same square-patterned wallpaper as the rest of the wall, and turned on the bare light bulb. The closet was about one-and-a-half square metres and was well organized, with everything in its place. On one shelf were all kinds of laundry detergent and cleansers, and on another one higher up were rolls of toilet paper and paper towels.
Fabian took out the vacuum cleaner, the two brooms and the bucket with the floor mop, and got down on his knees and started inspecting the old linoleum, which pulled up. A silverfish fled the light and disappeared into the cracks. But there was no trace of an opening there or anywhere else in the closet.
He put the vacuum cleaner and the other things back in and wondered whether there might be a completely different and obvious explanation that he couldn’t see because he was too close. The beams of two flashlights out in the hall interrupted his musings.
Someone was on their way in, or perhaps there were two of them.
He backed into the bedroom as he heard someone mumbling something to another person out in the living room. He could not make out what was being said, but one of them seemed to be on their way into the bedroom. H
e quickly threw himself down on to the floor, pulled himself under the bed among the dust bunnies, and watched as a pair of heavy boots walked across the creaking floor.
They stopped a short distance from the bed and stood for what felt like several minutes. Fabian held his breath while the flashlight searched across the floor and a little way under the bed. He was not only unarmed, but he was also lying in such a way that the slightest movement risked emitting a sound loud enough to expose him. The only advantage he had was that this person was unaware of his presence. If the boots could only come a little closer…As if the intruder could read his mind, the boots started moving towards him. First it was just a step followed by an expectant pause, but then they took yet another step until they were standing right by the edge of the bed. He carefully reached out his left arm, past the side of one of the boots and around to the heel. All of a sudden, a whistle from the living room made the boots back up a few steps and turn away.
Fabian exhaled, even though he was fully aware that it was only a matter of time before they would be back to thoroughly search the room. He turned on the flashlight to see if there was anything he could use as a weapon, such as a rope or a dumb-bell. But other than the dust there was only a pair of underpants, a few unmatched socks and a pile of newspapers in the room.
Then Fabian noticed a hole in the wall right under the bed. He had a similar one at home in the bathroom, but hadn’t thought about it until water started running out of the little pipe that stuck out under it. The white-enamelled metal cover was an inspection hatch to get at the pipes and repair any leakage.
But there was no pipe here. Not to mention it was in the middle of the wall in the bedroom, a good distance from both the kitchen and bathroom, which was extremely strange. He wriggled up towards the wall, set the flashlight on the floor and pulled the cover loose from its spring bracket as carefully as he could.
The Ninth Grave Page 30