The Ninth Grave

by Stefan Ahnhem

  Malin spat in his face. ‘I hope you burn in hell.’

  He responded with a guarded smile. ‘I may be wrong, of course, but I don’t see you as someone who believes in heaven and hell. Although maybe that’s the sort of thing that changes when you find yourself in your—’

  Hass was interrupted by a shot and shouts from the corridor. After that there were another two shots in rapid succession. The silence that followed was broken only when the radio in his chest pocket started crackling.

  ‘It’s safe to come out now.’

  114

  TOMAS PERSSON DIDN’T USUALLY get scared, but if there was one way to describe how he was feeling right now it was exactly that. He was so afraid that he’d emptied his bladder and had felt the warm urine working its way down the inside of his legs. It was the first time he’d been hit by a bullet, and he’d expected that it would hurt a lot more. Now he felt almost nothing other than a dull, throbbing pain. Maybe it was just the surge of adrenaline, and once that subsided he would really experience how it felt to be shot.

  The bullet must have passed through his right thigh because the blood had already stained his jeans dark and started dripping down on the white-tiled floor. There was so much blood that one of the two men who had forced him down on his knees and was now tying his hands behind his back with his own handcuffs had to move one foot to avoid getting blood on his shoe.

  He’d never believed in any god, and he certainly didn’t now, but still he repeated the same refrain over and over again in his head: I promise to become a better person, if you just let Fabian get here before it’s too late. Please, I beg you. I promise to become a…

  ‘What have we got here? More police?’

  The two men nodded. Gidon Hass looked at Tomas and Jarmo, who were on their knees beside each other with their hands tied behind their backs. ‘Are you from the Bureau of Criminal Investigation, too?’

  Tomas and Jarmo bowed their heads.

  ‘And are there any others?’

  Both Tomas and Jarmo continued looking down at the tiles without changing their expression.

  ‘I said, are there any others!?’

  ‘No. It’s just us,’ said Jarmo.

  ‘That’s what you say, but where’s your colleague, Fabian Risk?’

  Jarmo shrugged. ‘At home celebrating Christmas with his family, like almost everyone else in this country. It’s a fairly big holiday here.’

  Hass nodded at the men. One of them took a step forward and kicked Jarmo so hard right in the face that he lost his balance and fell to the side.

  ‘I know what Christmas is, just like I happen to know that Risk isn’t at home with his family. Now get up.’

  Jarmo made an effort to stand, but was unable to.

  ‘I said, get up.’

  One of the men grabbed Jarmo’s hair and dragged him up.

  ‘Well? How do you think we should resolve this?’

  ‘Come with us to the station and confess,’ said Jarmo.

  Hass started laughing. ‘At least he’s got a sense of humour. But I don’t have anything to confess. You see, I’m going to be seen as a hero by all of those people who want to get their lives back and are prepared to pay a little for it. People who are currently prepared to go abroad and let some alcoholic doctor who lost his licence perform the operation in a dirty hotel room. The best thing about all this is that it won’t even be on Swedish soil.’ Hass threw out his hands.

  ‘So this is sanctioned by Israel?’ asked Jarmo.

  ‘Israel,’ Hass snorted. ‘They have no idea what they’ve created. They think the need for fresh organs diminishes just because they passed a toothless law that prohibits it.’

  ‘You were aware of what your wife was subjected to,’ said Tomas. ‘Yet you chose not to contact us. That’s called withholding information and is punishable under Chapter 17 of the Criminal Code.’

  ‘Oh, boy. I didn’t think you would dare say anything, especially since you peed your pants and all.’ Hass crouched down in front of Tomas. ‘Yes, that’s correct. I had my suspicions, but why risk all of this, which has taken years of planning, for a wife who does nothing but complain and has only offered the missionary position once a month since I got grey hair?’

  ‘Because you love her.’

  Hass laughed again. ‘Another joker. You should have been comedians instead of cops.’ He got up and turned to the two men. ‘Kill them both.’

  The two men walked over and stood a few metres from Tomas and Jarmo. Both drew their pistols, chambered a round and aimed at their heads.

  ‘No, please don’t. I’ll do whatever you want,’ Tomas screamed. ‘Please! I’m begging you!’

  Jarmo said nothing. Instead he simply closed his eyes.

  *

  FABIAN COULD HEAR TOMAS screaming for his life. Through the crack in the door he saw the two men in suits aim their pistols at his colleagues, who were on their knees with bowed heads. He recognized the men from the picture that Carnela Ackerman had shown him at Gondolen before she left him. Now she was cut up in a number of garbage bags.

  He couldn’t make any sudden moves or the light would go on again. But at last he managed to slowly bring one hand down inside his jacket and pull out his pistol and chamber a round without triggering the light. While Tomas screamed louder for his life, he slowly raised the pistol and aimed through the crack in the door. His colleagues’ fate now rested in his hands.

  But he couldn’t do it. Or to be more precise, his hands couldn’t stop shaking. They were completely useless and couldn’t even manage a simple task, such as pulling the trigger, however much he tried.

  Instead he just stayed hidden in the darkness, listening to them getting a final chance to tell them where he was. Jarmo denied having any knowledge of his whereabouts, even though both he and Tomas must have counted on him being there. He suddenly realized how this would end.

  When the bullets penetrated their skulls and they collapsed to the floor, Fabian had long since given up and lowered his pistol.

  After the shots echoed it became silent.

  Completely silent.

  But only for a moment.

  Because soon he could hear them again, even though he’d seen them curled up with so much blood pouring out of the back of their heads that it reached all the way to the floor drain a few metres away.

  The screams were back.

  And they were louder than ever.

  115

  ‘TAKE THEM TO THE embassy and make it look like they were trespassing and were killed in self-defence. Meanwhile, I’ll clean this mess up after I’m finished with the fat one,’ Gidon Hass said.

  Fabian’s whole body was shaking. He could see the men in suits grab the legs of each of his colleagues and drag their bodies across the floor and out of some double doors.

  At the same time the accusatory screams refused to fall silent. They kept getting louder, until eventually he stood up. Seconds later, the room was once again illuminated. Without any thought of the consequences, he pushed the door open a few centimetres further with his foot. He could see Hass standing with his back to him, putting on a transparent plastic apron and visor.

  Then he walked over to a cabinet, took out a battery-operated surgical saw and selected the sturdiest blade. He started it up, ensuring that the battery was charged, and left through the same set of doors as the two other men.

  Fabian dried his tears and tried to collect his thoughts, but it was impossible. The screams from his two executed colleagues drowned out everything else. He accepted total failure. Feeling that he didn’t have anything to lose anyway, he walked into the operating room and followed the two trails of blood towards the double doors. He opened them, and saw that the trail continued along the corridor. Hass was nowhere to be seen, and the doors on both sides of the corridor were closed.

  One by one he kicked them open, holding his pistol in a two-handed grip in front of him. All the rooms were freshly painted and unoccupied, though some were furni
shed with beds and nightstands. Cables were still hanging down from the ceiling in some of them. Other than the protective plastic covering some of the furniture, the renovation looked finished in the room where Hass stood leaning over Malin with a syringe.

  ‘Step away from the bed,’ he heard himself shout.

  Hass turned around with the surgical saw in one hand. ‘Risk, so you were here after all.’

  ‘Shoot already!’ screamed Malin, who was lying strapped down to the bed with the syringe hanging loosely in one arm. ‘What the hell are you waiting for? Shoot him!’

  The sound of all the screams was almost drowning her out. ‘Away from the bed,’ he repeated instead, continuing into the room.

  ‘I suspected that you were around here somewhere,’ Hass said, backing away.

  ‘Drop the saw and put your hands over your head.’

  Hass did as he was told, while Fabian hurried up to the bed, pulled out the syringe, and started loosening the straps around Malin’s wrists.

  ‘You saw what happened, didn’t you?’ asked Hass.

  Fabian didn’t answer, and continued loosening the straps, keeping his pistol aimed at Hass.

  ‘I can’t help wondering why you didn’t do anything. I mean, you’re holding a gun in your hands. Maybe it isn’t loaded, but I don’t think so.’

  Fabian was now again holding the pistol with both hands.

  ‘Do you know what I think? Actually it’s not what I think, it’s what I know. You can’t do it. Isn’t that right?’

  ‘Shut up!’

  ‘Not even when your colleagues have guns pressed against their heads.’ Hass lowered his hands.

  ‘What the hell are you waiting for?’ Malin screamed while she struggled to get her other hand loose.

  ‘He’s not waiting. He’s powerless.’ Hass leaned over and took hold of the saw that was on the floor.

  ‘Drop it,’ said Fabian. His hands were shaking from the exertion.

  ‘What are you going to do otherwise? Shoot me?’ Hass stood up with the saw in one hand. ‘Didn’t think so.’ He turned on the toothed saw-blade and waved it in front of him. ‘Why don’t you just shoot me!’

  Fabian was so focused on getting his shaking hands to pull the trigger that he didn’t manage to duck and avoid the saw that came flying through the air. It hit him right above the hairline before falling to the floor.

  The pistol slipped out of his grasp as he touched his head. A piece of his scalp was missing and the skull was exposed. The bleeding was so heavy that blood had already run down into his eyes and started dripping on the floor.

  Nausea struck with such merciless force that he had to support himself against the bed so that he didn’t lose his balance. He held on to the open wound with the other hand as hard as he could, but the blood still streamed between his fingers and worked its way down his face. Somewhere between the sound of his own heartbeat, and the screams from Tomas and Jarmo, he could hear Malin screaming too. But not what.

  Hass was now down on all fours, crawling towards him. He looked as if he was searching for something. Of course, he’d just dropped the pistol. Maybe she wanted him to kick it away, but he couldn’t see it. He could hardly see anything because of all the blood in his eyes.

  Then the shots went off.

  First one, then another, and then a third in rapid succession.

  Fabian expected to feel pain in his stomach and see even more blood before he collapsed on the floor just like Jarmo and Tomas. But he didn’t collapse, and he couldn’t feel where he’d been hit. Had he started with Malin?

  That bastard shot Malin. He turned towards the bed, but it was empty.

  Fabian couldn’t figure out what was going on. He tried to wipe the blood away from his eyes to see better, but more kept coming and a large pool had already formed under him. Then he saw her on the floor, lying with the pistol in her hands.

  ‘Get moving!’

  He heard the words, but still couldn’t fully comprehend them. He turned around to see a shadow disappear through the door.

  ‘He’s wounded, but we have to get out of here before he comes back,’ said Malin. ‘You have to help me up.’

  Fabian felt the energy running out of him as quickly as the blood, but at last he finally managed to get her up on to the bed and pushed it out of the room. He had no idea where the exit was, so he followed the two trails of blood through the long corridor. Hass was nowhere to be found.

  An elevator with automatic doors brought them up one floor and opened right out into the snowstorm. But he couldn’t feel the cold winds. Once again he heard Malin’s voice, without comprehending a single word. He understood anyway and ran his hands under her armpits, pulled her from the bed that had got stuck in the snow, and started dragging her down the hill. He fell, but struggled back up, before falling again. Finally, he reached the car and got her into the back seat.

  The car started on the first try. Despite all the blood that was pumping out of him making it almost impossible to see, he managed to back the whole way down the hill without getting stuck in the snow.

  But he wouldn’t remember any of that, or how he drove along Strandvägen, missing the left turn on to Hamngatan outside the Royal Dramatic Theatre, continuing along Birger Jarlsgatan at too high a speed before skidding right into the ‘The Hawk and the Dove’ statue on an equally deserted and snow-covered Stureplan.

  116

  GOD HAD ONCE AGAIN proved that he was fully by her side. He stepped in and acted as soon as she needed Him, whether she was aware of it or not. The pregnant policewoman, for example. She never wanted to hurt her. In fact, she didn’t want to hurt anyone except those who had stolen from Efraim. But if it hadn’t been for her, she never could have made it out to the airport and then on to Tel Aviv via Istanbul. Fabian Risk knew where she was going, but his need to find his pregnant colleague had given him no option other than to let her slip out of his hands.

  Aisha Shahin picked up the checked baggage and got it through customs without being stopped, and from what she could see none of the melted ice had leaked out. The reserved Jeep had been waiting for her, and the drive to Imatin took less than four hours, just as planned. Even the checkpoints let her through without so much as a question about where she was going or what business she was conducting.

  She almost felt as if God was rewarding her and rolling out a red carpet in her path for the work she’d done over all these years; all the training and planning she’d undertaken, and all the doubt she’d been forced to overcome. She actually hadn’t dared to believe that she would succeed, but with God’s help she’d outdone herself and was now almost at the point she’d dreamed about for so long.

  She parked the car outside the village and waited for darkness. Then she opened the watertight container in the suitcase, took out the plastic bag with the organs that would make Efraim whole again, and walked the last stretch with the full backpack on her shoulders.

  The gravestone was still in the same place where she’d put it almost ten years ago, but the text had been bleached out by the sun. She started by taking out the ink and filling in her words. Then she unfolded the spade and started digging. When she got deep enough she brushed the dirt from the plastic that covered his remains.

  The last time she was here, the heavily stitched scar filled her with a bottomless dark hatred, but now she couldn’t see it. The last drop of all that blackness had run out of her, and all she could feel was love; a love so deep and warm that she wasn’t the least bit cold despite the low temperature of the night.

  She took the folded-up plastic from his chest, which consisted solely of his ribs, and opened the watertight bag.

  She carefully unscrewed the two lids of the contact lens case, and took out the corneas, first the left and then the right, and placed them in the eye sockets of the skull. Now he could see her again. Then she took his lung and carefully set it down in its place under his right rib, so that she could feel his warm breath against her cheek. The liver and the
two kidneys would keep their love pure. At last she gave him his heart, which would beat for them from now on.

  Once everything was in place, she settled down on her back beside him as close as she could. She held her cell phone in her hand, pressed play and set it on her chest. It was a sound that had streamed from his radio that one time, and which she had listened to every night she’d gone to bed alone ever since. She took out the little tin holding the pill, put it in her mouth and swallowed.

  There wasn’t far to go. They would meet again soon, and from now on nothing would ever separate them again. She looked up at the stars, which shone brightly that night, and realized that she had never been as happy as she was right now.

  Epilogue

  22 December 2009–14 April 2010

  WITH MIXED EMOTIONS, DUNJA Hougaard got on a flight back to Copenhagen. She was surprised to discover that there had been an explanation for why the murdered Swedish Minister for Justice’s sports car had ended up at the bottom of Helsingør Harbour. It might have been a little strange and roundabout, but it was still completely credible, which meant that she still lacked a concrete argument for opening the investigation again. And if that wasn’t enough, she’d caught Carsten being unfaithful.

  But despite everything, she felt stronger than she had in years. She was almost exhilarated as the wheels skidded against the runway. She didn’t know exactly how it would work out, but from now on she would follow her own compass. No one would ever be able to bully her again, not a Hesk or a Carsten, either.

  Not to mention that slimeball Sleizner, who almost certainty expected her to crawl back into her shell and submit a request to be transferred to a different department. But that was the last thing she intended to do. Instead she would stay put, awaiting the right time, and be the sharp stick that would never stop poking him in the eye. And once that opportunity presented itself she intended to strike with such force that he wouldn’t know what hit him.