“There was one more thing,” Fatima murmurs. “She has given birth or at least been pregnant.”
“One child?” Manfred asks.
“That can’t be determined,” Fatima says, and pulls off the gloves with a smacking sound. “Are we done?”
—
Manfred is driving us back to Kungsholmen. A dusting of snow falls over the dense traffic. Even though it’s only three o’clock, it’s starting to get dark.
“Good-looking woman,” Manfred says, and turns on the radio.
“Fatima?”
“No, the one without a head.”
“You’re fucking disturbed.”
“Am I? You saw for yourself. She must have been beautiful. I mean, what a body. Those breasts…”
I ponder his comments as I look out the window.
“Do we know anything more about who she is?” I ask.
“Nope.”
“And we haven’t been able to reach Orre?”
“No. Didn’t show up at work yesterday, apparently.”
“And today?”
“Don’t know yet. Sanchez was going to check. But half of Sweden is searching for him by now, so he won’t be able to avoid us for very long.”
“And the preliminary forensic report?”
“On your desk. There are no signs of a break-in, so either someone let the perp in voluntarily or he lived in the house. In other words, Orre did it. They found urine on the floor. And a number of hand- and footprints, but that neighbor trudged around so damn much in there, it’s hard to tell what they’ll end up getting from them. Then there were a ton of fibers of various kinds, but nothing remarkable. The murder weapon was a machete, by the way. They sent it to the National Lab; we’ll see what they find. And they’ve brought in that splatter guy, Linbladh, who works with bloodstains. Apparently, he’ll be able to help us reconstruct the course of events.”
It’s quiet for a moment. Manfred is drumming his fingers on the steering wheel in time to the music, and I get the feeling that he’s stressed. His stubble is longer than usual, and his eyes look tired.
“Is Nadja feeling better?” I ask.
He glances at me and runs one hand over his camel-hair ulster overcoat.
“Spent the whole goddamn night screaming. Afsaneh was going crazy. She had to get up early. One of her students was defending their dissertation. And in the middle of all this misery, she starts talking about getting married. Why do women do that?”
I have no answer to that. I remember only too well what happened with my own wedding.
I had been with Janet for maybe a year when her nagging about marriage started to become almost unbearable, and in all honesty I don’t really know how it happened, but somehow she got the impression that I said we should get married. I should have corrected her from the beginning rather than being so wishy-washy and evasive. But I guess I didn’t want (or dare) to disappoint her.
So I let her have her way.
During the months that followed, she obsessed over flower arrangements, menus, and guest lists. She brought home cakes to taste-test, made seating arrangements on large sheets of paper, and played entrance music on her boom box.
And dieted.
I became almost worried about her. Apparently she was eating like a bird to fit into a special dress. One that I absolutely couldn’t see until the wedding itself. That was apparently very important.
Meanwhile, I escaped into my job. We were investigating the murder of a parking lot attendant in Tensta, and since I’d just been promoted, it was especially important for me to prove myself. I can’t say Janet was very understanding. Instead she demanded even more time and dedication from me. We had to look at churches, book honeymoons, and practice our vows (which she’d written).
One evening she came to me with a bundle of envelopes. I remember she looked excited, in that way she did only when she bought something too expensive or maybe found a holiday in one of those catalogs she lugged home. Her eyes shone, and her short, bleached hair stood on end.
She explained that the invitations were ready, handed me the letters, and asked if I could post them. I don’t remember exactly what I said. Probably something like we’ll talk about it later, but as usual, she didn’t listen to me.
What I do remember is sitting in the armchair at home later that evening with the invitations in my lap, wondering what the hell to do with them. I knew I should mail them. It would be the easiest thing in the world to do—just go down to the intersection and stuff them into the yellow mailbox—and then I wouldn’t have to think about that shit for several more weeks. But I couldn’t. I wasn’t ready to do anything that definitive, to take such a decisive step toward a coupledom that I hadn’t chosen for myself. For a second, I had the impulse to talk to Janet, tell her how it was: that the whole wedding thing scared the shit out of me, and I really wanted to postpone it. But when I went into the bedroom to talk to her, she was already asleep. So I put the invitations in the drawer of my desk and decided to have the conversation later.
And then it just happened. I can’t say that I quite forgot about the invitations in the drawer; it was more like I didn’t have the energy to broach the subject. Every time I decided to talk to Janet, something got in the way; she was too angry or stressed or didn’t want to talk. She could be like that, curt and grumpy. Often for reasons I didn’t really understand.
When I think back on that time, I notice how I try to justify my behavior, even to myself. But really there is no excuse. What I did was stupid and immature, and it hurt Janet in a way that I never imagined it would and really never intended to.
I didn’t want to hurt Janet. I just wanted her to leave me alone.
Either way, as the wedding approached—I think maybe there were three or four weeks left—she came in and sat beside me on the bed one evening. Her hair, which she was growing out in order to be able to wear up, fell in wisps around her sad face, and her breasts were hanging alarmingly far down on her emaciated chest.
“No one has RSVP’d yet,” she said, and turned her face to me. “Isn’t that strange?”
I was reading through a preliminary investigation protocol, which I’d promised to get to the prosecutor by the next morning, so I had no time to discuss it with her right then. But I remember it upset me. Made me feel ashamed, even.
“Do you think they might have got lost in the mail?” she asked quietly.
Something about her slumped posture and the unusual toneless quality of her voice affected me deeply. Made me realize the extent of my betrayal.
I felt truly bad.
But I still couldn’t manage to tell her. Not then. Instead, I decided to take it up with her the following morning. That’s not what happened, and I know I acted badly, but hindsight is twenty-twenty.
That night while I slept, Janet started searching the apartment. It was as if she sensed what had happened, as if she had some kind of fucking sixth sense. I woke up to a scream so terrible that I have never before or since heard anything like it. At first I thought she was being beaten to death, that someone had broken in and was raping her. I jumped out of bed and stumbled over a chair, fell onto the coffee table, and slashed a deep cut into my chin. With blood pouring from my face, I continued through the apartment. Found her finally, in front of the desk. The envelopes lay scattered like dead leaves over the floor, as if she’d hurled them into the air. She kept screaming. She screamed and screamed, but I took her in my arms and rocked her like a child. And when I held my hand in front of her mouth in an attempt to silence her, she bit me.
I remember I felt such relief, despite the pain. With my hand in front of her mouth at least she couldn’t scream anymore.
—
Manfred, Sanchez, and I are sitting in the small conference room on the third floor, to the right of the kitchenette. It looks just like every other conference room in this building: white walls, blond-wood chairs with blue seats, and a white laminate table. There’s a candlestick in the window that G
unnar brought from home in an attempt to give the room some holiday cheer. On the wall hangs a faded poster illustrating how to give CPR.
We have to prepare for tomorrow’s meeting with the investigation team and the leader of the preliminary investigation—one of the new prosecutors, Björn Hansson. I haven’t met him, but according to Sanchez he’s “smart, but has his head up his ass and way too high of an opinion of himself.”
Manfred has brought the coffeepot in, and Sanchez is cutting up saffron buns from 7-Eleven with a butter knife. Pictures of the crime scene are spread out all over the table. I try not to look at the severed head when I reach for a bun.
Two days have passed since the murdered woman was found in Jesper Orre’s house in Djursholm, and we still don’t know who she is. Somewhere her loved ones are going on about their lives, not knowing that their daughter or sister or mother has been murdered.
Somewhere, a killer is on the loose. Sanchez summarizes the situation:
“Jesper Orre was last seen at work on Friday. According to his colleagues he appeared quite normal, and nothing out of the ordinary happened. He left the office at half past four and was then, according to statements he made, headed home. He didn’t tell anyone what his plans were during the weekend, but he’d taken time off until Wednesday, so it may be that he was planning to go away on a trip. His phone and his wallet were found in the home. No withdrawals have been made from his accounts since last week. The technicians have lifted a bloody footprint from the hall and outside in the snow that is a size 43 footprint, which might indicate that he actually left the house after the murder. They also found footprints from the neighbor and our unknown victim. Plus several other as yet unidentified prints. The analysis of the fingerprints on the machete has not been finished yet, but the National Lab said there is some kind of print on the weapon.”
“What’s he like as a person, this Orre?” Manfred asks, then takes a loud slurp of coffee.
“He seems to be pretty popular with his colleagues on the management team, but the other employees at the corporate office seem to think he’s pretty tough, and many are actually afraid of him,” responded Sanchez. “Elsewhere in the organization, however—on the floor, so to speak—he’s despised for his toughness. And the union hates him. But you know that already. His parents are both retired teachers and live in Bromma in the same house where Jesper Orre grew up. They describe Jesper as energetic, athletic, and happy. He has no psychological problems that they know of. His parents also confirm that he’s been single for many years, but has what they call an ‘active love life.’ ”
“What the hell does that mean?” Manfred asks.
Sanchez leans across the table and looks into Manfred’s eyes. Stuffs the last of the bun into her mouth.
“It means he has a hell of a lot more fun in bed than you do, Manfred.”
“That’s not saying much,” I interject, which causes Sanchez to start giggling until pieces of bun fall out of her mouth and down onto her short black skirt.
Manfred doesn’t seem overly amused by this discussion. He takes off his checkered jacket, hangs it dramatically on the back of his seat, and pounds lightly on the table with his big fist to get our attention.
“If we could collect ourselves a little, maybe we’ll get out of here sometime today. Sanchez, what’s your theory?”
As the most junior officer at the table, it’s logical that Sanchez would be asked first. That’s how it works. The older, more experienced investigators teach the younger. It’s part of the cycle. Sanchez sits up straight and suddenly looks serious. Clasps her hands in front of her on the white table.
“It’s pretty obvious, right? Jesper Orre is at home with one of his girls when something goes wrong. A fight breaks out, and it ends with him killing her. After the murder, he flees the scene.”
“Why doesn’t he bring his cellphone or wallet?” Manfred asks, and brushes away some invisible crumbs from his pink shirt.
“Because they were in the living room, and he didn’t want to walk around too much on the crime scene,” Sanchez suggests. “Or he forgot. He had a lot of other things to think about.”
“I’m wondering about the killing itself,” I say, pointing at the picture of the head, which seems to be growing out of the floor. “Why so brutal? Wasn’t it enough to just kill her? Why did he have to decapitate her too?”
Sanchez knits her eyebrows.
“He must have been really fucking angry, maybe actually hated her. I also wonder if the position of the head means something special. It seems to be looking at the door, toward whoever might come in. Have you thought about that? I wonder if he wanted to say something with that.”
“Like what?” Manfred asks.
We look at the photo again. The woman’s eyes are closed and her bloody hair hangs in wisps over her face.
Sanchez shrugs slightly.
“I don’t know. Look here! This is what happens if you deceive me, or lie to me, or whatever it was that he thought she’d done.”
Manfred’s cell rings, and he picks it up. Listens and then says:
“We’re sitting in the small conference room on the third floor. Can you show her up here? Good. Of course. Okay.”
Then he gathers together the photos from the crime scene, turns them over, and puts them in a neat stack beside him. Takes a deep breath and leans back in his chair.
“We have a visitor,” he says. “Remember we talked about that murder ten years ago that was so similar to this case? I’ve taken the liberty of inviting one of the people involved in that investigation to speak to us. Not necessarily because there might be a connection, but because I think she could help us to understand a little more about our perp.”
There’s a knock on the door, and I feel myself go cold; all the heat leaves my body instantly and is replaced by an icy feeling and a pounding in my chest. The room shrinks and the ceiling starts to lean, as if it might collapse inward on top of me.
The door opens, and there she stands, wearing an ill-fitting puffy black coat and boots that look thick enough for an expedition to the North Pole. But clothes were never her strong suit. Her thick, light brown hair has broad swaths of gray in it now, and she’s wearing a pair of glasses that make her look a bit stern. Otherwise, she looks the same. Exactly like she did ten years ago. If possible, she’s even more beautiful. There’s something about the fine web of wrinkles around her eyes and her slightly leaner face that make her look vulnerable. As if time has only made her a little more fragile and thin.
“This is Hanne Lagerlind-Schön,” Manfred says.
EMMA
TWO MONTHS EARLIER
There is a particular kind of exhaustion that overcomes you when you work in retail. The bright artificial light and the ever-present background music have a strangely hypnotic effect. In fact, I could swear that sometimes I’m actually sleeping as I slowly circulate around the store with a busy look on my face. Sometimes entire hours just disappear, as if deleted from memory. I can come back from lunch, gather up some clothes, and realize it’s time to close, without knowing where the day went.
Outside, people pass by wearing wet coats with umbrellas in their hands. Mahnoor is putting sale tags on shirts from the summer collection. She moves slowly, in time with the music. Her long, dark hair flows down over her shoulders and back, a black river across her red tunic. Her skinny jeans–clad legs make small, subtle dance steps. Olga is nowhere in sight. Maybe she’s outside smoking; maybe she’s gone to lunch early.
I haven’t heard a word from Jesper.
He remains missing, and whatever happened is still a mystery. I assume I would have heard something about it on the news if he’d been in a serious accident. And if something prevented him from coming he would have told me, right?
He’s never stood me up before.
The store is empty. My eyes feel dry as I blink into the white light. The speakers are pumping out the same music as an hour ago; the playlist the marketing department updates o
nce a month plays on a loop every day.
Doesn’t it drive you crazy? Mom asked me once. The truth is that you get used to it. In the end, you don’t even hear the music anymore. That’s when you start being able to sleep and work at the same time, move through the store without thinking. Floating above the notes without being swept into the melody, all higher intellectual functions turned off, like a leaf floating on water.
—
“Do you like working there?” Jesper asked the first time we went out for dinner.
I fidgeted a bit, not knowing what to say. We’d just sat down at a restaurant on Stureplan, one I’d passed many times without ever entering it. I decided it was probably better to lie. I hardly knew him then, and what was the point in confiding in someone who was basically your boss?
“Absolutely,” I said. “I like it.”
“You don’t sound entirely convincing.”
A waitress in sky-high sandals came over with menus. She squatted down next to us and took our drink orders. Her skirt was so short that I caught a glimpse of her panties through her gauzy panty hose. I was grateful for the distraction, because I didn’t feel comfortable with this topic of conversation.
“What would you like?”
“I’ll have whatever you’re having.”
He raised his eyebrows, looked at me for a moment, then turned to the waitress and ordered two drinks. Then he loosened his tie and sank farther down in the deep chair with a sigh.
“I really hate my job sometimes,” he said emphatically, looking out the window. The low early-summer sun painted golden streaks onto the wet pavement outside.
“Seriously? I never would have imagined that.”
“Why not? Just because I have a…prestigious position. An important job. At least on the surface.”
He suddenly looked tired. Tired and cynical and not at all like a high-level executive. “No, I…I don’t know.”
The Ice Beneath Her Page 7