by Viveca Sten
ALSO BY VIVECA STEN IN THE SANDHAMN MURDERS SERIES
Still Waters
Closed Circles
Guiltless
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2011 by Viveca Sten
Translation copyright © 2017 by Marlaine Delargy
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Previously published as I natt är du död by Forum in Sweden in 2011. Translated from Swedish by Marlaine Delargy.
First published in English by AmazonCrossing in 2017.
Published by AmazonCrossing, Seattle
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and AmazonCrossing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781542048538
ISBN-10: 1542048532
Cover design by Kimberly Glyder
To Lennart, without you I am only half
CONTENTS
MAP
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
DIARY: OCTOBER 1976
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
DIARY: OCTOBER 1976
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
DIARY: NOVEMBER 1976
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
DIARY: NOVEMBER 1976
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
DIARY: NOVEMBER 1976
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
DIARY: NOVEMBER 1976
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
DIARY: DECEMBER 1976
CHAPTER 26
DIARY: DECEMBER 1976
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
DIARY: JANUARY 1977
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
DIARY: FEBRUARY 1977
CHAPTER 35
DIARY: MARCH 1977
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
DIARY: MARCH 1977
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
DIARY: APRIL 1977
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER 47
DIARY: MAY 1977
CHAPTER 48
CHAPTER 49
CHAPTER 50
DIARY: MAY 1977
CHAPTER 51
CHAPTER 52
CHAPTER 53
CHAPTER 54
CHAPTER 55
CHAPTER 56
DIARY: JUNE 1977
CHAPTER 57
CHAPTER 58
CHAPTER 59
CHAPTER 60
CHAPTER 61
DIARY: JUNE 1977
CHAPTER 62
CHAPTER 63
CHAPTER 64
DIARY: JULY 1977
CHAPTER 65
CHAPTER 66
CHAPTER 67
CHAPTER 68
DIARY: JULY 1977
CHAPTER 69
CHAPTER 70
CHAPTER 71
CHAPTER 72
DIARY: JULY 1977
CHAPTER 73
CHAPTER 74
CHAPTER 75
CHAPTER 76
CHAPTER 77
DIARY: AUGUST 1977
CHAPTER 78
CHAPTER 79
CHAPTER 80
CHAPTER 81
DIARY: AUGUST 1977
CHAPTER 82
KORSÖ
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR
PROLOGUE
The splashing made him think of children playing in a bathtub. If he closed his eyes, he could picture a beach, with little ones running around without a care in the world.
One final splash, and the water slopped over the edge of the bucket and onto the wet floor.
The flailing arms grew still. The legs kept on twitching, like silverfish scuttling to and fro with no real purpose. Jerky, pointless movements.
Then they, too, grew still, and the slow dripping of the tap was the only sound breaking the silence in the white-tiled room.
He would remember that sound for the rest of his life.
The strong smell of soap filled the air, the odor of pine needles assailing his nostrils and making him retch. But he gritted his teeth; the fear overshadowed everything else.
Something warm trickled down his leg, and he realized he had wet himself.
It didn’t matter. It was all too late anyway.
The tap continued to drip.
CHAPTER 1
Sunday, September 16, 2007 (The First Week)
The girl sounded terrified.
“You have to come now, right away.”
“Can you tell me your name?”
The voice on the emergency line was professional without being unfriendly. On the screen, the digital clock showed precisely 10:03 in the morning.
“It’s just terrible . . . It’s Marcus.”
“Can you explain what’s happened?” said the operator. “Try to calm down.”
“I’m at his place.”
“You need to give me the address.”
“He’s not breathing. He’s just hanging there.” The response ended on a sob. “I can’t get him down.”
“Where are you?” the operator tried again.
She could hear the muted hum of conversation behind her as her colleagues took other calls. So far it had been relatively quiet; it was Sunday morning, and the events of Saturday night had been dealt with long ago. The operator had started her shift at six a.m., and she had already gone through three cups of coffee.
“Where are you?” she repeated.
The young person on the other end of the line calmed down a little.
“Värmdövägen 10B, in Nacka.”
The words were almost a whimper.
“The student apartments.” She hiccupped. “We’d arranged to study together.”
“And what’s your name?”
“Amanda.”
“Your full name?”
“Amanda Grenfors.” The voice was thick, dubious, as if she couldn’t take in what she was seeing.
“Try and tell me what’s happened, Amanda.”
The operator had been making notes during the call. The address was no more than a stone’s throw from Nacka police station; a patrol could be there in minutes.
“Marcus is hanging from the ceiling. There’s a rope around his neck. His face is all blue . . .” The girl’s voice broke. The operator waited, and after a few seconds, she heard a whisper: “I think he’s dead.”
The main door of the 1940s apartment building was ajar when the squad car arrived. The number of bicycles parked outside bore witness to the fact that this was student housing—one of the buildings that had recently been converted to meet
the increasing demand from the capital’s academic institutions.
The two police officers went up a flight of stairs and down a long corridor with a dozen or so doors on either side. They glanced into the shared kitchen, where a pile of dirty dishes filled the sink. A handwritten note had been stuck on one of the cupboard doors: Clean up after yourself—your mommy doesn’t live here!
There was a carelessly knotted garbage bag lying in one corner; judging by the smell, it had been there for quite some time. No one was around.
At the far end of the corridor, one of the doors was wide open. Outside, an ashen-faced young woman was sitting on the floor with her back to the wall. She wore jeans and black sneakers, and her thick dark-red sweater seemed too big for her thin body.
“Amanda Grenfors?” said the officer.
“Yes.” A tear-stained face turned up toward her. The officer crouched down and gently laid her hand on the young woman’s arm.
“How are you doing?”
“He’s in there.” She pointed with a shaky right hand. “Hanging from the light fixture.”
They followed the movement with their eyes. The sun broke through the clouds, and in the sudden brightness flooding through the window, they could see tiny dancing dust motes forming a shimmering halo around the body suspended from the ceiling. The drooping head and the angle of the neck confirmed what they already suspected.
Marcus Nielsen was dead.
CHAPTER 2
He was running across the dark, uneven ice just off the Sandhamn shore, and he could hear it creaking beneath his feet. Then the water swallowed him, and he felt as if his fingers and toes were being devoured by the cold. The icy seawater forced the air out of his lungs and sucked the oxygen from his blood.
Soon he would drown in the deep channel. No one would come to his rescue, because no one knew he was out on the ice.
He wept.
He didn’t want to die, not like this, all alone, without the chance to say good-bye.
The water drove the cold into his body and drained his strength, and he bitterly regretted all the things he hadn’t said and done.
How was he supposed to know that the clock was ticking?
As he rapidly lost feeling in his limbs, he realized that his heart was slowing, that he was on the verge of losing consciousness. Soon a false warmth would spread through his veins, he would give in, and everything would be over.
But he didn’t want to die, not now, not without Pernilla by his side.
By now he was shivering so much that he had to let go. He sank back into the freezing water. He just couldn’t fight anymore.
There was a ringing noise, shrill and insistent, an angry signal demanding his attention.
He opened his eyes and realized that he was lying in his own bed with Pernilla breathing evenly by his side.
He reached out and groped for his phone on the bedside table. His fingers lost their grip, and his phone fell to the floor. After a brief silence, it started ringing again; it sounded even louder this time. Pernilla stirred.
“Phone,” she mumbled.
Her voice finally brought him back to reality. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, but when he lowered his left foot to the floor and tried to stand up, he almost lost his balance. He still hadn’t gotten used to it. He bent down and grabbed his phone. He pressed it to his cheek, and immediately it was wet with tears.
His voice was scratchy as he said, “Thomas Andreasson.”
CHAPTER 3
On the way to the car, Margit Grankvist thought about the sparse information she had been given over the phone. She had been at the breakfast table with Bertil when the call came through; both girls were still asleep. Bertil hardly looked up from his newspaper; he knew right away that she had to go.
He was used to the situation by now. Margit smiled as she pictured her husband, with his thinning hair. He taught high school English and Swedish. She knew that some of her friends didn’t consider him the most exciting guy around, but they had stuck it out for over twenty years and had raised two fine daughters who would soon be ready to leave the nest. Anna was due to graduate from high school in the spring, and Linda a couple of years after that.
Margit got into the car. The chill in the air made it clear that autumn was definitely on its way. The late-summer weather that had held for several weeks would soon be replaced by cold winds and overcast skies. It was already getting dark noticeably earlier; the days would grow shorter and shorter until only six hours of weak daylight remained.
Before the year finally turned.
Margit was finding it increasingly difficult to cope with the long Swedish winters. Lately she had started to dream of renting a small apartment in southern Spain, a place in the sun for her and Bertil when the girls left home.
Her cell phone beeped as a text message came through with fresh information. The dead boy’s name was Marcus Nielsen, and he was a student of psychology at Stockholm University. He had lived alone in the dorm room where he had been found an hour or so earlier.
OK, so he was twenty-two years old, but she still thought of him as a boy. Her own daughter Anna was eighteen . . .
Margit turned the key and backed out of the driveway. There was virtually no traffic at this time of the day, and it should take her only twenty minutes or so to get to Värmdövägen.
Margit parked in front of the apartment complex and locked the car. She nodded to a uniformed officer on the stairs and passed several students in boxers and T-shirts, peering out from behind their doors. She heard the familiar voice of Staffan Nilsson, the forensic technician, before she entered Marcus Nielsen’s room.
The body was still hanging from a light fixture in the form of a hook on the ceiling, but it would soon be carefully taken down and sent to the pathology lab in Solna.
“Good morning,” Nilsson said, inclining his head in Margit’s direction. She moved forward, looking around and pulling on a pair of plastic gloves.
The room was surprisingly large for student housing; it must’ve been something like 645 square feet, at a guess. It was reasonably tidy, even though the trash can was overflowing with fast-food packaging and there was no sign that a vacuum cleaner had been used recently.
“We didn’t have it this good when I was a student,” Nilsson said from behind her. “We had to make do with rooms that were so small we could hardly turn around.”
There was a neatly made bed immediately to the left of the door and a desk over by the window with an office chair pushed underneath. A white IKEA bookcase stood against one wall, the kind that was listed in Guinness World Records as the world’s bestseller. A door opposite the bed led to a tiny bathroom; Margit could see several toilet paper rolls on the floor.
“There’s his final message.” Nilsson pointed to a piece of paper on the pillow.
“A suicide note?”
He nodded and read aloud: “Forgive me, but everything is so hard. Marcus.”
Margit leaned forward. “It’s a computer printout.”
“Yes.”
“And it’s not signed.”
“No.”
“So where’s the computer?” She looked at the desk, which was strewn with papers and several open books. “Have you already taken it away?”
“No, I haven’t seen a computer.”
“So what did he use to write the note?”
Nilsson shrugged. “Good question.”
Margit went over to the desk and checked the drawers, then opened the closet and found a bunch of clothes, both clean and dirty, randomly stuffed inside. She spotted a backpack under the bed; she pulled it out and opened it, but it was empty.
“No sign of a computer here.” She turned to Nilsson. “Do you know anyone of his generation who can live without a device of some kind?”
“I don’t see a printer either.”
Nilsson was right; there was no printer or computer paper in the room.
“If he’d been planning to take his own life for a while
, he might have printed the note somewhere else—at the university, for example,” Nilsson suggested.
“Possibly.”
Margit went over to the body. The ceiling was unusually high, so her face was level with Marcus Nielsen’s waist. He was wearing a gray hoodie and ripped jeans. A stench struck her as she walked around the back, and a stain on the denim showed that his bowels had emptied at the moment of death. She instinctively recoiled. Then she walked around to the front and moved a short distance away in order to get a better overall picture.
Nielsen’s face had set in a distorted grimace. His eyes were half-closed, and there was a small amount of saliva at one corner of his mouth. His lips were parted, and Margit wondered if he had tried to call out as the noose tightened.
Had he changed his mind as his feet kicked out into thin air, or was it just some kind of reflex?
His hair was a strange shade of black, accentuating the deathly white pallor of his face.
“That can’t be his natural hair color,” Margit said.
“Probably not, but the autopsy will tell us for sure.”
“How long do you think he’s been dead?”
Nilsson scratched his nose.
“At least five or six hours; rigor mortis has started to set in.”
Margit looked closely at the noose from different angles. It was deeply embedded in the neck, the skin discolored with livid shades of dark red and purple. The other end of the rope was firmly tied to the light fixture.
“How did he get up there?” she said, before answering her own question. “He must have climbed onto the desk, put the noose around his neck, then jumped off.”
She gazed at the body; Marcus Nielsen was slim and not very tall, but still he must have weighed around a hundred and fifty pounds.
“I’m surprised it held,” she said, half to herself.
“You mean the hook?”
“Mm-hmm.”
Nilsson straightened up. “This place is solid; it’s not like some of those buildings they threw up in the seventies.”
“You mean if he’d lived somewhere like that he’d have survived?” Margit said.
She went over to the bookcase and picked up a framed photograph showing the deceased with a middle-aged couple and a teenage boy, presumably his parents and a younger brother. White letters in the bottom corner indicated that it had been taken on July 10, 2006—the previous summer. It looked like a holiday picture; they were sitting outside some kind of café, and the background consisted of white buildings with bright-blue doors. Probably the Greek islands, Margit thought. A lovely family holiday. With no idea of what the future might hold.