by Viveca Sten
“Hard to say.” Sachsen rubbed his chin. “I didn’t do that autopsy, but I’ve read the report, and there’s nothing wrong with my colleague’s examination. There was no evidence of anything other than suicide—no unexplained contusions, no biological traces from another person on the body. The death occurred at the scene.”
Thomas moved closer to study the marks on Fredell’s skin; he could picture those fingers mercilessly applying pressure. He tried in vain to work out what kind of individual was behind the attack; who would murder a sick, helpless man?
Sachsen glanced over at a computer on the desk; the screen was covered in small print.
“By the way, Fredell was intoxicated,” he added.
Thomas turned around. “Sorry?”
“He was under the influence of alcohol at the time of death. He’d consumed a large amount of whisky. Do you know if he had a drinking problem?”
Thomas remembered the shelf above the sink in the bathroom: boxes and boxes of tablets, white boxes with red warning triangles.
“He was on a lot of medication because of his illness. It seems unlikely that he’d be drinking under the circumstances; we need to check it out with his wife.”
“I don’t remember seeing any bottles of booze,” Margit said.
“You’re sure about this?” Thomas said to Sachsen, who nodded.
“Could the killer have forced the whisky down his throat so he’d be easier to handle?”
“In that case, you’d think he would have had some kind of weapon—a gun, maybe,” Margit speculated.
“Good call,” Thomas said. “The killer could have forced him into the bathtub at gunpoint.”
“Which would explain why I didn’t find any other marks on the body,” Sachsen added.
“We need to go back to the apartment, see if we can find any bottles,” Margit said. “If so, it might be possible to secure fingerprints.”
“One last thing,” Sachsen said. “The water in the lungs. At first, I thought it was ordinary soapy water, but when I checked again, it wasn’t soap—it was detergent. It looks as if that’s what had been added to the bathwater.”
“But why?” Thomas said.
“How should I know?”
Thomas sighed at Sachsen’s reaction; sometimes the pathologist was unnecessarily quick to take offense.
“That’s not what I meant,” he said. “Was it poisonous? Would it have made the victim’s condition worse in any way?”
“No. It’s just an observation—I don’t know what the significance is.”
Detergent, Thomas repeated to himself. What did that mean?
A neat pile of printouts was waiting on Thomas’s desk when he got back. He and Margit had grabbed a late lunch of sausages with mashed potatoes and a prawn salad; now it was almost three o’clock.
He slipped the sheets of paper out of the plastic folder. The first page consisted of a photograph of Bo Kaufman accompanied by a brief biography, put together by Karin. Thomas read through the material several times, then went along to see Margit, who was sitting at her computer. The cursor moved across the screen as she clicked away with the mouse, concentrating hard.
She glanced up when he sat down opposite her and stretched out his legs.
“I’ve gone through everything Erik and Karin came up with on Fredell and Nielsen,” she said. “There are no points of contact at all. Nada. Nothing.”
She sighed to underline her frustration and took a bite out of a half-eaten apple that was already turning brown around the edges.
“Bo Kaufman,” Thomas said.
“What about him?” Margit kept on munching.
Thomas held up the printout.
“The last name in Marcus’s phone.”
Margit quickly read through the information.
“He lives in Brandbergen, he’s single, and he’s on welfare.”
“Exactly.”
“So no obvious link there either.”
“Not really, unless you count the fact that Fredell lived in Älta, which is also a suburb to the south of Stockholm.”
Thomas’s attempt at humor went straight over Margit’s head, and she gave him a quizzical look. Then she glanced at her watch and switched off the computer.
“I tried to contact Marcus Nielsen’s supervisor at the university,” Thomas went on.
“How did that go?”
“I couldn’t get ahold of her. I left a message on her voice mail asking her to call me.”
“OK.”
Margit gathered up all her papers into an untidy heap and stuffed them in the cabinet behind her. “In that case, let’s hope she gets in touch very soon. I have to go—it’s my sister’s birthday. Can we leave Bo Kaufman until tomorrow? I don’t think another twenty-four hours will make much difference.”
Thomas knew she was thinking of the visit to Robert Cronwall, which had been more or less pointless. He couldn’t really argue; it was more important to spend the time on Fredell, who had definitely been murdered.
He studied the photograph of Bo Kaufman again. Is this a fool’s errand, he thought, or do you have some answers for us? Can you tell us why Marcus Nielsen was found hanging in his room, and why Jan-Erik Fredell was drowned in his own bathtub?
The man in the black-and-white photograph gazed back; apparently he had nothing to say.
CHAPTER 21
The apartment was in darkness when Nora unlocked and opened the door. Henrik had picked up the boys after school, and they would be with him all week; she wouldn’t see Adam and Simon for seven whole days. She knew they needed both their parents, but that didn’t mean she missed them any less.
Suddenly the tears came, and she could do nothing to stop them.
A little voice in her head whispered that the whole thing was unnatural. A seven-year-old and a twelve-year-old needed to see their mom every day, not every other week. If nothing else, she still needed to see them each morning and night.
She went into their room without taking off her coat and lay down on Simon’s bed among his stuffed animals. She groped under the pillow for his pajamas and buried her face in them. The smell of her son filled her nostrils, making her cry even harder. She lay there curled up for a long time, clutching the pajama top.
Eventually she looked at her watch; it was almost seven thirty. She ought to cook dinner, but she wasn’t hungry. And setting out one single plate when there should have been three was so painful.
But she had to eat, because of her diabetes, if nothing else.
Well-meaning friends had tried to cheer her up by saying that she would have some time to herself now, that she would be able to do whatever she wanted. More than one married girlfriend had sighed over how wonderful it would be to get a chance to do her own thing, with the chaotic sounds of family life clearly audible in the background.
Anyone who said that didn’t know what they were talking about.
Nora buried her face in the pajama top again and wondered what Simon was doing right now. He was probably having his bath before bedtime. She pictured her old house, saw him sitting in the bathtub with his plastic toys. Another sob fought its way through.
With a huge effort she sat up and dried her eyes. She had to take her insulin and eat something. Maybe that would make her feel better.
Nora placed a bowl of tomato soup and a couple of sandwiches on a tray and took it into the living room. She sat down in front of the TV and switched on the news, which had just started. She listened to the familiar headlines with half an ear; as usual, there was economic uncertainty all over the world, and there was no shortage of depressing stories.
Suddenly she saw a face she recognized and sat up a little straighter. She’d met the man on the screen, hadn’t she? Something about him seemed familiar.
“The public are asked to be extra vigilant since a disabled man was murdered in his home over the weekend,” the reporter said. “Jan-Erik Fredell was drowned in his bathtub while his wife was out shopping.”
T
he camera showed a picture of a suburban apartment block with several police cars parked outside. Nora thought she caught a glimpse of Thomas’s face; was he working on this case?
Jan-Erik Fredell.
She thought hard; she had a good memory for people and rarely forgot someone she had met.
The reporter moved on to a news item about the financial sector while Nora tried to remember why she recognized the dead man. She went and got her laptop out of her briefcase and did a search on Fredell. Most of the links she found had to do with the news story she had just seen, but there it was, farther down the page: Enskede School, teaching staff 1981.
Suddenly it clicked.
Twenty-six years ago, Jan-Erik Fredell had been her PE teacher; he had come straight from training college, as she recalled. All the girls in her class had been in love with him. Jan-Erik had been broad shouldered, muscular, and ridiculously good-looking, with cropped ash-blond hair and a charming smile. Nora and her friends had come up with all kinds of ways to get his attention. It was like having an American movie star in school.
Their previous teacher had been very strict, a woman who took her subject very seriously. She had sucked every ounce of joy out of the lessons by forcing the students to practice a series of gymnastic exercises that everyone hated.
Jan-Erik Fredell had shown them a completely different side of sport. Suddenly they were allowed to play baseball and football in teams that he chose, so that no one felt excluded. Even orienteering became fun.
His commitment was evident in every aspect of his work, and when Nora eventually graduated from high school, she realized he was one of the best teachers she had ever had, a man who really cared about his students.
And now he was dead, attacked in his own home, unable to defend himself. What a tragic end—and what a sad metamorphosis from the man he had been. She could hardly believe that the frail old man on TV had been the teacher she’d idolized. She decided she would send a card to his widow to express her condolences and tell her about the impression he had made all those years ago.
The telephone rang.
“Hi, Mom.”
It was Simon.
“Hi, honey.”
She pictured him in his favorite pale-blue flannel pajamas with the faded hippos on them. Adam had started sleeping in his underpants, but Simon still wore pajamas.
“I just wanted to say good night.”
“It’s so great to hear your voice, honey. I was thinking about you a few minutes ago.”
“Good night, Mom.”
“Good night, and sleep well. See you Monday.”
“How long is it until Monday?”
“Seven days, sweetheart.”
“That’s such a long time.”
“It’ll go real fast, you’ll see.”
Simon sounded upset, and Nora felt a stab of pain in her heart.
“Have you got Teddy with you?”
Simon loved his gray bear, whose fur was worn away in several places. It went everywhere with him, and it was the first thing he put in his bag when he was going to stay with Henrik.
“Yes.”
“Give him a good-night kiss from me.”
“OK.”
There was a brief silence; Nora had the feeling Simon didn’t want to hang up, and she didn’t have the heart to end the call.
“Did you have a nice dinner?”
“No.”
Now he sounded sulky.
“Why not?”
“Marie made a salad with some weird stuff in it. Disgusting fried cheese and disgusting brown seeds.”
“Don’t call food disgusting,” Nora said gently.
“It was disgusting, it was horrible,” Simon insisted.
“I expect it was bulgur wheat, or maybe couscous.”
“I don’t know what it was, but it didn’t taste good. I hardly ate anything.”
“You have to eat, honey, otherwise you’ll be hungry before bedtime,” Nora said, against her better judgment.
“Yes, Mom.”
She understood her sons very well. Bulgur wheat and halloumi weren’t the right things to serve to boys of their age. Henrik should have known that, even if Marie didn’t.
“You can call me tomorrow to say good night if you like, but now you have to go to sleep.”
She heard a noise in the background, then Henrik’s voice.
“Simon, you shouldn’t be on the phone at this time of night—you’ve got school tomorrow.”
“Yes, Dad.”
“Good night, sweetheart,” Nora said, and hung up.
She stared at the TV, not taking anything in as tears scalded her eyes.
CHAPTER 22
It was almost ten o’clock. Pernilla was in bed, and through the closed door she could hear Thomas moving around in the kitchen. He had gotten home very late.
Under normal circumstances, she was a real night owl, but these days she was unbelievably tired in the evening, her eyelids starting to droop by nine. It had been exactly the same last time; she had wanted to do nothing but sleep for the first three months of her pregnancy.
She already had a little bump. It had happened much sooner than when she was expecting Emily; she could hardly button up her jeans. Her breasts were growing, too—that was why she had begun to suspect that something was going on. Her bras cut into her flesh and seemed too small, but it had still taken several weeks for her to summon up the courage to take a pregnancy test.
She had done three, one after the other, terrified of the result—whatever it might be.
The possibility that they would get another chance to be parents had been so remote that she hadn’t even considered it. When they first got together, it had been years before they gave up and joined the waiting list for IVF treatment. When she finally got pregnant after several rounds, it had felt like a miracle. She wasn’t a believer, but that day she had thanked God.
When Emily died, joy had turned into a grief deeper than anything Pernilla had ever known. Every step hurt; every movement was an effort. Sorrow took over her life; it was like looking at the world through a filter that colored everything gray. Tears couldn’t ease the pain, but still she wept until her eyes ached and her head throbbed.
Thinking back brought a lump to her throat; she adjusted the pillow, trying to chase away those terrible memories.
It was so easy to fall back into anxiety and despair. Over the past twelve months, she had started to believe that she was getting over the loss of her daughter, but those feelings were still very close to the surface.
Hormones, she told herself. She had been tearful when she was carrying Emily, too. All pregnant women cried easily, and many felt like they were on an emotional roller coaster. It was nothing unusual.
She turned her head to look at Emily’s photograph. It still hurt, but it was easier now.
She stroked her belly with her fingertips and tried to imagine the life that had begun to grow in there. They were scheduled to go for an ultrasound next week, and she would see her child for the first time.
She hadn’t gotten much done at work today; instead she had sat around surfing the net. Her jaw muscles tightened as she remembered searching for information about sudden infant death syndrome, and, in particular, the chances of it affecting two children in the same family. She had used every search term she could think of in an effort to find reassuring statistics, research that showed it was highly unusual for parents to experience the same tragedy twice.
Her joy at being pregnant was constantly tinged with the fear of something going wrong. She couldn’t stop herself from brooding, even though she knew it didn’t help. Quite the reverse, in fact: it put her in a dark, gloomy state of mind, when she ought to be thinking positive thoughts, to be wrapping her baby in a sense of security.
Happy thoughts, she said to herself, remembering the story of Peter Pan; you had to think happy thoughts in order to fly.
Thomas had brightened up since she’d told him she was pregnant. He had regained
the lust for life that had been missing during the summer, when he battled with nightmares and struggled to get used to the new way of walking.
Once again, she stroked her belly. When had she gotten pregnant?
Since she didn’t think she could conceive naturally, they hadn’t used any protection or taken particular note of her menstrual cycle.
Pernilla rolled over onto her back and tried to think.
It was now September 24, and she was in her eighth week—so it must have happened in the second half of July, when they were still on Harö.
Suddenly the memory came to her.
It had been a beautiful morning, and she had woken early. The weather had been glorious, and the forecasters had promised that the heat would last for the rest of the week. She had padded down to the jetty and taken a morning dip—without a stitch on, because it was so early and there was no one around.
Their house, a converted barn which they had renovated a few years earlier, occupied its own inlet, and their closest neighbors were Thomas’s parents and his brother, Stefan, and his family. Trees, at that moment in full leaf, grew between the properties, and the green wall created a sense of peace and privacy.
The water had been warm. When she swam to the surface, a family of eider ducks were paddling by at a stately pace. The smell of seaweed lingered in her nostrils, and she pushed her wet hair back from her forehead. She got out and sat on the jetty for a while, allowing the sun to dry her skin.
When she got back to the house, Thomas was still asleep. He was lying on his side, and he looked almost the same as when they had first met, on a mild summer’s evening in Stockholm ten years earlier.
The pale stubble made him appear younger, and Pernilla smiled as she thought about its roughness against her cheek. His hair was slightly damp at his temples, and the thin summer sheet was in a crumpled heap at the foot of the bed.
She had lain down beside him, feeling the contrast between her own cool skin and the warmth of his back. The tan line at his waist was very distinct.
She lay there motionless for a little while, enjoying the closeness.
Then she had gently nuzzled the back of his neck and softly kissed him. He had moved a fraction nearer, and she pushed her leg between his thighs. To begin with, he hardly moved, as if he were still asleep, but she knew he was awake; a faint, almost imperceptible smile played around the corners of his mouth.