The Man Who Wasn't There
Page 1
Contents
About the Book
About the Author
Title Page
Introducing Riksmord
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Chapter 94
Chapter 95
Chapter 96
Chapter 97
Chapter 98
Chapter 99
Chapter 100
Chapter 101
Chapter 102
Chapter 103
Chapter 104
Chapter 105
Acknowledgements
Copyright
About the Book
On the side of a mountain in Sweden, six bodies have been found. Skeletons, more precisely.
The Criminal Investigation Department has been called in to investigate, and psychological profiler Sebastian Bergman is involved. The call-up seemed like the perfect opportunity to escape his ex-girlfriend and spend some more time with Vanja. To try and build a relationship with her before it’s too late.
But the case itself is proving to be anything but straightforward.
The police are stumbling at the first hurdle – identifying the six bodies. Two of them they can trace, but the other four, a family, are proving a mystery. Every time they think they have an answer, more questions arise. Someone has gone to great lengths to keep the truth of what happened on this mountainside hidden from view.
Will they ever find out who killed these people, and why?
About the Author
Michael Hjorth is one of Sweden’s best-known film and TV producers, and a renowned screenwriter whose work includes several screenplays of Henning Mankell’s Wallander.
Hans Rosenfeldt has hosted both radio and television shows, and is Sweden’s leading screenwriter and the creator of The Bridge, which is broadcast in more than 170 countries.
Introducing the National Police Homicide unit, based in Stockholm – also known as Riksmord . . .
Torkel Höglund – Chief Inspector
Ursula Andersson – police forensics expert
Vanja Lithner – investigative police officer
Billy Rosén – investigative police officer
Sebastian Bergman – psychologist and leading criminal profiler
Trolle Hermansson – former Chief Inspector, sacked for using surveillance for personal matters and planting false evidence
Other police
Jennifer Holmgren – junior police officer in the small town of Sigtuna. Temporarily seconded to Riksmord.
2003
This time her name was Patricia.
Patricia Wellton.
New places. New name.
In the beginning, a long time ago, that had been the most difficult thing: reacting when hotel receptionists or cab drivers called her name.
But that was then. Now she became the name on her new ID documentation as soon as she received it. So far only one person had used her name on this trip – the guy at the car rental desk in Östersund, when he came to tell her that the car she had booked in advance had been cleaned and was ready to go.
She had landed on time, just after five o’clock on Wednesday afternoon, and had caught the Arlanda Express into central Stockholm. It was her first visit to the Swedish capital, but she restricted herself to an early and pretty boring dinner in a nearby restaurant.
Just before nine she boarded the night train to Östersund. She had reserved a single occupancy sleeper; she didn’t think that anyone would ever catch her, regardless of how many people might provide the police with her description, but she just didn’t like sleeping with strangers. Never had done.
Not with the volleyball team, playing tournaments when she was young.
Not during her training, either back at base or out in the field.
Not during assignments.
Once the train had left the station she had gone to the buffet, bought a small bottle of white wine and a packet of peanuts, then settled down in her compartment to read I Know What You’re Really Thinking, a new book with the slightly bizarre subtitle Reading Body Language Like a Trial Lawyer. The woman who was temporarily known as Patricia Wellton wasn’t convinced that trial lawyers were particularly adept at reading body language; she had certainly never met one who stood out in that respect, but the book was at least short and entertaining. Just after one o’clock in the morning she had slipped between the clean white sheets and turned off the light.
Five hours later she stepped off the train in Östersund, made a few enquiries and was directed to a hotel where she ate a leisurely breakfast before heading to the Avis office where she had booked a car. She had to wait, and was offered a cup of coffee while the car was cleaned and checked over.
A new grey Toyota Avensis.
After a journey of just over 100 kilometres, she reached Åre. She had stuck to the speed limit; there was no need to attract unwanted attention, even though it wouldn’t change anything in practical terms. The Swedish police weren’t in the habit of searching a car involved in a minor infringement of the law, as far as she was aware; perhaps they didn’t actually have the authority to do so either. However, if anyone should discover that she was armed, her assignment would be jeopardised. She had no papers giving her the right to bear arms in Sweden; if they found her Bere
tta M9, they would start digging, and would soon discover that Patricia Wellton existed nowhere else apart from right here, right now. So she slowed down as she drove past the grassy-green ski runs and into the little village on the hill leading down to the lake.
She went for a short walk, chose somewhere to have lunch at random and ordered a panini and a Diet Coke. As she ate she looked at the map. Just over fifty kilometres to go on the E14 before she was due to turn off and leave the car, then a twenty-kilometre stretch. She looked at her watch. Three hours to get there, one to tidy up, two to get back to the car, file her report . . . She would be in Trondheim in time to catch her flight to Oslo, then home on Friday.
She took another stroll around Åre, then got back in the car and headed west. Her work had taken her to many different places, but she had never seen a landscape like this. The soft, rolling mountains, the clearly defined treeline, the sun glittering on the water in the valley down below. She could be happy here. The isolation. The silence. The clear air. She would like to rent a remote cottage here, go for long walks. Go fishing. Experience the light in the summer, sit reading by an open fire on autumn evenings.
Some other time, perhaps.
Probably never.
She left the E14 when she saw a sign with Rundhögen on it pointing to the left. Shortly after that she got out of the car, picked up her rucksack and her map of the area, and began to run.
She stopped 122 minutes later; slightly out of breath, but not tired. She hadn’t run at her full capacity, not even close. She sat down and had a drink of water as her breathing quickly returned to normal. Then she took out her binoculars and focused on the log cabin about 300 metres away. She was in the right place. It looked exactly like the picture she had been given by her informant.
If she had understood correctly, the cabin dated from the Thirties: no one would be permitted to build there at the foot of the mountain these days. A company director who had a good relationship with the Royal Court had needed some kind of shelter during his hunting trips, and to be honest you couldn’t really call it a house, or even a cottage. What size was it? Eighteen square metres? Twenty? Tiny windows and a small chimney poking up through a felt-covered roof. Two steps leading up to the door, and something resembling a shed about ten metres away. One half had a door, and she assumed it housed an outside toilet. The other side was open, and as there was a chopping block outside, she guessed it was a wood store.
A movement inside the green mosquito net. He was there.
She put down the binoculars, reached inside her rucksack and took out the Beretta. With rapid, practised movements she screwed on the silencer. She got to her feet, slipped the gun into the specially made pocket in her jacket, picked up her rucksack and set off. From time to time she glanced over her shoulder, but there was no sign of any movement. The cabin was a little way off the marked trail, and at this time of year, the end of October, the area wasn’t exactly crawling with walkers. She had encountered only two since leaving the car.
When she had less than fifty metres to go, she took out the gun and held it against her leg. She considered the options. Knock on the door and shoot as soon as he opened it, or assume the cabin was unlocked, walk in and take him by surprise. She had just decided to knock when the door opened. The woman stiffened for a second, then immediately crouched down. A man in his forties came out onto the step. Open terrain. Nowhere to hide. The best she could do was to keep still; the least movement could attract his attention. She tightened her grip on the gun. If he saw her she would be able to stand up and shoot him before he had time to run. Forty metres. She would definitely score a hit, probably fatal, but that wasn’t what she wanted. If he was injured he might be able to get back into the cabin; what if he had a gun in there? If he spotted her, things would become so much more difficult.
But he didn’t give any sign of having seen her. He closed the door, walked down the steps and headed for the shed, where he grabbed the axe from the block and started chopping wood.
She straightened up slowly, edged slightly to the right so that the house would hide her if the man took a break, turned around and gazed out across the beautiful landscape.
The axe. Could it become a problem? Unlikely. If everything went according to plan, he wouldn’t have the chance to register her as a threat, let alone attack her with a close combat weapon such as an axe.
She stopped by the house, exhaled, took a few seconds to focus, then walked around the corner of the building.
The man looked surprised to see her, to say the least. He started to ask a question; the woman assumed he was wondering who she was, perhaps what she was doing out there in the middle of the mountains in Jämtland, whether there was something he could help her with.
It was irrelevant.
She didn’t understand Swedish, and he was never going to get an answer.
The pistol with its silencer coughed once.
The man stopped moving immediately, as if someone had pressed the pause button while watching a film. The axe slid out of his hand, his knees buckled to the left, his body fell to the right. A dull thud as his eighty kilos hit the ground. His heart punctured by the bullet, he was already dead when he landed, as if someone had simply thrown him down on his side.
The woman walked over to the body, straddled it and calmly took aim at the man’s head. One shot to the temple, three centimetres from the left eye. She knew he was dead, but fired another bullet into his brain, about a centimetre from the first.
She slipped the Beretta back into her pocket, wondering whether to do anything about the blood on the ground, or to let nature take its course. Even if someone realised the dead man was missing – and someone would, she knew that – and came up to the little cabin to search for him, they would never find the body. The blood would indicate that something had happened to him, but that was all. Even if they thought the worst, no one’s suspicions would ever be confirmed. The man would be gone for ever.
‘Daddy?’
The woman drew her gun again as she spun around. A single thought went through her mind.
A child. There weren’t supposed to be any children.
2012
He was shaking. Trembling. His head and shoulders. Strange – he couldn’t connect the movement with the dream. Was he actually dreaming? It wasn’t the usual dream, if so. No little hand in his. No roaring, rushing sound, inexorably coming closer. No swirling chaos. But he must be dreaming, because someone was saying his name.
Sebastian.
Yet if he was dreaming, then he was alone in his dream. Alone in the darkness.
He opened his eyes. Looked straight into another pair of eyes. Blue. Beneath black hair. Short. Tousled. Above a snub nose and a smiling mouth.
‘Good morning. Sorry, but I wanted to wake you before I left.’
With some difficulty, Sebastian raised himself on his elbows. The woman who had woken him seemed pleased with her efforts. She walked over to a full-length mirror at the foot of the bed, selected a pair of earrings from a nearby shelf and started to put them on.
The sleep immediately left Sebastian’s brain, to be replaced by the memory of the previous day.
Gunilla, forty-seven, nurse. They had seen each other a few times at Karolinska Hospital. Yesterday had been his final outpatient appointment, and afterwards they had left together, gone out on the town, then back to her place. Surprisingly good sex.
‘You’re up.’
He realised he was stating the obvious, but he wasn’t entirely comfortable with the situation: lying naked in a strange bed while the woman with whom he had spent the night was up and dressed, ready to meet the day. He was usually the one who got up first, preferably without waking his temporary partner. That was how he wanted it. The less he was required to talk before he left them, the better.
‘I have to go to work,’ she informed him, glancing at him in the mirror.
‘What, now?’
‘Yes, now. I’m slightly late, actually.’
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Sebastian leaned over and picked up his watch from the bedside table. Almost half past eight. Gunilla was now fastening a slender silver chain around her neck. Sebastian gazed incredulously at her. Forty-seven years old, living in inner-city Stockholm. Surely no one could be that trusting and naive.
‘Are you crazy?’ he said, sitting up. ‘You only met me yesterday. I could take off with half the contents of your apartment.’
Gunilla met his gaze in the mirror, smiling.
‘Are you intending to take off with half the contents of my apartment?’
‘No. But that’s what I’d say even if I was planning to do just that.’
After a final check on her appearance, Gunilla came round to his side of the bed. She sat down and placed a hand on his chest.
‘I didn’t meet you yesterday. I went out with you yesterday. I’ve got all the information I need about you at work, so if the TV is gone when I get home, I know where to find you.’
For a moment Ellinor passed through Sebastian’s mind, but he quickly pushed the thought away. He would have to devote a considerable amount of time and energy to her before long, but not now. Gunilla smiled at him again. She was joking. Sebastian thought back to the previous day.
She smiled often.
Laughed easily.
It had been a pleasant evening.
Gunilla quickly leaned forward and kissed him on the mouth before he had time to react. She got to her feet, and on her way to the bedroom door she said:
‘Anyway, Jocke will keep an eye on you.’
‘Jocke?’ Sebastian searched his memory for a link to someone called Jocke, but found nothing.
‘Joakim. My son. You can have breakfast with him if you like; he’s up and about.’
Sebastian simply stared at her. He couldn’t think of anything to say. Was she serious? Her son? Here in the apartment? How old was he? How long had he been here? All night? As far as Sebastian recalled, they hadn’t exactly been discreet.
‘I really do have to go. Thanks for yesterday.’
‘Thank you,’ Sebastian managed to say before Gunilla left the room, closing the door behind her. Sebastian slid down onto the pillows once more. He heard her say goodbye to someone – presumably her son – then he heard another door close. The apartment was silent.
Sebastian stretched. It didn’t hurt. It hadn’t hurt for the last few weeks, but he was still enjoying the sensation of moving his body without pain.