The Man Who Wasn't There

by Michael Hjorth

  They were staying in what Mats and Klara referred to as ‘comfort rooms’. Apparently comfort meant bunk beds, a rag rug, a plain plywood wardrobe with no doors, and a shower and toilet. Personally, Torkel thought it looked like a room in just about any walkers’ hostel.

  After a hot shower he positioned himself in front of the mirror with a pair of nail scissors, wiped away the condensation and got to work on keeping the unwanted hair growth at bay. His right nostril needed sorting out. He hated these long hairs that, over the past few years, had started appearing in places where he most definitely didn’t want them. Few things made him feel so old as when his daughters, not without a certain amount of Schadenfreude, pointed out that the hair in his ears needed trimming again. His phone rang, and he left the bathroom to answer it.

  Axel Weber from Expressen. Had he heard correctly – Riksmord were up in Jämtland? Indeed he had. Torkel knew the story would be all over the media in no time. Weber was a good journalist, and the fact that Riksmord were involved automatically attracted more attention. Weber wanted to know why they were there; what had they found? Or, to be more accurate, could Torkel confirm that they had found a mass grave? Torkel replied that they had found a number of bodies, which had been buried for a long time. He had no intention of speculating on how long, because they didn’t know. But a long time.

  Age, gender, how many bodies, clues, possible motives – Torkel wasn’t prepared to comment on any of that. When the relatively short conversation was over, Weber didn’t really know any more than he had to start with.

  ‘You do know I’m going to find all this out anyway,’ he said, and Torkel swore he could hear Weber smiling on the other end of the phone.

  ‘Not from me.’

  He ended the call. Weber was probably right. Obviously someone on Hedvig Hedman’s team had already talked, and no doubt would carry on doing so. Cases with media value were almost impossible to lock down these days. From now on they would have to limit the flow of information, possibly even where Hedvig was concerned. The report to the Attorney General suggested that she didn’t have the most loyal colleagues around her, or perhaps that she lacked judgement in her leadership role. And of course she had called in Riksmord; there were always local officers who thought that meant they were being sidelined. This happened less and less often; mostly they were glad of the expertise and additional resources that Riksmord brought with them, but someone usually felt that Riksmord were treading on their toes. From now on, Torkel and his team would have to assume that Police HQ in Östersund was leaking like a sieve.

  He immediately called Ursula; she could tell the team up on the mountain to keep an eye open. It was unlikely that anyone would send a photographer out into the darkness to get a glimpse of the grave and the bodies, but stranger things had happened.

  ‘How did you get on with the lab?’ Ursula asked just before she rang off.

  ‘We’ll talk about it when you get back,’ Torkel said evasively.

  ‘So it’s Umeå then.’

  Torkel thought for a second. He could lie, say he was working on it, but there was nothing to gain by doing so. It was still going to be Umeå.

  ‘I tried, but it was impossible. When are you coming down?’ he asked, hoping to prevent her from brooding on the negative outcome.

  ‘I’m nearly done; in an hour or so.’

  ‘I’ll ask them to keep dinner hot for you.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Ursula ended the call. The fact that she hadn’t said goodbye didn’t necessarily mean that she was annoyed. It could just be that she wanted to get back to work, that the call had disturbed her. He chose to believe the latter, and returned to the bathroom.

  * * *

  Game casserole, potato wedges, salad and lingonberries, followed by a white chocolate mousse. They had just started dessert when Hedvig Hedman came up the stairs leading to the section of the restaurant known as the Loft. After a brief greeting she placed a folder on the table.

  ‘I think we might have identified two of them. The ones wearing clothes,’ she clarified.

  Torkel opened the folder; Vanja was sitting next to him and leaned forward, while Billy and Jennifer came around to look over his shoulder. Sebastian didn’t move. He assumed the superintendent would provide some kind of verbal report, and he was right.

  ‘Two Dutch citizens were reported missing in November 2003: Jan and Framke Bakker from Rotterdam. They were supposed to have started their walking holiday in Norway on 27 October, finishing in Vålådalen the following week. They were both very experienced walkers; we searched for them until the snow came down on 18 November that year.’

  ‘And why do we think it’s them?’ Torkel asked, looking up at her. ‘Are they the only people who’ve gone missing around here?’

  ‘No, but they’re the only couple who have disappeared in the relevant area, plus the report said that their walking clothes were grey and yellow.’

  Hedvig leaned over and turned to a plastic pocket at the back of the folder. It contained a picture of a man and a woman, both just under thirty, taken on a snow-covered mountaintop somewhere. In the Alps, perhaps. They were wearing sunglasses, and looked tanned and weatherbeaten. The woman had thick red hair caught up in a ponytail; the man was more or less bald. They were both smiling into the camera, their fingers forming a V-for-victory sign. They were wearing high-quality grey walking gear with yellow detail.

  ‘Seems to fit in with the scraps of clothing in the grave,’ Vanja said.

  Torkel agreed. This was something Ursula would need to take a look at when she got back.

  * * *

  Two hours later they were sitting in one of the conference rooms in the hotel. If it hadn’t been dark outside they would have had a fantastic view of the muted autumn colours of the mountain landscape, but now all they could see were their own reflections in the windows, illuminated by four powerful fluorescent lights that made them look even paler and more washed out than they actually were. The flask, the coffee cups and the bottles of mineral water on the table made the situation feel very familiar. Apart from Jennifer, they had all sat in rooms like this many, many times. Without the amazing view, this was just a place to gather, the same as all the others.

  Billy had printed off the pictures from the grave and stuck them to the whiteboard with magnets.

  ‘We’ll assume that we’ve found Jan and Framke Bakker,’ Torkel began. ‘If that assumption is correct, then we have an approximate time frame for the murders, but we have to be sure. Vanja, get in touch with the Dutch police and see if we can get hold of dental records, X-rays, anything that could help us to identify them.’ He passed her a folder and she nodded.

  ‘Where did they come from?’

  All eyes turned to Sebastian, who got to his feet and lumbered over to the whiteboard.

  ‘Erm . . . Holland. Rotterdam,’ Billy said.

  Sebastian gave him a weary look.

  ‘So they were Dutch and they came from Holland. Thank you, I’d never have guessed.’

  Billy opened his mouth to reply, then changed his mind and slumped back in his chair.

  ‘I mean these six people,’ Sebastian said, tapping one of the photographs with his finger. ‘Someone undressed four of them, removed their teeth. That takes time. Then he digs a grave almost a metre deep, with six bodies just lying there in the open?’

  ‘Perhaps he dug the grave first.’ Billy straightened up, eager for revenge. The look Sebastian gave him was even more weary this time.

  ‘And the six of them stood there waiting for him to finish?’

  ‘Well no . . .’

  ‘No. The order doesn’t matter. It’s unlikely that they were murdered where they were found. So where did they come from?’

  The team nodded in agreement. Somewhere deep down they had all known it, but no one had put it into words. The grave wasn’t necessarily the scene of the crime; in fact it was highly unlikely. If they could pinpoint the scene it would increase their chances of
finding a lead. Billy pushed back his chair.

  ‘I’ll go and get a map from reception.’

  Sebastian returned to his seat. Directly opposite Ursula. He sat back and gazed at her; she was obviously aware of his scrutiny, because she looked up and met his eye.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Are you annoyed?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You look annoyed.’

  ‘Well, I’m not. Not yet.’

  Sebastian chose to ignore her expression.

  ‘You look annoyed and tired,’ he went on. ‘Worn out.’

  ‘Sebastian.’ There was no misunderstanding Torkel’s tone of voice. Pack it in, it said. Sebastian turned to him and spread his arms wide.

  ‘What? She does look worn out. It’s the first day, and she looks like a wreck. I’m just wondering how she’s feeling.’

  ‘So why didn’t you ask me that?’ Ursula said. ‘Why didn’t you ask me how I’m feeling instead of telling me I look annoyed?’

  ‘Sorry. How are you feeling?’

  ‘Fine, thank you. How are you?’

  Before Sebastian had time to answer, the door flew open and Billy came in with a map of the mountain terrain. He spread it out on the table and everyone leaned forward, except Sebastian. As before he assumed they would talk about what they were doing while they were doing it.

  ‘The bodies were found here,’ Billy said, making a small cross on the map. They all looked at it in silence, searching for the same thing. Failing to find it.

  ‘No buildings. No mountain shelters. No forest. No protection anywhere nearby,’ Vanja summarised, sounding disappointed.

  They all sat back. Billy took the map and put it up on the wall.

  ‘Judging by the pattern of the bullet holes, the perpetrator seems to have been a very controlled killer,’ Ursula said. ‘Efficient. Would he really risk being spotted?’

  ‘It was October,’ Billy pointed out. ‘The mountain stations were closed, and there would have been hardly anyone around. It was probably worth taking the chance.’

  ‘Or perhaps he was spotted,’ Jennifer said quietly.

  So far she had spent most of her time listening to the others, but she had been thinking things over for a while. Since dinner, in fact, when Hedvig Hedman brought the news about the Dutch couple, but she hadn’t dared to speak up. If she was right, she assumed that someone else on the team would come up with the same idea, but so far no one had put forward her theory. She quickly went over it in her head one more time; it wasn’t completely ridiculous. It was worth a shot.

  She leaned forward, her voice stronger now. ‘The two people we think we can identify, the Dutch couple. Perhaps they were walking past and saw what was going on.’

  No one spoke, but Torkel could see Ursula and Vanja nodding to themselves. He looked over at Jennifer. It wasn’t a bad theory. He felt pleased, both with Jennifer and with himself. Regardless of whether the reality turned out to match the hypothesis, the suggestion showed that Jennifer was thinking along the right lines, which in turn showed that he had made the right choice.

  He broke the silence. ‘If we run with that idea for a while, then it means the four bodies without clothes were the original victims, so we ought to focus on them. Do we know any more about them?’

  Ursula shook her head. ‘Two adults, a man and a woman. Two children, impossible to determine the sex. If they were of normal height, I would guess five to eight years old.’

  Sebastian rubbed his eyes. He got up and opened one of the windows. Leaned on the sill and breathed in the cold, clear night air. How was he feeling? Not great, to be honest. Not as good as he had expected, at any rate. He had been looking forward to this.

  He had longed for it.

  More than that – he had needed it.

  Spending time with Vanja. Working again, with her. Getting closer to her, getting to know her, but now she was going away. Leaving him. Cutting the only lifeline he had that might lead him to something resembling a decent existence.

  And on top of all that, they were dealing with two dead children.

  This trip had been a fucking nightmare so far.

  ‘There was visible damage to the ribs of two of the victims, which might suggest they were shot in the chest first, then in the head,’ Ursula went on. ‘That supports the theory that the killer is used to handling a gun. He goes for the largest target area first . . .’

  Sebastian glanced at Jennifer. She was at least fifteen years too young for him, but there was no doubt that she could make his stay a little more pleasant. Then again, Torkel would kick him out if he went anywhere near her. A conversation over a beer in the bar, and the others would notice. He also suspected that Torkel would be standing guard in the corridor as if they were on a school trip.

  ‘Are they a family?’ Billy wondered.

  ‘It seems the most likely scenario,’ Ursula said with a nod, ‘but we won’t know until we get the DNA results.’

  On the other hand, what did it matter if he got sent home? With Vanja gone, he had no reason to stay. The case was depressing and so far relatively uninteresting.

  ‘We assume that all four were buried at the same time. Hedvig has checked the records: no one else was reported missing up here at any point during 2003.’ Torkel looked up from his notes. ‘No children have ever been reported missing around here.’

  ‘Could you close the window please? I’m cold.’

  Sebastian was jerked out of his reverie to find Vanja looking at him. He nodded, closed the window and went back to his seat. Vanja wasn’t gone. Not yet. She was still here, in the same room. She would be around for another three months. He had another three months by her side, precious days that he couldn’t jeopardise by hitting on a woman who probably wouldn’t even consider going to bed with him anyway. He decided to feign an interest in the conversation going on around him.

  ‘Billy, find out if anyone took off without paying their hotel bill around the time the Dutch couple disappeared,’ Torkel said. ‘Check if any abandoned cars have been reported or towed away, or if any camping equipment was found out on the mountain. People might just have assumed they left under their own steam, hence no missing persons report.’

  Billy nodded.

  ‘Would you like some help?’ Jennifer offered.

  ‘That would be great,’ Billy replied with a smile.

  Vanja stared at them. It certainly didn’t take long to be replaced. Then again, that was exactly as it should be. This investigation could go on for months, and would probably be her last. Suddenly she caught herself thinking how good that felt.

  The room, the coffee, the whiteboard, the photographs, the theories.

  Right now she was kind of done with all that. It was time to move on. Take the next step. Grow and develop.

  But at the moment this case was what mattered.

  ‘There’s no guarantee that anyone even knew they were here,’ she said, waiting until she had everyone’s attention. ‘They might not necessarily have left any traces. They could have travelled up by train and camped on the mountain. No hotels, no car.’

  ‘But surely they would have been reported missing somewhere,’ Ursula objected. ‘Someone must have noticed they weren’t around.’

  ‘Vanja, check out missing families with two children in the autumn of 2003, right across the country. Norway too.’

  ‘OK, but we can’t be sure they’re one family. It could be two adults with a child each. Or mum, new partner, stepchildren. And the biological father could be the jealous kind who happens to own a gun . . .’

  Sebastian saw Vanja glance almost imperceptibly at Jennifer. He smiled to himself. Jennifer had come up with the theory that the Dutch couple could have been witnesses who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was a good theory, but if Jennifer was good, then Vanja had to be better. The best.

  Typical of Vanja.

  Typical of his daughter.

  ‘OK, let’s expand the search to include missing children or adu
lts with children,’ Torkel agreed. ‘There can’t be that many. We’ll start with autumn 2003, and assume they were all buried at the same time.’

  There wasn’t much more they could do at this stage. It felt like a very long time since they had left Stockholm. They were all tired and needed sleep. Torkel gathered up his papers.

  ‘Let’s say that the four of them, regardless of whether or not they were a family, were camping on the mountain. Someone walked past and shot them. While he was burying the bodies, the Dutch couple came along and he had to kill them too. Is that a theory we think we can run with?’

  Everyone nodded and got ready to leave the room. It wasn’t necessarily the truth, but it was something to work on. As usual they would have to adapt and reassess the situation depending on what emerged during the course of the investigation.

  ‘Hang on a minute,’ Billy said. They sank back down in their seats.

  ‘What is it?’ Torkel asked, unable to keep the weariness out of his voice.

  ‘Why did he allow us to identify the Dutch couple, but not the other four?’

  ‘Because the other four would tell us who the murderer was,’ Sebastian said, almost over-emphasising every word. ‘For God’s sake, how long have you been doing this job? There is nothing whatsoever to suggest that this was an act of madness, or that the victims were chosen at random. Someone went out onto the mountain with a gun and executed those four people.’ He turned to Ursula. ‘Did he use a pistol or a rifle?’

  ‘Impossible to say at the moment. We’ll have to see what Umeå come up with.’

  She glanced at Torkel, who thought she had put a little extra stress on ‘Umeå’. He was pretty sure he wouldn’t be having any company in his room tonight. Then again, they were going to be up here for a while . . .

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Sebastian said, getting to his feet. ‘Our killer knows that when those four are identified, the risk of his being caught increases significantly.’

  ‘I know that, but the Dutch couple give us a fairly precise time frame,’ Billy persisted, unwilling to give in so easily. ‘And that will help us to identify the others.’