Dark Angel

by Mari Jungstedt

  Silent and grim-faced, Knutas sat in the passenger seat as Jacobsson stomped on the accelerator, racing south. Mikaela had told them that Simon and Mats were in the habit of having lengthy, heart-to-heart talks. Simon had told his sister how much these conversations meant to him, and what a support Mats had been. Was this what had prompted the murders? Andreas Hammar wasn’t answering his phone and Knutas’s anxiety grew. Mats couldn’t possibly have reached the sheep farm after killing Simon, but he could have gone out there earlier.

  Jacobsson sped towards Hablingbo, screeching around the curves. The siren was on and the other cars on the road obediently got out of their way. Knutas’s mobile rang again. It was Inspector Fogestam.

  ‘Anders, I have to tell you that we’ve decided this wasn’t a homicide after all. We assumed it was because several chairs had been toppled. But now we’ve found more than one suicide note. And several reliable witnesses have independently confirmed that they saw Simon Hammar jump from the window.’

  ‘Really? What do the notes say?’

  ‘There are four of them. They were on the mantelpiece, addressed to different people.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘One for Veronika, one for Katrina, one for Daniel, and one for Mats.’

  ‘Could you fax them over to us as soon as possible? Have you read them?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve had a quick look at them. Simon writes that he’s sorry for doing what he’s about to do, but he sees no other option. The letter to his mother is quite nasty. He seems to be blaming her for the fact that he can’t bear to live any longer. Apparently her demands were so great that he couldn’t take it any more.’

  ‘And now she’s dead too. She died at just about the same time, damn it.’

  ‘Yes. It’s terrible. I’ve got to go. But I wanted you to know what we found out.’

  IT WAS DARK by the time Jacobsson parked in front of the farm in Hablingbo. The yard was deserted. No barking dogs. Not a soul in sight. The red pick-up that Andreas had driven the last time they visited him was gone. Knutas glanced at his watch. It was ten fifteen.

  Cautiously they approached the house. No one seemed to be at home, and no lights were on. Knutas crept up on to the porch and tried the door. It wasn’t locked. With their guns drawn, they slowly made their way from room to room, but they soon realized that the house was empty.

  The gravel crunched under their feet as they walked around the side of the main building. As they searched the property, more police vehicles turned up.

  The officers gathered in the yard and then split up to continue the search. Knutas and Jacobsson got back in the car to drive over to the lambing shed and the pasture where they had previously interviewed Andreas while he was weighing the sheep. Maybe that was where they would find him, together with Mats. Knutas fervently hoped that they wouldn’t arrive too late.

  They turned on to the road, which was cloaked in darkness, and headed for Havdhem. There were no streetlights and very few buildings. Occasionally they caught a glimpse of lights shining from a distant farm. They drove in silence, as if they were both expecting the worst.

  ‘Do you remember where to turn?’ asked Knutas.

  ‘Yes. It’s right up ahead.’

  Jacobsson turned on to the narrow gravel road, but they hadn’t gone more than a few hundred yards before a flock of sheep blocked their way. Karin was forced to stop the car.

  ‘What the hell is this?’ she said with a sigh.

  More and more sheep came crowding on to the road. All of them were bleating loudly. The sound grew to a deafening cacophony. With their open mouths and blank stares, they looked ghostly in the glow from the car headlamps. Jacobsson honked and tried to inch the car forward, but the sheep refused to budge. They surrounded the vehicle, pressing against it, as if the vehicle were their only refuge.

  ‘What do we do now?’

  ‘It can’t be that far to the lambing shed,’ said Knutas. ‘Let’s get out and walk.’

  JOHAN SAT IN the waiting room outside the intensive care ward at Visby Hospital. He hadn’t yet been allowed to see Emma. A nurse had offered him something to drink, but he found himself barely able to speak. His body felt anaesthetized; his mind was empty. He just sat there, utterly still and staring at the floor. He didn’t want to move until they came out and told him that Emma was going to be OK.

  Suddenly the door to the waiting room opened. Johan didn’t even lift his head to see who came in.

  Somebody sat down on the chair next to him.

  ‘How’s she doing?’

  He recognized the voice, but hadn’t expected to see him here. It was Emma’s ex-husband Olle.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘I don’t know anything.’

  The clock on the wall was ticking monotonously. The minutes plodded along. Both men, who were the fathers of Emma’s children, sat next to each other in silence and waited, not knowing what to expect.

  Olle drummed his fingers on his leg. Johan stared at his veined hands. The ring finger which, for so many years, had worn a wedding ring given to him by Emma. Those hands that had held Emma, changed the nappies of their two children, cooked meals and built the house in Roma. In the past such thoughts had always made Johan feel angry or jealous. But this time he felt a strange sense of solidarity. Emma was important to both of them. He would never be able to erase the years that Olle and Emma had shared. And why should he? The faces of Sara and Filip flitted through his mind. This was their father sitting next to him, burying his anxious face in his hands. Johan closed his eyes.

  Neither of them spoke.

  BODIES EVERYWHERE. WHITE, woolly, bulky, warm. And all those eyes. Hundreds of eyes staring at him. He saw nothing in their expressions. And yet there was something reassuring about them. They were clustered together in one corner of the pasture, closest to the building.

  He had jumped on the motorcycle and driven into town. He had left the café and the dark angel in the throes of death. That had always been his secret name for her: the dark angel. When he was a boy, he saw her as a bright and beautiful angel who would one day come to rescue him. But she wasn’t the person he thought she was. She was a malicious, evil destroyer. He had done the right thing.

  The relief he felt made him dizzy and nearly forced him off the road. He steeled himself. He had to get away, and quickly. He was on his way home. For him, home meant the three people who were the only ones who cared about him. Genuinely cared. They had opened their arms to him, taken him in, welcomed him warmly. His three siblings. It was a new feeling, and it had profoundly changed how he viewed the world. Suddenly he had a real reason for living.

  Right now he longed to tell Simon what he’d done, but first he was going to talk to Andreas, since he lived so near. He couldn’t help himself. He would burst if he didn’t share the news with someone.

  For the first time in his life, he felt that he had a purpose.

  He passed the harbour terminal with the big white ships, which later in the evening would take him away from here. But before he left, he wanted to see his siblings one more time. It might be a while before he had another opportunity to visit them.

  His heart warmed at the thought of them. Andreas was the strong, confident brother he could always turn to. With Mikaela he felt an intense connection. She had spoken to him with great candour, telling him about her eating disorder and how she had started to cut herself as a teenager. And about the problems that she’d had in relating to other people, never daring to trust anyone. Things had finally turned out well for her. She had found a husband who loved her with all his heart.

  But he felt the closest to Simon. From the very beginning he had shared a special connection with his youngest brother. They belonged together. They’d had so many long conversations. At first Simon mostly listened, as if understanding perfectly what he was trying to say. Simon took everything he said to heart, encouraging and supporting him. Listening to all the shit he’d been carrying around for years. Suddenly he no longer had to be
ar the burden alone. He could share it with someone else, and the sense of relief he felt was enormous. He had found his family.

  Then Simon had broken up with Katrina, and the roles were reversed. He’d been surprised to hear about everything Simon had endured as a child. Utterly alone, without support from anyone at all. He was struck by how isolated and vulnerable his three siblings had been, even though they had a mother, had their own family. The grief stripped him of all strength. Then he was seized by anger. He was the one who needed to make things right. Above all, he needed to save Simon, who was sinking deeper and deeper into a terrible depression.

  Their regular conversations had made him desperate. In an attempt to get Simon out of the borrowed flat into which he’d practically barricaded himself, he had forced his brother to come over to his place. Just to talk, and at least once a week. As the picture of their mother gradually emerged, hatred began growing inside of him, getting stronger and stronger each day. Along with a desire for revenge.

  He had watched as his newfound little brother fell apart, bit by bit. Simon was the only one who hadn’t yet managed to break free. And the more time that passed, the more details he heard, the more convinced he became. There was only one way to set Simon free and give him a chance to live his own life. He was certainly entitled to that much.

  There were obvious similarities between them. Both harboured something deep in their hearts that kept them at a deadlock, preventing them from living fully. He himself was forty-one years old and had never managed to sustain a long-term relationship.

  He felt an urgent need to save Simon from going under.

  At the same time, his brother started hinting that he no longer wanted to live. That had made the whole matter even more pressing.

  He took a deep breath, and then slowly exhaled through his nose.

  Things were going to be different now. With their warm and loving reception, his three siblings had made him believe that he was actually a worthwhile person, in spite of everything. That there might even be someone for him to love.

  His real life was finally about to begin. He had saved his brother and made peace with himself. He listened for police sirens but heard none. There wasn’t a single police car on the road. But he wasn’t afraid any more.

  When he reached the farm, he parked the motorcycle and hurried towards the house. He rang the bell. No one answered, and the door was locked. The dogs weren’t out in the yard, and he couldn’t hear any barking from inside the house. Andreas’s car was not in the driveway. That meant there was only one place he could be.

  He jumped back on the motorcycle and drove off, spraying gravel in his wake.

  KNUTAS AND JACOBSSON made their way forward in the dark. The sheep had followed them for a short distance but gradually fell behind after realizing that they weren’t going to get any food, no matter how much noise they made. Someone must have let the animals out, either deliberately or by mistake.

  The two officers hurried across fields and meadows. Because it was so dark, they couldn’t move as quickly as they would have liked. The ground was uneven, covered with stones and stumps, and Knutas had already tripped several times.

  Jacobsson’s heart was pounding hard. All the recent events flitted through her mind as they jogged along. Three faces kept appearing: Andreas, Mikaela and Simon. Each of them marked by sorrow and loneliness. And then there was Mats, the man with two faces. The boy who had been handed over to strangers, just like her own daughter, whom she had known for only a few minutes. But those minutes had affected the rest of her life and everything she did. She raced along as fast as she could. She was determined to save him. She had to save Mats before he did something crazy again. If only they could get there in time.

  Then they saw the lights of the lambing shed. Thank God. It wasn’t far now. It was a wooden building, nearly a hundred metres long, with a corrugated metal roof. It was divided into stalls where the ewes could have their lambs in peace and quiet. The lambing season was over, so the ewes and their offspring had been sent out to graze.

  Several sheep in an outdoor pen began bleating as they approached. Both the red pick-up and a motorcycle were parked outside the building. The door was ajar, but it was dark inside. Knutas crept over to the door and stuck his arm inside, attempting to turn on the light switch. Nothing happened. The light was broken. The door creaked as they stepped inside. The faint light that seeped in through the dust-covered windows allowed them to fumble their way forward. The only sound was an occasional mournful bleating from the sheep outside.

  Slowly they moved past the rows of stalls. Suddenly Knutas gave a shout.

  ‘I see something! Come over here!’

  Among the bales of hay inside one of the stalls they saw the figure of a man lying on his back on the ground.

  ‘Damn it to hell!’ exclaimed Jacobsson. ‘We’re too late.’

  To her embarrassment she felt tears well up in her eyes. Stop it, you idiot, she thought to herself. You don’t even know these people.

  Knutas cautiously opened the stall door and stepped inside. He gasped when he looked at the man’s face.

  It wasn’t Andreas.

  JOHAN HAD NO idea how much time had passed when the door finally opened. He saw a man wearing a white coat and glasses, his expression sombre. Johan’s vision blurred, as if he were looking through a fog. As he watched the doctor coming down the long corridor towards them, all sorts of memories flashed through his mind. Fragments of his life with Emma.

  Her hand frantically clutching his when she gave birth to Elin; her smile when she said ‘I do’ in the church; her fevered expression when they made love. A minor quarrel at the breakfast table a few days ago; Emma wearing a white bathrobe with a towel wrapped around her head after taking a shower and then making coffee in the kitchen.

  The doctor had reached them now. He stood very close. Johan didn’t dare look up.

  ‘It’s over now. The worst of it, anyway. She’s out of danger, and she’s going to be fine. The baby too.’

  ‘The baby?’ whispered Johan.

  KNUTAS STOOD MOTIONLESS, trying to gather his thoughts. He recognized Mats from the photographs. Now here he lay, looking up at the ceiling, his eyes unseeing, his body limp. But he was breathing.

  ‘Mats, my name is Anders Knutas and I’m a police officer. You’re under arrest for the murder of Viktor Algård and Veronika Hammar. Do you hear what I’m saying?’

  He crouched down and shook Mats by the shoulder. No reaction. The man seemed almost catatonic.

  The next moment two people appeared in the doorway, carrying torches. They stopped abruptly, surprised to see the police officers. Knutas looked in confusion from one person to the other. He couldn’t make sense of what he saw: There stood the sheep farmer Andreas Hammar and the TV camerawoman Pia Lilja, hand in hand. To make matters worse, Jacobsson had fallen to the ground and was staring glassy-eyed into space. As if she were the victim of a blackout.

  Then the man on the floor suddenly turned his head to look at Knutas. His expression displayed such pain that Knutas almost shrank back. Slowly Mats lifted one arm, holding something in his hand. For a fraction of a second a danger warning flashed through Knutas’s brain. Was it a weapon? The next second he was relieved to see that it was a mobile phone. Mats’s voice shook as he whispered his question: ‘Is this true?’

  Puzzled, Knutas tried to make out the words on the tiny, illuminated display. The message was brief but devastating.

  ‘Simon is dead. Call me. Mikaela’.

  KNUTAS WAS STANDING next to the window in his office, looking out at the car park, which was wet with rain. He filled his pipe as he thought about the dramatic events of the past few days.

  From the very beginning this particular case had affected him more strongly than others. Maybe because it had made him think about his own role as a parent. Just before the murders occurred, Alexander Almlöv had been assaulted at the Solo Club. His own son Nils had witnessed the vicious attack but hadn
’t dared tell his father, the police officer.

  Over the past weeks Knutas had spent almost as much time wrestling with that issue as he had trying to discover the identity of the killer.

  The fate of Mats Andersson was a tragic one, from start to finish. He had hoped to save his newfound and beloved brother from succumbing to despair by killing their mother. But before that happened, Simon had taken his own life. Knutas could understand how shocked Mats must have been to receive word of his brother’s death. Everything he had done was in vain. The plan he had spent months putting together was to no avail.

  Mats had ended up recounting the whole story about his desperate attempt to free his younger brother from their mother. Ultimately it seemed to him that there was only one option. He had to kill Veronika – destroy her before she destroyed the family that he had found at last. Simon, in turn, had tried all his life to save her, to make her happy and content with her life. But that had proved to be an impossible task. Both Mats and Simon had seen themselves as angels sent to the rescue. And it had all ended in disaster.

  Nobody can save anybody else, thought Knutas bitterly. Everyone has to save his own life.

  It was strange that things had gone so well for Veronika Hammar’s children, in spite of the difficult circumstances they had endured while growing up with their excessively demanding mother. At least Andreas and Mikaela had succeeded in creating a satisfactory life for themselves, and they seemed reasonably happy.

  They also had shown an ability to love. Was that something they’d learned from somebody else, or was it an innate part of being human?

  His thoughts were interrupted by Jacobsson knocking on the door.

  ‘Come in.’

  She sat down on his visitors’ sofa. Knutas sensed that she had something important to say, so he sat down across from her.

  ‘How are you doing?’

  ‘Fine, thanks.’

  She smiled. Her dark eyes had regained their familiar alert expression. He was happy to see it.