Killer's Island

by Anna Jansson

  “Just because someone passes by with a sack on his back doesn’t necessarily mean he’s our man. We can only hope. I’d like to get some more leads in.” Hartman massaged his gray temples. “Why is everything so quiet?! The streets can hardly have been deserted. Not everyone sleeps at night, people get up and go to the bathroom and look out of the window. Someone else must have seen him.”

  “Have you checked up on Claes’s statement? Do we know for sure when he arrived in Visby?” Most murders are committed by someone who knows the victim well. Claes’s booze-up in Gothenburg followed by the memory lapse was, without a doubt, weighing on Hartman, Maria thought.

  “Ek was right. There was a lady in Gothenburg. She’s made a statement under oath that Claes spent the night with her. He was unfaithful on the night his wife was murdered.” Haraldsson sighed deeply. “Poor man. I contacted the captain on his ship. He told me the truth because he thought it was a disgrace. He even knew the lady’s name. It’s been going on for a while.”

  “Does he have someone to turn to for support, in case his remorse gets too much for him?” Maria saw his face before her, the way it looked in the morgue. How would he avoid self-loathing after his wife’s murder? On the other hand, if he’d been at home he might not have survived either. “What does he have to say about it himself? Have you spoken to him?”

  Ek nodded. “He confirmed what the captain said was accurate. When Claes called his wife at night he was in the other lady’s bathroom. A rare moment of bad conscience.”

  “Does he have any theories himself about who might have killed Linn?” Hartman asked. “He must have thought about it a good deal.”

  “He says he can’t understand who would have wanted to do Linn any harm. She had no enemies. Everyone liked her. Her colleagues may have felt she was slightly too ambitious. Her patients loved her, the manager at the medical clinic only had good things to say about her. She wasn’t particularly wealthy, but what she did have will go to Claes. There’s a life assurance policy of about a million kronor, so he can keep the house. I don’t know what conclusions we should draw.” Maria immersed herself in her own thoughts. The ritual aspects of the murder were one of the most curious things she had ever seen. A murderer who was not in a hurry. Someone who wanted to create an exhibition, an almost artistic decoration of the body. Out of love, or hate?

  “Was it someone who loved her… too much?” Erika remembered the way the body had lain there in the Pavilion on Tempelkullen. Love and… fury. Could it have been Sara Wentzel? “We don’t know if Linn changed her mind at the last moment and decided to stay with Claes, nor are we likely ever to know. The only thing we actually do know is that Sara and Linn spoke on the night she was murdered. But we only have Sara’s version of the conversation.”

  “You think it was her?” Hartman frowned and chewed the end of his pencil. “That doesn’t jive very well with a tall man of about 6’2” carrying a heavy sack. The woman is quite frail.”

  Maria agreed, but nonetheless she wanted to pursue her line of thought to its conclusion. “Sara has no alibi. She was at home by herself. She answered her cell phone and could have been anywhere. At about 23:00 she went for a short walk and then watched television until midnight, but she’s had trouble describing what she actually watched. News, weather? It seems to have just slipped her mind. Either she was very upset or tired or her thoughts were elsewhere or she wasn’t watching television at all.”

  “I live next door to her in Lummelunda,” said Erika. “But I can’t remember if I saw her lights on or not.”

  “Then we have the neighbor, Harry Molin. We’ve been trying to reach him today, but he doesn’t answer the telephone,” said Ek. “I’ve been there knocking on his door, but no one opens and when I asked the neighbors they don’t have a clue about his whereabouts. He usually takes his dogs out several times per day. He’s retired, took early retirement because of illness. I heard a dog growling but no one opened the door.”

  Erika could imagine Harry the way Anders had described him. Friendly but a bit of a nuisance. Hardly some roughneck butcher type.

  “Well he hasn’t gone away, then. Who keeps an eye on the dogs, who feeds them when he’s away?”

  “We asked the neighbors about that, and apparently Per Arvidsson usually helps him out. I just had him on the line but the reception was bad. He’s at sea so we can’t reach him right now; on the ferry to the mainland. Per’s on his way to Svartsjö Prison, that’s all I can say. He’s working full time on the assault and murder case.” Ek glanced at Maria to see how she reacted. Maria had insinuated that they should press for more resources. If the police don’t solve this case I won’t be answerable for what Linus’s father will do, she’d said. Ek knew that the investigation was on course, that everything that could be done was being done. But Maria, as a plaintiff, had to be kept out of the investigation.

  “And if Per doesn’t know anything about Harry Molin, what do we do then?” asked Maria as she turned to her boss.

  “Then we’ll have to get a locksmith to let us into the house, so we can check if he’s there.”

  Maria felt her unease like a cold draft from a fan. It was too easy letting one’s imagination run amok. When a murder’s taken place, evil seems to lurk in every alley.

  “But he must go back home soon. He has to think about his dogs,” said Hartman.

  He leaned back and lit a cigarette. The smoke stung his eyes. He squinted at the computer monitor. He had to try and get into the police register and read the interview reports. What had Jill Andersson said about him? She never saw his face, he was sure of that. He’d watched her making her way home after the police interview. He knew who she was and that she lived on her own with three young children. He’d actually toyed with the thought of borrowing the little boy with the close-cropped hair for a few hours, and teach him to sit still. They’d exchanged a few words outside the nursery. The kid was a real little piece of shit. Cheeky and full of himself. It would have been a real pleasure scaring the hell out of him, and hearing him call for help when there was no help to be had. To see that cocky exterior broken down into helpless terror. There was an irresistible feeling of lust in those thoughts. This lust had made him increasingly bloodthirsty with his victims. But for now, pleasure had to wait. He was missing a personal password to crack MajorTwo, the police’s computerized case system.

  CHAPTER 21

  PER ARVIDSSON SAT IN the aft saloon on the Gotland ferry, hiding behind his newspaper. He didn’t have the energy to run into some acquaintance. Not now. He had to think and at best have a nap. The school trips were over for the season, but a noisy girls’ soccer team with a portable CD player filled the airspace in the saloon with the Smurfs Greatest Hits. Well-known songs, performed in Smurf voices. It was unbearable. The girls shrieked and giggled at trivialities, like teens from an American TV show. Oh-my-God! Their coach was probably so hardened to it all he didn’t even notice how much they were disturbing those who were trying to get a bit of shut-eye.

  Rebecka had called late last night, crying and asking if he could take the children. She needed a bit of time for herself. Her new love had left her. Things had been difficult between them for a while. She hadn’t mentioned it to Per before, she hadn’t wanted to bother him with it. It was strange, how little their separation had affected him. She’d been unfaithful with someone else and now, in turn, she’d been deceived herself. If he’d had a bit more energy, he should really have derived some malicious pleasure from it. Instead he simply explained he had a job to get on with, something that couldn’t wait. She cried and pleaded but he stuck to his guns, feeling like a big shit. He would have liked to explain that it was all about catching someone who had killed a thirteen-year-old boy and exposed Maria Wern to a possible HIV infection. The question is whether Rebecka would have found the argument convincing, now that her own interest hung in the balance.

  After taking a few wrong turns on the way to Ekerö, Per Arvidsson could see Svartsjö Prison
up ahead. It was an open facility, where Jesper Ek’s son was serving his sentence for assault. Recently there had been a TB scare there, but presumably they had gotten it under control, or they wouldn’t have allowed visitors. He’d chosen to introduce himself as a good friend, not a policeman. You could never be sure who might talk, and under no circumstances did Arvidsson want Joakim to feel threatened and thus unwilling to talk.

  The white cafeteria building with its integrated solar panels was eye-catching; it looked more like a school than a prison. Joakim had agreed to the meeting on the condition that they meet outside. He didn’t want the other prisoners to get a closer look at his face. Arvidsson could understand this perfectly. It had surprised him when his colleague, Ek, had told him that his son might be able to throw some light on the investigation. Joakim had met Maria Wern before and he’d developed a weak spot for her. Per couldn’t blame him for that. It was impossible not to be affected by that woman. Joakim was livid when he read in the newspaper that she’d been stabbed with a blood-filled syringe. Now they had to take advantage while his anger was still fresh.

  Joakim was waiting for him outside, in the road. Per Arvidsson parked his car and stepped out. They shook hands and started walking in silence. The sun bore down hard on them and the newly-mown hay smelled of timothy grass.

  “How are things going for you, have you settled in here?” Per glanced quickly at him. Joakim looked tense. Maybe he was already regretting his offer.

  “If you like chopping wood and mucking out pig shit – God the fucking stink! – then it’s a pretty decent place. I guess the biggest advantage is you get a fixed income, food, and a roof over your head. I never had that before. For the first time in my life I don’t have to worry about a thing. And if some junkie starts playing up, it’s not my problem, it’s up to someone else to deal with it.”

  “Your dad said you were studying,” Per said, turning to Joakim with an avuncular smile on his face. It was important to establish an understanding before moving on to more important questions. Joakim’s facial expression shifted at once. The whole question of studies was probably a sensitive area. The young man mumbled something about re-taking tests in the morning. His eyes filled with timidity. Per felt embarrassed for him, and didn’t quite know how to continue. They walked side by side in silence for a while, until Joakim suddenly stopped and changed direction.

  “Let’s take a different route. There’s someone coming.” He flicked his dark curls away from his face and poked Arvidsson in the side. “It’s a couple of guys I know, they can’t see me.”

  “Your father said you might know something about the person who assaulted Maria Wern and the thirteen-year-old boy. Someone called Roy or something like that. I’ve brought all the school yearbooks from Visby that I could find.… Do you think you can point him out if he’s there?”

  “Sorry, I never met him. I’ve just heard rumors. It was a couple of guys I had a beer with in Visby Harbor. You know, it can take six months before you get to serve your sentence. It was pretzels and beer, you know. I was pretty drunk so I can’t remember everything. They were with the idiot and they were bragging about what he’d done. I don’t know who they were. He’s a fucking lunatic.” Joakim hesitated. “I got the impression he’s only there in the summers. Everyone’s scared of him. He’s a psycho, he’ll do anything, he’s got no boundaries, you know. He doesn’t do stuff ‘cause he gets angry, he does it because he enjoys torturing other people. He’s like ice, you know. Fucking ice-cold.”

  “Do you know what his real name is?” Per almost didn’t dare interrupt once Joakim had actually started talking.

  “No. And I can’t ask the right people about it, either. They’ll figure out what I’m doing and then I’m dead. Do you get how easy it would be finding me here? What do you think would happen to me if he knew?”

  “Is there anything else you can give me? What else did they say?”

  Joakim thought about it. He faltered for a second, then said: “They told me he’d scammed money out of people. He used to work from an Internet café. Pretended he was like various women selling nude photos of themselves for 300 kronor. To get paid he asked for the suckers’ social security numbers and then got them to punch in some numbers on the little keypad you get from the bank, and then they had to tell him what numbers came up after the encryption. That way he could figure out how the keypads were programmed and empty their accounts. I reckon most people wouldn’t even report him. They said he made himself more than two million kronor that way.”

  “An intelligent young man. And dangerous. Can you think of anything else? Everything you remember is important.”

  “There was another really sick thing but I don’t know if it’s true. They said he killed some old bum with a lawn mower blade. Swish, swish, like a Samurai sword.” Joakim illustrated with expansive arm movements. “There’s rumors about it. But no one knows for sure if it was him. They couldn’t ever prove anything. But the guys I met in the harbor told me that this old wino had told Roy he fucked his mom, said she was a junkie hooker who did anything for money.”

  “Do you know who that man was?” Per felt the cold sweat breaking through. So close now… so close to a name or a connection that could be identified, so they could arrest the bastard.

  “No idea. I’m not even sure the police took his name.”

  “Did you get the impression that Roy’s mother was dead?”

  “No, one of them had met her. He knew who she was.”

  “Do you know when that was?” Arvidson halted so that the sound of his steps wouldn’t stop him hearing every word.

  “Don’t know.” Joakim twisted uneasily. “I don’t even know when he knocked out the wino, or where the old man was murdered.… I was drunk, it was dark. The way the guys were talking they were from the mainland. Sorry… that’s all I’ve got.” He stopped. “How things with Dad, then?”

  “He’s feeling as good as he deserves. All right, I suppose. A bit of time on the sidelines did him good, I reckon. He’s pleased to be back on the job.”

  “That was all my fucking fault, wasn’t it? They thought he was gonna squeal to me while the investigation was under way. He came to see me. But shit, it wasn’t easy thinking of anything to say.…”

  “He desperately wants what’s best for you, you know that, don’t you?”

  Joakim turned his face away.

  “I haven’t got any more time for you now. I have to clean out the pellets boiler. So give my best to dad then.”

  “You heat the place with wood pellets?”

  “Oh shit, yeah. We’re environmentally friendly.”

  “Hold on a second, I want to show you something.” Per had brought the artist’s impressions of Roy and the others, based on Maria’s descriptions. He took them out of the glove compartment. There were various versions. She hadn’t been able to remember so clearly, and the fragments she’d managed to hold on to had grown increasingly indistinct as time passed. But she remembered the body types and postures; the facial shapes could be seen even with the hoods, she’d said. It was remarkable the way the brain shut itself down if something seemed too unpleasant.

  “Do you recognize them?” Per held out the drawing. It had been published that morning in the newspaper, so far without any results. Joakim quickly glanced at it from the side.

  “Not the tall one. Is that Roy? But the other two could be the guys I spoke to.”

  Per Arvidsson got back into the car and tried to structure what he’d heard. Maria had said the other two men had spoken as if they came from Västerås, with heavily pronounced “l” sounds. As soon as Arvidsson was back on the road he called Hartman and told him what had come out of the conversation with Joakim.

  “A lawn mower blade is an unusual murder weapon. We should be able to dig up some information on it, right?”

  “We’ll work on it,” said Hartman. “And we’re looking for your neighbor, Harry Molin. Do you know where he is, was he about to go away? I mean, w
hen he does you’re the one who waters his plants and collects his mail, right?”

  “I have a few times. But not now. Why do you need to get hold of him? Is it something to do with the murder of Linn Bogren?”

  “Exactly. He’s been on the murder scene with his dogs and we need to know when. We’d like to interview him just for our own information.”

  “I don’t know him so well. He’s not the type to make himself conspicuous. Always at home, walking his dogs, a bit needy for company but never gets personal. I guess he has a lonely life. He always talks about his ailments, asks if you know this or that doctor. Because I’ve also been on sick leave he may feel a sort of fraternal bond with me.” Per laughed drily. “He wants to make a sort of blacklist of mistakes being made in the healthcare field, a homepage where healthcare staff would be named and patients could rate them. These reports would be sent regularly to the Department of Health.”

  “Sounds like a full-time job.”

  “Probably is, for him. How are things with Maria?” Per regretted the question as soon as he’d spoken the words. He couldn’t understand his own reaction: he loved her after all, didn’t he? Yet it was too much; he couldn’t bear her vulnerability, her fear after what had happened. It worried him that he had become the sort of person who had to turn off other people’s misery in order to cope with his own.

  “She’s steeling herself, fighting it, and trying to think as little as possible about the possibility of being infected. It must be hell for her. It’ll be another two months before they can give her preliminary confirmation.”

  “We’ll get him.”

  “I wish we could put more resources into it. I’m doing everything in my power to get some reinforcements from the mainland. But it hasn’t been easy, given that we can’t find more witnesses. We haven’t had very much to go on. Maybe things will loosen up now if this new lead gives us something.”