Killer's Island

by Anna Jansson

  “All the evidence points to him. We even found the USB memory stick that went missing at Linn Bogren’s place. It was in his house. Arvidsson saw her put it in the inside pocket of her purse and zip it up. The USB was never found in Linn’s home, but we found it next to Anders’ computer. He had even copied the material to his hard drive.”

  Suddenly it struck her. There was too much evidence, it was almost prescriptive. “This is too much. Think about it, it’s never this clear. If he was guilty he’d try and get rid of the evidence. He would have hidden the USB, for instance. It must be someone else.”

  “Erika, you have to see there is no one else. What do you know about his late wife?” Hartman’s voice was muted.

  “She drowned. Do you really believe he killed her as well? He loved her, loved her beyond all measure.… I don’t want to hear anything more, I can’t take it.”

  Maria Wern stood to one side in silence. Now she came forward and put her arm round Erika. “You have to try and tell us everything you know. Not to let him down. You hear me, Erika? To help him. The Anders you love is the doctor who wants to do good, who wants to save lives. That’s how he wants to be. I also believe that, but it’s more complicated. We’re after Mr. Hyde, and he’s the one who’ll go on trial. We’ve consulted a doctor who’s an expert on sleeping dysfunction. If Anders is a sleepwalker he can’t be convicted for murder. He’ll need help to stop it, do you understand? He’ll go through a major neuro-psychiatric examination. We’ve also asked for the services of a psychiatrist who’s an expert on split personality.”

  After giving Erika a lift home, Maria felt terribly inadequate. Erika should not be left alone in the emotional chaos she was in. She wouldn’t have a quiet moment until the investigation had been concluded and the trial was over. Until then Maria would have far more to do than she had time for. There was a great deal to think about. If Anders Ahlström was found guilty the girl would be taken into care. A grandmother of almost eighty could not be the sole guardian of a child. Social welfare would have to be involved as soon as the trial was over. It might even be advisable to inform them now, so they could prepare for it. A good home for a lost little girl. Maria thought about her own children – one always wanted all the good in the world for them. Anders had never hurt Julia, although she had been in his immediate vicinity throughout. Whenever she thought of the murderer she’d always seen him as an outcast, a loner and social misfit who’d started offending from an early age, who’d been punished for crimes of increasing severity with longer and longer prison terms. She’d never conceived of him as a socially competent father and popular doctor.

  In the car on the way home Erika said: “Remember that time at your place, when we were brainstorming about Kilroy? Did you know Anders was known as Kilroy when he was doing his military service? He popped up in all sorts of impossible places, he really had no sense of direction at all.” Maria hadn’t given any real thought to Erika’s remark until now. She slowed down, pulled over by the side of the road and stopped to think. KillRoy. Roy. Could it be the same person? Could the man who killed Linus and stabbed her with the blood-filled syringe really be Anders?

  At eight in the morning Anders Ahlström was taken to a special section of the department of neurology. He’d been kept awake all night so that he would be exhausted and thus fall asleep easily. Maria Wern watched him conversing politely with the nurse as she fitted a cap on his head, consisting of a number of rubber bands with electrodes fixed to them, for the EEG registration. Then a belt round his stomach to take a reading of his breathing frequency and a mask under his nose to measure levels of carbon dioxide. By the time he had the EEG connected by cables to his wrists and ankles and a pulse oximeter on his finger, he was practically tied to his bed. The lights were turned down. The nurse came in to Maria in the control room. She could see the wavy curves on the computer but they didn’t tell her anything, although later in the day the neurologist would be able to deduce a lot more. While the monitoring process was under way, Maria asked the nurse what she made of it.

  “We’ll see his electrical waves once he’s asleep. His pulse has already started slowing. I have to go now and hook up another patient, but I’ll be back in a minute.”

  It felt unpleasant to be left alone there, but Maria didn’t have time to stop the nurse. Anders tried to roll over onto his side but the equipment impeded him and he remained on his back. Everything grew silent. All that could be heard was the whirring of the computer fan. The dim lights also made Maria feel sleepy. She hadn’t gotten to bed until the small hours the night before, and this morning she’d been up at dawn. She waited, but nothing happened. Could not one other police have stayed on duty in the control room? The nurse had sent them all to the waiting room. They found it difficult keeping quiet, which disrupted the monitoring process.

  “Do you see the change?” The nurse, who’d just walked back in, pointed to the computer screen. Maria took her eyes off Anders and watched the curves change. They grew calm and flattened out. “He’s sleeping peacefully.” Suddenly the curves grew chaotic and confused. The nurse sucked in air and when Maria looked up from the monitor, Anders had got out of bed. He tore himself free of the electrodes and reached for a yellow staff coat hanging on a hook beside the bed. He put it on with awkward movements and started moving clumsily through the room toward them. His eyes were vacant and his mouth chewed the air robotically. Stiffly he kicked a chair out of the way, then took another step and pressed down on the door handle.

  “He’s sleepwalking. We can’t wake him up now.” The nurse looked at her patient with evident fascination. Maria looked round for something to use as a weapon – in case she had to defend herself.

  CHAPTER 43

  “JUST BECAUSE ANDERS AHLSTRöM is a sleepwalker doesn’t mean he killed Linn Bogren and Harry Molin. Our strongest evidence is DNA.” Maria Wern, who’d spent three days questioning Anders, was having an increasingly difficult time associating this thoroughly charming man with his supposed, terrible crimes. “I have a gut feeling about this.”

  “Gut feelings don’t stand up in court,” Hartman pointed out to her.

  “Anyone can plant DNA,” she disagreed. “Think about it. I’m inclined to agree with Erika. There are so many bits of evidence against Anders and they’re all so clear, served up so perfectly. Okay, that is my spontaneous reaction. So what I did today was to check Anders’s alibis on the murder nights.”

  “I’m listening.” Hartman sank into his chair without taking his eyes off her.

  “Anders wasn’t even in Visby on the night when Linn Bogren was killed. His mother got ill suddenly, she had a fainting fit while at a sewing circle meeting at her house in Öja. He stayed there overnight. One of his mother’s friends can also back this up because she stayed, too.”

  “Could he not have taken the car and gone back?” Ek interjected.

  “No, he slept in a walk-through passage with his mother on one side and her friend on the other. They would have woken up. Anyway, Julia was also sleeping in the same room with her father.”

  “What about the murder of Harry Molin? Does he have an alibi for that night as well?” Hartman looked skeptical.

  “On that night Anders had thirty minutes notice to take the shift of a friend at the emergency room. They were really busy all night, any number of witnesses will back that up.”

  “Does this mean we have to release him, or do we have anything else on him?” Hartman seemed to deflate where he sat at the table. It would not be an easy matter, going out to the media with the announcement that they were releasing their only suspect.

  “We have the fact that his wife Isabel died.” Maria didn’t need to look for her notes, she knew them by heart. “It was assumed that she drowned below Sjöstugan on Fridhem during the wedding night. Her clothes were found on the stony beach and the body never recovered.”

  “Anders has an alibi for that night as well until three o’clock. According to his friends he was in a total stupo
r. They helped him into bed. It’s unlikely he would even have managed to get down the stairs without falling. Isabel’s best friend had the room next door. She’s a light sleeper and he was snoring non-stop until he got up at about five o’clock. That’s when he went down to the beach, found the clothes, and raised the alarm. The earlier investigation concluded that it was an accident, or possibly that Isabel had swum into the undertow on purpose.”

  “And then the body was found now during the excavations on Galgberget. The injuries to the head point to murder. The medical examiner said that she could not have fallen and injured herself in that way.” Ek felt as disconsolate as Hartman.

  “Isabel’s bridal dress was still there in the room. What we saw as a wedding dress in the grave was in fact a lace curtain wrapped round the body. It was an early summer wedding. One could pick lilies of the valley, Anders’ mother arranged the wedding bouquet herself. Another remarkable thing Anders pointed out himself is that the murder of Linn Bogren took place on the same date, but ten years later. On June eleventh.”

  “Only because you would have found this out anyway. He can’t be innocent, there are too many links to him. How else could all this have happened?” Ek twisted uneasily. To leave the guilty man to commit new crimes was a very unpleasant thought.

  “Assume he’s innocent,” said Hartman, turning to Maria. “How would you say it happened then?”

  Maria rubbed her eyes and tried to collect her thoughts. “Someone could have planted the DNA, we’ve seen that before. If I was planning a murder and wanted to pin it on someone else, I’d choose times when this person did not have an alibi. Which Anders wouldn’t have had, if lucky or unlucky circumstances had not played into his hands. His daughter was staying with his grandmother on both occasions. He would have been at home by himself, without anyone being able to confirm his whereabouts. If someone has tried to put the blame on Anders it’s certainly someone who knows him well.”

  “What about the red paint, then? Agnes Isomäki, who by the way is also Anders’s patient, sprayed the intruder and we found the exact same paint on Ander’s pants.” Ek had thought the case was solved, but now nothing made sense to him any longer.

  “Yes, that’s right. But there was no red paint on his skin. Either he’s guilty, in which case I really can’t see how he did it, or someone really wants to do him harm.”

  “Linus was also his patient.” Hartman tried to push away the images that came back to him from the lethal assault. “But the DNA that ended up under your nails did not match Anders Ahlström’s DNA. So it’s not the same assailant there.”

  “I’d hoped there would be a match, so I’d know for sure.”

  Maria fell abruptly silent. It was a big disappointment.

  “If we follow Maria’s reasoning and say Anders is innocent, and that his DNA was planted, then in theory it could be the same man who committed all these crimes.” Arvidsson had come in during the conversation and was sitting in the background as far away from Maria as he could. “I have a lead in Märsta and I’m flying there tomorrow morning. It concerns the murder of a man eleven years ago, a man who was killed with the blade of a lawn mower. I think the same assailant killed Linus.”

  “You’re free to go, Anders.” Maria sat down next to him on the bunk in the holding cell. Instead of the great happiness and relief she’d expected, his face registered fear.

  “Why? What’s happened?”

  “We don’t have enough evidence to hold you. I just have one question. Is there anyone who would like to do you harm? Anyone who’d like to blame you for these murders? In theory you could have been picked at random, but I have a feeling this is about something else.”

  All the color drained from Anders’s face. He shook his head.

  “You’re thinking about someone, I can see it.” Maria wanted to shake him. “Who wants to make your life a living hell, and why?”

  He tried to laugh it away, and his laughter was more horrible than if he’d wept. A hollow, hoarse croak. “My life is already a living hell. As soon as the media gets wind of the fact that I was arrested, the printing presses will be working overtime. There’s no worse punishment than trial by media. It’s the pillory of our time, anyone can throw stones at you. We both know that. I will always be associated with the murders. ‘Oh that Doctor Ahlström, no thanks, I don’t want to be treated by him… didn’t he have something to do with those murders in Visby?’”

  “I am sincerely sorry but we had to take you in when your DNA matched what we found on the crime scenes. Do you know who might have put it there? It has to be someone who could get close to you, someone who could get into your house and leave the stained pants under your bathtub.”

  “Or else I went somewhere in my sleep and somehow made contact with the murderer in the night.”

  “Do you really believe that yourself?” Maria stared insistently at him. “Tell me who you’re protecting? Who knows you’re a sleepwalker?”

  Anders Ahlström paced back and forth in his living room. He had already called his mother to tell her he’d been released. She was both relieved and angry at the same time. Julia had cried into the phone and wasn’t even able to speak. Right now he was too upset to bring her home. He had tried to make himself call the school a number of times to talk to her teacher. Rumors would soon be rife and it was important that the school knew how to handle them in the best possible way, so that Julia was not bullied again. After four attempts he gave up and looked in Julia’s address book for the telephone number of the classroom assistant. He explained his errand to Ronny, who promised to take care of it. He was friendly and approachable. Such a pity they had not managed to see each other at the previous parents’ evening. Anders would have liked to thank him in person for everything he’d done for Julia.

  Anders sank into the sofa and closed his eyes. Maria Wern had come very close to the truth, and it was only a question of time until she took the thought to its logical conclusion. What would have happened if he’d confessed? Would they have believed him then?

  His thoughts searched their way back to that dawn when he woke up, hung-over and ravaged, to find that Isabel was not lying at his side. He’d asked his mother to stay with Julia, then hurried down through the beautiful park to the sea. His anxiety was very much present, although ameliorated somewhat by the beautiful surroundings. The morning was crisp and sunny. The clear blue sky filtered down through the laburnum trees with their rough, twisting boughs. The path wound down the hill alongside a stream, whose water flowed over soft, round stones. The fragrance, the droning of bumblebees – all seemed to breathe of calm, as if there were no such thing as evil in the world. He leapt down the wooden stairs to the beach. Then, on the final landing, he turned round. On the bridge over the enchanted waterfall, just by the sea, stood a figure partially hidden in the dark green gloom under the trees. Not even then had he understood what had happened. Only when he saw her lifeless body in the water did he understand. Her blood, coloring the water a rusty red. The rooms in Anders Ahlström’s house were suffused with the glow of dusk. He did not turn on the lights. His head ached with all the thoughts he’d tried to turn off for so long. Is there anyone who has a reason to hate you? He would have liked so much to call Erika, just to feel her embrace without any words. But most likely she was as upset as he was right now, and he wouldn’t have the energy to answer her questions. Suddenly he heard a strange churning sound outside the window. Then a stone came flying in through the window. Anders stood with his back to the wall by the window and peered into the street. A large crowd had assembled outside his house. Another stone came flying in, skimming his shoulder. In spite of the failing light he could make out their grim expressions by the glow of the streetlights. He fumbled for the cell phone in his pocket and called the emergency number. The churning sounds picked up. A man freed himself from the crowd and rang his doorbell. Briefly Anders debated with himself if he should answer and try to speak to them. But all his energy had run out. What could
he say? “It wasn’t me.” The sharp sound of the bell cut through the silence. Then came the sound of a tool, progressively inching the door off its hinges. Only then did he get through to the police. Burglary in progress. The address. That’s all he had time for. Next, a stone hit him in the head and catapulted him backwards.

  Once more odious coincidence had been victorious against intelligence and strategy. He who should be punished had been released. Twice, fate had saved him. But even though Fortuna stood at his side, he was not immortal. Now he must die. An anonymous telephone call would be enough. Why dirty one’s own hands when people were so willing to make themselves into instruments in the service of hatred? Linus’s father would certainly feel a quickening lust in torturing the doctor to death, if he were released. Don’t we all have these tendencies? Malicious pleasure when a rival fails, satisfaction and reassurance when rule-breakers are punished. Such feelings are only the lesser siblings of the pleasure of actually torturing the victim directly. The feeling of power, of having the upper hand and seeing someone else’s fear and humiliation. Like both those men he’d had to punish for their gossip, punish them because no one else would, when they showed a lack of respect and obedience. They were dead now. But before then, they had both been under his knife. Dosing them with Curare had paralyzed them without taking away their pain, while he slowly flayed them alive. His pleasure had greatly exceeded his expectations.

  CHAPTER 44

  PER ARVIDSSON GOT OFF at Märsta Station and walked down Västra Bangatan toward Nymärsta Kulle 6 to meet with Oskar Wallman at the local police station. It was a fresh sunny morning. He entered the red brick building and went up the stairs. His colleague was waiting in reception. He was older and looked far worse-for-wear than Per Arvidsson had thought. His crutch under one arm and contorted lip pointed to a stroke. He regretted his irritated tone when earlier he’d pressed the policeman with his questions about the lawn mower murder. Oskar Wallman had probably done his best.