Killer's Island

by Anna Jansson

  “I’ll never lie to you again.” He squeezed her shoulders tightly. “But I’m scared. God, I’ve been so scared without being able to tell you about it, because I was afraid I’d lose you if I did. For a few terrible days I even believed I was the one responsible for those terrible murders while I was sleepwalking. And then when I realized I had alibis I understood who was behind them. Another sort of fear took over. He’s capable of absolutely anything.”

  “I think this is a safe place right now.” Erika hadn’t told anyone where they were going, and when she booked, the woman at the Fridhem reception desk had promised to be discreet if anyone asked about them. Erika leaned her head against his shoulder. “You see the foundations of Sjöstugan? It looks like it might just glide into the sea the next time there’s a storm. You can’t get closer to the water than that. We’ll be able to hear the waves when we’re going to sleep.”

  “If we can sleep.” Anders doubted it. “I’m worried about Julia. Just think if he harms her to get at me?”

  “Would you like them to come here?” Erika could understand his anxiety.

  “Let’s call them and ask them to come here. Now, right away. It would feel safer.”

  CHAPTER 46

  MARIA WERN WAS SITTING in Hartman’s office when the call came in from Per Arvidsson.

  She understood the seriousness of the situation at once, when Hartman summarized Per’s conclusions.

  “Erika is in grave danger. Anders has a son, Roy Karlsson. Per believes he murders anyone Anders shows any affection or love – such as Isabel or his patients. We have to get hold of them right away! Erika isn’t at home and she’s not answering her cell phone. Anders isn’t, either.”

  “Ek has been looking for Anders all morning and went there to ask him a few supplementary questions. No one seems to be home there, either. He called Anders’ mother. She said her son wasn’t there, but she might be lying for her son’s sake.”

  “In that case our top priority right now is finding the apartment where Roy Karlsson might be staying. You have to keep out of this, Maria. It’s damn terrible, because I could do with you. What do you want to do instead?”

  “I’ll talk to Anders Ahlström’s mother and bring her and the girl in. They may need protection.”

  “Wise move. There’s the duty officer on the phone.” Hartman’s face lit up. “They know where the apartment is. We may have him. I’ll go with them to Havdhem.”

  The area round the workshop was surrounded by a high fence, but the gate was open and in the courtyard were a number of small trucks in various states of disrepair. In the office sat a man in blue overalls, a can of beer in his hand. He was talking on the telephone while panting in the heat. When Hartman walked in he waved his hand dismissively. “We don’t have time for more jobs, not before we close up for the summer.” Only when Hartman showed his police badge did he hang up.

  “Do you have a tenant upstairs?”

  “What the hell, he’s borrowing the place. Who said I was renting it?”

  “Is he up there now?” Hartman wasn’t interested in small-time tax dodging. “This is about murder.”

  The garage mechanic gave Hartman a dubious look, then pulled down his cap over his face and scratched his neck. “His car’s here. Sometimes he takes the bus and sometimes a taxi. He lives in goddamned luxury, could afford a bit more rent.”

  As they talked, the police had moved into position. Hartman took the megaphone and called out. They waited. Nothing happened. Hartman repeated his call, and then they decided to go in. The garage owner had a spare key. At the top of the stairs they were met by an expansive hall, into which daylight only entered via a ceiling window.

  “This is the police! Roy Karlsson! Open up, come out with your hands over your head.” They unlocked the door and went in. Not a sound could be heard. But an invasive, sweet and nauseating stink hit them, like forgotten prawn shells. They searched the apartment.

  “He’s not here,” said Jesper Ek at the same time as he heard Hartman calling out from the living room. He hurried into the bright room. The white walls encompassed the oblong steel tables on wheels. Hartman walked up to the nearest bier and saw the dissected corpse. He could hardly believe what his eyes were seeing.

  “He’s flayed them. The monster. He’s flayed them alive, otherwise the blood wouldn’t have run like this.”

  Jesper Ek couldn’t stop staring, although he would have preferred not to look at the repellent sight. All the skin had been peeled off except on the face. The victims looked as if they were wearing white masks. “Who are they?”

  Hartman closed his eyes briefly and breathed through his mouth to avoid having to smell the stink. “Perhaps Roy’s accomplices from the assault? Maybe Joakim can identify them.”

  “Anyone who’d do this to his friends… I hardly dare think what he’d…” Ek couldn’t finish the sentence. He was thinking about Erika.

  “If you let a fox into the henhouse it kills all the hens, not out of hunger but lust.” Hartman gestured for them to go outside. The fewer the footprints in there, the better for the technicians who’d be taking over the crime scene. Before he left the apartment he took a look at Roy’s workroom, consisting of a bank of computers on a semi-circular table. A little further off was a bed. On the wall, a large number of charcoal drawings were pinned up. Isabel, Linn, and Erika were a three-headed goddess. Julia was a creature from the underworld, with dead eyes and her flesh partially torn off her skeleton. Anders Ahlström was the Grim Reaper, arrayed in a dark cape. Harry Molin hung with a swelling tongue. The battered body of Linus. Sick, twisted but very expertly done drawings. There were also several drawings of prostitutes in violent situations. Death was everywhere. What you are we have been, what we are you will be. Hartman read the well-known text under a drawing of the dead rising from their graves. Vaguely he remembered the words from the crypt of the Capuchin monks in Rome.

  On the floor beside the bed lay a pair of jeans of the Kilroy brand, and shoved under the bed a pair of boots like those described by Maria from the gang’s assault. He went up to the wide, unmade bed and looked under the pillow and mattress. He was seeing something, an explanation perhaps, or a contradiction. Pure evil must be gainsaid in some way. At some point Roy had been a child. Afterwards, life and circumstances had created a monster. He found what he was looking for under the mattress: a well-thumbed scrapbook with Pinocchio on the cover. A fairytale of truth and lies. On his way into town he flipped through it. Ek drove. It was a diary with cuttings from newspapers and quotes from the Internet. Sometimes there were cartoons, interspersed frame by frame with a child’s drawings, thoughts and longing for family. A birthday party with long, flapping serpentines in the trees and a strawberry cake.

  CHAPTER 47

  MARIA HAD BEEN SITTING a long while at the kitchen table with Anders Ahlström’s mother. Julia stuck like glue to her grandmother and Maria had no decent opportunity to speak to the woman about the overhanging threat to the child. When they did not want to go back with her to the police station, Maria had shown them what an alarm unit looked like. Anders’s mother wasn’t interested. It was technical and complicated and she had no energy for learning anything new, not any more.

  “I just can’t understand where Anders went. It makes you worried. I have to stay here in case he needs me. Am I also being accused of something? Otherwise I’d rather you just left.”

  “Think about the girl,” Maria tried. There was a risk that Roy would want to hurt her, just as he’d hurt all the others to whom Anders had shown any kind of feeling.

  “There’s no one who wants to harm her. Can’t you stop tormenting us now? It’s enough what you did to Anders, even though he’s innocent. I don’t want anything to do with the police! Just go!”

  “Please, I’m begging you. Come with me. For the sake of the child!”

  Anders’s mother opened the front door. “Out!”

  Maria couldn’t force them, though she was sick with anxiety. Ins
tead she went to Lummelunda again to try and get hold of Erika. She wasn’t at home now, either, and she still wasn’t answering her cell phone. Anders had taken quite a beating, but he’d refused to go to the hospital. The media had followed on the tail of the vigilantes group. Presumably he was keeping out of the way somewhere with Erika, but where? Maria made an attempt to find them in the cottage they’d rented in Ljugarn, but found out that there was another guest staying there. The more Per Arvidsson’s words sank in, the more certain she grew that Roy was after Anders and Erika. Maybe he also wanted to harm Julia. Did he see her as his sister or only as a rival? What places did Erika know about where one could get some peace and quiet?

  Hartman came back. They reviewed the situation. There was frantic activity. Police officers on vacation were called in. Joakim was able to identify the men he’d met in Visby, who had been with Roy during the assault, by reviewing the grotesque photographs faxed over by the technicians. Maria wasn’t as sure – they had been masked. But their body types and length fitted. They were soon found on a list of missing persons. Hartman took on the duty of contacting dependants to ask them to identify the victims. It was a task no one envied him. Roy was still on the loose, and Anders and Erika had apparently gone underground. Not a good combination. At midnight, Hartman decided to go home and catch a few hours’ sleep. Police on duty were free to contact him whenever they wanted; he promised to keep his cell phone switched on.

  “You need to rest as well, Maria. You’ll think more clearly if you do. There’s nothing more we can do right now. Roy Karlsson is wanted, his photograph will be on the front page of every newspaper tomorrow.”

  Maria reluctantly followed his advice, went home and stood in the shower. Then she ate a couple of sandwiches in front of the television and drank a few strong cups of coffee. She called Erika again but the number was temporarily unavailable. Could they really be so sure that Erika would think primarily of the need Anders had for peace and quiet? When Erika was taken off duty the most urgent question in her mind had been whether Anders was guilty or innocent. A new thought popped up in Maria’s head – admittedly one that was fairly wild and farfetched. What if Erika intended to carry out some of her own police work, taking him to the crime scene where Isabel had been murdered? The more Maria thought about it, the more likely it seemed. Erika needed the truth if she was going to be able to live with Anders. Maria didn’t even give herself time to finish her coffee. On her way outside to the car she called central command and told them she was on her way to Fridhem Pension.

  CHAPTER 48

  WHEN ANDERS CALLED WITH fear in his voice, his mother immediately picked up on it. Maria Wern had been right, they were in danger. Anders’ mother had shared her son’s terrible secret over all the years, loyally keeping silent. She had not visited Fridhem, the place where his wedding had been held, since the murder. Now he wanted her to go there and she obeyed him without hesitation. She woke up Julia, who’d fallen asleep in the sofa, and swept a blanket around her shoulders on the way outside to the car.

  “What’s happening, grandma?”

  “Dad wanted us to come.”

  Instead of going to the coffee shop to buy waffles, as Julia had wanted, they contacted the hotel kitchen. Dinner was served at five but they were willing to make an exception and send down food to Sjöstugan. Erika was grateful that they could eat on their own. They sat at the garden table outside the house by the edge of the sea. The dusk spread out, mild and blue, and the laburnum hung in great clumps. The river sighed. Everything was calm and still. Anders could hardly eat at all, which his mother commented on. Erika glossed over his comments. What Anders had to say to his daughter wasn’t easy.

  He pushed his plate away. “Julia, I’d rather you didn’t have to hear what I’m going to tell you now. The first thing is, you have an older brother. You can’t remember him because you were so small when you met. He was there when me and your mother were married.”

  “Great, what was his name?”

  “It’s not as great as you think. His name is Roy. He’s twenty-five years old.” As mercifully as possible Anders told his daughter the events of her parents’ wedding night.

  “You told me my mother drowned. You’ve lied to me!” Julia stood up to run from the table. Anders caught her in his arms. “There’s something else I have to tell you. And you have to listen, because we’re in danger!”

  Erika admired his way of talking to the child about the horror, making it understandable and not scaring her more than he absolutely had to. Maybe all his experience of passing on unwelcome diagnoses to patients helped him find the right tone. He listened to her questions, waited on her reactions, and helped her take in the truth bit by bit.

  “There’s a risk Roy wants to hurt us. So no one must know we’re here. You understand that, don’t you?” said Erika.

  Julia stared at Erika. “He wants to kill you because you’re with dad?”

  “I hope it’s not like that, but we don’t know.” The thought had never struck Erika before. It might actually be like that. The sleepwalker murders had started when she met Anders. Maybe Roy could not put up with his father having any kind of fond feelings for anyone else? Anders had joked with Linus, listened to and cared about Harry, and given Agnes Isomäki a hug. Linn had also been his patient. Was it Anders’s care and commitment that had sentenced them all to death? In which case, what kind of punishment would he not like to inflict on Erika? Or Julia? Had he saved them till last, slowly ramping up Anders’s suffering beyond all understanding, so that he could ultimately blame his father for the things that had happened? A demonic plan.

  For a long time Julia lay in bed next to her grandmother, listening to the waves breaking against the shore. All other sounds disappeared in the sound of the waves. It felt as if her body was in the waves, rolled up and straightened out by the all-encompassing sound. Grandmother’s light snoring. Dad’s feet on the floor on his way to the toilet. Whispering in the adults’ room. She felt alone. After she’d been asleep for about an hour there was a “ping” of a text on her cell phone. She put the blanket over her head and checked who’d written to her. It was Ronny.

  “Are you in Sjöstugan?” he wrote. Daddy had said she mustn’t tell anyone where they were hiding. But Ronny already knew, because he could check by GPS where Julia’s phone was. He was so smart and fun to be with. Almost like a magician.

  “Yes,” she replied. “And do you know I have a brother? A real one.”

  “Cool,” he texted back.

  “He killed my mother.” Julia’s eyes filled with tears and she tried to hold back her crying as much as she could, so her grandmother wouldn’t hear.

  “We have to talk about it. I’ll come right away. Can you sneak out of the house and down the wooden steps and I’ll wait for you on the beach?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve hung up some strips of white sheets in the trees so you can find your way in the dark.”

  “Almost like Hansel and Gretel. Good. I’m coming,” she wrote. Ronny understood everything. She could tell him everything, she could be small and sad with him. When dad told her all the horrible things she couldn’t say whatever she wanted, not without making him even sadder. But with Ronny it was something else. He always knew completely what had to be done. He was never upset. Never angry. He was just Ronny. What would she have done all those lonely afternoons when Daddy was at work if Ronny had not been there with her?

  Julia crept out of bed as quietly as she could. Grandmother lay on her side facing into the room. The tiniest sound would make her open her eyes, and then everything would be ruined. Julia pulled a sweater over her nightie and looked for her shoes, but couldn’t find them. Barefoot, she tiptoed across the floor then opened the door, which creaked slightly.

  “Julia. Where are you off to?”

  “Just to pee,” she whispered and disappeared down the passage and into the night. The strips of cloth were hanging in the trees. It looked fun. All the way to t
he stairs they were flapping in the wind. As she took the last step onto the sand she looked up and saw him. He was standing at the edge of the water, and came toward her with his arm waving.

  “Give me five!” The palm of his hand slapped against hers. He smiled broadly. “Come on, let’s go for a swim!”

  “But it’s the middle of the night,” she laughed.

  “Yeah but you’re probably quite dirty. You’re dirty right here.” He picked her up in his arms and held up one of her feet. “And here on the other foot you’re dirty as well, you little piggy. So you have to take a swim. I’ll carry you out so you don’t have to step on the stones.” He held her in his arms and dialed Anders’s number on his cell phone. Anders answered at once, as if he’d been lying there with the cell phone in his hand. As if he knew something would happen – but not how.

  “Say hello to Dad, Julia.”

  “Hi, Dad. We’re having a swim.”

  Anders’s voice came out as a strangled cry.

  “Come on your own if you want to see her alive,” Roy hissed.

  A splashing sound. Julia’s scream was the last thing Anders heard before the call was cut off. He jumped out of bed and shot out the door. Erika woke up but Anders didn’t have time to explain anything to her. White cotton strips bordered the path to the sea. He ran toward the stairs. Far out he could see them, heading out toward the undertow. He made his way down the stairs without breathing and charged into the cold water.

  “Come and get her if you can.” The waves amplified Roy’s voice without the loss of a single syllable. He held the girl’s head under the water, then let her come up.

  “Help, Daddy! I don’t want it. Help!”

  Anders swam toward them. If he’d had time to think he would have brought a weapon, a club of some sort. But in his huge fear he had just run off to save his daughter.