A Beautiful Breed of Evil (The DI Stella Cole Thrillers Book 5)

by Andy Maslen

  The British detective seemed remarkably well-informed. When she’d asked about the Project, Inger hadn’t needed to feign her discomfort. It had been real enough, and she’d felt sure she was about to faint.

  Thank god Erik had returned when he did, clutching his poetry books. She swore if they got through this, she’d never joke about them again.

  She batted the sides of her head with her palms, trying to still her mind long enough to figure out what to do.

  When the pain jolted her mind into some semblance of calm, she placed her smarting palms together in front of her and rested her forehead on the first joints of her thumbs.

  She searched inside herself for that quiet place she could reach in church or at the end of a long, peaceful day.

  Father, this is your daughter, Inger Agnes Hedlund.

  I pray that you will guide me.

  You know that Tomas is dead. I am frightened, Lord. I am frightened that whoever murdered Tomas will come for me, too. And for Ove and Kerstin.

  Tomas was going to confess. He urged us to as well. Was he right? Should I accept my sin and hope for redemption?

  I want to be free of this fear, Lord. But I also don’t want to die before my time. I want to live.

  Guide me, please.

  Amen.

  Her breathing felt easier than it had done since she learned of Tomas’s murder. Through the open window she could hear birds singing in the birch trees.

  God would answer her. He always did. But what would he say?

  When the answer came to her, she was shocked. She wanted to resist. To cry out against the unfairness. But then she accepted it. Because it made sense.

  No, more than that. Making sense was for choosing the right replacement dishwasher or car insurance policy. This was about doing the right thing. Finally. And to hell with the consequences.

  She would have to tell Erik, of course. He would be shocked. Horrified, even. But they’d been married for forty-three years. She felt sure the marriage would survive.

  What about Ove and Kerstin? They deserved to know. She might even be saving their lives. By voluntarily confessing, as Tomas had wanted her to, she would draw the sting from the murderer’s rage.

  Forgiveness was a very human need. More, perhaps, than revenge. She prayed it was. And she could ask for police protection too, once it was out in the open.

  Tears pricked at her eyes and then burst free, wetting her cheeks and dropping from her chin onto the sewing table. The lightning bolt she’d released when she unsealed Tomas’s aerogramme had sundered the wall of denial she’d built around her past. Now she saw, truly saw, the Project for what it was.

  They’d thought they were creating a beautiful breed of people. But what they’d done was evil.

  Silently, she wept for all the harm she’d done. She wept for all her – she realised with a kind of painful joy that she could finally use the word – victims.

  Finally the tears dried. Perhaps she’d run out. It certainly felt that way. Practical problems presented themselves.

  How did one confess? Not like in church, where everything was secret. But in public. Should she approach the press? Do it on social media like the youngsters did everything these days?

  She decided against that course of action. She wanted a clean soul, not a torrent of hate mail and death threats. Although she supposed she might get those anyway. But better death threats than actual death.

  Maybe Erik would know. She’d ask him. She’d plead for his forgiveness first, though. For having deceived him all these years. And if he couldn’t cope? If he left her? No. He wouldn’t. Couldn’t. They were too old for that sort of thing. They’d find a way through it.

  Before any of that, there was one person to whom she felt she owed an explanation.

  Ove would try to persuade her out of it. Maybe he could cope with the idea of a murderer hunting them all down, but Inger couldn’t. She decided to visit him in person. That way he’d have to hear her out.

  She went downstairs and told Erik she was going for a drive to clear her head.

  Fifteen minutes later, she rolled up to Ove’s house and cut the engine. Even though it was after nine in the evening, the sun was as bright as day. Midsommar wasn’t far off. She flapped a fan in front of her face as she approached the front door and rang the bell.

  Ove answered, dressed in some sort of white silky pyjamas, like a martial arts outfit. Baggy trousers cut off at mid-calf and a belted jacket. She frowned. So did Ove.

  ‘Inger? It’s been years. What are you doing here?’

  ‘Can I come in, please?’ she said. ‘And what on earth are you wearing?’

  He made no move to stand aside or beckon her in. Instead, he looked down. ‘They’re Japanese. Very cool in this heat. Sigge brought them back for me on his last trip.’

  She frowned again. Sigge? A grown-up son? An assistant of some kind? She realised how little she knew of Ove’s life. A man with whom she once collaborated on the Project, working side by side for almost six years.

  ‘Sigge?’ she prompted.

  ‘My husband.’

  ‘Oh.’

  He smiled. ‘You disapprove?’

  She shook her head, aware he was already seizing control of the conversation and distracting her from her purpose.

  ‘Not at all. I have gay friends. Can I come in, please?’

  ‘Why? I told you when we all went our separate ways, contact between us was a very bad idea.’

  ‘Please, Ove?’

  He stood aside, rather ungraciously, she thought, and let her precede him down the hallway and into the kitchen. His lack of manners didn’t end there. Even though it was a hot evening, and he must be able to see she was sweating, he didn’t offer her a drink. Though coffee would have been unwelcome, she needed a cold drink.

  Swallowing her pride, she asked him. ‘May I have some water, please?’

  He turned from her and filled a glass from the cold tap, handing it to her and indicating she should sit at the table, where he joined her.

  Once she’d taken a long draft of the water, she set the glass down.

  ‘Tomas was murdered for what he did,’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I don’t mind telling you, it really shook me. Especially after his letter.’

  ‘Whoever killed Tomas is going to come for us. I can’t bear it.’

  He shook his head. ‘You don’t know that. Maybe they only knew about Tomas. We were careful. You know that. I helped you.’

  ‘Yes, and you helped Tomas, too. It didn’t stop someone finding him and shooting him and then,’ she gulped down some more water, suddenly feeling sick, ‘doing something afterwards.’

  ‘He must have got careless. Maybe he let it slip before he wrote to us with his absurd notion of confessing.’

  ‘Why absurd?’

  ‘He was getting soft in the head. If there is a god, which, as a scientist, I don’t for one moment believe, then do you really think he would grant absolution to someone like Tomas Brömly?’ he scoffed. ‘Poor old Tommy could have crawled on his hands and knees from Umeå to Santiago de Compostela and he’d still have ended up in Hell.’

  Inger couldn’t help herself. Her mouth dropped open.

  ‘How could you say such a thing? He genuinely wanted to repent. Do you know your Bible? “There will be more rejoicing in Heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.”’

  Mattsson smiled. ‘I think I’d prefer to enjoy my life here on earth than worry about what they think of me in Heaven. Besides, it didn’t do Tomas much good, did it? He died before he had a chance to wipe the slate clean. I dare say he’s somewhere hotter than we are right now.’

  ‘You shouldn’t say that.’

  ‘No? I’m in my house. I think I can say whatever I damn well please. Now for the final time, why are you here?’

  She inhaled deeply and spoke on the out breath. ‘Tomas was right. You are wrong. We took part in a gr
eat evil. I’m going to tell Erik tomorrow night,’ she said. ‘After dinner. Then I’ll ask him to help me work out how to confess publicly. I hope if I do that then Tomas’s murderer will see I am genuinely sorry and leave me alone.’

  Ove sat back on the hard kitchen chair. He didn’t say anything. Inger had imagined he’d bluster or try to bully her into agreeing to maintain her – their – silence. She watched his eyes flicking left and right as if inventorying the contents of the kitchen. Finally he spoke.

  ‘I think you’re wrong. But it’s your life. Throw what’s left of it away for the promise of peace in the afterlife if you want. But I make one request of you.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Leave me out of it. I’ve more living left to do. I’m content to take my chances. Both here and in the next world.’

  So, surprised that he’d not made any attempt to talk her out of her own confession, Inger readily agreed.

  ‘I promise. And I’ll leave you alone after this. You won’t see me anymore. I wish I could have met Sigge, though.’

  ‘He’s picking up supplies at ICA for Midsommar. There’s a party in the village.’

  ‘Oh well. Thank you for being so understanding.’

  He got up and she followed him back to the front door. She turned on the threshold.

  ‘Do you still think what we did was right, Ove?’

  He looked her in the eye. ‘Goodbye, Inger.’ Then he closed the door.

  28

  London

  As a young girl, Roisin had helped Ma with her dressmaking. She loved it when Ma would ask her to thread needles, sew on seed pearls or do the delicate bits of embroidery for First Communion dresses.

  Now those same nimble fingers worked a pair of lock picks as she crouched outside Stella’s front door. Twenty seconds and she was in, closing the door behind with a soft snick from the mechanism. She sighed out a breath. That was the hard part over.

  Inside, she could relax and start looking for the boots. She walked down the hallway, opening each door in turn. A room kitted out as a home office. A sizeable sitting room with a dining table in one half. A bathroom. A separate toilet. And a bedroom. She went in, skirting a tall ficus plant in a glazed pot.

  The bed had been made: a plumped-up duvet and matching pillowcases in an off-white, pocketed cotton that looked as though someone, surely not Stella, had ironed each pleated square.

  The wardrobe occupied one whole wall beside the bed. She rounded the bed and slid the mirrored central door to the left. It revealed a row of garments on hangers: shirts, tops, trousers, skirts, a couple of long dresses. She moved the dresses to one side, but saw no shoes.

  She slid the heavy door back the other way and followed it with a solid door, patterned with a limed-oak design. Shelves stretched from waist height up to the top of the wardrobe. They housed plastic boxes full of T-shirts and knitwear, underwear and tights. On a white wire rack below the lowest shelf were the shoes.

  Roisin squatted and checked the pairs of trainers, ankle boots, flats and heels. She worked her way methodically along four rows but already her heart was sinking. Her eyes had run ahead of her fingers and she could see there were no studded biker boots.

  She sat back, leaning on the bed. No! They had to be here. Then a horrible thought struck her.

  What if Stella had taken them with her to Sweden? She was forever going on about how comfortable they were, like a second skin. It would make sense. You were travelling, you’d want to be wearing comfortable shoes.

  She still had the final third of the wardrobe to check. She reached forward and slid the two doors back the way they had come. Stella and Jamie had obviously been playing house together. The space was mostly taken up with men’s clothes. A couple of suits, some jeans and dark trousers, and a handful of dress shirts.

  More for form’s sake than anything, she rummaged around in the bottom of the space. She found size ten running shoes and a pair of brown lace-up boots that were clearly Jamie’s. But no damned biker boots.

  She got to her feet, knees popping as she straightened. She realised she was grinding her teeth and forced herself to unclench her jaw. This wasn’t over. All she’d done was try one wardrobe in one room. She needed to be more methodical. Stella could have put the boots anywhere.

  Wait a minute. Stella had that stupid motorbike. But Roisin hadn’t seen a crash helmet. So where was it? And the leather jacket with the orange stripe?

  She darted out into the hall. She’d walked straight past the coat rack. She riffled through the jackets and longer-style coats and – Oh, Sweet Jesus! – she found it. The thick leather that met her questing fingers promised her success.

  Just to be sure, she dragged the jacket out from between a navy pea coat and a tan trench. If the jacket was here, surely the helmet and boots couldn’t be too far away. She turned around and saw a door set flush into the painted wall opposite the coat rack. A utility cupboard of some kind.

  She pulled the door open and came face to face with a matte-black bike helmet. She saw her face reflected in its curved Perspex visor, distorted so that her mouth stretched disgustingly from one side of her face to the other.

  She looked down. At her feet, toes-inwards as if too shy to meet her gaze, were the boots.

  She bent to grab them and froze. Footsteps were approaching the other side of the front door. She closed the cupboard and fled down the hall, still holding the boots. There! The unmistakeable sound of a key hitting the surround to a lock then slotting home.

  It must be a cleaner. How could she have been so careless? So sure she was about to find the silver bullet that would take Stella down she’d forgotten to check if anyone was due to come to the flat.

  She raced back into the master bedroom and closed the door behind her. Then, panicking, realised it had been open when she’d arrived. She pulled it open a little then turned, desperate to find a hiding place. The wardrobe? No room. She knew that, didn’t she? She’d only just searched it. Stupid woman!

  Her heart was racing. Come on, Roisin, think!

  She went down on her knees and looked under the bed. Perfect. Just a couple of shoe boxes and a baseball bat. Naughty!

  Figuring that if Stella’s cleaner was anything like her own, she’d hardly be the type to bother vacuuming under a double bed, Roisin went flat on her belly and shuffled in on her elbows, keeping the boots in front of her.

  Heart thumping, she forced herself to breathe slowly, straining to listen to the sounds beyond the bedroom door. The carpet was furry with dust and hair: soft little balls of tumbleweed on a desert of oatmeal-coloured twisted wool. Her nose started tickling. She wrinkled it and pushed her knuckle hard against her top lip, terrified she’d sneeze.

  Her heart sank as she realised the reality of her situation. The cleaner would be there for what, one hour? Two? Three? She couldn’t stay under here for that long. But what other option did she have? She could hardly emerge with a cheery, ‘Afternoon, all’, flash the warrant card and let herself out, now could she?

  Then everything changed.

  ‘Hello? Anybody there?’

  She’d only met Jamie once, but she recognised his voice. Her stomach flipped over and all thought of sneezing vanished.

  If he found her here there’d be no chance of blustering her way out as she might past a confused and possibly fearful cleaner. He’d start asking questions. Hell, he might even make a citizen’s arrest. She wouldn’t put it past him.

  She flattened herself into the pile of the carpet, wishing she could disappear between its fibres.

  She heard Jamie humming, then a kitchen cupboard opening. The noise of plastic containers knocking and clattering onto the worktop. His swearing. Brief and humorous. Stuff being restacked. The tap running. Something filling.

  What the hell? Was he about to burst in and chuck a jug full of cold water under the bed to flush out a burglar?

  She got ready to fight. It was the only option. If she hit him hard and fast enough, she co
uld knock him out or at least temporarily blind him before he recognised her. He’d call 999, but, by the time the uniforms arrived, she’d be long gone and sorting out an alibi.

  Then, nothing. What the hell was he doing? The humming had morphed into singing. He had a terrible singing voice. Flat, almost completely out of tune. She’d have laughed if her situation wasn’t so dire.

  She could hear him going into the different rooms. Everything would go silent for a minute or two, then he’d emerge. She prayed that whatever he was doing he wouldn’t need to do it in the bedroom.

  Keeping her head down, she focused on the boots under her nose. This close she could smell them: leather and a solvent-y top note that might have been some kind of waterproofing product they sold in shoe shops.

  She turned the right boot over in her hands. The simple pattern of studs was uninterrupted. Then it must be the left. It had to be.

  She examined the upper. The tiny metal cones extended left and right in unbroken lines. The heel revealed more of the same. The she turned it to examine the outer edge.

  She missed it the first time she looked. Jamie had just walked past the bedroom door, sending her heart into a fluttery rhythm she felt in her throat. She looked again, tracing the pattern with her finger. And there, a third of the way along, her fingertip dipped into a gap between two studs.

  She closed her eyes and rested her forehead on the carpet and released a pent-up breath.

  Jesus, Mary and sweet Joseph, it was there!

  The evidence she needed. Right in front of her. All she had to do was avoid being discovered hiding under the bed like a teen in an eighties horror movie.

  The bedroom door opened. She heard its lower edge brush over the carpet. She saw Jamie’s feet, encased in tan brogues below the rolled cuffs of indigo jeans. Her heart stuttered in her chest.

  ‘Now, then,’ he said.

  This was it. He’d bend down and peer beneath the bed and she’d hit him straight in the eyes with clawed fingers. It was a brutal move and she could permanently damage his sight, but it was better than the alternative.