by Andy Maslen
Stella ran on after Sigge, who she could see limping away on the far side of the crowd.
He turned and fired again. Everyone but Stella threw themselves to the ground. It was so unified a movement it looked choreographed.
She waved for them to stay down and shouted the order in Swedish for good measure: ‘Polis! Stanna nere!’
Stella leaped over prostrate figures, parents clutching children, couples lying together, their arms over each other’s heads, never taking her eyes off Sigge.
He turned and fired wildly. Now Stella did dive for cover as he emptied the magazine.
Bullets whined overhead. One struck a birch tree just a foot from Stella’s left ear. Bright splinters of wood flew out, one smacking against her cheek and opening a cut.
She heard the distant click as the hammer hit an empty breech, and jumped to her feet.
Sigge threw the gun aside, turned and broke into a shambling run. Then his legs gave under him and he fell to his knees. He was done.
Maybe he was a decent runner when fed, hydrated, fit and healthy, wearing the correct footwear and dressed for it. But he was badly hurt, wearing sandals, carrying more than a few glasses of the local firewater inside him, and panicking.
Stella reached him a few seconds later. She knocked him sideways to the ground. She pulled his arms behind him, drawing a scream as she gripped his damaged wrist. It couldn’t be helped.
She dragged her belt out through the loops and cinched it around his elbows. Tight enough to immobilise the joints and prevent his attempting to use his hands. Not that he looked in any state to consider running again.
Kneeling beside him, panting, she uttered her first-ever Swedish arrest script. It was short, and she wasn’t sure of her accent, but she was certain he’d get the message.
‘Sigge Svensson. Du är arresterad. För mord.’
Stella heard the roar of a car being driven at top speed and looked up. Seconds later a grey Volvo, blue lights flashing, burst into the village square and skidded to a stop a metre away from her. Sigge lifted his head then let it drop into the dirt.
Oskar climbed out of the car, pistol drawn, and rushed round the front of the car to where Stella knelt with her right hand holding Sigge down.
Before Stella could say anything, Oskar snapped a pair of cuffs home, drawing a howl of pain as the steel bit into Sigge’s broken right wrist.
Oskar recited the formal caution in Swedish.
‘I think I broke his wrist,’ she said. ‘You might want to loosen the cuff.’
Oskar nodded, unlocking the right cuff and then leading Sigge round to the side of his car where he folded him into the back seat and cuffed him to the door handle.
Back with Stella he peered at her and stretched out a finger to gently touch her cut cheek. ‘You look like shit,’ he said with a shaky grin.
‘Thank you so much, Oskar. What happened in town?’
‘Hoax call. We swept the entire city centre. They’re still searching, but Malin released me.’
‘I think it was Sigge. He was trying to buy time.’
‘Tell me what happened,’ he said, leaning on the bonnet of the car.
She sketched in the details, explaining she’d left Ove back at the house with instructions to stay put. Oskar nodded as she outlined each decision she’d made and her rationale for making the citizen’s arrest.
When she finished he said, ‘Want to hear something interesting about our Sigge Svensson?’
‘Go on.’
‘He’s a member of a far right political party called Svenska Renhet. Know what that means?’
‘Swedish something?’
‘Swedish Purity.’
‘Is that the connection between him and Mattsson?’
‘I don’t know. We’ll get into all of that when we interview him,’ he said. ‘I need to get him back to book him in, but we shouldn’t leave Mattsson alone.’
‘It’s fine,’ Stella said. ‘You take him in and I’ll help out here then get back to the house. He shot a young girl at the Midsommar party, too. Flesh wound. You might want to add that to the charges.’
He nodded. ‘I’ll see you later. Good work, by the way. Looks like you caught the murderer.’
Stella offered a tight smile in return. She wanted to talk to Mattsson. Find out what, if anything, he knew about his husband’s actions.
She found him in the garden, sitting by himself at the table laden with Midsommar treats. None of the food appeared to have been touched, although a bottle of clear liquid by his right elbow was a third empty.
As she walked up to him, he turned red-rimmed eyes in her direction and saluted her with a raised shot glass. He downed it in a single swallow and immediately refilled it from the bottle, slopping some onto the tablecloth.
‘I love him,’ he said as she sat down at his left elbow. ‘I thought I knew him. Now,’ he waved his arm around in a vague sweep she supposed was meant to encompass the wreckage of his life, ‘all this.’
She felt for him, this old man with an evil past. She was only human, after all. As, she was forced to admit, was he.
Not a monster. Nor a psychopath bent on causing as much pain and suffering as he could manage. Just a human being, who had once committed atrocities in pursuit of a purer Sweden.
How ironic that Annika had wanted to ruin his life and his beloved husband, Sigge, had done it after all.
‘Did you know what he was doing?’ she asked him.
Without meeting her eye, he shook his head. ‘No. He runs his own business. He is a corporate head-hunter. He travels a lot. And he’s much more active than I am. Tennis, running, you know? He goes out, I don’t see him for a while. I just read, or paint.’
‘How did he find out about Tomas’s plan to expose you all?’
‘I don’t know. You will have to ask him that. He probably found the letter in my study.’
‘What about Inger Hedlund?’
‘I don’t know that either. She came here to see me. I, I might have said something that night. I’m not sure. I have a little problem with alcohol,’ he added, tipping the glass into his mouth.
‘And Annika Ivarsson? The journalist who was researching what you four did back then?’
He shrugged, refilled his glass and drained it. ‘Kerstin called me. She said Ivarsson had been to see her. Maybe Sigge listened in on the conversation. It was on the landline. Maybe she spoke to Sigge when I was painting. I’m sorry. This is all too much to understand for me.’
Kerstin. She’d dodged a bullet. Literally. Stella had no illusions Sigge would have killed her too. He’d gone too far to stop without cleaning house, as he would have seen it.
Ove’s eyes drooped, then closed. A few seconds later, he began snoring. He’d been waiting for her to return, as she told him to, but now she was back the stress had kicked in hard. That and the akvavit he’d consumed.
The rest of the conversation could wait until he was sober and sitting in an interview room at the cop shop in Umeå.
She left him sleeping and went inside. He was a university professor. So he’d have an office. Would Sigge have one, too, or did they share? She mounted the wooden staircase to find out.
The first room she came to was book-lined. A wooden desk faced a window looking out over the lake. She tilted her head sideways to read a few of the book titles. All covered genetics, genomics, DNA analysis and other topics she knew Lucian would understand far better than she did.
She spotted a group of the same book, then realised the shelf was filled with similar groups of six or more copies. She angled her head again to read the titles and saw why.
Statistical Methods for Genetic Data Analysis Ove Mattsson
Clinical Genomics: An Introduction Prof. Ove Mattsson
Thoroughbreds: Genetics and the Theory of Perfection Ove Mattsson
Ove’s office, she concluded.
The room facing it across the narrow hallway was also filled with books. But when she craned her neck to read
the titles, a cold weight settled in her stomach.
Mein Kampf
Racial Theories of Purity
The Degeneration of the Race: Mongrelisation and the Threat from Immigrant Blood
Sigge’s office, then. Plastic document holders occupied one shelf, each crammed with magazines. She pulled one out. It was titled: Svenska Renhet
Thanks to Oskar, she could translate this easily enough. It had to be the party magazine.
The cover featured a smiling blonde woman, her hair in braids wound round the crown of her head above a pretty wreath of cornflowers and evergreen foliage. The headline read:
Midsommar: en tid för svenska patrioter att fira vårt rasarv
She got as far as Midsummer: a time for Swedish patriots to… The rest eluded her. She typed it into Google Translate. The answer didn’t shock her…celebrate our racial heritage.
She sat in the comfortable leather chair and stared through the window at the woods beyond.
Had Sigge sat here, planning to murder Brömly and the rest? Why had he done it? Was it really to protect his husband? Or to squash any further discussion of a racial purity programme he still believed in? Maybe Oskar would find out.
She wandered downstairs again, intending to check on Ove. But when she reached the terrace, he’d gone.
The glass was empty, and the bottle was now only a quarter full. He must have woken and stumbled off. She glanced down to the lake.
If he’d headed that way, he’d be at severe risk of toppling off the dock and drowning himself, the silly old fool. Oh, shit! Maybe he was going to do himself in.
For a second she considered allowing it to happen. Then swore and ran down towards the water’s edge. Her days of being judge, jury and executioner were behind her. It was why she’d refused – twice – Oskar’s offer of a gun.
She reached the dock and looked down into the clear water. It wasn’t deep and she was relieved not to see Ove floating face down.
‘Ove!’ she shouted. ‘Where are you? Var är du?’
She strained to hear an answering cry, but heard nothing. The sun was lower in the sky now, bouncing blinding flashes off the water and dazzling her. She checked the time. It was after one in the morning. Weird.
She turned around and cupped her hands around her mouth. She inhaled, ready to yell out his name again. Then she stopped dead.
Though her vision was still filled with wobbling orange afterimages from the sunlight off the lake, the figure striding across the lawn towards her looked like…Roisin?
The figure drew closer.
Jesus! It was Roisin. What was she doing out here?
‘Rosh! What the hell?’
Roisin had a face like a wet Wednesday afternoon, as Stella’s mum used to call her teenaged daughter’s particularly dark expressions.
She was dressed like she meant business. An all-black outfit from her boots to a T-shirt that disclosed some impressive biceps Stella was sure hadn’t been there before.
Stella’s gaze fell to Roisin’s waist, around which was belted a pistol in a black holster.
‘Stella Cole, I am arresting you on suspicion of the murders of Adam and Lynne Collier,’ Roisin said, the corners of her mouth curling upwards, just a fraction. ‘We have evidence linking you directly to both crimes. You do not have to say anything but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’
Stella held her arms wide. ‘Rosh, look, I don’t know what you think I’ve done but I—’
‘Shut the fuck up!’ Roisin snapped. ‘I’ve got CCTV footage of you, with a very cute little pixie cut by the way, kidnapping Lynne Collier. I found your boot stud inside Adam’s SUV. I don’t know why you killed them, but, right now, guess what? I don’t care.’
She reached behind her and pulled out a pair of handcuffs.
‘Turn around.’
‘Please, Roisin. There’s an old man out here somewhere. He’s off his face on aquavit and I’m afraid he might drown. Help me find him, then I’ll come with you. But there’s no need for cuffs.’
In answer, Roisin pulled the pistol from its holster and pointed it at Stella’s chest.
‘You cheated me out of the DCI’s job after you pulled that stunt with Callie, faking your own death. I don’t know what you two had going on but I’m going to find out,’ Roisin said in a hard, tight voice. ‘And then maybe I won’t even be DCI Griffin for too long, either.’
Stella tried one final time. ‘Please, Rosh. You have to help me. We’ve just arrested a murderer for god’s sake. A key witness has just gone AWOL.’
Roisin shook her head. ‘I’ve got powerful friends now, Stella. And they want you brought in just as much as I do. Now turn around or I’ll shoot you in the leg and claim you were resisting arrest.’
She pointed the pistol at Stella’s right thigh.
Stella doubted Roisin was much of a shot, but at this range she didn’t need to be. Point-and-shoot and Stella would have an agonising flesh wound at best; at worst a broken femur or ruptured femoral artery. Then it really would be game over.
She tried one last time to reason with Roisin. ‘How did you know where to find me?’
‘It wasn’t difficult. You’re the talk of Umeå CID. Now, for the third and final time,’ Roisin said in a voice hard with menace, ‘turn, the fuck, around.’
‘Hallå! Vad gör du?’ a man’s voice called out.
Oh, thank Christ! It was Oskar. He was back. She found she could understand him. Hey! What are you doing?
She turned to see him running down the lawn, gun drawn.
‘Polis! Släp ditt vapen!’ Police! Drop your weapon!
Roisin whirled round, pistol up. Three shots rang out, deafeningly loud. A warm spray hit Stella in the face. She tasted salt and copper.
Roisin toppled backwards, falling into Stella and knocking her off her feet. Two of Oskar’s bullets had penetrated her chest. One had clipped her left shoulder, tearing a chunk of flesh free. That had been the source of the blood that spattered Stella’s cheek.
Roisin’s face was white. Stella looked on helplessly as Oskar ran up, holstering his weapon.
‘Who is she?’ he asked, white-faced.
‘She’s a colleague. From London.’ She bent over Roisin. ‘Rosh, stay with me, OK? We’ll get you an ambulance.’
Roisin’s green eyes were wide, and the pupils had blown out to huge black holes in which Stella could see herself reflected in the Midsommar sunlight. Her breathing was shallow and rapid.
Stella stripped off her T-shirt, wadded it into a ball and pushed it against the bullet wounds on Roisin’s chest. She heard Oskar calling it in and requesting an ambulans.
Stella took Roisin’s right hand in hers and squeezed.
‘Quiet now. Save your strength,’ she said.
Roisin’s mouth moved. The whisper that escaped was inaudible. Stella leaned closer, putting her ear against her dying DI’s bloodless lips so that she could feel them brush against her skin.
‘Why?’
Stella looked over at Oskar. He was still on the phone, free hand gesticulating in the air as if batting away a swarm of wasps.
She looked back at Roisin. Blood was still surging from beneath the improvised dressing. She stuck a finger beneath Roisin’s jaw. The pulse was fluttery and fast, but faint. Her eyes were rolling up in her skull.
Stella had seen enough death close-up to know Roisin would never see the inside of the ambulance, let alone the hospital.
She made a decision. She bent towards Roisin.
‘Deacon didn’t kill Richard and Lola,’ she murmured. ‘He was a fall guy. Collier was in a conspiracy running death squads. That judge, Ramage? He was its leader. I killed him first. Then the others. Adam last.’
Roisin’s eyes widened, and flickered left and right. Her pale lips trembled as they tried to form words.
‘Lynne?’
‘She was standi
ng between us. He killed her to get a clear shot at me.’
Roisin nodded. Her eyes fluttered and closed.
‘Thank you.’
The last two words were carried on a long, hoarse outbreath. Without saying another word, she died.
Still holding Roisin’s hand, Stella sat back on her haunches. She thought of Jamie’s incredulous expression when she’d confessed to killing Ramage.
She thought of Tomas Brömly telling his former friends – or accomplices – of his intentions to confess his sins in the hopes of absolution.
She thought of Richard. His lifelong passion for justice and human rights. Of Lola, too young to have any concept of crime at all.
And of how Stella herself had learned that good and evil, sin and repentance, justice and the law were often easy to define. But not always.
42
Umeå
Stella rode in the ambulance with Roisin’s body. She felt nothing. No grief. No relief either. Even if Roisin was no longer able to pursue the case, another officer might pick up the reins.
She’d have to call Callie. Not here though. Not in a Swedish ambulance screaming down the motorway.
What would have happened if Oskar hadn’t arrived when he did? Would she really have allowed Rosh to take her back to England in cuffs? Have her charged with murder? What option did she have? But then what?
Callie had hinted that powerful people, though acting from a completely different motive to PPM, would never let her get as far as a trial.
Once she’d signed Rosh’s body over to the hospital authorities in Umeå, Stella hitched a ride back to her hotel with a uniformed cop. He dropped her off with a solemn nod.
She checked the time. It was 2.05 a.m and finally dark outside. That made it 1.05 a.m. in London. Sorry, Callie, she thought as she called her boss.
‘What is it, wee girl?’
Callie sounded wide awake. Good. She needed to be for what she was about to hear. Stella had no time for small talk.
‘Roisin’s dead. Oskar Norgrim shot her while she was trying to arrest me at gunpoint.’