by Peter Mohlin
Well, without a trace wasn’t quite right, he realized. The photo of the strange tattoo on the girl’s forearm had been posted to Facebook at 1:48 A.M. Forensics were certain she had been alive when the final tick had been carved into her skin, but whether she had been alive when the photo was taken was impossible to tell. The question was whether she’d taken it herself or whether it was the perpetrator who had been aiming the cell phone camera. To find the answer, John recognized that he would have to pose a different but equally interesting question: why had the picture been taken? Did it have something to do with the crime that—all things considered—the girl had probably been the victim of? Or was the Facebook post an isolated incident that had nothing to do with her disappearance?
He looked at his phone again and checked his position against the photos from the crime scene investigation. Then he turned to look at a rock a couple of meters away. According to the forensics, who had searched this area, that was where Billy’s semen had been found. Had Emelie Bjurwall really snuck off to meet him? And if so, why?
John found it difficult to make the story add up. His brother came from the wrong side of the island and wasn’t much to look at, while Emelie was the heiress to the AckWe empire and was in a completely different league. Was it drug-related? Was it that simple? Billy was selling and Emelie was buying? There was a lot to suggest she had taken cocaine that night and perhaps she had wanted more. The sex might not have been the primary crime. A drug deal gone wrong ending in rape was something he’d encountered before. But that had been in the Bronx—not on Hammarö. And it didn’t tally with Billy. There was nothing in the extensive investigation to suggest that his brother had been dealing drugs. People didn’t snort lines on his side of the island—they stuck to the bottle.
John sighed. He could sit here for hours coming up with theories about how the girl had died and why the semen had been on that rock. But as long as Billy himself couldn’t come up with a plausible explanation, there was only one conclusion to be drawn: his brother was keeping quiet because he had done something terrible.
John closed his eyes for a moment. He listened to the sound of the waves lapping against the rocks and the wind blowing through the trees above him. Then he opened his eyes again. He searched for Emelie, but couldn’t see her anymore. She had shown him the way here and then vanished, just like she had in the investigation.
In order to make progress with the reconstruction, he left a conscious gap for the crime itself and concentrated on what had happened after the girl’s probable death. The perpetrator must have gotten rid of the body somehow. The idea that she had been thrown into Lake Vänern seemed far-fetched now that he had visited the site. Divers had searched the lakebed and, what’s more, it was on a promontory where the waves brought most things back to shore.
It was easier to envisage a grave being dug. According to the map that Ruben had shown him in the meeting, a large area had been searched thoroughly using cadaver dogs in the days immediately after the disappearance. But if Emelie Bjurwall had been carried to a car—or a boat for that matter—then it had been pointless. The number of places she might be buried was infinite.
John got up and walked aimlessly along the rocks beside the water. He was always able to think better when moving, and he concentrated on the timeline for that evening. Emelie’s phone had lost contact with the network at 2:34 A.M., when the battery had died or someone had turned it off. According to the report from the cell phone company, it had still been in the area at that time. The phone had been connected to the same cell towers from just after midnight until the moment it stopped working.
If the perpetrator had dumped it in the area, Forensics would have found it on the ground or in the lake. The most credible conclusion was therefore that the phone had been moved after it went offline. Either through the perpetrator taking it with them deliberately or because it was still in Emelie Bjurwall’s pocket when her body was moved.
John swore silently to himself. If the phone had been able to connect to a new tower before it vanished, he would have had a direction to search in. But he had no such luck and soon this pointless excursion would be brought to an end by pouring rain and a ruined suit.
He turned around and began to walk toward the car again. Halfway up the rocks, he felt that something was missing from one of his trouser pockets. He returned to the lakeside and saw his own phone in a crevice just a couple of meters from the water’s edge. It must have slipped out of his pocket when he had stood up earlier.
He picked up the phone from the ground and examined the glass screen. It was undamaged.
“Just maybe,” he whispered to himself, as a thought began to take shape.
It was a long shot, but it was definitely worth a try.
John closed the car door at the very moment the heavens opened. The heavy raindrops hitting the metal forced him to put off making the phone call he had been planning.
He turned on the windshield wipers and made a U-turn back onto the road. Despite the rubber blades doing their best to keep the windshield free from water, he couldn’t drive more than fifteen miles per hour. He was forced to slow down even more when, far too late, he spotted a wine-red Volvo V70 parked on the verge around a bend. The car was blocking a large part of the narrow road, and John was only just able to pass without going on the verge himself.
After a few minutes, the deluge became more subdued. He connected his phone to the Chrysler’s Bluetooth and dialed the number for the police switchboard. A woman’s voice asked who he wanted to speak to and he asked to be put through to Lost Property. After ringing for a long time, a man with a broad Värmland drawl answered.
“Well, hello!”
John introduced himself as Fredrik Adamsson from the new cold cases team, hoping that the owner of the sleepy voice would wake up when he heard he had a detective on the line.
“Oh really … And what can I help you with?” the man answered, as languidly as ever.
John explained his errand. He wanted to know if any iPhones had been handed in to the police in Karlstad in the last ten years.
The man reacted—but not in the way John had hoped. A leisurely laugh filled the car. The man chuckled as slowly as he spoke.
“You bet your ass,” he said. “Several hundred. At least. Maybe over a thousand. I’ve no idea. Do you know what model you’re looking for?”
John tried to remember what the investigation file said about Emelie Bjurwall’s mobile.
“When did it go missing?” the man said after a brief pause.
“August 2009.”
“Then it was probably an iPhone 3G or possibly a 3GS.”
“Okay,” John said. “Is it possible to get a list of them with the places they were found?”
He waited for a protest about how long it would take and how much work they had to do. To his astonishment, the man promised to email precisely such a list later in the day. Primer hadn’t been exaggerating when he had said that the police had invested heavily in digitization. Apparently it even included Lost Property.
“Thanks very much,” he said appreciatively, giving the man his contact details before ending the call.
Once John was back on the road toward the mainland and approaching the bridge, he pulled over and stopped. His childhood home—where Billy still lived and where he had spent a third of his own life—was just ten minutes away. He calculated the risks. A Chrysler like John’s passing the house wasn’t commonplace in that neighborhood, but it wouldn’t awaken any suspicions so long as he didn’t stop or get out.
He drank the last of the mineral water in the bottle he’d been given at the dealership that morning and decided to give in to curiosity. He looked in the rearview mirror, made a U-turn, and headed toward Skoghall. When he reached Gunnarskärsgården, he detected a whiff of sulfur penetrating into the car through the vents. He thought about his mother in the nursing home. She was wasting away there, stuck with the shitty smell from the only place she had ever worked—a remin
der of the shitty life she had lived.
He sped up and didn’t slow down until he had left the dense housing and the gaps between the buildings were growing wider. He recognized the big oak tree by the footpath leading to the scout hut. There was only one turn to go and then he would be there. He remembered how he used to run with Billy along this road when they played down by the lake. They were always late for dinner. Their father would shout for a while, but then he would serve them their meal in front of the TV as usual.
After dinner, they would sneak downstairs to the basement where all the plastic tubs were: candy from Dad’s shop that was past its sell-by date, but which was cheerfully eaten by the two brothers in pursuit of their next sugar high.
Him and Billy. Then and there—hearts in their mouths—it felt like they would never be parted.
Then he saw the sign: Nerman’s Autos –24/7 towing –garage –service. It was no surprise that his brother had opened a garage. John had made inquiries while at the safe house in Baltimore and discovered that Billy had started a company with the same address as their childhood home. The oversize plastic sign was being held aloft by three sturdy wooden stakes driven into the ground. The lettering, once red, had faded in the sun. If not for the black outlines, it would have been difficult to read the words.
He drove on another few meters so that he could see the house itself. It was at a reassuring distance from the road. Part of him wanted to ring the doorbell, but he rejected that idea immediately. He couldn’t casually take risks like that. It was bad enough that he had turned up at his mother’s bedside in the nursing home.
The place had presumably already been pretty run-down when the whole family had lived there, even if it never occurred to him at the time. Now he saw his childhood home for what it was—a barely inhabitable hovel. Yellow paint was flaking off the façade and in places the laths had given way completely, allowing the rain to drive in freely between the boards. Roof tiles were all over the place. In some places, they were missing altogether—and all that was visible were roof beams and roofing felt.
At some point over the years, the house had been supplemented by an additional building made from metal that stood on the other side of the yard. There were two tall garage doors with small rectangular windows at the top. This was where Nerman’s Autos did business. The new building did not have graceful proportions. It looked as if someone had erected this metallic shack in haste directly opposite the dilapidated house, disregarding all aesthetic considerations.
Outside the workshop there was a tow truck with yellow lights on the roof and next to it there were two American classic cars. John was able to identify one of them without difficulty. It was a silver-gray Chevrolet Camaro built in the late sixties. The other was a rusty thing that he guessed was an older Dodge.
There was a metal pole sticking out from the façade with the American flag hanging from it. He shook his head, looking at the star-spangled banner fluttering gently in the breeze. It was hard to grasp why Billy seemed to love the country that had taken his father and brother away from him. If it had been John who had been left behind with an alcoholic mother, he would have found the nearest oil drum and burnt that fucking flag. Then he would have moved on to the house. But not Billy. He had bound himself even more closely to all that stuff. Not even when people had begun to see him as a murderer and rapist had he moved. Instead, he had let their mother carry on living on the top floor. John wondered whether the mother of Billy’s daughter had known what she was getting herself into when she had moved here. The simple fact that she had lasted so long was an achievement in itself.
John braked hard.
He had been staring so intently at the workshop that he hadn’t seen the girl on the bicycle who had trundled into the road in front of him. She had come from the driveway of his childhood home and was concealed by a hedge. Their eyes met and he saw how frightened she was. He had been a meter—maybe two—away from running her over.
Nicole, he thought to himself. That had to be Billy’s kid—his own niece.
The girl kept looking at him. She was wearing a bright yellow jacket, and a strand of dark hair stuck out from beneath the hood. Her skin was paler than her father’s, but the facial similarities were still visible. She was almost eight—so John’s mother had said. The same age as Billy when the brothers had been separated.
The girl on the bicycle began to move again. Her slender legs pedaled for all they were worth, back toward the yard. The bike was turquoise and had heart-shaped reflectors on the spokes. John moved forward a few meters so that he could watch it retreat through the puddles.
Not until the headlights of another car appeared in the rearview mirror did he bring himself to put his foot back on the accelerator. He waited until the car passed by and was about to drive on when it occurred to him.
The car that had just driven past—he recognized it.
It was the same wine-red Volvo V70 he had seen parked on the verge out at Tynäs.
He leaned toward the windshield to try to see the registration number, but it was too late. All he could see were two red lights through a fountain of water that was being thrown up from the road in the wake of the car. Then it vanished around the next bend.
Suddenly, intense pain radiated from the back of his head. He recognized it from his time in the hospital bed in Baltimore. The throbbing pain that the doctor had claimed was all in his mind, but which felt no less real for that.
He drove the car far enough to be at a safe distance from his childhood home and then pulled over. His thoughts raced ahead. What did he think was happening? Had the Nigerians found him? It was highly unlikely. The entire federal witness protection team had John’s back and he knew that they had made an effort to erase all trails that led to him. Both digital and analog. He had been in Karlstad for less than a week and if Ganiru were—against all expectations—to find him, it would take far longer than a week for him to do so.
John suppressed the paranoia and searched for other explanations for why the same car had been in both places. If it even was the same car … He couldn’t be certain. How many wine-red V70s were there in this neck of the woods? He supposed it might be a mushroom picker who’d been at Tynäs picking chanterelles—taken by surprise by the heavy rain before going home.
John pressed two fingers to the point at the back of his head and felt the pain slowly dissipating before vanishing completely. Then he turned the car around and drove back toward town. When he passed his childhood home a second time, he avoided looking at the house. It belonged to the past, and if he was being honest, he didn’t want to see the wretched thing.
21
After eating lunch in the car, John returned to the police station. He opened the door to his office and the first thing he saw was the mess on his desk. Twenty or so coffee cups were littered across it and there was a smell of sour milk. The message was unambiguous. His colleagues felt he wasn’t doing his bit on the kitchen chores and this was how they were showing it.
John swore aloud and went straight to the shared kitchen. He rooted through the cupboards and drawers until he found a black trash bag. He swept all the mugs off his desk into the bag and dumped the bundle in the trash can in the parking garage.
Once he was back in his office, he locked the door behind him and took the investigation piece from the top drawer. He checked carefully that there were no coffee stains on the desk before he spread out the sheet. Ulf Törner and his brigade of coffee-break-cops could knock on the door all they wanted—he wouldn’t open up until he’d put his thoughts down on the page in front of him.
He chose a pencil with a fine lead and added Matilda Jacoby next to the other two girls’ names. Then he switched to a softer pencil and began to add leafy birch branches emerging from the name of the treatment center that he had added the previous day. When he was finished, the leaves surrounded all three girls’ names. They had met at Björkbacken and the bonds among them had been strong.
He put the inv
estigation piece to one side and thought about the manager at the treatment center. He still hadn’t run any checks on him. He needed to know if there were any reports or convictions relating to Torsten Andreasson. John logged in to the system and fed Andreasson’s social security number into every database he could access. The number of hits was zero. The man was as clean as the finest powdered snow.
He closed his laptop and spread out the mail he had been given in Charlotten-berg. There was nothing wrong with the manager’s sense of order. Every year was in a separate folder, just as he had promised.
John started on the most recent year and worked backward. He found some post from the Swedish Tax Agency and the pension authorities, but nothing that would help him to trace Matilda Jacoby. The manager had also kept junk mail that was addressed to her. In the folder for 2008, he found something interesting: a Christmas card from the company Awesome Ink in Karlstad.
John felt the familiar shiver that ran through his body when he found something that might move an investigation forward. It was clear from the design—a tattooed Christmas tree—what kind of business the sender ran. He knew that tattooists in the States kept detailed records of their customers’ designs. If it was the same in Sweden, he would soon know whether Matilda Jacoby also had a bucket list on her forearm. With a little luck, Awesome Ink would have taken some contact details for her beyond her mailing address. Maybe an email or even—in the best-case scenario—a cell phone number.
He Googled the company and found their address in the town center. According to Google Maps, it would take twelve minutes to drive there.
John pulled over by the curb and looked into the premises across the street. The strident lettering of the neon sign stood out sharply against the gray afternoon. He cut the engine but left the ignition on so that the windshield wipers could continue sweeping the rain away.