by Peter Mohlin
John could picture the dense woods and the sharp bends. Someone driving from Tynäs who wanted to bury a body would be hard-pressed to find somewhere better.
He downed the last of his beer and paid the bill. When he put his hand on his car keys, he heard the bartender’s voice.
“Maybe you should take a cab? I can call one for you if you like.”
John was so surprised he didn’t know what to say. A cab? After two beers? Then he understood the skeptical looks from the mother with the child and the man who had stood next to him ordering beers. It was about the car keys. In this politically correct country, it was apparently not okay to have a couple of beers and then drive home.
John’s entire being wanted to revolt. He wanted to order another IPA and spin the keys on his finger while drinking it so that everyone in the room could see what he was going to do. This was plain stupid. He was just as good a driver now as when he had stepped into the place. But then he remembered what had happened the last time he had let his inner American run free. He had dumped half the mugs in the police station in a trash can in the parking garage.
“I was going to leave the car and walk home,” he said.
The bartender visibly relaxed.
“Well, that’s fine then. Have a lovely evening and see you soon.”
Two minutes later, John started the engine and felt the power of the Chrysler vibrating through the driver’s seat. He reversed out of the parking lot and accelerated harder than usual. The first stop was an electronics store where he bought a metal detector, the second a hardware store where he managed to find a big spade on sale.
Then he set a course for Hammarö. When he reached the football pitches near the middle of Skoghall, he turned left and drove east until the streetlights petered out and dense darkness enveloped him and the car. Once he reached Hallerudsleden, he slowed down, searching for the turn for Sätterstrand. After just a minute or so it appeared. He dimmed his lights as a car came the other way and passed the crossroads. Then he returned to full-beam headlights and soon picked out the parking spot.
John pulled in and cut the engine. He silently repeated the description of the location to himself. Approx. one hundred meters into the woods in the ravine toward the hollow, on the far side of the parking area. He opened the door, got out, and stared into the seemingly impenetrable woods on the other side of the road. Flashlight in one hand, spade and metal detector balanced on his shoulder, he crossed the road and searched for a way into the trees. It transpired it was easier than he had first thought. The forested wall that had seemed so dense from a few meters away had a narrow opening through which a path led into the dark greenery.
He pushed away the wet branches with the arm holding the flashlight and continued onward. It was important that he took regular paces and didn’t lose count. Once he had gotten a bit farther in, he noticed that the ground had begun to slope downward. He examined the terrain using the flashlight. Ahead of him was a ravine leading down into a hollow between two hillocks.
John began to descend. The closer he got to the lowest point, the softer it became underfoot. His leather shoes sank down to their tongues in the moss, and mud splashed a long way up his trousers. When his mental tally reached one hundred paces, he hadn’t gotten more than halfway down the slope.
He looked around. It seemed logical for the cell phone to have been found on the slope. The angle a body would be carried at when going down a slope would be different, making it more likely that something would drop out of the pockets.
The question was whether Emelie had been buried here. John didn’t think so. There was something impractical about digging on a slope. The level bit of ground at the bottom of the hollow seemed more likely.
He continued another twenty meters and then put the spade in the ground so that the shaft stood up straight like a bare tree. Then he readied the metal detector and hit the on button.
The machine immediately emitted a beep to confirm it was switched on and working. After a few seconds, the detector fell silent and John began to systematically search the area, which was around twenty meters wide and fifty meters long.
The sweep by the light of the flashlight tried his patience. It was like cutting a gigantic lawn using a trimmer, the difference being that the equipment was heavier and the grass softer.
Once he had covered about half of the area, the machine beeped. He repeated the sweeping motion over a spot next to a couple of low bushes. The metal detector went off again. There was clearly something in the ground here.
John tore a twig off the bush and pushed it into the moss as a marker. Then he fetched the spade and began to dig. The mud was heavy with moisture and he sweated in his jacket, even though the temperature had fallen markedly in the last hour.
It took time to check each spadeful’s contents. He could also only use his right hand since he needed the left one to hold the flashlight. Crouching, he went through what must have been several sacks’ worth of earth without finding so much as a coin.
But then his fingers felt an unfamiliar object. John moved the flashlight a little closer to his hand. Now he saw it—it was a jam pot.
Irritated, he stood up and aimed a kick at the damn thing. The sound of the sole of his shoe hitting the metal broke the silence in the woods and he heard the rustle in the clump of trees where the projectile landed.
He put the spade back in the ground and continued his relentless sweeping with the metal detector. A little while later, it happened again. The machine beeped twice as he ran it over a point in front of a tall pine that stood by itself on the edge of the flat bit of ground.
He began digging again. The soil was now—if at all possible—even heavier than it had been a few minutes earlier. Once he was half a meter deep, pausing before continuing deeper, he spotted something glittering in the glow of the flashlight. Something in the ground had been uncovered.
His trousers were ruined anyway, so John kneeled and leaned forward. He carefully prized the object out of the mud. It was a silver heart on a chain.
Emelie’s, he thought to himself. It had to be Emelie’s.
Blood rushed to his head, as if he had just run a marathon and was on the home stretch. By the light of the flashlight, he dug deeper using his free hand. There was something else there—something hard. He used his fingers and nails to peel back another thin layer of mud. The arched bones that were visible were, without doubt, those of a human rib cage.
A gust of wind blew through the woods and he heard it whistling past the treetops surrounding the hollow. The spruce and pine were the only witnesses to this exhumation. All he had to do was shovel the soil back into the hole, get in the car, and go back to his warm hotel bed. And his brother could carry on repairing American cars as if nothing had happened.
John shook his head in response to his own thoughts. That wasn’t the promise he had made to his mother or himself. He had promised Billy would get a fair investigation, and withholding crucial evidence was the exact opposite of that. But the question was whether he trusted Primer and the others on the team. As soon as John told his boss about his connection to the prime suspect, Billy Nerman, he’d be kicked out and no longer have any ongoing knowledge of the case.
John had heard them at that first meeting at the police station. No one was interested in looking at the case with fresh eyes. The doubts that Ruben had expressed in the car wouldn’t matter once the machinery was set in motion. The order from on high was to find new evidence to convict the man that everyone already agreed had committed the crime. And now John would be the one to deliver Emelie Bjurwall’s remains to the police chief as a gift-wrapped early Christmas present.
The body, in combination with the blood and semen, was potentially enough to put Billy away. But it wasn’t enough for John. He needed a confession to feel one hundred percent certain.
23
His childhood home looked almost abandoned. A fine wisp of smoke emerging from the chimney indicated that someone was inside
, but the windows were otherwise dark. However, there was activity in the workshop. John could see a harsh blue light occasionally flickering inside the windows at the top of the garage doors.
He checked the time. It was just after ten. The daughter ought to be asleep by now. She could under no circumstances hear the conversation he needed to have with her father.
John had left the Chrysler on a gravel track a few hundred meters away and walked the final stretch. It felt strange to approach the house as an uninvited guest when the place had once been his home. He passed the kitchen door and looked up at the second floor. The boys’ shared bedroom had been right there at the gable end. Its location right by the stairs had been perfect for nighttime outings while their parents slept. John could even remember which steps had creaked and which ones were safe.
He continued toward the workshop. The irregular flickering illuminated the cars in the yard for brief moments before they vanished back into darkness. He stopped and listened. The pattering sound of the welding torch on the other side of the wall was faintly audible through the thick metal.
There was no manual for a situation like this, he thought to himself. No handbook for the best way to turn up after twenty years’ absence and accuse your brother of murder. He waited for the right moment, when the welding torch paused. Then he knocked on the door that was inserted into one of the two big garage doors.
“Nicole, if you’re hungry then get yourself something from the fridge. I’m working right now.”
The voice made John pause. It was an echo from his childhood. A grown man’s voice, but with a melody he recognized.
He knocked again. The sound from his clenched fist on the metal echoed into the autumn night. He heard footsteps inside and a second later the door opened. John stared into a face covered in a mask with a tinted glass panel in front of the eyes.
“What the hell?!” the voice underneath it said.
Billy pushed the visor onto his head and gave his widest grin.
“Is that you really you, bro?” he said, pulling John into a bear hug. “Sorry if I’m all greasy and shit.”
He let go of John and tried to brush away the stains on his blue overalls, which had no impact whatsoever on the filthy fabric.
“Let me take a look at you,” he said, taking a step away to examine his brother. “A bigwig in a suit and fancy coat and everything. Well, I always knew it. That things would go well for you.”
John managed to articulate a few stiff but polite words—but he found it was hard to know what to say. All the lines that appeared in his head felt dishonest. His brother was surprisingly similar in appearance to the photos taken ten years earlier in connection with the first round of questioning. His face was possibly a little rounder and the wrinkles around his eyes were more prominent, but the curls of dark hair were just as unruly.
“We should have a beer,” he said. “Come with me so you can see what I’ve got.”
Billy moved to let John into the workshop. The compressor in the old fridge was humming so loudly that it almost drowned out the tape player on the workbench, where Bruce Springsteen was singing about the darkness on the edge of town. Billy bent down and took out two bottles of beer.
“Cheers!” Billy said, taking the cap off. “Jesus, it’s good to see you again.”
“Cheers,” John said, noticing his hand trembling. He put the bottle to his lips so that his brother wouldn’t notice anything.
The workshop was lit by four fluorescent tubes that cast a harsh light on the room. A black car had been jacked up and two of its wheels had been taken off. The hood was up and fluid appeared to have run down from the engine into a small grate in the middle of the floor.
“A Buick Century Riviera from fifty-five,” Billy said, when he saw John looking at the car. “My little gem.”
“So, it’s yours?”
“I bought it from a Yank in Minnesota who shipped it over three years ago. It was pretty run-down and I’ve been restoring it since then.”
Billy put his hand on the front wing and let it trace the shape of the body.
“Well, to be specific, it’s a Buick Century Special Riviera. This baby, along with the 98 Holiday and 88 Holiday, were the first full-size models to feature four doors.”
“It looks good,” John said.
“Good? I’ll have you know this is a rarity. There are only two of them in Sweden.”
His brother leaned against the bench and drained his beer bottle.
“I thought Mom was talking crap when she said you’d come back. But the old woman was right—here you are in person. Imported straight from the States.”
He laughed so loudly it echoed between the metal walls.
“Yes, here I am,” said John, clenching his fist in his pocket. Of course his mother hadn’t been able to keep her trap shut. What else should he have expected of that drunk old cow who seemed to live her life through her youngest son? He hoped she’d confined herself to telling Billy and hadn’t blabbed to anyone else.
“She said you were working for the police, but that it was top fucking secret.”
John spotted an opportunity to steer the conversation in the right direction and he had no intention of letting it pass.
“That’s right. I’m part of the team investigating Emelie Bjurwall’s disappearance.”
Billy’s eyes immediately looked guarded and he folded his arms.
“But how is that possible? We’re brothers …”
John realized he was going to have to say something about his new identity. He told Billy only what was absolutely necessary and emphasized several times how important it was that his brother keep the story to himself. Billy listened attentively and then pretended to zip his lips.
“You can trust me, you know that. I’m just so damn happy you’re home and can help me out of this shit situation.”
He opened the fridge and reached for another beer.
“When Primer brought me back in for questioning, it was like the nightmare had started over. Why the hell is he going through all this again? It’s more than ten years since she went missing.”
“What did you tell him?” John asked.
“What I’ve said all along. I never touched that girl. I was at home alone and didn’t even meet her.”
“And there’s really no one who can confirm that?”
“No, Mom was working at the mill and didn’t get home until late,” Billy said, sounding annoyed. “How many times do I have to go through this?”
John raised his hands disarmingly.
“Take it easy, I just want to know what you’ve said. I assume Primer asked about the forensic evidence too?”
“What forensic evidence?”
“The semen on the rock.”
“Yeah, of course he did. The idiot seemed obsessed with spunk.”
“It’s hardly that strange that he wants to talk about it, is it?”
Billy put the bottle down on the workbench so hard that the beer foamed out of the neck. Then he turned off the music.
“I thought you’d come home to help me. But it almost seems like you’re here to put me away.”
John took a couple of steps closer to his brother. It was time to clarify the situation.
“Listen to me carefully,” he said. “You’re in a damn tight spot. Worse than you think. I can hear what Primer and the guys down at the station are saying. You’re going down. End of story. There’s no one there interested in hearing your version again. But I am. I want to know exactly what happened.”
“But what is it you want me to say?”
“The truth will do.”
His brother held out his arms.
“That’s all I’ve been doing for ten years,” he shouted. “I don’t know how my semen ended up at Tynäs. There’s no reasonable explanation.”
“Yes, there is. You could have raped and killed Emelie Bjurwall.”
John struggled not to drop his gaze from his brother. He wanted to see each and every mov
ement on Billy’s face. However, contrary to what he had expected there was no outburst of rage. If Billy’s eyes were filled with anything, it was sorrow.
“Is that what you think?”
“If you don’t have any other explanation then that’s what I have to think,” John said.
“And my saying I didn’t kill her doesn’t matter to you?”
“I’ve questioned a lot of men who’ve sworn on their mothers’ graves they didn’t do this or that. Only for them to confess to everything the next day, when the evidence was too strong.”
“Maybe. But were any of those men your brother?”
Billy put the welding mask back on and went over to a car whose front end was elevated on two jacks.
“I want you to leave,” he said.
“Like hell I will. I’m going nowhere until we’re done talking.”
Billy shrugged his shoulders and pulled the visor down over his face. John took a few quick steps toward the car and kicked the left-hand jack out of the way just as his brother was about to start welding. The wing crashed to the floor.
“What the hell are you doing?”
Billy pulled off the welding mask. John was standing so close to him that he could hear his heavy breathing.
“I’ve found her,” he said. “You buried Emelie Bjurwall next to the same road we used to drive along when Dad took Mom to work. Be a man and confess to what you’ve done.”
Billy replied by giving John a hard push to the chest that made him stumble and lose his balance. Then he grabbed a wrench from the side. He raised it in the air and for a moment John thought the heavy metal implement was going to hit his head. Instead, Billy let it fall to the floor and proffered his wrists, indicating that he was ready to be handcuffed.
“Arrest me then! Might as well lock up the monster once and for all, right?” Billy shook his hands, as if the handcuffs had already been applied. “Nicole can live with a foster family. Anyone is better than this monstrosity, right? Isn’t that what you think, bro?”