by Peter Mohlin
He put the advertisement to one side and opened the third envelope, on which the address was handwritten in a mixture of upper- and lowercase lettering. The letter inside was written on white office paper with pre-punched holes. He unfolded it and began to read.
Sissela noticed his changed facial expression immediately. He could feel how pale his cheeks had gone.
“What’s that?” she said, nodding at the letter.
“Some nutter trying to con us out of money,” he said, folding the sheet up again so that it would fit in his dressing gown pocket.
“Let me see,” she said, reaching out.
Heimer gave it to her. It wasn’t worth fighting over. She unfolded it and read it aloud.
I know who killed your daughter. How much is that information worth to you? I’ll be in touch.
Heimer saw how affected she was by it—but also how quickly she shook that discomfort off and replaced it with something else. Sissela was furious.
“Who sent this?” she hissed. “Is there no limit to how awful people are?!”
Heimer didn’t reply. He couldn’t think clearly. The letter had short-circuited every wire in his brain.
Did someone actually know?
Sissela couldn’t wait for him to regain his capacity for speech. She answered her own question.
“Apparently not. But I’m not going to be swindled.”
She picked up the envelope from the table and put the letter back inside it. Then she fetched her handbag.
“What are you going to do?” Heimer heard himself ask.
“Take it to the police. Sending this kind of thing has to be a criminal offense.”
“Criminal offense?”
“Yes—it’s just as you said. He’s trying to con us. Or she. But I have difficulty believing a woman would do something like this.”
Heimer felt the situation slipping away from him as Sissela started making decisions on her own.
“Wait a second,” he said. “What if it’s not a bluff? What if they really do know something?”
She looked at him blankly.
“I find that very hard to believe. But if they do then there’s even more reason to hand it over to the police.”
“Why?” he said. “It says I’ll be in touch. If we go to the police and the sender finds out, they’ll never tell us anything.”
“You don’t seriously believe that the person who wrote that crap actually knows anything about what happened to Emelie?”
“Probably not. But I can’t be sure—and neither can you. I think we should wait and see what happens.”
“Someone is trying to exploit our vulnerability, Heimer,” Sissela said. “Someone has read in the papers that the suspect has been released and thinks we’ll be willing to pay anything to find out what happened to our daughter.”
Heimer said nothing, conscious that she had logic on her side.
“The only right thing to do is hand over the letter to the police,” she continued. “I’m going to the office now anyway, so it’s on my way.”
Sissela got up and Heimer knew he had lost.
“Wait,” he said. “You’re right, of course. We shouldn’t let ourselves get dragged into something like this. I’ll make sure the police get the letter—save you the trouble. I suspect you’ve got more on your to-do list today than I have.”
He tried to smile but felt as though the skin on his cheeks was straining unnaturally. Sissela handed over the envelope.
“Thanks, darling,” she said, before disappearing down the stairs.
37
John had covered the one hundred kilometers between Karlstad and Charlottenberg in less than an hour. He picked up a scent again and this time there was nothing stopping him. No opposition. No divided loyalties about what he might find out. He knew that Billy had had nothing to do with events at Tynäs that night and it was liberating. Nevertheless, he could still feel his brother’s presence in the investigation. Someone had tried to frame him and it was John’s task to find the real perpetrator.
He left the main road and drove down the small country lane leading to the Björkbacken treatment center and the manager’s small cabin. The woods began to draw closer. The trees beside the narrow road were dense and their long branches cast dark shadows over the car. Even though it was the middle of the day, the sky was almost black—as if the clouds were filled with a torrential downpour but they couldn’t make up their minds whether to let it go or not.
When John thought about Matilda Jacoby, he saw the investigation piece in his mind’s eye, with MAJA written in slanting capital letters above the roof of Hugo Aglin’s house in Tynäs—the house where she had gone to a party together with Emelie Bjurwall and all the other young people Magnus had invited. Then she was gone without a trace. She’d vanished into the darkness—the only link to the outside world being Björkbacken’s manager and the abandoned cabin in the woods.
John slowed down so that he didn’t miss the unassuming building. There, after a sharp bend, it appeared just as he remembered. He turned right onto the gravel road and drove toward the gateposts that marked the edge of the yard.
He cut the engine and got out. The Chrysler wasn’t the only vehicle in the drive. There was a black Land Rover parked by one of the fruit trees, its front wheels on the grass. It was covered in grime, but it was a new model that would’ve cost at least as much as John’s car. In other words: hardly the vehicle one would expect for a junkie with no fixed abode.
“Damn,” John murmured as he waded through the uncut grass toward the house, which stood around ten meters away.
He stepped onto the porch and noticed that the door he had forced on his last visit had been replaced with a new, paneled dark wood version. The sound of his clenched fist on the sturdy wood echoed among the trees.
“Matilda Jacoby,” he called out. “I’m Fredrik Adamsson from the police. I’d like to talk to you.”
He heard the scrape of a chair and steps approaching.
“About what?”
The voice was a woman’s and it sounded muffled through the door.
“I’ve got a few questions about Emelie Bjurwall. From what I understand, you hung out with her for a while. It would be really helpful if you …”
The lock turned and John fell silent. He waited for her to open the door, but when nothing happened he pushed the handle down and peered through the crack. The woman had vanished and the hallway was empty.
He stepped across the threshold and noticed that everything else seemed unchanged. The lightbulb hanging from the ceiling swayed slowly in the draft and the rat droppings were still under the coatrack. The only difference was the temperature. On the last visit, the cabin had been damp and freezing cold—but now he encountered pleasant warmth. There was a smell of burning wood and the sound of crackling from an open fire in the kitchen.
He took a few steps into the hall. On one of the chairs at the kitchen table, there was a slender woman with her knees drawn up to her chin, staring out the window. Opposite her was Torsten Andreasson—just as he had expected.
“Are you Matilda Jacoby?” said John.
The woman didn’t answer—she simply continued to stare at the garden. She was wearing a large woollen turtleneck that concealed half her face. Her black tights ended at her ankles and she wore a pair of gray socks on her feet. On the table in front of her was an open pack of tobacco, and next to that a smaller pack of cigarette papers.
“That’s right,” said Björkbacken’s manager, nodding at him as if he wanted to create some kind of trust between them.
“Torsten, come outside with me.”
The man seemed to hesitate at John’s instruction and put his hand to his throat to activate the voice generator.
“Matilda, is it alright if I …”
“It’s okay,” she replied dully, without looking at him.
He leaned back on his chair, as if her answer hadn’t convinced him.
“Now!” John ordered.
&n
bsp; The manager jumped up and together they went outside into the overgrown garden.
“I think it might be a good idea if I sit in while you talk to her. You know she’s not very well and …”
He went dead silent when John grabbed him by the collar and pushed him up against the shabby façade, so that one of the planks came loose and fell into the grass.
“What did I tell you?”
Torsten Andreasson waved his arms around, trying to free himself. The only sound that came from his voicebox was a low hissing.
“ Didn’t I make myself clear when I told you not to come here? I said you shouldn’t contact Matilda before I had spoken to her.”
The man tried once again to hiss something.
“Shut up! I’m sick of your excuses. If you don’t get the hell out of here, I’ll pull that damn thing right out of your throat. Do you understand?”
The manager’s eyes were wide and sweat was running down his brow. He panted, whining loudly, but he finally managed to hold up his hands in a gesture of resignation. He walked unsteadily back to his car.
“I’m just worried about her,” he said, before closing the door of his Land Rover.
John waited until the vehicle had disappeared behind the tall trees in the direction of the Björkbacken treatment center. Then he adjusted his tie and went back inside.
The woman was still sitting at the table in the same position as before. She had lit a cigarette and was blowing out smoke that lingered beneath the low wooden ceiling.
“Thanks,” she said.
John got out his police badge and sat down at the table on the same chair Torsten Andreasson had just vacated.
“Thanks for what?” he said, holding the plastic ID card under her nose.
She glanced at it briefly without answering his question. There were big bags under her eyes. She didn’t appear to have eaten or slept in a week. Her black hair was shaved on one side and mid-length on the other, and her cheeks were covered with small, inflamed pimples.
“So Emelie is dead then?” she said, taking another drag.
“Yes. But the body has only been found now.”
“Where?”
“Someone buried her in the woods on Hammarö. A few kilometers from the house where you went to the party.”
“So, you’ve arrested that perv again then? Wasn’t it just the body you were missing last time?”
John saw that Matilda Jacoby did not keep up with the news. She seemed to have missed Billy’s arrest and subsequent release in relation to the murder.
“It wasn’t him,” he said, without going into detail.
“No?” she said in surprise. “Who was it then?”
John looked gravely at her but said nothing. She laughed and he saw that she was missing one of her canines.
“You don’t have a clue and you hope I’m going to help you, don’t you? Is that why you’ve come all this way?”
The hand holding the cigarette trembled, while the other continuously sought out the pimples on her face. He knew there was an all-out war going on under her skin. This was what the junkies looked like on the night shift in New York City, their bodies screaming for more amphetamines.
“Are you going cold turkey?” he said, leaning back.
“Yeah—what the fuck did you think? That I was out in the woods just ’cause it’s cozy?”
“How many hours?”
“Almost seventy-two. There’s not much to do out here.”
“I get it. Is there anything I can do for you?”
“You could leave me alone—like you’re going to do that.”
She sounded resigned but not directly hostile. If he was careful and kept up with the rapid mood swings caused by her withdrawal, he would probably get what she knew out of her.
“How well do you know Torsten Andreasson?”
Matilda grinned, as if the question amused her.
“Know him is a bit much. He just wants to help me and I exploit that.”
“How does he help you?”
“He usually gives me cash. Cute, right?”
She took a bundle of money out of the waistband of her tights. John could see it was several thousand kronor.
“And I get to stay here for free,” she said. “He spoils me—brings me breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Full fucking board.”
“And what does he get in return?”
“Nothing. I’ve tried.” She laughed again as she stubbed out her cigarette on the saucer. “I think it turns him on in some messed-up way.”
“What does?”
“Spoiling me without getting anything in return. Torsten isn’t stupid. It’s not that he doesn’t get that I’m using him.”
“But you’re not sleeping together?”
She shook her head.
“I don’t mean turned on in the usual way. I’ve offered to suck him off countless times, but he doesn’t want that. He gets something else out of it. It’s like a game we play. I go cold turkey and promise to quit drugs, which he knows I never will. And he strokes my brow and tells me everything will be okay, which I know it won’t. And we go on like that until I’ve squeezed enough money out of him or just can’t put up with the guy any longer. Then I get on the bus back to Stockholm.”
John put his arms on the table and clasped his hands. It was time to get to the point.
“When did you find out Emelie was missing?”
She licked a cigarette paper and began to roll a new one.
“A few days after that party.”
“And what did you do then?”
“I was on the underground in Stockholm. I saw a picture of her in the newspaper on the seat next to me.”
“And why didn’t you get in touch?”
“Why would I? I didn’t have a fucking clue where she had gone and I don’t like talking to cops if I don’t have to.”
“You were never contacted by the police?”
“No. I didn’t exactly move in the same circles as her other friends, so I guess I wouldn’t have been easy to find. I always slept in different places—wherever there was a couch to borrow.”
John let a few seconds elapse.
“There are witnesses who say Emelie left the party to meet someone. Is that your recollection too?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Do you know who she was going to meet?”
“No.”
“You have no idea?”
“No.”
“Come on, Matilda. You and Emelie arrived at the party together and several witnesses say you were the last person she spoke to before she disappeared. You must know why she …”
“She was going to get some more flake.”
John fell silent and tried to digest this. She was hardly referring to the chocolate bars he and his brother stuffed their faces with when they were kids.
“Cocaine?” he said.
“Yes. She had been emailing some dude earlier in the day and they had agreed to meet. He was going to come to us and bring the stuff. I’d brought some from Stockholm, but we’d used that up the night before.”
“I understand,” said John, remembering the empty bag that Emelie’s parents had found in her desk drawer. “But you never found out who this person was?”
“No. She called him something or other—but I can’t remember what.”
John took a deep breath in the hope that it would at least pull some oxygen into his lungs in addition to cigarette smoke.
“It’s important, Matilda. We haven’t been able to identify this person and you’re the only one who can help us.”
“Is he the one who killed her?”
“We don’t know. But we really need to talk to him.”
Matilda’s short, sharp nails left red marks on her cheeks as she continued to scratch away.
“If I could remember, I’d tell you. But it was a long time ago. It’s not so easy to remember.”
“I understand. But Emelie called him something?”
“Yeah—like, a ni
ckname.”
“Like what?”
“Jesus. I said I can’t remember.”
John saw a wave of comedown wash over her and resolved to use only his kindest voice.
“Why didn’t you go with her?” he said. “I mean—you wanted coke too.”
“She wanted to go by herself.”
“Okay—how did she seem?”
“What?”
“Well, was she worried about meeting this person? Scared? Nervous?”
Matilda sighed and rolled her eyes.
“No.”
John brushed his hand over his mouth and massaged his cheeks. It was hard work getting a junkie going cold turkey to remember things that happened a decade ago.
“Do you remember anything else that happened at the party? Anything that stood out—anything at all?”
Matilda thought. “I remember the dad of the guy throwing the party coming home and being absolutely fucking furious.”
“Magnus’s father? Hugo Aglin?”
“I don’t have a fucking clue what his name was.”
“What was he angry about?”
“That we were having a party, I guess. He probably hadn’t expected the house to be full of messed-up kids. He raised hell for a while, but I think he finally just went to bed, because we kept partying.”
“And you don’t know why Emelie wanted to go to the meet-up alone?”
“No, I don’t know!”
Matilda got up and went over to the hearth. She crouched in front of it and added a couple of logs to the fire. She sat down, staring into the flames.
“If I’d gone with her maybe she’d be alive now.”
John saw her turn her face away, and he heard quiet sobbing. The reaction surprised him. He went to the fireplace, grasped the slender shoulders, and helped her back to the table. She weighed almost nothing—as if she were made from Styrofoam.