The Bucket List

by Peter Mohlin

  “Well, we’ve never heard of any Mister Hyde except for the fictional one,” said Heimer, exchanging a glance with Sissela.

  She rolled her eyes as if to say that if this was the best the police could come up with then it wasn’t a promising start to the new investigation.

  “What do you think about the letter that was sent to us, then?” she said, changing the subject. “I’ve got to say, it was upsetting.”

  The voice on the other end of the line took its time to reply. The sound of tires on asphalt and the faint hum of the engine were transmitted through the phone and into the Bjurwalls’ kitchen. Heimer realized the detective was confused. He couldn’t possibly know what Sissela was talking about. The letter was hidden in an atlas in the bookcase.

  “My husband handed it in this morning,” she continued. “Haven’t you read it?”

  “I think there’s been a misunderstanding,” the detective eventually said. “I just spoke to my colleague on the case, who’s been at the station all day, and she didn’t mention a letter.”

  Sissela looked at Heimer in irritation. He considered shrugging his shoulders and feigning surprise but knew it wouldn’t work. She was aware of his views about the letter but only now realized he’d lied to her.

  “I think we got our wires crossed here at home,” she said without divulging any of her frustration to the detective.

  Sissela described the letter that arrived that morning and what it said. She got all the relevant follow-up questions: was the envelope postmarked? Who was it addressed to? Was it handwritten or printed from a computer? Did they have any idea who might have sent it? And so on.

  Once the detective was satisfied with the answers, he asked them not to touch the letter again. He would ask someone to pick it up right away and make sure it was sent for forensic analysis.

  “You’re unbelievable,” said Sissela, after the call ended. “We agreed you’d hand it over to the police—and then you didn’t.”

  “Listen to me—”

  “No, you’re going to listen to me. How could you lie to me?”

  It was a question he would’ve liked to fire back at her. Sissela’s phone was still lying on the kitchen island between them. He had to muster every ounce of willpower not to pull up the emails to Hugo Aglin and shove them in her face. Instead, he tried to revel in his own self-control. Mastering himself in this kind of situation was a tough challenge and he had pulled it off.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I don’t know what got into me. I just thought we might wait a little. This person might really know something—and I didn’t want to scare him or her off by getting the police involved.”

  Sissela looked at him seriously, almost sadly. He had disappointed her, she explained. Heimer had heard her use that word many times—both when they had fought and when she had been on the phone to employees who’d fallen short in some way. Heimer was convinced it was a highly conscious choice of words. If she simply became angry, the emotional reaction in the other party wouldn’t be as strong. Anger was short-lived by nature. People got angry and then it passed. But disappointments weren’t like that. They lived on in the body and created long-term feelings of useful guilt.

  Heimer slowly walked to the bookcase and took down the atlas. Inside the cover showing Europe’s borders before the fall of the Soviet Union was the envelope. He was about to hand it to her when she blocked his arm.

  “ Didn’t you hear what he said? We’re not supposed to touch it,” she said.

  He nodded. Then he shut the atlas and pushed it across the kitchen island to her.

  “I’ll wait here until the police arrive,” she said, placing both her hands on the cover of the atlas, as if preventing him from hiding the letter again.

  39

  John had decided to give Rederiet another chance. The pub was in a good location—on the ground floor of the building next door to his at Bryggudden.

  Mona had accepted right away when he’d suggested they should discuss the investigation over dinner. After a day spent in the musty basement, she needed a change of scenery. The menu featured Spanish tapas dishes. They decided to let the waiter pick his own favorites and serve them alongside a Pinot Noir from the very decent wine list.

  The décor was rustic, with dark wooden tables and subdued lighting from chandeliers. Large floor-to-ceiling windows looked out onto the harbor promenade and the water. In order to talk undisturbed, Mona and John had picked a spot toward the back, near the kitchen.

  “Read it aloud,” Mona said, taking a sip of wine.

  The novel is set in nineteenth-century England and is about the charming, conscientious Doctor Henry Jekyll.

  Doctor Jekyll’s friends are surprised when this respectable doctor begins to socialize with a strange, ugly little man guilty of knocking a child down in the street. Not only are they friends, but Jekyll has also left all his possessions to the strange Mister Edward Hyde in his will.

  It transpires that Mister Hyde is in fact Doctor Jekyll when he consumes an elixir of his own making, which appears to release his most primitive and brutal side.

  Doctor Jekyll becomes addicted to doing what he wants in the form of another. The temptations of transformation are too great and he cannot stop using the elixir. This story is about mankind’s inherent capacity for both good and evil.

  John looked up from the screen and noticed that Mona was looking for the waiter. Apparently, she needed to replenish her reserves after a workout in the hotel gym she managed to squeeze into her schedule. Her hair was still damp and her cheeks were rosy.

  “The inspiration for it is apparently some Scottish cabinetmaker from the eighteenth century who did carpentry by day and robbed banks by night,” he said.

  “Wilhelm Brodie,” said Mona.

  John raised his eyebrows.

  “Almost. William Brodie.”

  “I read it when I was little. I was more fascinated by the story behind it than the book itself.”

  John couldn’t help being impressed. How could she remember such an insignificant detail from childhood? He wished he had the same ability to preserve memories. His early years in Sweden before the move to New York were mostly fragments of events that were impossible to piece together into a timeline.

  “But why did Emelie use a name from an old book?” Mona continued.

  “Right. Maybe she thought it was somehow appropriate?”

  “You mean the person that Emelie was going to meet had similarities to this character? A respectable citizen by day and a primitive animal by night?”

  “Something like that.”

  She swirled her wine in her glass.

  “I assume that a police officer or lawyer would fit the bill.”

  “Yes—or a therapist,” said John.

  She looked at him searchingly.

  “You don’t like the manager at Björkbacken much, do you?”

  “He may have gotten close to Emelie during her time there. He treats depressed girls as Doctor Jekyll and sells drugs to them as Doctor Hyde.”

  “You’re forgetting one important thing, surely?” Mona objected.

  “I know, I know,” he said. “Torsten Andreasson didn’t give a DNA sample and is unlikely to have known anything about the investigation. But there’s something not quite right about that man. Why was it so important that he spoke to Matilda Jacoby before I got there? He disobeyed my direct instructions.”

  “Maybe he wanted to protect the poor weak girl from the big, bad police detective. Does it have to be anything more than that?”

  The food arrived and Mona filled her plate. John had never seen a woman eat with such fervor. He would have to up his pace if he was going to get his fair share of the goodies on the table.

  “There’s one thing bothering me,” she said, her mouth full of chèvre and walnuts. “Why did Emelie go to the meeting with Mister Hyde alone? Matilda Jacoby was more used to buying cocaine and offered to go with her.”

  “If it was cocaine she was buying.”r />
  Mona looked at him in surprise.

  “You think it might have been about something else? That she lied to Matilda?”

  “I don’t know. It’s a thought. In any case, it would explain why she didn’t want company.”

  “A secret relationship?”

  “Maybe,” he said. “Look at it like this. Emelie leaves the party and has consensual sex with Mister Hyde down by the water. Then she declares her love for him. But when he doesn’t reciprocate she gets upset and threatens to reveal their relationship. For some reason, Mister Hyde is terrified of this. Maybe he’s married—who knows? It all ends with him panicking and killing her.”

  Mona stuck her fork into the goat cheese.

  “And the tick carved into her arm?” she said.

  “It wasn’t about failing at school—it was about unrequited love. Maybe she carved it herself in front of Mister Hyde. To show him that life wasn’t worth living without him. Then she posted the photo on Facebook as a melodramatic gesture. Step one in exposing their affair.”

  Mona shook her head almost imperceptibly. John didn’t know whether she was aware she was doing it or not. But he understood her skepticism. Now that he had tested his hypothesis, he could see how flimsy it was.

  “I don’t know,” said Mona. “It doesn’t tally with the Emelie that Matilda Jacoby told you about. It all sounds a bit …”

  “Teenager-y?” John said.

  This time Mona nodded.

  “Yes, something like that. Emelie seems to have been a confused but tough girl and she wouldn’t have sacrificed an extra life for a married man who had dumped her.”

  Mona got her notebook out of her coat and he saw she wanted to change the subject. He had nothing against it. When they’d spoken on the phone earlier, she had promised to tell him about the results of her research efforts.

  “I’ve found some interesting names in our cross-section,” she said.

  John remembered the circles she had drawn on the board and their overlap. She had apparently already had time to cross-check data from the population register against old records.

  “How many?” he said.

  Mona leafed through her notebook.

  “I got seven hits,” she said, showing him a page of handwritten names.

  John read them quickly but didn’t recognize a single one.

  “Who are they?”

  “Two are lawyers with the prosecutor’s office. Then there’s a local forensics specialist who might have handled or had access to the DNA samples. The rest are police.”

  “Are they all still working?”

  “I don’t know. But that doesn’t really matter. Even if the perpetrator has retired or changed jobs, he could still have made his way into the police station somehow and deleted the list of DNA samples.”

  John looked at the list of names again.

  “So these men all lived in one of the three postal codes that got checked and they all submitted DNA samples ten years ago?”

  “Yes, and I’ve put my guys in Stockholm on the job of tracking them down and making sure they give another sample.”

  “Your colleagues at National Crime?”

  “Yes.”

  He didn’t have to ask why. The commissioner of county police had been quite clear. Every measure to minimize the risk of a leak had to be taken. There were good reasons for them working in the basement of the police station.

  “And on what basis will your guys be taking new samples? These seven will wonder what’s going on.”

  “I told them to be creative,” said Mona. “They know what’s at stake—none of the men can be allowed to find out why they’re giving a sample.”

  John nodded.

  “And once they’re done, we’ll run them against the semen from the rock and then we should—”

  “Yes,” she interrupted. “Then we’ll have found Mister Hyde.”

  The waiter cleared away their plates but left the wineglasses.

  “Did you make it to Tynäs?” said John.

  Mona pushed her chair away from the table and stretched out her legs.

  “Of course. I went as soon as you called and I got to meet Sissela Bjurwall herself. What a place they have—completely unbelievable.”

  “Did she give you the letter?”

  “Yes, and it’s gone off for analysis. But I took photos and made copies.”

  She reached for her bag and pulled out a plastic folder containing a sheet of paper with a close-up photo of a brown envelope. It was postmarked in Karlstad and the address was handwritten.

  HeiMer BJurWalL

  TynÄsvägEn

  663 42 HaMmaRö

  John examined the sprawling letters. It was clear that the anonymous sender wanted to conceal their handwriting by using upper- and lowercase letters at random.

  Mona handed him another plastic folder with another photo of the letter itself. It hadn’t been written by hand—it had been written on a computer and printed on white office paper.

  “We’ll get a report from Forensics tomorrow,” she said. “The Bjurwalls think it’s someone trying to con them out of their money.”

  I know who killed your daughter. How much is that information worth to you? I’ll be in touch.

  John read the short message several times. He was inclined to agree with the Bjurwalls. To him, it looked like attempted fraud. Someone had read about the case in the papers and wanted to exploit the situation.

  “Is it even worth following up on this?” he said.

  “Probably not. But let’s assume for a moment that the letter writer is actually telling the truth—that he knows who killed Emelie. Why hasn’t he gone to the police?”

  “That’s obvious. The writer wants money—everyone knows the Bjurwall family is rolling in it. Maybe they’re a criminal and don’t want anything to do with the police.”

  “But why wait ten years?” she said.

  “The investigation has been reopened. They’re short on cash now and have just had the idea.”

  John watched Mona pour her second glass of wine. He was still halfway through his first.

  “The fact that the letter is addressed to Heimer Bjurwall is interesting,” she said. “If someone is just after cash, surely it would have been sent to the wife? She’s the celebrity and the one with the money.”

  “Unless it’s someone who knows the family and knows that the husband is the better mark. Maybe he was closer to the daughter.”

  “Who might that be?”

  “Someone familiar with the family and its relationships, and in need of dough.”

  Mona looked at him.

  “That sounds like Matilda Jacoby.”

  John thought about it and realized she was right. If Matilda was desperate enough to try to sell sex to him, she was probably capable of something like this too.

  “So you think she tricked me—that she actually knew who Emelie Bjurwall left the party to meet?” he said.

  She shrugged her shoulders.

  “Don’t blame yourself too much. Some people lie so much and so well that anyone will believe them.”

  It irritated John that Mona perceived him as so egotistical that he’d consider it a personal failing if he had been tricked. And it bothered him even more that she was right.

  “It was just a thought,” she said. “We’ll wait for the analysis. If it doesn’t give us anything, maybe the letter writer will get in touch again. Regardless, we have to prioritize the new DNA samples.”

  John looked at the page of seven names again. Mona was right. There was no reason to spend a lot of time and energy on a possible witness when they would soon be able to identify the perpetrator using DNA. He leaned back and allowed himself to savor the Pinot Noir.

  “I’ve got something for you,” said Mona, pulling out a package wrapped in brown paper with a red ribbon around it. “Something I’ve got the idea you might need.”

  Her phone buzzed and she turned it upside down so that the screen was facing the
table. John tore the paper off and took out a white coffee mug. It was equipped with two handles—one on either side—like a child’s sippy cup. He laughed when he saw what it said on the side.

  Bad Cop.

  “Is that what you think I am—an evil bastard?”

  “Turn it round,” said Mona, standing up beside the table.

  On the other side, it said Good Cop in the same italicized typeface.

  “A mug for all occasions,” she said with a smile. “And now you won’t have to burn yourself on coffee in paper cups.”

  John smiled as she headed off for the ladies’. Now he realized why the mug had two handles. It was so he could choose which kind of police officer to be.

  He liked this woman. He thought of her as more of a partner than a boss, which reflected well on her. She was clearheaded and to the point—and she didn’t waste time on trivialities. And—as it turned out—she had a sense of humor.

  John was grateful that the missing list of DNA samples hadn’t been on the flash drive that his mother had sent him in Baltimore. He had checked just before they met in the pub. It meant he didn’t have to explain to Mona where he found it. He was sure it would’ve resulted in a different atmosphere. After all, he had answered a direct question about whether he had been in contact with his mother or Billy in the negative.

  Rederiet filled up with more patrons and there was a cheery hubbub from the tables. He was about to order coffee when Mona’s phone vibrated again. She was still in the ladies’ and he couldn’t resist the temptation to turn over her phone. He recognized the name of the app that the notification had come from and the red-and-white logo in the corner: TINDER—Martin sent you a new message.

  John had thought dating sites were an American invention, but apparently they had them in Europe too. He’d had colleagues in New York who sang the praises of Tinder, saying it was the easiest way to find a lay if you couldn’t be bothered to go to a bar. But he would never have thought it was for sixty-year-old women. Maybe things were different in Sweden. He wasn’t that surprised that Mona was using the service. She was probably just as focused on the goal when it came to sex as she was with everything else.

  It occurred to him that he hadn’t been with a woman in nine months and even then it had been while on duty. An up-and-coming drug dealer who didn’t take an interest in women would be seen through sooner or later. Or accused of being a faggot, which was almost as dodgy in those circles.