by Peter Mohlin
He moved his chair closer to the monitor and looked intensely at Heimer Bjurwall’s neck and back. His hands were resting clasped on the table, just as they had been when he had last checked.
“They’re going in now,” said Mona, who had been updated via the headset.
A moment later, they watched on the screen as Primer was led into the room by the prison guard, who then excused himself and closed the door. John wished they had two cameras in there so that they could also watch Heimer Bjurwall’s face. But given the setup, they’d have to make do with Primer’s.
It seemed to take a moment before the former lead investigator managed to grasp who the man sitting at the table was. But when he did, the reaction was all the stronger. John thought it was usually a bit far-fetched to talk about eyes being wide-open, but that was exactly what happened. Panic spread across Primer’s face, giving it an almost contorted appearance.
Neither of the men had yet uttered a word to each other. Mona leaned forward and adjusted the volume. A faint snuffle was audible from the speakers and John saw tears running down Primer’s cheeks. This was different from the human robot with preprogrammed replies that he and Mona had encountered during questioning over the past few days. Simply by being there, Heimer had managed to get past Primer’s defenses. It was a big step forward. Now they needed to make him talk too.
Primer collapsed onto the chair and buried his head in his hands. The snuffling soon turned into sobbing and his large body shook on the screen before them.
“Guard!”
Heimer Bjurwall had called out. Once again, John cursed the fact that they didn’t have a camera on him. It would’ve made it easier to follow the dynamic in the interview room.
“What’s he up to?” said Mona.
“Maybe he couldn’t handle seeing him,” said John, as Emelie’s father was led out of the room.
Mona pressed her headset against her ear to listen to what the guard had to say.
“Apparently he felt unwell and needed to go to the men’s room,” she said.
From the speakers, they could hear Primer’s sobbing becoming even louder. John looked at the screen and saw that the man was almost slipping off his chair and onto the floor. Mona turned the volume down.
“The sensible thing would be to stop,” she said, but she didn’t look as though she wanted to do that.
“No, we have to keep going,” he said. “It might be our only chance.”
Mona looked thoughtful.
“What’s up with Heimer Bjurwall?” she said into the microphone.
It took a while before she got an answer. The guard was apparently heading for the men’s room.
“He’s on the way back now,” the voice in Mona’s earpiece said.
“Good, make sure he gets back in there.”
It didn’t take long for the door to open again and for Heimer Bjurwall to return to his seat in the interview room. Primer couldn’t look him in the eye. He turned his face away and continued crying. Heimer, on the other hand, seemed calm and collected. When he spoke, his voice was matter-of-fact.
“It’s time for you to tell me what you did to my daughter.”
It wasn’t a question—it was an order. It came from someone with power and was issued to someone who was powerless. John was fascinated to see how Primer shrank on the screen in front of him. Was this really the same man who had spent a week casually lying to them?
“Forgive me,” he sobbed, using his sleeve to wipe away snot.
“I’m not interested in your apologies,” said Heimer.
He leaned forward across the table to drive home that he was serious.
“I’ll tell you—I promise,” Primer stammered. “I met her by chance when I was out one night, years ago. We knew each other—I’d given talks at Björkbacken when she was there. I worked in narcotics back then and I was in the pubs around town a lot.” He stopped to catch his breath and wiped the palm of his hand down his moist face. It was as if each and every sentence was a struggle.
“It was obvious right away that she’d taken something,” he continued. “I asked her to empty her pockets and she eventually took out two bags of cocaine. I explained that I couldn’t let that go and that I’d have to take her to the station. She was distraught and she begged and pleaded for me to keep my mouth shut. And eventually I …”
“Eventually you what?” said Heimer.
Primer hesitated for a long time before filling his lungs with air.
“Eventually, I gave in. I said I’d look the other way about the coke possession if she … made me come.”
Once he had said that, the sobbing returned and he turned his head away from Heimer Bjurwall and the camera.
“Oh, Jesus, I’m so ashamed,” he said. “But I couldn’t help it—there must be something wrong with my head.”
John and Mona looked at each other. This was a breakthrough—maybe everything would come tumbling out of Bernt Primer after all.
“So you had sex with her?” said Heimer.
John didn’t understand how the girl’s father could stay calm. It was as if the confession related to a random young woman rather than his own daughter.
“Yes. She gave me a blow job. But I didn’t make her. Afterward, she laughed and even said she liked it.”
Primer suddenly stopped talking, as if he had reacted to a change in Heimer Bjurwall’s facial expression. John got up. It was instinct that told him he should be ready to step in and assist the guard outside the interview room if necessary. Mona also stood up and put a hand on his shoulder. He noticed that she was holding her breath as they followed the drama on screen.
“Come on, Heimer—just stay calm and keep asking questions,” she muttered.
They could see Emelie’s father fumbling with his hands at his own chest.
“He can’t be having a heart attack right now, can he?” said John.
But after a while, the hands returned to the table and Heimer seemed to be composed enough to continue what must have been the worst conversation of his life.
“What happened then?” he said.
Primer collapsed back against the chair and looked dejected.
“I told her that if she was ever in town in the future and wanted to party, it would be better if she got in touch with me. I could get her some good stuff. There’s so much crap out on the streets—you never know what’s in it.”
“Did she do that? Did she get in touch with you again?”
“I remember she contacted me a couple of times during the spring. Around Easter, I think. It must have been during the holidays when she came back to Karlstad from college.”
“And?”
“Well, what was I supposed to say? She wanted cocaine and I helped her with that, I’m afraid. Of course, I regret it now. But I wasn’t thinking. I hadn’t …”
“How did she pay?” Heimer interrupted.
Primer lowered his head again and avoided the gaze of the man across the table from him.
“She always paid the same way.”
“With sex?”
“Yes. But I never slept with her. It was only her who … helped me.”
Primer had stopped crying and was speaking more clearly in a voice that didn’t seem to belong to him. The words came more quickly and readily.
“The night she disappeared, she emailed me in the afternoon that day. She was going to some party and wanted me to bring her some stuff to Tynäs at midnight.”
Heimer Bjurwall said nothing, and in the absence of a camera, John tried to imagine his face. He wanted to draw it tonight when he got back to the apartment. Fixed and determined with those tense neck muscles and the darkness in his eyes.
“Emelie was late,” Primer continued. “But eventually she turned up. And we … well …”
He crumbled again. His face contorted silently for a moment before a new wave of sobbing overcame him. It was less controlled than before and was followed by a cry reminiscent of a wounded animal.
“
I know I’m disgusting, but I didn’t kill her,” he sobbed.
John tried to make eye contact with Mona, but it was as if she were hypnotized by what was unfolding on the screen in front of them. The fact that Primer denied the murder didn’t worry him. Serious violent crimes with sexual elements resulted in strong feelings of guilt and shame in the perpetrator. That was why confessions usually came in stages, with the most taboo acts the last to be acknowledged.
John could see how Heimer Bjurwall appeared once again to be touching his chest with one hand. Maybe he really was having heart palpitations.
“Was it you?”
Heimer leaned forward and when he spoke to the man opposite him it was little more than a whisper.
“I know how it looks,” Primer snuffled. “I swapped the DNA samples to frame Billy Nerman and I deleted the files from the investigation. I panicked and I didn’t want to get mixed up in it. But Heimer, I promise you … I didn’t kill her.”
John looked at Mona again. Primer was crashing and the confessions just kept coming. But the question was how long they dared let the conversation continue. Heimer looked like he was teetering on the edge. The pressure inside the murdered girl’s father might become too much.
“We need to stop!” he said to Mona.
She shook her head, her gaze still glued to the screen.
Heimer Bjurwall’s breathing was so rapid and heavy that the speakers were rattling. His face was just a few inches from Primer’s and he was fumbling at his chest with one hand.
“Jesus Christ, Mona …” said John, but got no further before Heimer Bjurwall suddenly leaned back in his chair.
“Guard!” Heimer cried out. “We’re done here.”
Heimer Bjurwall had been noticeably tired when Mona had escorted him to reception. He wanted to go straight home after the meeting, which was no surprise. The conversation in the confined room must have been draining.
However, John and Mona felt energized. They’d gambled everything on this gambit—and won. Granted, Primer hadn’t told them about the murder itself yet, but they had made good progress toward a full confession. The new information that had emerged would allow them to push him further in future questioning.
Mona was eager to report their progress to the prosecutor and asked whether John wanted to join her. He declined. Billy’s slurred voice was still ringing in his ears. He needed to talk to his brother before the idiot caused any more trouble.
In the car on the way to his childhood home outside Skoghall, John let his thoughts wander. They took diversions, jumping back and forth between different subjects: the breakthrough in the investigation, Erina next to him in bed, and his unruly brother—he wasn’t quite sure what to do with him. Once he was almost at the bridge to Hammarö, the tornado in his head calmed down and his thoughts settled on what hurt the most.
Trevor.
He thought about his friend’s question in the email. Whether he could visit him. John wished he could answer “yes, come,” but was it really that simple? They had been careful never to reveal where in the world they were. Bypassing all that and letting a cancer-ridden Trevor get on the next plane to Sweden was hardly in keeping with the witness protection program handbook.
All ties had to be cut—that was what Brodwick had told them over and over. John shook his head. It was easy for him to say—he didn’t have to deny a dying man his final wish. Trevor hadn’t been following any instructions when he had saved John’s life in Baltimore. He had improvised and followed his gut instinct. If John said no to the visit, he’d need a better reason than it being against the rules—and he wasn’t sure he had one.
John parked in the same place as on his last visit to his brother and strolled the final stretch to Nerman’s Autos. Billy was on the steps to the house with a cup of coffee. Someone—presumably Nicole—had wedged a collection of wooden ice cream sticks into a crack on the second step.
“Well, how about that. The supercop is on the move.”
His brother was in his usual attire: oily jeans and an equally filthy t-shirt. He smelled of booze, but seemed to have sobered up enough to stop slurring his speech.
“You seemed pretty damn busy when I called earlier.”
John was immediately perturbed by the attitude. The fact that he had come to hear what Billy had to say was apparently not enough. He had to grovel too.
“I didn’t mean to be rude,” he said. “But you can’t call me at work. It’s …”
“Relax, bro,” Billy interjected. “I didn’t use your real name. I asked the operator for Fredrik Adamsson.”
“And you got put through just like that?”
John put his foot on the lowest step and leaned over him.
“Well, not quite. I told them I had important information about the murder of Emelie Bjurwall. And fuck me, somehow it wasn’t a problem after that.”
Billy chuckled at his own resourcefulness, as John sat down next to him on the step.
“Watch out for the ice cream sticks! Nicole is keeping count of how many she eats. There’s some girl at school who called her fat again, so we’ve established a new rule—no more than five per week.”
John shifted slightly to the right to avoid mistakenly treading on the collection of sticks. He wasn’t in the mood to discuss his niece’s weight.
“Listen to me, Billy,” he said, hoping that he was managing to conceal most of his irritation. “I’m going to get a separate phone that only you can call.”
“I don’t even have your number,” Billy muttered.
“I’ll give it to you. But you can’t contact me any other way. Can you promise me that?”
“Hell, I’m sorry. Okay? I just wanted to talk to my brother who’s been gone for more than twenty years.”
“Do you promise?” said John, using his final reserves of self-discipline.
Billy nodded reluctantly.
“Sure, whatever you say.”
“Thanks,” said John, taking a deep breath of autumn air.
The smell of sulfur from the mill was fainter today, but it still lingered in the air like part of the scenery. He didn’t want to hassle Billy. His brother was damaged goods and he needed to cut him some slack.
“What did you need talk to me about?” he said.
“What?”
“When you called. You said there was something you needed to tell me.”
“Oh, that. It’s about Nicole. She needs help at school with her math. The teacher says she’s not keeping up in class and I was going to ask whether you could help. I guess I’m as thick as she is.”
Billy laughed, as if he had said something funny. John thought it sounded somewhat forced and it didn’t line up with the serious tone on the phone earlier.
“Was it really just that? You sounded pretty worked up.”
“Just that?” his brother repeated. “It’s obvious you don’t have kids. If Nicole is going to make it in this life, she needs to do alright at school—you must get that?”
Billy wasn’t making it easy. If his brother was aspiring to be Dad of the Year, surely he needed to stay sober until at least lunchtime.
“Of course, I get it,” he said. “But I’m not sure it’s a good idea. She’ll start to wonder who I am.”
“You’re right,” Billy said quickly. “It was just an idea.”
John looked at the yard dotted with bumps and potholes. Most of them were filled with water from the rain that morning. He spotted a cigarette butt a few meters away. It was dry, which suggested it had ended up there sometime that morning, after the rain had stopped. Billy didn’t smoke, but there was someone else who did.
“Have you seen Mom lately?” he said, wishing he could switch off his cop brain once in a while.
“I was over there last week,” said Billy. “It was the usual moaning about the food and the staff.”
The cigarette didn’t have to belong to their chain-smoking mother, but it still seemed likely that his brother was lying for some reason. Part of Joh
n wanted to challenge him. Retrieve the butt from the yard; check whether it was her brand. But he stopped himself. He didn’t want to put any more strain on their relationship than he already had done. What was more, the feeling of injustice was always there. The fact that he’d managed to clear Billy in the AckWe case wasn’t enough to repay the debt he felt he owed his brother.
The front door opened and John turned around. Nicole was standing there with her red headphones around her neck and clutching a laptop.
“What are you doing with my computer?” said Billy.
“The tablet died, so I want to play on it.”
Her voice sounded raspy, as if she had a cold.
“No, you can’t. It’s my computer.”
“Please, Dad.”
“Nicole!” he said sharply. “Don’t touch my stuff, and don’t make trouble when we’ve got visitors. Dad’s friend is here again.”
John waved at her and the girl nodded in return. Billy got up and tore the laptop from his daughter’s hands.
“You’ve got to learn to listen,” he said, disappearing inside.
Nicole sat down on the step and began to fiddle with one of the ice cream sticks. It came loose from the crack in the concrete and she threw it toward an oil drum collecting rainwater beneath one of the downpipes. A gust of wind caught the light piece of wood and made it bounce against the rusty metal before dropping to the ground.
“ Shouldn’t you be at school?”
“Teacher training day.”
Nicole stared at the ground ahead of her and John did the same. His gaze settled on the cigarette butt on the gravel again. He decided to take a chance.
“Did you have fun when your grandma was here?” he said.
She shook her head.
“Not really. She and Dad spent the whole time fighting.”
John felt awful for exploiting his niece, but at the same time he wanted to know what was going on. Why was his brother lying about something as trivial as their mother coming to visit? And why wouldn’t he tell him the real reason for the call earlier?
“That’s too bad. Has she been gone long?” he continued.
“Nope.”