by Peter Mohlin
Mona listened and interrupted him just twice: first, to offer her sympathies that his mother was in the hospital, and second, to tell him about the bag found hidden in Billy’s workshop. It contained almost three hundred thousand kronor in cash.
“Oh, Jesus—then they must have met,” said John.
“It seems so.”
“Have you spoken to Heimer Bjurwall?”
“No,” said Mona, sounding slightly annoyed. “When would I have had time to do that?”
John heard a faint beep, indicating that Mona had an incoming call.
“It’s autopsy calling. Stay there and I’ll patch you in.”
John waited and soon they were joined by another voice.
“I’ve just started the autopsy of the guy who hanged himself outside Skoghall. Billy Nerman,” said the man without wasting time on introductions. “You’ll get a full report tomorrow, but there’s one thing you’ll want to know right away.”
“Okay, we’re listening,” said Mona.
“It’s no suicide. Someone helped him.”
John heard the sound of a motorcycle accelerating loudly in the background from one of the phones—presumably Mona’s. The rumble faded away and was replaced by footsteps and her phone brushing against her ear as she moved somewhere quieter.
He closed his eyes and let the new information sink in. Then frustration washed over him. He slammed his head hard against the headrest and cursed himself for not taking his own intuition more seriously.
Someone had helped him.
Of course they had.
Billy hadn’t want to take his own life. Not now that he had finally found salvation from all the misery he had gone through.
“Are you sure?” Mona said.
“Yes. He was already dead when he was put in the noose. Apart from the injuries from the rope, there were clear marks from two thumbs on his throat that had applied pressure to the softest parts.”
“So, he was strangled?”
“There’s no doubt about it. But, as I said, you’ll have a full report tomorrow afternoon.”
Mona thanked him and the pathologist left the call. John pictured the man putting on a new pair of latex gloves and returning to the sterile room where his brother was lying on a gurney under fluorescent lighting. As of now, Billy’s body was evidence in a murder investigation.
“We need to meet up and talk,” said Mona.
John leaned against the back of the Chrysler and listened as Mona tried to put her thoughts on Billy’s murder into some kind of order. They had agreed to meet at a gas station near the hospital. She’d confined the conversation strictly to the investigation. John appreciated that. Thinking about his brother as a murder victim—just one of many—helped him to distance himself.
“The money they found was in a backpack hidden in the trunk of one of the cars in the workshop. Neatly wrapped bundles of cash. They almost certainly came from Heimer Bjurwall.”
John looked at the elevated black Buick in front of him which his brother had spoken of so warmly. It was typical that he would hide the cash there.
“He’s the one who killed Billy. I’m fucking sure of it,” he said.
“Who? Heimer Bjurwall?” said Mona.
John nodded and continued.
“Billy might’ve been bluffing after all. He had no clue who killed Emelie and when her father realized that he was being conned, he flipped.”
“And strangled him?”
“Maybe. It’s a reason for Heimer to lose it.”
Mona looked at him doubtfully.
“Because he was conned out of three hundred grand? I visited the Bjurwalls—that’s what their trash cans cost. It’s hardly enough to be a motive for killing Billy.”
“You’re simplifying it,” he said. “If Billy claimed to know who murdered his daughter and then couldn’t deliver the goods, that lie is far worse than losing the money. Billy exploiting the family’s grief would’ve made Heimer Bjurwall furious.”
“It still sounds flimsy to me.”
“Maybe. But we still need to talk to him as soon as possible. If he met Billy when handing over the money, Billy might have said something that could explain why he was murdered shortly afterward,” he said.
Mona shifted closer as a truck turned into the gas station and the long trailer passed by her.
“What if we turn it around?” she said. “If Billy actually knew something about Emelie’s murder, there’s a motive right there. Maybe he saw Primer do it. Or at least he saw him together with Emelie out at Tynäs.”
John shook his head.
“It doesn’t make sense. If Billy actually knew something about the murder, he must have gotten that information after he’d been cleared. Why else would he have kept quiet all these years?”
“I know, I know,” said Mona. “And what’s more, Primer is locked up in solitary twenty-four hours a day.”
“Exactly. He has motive, but no opportunity.”
“Maybe he’s working with someone on the outside who helped him to silence Billy.”
“Seems far-fetched,” John said. “Primer is a dirty old man who used his police badge and access to drugs to pressure a young woman into having sex. He doesn’t have a criminal network around him—hard to imagine him ordering a murder.”
John waited as yet another truck thundered onto the forecourt to fill up, putting a stop to further discussion.
“I still need the go-ahead from the county commissioner to initiate a more thorough investigation of the crime scene in the workshop,” Mona said once the semi-truck had come to a halt and switched off its engine by the pumps. “And I need to make sure that he understands that Billy’s death isn’t to be investigated as an isolated incident—it’s part of my live investigation.”
John noticed her choice of words. My live investigation. That was what she said—as if he were no longer part of it.
“Regardless, you have to leave the investigation,” Mona added, as if she had read his thoughts. “Your connection to Billy is a problem.”
He had been expecting that remark. It was almost surprising that it hadn’t come up sooner. This wasn’t the first time that his relationship to Billy had caused problems for the police.
“I understand,” he said, debating whether to tell her about the phone he’d given to his brother. Mona would be incandescent the second he said it, but he couldn’t let the detectives go up a blind alley.
“There’s something I need you to know in relation to the crime scene,” he said.
“What?”
Mona’s voice immediately switched on to the offensive.
John cleared his throat.
“You’ll find a burner phone with a prepaid SIM in Billy’s house. There’s only one number in the contacts.”
“Let me guess,” she said, without hiding her irritation. “Jesus Christ, John. Forensics has probably already found it and made the connection. Now this whole brother-investigating-his-brother story is going to blow up in our faces.”
John looked at the floor. Mona had reacted just as expected. Dead brother or not, the kid gloves were definitely off.
“Take it easy,” he said. “The number is for another prepaid phone. There’s no chance it can be traced to me. I’m just telling you so that you don’t waste time on it.”
“And I suppose it’ll be my job to explain why we’re not going to look into our best lead?”
Mona had raised her voice despite the sensitive nature of the conversation. She lowered her voice when two young men unhooking a trailer turned around to look at her.
“I’m sorry about what happened to your brother. I really am,” she said. “As for the investigation, I guess I’ve only got myself to blame—it was a big mistake bringing you back in.”
Now it was John’s turn to be irritated.
“Without me, you’d still have no body and Primer would never have been arrested. You know that as well as I do, so quit with the bullshit.”
Mona took a
step toward him. She didn’t seem to care now that the guys by the trailer were staring at them.
“That’s true. But we would also have avoided a load of hassle. If it gets out that you were involved in the investigation into your own brother, the press won’t stop writing about it until heads roll. The bigger the headlines, the bigger the sacrifice required.”
“So, you care more about saving your own career than bringing the perp to justice?”
Mona’s eyes darkened, but he had no intention of staying to hear her defense. She had already shown where her loyalties were and that was enough for him. The Chrysler’s tires squealed as he left her alone at the gas station.
John switched lanes, ignoring the protests of other drivers as he made his way to Hammarö. Billy had been a victim the whole way through this tragic story. The police had done nothing but harass him for ten years. Demanding—now that he was dead—that John sit back and let the same team keep working the case was just absurd.
He turned left onto Tynäsvägen and accelerated, making the two-ton Chrysler leap forward. As soon as Mona had confirmation from the Walrus that she was in charge of the Billy Nerman murder inquiry, she would be off to visit Heimer Bjurwall.
But it would probably take some time, and John intended to use that head start and get there first. He couldn’t drop the thought of Heimer and Billy having met and their encounter somehow going wrong when Emelie’s father learned he’d been tricked.
Mona hadn’t been exaggerating the details about the AckWe house. The place was truly magnificent with views over the water. He drove up to the gate, pressed the buzzer, and found himself expecting an English butler on the other end. But there was no stiff upper lip—just Heimer Bjurwall answering in his prim Värmland accent.
John explained who he—or rather, Fredrik Adamsson—was. Soon he heard a whirring in the electric lock and the large gates slid open. He parked on the drive next to a couple of expensive Italian sports cars and was invited inside.
The interior was just as understated and elegant as John had imagined. At the same time, there was a strong feeling of desolation—emphasized by Heimer Bjurwall being at home alone. There was something sad about having so little life in so many square meters.
“Sorry I’ve come here without calling ahead,” John said after the man had shown him upstairs to the kitchen.
“Don’t worry about it. You’re just lucky I was home. I’m usually out in the middle of the day.”
“No, of course. I understand.”
“What was this about? I’m afraid I can’t talk for long.”
Bullshit, John thought to himself. You want to talk.
“I’ll get right to it,” he said. “We need to discuss the letters you received.”
“Letters?”
“Yes, letters. You did receive two, didn’t you?”
Heimer Bjurwall looked as though he was biding his time—as if he couldn’t quite decide whether or not to tell the truth. But then he raised his hands in a disarming gesture.
“Yes, a second letter did arrive. I’m sorry I didn’t say anything. But I wanted to keep it to myself. Not even my wife knows.”
“What did it say?” said John.
“That I should visit an online chatroom at a certain time. I would receive further instructions there.”
“Instructions about what?”
“I didn’t know at the time. I assumed it was about money. The information about what happened to Emelie wasn’t going to be free. That was why I didn’t tell you about the letter. I didn’t want to scare the sender off.”
“You never considered that it might just be a bluff?”
Heimer looked at him, annoyed.
“Yes, the whole time. Sissela was convinced someone was trying to scam us and that’s why I kept her in the dark. But I was prepared to take a chance for Emelie.”
“So what happened? Did you make contact with anyone in the chatroom?”
“Yes, I did,” said Heimer.
He was speaking more quickly now, as if his initial resistance had been broken down and he was willing to talk.
“I was told to put three hundred thousand kronor in a locker at the railway station. If I did that, I’d be sent the information.”
“So, you never met the letter writer?”
“No.”
John sharpened his tone.
“That’s a bit odd. Giving that much money to a stranger.”
“You might think it’s idiotic, but I went into this with my eyes open.”
John let a few seconds elapse, as if to show that he still wasn’t convinced.
“Okay, let’s move on,” he said. “What information were you supposed to receive?”
“Evidence that would hold up in a trial.”
“Evidence against Bernt Primer?”
Heimer shrugged his shoulders.
“I assume so. The letter arrived before he was arrested. I should have handed it over to you as soon as I got it. It sounds so stupid, talking about it now. But it felt like my last chance to really do something for Emelie.”
“I understand. But you never received any evidence?”
The man across the table laughed. The laughter sounded bitter and resigned.
“Sissela was obviously right,” he said. “It was just someone trying to con us. I paid three hundred thousand for nothing.”
“And you still don’t know who wrote the letters?”
“I have no idea,” Heimer sighed. “And I don’t actually care.”
John met Heimer Bjurwall’s sorrowful gaze while trying to evaluate his credibility. He had stopped trying to play the bigwig with a packed schedule. The stiff posture and detached voice had been replaced by something softer and more vulnerable. John was forced to admit that he was struggling to picture Emelie’s father in the dirty workshop with his hands around Billy’s throat.
“Can I get you some coffee?” Heimer said.
Before John had time to decline, the man got up and went over to the coffee maker. It was an expensive model with copper tubes visible inside the transparent shell that funneled the coffee into the pot.
“Are you getting anywhere with Primer?” he said, raising his voice to be heard over the built-in coffee grinder.
“We’re making progress,” said John. “Your visit was a great help—a real breakthrough.”
Heimer looked pleased, lapping up the praise like a schoolboy.
“Has he confessed yet?”
“I’m afraid I can’t tell you what he’s said under questioning. Confidentiality, you know.”
John’s phone vibrated.
“Sorry, but I have to take this.”
“You can talk in the library,” said Heimer, ushering him down the hall to a large pair of double doors.
John went into the room and closed the doors behind him. He didn’t recognize the number, but it began with 054—the Karlstad area code.
“Fredrik Adamsson,” he said.
“Oh, John—it’s all gone wrong.”
He recognized his mother’s voice right away. She was crying and whimpering uncontrollably, which made it hard to understand what she was saying.
“Mom,” he said, glancing over his shoulder. It was a word he wasn’t supposed to use and he was glad he had closed the double doors.
“How are you? How was the surgery?”
“It went fine—my heart is okay. But you have to listen to me. It’s my fault Billy’s dead. No one can convince me he did that to himself.”
John pressed the phone closer to his ear.
“What do you mean?” he said.
She emitted a low groan and he realized she was in pain.
“Do you remember when you were at Billy’s and we ate cake?”
“Of course.”
“That was when I realized.”
“Realized what?”
“You said where you’d found the girl. That she’d been buried near the old dump along Hallerudsleden.”
John remember
ed. His mother had gone from being in a good mood to being distracted and wanting to go home.
“I saw him coming out of the woods that night when I was driving home from the mill. I thought it was odd for a guy like him to be out running at that time of night. With a flashlight and everything. But then I read about what had happened and it wasn’t so strange any longer. He’d probably been out looking for the girl—that was what I thought.”
“Wait, who are you talking about?”
His mother didn’t reply. It was as if she were in a trance and talking to herself.
“But when you told me where the girl had been found, I realized I’d gotten it all wrong. It wasn’t at all the way I thought it was. He wasn’t looking for her—do you see? He was burying her.”
John slowly began to understand. He should’ve thought of it sooner. His mother had worked nights at the mill—Billy said as much during the first police interview. The road to and from her place of work went right past the scene. She was the one who had seen Emelie Bjurwall’s murderer—not Billy.
He raised his voice in an attempt to stop his mother’s stream of words.
“Who? Who did you see?”
It seemed to have worked. The voice at the other end of the line finally went silent. A few heavy breaths were audible before his mother spoke again.
“Heimer Bjurwall, of course. Who else would it be?”
John gasped for breath. The atmosphere in the library was immediately stifling. He hadn’t thought about the fact that the room had no windows. The walls were covered in bookcases from floor to ceiling and no natural light could make its way in. The only way out was through the heavy double doors made from a dark hardwood.
He had been a fool not to see the obvious. He and Mona had only considered Heimer as a potential murderer of Billy. That he might also be responsible for his own daughter’s death never occurred to them, even though it was right there in front of them. He remembered what the first letter his brother sent had said: