The Bucket List

by Peter Mohlin

  It rang five times before he heard a voice answer.

  “Ward thirty-four; this is Linda.”

  The voice was prim, but slightly strained. The person on the other end seemed stressed.

  “Sorry, who have I reached?” said Heimer.

  “Ward thirty-four. At the hospital. This is the patient phone.”

  “Someone there called me about ten minutes ago. Do you know who it was?”

  The woman was immediately on her guard.

  “I don’t think I can disclose that information. We have patient confidentiality rules.”

  “But I’m worried a relative might be sick,” he tried.

  “I understand, but it’s against regulations. I’m sure they’ll call you again.”

  “Please, I’m begging you. If someone called me, then clearly they want me to know that he or she is in the hospital. That’s hardly breaching their confidentiality.”

  He noticed that the woman’s tone softened.

  “It might have been Gunvor Nerman,” she said after a brief pause. “I thought I saw her by the phone when I passed earlier.”

  Heimer thanked her and ended the call. The first name meant nothing to him, but the last name was enough to clear things up. Nerman. It had to be Billy’s mother or sister—if he had one. He would have to find out later. First he needed to deal with the detective slumped in front of him on the library floor. The hard part wouldn’t be shooting him. Moving the body would be much more difficult.

  Billy Nerman had been heavy, testing his limits, and Nerman hadn’t weighed anything close to as much as this fit-looking man. But he was sure he would manage. Maybe he could use the rug to drag him.

  Heimer gripped the weapon with both hands. There would be a strong recoil and he didn’t want to miss. He squeezed the trigger carefully with his right index finger and felt it move.

  He would usually have reacted to the sound of the front door closing and footsteps coming up the stairs. But at that moment he was so engrossed that he couldn’t hear anything except his own breathing.

  “Heimer, are you home?”

  Sissela had to shout twice before the sound of her voice penetrated his barrier of concentration. He lowered the weapon and turned around at the very moment that his wife stepped into the library.

  54

  John looked at the woman in the doorway. Sissela Bjurwall was wearing a cream-colored dress with embroidered details on the shoulders and across the bust. Every last strand of her blonde hair was in the right place. In her hand she was holding a leather bag big enough to carry a laptop.

  Heimer lowered the weapon and turned his head toward his wife.

  “You’re back already?”

  His voice sounded oddly shrill. Sissela didn’t answer. John saw her trying to take in what must have looked like an absurd nightmare—her husband aiming a pistol at another man. She slowly put her bag on the floor.

  “Heimer, what’s going on here?”

  “You aren’t supposed to be back yet,” he replied. “You’re flying back tomorrow.”

  “We finished early and changed the flights. Who’s he?” she said, pointing at John slumped on the floor.

  John perceived a forced composure in her—as if she were attempting to master the situation without quite succeeding. He wanted to say something, but he was completely paralyzed. When Heimer had put his finger on the trigger, his body had expected to die and in a fight-or-flight reflex it had emptied his bladder and bowels. He was sitting there like a statue in his own excrement, piss dripping down his thighs.

  “Did he break in?” Sissela said.

  John tried once again to say something. Sissela’s unexpected appearance was a lifeline that he intended to grasp as firmly as possible.

  “I’m a police detective,” he managed to say.

  His voice was low, but sufficiently clear to catch her attention.

  “What did you say?”

  “I’m a police detective,” John repeated more loudly.

  This time she heard what he said. Sissela Bjurwall looked confused. Her gaze flickered from the pistol in her husband’s hand to the man claiming to be a police detective and back again.

  “I can’t understand why you always have to change everything. If you said you were coming back tomorrow, why couldn’t you come back then?”

  Heimer sounded annoyed—as if upset by someone forgetting to take out the trash.

  “Is he really with the police?” she said.

  “Sissela—this is what we’re going to do. You call a taxi and go to a hotel. Then you can come back tomorrow just as you planned.”

  “A taxi?”

  “Yes—you’re in no state to drive right now. In the meantime, I’ll deal with this.”

  “What are you going to deal with?”

  “Everything—I’ll deal with everything. No one needs to know anything. Primer will be put away and then everything will go back to how it was before.”

  John looked at Sissela and saw her slowly begin to understand. Her facial expression, which had been composed until now, dissolved into something unrecognizable. She began to wail like an animal, pressing her hands to her stomach. John couldn’t keep looking at her. It seemed too private a moment.

  “It was you …” she stammered. “It was you who killed Emelie.”

  Heimer didn’t react to what was happening to his wife. He simply continued to repeat his mantra.

  “All you need to do is come back at the time we agreed you would.”

  Sissela supported herself against the wall with one hand. The other one was still clasped to her stomach. Her body shook as she began to cry.

  “We’ll never get Emelie back,” Heimer continued, calmly. “What matters is what we do now.”

  “But I don’t understand. Why did you kill her?” she sobbed.

  “You know that I loved Emelie. It was an accident. The less you know, the easier it will be to forget about it.”

  “What do you mean? How am I supposed to forget about it?”

  “You have to if we’re going to stick together. Think about everything we have. Life will turn into a living hell—not just for me, but for you too. You’ll be the wife of the guy who killed his own child. And what for, Sissela? Think about it. What good will it do?”

  Sissela looked at her husband. In spite of her tears, John saw frightened but intelligent eyes.

  “Give me the gun, Heimer,” she said. “This isn’t you—I know that. You’re not yourself.”

  She held out her hand, but Heimer simply shook his head.

  “You need to stop telling me what to do. If this is going to work, you need to show me some respect—do you understand?”

  “But Heimer …”

  “Don’t interrupt me! I know what I’m doing. I’ve got this. Do you know what you need to do?”

  “Please, just give me the gun.”

  She held out her hand again and this time he struck it aside.

  “Do you know what you need to do?” he repeated.

  Sissela reeled backward and raised her arms to protect her face.

  “Call a taxi,” she sobbed.

  “Good. And then what?”

  “Go to a hotel and come back tomorrow.”

  Heimer smiled at her.

  “Good,” he said in a softer voice. “Darling, none of this was ever supposed to come out. All you have to do is forget about everything. And I’ll forget about you and Hugo.”

  John saw how the last remark made her wince. He guessed there was an affair that Sissela thought her husband didn’t know about. Heimer caressed her cheek with his free hand.

  “I read what you wrote,” he said. “Every single word in hundreds of emails. Everything that you chose to share with him instead of me. But I’m strong enough that I can put that behind me, if you can do the same for me.”

  Sissela ran her middle finger beneath her eye. The tears had stopped but her hand shook as she wiped away the makeup that had run.

  “You’r
e right,” she said, squeezing his hand. “There’s no other way.”

  She retrieved her phone from the bag on the floor and went out through the double doors. Heimer closed them behind her and turned back to John. His eyes were disconcertingly expressionless as he once again raised the weapon. Instinctively, John moved his hand to the painful spot on the back of his head. At that moment he heard Mona’s voice. What was it she had said after the blackout in the parking garage at Arlanda airport? That he needed to take control of his own thoughts. That he could do it differently next time—he just had to find the strength.

  For the first time since Heimer had raised the weapon, John managed to insert a small wedge between himself and his emotions. Panic was still coursing through his body, but his rational superego had come to life, whispering to him not to worry about all the other stuff. It was just a rush of impulses bouncing through his nervous system—it didn’t have anything to do with him. He wasn’t just the sum of his emotions and it was up to him to choose whether to be controlled by them or not.

  Slowly, he felt the throbbing pain dissipate and the paralysis begin to lift. He tried moving the toes on his right foot. They worked. He tried his left foot with the same positive result. He was fairly certain that if he got up now, his legs would carry him.

  He heard the dull sound of Sissela Bjurwall’s high heels going down the stairs. His lifeline had come unstuck and he was floating helplessly in the black waters toward almost certain death. But instead of being paralyzed, his brain was working intensely to find a solution. There was still time. Heimer wouldn’t do anything until the taxi had arrived and taken his wife away.

  “Police are on the way. My backup will be here any minute,” John said, thinking of Mona again.

  Heimer didn’t answer, but showed with his expression that he didn’t believe him.

  “You think I’m lying,” John added. “But it doesn’t really matter. What counts is that my phone is here. It’ll be easy to trace.”

  Heimer continued to stare at him blankly, as if immune to John’s logical arguments.

  “Forensics is going over Billy Nerman’s workshop. It wouldn’t surprise me if they find something tying you to the scene. One strand of hair is all it takes for a DNA match.”

  Still no response. He couldn’t get through. Heimer Bjurwall had gone into lockdown and John was frozen with mortal fear. He closed his eyes to seek solace. The image that appeared behind his eyelids took him by surprise. It wasn’t Billy. Nor his mother. Or father.

  It was Nicole.

  He saw her on the corduroy sofa with her red headphones on and her face illuminated by the blue light of her tablet. There was no one else on the sofa—she was alone.

  John opened his eyes again. Mona had said the strength was somewhere within him, that all he had to do was find it. Now, all of a sudden, it was there. The rational part of his brain took control and commanded his pulsing head to be silent. He tensed the muscles in his arms and legs. They were responding better each time he tried them.

  He knew that both he and Heimer were listening for signs from downstairs indicating that his wife was ready to leave the house. They stared at each other in tense silence. Seconds became minutes, which gave John essential recovery time. Eventually, there was the faint sound of the front door closing. Sissela was apparently going outside to get in her taxi. Heimer turned around and the opportunity presented itself.

  John braced himself against the floor and then hurled himself toward the other man. This was his last chance to escape with his life. Using his left elbow, he tried to knock the gun out of Heimer Bjurwall’s hand. But at the same moment, the tall man twisted to one side, so that John’s blow struck his shoulder blade instead. He lost his balance and fell to the floor but didn’t drop the weapon.

  John could feel shooting pains in his arms and legs following his exertion. It was a good sign—it meant that his nerve endings were working and he had managed to get his muscles to move in coordination, even if it hadn’t been quick enough.

  Once panic was no longer paralyzing his brain, his training kicked in: the countless hours spent at the FBI Training Academy at Quantico as he and his colleagues drilled a variety of scenarios and how to deal with them. When the enemy was armed and you had no weapon, there was one clear instruction: get to safety and summon reinforcements. Heroes only existed in movies—that was what the instructor had said. In reality, they ended up on the floor covered by a white sheet.

  John tore open the double doors. He rushed down the hall and into the kitchen. He crashed into a man completely dressed in black. His face was covered in a helmet with a visor. The only things visible were his eyes—young and hyped up with adrenaline. Behind the broad shoulders John saw more men, all clad in black and heavily armed.

  “Take it easy, he’s one of us.”

  John had never thought he would be so pleased to hear Mona Ejdewik’s voice.

  “Where’s Heimer?” Mona cried out.

  John pointed down the hallway he had just emerged from.

  “In there. Second room on the right. The one with the double doors.”

  “Is he armed?”

  One of the black-clad police officers in the middle of the bunch had posed the question. He was probably heading up the task force.

  “He’s got my service weapon,” John replied, moving to one side to let the men continue forward.

  He realized what must have happened and why the taxi had taken so long. Sissela Bjurwall hadn’t called a taxi—she’d called the police. Despite the shock of learning that her husband had killed Emelie, she’d managed to keep a cool head. She had played along with his delusions so convincingly that both John and Heimer had been fooled.

  Mona came up to him.

  “Are you okay?”

  John nodded. There was a lot they would need to discuss, but this was hardly the right moment. He hoped that deep down she would understand why he had done what he had.

  The leader of the task force reappeared in the kitchen.

  “He’s not there.”

  “What do you mean, not there?” said John. “He must be.”

  The large man didn’t reply—instead he issued orders to his team, who initiated a search of the house. John heard crackling from radios as voice after voice reported that their rooms were empty.

  He went to the large window with its view of Lake Vänern and saw the large outdoor terrace at ground floor level below them. On one of the benches there was a tall figure curled up. He had drawn his legs up into a fetal position and was lying absolutely still. Somehow, Heimer Bjurwall had gotten out of the library before the task force had struck. Then he must have jumped out of a window in one of the adjacent rooms.

  John called out to the task force leader.

  “He’s down there, on the bench.”

  The sound of assault rifles against Kevlar vests and police boots making their way down the stairs to the front door filled the house for a few brief seconds. Then there was absolute silence. Mona joined him at the window.

  The man on the bench looked lonely. Heimer Bjurwall pulled his knees even closer to his stomach as his body began to shake. Maybe he was crying—it was impossible to tell from this distance.

  When the first members of the task force appeared from around the corner, John looked away. He knew what was about to happen and had no desire to watch.

  55

  Heimer was thinking about the wines in the cellar. He had sorted them by grape type and vintage. The ones that were ready to drink were on the left and the ones that needed to mature were on the right. He hated the thought of Sissela down there among the bottles. She would never keep them in order. It wouldn’t be long before Cabernet Sauvignons were muddled up with Pinot Noirs. She would probably uncork the new bottles of Barolo while they were far too young and wouldn’t decant them properly. If only he’d had more time, he would’ve run into the cellar and poured out every single bottle. It would have been a more worthy fate for his collection than
being taken over by a know-nothing with no palate to speak of.

  There was one case he would have saved. Six bottles of 1988 Margaux—from the same year Emelie came into the world. He found them on a trip to London and had immediately thought of her birthday. The wine was so expensive he’d blushed when he had been told the price. But he hadn’t hesitated. There was something special about those moments, once every year. He felt so close to both Sissela and Emelie at those times. It was almost as if they forgave him.

  He wondered whether his wife would visit him in prison. Heimer didn’t think so—not even on his birthday. But maybe he’d be able to arrange to have the wine—just one glass, once a year. He needed it to remember, so that Emelie wouldn’t fade and slip away from him.

  He pulled his knees closer to his chest and put his hand tightly around the necklace. He had worn the silver heart with the bite marks hidden beneath his shirt since the night Sissela had refused to wear it. Slowly, he ran his fingertips over the metal to feel the traces of Emelie’s teeth. The proof that she had been alive and had once been his daughter.

  He didn’t want to cry—yet he still did. A deep sob that made his body shake and the planks of the bench sag.

  Then he felt two strong arms pull him onto the terrace. He got splinters in his cheek from the dry wooden boards. The teak needed sanding and oiling, but of course no one had bothered to make sure it got done.

  He had to deal with everything.

  Absolutely everything.

  EPILOGUE

  THREE MONTHS LATER

  John took a step back and looked at the canvas on the easel. Something about the eyes wasn’t quite right. They were sad; that was spot-on. But there was also a sense of dejection—an adult form of resignation that didn’t fit with the girl. The last time he saw Nicole a month or so ago, she had been more talkative. She asked about her father and what would happen now that he was gone. These were not the questions of someone who had given up—rather, they were the expression of a desire to start living again. The child psychologist, whom he had spoken to afterward, had agreed. Nicole was really making progress.