The Princess of Burundi E-Book

Kjell Eriksson

• Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Serie: Inspector Ann Lindell
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Seitenzahl: 494

Beschreibung

Libro, Sweden. A mutilated body is found lying in the snow. Husband, father and reformed trouble-maker John Jonsson leaves behind a devastated family and friends to struggle on without him. Who would want him tortured and murdered? His body is not the only sinister discovery. Inspector Ann Lindell cuts short her maternity leave to join homicide detective Ola Haver to work the case. Determined to catch this savage killer, Lindell is drawn into a twisted game of cat and mouse that terrorises an entire town. Winner of the Swedish Crime Academy Award for Best Crime Novel, The Princess of Burundi introduces readers to Kjell Eriksson, a fast-rising international sensation.

Leseprobe

 

THE PRINCESS OF BURUNDI

KJELL ERIKSSON

Translated from the Swedish by Ebba Segerberg

Contents

Title Page

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

TWENTY-ONE

TWENTY-TWO

TWENTY-THREE

TWENTY-FOUR

TWENTY-FIVE

TWENTY-SIX

TWENTY-SEVEN

TWENTY-EIGHT

TWENTY-NINE

THIRTY

THIRTY-ONE

THIRTY-TWO

THIRTY-THREE

THIRTY-FOUR

THIRTY-FIVE

THIRTY-SIX

THIRTY-SEVEN

THIRTY-EIGHT

THIRTY-NINE

FORTY

FORTY-ONE

FORTY-TWO

About the Author

By Kjell Eriksson

Copyright

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THE PRINCESS OF BURUNDI

ONE

The plate trembled, knocking over the glass. The milk flowed out over the waxed tablecloth like a white flower.

Typical – we have almost no milk left, she thought. She quickly righted the glass and wiped up the milk with a dishcloth.

‘When is Dad coming home?’

She twirled around. Justus was leaning up against the doorpost.

‘I don’t know,’ she said, throwing the dishcloth into the sink.

‘What’s for dinner?’

He had a book in his hand, his index finger tucked in to mark the page he was reading. She wanted to ask him what it was, but then she thought of something and walked over to the window.

‘Stew,’ she said absently. She looked out at the car park. It had started to snow again.

Maybe he was working. She knew he had talked to Micke. He always needed extra workers for his snow removal crew, and it had been coming down for days now. John wasn’t afraid of heights, either.

Berit smiled at the memory of how he had climbed the drainpipe to her balcony long ago. It was only on the second floor, but still. He could have broken his neck if he had fallen. Just like his father, she thought, and her smile faded.

She had been furious with him, but he had just laughed. Then he had scooped her up in a tight embrace, with a strength you would never have thought John’s slender body was capable of.

Later – clearly flattered – she liked to tell the story of his climb and his persistence. It was their earliest and most important shared memory.

Snow removal. A small tractor drove across the car park and pushed even more snow up over the heavily laden bushes by the edge of the lot. Harry was the driver. She recognised him by his red cap.

Harry was the one who had set Justus to work, giving him a summer job when no one else was hiring. Lawn mowing, clearing out rubbish, weeding. Justus complained, but he had been bursting with pride at his first pay cheque.

Berit’s gaze followed the snowplough. Snow was falling thickly. The orange signal light revolved on the roof of the tractor. Darkness settled in over the buildings and the car park. The light was flung to the far corners of the grounds. Harry was certainly busy. How many hours had he had to work the past few days?

‘This weather’s going to send me to the Canary Islands,’ he had shouted to her the other day when they met outside the front door.

He had leant on his shovel and asked her about Justus. He always did.

She turned and meant to say hello from Harry but Justus had already gone.

‘What are you doing?’ she cried out into the flat.

‘Nothing,’ Justus yelled back.

Berit assumed he was sitting in front of the computer. Ever since August, when John had dragged home the boxes, Justus had sat glued to the screen.

‘The kid has to have a computer. He’ll be left behind otherwise,’ John had said when she complained at the extravagance.

‘How much did it cost?’

‘I got it cheap,’ he had told her, and quickly showed her the receipt from the electronics shop when he caught her look. That accusing look, the one he knew so well.

She looked around the kitchen but there was nothing else to be done. Dinner was ready. She went back to the window. He had said he would be back around four and it was close to six now. He usually called if he was delayed, but that had been mostly when he was doing a lot of overtime at the workshop. He had never liked to work late, but his boss, Sagge – Agne Sagander – had a way of asking that made it hard to say no. It always sounded as if the order in question were going to make or break the company.

He had grown more quiet after he was fired. John had never been one to talk much, of course – Berit was the one who supplied the conversation – but he became even less talkative after he was let go.

He had cheered up only this autumn. Berit was convinced that it had to do with the fish, the new aquarium he had been talking about for years and that had become a reality at last.

He had needed all that work with the fish tank, had spent a couple of weeks in September on it. Harry had given him a hand with the final assembly. He and Gunilla had come to the grand opening. Berit had thought it silly to inaugurate a fish tank but the party had been a success.

Their closest neighbour, Stellan, had looked in, as had John’s mum, and Lennart had been sober and cheerful. Stellan, who was normally quite reserved, had put an arm around Berit and said something about how cute she looked. John had just smiled, though he usually was sensitive about things like this, especially when he had had a drink or two. But there was no reason to be jealous of Stellan.

Harry had finished clearing the car park. The flashing orange signal flung new cascades of light across the path to the laundry facilities and communal rooms. Snow removal. Berit had only a vague idea of what this task involved. Did they still climb up on the roof like in the old days? She could remember the bundled-up men from her childhood with their big shovels and ropes slung in great loops over their shoulders. She could even recall the warning signs they posted in the courtyard and on the street.

Was he over at Lennart’s? Brother Tuck, as John called him. She didn’t like it. It reminded her of the bad old days. She never knew what to make of it: Lennart’s loquacious self-assurance and John’s pressed silence.

Berit was only sixteen when the three of them met. First she got to know John, then Lennart. The brothers appeared inseparable. Lennart, tossing his long black hair off his face, unpredictable in his movements, always on the go, picking nervously, chattering. John, blond, thin-lipped, and with a gentleness about him that had immediately appealed to her. A scar across his left eye created an unexpected contrast with the pale skin in his slightly androgynous face. The scar was from a motorcycle accident. Lennart had been driving.

Berit had been unable to understand how John and Lennart could be brothers. They were so different, both in appearance and in manner. Once she had gone so far as to ask Aina, their mother, about it. It had been toward the end of the crayfish party, but she had only smiled and joked about it.

It didn’t take long for Berit to figure out that the brothers didn’t always make their money in traditional ways. John worked at the workshop off and on, but it seemed to Berit that this was more to keep up appearances, especially with regard to Albin, his father.

John had a criminal bent. Not because he was evil or greedy, but simply because a conventional lifestyle didn’t seem to be quite enough for him. It was something he had in common with many of the people around him, teenagers who appeared well adjusted on the surface but who drifted around the eastern parts of Uppsala most evenings and nights in anxious herds. They picked pockets, snatched handbags, stole mopeds and cars, broke into basements, and smashed shop windows as the spirit moved them.

A few, like John and Lennart, were permanent fixtures. Others came and went, most of them dropping out after six months or a year.

Some took classes at the Boland School in order to become painters, concrete workers, mechanics, or whatever other professions were open to working-class youths in the early seventies. Others took jobs straight out of secondary school. None of them continued with more formal academic subjects at the higher education level. They had neither the will nor the grades for that.

Most of them lived at home with their parents, who were not always the ideal people to prevent substance abuse, theft, and other illegal activities. They had enough of their own problems and often stood by, quite powerless to do anything to stop their offspring. They were awkward and embarrassed when dealing with the welfare workers, psychologists, and other social officials, confused by the bureaucratic language, their own inadequacies, and their intense sense of shame.

‘If I hadn’t had them, it would all have gone to hell,’ John had said once.

It was only when he was getting regular work at the factory that he started to move away from life on the streets and the gangs. Regular work, a new sense of being appreciated, decent wages, and then Berit.

Lennart delivered groceries by day and hung out at the pool hall in Sivia at night. John was there too. He was the better player of the two, though that hardly bothered Lennart, who spent most of his time on the flipper machines down below.

That was where Berit met them. She had come with a girl named Anna-Lena, who was in love with a boy who frequented the place.

She fell in love with John at first sight. He snuck around the pool table with the cue in his hand and played with intense concentration, something that appealed to Berit. He rarely said anything.

His hands were slender. She studied his fingers splayed on the green mat, his gaze focused along the stick, serious. It was the seriousness she noticed. And eyelashes. His gaze, the intense gaze.

She wasn’t sure what made her start thinking about the pool hall. It had been years since she had been there. It was probably because she had been thinking about Brother Tuck, and about how John was probably with him. She didn’t want to call. They were probably drinking. Sometimes John felt he had to have a real session with Lennart. It didn’t happen very often nowadays, but when his mind was made up nothing could stop him. Not even Justus. The boy knew it, knew his father deep under the skin, and his protests were never particularly loud or long-lived.

Once, when Justus was about twelve, John let himself be talked out of it and came home. Justus had called his uncle himself and demanded to speak to his father. Berit was not allowed to listen; Justus had locked himself in the bathroom with the mobile phone. John came home after half an hour. Staggering, but he came home.

It was as if these occasional evenings with his brother functioned as a temporary return to his former existence. These drinking sessions kept the brothers close. Berit had no idea what they talked about. Old times, their childhood in Almtuna, or something else?

They didn’t have much common ground. They cleaved to each other because of their shared past. Berit sometimes felt something akin to jealousy when confronted with this world that was largely foreign to her. Their childhood, the early years, appeared to be the only source of joy when they were talking. Even Lennart’s voice, normally void of emotion, grew warm.

And Berit stood outside all of this. Her life with John didn’t count, or so it seemed to her. She entered his life when everything turned, when his childhood reached a definitive end. She wasn’t there in the early, light-filled days, the happy years that would be remembered and retold.

‘When is he coming?’

‘Soon,’ she replied, shouting.

She was grateful that Justus was in his bedroom.

‘He’s probably clearing snow somewhere. I’ve never seen anything like it.’

She expected him to say something else, but he didn’t. She wanted to hear his voice, but he didn’t say anything. What is he doing, thinking? Did she dare leave the kitchen and go to his room? But the half-darkness of the kitchen was all she could handle. No light, no quick flickering characters on a computer screen, no questioning looks from Justus.

‘Maybe you can help Harry,’ she shouted. ‘Make a little extra.’

No response.

‘He’ll probably need some help with the basement stairs.’

‘I don’t give a shit about his snow.’

Justus had suddenly reappeared in the doorway.

‘It’s not just his snow,’ Berit said gently.

Justus snorted and stretched out a hand to the light switch.

‘No, don’t turn it on!’

She regretted it the instant she said it.

‘It’s just that it’s cosy with a little darkness. I’ll light some candles instead.’

She felt his gaze from the doorway.

‘You should make a little money,’ she said.

‘I don’t need any. And Dad has money, anyway.’

‘Of course, but not a lot. You’ve been talking about buying a camera.’

Justus gave her a dismissive look. Was it a look of triumph?

‘No harm in asking him, though, is there?’ she continued.

‘Nag, nag, nag,’ he said and turned on his heel, in that way that only he could, and went back to his room.

She heard him slam his door and the creaking of the bed when he threw himself on it. She walked back over to the window. Harry and his tractor had disappeared. A number of lights were on in the building across the way. She could see families around the dinner table. A bluish TV light flickered in a few others.

A shadow moved next to the parking garages and she almost shouted with joy, but as she kept watching no John appeared. Had she only imagined it? If you walked down between the rows of garages you eventually came out by the rubbish bins, but there was no one there. No John. Berit stared out into the darkness. Suddenly she glimpsed the figure again. She had seen someone for a moment, a man in green, but it wasn’t John.

Who was it? Why had he waited before emerging by the rubbish bins? It occurred to her that maybe it was Harry’s brother, who used to help him with the snow removal. No John. The short moment of relief was replaced by loneliness.

The potatoes on the stove were still lukewarm. She turned the burner with the stew to its lowest setting. He’ll be here soon, she told herself, and cupped her hands around the pot.

She called Lennart at half past seven. He answered on the fifth ring and sounded sober. He hadn’t heard from John in several days.

‘He’ll turn up,’ he said lightly, but she could hear the concern in his voice.

Berit could imagine him restlessly shuffling back and forth in the hall.

‘I’ll make a couple of calls,’ he said. ‘He’s probably just having a few beers with someone.’

Berit hated him for those words. A few beers. She hung up.

She called John’s mother, but did not mention that he was more than a few hours late. She had called in the hope that he had looked in on her and been detained. They chatted for a while as Berit walked around the flat.

Lennart called at quarter past eight.

‘Why’d you hang up on me?’ he started, and she could hear that he had a few drinks in him. That’s when she knew.

‘Where can he be?’ Now her desperation broke out.

Justus came out of his room.

‘I’m hungry,’ he said.

She gestured to him to calm down and finished talking to Lennart.

‘Do you have any idea where Daddy can be?’ she asked.

She knew she shouldn’t be letting it get the upper hand, but the anxiety made her tremble. Justus made an awkward movement with his hand.

‘I’ve no idea, but he’ll be here soon,’ he said.

Berit started to cry.

‘Mum, he’ll be here!’

‘Yes, he’ll be back soon,’ she said and tried to smile, but it was mostly a grimace. ‘I just get so worked up when he doesn’t call and let me know. The potatoes are ruined.’

‘Can’t we eat in the meantime?’

She was suddenly furious. Because she interpreted Justus’s words as somehow disloyal, or because of an intimation that something terrible had happened?

They sat down at the kitchen table. Harry and his tractor reappeared in the courtyard, and Berit was about to say something again about snow removal but stopped when she saw his face.

The potatoes were pasty and the meat tender but lukewarm. Justus cleared the table in silence. She watched his mechanical movements. The jeans, which were two sizes too big, hung from his thin thighs and non-existent behind. His fashion and music tastes had been changing lately, from a penchant for soft English pop, which Berit had often been able to appreciate, to a noisy, jerky rap music that sounded only discordant and angry to her ears. His taste in clothing had changed accordingly.

She looked at the clock on the wall. Nine. Now she knew it would be late. Very late.

TWO

He was watching the bus driver. She was all over the place, first pulling too close to the car in front and driving much too fast, then slamming on the brakes.

‘Women drivers,’ he mumbled.

The bus was half full. An immigrant was sitting directly in front of him, probably a Kurd or an Iranian. Sometimes it seemed to him as if half of all the people he saw were svartskallar, the derogatory term for dark-haired foreigners. Gunilla sat three seats away. He smiled to himself when he saw her neck. She had been one of the prettiest girls in the class with her long blond wavy hair and shining eyes. Those silky tendrils had given her a fairylike appearance, especially when she laughed. Now her hair had lost all its former lustre.

The bus approached the roundabout at high speed, and the resulting sharp deceleration forced a passenger near the door to lose his balance and lunge forward. His shoulder bag swung around, hitting Gunilla in the head, and she turned. She looks the same, but different, he thought when he saw her startled and somewhat annoyed expression.

He had seen her in this posture countless times, her body half-turned and her head craning around. But at school there had often been something indolent and teasing about her, as if she were inviting the gaze of others, though not Vincent. She had never invited him to do anything, had hardly even registered his presence.

‘You gave me nothing,’ Vincent mumbled.

He felt sick to his stomach.

Get off so I don’t have to see you anymore, he thought. The Iranian had a bad case of dandruff. The bus careened on. Gunilla had gained weight. Her girlish languor had been replaced by a heavyset fatigue.

Get off! Vincent Hahn bored his eyes into her head. When the bus passed the building that in his day had been Uno Lantz’s junk shop but now housed modern offices, he had an idea. Sick, so fucking sick, he thought. But damned good.

He laughed out loud. The Iranian turned and smiled.

‘You have dandruff,’ Vincent said.

The Iranian nodded and his smile widened.

‘Dandruff,’ Vincent said more loudly. Gunilla and a handful of the other passengers turned around. Vincent lowered his head. He was sweating. He got off at the next stop and remained standing in one place after the bus continued down Kungsgatan. He looked down at his feet. He always got off too early. My poor feet, he thought. My poor feet. Poor me.

His feet led him down Bangårdsgatan to the river and then down toward Nybro bridge. He stopped there, his arms hanging passively at his sides. Only his eyes moved. Everyone seemed to be in a hurry. Only Vincent Hahn could take his time. He stared down into the black water. It was 17th December 2001. How cold it is, he thought, as the sweat on his back started to freeze.

‘The poor Talibans,’ he said. ‘Poor everyone.’

The foot traffic behind him grew heavier. More and more people were walking over the bridge. He lifted his head and looked toward the Spegeln cinema. A large collection of people had gathered on the street outside. Was it a protest of some sort or had there been an accident? A woman laughed loudly. He realised that the cinema was simply showing a popular film. Laughter. As people moved across the street it looked like a laughing demonstration.

The cathedral clock struck six and he checked his wristwatch. Vincent smiled triumphantly at the clock tower, which was fifty-five seconds too fast. The cold and the chilly breeze from the river finally drove him to cross the street and make his way to the central square, Stora Torget.

‘It was so bad I didn’t dare …’ he heard someone say, and he turned around to catch the rest. He would have liked to find out what it was. What was it that had been so bad?

He stopped and stared at the back of the person he thought had uttered those words. Soon it will be even worse, he wanted to shout. Much, much worse.

THREE

Ola Haver was listening to his wife, an amused smile on his face.

‘Who are you laughing at?’

‘No one,’ Haver said defensively.

Rebecka Haver snorted.

‘Go on, please. I’d like to hear the rest,’ he said, and stretched out his hand for the salt shaker.

She shot him a look as if she were deciding whether or not to go on telling him about the situation at her workplace.

‘He’s a threat to public health,’ she said, pointing at the photograph in the county-administration newsletter.

‘Surely that’s taking it a bit far.’

Rebecka shook her head while she again tapped her finger on the bearded county-politician’s face. I wouldn’t want to be under that finger, Haver thought.

‘This is about everyone in our community, the aged, the weak, the ones who neither dare nor have the ability to speak up for themselves.’

He had heard this particular line of reasoning before and was starting to get sick of it. He salted his food a second time.

‘Too much salt isn’t good for you,’ Rebecka said.

He looked at her, put down the salt shaker, grasped his spoon, and ate the rest of his overly hard-boiled egg in silence.

Haver stood up, cleared the table, and put his coffee cup, saucer, and egg cup in the dishwasher, hastily wiped down the kitchen counter, and turned off the light over the stove. After these habitual actions he usually checked the temperature on the outside thermometer but this morning he remained standing in the middle of the kitchen. Something stopped him from moving over to the window, as if he were restrained by an invisible hand. Rebecka looked up briefly but went back to her reading. Then he knew. After checking the thermometer he would bend down and kiss his wife on the top of her head, say something about how much he liked her. The same routine every morning.

This time he hesitated, or rather it was his body that hesitated, that refused to take those two paces to the window. This discovery confused him.

Rebecka had stopped reading and was watching him with a kind of professional attentiveness, ingrained after many years of hospital rounds. He made a gesture as if to close the door to the dishwasher, but it was already shut.

‘How are you feeling?’

‘Fine,’ he said. ‘I was just thinking.’

‘Do you have a headache?’

He made a sweeping motion with his hand as if to brush this aside. During the fall he had suffered recurrent attacks of blinding pain in his forehead. It had been several weeks since the last attack. Had she noticed the reason for his hesitation? He didn’t think so.

‘Our division is getting a new guy today,’ he said. ‘From Gothenburg.’

‘Strip him of his gun,’ Rebecka said tartly.

He didn’t bother to reply; suddenly he was in a hurry. He left the kitchen and disappeared into the next room, which they used as an office.

‘I’m going to be late,’ he said, from halfway inside the closet. He threw on a sweatsuit, shoes, and a jumper that Rebecka had made for him. He pulled out a bag from the clothing shop Kapp Ahl from under some boxes, shut the door to the closet, and quickly walked out through the kitchen.

‘I’m going to be late,’ he repeated, and hesitated in the hallway for a few seconds before he opened the front door and stepped out into the chilly December morning. He took a few deep breaths, setting off with his head down.

December. The time of darkness. For Rebecka – or so it seemed – the darkness was heavier than it had been in years. Haver couldn’t remember her ever having been so low. He had been watching her strained attempts to put on a good face, but under the frail exterior her seasonal depression, or whatever it was, tugged at the thin membrane of control stretched over her pressed features.

A few snowflakes fluttered down. He met Josefsson from flat 3, who was out with his poodle. This neighbour, who admired police officers and was always full of effusive praise for members of his profession, smiled and said a few words about the winter that was now upon them. Josefsson’s enthusiastic cheeriness always rubbed him the wrong way. Haver mumbled something about having to work.

He thought about Rebecka. She should start working again. She needed to have people around, the stress of the ward, regular contact with patients and colleagues. Their small evening talks when she and Haver would tell each other what had happened at work that day had been replaced by a sullen atmosphere and a tense anticipation of what would happen next. They needed something new, an injection of new energy. Since child number two, Sara, their relationship had lost much of its spice.

Haver now felt as if the routines at work were mirrored by a kind of somnambulism at home. There was a time when he had felt a physical joy at the thought of coming home, a longing for Rebecka, just to be close to her.

Was she the only one who had changed? Haver had thought about this. Sammy ‘Rasbo’ Nilsson, a colleague in the Homicide Division, said it was a sign of his age.

‘The two of you have entered into a middle-age crisis, the time when couples realise that life isn’t going to get any better,’ he had said, smiling.

‘Bullshit,’ Haver had cut him off. Now he wasn’t so sure. He loved Rebecka, had done so from the very first. Did she love him? He had discovered a new, critical expression on her face, as if she were looking at him with new eyes. Sure, he worked a lot more now that Ann Lindell was on maternity leave, but there had been times when he had worked at least as much and back then it had never bothered her.

The mobile phone rang.

‘Hello, it’s me,’ said Chief Ottosson. ‘You can forget about target practise today. We have a body.’

Haver froze. Josefsson’s poodle barked in the distance. It had probably met up with the female Labrador from flat 5.

‘Where?’

‘In Libro. A jogger found it.’

‘A jogger?’

The sun was barely peeking over the horizon. Were there really people up and running this early, in this weather?

‘Forensics is on its way,’ said Ottosson.

He sounded tired and distant, as if he were almost bored, as if a jogger coming across a dead body were a routine occurrence.

‘Homicide?’

‘Most likely,’ said Ottosson, but he corrected himself immediately. ‘Definitely. The body is mutilated.’ Haver now heard the note of hopelessness in the chief’s voice.

It was not tiredness but despair at the human capacity for evil that made the thoroughly nice Ottosson sound so distracted.

‘Where is Libro?’

‘Right where you drive out of town, on the right-hand side after the county storage facility.’

Haver thought hard as he was unlocking the car door, trying to recall what the rest of Börjegatan looked like.

‘The car-inspection facility?’

‘Further. It’s where the county dumps its snow.’

‘OK, I know where that is. Who else?’

‘Fredriksson and Bea.’

They finished the conversation. He had told Rebecka he would be late and he would be, for sure, but now for a completely different reason from the one he had imagined fifteen minutes ago. The local police-union meeting would be replaced with a strategy session at work or some such business. The union would have to wait, as would his scheduled practise session at the shooting range.

John Harald Jonsson had bled copiously. The originally light-coloured jacket was now deeply stained with blood. Death had probably come as a relief. He was missing three fingers from his right hand, severed at the second joint. Burn marks and blue-black contusions on his neck and face bore witness to his suffering.

Forensic technician Eskil Ryde was standing a few metres from the body, staring in a northerly direction. Haver thought he looked like Sean Connery with his stern features, stubble, and receding hairline. He was gazing out over the Uppsala plains as if expecting to find answers out there. Actually he was watching a Viggen fighter jet.

Beatrice and Fredriksson were crouched down. The wind was blowing from the west. A colleague in uniform was putting up police tape. There was an indefinably sweet smell in the air that made Haver turn around.

Fredriksson looked up and nodded at Haver.

‘Little John,’ he said.

Haver had also recognised the murdered man immediately. A few years ago he had cross-examined him in a case involving his brother, Lennart, who had named John as his alibi witness. A nice guy, as far as Haver could recall, a former small-time thief who had never resorted to violence. Not surprisingly, John had corroborated his brother’s claims. He was lying, of course, Haver had always been convinced of that, but even so he had never been able to disprove Lennart Jonsson’s alibi.

They had talked about fish, Haver remembered. Little John had a passion for tropical fish and from there it wasn’t too great a step to fishing.

‘What a fucking sight,’ Beatrice sighed, getting to her feet with effort.

Ottosson’s car pulled up by the side of the road. The three police officers watched their chief talk to some of the curious onlookers who had already gathered by motorway 272, about fifty metres away. He gestured with his hand to show that they couldn’t park their cars along this stretch of road.

‘Where is the jogger?’ Haver asked, looking around.

‘In the emergency room,’ Bea said. ‘When he ran out onto the road to flag down a car he slipped badly. He may have broken his arm.’

‘Has anyone questioned him?’

‘Yes; he lives in Luthagen and runs here every morning.’

‘What was he doing out here in the snow?’

‘He likes to run on the bicycle trail, apparently. But first he does some stretches and moves in from the road. At least that was his explanation.’

‘Did he see anything?’

‘No, nothing.’

‘He’s probably been here all night,’ the forensic technician said, indicating the body.

‘Tyre tracks?’

‘All over,’ Beatrice said.

‘It’s a dump, for Pete’s sake,’ Fredriksson said.

‘Got it,’ Haver said.

He took a closer look at Little John. He was severely bruised, the victim of someone who was extremely thorough or enraged, or both. The burn marks – most likely from a cigarette – were deep. Haver bent over and studied Little John’s wrists. Dark red marks bore witness to them having been tightly bound.

The stumps on his hands where the fingers had been removed were blackened. The cuts were neatly made, probably with a very sharp knife or scissors. Maybe pliers.

Ottosson came jogging over and Haver went up to meet him.

‘Little John,’ he said simply, and the chief nodded.

He looked unexpectedly alert. Perhaps it was the brisk temperature.

‘I heard he had been mutilated.’

‘What did Little John know that was so important?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I think he was tortured,’ Haver said, then suddenly he thought of the murdered man’s tropical fish. Piranhas. He shivered.

Ottosson sniffed. A sudden gust made them look up. Haver’s thoughtful mood from the morning remained. He felt unenterprising and unprofessional.

‘A protracted struggle,’ he said.

Ottosson took out a checkered handkerchief and blew his nose loudly.

‘Damned wind,’ he said. ‘Found anything?’

‘No. He was probably brought here by car.’

‘It’s open,’ Ottosson stated, nodding in the direction of the raised barrier. ‘I come by this way fairly often and I never see anyone turn in here, other than in the winter when the county lorries dump snow here.’

Haver knew that Ottosson had a cabin near the city and thought he had heard that it was on Gysingevägen somewhere.

Ottosson suddenly turned around and spotted Fredriksson and the forensic technician, who were talking next to the body. Bea had left the pair and was wandering around nearby.

‘Why did you come out here?’ Haver shouted at his back.

Ottosson didn’t usually turn up so quickly at the scene of a crime.

‘I booked Little John when he was sixteen. It was his first contact with us.’

‘How old did he get?’

‘He was forty-two,’ Ottosson said and continued to his car.

FOUR

She was taken by surprise. She had looked back at the sound of something she thought was a scream. Ann Lindell turned around. A woman’s scream.

When she turned back again he was right in front of her, Santa Claus, with an overabundant beard and a macabre face mask.

‘Good grief, you scared me to half to death.’

‘Merry Christmas,’ the Santa said, trying to sound like a Walt Disney character.

Go to hell, she thought, but smiled.

‘No, thank you,’ she said, as if the Santa had been trying to sell her something, which had probably been his intention because he left her in order to turn his attention to a couple with three children.

She walked into the supermarket. He would do more good shovelling the pavement, she thought. Then at least you’d be able to get in. She stamped hard to get the snow off her feet and took out her shopping list. It was long and she was already exhausted.

Candles were first on the list, then an endless number of various food items. She didn’t want to be doing this, but she had no choice. It was the first time her parents were coming to Uppsala for Christmas. Granted, her mother had promised to bring a few Christmas dishes with her, but the list was still daunting.

She was sweating by the time she reached the vegetable aisle.

‘Do you have any cabbage?’ she asked a passing employee, who gestured vaguely.

‘Thank you,’ Lindell said pointedly. ‘Thanks for the detailed directions.’

A hand appeared on her arm. She turned around and saw Asta Lundin.

‘Ann, it’s certainly been a long time,’ she said.

She kept her hand where it was, and Ann Lindell felt the pressure on her arm. The past flickered in front of her eyes. Asta was the widow of Tomato-Anton, a labour-union buddy who had been friends with Edvard Risberg. Ann had met her a few times through Edvard. They had had coffee in her kitchen and Edvard had later helped her when she moved into town.

‘Asta,’ she said simply, unable to think.

‘I see you have a little one,’ Asta said, nodding to the carrier on Ann’s back.

‘His name is Erik,’ Ann said.

‘Is everything all right?’

She wanted to cry. Asta’s hair stood like a halo around her thin face. She recalled Edvard’s saying that Tomato-Anton and Asta were some of the best people he had ever met.

‘Yes, everything’s fine,’ Ann said, but her expression betrayed her.

‘There’s a lot that has to go in the shopping trolley,’ Asta said. ‘What a chore.’

Ann wanted to ask about Edvard. She hadn’t talked to him in a year and a half, ever since that evening at the Östhammar hospital when she told him she was pregnant with another man’s child. She hadn’t heard anything about him through anyone. It was as if he had been erased from her life. Was he still living on Gräsö island, renting the flat above Viola’s? What was he doing? Was he in touch with his teenage boys? And – this is when she started to lose it – was he seeing anyone new?

‘You look good,’ Asta said. ‘Pink-cheeked and healthy.’

‘Thanks. How about you?’

‘My sister’s coming up for the holidays.’

‘How nice. My parents are coming up too, they want to see how Erik has grown. Have you …’ Ann started, but couldn’t bring herself to finish.

‘I understand. Our Edvard,’ Asta said, putting her hand back on Ann’s arm.

Ann remembered what Edvard had told her about Asta and Anton, how physically affectionate they had been, how much they had hugged and kissed each other. For Edvard, the Lundins had embodied the principle of fidelity in their relationship to each other and in their lives.

‘Maybe you don’t hear much from Gräsö,’ Asta said.

‘Is he still there?’

‘The same place. Viola is a little frail these days, I think she had a stroke in the autumn, but she’s back on her feet again.’

‘That’s good,’ Ann said flatly.

‘Should we have a cup?’ Asta asked.

They sat down at a small table and drank some of the complimentary coffee from paper cups. Erik whined a little, so Ann took off the baby carrier and unzipped his little coat.

‘He looks nice and healthy,’ Asta said.

There was so much Ann wanted to ask about, but she held back. It felt strange to sit there with this old woman, as if they had known each other for a long time, and yet they hadn’t. She felt ashamed. She had betrayed Edvard and by extension his closest friends. She had hurt him, caused him pain, she knew that, but she saw no bitterness in Asta, or anger.

‘Edvard is doing well,’ Asta said. ‘He came by about a month ago. He looks in on me from time to time.’

So he’s been in town, Ann thought. Maybe we’ve passed each other on the street, maybe he saw me?

‘He keeps busy with work,’ Asta continued. ‘He works on as before. They’ve all been workaholics, that family. I knew his father and his grandfather before him.’

Ann nodded. She remembered Albert Risberg, the old man who lived upstairs at Ramnäs farm, where Edvard was working when they first met.

‘He’s become a real Roslagen boy.’

Asta paused, took a sip of her coffee, and looked at Ann.

‘I’m sorry things turned out the way they did,’ she said. ‘It really is too bad.’

‘I can’t say it’s been the best time of my life,’ said Ann.

‘Edvard isn’t a strong man. Anton often said that to me.’

Ann didn’t want to hear any more, and it was as if Asta could tell, because she interrupted herself.

‘Life doesn’t always turn out the way you expect,’ she said with a crooked smile.

‘Has he …?’

‘No, he lives alone,’ Asta said.

‘You’re reading my thoughts,’ said Ann.

‘Your thoughts are an open book, my dear. Do you still love him?’

Ann nodded. She didn’t want to cry, not in a supermarket with crowds of people. She would let the tears come when she was alone. Of course she still loved him.

‘These things take time,’ Asta said. ‘Life will get better again, you’ll see.’

These things take time, Ann repeated to herself. Had Asta talked to Edvard? Perhaps he wants to meet with me – to forgive? She wanted to ask Asta what she had meant but feared the answer.

‘Maybe,’ she said and stood up. ‘I have to keep shopping. Thanks for the chat.’

Asta didn’t say anything. She stayed at the table and was still there when Ann walked by a little later on her way to the deli counter. That grey hair, her thin hands on the table. Ann sensed that she was thinking about Anton.

FIVE

He felt drawn to the moss peeking out from under the snow. If it had been summer he would have stretched out on it for a little while, taken a short rest. He breathed deeply. Once, twice. She had turned on a lamp in the living room. He was able to catch a few brief glimpses of her.

‘I am a forest warrior,’ he said aloud.

It was an appealing thought, that he was a creature from outside, approaching the warm windows from the moss and the darkness.

Suddenly a light went on in the bedroom. She was naked from the waist up except for a light-coloured bra. She opened the closet, took out a jumper, and pulled it on in a motion so quick that he swore. He wanted to see her. How he had dreamt about those breasts!

She remained in the bedroom, turning this way and that in front of the mirror, making some adjustments. She walked closer to the mirror and leant forward. He had to do the same in order to keep watching her. The distance from the window to the tree he was hidden behind was around five metres. He sniffed the trunk. A smell of moisture, nothing else.

She turned off the light and left the room. He waited for ten minutes before gingerly approaching the patio and crouching down behind the railing. What was his plan? Indecision caused him to hesitate. He’d thought he had it all figured out, but now that he was here, so close to one of his tormentors, it no longer seemed appealing.

Vincent Hahn felt himself going back twenty-five, thirty years. There had been moments of greatness even then, moments when had he decided to turn the tables. These intentions, however, inevitably crumbled in the face of reality. She still had the power to unnerve him, a fact that infuriated him but did nothing to help him throw off these feelings of inferiority and passivity.

SIX

A knife, Haver thought. What kind of person kills with a knife? Lacerations to the chest and arms, severed fingers, burn marks – all pointed to a case of torture. He scrawled a few lines on his notepad before he rolled his chair up to the computer and started to write a report. After he had entered the preliminary data, there was a knock on the door. Fredriksson looked in.

‘Little John,’ Fredriksson said.

‘I’ve accessed all our material on him.’

‘It’s damned cold out there.’

Fredriksson still looked frozen.

‘His brother is still active from time to time,’ he said and sat down.

Haver pushed his chair back and looked at his colleague. He wanted to finish the report but realised that Fredriksson wanted to talk.

‘It must have been a while.’

‘On the contrary. Lennart Albert Jonsson was charged with larceny with aggravating circumstances as recently as last spring.’

‘Any consequences?’

‘The charges were dropped,’ Fredriksson said. ‘The witnesses backed down.’

‘Under threat?’

‘I assume so.’

‘I guess we’ll have to take a look at this brother.’

‘The remarkable thing is that John managed to stay out of trouble for as many years as he did,’ Fredriksson said.

He stood up and leant against a filing cabinet and looked unusually relaxed, as if a murder case were just what he needed before Christmas.

‘I assume you know he’s married. I’ve met the wife. A real looker. They have a boy, Justus.’

‘How the hell do you remember all these things?’

‘There was something I liked about that family. Little John’s wife was something else. A real dame, no doubt about it. Attractive, of course, but not just that. There was something more there.’

Haver waited for him to continue, for an elaboration of the ‘something more’, but Fredriksson seemed to have moved on.

‘So looker and dame are synonyms?’

‘Guess so,’ Fredriksson said, smiling.

‘Bea is over there right now,’ said Haver.

He was happy to have got out of it, even though he should have been there. The first meeting with close family members could yield important information.

He remembered the wife of a suicide they had handled. The man had blown himself up behind a barn in the Hagby area, and when Haver and a female colleague, Mia Rosén, had knocked on the door of the newly widowed woman’s house in order to relay the sad news, she had started to laugh. She laughed nonstop for at least half a minute, until Rosén shook her. The woman managed to regain a modicum of control over herself and mumbled something of an apology but could not conceal her pleasure over her husband’s death.

It turned out that the man had been severely intoxicated with a blood alcohol level so high that they could not rule out the possibility that someone else had strapped the explosives to his body. There were car tyre tracks on a thin and muddy tractor trail behind the barn. A car had pulled up to and then reversed away from the location, most likely a blue car, which they had determined from collision damage to a young pine tree by the side of the road.

When they questioned the woman a few days later there was a man in the house. He owned a red Audi.

Fredriksson interrupted Haver’s thought process.

‘Who kills with a knife?’ he asked, picking up on Haver’s earlier thoughts about Little John.

‘A drunk involved in a fist fight that escalates into murder or gang violence.’

‘Or a calculating bastard who doesn’t want to make a lot of noise,’ Fredriksson said.

‘He was slashed and tortured before he was killed.’

‘What do we make of the fingers?’

‘Blackmail was the first thing I thought of,’ Haver said. ‘I know, I watch too much TV,’ he said when he met Fredriksson’s gaze.

‘I think Little John may have had some information that was very valuable to someone else,’ he continued and rolled his chair out from under the table.

‘John was a quiet, stubborn kind of guy,’ Fredriksson said.

He took a few steps toward the window but turned quickly and looked at Haver.

‘Heard anything from Ann?’

‘A few weeks ago. She sends her regards.’

‘From a few weeks ago, thank you. You’re quite the messenger. How is she?’

‘Being a stay-at-home mum isn’t really her thing.’

‘How about the kid?’

‘He’s fine, I think. We talked about work mainly. I think Ann was involved in charging Little John’s brother once.’

Fredriksson left Haver, who was still thinking about John’s wife. He was curious to hear what Bea had to report. If he knew her, Bea would take her time in getting back to the office. She had the best touch in handling families, friendly without being intrusive or overly emotional, thorough without being finicky. She could take a long time in building up the necessary trust, but consequently often uncovered information that her colleagues missed.

Haver called Ryde on his mobile phone. As he had expected, the forensic technician was still out in Libro.

‘Anything interesting?’

‘Not much other than that it’s started to snow again.’

‘Call me if you find anything exciting,’ Haver said, feeling somewhat impatient. Ryde should have found something by now. Something small. Haver wanted fast results.

Please let it go well, he thought, in the hope that the first homicide investigation he was heading would lead to a swift arrest. He was by no means inexperienced. He had worked with Lindell on several cases and believed himself up to the admittedly challenging task, but he also felt bodily twinges of insecurity and impatience.

He grabbed the phone again, called the DA, and thereafter tried to track down a certain Andreas Lundemark, who was in charge of the Libro snow dump. Haver wanted to establish how that operation was managed. A large number of lorry drivers had been out there, to which tracks in the giant mounds of snow bore testament. Someone might have seen something. Everyone would have to be questioned.

He tracked down Lundemark’s mobile phone number with the help of Information, but when he dialled the number no one answered. Haver left a message.

He hung up and knew he had to do the right thing. He sat with John’s and his brother’s files in front of him. He leafed through the papers. A not insubstantial narrative, particularly in Lennart’s case. Haver made a note of the names that cropped up in the various investigations, fifty-two names in all. Every last one would have to be questioned. Most important was the group in Lennart’s file designated as his ‘closest associates,’ a number of thieves, fencers, drinking buddies, and others whom Lennart was thought to know.

Haver found himself getting lost in thought, his mind drifting back to Rebecka. He was a good investigator but came up short on the home front. He couldn’t really see what was bothering her. She had been home on maternity leave once before and that time everything had been fine. Should he simply ask her? Sit down with her after the kids had gone to bed and essentially interrogate her? Not leave anything to chance, be systematic and try to ignore the fact that he might be the guilty party?

‘Tonight,’ he said aloud and stood up; but he knew as he did so that he was lying to himself. He would never have the energy to talk to her after coming home from the first day of a homicide investigation. And when exactly would he go home?

‘I mustn’t forget to call,’ he mumbled.

Beatrice stood for a while in the entrance hall, reading the names of the residents. There were two Anderssons, one Ramirez, and an Oto. Where did Oto come from? West Africa, Malaysia, or some other far-off land? There was also a J. and B. and Justus Jonsson, two floors up.

She was alone in her errand, which pleased her. Delivering the news of a death was probably the hardest task. Beatrice was simply distracted by her colleagues in such situations. Dealing with her own emotions was hard enough, and she was happy not to have to support a colleague who would perhaps start shooting off at the mouth or go completely silent and inject a greater sense of anxiety.

The woodwork around the door had been newly replaced and still smelt of paint. She tried to imagine that she was there to visit a good friend, perhaps someone she hadn’t seen for a long time. Full of excitement and anticipation.

She stroked the pale green bumpy wall. The smell of paint mixed with the smells of cooking. Fried onions. Otois making his national dish, she thought, in honour of my visit. Oto, how nice to see you again. Oh, fried onions! My favourite!

She took a step but stopped. Her mobile phone vibrated. She checked to see who it was. Ola.

‘We’ve just received a missing-persons report,’ he said. ‘Berit Jonsson called in to say she hasn’t seen her husband since last night.’

‘I’m in the stairwell,’ Bea said.

‘We told her we’d be sending someone over.’

‘And would that be me?’

‘That would be you,’ Ola Haver said with great seriousness.

Damn it all to hell, she thought. She knows we’re coming. She thinks I’m here to ask her about John’s disappearance, and instead I’ll deliver the news of his death.

She remembered a colleague who had been called to the scene of an accident. An older man, hit by a car; death was instantaneous. The colleague had recognised the man from his home village. He had been acquainted with the man’s parents and had stayed in touch with both the man and his wife when they moved into the city.

He took it upon himself to deliver the news of the man’s death. The man’s wife was delighted to see him, pulling him into the flat with words about coffee and how her husband would soon be home, he was just out somewhere momentarily, and then they would all be able to have a bite and catch up.

Beatrice climbed the stairs one after the other. John, Berit, and Justus Jonsson. The doorbell played a muffled melody, a kind she disliked. She took a step back. The door opened almost immediately.

‘Beatrice Andersson, from the police,’ she said and put out her hand.

Berit Jonsson took it. Her hand was small, warm, and damp.

‘That didn’t take long,’ she said and cleared her throat. ‘Please come in.’

The hallway was narrow and dark. A heap of shoes and boots lay right inside the door. Beatrice removed her coat and reached for a hanger while Berit stood passively beside her. She turned around and tried a smile but couldn’t quite pull it off.

Berit’s face was void of expression. She returned Beatrice’s gaze with neutral eyes and they walked into the kitchen without a word. Berit gestured toward a kitchen chair with her hand but remained standing at the kitchen counter. She was about thirty-five. Her hair, sloppily gathered into a ponytail, had once been blond and was now dyed a reddish brown. A shade probably called ‘mahogany,’ Berit guessed. Her left eye was slightly wall-eyed. She wasn’t wearing any makeup, and there was something naked about her face. She was very tired. She gripped the counter behind her back with her hands.

‘You must be Berit. I also saw the name Justus downstairs. Is that your son?’

Berit Jonsson nodded.

‘Mine and John’s.’

‘Is he at home?’

She shook her head.

‘You have reported John as missing,’ Beatrice said, then hesitated for a moment before continuing, even though she had quietly planned it out.

‘He should have come home yesterday afternoon, at four, but he never did.’

She wobbled over the ‘never did,’ freeing one of her hands from the counter and rubbing it over her face.

Beatrice thought she was beautiful even in her present state with all her worry, the large black circles under her eyes and her stiff, exhausted features.

‘I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but John is dead. We found him this morning.’

The words settled like a chill over the kitchen. Berit’s hand hovered by her face as if she wanted to take cover, not hear, not see, but Beatrice saw how the realisation crept over her. Berit lowered her arm, bringing it forward in an open position, palm up, as if begging for something. Her eyelids fluttered, the pupils grew larger, and she swallowed.

Beatrice stood up and took Berit’s hand again and now it was ice-cold.

‘I’m very sorry,’ she repeated.

Berit scrutinised her face as if to determine if there was any trace of uncertainty in it. She pulled her hand away and put it in front of her mouth, and Beatrice waited for the scream, but it never came.

Beatrice swallowed. She saw Little John’s battered, beaten, and burnt body, in her mind’s eye, dumped in a bank of snow that was dirty from the city’s streets.

Berit shook her head, gently at first, almost imperceptibly, then more forcefully. She opened her mouth very slowly and a strand of saliva ran out of the corner of her mouth. Beatrice’s words were taking root, burrowing into her consciousness. She stiffened, not moving a muscle, unreachable during the time that the message about her John sank in, that he was never going to come home again, never hug her, never walk into the kitchen, never do anything again.

She made no resistance when Beatrice put her arms around her shoulders, led her away to the chair by the window, and sat down across from her. She caught herself quickly taking note of what was on the table: an azalea that needed water and was starting to wilt, the morning paper, an Advent candleholder with three candles that had burnt halfway to the bottom, and – furthest in by the wall – a knife and fork crossed over an empty plate.

Beatrice leant in across the table and grabbed Berit’s hand again and gave it a squeeze. Then came a single tear that traced its way down her cheek.

‘Can we call anyone?’

Berit turned her face toward Beatrice, meeting her gaze.

‘How?’ she asked hoarsely, in a whisper.

‘He was murdered,’ Beatrice said in a low voice, as if she were adjusting the volume to match Berit’s.

The look she got reminded her of a sheep slaughter she had witnessed as a child. The victim was a female sheep. The animal was taken from the pen, braying, and led out into the garden. She was wild but let herself be calmed by Beatrice’s uncle.

It was the look the sheep gave Beatrice at that moment, that tenth of a second before it happened. The white of the eye glimmered, the expression full of hurt, no suggestion of fear, more as if posing a question. It was as if there wasn’t room enough in the world for her despair, although the pen was so spacious, the pastures so rich.

‘Murdered,’ Berit mumbled.

‘Can we call anyone? Do you have any siblings?’

Berit shook her head.

‘Parents?’

Another shake.

‘Justus,’ she said. ‘I have to get a hold of Justus.’

‘Where is he?’

‘At Danne’s.’

‘Close by?’

‘Salabacksgatan.’

I can’t do this, Beatrice thought, but she knew at the same time that as far as she was concerned, the worst was over. The words had been said. She would do everything she could to assuage the woman’s pain and give her the answers she was looking for. A feeling of reverence gripped her. It was a feeling familiar to her from before. Beatrice was far from religious, but she could sense what people sought in the religious messages and rituals. There was so much in her police work that intersected with the big questions, myths, and dreams.

She had noticed that the police often had to play the role of confessional priests, people to whom one could unburden oneself. Even the uniformed police officer, who technically represented authority, power, and the bad conscience of the citizen, could receive these confidences. That had been her experience on the beat. Or was it her personality that had invited these many instances of quiet, breathtaking intimacy? She didn’t know, but she cherished these moments. She had told herself she would never become cynical.

The front door was suddenly thrown open.

‘Justus,’ Berit gasped.

But it was a man who rushed into the kitchen. He caught sight of Beatrice and halted abruptly.

‘Are you a minister or something?’

‘No,’ Beatrice said and stood up.

The man was panting, his gaze aggressive.