Siren Song: A Different Scandinavian Crime Novel (19 page)

A short silence. “I’m afraid not,” Patrick says. “We’re pretty sure he’s been here, but–”

Lena wants to scream. They are late again. “Make sure no one touches anything,” she says. “Start searching the area. John can still be nearby. The same goes for the murder suspect; he’s been sighted in the district.”

“You’re talking about the man in the pictures we received this morning, right?” Patrick asks.

“Yes, he’s the presumed murderer of–”

“He’s here. We got him.”

Lena falters from a sudden vertigo as the information sinks in. The sound of the siren on the car’s roof turns into a single, drawn-out note. She wonders if she is imagining the words; perhaps she has grown so desperate to catch the men that she is hallucinating.

“Repeat,” Lena says after a moment.

“We have the suspect, and also another man who was in the same flat. We’ve secured a large stash of drugs, too.”

“Take them both to the station in Vällingby.”

“I thought there was someone else running the investigation of–”

“There is,” Lena says, “but right now, I’m talking to you, and I’m your superior. Find a room and keep the men there. We won’t be long.” Agnes flashes the fingers on one of her hands three times. “Fifteen minutes,” Lena adds.

“We can’t take them in,” Patrick says.

“Will you bloody listen,” Lena shouts at the phone. “I haven’t got time to run through the whole procedure. I’ll deal with the paperwork later. Those men have critical information, and I need it.”

“It’s not that,” Patrick says hesitantly. “One of the men – not the suspect, but the other one – he must be taken to hospital. They’re rolling him out now.”

Lena goes cold. A thousand visions invade her mind. “Why?”

“The paramedics think his neck is fractured. And then some. His face is a mess.”

“What of the suspect?” Lena asks. “Please tell me he’s alive.”

“He’s alive, all right.” Silence. “But he probably wishes he wasn’t.”

“Just tell me what the hell’s wrong, will you?” Lena forces herself to keep her voice level. She ignores Agnes’s concerned glance.

“I’m not sure how to explain,” Patrick says. “You’d better see for yourself.”

*

John sits at the back of a bus and watches the suburbs pass by.

Moving at half its normal speed, the bus negotiates roads cleared by salt, warm underground conduits and lumbering ploughs. Beyond the snowfall are the soft outlines of cars covered by crisp layers of white.

The route takes him through low blocks of flats and patches of small, one-storey villas. He passes large leafless trees, ruler-straight hedges, and staring snowmen. Trees filled with strings of lights glow like clusters of stars. The air inside the bus is hot and humid, but outside, the temperature is falling.

The bus will take him from Stockholm’s western districts to the vast and closely huddled blocks of flats of the northern suburbs. Three other people are on the bus. All of them face the other way. The driver barely glanced at him and the ticket he bought from a corner shop. Everyone’s mind is on the cold.

On his way to the bus stop, he stopped at a phone booth and called Tom’s home landline number. A first step to find out where Tom is.

The person who answered the phone was not John’s target, but a woman who curtly informed John that she was not Tom’s damned secretary and added that John could try calling Tom’s office or call again later.

He didn’t know what company Tom works for, so he looked out the window and suggested a name that rhymed on a nearby supermarket. The woman asked what he was talking about and gave him the name of Tom’s business.

“Thanks,” John said. “You’ve been very helpful.”

“Moron,” the woman said and hung up.

John’s second call had been to a directory enquiries service, from which he got Tom’s company phone number and address. When he called Tom’s office, a fast-speaking woman explained that Tom was busy in a meeting.

“Can I take a message for him?” she asked. “I’m sure he won’t be long.”

“It can wait,” John replied. “But thank you.”

Now John is on his way.

Once he reaches his destination, he will take the underground train to the city. The bus ride is long but necessary; police and security firms will be more alert on the underground. Three-quarters of an hour on the bus, half an hour on the train, and he will be at Tom’s office. Then remains the question of how he will get close to Tom.

He will have to improvise.

Making sure his bag is out of sight, he unfolds the papers he found in the shoebox: Stapled web page printouts with data and pictures that describe the contents of the box. The information is new to him, and he has little time to prepare, so he reads carefully while the bus takes him closer to his target.

Semi-automatic. Eight rounds. Most effective within fifty
m
etres. Safety switch location, recoil statistics, weight, dimensions.

John reaches into the box and fits his hand around the pistol’s grip. The metal is cool and coarse. Two spare clips lie next to the weapon.

The bus stops. He puts the papers back, closes his bag, and leaves the bus. A short stroll across a park takes him to the underground train station. The ticket inspector is lost in a book half-hidden under a manual. No security in sight.

John rides down the escalator, stops on the platform, and looks along the tracks that lead to the city. The wind from the tunnel smells of soot and electricity.

He is closing in.

*

As soon as Agnes’s car has skidded to a stop outside the block in which John had been seen, Lena leaves the vehicle
and runs past the police officers.

A plastic crime scene
tape
forms a barrier between the entrance to the apartment block and the mass of curious people. Twelve officers and an ambulance have sparked interest, and tweets and texts have attracted hundreds of people. The police are surrounded by wool hats, mittens and concerned whispers. There are at least fifty cameras pointed at the flat.

Flashing her police ID card over her shoulder, she ducks under the crime scene tape, dashes into the block of flats, and stops outside Mick’s door.

Inside the small flat are over a dozen police officers and paramedics shuffling around the confined space and mumbling to each other. The air stinks of chemicals. The doors of the ambulance outside were open, so she expects to find the apprehended man inside the flat, but there is no one in the room except police officers and medical personnel. Most paramedics and most of the officers are struggling with the built-in wardrobe door, but their backs block her view.

Despite the cold, sweat breaks out on Lena’s back. Something bad has happened here. She can tell from the atmosphere alone, and a closer inspection of the room confirms her fears.

A pool of blood has formed on the floor near a broken table. Motes of dust swirl in the light from an overturned lamp. She opens her mouth to tell everyone to leave before they ruin every useful trace, then glimpses the wardrobe.

Choking on her shout, she makes a strangled sound and begins to turn away, but she forces herself to look. A deep-seated remnant of her professional self knows this is a critical moment. She has to make sure she understands what she sees. After a few seconds, she walks away, fists clenched and her breath caught in her lungs.

Leaning against a wall, she waits for a paramedic to give her a rundown of what has happened to the two men inside the flat. She is fairly sure she knows, but she needs details to digest, facts she can break down to manageable pieces and isolated observations.

Hopefully, she will not have to go back inside the flat; the space might pull her into the pool of insanity that must fill John’s head. The idea of saving him is shrivelling into a laughable dream. This is the second crime scene in two days with which she cannot cope, but she has to stay in case she spots a trace, a sign, anything to point her in the right direction.

The items Agnes and the officers find in the flat infuriate Lena as much as her inability to revisit the scene. They probably have Molly’s murderer; the flat is covered in prints, and copies have been hurried to the headquarters for matching. The police have secured a major drug stash, too. On top of that, they have secured a large sum of money, numerous other fingerprints, and a tennis racket case with a disassembled automatic pistol.

A good find on any day except this, because what they need to find is a clue that tells them where John is. There is no landline or mobile phones in the flat. The men must have hid their phones, unless they are buried in the mess on the floor.

Lena chews on her lip and glances at Agnes. The younger officer looks at ease as she helps the paramedics push a rolling stretcher through the block’s narrow doorway. When they arrived, Agnes took a long look inside the flat, glanced at Lena, and jogged off to the underground station to buy Lena a cup of what the local kiosk called coffee.

The woman is hardening by the hour; there is no trace of anxiety on the woman’s face, but she had been shook by the scene in Molly’s flat. Agnes’s tenseness has been replaced by an irritating cool; as a senior officer, Lena is supposed to be a role model, not a nervous wreck. That is not happening.

And if they do not find John soon, Lena is afraid she might collapse altogether. She steadies her hand, sips from her coffee, and looks up at the sky. The snowflakes sting her eyes.

“Lena Franke?” a male voice addresses her.

Lena looks down and finds in front of her a young man in a green paramedic uniform. His face is round and soft, making his unyielding and watchful expression look out of place.

“Yes?” Lena says.

“I was told you wanted a summary before we leave. It’ll have to be quick. The other officers want us to move the man on the door out; the sound is getting to them.”

“The sound?”

“He’s screaming, but you have to be close to hear him. Or maybe he’s trying to speak. Don’t get your hopes up; he won’t be talking for a while. Perhaps he never will.”

“I get it.” Lena throws her empty coffee cup on the ground. “Give me the facts.”

The man looks with disapproval at the cup and back at Lena. “We have two men, both in their late twenties. I saw the stuff in the flat, the drugs and all that, so I suppose you’ll have their names soon. They’ll have records.”

“Maybe,” Lena says, unwilling to speculate about details that do not matter now. “Tell me what happened.”

The corner of the man’s mouth twitches. “I can’t tell exactly what went down in there, only the injuries. The man who’s on his way to hospital has suffered severe trauma to his face. A hammer, I’d guess. His nose shattered, probable fractures to the surrounding bone. He’s also got a trauma to the side of his head from some other tool, something sharp and heavy. We saw a bloodied toaster close to the broken table where he lay.”

Lena swallows and bites her lip. John the placid painter almost braining a man with a toaster. The scenario is almost impossible to imagine. “How badly hurt is he?”

“He’s lost lots of blood, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s suffered internal haemorrhages or damages to his brain, but–”

Lena presses the tips of her fingers to her forehead as a headache flashes into being. She squeezes her eyes shut, opens them again, and exhales through gritted teeth. “Right,” she says. “Go on.”

“Of course.” The man’s face is neutral while he waits for Lena to gather herself. “The other man,” he says, “has been glued to the built-in wardrobe.”

Lena nods; she thought she recognized the chemical smell, and the naked man on the wardrobe door had been covered by a semitransparent film. Where it covered his face, it had fixed the man’s contorted face into a hideous mask of acute pain.

“His legs are straight down,” the paramedic continues, “his arms along his sides. Apart from his jeans, he’s naked. He’s still stuck there because the wardrobe is wooden. If he’d been glued to the wall, the paint would’ve come off and he would’ve fallen down. Wood just soaks it up. We have to saw him down.”

“Bloody hell,” Lena whispers.

“An officer found the glue can. It’s some kind of spray-on instant super glue, industrial-strength stuff. It’s been emptied over him, mostly over his face. He’s breathing through his nose, so I think whoever did this covered the man’s nostrils. But the guy’s mouth, lips and teeth are practically fused together. The same with his eyes, his ears, and the rest of his face. The spray has dissolved much of his skin. Are you feeling all right?”

Lena leans against the wall while she stares at the ground. Her pulse booms in her head. Just as she thinks she understands how driven John is, he goes and does this. She wonders if there will be any trace of reason left in him when she finds him.

Even worse is the chance that John will not move again. What he has done here is different from the other incidents: he has taken his time to inflict a gruelling torture from which the victim, if he survives, never will recover.

And Lena is sure who the victim is. Even though he is encased in a shell of cement-hard glue, she knows him from the underground train surveillance footage. The prints will match. Gren will be relieved. One mission accomplished. Finding John will be the next priority, but a less urgent one. A stray lunatic is less dangerous than a killer on the loose, especially if he believes he has had his revenge.

But if John is done with his self-imposed mission, where is he?

Lena looks at the flat’s opaque window. If Gren asks her to stand down, he will make a mistake. The murderer is alive. Deliberately kept breathing. Crippled, but not slain. John should not have held back; he wanted justice, and the woman he loved is gone. Her nemesis would need to meet the same fate.

Turning east, towards the city, she feels the conviction sink in. John is not finished; for all its horror, this scene lacks finality. The closure is yet to come.

“I’m okay,” Lena says and straightens. She had tuned out the paramedic entirely. “What else?”

“Not much.” The paramedic shrugs; he wants to get back to his work. “The glue is toxic, so as soon as we’ve got the man down, we need to take him in for a blood transfusion. If he survives that long.”

“Should either of the men talk,” Lena says, “call us straight away. They have important information.”

The man studies Lena for a few seconds. “They’ve been abused to near death, and you expect to interview them?”

“Just let me know if it happens.” Lena’s phone buzzes in her pocket. She turns away from the paramedic and picks up her phone. Gren. She takes the call.

“I was just about to call,” she lies. “Tell me you have good news.”

“No sign of John on the trains,” Gren answers. “The managers aren’t happy, but we can hold the trains for a little longer. What’s the status at the flat? All I have from the local police station is bits and pieces.”

“The forensic team is going over the flat. I think you’ll be glad to know that the primary suspect is here.”

“Under arrest?” Gren asks quickly.

“What’s left of him is under arrest. You’ll need to send a patrol to keep watch at the hospital.”

“Please explain.”

Lena retells what the paramedic told her. As she expects, Gren is stunned; he replies only with taut questions and delayed hums. She suspects that this is beyond anything he has encountered too. They are in uncharted territory, and it is up to her to find the lighthouse.

“I’m going to see if there’s any lead as to where John’s gone,” Lena finishes. “I’ll be in touch soon.”

When she has hung up, she looks around to see if she can catch John spying on them, but she doubts he is anywhere near. The crowd has grown to at least three hundred people. As far as she is concerned, mobile social networking is a curse.

Once again she turns east. “Do something,” she says under her breath. “Make some noise. But don’t hurt anyone. No more pain. Not before I find you.”

She stands in the wake of John’s deeds, surrounded by questions and riddles. This hunt will go on forever unless she changes the rules. In order to intercept John, she must tease out the
why
from the rampant confusion that is John’s mind. She has to make sense of the disturbed logic that drives him.

Walking towards the block’s front door, she steels herself in preparation for going inside. There is no staying away any longer. Somewhere in the flat, there might be a critical lead, a subtle hint to John’s next move.

Just as she is about to enter, the door opens and Molly’s murderer is rolled out on a stretcher by two grim-looking paramedics.

A murmur rises from the crowd. The man on the stretcher racks so hard he threatens to throw off the blanket strapped over his body, so a third paramedic walking beside the stretcher does her best to keep the man covered from the cameras.

Lena is unsure why the man is shaking; perhaps because of toxins in the glue, or maybe from pain. The blanket is wrapped closely around the man, and as he passes in front of her, she sees a rectangular outline in one of his pockets. A phone.

She waits while the man is loaded into the ambulance to the sound of spectators gasping in wonder and revulsion. Once the man is inside, she quickly walks up to the vehicle and grabs one of the doors before a paramedic enters.

“Just a second,” Lena says and climbs into the ambulance.

The confined space is packed with shelves, drawers, tubes, lights and switches. In the middle, the man strapped to the stretcher twitches and jerks like a doll pulled in all directions by invisible strings.

She glimpses an arm and a leg, stiff and coloured bright red by the stiff layer of super-strength glue. Even if the doctors can get it off his skin and save his life, the man will be a grotesque remnant of a human being.

A frantic humming sounds from the man’s face under the blanket. Perhaps he knows Lena is near and wants to talk. Or perhaps he can sense her secret, hidden under her brittle front as an upholder of law and order. Maybe he feels what she is capable of and wants her to end his pain. One monster communicating with another on some silent, subconscious level.

But the actions of this man have caught up with him. His punishment had been realized by John, peaceful painter turned avenging angel. No one had come for Lena yet. Until that happened, she would snatch her kin back from the brink. And she would start with John.

She turns her back to the protesting paramedic and pulls out her pocketknife, carves through the man’s jeans, and pulls out the mobile phone. The touchscreen is black. A trickle of blood seeps through the jeans; the knife is small, but she keeps it sharp. Grimacing, she pockets the phone inside her jacket and turns around to face the scowling paramedic.

“Are you finished in there?” he asks. “There’s no time for this. We have to take him in, right now.”