Marked for Life (5 page)

CHAPTER
EIGHT

POLICE OFFICER GABRIEL MELLQVIST
was shivering. It was cold. His shoes were leaking and the cold rain trickled down from his cap onto his neck. He didn't know where his colleague Hanna Hultman was. Last he saw her, she was standing outside house number 36 ringing the doorbell. Together they had gone door-knocking at about twenty detached houses this morning. None of the residents had made any observations that were of any importance to the investigation. And not a single strange man or woman had been glimpsed. On the other hand, most people weren't even at home on Sunday. They had been at their summer cottages, on golf courses, at horse-jumping competitions and God knows what. A mother had seen a little girl go by, probably it was a playmate who was going home for the evening, and Gabriel wondered why she had even bothered to mention it to him.

He swore to himself and looked at his watch. His mouth was dry, and he was tired and thirsty. They were clear signals that his blood sugar was too low. Even so, he went off to the next house which was behind a high stone wall.

Door-to-door canvassing was not his favorite occupation. Especially not in the rain. But the order had come from the very top of the criminal department and that meant it was best to do as he was told.

The gates were closed. Locked. Gabriel looked around. From here he could hardly see Östanvägen 204 where the murder had been committed. He pressed the intercom next to the gate and waited for an answer. Pressed again and added a “Hello!” this time. Gave the locked gates a bit of a push and they rattled. Where the hell was Hannah now? She couldn't be seen anywhere on the street. She couldn't have gone down one of the parallel streets. No, not without telling him first. She'd never do that. He sighed, took a step back and walked straight into a puddle. He felt how the cold water was sucked up by the sock in his right shoe. Oh great! Really great!

He looked up at the house again. Still saw no sign of life. He wanted most of all to give up and go off to the nearest lunch place and just get some grub. But then he saw something out of the corner of his eye. Something that moved. He screwed his eyes up a little in an effort to see what it was. A security camera! He pressed the intercom, shouted a few times to elicit an answer and managed in his enthusiasm to suppress the sensation of dizziness that gradually crept up on him.

* * *

Forty minutes and ninety-eight kronor later, Henrik Levin had eaten his fill. The Thai buffet had consisted of far too many tasty dishes. Mia Bolander had accompanied him, but chosen something lighter, a salad.

Henrik regretted his choice of lunch when he got back in the car again. He felt heavy and drowsy and let Mia drive to the police station.

“Next time can you remind me that I must have salad too,” he said.

Mia laughed.

“Please?”

“I'm not your bloody mother! But all right, then. Does Emma want you to lose weight or what?”

“Do you think I'm fat, then?”

“Not your face.”

“Thanks.”

“She won't let you fuck her, is that it?”

“What?”

“I mean, you seem to want to go easy on the carbs, which means you want to lose weight. I read online that the biggest motivation for men to lose weight is that they want to have more sex.”

“I was just talking about a salad. I just want to eat salad next time. What's wrong with that?”

“Nothing.”

“Do you think I'm fat?”

“No. You're not fat. You only weigh eighty kilos, Henrik.”

“Eighty-three.”

“Sorry, eighty-bloody-three kilos, then. You're a pudding, right! Why would you want to weigh any less?”

Mia winked provocatively.

Henrik remained silent and kept his real reason for wanting to eat lighter to himself.

Mia didn't need to know that seven weeks earlier he had embarked on a low-carb diet. He was also aiming to get more exercise on weekdays. But it was hard to keep to his new lifestyle choices, especially when Thai food tastes so much better with rice. After work it was simpler: home, eat, play, bath time, tuck into bed, TV, sleep. His time with his five-and six-year-old kids when he got home was pretty much routine. Admittedly, he hadn't actually asked his wife, Emma, if he could spend an hour, once or twice a week, at the gym. Hopefully she would say yes. But deep inside Henrik was afraid of what answer he would get. A firm
no
.

His wife already resented his spending too little time with the family.

But he felt that if he were in better shape, they would have better and more frequent sex. To him it was a win-win situation.

But those few times he had asked Emma for permission just to play football with the local club on a Saturday, he was turned down. The weekends were for the family, she said, and they should be out in the garden, visiting the zoo park, going to the cinema or just spending family time together. She felt she and Henrik needed to nurture their relationship by spending more time cuddling together.

Henrik didn't particularly like cuddling. He liked having sex. To him, sex was the greatest proof that you loved your partner, he thought. It didn't matter when or where you did it. Just that you did it. That wasn't what Emma thought. For her, it had to be pleasurable and relaxing, and you needed lots of time and the right setting. Their bed still remained her preference and then only when the children weren't awake. Since Felix, who was afraid of ghosts, insisted on going to sleep every night between them in bed, their opportunities for sex were few.

Henrik had to settle for the hope that things would get better. This past month he had felt more desire. And Emma had gone along with it too. Once, at any rate. Exactly four weeks ago.

Henrik smothered a bit of heartburn. The next time it would be only salad.

* * *

When Henrik and Mia entered the conference room they were met by the news that police officer Gabriel Mellqvist had fainted while knocking on doors in Lindö. He had been found by an elderly lady who had heard her doorbell ring a number of times. But since she was confined to a wheelchair, she couldn't hurry to the door. When she finally opened it, she saw the policeman lying on the ground.

“Luckily Hanna Hultman had come to his aid and in Gabriel's pocket found a glucose syringe that she jabbed into his thigh,” said Gunnar. “That was the bad news. The good news is that we've found a security camera outside the lady's house. It is directed toward the street—it's positioned here.”

Gunnar put an X on the map of the residential area that was hanging beside the time line posted on the wall.

The whole team was in the room. All except Jana, which pleased Mia.

“In the best case, the events from Sunday will still be on a server somewhere. I want you, Ola, to check that straightaway.”

“Now?” said Ola Söderström.

“Yes, now.”

He got up.

“Hang on,” said Henrik. “I think you've got some more to do. We've confiscated Hans Juhlén's computer and need to go through it.”

“Did the interview with Lena Wikström lead to anything?”

“She doesn't share Kerstin Juhlén's picture of Hans. According to Kerstin, Hans always worked on his computer. According to his secretary, Lena, he never did. I think it's a little odd that they would have such different impressions.”

Ola, Gunnar and Anneli Lindgren agreed.

“Lena also didn't think that Hans Juhlén was as stressed as his wife claimed,” said Henrik.

“But that's only what she says. I believe he was bloody worried. I would be too if there had been a lot of shit thrown at me in the newspapers and threatening notes too,” said Mia.

“Exactly,” said Ola.

“Lena said that there was always a security aspect concerning asylum seekers who weren't granted asylum. So we've asked for a list of all the people who have sought asylum so far this year,” said Henrik.

“Fine, anything else?” said Gunnar.

“No,” said Henrik. Going door-to-door hadn't produced much, except for the potential security footage.

“No witnesses?” said Mia.

“No. Not a one,” said Gunnar.

“It's just bloody crazy. Didn't anybody see anything?” said Mia. “So we've got fuck-all to go on.”

“For the time being we have no witnesses. Zero. Nada. So we'll have to hope that the security camera will give us something. Ola, check if we can get hold of the images right away,” Gunnar said and turned to Ola. “Then you can go through Hans's computer. I'll see if the call logs from the provider are ready. If not, I'll phone and pester them till they are. Anneli, you go back to the crime scene and see if you can find anything new. Anything at all would do in the present situation.”

CHAPTER
NINE

AT FIRST THE
girl had cried hysterically. But now she felt calm. She had never felt like this before. Everything happened as if in slow motion.

She sat with her now heavy head bent over her thighs, her arms hanging limply from her sides, almost numb now. The engine in the van in which they were traveling growled weakly. Her thighs were stinging. She had wet herself when her captors had gripped her hard and pushed a needle into her arm.

Now she looked slowly up toward her left upper arm at the little red mark. It was really tiny. She giggled. Really tiny. Teeny weeny. The syringe was also really tiny.

The van jerked and the asphalt turned into gravel. The girl leaned her head back and tried to balance its weight so that she wouldn't bang herself against the van's hard interior. Or against somebody else. They were sitting tightly packed, all seven. Danilo, who was next to her, had cried too. The girl had never seen him cry before, only smile. The girl liked his smile and always smiled back at him. But now he couldn't smile. The silvery bit of tape was stuck hard over his mouth, and he breathed in what air he could through his dilated nostrils.

A woman sat opposite them. She looked angry. Terribly, terribly angry. Grrrr. The girl laughed to herself. Then she sank down again with her head against her thighs. She was tired and most of all wanted to sleep in her own bed with the doll that she had once found at a bus stop. The doll with only one arm and one leg. But it was the finest doll the girl had ever seen. The doll had dark curly hair and a pink dress. She missed her doll dreadfully. The doll was still back there with Mama and Papa. She would fetch her later, when she came back to the container.

Then everything would be all right again.

And they would go back.

Home.

CHAPTER
TEN

THE SECURITY CAMERA
film had just arrived by messenger from the security firm. Ola Söderström opened the package and quickly inserted the little hard disk into his computer. He immediately started looking through the images, which gave a good overview of Östanvägen. Unfortunately the rotating camera lens didn't reach all the way to Hans Juhlén's house. Judging by the angle, the camera must have been about two meters above the ground, perhaps three, and provided an adequate coverage so that you could register everything on the street. The quality was good and Ola was pleased with the sharpness. He fast-forwarded past Sunday morning. A woman with a dog walked by, a white Lexus left the street and then the woman with the dog came back again.

When the clock counter showed 17:30, he slowed down the speed. The empty street looked cold and windy. The overcast weather made it hard to detect any movements and the street lighting was of poor quality.

Ola was wondering whether it was possible to adjust the brightness so that he could see the scene more clearly, when he suddenly caught sight of a boy.

He froze the image. The counter showed 18:14.

Then he let the recording continue. The boy cut across the street quickly and then vanished out of view.

Ola reversed the disk and looked at the sequence again. The boy was wearing a dark hooded sweater that hid his face well. He walked with his head down and both hands stuck inside the big pocket on his stomach.

Ola sighed. He rubbed his hand over his face and up through his hair. Just a child on his way somewhere. He let the footage continue and leaned back with his hands clasped behind his head.

When the counter showed 20:00, he still hadn't seen anything. No movement. Not a single person. Not a car had passed during those two hours. Only the boy. At that moment, Ola realized what he had seen. Only the boy.

He got up so fast from the chair that it fell backward onto the floor with a crash.

* * *

“You seem to be in a good mood.”

Gunnar gave a start when he heard Anneli Lindgren's voice. She stood in the doorway with her arms folded over her chest. Her hair was tied back in a tight ponytail that accentuated her clear blue eyes and high cheekbones.

“Yes, I've just been promised the call logs,” he said. “It helped when I made a fuss.”

“Well now, is that all it takes to put you in a good mood?” said Anneli.

“Yes, it is, I can tell you. Shouldn't you be on your way?” Gunnar said.

“Yes, but I'm waiting for some support. It's a big house to work through. I can't get through it all on my own.”

“I thought you liked working alone.”

“Sometimes, sure. But you tire of it after a while. Then it's nice to have company by your side,” Anneli said and tilted her head.

“But you don't have to go through everything again. Just take what's of interest.”

“Well, that's obvious. What do you take me for, huh?” Anneli straightened her head and put her hand on her waist.

“And talking about going through things,” said Gunnar, “I've been tidying in the storage room and found some stuff that belongs to you.”

“You've been tidying the storage room?”

“Yes. What of it?” Gunnar said and shrugged his shoulders. “I needed to get rid of some junk and I found a large cardboard box with ornaments in it. Perhaps you'd like them back?”

“I can fetch them later in the week.”

“No, better if I bring the box to work. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll see if those lists have arrived as promised.”

Anneli was just about to leave the room when she almost bumped right into a stressed Ola Söderström in the doorway.

“What is it?” said Gunnar.

“I think I've found something. Come and see!”

Gunnar got up from his desk and followed his colleague Ola into the computer room.

Ola, twenty years his junior, was tall and thin with a pointed nose. He was dressed in jeans, a red checked shirt and, like every other day of the year, a cap. Regardless of the temperature on the thermometer, be it minus or plus thirty degrees Celsius, he had his cap on. Sometimes it was red, sometimes white. Sometimes striped, sometimes with a check pattern. Today it was black.

Gunnar had told Ola many times that he should avoid wearing headgear during working hours, but he finally gave up because his irritating hat was trivial compared with Ola's skill with computers.

“Look at this.” Ola pressed some keys and the recorded tape started to play. Gunnar saw the little boy on the film.

“He turns up at exactly 18:14,” said Ola. “He cuts across the street and seems to be on his way up toward Östanvägen, toward Hans Juhlén's house.”

Gunnar observed the boy's movements. Stiff. Almost mechanical.

“Play it again,” he said when the boy disappeared from view.

Ola did as he was told.

“Freeze it there!” said Gunnar and moved closer to the screen. “Can you zoom in?”

Ola pressed some keys and the boy came closer.

“He's got his hands in that hoodie pocket. But the pocket is bulging too much. He must have something else in there,” said Gunnar.

“Anneli did find the handprints from a child,” said Ola. “Could it be this boy?”

“How old?” said Gunnar.

Ola looked at the figure. Although he was dressed in a large hooded sweatshirt, you could still make out the size of his body under it. But it was his height that decided the matter.

“I'd guess eight, perhaps nine,” said Ola.

“Do you know who's got a child of that age?”

“No.”

“Hans Juhlén's half brother.”

“Shit.”

“Zoom in closer.”

Ola zoomed in another step.

Gunnar put his face right up to the screen so he could examine the bulging pocket better.

“Now I know what he's got in his pocket.”

“What?”

“A gun.”

* * *

Henrik Levin and Mia Bolander were driving from Norrköping toward Finspång. They sat in silence, deep in their own thoughts as they passed a road sign that told them they had five kilometers to go.

Henrik pulled over to the side of the road so he could look up the address he wanted on the GPS navigator. The digital map showed that they had 150 meters to go to their final destination, and the navigator's voice told him to keep driving straight ahead at the next roundabout. Henrik followed the directions and approached the given address, which was in the Dunderbacken district.

Mia pointed to an empty parking space next to a recycling station that was overflowing with discarded paper and packages. Somebody had put an old radio in front of the green bins.

“So this is where he lives, the half brother,” said Mia. She got out of the car, stretched and yawned out loud. Henrik got out and slammed the car door on his side.

A few people were standing and talking to each other in the grassy area between the low-rise apartment buildings. Nearby a couple of children played with a bucket and spade in a sand pit next to a set of swings. The chilly April weather had made their cheeks rosy. A man, presumably the father, sat on a bench next to them, fully occupied with his cell phone. A woman in an ankle-long winter coat was approaching them on the sidewalk with shopping bags in each hand. She stopped and said hello to a long-haired man who was unlocking a yellow Monark bicycle in a bike stand.

Henrik and Mia walked across the grass and looked for the right building number. They entered number thirty-four. A thinly-dressed man was standing in the entrance hall; he took a few steps to one side and walked back and forth, more or less as if he were impatiently waiting for somebody.

Mia glanced quickly at the list of residents next to the elevator and read the name for the third floor. Lars Johansson. Then they walked up the stairs and rang the doorbell.

Lars opened immediately. He was only wearing underpants and a pale football jersey adorned with the Norrköping team's emblem. He was unshaven and had dark rings under his eyes. While he massaged his neck, he looked with surprise at the two police officers standing in front of him.

“Are you Lars Johansson?” Henrik asked.

“Yes, what's this about?” said Lars.

Henrik introduced himself and Mia and showed his warrant to enter.

“And I was thinking that you came from one of those rags or something. Journalists have been running around here the last few days. But come in, damn it, come in! I haven't cleaned recently so keep your shoes on. Have a seat in the living room, I'll just go put some trousers on. I must go for a pee too. Are you willing to wait?”

As Lars backed away toward the bathroom, Henrik looked at Mia, who couldn't help shaking her head when they followed him down the apartment's hallway.

The bathroom was straight ahead and they could see Lars in it, picking out a pair of gray cotton trousers from the laundry basket. Then he closed the door and locked it.

“Shall we?” said Henrik and gestured politely toward Mia. She nodded and took a few steps more.

The kitchen lay to the left, and they could see it littered with piles of dirty plates and pizza cartons. A tied-up bag of rubbish sat in the sink. The bedroom that was across from the kitchen was rather small and contained a single unmade bed. The Venetian blinds were closed and Lego pieces of various sizes cluttered the floor. To the left of the bathroom lay the living room.

Henrik hesitated as to whether he should sit down on the brown leather sofa. A duvet in one corner made him realize that the sofa doubled as a bed. It smelled stuffy.

A flushing sound could be heard and Lars came into the living room wearing trousers that were five centimeters too short.

“Sit down. I'll just...” Lars pushed the pillow and the duvet onto the apricot-colored linoleum on the floor.

“There now, take a seat. Coffee?”

Henrik and Mia declined and sat down on the sofa, which made a hissing sound under their weight. The smell of sweat was pervasive and made Henrik feel a little queasy. Lars sat down on a green plastic stool and pulled his trousers up another two centimeters.

“Lars,” Henrik began.

“No, call me Lasse. Everyone does.”

“Okay, Lasse. First and foremost, our condolences.”

“For my brother, yeah, that was bloody awful, that.”

“Did it upset you?”

“No, not really. You know, we weren't exactly best buds, him and me. We were only half brothers, on our mum's side. But just because you're related doesn't mean that you spend lots of time together. It doesn't necessarily mean you even like each other, for that matter.”

“Didn't you get on?”

“Yeah, or perhaps, hell, I don't know.”

Lasse thought about it for a second or two. He lifted up one leg a little, scratched his crotch area and in doing so exposed a hole that was the size of a large coin. Then he started telling about his relationship with his brother. How it wasn't really good. That they actually hadn't had any contact at all this past year. And it was because of his own gambling. But he didn't gamble now. For his son's sake.

“I could always borrow money from my brother when things were really bad. He didn't want Simon to go without food. It's tough living on welfare and, you know, you've got to pay the rent and so on.”

Lasse rubbed the palm of his hand against his right eye, then went on: “But then something strange happened. My brother became stingy, claimed that he didn't have any money. I thought that was bloody nonsense. If you live in Lindö then you've got money.”

“Did you ever find out what happened?” said Henrik.

“No, just that he said he couldn't lend me anything more. That his old lady had put a stop to it. I had promised to pay him back, even though it wouldn't be for a while, but I promised anyway. But I didn't get any more money. He was an idiot. A stingy idiot. He could have done without a pricey steak dinner one evening and given me a hundred kronor, you might think. Couldn't he? I would have, if I were him, that is.”

Lasse thumped his chest.

“Did you argue with him about money?”

“Never.”

“So you've never threatened your half brother or exchanged harsh words, anything like that?”

“The odd curse word, perhaps, but I would never have threatened him.”

“You have a son, right?” Mia went on.

“Yes, Simon.” Lasse held out a framed photo of a smiling boy with freckles.

“Mind you, he's only five in that photo. Now he's eight.”

“Have you got a better picture of him, a recent one?” said Henrik.

“I'll have a look.”

Lasse reached toward a white cupboard with glass doors and pulled out a little box that was full of a jumble of stuff.

Sheets of paper, batteries and electric cables all tangled together. There was also a smoke detector, a headless plastic dinosaur and some sweet wrappers. And a glove too.

“I don't know if I've got a decent recent one. The photos they take at school are so hellishly expensive. They charge four hundred kronor for twenty pictures. Who can order those? Bloody daylight robbery.”

Lasse let the sheets of paper fall onto the floor so he could get a better look at the contents of the box.

“No, I haven't got a good one. But come to think of it, in my cell I might have one there.”

Lasse disappeared into the kitchen and came back with an old-fashioned flip phone in his hand. He remained standing on the floor and pressed the buttons.

Henrik noticed that the arrow button was missing and that Lasse had to use his little finger to browse through the picture folder.

“Here,” said Lasse, and held the cell toward Henrik, who took it and looked at the photo on the screen.

A low-res image showed a relatively tall and still freckled boy. Reddish cheeks. Friendly eyes.

Henrik complimented Lasse on his son's good looks, then told him to send the picture via MMS to him. Within a minute he had saved it in his image archive.