The Dead of Summer (30 page)

It all seemed so long ago. She felt as if she had aged, changed. She was carrying a secret, and she didn’t know if she’d be able to continue to do so, much less share it with anyone else.

Vera had given birth to a baby girl in the cabin on the ship. Everything had gone well. The birth was over in less than ten minutes.

Before Karin left the cabin and the new parents with their baby, she had demanded to know the truth.

The killer that the police had been searching for the whole time was a woman. And a very pregnant woman. Who would ever have imagined that?

In the cramped cabin, with her blood-smeared newborn child at her breast, Vera had confessed to shooting both Peter Bovide and Morgan Larsson. Before they died, she’d forced them to their knees and then demanded to hear their remorse. Peter Bovide had pleaded and begged. He claimed that the murder was a mistake. That Tanya had started screaming when she was raped, and Morgan had hit her on the head with a rock to make her shut up. He hadn’t meant to hit her so hard. Tanya died instantly, both young men were seized with panic, and without even thinking, they had tossed her body overboard. By then it was too late, and they fled back to Nynäshamn as fast as they could go.

His explanation made no difference. Vera carried out what she had intended to do.

She’d smuggled into Sweden her father’s old army pistol in the moving van from Germany, keeping it as a memento. Then she had put it to use. In all these years, she had been convinced that the two men on Gotska Sandön were Stockholmers she would never see again, but by chance she’d recognized Peter Bovide in the ICA supermarket in Slite. And after that it didn’t take long before she located Morgan Larsson. She guessed that he too was from Slite, and she started looking for him at the big work sites in the area. She found him in a personnel catalogue from the Cementa factory. He hadn’t changed.

Without telling her husband, Vera had carried out her plan. But after Morgan Larsson was killed, Stefan had discovered that the gun was missing from the locked cabinet in the living room. He had confronted her, understood why she’d done it, and forgiven her. He loved her, and they were about to become parents.

Together they’d decided that there was little chance the police would ever figure out that the pregnant woman from Kyllaj was the murderer. So they could just go on living their lives.

But if Vera should come under suspicion for the murders, they’d devised an escape plan. When Karin Jacobsson had come on board the boat from Gotska Sandön with the old newspaper clippings, Stefan had realized that the jig was up. He rang Vera, who came to pick him up in Fårösund when the boat docked. She had packed their bags and brought along cash, passports and everything else they needed. To confuse the police, they went out to the airport and bought tickets on the last plane to Stockholm that evening. They parked the car, and even checked in for the flight. But instead of proceeding through security, they left the airport and took a cab to the ferry that was due to depart at eight o’clock for Nynäshamn. From there they planned to go out to Arlanda to catch a flight. Karin hadn’t wanted to know where they were headed.

She sat down on the sand and looked out at the sea. She wondered how they’d managed to evade the police and what they were doing at this very moment.

Presumably, she ought to run away too. She’d helped a double murderer go free. She couldn’t explain why she’d made that decision. Maybe it was because of the whole tragic story about the two young girls who had just wanted to sleep on the beach under the open sky on that hot July night twenty years ago – the night that shattered the entire family. The father had taken his own life, the mother became addicted to painkillers and lost all contact with Vera. Leaving her alone with the guilt.

Maybe, in her heart, Karin thought that it was a matter of justice. Maybe it had been easier to make the decision because she’d helped bring Vera’s baby into the world, and most of all because of her own life-long trauma. She would probably never see her own child again, unless her daughter decided to look for her biological mother. And so far she hadn’t. She would be twenty-five this year. Karin knew nothing about the people who had adopted her or where she had ended up, except that she was not living on Gotland.

She wondered how much her daughter knew about her birth. She hoped that no one would tell her the truth.

Karin thought of her as Lydia, the name she had secretly given the baby in that dimly lit maternity room at Visby hospital. The happiest hour of her life.

In all these years, she had never forgiven her parents. When she changed her mind and wanted to keep the baby, they told her it was impossible. They said all the papers had already been signed. During the whole pregnancy, they had actually never asked her what she wanted or how she felt. They’d just taken it for granted that the child had to be given away.

It was a Thursday afternoon when Karin went out riding in the woods alone. Her horse fell and ended up lame, so she had to lead him home. On the way back, she passed the riding teacher’s remote farm, and she went in to borrow the phone to ring for help.

The riding teacher was home alone. He explained that his wife and children were away. They put the horse in the stable and went back to the house.

He invited her to sit in the living room and offered her a glass of juice before she used the phone.

The next second, he was on her, tearing off her sweater and riding breeches, raping her right there on the burgundy carpet. She could still remember how the rug scratched against her bare back.

Afterwards, she was allowed to use the phone. Her father came to get her and the horse. The riding teacher was very pleasant and completely unfazed.

Karin didn’t tell anyone, not even her parents. Occasionally, she would run into the riding teacher in town, at the post office or in the Konsum supermarket; she felt nauseated every time she saw him. He pretended nothing had happened.

When she missed her period and began throwing up in the mornings, she repressed the whole episode. The shame was too great. In the end, she couldn’t hide it any longer. Even though she wore baggy sweaters, her mother saw that her belly was sticking out and took her to the local clinic. By then she was five months pregnant, and it was too late to have an abortion.

At first it was a relief to tell her parents what had happened. Even though she felt ashamed and guilty, she knew in her heart that she wasn’t to blame. But just the fact that he’d been in her knickers, and inside of her, made her feel strangely ashamed. She told herself that when her parents found out about it they would help her, take charge of everything and see to it that this terrible wrong would be redressed. They would report the riding teacher to the police, see to it that he had to answer for his actions to his family and be put in jail for the crime he’d committed. Justice in the end would prevail.

But their reaction shocked her. Not only did they refuse to report the riding teacher to the police, they refused even to talk about what had happened. They chose to pretend it had never occurred, as if, deep inside, they didn’t believe her. Karin would never forget the humiliation. They told her that, since she was so far along, the only option was to give the baby up for adoption; there was nothing else to discuss. Karin didn’t object; she wanted to get rid of all traces of the rape. She wanted to continue being young.

But after the birth, everything changed. That was when the worst betrayal occurred, when she regretted her decision and wanted to keep the baby. Her parents’ claim that it was impossible, since the papers had already been signed, turned out to be a lie. Something died inside her on the day she gave birth to the baby and had to give her up.

This was the secret Karin had kept to herself her entire adult life. Eventually, she moved to Stockholm and stayed with relatives while she attended college.

Then she was admitted to the Police Academy. When she received her first job offer on Gotland, she hesitated at first, but in the end she accepted. She thought she needed to move on, that she’d come through the worst of it. Ten years had passed, after all. The riding teacher who had raped her was long since dead, so at least there was no chance of running into him again. Her parents, now old, still lived in Tingstäde, and she visited them now and then, out of politeness.

They never discussed the matter.

Was it disastrous that she’d allowed Vera Norrström to go free? This shattered person who was capable of shooting to death two people? What sort of mother was she going to be to her newborn daughter? But now she had finished exacting her revenge. Karin hoped that Vera would be able to put everything behind her and be happy in spite of it all, with her husband and child.

She had toyed with the idea of telling Knutas, but she realized that would be impossible. If she did, her police career would be over. Would she even be able to continue as a police officer, carrying this baggage? At the moment, she couldn’t answer that question. It was just one more secret she had to hide.

She lay down on the sand and closed her eyes, listening to the waves lapping against the shore. Thunder rumbled over the sea. The rain fell slowly, one drop after another striking her face.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This story is entirely fictional. Any similarities between the characters in the novel and actual individuals are coincidental. Occasionally, I have taken artistic liberties to change things for the benefit of the book. This includes Swedish TV’s coverage of Gotland, which in the book has been moved to Stockholm. I have the utmost respect for SVT’s regional news programme
Östnytt
, which covers Gotland with a permanent team stationed in Visby.

The settings used in the books are usually described as they actually exist in reality, although there are a few exceptions.

Any errors that may have slipped into the story are mine alone.

First and foremost, I would like to thank my husband, journalist Cenneth Niklasson, who is always ready to be my sounding board and offer me the greatest support.

Special thanks to:

Gösta Svensson, former detective superintendent with the Visby police

Ulf Åsgård, psychiatrist

Magnus Frank, detective superintendent with the Visby police

Martin Csatlos, of the Forensic Medicine Laboratory in Solna

Johan Gardelius, crime technician, Visby police

Sonny Björk, detective superintendent, technical division, county criminal police, Stockholm

Staffan Lindblom, harbour master, Cementa in Slite

Torsten Lindqvist, captain of the
M/S Gotska Sandön

Gotska Sandön Folklore Society

The head ranger, Gotska Sandön

I would also like to thank my dear author colleagues – thanks for being there!

Thanks also to my readers for their valuable opinions:

Lena Allerstam, journalist, Swedish TV

Lilian Andersson, editor at Bonnier Educational Books

Kerstin Jungstedt, consultant, Provins fem

Bosse Jungstedt, Surrea Design

My thanks to Albert Bonniers Förlag, and especially to my publisher Jonas Axelsson and editor Ulrika Åkerlund for all their support, encouragement and work on my books. Thanks to my agents Bengt Nordin and Maria Enberg at Nordin Agency, and to my designer, John Eyre, for the great cover on the Swedish edition.

Last, but not least, I want to thank my wonderful children, Rebecka and Sebastian, for their understanding and many encouraging comments.

Älta, May 2007

Mari Jungstedt

www.jungstedtsgotland.se

www.marijungstedt.se

About the Author

Mari Jungstedt
lives in Stockholm with her husband and two children. This is her fifth novel set on the island of Gotland. The previous four,
Unseen
,
Unspoken
,
Unknown
and
The Killer’s Art
, are all available in Corgi paperback.

Also by Mari Jungstedt

Unseen

Unspoken

Unknown

The Killer’s Art

TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS
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First published in Great Britain
in 2011 by Doubleday
an imprint of Transworld Publishers

Copyright © Mari Jungstedt 2010
English translation copyright © Tiina Nunnally 2011

Mari Jungstedt has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Version 1.0 Epub ISBN 9781409030737
ISBN 9780385617086

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