The Killer's Art (33 page)

Utter silence had settled over the beach. The open water was grey and inhospitable. The cold was raw and damp, seeping in under his clothes. As Johan approached the building with the showers and toilets, he saw a car parked some distance away, a blue Citroën. There was no one in sight. His nerves were stretched taut. He didn’t know what David looked like, only how old he was. Johan walked around the wooden building. The windows were boarded up and the doors locked. It was easy to see why David had wanted to meet him here. Close to the city, but as deserted as could be.

Suddenly he caught sight of a tall, dark-clad figure approaching from the sea. He was powerfully built, wearing a down jacket with a knitted cap on his head. Johan felt the ground swaying under his feet. The man
who was walking towards him had killed two people in cold blood and taken an eight-month-old child hostage. Johan was about to stand face to face with a psychopath.

At that moment he realized what an idiot he was for not contacting the police. He was unarmed and completely at the mercy of a madman. What was he thinking? That David would simply hand over Elin?

He stood motionless, waiting, as his brain shifted up a gear.

Of course David didn’t have Elin with him. Johan felt so helpless. He wondered wildly what he should say or do in order to have the greatest chance of seeing Elin again.

David stopped a few feet away.

‘You need to stop following my father,’ he said. ‘Leave him alone from now on and you’ll get your daughter back. You have to promise, on your honour. Leave Pappa alone.’

So that’s what it’s all about,
thought Johan. His visit to Erik Mattson, the fact that he’d been tailing the man. David wanted to protect his father. That was why he’d kidnapped Elin. It was that simple.

‘Yes, of course. I promise to stop at once. My daughter is much more important to me. I’ll quit right now. Just give Elin back.’

‘Elin? Is that her name? I didn’t know what I should call her.’

He smiled. Johan saw the insanity in his eyes. The man looked drugged. It was impossible to make eye contact. David kept evading his glance. Maybe he was taking anabolic steroids, considering his size.

‘Where is she?’ Johan controlled his voice, not wanting his desperation to show. He needed to stay calm.

David opened his mouth to reply, but was interrupted by a bellow coming from the roof of the lavatory building.

‘Police! Put your hands up. Don’t move.’

David looked around in bewilderment. Johan stood as if paralysed, incapable of thinking sensibly. This couldn’t be happening.

The arrest of David Mattson proceeded without incident. Four police officers overpowered him before he even knew what was happening. He
was handcuffed and led away to a police vehicle. Johan stayed where he was, watching mutely.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Knutas coming towards him. He turned to face him. ‘How did you know?’

‘Emma rang me.’

‘Where’s Elin?’

‘We’re searching the campsite now. There are a lot of buildings here, and she’s probably in one of them. Don’t worry, she’s here somewhere.’

T
he interrogation of David Mattson was conducted immediately. The impressive bulk of the suspect seemed even greater inside the cramped interview room. He sat down opposite Knutas, who was in charge of the interview. Jacobsson was also there as a witness, and she stayed in the background.

So here I am,
thought Knutas,
sitting in front of the killer we’ve been hunting for more than a month.
It was an unreal feeling. This was what the man looked like. The murderer who had attacked his victims from behind with piano wire, who had hoisted one man up on Dalman Gate and later dragged another body to the first victim’s grave. The person who had carried out the improbable theft of a painting from Waldemarsudde. The one question that overshadowed everything else was: why? Why had he committed those terrible murders? What was behind it all? And had he also killed his own father? Knutas was longing for an explanation, but first and foremost they needed to solve a more urgent mystery. Where was Elin?

While Knutas switched on the tape recorder and arranged his papers, he studied David Mattson. He was wearing jeans and a shirt, sitting on the chair with his legs set apart and his hands clasped. So this was the face of the murderer, a twenty-three-year-old man who lived with his girlfriend in one of Stockholm’s northern suburbs and was enrolled at the university. He had no police record.

Knutas and Jacobsson did their utmost to get him to say where Elin was, but it seemed completely futile. David could not be budged. He thought that Johan had broken his promise by notifying the police about
their meeting. That was why he refused to say what he’d done with Johan’s daughter. It made no difference that the police tried to convince him that Johan was innocent and that it was Emma who had told them where the meeting was taking place.

The police quickly realized that David was unaware of his father’s death. In the middle of the interrogation, the ME’s preliminary report arrived, stating that all indications were that Erik Mattson had died from an overdose of cocaine.

Wittberg summoned Jacobsson and Knutas, who briefly interrupted the interrogation to listen to him report the new information.

‘There’s something that we have to tell you,’ said Jacobsson when they returned to the interview room.

David Mattson didn’t even look up. He was stubbornly staring at his clasped hands on his lap. He’d answered their questions in monosyllables, and kept asking for more cold water. Karin had already refilled the carafe on the table numerous times.

‘Your father is dead.’

Slowly David lifted his head.

‘You’re lying.’

‘I’m afraid not. He was found this morning, at home in his flat. He was lying in bed, and according to the medical examiner, he died from an overdose of cocaine. We also found “The Dying Dandy” hanging above the bed. Your fingerprints were on the canvas.’

David Mattson stared at her for a long time, a look of incomprehension on his face. The silence in the room was palpable. Knutas wondered whether it had been wise to tell him about his father’s death before they managed to find out what he’d done with Elin.

‘When did you last see Erik?’ asked Jacobsson.

‘Saturday night,’ he replied tonelessly. ‘I went over there to have dinner. I gave him a present. We talked and talked. Then Pappa got mad, and I left …’

His voice faded away. His face changed completely. The hard, arrogant mask cracked for a moment, and without uttering a sound, the big man collapsed on to the table.

J
ohan was taken straight to Visby Hospital, where he was given a sedative until he could speak to a psychologist. The nurse had left his room, assuring him that she’d be back soon. In the meantime, Johan should lie down and take it easy. He felt empty and numb, as if he wasn’t really there. When the door opened again, it wasn’t the nurse who came in. Instead, he saw Emma’s face in the doorway.

‘Hi,’ he said, attempting to smile. Her expression was stony, her face swollen, and it looked as if all her features were in the wrong place: her eyes on her chin, her nose on her left temple. She had no mouth at all. Just a dry hole.

Emma didn’t respond to his greeting. She stood some distance away from the bed, staring at him with disgust.

‘You didn’t tell me about that photograph of you in the news office,’ she snarled. ‘You were tailing a man you assumed was a murderer, just because you thought it would be fun, without giving the least thought to us – me and Elin – or our safety. And now she’s gone. My Elin, my beloved Elin is gone, and it’s your fault. Your fucking fault. If you hadn’t been doing what you did, this wouldn’t have happened.’

Johan was shocked by this unexpected attack, and he tried to protest.

‘But Emma …’ he said weakly.

‘Shut up.’

She crept closer. Stood leaning over him, staring angrily into his eyes.

‘He came into my house,
my house.
When I was taking a shower, he was creeping around. He took my daughter and disappeared. Now all we
can do is hope that the police get him to say what he’s done with her, and that my Elin isn’t dead. That she’s still alive.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘She’s eight months old, Johan.
Eight months old!
’

She tore off her engagement ring and threw it at him.

‘I will never forgive you for this!’ she screamed.

She left the room, slamming the door behind her with all her might.

Johan sat there in the hospital bed, anaesthetized, annihilated, incapable of taking in even a fraction of what had just happened.

It was horrible, just too horrible.

T
he search for Elin continued non-stop out at the Snäck campsite. Police dogs combed every nook and cranny: the cafeteria, the grocery shop, the reception building, the lavatories and shower booths. They didn’t find the child anywhere, and everyone feared that she had been killed and her body dumped somewhere. David Mattson’s car was found, but it provided no clues.

Reluctantly Kihlgård, who had come to the area with Wittberg, began to despair. If Elin had been hidden somewhere here, they should have found her by now.

As he stood looking at the Snäck block of flats, an idea came to him. If David Mattson had been certain that the exchange would take place, he could have left the baby some distance away, pointed Johan in the right direction and then driven off in his car, which he’d parked next to the lavatory building.

‘Come with me,’ he shouted to Wittberg.

His colleague ran to catch up with him. ‘Where are we going?’

‘I just have a gut feeling,’ said Kihlgård. ‘Aren’t those time-share flats

over there?’

‘Yes,’ said Wittberg, gasping for breath.

‘Does anybody live there in the wintertime?’

‘I assume so. They must pay for the weeks they want to be here, and I’d think that some people would want to live here year round.’

They headed up the slope to the block of flats, located in a lovely spot near the sea.

‘Do you think he hid her somewhere inside?’ asked Wittberg.

‘Why not? If he can get into Waldemarsudde, surely he could get into this building too.’

They found nothing suspicious in the area, but were soon joined by more police officers who took over the search.

Wittberg turned to Kihlgård. ‘Come on, let’s check over there.’

‘Where?’

‘There are some summerhouses up on the ridge. Maybe he broke into one of them.’

‘How far is it?’ asked Kihlgård doubtfully. ‘Shouldn’t we go and get the car?’

‘It’ll take longer to walk back and get the car than to continue up to the summerhouses. Come on.’ Wittberg began jogging up the slope.

‘Take it easy,’ Kihlgård panted. He had a hard time keeping up with the pace set by his younger colleague.

When they reached the top of the ridge, they found a small side road leading to a wooded area. The cabins were scattered among the trees, simple wooden structures on small plots of land. The area was deserted. They went in separate directions and started looking for signs that someone might have been there earlier in the day. It didn’t take long before Wittberg gave a shout.

‘Here, Martin. Come over here. I think I’ve found something!’

A yellow-painted cabin stood at the edge of the area, near the side road. Fresh tyre tracks were visible in the snow. They rushed towards the cabin. Suddenly Kihlgård started yelling.

‘Look, someone broke open the door!’

‘Yes, I see that, damn it,’ gasped Wittberg excitedly. ‘But what’s that?’

For one icy moment they both thought that the red patch in the snow was blood, but when they got closer, they saw that it was a tiny baby’s sock.

They were in the right place. Wittberg went first, tearing open the door. The hallway inside was dark and cramped, and there wasn’t a sound. When Wittberg later recounted the story to his colleagues, he described the feeling he had as ‘nightmarish’. He and Kihlgård hardly dared breathe, fearing what they might find. Their eyes scanned the rag
rugs on the floor, the simple furniture, the clumsily painted pictures, the wall clock that had stopped at 4:45, and the pots of plastic flowers in the windows. The raw cold, the faint smell of mould and rat poison.

Wittberg was the first to enter the small bedroom with two narrow beds on one side. In a corner on top of one of the beds stood a dark-blue carrycot, shoved close to the wall.

Wittberg slowly turned around to look at his older colleague. Kihlgård calmly met his glance and nodded for him to proceed.

At that moment, Thomas Wittberg felt smaller and more insignificant than he’d ever felt before. For a second he shut his eyes, unable to remember ever experiencing such silence. He would never forget the moment when he leaned over the carrycot. The sight that met his eyes would change his life for ever.

There she lay. Under a blanket with a pink knitted cap on her head. Her eyes were closed and her face peaceful. Her little hands lay on top of the blanket. Then Wittberg bent even closer and listened to the most beautiful sound he could imagine.

The regular in and out of Elin’s breathing.

The springtime sun had finally begun to loosen winter’s harsh grip on the island, and the icicles were falling from the eaves. During his morning walk to police headquarters, Knutas could feel the sunlight warming his back. The birds were chirping, infusing new hope into life.

And there was certainly a need for that.

As usual, he climbed the stairs to the criminal division, the first to arrive, and sat down at his desk with a cup of coffee. In front of him lay a thick folder with material from the investigation. On top was a stack of photocopies of the diary entries that the killer had made, describing his plans for the murders.

David Mattson lived with his girlfriend and a little kitten in a flat in one of Stockholm’s northern suburbs. He was studying economics at the university, but his studies were not going well. During the past six months he had skipped more classes than he had attended.