CHAPTER
SIXTEEN
GUNNAR ÖHRN WAS listening to the reporter on the car radio who announced that after an upcoming item about the history of a Swedish charity organization, he promised to play a legendary track. When the first notes came out of the speaker, Gunnar immediately recognized the voice of the singer and he drummed on the steering wheel in time to the lovely rock music.
Bruce Springsteen.
“The Boss. Oh yeah!” he called out.
Gunnar turned up the volume and drummed even harder to the refrain.
He sneaked a glance at Anneli Lindgren, who was sitting next to him in the passenger seat, to see if she was impressed by his solo on the wheel. But she wasn’t. She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the headrest.
It was half past three in the afternoon. For the last ten hours she had worked at the murder scene out at Viddviken. When Gunnar had arrived, she had been standing there in wading boots with the water up to her waist. She walked back to the shore to meet him.
“How are you getting on?” Gunnar had asked.
“I’ve got some water samples,” Anneli answered and unfastened the shoulder straps before pulling off the waders. “We’ve combed through the area. Not even worth thinking about shoe prints as it seems a whole lot of people walk across here.”
“Have you dragged the bay?”
“Twice, but no other weapon.”
“And the bullet? Did you find it?”
“Yes. And we also found something interesting. Come, I want to show you something.”
Gunnar had followed Anneli away from the bay up to the gravel road. After twenty meters, she had turned off from the heavily compacted track and stepped out into the grass edging, carefully bending back some undergrowth in front of her. Gunnar then leaned forward to see what she wanted to show him. A smile immediately spread across his face.
Tire tracks were visible on the ground.
And they were deep.
Anneli had been exultant to discover the tracks. Now she sat in Gunnar’s passenger seat and said nothing.
Gunnar turned the volume down. “Tired?” he said.
“Yes.”
“Can you manage a briefing? I’ve called in everybody for 4:00 p.m.”
“Sure.”
“I can give you a lift home after.”
“That’s kind, but I’ve got to get my car home. Adam has his football practice at eight o’clock. Have you forgotten?”
“Oh Christ, yes, of course today is Wednesday.”
Gunnar leaned his elbow against the window and put his index finger under his nose.
“But I can give him a lift too. I mean, if you want me to. We can all go together,” he said.
“Yes, if you’d like to...that’d be nice.”
Anneli rubbed under her eyes.
“Oh no,” said Gunnar and put his hand on his forehead.
“What’s the matter?” said Anneli.
“I’ve forgotten it again. The big box in the attic.”
“It’s not a big deal.”
“But it’s the last box with your things.”
“Well, if it’s been up in the attic until now perhaps it can stay there a bit longer.”
“This evening I’ll put it right next to the front door. Then I’m absolutely bound to remember to take it with me.”
“Good idea.”
There was silence for a few seconds.
“Nice that you’re coming along with us this evening. Adam will be happy,” Anneli said.
“I know,” said Gunnar.
“I’ll be happy too.”
“I know.”
“Won’t you be happy?”
“Anneli, stop it. There’s no point.”
“Why isn’t there?”
“Because.”
“Have you met somebody?”
“No, I haven’t. But we’ve decided to have it like this now.”
“You’ve decided, yes. Not me.”
“Okay, this time it was me. I really want it to be like this now. I think things are okay between us. That we keep it on a good level, I mean.”
“On your level.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Nothing.”
“I was just trying to be friendly by giving you and Adam a ride, what’s wrong with that?”
“You don’t have to give us a ride. We can manage well without your help.”
“Okay, let’s skip it, then.”
“Yes, let’s do that.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
Gunnar muttered something, and turned up the volume on the radio just in time to hear the last tones of that damned rock track fade away.
* * *
Anneli walked a few steps behind Gunnar down the corridor. Her lips were pursed as she glared at his back. She knew that he felt her gaze, so she glared a bit harder just for the sake of it.
Gunnar stopped a moment by his office.
Anneli noticed a fax from the National Forensic Lab, SKL, in his in-tray. Probably important. But she didn’t say anything, just walked straight on. She was well aware that he would immediately read the fax anyway. She went down the corridor, still with a grumpy look on her face. But as soon as she entered the conference room she straightened up and switched off her private side.
Since Anneli and Gunnar chose never to discuss their relationship with anybody, they never showed their feelings openly either. They’d been a couple before she was employed by the criminal investigation unit in Norrköping, where Gunnar was the senior officer. When the position of criminal technician was advertised on the police intranet, Anneli had compiled her CV, with her experience at SKL in Linköping, and sent in the application to the head of the department as stated, who in this case happened to be her lover. Anneli had not seen any obstacles to working together with her life partner.
Gunnar, for his part, found himself in a dilemma, and first considered setting Anneli’s application aside because of a possible conflict of interest. But since Anneli’s professional experience outshone that of all the other applicants, Gunnar’s decision to employ her made the most sense. The fact that Gunnar and Anneli had kept the relationship secret made his decision easier, and they decided to continue to be as discreet as possible in their professional life.
But the rumor of their relationship spread anyway and some malicious gossip circulated that Anneli had landed the job by sleeping with her boss. It didn’t make any difference that she had a unique talent for discovering out-of-the-ordinary evidence, such as broken vegetation or a faint tire track that others would miss. The only thing certain coworkers chose to see was that she was in a relationship with her boss.
What many people didn’t know, or couldn’t be bothered to find out, was that Anneli and Gunnar had an on-and-off relationship. For the sake of their son they had attempted to live together, but when the boy turned ten years old last month, they agreed to call it quits. Their commitment wasn’t strong enough to stay together as a couple. Their emotions were like a roller coaster; all told they had moved in together and then separated seven times. The last stint of living together had lasted ten months. Recently it was Gunnar who told Anneli he wanted a break.
Anneli pushed aside all thoughts of Gunnar now as she said hello to Mia and Ola, who were sitting at the table.
Mia immediately said, “A witness has seen a white van at Viddviken.”
Anneli was going to answer when Gunnar rushed in. He was holding the fax from SKL in his hand.
“They’ve identified the fingerprints on the threatening letters,” Gunnar said excitedly. “Where’s Henrik?”
“He’s interviewing Kerstin again. Evidently she has lied about a lot of money,” Ola quickly replied.
“That’s not the only thing she has lied about. I must get hold of Henrik right away!”
* * *
Peter Ramstedt’s neck was bright red as he stepped into the interview room for the second time that day. The lawyer swung his briefcase up onto the table, grabbed a notepad and pen out of it and then dropped the case to the floor. He unbuttoned his jacket with both hands and swept the two sides back like a cape before settling down on the chair. Now he sat there with his arms crossed and clicked his pen incessantly with his right thumb.
Henrik Levin smiled vaguely to himself. He had the trump card in his hand. The statements from the bank staff were very important, but it wasn’t until Gunnar phoned him that the last bits of the puzzle had fallen into place.
“I’d like to ask you...” Henrik said to Kerstin Juhlén, who was sitting with her shoulders hunched and yellow plastic slippers sticking out under the table, “...do you normally shop with cash or a bank card?”
Kerstin stared up at him.
“Card.”
“You never use cash?”
“No.”
“Never?”
“Well, on the odd occasion perhaps.”
“How often would you say?”
“I don’t know. Once a month, I should think.”
“Where do you withdraw your cash from?”
Ramstedt continued to click his pen.
Henrik wanted to grab the pen off him and squirt the ink onto the lawyer’s red tie.
Kerstin interrupted his thoughts.
“Well, when I need to, I use an ATM.”
“Which ATM?”
“The one in Ingelsta, next to the café.”
“Do you always go to the same one?”
“Yes.”
“How much money do you usually get out?”
“Usually five hundred kronor.”
“You don’t go to a bank teller to withdraw money?”
“No, never.”
Kerstin put her little finger up to her lips and bit at her nail audibly.
“So you have never visited a bank?”
“Well, yes, of course I have.”
“When did you last visit a bank?”
“Perhaps a year ago.”
“What did you do when you went?”
“Perhaps it was even longer ago. I can’t really remember.”
“So you haven’t been in a bank since then?”
Silence.
Henrik repeated the question: “So you haven’t been in a bank since then?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Strange,” said Henrik. “We have two witnesses who can confirm that you have been seen at the bank in Hageby.”
Ramstedt stopped clicking.
For a few moments there was silence.
Henrik could hear his own breathing.
“But I haven’t been there,” said Kerstin anxiously.
Henrik got up and walked to one corner of the room. He stood underneath a camera fastened to the ceiling and pointed at it.
“In all bank premises they have cameras like this, which register all customers who come and go.”
“Hang on a moment,” said Ramstedt, getting up too. “I need to have a few words with my client.”
Henrik pretended not to hear him.
He returned to the table and looked straight at Kerstin.
“So I ask you again. Have you been to the bank at Hageby?”
Ramstedt quickly put his hand on Kerstin’s shoulder to stop her from answering.
But she answered anyway.
“Perhaps, I may have.”
Henrik sat down on the chair.
“For what purpose were you there?”
“Withdrawing money.”
Ramstedt let go of Kerstin’s shoulder, sighed and sat down again.
“How much money did you withdraw?”
“A few thousand. Two, perhaps.”
“Stop lying now. You have withdrawn forty thousand kronor from your joint savings account each month for the past ten months.”
“Have I?”
“As I said, I have two witnesses, Kerstin.”
“Don’t answer,” Ramstedt urged her, but again Kerstin ignored him.
“Well, then I must have, mustn’t I,” she said quietly and with that response, her lawyer lost his control and threw his pen across the room.
Henrik instinctively ducked even though the pen passed by him at a distance. It hit the door and fell to the floor. Henrik looked at Ramstedt, then smiled to himself. He said nothing, which he knew would irritate the lawyer more than any verbal response. Instead he calmly returned to the subject.
“What did you want the money for?”
“Clothes.”
“Clothes?”
“Yes.”
“So you have shopped for clothes for forty thousand kronor a month?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t mean to be offensive, but for that much money I think you can buy considerably better clothes than a T-shirt and some plastic sandals.”
Kerstin quickly pulled her feet in under the table.
“For the last ten months either you or your husband have been receiving threatening letters from somebody,” he said.
“I don’t know anything about that.”
“I think you do.”
“No, I don’t. I swear. It was you who told me about the letters.”
“So you have never seen the letters? Never touched them?”
“No, no, no! I haven’t. I haven’t.”
“Okay. But now you are not telling the truth again. The fact is, we have analyzed the letters and found fingerprints on them.”
“Oh yes?”
“And they are your fingerprints.”
Kerstin started looking around nervously.
“May I say what I believe is the truth?” said Henrik. “I don’t think you’ve bought clothes with that money. I think you have taken the money and given it to the person who sent the threatening letters. There were ten threatening letters and you have withdrawn a large sum of money ten times.”
“No... I haven’t...”
“Now you disappoint me, Kerstin. Tell the truth now. Tell us what really happened.”
Ramstedt got up, adjusted his jacket and went to pick up his pen by the door. Behind Henrik’s back he tried, with the help of body language, to get Kerstin to not say another word. But her shoulders were already sunk.
She swallowed.
And started telling her story.
All of it.
* * *
Henrik lingered in the interview room and stared for a minute. The interview was over, but he was still thinking. He replayed the sequence in his head. When Kerstin’s lip started to tremble. When she dried the tears on her cheeks. When she described what her husband had done.
“I don’t think I ever really knew him. He was always absent in some way. He always has been... I knew that something was wrong. I knew it when he wanted me to have a pillow or something over my face when we had sex. He insisted, otherwise he would feel sick to his stomach, he said.”
She sobbed.
“That was at the beginning, when we were just married. He did such strange things. I could wake up in the middle of the night and he’d be just laying there, staring at my breasts. And when he saw I’d woken up, he’d shout at me that I was a stupid fucking cunt and then he pushed in his...his...”
Kerstin couldn’t get the words out. She wiped the snot from her nose on her sleeve.
“He pushed his penis so far down my throat that I’d choke and couldn’t breathe. When he was finished, he said I was disgusting, that he had to go and wash himself after having been with his ugly wife.”
Kerstin cried for a while, then eventually calmed down. She was silent for a while, then she started to carry on again.
“He never really wanted to sleep with me. But I thought it would get better. I told myself someday everything would get better, that it was all simply too much for him, his work I mean, and that I should feel sorry for him. But then he started to have sex with other women...and girls. He started... They must have been afraid, they must have been afraid of him. I just don’t understand how he could, I...”
She cried straight out.
“He told me once how one woman screamed when he raped her on the floor. How the panic in her eyes grew when he penetrated her. How he laughed when she started to bleed from her behind. And then he’d... She was bleeding...and he...down her throat...”
Kerstin covered her face with her hands and put her head on the table.
“Oh God...” she cried.
Henrik could still hear her crying although he was now alone in the room. He looked out of the window and stared at the pale gray light. Then he got up. In half an hour, he had to be in the conference room with the team. He had to compose himself.
* * *
Henrik Levin walked slowly up the flights of stairs at the police headquarters and continued down the long and empty corridor on floor three to the conference room. He didn’t look at the mail cubbies or the paintings, nor did he look in through the open office doors. He kept his gaze directed downward toward the floor and a little in front of him.
Gunnar Öhrn noted Henrik’s expression and asked if he wanted to delay the briefing for an hour. But Henrik insisted on reviewing with the team the most important parts of his last interview with Kerstin. He remained standing in front of the table and his colleagues.
“Threatening letters were directed at Hans Juhlén,” he began. “Hans Juhlén had sexually abused several female asylum seekers, and in return they were promised permanent residence permits. But they were never granted said permits. On one occasion he treated a young girl extremely badly, and she decided to tell her brother about him. When the first letter arrived, Kerstin realized it was written by the brother. She knew because Hans Juhlén was in the habit of boasting about his so-called conquests. About how naive the girls were. About how they had cried when he had forced them to have sex.”
Anneli Lindgren felt so uncomfortable hearing this information she was squirming by the time Henrik took a short break. Then he continued.
“Kerstin made sure that Hans never saw the letters. It was she who had opened them first. She had considered going to the police to bring an end to the rapes. The only right decision would have been to get divorced, but she didn’t know who she would be without her husband. Who would look after her? She didn’t have any money of her own, no way to support herself. And if the story got out, it would be the end of her husband’s career and then she, too, wouldn’t have any money to live on. Besides, everybody would scorn her for having been married to a rapist. So she had decided to hide the letters and pay. For silence,” said Henrik.
“How can you protect somebody who treats you so badly?” said Mia.
“I don’t know. Hans Juhlén was really a nasty bastard. According to Kerstin, he more or less bullied her. It all started twenty years ago when he found out that she could never have a child. He reminded her of that every day. He crushed her.”
“And she let him do it?”
“Yes.”
“But didn’t he discover that the money had been withdrawn from the account?” said Gunnar.
“Oh yes. He had asked her about the withdrawals, but Kerstin lied and said they were for purchases for their home or for a bill or a repair that must be paid. He had gotten angry, a big argument followed and he hit her. But she never changed her story. And after a while, even though her excuses never made sense, he lost interest in it and in his wife. In any event she says he stopped asking her about it,” said Henrik.
“Who did the threatening letters come from?” said Mia.
“A Yusef Abrham from Ethiopia. He lives in Hageby and he shares a flat with his sister. That was why Kerstin always withdrew the money there. We’ll talk to him straight after this meeting. Is it okay if I...” Henrik pointed at an empty chair.
“Of course, sit down,” said Gunnar, who was used to Henrik’s tactfulness. Even so, Gunnar added: “You don’t need to ask permission to do that, surely?”
“No, you can just bloody well sit down,” said Mia.
Henrik pulled out the chair and sat down. He immediately opened a bottle of mineral water and poured half the contents into a glass and drank it. The bubbles tickled his palate.
Jana Berzelius had been sitting in silence, observing, at the short end of the table.
She crossed her legs and said, “Has Kerstin confessed to anything else?”
Henrik shook his head.
“We still don’t have anything concrete that links her to the murder, which means I must let her go.”
“Kerstin did of course have every reason to want to see her husband dead, given how he had treated her. They might well have argued and she pulled out a gun and shot him,” she said.
“But the gun? Where would she have gotten that from? And after shooting him, would she have given it to a child who climbed out through the window? And who would that child have been?” said Henrik.
“I don’t know. Think of something yourself then!” Mia hissed.
Henrik gave her a tired look.
“Okay, now let’s calm down. Jana’s right, we have to release Kerstin, at least for now,” said Gunnar.
“What about Lasse Johansson?” said Jana.
“He’s of no interest any longer, his alibi has been confirmed by several people.”
“So at the moment all we have is the boy and this Yusef Abrham?”
“And whatever is on Hans Juhlén’s computer,” said Gunnar.
“Right,” said Ola Söderström. He shifted his weight on the chair. “It’s going slowly but I’ve checked the hard drive. The strange, or rather revealing, thing is that someone tried to delete it.”
“Delete it?” said Mia. “But you can retrieve that, can’t you?”
“Absolutely, you can. Documents and cookie files can be recovered, that’s no problem. As long as they haven’t been bombarded with EMP.”
Ola Söderström saw the questioning expressions of the team.
“That’s electromagnetic pulse. It knocks everything out. There are firms that do that.”
“There must have been something he wanted to hide,” said Henrik.
“Perhaps. We’ll have to see what I can get out of it.”