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Synopsis
The most famous police officer in Sweden is found murdered in his bed. His four-year-old son is missing. His wife is suspected of killing both of them. No one believes her when she says she is innocent.
No one except for news reporter Annika Bengtzon. Her personal life in turmoil, she turns all her energies to her work, investigating the life of the murdered man.
But if his wife is innocent, where is their son? And will the truth be uncovered in time to find him…before it's too late?
Release date: April 9, 2013
Publisher: Atria/Emily Bestler Books
Print pages: 384
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Lifetime
Liza Marklund
Lifetime
The call went out at 0321. It was sent from the regional communication center to all patrol cars in the center of Stockholm and was short and lacking in detail:
“Control to all units, report of shots fired on Bondegatan.”
Nothing more. No house number, no information about casualties or who made the call.
Even so, Nina felt her stomach clench in a way she didn’t quite understand.
Bondegatan’s a long street, there must be a thousand people living there.
She saw Andersson in the passenger seat reach for the radio, and she quickly grabbed the mouthpiece of the S80 system and pressed the transmit button on its left-hand side while at the same time turning up onto Renstiernas gata.
“Patrol 1617 here,” she answered. “We’re one block away. Have you got a house number?”
Andersson let out a theatrical sigh and looked demonstratively out of the side window of the police car. Nina glanced at him as the car rolled toward Bondegatan. Okay, sulk if you want to.
“Control to 1617,” the operator said over the radio. “You’re the closest unit. Is that you, Hoffman? Over.”
The number of the patrol car was linked to the number on her police badge. One of the routines before each shift started was to feed the car’s registration number and your badge number into the Central Operations Planning System, handily abbreviated to COPS. This meant that the operator in the communication center could always see who was in which vehicle.
“Affirmative,” she said. “Turning in to Bondegatan now . . .”
“How does it look? Over.”
She stopped the car and looked up at the heavy stone buildings on either side of the street. The dawn light hadn’t reached between the buildings yet, and she squinted as she tried to make out shapes in the gloom. There were lights on in one top-floor flat on the right-hand side, but otherwise everything was dark. It was evidently a street-cleaning night, no parking allowed, which made the street look particularly empty and abandoned. One rusty Peugeot stood alone, a parking ticket on its windscreen, halfway down toward Nytorgsgatan.
“No visible activity, as far as I can tell. What number was it, over?”
The operator gave her the address and she went completely cold. That’s Julia’s number, that’s where Julia and David live.
“And he’s got a flat on Söder, Nina! God, it’ll be nice to get away from this corridor!”
“Don’t just take him because of his flat, Julia . . .”
“Take a look, 1617, approach with caution . . .”
She wound down all the car’s windows to make it easier to hear any sounds from the street, put the car in gear, turned off the headlights, and drove slowly down the familiar street. Andersson had perked up and was leaning forward intently.
“Do you reckon it’s anything, then?” he asked.
I hope to God it isn’t anything!
She stopped outside the door and switched off the engine, then leaned forward to peer up at the gray cement façade. There was a light on in a window on the second floor.
“We’ll have to assume the situation is dangerous,” she said tersely and grabbed the radio again. “Patrol 1617 here. We’re in position, and it looks like there are people awake in the building. Should we wait for 9070, over?”
“Patrol 9070 is still in Djursholm,” the operator said, referring to the operational command vehicle.
“The Nobel murderer?” Andersson wondered, and Nina gestured to him to be quiet.
“Are there any other cars in the area? Or the armed response unit? Over,” she asked over the radio.
“We’re switching frequency,” the operator said. “All concerned, switching to zero-six.”
“That whole Nobel business was quite a story,” Andersson said. “Did you hear they’ve caught the bastard?”
Silence spread through the car, and Nina could feel her bulletproof vest rubbing at the base of her spine. Andersson squirmed restlessly in his seat and peered up at the building.
“This could very easily be a false alarm,” he said.
Oh, dear God, let it be a false alarm!
The radio crackled, now on the designated frequency.
“Okay, has everyone switched? Come in, 1617.”
She pressed the transmit button again, feeling her tongue stick to the roof of her dry mouth as she clung desperately, anxiously, to the procedures and routines.
“Zero-six, we’re here. Over.”
The others responded as well, two patrols from the city center and one from the county force.
“The armed response unit isn’t available,” the operator said. “Patrol 9070 is on its way. Hoffman, you have operational command until the command unit gets there. We need a considered response, hold some units back. We’ll form a ring around the location, get cars in place. All units to approach in silence.”
At that moment a patrol car swung into Bondegatan from the other direction. It stopped one block away, the headlights going out as the engine was switched off.
Nina opened the car door and stepped out, her heavy boots echoing in the street. She pressed her earpiece tightly into her left ear as she opened the boot of the car.
“Shield and baton,” she said to Andersson, as she tuned in to frequency zero-six on the handheld radio.
She saw two policemen get out of the patrol car over at the next block.
“Is that you over there, 1980?” she said quietly into the speaker microphone on her right shoulder.
“Affirmative,” one of the officers replied, raising his hand.
“You’re coming in with us,” she said.
She ordered the other patrols to take up positions at opposite corners of a square to ensure they had all lines of sight covered, one at the corner of Skånegatan and Södermannagatan, the other over on Östgötagatan.
Andersson was rummaging around among the bandages, fire extinguishers, shovels, flares, lamp, antiseptic gel, cordon tape, warning triangles, files full of forms, and all the other clutter that was stuffed into the boot of the car.
“Patrol 1617 to Control,” she said over the radio. “Do you have a name for the person who called in? Over.”
A short silence.
“Erlandsson, Gunnar, second floor.”
She looked up at the façade of the 1960s block, with its square picture windows, and noted a light on in a kitchen on the second floor, behind a red-and-white-checkered curtain.
“He’s still up. We’re going in.”
The other officers came over and introduced themselves as Sundström and Landén. She nodded curtly and tapped in the entry code on the keypad beside the door. None of the others reacted to the fact that she knew what it was. She stepped through the door, turning the volume on the radio down to barely audible. Her colleagues filed in silently behind her. Andersson, who was bringing up the rear, wedged the door open wide so that they could retreat to the street quickly if need be.
The stairwell was dark, deserted. The only source of light came from the lift, seeping through the oblong glass window in the metal door.
“Is there a courtyard?” Landén asked quietly.
“Behind the lift,” Nina whispered. “The door on the right leads to the cellar.”
Landén and Sundström each checked a door. Both were locked.
“Open the lift door,” she said to Andersson.
The officer wedged the door open so no one would be able to use the lift, then stopped by the stairs and awaited her order.
She could feel panic thudding at the back of her head and took refuge in the rulebook to conquer it.
Make an initial evaluation of the position. Secure the stairwell. Speak to the man who made the call and find out where the suspected shooting occurred.
“Okay, let’s take a look!” she said, heading quickly and carefully up the stairs, floor by floor. Andersson followed her, keeping one flight of stairs below her the whole time.
The stairwell was gloomy. Her movements were making her clothes rustle in the silence. There was a smell of cleaning fluid. Behind the closed doors she could sense the presence of other people without actually hearing them, a bed creaking, a tap running.
There’s nothing here, no danger, everything’s fine.
Finally, slightly out of breath, she reached the flats on the top floor. It was different from the others, with a marble floor and specially designed security doors. She knew that the housing association had renovated the attic space as luxury apartments in the late 1980s, just in time for the crash in property prices. The flats had stood empty for several years, almost bankrupting the housing association. Today, of course, they were hysterically expensive, but David was still angry at the poor judgment shown by the previous committee.
Andersson came up behind her, panting heavily. Nina could sense her colleague’s irritated disappointment as he wiped his forehead.
“Looks like a false alarm,” he declared.
“Let’s see what the man who called in has to say,” Nina replied, going back downstairs.
Sundström and Landén were waiting on the second floor, beside a door marked ERLANDSSON, G & A.
Nina stepped up to the door and knocked quietly.
No response.
Andersson shifted his feet impatiently behind her.
She knocked again, considerably louder.
A man in a blue-and-white-striped toweling dressing gown appeared through the crack behind a heavy safety chain.
“Gunnar Erlandsson? Police,” Nina said, holding up her badge. “You called about some suspicious noises? Can we come in?”
The man closed the door, fumbled with the chain for a couple of seconds. Then the door swung open.
“Come in,” he whispered. “Would you like some coffee? And there’s some of my wife’s swiss roll, with homemade rhubarb marmalade. She’s dozing at the moment, she has trouble getting to sleep and took a pill . . .”
Nina stepped into the hall. The layout of the flat was exactly like David and Julia’s, but this one was considerably tidier.
“Please, don’t go to any trouble for us,” Nina said.
She noted that Gunnar Erlandsson had been addressing Landén, the largest of the men. Now he was looking anxiously from one to the other, uncertain of where to look.
“Gunnar,” Nina said, gently taking hold of his upper arm, “can we sit down and go through what you heard?”
The man stiffened.
“Of course,” he said. “Yes, of course.”
He led them into a pedantically neat living room with brown leather sofas and a thick rug on the floor. Out of habit he settled into an armchair facing the television, and Nina sat down on the coffee table in front of him.
“Tell me what happened, Gunnar.”
The man swallowed and his eyes were still flitting between the officers.
“I woke up,” he said. “A noise woke me up, a bang. It sounded like a shot.”
“What made you think it was a shot?” Nina asked.
“I was lying in bed, and at first I wasn’t sure if I was dreaming, but then I heard it again.”
The man pulled out a pair of glasses and started polishing them nervously.
“Do you hunt?” Nina asked.
Gunnar Erlandsson stared at her in horror.
“Good grief, no,” he said. “Murdering innocent animals, no, that seems utterly medieval to me.”
“If you’re not familiar with firearms,” Nina said, “what made you think that you heard a shot, precisely? Could it have been a car backfiring, or some other sudden noise out in the street?”
He blinked several times and looked beseechingly up at Landén.
“It didn’t come from outside,” he said, pointing at the ceiling. “It came from the Lindholms’. I’d swear that’s where it came from.”
Nina felt the room lurch and stood up quickly, clenching her teeth to stop herself screaming.
“Thank you,” she said. “We’ll be back later to take a formal statement.”
The man said something else about coffee, but she went out into the stairwell and up the stairs to the floor above, taking the steps two at a time, to David and Julia’s door.
David and Julia Lindholm.
I don’t know if I can go on, Nina.
You haven’t gone and done anything silly, have you, Julia?
She turned and gestured to Sundström and Landén that they should cover the stairs in both directions and that Andersson should approach the door with her. They took up position on either side of the door, leaving any line of fire clear.
Nina felt the door gently. Locked. She knew it closed automatically if it wasn’t held open. She fumbled for the ASP baton in her belt, then opened it with a light flick of the wrist. She pushed it gently through the letterbox and peered in cautiously.
There was a light on in the hall. The air smelled of newsprint and cooking. She could see the morning paper on the mat. She quickly moved her baton, laying it horizontally so that it held the letterbox open. Then she pulled out her pistol and made sure there was a bullet in the chamber, gesturing to the others to be on the alert. She nodded toward the doorbell so that Andersson realized she was about to make their presence known.
Pointing her weapon at the floor, she pressed the doorbell and heard it ring inside the flat.
“Police!” she called. “Open up!”
She listened intently to any sound from the letterbox.
No response.
“Julia!” she called in a slightly quieter voice. “Julia, it’s me, Nina. Open up. David?”
Her vest was tight across her chest, making it hard to breathe. She could feel the sweat breaking out on her forehead.
“Is that . . . Lindholm?” Andersson said. “David Lindholm? You know his wife?”
Nina holstered her gun and pulled out her personal mobile from the inside pocket of her jacket, and dialed the familiar number to the flat.
Andersson took a step closer to her.
“Listen,” he said, standing far too close to her. She resisted the impulse to back away. “If you have a personal connection to anyone in there, then you shouldn’t . . .”
Nina stared blankly at Andersson as the phone started to ring on the other side of the door, long, lonely rings that seeped out through the letterbox.
Andersson took a step back. The ringing stopped abruptly and the answer machine clicked in. Nina ended the call and dialed another number. A cheerful tune started to play on the floor just inside the door. Julia’s mobile must be on the hall floor, probably in her handbag.
She’s home, Nina thought. She never goes out without her bag.
“Julia,” she said once more as the mobile’s voicemail clicked in. “Julia, are you there?”
The silence was echoing. Nina took several steps back, pressed the transmitter on her radio, and spoke quietly into it.
“This is 1617. We’ve spoken to the informant, and according to him he heard what he thought were shots, probably from the flat above. We’ve made our presence known but there’s been no response from inside the flat. What do you advise? Over.”
There was a short pause before the answer reached her earpiece.
“The armed response unit it still unavailable. Your call. Over and out.”
She let go of the radio.
“Okay,” she said quietly, looking at Andersson and the other two officers on the stairs. “We’ll force the door. Have we got a crowbar in 1617?”
“We’ve got one in our car,” Landén said. Nina nodded toward the stairs and the officer hurried off.
“Do you think it’s appropriate for you to be leading the operation if . . .” Andersson began.
“What’s the alternative?” Nina cut him off, more harshly than she intended. “Handing over command to you?”
Andersson gulped.
“Wasn’t there something funny about Julia Lindholm?” he said. “Wasn’t she involved in some sort of scandal?”
Nina took out her mobile and called Julia’s number once more, still no response.
Landén returned to the landing with the necessary equipment in his arms, a length of metal almost a meter long that was basically an outsized and reinforced crowbar.
“Can we really do this?” Landén said breathlessly as he passed her the tool.
“Any delay could just make things worse,” Nina said.
Paragraph 21 of police legislation. The police have the right to gain entry to a property, room, or other location if there is reason to believe that someone inside may be dead, unconscious, or otherwise incapable of summoning assistance . . .
She passed the crowbar to Andersson and clicked off the safety catch of her pistol, nodding to the others to take up their positions.
As Andersson inserted the end of the crowbar beside the doorframe, she put her foot down close to the door so that it wouldn’t fly open and injure her colleague, in the event that there was actually someone inside who might try to force their way out.
After three carefully judged attempts, the door gave way, and the lock broke. The air that streamed out into the stairwell carried with it the last smells of cooking.
Nina listened intently for any sound within the flat. She shut her eyes and concentrated. Then she jerked her head quickly to her left, taking a first glance at the hall, empty. Another glance, this time toward the kitchen, empty. A third, toward the bedroom.
Empty.
“I’m going in,” she said, pressing her back against the frame of the door, turning toward Andersson. “Cover me. Police!” she called again.
No response.
With her thighs tensed she slid round the doorframe, kicking the newspaper aside and stepping silently into the hall. The lamp hanging from the ceiling was swaying slightly, presumably from the draft. Julia’s bag was indeed lying on the floor to the left of the front door. Alexander’s jacket was next to it. David and Julia’s coats were hanging from hooks on the rack to the right.
She stared straight ahead, toward the kitchen, hearing Andersson’s breathing behind her.
“Check the nursery,” she said, gesturing with her gun toward the first open door on the left, without taking her eyes from the entrance to the kitchen.
Her colleague slid in; Nina could hear the fabric of his trousers rustling.
“Nursery clear,” he said a few seconds later.
“Check the wardrobes,” Nina said. “Close the door behind you when you’re done.”
She took a few steps forward and took a quick look inside the kitchen. The table was bare, but there were plates with the remains of spaghetti bolognese on the worktop.
Julia, Julia, can’t you be a bit tidier? I’m so damn tired of clearing up after you.
Sorry, I didn’t think.
The draft was coming from the bedroom; one of the windows had to be open. The curtains were drawn, making the room completely dark. She stared into the shadows for a few moments, detecting no movement. But there was a smell, something sharp and unfamiliar.
She reached out a hand and switched on the light.
David was lying on his back across the bed, naked. Where his genitals should have been was a bloody mass of entrails and skin.
“Police,” she said, forcing herself to act as if he were still alive. “You have a weapon aimed at you. Show your hands.”
Thundering silence in response, and she noticed that she had tunnel vision. She looked round the room, the curtains were moving slightly, there was a half-full glass of water on the bedside table on Julia’s side of the bed. The duvet was in a heap on the floor at the end of the bed. On top of it lay a weapon identical to hers, a Sig Sauer 225.
Nina felt mechanically for her radio.
“This is 1617 to Control. We have one casualty at the scene, unclear if he’s still alive. Looks like gunshot wounds to the head and groin. Over.”
As she waited for a reply she went over to the bed, looked down at the body and realized the man was dead. His right eye was closed, as if he were still asleep. In place of the left eye was a gaping entry hole into his skull. The flow of blood had stopped, his heart had stopped beating. His bowels had opened, leaving a brown sludge of acrid-smelling excrement on the mattress.
“Where’s the ambulance?” she asked over the radio. “Didn’t they get the same alarm as us? Over.”
“I’m sending an ambulance and forensics,” Control said in her ear. “Is there anyone else in the flat? Over.”
Andersson appeared in the doorway, glancing at the body.
“You’re needed out here,” he said, pointing toward the bathroom door.
Nina put her gun in its holster and hurried out into the hall, opened the bathroom door and held her breath.
Julia was lying on the floor next to the bath. Her hair was like a pale halo around her head, partially smeared in a mess of vomited spaghetti and sauce. She was wearing pants and a large T-shirt; her knees were pulled up to her chin in a fetal position. She was lying on one hand and the other was cramped in a fist.
“Julia,” Nina said gently, leaning over the woman. She brushed her hair away from her face and saw that her eyes were wide open. Her face was covered with pale-red splatters of blood. A string of saliva was hanging from the corner of her mouth down to the floor.
Oh God, she’s dead, she’s dead and I didn’t save her. I’m sorry!
A rattling breath made the woman jerk, as she gasped before her stomach retched once more.
“Julia,” Nina said, loudly and clearly now. “Julia, are you hurt?”
The woman retched in vain several times before subsiding back on the floor.
“Julia,” Nina said, putting her hand on her friend’s shoulder. “Julia, it’s me. What happened? Are you hurt?”
She pulled the woman up into a sitting position, leaning her against the bath.
“Patrol 1617,” Control repeated in her ear. “I say again, Are there other casualties in the flat? Over.”
Julia closed her eyes and let her head fall back against the enamel. Nina caught it with her left hand as she checked the woman’s pulse in her neck. It was racing.
“Affirmative, two casualties, one presumed dead. Over.”
She let go of the radio.
“Andersson!” she called over her shoulder. “Search the flat, every inch. There should be a four-year-old here somewhere.”
Julia moved her lips, and Nina wiped the vomit from her chin.
“What did you say?” she whispered. “Julia, are you trying to say something?”
Nina looked around and made sure that there was no sign of a weapon in the bathroom.
“How much do we want to cordon off?” Andersson asked from the hall.
“The stairwell,” Nina said. “Forensics are on their way, and people from the crime unit. Start questioning the neighbors. Take Erlandsson first, then the others on this floor. And check to see if whoever delivers the papers saw anything, he must have only just been. Have you searched all the rooms?”
“Yes. Even checked the oven.”
“No sign of the boy anywhere?”
Andersson hesitated in the doorway.
“Is there something you don’t understand?” Nina asked.
Her colleague shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
“I think it’s bloody inappropriate, you being part of this investigation,” he said, “considering that . . .”
“Well, I’m here and I’ve got it,” she said curtly in a sharp tone of voice. “Get the cordon sorted.”
“Okay, okay,” Andersson said, and lumbered off.
Julia’s lips were moving nonstop, but she wasn’t making any sound. Nina was still supporting her head with her left hand.
“The ambulance is on its way,” Nina said, as she examined the woman with her free hand, following the outline of her body under the T-shirt, tracing her skin.
No wounds, not even a scratch. No weapon.
In the distance she could hear the sound of sirens and was gripped by panic.
“Julia,” she said loudly, slapping the woman on the cheek with the palm of her hand. “Julia, what happened? Tell me!”
The woman’s eyes flickered and cleared for a moment.
“Alexander,” she whispered.
Nina leaned down close to Julia’s face.
“What about Alexander?” she asked.
“She took him,” Julia gasped. “The other woman, she took Alexander.”
Then she fainted.
• • •
As Julia Lindholm was being carried out on a stretcher from the flat she shared with her husband on Södermalm, Annika Bengtzon was sitting in a taxi on her way into the center of Stockholm. The sun was rising over the horizon as the car passed the city limits at Roslagstull, coloring the rooftops a blazing red. The contrast with the black, empty streets hurt Annika’s eyes.
The taxi driver kept glancing at her in the rearview mirror, but she pretended not to notice.
“Do you know how the fire started?” he asked.
“I told you, I don’t want to talk,” she said, staring at the buildings flashing past.
Her house had just burned down. Someone had thrown three incendiary grenades through the windows, first one at the foot of the stairs, then one into each of the children’s rooms. She’d managed to get her son and daughter out through the window of her own bedroom at the back of the house, and now she was clutching them tight as they sat on either side of her in the backseat of the car. Both she and the children smelled of smoke, and her cornflower-blue top had soot stains on it.
I bring death and misery with me. Everyone I love dies.
Stop it, she thought sternly, biting the inside of her cheek. I made it, after all. It’s all a matter of focusing and then acting.
“I never usually drive anyone on credit,” the taxi driver said sullenly, pulling up at a red light.
Annika closed her eyes.
Six months ago she had discovered that Thomas, her husband, had been having an affair with a female colleague, an icy little blonde called Sophia Grenborg. Annika had put a stop to the relationship, but she had never confronted Thomas and told him that she knew.
Yesterday he had found out that she had known all along.
You’ve been lying and pretending and fooling me for months, he had yelled, and it’s the same with everything you do. You decide what the world looks like, and anyone who doesn’t agree with you is an idiot.
“That’s not true,” she whispered, aware that she was about to burst into tears in the backseat of the taxi.
She wanted us to meet again. I’m on my way there now.
Her eyes were stinging and she opened them wide to stop the tears from overflowing. The stone façades of the buildings flickered and shone.
If you go now, you can never come back.
He had stared at her with
THURSDAY, JUNE 3
The call went out at 0321. It was sent from the regional communication center to all patrol cars in the center of Stockholm and was short and lacking in detail:
“Control to all units, report of shots fired on Bondegatan.”
Nothing more. No house number, no information about casualties or who made the call.
Even so, Nina felt her stomach clench in a way she didn’t quite understand.
Bondegatan’s a long street, there must be a thousand people living there.
She saw Andersson in the passenger seat reach for the radio, and she quickly grabbed the mouthpiece of the S80 system and pressed the transmit button on its left-hand side while at the same time turning up onto Renstiernas gata.
“Patrol 1617 here,” she answered. “We’re one block away. Have you got a house number?”
Andersson let out a theatrical sigh and looked demonstratively out of the side window of the police car. Nina glanced at him as the car rolled toward Bondegatan. Okay, sulk if you want to.
“Control to 1617,” the operator said over the radio. “You’re the closest unit. Is that you, Hoffman? Over.”
The number of the patrol car was linked to the number on her police badge. One of the routines before each shift started was to feed the car’s registration number and your badge number into the Central Operations Planning System, handily abbreviated to COPS. This meant that the operator in the communication center could always see who was in which vehicle.
“Affirmative,” she said. “Turning in to Bondegatan now . . .”
“How does it look? Over.”
She stopped the car and looked up at the heavy stone buildings on either side of the street. The dawn light hadn’t reached between the buildings yet, and she squinted as she tried to make out shapes in the gloom. There were lights on in one top-floor flat on the right-hand side, but otherwise everything was dark. It was evidently a street-cleaning night, no parking allowed, which made the street look particularly empty and abandoned. One rusty Peugeot stood alone, a parking ticket on its windscreen, halfway down toward Nytorgsgatan.
“No visible activity, as far as I can tell. What number was it, over?”
The operator gave her the address and she went completely cold. That’s Julia’s number, that’s where Julia and David live.
“And he’s got a flat on Söder, Nina! God, it’ll be nice to get away from this corridor!”
“Don’t just take him because of his flat, Julia . . .”
“Take a look, 1617, approach with caution . . .”
She wound down all the car’s windows to make it easier to hear any sounds from the street, put the car in gear, turned off the headlights, and drove slowly down the familiar street. Andersson had perked up and was leaning forward intently.
“Do you reckon it’s anything, then?” he asked.
I hope to God it isn’t anything!
She stopped outside the door and switched off the engine, then leaned forward to peer up at the gray cement façade. There was a light on in a window on the second floor.
“We’ll have to assume the situation is dangerous,” she said tersely and grabbed the radio again. “Patrol 1617 here. We’re in position, and it looks like there are people awake in the building. Should we wait for 9070, over?”
“Patrol 9070 is still in Djursholm,” the operator said, referring to the operational command vehicle.
“The Nobel murderer?” Andersson wondered, and Nina gestured to him to be quiet.
“Are there any other cars in the area? Or the armed response unit? Over,” she asked over the radio.
“We’re switching frequency,” the operator said. “All concerned, switching to zero-six.”
“That whole Nobel business was quite a story,” Andersson said. “Did you hear they’ve caught the bastard?”
Silence spread through the car, and Nina could feel her bulletproof vest rubbing at the base of her spine. Andersson squirmed restlessly in his seat and peered up at the building.
“This could very easily be a false alarm,” he said.
Oh, dear God, let it be a false alarm!
The radio crackled, now on the designated frequency.
“Okay, has everyone switched? Come in, 1617.”
She pressed the transmit button again, feeling her tongue stick to the roof of her dry mouth as she clung desperately, anxiously, to the procedures and routines.
“Zero-six, we’re here. Over.”
The others responded as well, two patrols from the city center and one from the county force.
“The armed response unit isn’t available,” the operator said. “Patrol 9070 is on its way. Hoffman, you have operational command until the command unit gets there. We need a considered response, hold some units back. We’ll form a ring around the location, get cars in place. All units to approach in silence.”
At that moment a patrol car swung into Bondegatan from the other direction. It stopped one block away, the headlights going out as the engine was switched off.
Nina opened the car door and stepped out, her heavy boots echoing in the street. She pressed her earpiece tightly into her left ear as she opened the boot of the car.
“Shield and baton,” she said to Andersson, as she tuned in to frequency zero-six on the handheld radio.
She saw two policemen get out of the patrol car over at the next block.
“Is that you over there, 1980?” she said quietly into the speaker microphone on her right shoulder.
“Affirmative,” one of the officers replied, raising his hand.
“You’re coming in with us,” she said.
She ordered the other patrols to take up positions at opposite corners of a square to ensure they had all lines of sight covered, one at the corner of Skånegatan and Södermannagatan, the other over on Östgötagatan.
Andersson was rummaging around among the bandages, fire extinguishers, shovels, flares, lamp, antiseptic gel, cordon tape, warning triangles, files full of forms, and all the other clutter that was stuffed into the boot of the car.
“Patrol 1617 to Control,” she said over the radio. “Do you have a name for the person who called in? Over.”
A short silence.
“Erlandsson, Gunnar, second floor.”
She looked up at the façade of the 1960s block, with its square picture windows, and noted a light on in a kitchen on the second floor, behind a red-and-white-checkered curtain.
“He’s still up. We’re going in.”
The other officers came over and introduced themselves as Sundström and Landén. She nodded curtly and tapped in the entry code on the keypad beside the door. None of the others reacted to the fact that she knew what it was. She stepped through the door, turning the volume on the radio down to barely audible. Her colleagues filed in silently behind her. Andersson, who was bringing up the rear, wedged the door open wide so that they could retreat to the street quickly if need be.
The stairwell was dark, deserted. The only source of light came from the lift, seeping through the oblong glass window in the metal door.
“Is there a courtyard?” Landén asked quietly.
“Behind the lift,” Nina whispered. “The door on the right leads to the cellar.”
Landén and Sundström each checked a door. Both were locked.
“Open the lift door,” she said to Andersson.
The officer wedged the door open so no one would be able to use the lift, then stopped by the stairs and awaited her order.
She could feel panic thudding at the back of her head and took refuge in the rulebook to conquer it.
Make an initial evaluation of the position. Secure the stairwell. Speak to the man who made the call and find out where the suspected shooting occurred.
“Okay, let’s take a look!” she said, heading quickly and carefully up the stairs, floor by floor. Andersson followed her, keeping one flight of stairs below her the whole time.
The stairwell was gloomy. Her movements were making her clothes rustle in the silence. There was a smell of cleaning fluid. Behind the closed doors she could sense the presence of other people without actually hearing them, a bed creaking, a tap running.
There’s nothing here, no danger, everything’s fine.
Finally, slightly out of breath, she reached the flats on the top floor. It was different from the others, with a marble floor and specially designed security doors. She knew that the housing association had renovated the attic space as luxury apartments in the late 1980s, just in time for the crash in property prices. The flats had stood empty for several years, almost bankrupting the housing association. Today, of course, they were hysterically expensive, but David was still angry at the poor judgment shown by the previous committee.
Andersson came up behind her, panting heavily. Nina could sense her colleague’s irritated disappointment as he wiped his forehead.
“Looks like a false alarm,” he declared.
“Let’s see what the man who called in has to say,” Nina replied, going back downstairs.
Sundström and Landén were waiting on the second floor, beside a door marked ERLANDSSON, G & A.
Nina stepped up to the door and knocked quietly.
No response.
Andersson shifted his feet impatiently behind her.
She knocked again, considerably louder.
A man in a blue-and-white-striped toweling dressing gown appeared through the crack behind a heavy safety chain.
“Gunnar Erlandsson? Police,” Nina said, holding up her badge. “You called about some suspicious noises? Can we come in?”
The man closed the door, fumbled with the chain for a couple of seconds. Then the door swung open.
“Come in,” he whispered. “Would you like some coffee? And there’s some of my wife’s swiss roll, with homemade rhubarb marmalade. She’s dozing at the moment, she has trouble getting to sleep and took a pill . . .”
Nina stepped into the hall. The layout of the flat was exactly like David and Julia’s, but this one was considerably tidier.
“Please, don’t go to any trouble for us,” Nina said.
She noted that Gunnar Erlandsson had been addressing Landén, the largest of the men. Now he was looking anxiously from one to the other, uncertain of where to look.
“Gunnar,” Nina said, gently taking hold of his upper arm, “can we sit down and go through what you heard?”
The man stiffened.
“Of course,” he said. “Yes, of course.”
He led them into a pedantically neat living room with brown leather sofas and a thick rug on the floor. Out of habit he settled into an armchair facing the television, and Nina sat down on the coffee table in front of him.
“Tell me what happened, Gunnar.”
The man swallowed and his eyes were still flitting between the officers.
“I woke up,” he said. “A noise woke me up, a bang. It sounded like a shot.”
“What made you think it was a shot?” Nina asked.
“I was lying in bed, and at first I wasn’t sure if I was dreaming, but then I heard it again.”
The man pulled out a pair of glasses and started polishing them nervously.
“Do you hunt?” Nina asked.
Gunnar Erlandsson stared at her in horror.
“Good grief, no,” he said. “Murdering innocent animals, no, that seems utterly medieval to me.”
“If you’re not familiar with firearms,” Nina said, “what made you think that you heard a shot, precisely? Could it have been a car backfiring, or some other sudden noise out in the street?”
He blinked several times and looked beseechingly up at Landén.
“It didn’t come from outside,” he said, pointing at the ceiling. “It came from the Lindholms’. I’d swear that’s where it came from.”
Nina felt the room lurch and stood up quickly, clenching her teeth to stop herself screaming.
“Thank you,” she said. “We’ll be back later to take a formal statement.”
The man said something else about coffee, but she went out into the stairwell and up the stairs to the floor above, taking the steps two at a time, to David and Julia’s door.
David and Julia Lindholm.
I don’t know if I can go on, Nina.
You haven’t gone and done anything silly, have you, Julia?
She turned and gestured to Sundström and Landén that they should cover the stairs in both directions and that Andersson should approach the door with her. They took up position on either side of the door, leaving any line of fire clear.
Nina felt the door gently. Locked. She knew it closed automatically if it wasn’t held open. She fumbled for the ASP baton in her belt, then opened it with a light flick of the wrist. She pushed it gently through the letterbox and peered in cautiously.
There was a light on in the hall. The air smelled of newsprint and cooking. She could see the morning paper on the mat. She quickly moved her baton, laying it horizontally so that it held the letterbox open. Then she pulled out her pistol and made sure there was a bullet in the chamber, gesturing to the others to be on the alert. She nodded toward the doorbell so that Andersson realized she was about to make their presence known.
Pointing her weapon at the floor, she pressed the doorbell and heard it ring inside the flat.
“Police!” she called. “Open up!”
She listened intently to any sound from the letterbox.
No response.
“Julia!” she called in a slightly quieter voice. “Julia, it’s me, Nina. Open up. David?”
Her vest was tight across her chest, making it hard to breathe. She could feel the sweat breaking out on her forehead.
“Is that . . . Lindholm?” Andersson said. “David Lindholm? You know his wife?”
Nina holstered her gun and pulled out her personal mobile from the inside pocket of her jacket, and dialed the familiar number to the flat.
Andersson took a step closer to her.
“Listen,” he said, standing far too close to her. She resisted the impulse to back away. “If you have a personal connection to anyone in there, then you shouldn’t . . .”
Nina stared blankly at Andersson as the phone started to ring on the other side of the door, long, lonely rings that seeped out through the letterbox.
Andersson took a step back. The ringing stopped abruptly and the answer machine clicked in. Nina ended the call and dialed another number. A cheerful tune started to play on the floor just inside the door. Julia’s mobile must be on the hall floor, probably in her handbag.
She’s home, Nina thought. She never goes out without her bag.
“Julia,” she said once more as the mobile’s voicemail clicked in. “Julia, are you there?”
The silence was echoing. Nina took several steps back, pressed the transmitter on her radio, and spoke quietly into it.
“This is 1617. We’ve spoken to the informant, and according to him he heard what he thought were shots, probably from the flat above. We’ve made our presence known but there’s been no response from inside the flat. What do you advise? Over.”
There was a short pause before the answer reached her earpiece.
“The armed response unit it still unavailable. Your call. Over and out.”
She let go of the radio.
“Okay,” she said quietly, looking at Andersson and the other two officers on the stairs. “We’ll force the door. Have we got a crowbar in 1617?”
“We’ve got one in our car,” Landén said. Nina nodded toward the stairs and the officer hurried off.
“Do you think it’s appropriate for you to be leading the operation if . . .” Andersson began.
“What’s the alternative?” Nina cut him off, more harshly than she intended. “Handing over command to you?”
Andersson gulped.
“Wasn’t there something funny about Julia Lindholm?” he said. “Wasn’t she involved in some sort of scandal?”
Nina took out her mobile and called Julia’s number once more, still no response.
Landén returned to the landing with the necessary equipment in his arms, a length of metal almost a meter long that was basically an outsized and reinforced crowbar.
“Can we really do this?” Landén said breathlessly as he passed her the tool.
“Any delay could just make things worse,” Nina said.
Paragraph 21 of police legislation. The police have the right to gain entry to a property, room, or other location if there is reason to believe that someone inside may be dead, unconscious, or otherwise incapable of summoning assistance . . .
She passed the crowbar to Andersson and clicked off the safety catch of her pistol, nodding to the others to take up their positions.
As Andersson inserted the end of the crowbar beside the doorframe, she put her foot down close to the door so that it wouldn’t fly open and injure her colleague, in the event that there was actually someone inside who might try to force their way out.
After three carefully judged attempts, the door gave way, and the lock broke. The air that streamed out into the stairwell carried with it the last smells of cooking.
Nina listened intently for any sound within the flat. She shut her eyes and concentrated. Then she jerked her head quickly to her left, taking a first glance at the hall, empty. Another glance, this time toward the kitchen, empty. A third, toward the bedroom.
Empty.
“I’m going in,” she said, pressing her back against the frame of the door, turning toward Andersson. “Cover me. Police!” she called again.
No response.
With her thighs tensed she slid round the doorframe, kicking the newspaper aside and stepping silently into the hall. The lamp hanging from the ceiling was swaying slightly, presumably from the draft. Julia’s bag was indeed lying on the floor to the left of the front door. Alexander’s jacket was next to it. David and Julia’s coats were hanging from hooks on the rack to the right.
She stared straight ahead, toward the kitchen, hearing Andersson’s breathing behind her.
“Check the nursery,” she said, gesturing with her gun toward the first open door on the left, without taking her eyes from the entrance to the kitchen.
Her colleague slid in; Nina could hear the fabric of his trousers rustling.
“Nursery clear,” he said a few seconds later.
“Check the wardrobes,” Nina said. “Close the door behind you when you’re done.”
She took a few steps forward and took a quick look inside the kitchen. The table was bare, but there were plates with the remains of spaghetti bolognese on the worktop.
Julia, Julia, can’t you be a bit tidier? I’m so damn tired of clearing up after you.
Sorry, I didn’t think.
The draft was coming from the bedroom; one of the windows had to be open. The curtains were drawn, making the room completely dark. She stared into the shadows for a few moments, detecting no movement. But there was a smell, something sharp and unfamiliar.
She reached out a hand and switched on the light.
David was lying on his back across the bed, naked. Where his genitals should have been was a bloody mass of entrails and skin.
“Police,” she said, forcing herself to act as if he were still alive. “You have a weapon aimed at you. Show your hands.”
Thundering silence in response, and she noticed that she had tunnel vision. She looked round the room, the curtains were moving slightly, there was a half-full glass of water on the bedside table on Julia’s side of the bed. The duvet was in a heap on the floor at the end of the bed. On top of it lay a weapon identical to hers, a Sig Sauer 225.
Nina felt mechanically for her radio.
“This is 1617 to Control. We have one casualty at the scene, unclear if he’s still alive. Looks like gunshot wounds to the head and groin. Over.”
As she waited for a reply she went over to the bed, looked down at the body and realized the man was dead. His right eye was closed, as if he were still asleep. In place of the left eye was a gaping entry hole into his skull. The flow of blood had stopped, his heart had stopped beating. His bowels had opened, leaving a brown sludge of acrid-smelling excrement on the mattress.
“Where’s the ambulance?” she asked over the radio. “Didn’t they get the same alarm as us? Over.”
“I’m sending an ambulance and forensics,” Control said in her ear. “Is there anyone else in the flat? Over.”
Andersson appeared in the doorway, glancing at the body.
“You’re needed out here,” he said, pointing toward the bathroom door.
Nina put her gun in its holster and hurried out into the hall, opened the bathroom door and held her breath.
Julia was lying on the floor next to the bath. Her hair was like a pale halo around her head, partially smeared in a mess of vomited spaghetti and sauce. She was wearing pants and a large T-shirt; her knees were pulled up to her chin in a fetal position. She was lying on one hand and the other was cramped in a fist.
“Julia,” Nina said gently, leaning over the woman. She brushed her hair away from her face and saw that her eyes were wide open. Her face was covered with pale-red splatters of blood. A string of saliva was hanging from the corner of her mouth down to the floor.
Oh God, she’s dead, she’s dead and I didn’t save her. I’m sorry!
A rattling breath made the woman jerk, as she gasped before her stomach retched once more.
“Julia,” Nina said, loudly and clearly now. “Julia, are you hurt?”
The woman retched in vain several times before subsiding back on the floor.
“Julia,” Nina said, putting her hand on her friend’s shoulder. “Julia, it’s me. What happened? Are you hurt?”
She pulled the woman up into a sitting position, leaning her against the bath.
“Patrol 1617,” Control repeated in her ear. “I say again, Are there other casualties in the flat? Over.”
Julia closed her eyes and let her head fall back against the enamel. Nina caught it with her left hand as she checked the woman’s pulse in her neck. It was racing.
“Affirmative, two casualties, one presumed dead. Over.”
She let go of the radio.
“Andersson!” she called over her shoulder. “Search the flat, every inch. There should be a four-year-old here somewhere.”
Julia moved her lips, and Nina wiped the vomit from her chin.
“What did you say?” she whispered. “Julia, are you trying to say something?”
Nina looked around and made sure that there was no sign of a weapon in the bathroom.
“How much do we want to cordon off?” Andersson asked from the hall.
“The stairwell,” Nina said. “Forensics are on their way, and people from the crime unit. Start questioning the neighbors. Take Erlandsson first, then the others on this floor. And check to see if whoever delivers the papers saw anything, he must have only just been. Have you searched all the rooms?”
“Yes. Even checked the oven.”
“No sign of the boy anywhere?”
Andersson hesitated in the doorway.
“Is there something you don’t understand?” Nina asked.
Her colleague shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
“I think it’s bloody inappropriate, you being part of this investigation,” he said, “considering that . . .”
“Well, I’m here and I’ve got it,” she said curtly in a sharp tone of voice. “Get the cordon sorted.”
“Okay, okay,” Andersson said, and lumbered off.
Julia’s lips were moving nonstop, but she wasn’t making any sound. Nina was still supporting her head with her left hand.
“The ambulance is on its way,” Nina said, as she examined the woman with her free hand, following the outline of her body under the T-shirt, tracing her skin.
No wounds, not even a scratch. No weapon.
In the distance she could hear the sound of sirens and was gripped by panic.
“Julia,” she said loudly, slapping the woman on the cheek with the palm of her hand. “Julia, what happened? Tell me!”
The woman’s eyes flickered and cleared for a moment.
“Alexander,” she whispered.
Nina leaned down close to Julia’s face.
“What about Alexander?” she asked.
“She took him,” Julia gasped. “The other woman, she took Alexander.”
Then she fainted.
• • •
As Julia Lindholm was being carried out on a stretcher from the flat she shared with her husband on Södermalm, Annika Bengtzon was sitting in a taxi on her way into the center of Stockholm. The sun was rising over the horizon as the car passed the city limits at Roslagstull, coloring the rooftops a blazing red. The contrast with the black, empty streets hurt Annika’s eyes.
The taxi driver kept glancing at her in the rearview mirror, but she pretended not to notice.
“Do you know how the fire started?” he asked.
“I told you, I don’t want to talk,” she said, staring at the buildings flashing past.
Her house had just burned down. Someone had thrown three incendiary grenades through the windows, first one at the foot of the stairs, then one into each of the children’s rooms. She’d managed to get her son and daughter out through the window of her own bedroom at the back of the house, and now she was clutching them tight as they sat on either side of her in the backseat of the car. Both she and the children smelled of smoke, and her cornflower-blue top had soot stains on it.
I bring death and misery with me. Everyone I love dies.
Stop it, she thought sternly, biting the inside of her cheek. I made it, after all. It’s all a matter of focusing and then acting.
“I never usually drive anyone on credit,” the taxi driver said sullenly, pulling up at a red light.
Annika closed her eyes.
Six months ago she had discovered that Thomas, her husband, had been having an affair with a female colleague, an icy little blonde called Sophia Grenborg. Annika had put a stop to the relationship, but she had never confronted Thomas and told him that she knew.
Yesterday he had found out that she had known all along.
You’ve been lying and pretending and fooling me for months, he had yelled, and it’s the same with everything you do. You decide what the world looks like, and anyone who doesn’t agree with you is an idiot.
“That’s not true,” she whispered, aware that she was about to burst into tears in the backseat of the taxi.
She wanted us to meet again. I’m on my way there now.
Her eyes were stinging and she opened them wide to stop the tears from overflowing. The stone façades of the buildings flickered and shone.
If you go now, you can never come back.
He had stared at her with
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