Broken Mirrors (ARC) Page 15

  'This killer was successful,' I pointed out. 'Six years later and you have no idea who they are. Maybe they are a woman, then.'

  'Honey, even if I believed a woman had a mind that sick, Jason Winslow was six foot four with pecs the size of my head. If a woman carried his dead body, she was a freak of nature.'

  An hour or two later, I was sorting through the random bits I'd accumulated over the past few months in a vague, reluctant attempt to stat packing. I could have sworn I'd not bought a thing, and yet my stuff was suddenly about three times bigger than the suitcases I'd brought it in. I was going to have to acquire a new bag, or box, or something to move to — wherever I was going to move to.

  I felt as though lead was dripping through my veins. The thaw had been on for days, and though the winter wonderland had somewhat outstayed its welcome, I'd chose it any day over the unrelenting greyness the city was melting into now. Rain was battering ceaselessly against the window. I chucked the jumper I'd been in the middle of folding on the floor and threw myself onto the air mattress, lay staring at the ceiling.

  I was not going to cry. Feeling sorry for myself was not an option. I didn't have time, and more importantly, if I gave into it now, I was far from certain I would have the energy to ever pull myself back out.

  I started to picture just living the rest of my life just crying my eyes out, and a smile tugged at my lips. Having brunch with friends, tears streaming down my face. Taking a tap dancing class, howling with misery. Getting married, shuddering with sobs.

  Yeah, I'd maybe keep that one as Plan B.

  I grabbed my phone, thinking that mindless session of funny cat videos might be just the ticket, when I noticed an email had just come through from Marty MacDonald.

  This is technically a live case but I'm retired and don't give a damn. Just to give you an idea of the stupid scale of this investigation, I found a list of every witness we interviewed. Maybe you'll see how we never had a chance.

  Stifling a yawn, I opened the attachment and scanned the list of names. Sure enough, there were dozens and dozens. Next to each name was a code with a hyperlink, that presumably connected to the person's statement. I clicked on a random one, but came up against a screen asking for my credentials, so I navigated back to the list.

  There wasn't much I could do with a list of names, I thought, other than reassure Marty MacDonald that it wasn't his fault the case was never solved. Then I noticed one that made me sit up straight.

  Lotta Berglund.

  Lotta Berglund hadn't just been in the same city when the murder took place, she had been interviewed by police. She had been based at Harvard, and the body was found in a small park at the edge of the Charles River just a few blocks from Harvard's campus, I reminded myself. Marty MacDonald had been quite clear that they had interviewed pretty much anyone who had ever been in the vicinity, so it very possibly meant absolutely nothing that she was on the list.

  I fired off a quick message to Marty MacDonald asking what he remembered about her, then returned to the list again.

  Which was when I noticed the name below hers. I pulled up an app I hadn't opened in weeks, and was relieved to discover that my login still worked, clearly Sandra was about as up to date on admin as I would have predicted.

  I swiped back and forth between the two, heart hammering as I tried to process the impossible. The American Anna Essen had spoken to. And then I remembered the dating app profile. The profile with the stuffed frog.

  Koak.

  I had got absolutely everything wrong.

  38

  'Henrik!' I yelled.

  It was too mild for the thick snow boots I was wearing and my feet felt as though they were being boiled alive, but it had been too wet and slushy for trainers. I slowed to a walk about a block away from the police station, trying to catch my breath. Neither Henrik nor Nadja had answered their phones and clearly, no amount of running or hellish bootcamps were a match for a wild sprint halfway across Södermalm through half melted snow in heavy boots.

  I could see Henrik now, leaning against the police station, hunched over, one foot propped against the wall. I spotted the glow of a cigarette dangling between his fingers, though as I hurried up the pavement as fast as my shaking legs would carry me, he didn't take a single drag. I knew someone once who'd given up smoking years ago, but lit up every once in a while just to feel it, inhale the sharp, acrid scent, only to then stub it out with a little self-congratulatory smile.

  'Yeah, closest I had my eye on anyone it was Casey Donnantuoro,' Marty MacDonald said a few moments ago when I got hold of him again. I refrained from reminding him that he'd told me there was never a particular suspect in the frame not an hour earlier. 'But there was just nothing strong enough to stick, save for him being a weirdo. And a trainee coroner at the time, so he would have known his way around a post mortem. There was no connection we could find whatsoever between him and Jason Winslow, and like I said, we were looking for a personal motive.'

  'Henrik —' I said again as I approached him, but he didn't respond. Did he have earphones in or something, I wondered. His hood was pulled low over his face, and it crossed my mind that standing out here in the rain was a helluva dedication to smoking for a man who hadn't taken a single drag in several minutes. I glanced down at the cigarette in his hand and saw that it had burned right down to the stub. The orange glow was directly between his fingers, the skin touching it blackened.

  'Henrik? No, no — Henrik —'

  I didn't even realise I was screaming until people came running.

  39

  'Casey Donnantuoro wife is protecting him,' Nadja said. 'Somehow he got wind we were coming to arrest him and he ran. I think she knows where he is but she will not say.'

  I had been sitting on a hard plastic seat in the reception area of the police station for most of the night, watching the muted, stunned commotion as the news spread that one of their own had been killed. Sometime in those first few moments, an ashen-faced officer had led me in here, got me a coffee, promised me that a statement would be taken soon.

  Hours had ticked by. I'd refilled the coffee so many times I could feel every cell jittering. I felt numb, detached almost. As though I were in a nightmare, experiencing what felt real, but aware on some level that it couldn't possibly be real. I supposed I was free to go, but I couldn't bring myself to stand up and leave.

  Finally, sometime in the small hours, Nadja had come in and slumped into the chair next to me. She'd sat in silence for several moments, grief emanating from her almost like a physical fog. I'd seen her pass to and fro a few times throughout the night, and she had seemed like her normal self, barking out instructions, listening to reports. I'd been in awe of her composure, but now I realised it had all been a front.

  'I just don't understand,' she said with a smile that bordered on manic. 'This is a police station. He murdered Henrik right under the noses of Stockholm's police force. Officers have been coming and going all night, passing within metres of the body and nobody noticed.' Her voice was low, but edged with a shrill note of hysteria. I wasn't sure if it was my place to suggest she get herself checked for shock, but I definitely wasn't going to leave her alone.

  'How could his wife protect him after what he's done?'

  Nadja shrugged with great effort. 'Denial is a powerful thing, I suppose. To accept all we told her tonight, she would have to admit that her entire life has been a lie. The poor woman has that little boy to think of —'

  'Tor-Björn,' I said softly, remembering the weight of his little body when he had finally stopped crying and curled up in my arms, sucking on his dummy, as I read him a story.

  'And one on the way by the looks of it. It will take her months of therapy to even begin to process it, but I don't know how we will find him in the meantime.' She yawned deeply and rubbed her forehead.

  'Based on what we have discovered so far,' she continued, he trained to be a coroner but struggled to keep employment due to erratic behaviour. Not showing u
p for work, not accepting the authority of his superiors. Once he argued over a cause of death and was so determined to prove himself right that he recovered the body from the morgue and attempted to perform a second post-mortem himself. That was in Philadelphia. He lost that job of course, and shortly afterwards met his Swedish wife and moved here.'

  'He was working as a waiter here, wasn't he?''

  Nadja nodded. 'He attempted to find work in his field several times in Stockholm, and according to one outburst in an interview believed he was being turned down due to xenophobia and anti-American sentiment. We can only theorise that is why he started killing again.'

  'So Ola and Lotta have nothing to do with him?'

  Nadja shook her head. 'It does not look that way. There was some skin cells found on the bodies of both Anna Essen and Mattias Eklund, but there was no match in our system so it was of no use to us. Casey Donnantuoro's wife allowed us to take his toothbrush, believing it would prove him innocent. The full tests will take a day or two to complete, but based on initial assessment our lab believes it will be a match. And Henrik —' her voice wavered, she took a shaky breath. 'That post mortem is yet to be completed, of course.'

  'There's a summer cottage,' I blurted suddenly. 'Where they go every summer. It's the little boy's favourite place to be. It belongs to his wife's parents, but what if he is hiding out there? It must be empty now. It's pretty remote.'

  'Do you know where it is? We can search records but it will take time.'

  'The principal of the school has a cottage there too,' I said, pulling my phone out. 'She might know exactly where theirs is.'

  40

  It wasn't right.

  It wasn't right, it wasn't right, it wasn't right.

  A policeman was dead. But the killer was locked up. Sigrid could see her. She had been watching her the whole time. Something had gone wrong. She had got confused. It was happening again. It hadn't happened for so many years.

  Sigrid paced the floor of her small flat inside the big home that made her feel safe. The social worker would be angry if she saw her like this, picking at her cuticles so roughly that they bled. She would get in trouble. She hated it when people shouted at her. It made her feel as tiny as a mosquito and when she felt tiny, bad things happened. She wound locks of her hair around and around her fingers, so tightly that the tips of her fingers started to bleed.

  She closed her eyes and tried to remember the meeting the other night. She had been so powerful, so in control. She had talked and talked and all those people had listened. What had she said? She had said so many words, but they were slipping away now, crumbling into meaningless letters then into dust as she became small like a mosquito.

  All the people who came to the meetings would see the real her now, she thought, panic fluttering around her chest like a frightened bird. They would realise that she had been only pretending, that she had barely even understood all the words she had said to them. She didn't know why the woman on the bed was a murderer. She didn't even know if it was true.

  Sigrid stopped short so suddenly that she nearly knocked over her favourite photograph, the one of her and the little girl at Christmas one year, after Lisbet had died but before Mamma and Pappa did. They had lied to her. They had told her that the woman on the bed was a dangerous killer who had to be stopped, but it couldn't be true.

  They were probably all laughing at her, the stupid old lady who believed what they said. Just like everyone had laughed at her, ever since she was a small child. Sigrid often thought about the fact that she hated people, but she knew the truth deep down. People hated her.

  Even the little girl, she realised in dismay. The one person Sigrid had always loved. She must hate her, to have lied to her like this.

  41

  'Ellie —'

  I felt dizzy with exhaustion when I finally stepped out of the police station later that morning. The world swam before my eyes and the only thing I could focus on was Johan. He stood on the front steps, on the opposite side of the building from the area cordoned off by crime scene tape. He looked so familiar and safe that the whole night came crashing over me and suddenly I had collapsed into a heaving, sobbing mess and he gathered me into his arms.

  He held me for a long time, almost lifting me off the ground as I buried my face in the soft wool of his winter coat and sobbed and sobbed. Finally I took a shaky breath and stepped back, wiped my face with the hanky he handed me.

  'Sorry about that,' I said with a weak smile.

  'I heard on the radio news this morning.' He took my red, blotchy face in his hands and kissed my forehead so gently that for a second I thought I might start bubbling all over again. 'They did not name the person who found the detective's body, but I knew it had to be you.'

  'He was such a nice guy,' I said, my voice wavering. 'I didn't know him well, I don't have any right to be grieving or anything but it's just so sad. I don't even know if he had a family, or girlfriend or whatever.' I took a shaky breath. 'It's just so sad. I said that already, I'm sorry. I saw the frog, a couple of days ago now. If I'd made the connection earlier —'

  'Ellie, no. It was the police's job to catch this killer, and thanks to you, at least they know who he is now.'

  I nodded. 'This island where he might be, it isn't big. If he is there, they will catch him any minute.'

  'Then that is amazing and you should be proud of yourself.'

  I gave a shaky sigh. Nothing felt particularly amazing at the present, but I knew he was right. I was glad he was there.

  'Casey asked for me especially to school-in his son. He must have known who I was from last summer. What if it's him that has been in my apartment?'

  'Someone has been in your apartment?' Johan stopped short.

  'I don't know. Maybe.'

  'What? Why didn't you tell me?'

  'I wasn't sure. The window was open one night, then another time — I don't know, it was just a feeling. I thought I was just going round the bend, but —' I took a deep breath, trying to gather my thoughts as we started to walk. Johan's arm was firmly around my waist, almost holding me up. 'I'll need to warn my landlady. She's not one for replying to emails, but maybe I could leave a note or something, until they catch him. Maybe she should put off coming home after all.'

  'We are going to your apartment now to collect your stuff and you are coming home today. You cannot stay there any more.''

  'Johan you don't need to do that.'

  'It is only two days until you were coming back anyway, right?'

  There was a note of uncertainty in his voice that made me stop.

  'I thought —' I began.

  I looked away. A daycare class of ten or fifteen pre schoolers, some in pairs, others holding hands with teachers, toddled by, matching luminous pink vests covering their rain gear. A little girl with long plaits sticking out from beneath her woolly hat broke formation to leap into a puddle of slush, and I half-smiled as I heard the exhausted teacher try to patiently explain why she must stay with the group when there were cars nearby.

  'Men jag vill!’ the toddler argued in a high pitched but determined voice. But I want to.

  At the back of the group a teacher held hands with a wobbly toddler with scraggly ginger curls that reminded me of Tor-Björn.

  As one of the teachers started to sing a rousing marching song, I tore my eyes away from them and back to Johan. Maybe I should leave this conversation until I had had some sleep. Everything felt a bit hazy and surreal, though I was surprisingly calm. I had to do it now. In for a penny in for a pound, I thought, taking a deep breath.

  'I thought maybe you didn't want me to,' I said in a rush. 'That maybe you — maybe it's all been too much, for us. Maybe it was too late to start again.'

  'Do you still love me?'

  I nodded, not quite able to speak.

  'I love you,' he said simply, and the lump in my throat grew. 'For these last few months, I didn't really know what I thought or felt. Losing Liv, and thinking about my father for
the first time in so many years. And losing Mia,' he added quietly. 'I have felt like I was in a — what's the word again, a clothes dryer, you know? Going round and round and sometimes upside down, being tossed against these horrible truths over and over and not really being able to see anything beyond them. But the only thing I could see clearly the whole time was you. I have not done enough lately to deserve you, but I am going to change that.'

  I managed a wobbly smile. 'I'm willing to give you that chance.'

  'Thank you.'

  'You're welcome.'

  'This is me,' I said as we turned into my road. It wasn't particularly likely that Casey Donnantuoro would be slinking around in broad daylight, but still I scanned the road as I took my glove off to key in the front door code. The street was empty.

  'Ellie — I don't understand. This is where you have been living?'

  'Yes, so?'

  'What apartment?'

  I never understood the expression 'white as a sheet' until that moment. The colour drained from Johan's face as he stared at me in horror.

  'Third floor, far left as you come out of the elevator.'

  'That is Mia's apartment.'

  42

  Gabriella Martinez was fairly confident that there were few things more boring in life than being assigned to guard a guy in a coma. Most of her team were racing out to the archipelago island where a sighting of Casey Donnantuoro had now been reported, and here she was hanging around a hospital corridor watching over a piece-of-shit wife killer who would probably never wake up. She was positive she had been stuck with the dud job because she had questioned her boss and made him look an idiot in the team meeting this morning. The fact that it wasn't difficult to make him look an idiot really wasn't her problem.

  Gabriella yawned and glanced at her watch. Three more hours and she would be off duty. She had told Brita and Lia she would join them for cocktails at one of the Stureplan bars they liked to hang out at to flirt with older men, but already she knew she would make macaroni and cheese and eat it in front of the TV. This job was making her old before her time, she thought with a sigh.