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- Herausgeber: Orenda Books
- Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
- Sprache: Englisch
An abduction in London and the discovery of a body on the west coast of Sweden lead criminal profiler Emily Roys and true-crime writer Alexis Castells back to Jack the Ripper's Whitechapel, as they hunt a serial killer. Book two in the explosive, award-winning Roy & Castells series. 'A terrific, original duo' Marcel Berlins, The Times 'Gritty, bone-chilling, and harrowing – it's not for the faint of heart, and not to be missed' Crime by the Book 'A relentless heart-stopping masterpiece, filled with nightmarish situations that will keep you awake long into the dark nights of winter' New York Journal of Books ___________________ Whitechapel, 1888: London is bowed under Jack the Ripper's reign of terror. London 2015: Actress Julianne Bell is abducted in a case similar to the terrible Tower Hamlets murders of some ten years earlier, and harking back to the Ripper killings of a century before. Falkenberg, Sweden, 2015: A woman's body is found mutilated in a forest, her wounds identical to those of the Tower Hamlets victims. With the man arrested for the Tower Hamlets crimes already locked up, do the new killings mean he has a dangerous accomplice, or is a copy-cat serial killer on the loose? Profiler Emily Roy and true-crime writer Alexis Castells again find themselves drawn into an intriguing case, with personal links that turn their world upside down. Following the highly acclaimed Block 46 and guaranteed to disturb and enthral, Keeper is a breathless thriller from the new queen of French Noir. ___________________ 'A bold and intelligent read' Guardian 'A satisfying, full-fat mystery' The Times 'Assured telling of a complex story' Sunday Times 'Dark, oppressive and bloody but also thought-provoking, compelling and very moving' Metro 'A real page-turner, I loved it' Martina Cole 'Cleverly plotted, simply excellent' Ragnar Jónasson 'A must-read' Daily Express 'Gustawsson's writing is so vivid, it's electrifying. Utterly compelling' Peter James 'Bold and audacious' R. J. Ellory 'A great serial-killer thriller with a nice twist … first rate' James Oswald 'Thought-provoking, challenging, and an absolute knock-out … I'm still in shock' LoveReading 'A great addition to the world of noir novels, and lives alongside the best...' TripFiction
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Seitenzahl: 390
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018
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KEEPER
An Emily Roy and Alexis Castells Investigation
JOHANA GUSTAWSSON
translated by Maxim Jakubowski
For Mattias, my BETTER half
Contents
Friday, 30 October 2015, 11 am
He unbuttoned the jacket of his pale grey suit with careful deliberation, straightened his narrow tie and sat down to face the judge. Sorry. Madam Justice.
His eyes zeroed in on the heavy pearls dangling from her distended ear lobes. As big as his thumb. His lawyer had advised him to wear a sober, dark suit. For the tie, something more classic. With a looser knot. Just a ‘suggestion’.
He couldn’t give a damn about the suit, per se. It was having a choice in the matter that he found exciting. This was one sliver of power he could exploit to the hilt. Savour it right down to the bone.
The judge started to speak. She shook her head, and her earrings swayed as if they were slow dancing. Ear lobes lolling like tongues.
Lobes and mash, home-made style…
Beat two egg yolks and dip the lobes in.
Toss them in breadcrumbs.
Fry them up in parsley butter.
Drizzle them in olive oil and serve with mash.
Lobes and mash, home-made style…
He leaned in to bring his mouth closer to the microphone and give Madam Justice an answer. Spelled out his surname. Paused to brush away a speck of dust from his left shoulder with the back of his hand. Carried on with his given name, date of birth and profession, his mind dwelling on the curious habit he had of unbuttoning his suit jacket when he sat down. A fashion adopted by pupils at Eton or, more accurately, those elected to the in-crowd of their exclusive ‘Pop’ club. Though perhaps this particular idiosyncrasy went all the way back to King Edward VII, whose fullness of figure demanded the extra space when His Majesty sat on His Royal Backside.
The judge had just asked him to speak. She straightened the lace collar of her robe and shifted some files across her desk.
Lobes and mash, home-made style…
He coughed into his hand. Appreciated the absence of handcuffs. Reflected on how a cage would soon replace them. An image flashed across his mind, slotting into the space between himself and Madam Justice with her lolling ear lobes. A vision of himself hanging from the bars of his cell like a monkey. Still wearing his suit.
He laughed. The sound of it echoed harshly back at him.
Though he was laughing, he shivered as a thin film of sweat spread across the nape of his neck.
‘It’s not my fault,’ he mumbled, as if to himself. ‘It’s not my fault…’
The judge interrupted him. He couldn’t make out the words, just the music of her speech. A crescendo building to a climax. A question.
‘It’s not my fault,’ he continued. ‘Hilda was the one who started it… It all started with Hilda…’
Torvsjön, Halmstad, Sweden
Thursday, 16 July 2015, 4.35 am
KARLA HANSEN SLIPPED HER MOBILE into the back pocket of her jeans, zipped up her jacket and pulled on her rain boots. She threw her Converses into the boot of her estate and set out into the woods.
The sun was already rising in the sky with casual ease. In July, it shone proudly for seventeen oh-so-blissful hours and seemed to revel in its summer reign as much as the Swedes basked in its glow. It had been a frigid winter that year, lingering oppressively all the way through to May like a house guest who refuses to leave, shooing spring away until a Divine hand intervened to throw back the frozen curtain and clear the air. Hallelujah.
Karla’s every step was marked by the sound of snapping twigs and the muted splash of muddy puddles, the remnants of yesterday’s squalls.
Like every morning when she awoke, her brain was switched to ‘Post-It factory’ mode, as her husband, Dan, liked to tease. And her to-do list went on, and on and on. Summer had barely begun, and already it was time to think about autumn. She would have to sign her daughters up for their extra-curricular activities once school started: judo and soccer for Pia, the eldest; contemporary dance and theatre for Ada, the youngest; Spanish for both of them. They would no doubt complain about the language lessons, but they didn’t have any choice in the matter. Dan would rather they learned French, but the girls had kicked up a fuss (they were allowed one veto a month, and used and abused the privilege). Reason given: the teacher was a slave-driver. Real reason: there was no way they were going to get up at eight in the morning on a Saturday.
Karla also had to call the electrician back and run into Ica to pick up lunch: some steaks, flour, strawberries and vaniljvisp, the delicious vanilla cream that always whipped up so nicely for dessert. No, she would ask Dan to do the shopping. And he could sort out the Spanish lessons as well; she would text him a bit later.
Dan wrote young-adult novels. Or rather, novels for young women, or women who wanted to feel young again. Stories about wicked witches, conniving queens, fearless warriors and fearsome dragons, all fighting among themselves to rule over kingdoms with unpronounceable names. Karla’s little lists were her way of bringing him back down to earth every day and reminding him what a wonderful husband and father he was. How else could she rival all those doe-eyed groupies who drooled over him? Flattering his ego and keeping his feet on the ground, that’s what she did. Blatant manipulation, her colleagues at work called it. Manipulation? No, that’s what marriage was all about, she reasoned with a smile, never daring to admit she was deadly serious about the whole thing.
Karla slowed her pace. Through the rows of quivering birch trees, she could see the shores of the lake – Torvsjön – awash with the bloodlike hue of dawn.
‘I’m sorry, but the lake is off-limits this morning,’ said a deathly pale officer in uniform, blocking her way.
‘So I see…’
‘I’m going to have to ask you to turn around.’ The young rookie’s breath stank of vomit.
‘You’ve just thrown up your breakfast, haven’t you?’
The young man swallowed hard and glanced down at his muddy boots in embarrassment. Then he pulled himself together and barrelled his scrawny chest as best he could. ‘Madam, I must ask you to…’
‘I hope you haven’t puked all over my crime scene.’
‘What? But…’
‘I’m Detective Hansen.’
The officer opened his mouth. Closed it again.
‘Ah… I… sorry… I thought…’ he stammered, his cheeks reddening.
‘I know I’m not what you were expecting: all tits and no balls. Don’t dwell on it, though. Where’s all the action around here, kiddo?’
Buck’s Row, Whitechapel, London, England
Friday, 31 August 1888, 3.25 am
FREDA WALLIN WAS WOKEN UP by the ugly din of screaming, barking, whistling and laughing. A familiar scene was unfolding a few streets away from her modest lodgings: lambs being led to the slaughter at the Spitalfields abattoirs 150 yards away, bleating for their lives, as if they could sense the sorry fate awaiting them, while the jeers of vulgar passers-by as excited at the sight of blood as they were a whore’s bare leg echoed like a beating drum.
Soon, all that would be left of the poor creatures would be their entrails littered across the Whitechapel pavements, their blood running down the streets in torrents and a stench of death so suffocating it felt like a kiss from the Grim Reaper himself.
Freda yawned, threading her fingers through her hair.
‘Helvete!’ What the hell?
She’d rolled in at midnight and forgotten to rub Keating’s powder into her scalp. She pressed her nose down into her mattress and sniffed every square inch of its surface. It smelled rank, but not of rotten raspberries, thank goodness, so it was unlikely there were bed bugs. She pulled off the bed sheet and shook it out, just to make sure.
She’d come home too late: she shouldn’t have gone down to the Shadwell docks for a gander at the fire that had broken out. She’d been having a drink with Liz Stride at the Ten Bells. By ten o’clock, Liz had already earned enough to pay for a room on Flower and Dean Street, so she’d dragged Freda along with her to the docks. The spectacle had turned out to be as sinister as it was hypnotic. The flames had roared up into the sky, devouring the clouds and the night, casting their light over London at its most appealing: when the city was silent. During the daytime, the incessant clamour in the streets was a blight on the city. Horses and their neighing, the clap of their hooves on cobblestones and the jingling of their harnesses. The cheery calls of market traders, muffin men and coffee sellers, the exasperated cries of women splashed with muck by hackney carriages, the tears and barking coughs of children all swallowed up by the music of the barrel organs. London, in the daytime, was a fair, fresh-faced, buxom maiden whose charms were tainted by her toothless grin.
‘Freda!’
Her neighbour was knocking at the door to get her out of bed. She owned an alarm clock, passed on by her old boss, which meant Freda had no need to pay for a knocker-up. Her neighbour lived in a room as small as hers, but with six children. When her husband died – crushed by a falling crate at the docks – she was already expecting a seventh. She had prayed no end for the baby not to live and the devil had heard her call: the poor thing was stillborn.
Freda rose, plucked a couple of drowned cockroaches out of her washbasin, chucked them into the hearth and splashed some water on her face. She slipped on her woollen stockings and two cotton skirts over her flannel underwear and laced up her corset as best she could before buttoning her blouse and stepping into her linen dress.
She then folded four large sheets of newspaper and slipped them into the left-hand pocket of her coat. The rough paper was hard on the skin of her backside but, as Liz would say, better that than wandering around all day with shit smeared across her bum. From the right-hand pocket, she pulled out her dust-dirtied handkerchief and switched it for a clean one she had set out on the back of the chair. She shook out her boots to make sure no vermin had holed up there during the night, however short it had been, and pulled them onto her feet.
‘Murder!’
Freda ran to the window. A crowd was gathering down in the street, on Buck’s Row.
‘Murder! Murder!’ a young boy was screaming, using his hands as a loudspeaker.
Freda quickly slipped on her coat, donned her straw hat and ran downstairs to the street.
Torvsjön, Halmstad
Thursday, 16 July 2015, 8 am
HECTOR NYMAN DUCKED UNDER the blue-and-white tape strung between the spindly tree trunks and forged a path through the twenty or so jumpsuited officers digging around the undergrowth.
Björn Holm, the head of the SKL, the crime-scene unit, took off his mask and unfurled his moustache the same way you’d stretch your legs after a long journey.
‘Well, if it isn’t Detective Hutch putting in an appearance!’ he teased Nyman. ‘Say, blondie, aren’t you supposed to be on holiday?’
‘Not until August. I’m going to top up my tan in Greece.’
Nyman picked up a plastic pouch from a trestle table, tore it open and pulled out a hooded crime-scene suit, slip-on shoe covers, a pair of gloves and a mask.
‘Why such a crowd? Is it market day or something?’ he wondered as he slipped into the regulation outfit.
‘We had to bring in the cavalry. Hansen will explain.’
‘So where is she, then, my Starsky?’
‘Over there. She’s taking a dip,’ Holm said, pointing with his chin to the lake over Nyman’s shoulder.
‘The usual smell?’
‘Doesn’t smell of roses, at any rate. I reckon you’ll be sniffing your Vicks, Nyman…’
With a grimace, Hector Nyman turned and parted the sea of white jumpsuits surging their way back towards him.
A few minutes later, the shoreline of Torvsjön lake emerged through a veil of birch trees, and Hector soon caught sight of his partner, Karla Hansen. Already out of her crime-scene garb, displaying endless legs clad in rain boots, she was talking to a gaunt man he didn’t recognise and barking into her phone at the same time.
She waved as soon as she saw him. Hector hurried over to join her.
‘Let me guess, Holm’s been taking the piss again and there was no need for me to put this damned thing on, right?’ he groaned as she hung up.
‘Yep, you’ve missed the boat, Nyman. The SKL’s just finished down here. We were only waiting for you to help move the body. You can strip off now.’ Karla Hansen gave him a cheeky wink.
‘Ooh, such dirty talk, Hansen. And at such an early hour too… How the hell does your husband keep up with you?’
‘I have to spank him.’
Hector Nyman shook his head, unsure as to whether she was joking.
‘Oh, really! Now all I can think about is you in a kinky leather catsuit…’
‘You’ll get over it, Nyman. Just set your mind to something else,’ his partner replied, tapping the side of her head. ‘Oh, let me introduce you to our new medical examiner, Nicholas Nordin.’
Nordin had been standing there all the while, lost for words.
‘Nicholas will be replacing Birgit for the next year,’ she continued.
‘Really? What’s up with Birgit?’
‘She’s on mat leave.’
‘Again? How does she keep shitting out all those kids?’
‘You should think about having kids of your own, Nyman. Combine pleasure with something useful, for once.’
‘You sell it so well, Hansen. Jeez, I can’t wait.’
‘Well, say hello to Mr Nordin here, then we’ve got something to show you.’
‘How nice, a fresh body. Just what I need to get in the mood.’
With a tentative smile, the medical examiner offered the detective a bony hand to shake. Their latex gloves squeaked as their palms made contact.
‘Let’s go,’ Hansen said as she stepped away.
They walked in single file along the water’s edge, flanked on one side by dense shrubbery and on the other by a fringe of pebbles, slip-pery from the lake’s moist tongue – all the way to a decapitated tree trunk that was teetering precariously on the shore, its knotted roots clinging to nothing but a skirt of tall grass.
‘Are you OK, Nyman?’ Hansen asked.
Hector nodded a careful yes, his eyes fixed on the body.
The young woman was naked, sitting on the ground with her back against the dead tree trunk, legs wide apart, arms by her sides, the palms of her hands turned to the sky. Her head lolled forward, her chin nearly touching her chest. Parted down the centre, her long blonde hair was splattered with mud and drawn back behind her shoulders to reveal her bust. Here, two dark red craters now sat where her breasts would have been. The killer had also cut big chunks of flesh out of her thighs and hips.
Hector forced himself to swallow a few times to stem the bile rising towards his throat.
‘Wait, that’s not all,’ said Hansen, as she kneeled down by the corpse. She gave Nordin a nod, and he came over to the other side of the body to hold the head and arms steady as she leaned it over towards him.
An expletive escaped through Nyman’s clenched teeth. Karla wasn’t kidding: there were two cavernous wounds where the woman’s buttocks should have been.
Arvidstorpsvägen, Falkenberg, Sweden
Thursday, 16 July 2015, 8 am
ALIÉNOR LINDBERGH GULPED another mouthful of coffee.
She had arrived at seven that morning, leaned her bike against the low stone wall and sat on the front steps of the building at 14 Arvidstorpsvägen. She’d eaten her banana and her three thin slices of tunnbröd and prästost, the only Swedish cheese deserving of the name, as she went over every step of her plan in her mind. Again and again.
For the last month, she’d been cycling in from Skrea Strand to 14 Arvidstorpsvägen. Always at the same time every day to provide for every contingency: the flow of traffic, the correct type of clothing for the weather, the weight of her backpack. After trying on a number of options, in the knowledge that this Thursday morning, the temperature would be 17 degrees by six-thirty, she had opted for a pair of pleated trousers, a blouse, a cotton cardigan and some canvas slip-ons. She had tied her hair back into a ponytail, so that it would be out of her face on the ride, knowing she’d feel the odd strand brushing the back of her neck. She’d also brought some supplies and a few toiletries she couldn’t do without.
In twenty-two minutes’ time, she would put her Thermos flask away in her backpack, wedged between the rolls of toilet paper and the box of Annas Pepparkakor – the only biscuits that truly tasted like gingerbread – and then she would enter the building.
Twenty-two minutes. Her heart was racing. Aliénor closed her eyes, took a deep breath in through her nose, exhaled loudly through her mouth and repeated the exercise until the palpitations stopped. She opened her eyes again and ran through the list in her mind, which was usually enough to keep any rising anxiety at bay. She could picture the sheet of paper floating on the breeze, tethered only to the clouds. She mentally read out the rules she had written down in industrious capital letters until a pleasant set of chimes sounded. Eight twenty-seven am. It was time to pack her things away and get going.
She pushed the glass door open. The entrance hall was empty; only a solitary shaven head peered over the light wooden front desk. That would make matters easier.
‘Good day. My name is Aliénor Lindbergh. I have an appointment with Lennart Bergström.’
The young officer looked up, his face a mask. Without taking his eyes off her, he held a phone to his ear and announced her arrival to Kommissionär Bergström. The man then lowered his head as he hung up, affording Aliénor a bird’s-eye view of his shining cranium. Good, she wouldn’t have to make small talk. She took a few steps back to discourage any further dialogue, should he change his mind and start on about the weather. She just couldn’t understand how people could enjoy that kind of conversation. Cold today, isn’t it? What’s with all this rain? What a hot day! It was all relative anyway: a Swede and a Mexican would certainly have differing views on the matter. Her French teacher had once told her how she had burst out laughing reading one of Mankell’s novels in which Wallander commented how pleasant the twenty or so degrees of a Swedish ‘summer’ were.
‘Aliénor Lindbergh?’
Aliénor turned around. She had been expecting the commissioner to come down the corridor to the left of the front desk, but he had emerged through a door behind her, by the main entrance.
Lennart Bergström frowned slightly. Aliénor realised she was standing there wide-eyed. She pulled herself together and clenched her cheekbones into a tight-lipped expression of courtesy. Her nice-to-meet-you smile.
‘Lennart Bergström. Delighted to meet you.’
With his imposing frame and his short grey-streaked beard, Kommissionär
Bergström looked just as he did in the photos that had circulated in the media during the Ebner affair the previous year.
Aliénor shook his outstretched hand. ‘Likewise.’
She found the contact of his calloused palm unpleasant and abruptly let go, triggering another nice-to-meet-you smile to make up for what her father would have called her ‘uncivilised’ reaction.
The commissioner relaxed. ‘Come with me,’ he said, leading the way.
They walked down a corridor that led into an open-plan space, then zigzagged through a little maze of empty cubicles until they reached a door in the back wall. Bergström stepped inside and settled behind a desk; Aliénor sat across from him. The chair felt as hard as the front steps of the police station, and squeaked every time she shifted. She slid forward to the edge of the seat to silence it.
‘I was just reading through your email and the public prosecutor’s,’ Kommissionär Bergström began.
‘You mean you read them again right before you came to get me?’ Aliénor interjected.
The commissioner didn’t answer. Aliénor realised she’d made a blunder. She recognised the spark of surprise that often flashed across people’s eyes and could so easily turn to antagonism.
‘You’re a student of criminal law and legal psychology.’
‘Yes.’
‘And you come warmly recommended by the prosecutor…’
‘Yes, he wouldn’t have solved the Pedersen case without me.’
The commissioner looked around at the untidy office. ‘Aren’t you worried you’ll get bored working with us after your year as a trainee with the public prosecutor’s office?’
‘Eleven months.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘My traineeship with Hans Møller lasted eleven months. No, I won’t be bored.’
Lennart Bergström covered his mouth with his hand, trying to hide his laughter. Aliénor was unsure whether she should laugh as well. She chose not to. It was safer that way. Besides, it might have been a yawn he was trying to stifle.
‘You worked eleven months with Møller, so you know how it goes,’ he continued. ‘You’ll have to sign a confidentiality agreement and you won’t be allowed in the field. You’ll report to me for the entire period. If things get too much for you, you come to see me. OK?’
Aliénor shifted in her seat. She didn’t understand Lennart Bergström’s question. What was she supposed to call him, anyway? Kommissionär? Bergström? Kommissionär Bergström?
‘A police station is much busier than the public prosecutor’s office. Even in a place like Falkenberg. If at any time you find it… difficult to be here, just come and see me. We can always find a solution.’
‘I won’t have any difficulty being here. I’m ready.’
‘So you’d like to join us in September?’
‘I’d like to observe all the stages of an investigation and how the station functions from September to December. But I’d love it if I could actually start work here today.’
‘Today?’
‘Yes, today, Thursday the sixteenth of July. As I mentioned in my email, my time with Hans Møller’s office was complete at the end of the day yesterday, the fifteenth of July, as per my traineeship agreement. So I can start here today.’
‘But Møller talked about September to me,’ Bergström persisted, peering at his computer screen.
‘That’s correct. But my email did stipulate my wish to start on the sixteenth of July. And you did write back to indicate that was fine.’
‘I’m sorry, Aliénor, I must have read your message too quickly. I’m away on holiday starting tomorrow, so there’s no way I can have you start before September.’
Aliénor’s heartbeat began to quicken. She’d had it all planned out.
‘Surely Detective Olofsson won’t be taking his holidays at the same time as you. I could report to him in your absence,’ she ventured.
The squeaking of the chair was getting to be unbearable. She shot to her feet. The commissioner did the same.
‘Aliénor, I’m very sorry, but I can’t leave you with Olofsson. Møller asked me to… look after you. Detective Olofsson would be the wrong person…’
There were three sharp knocks at the door. A set of blue-lined eyes and an aquiline nose peered through the crack of the half-open door.
‘Sorry to disturb you, Commissioner. Your line was busy, so perhaps you didn’t hang up properly. There’s a very urgent call for you from prosecutor Møller…’
‘Isn’t he at his holiday home in in Piteå?’
‘Yes, sir, but… it’s very urgent…’
Lennart Bergström closed his eyes for a moment and nodded tiredly.
‘Thank you, Hannah. Aliénor, can you give me a minute? You can stay.’
The phone rang just eight seconds after Hannah’s departure. The commissioner didn’t utter a word after his ‘Hej, Møller’ in greeting, but his face said it all. His lips tightened in a downward curve, wrinkling his chin, and he kept clenching his jaw.
Aliénor was all too familiar with that expression: Lennart Bergström clearly didn’t like what Hans Møller had to say.
Ten Bells Pub, Whitechapel, London
Friday, 31 August 1888, 10 pm
TWO WRETCHED LADIES of the night were fighting over a square of pavement in front of the Ten Bells. Truth was, the pub drew quite the crowd, so soliciting right outside the door was an easy road to the four pence they were all so desperate to earn. That was the cost of a bed for the night in a lodging house, on a mattress teeming with vermin and sheets that hadn’t been changed in months.
The two unfortunates were clawing at each other’s hats and faces like gutter cats. One tore the other’s blouse clean open, unhooking her tattered corset. One flabby breast flopped out like a teat, provoking a peal of laughter from the drunken crowd pouring out of the pub.
‘That’s nothing. Just wait till you see Mary Kelly get her claws out!’ Liz sniggered, weaving her way to the bar.
Freda followed Liz, trying to suppress the urge to throw up. It had been three months since she had arrived in England – three months of Liz dragging her along to all sorts of pubs after their day’s work. And still she couldn’t get used to all the stomach-churning smells. The air in the Ten Bells was heavy with the bitter stench of beer and gin, the stink of filthy clothes and the stale smell of bodies exhausted by long hours of toil. None of the regulars was in the habit of changing clothes for the pub; they couldn’t afford to. These lost souls wore their worldly wares on their backs: their rags and probably a handkerchief, a comb and a handful of sugar. What little money they had earned that day would quickly be spent on gin. The careless would end up sleeping outside, on the same pavement where the two whores were fighting.
Everyone drank in Whitechapel: men, women and children alike. Alcohol was the best way to deaden the body and soul and cloud the fact that tomorrow would be just another today.
Liz suddenly jabbed a rotund, sorry-looking young man in the ribs with her elbow. ‘Hey, fatso, if yer want to touch what’s underneath ’ere, it’ll cost yer four pence! Or keep your hands around your glass.’
‘Where’s your room then, lass?’
‘My room?’ Liz burst out laughing, making no effort to cover her toothless mouth. ‘Where does this clown think we are, in bleedin’ Mayfair? My room’s up against the wall of the Ten Bells!’
‘Standing?’
‘Standing, sitting, on all fours, any which way you like, love, you’re the one who’s payin’!’
Freda blushed, since her friend wasn’t going to. When she had met her at the Swedish church on Prince’s Square, Freda would never have guessed that Liz did more than just housework and cleaning in the tenements at 32 Flower and Dean Street. When he had introduced them to each other, the pastor had pointed out their common origins: they had both lived in Gothenburg and grown up on the west coast of Sweden, Liz in Torslanda and Freda a 100 kilometres to the south, in Falkenberg. The man of God was hoping to find a shepherdess for his little lost lamb. Liz had been arrested by the police nearly a dozen times over the past couple of years, and the pastor was hoping Freda would help guide her back onto the right path. But the problem was, there was no right path through Whitechapel.
Liz picked up their glasses. On their way to the back of the pub, they passed a small boy clinging on to his mother’s fraying shawl. The woman giggled uncontrollably while a man Freda doubted was her husband drowned her in kisses. Bare-headed with dead-tired eyes, the poor mite was sucking his thumb under a shower of beer.
Liz found a free corner at a table. Freda set down a small flask in front of her friend. ‘I brought you some Keating’s powder,’ she said.
‘Oh, you’re a love, thank you!’ Liz gushed, cupping her friend’s cheek with a rough hand. ‘It’s not like a couple of bed-bug bites are going to kill me, though!’
She swallowed a mouthful of gin and continued. ‘Oh, and did you hear, they found poor old Polly Nichols on the street just down from yours?’
Freda went pale. She ran her tongue across her lips, which were burning from the alcohol. ‘Dear God, Liz … I was actually there … I saw the wretched soul … lying in the street, her dress hitched up to her stomach, her body still warm… The constable thought she was just drunk and he was about to pick her up when he saw her throat had been slit from ear to ear. I swear her head would have toppled off if he’d tried to move her.’
‘Forty-three years old, poor Polly, can you believe it? Only a year younger than me! It’s so sad… leaving five kids behind and all. Not that she did much in the way of caring for them, mind, as she was dead drunk from morning to night.’
A dark cloud cast a shadow over Liz’s normally jovial face. Beneath the veil of misery, Freda could see the remaining traces of a beauty ravaged by alcohol and poverty. Had her mother still been alive, Freda thought, she would have been the same age as Mary Ann Nichols – or Polly, as everyone called her. She felt a twinge. Freda was eighteen. She hadn’t left Sweden to end up like Polly. Nor like Liz. She hadn’t fled the Swedish countryside, its frigid winters and its dead-end life, to perish on the filthy, godforsaken streets of Whitechapel.
‘Don’t think I’m casting the first stone at the poor woman. What else is there to do here but drink, anyway? Here’s to your good health, Polly, may you rest in peace!’ Liz raised her glass and drained it in a single gulp.
‘It’s a gang, I’m telling you,’ Liz continued. ‘They’re trying to frighten us and take our money, and we’ve barely got enough to keep a roof over our heads as it is.’ She unbuttoned her shirt, flashing her cleavage to a red-haired man with a bushy moustache who was ogling Freda drunkenly. The man looked away and Liz turned back to her friend.
‘And you know she’s not the first, don’t you? No, Polly ain’t the first to be knifed to death around ’ere,’ she went on, playing with her empty glass, rolling it around on the table. ‘There were two others before her. One in April and another at the beginning of this month.’
Freda suddenly felt a lump in her throat. Was she the only one who was afraid?
‘Oh, it’s a hard life, my dear Freda, but we’ll be fine, you’ll see. As if we didn’t have enough shitty problems already, though… Who knows who’s going to be next? Because the way these murderous bastards are playin’ around, they’re not about to stop any time soon, are they?’ she opined, as she sidled off to the bar for another round of drinks.
Falkenberg Police Station
Thursday, 16 July 2015, 11 am
KARLA HANSEN AND HECTOR NYMAN sat down across from Bergström.
Prosecutor Møller had called Karla on her way back to the police station in Halmstad and imperiously suggested she drive up to Falkenberg: Bergström was now in charge of the investigation. She hadn’t even had a chance to catch her breath before Møller hung up on her.
Of course, she reflected. Of course Bergström would be put in charge of the investigation. Who else but the star of the show from the Ebner case? But this one should have been hers, and now she was having to pass it on. She felt a cold rage take hold of her, turning her into a savage beast determined to sink her teeth in as soon as the commissioner opened his mouth in an attempt to justify the turn of events.
Hector could sense the fury building in his partner and wisely kept quiet.
‘Well, it appears the Torvsjön affair has fallen into our laps,’ Bergström began.
‘So it seems,’ Karla snapped.
The commissioner glanced at her for a second, taken aback by her attitude. ‘Anyway, here’s what I suggest—’ He was interrupted as a burly man, muscles on obvious display through his tight T-shirt, strode in to his office without knocking.
‘Kommissionär Bergström, I… Nyman?’ he paused, opening his arms out wide as he caught sight of Hector. Nyman stood up, and they clapped each other on the back in a fraternal embrace.
‘What the hell are you doing here, Nyman?’ asked the bodybuilder, his hair slick with gel.
‘Well, it seems you’re the ones fishing for clues now in the case of the lady of the lake.’
The newcomer roared with laughter, revealing a rack of suspiciously white teeth as he wagged a finger at Nyman, whose dry humour had clearly hit home. He cast a glance at the commissioner, who was glaring at him. ‘Hector and I are on the same hockey team,’ he explained, his spirits still running high.
Bergström sighed heavily and nodded without a word. Then he continued. ‘So, Olofsson, you already know Hector Nyman. And this is detective Karla Hansen. Karla, this is detective Kristian Olofsson. When you interrupted us, I was about to explain to them that in light of their own commissioner’s health, I was asked to take over the investigation.’
Karla shifted on the edge of her uncomfortable chair. ‘I don’t understand; what are you talking about?’ she asked, somewhat taken aback.
Bergström knitted his brow. ‘Møller hasn’t told you about Johansson’s accident?’
Karla shook her head.
‘Kommissionär Johansson has broken his pelvis.’
‘His pelvis?’ Hector echoed, a dubious look spreading across his face, but with the hint of a smile.
‘Yes… surfing,’ Bergström explained.
Nyman burst out laughing.
Recently divorced, the head of the Halmstad police station was now racking up the strangest bucket-list experiences for a man just shy of retirement. It had been one thing after the other: skydiving, trekking in the jungle, tango lessons, you name it. Everyone was wondering when the old man’s mid-life crisis would fizzle out and he would go back to golfing.
‘So Møller has asked me to oversee the case,’ Bergström continued. ‘But far be it from me to take the nuts and bolts out of your hands, Hansen. The investigation is still yours.’ Karla felt as if a bucket of ice water had been dumped on her head. She had got the wrong end of the stick. Bergström wasn’t out to steal her glory. And to add to her embarrassment, the commissioner had been quick to pick up on her petulance, though he didn’t appear to be holding it against her.
Karla knew she had a tendency to shift into battle mode much too hastily, even before she sized up the enemy. Brandishing her weapons, baring her teeth, sometimes sinking them in… warding off anyone who deigned to see her as just another woman.
Her critics were of the opinion that she owed her progress through the ranks to her looks. ‘Tits for brains,’ as some would cruelly put it. And it wasn’t as if her most vocal critics were men. ‘Too pretty for the job,’ one of her superiors – a woman herself – had even jibed. The forked tongues of the supposedly weaker sex were the worst of all.
Swearing she would keep her impulses under control next time, Karla drew herself up in her chair – as far as all one metre and seventy-six centimetres of her (five feet nine inches to you and me) would allow.
‘Nyman, I want you to take over Johansson’s responsibilities in Halmstad and report to me,’ Bergström said. ‘Karla, you’re going to stay on this case and partner with Olofsson. Is that all right with you?’
Karla and Hector both agreed.
‘Right, Hansen. Let’s go and pay a visit to the lady of the lake now, shall we?’ the commissioner concluded.
Gothenburg Forensic Laboratory, Sweden
Thursday, 16 July 2015, 5.30 pm
BERGSTRÖM PULLED OFF his sunglasses, folded them into their case and stepped out of the car, followed by Karla Hansen.
They had first driven detective Nyman back to the police station in Halmstad, and stayed a lot longer than they had expected. Bergström had introduced himself to the team and explained the provisional changes in the chain of command until Kommissionär Johansson’s return: Hector Nyman was now in charge, and would then be reporting to Bergström; the Torvsjön murder case would be based in Falkenberg, but run by Karla Hansen. Bergström had then weighed in on some other ongoing cases, sorted out a few organisational matters and even managed to resolve some internal rivalry.
Johansson would be away for at least a month, Møller had explained. ‘At least’ was the last straw for Bergström. The prosecutor was counting on him to hold the fort, and God only knew how long it would take till the old man was back at his age-defying thrill-seeking. He had stomached the news about as well as a glass of sour rosé.
All this meant that, for the first time in twenty-two years, Bergström would not be spending his summer in Skärhamn. Normally, around mid-July, the whole family retreated to their quaint little house nestled between two enormous rock formations in a village on the west coast, two hours by car from Falkenberg, for a breath of fresh air. They had been fixing the place up for years. It was a little gem in a string of fishermen’s cabins on the water, and even boasted its own tiny beach, where the commissioner’s sons had learned to swim and fish for crabs.
And so, Bergström had left Halmstad in a red fog of frustration, with not a single ounce of sympathy for the daredevil colleague who had ruined his holiday.
To cap it all, they still hadn’t had time to visit the crime scene. He and Hansen had gone straight to the morgue where Nicholas Nordin, the new medical examiner, had been waiting for them for some time.
During the hour and a half it took them to get there, Karla Hansen had outlined what few details she had about the case for now: essentially, that they had found a body, and the victim had not yet been identified. Her explanations had been continually interrupted by a good half a dozen calls from Hector Nyman, who was already completely swamped by the task of running the Halmstad police station.
Oh, joy! Bergström thought.
Bergström dragged his feet reluctantly into the morgue, right behind a tireless Karla Hansen: despite having been on her feet since daybreak, somehow the mother of two was managing to power on through.
A long-limbed man with slicked-back blond hair and a permanent frown was there to greet them. He nodded a brief hello to Karla and shook Bergström’s hand. ‘Nicholas-Nordin-Medical-Examiner,’ he ventured.
Bergström introduced himself just as curtly, before Nicholas-Nordin-Medical-Examiner led the way to the autopsy lab, where he proceeded to flick on a series of light switches. The fluorescent tubes hummed briefly, as if in protest, then bathed the vast room in stark light. Four tables, each two metres apart, stood at the centre of the white-tiled room. Only one was occupied.
Bergström and Hansen followed Nordin, whose orthopaedic soles squeaked every step of the way across the garish green floor.
The medical examiner rested his hands on the edge of the stainless-steel table to give the commissioner and the detective a moment to dab a touch of camphorated cream around their nostrils.
The sight of the crude Y-shaped incision always made Bergström’s stomach lurch. The body emptied of its substance, cut, dissected and approximately reassembled. This time, though, it wasn’t the swollen edges of the cuts running from the shoulders to the pubis that elicited a grimace. Rather, it was the extent of the mutilation to which the young woman’s body had been subjected. Under the harsh overhead lights, the pallor of her skin took on the same bilious shade of yellow as her hair.
‘Female, twenty-eight, perhaps thirty years old. Never carried a child,’ Nordin began without further ado. ‘One metre sixty tall, fifty-four kilos – no, probably fifty-six, considering the flesh missing from the breasts, hips, buttocks and thighs.’ He gestured to the different parts of the body with his index and middle fingers. Like a weather reporter, thought Karla. Sunny in Stockholm and Gothenburg. Flesh carved out of the hips and thighs.
‘She’s been dead seventy-two hours.’
‘How was the flesh cut out?’ Karla asked, slipping a couple of mints into her mouth to keep the pungent odour of death at bay.
‘I’m coming to that,’ Nordin calmly answered. ‘Death was by strangulation. With some kind of soft ligature. Her assailant was standing in front of her, as evidenced by the width and the depth of the mark left by the ligature here on the throat.’ He pointed to two areas on either side of the victim’s throat where the purplish bruising was darker.
Bergström leaned over for a closer look. The sour, rancid stench of decomposition gases mingling with detergent made him step back again.
‘No evidence of sexual violence. The chunks of flesh were cut out post mortem with a kitchen knife; sharp blade about fifteen centimetres long. There are deep abrasions to the left ankle from something resembling heavy chain links.’
‘Are those marks recent?’ the commissioner asked.
‘Yes.’
‘How long before the time of death?’
‘Seventy-two hours at most.’
‘She was held captive,’ Hansen mused as she gulped down another mint.
‘Her stomach was practically empty,’ the medical examiner continued. ‘I only found traces of lemon, ginger and honey.’
‘Experimenting herbal teas on her, was he?’ Karla muttered.
‘Any birthmarks, scars, tattoos, that kind of thing?’ Bergström asked.
‘All three. A birthmark on the back of the knee, a scar under the chin, a very old one, and a four-leaf clover tattooed at the base of the neck.’
Hansen made a note of the particulars on her mobile.
‘Anything else?’ the commissioner asked.
‘Yes. I found a black feather inserted into each ear canal.’
Friday, 17 July 2015
Julianne Bell ties her wild tawny mane into a messy bun, slips on a shower cap and steps into the shower.
It’s an early start to her day, but it won’t be a long one: after she puts in an appearance on the BBC’s morning show, she has nothing else on the agenda.
Nothing at all.
Hard to believe, isn’t it?
A small miracle, in fact.
A full five hours, just for her. An ellipsis to savour. Or rather a parenthesis, to let her imagination run wild.
All she has on, really, is a lunch at noon with Adrian, a stone’s throw from the studio. He’ll have just landed after a three-week trip to Bulgaria – a week longer than planned – scouting out locations for his next feature film.
