Authors: Hakan Ostlundh
“But what the hell,” said Henrik, lying silently a long time in the darkness.
“Say something then,” said Malin.
He took a deep breath.
“We have to hope you don’t end up in prison.”
“Prison,” she said, as if it was a bad joke.
Then the ridicule did a U-turn, was transformed into something black and heavy that was dragging her down. Prison? She had not even come close to the thought. Fredrik Broman had not said anything about punishment at all. She had figured out for herself that she would have to pay a fine. But prison?
“What the hell were you thinking?” said Henrik.
“I don’t know, I—”
“That’s not exactly the smartest thing you could have done after moving here from Stockholm,” he said drily.
She felt a sudden flash of anger.
“Thanks so fucking much.”
It was as if he was putting himself on their side. The Gotlanders. Pointing her out as an outsider. As if it was him and Gotland against her, not him and her against the rest of the world. She turned on the lamp on the nightstand and sat up in bed.
“I found your old porno photos of her,” she blurted out.
She could not help it.
“Who? Of who do you mean?”
Henrik sounded completely uncomprehending, as if he was the most innocent person in the whole world. “Now I’m not really following you.”
“Yes, who the hell is it we’re talking about?” she hissed.
He blinked at the light with a sleepy look.
Malin jumped out of bed and stomped off into the sitting room, without caring whether she woke Maria, and came back with the contact sheet. She threw it on Henrik’s cover. He picked it up and looked at it.
“I see. And?” he said.
Malin almost choked, could not get out the words.
“Is that why you rammed Stina’s car? Because I took pictures of her naked fifteen years ago?”
She was unable to answer that. As he was saying it she realized that maybe he was right.
“Calm down now,” he said with a gentle look in his eyes. “Come to bed.”
She did as he said, pulled the cover up over her legs, sat with her arms crossed and her head leaning against the wall. He placed a hand on her legs, on top of the cover. She decided to keep silent until she was sure she could open her mouth without having another outburst.
Henrik said something about the pictures, that it started with Stina pulling up her shirt in jest in the car. Malin could not keep from listening, but actually she did not want to hear Henrik talk about Stina at all. She did not like her name in his mouth. It did not please her that he only said her first name. It sounded so familiar.
At last the fury and the jealousy subsided anyway. Out of pure exhaustion, if nothing else. It had been a long day full of emotions.
“I could talk with her,” said Henrik. “If that’s okay with you, of course.”
“Talk with her? What do you mean?”
It was hardly okay. She felt how everything was speeding up again just when she had started to settle down.
“Yes, about the report. Maybe she could consider withdrawing it. We’ll have to pay for the damage to the car, of course.”
“I don’t have the energy to think about it now,” she said. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”
She turned off the light. What would Henrik have to do to get Stina Hansson to withdraw the report? Sleep with her?
Göran Eide stepped into Fredrik’s office and stopped just inside the doorway. Considering the size of the room, there weren’t that many alternatives.
“What’s really going on with that Malin Andersson?”
More than a week had passed since an unknown woman had lured Ellen Andersson Kjellander into her car, and it felt as if the investigation was going backward.
“First that woman in Fårösund she went after … What was her name?” Göran continued, extending an encouraging palm toward Fredrik.
“Stina Hansson.”
“Exactly. In the parking lot. And then the false alarm yesterday. Is she in the process of freaking out?”
“It wouldn’t be all that strange if she was,” said Fredrik.
They had not been able to give Malin Andersson any reassuring news. The IP number in Uppsala pointed away from the island, toward something more complicated than an old girlfriend or family grudge. It could, of course, be a smoke screen, but that seemed farfetched.
“I’m getting a little worried that this will degenerate into some kind of personal vendetta,” said Göran. “On incorrect grounds, besides.”
“Malin Andersson sounded very contrite when I talked with her,” said Fredrik. “I don’t think it’s going to escalate.”
“Well, I hope you’re right.”
Göran crossed his arms and looked thoughtfully at him.
“How’s it going? Do you really have nothing?”
Nothing, thought Fredrik, that seemed unnecessarily harsh. You never really have nothing.
“Everyone that we have had reason to suspect either has an alibi or can be removed for other reasons.”
Göran Eide emitted a tired little hum.
“And what do you think, if you were to guess a little?”
Fredrik rolled his chair back a foot or two and put his right leg over the left.
“Henrik Kjellander’s oldest sister, Elisabet Vogler, seems to be one tough lady, and her husband and relatives would surely lie to back her up if that were so. And there is some kind of motive, with the inheritance dispute and old peculiarities. But I have a hard time believing that she would do something as stupid as abduct Ellen. The risk that some witness would recognize her or that Ellen could point her out is much too great. To me it doesn’t fit.”
“No, not to me, either.”
“Then there is the lead to Uppsala.”
“Yes, what’s happening there?”
“The lead to the public library produced nothing. The house on Fårö must have been booked with a private computer via the wireless network and you log onto that with the library’s own password. Then we have produced lists of cars rented by women from Uppsala in the days before and after Ellen was kidnapped.”
“And?” said Göran.
“The ones we’ve managed to get hold of we’ve been able to rule out.”
“The mental hospital? They don’t have any crazies up there? On Fårö, that is.”
“No, no one who matches the description. Not the behavior, either, for that matter.”
“And the mainland hasn’t let out any crazies?” Göran asked.
“Well then,” said Fredrik with a hint of a laugh. “But they’re still on the mainland.”
Göran stood silent a little while, staring out into space, fingering the reading glasses he had stuck in the chest pocket of the short-sleeved shirt.
“Surveillance cameras,” he said. “Maybe it’s too late, but in any case it’s worth a try. The bank where the rent for the house was paid must have cameras. The train station in Uppsala the hours around the booking. Get Henrik Kjellander and Malin Andersson to look through that, if there are any left.”
Fredrik wrote
surveillance cameras?
on his pad. The thought had already flashed past when he got the news about the computer at the Uppsala public library, but he had let it go. The investigation did not really have that weight, he thought. Was that a wrong assessment?
“We’ll have to take everything one more time, broader and deeper,” said Göran before he left Fredrik alone in the office.
Fredrik looked out the window, trying to find a loose end to tug on: The perpetrator books the house on Fårö from a computer in Uppsala and gives an address in Gothenburg. She, if she was alone, had demonstrably been in Uppsala on the fourth of June. Presumably not just to book the house, even if that could not be ruled out.
They had checked train reservations, but had not managed to sift out anything to go further with. Tens of thousands of people commuted between Stockholm and Uppsala every day and the tickets could be bought with cash on board. It was easy to travel without leaving any traces.
He would make an attempt with the last tenants again, the retired couple from Gothenburg. He could not keep from thinking that there must be a connection. Even if a vague one.
Gothenburg, Uppsala, Fårö. Three coordinates. It wasn’t much to go on, but at the same time it felt as if they ought to be able to triangulate out the perpetrator if they only pushed the right buttons.
The terminal at Visby Airport was a low, plain building, no larger than a normal-sized day care center. Henrik dropped off the model, the makeup artist, and the advertising director outside the entry and they rolled off waving with their bags full of clothes, makeup, and props. They were booked on Gotland Air’s last departure at 6:55
P.M.
and were arriving just in time to check in.
Henrik felt mildly euphoric as he slowly rolled out from the airport area between the fences of freshly cut juniper. It had been one of those divinely inspired workdays when already after the first exposures he felt that the photos would turn out really great. Certain days it was just that way, that you knew.
There were two Swedish haute couture dresses to shoot, and the newspaper’s AD was looking for majestic but severe. A little Lars Norén meets Louis XIV. “But with a heart and a twist?” Henrik had responded. The AD laughed and then added seriously: “No, no heart.”
They had taken the first picture by the stone pillars in Holmhällar and the others in the afternoon light far out on Gotland’s southernmost spit. No more than a few stones sticking up out of the sea. He had used medium format to make sure of the material sense in stone and fabric and to get proper draw in the dark sea in the background. The contrast between cloth, stone, and sea should bring out the various materials even more.
Henrik brought along an assistant from Hemse Folk High School. It was hard to keep an assistant on Fårö, and besides he couldn’t really afford it right now, but he had worked up a network of students at the folk high school and in Visby who could work a day or two now and then. He got the makeup artist to help out with one of the reflex screens, too. It had gone well. There were some people who balked at having to do those types of services, thought it was unprofessional, but fortunately they were the exception. Henrik had a hard time understanding that kind of whining. They were just standing there alongside staring ninety percent of the time anyway.
Actually they could just as well have taken the pictures on Fårö, but the AD had insisted on south Gotland because she had been there herself and could visualize it. And Henrik saw no reason to be obstinate. When they packed up the equipment the sun was hanging right above the horizon.
That Maria had come down had in a way been a blessing. If it hadn’t been for her he would not have been able to do the job in Barcelona. But it was also stressful for him having her in the vicinity. He was not sure that Maria understood that. In any event, it didn’t seem like it. And they had not talked about it.
Malin had not said anything more about them not being able to keep living in the house. It was typical of her to react so drastically. In the first place, it was not because she was afraid. It was just her way. Action. As certain as she was one day that an alarm was the solution to their problems, the next day she was just as certain that they had to check into a hotel. Problems were solved by buying something or doing something—change. Hard to say that there was anything wrong with that; on the contrary, that she was so energetic was one of the reasons he had fallen for her. But sometimes you needed to sit down and think things through, too. Have a goal a little farther ahead than tomorrow.
And they had a few things to think about. Debts, interest, leasing agreements, and an extremely shaky market. Deep down he was sure that it would work out. That it was heavy right now was more lack of flow than anything else. Sure there were times when he could think that they shouldn’t have taken on so much at one time. Additions, renovations, new studio lights, the slightly expensive second car, and all that. On the other hand, it was important to hold your head high. It was part of the industry. Success breeds success. It wouldn’t do to be content with shabby.
Sometimes he missed the years between photography school and Ellen’s birth. Not really so that he longed to be back, but he sometimes missed the lightheartedness. The years when he flew around between Stockholm and Los Angeles and a half-dozen other big cities, without really being sure of where he actually lived and not caring. Everything just flowed. He earned a lot of money, even if it was mostly eaten up by expenses. He felt eternal in those years. He was young, strong, successful, and that was how it would remain, always. An illusion, of course, but a nice feeling to live in. When the everyday routine got too dreary he would glide into the memory of that time, like a kind of meditation, and come back to reality strengthened by a dose of the carefree life of an operator.
Henrik had arrived in Fårösund and cruised down the hill toward the ferry landing. It was almost fifteen minutes until the seven-thirty ferry. He stopped in front of the white stop line, first in the priority line, and turned off the engine. He undid the seat belt, stretched, and yawned.
Without his intending it, Stina Hansson showed up in his mind. He tried to push her aside, but the more he exerted himself the more she held on. He could not understand how Malin could be jealous of her. Okay, the pictures, but that was ages ago. He had run into her a couple of times in Fårösund and it had just felt strange. There was something about her … He got an unhealthy sense.
When he thought back on it, he could not remember how he happened to take those pictures. Was he the one who encouraged Stina to pose naked for him, or was she the one who, completely unprovoked, had pulled up her top in the car?
* * *
From Broa to Kalbjerga Henrik did not meet a single car. It was just him, the growing darkness, and the road lit up by the headlights of his SUV. And the yellow signs with odd farm names that creaked in the darkness at irregular intervals. He shook his head and mumbled a question to himself about what he was really doing on this God-forsaken little island. But there was a laugh in his question. Partly he was laughing at himself, partly out of sheer cheerfulness. He liked it here. For some almost incomprehensible reason.