Trapped, page 16
‘What are you doing?’ he hooted cheerfully. ‘Mum and me just had a snack and you missed it.’
‘Knock!’ Benjamin shouted.
Aston threw himself towards the screen where Agnes and Tuva were staring back out at him with gazes that didn’t know they were dead.
‘Who are they?’ said Aston. ‘Are they your friends, Dad?’
Maria appeared in the doorway.
‘Who are Dad’s friends?’ she said, squinting towards the screen. ‘Vincent! Give me strength! They can’t even be thirty!’
‘Maria!’ Benjamin shouted, his face bright red as he tugged the dressing gown tighter around his body. ‘We’re doing something!’
Vincent leaned back on the chair and closed his eyes. They weren’t going to make any further progress today.
‘Well dinner’s ready, anyway,’ Maria snapped. ‘When you’re done with your dating site.’
‘So you had a snack right before dinner?’ Vincent said meaningfully.
Maria glowered at him without saying anything. Both of them knew that Aston had his mother wrapped around his little finger. Both of them also knew Vincent had never had a relationship with Benjamin and Rebecka that was as close as his wife’s with Aston.
‘Was she like that before?’ said Benjamin when Maria had left. ‘When you met?’
‘I don’t think she’s aware of it,’ said Vincent. ‘I think she wants to be loving and tolerant, actually. But it’s as if she can’t do more than that.’
‘She spends too much time laying out tarot cards with her pendulum,’ Benjamin snorted. ‘Mum still laughs every time I tell her about it.’
‘Try to be nice. She means no harm.’
Benjamin shrugged and turned back towards the computer, resting his hands on the keyboard. Vincent got up to leave.
‘There’s one more thing, Dad. The dates of the murders. The times. Have you tried translating them into something else? Letters, for instance?’
Vincent nodded. He’d already thought of that. He’d thought that he’d been onto something when he realized that the first murder – Agnes – had taken place on 13 January at 14:00. Translated into the thirteenth, first and fourteenth letters of the alphabet, that spelled M-A-N. Peculiar, since Agnes was a woman. He’d wondered whether the murderer was trying to say something about gender. But it was a strained inference and had been crushed by the murder of Tuva on 20 February at 15:00: the twentieth, second and fifteenth letters spelled T-B-O. Which stood for To Be Ordered … Turbo … To Be Honest – nothing that had any significance.
‘I tried, but drew a blank,’ he said.
‘OK, I’ll keep at it, see what happens when we translate to binary. All the numbers are palindromic, but in different counting systems. Who knows, there might be some number sequence that 13-1-14-20-2-15 is part of. Might even be coordinates for somewhere – like on a map.’
‘That sounds logical,’ said Vincent. He didn’t have the heart to stifle his son’s enthusiasm by telling him he’d already tried those options. And about a million others.
‘Am I being paid for this or what?’
‘On the subject of maps, I think you need to stop staying up late to watch National Treasure,’ Vincent said with a wry smile before getting up. ‘But by all means, keep trying. Let’s have dinner first, though. Maria will so disappointed otherwise.’
‘Sure. But like I said: Occam’s razor.’
‘Your point has been communicated with the utmost clarity,’ Vincent said. ‘But you didn’t see Daniel at the cafe. He could barely wipe the counter. I’m not saying he isn’t a suspect. Right now he seems to be in the thick of it, but he isn’t going to talk. Which suggests there’s more behind it all. We need to find out what.’
Vincent stifled an impulse to tousle his son’s hair. By the time he walked out of the door, Benjamin had already put his headphones back on and resumed playing Path of Exile. There was no point in reminding him about dinner.
33
Kvibille 1982
Jane stopped on the threshold to the kitchen. Her little brother was sitting at the kitchen table in his pyjamas eating yogurt for breakfast. She could smell strawberries from the doorway and the quantity of jam that had ended up on the orange wax tablecloth revealed that he had made his own breakfast. Between mouthfuls, he was fully occupied shuffling a tattered deck of cards. Half of the cards had ended up on the floor. She couldn’t help smiling. It was presumably a new magic trick that was not yet going the way he wanted it to.
Mum was sitting next to him still wearing her dressing gown and with her head buried in her arms on the table. Jane’s smile disappeared. Today was apparently not one of Mum’s better days.
She shivered as a cool morning breeze brushed her bare legs and she tugged the bottom of her T-shirt down in an attempt to cover her thighs. The window must have been open all night. The question was whether Mum had slept at the kitchen table. It wouldn’t be the first time if she had.
‘Come on,’ she said in a low voice, waving her little brother over.
So far, Mum was quiet, but she knew it was only a matter of time before the usual sequence followed. Her little brother didn’t need to hear the spiel about not wanting to live any longer, that she was good for nothing and how she couldn’t even make a relationship stick or even get a damn job. That part of the adult world wasn’t something he needed to participate in as yet. His mother was still his best friend. Sometimes Jane envied him that, but she knew it was merely the difference between being almost sixteen and still being a child. She had a responsibility, even if she had never asked for it. At least for another week or so.
‘I tried to make Mum’s triangular toasted sandwiches, but they broke,’ her little brother said unhappily.
‘It’s OK. Come on. Mum just needs to rest a bit. You know how she gets tired sometimes.’
‘I didn’t want to wake her,’ he said, scraping the bottom of his bowl of yogurt.
Then he set it down on the draining board with the rest of the washing up and walked over to Jane.
Mum didn’t move an inch.
‘Are you doing a new card trick?’ she said, leading him out of the kitchen.
‘Yes, but it’s not done yet,’ he said.
‘Maybe you could call the Girl Trio, and see whether they fancy doing anything?’
Her brother groaned.
‘They’re actually called Malla, Sickan and Lotta,’ he said. ‘You make them sound like some dumb gang in a story. And they’re not at home today.’
‘I’m on my own today too,’ she said. ‘Although that’s always the way. At least you’ve got your friends here. I miss my three Ts in the big city.’
She noticed that he didn’t take the bait.
‘Theatre, Theme-parks and Traffic,’ she continued. ‘My three friends in the city. None of them are here.’
‘Ooooooh right,’ her little brother groaned. ‘You’re just trying to sound grown up. You were only a bit older than me when you and Mum moved here. How often did you go to the theatre before that? And if you want traffic there are plenty of trucks outside the dairy. Three Ts. Haha. You read that in a book, didn’t you?’
‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘But I still miss it.’
She paused and pulled out a plastic object from her pocket.
‘And if it’s only you and me today, bro, then I’ve got a challenge for you.’
Her little brother’s eyes lit up. He loved her challenges.
She handed over the small square plastic frame. Inside it were fifteen smaller plastic squares numbered 1 to 15. The space where the sixteenth should have been was empty. That allowed the other pieces in the frame to be moved around in order to change the sequence of the numbers.
‘Dead easy,’ said her little brother when he saw the number puzzle. ‘I’m quick at solving those nowadays.’
‘I didn’t say what the challenge was,’ she said. ‘You have to put all the numbers in order except the last two – fourteen and fifteen. They have to swap places with each other.’
Her little brother took the puzzle from her and looked at it.
‘Easy,’ he said, running upstairs to his room.
She watched him go with a pang of guilty conscience for being devious. But she needed to talk to Mum alone. She would go and find him in an hour. The stairs had creaked good and proper as he’d run up them, but it didn’t matter now whether Mum woke up. In fact, it might be for the best if she did.
Jane returned to the kitchen. Mum was sitting up but her face was still hidden in her hands. Her hair was lank and unwashed, and her dressing gown had slipped open. Jane was filled with empathy and contempt at the same time. It wasn’t Mum’s fault that her emotions were an ever-revolving carousel that wouldn’t stop. Not really. Jane had borrowed a book about psychiatry from Barbro, the school nurse, on the pretence that it was for a school project. She’d read about genetic risk factors that you could do nothing about, and her mother clearly fit the profile.
She’d also read about treatments for the condition. Like lithium. But Mum wasn’t taking tablets. She didn’t even know she was sick. That made Jane a captive, even if it wasn’t intentional. She always needed to be standing by, whether to protect her brother or take care of her mother. As if she had no life of her own.
But she intended to start having one.
Jane sat down at the kitchen table, taking care to avoid the patches of jam.
‘Mum, do you want breakfast?’
They really needed to talk. But she could see that it wasn’t going to happen today.
34
Reception at police headquarters was full of schoolchildren. They looked like sixth formers. Mina realized it must be a school trip – thirty seventeen-year-olds would hardly come in just because it was cold out. They usually preferred to gather at the 7-Eleven a block away, and they could stay there, as far as she was concerned. Yet here they were, along with a teacher who was handing out visitor badges and trying in vain to get her pupils to attach them at chest height.
‘Come on then, pig, here I am,’ shouted someone who was clearly the Cool Guy in the class. He was duly rewarded with his classmates’ laughter.
She didn’t know how Vincent would react when he was forced to make his way through this heaving mass of teenage hormones. If they recognized him, it was bound to be uncomfortable for him. But she could hardly bring him in through a side entrance. And there was no way she could usher him through the crowd of unruly youths – she felt grubby just looking at them. Maybe if she wore gloves. And a visor. Although perhaps not even then.
She could smell the stench of teenage sweat all the way from where she was standing at a safe distance on the other side of the barriers; it seemed to envelop her, coating her entire body. Vincent would have to manage on his own. The police might benefit from a bit of celebrity glamour. Even if it was provided by a forty-seven-year-old mindreader.
Vincent appeared on the far side of the sea of schoolchildren. His eyes widened when he spotted them. Then he lowered his head and ploughed through the throng.
‘Ey, Vincent!’ someone shouted.
Mina was impressed. She hadn’t been sure they would recognize someone who wasn’t big on TikTok.
‘Shit, Vincent! Are you with the mind police now?’ yelled the Cool Guy. ‘That means we’ve got no chance!’
Vincent stopped and sought out Cool Guy’s gaze.
‘Exactly,’ he said loudly, with a knowing smile. ‘I already did your mum this morning.’
Cool Guy was taken aback. Then he exploded with laughter and offered Vincent a fist bump. Mina smiled to herself. Vincent Walder the private citizen had clear social issues. In fact, he was socially handicapped. But when playing the role of the Master Mentalist, he most clearly did not.
Finally, he reached the near side of the horde and the barriers. He waved to her and she let him through.
The school group appeared to have already forgotten about him. The teacher raised her voice, trying to get her pupils’ attention, once again in vain.
‘Junior officers keep getting younger, I see,’ said Vincent.
‘You’d be surprised,’ she said. ‘The tough guy you just spoke to will probably apply to the police academy the moment he finishes sixth form.’
Vincent nodded with a smile and they began to walk to the lift.
‘How come you wanted to meet at police headquarters?’ he said. ‘I thought my presence wasn’t appreciated here.’
‘Surely I can meet whoever I like on my lunch break?’ she said. ‘Anyway, the rest of the team aren’t here. We’ve initiated a search for Daniel Bargabriel after our visit to Fab Fika. He hasn’t been home since he did a runner from the cafe, so Ruben’s gone over there with a locksmith. He insists on calling him Daniel Gargamel.’
They reached the lift, where there were already three people waiting. Without missing a beat, Mina changed course and headed for the stairs instead. No way was she going to squeeze into a bacteria box with that many people. There were limits.
‘Bargabriel means Gabriel’s son,’ said Vincent, who had been about to stop, but corrected his movements mid-step and continued to follow her. ‘Ruben basically means son. You can tell him that from me. Where are we going, by the way?’
‘I need to fetch my wallet from the office – I thought we could get lunch,’ she said.
She bounded up the stairs in big steps, talking all the while.
‘Ruben is convinced that Daniel is our murderer, that the three of them were in some love triangle. Or, as he so charmingly put it, “so much for theories about serial killers and Roman watches and all that shit. Daniel was fucking them both. Simple as.” He pointed out that when you have his kind of professional experience, you know which solutions are the right ones.’
‘How much experience are we talking about?’ Vincent said, slightly short of breath – but then again, he didn’t climb the stairs at police headquarters on a daily basis.
‘He was a year ahead of me at the police academy.’
Vincent laughed so hard it echoed in the stairwell.
‘So I’ve been wrong about everything, in other words. What do the others say? And must you take the steps two at a time?’
‘Sorry. Do you need a stick?’
‘Remember that it’s my brain you’re impressed with,’ he said. ‘Not my elite physique. How many more floors to go?’
‘Two. Probably best you have a rest, Grandpa.’
Vincent stopped and leaned against the wall.
Mina backtracked a few steps and stood next to him.
‘The others aren’t convinced either,’ she said. ‘We encounter a lot of strange things that end up being nothing more than that – strange things. Random details.’
‘I don’t agree. I’m more and more certain that it’s a countdown. Daniel might be a way in. But he didn’t come across like a murderer. This is far from over.’
Vincent sat down on the step and she sat next to him.
‘Pity there wasn’t any CCTV at the cafe when Tuva was last seen.’ She sighed. ‘No witnesses have come forward who saw her anywhere else. I would have liked to see who was coming and going on the day she disappeared. And for a few days before that. Jesus.’
‘The cafe might not have had a camera, but …’ Vincent furrowed his brow in concentration. ‘Do you remember what it looked like around the cafe? Any details?’
His gaze was focusing on something that wasn’t there. His eyes were moving back and forth as if he were looking around and he continued to talk:
‘There was a 7-Eleven, the exit at the corner of the building. Round bench around the trunk of a tree. Overfilled bike rack. Two restaurants. More people in one of them, the other almost empty. The hotdog stand. Five people in the queue. And on the other side of the street … Yep. There was a bank opposite. I’m almost certain it was a branch of Nordea. They usually have high levels of security. With a little luck—’
‘You’re a genius,’ Mina said, perking up. ‘Julia will have to ask Christer to get hold of the footage from Nordea’s cameras. He’s got a flair for that kind of thing.’
‘Christer?’ Vincent said in surprise.
Mina smiled.
‘I’ve tried to tell you. I realize that our unit falls some way short of those super sharp specialist forces on TV,’ she said. ‘But everyone has their strengths. Christer’s is an uncanny ability to spot patterns where no one else can.’
‘I can relate to that,’ Vincent muttered.
‘So my hope is that Christer will notice if something is out of the ordinary,’ she continued. ‘Someone who’s there too often. Someone who usually comes regularly and then doesn’t. Well, I don’t know. But it’s exactly what Christer is good at.’
Vincent nodded.
‘Two floors did you say?’ he said suddenly, smiling teasingly.
Then he leapt to his feet and raced up the stairs. He vanished from sight as he turned at the next switchback. She heard him carry on up, taking two steps at a time. There was absolutely nothing wrong with his fitness. He’d got her to sit down on purpose. And she’d gone along with it.
‘Vincent?’
No answer. He was too far up the stairwell. Mina dug her hands into her pockets and felt a square object in one of them. Her wallet. She had completely forgotten that she’d brought it with her. She looked up the stairwell and a smile played on her lips. She would just have to wait for Vincent to come back.
35
The small, terraced house in Upplands Väsby reminded Christer of his mother’s house. The tidiness, the knick-knacks everywhere, the well-pressed curtains, the thoroughly wiped down surfaces. A clock ticking loudly in the living room. Two armchairs with visible indentations and a sofa that appeared to have had barely any visitors. A posh sofa. Too posh to use. His mother’s had been green with purple flowers. On sunny days, his mother had thrown a sheet over it to make sure the upholstery didn’t fade in the sun.
