Trapped, page 29
‘The retard might have taken a little time,’ said the man with a sudden change of tone. ‘But you know when he died. Have you really not understood what the smashed watches mean?’
Vincent had a hundred questions for the man on the phone. What did the countdown mean? Who was it all for? Why illusions, of all things? But he could do nothing but listen.
‘You need to do a better job than this,’ the man said, and hung up.
Vincent stared at the screen.
With the utmost caution, he moved the cursor across the spreadsheet and marked the call in red. Then he realized that Ruben hadn’t left his phone number.
67
‘In other words, the date is as important as I thought,’ Vincent said thoughtfully.
Mina and Vincent were sitting in the conference room looking at the whiteboard showing everything they had gathered during the investigation.
‘Yes,’ she said, while dispensing sanitizer onto her hand and massaging it into her skin. ‘Someone was very eager for us to get all the times and dates right.’
Her hands were becoming chapped, the alcohol drying them out so much that small cracks were forming. But it was a price she had to pay. She offered the bottle to Vincent; at first he looked like he was going to say no, then he shrugged and held out his hands so that she could dispense a little onto his palms.
‘I just don’t understand how Robert fits in,’ he continued, while rubbing his palms together.
The pungent smell of spirit spread throughout the small conference room. It was a heavenly scent.
‘No, nor do I. There’s a natural connection between Tuva and Agnes. We’ve interviewed Robert’s family in depth, but we’ve turned up nothing. Absolutely nothing. Julia has spoken to the staff at the sheltered housing unit and they didn’t give us anything either. Of course, she and Christer are going there to talk to them in person to make sure, but you’re right: Robert doesn’t fit the pattern.’
‘Mmm …’
Vincent spun on his chair so that his face was directed straight at the board.
‘That’s what doesn’t add up about this case,’ he said. ‘There are so many things that stand out, that contradict themselves. Even I know that a serial killer sticks to the same category of victim. You don’t need to be a cop to know that – Google is all it takes. You could say that Tuva and Agnes had many similarities. Two young girls. But Robert … Robert doesn’t belong there. Like that song in Sesame Street: “One of These Things”. In this case, it’s definitely Robert who is not like the others. What’s more, he had an incredibly limited network of contacts. No social life beyond his family and the people at the sheltered housing facility. He moved in very small circles. Unlike Tuva, who met vast numbers of people every day as part of her job.’
‘While I remember: we’ve received a tip-off about where Jonas Rask might be. One of his ex-wives heard that he was staying in a caravan somewhere not far from Stockholm, but we haven’t managed to locate him yet. We’re checking out sites in the area. Anyway, it feels like we might be getting close. We’ll have him soon. You can ask him then.’
‘Like I’ve said before, probability indicates he’s involved,’ said Vincent, turning his gaze from the board to her. ‘But I don’t know. I can’t help feeling that Jan Bergsvik, your criminal psychologist, is talking out of his arse. It just doesn’t make sense.’
His ice-blue eyes felt like they were looking straight through her. She cast down her gaze.
‘People do strange things that we can’t understand,’ she said. ‘But police work tends to be straightforward. The simple solution is often the right one. Is it really a coincidence that a man who murdered two young girls and raped even more has been seen nearby and in the cafe where Tuva worked?’
‘None of the victims were raped,’ Vincent objected.
‘True, but Rask has been inside for twenty years. Maybe he doesn’t even have a libido anymore. The act of murdering them and maiming their bodies might serve as a psychological substitute.’
Vincent looked at her in surprise.
‘I know a thing or two as well,’ she said, winking.
‘Mmm,’ he said, but she could tell that he didn’t agree with her. ‘You sound like Jan.’
She kicked his leg.
‘It may have been Jonas Rask who called in about the date,’ she said, but could feel that she was digging herself deeper into the mires of improbability with each word she uttered.
‘Yes, it’s quite possible. What happens next with the phone call?’
A fruit fly hovered over the platter of fruit and Mina had to swallow a few sickly sweet belches of disgust before she could reply to Vincent. She got out the hand sanitizer and poured a big dollop onto her hand. She thought about whether to go for the fly with the gel, but her chances of success were small. Vincent glanced at her quickly. Then he got up, picked up the platter and left the room. He returned empty-handed and sat down as if nothing had happened. Mina felt tears stinging her eyes. She swallowed frantically and cleared her throat.
‘When do you have to go?’
Vincent checked his watch.
‘My flight to Malmö leaves in two hours. So pretty soon.’
She didn’t want him to go yet. They hadn’t had time together properly since before the press conference. But how was she supposed to put that into words? No matter how she formulated it, she’d give away more than she wanted.
Keeping her face neutral, she said, ‘Then we’d better get a move on.’
68
Kvibille 1982
‘Can I come in soon? I’m dying of curiosity,’ Mum laughed.
Her voice was as clear as if she had been standing inside the barn, even though she was on the other side of the door.
‘Wait a minute. Not long now.’
He adjusted his shirt and frowned. He hoped he had thought this through properly – that it would go well. Mum had been so sad since Jane had left. She’d barely spoken to him at all, except when cutting his toasted sandwiches into triangles for him at breakfast and explaining how important it was to do the same thing each time. The rest of the time she seemed to be engrossed in her weeding. There was even a plan stuck on the fridge. Admittedly, it was a hand-drawn sketch in pencil on a leaf torn from the telephone book, but still … It was a drawing.
Malla, Sickan and Lotta had seen it and thought it was the weirdest thing ever. Apparently none of their parents did that. But he understood how important it was to be thorough. And he really hoped he had been. If there was one thing Mum needed, it was to be happy again. If this didn’t help, then he didn’t know what else he could do.
He cleared his throat and then opened the door with pomp and ceremony. Expectation shone in Mum’s eyes as she crossed the threshold and entered his magical workshop. She took a few steps in and then came to a halt when she saw what he had built.
‘But, but … it’s absolutely … Ooooh!’
It was the biggest box he had made to date. It was almost up to her waist. And it had wheels so that it could be spun around and viewed from all angles.
He released the brake on one wheel and then rotated the box dramatically. The deep blue paint was still tacky to the touch.
Mum put her hands to her mouth in admiration. He exhaled. He needn’t have worried. And what was more, he had one more surprise. When the final side of the box became visible it was unpainted. Instead, he had taped a piece of paper to it, on which it said Reserved for Les Vargas.
‘I must have been a saint in a former life,’ said Mum, wiping her eyes with the heels of her hands. ‘Otherwise I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve you.’
‘So how does it work?’ she asked when she had finished painting. ‘Are you going to tell me or what?’
There were stars this time as well.
‘I have to if you’re going to be my assistant,’ he said, opening the box. ‘If you haven’t changed your mind.’
‘No, no, there’s nothing I want more. Just think, me doing magic!’
The fumes from the paint made him dizzy. Perhaps they shouldn’t have closed the door. But this was their secret. No one else could be allowed to see. Not that they actually ever received visitors, but still.
‘First you crawl into the box,’ he said. ‘Really, you should be in handcuffs and inside a sack too, but I don’t have a sack. Or any handcuffs.’
‘Thank God for that,’ Mum laughed.
‘Then I lock the box with a padlock on the outside and stand on top of the lid. In the meantime you sneak out of the secret door at the back of the box and hide behind it.’
‘I didn’t see a secret door.’
Suddenly Mum sounded worried.
‘That’s the trick,’ he said with a smile. ‘It’s hidden in the pattern.’
He showed her the invisible door at the rear of the box, concealed in the checked pattern he had painted.
‘I’ve hung fabric from this hula hoop,’ he continued. ‘I’ll stand on top of the box, inside the ring, holding it up around me so that the fabric covers all of me on all sides. You climb in through a gap in the fabric at the back, stand next to me and take the ring. I sneak out through the hole in the fabric and crawl in through the secret door into the box. Then you let go of the ring. Then it’ll be you standing on the box and me lying inside it. It’ll look like we’ve magically changed places. Or been transformed into each other. I’ll be Mum. You’ll be seven years old.’
Mum ran her hand across the secret door.
‘It’s very well built,’ she said.
‘I had the right drawings. But we have to practise it lots – the real trick is doing it quickly. Jane won’t realize a thing.’
A dark shadow passed over Mum’s eyes. He bit his lip. He shouldn’t have mentioned Jane. Stupid, stupid little brother. Mum was still sad that his sister had gone to her friend’s in Dalarna. Even if it had only been two days since she had left. Two days was an eternity. He wished that Mum would start focusing on something else. Like practising the magic trick with him.
‘The box isn’t very spacious,’ she said as if reading his thoughts. ‘Are you sure I’ll fit?’
‘That’s part of the illusion. It’s bigger than it looks.’
He showed her the drawing while spelling it quietly to himself. J-a-n-e was four letters. She would be gone for fourteen days. Four plus fourteen made eighteen. They needed to rehearse the trick eighteen times. Then Jane would come home and Mum would be happy again.
‘You’ll be in the box for no more than thirty seconds,’ he said, ‘before you crawl out and we swap places.’
‘Thirty seconds, you say?’
‘Tops.’
69
Vincent is sitting on the sofa in his dressing room. The voice from the phone call is still echoing in his head on repeat, just as it has done since the call came in.
The performance this evening was in the concert hall at Malmö Live.
It’s always a bit tricky doing the show in concert venues – they often have to close off the seats at the very back since the people sitting in them end up too far from the stage. He wants everyone in the audience to be able to see him properly – and him them. But even with those seats taken out of action there were six hundred people at tonight’s performance. Which was great for that time of year. As the weather grew warmer, beer gardens became his biggest competitor.
Not six hundred, he corrects himself. Five hundred and eighty-six. He can feel how his brain immediately wants to run away with that thought and he lets it do it while adjusting the unopened bottles of mineral water on the coffee table. All the labels in the same direction. He is tempted to send a photo to Umberto captioned #tapwater, but he refrains.
Five hundred and eighty-six.
5 + 8 + 6 = 19. 1 + 9 = 10. 1 + 0 = 1.
‘5 8 6’ is also a track on New Order’s second album. It’s that weird song into which they shoehorned bits of ‘Blue Monday’, the only listenable track New Order have ever made. And Monday is the first day of the week. The number 1 again.
According to numerology, 1 represents creativity and creation. If he flatters himself, it describes his performance pretty well. The number 1 is, however, considered to be a masculine number. He guesses that’s due to its upright, phallic shape – proof that numerology was probably devised by men. A more accurately manly number would be the far floppier number 9.
Which together with 1 is of course 19, the sum of 5 + 8 + 6.
Five hundred and eighty-six.
But 1 also stands for loneliness, the separate individual – currently sitting on their own on a shabby black sofa in Malmö. He misses Mina.
Mina?
Not Maria?
Naturally, he misses his children too. His family. But yes, he misses the peculiar police officer. Very much. He hasn’t even asked whether she has solved her Rubik’s cube yet. Personally, he is grappling with the puzzle presented to him by the murderer on the telephone.
But you know when he died. Have you really not understood what the smashed watches mean?
Of course, it’s obvious that the watches indicate the moment of death. But he can’t help thinking that the murderer means something more than that. Three watches. Three victims. Two women. One man. 3321. He laughs. If he isn’t mistaken, that’s the headline sort code for Nordea. Probably not quite what the murderer has in mind. But he has at least been able to do an analysis of the person who called, based on his tone and choice of words. He has promised Julia that he will brief the whole team as soon as he is back in Stockholm. He knows that he is still part of the group, by their grace. Hopefully, they’ll at least listen to him one more time.
He stands up, heads over to the washbasin and runs the tap until it’s ice cold. He splashes his face. That’s enough distracting thoughts for one night. He struggled to keep his focus during the performance. A woman in the audience called him Dumbledore, which caused a lot of laughter. But it made him think about the interview with Daniel, whose spontaneous association with magic had been Harry Potter. Daniel is an unlikely murderer compared to Rask. But he said something during the interview, something that Vincent missed at the time but which has been at the back of his mind ever since.
He wipes his face with a towel and examines his reflection in the mirror, trying to see beyond the eyes and into his own head. It’s in there, somewhere. Something important. He needs to find out what it is. And they probably need to see Daniel Bargabriel again.
Daniel is standing outside the door to Evelyn’s block of flats, staring up at the facade. It’s late and the street is dark, but the light is on in her kitchen window on the second floor. He thinks it looks like a postcard, with that yellow fin de siècle facade and the solitary glowing window. He’s failed completely. He knows that. But it’s not so strange that he kept away from the police. He knows the score. If you’re not as white as they are, then the risk of being picked up is much greater. Just ask Samir. It doesn’t matter whether you’ve done something or not.
The angle from where he is standing down by the door is too narrow for him to be able to see in through the window, but he knows that she is sitting up there on the other side of the glass, waiting for him. He’s been away from her for far too long. He thought he would be able to get the police to cross him off their list of suspects. But that Vincent, he noticed absolutely everything. If anything, Daniel is under more suspicion than ever. All because he didn’t want to get in trouble. He needs Evelyn’s help before this goes off the rails completely. He’s guilty of nothing worse than being scared. No one can blame him for that. Just ask Samir …
But he doesn’t just want Evelyn’s help. He wants her. He’s longing for her. They usually start their evenings in her kitchen, talking about all sorts of things, most often with a glass of wine or a beer. Evelyn usually smokes out of the open window. She barely smokes at all otherwise, but after two glasses of wine she likes to hang out of the kitchen window with a ciggie. In that stripy top with the neckline that is just the right size to slide down over a bare shoulder.
She usually says that it makes it feel like she’s in Paris or Rome instead of shitty Stockholm. Especially in the spring. Then she wants to be anywhere but this city.
He’s never really understood it – he thinks Stockholm is beautiful in the spring. On the other hand, he’s never been to either Paris or Rome. After that talk, she usually gets a hazy look in her eyes and leads him into the bedroom. Sometimes they get started in the kitchen. She tastes of smoke and wine and spring and desire. It’s a predictable routine but he likes it. It feels right. Romantic.
The early summer evening is warm. It might as well be Paris. And why not? He’s burned his bridges at the cafe simply by disappearing, so why not get out of here? If he empties his accounts, he should have enough for at least a weekend for the two of them. He should have done it ages ago. She’ll be so happy.
But there are things he has to explain first. Why he disappeared. Why he hasn’t been answering her messages. That Tuva is missing. He hopes she can forgive him for not getting in touch, hopes she will understand that he got scared when the police came. He hopes she hasn’t stopped loving him.
There are a lot of things he hopes for.
She is going to get that concerned frown on her forehead. Perhaps she’ll even purse her lips. But he’ll kiss her at the corner of her mouth – oh, how he longs to hold her face in his hands again! He takes a deep breath, goes to the door and begins to tap in the code when he hears a voice behind him.
‘Daniel?’
Behind him is an unfamiliar man in his thirties. Dark hair, blue suit.
‘Daniel, it is you, isn’t it?’ says the man. ‘You lived with Agnes, right?’
He doesn’t reply. Agnes is the last thing he wants to be reminded of right now.
‘Sebastian,’ says the man with a smile, offering his hand. ‘I’m a friend of Agnes’s. Or was. Before. Well, you know. I think we met at a party once.’
