Trapped, page 6
‘And this is Peder Jensen.’
Mina couldn’t help but smile as she pointed at him.
‘I’m not actually Danish even though it sounds like I am,’ said Peder in a surprisingly alert voice. ‘Dad is, but I was born and raised in Bromma.’
Peder Jensen radiated friendliness and openness, which confirmed Vincent’s analysis. Most of all, he radiated exhaustion.
‘Peder and his wife had triplets three months ago,’ said Mina.
Vincent whistled. Triplets. No wonder the guy was asleep on the job.
‘And then there’s me,’ said the woman sitting at the head of the table. ‘Julia Hammarsten. I’m in charge of this motley crew in my capacity as lead investigator, but I’m also active in the field. We all are. We’re not that obsessed with titles here.’
Julia gestured towards her colleagues.
‘We come from different police units and this team is a kind of experiment – I’m not going to deny that. My father is – as Mina may have told you – the Stockholm police commissioner, and he has agreed to the formation of this group as a way of meeting the need for greater flexibility and dynamism within the force. This investigation is a real test for us; if we don’t deliver results, the experiment might be judged a failure and the opportunities afforded to us will very quickly disappear.’
Her tone of resignation and controlled body language suggested a woman who had erected impenetrable walls around her innermost, private self. There was also an aura of sorrow about her. Something was weighing her down, something that was in her thoughts most of the time. Vincent was fairly certain that it was personal and had nothing to do with the responsibility of making a success of the team. Most people didn’t think about the upper portion of their face when trying to control their expressions, which was why it was always easiest to find the genuine expressions on the forehead, eyebrows and even the eyelids. But Julia had full control over her entire face, which made it difficult for him to go on more than a vague feeling that she would prefer not to let anyone into her life.
He realized that the room had fallen silent and the others appeared to be waiting for him to say something. He cleared his throat.
‘I’m guessing that’s where I come in,’ he said. ‘I gather that my specialist skills could be of use to this case. I was unsure to begin with, but in our brief time together Mina and I have already come up with a few … observations.’
He exchanged a glance with Mina, who nodded.
‘Before we continue, I suggest we all stretch our legs,’ said Julia. ‘I want everyone alert. Peder, you’d better crack open another Red Bull.’
Christer’s joints creaked loudly as he stood up. Ruben began shadow-boxing out in the corridor, which looked rather absurd, while Peder grabbed the second can of Red Bull he had been prescribed and opened it with an audible hiss.
It occurred to Vincent that Kurt Lewin’s field theory was proving staggeringly accurate. Within himself he could feel the three variables at work: his desire to get Mina’s attention had given rise to a tension, which in turn was motivating him to act. The fact of the matter was, he wanted to get her to like him.
9
The short break was over and they’d returned to their seats. Ruben was impatiently drumming his fingers on the table, making it clear he wasn’t impressed by Julia’s latest initiative. Seeking expert help was one thing, but bringing in a mentalist? They would be the laughing stock of the force if this got out.
Many within headquarters had predicted this new team initiative would be short-lived. If Julia and Mina were going to resort to this kind of hocus pocus, they might as well abort the experiment now. That was the problem when you worked with women. There was no knowing what they’d try next. Probably drag in some crackpot psychic who’d lay out tarot cards and get the spirits to tell them who the murderer was. Absurd.
‘I’ve seen you on TV,’ Peder said cheerfully to Vincent. ‘It was impressive, what you did.’
‘I’m familiar with your work too,’ said Christer, but in a much more sceptical tone. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but aren’t you just a magician? And don’t we have our own criminal psychologist?’
‘Mentalist,’ Vincent corrected him. ‘And as for the psychologist, I heard something about Greek men …?’
Julia coughed and Peder began to laugh.
‘Oh my God, yes. Jan really was talking through his hat on that one,’ he said with a shake of his head.
‘I want to point out that I’m not a magician,’ Vincent told them, ‘although I do make use of illusion, and I have a working knowledge of magic having performed various tricks in my youth. Nowadays, the most I can manage is a false shuffle of a deck of cards. I’m more interested in what goes on inside people’s heads.’
‘In addition to his knowledge of human behaviour,’ said Mina, looking at her colleagues, ‘Vincent is also good at identifying patterns.’
She crossed her arms as if readying herself to go into battle to defend Vincent and his abilities. For some reason, that bothered Ruben. Why was she so invested in this mentalist? What did he have going for him? Ruben prided himself on knowing what women wanted. His superpower was appealing to women. All women loved him, regardless of age, appearance, background, political affiliation or culture. There wasn’t a woman in Ruben’s life that he hadn’t succeeded in charming. Until Mina came along. It wasn’t that she disliked him. She was just … indifferent. Which in his world was even worse.
To begin with, he’d tried to hit on her. Tried to get her to fall for him with every trick in the book. Not because he was in the slightest bit attracted to her – he preferred buxom blondes. It was more an exercise, seeing whether he could. That was Ruben’s main driving force. The pursuit. The reeling in. The actual sex was usually pretty uninteresting – he would soon weary of each conquest and move onto the next. But having snared his prey, he always followed through. It was a question of honour. He couldn’t understand fishermen who caught their fish and then threw them back into the sea. That wasn’t the way the hunt was supposed to end.
But Mina had been entirely immune to all his tricks.
Today he was particularly worked up about her. Right now she was standing by the whiteboard writing things and attaching photos with a magnet. She was wearing navy jeans, a red polo neck that betrayed no hint of her bra underneath, her hair was pulled back into a ponytail with not even a strand of hair out of line, and as ever her face was clean and clear of all make-up. The only thing that wasn’t perfect about Mina was her hands, which were red and chapped from cleansing with all the litres of hand sanitizer that she kept on her desk. Ruben wondered about that neat outer shell. He was a master at guessing women’s underwear. He could always tell straight away what type they were. Expensive silk lingerie in a shade of mother-of-pearl from La Perla. Cheap and sexy red lace from Victoria’s Secret, or slutty, either a black thong or those ones with the opening at the crotch ordered online from some porn mail-order site …
He sighed. Mina was probably wearing practical cotton pants.
‘When I showed the material to Vincent, he made certain observations,’ she said. ‘Things that we missed.’
Mina fell silent and turned to Vincent, who took a step forward.
‘Judging by the photos,’ Vincent said, ‘I’d say the cuts found on the victim were not random, as was conjectured. I believe they are intended to be a Roman numeral. The number three, to be specific.’
‘Numbers?’ Christer said in surprise.
Ruben snorted out loud. Mina turned to him with her eyebrows raised.
‘Ruben?’ she said, her voice ice cold. ‘What do you think?’
Ruben pretended not to understand what she meant.
‘About what?’
His tone was slightly more aggressive than he’d intended. Julia looked at him reproachfully. Peder leaned forward in interest and Christer muttered something inaudible while scratching his scalp, which was visible through thinning grey hair.
‘About Vincent’s theory that the cuts are intentional – possibly even representing a number. What’s your professional view on the matter?’
He shrugged. This was first-class nonsense.
‘It seems far-fetched,’ he sighed. ‘If you hear the sound of hooves then you guess horses, not zebras. We’ve seen perps before who got caught up in the moment and did a little extra carving. It’s nothing new.’
Vincent leaned forward and put the tips of his fingers together. His entire body was itching with irritation. The guy couldn’t look more conceited if he tried. Was Mina really buying this? Women … Who could make sense of them?
‘Well, that’s the point, isn’t it?’ said Mina. ‘Everything else has been done so very meticulously. Someone went to the trouble of building a carbon copy of something that would be used by a magician. And consciously staging a classic magic trick – minus the happy ending. We’re talking time. Planning. Patience. Does that feel like someone who gets “caught up in the moment and does a little extra carving”?’
Ruben shrugged.
‘Yes, noooo, hmm, maybe not …’
‘I don’t think it looks slapdash,’ said Julia, getting up and going over to the whiteboard.
White La Perla, Ruben thought to himself. But in this case it was no guess. He’d been familiar with her underwear and its contents since the police Christmas party had been staged on a Baltic cruise five years ago. She’d been shitfaced and had fucked him like an animal in his cabin. That was before she’d met that bore of a husband, Torkel. They were doing missionary only, guaranteed. On the cruise she’d been on her period, so the place had looked like an abattoir the next morning when he’d woken up, and she’d already sneaked off. Oh well – that was the kind of stuff that happened at parties. Julia being his boss could have been a concern, but they had never mentioned that one-night stand. And Torkel was definitely no threat. Not that Ruben was even the slightest bit interested in Julia, but still. It was always a nice feeling to know you’d been there.
Mina stepped to one side to give Julia space at the board. Julia happened to graze Mina’s elbow and Ruben saw Mina jump as if she’d had an electric shock.
‘The cuts are perfectly symmetrical,’ said Julia. ‘They definitely look intentional. On the other hand, they’re not necessarily a number. There’s no context.’
Julia turned to Peder and Christer. Peder looked tired again and had started to nod off.
‘What do we know about the place where she was found?’ said Julia.
Silence. Ruben chucked a pen so that it landed on the table right in front of Peder, who started.
‘What?’ said Peder, looking around dozily.
‘The place where the body was found,’ said Mina, repeating Julia’s question. ‘What do we know about it? What do forensics say?’
Peder shook himself like a wet dog to make himself more alert and then reached for the sheet of paper lying on the table in front of him.
‘She was found outside the main entrance to the theme park at Gröna Lund. But that’s in all likelihood a secondary crime scene. Not enough blood for her to have been murdered there. The box was transported there and then staged.’
‘Witnesses?’ Vincent asked.
‘There’s no one who lives right there. But we checked with the staff working at the Abba Museum and the adjacent restaurant. No one saw or heard anything.’
‘And do you know who the victim is?’
Christer gloomily shook his head. That didn’t have to mean anything in itself – Christer did everything with a gloomy demeanour.
‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘We’re in the process of going through missing women of about the same age, but so far no one has matched the description. There’s a risk that she hasn’t been reported missing. And that’s the problem. If no one reports her missing, finding her will continue to be almost impossible. Blonde woman in her thirties. There are a few of them around.’
‘We’ll keep looking nevertheless,’ said Julia, without hiding her ironic tone. ‘It seems a bit unnecessary to give up all hope of identification just because she doesn’t have a distinctive mole on her chin.’
Christer shrugged in resigned affirmation, and Julia turned back to the group. She moved towards Mina, and Ruben noticed how Mina darted out of the way to ensure Julia didn’t graze her again. He wondered how it worked when Mina fucked someone. Was she one of those who took care of everything herself so she didn’t have to get anyone else involved? With a little sterile battery-powered thing? Or did she force the guy to wash in caustic soda first? Maybe he had to wear one of those rustling whole-body plastic overalls from hospital, with a little hole on the front for his cock … Ruben tittered aloud and got a sharp look from Julia. He hurriedly composed his face but couldn’t remove the image from his mind of Mina being taken by a man in whole-body plastic overalls. For some reason the man in the overalls had acquired Vincent’s face.
‘Christer, I want you to carry on trying to find out the victim’s identity. Peder, you go through the work done by forensics with a fine-tooth comb – even the smallest detail may be important. Well, you know that.’ Julia turned to Vincent to explain: ‘Peder’s our virtuoso when it comes to analysis. He can review lists that would take the rest of us weeks to get through in a fraction of the time without missing any details.’
Peder blushed a little, but seemed to be pleased by the compliment.
‘Ruben—’ Julia continued.
‘I’ll take the box,’ he cut in.
‘Exactly. See what you can find out about the manufacturer, materials, structure – anything that might give us a lead on who built it or bought it. Check out where those swords are from. And stop staring.’
Ruben averted his gaze upwards and smiled roguishly, picturing Julia. La Perla.
‘Mina, talk to the medical examiner and see what we can find out about the cuts and other things that have turned up. I’ve already spoken to someone in forensics about analysing the damaged glass from the watch. And Vincent, it would be useful if you tried compiling a profile.’
‘Try is the operative word. Like I said, I’m not a trained profiler – I’ve just got another skillset that allows me to make pretty accurate observations about people.’
‘I’d appreciate it if you would give it a go anyway.’
She was quite seriously going to put the mentalist to work. Give him access to confidential police files. This was the last straw. Ruben couldn’t contain himself any longer.
‘That’s enough,’ he said. ‘The guy’s an entertainer. An entertaining buffoon. We’re the police. Surely you’re not going to listen to him?’
The others fell silent and looked at Ruben. You could cut through the atmosphere with a knife.
‘We’ve still got a little time before this leaks to the press, we have to exploit that,’ said Julia through gritted teeth. ‘In every way possible.’
Ruben held out his arms. He gave up. This was what happened when you left the women in charge.
‘I’m off to forensics,’ he said, standing up. ‘Just going to requisition a crystal ball first.’
Peder, Christer and Ruben trooped out of the room, followed by Vincent, who had a prior engagement. Julia stayed behind with Mina. They were standing by the whiteboard with the photographs. Mina felt dirty from just looking at them and wished she hadn’t left the hand sanitizer on her desk.
‘How do you think that went?’ Julia asked.
‘I don’t know,’ said Mina, looking at the photos. ‘It wasn’t exactly a standing ovation from the group.’
She rubbed her forearms to remove the top layer of dead skin that she knew was there by this stage of the day.
‘But do you think he can build a profile?’ said Julia. ‘He didn’t sound too convinced.’
Mina shrugged.
‘I think he’s able to do things we’ve not seen him do yet. And it’s not like we’ve got anyone else, unless we want to end up on another Greek high society wild goose chase. I’d like to carry on working with Vincent and give him a chance. We need a straw to clutch at. He’s our straw.’
‘You need to be one hundred per cent certain he’s the right person for this,’ said Julia. ‘Because, as you might have noticed, you’ve got a room full of sceptics to convince. Well, maybe not Peder, but Ruben and Christer aren’t climbing aboard this particular train. Ruben isn’t even standing on the platform yet.’
Julia left her there alone. Mina let out a deep sigh. The meeting had been a disaster – it couldn’t be regarded any other way. Though Vincent had been tasked with compiling a profile, she didn’t think they’d pay any heed to what he had to say. His performance in the meeting had been less than stellar. She couldn’t blame him; he’d warned her that it was all a matter of group dynamics. It was a pity his efforts to fit in with the team had come to nothing. Faced with Ruben and his preconceived notions, what hope did he have? She’d known since seeing him in action at the theatre that she wanted to work with him. But apparently that would have to be outside the conservative walls of police HQ.
Her gaze lingered on the photos on the board. The bloodied body hanging between the swords running straight through the box. Nothing but white knickers and a vest. She didn’t want to look. But she had to. One of the swords had gone into the woman’s eye and out the back of her head. A classic illusion. Anyone who thought magic was entertaining must be sick.
10
Kvibille 1982
Jane scraped the mud from her shoes onto a rock. She hated this. Hated it. It hadn’t been her idea for them to move to the country. But she was the one who had to suffer as a result.
‘Hurry up, Jane!’ shouted her little brother from the lawn. ‘We can’t start on the cake until you’re here!’
Mum was already there, wearing – as usual – one of her own dresses. Surely someday Mum could go out and buy some clothes instead of making them herself? At least she’d put on her best-looking one – the one with a leopard print. How she had got hold of leopard print fabric was a mystery, but when it came to textiles, Mum had an almost supernatural ability. The dress almost made her look sophisticated, even though it was home-made. If it hadn’t been for the bare feet … In honour of her birthday, Mum had also put a wreath of flowers on her head. Jane sighed and pretended not to hear her brother.
