The Double Silence (33 page)

‘Please, Margareta. Calm down,’ the pastor pleaded, his voice quavering. ‘There was nothing I could do. My hands were tied; my lips were sealed by our Lord God. Somewhere on this earth there has to be someone who listens to a fellow human being without revealing to anyone else what that person has said. Somewhere in this earthly life there has to be a means for release, a single person who can be trusted, someone you can confide in and at the same time feel completely sure that the confessions will go no further. No matter what the confessions may concern. Do you understand?’ He gave my mother and me an imploring look. ‘And it applies to both murderers and rapists; to anyone at all. There has to be a place of refuge for people on earth. I could not betray my pact with God.’

‘But you betrayed Emilia.’ Mamma spat out the words. ‘You betrayed Emilia and now she’s no longer here. Now she’s dead, and she’s never coming back. Do you understand what you’ve done? You’re a murderer. You killed her, just like he did. What does God the Almighty say about that? You killed a child!’

The pastor’s face was as white as chalk.

‘Please, Margareta. Please.’

All of a sudden Mamma was completely calm. She stood up, and all she said was: ‘Come on, Andrea. We’re leaving.’

Somehow the knowledge of what Pappa had done to Emilia didn’t destroy Mamma. On the contrary. She was suddenly yanked out of her apathy and took action. She filed a police report, which was followed by official charges and a trial. Pappa was sentenced to five years in prison for having raped Emilia over a three-year period, starting when she was fourteen. Mamma and I moved away and got a flat in town, and we never went back. I haven’t spoken to Pappa since. It’s as if he no longer exists. But he destroyed my life when I was only a child.

I thought that I’d already had my share of hell on earth. But I hadn’t. My world was going to be destroyed once again. In the same disgusting, brutal fashion, my happiness was smashed to pieces. The whole orderly and harmonious life that I’d managed to create, in spite of everything, was gone in a matter of seconds. Over. Shattered. It happened on that second
day out there on Fårö, while Sam was in the shower. Suddenly his mobile rang, and he had a text message. I couldn’t help reading it.

To my surprise, the message was from my best friend.
Found Bergman’s house. Completely deserted. Wild strawberries is the password. I want you. Now. Want to play somewhere that’s better than anywhere else?

She also sent a picture of herself. Wearing only a bra and a skimpy skirt, she was lolling on a deckchair. She had her legs spread wide, and I couldn’t help noticing that she wasn’t wearing any knickers.

Even though it should have been crystal clear what this all meant, it took me a few minutes before I grasped the whole picture. And understood what was going on.

That’s when I lost control.

KNUTAS CLIMBED THE
ladder up the slope. Far below lay the rocky shore and the sea. Andrea stood only 30 metres above him, her back to him, not moving. She looked so small, almost as if she’d shrunk since he last saw her. She was wearing jeans and a white sweater. Her hair hung down her back in a thick plait. He approached cautiously, uncertain what her state of mind might be, afraid that she was about to jump. When he was close enough, he spoke her name.

‘Andrea.’

With a start she turned around and stared at him in astonishment.

‘Take it easy,’ he admonished her. ‘It’s me, Inspector Anders Knutas. Don’t you recognize me?’

Andrea Dahlberg flinched as if she’d been struck. She looked as if she might topple over. Since she was standing at the very edge of the steep cliff, Knutas reacted instinctively. He threw himself forward and grabbed hold of her. Then he pulled her towards him and cupped her face in his hands. She offered no resistance.

Her body went limp, and tears ran down her cheeks.

‘There, there,’ Knutas consoled her. ‘It’s all right.’

He sat down on the cliff, holding Andrea in his arms, gently rocking her as she sobbed loudly. He stroked her hair.

‘There, there,’ he repeated. ‘Everything’s going to be fine.’

The poor woman, he thought. She must be totally devastated with grief.

Knutas continued to speak gently to the despairing woman, and
gradually her sobs subsided. He handed her a packet of tissues that he dug out of his jacket pocket. After she calmed down, she looked up at him.

‘That’s the first time I’ve cried. I haven’t been able to cry the whole time. I haven’t shed a single tear since Emilia died.’

‘Go ahead and cry,’ said Knutas. ‘That’s good for you. I know what happened to your sister.’

‘But I didn’t want it to happen,’ she said tonelessly. Her lower lip quivered.

Her big grey eyes were expressionless.

‘There, there,’ he comforted her.

‘I didn’t want that to happen,’ she went on in a low voice, almost a whisper. ‘I didn’t want her to die.’

‘Of course you didn’t,’ said Knutas. ‘It wasn’t your fault. Not at all. It was her own decision.’

‘I suppose you could say that it was her decision. She took sides against me. She betrayed me. Do you understand that? She fooled me. She was pregnant, and she said that she loved him. That it was his child, his and hers. That they were going away together to get married. He said the same thing to me, up here on the bird mountain. He said that he didn’t love me any more, that he loved her. Do you understand? They’d been secretly cheating on me. Both of them. We stood here, on this very spot.’ Andrea pulled away from Knutas and pointed with a trembling finger. ‘We were standing right here. And I was planning to tell him about the present. I was going to show him the card that I’d made for him and everything. We were going to Florence. It was supposed to be a surprise. But he didn’t react the way I thought he would. He said that he wanted to live with her. That Stina was the one he loved.’

Knutas hadn’t moved. Her words were starting to sink in, and at last he saw the whole picture.

‘They had to die. Don’t you see that? Although that wasn’t my intention at first. I hadn’t planned to kill her. I was just so angry that I wanted to hit her. But she fought back. Screaming hysterically. Saying that she was in love with Sam. Do you understand? And she was my best friend.
My very best friend. And there she stood, practically naked, telling me that she loved my husband, that they were together now. She was expecting him, she’d sent him a text message and wanted him to come out there to have sex with her. But the thing is, I happened to see her message while Sam was in the shower. I got in the car and drove over there. She’d even included directions.

‘When I saw her, wearing only a bra and sitting on the veranda in a deckchair, I hit her. I hit her over and over again. She fought back and screamed like crazy. She tried to get away, but I chased her over to the property next door. That’s where I picked up a big rock and slammed it against her head. Finally she stopped screaming. But suddenly her body went limp. She wasn’t moving at all, and blood was running from her head. Lots of blood. My clothes were totally soaked with it. And her eyes were blank, as if the light had gone out of them. I had killed her.

‘Then I heard someone shouting behind me. It was that fisherman. He’d seen everything from out on the water and had rowed ashore. He was standing up in his boat, yelling and waving his arms about. I hit him on the head with a shovel, and he collapsed into the boat. I saw an anchor lying on the bottom, one of those collapsible kinds. I picked it up and slammed it against his head as he lay there. Then I pushed the boat out into the water as far as I could. I don’t know why I did that, but I wanted to separate those two from each other.

‘But that’s what I regret the most. Killing that poor man. He just happened to get in the way.’

She gave Knutas a pleading look now, as if seeking his understanding. He gave her a slight nod.

‘Well, then I realized how late it was. I had to go back to the others and clean myself up because I was covered in blood.’

‘What about Sam? Why did you kill him too?’

‘We went for a morning walk. I’d brought along the card that was my gift for him. For the trip to Florence. I’d hidden Stina’s body so well that she would never be found. And then I wanted everything to go back to normal. We were standing here, in this very spot, and then I started talking about Stina. Of course I didn’t tell him that I’d killed her, but I said
that I knew about their relationship, or at least that they’d been sleeping together. I was so sure that he’d tell me it didn’t mean anything …’

‘Then what happened?’

‘He said that he loved Stina and wanted to live with her. That our marriage was over. Then he took out a cigarette and was just about to light it. That’s when something snapped inside of me. I just stepped forward while he was fumbling with the cigarette and shoved him as hard as I could. So hard that he fell off the cliff and plummeted straight down, all the way down. That’s what happened.’

Andrea fell silent. Knutas’s face was stony.

‘What about the sleeping bag?’

‘I panicked after killing Sam. I thought I needed to do something that would shift the blame to Stina. I had her hair ribbon, and I thought her body might never be found. So the police would think she was the one who did it.’

A trembling sigh escaped from her lips. She didn’t say another word.

Finally Knutas spoke.

‘Shall we go home now?’

Andrea simply nodded.

THE NEWS THAT
a man had been arrested for the three murders was out within the hour. Lars Norrby had insisted that the police send out a press release at once. Finally they’d had a breakthrough in this high-profile case. It would calm down the governor, the county police chief, and the chairman of the municipal board, not to mention everyone who was involved with tourism on the island. The murders had not exactly been good PR for Gotland as an idyllic holiday paradise. The public needed to be reassured.

Pia and Johan hurried over to police headquarters as soon as they read the press release. As they were driving, Pia got a phone call. Her face changed colour as she listened to the person on the line.

‘What are you saying? The coastguard? What could that mean? Hmm. OK. What time?’

She held out her wrist to look at her watch. Johan noticed that today her fingernails were purple. A nice combination with the lilac-coloured gemstone in her nostril.

‘All right. I understand. Thanks. Talk to you later.’ Pia turned towards Johan. ‘You’re not going to believe this. That was my friend who works as a guide on Stora Karlsö. She told me that the coastguard has just been over there to pick up two people.’

‘And?’

‘Guess who they are? None other than Knutas and Andrea Dahlberg.’

‘What’s that all about? What were they doing out there?’

‘That’s a good question. At any rate, it seems that they’re on their way
to the police station. They left Stora Karlsö half an hour ago, so they can’t have arrived yet.’

Pia Lilja stomped on the accelerator, making the tyres shriek.

Outside police headquarters a crowd of reporters had already gathered, hoping for an interview. At the moment that seemed unlikely to happen. Johan tried ringing every officer in the Criminal Division. The police spokesman was not available, and he’d asked the officer on duty to say that for now the journalists would have to be content with the press release. Johan was filled with impatience.

‘Come on, Pia. Let’s go over to the other door, the side entrance that leads to the crime-tech offices,’ he said. ‘Maybe they’ll try to slip in that way.’

Discreetly they started moving away. Pia pretended to be filming the façade of the building so as not to draw attention. When they came around the corner, they caught sight of a police vehicle just turning into the small car park near the entrance. Then Knutas got out.

And he had Andrea Dahlberg with him.

IT WAS WITH
mixed emotions that Knutas arrived at police headquarters late in the afternoon with Andrea Dahlberg and two colleagues.

He studied Andrea as she quietly sat beside him in the back seat of the police car, her hands cuffed in front of her. She had insisted that he sit next to her. She seemed to find his presence soothing. And she was clearly relieved that the whole thing was over. In silence, she stared out of the window. He wondered what she was thinking. Suddenly she turned to face him, putting her hand on his.

‘Thank you,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Thank you for coming.’

As the police vehicle was about to turn into the car park in front of headquarters, they saw a crowd of journalists gathered outside.

‘Damn it,’ swore Knutas. ‘I should have known this would happen. Let’s go around to the side.’

Before the reporters noticed the car, it turned in the other direction. When it came to a halt everyone quickly got out and hurried towards the entrance. Knutas immediately caught sight of two people standing near the door. Johan Berg and Pia Lilja. Of course. Making no decision how to handle them, he approached the door.

‘Can you tell us what’s going on?’ asked Johan, looking down at Andrea’s cuffed hands. Pia was unabashedly filming, without even considering asking for permission. As usual.

‘Nothing that I can discuss at the moment. I’m sorry, but I can’t comment.’

‘Why is Andrea Dahlberg under arrest if the perpetrator has been caught?’

Knutas stopped abruptly to stare at Johan.

‘What the hell do you mean by that?’

‘Prosecutor Birger Smittenberg arrested a man on suspicion of murder just a couple of hours ago.’

Then something happened that no one could have expected. Before Knutas or any of the other police officers could react, Andrea leaned forward and looked Johan right in the eye.

‘I’m the one who killed them. It was me.’

Then she continued moving forward, keeping her gaze fixed on the façade of the building.

THE PLANE LEFT
at two in the afternoon. Karin had a window seat, so she watched as the flat Gotland landscape disappeared far below. About a week had passed since the murder drama of the summer had finally been resolved – and what a commotion there had been. Two potential perpetrators had been arrested almost at the same time, with a disappointing result for Jacobsson. She and Wittberg had been on the wrong track. It turned out that Sten Boberg was a stalker, but he’d had nothing to do with the killings.