The Ice Princess (27 page)

He was reluctantly forced to put aside his thoughts of yesterday as he turned into the car park at the residential complex. The backup patrol cars had arrived unusually fast. They must have been in the vicinity. He saw two cars with blue lights flashing and frowned slightly. Typical that they would misconstrue the instructions. He’d asked for
one
car, not two. As he approached he saw that there was an ambulance behind the police cars. Something wasn’t right.

He recognized Lena, the blonde policewoman from Uddevalla, and went over to her. She was talking on a mobile phone, but as he approached she signed off. He heard ‘Bye’ and she stuffed the phone into a holder she wore on her belt.

‘Hi, Patrik.’

‘Hi, Lena. What’s going on?’

‘One of the winos found Anders Nilssori hanged in his flat.’ She nodded in the direction of the main door. Patrik got an ice-cold feeling in his stomach.

‘You haven’t touched anything?’

‘No, what do you think we are? I just talked to dispatch in Uddevalla and they’re sending over a team to examine the crime scene. We also talked to Mellberg so I assumed you came because he rang you.’

‘No, I was on the way over here anyway to bring Anders in for more questioning.’

‘But I heard he had an alibi?’

‘Yes, that’s what we thought, but it just fell apart so we were going to bring him back in.’

‘Well, this is fucking bad luck then. What the hell do you think it means? I mean, the probability that there would suddenly be two murderers here in Fjällbacka must be almost zero. He must have been killed by the same person who killed Alex Wijkner. Do you have any other suspects besides Anders?’

Patrik pulled himself together. It was true that this changed everything, but he still wasn’t ready to draw the same conclusions as Lena, that Anders had been killed by the same person who murdered Alex. Of course it was almost statistically impossible. There hadn’t been a murder here in decades, and suddenly two separate killers were on the loose. But he wasn’t prepared to rule out the impossible either.

‘Well, let’s go up so I can have a look. Then you can tell me what you’ve found out so far. How did the call come in, for instance?’

Lena led the way, entering the stairwell ahead of him.

‘Well, as I said it was one of Anders’s alky pals who found him, Bengt Larsson. He came over this morning so they could start drinking and get a head start on the day. He usually just walks right in, and that’s what he did today. When he entered the flat he found Anders hanging by a rope tied to the hook for the ceiling lamp in the living room.’

‘Did he call it in right away?’

‘Actually no. He sat on the threshold of the flat and drowned his sorrows in a bottle of Explorer vodka. But then a neighbour happened to come out of his flat and in passing asked Bengt how things were going. That’s when he blurted out what he had seen. Then the neighbour rang us. Bengt Larsson is too drunk to be questioned in more detail, so I just sent him off to your drunk tank.’

Patrik silently wondered why Mellberg hadn’t rung to tell him about all the action, but resigned himself to the fact that the ways of the superintendent were most often utterly inscrutable.

Patrik took the stairs two at a time and passed Lena. When they reached the second floor the door was wide open and he saw people moving about inside the flat. Jenny was standing in the doorway to her flat with Max in her arms. When Patrik went over to them, Max waved his chubby little hands in delight and showed his gap-toothed smile.

‘What’s going on?’ Jenny took a firmer grip on Max, who was doing his best to wriggle out of her arms.

‘We’re not sure yet. Anders Nilsson is dead, but we don’t know much more. Did you see or hear anything unusual?’

‘No, I can’t recall anything special. The first I heard was when my next-door neighbour started talking to somebody here in the stairwell. After a while the police cars arrived and an ambulance, and there was a hell of a commotion out here.’

‘But nothing special earlier today, or last night?’ Patrik was still fishing.

‘No, not a thing.’

Patrik let it drop for the time being. ‘Okay, thanks for your help, Jenny.’

He smiled at Max and let him grab hold of his finger, something that was apparently hysterically funny because Max laughed so hard he looked like he might choke. Reluctantly Patrik tore himself loose and backed slowly in the direction of Anders’s flat while he kept waving at Max and saying bye-bye.

Lena stood in the doorway of the flat with a mocking smile on her lips. ‘Need one of your own, don’t you?’

To his dismay Patrik felt himself blush, something that only made Lena smile even more. He muttered something unintelligible in reply.

She preceded him into the flat, saying over her shoulder, ‘Well, you know, all you have to do is ask. I’m free and single and I’ve got a biological clock ticking so loud I can hardly sleep at night.’

Patrik knew she was joking, that was Lena’s usual flirty banter, but he still couldn’t help blushing even more. He didn’t reply, and when they entered the living room they both lost any urge to smile.

Someone had cut Anders’s body down from the rope it had been hanging from, and now he lay on the living-room floor. Right above him hung the stub of the rope, sliced off about four inches from the hook. The rest of the rope was around Anders’s neck in a noose, and Patrik could see the deep, angry red wound on his neck where the rope had bit into the skin. What always bothered him the most about dead people was the unnatural facial colour. Strangulation caused a nasty bluish-purple hue which gave the victim a very odd look. Patrik also recognized the thick, swollen tongue sticking out between Anders’s lips as normal for victims who were strangled or suffocated. Even though his experience with murder victims was limited, to say the least, the police got their share of suicides each year, and he’d helped cut down three of them during his career.

But when Patrik looked around the living room there was one thing that quite clearly distinguished this scene from the suicides by hanging that he’d seen. There was no possibility that Anders could have climbed up and put his head through the noose tied to the ceiling. No chairs or tables were anywhere near. Anders had swung freely in the middle of the room like a macabre human mobile.

Unused to homicide scenes as he was, Patrik cautiously moved in a wide circle around the body. Anders’s eyes were open, staring rigidly into space. Patrik couldn’t help leaning forward and closing the dead man’s eyes. He knew that he shouldn’t have any sort of contact with the body before the M.E. arrived—actually the body shouldn’t even have been cut down—but something in those staring eyes set all his nerves on edge. It felt as though the eyes were following him round the room.

The room seemed unusually desolate. Then he noticed that all the paintings had been taken down from the walls. Only big ugly marks were left where the paintings had once hung. Otherwise the room was just as shabby as he remembered it from the last time he was here, but then the paintings had somehow lighted up the room. They had given Anders’s home a certain air of decadence by combining filth with beauty. Now the place just looked dirty and disgusting.

Lena was talking non-stop on her mobile. After one conversation in which Patrik only heard her swearing in single syllables, she slapped shut the lid of her little Ericsson phone and turned to him.

‘We’re getting reinforcements from Forensic Medicine for crime scene investigation. They’re leaving Göteborg now. We can’t touch anything. I suggest we wait outside for safety’s sake.’

They went out on the landing and Lena carefully closed and locked the door. The cold was piercing when they stepped outside the main door; Lena and Patrik stamped their feet in place.

‘Where’s Janne right now?’ Patrik was asking about Lena’s partner, who should have been with her in the car.

‘He’s TCC’ing today.’

‘TCC’ing?’ Patrik looked quizzical.

‘Taking care of a sick child. TCC. Thanks to all the cutbacks there was nobody who could step in on short notice, so I had to come alone when we got the call.’

Patrik nodded, not really paying attention. He was inclined to side with Lena. There was a lot to suggest that it was one and the same killer they were searching for. Drawing hasty conclusions was definitely one of the riskiest things a cop could do, but the odds of there being two different murderers in this little town were infinitesimally low. Add to that the fact that there were strong connections between the two victims and the odds were even lower.

Lena and Patrik knew that the trip from Göteborg would take at least an hour and a half, maybe two, so they sat in his car and turned on the heat. They also turned on the radio, and for a long time they sat listening to happy-go-lucky pop music. It was a welcome distraction from the reason for their long wait. After an hour and forty minutes they saw two police cars drive into the car park, and they got out to meet their reinforcements.

‘Please, Jan, can’t we get our own house? I saw that one of the houses at Badholmen is for sale. Couldn’t we drive down and take a look at it? It has the most fantastic view, and there’s a little boathouse too. Please?’

Lisa’s whining voice made his sense of irritation grow. Her voice almost always did these days. Being married to her would be a lot more pleasant if she had the sense to shut up and just look pretty. Lately not even her big, firm breasts and round arse had managed to convince him that she was worth all the trouble. Her babbling had only accelerated, and in moments like this he bitterly regretted giving in to her nagging about getting married.

Lisa was working as a waitress at Röde Orm in Grebbestad when he first laid eyes on her. All his friends had practically drooled when they saw her plunging neckline and long legs, and he decided on the spot that he had to have her. He usually got what he wanted, and Lisa proved to be no exception. He wasn’t bad-looking, but what usually nailed the final decision was when he introduced himself as Jan Lorentz. Mentioning his last name normally brought a gleam to a woman’s eyes, and from then on it was all systems go.

He had been obsessed with Lisa’s body in the beginning. He couldn’t get enough of her, and he effectively closed his ears to all the stupid comments she kept making in her shrill voice. The envious looks from other men when he showed up with Lisa on his arm also increased her attractiveness in his eyes. At first her little hints that he should make an honest woman out of her fell on deaf ears. To be quite frank, her stupidity had begun to chip away at her appeal. But what finally clinched his decision to make her his wife was Nelly’s vehement opposition to the whole idea. She loathed Lisa from the first moment she saw her and never missed an opportunity to make her views known. A childish wish to rebel had put Jan in his present predicament, and he cursed his own stupidity.

Lisa was pouting as she lay on her stomach on their big double bed. She was naked and doing her best to look seductive, but he was no longer interested. He knew that she was waiting for an answer.

‘You know we can’t move away from Mamma. She isn’t well, and she could never take care of this big house by herself.’

He turned his back to Lisa, knotting his tie in front of the big mirror on her dressing-table. In the mirror he saw Lisa frown in annoyance. It wasn’t a very becoming look.

‘Why doesn’t the old bitch have enough sense to move into some nice old folks’ home instead of being a burden on her family? Doesn’t she understand that we have a right to our own lives? Instead, we have to take care of her day in and day out. And what enjoyment does she get from sitting on all that money? I bet you she loves watching us demean ourselves, crawling after the little crumbs that roll off her table. Doesn’t she understand how much you do for her? You slave away at that company and spend the rest of the time baby-sitting her. The old hag won’t even let us have the best rooms in the house as thanks for our help. We have to live in the cellar while she lolls about in the drawing rooms.’

Jan turned and gave his wife a cold look. ‘Didn’t I tell you not to talk about my mother that way?’

‘Your mother.’ Lisa snorted. ‘You can’t think that she really looks on you as a son, Jan. You’ll never be more than a charity case for her. If her darling Nils hadn’t disappeared, you would probably have been tossed out on your ear sooner or later. You’re nothing more than a temporary stand-in, Jan. Who else would slave away practically twenty-four hours a day for her for nothing? The only thing you have is a promise that when she croaks, you get all the money. First of all, the bitch will probably live to be at least a hundred, and second, I bet she’s willed the money to a home for abandoned dogs and is laughing her head off at us behind our backs. Sometimes you’re just so fucking dumb, Jan.’

Lisa rolled over onto her back and studied her well-manicured nails. With ice-cold calm Jan took a step towards Lisa where she lay on the bed. He squatted down, wound the long blonde hair hanging off the edge of the bed round his hand, and began pulling slowly, harder and harder, until she grimaced in pain. He put his face right up to hers, so close that he could feel her breath on his face, and snarled in a low voice: ‘Don’t you ever, ever call me dumb, you hear me? And believe me, the money will be mine some day. The only question is, whether you’ll be around long enough to enjoy it.’

With satisfaction he saw a spark of fear ignite in her eyes. He watched her stupid but primitively sly brain process the information and conclude that it was time to change tactics. She stretched out on the bed, pouting and cupping her hands round her breasts. She circled her finger round her nipples until they hardened and then purred, ‘Forgive me, that was stupid of me, Jan. You know how I am. I talk without thinking sometimes. Is there any way I can make it up to you?’

She sucked suggestively on her index finger and then slipped her hand down to her crotch.

Jan reluctantly felt his body respond and decided that at least there was one thing he could use her for. He undid his tie.