It had been ten days since Stig Ahlin contacted investigation headquarters to report his relationship with Katrin Björk. Bertil and district prosecutor Petra Gren had withdrawn from the rest of the investigation team. They were holed up in Gren’s office to review the state of their investigation.
“I want to bring him in now.” Bertil stood up and opened the door into the hallway. It was stuffy in there. He could hardly breathe. “I want to lock him up. Tear apart his goddamn apartment and his goddamn car and his goddamn office.”
“You may want to,” Petra Gren cut him off. “But you can’t. Surely you can see that for yourself.”
Bertil turned to his colleague. She was sitting down, not even looking at him — she was inspecting her own nails, meticulously and attentively, as if they were her greatest concern in life.
“Why should I see it?” Bertil could tell he was speaking far too loudly. But it didn’t matter. He didn’t care if the whole department could hear him, if only Petra would listen, because this was important. “We need to shift into higher gear. Not only is it past time to bring him in, it’s absolutely necessary. We’re talking about an acute situation here. You have to get us a search warrant. You have to. Now. Immediately.”
Petra Gren looked up. “Explain to me why I have to do that.” She was spitting the words. “Explain yourself!” She raised one hand and pointed at him. “You’re the one, you told me that Stig Ahlin is on guard because of the other investigation. Otherwise he wouldn’t have called us. Ahlin has had all the time in the world to clean up. To think everything through. You see, Bertil Lundberg, I don’t have to do anything. Because if we aren’t certain that we can keep Stig Ahlin once we’ve got him, if we’re not careful…we’ll end up finding nothing and we’ll have to release him, and then…if that happens, this investigation will be DOA. We might sabotage everything, and I want you to understand that.”
Bertil just stared at her. At Petra and her extended index finger. He could hardly believe this was really happening. She was sitting there pointing at him. Raising her righteous finger and shaking it at him as if he were her little boy. What was wrong with her? That damn woman must be crazy. Where should he start?
“It’s not too soon,” he managed to say as she slowly lowered her hand. “Not a minute too soon. And I have no intention of sabotaging this. If only the office of the prosecutor would be so kind as to help out for a change. What are you waiting for? A divine revelation? We don’t have anything more. This is it. You have to let me put some pressure on him. Perform a search. Let him sweat in jail. Because my colleagues sure aren’t helping. No ma’am. They’re handling him with kid gloves and hardly asking any questions about all the shit he’s subjected his daughter to.”
Bertil bit back the rest. He shoved his fist into his pocket and clenched his teeth, holding in everything he might have said about her ever-unreasonable demands that they must find what didn’t exist. His team had been working around the clock ever since the night of the murder. Around the clock, for a month. But District Prosecutor Petra Gren got to pick up her kids from day care at five o’clock and stay home to wipe their snotty noses one week a month, basically.
“Put pressure on him?” Petra Gren snorted. She stuck her index finger in her mouth and began to gnaw at her nail polish, which was already half chipped off. “Do you seriously think your refined interrogation techniques are going to fix this for us? That you’ll get Stig Ahlin to break down like a half-alcoholic wife beater? Get him to confess? Forget it. It’s not happening. And what do you think you’ll find if you search his apartment? A video of the crime that he kept to jerk off to at night? Her bloody bra in a shrine in the bathroom?”
Instead of responding, Bertil turned around and closed the door into the hallway again. Then he fell back into the visitor’s chair and rubbed his eyes. They stung; his eyelids were scratchy as sandpaper.
“Stig Ahlin is no dummy,” Petra continued. “He does absolutely everything right. He’s cooperative, but only because it’s to his advantage. He talks, but he doesn’t say anything we don’t already know. Obviously, he will have gotten rid of anything that might help us in the investigation.”
There’s no point, Bertil thought. There’s no point in trying to explain. She’ll never understand what I mean.
Petra had started paging through the documents on the desk in front of her.
“There’s no sperm, no blood, and no DNA we can use, no fingerprints we can’t explain — they’re sure of that?”
Bertil sank farther into his chair. All he could do was shake his head. They’d discussed the test results a thousand times. They’d already been around that track. Several times. He refused to go back to square one. If Petra wanted to collect tickets for that ride, she could do it on her own.
“What about this forensic odontologist?” Petra was still going through the documents. “What is there to say about him?”
“Yes, what is there to say about that?” Bertil looked at Petra. “I called him. Explained the situation. That we have a victim with half-moon-shaped wounds on her body and a woman who says our main suspect bit her and their daughter both. That we have hookers who can testify that Stig Ahlin likes to get his teeth into the people he has sex with. What do you want me to say about that goddamn dentist? It should have been great for us. If only he’d done his job.”
Bertil leaned forward and buried his head in his hands. He massaged his temples. Now it was Petra’s turn to be silent. Bertil went on.
“I don’t know why I’m jumping on you like this,” he said. “You’ll have to excuse me. I’m so tired. But that damn snob…I was as clear as could be. Compare the marks on Katrin’s body with Stig Ahlin’s teeth. Thanks. How hard can it be? But you know how they are. That smartass took half an hour to explain to me how busy he was. And a few days later, he came back with…with that.” Bertil gestured at the papers on Petra’s desk. “Couldn’t he have given us something? They’re usually so good at wrapping it up in scientific gobbledygook so they don’t have to say anything for sure. But no siree Bob. Not when we really need it. I suppose he was terrified of saying anything that might help us, because then he might have to drag himself away from his work to explain what he means in a crowded courtroom. And answer brand-new follow-up questions. And how would he have time for that? What a goddamn coward.”
Petra smiled faintly. It didn’t reach her eyes. She had stopped chewing on her nails.
“It’s not about cowardice,” she said.
“I know.” Bertil nodded.
“I want to see Ahlin locked up too. Just as much as you do. I keep lying awake at night thinking about her. Seeing that little girl…but I have to be able to charge him, get him convicted. And what we have isn’t enough.”
“I know.” Bertil’s head kept moving for another few seconds, up and down. Deep down, he knew she was right. It wasn’t enough.
When he had stopped nodding he stared instead, resigned, at the forensic odontologist’s report, which was still lying there between them on Petra’s desk. It was unusable. Neither of them said the word out loud, but both of them were thinking it. Resolved by the police; no charges filed. The worst kind of failure: to know who the guilty party was but with no way of doing anything about it. That was where they were headed.
“I’ve been thinking about her too,” said Bertil. “And about Ahlin’s daughter. Does that goddamn odontologist know who pays his salary? Does he understand why he has that job in the first place?”
The prosecutor didn’t respond. Instead she picked up the document and examined it. Read it.
She must have read it more than a hundred times, Bertil thought, just as he had. Searching for something between the lines, something they could use to justify a new request for a supplementary statement. An adjustment. A rewording.
A wrinkle deep as a slash from a knife ran between Petra Gren’s eyebrows. The skin around her mouth was slack.
She’s starting to look old, he thought. Older than just a few months ago. Then Petra began to speak in a different tone of voice.
“I met a British forensic odontologist at a conference in Berlin a while ago. He seemed very knowledgeable. And…” — it took her a second to think of the right word — “…pragmatic in a way we’re hardly spoiled enough to see here in Sweden. He spoke like a real investigator, if you know what I mean. Considered himself part of the crime-fighting authority. He spoke about responsibility quite a bit.”
Bertil nodded again. More slowly this time. He could feel a warmth spreading through his belly.
“We need people who feel responsible,” he said. “Pragmatists. People who know how investigations work.”
“You will be able to bring in Stig Ahlin. And I’ll get you your search warrant. But I’m going to do something else as well. We’re going to send those bite marks to a forensic odontologist who is better able to perform the sort of analysis we’re after. They’re more advanced in Great Britain than we are, on a number of fronts. It’s not as if our National Board of Forensic Medicine are the only ones who can do forensic dentistry. And their experts are far from the most sophisticated.”
“That sounds like a good idea,” he said. “One of your better ones. And while you’re doing your thing, I’ll have a serious talk with Stig Ahlin. And go through his damn apartment with my very own fine-tooth comb. We’ll find something.”
“Then that’s that,” said Petra Gren. She stood up and came around her desk. “And once you’ve brought him in we’ll get a proper dental impression. Make a good cast we can send to the foreign expert. That ought to make his job easier.”
They shook hands. Petra’s was perfectly dry, and her grip was firm. Bertil smiled, and Petra smiled back. Something had come to life in her eyes.
“Thanks,” said Bertil. “Thanks a hell of a lot.”