IT WAS 11:30 P.M. by the time the GPS told Fabian that he had nearly arrived at his destination in Lellinge. The trip had gone faster than expected. There was hardly any traffic and, after hearing “Running Up That Hill” on the radio, he’d listened to the entire Hounds of Love album. It had helped jog his memory about his school days.
He’d never liked Jörgen Pålsson and had made sure to stay as far away from him as possible. It wasn’t because Fabian was afraid, but more so out of faintheartedness. He wouldn’t have to witness the abuse and be forced to take a side if he hadn’t seen anything. It might explain why his memories were so fuzzy. He was so fucking pitiful.
At least he remembered enough to say that Jörgen Pålsson and Glenn Granqvist had spread fear throughout the class, but they’d picked on one person in particular: Claes Mällvik. Mällvik was bullied as soon as the names were read for attendance in first grade, all the way until he finished the ninth grade. Everyone in the class had been well aware of it, and surely the same went for the teachers. Yet no one had done anything but avert their eyes.
There was one incident that Fabian hadn’t been able to ignore. An incident he had repressed — but the chopped-off hands in the shower room brought it back to him. His complacency made him feel as guilty as Jörgen and Glenn.
They had just finished gym class and were on their way into the locker room. Claes never showered, a fact the gym teacher had recently discovered. He threatened Claes with a failing grade if he didn’t start washing. The teacher told him that it was a matter of personal hygiene to shower after gym class, not only for yourself but also for everyone around you; he probably had no idea how these threats would affect Claes.
The white-tiled shower room had eight showers along two walls. Everyone could sense what was in the air, and hurried toward them — everyone but Jörgen and Glenn. What the hell are you staring at? Are you a fag or something? No, he’s a tranny! Check out his dick! It’s so fucking tiny it looks like a pussy!
Fabian could still recall the way Claes had looked at him with pleading eyes, and how he had pretended to get soap in his eyes to avoid opening them. Then he heard the first blow. When he opened his eyes again, Claes was lying on the hard tile floor in fetal position, trying to shield himself from Glenn’s kicks, which were aimed at his genitals, and Jörgen’s blows to his head.
Fabian had been a coward and snuck out with the rest of the boys. Claes didn’t make even the tiniest sound. He didn’t cry out or say a word. He didn’t even ask them to stop. He just took the blows and the kicks in silence. It wasn’t until they turned the shower on as hot as it would go that he started screaming.
Now, more than thirty years later, the perpetrator had sawed off Jörgen’s hands and placed them in the very same shower room.
If anyone had a strong motive, it was Claes Mällvik.
*
THE OK GAS STATION consisted of one building. After doing a circuit around it, Fabian parked in one corner, next to a Dumpster, and stepped out of the car. He filled his lungs with the night air, which was still thick and warm. If this weather kept up, he would soon be reading about the warmest July in one hundred years in the papers.
He walked around for a moment and then realized that he hadn’t the slightest idea what he should be looking for, although he had a feeling there was a lead somewhere close by, something that he needed to discover sooner rather than later. As he searched the area around the gas station, the feeling grew stronger and stronger. He couldn’t be sure, but he felt increasingly confident that this was where the perpetrator had made contact with his victim.
How could the killer have planned for Jörgen Pålsson to fill up his tank at this gas station in particular? The only thing he could have counted on was that Jörgen had to stop somewhere on the drive home. He must have followed Jörgen in a car of his own, a car he would have been forced to leave behind. If he hadn’t already come back to get it there was a chance the vehicle was still here.
As Fabian made his way to the back of the gas station he tried to get a clearer mental picture of Claes Mällvik. He remembered him as incredibly shy and cautious, someone who had hardly dared to raise his hand in class to answer a question. Had he now gone so far as to take the life of his tormentor in a brutal and headline-grabbing way? Fabian didn’t quite know what to think. There was no limit to what violence and mental terrorism could do to a person: it was probably the very way to create a monster.
There were five cars parked behind the building, and none of them seemed to belong to customers inside the store. Three of them were in the staff parking spaces, but there were no signs in front of the other two. One of the cars was covered in a thick layer of dirt and dried leaves. Fabian walked over to the last car in the row, a Peugeot 206, and studied it. It had Swedish licence plates, and a thin layer of dust suggested it had been sitting there untouched for a few days — perhaps a week at most.
He ought to call Tuvesson, but there was a good chance she would be angry with him for acting on his own authority. Instead, he called Lilja.
“Hi, this is Fabian Risk, your new —”
“I know who you are.”
“I hope I didn’t wake you.”
“Not at all. I’m still at the office, trying to help Klippan get hold of a list of students from your class, which seems to be absolutely impossible. It was 9C, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, but with a little luck maybe we won’t need it. I’m in Denmark and I may have found the killer’s car.”
“What? How the hell did you manage that? Does Tuvesson know?”
“I’ll explain more later. This is still a bit of a long shot, and I might be wrong, but if you could look up the plate JOS 652, that would be —”
“I’ll call you back.”
Fabian took a deep breath, stuck his phone in his pocket, and walked toward the gas station’s twenty-four-hour store. If it turned out that Claes Mällvik was the owner of the Peugeot, Fabian’s suspicions would be realized and the investigation would enter its final phase: locating the suspect and making the arrest. That last phase could certainly take some time, but he would have done his job and then some, and he could return to his vacation with a clear conscience. He could take Theodor to Väla tomorrow morning to buy a snorkelling set, and after that he could take the whole family to the beach at Mölle, where they could sunbathe and snorkel by the cliffs. Then he would treat them all to a fancy dinner at Mölle’s very own Grand Hotel.
He walked into the store and carried a machine-made latte, a chocolate bar, and a bottle of Ramlösa water — or “Danish water,” as the Danes stubbornly insisted on calling it even though it was bottled in Helsingborg — over to the cash desk. There was a young female clerk behind the register. She didn’t look any older than twenty, and had a piercing in her lower lip. She was far too young to be working the night shift all by herself, Fabian thought as he set down his purchases.
“Is that your car?” she asked in Danish, pointing at the Peugeot.
“No, but do you know how long it’s been here?”
“About a week.”
“Was it here last Tuesday?”
“No idea.” She shrugged and started scanning his items. “I don’t work Tuesdays or Wednesdays. I saw it for the first time on Thursday. Your items will be seventy-eight kroner.”
Fabian handed over his credit card, realizing that the Peugeot could have very well been sitting here since the previous Tuesday.
He was leaving the store just as his phone rang.
“Fabian, it’s Irene Lilja. The car is registered to a Rune Schmeckel.”
“Sorry? What did you say?” Fabian stopped by the air pump, which was dripping and hissing. He’d been so certain she would say Claes Mällvik that he assumed he’d heard wrong.
“His name is Rune Schmeckel. Unfortunate last name, isn’t it?”
Fabian felt deflated. If only it had been a rental car or something, just to give them a clue to work from. He knew for certain that there hadn’t been a Rune Schmeckel in his 9C class.
“Has it been reported stolen?”
“No. That’s the first thing I thought of, too.”
Dammit, Fabian thought to himself. Maybe it wasn’t the perpetrator’s car after all. Or maybe he was completely on the wrong track. Could this case be about something other than a victim’s revenge?
“Fabian, are you still there?”
“Yes. You didn’t give me the answer I was expecting.”
“His home address is Adelgatan 5 in Lund. He works at the hospital there.”
“I have to go now. We’ll talk more later.”
Fabian ended the call. He had no desire to keep talking. He needed time to think — to reconsider everything.