ANOTHER VICTIM IN CLASS OF EVIL
Tuvesson, Lilja, Klippan, and Molander were standing around the table, looking at Kvällsposten; a picture of the wrecked car lying upside down on the E6 dominated the cover.
“Why didn’t we know about this?” Tuvesson asked, wondering if she could allow herself to send Florian out for cigarettes.
“According to dispatch, it came in as a car accident and nothing more,” Klippan replied.
“How did no one catch onto the fact that she was in the same class as the others?” Lilja said.
“Well, it’s not their job to keep track of that — it’s ours. And since we didn’t even know she was dead...”
“How did Kvällsposten get wind of it?” Molander asked, paging through the paper.
“Either the perpetrator tipped them off himself, or they were just doing their job and put two and two together,” Lilja said.
“But so far, we don’t have confirmation whether it was an accident or not,” Tuvesson said. “The car is on its way here, so we’ll see if Molander finds anything, but in the meantime, I want us to work on the assumption that our guy is behind it.”
“You’re suggesting he committed two murders yesterday?” Klippan said. “And not just any run-of-the-mill murders. I’m not sure of the details of what happened out on the E6, but the library couldn’t have been easy. It would have been difficult to just get her into that room without anyone noticing. The ritual itself...” Klippan grew flustered and shook his head. “He must be so cold-blooded.”
“What do I know? Maybe this supports Risk’s ‘two different killers’ theory,” Tuvesson said.
“Hold on, let’s try to look at this logically,” Molander said. “All we know for sure about the car accident is that it took place yesterday at 5:38 p.m. on the E6. My investigation will show whether the killer was there or whether he sabotaged the car. And as for the library, has Braids come up with a time frame for when she actually died?”
“Between three and five yesterday afternoon,” Tuvesson said.
“Suppose he cut her up around one or one thirty and that she died an hour or an hour and a half later, that gives him plenty of time to manage both murders.”
“Well, in any case, we know he’s started up again — and then some,” Tuvesson said. “Let’s compare these two incidents to Jörgen and Glenn’s murders. What was Elsa Hallin guilty of, for example?”
“According to one of her colleagues, she had a sharp tongue,” said Lilja.
“Maybe she was a bully too, but a verbal one? That would certainly explain her tongue being cut out.” Tuvesson turned to Klippan. “Has anyone in the class mentioned something about that?”
“Not in so many words.” Klippan flipped through his papers. “A few people said she was pretty cocky.”
“Who said that?”
“Camilla Lindén.”
Tuvesson sighed. “Typical. Didn’t Elsa Hallin say something negative about Camilla, too?”
“Yes — Elsa said she stood by and watched Jorgen and Glenn tease Claes.”
“So there’s nothing that can be linked to the car accident?”
“Not as of now.”
“And we still haven’t heard from Seth Kårheden?” Tuvesson asked, checking to see if there was more coffee in the Thermos.
“No,” Lilja replied. “But I was able to confirm that he was on a plane to Pamplona on June fifteenth, and he’s booked on a flight back from Santiago de Compostela late tonight.”
“Was he walking the St. James’s path?” Klippan asked.
“Maybe that’s what he wanted people to think,” Molander said, “But he could have driven back up here by car just as easily.”
“What was written in that locker?” Tuvesson said.
“No one sees me. No one hears me. No one even bullies me.”
“No one even bullies me... It fits with Risk’s theory about the moss.” Tuvesson stopped speaking and looked at everyone. “That it was his image of himself in the shadow of Claes Mällvik, who at least did get bullied.”
“Right, there’s a guy you’d really want to trade places with,” said Klippan.
“Easy for us to say. Which is actually worse: being bullied, or being completely ignored and treated like you don’t exist?”
“You think that’s what he wants to change?” Lilja said.
“Yes, I believe that’s the point of all his actions: he wants to be someone you can’t just ignore; a person no one will be able to forget, ever again.”
“So why not make his identity known?” Klippan said. “What’s the point of being famous if no one recognizes you?”
“It depends on how famous he wants to be,” said Molander. “Say we discover his identity or he reveals it now: it would definitely make headlines, but after a few years things would cool off and his name would be forgotten. By the time he’d served his sentence, no one would remember him anymore, which is why he keeps killing.”
“Agreed,” Tuvesson reiterated. “He’s building up his own myth, showing everyone how smart and invincible he is, and how no one — not even the police — has a chance of stopping him.”
“He’s killing his former classmates in order to immortalize himself,” Lilja said, while the others nodded. “How many people do you think he will have to kill before he succeeds?”
“We all remember Columbine,” Molander said. “Twelve students and one teacher died there.”
“So you think he has to make it to thirteen?”
Molander shook his head. “Unfortunately, I don’t think that would be enough to secure his place in history. Columbine was the biggest school massacre of its kind: all the ones that have followed in its wake are forgotten six months later. Even if this killer is in a completely different category when it comes to the murders themselves, he’s still just another mass killer, which we’ve seen before. If he gets up to eighteen or twenty people, it will be a completely different story.”
“He would have to kill the whole class to get up to those numbers.”
Molander nodded. Silence descended around the table.
“Well, the mood sure seems cheerful around here.”
Everyone turned around to see Fabian Risk in the doorway, stooping forward slightly and supporting himself with one hand on the door frame.
“Fabian? What are you doing here? Where’s your police detail?” Tuvesson walked up to him, but he fended her off with one hand.
“I know who did it.” He took a few steps into the room and looked at the printouts of graffiti all over the walls. “Wow, someone’s been busy.”
“Fabian, what are you —”
“I found him. Here he is.” Fabian placed his index finger just above Claes on the enlarged class picture on the whiteboard. “He was there all along, right before our eyes.”
Tuvesson and the others gathered around and looked at the photo.
“But that’s Claes.” Klippan turned to Fabian. “Fabian, Claes is dead.”
“No, it’s not Claes — there’s a guy standing right behind him. Look closer, that’s not Claes’s hair.”
“Let me see,” Molander said, crowding his way in with a magnifying glass to study the picture. After a moment he turned around and nodded. “He’s right.”
“They forgot to add his name to the list,” Fabian said.
“Maybe that’s not too surprising,” Lilja said. “He’s certainly easy to miss.”
“But shouldn’t he still be listed as not pictured?” Klippan said.
“You’d think so.”
“Not if you look at it logically,” Molander said. “He clearly was there, so he wouldn’t have been declared absent.”
“So in other words he should be in some of the yearbooks from the other grades,” Tuvesson said.
Fabian nodded. “And that’s exactly why I’m here.” He turned to Klippan, who threw up his hands.
“Everyone we’ve been in contact with has promised to look at their yearbooks, but so far nothing has turned up,” he said.
“Maybe his name just ended up in the wrong place and is listed somewhere else in the yearbook,” Lilja said as she started flipping through the pages.
“That actually happened to me once; or rather, to my entire class,” Klippan said. “I think it was in fifth grade — all our names got switched with the names of the grade three students. Suddenly my name was Ragnar Bloom, and everyone called me ‘Flowers’ for the rest of my school days.” Klippan laughed. “One of the other guys got stuck with the name Greta. He got that forever.”
“Fabian, how are you feeling?” Tuvesson asked, grabbing him as he was about to lose his balance and looked like he might pass out at any moment. Molander came to her assistance, and they helped him over to a chair.
Fabian felt the exhaustion wash over him, and the cold sweats and nausea that came in its wake. “I’m fine... I just need some water.”
Tuvesson placed a large glass of water on the table in front of him. “It’s not okay. You’re injured, and you should be at the hospital. According to the doctor you’re supposed to stay in bed until the day after tomorrow.”
“I have to go home... Theo, my son. He’s all alone.” Fabian picked up the glass and took a sip; he felt the water spread through his body like a cool caress. “They wouldn’t let me work at the hospital, so I had no choice but to come here.”
Tuvesson waited until he’d finished the glass, and then she sat down and looked him in the eye. “Fabian, listen to me. We are the ones working on this case. We, not you, okay?”
“I just have to call the school and find out the name of the person standing behind Claes.”
“No, you don’t, Fabian. You are no longer working on this investigation. You are on vacation, not to mention sick leave. All you should be worrying about is getting some rest. I’m sure we’ll find your classmate’s name somewhere; it can’t be that difficult. The important thing is that you follow the doctor’s orders. What’s more, you and the rest of your classmates are clearly in danger. So I want you to go back to —”
“Number 349? Is that the locker number?” Fabian pointed at the Post-it note next to the picture of the worn graffiti from the inside of a locker door. Klippan nodded.
“Fabian, did you hear me?” Tuvesson asked.
“We think the killer might have written the message,” Molander said.
Fabian held up the picture and tried to decipher the text.
“No one sees me. No one hears me. No one even bullies me. I. M,” Molander said.
Fabian looked at Molander. “I. M?”
“The Invisible Man. He used that signature in a few other places, too.”
“The invisible man who no longer wants to be invisible — he wants to come forward and be seen.”
Tuvesson nodded. “But we don’t think he’s going to reveal his identity until he’s killed more people.”
“How many is that? The whole class?”
“We think so.”
Tuvesson was right. A few clever murders wouldn’t suffice if you wanted to be remembered forever. The media-fatigued public demanded at least two-digit totals for unforgettable killers. The perpetrator might as well try to wipe out the whole class as long as he was at it. After all, every one of them had been party to making him feel invisible, which was the very reason he couldn’t stop killing and wait for Klippan and everyone else to do their jobs. If Fabian did nothing fast, it would all be over soon.
He stood up with renewed energy. He had an idea.
“Fabian, you have to let us take care of it.”
“Okay,” he said, leaving the conference room.
His idea couldn’t wait.
*
TUVESSON WALKED UP TO the class picture and studied the hair behind Claes Mällvik that belonged to the boy no one remembered. All they needed now was a name — just one name.
If only they could identify him, the rest would follow, like solving one of the last words in a crossword puzzle. They would be entering the last stage of the case soon, so it was extra crucial to make sure that everything was handled properly. They had to follow the rules: an overlooked clause, a missing signature on a document, a piece of conclusive evidence that was collected in the wrong way — anything could become a potential obstacle in a trial, setting the killer free again before they even managed to take their lieu days.
Risk had already been in a similar situation. Tuvesson knew all about it; it had been during an investigation in Stockholm at least as big as this one, if not bigger. Risk didn’t know that she knew, and she had no intention of ever bringing it up.
“Irene and Klippan, you’ll have to contact everyone in the class again. Hopefully someone will remember him and can give us a name. And don’t forget to remind them to look for other yearbooks.”
“How are we handling the police protection?” Klippan asked. “Have you spoken with Malmö?”
“No, I haven’t had time, but I’ll do it right away.”
Lilja and Klippan headed for the door. Tuvesson took out her phone, dialled a number, and looked at Molander, who had stayed behind. “You could get going on the wrecked car, so we can figure out what actually happened to Lindén.”
Molander nodded and went to leave, but he turned around again. “Hey, how did your field trip with Ingela Ploghed go?”
“Oh right, that was today.” She called Lilja and Klippan back in. “I’m sorry, I completely forgot to tell you all. I took Ploghed out this morning.”
“How did that go?” Lilja asked.
“To tell you the truth, I don’t know. I took her to the boat, and all she remembered was that she was picked up by a man in a blue car.”
“Blue?” Klippan said. “She didn’t remember what model it was? Or whether it was old or new?”
“No. Just that it was blue.”
“Who doesn’t have a blue car?” Molander said.
Lilja turned to him. “Isn’t your car blue?” He nodded.
“Was that all you found out?”
“Yes. We went to Ramlösa Brunnspark after and nothing sparked her memory there either, although I sweated everywhere pushing that wheelchair through the gravel. On our way back to the city...” Tuvesson stopped speaking and walked over to the window to look out at Helsingborg. “I had to pull over and stop. Ingvar, it was right around when you called to tell me about the camera you found at Söderåsen. We were parked right next to the tracks, and as soon as a train went by...” She stopped speaking again.
“What?” Lilja said.
“She sort of flipped out, and had some kind of panic attack. She started flailing her arms and screaming at me to drive away. I tried to calm her down, but it was impossible.” Tuvesson sighed.
“Maybe the sound of the train triggered her memory,” Klippan said.
“Could the assault have taken place on a train?” Lilja asked.
“No, I doubt it — sounds way too complicated. But maybe it was near some tracks.”
“Wasn’t she drugged and unconscious during the operation?” Molander said.
“Maybe she registered the noise in her subconscious,” said Klippan.
Molander snorted and shook his head.
“What? It’s possible! Those trains are really loud,” Klippan continued. “I go mushroom-picking near the tracks south of Ramlösa, and you basically have to cover your ears when trains go by.”
“Can I interject?” Molander said. “I think you’re on the wrong track.”
“Why’s that?” Tuvesson asked.
“What if she wasn’t reacting to the sound, but felt trapped in the car?”
“Of course, you’re absolutely right. Given how complicated the operation was, it’s most likely he took her to someplace where he could be relatively certain he could work without interruption.”
Lilja and Klippan nodded.
“Possibly a private home without neighbours close by,” Tuvesson went on.
“Or some sort of workshop,” Klippan said.
“Near the tracks,” said Lilja.
Tuvesson added thoughtfully. “Yes, it’s all possible. I’ll take a look at the neighbourhoods around Ramlösa. After all, there’s nothing to lose.”
“Yes there is — time. I don’t know about you, but I would say it’s in short supply when it comes to preventing more murders,” Molander said as he left the room.
Lilja watched him go and looked at the others. “What the hell is up with him? He’s so freaking grumpy and negative.”
“He’s just tired,” Tuvesson said. “Who isn’t?”
“I think he’s grumpy because he didn’t think to look around Ramlösa himself,” Klippan said just as Tuvesson’s phone rang.
“This is Astrid Tuvesson... Yes, that’s right... What? Suicide? Are you...” She got Lilja and Klippan’s attention. “I don’t understand. How? And where did you say?”