I arrived home just under an hour later. From the car I called Harriet, the woman I had met when I tried to get hold of Rakel (or Veronica, as I called her at the time) at the address where we’d had our encounters. She told me there was no Didrik Stihl among the members of the housing association. But there was a man of that name renting an apartment from its official occupant. She didn’t know how long that had been going on.
Bingo. But a fucking unpleasant discovery all the same.
On the way upstairs I snuck into Wolfgang’s flat and removed his computer. It appeared not to have been touched, but I wouldn’t know that until I started it up. I was almost certain someone must have been inside his flat by then. Someone who had cleaned up after themselves and left no sign of having been there.
Someone like Didrik?
We sat on the terrace and drank some wine. I explained what I had found out about where he was living. Lucy turned pale. I couldn’t understand how Didrik, of all people, was involved in the crap I was splashing around in. Could Didrik have run down and killed two people in a car that resembled mine? And then gone on killing? Moving a body from a house in Solna to the boot of my car? Together with Rakel? The thought was as laughable as it was horrific. Yet it did seem to be the only plausible explanation.
Lucy started when she heard a noise coming from the street. She was like me now, always on her guard. Unable to tell what was important and what wasn’t. The noise stopped and Lucy relaxed.
I made an attempt to summarise where we were: ‘There was a dead man lying in the boot of my car today. A dead man who was in a house in Solna yesterday: the home of a woman I slept with, who lied about both her name and where she lived. And who also abducted Mio. I met her one evening when I was out with Didrik, who is registered as living at the address where she took me, and who therefore could have given her access to the guest-flat we used. It was Didrik who led the investigation into Sara Texas’s crimes. It was his colleague, Staffan, whom Elias spoke to when he called the police and asked for help. So – Didrik and Rakel are a team. They’re behind this whole story. What I can’t understand is why. Or why they’re trying to frame me for the whole thing.’
I could feel my throat contracting and it seemed harder to breathe. Didrik and I hadn’t really been friends in any conventional sense, but I had still thought of him as an ally. Someone I could trust.
Lucy put her wineglass down. She had dark circles under her eyes. They say that a beautiful woman looks good in anything, but exhaustion isn’t a good look for anyone.
‘We need to try to understand what’s making him do all these insane things, assuming it is him,’ she said.
‘Assuming it is him? Baby, it is him. Along with Rakel. If there was anyone else involved we’d have seen them by now.’
Lucy said nothing. Said nothing and kept thinking.
‘The move to Denmark,’ I said. ‘I want to know more about that.’
‘Does there have to be anything funny about it? Couldn’t it just be that Rebecca got a new job or something?’
I pictured her before me, the way she had looked when we ran into each other on the pavement. Pale and hollow-eyed. But above all scared. I had assumed Didrik had been bad-mouthing me at home and that was why she seemed so upset. Now I was no longer so sure. She may have been frightened for other reasons. Few things make people so worried as thinking that their worst secrets are about to be uncovered.
‘Maybe,’ I said.
Lucy’s hand shook as she reached for her wine.
‘We don’t know anyone else who knows Didrik,’ she said. ‘You aren’t going to be able to find out more about the move without it looking very obvious.’
I cleared my throat.
‘I know Herman Nilson.’
Lucy spilled some wine on her blouse and put the glass back on the table with a bang.
‘No, you don’t,’ she said, stressing each syllable. ‘Not well enough to pay him a visit and ask a load of questions about Didrik.’
‘Come on, we’ve been to crayfish parties together.’
‘You mean we were there and felt completely out of place? He’s godfather to Didrik’s son. That tells you a lot about where his loyalties are going to lie. You won’t have time to ask more than two questions at most before he calls Didrik, wondering what the hell you’re playing at. And if Didrik isn’t as caught up in it as you think, you risk getting yourself into a hell of a lot of trouble.’
As if I wasn’t already. As if I wasn’t already deep in the shit.
‘I’ve got to take a few risks if I’m going to get out of this,’ I said. ‘It won’t really do any harm if Didrik finds out I’m asking questions about him. He might even start making mistakes and give himself away. Assuming he is involved.’
I thought about the man we’d seen in the footage from Wolfgang’s security camera. It was impossible to say if it was Didrik. That would need someone to enhance the image far beyond what I was capable of.
‘I hate this,’ Lucy said. ‘I hate the fact that we know so little, that we’re so exposed. I mean, for fuck’s sake, we don’t even know why it was so important for that Rakel to pick you up.’
She was absolutely right about that, and it was something that worried me a great deal. It was so easy to trip over all the loose ends. They were everywhere, the whole time.
I yawned so hard that I almost dislocated my jaw. I needed to sleep.
‘Shall we go to bed?’
I phrased it as a question, but it sounded more like a plea. Lucy nodded.
‘Definitely.’
So we moved inside and went to bed. In the same bed, under the same covers. But as physically uninterested in each other as if we were brother and sister. That was going to change when this was all over. I was going to work my backside off to get my old life back. And we would be happy again.
I found it impossible to settle. Lucy fell asleep and I lay there listening to the sound of her breathing. The list of things that were troubling me was practically endless. But two things stood out. Firstly, the question of Didrik’s involvement. And secondly, why Lucifer’s representative hadn’t been in touch. Didn’t he want to hear how things were going? Or were they keeping such a close eye on me that there was no need for telephone calls?
The thought made me shudder. I couldn’t help it, I had to wake Lucy.
‘Wolfgang’s security-camera footage,’ I said. ‘We’re not going to lose it, are we?’
‘Martin, I checked before I got into bed. All three copies are still there.’
Feeling marginally safer, I let my head settle deeper into the pillow. At least I couldn’t be convicted for having put Elias in the boot of my car. Small mercy.
I must have slept for a while. The nightmares were bubbling under the surface but never really got going. Fragments of misery flickered past. I remember dreaming about a spade. About hot soil and blood-stained clothes. But, generally speaking, you could probably say that I slept pretty well. Entirely unaware of what the following day had in store for me.