IT WAS JUST before half past two in the morning, which meant Fabian had been up for almost twenty-four hours, so no wonder he was feeling tired. But that wasn’t the reason he was so distracted he hadn’t heard a word of what Klippan and Lilja had been saying.
‘He could either duck his head under water and drown himself or he had to wait until the bath filled all the way to the cables and be electrocuted,’ Klippan said, topping up his coffee mug.
His mind was somewhere else entirely.
‘We’ll know which one he opted for as soon as Flätan is done with the autopsy.’ Lilja turned to Fabian and waved at him. ‘Hello. Are you awake?’
Fabian nodded and tried to look engaged.
‘Anyway,’ Klippan went on. ‘When we heard most signs point to Milwokh having drowned, we felt the best course of action was to get some shut-eye.’
‘So we were in the middle of turning out the lights and leaving,’ Lilja said.
At first, the thought had been so faint, he’d assumed it was nothing to get hung up on. A gut feeling he dismissed as a result of being stressed and disappointed and, above all, having had nothing to eat all day.
‘That’s when it hit me,’ Lilja continued and turned to the whiteboard, which was chock-full of the same seven letters in all kinds of combinations. ‘It turns out Milwokh has scrambled the letters in his name more than once.’
The thought had come to him the moment the coastguard had radioed them about the attack on the Hallberg-Rassy in the middle of Öresund.
Lilja sighed. ‘Am I the only one still awake here, or what?’
‘No, I’m listening.’ Fabian made a concerted effort to push his own musings aside. ‘You’re talking about Milwokh, who, if I understood you right, has changed his name again. So that’s not really his name, or what?’
‘It is. Or at least it has been since he was granted asylum. But…’
‘And this is where it gets really interesting,’ Klippan added.
But it was hard, virtually impossible. Because something wasn’t right about the relative timing of the bathtub murder and the events out on Öresund.
‘The thing is, that wasn’t the first time Milwokh came to Sweden,’ Lilja continued. ‘As a matter of fact, he grew up in Skåne and has lived most of his life here.’
‘Irene,’ Klippan said. ‘I think you’d better start from the beginning.’
‘All right, sorry. As you know, he rented a car that was parked near the laundry room where Moonif Ganem was murdered, which made us bring him in for questioning. At that point, he was calling himself Pontus Holmwik, and that is what his fake driving licence said, too.’ Lilja turned to the whiteboard and pointed to some of the many jumbles on it, with arrows pointing this way and that. ‘A week or so later, Klippan realized it’s the same exact letters that are on the door of the flat next to the one I just moved into. P. Milwokh. Are you with me so far?’
Fabian nodded.
‘It turns out there are more combinations.’
‘Five thousand and forty, to be exact,’ Klippan interjected. ‘And since we’re talking about factorial calculations, the proper term is permutations.’
‘As you can tell, we’ve spoken to Molander,’ Lilja said. ‘The point is that there’s a ‘permutation’ that’s slightly more interesting than the others. This one.’ She underlined the name Wikholm. ‘Maybe that rings a bell?’
Fabian had no choice but to shake his head.
‘Oh, come on, Wikholm. You don’t remember? Soni Wikholm.’
Lilja was right. Something about that name did sound familiar. He’d come across it in some case or other.
‘Soni Wikholm was the name of the papergirl who discovered your old classmate Seth Kårheden murdered in his own home. You know, the one who had his moustache cut off.’
Fabian nodded. ‘Wasn’t she the one filming around Johan Halén’s house out in Viken, as well?’
‘Exactly, which was why we found her in a shallow grave outside Mörarp just over a month ago.’
‘Fine, but what has she got to do with our killer?’
‘They’re brother and sister.’ Lilja spread her hands. ‘Soni Wikholm’s brother is or was called Pontus Hao Wikholm. They were adopted together from China by Ing-Marie and Börje Wikholm out in Påarp. Isn’t that nuts? I was actually at their parents’ house just a few months ago, going through boxes of Soni’s stuff in their basement. And one of the boxes belonged to her brother, and do you know what it was full of?’
Fabian shook his head.
‘Dice.’ Lilja paused for effect. ‘Dice, dice and more dice. An insane amount of them, along with some well-read library copies of Luke Rhinehart’s The Dice Man.’ She spread her hands and accidentally knocked over Klippan’s coffee, flooding the desk. ‘Oh no, I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ Klippan replied, rushing over to try to save as many documents as possible. ‘At least it’s a big break in the case. I’ll fetch a cloth.’ He left the room.
‘You don’t seem very excited.’ Lilja turned to Fabian. ‘Don’t you get it? We’ve finally figured out his MO. He uses dice. That’s how he makes his decisions.’
Fabian nodded. ‘Yes, I do get it. I came to the same conclusion myself when I found this in Ester Landgren’s room earlier tonight.’ He held up a small evidence bag containing the brushed-metal dice. ‘And the boy on the yacht told me he used a dice there as well.’
‘Okay. Then why didn’t you say something?’ Lilja snatched the evidence bag out of his hand and studied the dice.
‘When was I supposed to do that? We’ve barely been in the same room until now.’
‘Fabian, what’s the matter?’ Lilja handed the bag back.
‘What do you mean?’ He shrugged. ‘Nothing.’
‘Nothing?’ Lilja nodded and bit her lip.
‘Well, nothing, apart from Theodor being in police custody in Denmark, Matilda talking to ghosts and Sonja seeming to be doing worse than ever. Oh, actually, there’s one more thing. I’m bloody tired and I’m going to have to go home and get some sleep soon.’
‘Sure, we’re all tired and we all want to go home and sleep.’ Lilja pulled up a chair and sat down across from him. ‘Did you know that this Sunday, we will have been working together for exactly two years, you and me?’
‘No – like I said, I’ve been a bit busy, but, sure, that sounds about right.’
‘I didn’t know you then. I found you difficult. Maybe it’s a Stockholm thing, but I felt like you were keeping us at arm’s length.’
Fabian made as if to speak, but was silenced by a raised hand.
‘I remember thinking you were an arrogant prick, actually.’ She chuckled. ‘For a while, I even suspected you of being behind the murders. Certain things seemed to suggest it. But I know you better now. Much better. And though two years may not be that long in the grand scheme of things, it’s more than enough for me to be able to tell when something’s wrong.’
‘Irene, I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Fabian tried to look at her with honesty and weariness in equal measure. ‘I’m sorry if we got off on the wrong foot. But maybe we can get into that more some other time, when things have quietened down a bit. As for right now, nothing’s wrong. Other than the things I’ve already told you about.’
Lilja nodded. ‘With all due respect to what you and your family are going through – it’s awful in every possible way, and I don’t know how I would have kept going in your position. But don’t come in here and tell me that’s all it is. That those things are what’s on your mind, because if you do, I’m going to get proper mad at you.’
He was burning to tell her, but he couldn’t. He wouldn’t know until tomorrow how Stubbs’s meeting with Conny Öhman had gone.
‘For fuck’s sake, Fabian. I’m so sick of your bullshit.’ Lilja got to her feet with a sigh. ‘Sometimes I don’t know why we work together at all.’
The door opened and Klippan entered with a coffee urn and a dish cloth. ‘I made a fresh pot while I was at it, in case anyone wanted…’ He trailed off and looked back and forth between Lilja and Fabian. ‘What’s going on? Did something happen?’
‘No.’ Lilja turned to Fabian. ‘Fabian’s just a bit tired and is going to head home and get some sleep.’
‘Right – or, like I said, there’s more coffee.’ Klippan held up the urn and started wiping down Lilja’s desk.
‘I don’t think Milwokh, or whatever you want to call him, was behind the bathtub murder,’ Fabian said.
Lilja turned to Klippan and then back to Fabian. ‘What makes you say that?’
‘Several things suggest otherwise. None of the other victims had a choice of how to die, for instance. In all other cases, that was the dice’s job. Not the victim’s.’
‘Fine, so it’s different from the others. But they’re all murders. And besides, they’ve all been different. You said so yourself, just yesterday. That there were no common denominators and that that was in fact the common denominator.’
‘I know. And maybe that’s true. Like I said, I’m not sure. But another thing that bothers me is the timing. I don’t see how he could have committed both the bathtub murder and the sword attack on board the Hallberg-Rassy.’
‘Wasn’t it the same thing with Molly Wessman and Lennart Andersson?’ Klippan said. ‘Didn’t those murders happen on the same day, too?’
‘They died on the same day, yes. But Wessman was poisoned a full twenty-four hours before.’
‘Fine, but unless I’ve misunderstood, the bath happened in the evening and the yacht late at night.’ Klippan refilled his cup. ‘Milwokh might, for example, have picked up the rubber dinghy sometime in the afternoon and brought it over to the South Harbour and walked from there to the flat in Planteringen. Then when he was done, he could get straight back in the boat and head out to sea with his sword.’
‘Do you know what time the power went out in the building?’ Fabian asked.
‘No, but it should be listed on the power company’s website.’ Klippan went over to the computer and did a search. ‘Tryckerigatan, right?’
Lilja nodded.
‘Cable fire. That must be it, and if this is to be believed, repairs will be completed “within an hour”.’
‘Does it say when it happened?’
‘The report was received at eighteen minutes past six last night. So sometime after six would be a reasonable guess.’
‘I’ll leave the proper examination of the rubber dinghy to Molander, but I did find this in one of the storage compartments.’ Fabian pulled out a folded plastic document sleeve containing several sheets of paper.
‘What are they?’ Lilja took it.
‘Insurance papers and some general information from the boat rental company. And there are copies of the first two payments from Monday and Tuesday along with the final payment of three thousand eight hundred from yesterday.’
‘And when was that payment made?’
‘Fourteen minutes past six. Which is more less exactly when the cables caught fire.’
‘There goes the theory that he picked up the boat first,’ Lilja said.
Klippan nodded. ‘Okay, so he must have done the bath first and then gone out to Rå river to get the boat.’
‘How long would it take to get from Planteringen to the Råå Marina?’
‘I’d say no more than ten minutes by car,’ Klippan replied.
‘But there’s nothing to suggest he rented a car.’
‘Fine, say he took a bike and add five minutes. So, fifteen minutes, no more than that.’
‘That means he must have left the flat absolutely no later than six,’ Fabian said.
‘It’s tight, but possible,’ Klippan said. ‘Depending on how long it took the bath to fill up, he could theoretically have left half an hour, forty-five minutes earlier.’
‘You’re saying he didn’t stay to watch the bath fill up and his victim make his choice?’ Lilja asked.
‘I don’t know.’ Klippan shrugged. ‘I guess if time was short, something had to give.’
‘I’m not going to claim I know how his mind works, but shouldn’t part of the point of devising and executing such an elaborate death dilemma be to sit and watch how it comes out?’
‘Sure, but again, maybe he didn’t have time.’ Klippan pulled out his phone. ‘Maybe something made the whole thing take longer than planned. Maybe the victim got home an hour later than expected. And who knows? Maybe the dice said no, forcing him to leave the flat.’
‘Either way, he must have left the tap running if he left the flat before it was over,’ Fabian said. ‘But if he stayed to watch, he could have turned the water off when it was done. But that would mean he couldn’t possibly have made it to the boat rental company in time.’
‘Which supports your theory about a second killer.’ Lilja sighed and shook her head. ‘I just have a hard time imagining that there would be a second lunatic out there capable of something like this. I know you don’t agree, but I still say it’s too similar to the other cases to indicate a different perpetrator. A lot of the details are different, sure, but we can’t ignore the fact that there’s a running theme from Evert Jonsson, who was rotting inside a hermetically sealed plastic cylinder, all the way to Mattias Larsson, who was either drowned or electrocuted in his own bath.’
‘Could it be a copycat inspired by the other murders?’ Klippan asked, with his phone pressed to his ear.
‘I guess, but we’ve made virtually none of the details public. If it’s a copycat, it has to be someone with insight into our investigations. Besides, shouldn’t there be a limit to how many serial killers we can have in this country? Until two years ago, we hadn’t had a single one. Now, they’re suddenly springing up like mushrooms.’
The silence that followed begged to be filled with words. But Klippan was staring at his phone again and Fabian was so preoccupied he had a hard time keeping up.
There was only one person with insight into all the investigations who might have done it. Ingvar Molander. He would have no problem planning and staging something like the bathtub murder. Moreover, it fitted with the murder of Inga Dahlberg and a few years later the attempted murder of Ingela Polghed. They had both been similar to other open cases, which had effectively pointed them to other perpetrators.
Could that be why he’d been absent all afternoon and evening? Had the grief at being left by Gertrud been an excuse so he wouldn’t have to account for his whereabouts?
‘Who are you calling?’
Lilja broke the silence, and the moment he realized what Klippan’s answer would be, he also realized it was too late.
‘Molander,’ came Klippan’s answer, like an echo of his own thoughts. ‘He was first at the scene, so he should be able to tell us if the tap was on or not.’
‘Should we really be bothering him in the middle of the night, considering everything he’s going through?’ he said in an attempt to redirect Klippan.
‘Since when do you care about things like that?’ Lilja said.
‘I just figured we could call Tuvesson instead, since she was there, too.’
‘Hi, Klippan here. I hope I didn’t wake you… Oh dear. I understand.’ Klippan made a face at the others and made a weighing gesture. ‘The thing is that we were discussing the bathtub murder and certain signs point to there being a second perp. A copycat. Hold on, it’s better if we can all hear you.’ He turned on the speakerphone and put the mobile down on the desk. ‘Hello, Ingvar, can you hear us?’
‘Yes, unfortunately,’ Molander replied in a weary voice.
‘It’s just a quick question, then you can go back to your beauty sleep.’
‘First, I’d like to know exactly what things point to a second perpetrator.’
‘The relative timing of the Öresund attack. He can’t have been in two places at once.’
‘What do you mean, at once? One thing happened in the evening and the other several hours later.’
‘Right, but we have a receipt for the final instalment of the boat rental fee – but maybe Fabian should explain. It’s his theory.’ Klippan nodded to Fabian.
‘Hi, Ingvar,’ he said, and he cleared his throat to shake off the fatigue. ‘So, according to a receipt I found, he picked the boat up at more or less exactly the same time the power went out at Tryckerigatan.’
‘So? What’s to say the timestamp on the receipt is correct? Maybe they just forgot to set the internal clock to daylight saving time. Or he could have left the flat long before the water rose high enough to short-circuit the cables.’
‘That’s what we were saying, too,’ Klippan said. ‘So what we wanted to ask you was whether the tap was running when Tuvesson and you arrived, or whether it had been turned off.’
The silence that followed wasn’t long, but noticeable.
‘It was running,’ Molander said finally. ‘Not fully turned on, but maybe halfway.’
‘Okay, great,’ Klippan said. ‘That’s all cleared up, then. Or what do you reckon, Fabian?’
‘Absolutely,’ he replied, even though Molander’s reply didn’t make the slightest bit of difference.
‘I’d actually assumed the point was to give the victim plenty of time to choose,’ Molander said. ‘But maybe the real reason was that he wanted to do two things at once?’
He knew exactly what he had to do now.