ASTRID TUVESSON ENDED the call, put her phone in her handbag and looked out from the balcony. Apart from the banging and the angry buzzing of saws in the bedroom, it was a pretty nice evening. The kind of evening when summer really shines, with a perfect, balmy breeze.
And yet the pavements and the outdoor seating area of the restaurant down the street were virtually deserted. Only the occasional car drove past below. Instead, everyone was sitting in their living rooms, glued to their TVs in some kind of collective shock.
Not because of the European Football Championship semi-final between Germany and Italy, but because of the news. She could see as much through several of the windows across the street. The news from Tivoli in Copenhagen.
A few hours ago, this had been just another day of glorious summer weather in the middle of the holiday season. A few hours ago, people had been blissfully unaware of the darkness simmering just beneath the surface. Now they were all going to remember, for the rest of their lives, where they were and what they’d been doing when the news reached them.
So far, only the Danes had held a press conference, with Kim Sleizner taking the lead, basking in the glory of the arrest. That would all change tomorrow, when she held her own press conference and told the world about all the things the Danes had decided to sweep under the rug. About how difficult the Danes were to work with. About all the other cases they had thought were solved but which now turned out to be connected. And about Molander…
She still hadn’t been able to digest that. She hadn’t even had time to think about it, and at the moment she had no idea how she was going to approach it when she was standing on the podium tomorrow.
She sat down on the balcony chair with a heavy sigh. The handbag in her lap was still open, and there, next to the phone, on top of the silvery bag of gum, it lay, waiting for her say-so.
She had been good, she really had. The past twenty-four hours had been like nothing she’d ever experienced in all her years on the force. But they had pulled through. She had pulled through.
Now they were just waiting for the noise from the bedroom to die down. Then they were officially done, and they would all be able to look themselves in the mirror and feel proud. Fabian, Klippan, Irene and her. Proud that despite their failings, they’d managed to do the right thing in the end. If she didn’t deserve a tipple now, when would she ever? Just a sip, a small one.
Before she’d even made a conscious decision, one hand was already pulling the flask out of the handbag while the other unscrewed the cap. Then the spirits burned on her tongue and left a hot, pulsating trail all the way down her throat. As if on cue, warmth spread through the rest of her body and she instantly felt her shoulders relax. She took another sip and then another before she could get hold of herself, put the flask away and shove a couple of pieces of gum in her mouth.
‘So this is where you’re hiding.’
Tuvesson whipped around to discover Klippan standing in the doorway. ‘Oh my God, you gave me a fright.’ She closed her handbag and stood up. ‘I just talked to Högsell. Apparently, the Danes are insisting on taking over the case and holding the trial there. But the last word hasn’t been said yet.’
‘I’m sure it’ll be all right,’ Klippan said, and he closed the balcony door behind him to muffle the racket from the bedroom. ‘Astrid. Are you okay?’
‘No.’ Tuvesson sighed and shook her head. ‘How could I be after a day like today?’ She wiped the moisture from her eyes. ‘A day with so many innocent victims and Molander, who… So no, I’m far from okay, since you ask, and yes, I’ve had a drink, but just to clear my head a little. How about you?’
‘I don’t know.’ Klippan shrugged. ‘What I do know is that you’re not the only one who needs to get their head together.’
Without a word, Tuvesson opened her handbag, pulled out the flask and handed it to Klippan, who unscrewed the cap and took a few deep gulps.
‘When you called to tell me,’ he continued after a long pause, ‘I couldn’t comprehend it. I heard what you were saying. Every word of it, but I didn’t understand. The words just sort of ran through me like they didn’t mean anything.’ He took another sip and handed the flask back to Tuvesson. ‘It wasn’t until I saw Gertrud lying there at the bottom of the root cellar. Until then, I didn’t fully get it.’ He shook his head, fighting back tears. ‘Eighteen years we’ve worked together, him and me. Eighteen long years, sharing everything. At least I thought so. I don’t know what it was like for you, but for my part, I considered him not just a colleague but a friend as well. Maybe not my best friend. But still, a friend that I—’ He trailed off and shook his head, lost for words.
As Tuvesson walked over and put her arms around him, the balcony door behind them was opened by a uniformed officer.
‘We’re almost through.’
Tuvesson nodded and she and Klippan followed him into the black-painted kitchen, through the equally black living room and into the bedroom, where the bed had been turned on its side and two more uniformed officers were working on making a hole in the wall big enough for a person to get through.
Tuvesson stepped through the hole with Klippan right behind her and spotted Lilja lying on a narrow cot. ‘Hi, Irene. How are you doing?’ she said. She sat down on the edge of the bed and looked around, trying to imagine what Lilja had been through.
At the computer and all the dice. At the cloth wrapped around Lilja’s hands, which was stained dark red, at the tinned food and all the ravioli on the floor. At the extension lead that disappeared through a hole in the wall.
‘Tell me you got him,’ Lilja said finally. ‘Tell me I was right. Tell me everything worked out, that you caught him before he killed more people.’
‘You were right,’ Tuvesson said, and swallowed. ‘You were completely right. Wasn’t she, Klippan? Tell her.’
‘Absolutely,’ Klippan said, nodding his agreement.
‘And yes, we did catch him in the end, Irene. Fabian caught him,’ Tuvesson said. ‘He’s sorry he couldn’t be here, and he asked me to tell you that if it weren’t for you and what you did, many more people would have lost their lives.’
Lilja said nothing, as though she needed time to digest the significance of what Tuvesson had just said.
‘But there’s one more thing we have to tell you,’ Tuvesson went on, and she turned to Klippan for help.