Silenced (22 page)

Although their relationship had hit the rocks, they still occasionally laughed out loud together. But the boundary between laughter and tears was a fragile one and sent them into silence again. And then they were back to square one.

The problems first started around the time he got to know his father-in-law. Or maybe it was only then that he really got to know his own wife properly. Either way, the conclusion was the same: he should never have accepted that blessed loan. Never.

For although in their youth they felt they had so much in common, there were naturally some things on which they could not agree. And very often, as in this case, it was to do with money. Or his lack of it, and his wife’s demand to live in accordance with her station in life and be provided for by her husband, even though she planned to go out to work. Money was something he’d never had, or indeed missed. Not when he was a child growing up, nor as a young man. But then it seemed as though lack of money was going to be his misfortune and the woman he thought he loved would choose someone else.

Father-in-law, however, was well aware both of his daughter’s sense of priorities and of his son-in-law’s financial embarrassment and proposed a simple solution to a major dilemma: his son-in-law could borrow money to buy a house and that would sort everything out.

It sounded a great idea. The money was discreetly transferred to his account, and, equally unobtrusively, a repayment schedule drawn up. Not a word was said to the bride. It turned out that in signing the promissory note, he was also mortgaging his whole life. The promissory note was accompanied by a strict prenuptual agreement. When love faded and the first crisis was a reality, his father-in-law had a very serious conversation with him. There could be no question of divorce. If there were, he would immediately have to repay his loan, and would also not be entitled to his share of the property afterwards. When he said he was prepared to accept that, his father-in-law fired the salvo he turned out to have had ready from the outset.

‘I know your secret,’ he said.

‘I haven’t any.’

A single word:

‘Josefine.’

And that was the end of the discussion.

He gave a deep inward sigh. Why did all these wretched thoughts occur to him in the night? At the hour when any human creature had to let slip poorly hidden thoughts if they were to sleep soundly.

He looked at the woman asleep at his side, as if she were his wife. But she was not. Not while he still clung to his old fears. But she was carrying his child, and for that reason he would do everything right. Or at least as right as he could. Love was already there and it almost choked him to think of how much he loved her, and for how long he had done so, yet how rarely he had let her know it. As if he had been afraid it would all shatter if he expressed how much she meant to him. And if they had not met and things had not gone the way they did, he would never have endured it. That much was perfectly plain to him.

But the future? Impossible to say. Impossible.

Someone once said there was nothing so lonely as being in a couple with the wrong person. Few people knew that better than the man robbed of his night-time repose. With his head and his soul burdened by the dark thoughts of the night, he lay by the side of the woman he saw as the great love of his life and delicately kissed her shoulder.

There was some light in Spencer Lagergren’s life after all. And love. Her name was Fredrika Bergman.

A memory from another time and place found its way to the surface. The obligatory session with a psychologist when he applied to work abroad.

Psychologist: What’s the very worst thing that could happen to you today?

Alex: Today?

Psychologist: Today.

Alex: [Silence.]

Psychologist: Don’t think so much, give me something spontaneous.

Alex: Losing my wife Lena, that would definitely be the worst thing.

Psychologist: I see from your form that you’ve got two children aged fourteen and twelve.

Alex: That’s right, and I don’t want to lose them, either.

Psychologist: But it wasn’t them who came spontaneously to mind when I asked my question.

Alex: No, it wasn’t. But that doesn’t mean I don’t love my kids. Just that I love them in a different way.

Psychologist: Try to explain.

Alex: Children are something you borrow. You know that from the word go. They’re never intended to stay at home with you for ever. The whole aim of my presence in their lives is to get them ready to manage on their own. But it’s not like that with Lena. She’s ‘mine’ in an entirely different way. And I’m hers. We shall always be together.

Psychologist: Always? Is that the way you feel today?

Alex (forcefully): That’s the way I’ve always felt. For as long as I’ve known her. We shall always be together.

Psychologist: Does the thought of that make you feel secure or stressed?

Alex: Secure. If I woke up tomorrow and she wasn’t there, I wouldn’t be able to go on. She’s my best friend and the only woman I’ve loved unconditionally.

Alex swallowed hard. Why the hell was it so hard to work out what was wrong? It had been the same story yesterday. She turned away when he tried to look her in the eye, and flinched when he touched her. Gave that loud, joyless laugh and went to bed incomprehensibly early.

He hoped a few hours’ work might distract his thoughts.

A deserted corridor met his eye as he stepped out of the lift on their floor. He plodded to his office and sank down in the desk chair. Rifled aimlessly through the piles of paper.

The case had popped up on the first newspaper website the day before, and he noted that the news had spread this morning to all the major daily papers. Damn all these leaks from within the force. It made no difference how closed a circle you worked in; there was always someone who happened to hear something not intended for his or her ears.

Matters were not helped by the prosecutor’s decision the previous evening that they had to let Tony Svensson go, in view of what Ronny Berg had told Peder about the background to the Jakob Ahlbin affair.

‘There’s no technical evidence, no motive and scarcely enough to prosecute him for unlawful menace either,’ summarised the weary prosecutor. ‘Unless you can come up with confirmation that he sent the messages from the other computers, too.’

‘Could it not just simply be that he sent them from different computers so he could claim they weren’t from him? That he gave those last emails a different tone because he knew he would get away with it?’

‘That may well be the case, but the onus is still on you to prove it. And you haven’t done that.’

Alex read the prosecutor’s statement and felt frustrated. No, they had not been able to prove anything. But it made no difference, there was still something very fishy going on here. The only question was: what?

There’s something about this right-wing extremist lead that takes us right into the Ahlbins’ deaths, thought Alex. It’s just that I don’t know exactly what.

Dissatisfied, he ploughed on. The murder weapon was a matter of interest. It was part of the collection of firearms Jakob Ahlbin kept in the holiday home that had been transferred into the ownership of his daughters some years before. There was no reason to suppose the hunting pistol had been separated from the rest of the collection, so it must have been fetched from the house at some juncture. Either by Jakob Ahlbin himself or by whoever shot him. Jakob was the only one in the Ahlbin family with a gun licence. And the only gun cabinet was the one in the holiday house.

Perhaps Jakob had retrieved the weapon because he felt threatened? Alex did not think so. No one seemed to have taken Tony Svensson’s threats very seriously. But there were still things that needed explaining. Alex pulled out a set of photographs they had taken outside the Ekerö house.

No damage to the property. No marks in the snow, either shoeprints or tyre tracks.

Alex felt his pulse accelerate.
The pristine snow.
It was now almost two weeks since it started snowing. The snow had been lying on the ground ever since; it had stayed very cold. And when he and Joar were there on the Thursday it was unmarked. Admittedly there had been further falls of snow on the days in between, but not enough to hide shoe-prints or tyre tracks. So the weapon must have been fetched before Jakob Ahlbin heard the news of his daughter’s death, before he had reason to take his own life. Which meant? Alex hesitated. If they assumed the hunting pistol had been brought from Ekerö to kill Jakob and his wife, was it not logical to conclude that it was not Jakob himself who went to get it?

But in that case, the person who did must have had access to a set of keys, since there was nothing to indicate any kind of break-in. Or the person was so experienced a burglar that he had the sense to lock the doors when he left. Which took him back to Tony Svensson’s associates.

And then there was the daughter Johanna. Who dumped tragic news on her father and then scarpered off abroad. Who vanished like a ghost from all the family photos in the Ekerö house. And who did not answer her emails or her phone.

Noises out in the corridor roused Alex from his musing. Peder suddenly appeared in the doorway.

‘Hi,’ said Alex, surprised.

‘Hi,’ said Peder. ‘I didn’t think there would be anybody here.’

‘Nor did I,’ said Alex drily. ‘I’m just running through all the Ahlbin stuff again.’

Peder sighed.

‘I thought I might do the same thing,’ he said, avoiding Alex’s eye. ‘Ylva’s got the kids, so . . .’

Alex nodded. So many troubled people in this workplace. So often not enough energy for both family and work. And so often men and women chose to prioritise the latter.

He cleared his throat.

‘I really think we need to see Ragnar Vinterman again,’ he said. ‘Want to come along?’

Peder gave an eager nod.

‘Sure,’ he said. ‘And what about the Ljungs, who found the bodies on Tuesday?’

‘What about them?’

‘We should talk to them again, too. Ask about that difference of opinion that made them cool off towards each other.’

Alex felt a sense of relief. There would be plenty to keep him busy for the whole of Saturday.

‘Have we got hold of Jakob Ahlbin’s doctor yet, by the way?’ Peder asked as Alex got up to put his coat back on.

The question jogged Alex’s memory: there had been a message the evening before and he had managed to forget about it.

‘Heck, yes,’ he said. ‘He rang in yesterday, quite late. He’d been away and had just got back. But he was apparently going to have the medical records faxed over to us to start with.’

Peder went to check the fax machine in Ellen’s office. He came back with a small pile of paper.

‘Sorry I have not been available. Please contact me immediately on the mobile number below. I am keen to speak to the police as soon as possible about this matter. Sincerely, Erik Sundelius.’

Peder was looking overheated in his outdoor things.

‘Let’s go down to the car,’ said Alex. ‘I’ll ring him on the way.’

Erik Sundelius picked up the phone at the second ring. For the sake of politeness, Alex apologised for ringing so early. It was scarcely ten and it was quite likely some people would not be up yet.

Erik Sundelius sounded very relieved at being able to speak to the police.

‘At last,’ he exclaimed. ‘I tried to get hold of you as soon as I got home and saw the headlines. I hope we can meet in person to discuss the things that need to be gone through. But there’s one thing I want to tell you right now.’

Alex waited.

‘I have been in charge of Jakob Ahlbin’s treatment for over twelve years,’ Erik Sundelius said, and took a deep breath. ‘And I can say in all honesty that there isn’t a chance in hell he would have done what the papers say he did. He would never shoot himself or his wife. You have my word as a professional on that.’

For the first time in months, Fredrika Bergman felt rested when she woke. The night had not brought a single bad dream. She woke early, around seven. Spencer was asleep at her side. And the violin lay in its case on the floor. It was in tune now. It was a morning that felt blessed in many ways.

He was very attractive, lying there. Even lying down he looked unusually tall. The grey hair, usually combed into perfect style, was tousled.

She snuggled down under the quilt, pressing herself to his warm body. Her stomach knotted as she thought of the approaching dinner with her parents. Spencer had agreed to come along.

‘It’s going be a testing occasion,’ he mumbled just before he fell asleep.

As if it were Job’s lot he had been asked to shoulder.

Fredrika’s train of thought was interrupted as her thoughts involuntarily turned to work. To the Ahlbin case and the very last email Jakob had received before he died.

Don’t forget how it all ended for Job; there’s always time to change your mind and do the right thing. Stop looking
.

Glad that work-related matters had dispersed her misgivings about dinner with her parents, she slipped cautiously out of bed. Heavily pregnant or not, she had litheness in her blood.

The baby stretched, a silent protest at its mother’s unanticipated movements.

The Bible was in the middle of the bookshelf, easy to spot with its red spine and gold lettering. Surprised at how heavily it weighed in her hand, she sat down and began to leaf through it. Job, the man with his very own book of the Bible.

The text proved quite demanding. Long, and written in a style that called for constant interpretation of what the words actually meant. The story was simple enough. The Devil had challenged God, who considered Job to be the most upright person in the world. Hardly surprising that Job was upright, said the Devil, when God gave him such an easy time. God gave the Devil the right to rob Job of his riches, his health and all ten of his children, so he could show that Job would still be loyal.