The Intruder (46 page)

He unlocked the drawer, dug out the cartridges. How many might he reasonably need? One? Two? He put two in his back pocket and held two in his hand. Took time, for some reason, to carefully close the drawer again.

The doorbell rang. A short, definite signal. Was the door really locked? Could the doorbell have woken Ellen?

He came back into the hall and leaned over for the shotgun. He noticed how his heart was pounding in his chest. His hands were shaking. Don’t get stressed now. Henrik held the gun in his left hand and put the two cartridges in place. It was easy. They almost fell down into the barrels. He closed the gun, looked up toward the door, took a deep breath.

He hadn’t forgotten anything, had he? He quickly looked at the gun. No, everything was the way it should be. Another deep breath. He could see her head moving outside the window in the front door.

With six controlled steps he was at the front door reaching out his right hand toward the handle. Panic struck him. What did he really intend to do? Would he even be capable of firing the gun if it became necessary? Shooting at a pine tree was one thing, shooting a person something else again. He backed into the hall, fished his cell phone out of his pocket, and entered 911. He hesitated with his thumb just above
CALL
. He did not have time to think, he had to decide.

He pressed his thumb against the display.

Crouching against the wall he whispered his message. His distress call. He hung up even though he had been asked not to do that. He felt stronger again.

He got up, went to the door, and turned the lock. Nudged open the door.

“Henrik,” said Katja Nyberg, smiling at him.

She stepped up onto the top step, seemed not to have noticed the gun.

“Don’t come any closer,” he said.

90.

“Here it is,” said Fredrik.

“I see it,” said Sara, braking hard.

The sign popped up out of the darkness surprisingly suddenly, even though it was in the middle of a straight stretch.

Sara turned toward Kalbjerga. Soon one of the cattle guards was rattling under the wheels.

“I don’t understand this guy,” said Sara. “Why hasn’t he ever mentioned Katja Nyberg?”

“Well,” said Fredrik. “Guilt, shame? Could it be that?”

“What do you mean, guilt?” said Sara almost contemptuously.

“Haven’t you ever been involved in investigations that got stuck because people kept quiet about their infidelities?”

“Yes, sure, but this is about murder. His wife, his child. Isn’t that more important?”

“All the more guilt. Maybe he sees it as his fault. If he hadn’t strayed with that lady in Copenhagen, this never would have happened to them.”

“But even so he must want the one who did it—”

Sara interrupted herself with a frustrated sigh.

“Or else he couldn’t imagine that it could be Katja and then there isn’t sufficient motivation to overlook the shame,” said Fredrik. “Easier to keep quiet.”

“My God,” Sara hissed toward the windshield. “Men. Are you all like that?”

“Thanks for that.”

There was silence in the car. Fredrik thought for a moment about Eva Karlén. And the woman on the course in forensics many years ago. He would like to think that he was better, but perhaps he was no different.

“Excuse me,” said Sara, “I just get so—”

She was interrupted by a call from the radio.

“General call from four-four. We have received an alarm via nine-one-one that the suspect in the murder case on Fårö is at the injured party’s residence in Kalbjerga. I repeat…”

Fredrik and Sara quickly looked at each other and Fredrik answered as soon as the general call was finished.

“Four-four to forty-four eighty-five twenty, over,” the operator’s voice was heard.

“Forty-four eighty-five twenty on Fårö,” Fredrik answered.

“I see that you are only a couple of miles from Kalbjerga, over.”

“Yes. We’re en route to question Henrik Kjellander. We’re about five minutes from there, over.”

“Wait, you’ll get VB here, over.”

There was a snap and Anna’s voice was replaced by the duty officer.

“Kjellander called nine-one-one, he was certain that Katja Nyberg was outside the house. But that’s all we know. The call was cut off, over.”

“Have you tried to call back, over.”

“We’re trying now. So far no result, over.”

Sara increased speed and soon they were driving twice as fast as before. The car hopped and swayed on the uneven road.

“Okay, what do we do, over.” said Fredrik.

“We’re sending reinforcements. Get to the house, but be extremely careful and report in as soon as you know more. If it’s even slightly unclear what the situation is, wait for reinforcements, is that understood, over.”

“Yes,” said Fredrik. “That’s understood, over.”

“We’ve stopped the ferry so they’re coming right away, but both cars are in Visby, so you’ll have to count on it taking an hour from now, over.”

“We’ll do what we can in the meantime,” said Fredrik. “End over.”

The narrow road, lit up by the headlights, rushed quickly toward them. The gravel sprayed around the car and large stones struck hard against the chassis. Sara braked for a cattle guard, but increased speed again as soon as they were over.

91.

Henrik got her to sit down on one of the chairs in the bower. It had taken an eternity of more and more irritated nagging. It was as if she didn’t hear what he said, or even understand. Was she deliberately misunderstanding? Was she trying to manipulate him?

To what end, in that case?

Henrik sat on the bench with the shotgun on his lap. The lamp above the stairs lit Katja up with a sharp glow. He saw every motion, while he was a shadow to her.

It irritated him that she didn’t listen. He was finding it more and more difficult to keep calm. And the calm he showed was not much more than a front. He had hit that pine tree up in the forest, but that did not mean he was comfortable with a shotgun in his hands. He was not even sure he would be able to pull the trigger if something were to happen.

Katja smiled at him with a kind of inscrutable seriousness and reached out a hand. Five long, pale fingers, an upturned hand, a dead crab.

Why had she come? Was she a ticking bomb that could explode at any moment? Did she have a hammer inside her jacket? A knife? What would he do if she suddenly went on the attack? What if she was too quick, was over him before he could react. And then? Would she continue into the house, up to the top floor?

Katja moved her hand again. She could not reach him. There was too much distance between them. He observed her peculiar smile, the deceptively friendly eyes, and the right cheek with a dry patch, big as a thumbnail. She didn’t have that when he met her in Copenhagen.

Chapped.

He was shaking inside. No. He was really shaking. His hands that were holding the gun jumped. Did she notice that? If he had any idea how it was done he would have liked to frisk her to see if she had a weapon on her. But he didn’t intend to go near her. He didn’t intend to leave the bench he was sitting on. He was convinced that any attempt to do anything other than remain sitting where he was would end badly.

He was starting to boil inside when she did not do as he said, when she pretended like he had never opened his mouth. Then he would pull the trigger at once. To escape that boiling feeling that said she was dangerous, that said that he would miss if he waited any longer, that he would drop the gun and shoot himself in the foot. Anything could go wrong.

Malin. Axel. His little Axel lying lifeless in front of the stove. Who he tried to waken from the dead. He had done everything he could, but nothing had helped.

Katja. Was it really her? The woman from St. Petri. They’d had a good time together. Why should she kill his family? He hadn’t made any promises that he hadn’t kept. They met in a hotel bar and had sex in a hotel room. What had she expected?

He shook off the thoughts. There was no point in trying to understand. If it really was her who had been here, who rented the house when they were away and then … There was no logic, no reason.

“Henrik.”

He didn’t like it that she said his name.

“Henrik…”

She rose up from the seat of the chair.

“Sit down!”

She stood up.

He stood up, too, raised the shotgun with trembling hands.

“Sit down, I said.”

Around them were Malin, Axel, and Ellen. A warm summer evening in the bower. Axel rushing up and down out of the chair, could not sit still, didn’t need to sit still.

And then only Katja. Everything narrowed down to that familiar face, the quiet smile that was only a mask. She had destroyed his life. He wished that she would take a step forward. Just one more step so he could shoot her. He really wanted to. He wanted her to disappear from the face of the earth. Be erased from history. He did not want her to sit in prison, perhaps tell her story in the newspaper. Become a serial without end. One day be released. Get out in twenty years. Continue living her life. While his life was destroyed.

Ellen. He had Ellen. Yes, he ought to shoot to protect Ellen. Shoot her so that Ellen would not have to worry that Katja Nyberg would ring her doorbell one day in the distant future.

One more step.

92.

Sara let the car creep forward with the headlights off the last stretch and stopped halfway up the gentle slope. They got out of the car, left the doors open to make as little noise as possible. They sneaked ahead in single file, Sara first, in one of the rutted tracks.

The evening seemed lighter when the headlights were turned off. There was still a faint blue sheen over the landscape.

“There’s a car there,” Sara whispered over her shoulder.

Fredrik could see it, too. A Volvo alongside the two bigger cars that belonged to the household.

They stopped when they reached the gate. There was a light over the front door and in a window up toward the road. They stood stock-still and listened. Not a sound, not a movement. Had they arrived too late? Fredrik remembered the house from the night of the murders. Would this be a repeat? Dead bodies. Blood.

“I hear something.”

Sara hissed out the words with her mouth right next to Fredrik’s ear.

“Do you hear it?”

After a moment’s concentration he could hear a voice. It came from below the house.

“It sounds like Henrik,” he whispered in Sara’s ear.

A moment later he heard another voice. A woman’s this time.

Without saying anything more, they took out their guns, released the safeties, and held them lowered to the ground. Sara signaled that they should continue through the gate. He heard the woman’s voice again, but still could not see anyone as they walked carefully down toward the house.

He pointed toward the overgrown lilacs and Sara nodded.

She took a few steps to the side so that they had a gap of two or three yards between them before they went the final bit up to the bower.

Henrik was sitting closest to them. The woman sat farther in, with her back against the straggly green leaves. She looked up toward them. Her hair was shorter and the hair color different compared to the passport photo, but Fredrik recognized the broad mouth and beautifully shaped but sorrowful eyes.

The strong lamp above the front door cast a hard light over them, but also left large sections in deep shadow.

“Henrik,” said Fredrik.

If it hadn’t been for a negligible shift in his body he almost would have thought that Henrik had not heard him.

Fredrik sought Sara’s attention for a moment to make sure they were in agreement about how to proceed. Sara nodded in the direction of Katja as confirmation.

“Henrik, it’s Fredrik Broman,” said Fredrik. “I’m here with Sara Oscarsson. Is everything as it should be?”

Henrik did not answer and did not turn now, either. It felt stupid to talk to the back of someone’s head. The whole situation was strange. Why didn’t he answer?

Sara moved a few feet forward to the right and then stopped abruptly.

“He has a gun,” she said. “A shotgun.”

Fredrik took a couple steps to the right, then he saw it, too. Henrik was holding it along his leg, aimed at Katja Nyberg.

He looked at Sara and again they exchanged a momentary look of mutual understanding.

“Katja,” said Sara. “I want you to hold out your hands so that I can see them.”

Katja started at her name and stared at Sara, who was holding her service revolver aimed at her.

“Do you understand what I’m saying? I want you to hold out your hands in front of you so that I can see them.”

One of Katja’s hands was resting on her lap, the other was hidden behind the chair.

“Katja. Can you do as I say?”

She remained seated, as if the words hadn’t sunk in.

“Katja?”

Slowly she extended her arms.

“Good,” said Sara. “Put your arms up in the air and put your hands behind your neck.”

Fredrik looked at Henrik, who was following Katja’s movements with his eyes. His left hand took a firmer hold on the shotgun. He raised it.

“Wait now, Henrik,” said Fredrik.

He took a couple of slow steps over toward Henrik.

“We’re going to end this now. Take Katja with us to Visby, make sure that she is indicted for the murders.”

Fredrik had a feeling that Katja was staring at him, but he had all his focus on Henrik, did not intend to release him. He would have preferred to get Katja out first, but the bower was a dead end. Sara could not tell her to back away. The only way was forward, past Henrik.

Henrik did not let out a sound now, either, but his right hand was moving on the gun. His finger rested dangerously close to the trigger.

“Did you hear what I said, Henrik? We’re going to take Katja with us. But before we do that you must put down the gun.”

The seconds ticked away. Henrik kept silent, but Fredrik could see that he was listening. The words affected him. The question was, in what direction?