A Darker Shade of Sweden (24 page)

She really was crazy.

Magnus Montelius was born in 1965 and returned to live in Stockholm after many years as an adviser on water and environmental management in both Africa and Latin America; he has also worked extensively in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet republics. He began writing in earnest in 2009, winning a short story competition that year and another one in 2011. In 2011 he also published his first novel,
Mannen från Albanien (The Man from Albania),
a universally praised spy thriller set during the 1960s and 1970s, which has been sold to eight countries and will become a Swedish feature film. Magnus Montelius is at work on his next novel.

SOMETHING IN HIS EYES

D
AG
Ö
HRLUND

Many of Dag Öhrlund's Swedish readers may be surprised by his story for this book.

After starting to write for publication at fifteen, Dag Öhrlund worked as a journalist, essayist, reporter, and photographer for many years before turning his hand to fiction. His first novel, written in collaboration with Dan Buthler, was published in late 2007. Since then, the writing team of Buthler and Öhrlund have produced a further seven novels, while Dag Öhrlund alone has written one. All of them are crime fiction, but of a kind not common in Sweden: Dag Öhrlund, both on his own and with Dan Buthler, writes what may perhaps best be characterized as hard-boiled, action-oriented crime novels. All but one of the Buthler and Öhrlund collaborations share the same protagonist, Criminal Inspector Jacob Colt, and in most of the novels Colt is pitted against the same villain, psychopath, and serial killer, Christopher Silfverbielke, a man who—in Dag Öhrlund's phrase—“actually does the things other people just imagine doing.”

The Colt-Silfverbielke novels have become very popular indeed in Sweden, perhaps because their villain's total break with the strong sense of consensual social control dominating Swedish society appeals to an other­wise seldom revealed wish to revolt that may well smolder within many Swedes. But the stories have also made their authors' names synonymous with action-packed plotting, inventive gruesomeness, and, unfairly, with the callousness and misogyny characteristic of their recurring villain.

“Something in His Eyes” shows very different aspects of Dag Öhrlund's writing and concerns.

THE SCREAM BURST FROM LENYA THE MOMENT SHE LOST CONTACT WITH
the balcony rail and fell.

It seemed strange to her that so many thoughts could pass through a brain in only a few seconds. An icy wind burned her cheeks.

Her life became a movie. As a small child she toddled around with Azad. Of course they squabbled, like all siblings, but she didn't love anybody else the way she loved her big brother.

He was God, and Love, and everything else, even though she wouldn't truly understand that until much later.

Would he ever forgive their father, after this?

A second or two later, her thoughts ceased as her head hit the asphalt.

Lenya Barzani died instantly.

If any angels lamented, her father's howl from the balcony drowned them out.

Detective Captain Jenny Lindh's fingers tightened on the steering wheel as she fought back nausea.

Her car was stuck in traffic on the Essinge freeway leading downtown. The line of cars inched forward a few feet at a time through the heavy snow, and the wipers were hard put to keep the windshield clear.

Right now, Jenny hated everything.

She'd gotten the call a few minutes earlier. A patrol car had been sent to an apartment building in the suburb of Tensta after a witness had reported seeing a lifeless girl lying on the ground. In the midst of the blizzard, they were scarce on patrol cars, field investigators and everything else.

So Lindh got the job.

As if I didn't have enough problems
, she thought.

Her life, as the 'burbs kids would say, had gotten
totally fucked over
about a week ago.

That night.

Jenny had felt sick during the night shift. She excused herself by saying she must have caught a bug, and left for home several hours early.

She didn't want her colleagues to know she was pregnant.

At least not yet.

She managed to grab a Kleenex just in time, catching the small gob of vomit that came up as the images returned to her mind.

Cursing under her breath, she rolled down the window, threw out the slimy tissue and was blasted in the face by a whirl of snow.

Daniel and . . . the whore
.

Yeah. She had looked like a whore. Blonde, a bit too fat, in a lace bra and black garters, moaning and riding Daniel on the bed.

Their bed.
Her
bed.

The nausea that had been tormenting her for hours was forced aside as she stood immobile in the doorway. It was replaced by rage, kindling in her stomach and working its way up her throat to her mouth.

She had screamed. Seen the slut's eyes bulge as she slid off Jenny's husband's cock and tried to cover herself. Seen Daniel sit up, raise a hand in some kind of defense.

“Jenny, it's not what you think . . .”

The stupidest fucking sentence she had ever heard.

That was when she had drawn her gun.

It had been a funny sight: Daniel and the whore, practically naked, racing out of their home as she aimed at them. Tumbling around in the snow outside as they tried to get dressed.

For no discernible reason, the line of cars slowly dissolved. Jenny Lindh pulled out a cigarette, lit it and wondered if she had any pain relievers in her handbag. She had been up drinking whiskey until two in the morning, and her head was pounding.

Yeah, sure—she shouldn't drink while she was pregnant.

Yeah, sure—she had taken up smoking again two days ago, even though she knew better.

Who cared? She would have an abortion. Her marriage was over. Her picturesque life had ended. Her dream of a good life with another cop had turned into a pathetic game of roulette where her money was on the wrong number.

Clara, her only support, had made the difference between extinction and survival. Tough, smart Clara, who had always been there. Who always had answers, could comfort and encourage. And who had an outlook on men and relationships that was completely different from Jenny's.

Everlasting love is fucking bullshit. So I'll help myself, get laid, have fun and move on!

Clara was one of a kind.

Smacking her hand against the wheel, Jenny shot the car into the left-hand lane and sped up. Her right hand fumbled for the rotating blue light, managed to get it up on the roof above her and turned it on.

Get the hell out of my way!

Sixteen minutes later, she stood outside the blue-and-white police tape and observed the scene in front of her.

The first thing that struck her was the ugliness of the building, and she wondered who had thought it up.

Had
anyone
been thinking?

Roughly forty years ago, the politicians of a small country called Middle-of-the-Road suddenly realized there weren't enough homes.

One million apartments.

It took them ten years to build that million, and here in front of her was one of the results.

It looked awful.

The first patrol on the scene had cordoned off an eighty-by-eighty-foot area. The forensics team's gray-blue Volkswagen van was parked just outside the police tape. A tent had been erected close to the building to cover something that had to be the body, in order to stop the press photographers from taking pictures.

A man dressed in a coverall and boots came plodding up to her through several inches of snow. As he approached, she recognized him as Björkstedt. A reliable workhorse who had been investigating crime scenes since forever.

“Hi. You can come in if you want.”

“Thanks, Anders.” Jenny lifted the tape and slipped under it. “So what have we got?”

“Balcony girl, model One A.”

“Which means?”

“No footprints, no other tracks anywhere near her. She must have died from the fall alone. The neck is bent at an unnatural angle.”

“So, broken?”

“I'm no medical examiner, but yeah, I'll bet my next paycheck on it.”

“Anything else?”

“She wasn't wearing outdoor clothes, just jeans and a T-shirt. Her cell phone fell out of her pocket. It's crushed; must have ended up under her body when she landed.”

“Can I have a look at her?”

“Sure.”

Björkstedt turned and walked ahead of her through the snow. She had to crouch to enter the tent, where a strong lamp cast a cold light on what, until recently, had been a living teenager.

The girl was on her stomach with her head turned to one side. Her face had stiffened into an expression that was anything but peaceful. There were scrapes and bruises on one cheek, but the rest of her face was unmarked.

Lindh pointed to the marks. “What do you think?”

Björkstedt shrugged. “She hasn't been moved. You can see that the snow has been pushed aside by her cheek, and there's blood. So she could have gotten the scrapes when she hit the asphalt, but they could also have been caused before she fell—I can't swear to either.”

“Do you know anything about her?”

Björkstedt jerked his thumb at the building. “I talked to our colleagues. Lenya Barzani, seventeen years old. Lived on the fourth floor. The uniforms are up there.”

She nodded. “Thanks.”

“Sure.”

Jenny left the tent, her boots leaving a straight track in the snow up to the police tape closest to the main entrance.

My husband cheated on me with a whore. In our bed.

A seventeen-year-old girl is dead, maybe murdered. Gotta focus. Damn, it hurts!

Head pounding, she took the elevator to the fourth floor while fumbling for painkillers in her pocket. From inside the shaft, she could hear a commotion that got louder the higher she rose.

She opened the elevator door and stepped out into chaos, pushing aside a woman who flailed her arms and cried. Distressed neighbors spoke loudly in a language she didn't understand. Uniformed colleagues patiently kept them from entering the apartment they were guarding.

Lindh showed the colleagues her badge, pushed through the throng of upset people, and stepped into the hallway where she was met by yet another uniformed policeman.

“Hi. Jenny Lindh, criminal investigations. What have we got?”

The officer consulted the small notebook in his hand.

“The dead girl is Lenya Barzani, seventeen. A Kurd from northern Iraq. Her father Schorsch is in the living room. Nobody else was here when we arrived. We've had a look around. The living room and balcony are a mess; one of the techs is out there now.”

“Thanks.”

Jenny walked past him, into a long hallway. A bedroom door stood open to her right; she paused and looked inside.

It was a typical girl's room. A Justin Bieber poster on the wall; a vanity table with a laptop squeezed in between lipstick, deodorant and perfumes. A speaker with an iPhone dock; a teddy bear and pink pillows on a sloppily made bed. A pair of jeans, a spaghetti top and some underwear discarded on a chair.

Lenya's room?

She kept walking. The doors to the other rooms were closed, and the hallway led her into the living room.

The man on the couch might have been sixty. He was dressed in brown pants, a beige shirt and a brown knit sweater. He sat slumped over with his head in his hands, sobbing. Next to him sat a female cop, her hand on his shoulder, trying to speak calmly to him.

He's barefoot. The floor by his feet is damp. Why?

Lindh gave the policewoman a quick nod, saw the kitchen doorway and walked in. She dug a couple of aspirin out of her pocket, put them in her mouth, turned on the faucet and filled her cupped hand. The unpleasant taste filled her mouth as one of the tablets dissolved, and she gazed at the small pool of water in her hand as if it were a mirror.

We should have had an entire life together. We were happy. We had bought a house. We were going to have a baby.

You betrayed me. So I wasn't good enough?

With a jerking motion she threw the water into her mouth, then refilled her palm, shut her eyes and swallowed. She stood there for several seconds, her eyes closed, while the water ran from the tap and the policewoman spoke softly to the man on the couch.

Focus, Jenny
.

She pushed back a stray strand of hair and looked around.

An ordinary kitchen, except for the large fabric decorations on the walls. Images, probably of some religious significance. Writing she didn't understand. Kurdish? She went into the living room. The policewoman was still there, her hand on Schorsch Barzani's shoulder. Through the window, she could see the squatting technician working outside. Jenny opened the door, and he looked up at her.

“Hi. Jenny Lindh, criminal investigations. What's it look like?”

He swiped a plastic-gloved hand across his forehead.

“Well, there seems to have been some kind of scuffle. The snow's been kicked away, and a couple of flowerpots have fallen and broken. That chair has lost a leg. Right now I'm taking casts of the shoe prints. And I've bagged a few fibers.”

She nodded, and was just about to close the door. Then:

“How long would you say it takes to fall from here to the ground?”

The technician's eyes lost focus and stared into space.

“Fourth floor . . . maybe nine seconds.”

“Thanks.”

She closed the door.

Nine seconds
.

Her head was still pounding, but the pain seemed to be abating. Jenny sat down opposite the man on the couch. She met the policewoman's gaze.

“Has he said anything?”

The woman shrugged. “That she jumped of her own volition. He's devastated. He tried to stop her.”

“Had they argued earlier?”

“No, not according to him.”

Oh, really. So a smiling, carefree Lenya had walked past her father on the couch and told him she was going to jump. He had stood up, followed her and tried to stop her, but his strength hadn't been enough to restrain a seventeen-year-old girl.

In fact, he hadn't even had the strength to drag himself down to the courtyard where his daughter lay dead.

“I want him detained for interrogation on reasonable suspicion.”

Jenny leaned forward.

“Schorsch . . . ?”