Dark Secrets (63 page)

“I just wanted to make him listen.” Johan turned to Sebastian, his cheeks wet, his energy spent. His hands no longer had the strength or the will to hold the gun and it slid to the floor in front of him. “I just wanted to make him listen.”

His body began to shake with deep sobs. It was like a convulsion. The boy was almost doubled over, his forehead touching his legs. Sebastian shuffled slowly across the floor to the trembling wreck. Gently he picked up the rifle and moved it to one side.

Then he put his arms around Johan and gave him the only things he could give him at that moment.

Time and closeness.

V
ANJA WAS
worried. Impatient. Almost half an hour had passed since Sebastian had gone upstairs. She had heard him talking to Johan through the closed door, but once he had gone into the room she had heard nothing apart from subdued murmuring. The odd scrape as someone changed position. She assumed that this was a good sign. No screams.

No agitated voices.

And, above all, no more shots had been fired.

Haraldsson was on his way to the hospital, or perhaps he was already there by now. The bullet had entered just below the shoulder blade on the left-hand side and passed straight through. He had lost a great deal of blood and needed surgery, but initial reports indicated that his injuries were not life threatening.

Vanja had remained in constant telephone contact with Torkel on the outside. Six police cars were in position. Twelve armed response officers had thrown a ring of steel around the house. But Torkel was keeping them outside. Uniformed officers had cordoned off the entire area. Curious neighbors were gathering on street corners, along with journalists and photographers, who were doing their best to get closer. Vanja looked at her watch again. What was actually going on up there? She hoped she wouldn’t end up regretting her decision to let Sebastian go.

Then she heard footsteps. Footsteps nearing the stairs. She drew her
gun and adopted the correct stance at the foot of the staircase. Ready for anything.

They came down side by side, Sebastian and Johan. Sebastian had his arm around the boy, who looked much smaller and younger than his sixteen years. Sebastian appeared to be more or less carrying him down. Vanja put her gun away and spoke to Torkel.

Once Johan had been handed over and driven away, Sebastian turned his back on everything that was going on in the street and reentered the house. His heart was heavy as he walked into the living room, moved some laundry on the sofa, and sat down. He leaned against the rough fabric, put his feet up on the coffee table, and closed his eyes. During the time when he had been working with the police he had seldom allowed cases, perpetrators, or victims to stay on his mind. They were simply problems to be solved, tools to make use of, obstacles to overcome. In the end everything and everyone existed only to provide him with a challenge.

To prove how clever he was.

To feed his ego.

Once they had fulfilled their function, he forgot about them and moved on. He found the ensuing legal process just as uninteresting as the actual arrest. So why were the Strands still with him? A young perpetrator. A family in ruins. Tragic, yes, but nothing he hadn’t seen before. Nothing he intended to carry around with him for any length of time.

He was finished with the case.

He was finished with Västerås.

He knew exactly what he needed in order to be able to let go of the Strands.

Sex.

He needed sex.

Have sex, get the house sold, go back to Stockholm. That was the plan.

Would he go to Storskärsgatan 12? Would he try to get in touch with his son or daughter? The way he felt at the moment, probably not, but he had no intention of making any definite decisions until he was feeling better.

After he’d had sex.

After he’d sold the house.

After he’d left Västerås.

Sebastian felt the cushions sag as someone sat down beside him. He opened his eyes. Vanja was perched right on the edge. Spine erect. Hands clasped on her knees. Alert. The complete opposite of Sebastian, who was lying there sprawled on the sofa. It was as if she wanted to mark as great a distinction between them as possible.

“What did he say?”

“Johan?”

“Yes.”

“That he killed Roger.”

“Did he say why?”

“He was afraid his father would leave him again. It just happened.”

Vanja frowned, her expression skeptical.

“Twenty-two stab wounds and dumped in a bog? It doesn’t sound like an accident.”

“His father helped with all that somehow. You need to talk to him. The boy didn’t kill Westin either.”

Vanja seemed satisfied. She stood up and headed for the hallway. When she reached the door she stopped and turned around to face Sebastian. He met her gaze with a questioning look.

“You’ve slept with her, haven’t you?”

“What?”

“His mother. Beatrice. You’ve slept with her.”

It wasn’t a question this time, so Sebastian didn’t answer. There was no need; as always, silence provided the best confirmation.

Was that a flicker of disappointment he saw on his soon-to-be ex-colleague’s face?

“When you went upstairs because you thought the boy might harm himself, I thought that maybe, just maybe, you weren’t a complete shit.”

Sebastian knew where this conversation was going. He’d been here before. Other women. Other contexts. Other words. Same conclusion.

“Obviously I was wrong.”

Vanja walked away. He watched her go. Stayed where he was. Didn’t speak. What was there to say?

She was right, after all.

Ulf Strand was sitting on the chair that had been occupied by his wife just a few hours earlier. He appeared to be calm and collected. Polite, almost considerate. The first thing he asked when Vanja and Torkel walked into the interview room and sat down across from himwas how Johan was. Once he had been reassured that the boy was being taken care of and that Beatrice was with him, he asked about Haraldsson. Vanja and Torkel informed him that Haraldsson was out of danger, then they switched on the tape recorder and asked Ulf to start from the beginning. From the moment he first found out that Roger was dead.

“Johan called me at work that evening. He was crying, he was absolutely beside himself; he said something terrible had happened at the soccer club.”

“So you drove down there?”

“Yes.”

“What happened when you got there?”

Ulf straightened up in the chair.

“Roger was dead. Johan was falling apart, so I tried to calm him down as best I could, then I got him into the car.” Vanja noticed that there was not a trace of emotion in Ulf’s voice. It was as if he were giving a lecture to colleagues and clients. Keen to come across as formal, his voice well modulated.

“Then I took care of Roger.”

“Took care of him in what way?” asked Torkel.

“I dragged him out of sight. Down into the forest. I realized it would be possible to trace the bullet, so I had to get it out.”

“And how did you do that?”

“I went back to the car and fetched a knife.”

Ulf stopped and swallowed hard.
Not surprising
, thought Sebastian from his position in the room next door. So far Ulf had not played an active role, apart from moving the body. But he hadn’t harmed it. From now on things would begin to get difficult.

Ulf asked for a glass of water. Torkel fetched one. Ulf took two, three gulps. He put down the glass and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“You fetched a knife from the car. What happened next?” Vanja was pushing him. Ulf’s voice was noticeably weaker when he spoke.

“I used it to hack out the bullet.”

Vanja opened the folder in front of her on the desk. She leafed through several photographs of the young, mutilated body. She seemed to be searching for something.
Playing to the gallery
, thought Sebastian. She knew everything she needed to know to conduct this interview without having to consult any papers or records. She just wanted Ulf to catch a glimpse of what he had done.

Not that he had forgotten.

Not that he would ever forget.

Vanja pretended to find the piece of paper she was pretending to look for.

“There were twenty-two stab wounds to Roger’s body when we found him.”

Ulf was struggling to tear his gaze away from the terrible photographs that now lay spread out all over the desk around Vanja’s folder. The classic car-crash dilemma. You don’t want to look, but you just can’t help it.

“I… I thought I could make it look as if he’d been stabbed to death.
Some kind of ritual murder, perhaps. The act of a madman, I don’t know.” Ulf managed to lift his eyes and look directly at Vanja. “I just wanted to hide the fact that he’d been shot, that’s all.”

“Okay, and when you’d stabbed him twenty-two times and cut out his heart, what did you do then?”

“I drove Johan home.”

“And where was Beatrice?”

“I don’t know. She wasn’t at home, anyway. Johan must have been in shock or something. He fell asleep in the car on the way home. I took him upstairs and got him to bed.” Ulf fell silent. He seemed to be caught in the moment. It occurred to him that this was probably the last thing that had any vestige of normality about it. A father tucking in his sleeping son. Everything since then had been one long battle. To keep quiet. Hold things together.

“Go on.”

“I went back to the forest and moved the body. I thought I would put it somewhere that a sixteen-year-old couldn’t possibly take it. To make sure no one would suspect Johan.”

Sebastian sat up in his chair and pressed the button on his headset. Through the window he could see Vanja pay attention as she heard the humming in her ear.

“He didn’t know that Beatrice and Roger were screwing, so why did he think Johan shot his friend?”

Vanja gave a brief nod. Good question. She turned her full attention back to Ulf.

“One thing I don’t understand: if you didn’t know about the relationship between your wife and Roger, then why did you think Johan had shot him?”

“There was no reason. It was an accident. A game that went wrong. They were out getting in some shooting practice and he was careless. That’s what he said.”

Ulf looked from Vanja to Torkel with renewed intensity, as if he had
believed until now that his son had been guilty of lying at worst, as if he had suddenly realized that Johan was not innocent. That it hadn’t been an accident. Or not just an accident, in any case.

“What will happen to Johan?” Genuine anxiety and solicitude in his voice.

“He’s over fifteen, so he’s reached the age of criminal responsibility,” Torkel said matter-of-factly.

“What does that mean?”

“That he’ll face prosecution.”

“Tell us about Peter Westin.” Vanja changed tack, eager to get things tied up.

“He’s a psychologist.”

“We know that. We want to know why he’s dead. What did you think Roger had told him that was so dangerous he couldn’t be allowed to live?”

Ulf looked completely bewildered.

“Roger?”

“Yes, Peter Westin was Roger’s counselor. Didn’t you know?”

“No. He’s Johan’s psychologist. Has been for several years. Since the divorce. Johan was in a real mess after… well, after all this business. With Roger. Understandably. So he went to see Peter. Afterward. I didn’t know what he’d said. I asked him, but he couldn’t really remember. I realized he hadn’t confessed to anything, because otherwise the police would have come knocking, but he might have talked about things that would enable Peter to put two and two together at a later stage and work out what had happened. I couldn’t take the risk.”

Vanja gathered up the photos. They knew all they needed to know. Now it was up to the court. Because of his young age, Johan would probably get off lightly. Ulf, on the other hand… It would be a long time before the Strand family was together again.

Vanja was reaching across to switch off the tape recorder when Torkel stopped her. There was one question left to ask. One that had been troubling him ever since he had learned what had actually happened.