The Fourth Victim: Anders Knutas series 9, page 1
About the Book
A violent robbery. A hit-and-run. A brutal murder.
In the stifling heat of an August morning on the beautiful Swedish island of Gotland, terror shatters the calm.
An armed robbery is over in minutes, leaving a little girl lying on the road, hit by the getaway car.
Desperate to find those responsible, the police track down one of the culprits. But he is dead, brutally murdered at a remote farm. Tattooed on his arm are three initials: his own and two others. The only clues to the identity of his friends.
As the hunt to find the remaining two robbers intensifies, there’s every chance the murderer is on their trail too. Can Detective Superintendent Knutas beat them to it?
Contents
Cover
About the Book
Title Page
Dedication
The Fourth Victim
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Also by Mari Jungstedt
Copyright
For Sebbe, with love
AT FIRST GLANCE nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary. The solitary house stood on the hill inside the stone wall. The car was parked as usual on the gravel-covered space down by the rubbish bins. Scattered across the rocky ground were lingonberry shrubs and moss. The crowns of several crooked pine trees swayed restlessly in the wind. And facing the sea was the terrace, which looked cold under the overcast sky since all the patio furniture and the barbecue had been cleared away. The shutters on the ground-floor windows were closed, making it impossible to see inside. Obviously the family had arrived home late the previous night and had gone straight to bed without unpacking.
As soon as his father parked the car, the boy jumped out and raced for the front door, leaning into the gusty wind. It was the autumn half term, and they were headed for the swimming pool. He had been so happy when his best friends phoned to tell him their family would be home earlier than planned.
Yet as he got closer to the house, he hesitated and slowed his step. Something wasn’t right. The door was wide open, and an upstairs window was banging back and forth. Dark patches were visible on the curving stone stairs in front of the house.
‘Hello?’ shouted his father as he caught up with the boy. He looked worried. ‘Anybody home?’
No answer. Only the rushing of the wind in the pine trees and the roar of the waves pounding the shore far below. A light was on in the kitchen.
‘Shouldn’t we ring the doorbell?’ asked the boy.
‘Wait a minute.’
The man placed his hand on his son’s shoulder and looked around. Then he signalled for him to stay where he was while he climbed the stairs. One glance inside the front hall was enough to tell him that something terrible had happened. There were more dark patches inside. A lamp had fallen to the floor, its coloured glass shattered, the shards glittering in the grey daylight coming in through the row of windows along one wall.
‘What the hell—’ He turned abruptly. ‘Something must have happened here. Go and wait in the car while I check. And lock the doors from the inside.’
‘But Pappa—’
‘Go back to the car.’
His tone of voice made the boy obey. Anxiously, he began backing away but kept his eyes fixed on his father.
The tall man paused for a moment in the dimly lit front hall, listening for any sound, but he heard nothing. Then he moved forward until he came to the living room. That was when he saw her. First her bare feet, slightly suntanned, her toenails painted pink; then her legs covered by a thin nightgown with a lace hem. She was lying on the stone floor, at the bottom of the stairs. Her eyes were wide open, staring up at the ceiling. Blood had run out of her mouth, and underneath the nightgown her chest was dark red. Almost black. Her blonde hair was dishevelled.
His expression darkened as he studied her face. Her complexion was nearly transparent. He took her cold hand in his, noticing that she had removed her wedding ring. No hint of a pulse. He touched her throat. Nothing.
He straightened up and looked around. Paintings were missing from the walls, and the bronze sculpture that always stood in the niche between the kitchen and hall was gone. The shelves were empty. He took note of everything in the room: a toppled chair, the pool of blood on the floor, the glass doors of the china cabinet standing wide open. On the stairs to the first floor he discovered the next body. Lifeless, a wound to the skull, congealed blood all around.
Outside the window the autumn leaves blazed with colour. The wind was whistling around the corners of the house. He saw his son’s face inside the car. The boys, he thought. The boys. Moving higher up the stairs, he came to an abrupt halt. An arm, a bloodied pair of pyjamas. A smooth cheek, so young, so unspoiled.
Moving like a sleepwalker, he continued upstairs. His mind empty and blank, not a thought in his head.
He would never be the same.
THE AIR WAS stifling, and the temperature was close to twenty-five degrees Celsius, even though it was only a little past nine in the morning. All of August had been unusually hot, nearing thirty degrees in the daytime and twenty at night. People were calling the nights tropical, even though Sweden was located almost as far away from the tropics as you could get.
Klintehamn was considered one of Gotland’s most densely populated areas, with approximately 1,500 inhabitants. An idyllic, nicely maintained town on the sea along the island’s west coast with an important harbour, from which woodchips, lumber and sugar beets were shipped to the mainland. And in the summertime it was from here that boats left for the island of Stora Karlsö, with its famed bird sanctuary.
The population was large enough to warrant a library, a secondary school, a social-services centre, a sports pitch and an old folks’ home. But there were not enough people to justify an off-licence or a swimming pool. At the centre of town were a number of shops, and from there the municipality spread out in straight, narrow streets lined by attractive houses set amid gardens bright with flowers. On this late summer morning a quiet and sleepy atmosphere had settled over the houses. The only sounds that disturbed the cheeping of the birds in the bushes and trees were the faint clinks of coffee cups as they were set down on an outdoor table, the clattering of a lawnmower and tunes playing softly on a radio. The sounds penetrated the dense foliage of the neatly trimmed hedges.
The tourist season was almost over. The long queues at the Konsum supermarket had thinned, and the mobile fish stall in the centre of town had closed up and moved elsewhere. Only a few summertime Gotlanders remained – those who had longer holidays, or who had started them later – along with a number of seasonal workers whose contracts lasted to the end of August.
Klintehamn’s modest business district on Donnersgatan was practically deserted. The ICA supermarket had just opened its doors, and a slight rattling noise could be heard as a young assistant set out the advertising signs offering newly discounted grocery prices. Through the window of the Handels Bank a couple of bank clerks were visible, preparing for the day’s work. Maud’s Beauty Salon was closed while the owner was on holiday, and the only restaurant on the street wouldn’t open for a couple of hours. Sitting at a table outside the pastry shop was a solitary man with a cup of coffee in front of him. He seemed deeply absorbed in the local morning paper he was reading.
An elderly woman wearing a white sun hat strolled along the pavement with a poodle on a lead. A father wearing a mobile-phone earpiece pushed a pram as he strode briskly down the street. Wobbling along on a bicycle beside him was a little girl who looked to be about six years old. She was trying in vain to catch her father’s attention. There was no one else in sight.
A security van came around the corner. With a slight squeal of tyres, it stopped in front of the Savings Bank next to the ICA. A uniformed guard climbed out of the back while his colleague stayed where he was, in the driver’s seat. The guard, who had a crew-cut, was probably no more than thirty. He paused to scan the area before proceeding towards the bank entrance, carrying a rectangular-shaped bag holding banknotes that would fill the ATMs and the clerks’ drawers, since it would soon be pay day.
At that moment the back doors flew open on a silver Ford sedan parked outside the beauty salon across the street. Two men wearing dark clothing and armed with automatic weapons rushed towards the guard.
He was just about to ring the bell, since the bank was not yet open for business, but instead he turned around. He found himself looking at a person wearing a ski mask. The bank robber signalled for the guard to drop the bag. The man seated outside the pastry shop a short distance away looked up from his newspaper. He sat there, gaping, holding a copy of the Gotlands Allehanda in his hands. One of the robbers had gone over to force the guard’s colleague out of the vehicle. The woman walking her dog had abruptly stopped on the opposite pavement. Looking bewildered, she watched the drama unfold. Her first thought was that she must be witnessing the filming of a movie. But there were no cameras in sight. The community’s two banks were located right across the street from each other – Handels Bank on one side, and the Savings Bank on the other. The staff were all at their posts and had just noticed what was happening outside the window. Someone had pushed the emergency button to summon the police. The bank clerks followed protocol and made no attempt to intervene.
The masked men pointed their guns at the guards, paying no heed to the elderly woman. The supermarket assistant had gone back inside the ICA, and the man with the pram had disappeared from view.
Without saying a word, the bank robbers signalled for both guards to unlock the back doors of their van, and there was nothing they could do but obey. The robbers instantly seized three bags of banknotes from inside. Then one of the robbers ran across the street, and another person got out of the Ford to help load the loot into the boot. When they had finished, the robbers, still without uttering a single word, forced both guards to lie face down on the ground. Holding their guns in front of them like shields, they jumped back in their car and took off. The whole thing was over in a matter of minutes.
Two seconds after the Ford disappeared around the corner and headed along Norra Kustvägen, there was a screech of brakes, followed by a shout and a thud. By the time the two guards were back on their feet and looking around to see what had happened, the robbers’ car was gone. On the ground outside the Donner Library lay a motionless little girl. Her body was twisted at an odd angle. Close by was a badly mangled bicycle, and a pram with a crying baby inside had been abandoned at the kerb. Next to the little girl knelt a man whose shoulders were shaking.
Black skid marks on the asphalt were the only traces left of the robbers.
DETECTIVE SUPERINTENDENT KNUTAS sank on to his old desk chair for the first time that morning and noticed the way his stomach bulged out over the waistband of his trousers. He’d put on weight over the summer, at least five or six pounds. That was obvious. All those barbecues with good wine had taken their toll. They’d had guests every single evening at their summer house in Lickershamn and, when he weighed himself, the scales mercilessly displayed the result. His Danish-born wife, Lina, was an unusually sociable person, and she loved having company, but Knutas had wondered why she was eager to invite so many people to share their dinner table. Almost as if she wanted to avoid being alone with him. But so far he hadn’t wanted to broach the subject. He couldn’t stand the thought of an argument. Of course, the children had also brought along their friends for the few days they’d spent at the summer house. But they were almost grown-up now and had other things they wanted to do during the summer holidays. Maybe Lina was finding it boring now that it was often just the two of them together in the evening. She had begun talking a lot about Denmark and how homesick she felt. She’d even started introducing some Danish traditions. All of a sudden they had to eat open sandwiches at the Midsummer celebration and sing a few Danish ballads along with the Swedish drinking songs. She had also suggested that they might go to Denmark for Christmas, even though they’d always celebrated the holidays at his parents’ farm in Kappelshamn. He couldn’t understand what had come over her.
He sighed heavily and pushed these thoughts aside. Then he began going through the papers stacked up on his cluttered desk. All these documents – transcripts of interviews, statements from witnesses, reports on one thing after another. He had no idea how many times he’d already taken out all the files to review the case, even though deep in his heart he knew it wouldn’t lead them any further. The investigation had stalled and nothing new had come to light in more than a year.
Vera Petrov, a forty-five-year-old Russian-German woman, had settled on Gotland and had long ago become a Swedish citizen. She was married to the sea captain Stefan Norrström from the little town of Kyllaj. She was wanted for two murders committed on the island four years ago. Her husband was suspected of being an accessory to the crimes. The police had been hot on their trail, but at the last moment the couple had managed to escape on the Gotland ferry and then flee abroad. On the boat and in the midst of an intensive police hunt, Vera had given birth. The police had received several tip-offs that the couple were in the Dominican Republic, but every time they’d got close, the two had vanished again. The investigation was the biggest failure of Knutas’s career.
He heard a knock on the door, and then Karin Jacobsson’s slender figure appeared in the doorway. She was his closest colleague and a morning person, just as he was. All the sunny days of summer had given her an attractive tan, and she was looking unusually alert for such an early hour. It wasn’t even seven o’clock. She was holding two cups of steaming coffee, with a flat little package balanced on top of one of them.
‘Mind if I interrupt?’
‘Come on in. Have a seat over there. I’d welcome a break from all this drudgery.’
He cleared a space on his desk and took his pipe out of the top drawer. Jacobsson set down the coffee cups and placed the package in front of Knutas. She gave him a smile, revealing the gap between her front teeth.
‘Congratulations!’ she said.
Knutas stared at his colleague in bewilderment. She wore jeans and a hoodie with the picture of an electric guitar on the front, making her look ten years younger than her actual age of forty-six. He noticed that she’d changed her hairstyle. Lately, she’d been wearing her hair long, well past her shoulders, and he’d thought it created a softer frame for her face. Now she’d cut it short again.
‘Nice haircut,’ he said politely.
‘Thanks.’ She raised her thin hand to her forehead and tugged at a few strands of hair. ‘I decided to try a fringe. I’m not used to it yet.’
‘What’s the occasion?’ asked Knutas, picking up the package.
‘It was Janne’s idea. He kept telling me that I’d look good with a fringe.’
‘Oh,’ said Knutas. ‘But I wasn’t referring to your hairstyle.’
He didn’t have the slightest interest in what Karin’s boyfriend thought about her appearance. He held up the package and shook it a bit.
‘Careful,’ she warned him. ‘It might be fragile. Don’t you remember that today is your name day?’
‘What? Not that again,’ he said with a laugh.
His family didn’t celebrate name days the way many people in Sweden did. And the fact that Knutas’s parents, for some inexplicable reason, had chosen Bartolomeus as his middle name was something he preferred to forget. It was so typical of Karin to remember his name day. Every single year.
‘But you really shouldn’t have,’ he said coyly as he eagerly tore off the wrapping paper.
Inside he found a black-and-yellow ribbon tied in a bow around two tickets.
‘What’s this?’
‘Tickets to the AIK–Djurgården match at Råsunda in three weeks’ time,’ she told him. ‘Tickets for two. And you’re required to take me along.’
‘But how are we going to manage that? The match is in Stockholm.’
‘Have you forgotten about the weekend course we’ve signed up for? At the police academy? September 11 and 12. We’ll go to the match on Sunday evening instead of coming back home. So we’ll just have to stay an extra night.’
She gave him a mischievous look and grinned.
Jacobsson was a devoted football fan. She’d played the game her whole life, and for several years she’d been coaching the women of the Visby P18 team. It was well known that Knutas was a big AIK fan.
‘What a gift! Thank you. It’s really too much.’
Knutas’s voice was gruff with emotion. He got up to give Karin a hug. It had been a long time since anyone had shown him such thoughtfulness.
‘Hey, it’s no big deal,’ she admonished him. ‘It was pure selfishness, believe me.’
Her eyes fell on the piles of documents on his desk.
‘What are you working on?’
‘The Petrov case. Trying to find a new lead.’
‘Huh.’
The Petrov case was not something that Jacobsson wanted to think about. During the manhunt, she had found the couple in the ship’s cabin where they were hiding. But she had let them go after first helping Vera to give birth. The explanation she’d offered to Knutas when he later discovered her secret was that she’d felt a certain sympathy for Petrov, since the woman had acted out of revenge. The two men she’d killed had raped and murdered her sister. The birth had also affected Jacobsson on a deeper level. At the age of fifteen she had become pregnant as the result of a rape, and she had been forced to give up the child for adoption immediately after birth. This was something she had regretted all her life.
