Misterioso

A crackling sound came from their walkie-talkies. Kerstin Holm whispered, “Solitary man passing. Thirty feet to the gate.”

Hjelm set down the pot filled with water and went out to the hall. He took a drag on his cigarette and felt a slight nicotine kick. Through the window he watched the individual pass the gate and continue up Gronviksvagen. After a moment Hjelm heard Soderstedt’s crackling walkie-talkie voice issuing from his chest: “He’s gone past me now.”

Hjelm poured water into the coffeemaker, put in a filter, measured out some ground coffee, plopped one spoonful after another into the filter, and then pressed the red button. He did everything slowly and methodically, making no unnecessary movements. He smoked calmly and took a swing down the funnel-shaped corridor to the living room. Hultin was sitting in the murderer’s position on the leather sofa against the far wall. A muffled darkness had settled over the room.

“I’ve put on some coffee.”

“Regular brew?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

Time rolled by in long, viscous waves. Their eyes slowly adjusted to the dark. Soon they were like nocturnal creatures, their eyes open wide to take in the night.

Hjelm made a round in the other direction. He was getting used to maneuvering by touch instead of sight. He got to know all the nooks and crannies in order to move quickly and easily. In the faint glow of the flashlight, with the beam on low so as not to disturb his night vision, he emptied a couple of wardrobes of heavy sweaters and coats and jackets, gloves and caps and blankets, piling everything onto the kitchen table.

After an hour and a half of wandering around and drinking coffee, with six or seven false alarms, Holm reported from outside: “Requesting a replacement. I’m coming in.”

“I’ll do it,” Hjelm told Nyberg, who nodded.

Hjelm was almost finished dressing when Holm knocked on the back door. She was shivering violently. Nyberg handed her a cup of coffee, and she accepted it greedily, using both hands to raise it to her lips. Once the warmth had spread through her body, she said, “I was seriously about to turn to ice.”

Hjelm draped a blanket around her shoulders, then pressed the earpiece into his ear and the plug into his walkie-talkie. He put on a wool cap and a pair of grotesque mauve gloves and stepped out into the stormy evening.

It was pitch black outside. Keeping low, he ran for Holm’s spiny thicket. He could see exactly where she’d been sitting, huddled next to a rose-hip bush with a perfect view, through a peephole, of the road. The outermost edges of the light cast by a streetlamp several yards away just grazed the section of road visible through the peephole.

There he sat for two hours. While all his senses went numb, ten cars and an equal number of bicyclists and pedestrians went by. He reported three solitary pedestrians, but all of them passed by the gate.

Kerstin Holm came out to meet him, looking significantly more alert. At the same moment he saw Soderstedt’s figure slink across the other side of the yard.

Hjelm and Nyberg arrived back in the kitchen at about the same time. Both were more or less out of commission for several minutes, and Hjelm cursed the idea, whoever had thought of it, that they change shifts simultaneously. The coffeemaker was on. They each managed to fill a cup and guzzle down the hot brew. Warmth returned to their fingers and toes, then spread through the rest of their bodies. Isn’t it usually just the opposite? thought Hjelm, fumbling to remove the hodgepodge of outerwear. He didn’t want to face the murderer looking as if he were part of Amundsen’s expedition to the South Pole.

He went into the living room. Hultin was sitting in exactly the same place as before. They looked at each other in the dark without saying a word. If it’s going to happen, it will happen soon, said their expressions. Hjelm went out to the hall and stood next to the window. He stared out at the dark. The wind was no longer blowing so hard, something he hadn’t noticed outside.

He’s walking along the deserted street. The houses are set far apart. His hands are in his pockets. He touches the cassette tape, and the two loose keys in his left pocket clink against each other. In his right pocket is the gun with the silencer attached. He is utterly calm.

“I’ve got something here,” whispers Kerstin Holm into her walkie-talkie. “A lone pedestrian. Male. Passing me in a minute.”

He knows exactly where he is. His steps are firm. Here is where the fence begins. He crosses the road. The wind howls in his face. He adjusts the bag hanging from his shoulder and places his hand on the gate.

Holm again: “It’s him. He’s opening the gate. Now.”

“He’s coming now,” Soderstedt whispers almost at the same time.

He opens the gate slowly, without making a sound. Closes it. Moves away from the garden path and walks carefully in the grass along the edge, heading toward the house. He takes out the keys and goes up the steps.

“He’s got the keys out,” whispers Soderstedt. “He’s putting in the first one. Now.”

He puts the first key in the lock and turns it soundlessly. Then the second, also soundlessly. He presses down the door handle with one hand, holding the gun in the other.

The door slides open.

They take him.

Hjelm seizes the man’s hands and twists them behind his back. Nyberg tosses him onto the floor and presses his face into the carpet. Hjelm holds his arms behind his back. Hultin switches on the light, a lightning bolt frozen in place, and aims his service weapon at him. Hjelm has already snapped on the handcuffs. It’s over.

“What the hell?” says the man in surprise. Then he screams.

Holm and Soderstedt rush in with their guns drawn. Birgitta Franzen appears on the stairs. She stares at them with a wild expression.

“Rickard,” she whispers.

“Rickard?” all five officers say in unison.

“Mama,” the man manages to say before he faints.

He goes in through the door and closes it behind him. It’s completely dark, completely quiet inside the villa. He takes off his shoes, places them in his bag, and heads straight for the living room. He sits down on the leather sofa against the far wall, facing the door, places his gun on the table, and waits.

He sits there motionless.

He’s waiting for the music.

11

The scent, just the scent of ordinary female skin. Tiny, tiny hairs tickling his nose. Nothing else.

He needs absolutely nothing else.

She grumbles when he touches her. He’s still cold.

“There’s a stranger in my bed,” she manages to say, seventy-five percent asleep.

“No, no,” he says, pressing closer. “There’s a stranger in my bed.”

It’s like a formula. They’ve said the same thing hundreds of times.

It is a formula.

“Open, sesame.”

Sesame hesitates. Does she feel like it? Only a couple more hours of sleep left. To do it while half-asleep. As if dreams themselves were forcing their way in, she once said. That was a long time ago.

He instantly gets an erection. Click. And he thought he was too tired. It just said click, he thinks drowsily. The rest of him is asleep. The blood has collected in one place. That part isn’t asleep.

He warms up his hand as best he can by sticking it under his armpit and then tentatively touches her bare hip.