help of the respirator.
“Should we leave?” Simone asks, after a while.
“Wait,” Erik whispers.
His watch ticks slowly. On the windowsill, a petal drifts down from a flower, making a faint rustling sound as it reaches the floor. A few raindrops land on the windowpane. They can hear a woman laughing somewhere in a room far away.
A strange sighing is coming from inside Shulman’s body, like a gentle breeze blowing through a half-open window.
Simone can feel the sweat from her armpits trickling down her body. She has a sense of claustrophobia, as if she is trapped in this situation. She wants to run out of the room, but she can’t take her eyes off Shulman’s throat. Perhaps she is imagining it, but suddenly she thinks that the artery in his neck is pulsing more quickly. Erik is breathing heavily and as he leans over Shulman, she can see that he seems nervous, biting his lower lip and looking at his watch again. The respirator continues its steady metallic sighing. Someone walks past the door. The wheels of a trolley squeak and then the room is quiet once again. The only sound comes from the machine’s rhythmic work.
Suddenly they hear a faint scratching noise. Simone leans closer and sees Shulman’s index finger moving over the smooth surface of the sheet. She feels her pulse speed up, and is just about to say something to Erik when Shulman opens his eyes. He stares straight at her with an odd expression. His mouth widens in a frightened grimace. His tongue moves laboriously, and saliva trickles down his chin.
“It’s me, Sim. It’s me,” she says, taking his hand in hers. “I’m going to ask you some really important questions.”
Shulman’s fingers tremble. His eyes focus on her, then suddenly roll back; his mouth stretches, and the veins at his temples throb frantically.
“You answered my phone when Benjamin called, do you remember that?”
With Shulman’s electrodes attached to his own chest, Erik can see on the monitor that his heart rate is increasing. Shulman’s feet are vibrating under the sheet.
“Sim, can you hear me?” she asks. “It’s Simone. Can you hear me, Sim?”
His eyes roll down again, but immediately slide to the side. Rapid steps can be heard in the corridor outside the door, and a woman shouts something.
“You answered my phone,” she repeats.
He nods weakly.
“It was my son,” she goes on. “It was Benjamin who called.”
His feet begin to shake again, his eyes roll back, and his tongue flops out of his mouth.
“What did Benjamin say?”
Shulman swallows, works his jaw slowly. His eyes close.
“Sim? What did he say?”
He shakes his head.
“Didn’t he say anything?”
“Not…” Shulman wheezes.
“What did you say?”
“Not Benjamin,” he says, almost inaudibly.
“Didn’t he say anything?”
“Not him,” Shulman says. His voice is high, frightened.
“What?”
“Ussi?”
“What are you saying?” she asks.
“Ussi called.” Shulman’s mouth trembles.
Simone looks at Erik, baffled.
“Where was he?” Erik asks, looking intently at Shulman. “Ask him where Jussi was.”
“Where was he?” Simone asks. “Do you know where Jussi was?”
“At home,” replies Shulman in his high voice.
“Was Benjamin there too?”
Shulman’s head flops to one side, his mouth goes slack, and his chin crumples. Simone looks anxiously at Erik; she doesn’t know what to do.
“Was Lydia there?” Erik asks.
Shulman looks up, but his eyes slip to the side. Erik nudges Simone: You ask him.
“Was Lydia there?” Simone asks.
Shulman nods.
“Did Jussi say anything about…” Simone pauses as Shulman begins to whimper. Tears come to her eyes, and she strokes him gently on the cheek.
Suddenly his eyes snap into focus and he looks directly at her. “What’s happened?” he asks, with complete clarity, and then slumps into a coma once again.
Chapter 93
Anja walks into Joona Linna’s office and silently hands him a manila folder and a glass of mulled wine. He looks up at her round, pink face. For once she looks completely serious.
“They’ve identified the child,” she explains.
“Thanks.”
There are two things he loathes, he thinks, looking at the folder. One is having to give up on a case, walking away from unidentified bodies, unsolved rapes, robberies, cases of abuse and murder. And the other thing he loathes, although in a completely different way, is when these unsolved cases are finally solved, because when the old questions are answered, it is seldom in the way one would wish.
He begins to read. The body of the child found in Lydia Everson’s garden was that of a boy. He was five years old when he was killed. The cause of death is thought to be a fractured skull caused by a blunt object. In addition, a number of healed and partially healed injuries have been found, indicating repeated abuse of a serious nature. Beatings, the forensic pathologist has suggested. Abuse so serious that it caused broken bones and cracks in the skeleton. The back and the arms, especially, seem to have been the focus of violence using heavy objects. In addition, several symptoms of malnutrition on the skeleton suggest that the child was starving.
Joona looks out the window for a little while. He can’t get used to this, and he has told himself that the day he does get used to it, he’ll give up his job as a detective. He runs a hand through his thick hair, swallows hard, and returns to his reading.
The child has been identified. His name was Johan Samuelsson, and he had been reported missing thirteen years ago. According to her statement the mother, Isabella, had been in the garden with her son when the phone rang inside the house. She had not taken the boy with her when she went to answer, and at some point during the twenty or thirty seconds it took her to pick up the receiver, establish that there was no one there, and hang up again, the child had disappeared.
Johan was two years old at the time.
He was five years old when he was killed.
His remains then lay in Lydia Everson’s garden for ten years.
The smell of the mulled wine is suddenly nauseating. Joona gets up and pushes his office window open. He looks down at the inner courtyard, the sprawling branches of the trees over by the custody area, the shining wet asphalt.
Lydia had the child with her for three years, he thinks. Three years of keeping a secret. Three years of abuse, starvation, and fear.
