chamber.”
As he walks towards the lift, Erik slides out of his white coat. There are a few people in the lobby now. The doors have been unlocked; the sky has lightened a little. As he pulls out of the car park he reaches for the little wooden box he carries with him, garishly decorated with a parrot and a smiling South Seas native. Without taking his eyes off the road he flips open the lid, picks out three tablets, and swallows them quickly. He needs to get a couple of hours more sleep this morning, before waking Benjamin and giving him his injection.
Chapter 4
Seven and a half hours earlier, a caretaker by the name of Karim Muhammed arrived at the Rodstuhage sports centre. The time was 8:50 p.m. Cleaning the locker rooms was his last job for the day. He parked his Volkswagen bus in the car park not far from a red Toyota. The soccer field itself was dark, the floodlights atop the tall pylons surrounding it long since extinguished, but a light was still on in the men’s locker room. The caretaker retrieved the smallest cart from the rear of the van and pushed it towards the low wooden building. Reaching it, he was slightly surprised to find the door unlocked. He knocked, got no reply, and pushed the door open. Only after he had propped it with a plastic wedge did he spot the blood.
When police officers Jan Eriksson and Erland Bjorkander arrived at the scene, Eriksson went straight to the locker room, leaving Bjorkander to question Karim Muhammed. At first, Eriksson thought he heard the victim moaning, but after turning him over the police officer realized this was impossible. The victim had been mutilated and partially dismembered. The right arm was missing, and the torso had been hacked at so badly it looked like a bowl full of bloody entrails.
Soon afterwards, the ambulance arrived, as did Detective Superintendent Lillemor Blom. A wallet left at the scene identified the victim as Anders Ek, a teacher of physics and chemistry at the Tumba High School, married to Katja Ek, a librarian at the main library in Huddinge. They lived in a terrace house at Gardesvagen 8 and had two children living at home, Lisa and Josef.
Superintendent Blom sent Bjorkander to notify the victim’s family while she reviewed Eriksson’s report and cordoned off the crime scene, both inside and outside.
Bjorkander parked at the house in Tumba and rang the doorbell. When no one answered he went around to the back of the row of houses, switched on his torch, and shone it through a rear window, illuminating a bedroom. Inside, a large pool of blood had saturated the carpet, with long ragged stripes leading from it and through the door, as if someone had been dragged from where they’d fallen. A child’s pair of glasses lay in the doorway. Without radioing for reinforcements, Erland Bjorkander forced the balcony door and went in, his gun drawn. Searching the house, he discovered the three victims. He did not immediately realize that the boy was still alive. While hastily radioing for backup and an ambulance, he mistakenly used a channel covering the entire Stockholm district.
“Oh my God!” he cried out. “They’ve been slaughtered… Children have been slaughtered… I don’t know what to do. I’m all alone, and they’re all dead.”
Chapter 5
Joona Linna was in his car on Drottningholmsvagen when he heard the call at 22:10. A police officer was screaming that children had been slaughtered, he was alone in the house, the mother was dead, they were all dead. A little while later he was radioing from outside the house and, calmer now, he explained that Superintendent Lillemor Blom had sent him to the house on Gardesvagen alone. Bjorkander suddenly mumbled that this was the wrong channel and stopped speaking.
In the sudden quiet, Joona Linna listened to the rhythmic thumping of the windscreen wipers as they scraped drops of water from the glass. He thought about his father, who had had no backup. No police officer should have to do something like this on his own. Irritated at the lack of leadership out in Tumba, he pulled over to the side of the road; after a moment, he sighed, got out his mobile, and asked to be put through to Lillemor Blom.
Lillemor Blom and Joona had been classmates at the police training academy. After completing her placements, she had married a colleague in the Reconnaissance Division and two years later they had a son. Although it was his legal right, the father never took his paid paternity leave; his choice meant a financial loss for the family as it held up Lillemor’s career progression, and eventually he left her for a younger officer who had just finished her training.
Joona identified himself when Lillemor answered. He hurried through the usual civilities and then explained what he had heard on the radio.
“We’re short-staffed, Joona,” she explained. “And in my judgment- ”
“That’s irrelevant. And your judgment was way off the mark.”
“You’re not listening,” she said.
“I am, but- ”
“Well, then, listen to me!”
“You’re not even allowed to send your ex-husband to a crime scene alone,” Joona went on.
“Are you finished?”
After a short silence, Lillemor explained that Erland Bjorkander had only been dispatched to inform the family; he had decided on his own to enter the house without calling for backup.
Joona apologized. Several times. Then, mainly to be polite, asked what had happened out in Tumba.
Lillemor described the scene Erland Bjorkander had reported: pools and trails of blood, bloody hand- and footprints, bodies and body parts, knives and cutlery thrown on the kitchen floor. She told him that Anders Ek, whom she assumed had been killed following the attack on his family, was known to Social Services for his gambling addiction. While his official debts had been written off, he still owed money to some serious local criminal types. And now a loan enforcer had murdered him and his family. Lillemor described the condition of Anders Ek. The murderer had started to hack his body to pieces; a hunting knife and a severed arm had been found in the locker room showers. She repeated several times that they were short of staff and the examination of the crime scenes would have to wait.
“I’m coming over there,” said Joona.
“But why?” she said in surprise.
“I want to have a look.”
“Now?”
“If you don’t mind,” he replied.
“Great,” she said, in a way that made him think she meant it.
Chapter 6
Fourteen minutes later, Joona Linna pulled up at the Rodstuhage sports centre, parking a few yards from a Volkswagen bus with the logo johansson’s care home emblazoned on the side. It was dark out, and snow-flakes whirled around in the biting wind. The police had already cordoned off the area.
Joona gazed across the deserted soccer field. All of a sudden, an eerie noise- vibrating, humming- kicked on. Off to his left, Joona could hear shuffling sounds and quick footsteps. Turning around, he could make out two black
