Marked For Life. Emelie Schepp
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pretty much routine. Admittedly, he hadn’t actually asked his wife, Emma, if he could spend an hour, once or twice a week, at the gym. Hopefully she would say yes. But deep inside Henrik was afraid of what answer he would get. A firm no.
His wife already resented his spending too little time with the family.
But he felt that if he were in better shape, they would have better and more frequent sex. To him it was a win-win situation.
But those few times he had asked Emma for permission just to play football with the local club on a Saturday, he was turned down. The weekends were for the family, she said, and they should be out in the garden, visiting the zoo park, going to the cinema or just spending family time together. She felt she and Henrik needed to nurture their relationship by spending more time cuddling together.
Henrik didn’t particularly like cuddling. He liked having sex. To him, sex was the greatest proof that you loved your partner, he thought. It didn’t matter when or where you did it. Just that you did it. That wasn’t what Emma thought. For her, it had to be pleasurable and relaxing, and you needed lots of time and the right setting. Their bed still remained her preference and then only when the children weren’t awake. Since Felix, who was afraid of ghosts, insisted on going to sleep every night between them in bed, their opportunities for sex were few.
Henrik had to settle for the hope that things would get better. This past month he had felt more desire. And Emma had gone along with it too. Once, at any rate. Exactly four weeks ago.
Henrik smothered a bit of heartburn. The next time it would be only salad.
* * *
When Henrik and Mia entered the conference room they were met by the news that police officer Gabriel Mellqvist had fainted while knocking on doors in Lindö. He had been found by an elderly lady who had heard her doorbell ring a number of times. But since she was confined to a wheelchair, she couldn’t hurry to the door. When she finally opened it, she saw the policeman lying on the ground.
“Luckily Hanna Hultman had come to his aid and in Gabriel’s pocket found a glucose syringe that she jabbed into his thigh,” said Gunnar. “That was the bad news. The good news is that we’ve found a security camera outside the lady’s house. It is directed toward the street—it’s positioned here.”
Gunnar put an X on the map of the residential area that was hanging beside the time line posted on the wall.
The whole team was in the room. All except Jana, which pleased Mia.
“In the best case, the events from Sunday will still be on a server somewhere. I want you, Ola, to check that straightaway.”
“Now?” said Ola Söderström.
“Yes, now.”
He got up.
“Hang on,” said Henrik. “I think you’ve got some more to do. We’ve confiscated Hans Juhlén’s computer and need to go through it.”
“Did the interview with Lena Wikström lead to anything?”
“She doesn’t share Kerstin Juhlén’s picture of Hans. According to Kerstin, Hans always worked on his computer. According to his secretary, Lena, he never did. I think it’s a little odd that they would have such different impressions.”
Ola, Gunnar and Anneli Lindgren agreed.
“Lena also didn’t think that Hans Juhlén was as stressed as his wife claimed,” said Henrik.
“But that’s only what she says. I believe he was bloody worried. I would be too if there had been a lot of shit thrown at me in the newspapers and threatening notes too,” said Mia.
“Exactly,” said Ola.
“Lena said that there was always a security aspect concerning asylum seekers who weren’t granted asylum. So we’ve asked for a list of all the people who have sought asylum so far this year,” said Henrik.
“Fine, anything else?” said Gunnar.
“No,” said Henrik. Going door-to-door hadn’t produced much, except for the potential security footage.
“No witnesses?” said Mia.
“No. Not a one,” said Gunnar.
“It’s just bloody crazy. Didn’t anybody see anything?” said Mia. “So we’ve got fuck-all to go on.”
“For the time being we have no witnesses. Zero. Nada. So we’ll have to hope that the security camera will give us something. Ola, check if we can get hold of the images right away,” Gunnar said and turned to Ola. “Then you can go through Hans’s computer. I’ll see if the call logs from the provider are ready. If not, I’ll phone and pester them till they are. Anneli, you go back to the crime scene and see if you can find anything new. Anything at all would do in the present situation.”
AT FIRST THE girl had cried hysterically. But now she felt calm. She had never felt like this before. Everything happened as if in slow motion.
She sat with her now heavy head bent over her thighs, her arms hanging limply from her sides, almost numb now. The engine in the van in which they were traveling growled weakly. Her thighs were stinging. She had wet herself when her captors had gripped her hard and pushed a needle into her arm.
Now she looked slowly up toward her left upper arm at the little red mark. It was really tiny. She giggled. Really tiny. Teeny weeny. The syringe was also really tiny.
The van jerked and the asphalt turned into gravel. The girl leaned her head back and tried to balance its weight so that she wouldn’t bang herself against the van’s hard interior. Or against somebody else. They were sitting tightly packed, all seven. Danilo, who was next to her, had cried too. The girl had never seen him cry before, only smile. The girl liked his smile and always smiled back at him. But now he couldn’t smile. The silvery bit of tape was stuck hard over his mouth, and he breathed in what air he could through his dilated nostrils.
A woman sat opposite them. She looked angry. Terribly, terribly angry. Grrrr. The girl laughed to herself. Then she sank down again with her head against her thighs. She was tired and most of all wanted to sleep in her own bed with the doll that she had once found at a bus stop. The doll with only one arm and one leg. But it was the finest doll the girl had ever seen. The doll had dark curly hair and a pink dress. She missed her doll dreadfully. The doll was still back there with Mama and Papa. She would fetch her later, when she came back to the container.
Then everything would be all right again.
And they would go back.
Home.
THE SECURITY CAMERA film had just arrived by messenger from the security firm. Ola Söderström opened the package and quickly inserted the little hard disk into his computer. He immediately started looking through the images, which gave a good overview of Östanvägen. Unfortunately the rotating camera lens didn’t reach all the way to Hans Juhlén’s house. Judging by the angle, the camera must have been about two meters above the ground, perhaps three, and provided an adequate coverage so that you could register everything on the street. The quality was good and Ola was pleased with the sharpness. He fast-forwarded past Sunday morning. A woman with a dog walked by, a white Lexus left the street and then the woman with the dog came back again.
When the clock counter showed 17:30, he slowed down the speed. The empty street looked cold and windy. The overcast weather made it hard to detect any movements and the street lighting was of poor quality.
Ola was wondering whether it was possible to adjust the brightness so that he could see the scene more clearly, when he suddenly caught sight of a boy.
He froze the image. The counter showed 18:14.