Dark Secrets (53 page)

Haraldsson was late. It wasn’t at all like him to oversleep. He blamed the wine, and Jenny. The wine had made him sleep more deeply than usual, a dreamless sleep. And Jenny hadn’t woken him before she left for the hospital. He had set the alarm but he must have switched it off instead of setting it to snooze. He had no memory of even hearing it ring. He had woken just after nine thirty. At first he thought he would just throw on some clothes and dash off to work, but somehow the morning had passed in slow motion. By the time he had showered, had breakfast, and dressed, an hour had gone by. He decided to walk to the station and arrived dead on eleven.

Radjan had done as Haraldsson asked. There was a single folder on his desk when he sat down with a cup of coffee. He opened it eagerly. It contained three closely written sheets of paper. Haraldsson sat back in his chair with his coffee in one hand and the printouts in the other. He began to read with great concentration.

After forty-five minutes he had read the interview with Linda Beckman three times. He put the folder to one side and turned to the computer. Keyed in Axel Johansson’s details and began to scroll through the results. He had moved around quite a bit, good old Herr Johansson, and had obviously made the acquaintance of the police in every single place he had taken up residence.

Haraldsson glanced through the reports. Umeå, Sollefteå, Gävle, Helsingborg, and a few minor offenses here in Västerås. Disturbing the peace, pilfering, theft, sexual harassment… Haraldsson suddenly stopped and went back. Sexual harassment in Sollefteå as well. Axel had never been convicted of this particular offense, but accusations had been made. Both preliminary investigations had been shelved due to a lack of evidence. Haraldsson went further back. Axel Johansson also figured in a rape case in Umeå. Eleven years ago. He had been at
the same party as a girl who was brutally raped in the garden when she went out for a smoke. Everyone at the party had been questioned. Nobody had been charged. The case remained unsolved.

A thought from yesterday came back to Haraldsson.

Those who are guilty run away.

He allowed the thought to grow. Picked up the document Radjan had copied for him. A brief note. Axel Johansson liked to be dominant in bed.

Those who are guilty run away.

A long shot. But bearing in mind that Haraldsson was approaching the reserves bench at breakneck speed, he might as well take a chance. He sat up and moved his fingers over the computer keyboard. First of all, he checked when Axel Johansson had been living in Umeå, then he called up unsolved crimes from the same period. There were rather a lot. He discounted all those that were not of a sexual nature. Fewer, but still a lot. He carried on refining the search terms. First of all, rapes. Still a terrifyingly large number. Then women who had been attacked and raped. Far fewer. It was quite an unusual crime, in spite of everything. In most cases of rape the victim and the perpetrator knew each other, even if they had been acquainted for only a few hours. During the period when Axel Johansson had been living in Umeå, there had been five cases of women being attacked and raped. Three with exactly the same modus operandi.

Women who were on their own in lonely places. Lonely, though not totally isolated. People nearby. Presumably the fact that they could hear other people lulled the women into a false sense of security. They had felt brave enough to go a little farther down the dark garden for a smoke, because they could hear the party through the open windows. They cut across the park because they could hear conversations at the bus stop behind the bushes. An illusion of security, as it turned out. The man in the three identical cases had approached the women from behind and brought them down. Pressed their faces into the ground, making it impossible for them to scream, then entered them from behind. All three carried through to their conclusion. A physically strong man. Afterward he had disappeared. No doubt he had quickly
and imperceptibly mixed with the people nearby. Walked the streets of the town like an ordinary person. The women hadn’t even caught a glimpse of him. There were no descriptions, no witnesses.

Haraldsson repeated the procedure, this time in Sollefteå. First he checked on the dates between which Axel Johansson had lived there, then he looked at unsolved sexual offenses. There were two rapes that were almost identical with those in Umeå. Lonely but not completely isolated spots. The attack coming from behind. The woman’s face pressed into the ground. No description, no witnesses.

Haraldsson leaned back in his chair, breathing heavily. This was something big, he could feel it. He would have his revenge, with bells on. A serial rapist. Perhaps even worse than Niklas Lindgren, known as the Haga Man. And Haraldsson was the one who had tracked him down. He could almost hear the chief superintendent’s speech again.

Roger Eriksson and that psychologist were one thing, but this was big. Really big. This was the kind of case on which you could build a career. With trembling hands Haraldsson carried on clicking through the information. Gävle. One rape reported during the relatively short period when Johansson had been living there. Same MO.

Nothing during the years he spent in Helsingborg.

Haraldsson stopped. It was as if he had been out running and really gotten his speed up, then suddenly—dead stop. Oddly enough, he felt a wave of disappointment. Of course he ought to be glad that no woman had suffered the dreadful trauma of a rape, but it ruined his theories. And he was so close to finding definite confirmation of those theories. He checked again. Same depressing result. Axel Johansson had lived in Helsingborg for more than two years, but not one single attack that fit the pattern had been reported during that time.

Haraldsson leaned back and finished his coffee, which had gone cold. He thought things over. It didn’t necessarily mean anything. Perhaps the crimes just hadn’t been reported. Not all sexual assaults were reported. Far from it. Admittedly, most rapes involving a violent attack did end up in the hands of the police, but there were no guarantees.

He didn’t really need Helsingborg. In almost all the previous attacks, DNA evidence had been secured.

But it was annoying.

It spoiled the symmetry of it all.

It was like drawing a dot-to-dot picture then missing a couple of dots. You could still see what the picture represented, but your eye would always be drawn to those irritating places where the lines hadn’t been completed. Annoying. Besides which, Haraldsson was certain that Axel Johansson hadn’t stopped. Not for more than two years. Not when he had gotten away with it for so long.

Haraldsson got up and went to the staff room to get another coffee. He had felt slow and dopey when he got to work, slightly hungover in fact, but that feeling had quickly disappeared, replaced by a tingling, excited sense of anticipation. A feeling not unlike the excitement he had felt when he was a little boy, waiting for Santa Claus on Christmas Eve. All he had to do was crack Helsingborg.

Back at his desk he went into their own archive. He knew what he was looking for. And there it was: two rapes that matched Axel Johansson’s MO. Both had taken place after he moved to Västerås.

So that just left Helsingborg.

He had the picture now. He could see what it was, but he still wanted to join up those last dots. He and Jenny had stayed in Helsingborg once. In the late 1990s. Before the bridge was built. A holiday in Skåne, with a trip across to Denmark. In those days the ferries ran a shuttle service back and forth. It took only ten minutes, as Haraldsson recalled. A different town, a different country. Ten minutes away. He found a number for the police in Helsingør, across the sound in Denmark. Explained what he was doing, was passed on, was given another number, dialed, was disconnected, dialed again, was misunderstood, but eventually he got hold of a woman named Charlotte who was able to help him. Haraldsson’s Danish was extremely limited, and after a few minutes of rephrasing and repetition they agreed to switch to English.

He knew the time frame.

He knew the MO.

It shouldn’t take long.

And, indeed, it didn’t. The Helsingør police had two unsolved incidents of rape involving violent attacks from that period. Haraldsson had to stop himself from punching the air. The case was international.

And it was solved.

All he had to do now was find Axel Johansson. But first he would go see Hanser.

Hanser barely looked up from her desk when Haraldsson tapped on the open door and walked into her office.

“How’s the foot?”

“Fine, thanks.”

He had no intention of playing her game. He wasn’t going to allow himself to be provoked. Or cowed. He could allow her to have the upper hand for a few more seconds. Soon she would have to admit that he was a good detective, in spite of his little mistake. Much better than she had ever been, or would ever be.

“You told me not to go near the Roger Eriksson investigation.”

“I did. And I sincerely hope you haven’t.”

“Yes and no.” Haraldsson weighed his words carefully. He wanted to make the most of this moment. He wasn’t going to reveal everything at once. He wanted to observe every step along the way as Hanser moved from uncomfortable disbelief to reluctant admiration.

“I took a closer look at Axel Johansson.”

Hanser didn’t react; she continued to focus on the papers in front of her. Haraldsson moved a step closer. Lowered his voice.

Spoke with greater intensity. Determined to arouse her interest.

“I had a feeling there was something about him. Something else, apart from the connection with Roger. A feeling… Call it intuition, if you like.”

“Mmm.”

She was pretending not to be interested. It might take a while longer, but soon enough she would be forced to react.

“It turned out I was right. He’s a rapist. A serial rapist.”

Hanser looked up with an expression that could only be interpreted as a total lack of interest.

“Really?”

She didn’t believe him. Didn’t want to believe him. Soon she would have no alternative. Haraldsson walked right up to her desk and placed a simple summary of his day’s work in front of her. Towns, times, relocations, victims.

“I’ve found a link that indicates that he has carried out rapes in Umeå, Sollefteå, Gävle, Helsingborg, and here in Västerås over the past twelve years.”

Hanser glanced briefly at the list, then gave Haraldsson her full attention for the first time.

“You are joking?”

“What? No, I mean of course we need a sample of his DNA, but I know I’m right.”

“The entire station knows you’re right.”

“What? How come? I don’t know where he is yet, but…”

“I do,” Hanser interrupted. Haraldsson was taken aback. The conversation had taken a completely unexpected turn. What did she mean?

“Do you?”

“Axel Johansson is in number three. Your colleague Radjan picked him up this morning.”

Haraldsson heard the words she spoke, but was incapable of processing the information. He simply stood there, his mouth literally hanging open.

Ursula had decided to put the failure of the previous day behind her and concentrate on what she was really good at: investigating the scene of a crime. Her simple test had quickly supplied the result she had expected, establishing beyond doubt that it was human blood they
had found. This sharpened her concentration still further. She was now walking around getting an impression of the scene.

Taking her time.

It was a question of getting an overview at this stage, familiarizing herself with the bigger picture before homing in on the details. Starting to analyze the clues, working out the most likely scenario. She could feel Torkel’s eyes on the back of her neck but that didn’t stress her out. She knew he was impressed. This was her moment. Not his. The others watched from a distance as she walked slowly back and forth inside the cordon, taking care not to compromise any evidence. After ten long minutes she went over to them. She was ready.

“It’s difficult to comment on the amount of blood. It’s soaked into the ground, and crows and other animals have probably been poking around in it, but it’s definitely from a human being, and there’s a lot of it. And look at this.”