Siren Song: A Different Scandinavian Crime Novel (20 page)

Lena hops down from the ambulance and moves out of the flustered man’s way. “All done,” she says. “Let me know if he talks.”

The paramedic looks at Lena, pulls the doors shut in her face, and the ambulance drives away, its siren blaring.

Agnes walks up to Lena’s side. “What was that about?” she asks.

“I’ll tell you in the car,” Lena says.

*

Four minutes later, Lena and Agnes exit a roundabout and leave the suburb. Lena sits in the passenger seat and prods at the mobile phone. She hopes it will work without a code.

The sun is a faint disc struggling to rise over the rooftops. Inside the car, the air is hot and stifling; the heaters run on full effect. Agnes swerves from lane to lane between slower cars. Agnes drives with less caution than usual; Lena suspects that Agnes is shaken by John’s macabre act.

Lena resists the urge to throw the phone to the floor. She has never been a fan of technology; everything with circuits is at odds with her lack of patience. After printers, phones are the worst.

She almost drops the phone in surprise when it obediently comes to life after she presses a small button. Thankfully, there is no code, and after a few minutes she finds the call log. She is reading through the list while Agnes breaks for a red light near Brommaplan.

Agnes glances at the phone. “Anything interesting?”

“Not yet.” Lena frowns. “There’s not a single text. He must wipe them regularly. There are plenty of calls, but no recent ones. Only numbers in the address book, no names. I bet most are to prepaid accounts anyway.”

Not for the first time, Lena wishes Swedish legislation was as stringent as it was in many other countries, where you have to register to have a prepaid phone. She takes out her notepad and starts to copy the numbers.

“I’ll have the office run the numbers through the system once we’re back,” Lena says. “I’ll copy local officers in too. They might see a familiar number. You never know. I just have to get the numbers out of this phone at the office. I’ll need your help.”

“Can’t the tech department do that for us?” Agnes asks.

“We don’t have time to fill out the forms. Besides, someone might break the damn thing. This is important.”

Agnes frowns. “Didn’t you break your old phone–”

“That was an accident.”

“Oh.”

They pass another roundabout and turn onto a bridge. “Why are you doing that now?” Agnes asks.

“It’s all I have to go on until John crops up somewhere else. I’m sick of chasing him. If there’s anything in here that’ll let me work out what he’s up to, I will find it.”

Agnes is quiet, then says, “Don’t forget to check the phone’s memory.”

Lena looks at her. “What?”

“In case the numbers you got there are from only the SIM card.”

“I know that,” Lena lies and tries to figure out how to access the phone’s internal memory. By the time she is done, they are driving down into the vast, damp garage underneath the police headquarters.

Eight minutes later, Lena is at her desk and types the numbers into an email to a technician. The office is filled with the drone of ringing phones, conversations, quick footsteps, coughs, the dull whirr of computers and the scraping of chairs. Outside the window, the clouds are a deep bluish black, heavy with the promise of more snow.

When she has sent off the list, she phones the recipient and tells her to report back immediately once the numbers have been checked. She hangs up and checks her email, her phone, the police’s internal system, and her post box. No news about John.

She shrugs off her jacket over the back of her chair and walks to the canteen for a sandwich. Seeing the crawling queue, she returns to her desk. Somewhere in the chaos of her drawers, she is sure, a protein bar is hiding.

“Any luck with the phone?” Agnes says behind Lena.

Startled, Lena spins her chair around with her hands half raised in defence. Agnes takes a quick step back. In each of her hands is a steaming cup.

“Don’t do that,” Lena tells her. “You’ll give someone a heart attack.”

“I’m sorry.” Agnes looks apologetic and offers Lena one of the cups. “I thought you might want more coffee. You didn’t get much sleep last night.”

Lena wants to groan as she takes the cup. “I thought you went back to your place?” She finds a half-eaten protein bar in the drawer. Not the meal she wished for, but a little is better than nothing.

“What I meant to say,” Agnes says, “is you can’t have slept more than six hours or so. I’m about to see if the patrols have any news. Call if you need me.” She clears her throat, smiles, and walks away to her meticulously organized desk.

Lena’s gaze lingers on Agnes for a moment, then turns back to her desk, and she shakes her head. The junior officer is babysitting her. It is the last thing she needs.

What she does need is a lead. She checks her inbox again. Nothing. Her phone is almost fully charged, but she plugs it in anyway. She begins on a report she must submit but finds she cannot string together a coherent sentence. Sweat prickles her back.

She calls Gren, hangs up on his voicemail, and moves the windows on her computer screen around. Anxiety constricts her lungs. She is still hungry; stress and concentration are burning off every calorie she eats. Against all odds, she finds another protein bar and tears away the wrapping.

A new email arrives: The numbers from the address book in the mobile phone have been checked. All names sent to her, along with text messages retrieved from the service providers.

Lena throws her half-eaten bar onto the clutter on her desk, opens the email, and skims through the list. Twenty-one calls made during the past two days, to and from fourteen different numbers. Six outgoing, the rest incoming. Five of them to landlines.

She browses the text messages: Threats, questions, orders, agreed meeting times, locations, and prices. Some messages are in crackpot innuendo; others are misspelt pleas for drugs, typed by desperate and quivering thumbs. A wealth of leads for the narcotics department, but nothing that points to John.

She pinches the bridge of her nose and reads on, looking for clues in the thicket of acronyms, abbreviations, and butchered grammar. After a few seconds, she stops, and rereads one of the messages.

Gotta come 2 ur place pigs after me.

Sent yesterday afternoon. The time closely matches that of the shooting. The reply makes her lean closer to the screen.

Dont Im gonna meet T soon wat the fuk have u done

Another sent message:

Got 2 hide Ill talk to t l8er stay home Im comin

The reply:

Dam u better not b followed
.

She presses her index finger to the ‘t’ on the screen. Perhaps the letter is short for Niklas’s dealer. If it is, then ‘t’ could have been near the flat when John appeared there. The chance that the might-be dealer has seen John or anything else relevant to the case is small, but she will explore every clue no matter how weak.

She opens the list of calls made from Niklas’s phone and scrolls down. Near the bottom is a mobile phone number that Niklas called moments after he got the first text message in which ‘T’ is mentioned.
Mick had been supposed to meet him or her.

Had Niklas called his dealer?

She looks up the number and is unsurprised to find that it is anonymous; however unless the owner uses a military-grade secrecy screen, that is a small issue: if the phone is switched on, the police can trace it. But first she has to change into a new shirt; sweat makes the one she is wearing cling to her back.

“Agnes?” Lena calls and looks over her shoulder.

Agnes’s head snaps up. “Yes?”

“I need you.” Lena points to her monitor.

Agnes walks over and peers at Lena’s screen, and Lena points at the ‘T’.

“The dealer?” Agnes asks after a moment.

“Probably. Tell the tech department to get a fix on that phone’s location.”

“I’ll get right on it.”

“And let’s hope it isn’t turned off,” Lena says. “I’ll be right back.” She takes a spare T-shirt from a drawer, rises from her chair, and leaves for the bathroom.

*

John

The sight of Molly reassembles the scattered jigsaw puzzle in John’s mind in a flash. A torrent of memories assaults him: recollections of Molly, the two together, quiet words in confidence, the baring of bodies and thoughts. Her face is a sum of all his needs.

He knows immediately that she is the one he has lost. This is the woman who has circled his thoughts, the grail of his trek through endless madness. That smile, those eyes, this mercurial, breathtaking sense of closeness.

Sinking down to his knees, he looks up at Molly’s radiant face. The soft glow from Miriam’s lantern is gone, replaced by a faint, crystal white radiance that seems to come from the air itself.

“You found me,” Molly says. “At last.” She reaches out, gently touches her fingers to John’s cheeks, and brings them to her own lips, tasting his tears.

“I was lost,” John whispers. “I’ve looked so hard.”

“For me?” Molly’s smile grows wider. “Such passion. I’ve been here all the time, John. I knew you’d come. Do you still want to leave?”

John shakes his head. “Never.”

“Who was your friend?” Molly asks.

“She’s–” John looks around, but Miriam is gone. She has abandoned him again.

“Never mind,” Molly says. “Come with me.” She turns around and walks away, her curls bouncing along her back like a restless river.

John rises up and staggers after Molly. He shivers, cries and laughs. An end to the journey, a closure to his search. If he can stand close to her, he will not long for anything else. Molly looks over her shoulder and beckons John to follow her deeper into the woods, away from the path.

They enter a clearing in which a single large tree rises from the centre. All is quiet apart from the wind that circles John slowly, as if waiting for a moment. Molly walks up to the tree, turns around, and presses her back to the trunk. A look of concern falls on her face. “Don’t leave me now. Not again. We used to be close.”

John laughs; the idea of leaving her is ridiculous. He reaches out to wrap her in his arms, but she raises a hand to stop him.

“Not yet,” she says. “We’re together again. Does it not feel like a dream?”

“A beautiful dream,” John agrees. “But what happened? How did you disappear?”

She silences him with a finger over his lips. “Don’t prod too hard. Soon, we’ll be united. Inseparable. Do you wish for that?”

“More than anything else.”

Smiling, Molly puts her slim hand on a door handle set in the tree and pulls.

A rectangular door set in the tree swings open. Light spills out, much brighter than any John has seen since he woke up on the lake. When his eyes have adapted, he sees Molly’s flat. Giddiness threatens to leave him outside as the door starts to close, but he rallies, pushes the door open, and steps inside.

Everything is in place. Molly’s shoes stand next to her slippers in the small hallway, right under the large mirror. The clock on the wall tells John it’s late afternoon, though the second hand does not move. The kitchen window opens to a panorama of a snowstorm so dense he cannot see the house across the street.

There is a glassy sheen to the kitchen wall. Wondering if moisture is seeping through the wallpaper, he runs his finger against the fabric and looks closer. It is not water, but a thin layer of ice.

“John?” Molly calls from the bedroom.

Pulled by the gravity of her voice, John turns around. “I’m coming,” he says but pauses in the doorway and frowns. “There’s something wet on the floor.”

Looking down, he finds himself standing barefoot in a pool of red. The sight makes him uncomfortable; it does not belong here. He winces, steps away, and enters the bedroom.

Molly’s sits among the sheets with a blanket wrapped around her. Patches of slick ice cover the walls, the psychedelic posters, the Post-it notes and the postcards nailed to the small notice board. The first painting he gave her hangs centred over the bed, perfectly horizontal in an apartment where order and straight angles used to be as rare as complaints and worries. The plastic alarm clock on the bedside table is cracked almost in half.

He longs to shed his dirty clothes and ground himself in her existence. “I’m so tired,” he says. “And so cold.”

Molly shifts under the blankets and opens them a fraction. “Come here and warm me.”

John takes off his trousers, throws away his shirt, and strips to his underwear. The piercing chill is a taut shell around his skin. Before he grows too cold to move, he puts one foot in the bed and remembers the red pool in the hallway.

“My feet are dirty,” he says.

She glances down and shrugs. “It doesn’t matter. That’s the past.”

“But I’ll ruin your sheets.” John notices more red blotches staining the floor in the bedroom. “Is that blood?” he asks, his teeth chattering.

“It’s history, my love. Can you change the past?”

“Of course not,” John answers.

“Then there’s no reason to fret. Now come.”

Trying not to look at the footprints he leaves on the cotton, John climbs into the bed. Molly wraps the blankets over John’s shoulder. Her hand is impossibly cold, but he longs to link his fingers with hers, the way they always did after they made love.

He tries to relax and savour the moment, but he cannot banish the image of the grimy blotches on the spotless sheets. They disgust him.

“I have to clean my feet,” John mutters.

“Hush.”

“But–”

“Sing with me.”

Bewildered, John falters. The cold seeps through his skin. “I can’t sing,” he stammers. “You know I can’t.”

“Everyone can. Everyone does. We’ll sing a song for us. You and I. Can you do that? For me?”

“I think so.” The cold is slowing his thoughts to a trickle. He remembers the desperate need that drove him before he found Molly again. There is something he should remember. Warning of lies and deception. The notion of a door.

John looks up to the painting above the bed. The image has changed; it still portrays Molly, but she is pressing her hands flat against an invisible surface, as if trapped behind a pane of glass. Her face is alive, every contour and curve animated. She gestures anxiously, points to the door, and mouths inaudible words.

She wants him to leave, head back to the nocturnal world from which he has found respite. When he shakes his head, the Molly in the painting presses her hands together, as if praying for him to run.

John turns away. He has already run. He found a door and a way out. He found Molly. There is nothing else he wants.

“Ignore that,” the Molly in his arms whispers. “It’s time to let go and be mine.”

She moves closer and closes her mouth over John’s.

Winter fills John’s body. His heart slows down. Molly grips his arms and pulls him closer while ice crawls over John’s skin, encasing him, shielding him from past horrors and future pain. Memories stream back from the void, evoked by seeing Molly’s face in the painting above the bed: He remembers the shot, running up the stairs, seeing the bedroom. All he treasured gone so quickly, so easily, taken by a twitch and a minuscule piece of metal.

As if sensing John’s sudden remembrance, Molly’s kiss grows more passionate. Mercifully, the hurt fades, and John relaxes. This is his reward. This is his closure. This is what Molly would have wanted.

No.

Uncertainty rises from the depth of his dwindling mind. John tries to smother the doubt, but it flares back to life.

No.

She wouldn’t.

“Wait–” John tries to speak, but Molly holds his mouth to hers.

“Don’t,” she growls. “Kiss me.”

Repelled by the unexpected doubt, John pushes Molly away. This is wrong. The painting brought back the true picture of Molly, and it jars violently with the woman who clings to him in this bedroom.

His Molly had loved life, heat, vigour, loud laughter and wild colours. This descent into a frozen stasis would be the real Molly’s utmost horror; she had hated every form of rigidity. The woman in his arms is an icicle; his real love had been a bonfire in a purple dress.

Drawing strength from his conviction, John arches his neck, and the coating of ice over his face cracks.

“Get away from me,” John says.

Still trying to force John’s mouth to hers, Molly screeches. She still looks like the real Molly, but John glimpses an emptiness underneath her appearance, as if she were a chasm disguised by a lacquer of looks and mannerisms. He does not know what this creature means, wants, or comes from, but he needs to break away before the cold overwhelms him.

“You’re mine,” the woman growls in his ear. “Always mine.” Her voice is feral and strained. “I’ve waited too long to let you go.”

John manages to push her away, centimetre by centimetre, until her teeth fill his vision. “Liar,” he wheezes. “You damned – fucking –
fraud
.”

Piece by piece, the ice cracks and falls off John’s skin. The cold is still fierce, but the deceit has made him furious. He has been screwed over at the very edge of his life.

With a final shove, John tumbles backward out of the bed and onto the floor, falling onto his back in the pooled blood. The woman lunges for John’s face, her fingers stiff and outstretched like talons, but he dodges and crawls back.

Slowly, he rises to one knee. He is still weak, but regains his strength every moment. The blood no longer disturbs him; at last, he accepts that Molly is gone. He will choose fight instead of flight. His Molly would have wanted that.

A tremor runs through the room. The weak lights blink, fail and return. Books and posters fall to the floor.

“You’ll never get away,” the woman hisses. “No matter how you try, I’ll be waiting.” She rakes after him again, quick as a snake.

John pulls back but is too slow; she follows and closes her hands around his throat. Gasping, John pulls at her wrists, but she latches on and forces him down on his back on the bed.

“If you won’t come in spirit,” she hisses, “you’ll come in flesh.”

Ink fills John’s vision. His will to fight ebbs away. He tries to strike her, but manages only a limp slap.

“This isn’t the union I had in mind,” she says and smiles, “but I work with what I have. Now give in. Give up. Let go. Throw away–”

The woman’s smile melts into surprise. Her grip around John’s throat eases. She tries to speak but only a grunt leaves her lips, followed by a string of saliva. John pulls back as the woman trembles and crashes to the floor.

Behind her is Miriam, gazing at John with wide eyes. In her right hand is a large paintbrush. The length of the shaft is soaked in blood. A new tremble shakes the furniture and makes the lights blink again.

“Jesus Christ,” John croaks. He is too staggered by the struggle and Miriam’s reappearance to be embarrassed by his nakedness.

Leaning forward, he gazes at the body on the floor. The woman who had posed as Molly lies on her chest with her arms twisted under her. Between her shoulder blades is a deep, gaping hole.

“You killed her with a paintbrush,” John says. He looks at the brush. “My paintbrush,” he adds. “I remember that one. It’s great for fixing mistakes.”

“Your memories come in handy,” Miriam says. “But I’m afraid it is still alive. That was only a spectre. One of its many tentacles. The beast below lives on, and it’s madder than ever.”

She holds out a hand to John. He accepts it, stands up, and together they stumble out into the hall.

“How are your legs?” Miriam asks.

John looks down. “I can stand. If I concentrate.”

“Then focus,” Miriam says and grips his hand harder. “Because we’re going to run.”

*