Siren Song: A Different Scandinavian Crime Novel (8 page)

“Correct.”

“Any trace of him?” Lena looks at Agnes, who is talking to someone on her own radio.

“He got to the train station and then disappeared. Just like John, really. He could’ve made it onto a train, for all we know. Security don’t remember seeing him.”

“Get the footage from the station,” Lena says. “We know roughly when he was there.”

“We’ll try.”

“Don’t try, just – look, we need that fucking image, understood? I’m going to the station now. Out.”

Lena thrusts her radio back into her pocket before she loses her temper completely. She can tell by a glance at Agnes’s face that Agnes has bad news.

“What?” Lena asks.

“There’s been an assault on the underground,” Agnes says. “At Alvik. That’s only three stops from Abrahamsberg.”

“What happened?”

“Someone attacked a passenger with a knife.”

“That doesn’t have to be related to John,” Lena says. “Molly’s murderer has a gun.”

“It’s unclear what happened, but the description of one of the men sounds vaguely like John.”

“Oh.” Lena runs her hands through her hair and tries to think. Neither man would want to get into a fight; both of them would hope to stay unnoticed, out of sight and mind. “Is anyone in custody?” she asks.

Agnes shakes her head. “So far, only the underground security is on the scene, but two police patrols are on their way. Do you want to go there?”

Still holding her hair back, Lena sighs. She wants to run to her car, speed to the scene, and get to the bottom of what is going on. At the same time, she needs to ensure they get the footage of the mysterious second man. The tangled leads pull and spin her in different directions. And instead of following up on either lead, she must run a briefing at the police headquarters.

“We’re going back to the station,” Lena says and walks out of the room.

Agnes pockets her notepad and follows Lena out into the stairwell. “I overheard some of what you said on the radio,” she says. “Are we looking for the wrong man?”

“I don’t know. At any rate, we have two suspects: John Andersson and the man who ran from the flat just before him.”

They shut the door, seal it with a strip of crime scene tape, and leave the humid stairwell for the biting winter night. Moments later, Lena’s car swerves out onto the road. Agnes’s car follows close behind.

Agnes calls just as Lena clears the roundabout.

“Could the other man have been someone she saw on the side?” Agnes asks.

“I’ve thought about it,” Lena admits and winces as a cloud of snow eclipses her sight of the road. “But do you remember the wine glasses and the candle in the kitchen?”

“Sure.”

“If I were cheating on my partner, I wouldn’t do so next to a window. She planned to eat with John. Only someone else came knocking first.”

She stares down the tunnel of churning snow, checks her speedometer, and forces herself to slow down. Crashing now would see her lose hours, and she was already too far behind her quarry.

“Then what’s John doing?” she asks. “Why is he running?”

The traffic lights ahead turn yellow, and Lena shoots across the intersection just as the lights turn red.

“I’m not so sure he’s running,” Lena says. “I’m starting to think he’s doing the opposite. The shopkeeper near Molly’s place believes the same.”

“Oh, God.” Agnes is silent for a few seconds. “What do we do now?”

“I need to think. We’ll talk at the station.”

*

John

The door slams shut behind John as soon as he enters the school. Breathing hard, he stands still and looks around. He had tried to prepare himself for what could hide behind the doors: another frozen lake, deep pits or more of the terrifying smoke.

What he had not expected was more caves.

Miriam’s lantern shines through the windows behind him and allows him to make out the jagged ceiling. It stretches into the darkness, but it also arches down. Somewhere ahead it would seal the grotto into a subterranean dome. Under his feet, the coarse rock is coated with a layer of frost. At least there is no sign of the horrid smoke in here. He hopes Miriam managed to get away too.

He turns around to walk up to the window and stops in mid-step.

The school’s façade is fake. All its features, the bricks, the clock and the texture of cement, are painted on a gigantic canvas propped up by diagonal timber planks. Walking closer, he makes out crooked nails, wooden splinters and knotholes in the wood that supports the enormous screen.

A new word flicks through his mind:
Theatre.
The exterior belongs on a stage. On the other side should be an audience, and the school would be an elaborate backdrop.

“Why here?” he asks himself. “And why this?”

A glow shines through a window and is followed by the smudged image of Miriam’s face. She holds up her lantern next to her head and squints into the darkness, looking for John.

“Hello?” she shouts. “Are you all right? The smoke is gone.”

John exhales with relief; Miriam is on the other side of the impossible window, but at least she is safe.

“I’m fine,” John calls back.

“Can you open the door?” Miriam asks.

John pushes at the door but it does not budge. “It’s stuck,” he says. “But there’s nothing here on this side. Just more cave.”

“Are you sure?”

“I think so, although I can’t see very far. Oh, and the wall’s fake. It’s a stage prop. Just as crazy as everything else,” he adds more quietly.

“You used to smoke,” Miriam says after a moment. “Have you checked your pockets?”

“I used to what – hang on.” He pats his trousers and feels a small hard object in his left pocket. A cigarette lighter. He knows it wasn’t there a moment ago, yet at the same time, he has a feeling that it has been there a long time, or at least used to be.

I will wake up soon
, he thinks.
Any minute now.

He takes the lighter out, flicks the lid, and flinches at the reek of gasoline. After a few tries, an orange flame rises from the wick. Real or not, he is thankful; the darkness is almost as bad as the smoke that had chased him.

“Voilà,” Miriam says. “You have to go on now. I’ll join you again as soon as I can. I promise. After all, it can’t expect you to do this on your own.”

“Please hurry,” he says. The idea of walking alone terrifies him.

“Remember this,” Miriam calls through the window. “To break out, you’ll have to win battles you’ve won before. Also, the answer will be right in front of you. The way they often are.”

She smiles at him through the smudged window, but her concern is evident: Miriam is as afraid as he is.

John nods, turns away, and walks deeper into the cave, holding his lighter high in the air. The lighter illuminates a small island so faint he risks walking straight into a wall. The echoes of his steps return as the sound of scurrying beetles.

“Madness,” he whispers into the silence.

He walks on, nervously testing the ground before him. By now he should have found the opposite wall. At some point, the base of the dome-shaped ceiling must meet the ground, but the cave keeps surrounding him with the pressure of immensity.

Soon the lighter gets so hot he can barely hold it. His eyes ache from peering into the dark around him. Still nothing. Only blackness. He stops, rubs his face with his free hand, then looks up and stumbles back in surprise.

In front of him is a pale white square, hanging face-high on a wall he had not seen. Slowly, he approaches it, prepared for more devilish surprises. The square is as wide as his arms spread wide, and its borders look soft and uneven, as if lined with cotton or foam. A freezing cold radiates from it.

Walking closer still, he realizes that the brilliant white surface is broken up by glittering fragments of crystal white. Some of the fragments are falling off the square’s lower edge and land softly on the ground at John’s feet.
He leans close to the square and sniffs. It smells of winter and, more faintly, chemicals.

As he pulls back, a thud comes from the square. Another thud follows, then a distant shout. More sounds follow, coming from behind the powdery square.

Moving closer again, he hears voices: incoherent babbling and quiet murmurs, loud sighs and a muffled cough. He sweeps at the white substance; then he brings his fingers into the light of the cigarette lighter.

It is snow. The white panel is a block of ice with voices inside.

“Come on,” John mumbles. “Make sense.”

He brushes away more snow and pulls his fingers back when they touch a hard surface. When nothing jumps out to attack him, he reaches out gingerly and prods the surface. Perfectly smooth, like glass or ice
.

He keeps on brushing and sees movements in the surface, faint shadows stirring within the material, shifting and blending. The voices become more distinct, but they are too hushed for him to make out any words. Soon the shadows grow sharper and more substantial. Colours emerge, first blurred, then separating and crystallising into shapes. A ceiling and a floor. Walls and objects.

And people.

Weak with confusion, he stares at the square as the image solidifies. A large room with green and beige walls, lit by bright strip lights in the ceiling. On the floor are wide drawers and white shelves lined with folders. In one end of the room is a rectangular desk, in the other a large circle of easels with huge canvases.

Standing by the easels are children in their early teens, perhaps even younger. They work on their paintings while they whisper, moan and sigh.

John recognizes them. He could tick off every person before him: The chatting beauty. The quiet one. The alpha male. The fidgeting, brainy girl. The nervous prankster boy. The freckled athlete. A dozen more, all of them wearing faces two decades old. He knows them all. And they would know him. The room had been in his old school, and he had been inside it many times.

“It can’t be,” he breathes. The hairs on his arms stand upright.

In a moment of overwhelming vertigo, he presses his face to the surface and scans the room for his own face, but he is not there. Shuddering, he breathes out, then shouts in surprise when a boy’s face appears on the other side.

The boy stares at John. Twelve or thirteen years old, narrow chin, blond curls. A kind, soft
face. A name floats around the boy’s features.
Fred?
Close, but not right.
Fredrik.

Frowning, the boy motions for John to come closer, looks over his shoulder, and moves his hands down, out of John’s sight.

John takes a cautious step forward, then leaps back again when the surface slides upwards and vanishes. In its place is a wooden window frame.

“Are you crazy?” the boy wheezes.
He keeps his hands in the air, as if holding up a window that could come crashing down. “Get back in before Lennart sees you. He’ll be at your easel soon.”

John’s tongue is stuck to the roof of his mouth. He catches a glimpse of an adult teacher at the far end of the classroom. The sight brushes against more memories, but this time the sensation is that of stirring a nest of snakes. These recollections are faint and unwilling to become clearer, and he is happy to leave them alone.

Fredrik looks at John and grimaces. “Stop being weird,” he urges. “Come on, hop in.”

“
I’m
weird?” John asks, unable to think of anything else to say.

The boy pulls a face. “You’re the one out in the cold. We’re in here. What do you think?”

“I think I’m losing my mind.”

“Better hurry up in here and catch it, then. The window’s heavy. You can’t hold it much longer.”

John looks up at the boy’s hands. “But you’re the one holding it up.”

“You nutter.” Fredrik laughs. “In or out. What’s it going to be?”

John clenches and unclenches his fists. There are no other passages from the cave. He has to go on, through whatever door he can. Reaching out, he waves his hand in the space beyond the window, inside the room. The air is almost as cold as outside where he stands.

John puts one foot on the ledge, heaves himself up, and stumbles into the classroom.

*

The steam of John’s breaths trail behind him as he runs over the bridge.

The strait below, frozen solid for weeks, is a wrinkled field covered by wisps of snow sailing over the dunes like clouds. Two trains pass him, but no passengers look at him except a boy who presses his face against the window. A police car heading in the other direction swishes past, sirens baying. In front of him is Stockholm city, a glittering mound behind the curtain of snow.

He passes the crest of the bridge and continues down. Far ahead at the next station are the tail lights of a train. Just before the station, the bridge touches land, and the railing is flanked by fences and barbed wire. Near the station is a door in the fence that leads out to a street.

He slows down and walks up to the door. It is locked with a large padlock, shielded from rain by a cover of brushed steel. John lowers his bag to the ground, takes out his keys, selects one and opens the lock. Once outside, he shuts the door and looks around.

Kristineberg, a suburb-cum-part-of-the-city, is a cluster of tall blocks of flats divided by a long park and the underground rail. Most buildings are huddled close together, their forties-era fronts overlooking the strait below. Wedged in between the blocks are rows of streets that run towards a high-rise.

Normally a busy area, tonight there a few in sight. A man pulling a reluctant dog. Farther away, a group of people carrying plastic bags full of clinking bottles. On his left, a couple marching hand in hand towards the station, their heads bent against the wind.

John chooses one of the streets and runs up the incline. In the distance are sirens calling from the depth of the storm. He runs faster, past parties, closed shops, and snowed-in cars, past music, laughter, coughs and cries. He crosses a street, turns a corner and stops, resting with his hands on his knees.

The sirens are coming closer. Around another corner are a few concrete steps that lead down to a brown metal door leading to a windowless basement. A sign on the door reads
Argenti Advertising
.

John unlocks the door with his keys, shuts it behind him, and locks it again. Strip lights splutter in the ceiling and light up the room.

The basement holds racks with leftover posters, shelves stacked with cans of glue, boxes full of solvents, rollers, sticky tape, cutters, and a pair of large halogen torches. On his left is the door to a small bathroom. In a corner stand three aluminium ladders.

Along a wall, jackets and caps are draped over a row of hooks. Facing him is a large cracked mirror. In another corner are piles of blue overalls. Green plastic bins brim with cigarette packets and polystyrene cups. Unwashed coffee cups line a metal sink, next to a bench with an old filter coffee brewer. A rusted bicycle leans against one wall.

In a corner is a desk teeming with Post-it notes, cheap pens, worn folders and phone books. Next to the desk are a grey office chair and a double-door metal cabinet locked by a small padlock. John chooses a key from his key ring and opens the lock.

The cabinet is packed with equipment. On the lower shelves, toolboxes and batteries stand side by side between rows of headlights for helmets and walkie-talkies. On the top shelf, next to a tangle of computer cables, is an inkjet printer.

John puts the printer on the desk, sweeps away a layer of dust, and plugs in the power cord. He turns the printer on and places a stack of schedules upside down in the paper tray. The printer hums and whirrs, and stops. A red light blinks on its front.

John rummages among the cables, selects one and connects it to the printer. He takes out the laptop and, after a few tries, connects the other end of the cable to the computer, and switches it on. When the computer has booted up, he sits down on the chair and browses the files on its hard drive.

After nearly twenty minutes, he pauses at an image of a running man who is facing the camera. The image is small, but the quality is good. A lean, pale man, perhaps thirty years old. His face is a mask of stress. Thick stubble, dark hair, blue eyes. In his right ear is a small ring. John prints the image and puts it on the desk.

There is a knock on the door.

John slips one of the image into a plastic folder and puts the folder in his bag.

Another knock, this time long and insistent.

He rises from the chair, takes one of the knives from his bag, stands next to the door, and flicks the light switch. Darkness fills the room.

A key rasps in the door’s lock, and the door swings open. Pale street lights illuminate the snowflakes blown inside. Hesitantly, a man steps into the room and stamps hard on the floor to shake the snow off his boots.

“Anyone here?” the man asks as he fiddles with a dark cylinder in his hand.

Standing at an angle behind the man, John moves forward with the knife held low, but his planned strike misses as the beam of a flashlight explodes in his face.

The man who has entered staggers backwards with a choked scream. John trips over a toolbox and slams back-first into the ladders, which topple and fall down around him with piercing bangs.

As John pushes the ladders away and rises up, the strip lights come back on.

“John?” The man with the torch leans against the opposite wall. “It’s me, Nils. I almost had a heart attack, for God’s sake. Didn’t you recognize me?”

“I thought someone was trying to break in,” John says. “I’m so sorry. Are you all right?”

“You nearly scared me to death,” Nils says and laughs nervously. “Why weren’t the lights on?”

“I wanted to hide. I guess I panicked a little.” John makes a sheepish grimace and shrugs.

“You’re paranoid, mate.” Nils peers at John. “Actually, you look terrible. Have you slept at all lately? And is that blood on your face?”

“It’s gouache,” John says. “I’ve been up all night painting.”

“What about your hands?” Nils asks, noticing the gash on John’s hand.

“I slipped with a knife back home. It looks much worse than it is. I’m going to clean it up in a bit.”

“If you say so,” Nils says, sounding unconvinced. “Are you working tonight? I thought you were off to see your girlfriend.”

“I’ll see her later. There’s something I need to fix first.”

“Well, lucky you.” Nils shakes his head. “I’ve got shifts the whole weekend, and the tunnels are fucking freezing. I’m just going to grab a few batteries, then I’m off. As soon as I get my breath back,” he adds with a forced laugh.

Nils sits down in the office chair with a heavy thump and points at the computer. “Is that yours?”

John nods. “I’m printing a birthday card for my girlfriend.”

“On this?” Nils taps the printer. “I’m surprised it works. It’s as old as my son.” A ringtone beeps from his pocket. He checks the screen and rolls his eyes.

“It’s the boss,” he says. “Probably thinks I’m in a pub.” Sighing, he takes the call.

John turns away and pretends to examine his damaged jacket while he watches Nils in the mirror.

“No, I’m at Kristineberg,” Nils says to the person on the other end of the conversation. “My torch gave up. I’ll be at the site in fifteen minutes. What?” He frowns and presses his phone to his ear. “Yes, I have. Why?”

Behind Nils’s back, John takes a step closer to Nils.

“Oh,” Nils says. He scratches at his neck and swallows. “Look, can I call you back in a few minutes? The reception’s bad in here.”

Slowly, John crouches down and reaches for a toolbox next to his feet.

*