The Intruder (41 page)

*   *   *

Three minutes later Fredrik held the fax in his hand. Pity that not everyone he dealt with was as efficient as Hannes Wiklander.

The fax consisted of four pages. The first was a form from the newspaper human resources department with Katja Nyberg’s personal information. The other three pages were the application to the temporary position with attached CV.

In 2005 she had earned her degree from the journalism school in Gothenburg.

77.

“Here she is, Katja Nyberg.”

Fredrik set the passport photo on Sara’s desk.

The woman in the picture had shoulder-length blond hair, sad eyes, and a broad mouth with full lips.

“No chapped skin on the cheek,” said Sara.

“The passport is three years old.”

For the moment there were things that interested him more than skin complaints.

“She was born in Gävle in 1978. She moves to Uppsala with her parents in 1993 and then to Gothenburg in 2001 to study. And finally to Malmö where she now lives. Uppsala, Gothenburg, and then the hotel in Copenhagen. Where she demonstrably has met Henrik Kjellander.”

Fredrik was trying to keep a cool head, but there was too much that matched. This could really be something.

“Look here.”

He unfolded the map of Gothenburg he had brought with him and set it down on the desk.

“Here is the journalism school, or JMG as it seems to be called now,” he said and pointed.

He moved his finger to a different part of the city.

“Katja Nyberg lived here on Kommendörsgatan while she was studying in Gothenburg. Say that she took the streetcar to the university, got off here at Kaptensgatan, that’s the nearest stop.”

Fredrik follows the streetcar line with his index finger.

“In that case every day she went past…”

He let his finger come down on the map with a tapping sound.

“Prinsgatan 8!”

“The last tenant in Kalbjerga,” said Sara and looked up from the map. “The fake address.”

She let her eyes glide over the map again.

“But she also passes thirty or more other streets.”

“I know. I would have been more satisfied, too, if it was in the neighboring block. But this is not chance,” he said, throwing out his hand toward the map.

“There seems to be one coincidence too many, I agree with that, but…”

Sara took her eyes off the map, not looking really convinced.

“These are big cities, a lot of people could fit this.”

“She was at St. Petri. She met Henrik in the bar.”

“Take it easy, I just mean that it would be good to have something more.”

“Look at this,” said Fredrik impatiently.

He set out the information from the tax authorities and the insurance office.

“She has had extremely uneven income, even after her education. Besides the temporary position at
Sydsvenska Dagbladet
she has only had one other journalist job. Otherwise she has worked for a staffing agency. Maybe not so strange in itself, but she has also had several longer medical leaves. After the second year at JMG she interrupted her studies for six months.”

“Maybe the interruption in studies coincides with the sick leave,” said Sara.

She started looking through the papers from the insurance office.

“Yes, look at this!”

She turned the paper so that Fredrik could read it and pointed at one of the lines.

“She was on sick leave two months during the year she had a break in her studies.”

“You see,” he said.

“Although this is only circumstantial evidence and hardly that. It would be better if we could prove that she was in Uppsala on the fourth of June.”

“Yes, but we can’t question her parents before we—”

He interrupted himself.

“What is it?” asked Sara.

“Damn,” he said. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

He was already on his way out the door.

“Think about what?” Sara called after him.

Fredrik hurried into his office and grabbed the phone. He called
Sydsvenska Dagbladet
and asked to speak with Hannes Wiklander. He waited impatiently and listened to a desolate snapping on the phone. After a long minute the receptionist came back.

“He’s not answering. You can have his cell phone number if it’s urgent.”

Fredrik thought about it.

“Can you connect me to the payroll office?” he asked instead.

There he got a response. It took the woman on the other end twenty seconds to pull out Katja Nyberg’s travel expense account from November sixteenth. The destination was Copenhagen.

It was Katja Nyberg who wrote the comment on Malin Andersson’s blog.

78.

Göran stood up behind the desk when Fredrik and Sara were far enough along in their story that he could understand the importance of it.

“Now you’ll have to tell it to Klint,” he said. “Then we’ll see if we should bring her in.”

They hurried over to the prosecutor, found him in his office, and told the whole story again, unfolded the map of Gothenburg.

“And how would this fit together, do you think?” said Klint, rocking backward in his chair. “How do you see it?”

Fredrik looked at Sara, who nodded that he should respond.

“Rather simple,” he started. “Katja Nyberg meets Henrik at St. Petri; either they start a relationship, or else it’s just something she wants. Let’s say that they do. Henrik soon gets tired of it, or realizes that it’s not a good idea, but for Katja Nyberg it gets much bigger. He is forced to make it clear to her that he is not interested, not in that way. He has children and has no intent of leaving Malin.”

“So far an ordinary extramarital affair,” said Klint, adjusting the watch on his left wrist.

“Yes. Exactly what happens with Katja Nyberg later, I don’t know, I can’t make a diagnosis, but for some reason she can’t let go. She finds Henrik Kjellander’s house on GotlandsResor’s website, maybe she’s looking to rent something else on Fårö, to be near him, maybe see him, get him to change his mind. But now she gets in sight of his house and gets a different idea. She chooses a street in Gothenburg from memory, searches for an existing family on the street, creates a Gmail address, and rents the house. At that point maybe she doesn’t even know why. And then, well, you know what happens then. The threats, Ellen, and finally the murders.”

Peter Klint looked worriedly at them.

“Shouldn’t Henrik have said something?”

“He kept quiet about Malin’s sister,” said Fredrik.

“Yes, but when that thing about Maria came out in the open he ought to have had the sense to tell about this, too. If it really is as you believe.”

“So what do we do?” said Sara.

Peter Klint thought a moment and then tipped his chair forward. That was clearly the decision-making position.

“Find out as much as you can about Katja Nyberg until…”

He looked at the clock.

“Shall we say five?”

“You don’t think this is enough?” said Fredrik.

Peter Klint got a sharp crease between his eyebrows.

“I want to do this in the right order. We should get to the bottom with this woman, but before we bring her in I want to know more. Okay?”

“Okay.”

They got up and Fredrik folded the map.

“And then you have to question Kjellander.”

*   *   *

It was twenty to three; in other words, they had over two hours to work with. Fredrik and Sara quickly divided up the work between them and Fredrik ended up with Henrik.

Henrik was in the car when he got hold of him.

“It’s a little hard to talk right now,” he said. “I’m sitting here with Ellen.”

“I understand,” said Fredrik.

“I’m on my way to Fårö.”

“I heard that you had decided to move home.”

Ellen’s voice was heard in the background. Henrik asked her to wait.

“It wasn’t good for Ellen at that hotel. Not for me, either. It was like sitting in jail. Don’t be offended. I know that you tried to arrange everything for the best and I’m grateful for that, but we simply had to get out of there.”

“No, I understand but—”

“Listen, can I call you when I get there?” said Henrik politely but a little stressed.

Fredrik considered whether he should say something about Nyberg or wait. He decided to mention her anyway.

“We have to talk about Katja Nyberg.”

“I see?” said Henrik lingeringly.

“We think that you met her in Copenhagen on the fourth of October. At the hotel.”

Henrik did not answer. Fredrik could hear engine sounds and the sound of tires against asphalt. “Is that true?”

“Yes, it’s true. But listen, I have to hang up now. I’ll have to call you when I get there.”

79.

Henrik slowed down and inched the final bit up to where Malin’s Honda was still parked. It was three o’clock in the afternoon and the sky was covered by a thin layer of clouds. The gravel cracked under the rough tires of the SUV.

One of the police officers who worked with the crime-scene investigation had driven the Mercedes down to Visby for him. Fredrik Broman had been considerate enough to ask whether he needed his car. Henrik thought that sooner or later he probably would. He hadn’t intended to stay in Visby forever.

“Mommy’s car,” said Ellen in a pitiful voice.

Henrik had stopped completely. He reached out a hand and carefully stroked her across the head.

“Yes,” he said.

He listened to the rough rumbling of the engine under the hood and looked down toward the house. It was the same. Yet he got the feeling of a summer house that had been closed up for the winter. Things put away in the garden, locked up.

He put the car in reverse, backed in beside the Honda, and turned off the engine. They remained sitting without moving, silent. He listened for sounds, something to fix his attention on, but heard nothing. Realized at last that he was the one who would have to break the paralysis.

“Shall we get out?” he said, pulling the key out of the ignition.

“Okay,” said Ellen, opening the door on her side.

Henrik got out of the car and took the groceries and the bag of clothes and other belongings they had with them at the hotel, carrying them in one hand. He locked the car and took Ellen by his free hand. He had to let go of her to open the gate, squeezing through with what he was carrying and closing it behind them.

Katja Nyberg? The woman at St. Petri? Did Fredrik Broman mean that they were investigating her? It sounded completely nuts. Would it continue like this? Would they hunt out every woman he had ever looked at, turn his whole life inside out?

He tried to picture Katja Nyberg here at Fårö, but it didn’t work. She was a woman in a bar in a hotel in another country.

He looked toward the edge of the forest, saw how it darkened where the trees got denser. He heard in the distance the call of a bird. He knew nothing about birds, thought it sounded like a call from someone who had been abandoned deep in the forest.

Had he made the right decision? Maybe they should have left the island instead, chosen a completely different place. Maybe he had already made the wrong decision two years ago, when they decided to buy the house.

“Daddy?”

Ellen looked at him inquiringly. He smiled at her, squeezed her hand, and continued down toward the house.

He felt a growing discomfort as they got closer, but it was not fear. He squeezed Ellen’s hand. It helped a little, made it so that he didn’t collapse, anyway. He had not believed that it would be like this to lose someone. He had not believed that he would feel so terribly alone.

Henrik asked Ellen to wait at the bottom of the steps while he took out the key and unlocked the front door. He opened it carefully and looked in.

The hall and kitchen bore no trace of what had happened. The only thing that betrayed what had played out there was the feeling of vacuum. The hall was empty. Clothes, shoes, umbrellas and shoe horns, and all imaginable accessories that had been hanging on hooks, put away on shelves, or simply tossed somewhere were gone.

Henrik did not know where they had gone. Some of it the crime-scene technicians had surely taken care of, but the rest? Had the cleaning company thrown it away?

He tried to convince himself that it didn’t matter. He turned around and waved Ellen to him.

“Come in,” he said.

He tried to take a few bold steps into the house even though his legs felt uncertain and his heart was pounding hard in his chest. He did not want to transfer his emotions to Ellen. The room meant nothing to her and he really wanted it to stay that way. She knew nothing. Not about that.

“Take off your shoes,” he admonished her when she was on her way in across the newly scrubbed floor.

It was almost strange how clean and innocent the room seemed. How had they gone about it? The walls shone white. Had they repainted them? He sniffed the air. It did not smell like paint.

Ellen got out of her shoes and Henrik turned around and closed the door. He turned the lock, went over to the alarm’s control panel, which had been placed at the back of the wardrobe closet so it was concealed from the entry, and activated the cameras. He quickly shifted between the three cameras to assure himself that they worked. The gate and road up by the parking area, the stairs outside the door, and the hall.

Henrik continued into the kitchen and set the grocery bag down on the table. Let it stay there. He looked around the kitchen and again got a feeling that he had come to a summer cabin that had stood empty over the winter. That he and Ellen had made a little outing to the country, were staying in someone else’s house. A house that for some inexplicable reason was full of their personal belongings.

He heard a couple of thuds from the living room and went there. Ellen had laid down on her back on the couch with the red jeans jacket on. Henrik sat down beside her and placed a hand on her lower leg.

CDs, DVDs, magazines in a careless pile on the coffee table, toys on the floor, a sweater across a chair, three glass candleholders with burned-down candle stubs. Outside the window the lilacs rocked from a gust of wind.