The Man Who Watched Women (21 page)

Number 19 Tolléns väg was one of many well-cared-for, charming houses in one of many residential areas near Stockholm. Hours of dedication and love had gone into the garden, Sebastian noticed, but otherwise there was nothing unusual about the place. Only the bright yellow sign on the front door gave away the fact that a tragedy had occurred here:
CRIME SCENE. NO ENTRY
. Vanja led the way up the steps and unlocked the door. Sebastian was in less of a hurry, and stopped on the neatly swept path to look at the house. Two storeys. Red-tiled roof. Yellow with white window frames. Clean and tidy, with curtains at the windows, plants in white pots. Until just a few days ago, a couple with dreams and aspirations had lived here. They might not have wanted to stand out. But they had wanted to live.

Vanja opened the door and looked back at him. ‘Are you coming?'

‘Absolutely.' Sebastian joined her and they went inside. It was oppressively warm, with a stuffy, almost sweet metallic smell. She must have bled a great deal, Sebastian thought, if the smell was still around.

‘Where's the bedroom?'

‘She was murdered upstairs. What is it we're looking for?'

‘I want to see the bedroom first.'

Vanja nodded irritably and led the way. ‘Up here.'

They made their way up the stairs, subdued. It was always like this. Death had a way of lowering voices, slowing things down. They reached the bedroom and stopped in the doorway. The room was decorated in beautiful yellow textured wallpaper with a restful pattern. The curtains were closed; the bedclothes had been removed, but the large dark stain that had spread across the double mattress said it all. Sebastian walked slowly into the room and looked around.

‘So what is it we've missed?' Vanja sounded impatient.

‘A little room, a cubby hole or a cupboard,' Sebastian replied, crouching down by the bed.

Vanja looked at him wearily and pointed to the white sliding door on the other side of the room. ‘There are some wardrobes in here.'

Sebastian shook his head without even looking at them. ‘It has to be lockable from the outside.' He stayed where he was and gazed around the room. On the bedside table a few paperback books lay in front of a black and white photograph of a smiling couple in a silver frame. Splashes of blood on the glass. Richard and Katharina Granlund. He recognised her from the briefing back at the station. He picked up the photograph.

‘Okay, so what's supposed to be in this cupboard?' he heard from the doorway.

Sebastian didn't reply, but went on staring at the picture in his hand. They were standing on a beach somewhere, and they looked happy and in love. The woman was hugging the man, who was gazing straight into the camera. It looked like Gotland, or maybe Öland. A shingle beach somewhere. One summer not so very long ago. Or a lifetime ago, if you were the grieving husband. He gently replaced the photograph. A thought.

Faint.

Fleeting.

Sebastian reached for the photograph again.

‘I said, what's supposed to be in this cupboard?'

Vanja was starting to get annoyed. Sebastian decided to forget about the photograph; he straightened up and looked at her. ‘Food.'

Vanja went back downstairs while Sebastian methodically checked the upper floor. There were three more rooms; one seemed to be the couple's shared study, with a printer and photocopier. He presumed Billy had taken the computer. Along one wall a bookcase contained everything from Tom Clancy thrillers to cookery books, all neatly arranged. Sebastian didn't find what he was looking for, and went back to the small living room.

In passing he glanced into the bathroom, which looked as if it had recently been renovated. White, clean, tiled from floor to ceiling, with both a shower and a spa bath. A decent size, the way modern couples like their bathrooms. But not what he was looking for. The dressing room would be better suited to the purpose, but it couldn't be locked from the outside.

He went downstairs. The kitchen was at the back of the house, leading out onto a large patio, with the beautifully laid out garden stretching beyond it. The kitchen was just as light and fresh as the bathroom, open and pleasant with white cupboard doors and black granite worktops. An island in the centre with two bar stools beside it. There were a few dishes on the draining board, but otherwise it was surprisingly clean and tidy. He was about to move into the dining room when Vanja called to him.

‘Sebastian!' She sounded as if she were some way off.

She shouted again, ‘Sebastian!'

‘What is it?'

‘The cellar!'

The cellar stairs were right by the front door, and it took him a little while to find them. Dark, narrow steps led down into semi-darkness. Even though the Granlunds had put up some modern art posters, it was clear that this part of the house hadn't been a priority. Gone were the bright colours and the perfect finish. It was faintly redolent of cellar, but that was almost preferable to the sweet smell in the rest of the house. At the bottom of the steps was what had evidently once been a hobby room, but it now seemed to be used mainly for storage. The ceiling was low, and Sebastian had to duck underneath hot water pipes. A window set high in one wall provided a limited amount of light, and there was a plain floor lamp in one corner of the room. Vanja was standing in front of a scruffy cupboard door, a challenging look on her face. The yellow light from the lamp behind her made her hair look like spun gold. She pointed at the door. There was an ordinary internal key in the lock.

‘What about this? Could this be what you're looking for?'

‘Have you opened it?'

‘No, I thought you'd want to do it.' She moved to one side to let him pass. ‘And I'm hoping you'll explain what we're doing here before too much longer.'

Sebastian looked at the door, then at Vanja. ‘I really hope I'm wrong.'

‘No you don't.'

He couldn't bring himself to answer; he reached out and tried the handle. The door was locked. With the other hand he turned the key. Pushed down the handle again, and the door opened. It was dark inside; the light from the lamp behind them didn't reach very far. But it was enough to make out the shape of the objects on the floor. Sebastian felt his entire body lock. His fingers groped for the light switch that he knew should be somewhere on the wall just inside the door. He found it, and the white light from the naked bulb turned his spiralling anxiety into fact.

Perfectly arranged.

A soft drink.

A packet of Marie biscuits.

Two bananas.

A bar of chocolate.

An empty chlorine bottle.

It was him. It
was
him.

Hinde.

They were back in the Room. Vanja was putting up the pictures they had taken in the Granlund house. Sebastian was walking around and around. Restless. Wound up. Of all the things that could come back to haunt him, he never thought Hinde would be one of them.

‘Our man has information about Hinde's modus operandi, and there's only one way he can have acquired that information,' Sebastian said when the others were all sitting down.

‘From your books?' Ursula asked. That had also been Vanja's first thought when he had discussed his theory with her in the car on the way back from Tumba.

Without stopping his pacing, Sebastian gave Ursula the same answer he had given Vanja. ‘My books just said that he had a store of supplies. Not what. Not how.' Sebastian stopped by the board and tapped his knuckle on the picture of the neatly arranged food and drink from the Granlunds' cellar. ‘The content and the way the items are placed is absolutely identical to Edward Hinde's supplies,' he went on. ‘That hasn't been written about anywhere. Our man has had contact with him.'

‘But how?'

That had also been Vanja's response to Sebastian's assertion. Sebastian sighed; he was no wiser now than he had been in the car twenty minutes ago. He didn't know how. He just knew that he was right.

‘I don't know, but he can only have got this information from Edward.'

‘Or a police officer who was part of the investigation at the time.'

All activity in the room stopped as everyone turned to look at Billy.

‘Hinde can't communicate with the outside world, so I'm just trying to find another explanation.'

‘Sebastian, Ursula, Trolle Hermansson and I made up the investigating team back then,' Torkel said matter-of-factly. ‘Three of us are here in this room, and I think it's highly unlikely that Trolle has decided to relive his glory days by getting involved in murdering women. But we'll have a chat with him.'

Sebastian stiffened. Could Trolle have anything to do with this? He'd gone downhill, but this? He might possibly have said too much to the wrong person when he was drunk. Nobody in the team really thought he was involved, but what would happen if Vanja went to see him and started asking questions? Sebastian felt dizzy. He could just picture Vanja speaking to Trolle. Trolle telling her what Sebastian had asked him to do. Bloody hell, Vanja wouldn't even need to push him; Trolle was perfectly capable of dumping Sebastian in the shit just because it was fun. Sebastian swallowed and tried to concentrate on the discussion in the room.

‘I didn't say it was one of you. There must have been any number of uniforms and forensics around at the scenes of the crimes,' Billy persisted. ‘If you found the food, surely one of them could have seen it?'

‘I found the food afterwards. Hinde told me about it. If we'd found it,' Sebastian gestured towards his colleagues, ‘then Torkel and Ursula would have remembered it, wouldn't they?' Sebastian glared at Billy. ‘Think, for God's sake.'

‘I am thinking. I was just trying to think outside the box, that's all. So I was wrong.'

Vanja stared at her colleague, unable to conceal her surprise. It was Billy's voice, but someone else's words. Since when did Billy think outside the box? Or maybe he did, but since when did he call it that?

‘You can bring it up with Hinde tomorrow morning,' Torkel broke in. ‘Your visitors' permit has come through.'

‘What's with the food?' Ursula asked. ‘Why does he hide it away?'

‘It's in my books,' Sebastian replied curtly.

‘I haven't read your books.'

Sebastian turned to face her. She met his eyes with a contented smile. Was it possible? Had she deliberately not read the best books ever written in Swedish about serial killers, out of pure spite?

‘Neither have I,' Billy chipped in.

Sebastian sighed. Was it really the case that half the country's leading murder investigation team hadn't read his books? He knew that Vanja had, but what about Torkel? He glanced at his former colleague, but Torkel's expression gave nothing away. He must have read them, surely. Sebastian sighed again. He had spoken about Edward Hinde in a number of lectures. He knew Hinde's story inside out. It looked as if he would have to go through it again now. A shortened version, at any rate.

‘Edward grew up alone with his mother. She was bedridden. Ill. In more ways than one, unfortunately. He told me that he remembered the first time. A Wednesday. He remembered it well. He had come home from school, and he …'

… is standing in the kitchen preparing a meal. The fish fingers are sizzling in the pan. The potatoes are boiling away in a pot with the lid on, just as she taught him. He is looking forward to his dinner. He likes fish fingers, and for pudding they can share the cake that was left over from his birthday. He is humming to himself. The Beatles, ‘A Hard Day's Night'. It's at the top of the charts. He has just started slicing tomatoes when she shouts to him. He puts down the knife and switches off the cooker to be on the safe side before he goes upstairs. Sometimes she wants him to read to her, and that can take time. He doesn't read very well. It's not that long since he learned to read. He works his way slowly through simple children's books, but she says she likes to hear his voice. And it's good practice. His mother is almost always in bed. She gets up for just a few hours each day. On good days for a little longer, on bad days a lot less. Today seems like a pretty good day. She looks bright in her nightdress as she pats the space on the bed beside her invitingly. He goes over and sits down. He is an obedient child. Obedient and well-behaved. Things are going well in school. The teachers like him. He likes learning new things, and finds it easy. Both his mother and his class teacher say he is intelligent. There is talk of him starting on next year's maths work as early as the spring. His mother says he has turned into such a big boy. She says he is such a good boy. She strokes his arm and takes his hand. He is her big boy, her good boy. There's something else she would like him to do for her today. She takes a firmer grip on his hand and guides it beneath the covers. Into the warmth. She places it on her thigh. Edward looks at her enquiringly. Why does she want his hand there? Sometimes he has warmed his own hands by tucking them between his thighs when he has felt really cold, but he isn't cold now.