Chapter 105
It was all over, but it didn’t feel that way.
Killian had fallen onto his back. The knife was stuck in his chest, and as he lay on the floor its handle pointed at the ceiling, standing straight and tall as a flagpole.
Vidar was out in his car, sitting very still. He had blood on his hands and three missed calls from Adrian al-Hadid. He ignored them, leaned his head against the headrest, and closed his eyes.
Living almost half your life in the shadow of a single incident, never understanding what had happened or how.
That was what Sander Eriksson had done. Incredible, really.
But sometimes you only understand something long after the fact.
Killian had killed Mikael, Killian had killed Filip, and at last he had tried to kill Sander too. His best friend.
How had it all started?
At a party one night, a long time ago.
His phone rang again. Vidar opened his eyes and saw his boss’s name. He brought the phone to his ear and closed his eyes again.
“What the hell happened?”
“They didn’t make it in time.”
“Right, thank you, Vidar, I knew that much. An active lethal threat, and with a civilian right in the middle of it all.”
Markus was not very good at holding back his anger, never had been. Over the years, Vidar had come to appreciate this trait. An active lethal threat. Yes, that was what it had turned into. But he hadn’t expected the situation to deteriorate so badly, despite Adrian’s skepticism.
“Well, I did ask for backup,” Vidar said.
“It was on the way.”
“And she stayed in the car,” Vidar said. “I couldn’t just magically make her disappear, what was I supposed to do?”
Markus snorted with frustration into Vidar’s ear.
“It is what it is,” he said at last. “Screw it, I’ll fix it somehow. What happened?”
Vidar didn’t say anything for a long moment.
“I actually don’t know. All I can tell you is what I believe happened.”
“Excellent.” He heard Markus sit down in a chair. It made a comfortable creak that seemed out of place in the moment. He was at home in Laholm. “Go ahead, give it to me.”
“I think Sander Eriksson was trying to stop Killian Persson from taking off. That’s what it looked like, anyway.”
“Start from the beginning, would you?” Markus said.
From the beginning? Vidar thought. Where would I even start?
The party? Maybe, but that really wasn’t it.
“I think it’s hard to understand what a bind Felicia and Madeleine Grenberg were in back then. They were dependent on Karl-Henrik Soderstrom; did you ever meet him? He owned that big farm in Skavboke.”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Me neither, at least not in his salad days, and I think I’m glad I didn’t.
Anyway, one night in December of 1999, there’s a party outside Oskarstrom.
Felicia isn’t there, because Madeleine hurt her foot earlier that day so she stays home to help out.
Around eleven, the phone rings and Felicia answers it.
It’s Killian Persson, and by this point she’s been in a secret relationship with him for a few months.
Killian heard that Jakob Lindell’s father withdrew the family savings and has it stashed in their house.
He says he’s going to go take that money on his way home from the party. ”
“Is this the fifty thousand kronor?”
“Exactly. Felicia and Madeleine need it, he says, that much money could free them from Karl-Henrik Soderstrom. Felicia probably tries to stop him, tell him no, it won’t work, not like that, but the call ends.”
As if Killian Persson decided to cross a new line in the name of love. That’s how Vidar thought of it.
“Fast forward to one o’clock. Half an hour before the murder.
Killian leaves the party with Sander Eriksson.
After a while, they part ways. Killian heads for the Lindells’, thinking about how to get in.
When he arrives, he sees the spade leaning against the house.
Then…” Vidar said, hesitating, “here’s where it gets confusing. ”
On the other end, Markus listened quietly. Vidar heard him breathing on the line.
“Mikael passes the house on his way home. Presumably he heard the glass pane break and stops to check it out. Tries to forcibly stop the break-in. Killian—maybe he’s altered on beer and adrenaline, or who the hell knows, panic—hits him with the spade, once, twice. It’s all over in a second, maybe two.”
So quickly fate can turn.
“So he’s standing there in the dark. No going back.
He needs help—what can he do? He runs to Felicia’s.
He takes their car and gets Mikael into the cargo area and drives off to dump the body.
He manages to get away from the Lindells’, but not much farther.
When he loses control of the car and crashes, it’s too far back to Felicia’s place.
He runs to Sander’s instead.” Vidar opened his eyes. “Something like that?”
“Something like that,” Markus repeated slowly. “And this couldn’t have been solved back then, back when it happened?”
Exactly. Could it have been? That was the question.
“Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t think so, given that Killian died and the landslide happened shortly thereafter. He looked to be the culprit, and when he died all the air went out of the investigation.”
“But he didn’t die.”
“No,” Vidar said. “He didn’t.”
Markus let out what sounded like a hiss.
“Yeah,” Vidar said. “I know. But this is where we’re at. They did what they could back then, that’s my sense.”
Now Vidar could hear that Markus was taking notes. “What about Filip Soderstrom?”
“One thing leads to another. Unfortunately, Killian and Filip crossed paths after the funeral. Maybe Filip threatened to expose him? I don’t know. We may never find out.”
“And the landslide,” Markus said.
Yes, Vidar thought. The landslide.
The blood had dried. If he rubbed his fingertips together, it flaked and fell away. It had been too late by the time Vidar knelt down beside Killian, but he’d still tried.
Vidar jumped as someone knocked on his window, frantic and loud.
“Hey,” Vidar said to Markus, “I have to go.”
Outside, he saw the dripping face of Adrian al-Hadid.