But the future? Impossible to say. Impossible.
Someone once said there was nothing so lonely as being in a couple with the wrong person. Few people knew that better than the man robbed of his night-time repose. With his head and his soul burdened by the dark thoughts of the night, he lay by the side of the woman he saw as the great love of his life and delicately kissed her shoulder.
There was some light in Spencer Lagergren’s life after all. And love. Her name was Fredrika Bergman.
A memory from another time and place found its way to the surface. The obligatory session with a psychologist when he applied to work abroad.
Psychologist: What’s the very worst thing that could happen to you today?
Alex: Today?
Psychologist: Today.
Alex: [Silence.]
Psychologist: Don’t think so much, give me something spontaneous.
Alex: Losing my wife Lena, that would definitely be the worst thing.
Psychologist: I see from your form that you’ve got two children aged fourteen and twelve.
Alex: That’s right, and I don’t want to lose them, either.
Psychologist: But it wasn’t them who came spontaneously to mind when I asked my question.
Alex: No, it wasn’t. But that doesn’t mean I don’t love my kids. Just that I love them in a different way.
Psychologist: Try to explain.
Alex: Children are something you borrow. You know that from the word go. They’re never intended to stay at home with you for ever. The whole aim of my presence in their lives is to get them ready to manage on their own. But it’s not like that with Lena. She’s ‘mine’ in an entirely different way. And I’m hers. We shall always be together.
Psychologist: Always? Is that the way you feel today?
Alex (forcefully): That’s the way I’ve always felt. For as long as I’ve known her. We shall always be together.
Psychologist: Does the thought of that make you feel secure or stressed?
Alex: Secure. If I woke up tomorrow and she wasn’t there, I wouldn’t be able to go on. She’s my best friend and the only woman I’ve loved unconditionally.
Alex swallowed hard. Why the hell was it so hard to work out what was wrong? It had been the same story yesterday. She turned away when he tried to look her in the eye, and flinched when he touched her. Gave that loud, joyless laugh and went to bed incomprehensibly early.
He hoped a few hours’ work might distract his thoughts.
A deserted corridor met his eye as he stepped out of the lift on their floor. He plodded to his office and sank down in the desk chair. Rifled aimlessly through the piles of paper.
The case had popped up on the first newspaper website the day before, and he noted that the news had spread this morning to all the major daily papers. Damn all these leaks from within the force. It made no difference how closed a circle you worked in; there was always someone who happened to hear something not intended for his or her ears.
Matters were not helped by the prosecutor’s decision the previous evening that they had to let Tony Svensson go, in view of what Ronny Berg had told Peder about the background to the Jakob Ahlbin affair.
‘There’s no technical evidence, no motive and scarcely enough to prosecute him for unlawful menace either,’ summarised the weary prosecutor. ‘Unless you can come up with confirmation that he sent the messages from the other computers, too.’
‘Could it not just simply be that he sent them from different computers so he could claim they weren’t from him? That he gave those last emails a different tone because he knew he would get away with it?’
‘That may well be the case, but the onus is still on you to prove it. And you haven’t done that.’
Alex read the prosecutor’s statement and felt frustrated. No, they had not been able to prove anything. But it made no difference, there was still something very fishy going on here. The only question was: what?
There’s something about this right-wing extremist lead that takes us right into the Ahlbins’ deaths, thought Alex. It’s just that I don’t know exactly what.
Dissatisfied, he ploughed on. The murder weapon was a matter of interest. It was part of the collection of firearms Jakob Ahlbin kept in the holiday home that had been transferred into the ownership of his daughters some years before. There was no reason to suppose the hunting pistol had been separated from the rest of the collection, so it must have been fetched from the house at some juncture. Either by Jakob Ahlbin himself or by whoever shot him. Jakob was the only one in the Ahlbin family with a gun licence. And the only gun cabinet was the one in the holiday house.
Perhaps Jakob had retrieved the weapon because he felt threatened? Alex did not think so. No one seemed to have taken Tony Svensson’s threats very seriously. But there were still things that needed explaining. Alex pulled out a set of photographs they had taken outside the Ekerö house.
No damage to the property. No marks in the snow, either shoeprints or tyre tracks.
Alex felt his pulse accelerate. The pristine snow. It was now almost two weeks since it started snowing. The snow had been lying on the ground ever since; it had stayed very cold. And when he and Joar were there on the Thursday it was unmarked. Admittedly there had been further falls of snow on the days in between, but not enough to hide shoe-prints or tyre tracks. So the weapon must have been fetched before Jakob Ahlbin heard the news of his daughter’s death, before he had reason to take his own life. Which meant? Alex hesitated. If they assumed the hunting pistol had been brought from Ekerö to kill Jakob and his wife, was it not logical to conclude that it was not Jakob himself who went to get it?
But in that case, the person who did must have had access to a set of keys, since there was nothing to indicate any kind of break-in. Or the person was so experienced a burglar that he had the sense to lock the doors when he left. Which took him back to Tony Svensson’s associates.
And then there was the daughter Johanna. Who dumped tragic news on her father and then scarpered off abroad. Who vanished like a ghost from all the family photos in the Ekerö house. And who did not answer her emails or her phone.
Noises out in the corridor roused Alex from his musing. Peder suddenly appeared in the doorway.
‘Hi,’ said Alex, surprised.
‘Hi,’ said Peder. ‘I didn’t think there would be anybody here.’
‘Nor did I,’ said Alex drily. ‘I’m just running through all the Ahlbin stuff again.’
Peder sighed.
‘I thought I might do the same thing,’ he said, avoiding Alex’s eye. ‘Ylva’s got the kids, so…’
Alex nodded. So many troubled people in this workplace. So often not enough energy for both family and work. And so often men and women chose to prioritise the latter.
He cleared his throat.
‘I really think we need to see Ragnar Vinterman again,’ he said. ‘Want to come along?’
Peder gave an eager nod.
‘Sure,’ he said. ‘And what about the Ljungs, who found the bodies on Tuesday?’
‘What about them?’
‘We should talk to them again, too. Ask about that difference of opinion that made them cool off towards each other.’