CHAPTER 21
Jonny Almhult wanted to throw up. Sour bile surged up his throat and into his mouth. He broke out in a cold sweat on his forehead and the back of his neck. For a moment he could barely stay on his feet. He swallowed hard and grabbed ahold of the doorframe to keep his balance.
When the police had knocked on his door to ask whether he’d had any contact with Kicki Berggren, he had only just managed to hold himself together. He was already half-drunk, and it was only two thirty on Sunday afternoon. Since his mother woke him up on Saturday and told him a woman’s body had been found at the Mission House, he had been drinking nonstop. He didn’t dare be sober.
He had been spending all his time lying on the sofa in the living room, the thoughts going around and around in his head. From time to time he dozed off. When he woke up he suppressed the fear with more booze.
Occasionally he got a whiff of his body odor. It wasn’t very nice.
Anxiously he wondered whether the cop had been able to tell that he was lying through his teeth. He had shown Jonny a photograph of the woman from the bar and asked whether he had seen her before.
Jonny had been adamant. He had never set eyes on her. He had crossed his arms so the cop wouldn’t be able to see that his hands were shaking.
He had felt like the fact that she had been in his apartment was written all over his face. But the cop had merely apologized for disturbing him and wished him a nice day.
He could take his fucking nice day and shove it.
Jonny staggered back to the living room and flopped down on the sofa. He reached for the lukewarm can of beer on the table. What should he do if the cop came back? Stick to his story? Make something up?
No doubt Inger, who had served them in the bar, had already been busy gossiping about the fact that he had been sitting with that woman.
So unnecessary.
He had only wanted to have a chat with her. Nothing else. And then things had gotten out of hand. Because she didn’t get it. Stupid cow.
How the hell could she go and die like that?
He went over what had happened yet again. They had been sitting on the sofa when she had started acting out. He’d had to do something. He’d had no choice.
He hadn’t hit her very hard. Definitely not. Just a little slap to make her understand. He wasn’t the violent type.
He knocked back the last of the beer and dropped the can on the floor with a metallic clang, and it rolled under the sofa. Why hadn’t she done as she was told from the start?
And now he’d ended up in the middle of a nightmare.
He swallowed several times. He couldn’t stay here. It was only a matter of time before the police realized they needed to question him. He had no intention of being caught. It wasn’t his damn fault. He had never meant to kill her. That hadn’t been the plan.
Without wasting any more time, he made his decision. He would head for the city. He threw a pair of jeans and a few T-shirts into a bag. He was pretty sure there was a direct ferry at three. If he got a move on, he should be able to catch it.
In the kitchen he grabbed a carton of milk and chugged it. He saw two cans of beer sitting in the fridge. Might as well take those with him. He swallowed a painkiller with the last of the milk and left the apartment.
He wondered whether he should leave a note for his mother but decided it would be simpler to call her later if he felt like it.
Jonny hurried down to the pier as quickly as he could. The Cinderella was waiting there, packed with tourists who had spent the day on the island and were heading home. Strollers and backpacks were everywhere. He suppressed the urge to run. Nice and calm, he thought. Don’t draw attention to yourself.
The rapid walk had left him out of breath, but he made an effort to breathe quietly so no one would look at him. Keeping his head down, he boarded the boat and found a seat toward the stern. He pulled his hood down over his forehead and pretended to be asleep.
When he finally heard the three short toots indicating that the boat was departing, a sense of relief flooded his body. Then he had to rush to the toilet to throw up. Some of the vomit splashed on the floor, but he didn’t care. He just about managed to clean himself up.
He spent the rest of the trip sitting in his corner, making sure he didn’t make eye contact. He was desperate for a hit of snuff but didn’t dare go down to the cafeteria to buy a tin. He nodded off from time to time, but it was a superficial, uneasy sleep that brought him no rest. Only a reminder that his body wanted nothing more than to drift away to a world where the events of the past few days had never happened.
The captain of the Cinderella steered toward Stockholm with a practiced hand. After the narrow passage through Stegesund, where the old traders’ houses had been recently renovated, they reached Vaxholm, where a number of passengers disembarked. The boat then rounded southern Lidingö, with a brief stop at Gåshaga, before the familiar buildings of inner-city Stockholm appeared.
From his place at the stern of the quarterdeck Jonny watched as they sailed between Djurgården and Nacka Strand before finally docking at Strandvägen.
He picked up his bag and rummaged in his pocket for his ticket, which he handed over as he went ashore.
Now where should he go?
CHAPTER 22
The placards outside the newspaper kiosk sent shivers down Nora’s spine.
“Sex Killing on Sandhamn—Naked Woman Found Dead,” they said in thick black letters.
Usually the placards were advertising articles on how to improve your tan or get a flatter stomach for those bikini days, but this afternoon there was only room for sensational headlines. The evening tabloids had quickly translated the body of a dead woman into sex attacks in paradise, ecstatic at having found something to fill their summer editions, which under normal circumstances were seriously lacking in news. This story was an absolute gift for an editor who was on the ball and wanted to boost his sales figures.
Nora wondered whether she should refrain from buying the evening papers, but she just couldn’t help herself. She almost felt ashamed as she picked up both.
She walked home with the papers under her arm, then made herself a cup of tea and went to sit in the garden. She picked a few mint leaves and dropped them into her cup; she liked the taste with the hot tea.
She could hear the boys laughing in Signe’s garden. They were good at begging for a glass of Signe’s black currant juice and homemade buns, and she always obliged when they scampered over, their expressions like that of a pleading cocker spaniel. Signe also baked incomparable jam tarts, which the boys loved, especially Adam.
However hard Nora tried, she just couldn’t bake as well as Signe. Perhaps you had to be born before the war, she had thought with a sigh the last time her efforts hadn’t found favor with Adam.