Vivi Sundberg felt as if her whole head was being submerged in blood. She shook off her outrage, but felt very cold. It was as if she were viewing the dead disfigured bodies through a telescope, which meant that she didn’t need to approach too closely.
And then there was the smell. Although the bodies had barely turned cold, they were already giving off a smell that was both sweet and sour. While inside the houses, Sundberg tried to breathe through her mouth. The moment she stepped outside, she filled her lungs with fresh air. Crossing the threshold of the next house was like preparing to face something almost unbearable.
Everything she saw, one body after another, bore witness to the same frenzy and the same wounds caused by a very sharp weapon. The list she made later that day, which she never revealed to anybody, comprised brief notes on exactly what she had seen:
House number one. Dead elderly man, half naked, ragged pyjamas, slippers, half lying on the staircase. Head almost severed from body, the thumb of the left hand three feet away. Dead elderly woman, nightgown, stomach split open, intestines hanging out, false teeth smashed to pieces.
House number two. Dead man and dead woman, both at least eighty. Bodies found in a double bed on the first floor. The woman might have been killed in her sleep with a slash from her left shoulder and through her breast towards her right hip. The man tried to defend himself with a hammer, but one arm severed, throat cut. Remarkably, the bodies have been tied together. Gives the impression that the man was alive when bound but the woman dead. No proof, of course, just an immediate reaction. Young boy dead in a small bedroom. Might have been asleep when killed.
House number three. Lone woman, dead on the kitchen floor. A dog of unknown pedigree stabbed to death by her side. The woman’s spine appears to be broken in more than one place.
House number four. Man dead in the hall. Wearing trousers, shirt; barefoot. Probably tried to resist. Body almost cut in two through the stomach. Elderly woman sitting dead in the kitchen. Two, possibly three wounds in the top of her head.
House number seven. Two elderly women and an elderly man dead in their beds upstairs. Impression: they were awake, conscious, but had no time to react. Cat stabbed to death in the kitchen.
House number eight. Elderly man lying dead outside, one leg missing. Two dogs beheaded. Woman dead on the stairs, hacked to pieces.
House number nine. Four people dead in the living room on the first floor. Half dressed, with cups of coffee, radio on, station one. Three elderly women, an elderly man. All with their heads on their knees.
House number ten. Two very old people, a man and a woman, dead in their beds. Impossible to say if they were aware of what was happening.
Towards the end of her list she no longer had the mental strength to record all the details. Nevertheless, what she had seen was unforgettable, a vision of hell itself.
She numbered the houses according to the discovery of the bodies. That was not the same order as their locations along the road. When they came to the fifth house during their macabre inspection, they found signs of life. They could hear music coming from inside the house. Ytterström thought it sounded like Jimi Hendrix.
Before going inside they called in two other officers as backup. They approached the front door — pistols drawn. Huddén banged hard on it. It was opened by a half-naked, long-haired man. He drew back in horror on seeing all the guns. Vivi Sundberg lowered her pistol when she saw he was unarmed.
‘Are you alone in the house?’
‘My wife’s here as well,’ said the man, his voice shaking.
‘Nobody else?’
‘No. What’s going on?’
Sundberg holstered her pistol and gestured to the others to do the same.
‘Let’s go inside,’ she said to the half-naked man, who was shivering with cold. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Tom.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Hansson.’
‘Come on, Tom Hansson, let’s go inside. Out of the cold.’
The music was at full volume. Sundberg had the impression there were speakers in every room. She followed the man into a cluttered living room where a woman in a nightdress was curled up on a sofa. He turned down the music and put on a pair of trousers that had been hanging over a chair back. Hansson and the woman on the sofa were about sixty.
‘What’s happened?’ asked the woman who, clearly scared, spoke with a broad Stockholm accent. Probably they were hippies left over from the sixties. Sundberg decided not to beat about the bush; there was no time to waste — it was possible that whoever had been responsible for this outrage might be on the way to carry out another massacre.
‘Many of your neighbours are dead,’ Sundberg said. ‘Horrendous crimes have taken place in this little village overnight. It’s important that you answer our questions. What’s your name?’
‘Ninni,’ said the woman. ‘Are Herman and Hilda dead?’
‘Where do they live?’
‘In the house to the left.’
Sundberg nodded.
‘Yes, I’m afraid so. They’ve been murdered. But they’re not the only ones.’
‘If this is your idea of a joke, it’s not a very good one,’ said Tom Hansson.
Sundberg lost her composure briefly.
‘I’m sorry, but we only have time for you to answer my questions. I can understand that you think what I’m telling you seems incredible, but it’s true — horrific, but true. Did you hear anything last night?’
The man sat down on the sofa beside the woman.
‘We were asleep.’
‘Did you hear anything this morning?’
They both shook their heads.
‘Haven’t you even noticed that the place is crawling with police officers?’
‘When we play music loudly, we don’t hear anything.’
‘When did you last see your neighbours?’
‘If you mean Herman and Hilda, yesterday,’ said Ninni. ‘We usually run into each other when we go out with the dogs.’
‘Do you have a dog?’
Tom Hansson nodded in the direction of the kitchen.
‘He’s pretty old and lazy. He doesn’t even bother to get up when we have visitors.’
‘Didn’t he bark during the night?’
‘He never barks.’
‘What time did you see your neighbours?’
‘At about three o’clock yesterday afternoon. But only Hilda.’
‘Did everything seem to be as usual?’
‘She had back pains. Herman was probably in the kitchen, solving crosswords. I didn’t see him.’
‘What about the rest of the people in the village?’
‘Everything was the same as it always is. Only old people live here. They stay indoors when it’s cold. We see them more often in spring and summer.’
‘There aren’t any children here, then?’
‘None at all.’
Sundberg paused, thinking about the dead boy.