The badger, p.19
The Badger, page 19
“But I’m feeling much better now.”
The doctor smiled. “Well, that’s good. But I am going to send you home anyway. There could be serious complications otherwise.”
Annika swallowed and studied the doctor’s name badge. Lena Amarant. She couldn’t help but think it sounded assumed. Like Apelgren. She sighed. Any other day, she would have protested, insisted that everything was going to be fine. Today wasn’t one of those days.
“How long for?”
“Until further notice. I want you to rest and take it easy. If you experience any symptoms again, I want you to come back straight away, or go to casualty if we’re closed. Apart from that, I will book you in for a check-up every week until we see your readings returning to normal again.”
Annika nodded while her head spun with everything she had to do: piles of unread manuscripts, emails flooding her inbox. “Is it okay if I work a bit at home?”
“What do you do?”
“I’m a publisher.”
“Exciting,” said Lena. “I’ve always wanted to write, but it’s a dream that’ll probably go no further. However, I’d rather you didn’t do any work, but something completely different. If you have access to a garden, I recommend you potter in that. Research tells us that relieves stress.”
Images flashed up in Annika’s mind of the sprawling jungle of thornbushes and overgrown flower beds waiting outside their house. She had wanted a garden for a long time, after all. Now she had one, just waiting for her love and attention. And as if that wasn’t enough, she now had an excuse to dedicate time to it, instead of working. Perhaps it wasn’t such a daft idea in the end to be on sick leave for a while.
“Just nothing too heavy work wise, until your blood pressure goes down.” Lena stood up and held out her hand. “Well, then, I’ll ask reception to send you a time for your next appointment. Take care of yourself until then.” She gave a professional smile as she shook Annika’s hand firmly.
It was bright in the waiting room outside. The sun was streaming in through a window, gleaming on the polished linoleum floor. Martin had taken the car to work, but it didn’t matter. Right now, Annika was looking forward to making her gradual way home by bus. Or going for a stroll. Walking a little would do her good. Getting a little exercise. She breathed deeply and felt her tensions lifting slightly.
Someone tore off a piece of paper behind the reception desk. The sound of paper fibres being ripped apart made her shudder. She stopped dead in her tracks. But all was silent again. The only sound above the swooshing of the ventilation was the chime when a new patient came in. There was a jovial buzz of chit-chat coming from inside the clinic’s small treatment rooms. She breathed slowly, far too aware that her pulse had gone up again. She was in no hurry. She was signed off sick, anyway. Might as well get back in tune with life again.
They had their house. They would soon have their first child. All she needed to do was wait and rest, then everything would be all right.
47
THURSDAY 9 JUNE
You see me as a monster, don’t you? A killer. A maniac. You are right. I am all of those things.
Annika was chewing far too long on her muesli. The natural yoghurt seemed off and the roasted oat flakes were mealy. Martin was munching on a sandwich and drinking his coffee. Outside the kitchen window the morning sun was shining brightly. She could hear birds chirping just beyond.
“You know you don’t need to be up on my account,” said Martin, smiling.
“I can’t stay in bed,” said Annika. “Otherwise I’ll be there all day.” That was true. It wasn’t simply her blood pressure. It was the fear of losing their baby, the worry of the police taking her away again, and feeling sick to her stomach at not being able to do her job. Annika was steadily drowning in negative thoughts. It didn’t show on the outside, but on the inside she was struggling to keep her head above water.
“You know you didn’t stay in bed all night, don’t you?”
“What do you mean?” Annika dropped her spoon into the thick mixture of muesli and yoghurt, and left it there. Her eyes met Martin’s.
“You were walking in your sleep. Don’t you remember?”
Annika shook her head. She felt another knot in her stomach. She hadn’t walked in her sleep since childhood. “No. What was I doing?”
Martin smiled. “Nothing to worry about. I woke up with you standing there with a bunch of clothes in your arms, saying you had to place the clothes on top of the clothes.”
“Oh, right. And what then?”
“You went into the living room for a minute, then came back and went to bed again. I was watching. You had placed the clothes in a neatly folded pile on the sofa. I put them back in the wardrobe this morning.”
“Why didn’t you wake me up? What if I’d gone outside or something?”
“No, you’re not supposed to disturb sleepwalkers. And it wasn’t anything to worry about, so…” He checked his watch and jumped to his feet. “Boy, it looks like I’m going to be late. We’ve got some new systems integration issues which have to be resolved today. Nothing I can do from home. Are you going to be okay?”
“Yes.” Annika nodded. Growing deep within her was another seed of anxiety about her walking in her sleep. It was something she had done for a while when they were moving house and she had to change primary schools. She had found it all a struggle, until she discovered new friends and came around to the situation. Now she couldn’t help but wonder if the stress was bringing old problems back to the surface, or whether this time it was something else.
“Your lunch is in the fridge,” said Martin. He rushed off for his bag, then came back and gave her a peck on the cheek. “Have a complete rest. You could even sit out on the veranda, it’s going to be fine and sunny today.”
“Bye, then,” said Annika. Her words grated unpleasantly. She didn’t mean to sound rude, he was such a nice man. But she was so tired. And now she was walking in her sleep as well. She sat with her chin in her hands and closed her eyes.
Something scraped angrily on the window ledge outside. She gave a start, scaring off a magpie which had been sitting there. Annika shook her head. She took her bowl of muesli and went to the sink. The kitchen floor was cool under her feet, the morning sun hadn’t warmed the clinker tiles yet. She rinsed away the remains of her breakfast with steaming hot water, watching the yoghurt break down into white streams which disappeared down the plughole. As she turned the water off, her eyes landed on the coffee maker Martin was so fond of. There was still coffee in the carafe. Martin couldn’t go many hours without having a cup. She had never worked out how he was able to drink one cup after the other, even in the evening, and still sleep like a log. She, on the other hand, would toss and turn between the sheets for hours if she drank as little as half a cup after four o’clock. She wasn’t a good sleeper anyway, but coffee certainly didn’t improve matters.
By now she didn’t even fancy any. Just the smell of it made her recoil. She poured away what was left, then stood at the window, looking out across the garden. Martin was right. It looked like it was going to be a lovely day. The sun was glinting through the light green leaves of the bushes and the trees. In a while it was going to be really warm beneath the canopy of trees out there. They didn’t have any garden furniture yet, so she was going to need to take a kitchen chair outside, but it would be lovely sitting there with the warm sun on her face.
Yet she decided against it and sat down on the living room sofa, pulled her legs up beneath her and switched the television on. Now and then she glanced at the boxes stacked up by the wall next to the bookcase. They hadn’t managed to unpack their books yet, which went against her better judgement. The house would never be a home without books. Her fingers were itching to get going when she saw them. She needed something to do, other than sit there and stare.
She opened the box on top, stacking books on the dining table while she wondered how she was going to arrange them. In their apartment they been placed in alphabetical order by author. She glanced over to the shelves, thinking she wanted to do something different. Some people would arrange books by colour, but that wasn’t her bag. Even worse, others had the pages facing out, which was inconceivable. Anyone climbing on that bandwagon obviously didn’t care about books. Annika loved her books.
She decided to arrange them by genre, then by author, and swung into action. She still wasn’t ready by the time it got dark, and only when Martin arrived home did she realise the whole day had gone.
He was late. It was past eight o’clock. “Hi,” she said, meeting him in the hall, still in her dressing gown.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said, giving her a hug. His cheek was cold after coming in from outside, but his embrace was as warm as ever. “I should’ve called, but I got stuck in video meetings with our team in London.”
“Everything okay?”
He shook his head and hung up his jacket. “I’m okay, just tired. But the project’s a complete mess. I just can’t talk about it.”
“I still can’t fathom any of your stuff out,” said Annika. “I’m just glad that my computer at work even starts.”
“I wish I could say the same. Sometimes I wonder why I wanted to work with all this crap. Application servers. I ask you?”
Annika shook her head and wrinkled her nose. “Look at what I’ve done,” she said, leading him into the living room, past the pile of folded up moving boxes. She pointed towards the bookcase. “Looks good, don’t you think?”
Martin looked at the shelves and tilted his head. “Looks great. But isn’t it the same as at home? Or, I mean, the apartment.”
“No, silly. I’ve arranged them differently.”
“So now I won’t find anything.” He laughed and looked at her. His eyes were glinting with joy.
Annika smiled, thinking that she had struck it lucky finding such a good man. A man who was soon going to be the father of her child.
48
MONDAY 13 JUNE
Everything I do is what the creatures demand of me, what I need to survive. At the same time, I regret my fate, deeply and bitterly.
“Come in,” said Knut Lerjedal.
Cecilia stepped into the small meeting room which had been put at Lerjedal’s disposal while he was there in Gothenburg. He remained demonstrably in his chair, studying her as she looked around, wide-eyed. She couldn’t understand how quickly he had filled the room with a disarray of papers and half-empty mugs of coffee. It smelt of working into the night; sweat and dried-on coffee.
“Yes, it’s not much to write home about,” he said. “But it’ll do. It’s not as if I intend being around permanently.”
“I hope not,” said Cecilia, with ill-concealed bile in her voice.
Knut shook his head. “I don’t know what you really think of me,” he said. “But you have to understand, I’m not your enemy. On the contrary, in fact, I might be the last friendly soul in the station.”
“What do you mean by that?” Cecilia moved a notepad off a chair and sat down.
“Now then, I have a fair idea you understand. You are an intelligent woman who’s got stuck in an investigation that’s leading nowhere. We can at least agree on that, can’t we?”
Cecilia didn’t respond. Knut tried to look into her eyes for a few seconds, then put his reading glasses on, moistened his index finger with his tongue and turned over the pages in a pad.
“Is this going to take long?” asked Cecilia.
“I hope not,” said Knut. “So, if I may ask… how long have you been involved in the investigation?”
“Since the second victim. Or, actually a bit earlier. I was in the media relations department when it all began, but I wanted to return to real police work. When the press started writing about the Badger, the thought was that I should do both jobs. Although around a single investigation.” She shrugged. “I accepted, the rest is history.”
“I see,” said Knut. “You have done a good job too, I must say. I’ve read all the official statements. Very professional, without being as dry as some others. You have a talent for this.”
“For what?”
“For writing.” Knut turned over the pages of his notes again.
Cecilia felt the seat pressing against her gluteal muscles. Why would sitting there make her go bottom go numb so soon? Maybe the same reason which was causing her cheeks to glow and the sweat to appear under her arms. She hated every second of being Knut Lerjedal’s focus of attention.
“You’re single, aren’t you?”
“What’s that got to do with anything?” Her response came like the crack of a leash.
Knut viewed her over his glasses. “Well, there’s no one at home who knows how you spend your evenings?”
“No.”
“What do you do?”
“I train. Running, mostly. Watch telly. Cook. Read. How about you?”
“If you must know,” said Knut, smiling. “I write. Police novels. You know, I was quite fond of that Chief Inspector Turwall. Do you know of the books?”
“I’ve heard of them. Haven’t read them.”
“You should. They’re by the same author. Jan Apelgren.”
“I see.”
“Right then.” Knut smiled wryly. “It’s a fascinating story. The guy writes two bestsellers, then things go quiet for a number of years and he and his wife disappear off the face of the earth. And then this turns up.” Knut raised his copy of I am the Badger as if to illustrate his point. “But only after his publishers had him declared dead so they could embroil themselves in the rights. Who the hell bequeaths their books to their publisher?”
“Jan Apelgren?” said Cecilia. She had to struggle not to grin at her own sarcasm.
“Indeed. But you and I both know that he didn’t write the book.”
“Well,” said Cecilia. She leaned forwards to shift her body weight to her thigh muscles instead. That felt better. “So who did?”
“Who do you think?”
“I think the publishing company itself is behind it,” said Cecilia. “I think it’s Annika Granlund. She denies it, but either she’s written it herself, or it’s some writer she knows.”
“Have you had her in for questioning?”
Cecilia nodded at the piles of papers. “You do seem to be keeping track. You know I brought her in. It didn’t give us any leads, but I believe there’s something she’s not telling us.” Cecilia wondered for a few seconds whether she should mention Jesper Olsson, but decided not to. She wanted to talk to him herself first, he would have to confirm or deny what Annika had said.
“Of course. But back to you, what actually is your relationship with Martin Granlund? Her husband.”
That was below the belt. She sat there, open-mouthed, for a few seconds. “Don’t have one at all,” she said eventually.
“You say that,” said Knut. “You were both contemporaries at high school.”
“Alongside many others too.”
“Absolutely, but there aren’t many others with a common thread linking you, Eklund Press and the Badger.”
Cecilia narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean by that?”
“You’re an intelligent woman, as I said. I could apply to have your premises searched, but I know that I wouldn’t find anything. You know how to cover your tracks.”
Cecilia fell backwards in her chair, her spine against the low backrest. The chair sprung back and she swayed unintentionally. “Do you think that I wrote the book? That’s ridiculous, why would I do that?”
“I don’t believe anything, Miss Wreede.” Knut laid his glasses on his pad and smiled again. “You were the one suggesting that theory. But you are right, it isn’t entirely unreasonable. A detective inspector with ambitions and a talent for the written word, deadlocked in a lengthy investigation that’s leading nowhere but is rich in potential as popular fiction. In walks the friend from childhood, who happens to be married to a publisher. Who wouldn’t harbour dreams of being a writer with those conditions going for them?”
Cecilia clenched her jaws together. She breathed through her nose and leaned forwards. “It could be that way. But there’s a big problem with that theory.”
“Go on.”
“It’s wrong.” Cecilia stood up. “If you’d excuse me, I don’t have time for this any longer. I’ve got a serial killer to catch.”
49
THURSDAY 22 OCTOBER, SIX YEARS EARLIER
I grieve over all those I kill. I honour their memory by saving something that belonged to them. Something small, but dear, which makes me remember them.
Jan leaned over the coffee maker on the kitchen counter. He drew in the smell of freshly brewed coffee in the hope that the vapour might wake him up. Outside the kitchen window the pit was gaping like an open wound in the black earth of the garden.
“Badgers,” he said to himself as the coffee maker was gurgling hot water into the filter. Once the coffee was ready he poured himself a large mug and trudged down the stairs to his desk. He rested his fingers on the keyboard for a while, then forced himself to write a few lines. A fresh opening to a fresh version of his rejected Turwall thriller.
After just half a page he could see how bad the writing was. Unusable. Uninspired. At least as flat as the manuscript Annika had turned down. The words were spread out across the pages like a thin layer of paint on a cracked board, which may have looked good at a distance, but was dreadful closer up.
He deleted his work and went out into the living room. The early afternoon sun was trailing along the internal wall tiles, making the grouting look deeper than it actually was. At first he stood there for a little while, contemplating the small lawn to the back, the only patch of grass not ruined by excavated material. The grass was growing in uneven tufts. He should have cut it one more time before the autumn arrived. He shook his head, took a Blu-ray edition of The Shining off the bookshelf and sat down on the sofa while the film was starting. It wasn’t many minutes before he fell asleep.
