Angel Maker: An Unputdownable Scandinavian Crime Thriller With A Chilling Twist (DI Jamie Johansson Book 1)

Wiik arrived a few minutes after eight the next morning.

Jamie had been there since six and was running on a few snatched hours of sleep, getting up in spates to read her father’s notebooks.

Her mind was her own worst enemy in the dark.

But she was used to it now, and numb to all but the worst of it.

Wiik’s boots squeaked on the stairs as he came up, approaching the open door to her childhood bedroom.

He slowed, looked left and right, and then stepped inside.

The sun had just risen, the light pale and weak. The room was silent, dust motes floating in the brilliance coming in through the window. The shutters had been opened.

Wiik glanced around, found the room empty, and then turned, jumping a little to find Jamie standing in the doorway.

‘I went to your hotel,’ he said, straightening the cuffs of his shirt under the sleeves of his grey sweater. His jeans were straight-legged, not quite skinny, his boots polished black with enough tread to hold in the snow. Just. And just as before, his face was impeccably shaved, his hair gelled back over his head.

‘I wasn’t there,’ Jamie said, stepping inside to join Wiik in her old room.

The walls were a dark shade of purple.

She’d chosen it.

Her mother had wanted white.

Her father had let her have it.

‘I know,’ Wiik said, not trying to keep the tone of frustration from his voice. ‘You could have called.’

‘You would have been asleep,’ Jamie said, stepping around him and going to her bedside table. She picked up a braided bracelet that was draped over her reading lamp. The room was exactly how it had been the day she’d left. Nothing had been touched.

She looked down at the piece of string in her fingers.

He made a disgruntled noise behind her. ‘I would have come earlier.’

‘Then why didn’t you?’ Jamie glanced up and met his eye, There was a strange coolness in them that morning.

Wiik folded his arms, his jacket twisting under his biceps, revealing the SIG Sauer P226 semi-automatic pistol hanging from his ribs. He hadn’t been wearing it yesterday. ‘Where were you just now?’ He nodded to the door.

‘I heard you coming.’

‘And hid?’ he raised an eyebrow.

Jamie half shrugged. ‘I didn’t know it was you.’

‘Who else would it be?’

‘Whoever kidnapped Nyström.’

‘You think someone kidnapped him?’

‘Maybe. It seems strange that he’d leave the city and not take his credentials with him. And you yourself said that they knew he wouldn’t be home when they broke in. What better way to ensure that than to make sure of it yourself.’

Wiik took that in. ‘And you thought that same person would come here to try to… what? Kidnap you, too?’

‘Or kill me.’ Jamie looked around the room. ‘Maybe the killer got rid of Nyström because he knew he’d be on to him first.’

Wiik processed that too and didn’t seem displeased with the extrapolation. He sighed. ‘Did you find anything?’

‘You walk very loudly, do you know that?’ Jamie asked, running her finger over the tops of the books on her bookshelf. Dahls. Tolkeins. Pratchetts. Charting her intellectual maturation.

Wiik spoke through gritted teeth, his fist curling at his side. ‘I wasn’t trying to sneak.’

Jamie smiled at him now. ‘No, clearly.’

A vein throbbed in Wiik’s temple.

There. She’d found it. His line. His threshold. He was quick to anger, easy to frustrate. She needed to know what kind of man he was. And now she did.

Now she could work with him.

‘Come on,’ she said quickly, walking out the door. ‘I’ve got something to show you.’

Jamie used to torture her old partner like that, too. But that was mostly just for the fun of it. She found no pleasure in doing it now. Not when she was placing her life in someone’s hands. She needed to know that she could count on Wiik.

She had no idea what had happened to Nyström, but she had a list of things she wanted to check out today, and the security footage from the toll gate his car was clocked at was one of them. Crimes like this weren’t done on the spur of the moment. They required meticulous planning. And waiting for Sjöberg to die, stealing the case files, staging the kill, they all required a lot of timing and effort. Precision was the word that came to mind. Nothing could be left to chance. And if it was Jamie, leaving the only remaining investigating officer from the original case hanging around wasn’t something she’d be interested in doing.

Nyström would be a hindrance, and taking him out of play would only make things easier. Getting the car tagged at a toll booth meant that it was supposed to be seen. Either to push the investigation in the wrong direction, to split resources, or just to show the police that they weren’t safe. Not even in their own homes.

Jamie didn’t know who they were dealing with. But she did know one thing. And that was that he was smart. And he was a goddamn monster.

Wiik followed Jamie downstairs and into the kitchen. He took one glance at the magnets strewn on the floor. ‘What happened here?’

Jamie looked over her shoulder briefly, heading for the dining room. ‘How should I know?’

The photographs had been gathered up and were all neatly bound in her duffle at the hotel.

Wiik came into the dining room behind her and pushed back the hems of his coat, putting his hands on his hips, staring down at the table in front of him.

Jamie had spent the morning going through her father’s notebook, and had transcribed what he’d written out onto a full-sized pad, then removed the pages and laid them out on the kitchen table in front of her. The information was far from comprehensive. But she did what she could.

‘You’ve been busy,’ Wiik remarked sourly.

‘I don’t sleep much,’ Jamie replied, not even looking up. ‘Okay, so this notebook’ – Jamie held it up – ‘chronicles the original Angel Maker case. This first entry, here, dated the nineteenth of November 1995, is the first recording of the case. The first girl.’

Wiik licked his lips.

‘I wrote out what my father observed here,’ Jamie said, pointing to the top left sheet. There were seven in one row on the table. One for each girl. She read aloud. ‘“Victim, girl, teens. Posed in white dress, wooden stakes through her back. Angel wings?”’ She stared at it for a moment. ‘He knew, right from the off what he was looking at. But without the finer details of the scenes – photos, reports from the CSTs – it’s hard to make any solid assumptions about likeness. The rest of these are the subsequent scenes.’ Jamie cast her hand across them. ‘Again, not much in the way of notes. A few comments, a few little illustrations. One drawing of parallel lines that sort of zigzag. I think it’s supposed to be the tread marks of a boot. But I can’t be certain.’

Wiik held his hand out, signalling that he wanted to see this drawing for himself.

Jamie handed him the book, and he took it from her, turning it over and flipping the pages.

‘The pages are marked where—’

‘I got it,’ Wiik said curtly, the vein in his temple back again.

Jamie went on, regardless. She didn’t consider stepping on his toes or making him feel threatened important in comparison to catching this killer.

‘The significant bit,’ Jamie said, dropping her hand down a row to the middle section, ‘is this. These are all the notes my father made on the suspects, the clues, the trails… Everything he picked up on during the investigation.’

Wiik lowered the book and looked down at where Jamie was pointing.

‘There are four names here – on one of the pages. Tomas Lindvall. Per Eriksson. Leif Lundgren. And Hans Sjöberg. Sjöberg was convicted of the killings, so I assume these are the names of the other suspects. We need to check them out. Find them, interview them. We work backwards, retrace his steps, from the end’ – her hand cut the air – ‘right back to the beginning.’

Wiik raised an eyebrow. ‘You want me to just come back later? You seem to have this all worked out already.’

Jamie took a breath and turned to him. ‘Don’t act like a child. I’ll be more helpful working with you.’

‘Than against me?’

‘Than not at all,’ Jamie said, narrowing her eyes. ‘This is your case, but I’m going to do whatever I can to help catch this guy.’

He turned to face her fully now, folding his arms. ‘And why is it so important to you?’

Jamie opened her mouth a little to speak, but she didn’t have a straight answer for him. To prove her father was a good detective? To connect with him in some way?

To catch a killer before he hurt anyone else?

Because she missed it? Because she missed this, detective work? As much as she hated to admit it.

She cleared her throat. ‘Isn’t it important to you?’

He cracked just a hint of a smile. ‘Pick this up,’ he said, nodding at the papers. ‘We have to go.’

‘Go where?’

‘There’s someone who wants to meet you.’

Wiik drove smoothly, but wasn’t interested in making small talk.

When they pulled into the underground car park at Stockholm Polis HQ, Jamie’s stomach churned a little. The hours she’d spent here as a kid sitting in front of her father’s desk, sitting behind it, exploring the corridors – much to the dismay of everyone else in the building.

Everyone knew Jörgen’s little girl. She’d yell at the other officers and detectives in the corridors. ‘Slow down!’ if they were running, or ‘Get back to work!’ if they were standing around talking. She thought she was so tough.

‘Sorry, Kriminalinspektör Johansson,’ they’d say, playing along, and then stride off, grinning at how cute she was. Her white-blonde hair trailing the full length of her back. Her big blue eyes.

‘You'll grow up to be just as much of a ball-breaker as your father,’ people said, laughing.

They couldn’t help but laugh at her. And care for her.

She remembered them bringing cups of hot chocolate and biscuits from the break rooms when her father disappeared. He’d be right back, he’d say. And then leave. Be gone for hours sometimes.

Jamie only found out where he’d been going years later.

The women, the drugs, the drink.

He was a superhero to her.

But even superheroes have their weaknesses.

Wiik killed the motor and got out without saying a word.

Jamie followed silently, and they headed for the elevator.

She glanced at the stairs, but Wiik didn’t seem in the mood to discuss anything, let alone the benefits of getting your daily steps in.

She’d walked to her house that morning from the hotel.

3.6 kilometres by her watch. Barely a warm-up by her usual standards.

They got out on the seventh floor and Jamie slowed a little to take it in. The layout was familiar, the sound of people’s heels on the tiled floors sending her through a time warp. But otherwise the floor – and probably the building – had been modernised. The stale haze of cigarette smoke and dim desk lamps had given way to a bright interior drowned in light. Large windows and open spaces replaced what used to be narrow corridors between wooden desks. Now they were made of white… plastic. Jamie tapped her short, unpainted nails against the surface of one as she passed, following Wiik towards the glass office at the back.

Some detectives glanced up from their desks as they went by, looking away as they realised it was Wiik, not giving Jamie a second look. The guy carried weight here. Though she wasn’t surprised considering he’d just been handed the Angel Maker case.

A woman in her fifties was sitting in the office. She was behind a modern glass desk with steel support struts, leaning forward a little, reading something on her computer screen.

Her features were fine – a thin nose and pointed chin, dark hair cut short, parted in the centre and swept back, the ends flicking out behind her ears.

Wiik stopped at the door, raised his knuckles, and knocked once, lightly.

The woman looked up, went from him to Jamie and back again, and then motioned them in with two fingers, a pen curled into her palm with the others.

Wiik pushed through and Jamie followed.

The woman leaned on her elbows, clasping her hands under her chin. She stared up at Jamie with bright eyes. ‘Little Jamie Johansson,’ she said, smiling widely. ‘I don’t know if you remember me, I’m—’

‘Kriminalinspektör Ingrid Falk,’ Jamie said, nodding. She smiled back. ‘I remember you.’

‘Kriminalkommissarie,’ Wiik muttered.

Falk waved him off with her hand and then gestured to a chair in front of her desk. ‘Please, sit down,’ she said to Jamie.

Jamie obliged.

‘We’re so glad to have you,’ Falk said.

Behind Jamie, Wiik stood, turning to face out of the window, his hands going to his hips again, his jacket pushed back behind his wrists.

‘I just wish,’ Falk went on, ‘that it was under better circumstances.’ She looked down at her desk, removed her hands from under her chin. ‘This is a dark time for the city.’

‘I can imagine,’ Jamie said, pressing her lips into a line. ‘If there’s anything I can do to help…’

‘Yes, well,’ Falk said, looking up at Wiik’s back and then back to Jamie. ‘Wiik already informed me that you wished to assist on the case, and while normally we wouldn’t accept outside help, the circumstances are… special. The Angel Maker was one of your father’s biggest cases, and any light you can shed on it will be invaluable. Is there anything you remember that might help?’

Jamie bit her lip. ‘It’s difficult. I can’t place anything specifically, but it’s coming back in pieces.’

Falk nodded silently.

‘My father said so much,’ Jamie went on, looking down, staring into her memories, ‘it’s difficult to separate it all. But when I see something, read something…’

‘It comes back.’ Falk was being more understanding than Jamie expected. ‘Do you need to get back to London by a specific date?’ she asked, her voice soft.

Jamie read the lines of her face, analysing the way she’d asked. ‘You’ve spoken to my DCI,’ Jamie guessed.

Falk seemed a little amused. ‘He said you were sharp.’

‘What else did he say?’

‘That you were on administrative leave after being forced to shoot a suspect.’ She wasn’t dancing around it, that was for sure.

‘She came at me with a knife.’

‘That must have been difficult,’ Falk said tactfully. She’d had to deal with this before in her team. That much was clear.

‘It was.’

‘Why haven’t you returned to work?’ she asked casually, looking at her screen as though something interesting were on it.

‘I’ve been waiting for the right time,’ Jamie replied, trying to keep herself even.

‘What is the “right time”?’

‘When I was ready.’

She nodded. ‘Are you ready now?’

‘Yes.’

‘But you weren’t before.’

Jamie narrowed her eyes. Part of her wanted to wipe the polite smile off Falk’s face. She remembered her from the floor when she was a kid. She was always studious, quiet. Great at paperwork. She wasn’t a detective like Jamie’s father. A different breed. She was the sort that always filed her reports, always had glowing reviews from her superiors. Never put a foot out of line. She was the sort that rose through the ranks and couldn’t wait to be shoved behind a desk and out of the firing line.

And here she was.

She’d always disliked Jamie’s father, and Jamie couldn’t help but wonder if there was a little lingering resentment spilling onto her.

Jamie cleared her throat. ‘No, I wasn’t. I think I’d forgotten what it was like.’

‘What what was like?’

‘The feeling that if you stand by and do nothing, people will die.’

Falk studied the woman in front of her, a little amused, a little curious, a little derisive. ‘You don’t think our detectives could handle this case?’

‘I don’t have any reason to doubt them,’ Jamie said. ‘But I’m here. I was asked to come here, maybe just to help find my father’s notes, but Wiik can attest to their vagueness.’

The man behind her didn’t move. Falk didn’t even bother to look at him. She kept her eyes fixed on Jamie.

‘So it seems more likely that my memories can shed light on the original case. And frankly, if this one turns out to be anything like the first, I don’t know why you wouldn’t want the extra assistance.’

Falk didn’t speak for a second, weighing her words. ‘We’d never turn it down. The SPA have always maintained a good working relationship with the London Metropolitan Police, and I’m keen to continue that relationship.’

She was in full diplomacy mode.

‘But I have a duty of care,’ she went on, ‘to both my own officers and those under my purview, to ensure their safety to the best of my abilities. Do you understand what I’m saying?’

‘You’re asking me if I’m going to be a liability,’ Jamie said, not trying very hard to keep the scorn from her voice. ‘I’ve been cleared for active duty.’

‘I was informed. But still, I must do my own due diligence. I can’t just let anyone go running around in my city without vetting them first, no matter whose daughter they are.’

Jamie watched her carefully, looking for cracks in the wax mask. She couldn’t tell if Falk was insinuating that she didn’t think Jamie was capable of working this case, or if she was trying to ascertain whether she was going to behave like her father.

Jörgen Johansson had been a decorated detective. But also a brute, a drunkard and someone who was pulled into an office like this at least twice weekly for use of unnecessary or excessive force. Often both.

‘I can assure you,’ Jamie said, slipping into her own mask, ‘I’ll do nothing but be a gleaming representative of both the Met and the SPA. You have my word on that.’

Falk smiled broadly now. ‘I’m glad to hear it. But don’t think about it too much,’ she said, going back to her paperwork. ‘Wiik will tell you if you’re overstepping your bounds. And then report right back to me. Isn’t that right, Wiik?’

The man behind her grunted in semi-confirmation.

‘Now then,’ Falk said, grinning and clasping her hands together and laying them on the desk. ‘What have you got for me so far?’