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

‘Give me those names again,’ Wiik said as they headed for the old church a few miles north of the city. For the home of Hans Sjöberg’s widow.

‘Per Eriksson, Leif Lundgren, Tomas Lindvall,’ Jamie repeated.

Wiik nodded taking them in. ‘Eriksson, Lundgren, Lindvall.’

‘That’s what it says,’ Jamie confirmed, reading her father’s old notes back for the hundredth time.

They were the three other suspects that her father had noted down when investigating the original Angel Maker case. Their first three stops. After this one.

Wiik swung a right off a main road and trundled down a narrow two-lane with birch trees growing on the left. Their spindly branches dangled over the asphalt and dropped blobs of snow onto it.

The sky was bleak and grey as they drove, the air still and cold. Winter had closed in on the city like a noose. Same as it did every year.

The lonely spire of a church rose up at the end of the road, blackened support struts sticking up from its base like a ribcage. The place had fallen to ruin after a fire, its once bright exterior now flaking and charred. The ground around it was overgrown and covered with snow. Brambles arced from the white surface and dived back in at odd angles.

The word rapist was still visible, spray-painted on the side of it in huge red letters, despite the years and flames. It looked like someone had come back after the blaze to reiterate their point.

Wiik slowed just short of the locked gate and then pulled up onto the verge.

Nestled on the edge of the church grounds was a house.

Jamie and Wiik looked out at the modest half red brick, half white panelled bungalow, the two steps leading up to the front porch, the rusted access ramp next to them.

Wiik’s phone buzzed in the centre console, and he pulled it up in front of him, the corners of his mouth curling down. ‘They’ve removed the body,’ he said.

‘From the scene?’ Jamie asked.

‘It’s attracting too much attention. The press have got wind.’ He reached up, pushing his slicked-back hair against his scalp. ‘It’s at the lab already.’

He didn’t seem happy about that, and it looked like Falk had gone over his head with it. But it was getting on for two days, and there was still no sign of Nyström or the files.

They couldn’t have left her there forever.

Wiik shouldered the car door open, stuffing his phone back into his pocket, and headed for the house, not waiting for Jamie or looking back.

He was making it painfully clear who was in charge here.

Wiik swept up the path, climbed up onto the porch and knocked firmly, standing back so that Jamie couldn’t get up next to him.

She rolled her eyes and stepped onto the ramp, navigating the slick surface, and then drew level with Wiik.

He didn’t look at her.

They waited for a long time before the door opened, a woman in a wheelchair appearing in the doorway. She was in her sixties, her face lined, the skin around her throat baggy. Her long grey hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail, her dark eyes magnified behind thick glasses. Each lens had a different prescription, which made one eye look larger than the other.

She coughed, the sound wet and laboured, and then wheezed, sucking in a deep breath. It sounded difficult for her. ‘Yes?’ she asked, her voice rasping.

‘Kriminalinspektör Anders Wiik, Stockholm Polis,’ Wiik said, holding up his badge. ‘This is my colleague, Jamie Johansson.’ He nodded to Jamie, then smiled at the old woman.

Jamie ignored the fact that he left off her title and gave the woman a smile too.

Wiik went on. ‘Eva Sjöberg?’

The old woman looked at the both of them. ‘You’re here about my husband,’ she said, her voice tired. She reached down with thin hands and rolled herself backwards with some difficulty. ‘Come in, then,’ she said, her face dropping. ‘You’re letting the heat out.’

Jamie and Wiik sat on a plastic-covered sofa in the living room, Eva across from them. The television was playing daytime gameshows with the volume off. Subtitles flew across the bottom of the screen as two contestants bashed buttons furiously to fill up a giant meter with liquid.

Wiik cleared his throat and Jamie looked back at Eva Sjöberg, the widow of the infamous Angel Maker.

‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ Wiik said plainly, before driving the stake in. ‘Your husband always maintained his innocence in the Angel Maker case, is that correct?’

Eva was staring at Jamie, though. The question didn’t even seem to register. ‘Have we met before, dear?’ she asked, her expression absent, her head shaking just a little.

Jamie was sitting back on the sofa so that she wasn’t crowding Eva. Wiik was hanging off the end, elbows on his knees.

‘No,’ Jamie replied. ‘I don’t think we have.’

‘You seem familiar.’

It’s probably because my father put your husband in prison for the murder of seven teenage girls, Jamie resisted the urge to say. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t think so.’

Eva shrugged a little, her pointed shoulders like the corners of a tent beneath her cardigan.

Jamie didn’t know how she could wear one. She was sweating, as was Wiik. It must have been a hundred degrees in the house.

‘Mrs Sjöberg,’ Wiik tried again. ‘Your husband.’

‘Hans,’ Eva confirmed, inflecting it almost like a question.

‘Yes. He always claimed his innocence – that he wasn’t the Angel Maker.’

‘He is innocent,’ Eva replied evenly, focusing now on Wiik.

She caught the tense mismatch. Is? Surely she meant was. Jamie swallowed, studying the frail old woman.

This wasn’t a road Jamie thought they should proceed down – arguing a case that neither of them knew anything about with a woman who wasn’t playing with a full deck anymore.

They still hadn’t checked the court records – they weren’t digitised, and it would be a real job to go through the archives manually to find the originals. And nor had they been to the pathologist yet. They didn’t even have an ID on the victim. But the day was young, and they both needed to get as deep into this case, and the original, as they could. As fast as they could. And if Eva Sjöberg could point them in the direction of any of the other suspects, then it would give them a big head start. She couldn’t argue with Wiik’s logic there. Even if she didn’t wholly agree with it.

Wiik cleared his throat. ‘I apologise for dragging all of this back up, but we’re trying to clarify some of the finer details of the original case. There were other suspects in the investigation,’ Wiik went on. ‘What was it that tied Hans to the crimes so strongly?’

Eva Sjöberg’s eyes drifted to the window, out at the husk of the church. ‘We used to run a Sunday school for the children, Hans and I.’

Wiik’s fist tightened between his knees.

‘We knew those girls. Those poor, poor girls. All of them. All seven of them. They came to the services. With their parents. Sweet girls. Special girls. Innocent girls. What was done to them was just…’

Jamie listened intently. Someone knowing two of the victims outside of the church was coincidence. Three or four would be uncanny. But someone knowing all seven of them? No wonder her father had zeroed in on Sjöberg.

Wiik kept his eyes on her. ‘Was there anyone else that might have had a connection to the victims?’

Her eyes seemed to widen at the word. ‘Victims…’ she parroted. ‘Only… I don’t know. He was the groundskeeper, for the church, you know? His name was Erraldsson… Eriksson?’

Jamie sat up. ‘Per Eriksson?’

Wiik shot her a look and she nodded, confirming it was one of the three names in her father’s notebook.

She nodded. ‘Yes, yes. He was the groundskeeper, for the church.’

‘You said that,’ Wiik said, his frustration growing. ‘Did he know the girls?’

‘He may have done. He came to the church regularly.’

‘Do you know where he is now?’

Eva seemed to think for a moment, and then shook her head.

Wiik changed tact. ‘Did anyone visit your husband before his death?’

Eva’s eyes widened again, as though she’d forgotten that fact before he’d reminded her. ‘His…’ She trailed off, then a look of knowing came over her face, remembering that she already knew. ‘I – I don’t know.’ Her voice had grown quiet. She looked at the chair she was in, a blanket spread over her lap. ‘I didn’t get to visit much. It’s difficult for me to move around. In the winter especially. And, you know,’ she said, a sadness coming to her eyes, ‘people aren’t lining up to push around the woman they believe is married to a child-killer.’

Jamie swallowed, wondering how this woman’s life had been.

‘Do you have children of your own?’ Wiik asked.

She shook her head. ‘I wasn’t… Hans wanted children. But I couldn’t. I had an accident, years ago, that… It meant…’ She trailed off, looking down at her chair again, as though just seeing it for the first time and realising all the things that came with it.

Jamie reached forward and touched Wiik on the arm, gave him the look that all detectives know; They wouldn’t be able to extract anything else from the poor woman for now. They’d need to check the prison records for visitors and go from there. Whether Wiik had thought she’d plead her husband’s innocence and reveal the real Angel Maker, Jamie didn’t know. But whatever his reasons were for coming here first, he didn’t seem satisfied with the outcome.

All they had otherwise was a nameless girl frozen in the snow, a missing ex-detective and three names scrawled in a twenty-five-year-old notebook.

‘Thank you for your time,’ Wiik said, getting to his feet. ‘We might be back to ask a few more questions.’

Jamie added, ‘If that’s alright with you.’

Eva beamed at her, widely, brightening suddenly as the sadness fell out of her mind. ‘Of course, dear.’ She reached out and took Jamie’s hand, grasping it tightly with bony fingers. ‘If there’s anything else I can do to help.’

Jamie let her hand be held for a moment, thinking about the man her father was. Thinking about Eriksson having the means and opportunity. Thinking about Hans Sjöberg. A cold feeling crept up under her shirt and took hold of her spine. ‘Mrs Sjöberg, do you mind if I ask, did your husband plead guilty to the crimes?’

‘No,’ she said, shaking her head, her expression conflicted. ‘Not at first. But he had to in the end.’

‘Was he going to be convicted on the evidence alone? Do you remember?’

She furrowed her brow, trying to dig the answer out of her fading memories. ‘No – not alone. That other man was the prime suspect for a long time, but then Hans…’ She seemed to choke on the words. ‘They made him confess.’

‘Made him?’ Jamie queried, still holding the woman’s hands. ‘Your husband’s confession was taken under duress?’

The woman’s lip began to quiver. ‘Yes,’ she said, barely above a whisper. ‘He beat him. He beat him so badly,’ she said, devolving into a sob. ‘He beat it out of him, f-forced him to say that he did it.’ The woman jerked now, her shoulders rising and falling. Her other hand came up and grabbed Jamie’s now, too.

Jamie’s mouth had gone dry. ‘Who was “he”?’ she asked, knowing already that she didn’t want to hear the answer. ‘Who beat the confession out of your husband?’

Eva Sjöberg looked up then, and a moment of stillness seized the room. She met Jamie’s wide blue eyes, her voice dripping with venom. ‘The detective,’ she spat. ‘Johansson. Jörgen Johansson.’