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

Wiik stood with his hands in his pockets, staring out at the trees in front of the lab. They rustled softly, their leaves wet, their trunks hugged by snow.

He looked to be waiting for her to tell him she was ready.

‘Where to next?’ Jamie asked, regaining herself.

Wiik pulled out his phone. They’d heard nothing from Hallberg. He held the device between the knuckle of his index finger and the pad of his thumb, and drummed it on the palm of his other hand, still watching the trees.

Jamie watched him.

After a moment, he sighed, shaking his head. ‘Do you still have the notebook?’

Jamie took it out of her pocket and offered it up to him.

He pulled it open to the page Jamie had dog-eared as the start of the case, and started leafing through, pausing when he got to one that said Sjöberg in large letters. It was circled a few times, a few dots of ink around it where Jamie’s father had tapped the nib of his pen on the paper. ‘Your father,’ Wiik said, ‘was so sure.’

‘He was wrong,’ Jamie replied, surprised at the surety in her own voice. Even more so by the bile.

Wiik inspected the other notes on the page.

Wiik looked down at them, written around Sjöberg’s name.

Jamie stared down at it too. ‘Any ideas what “A.M.” means?’

He stuck out his bottom lip. ‘I don’t know. Who’s Annika Liljedahl?’

Jamie shook her head. ‘At least “strong” speaks for itself.’

‘Mm.’

‘Did you meet Sjöberg?’ Jamie asked as Wiik let the notepad drop a little. He went back to looking at the trees.

‘No,’ he replied. ‘I saw photographs, though. He was tall, well built.’

‘Strong.’

The corner of Wiik’s mouth curled into his cheek a little bit, but he said nothing.

A minute passed, the only sound between them the distant roar of rubber on cold asphalt beyond the wall of foliage. And then Wiik’s phone rang.

‘Wiik,’ he said, pulling it to his ear. ‘Yeah, one second.’ He lowered the phone and put it on speaker. ‘Okay, go.’

It was Hallberg. ‘I have something.’ She took a quick breath. ‘We got a lot of results for Per Eriksson and Leif Lundgren in public records. It will take some time to narrow down the search. But I got a hit on Tomas Lindvall. He’s got a file all of his own.’

‘Oh,’ Wiik said, filling the pause Hallberg left. Jamie could tell he’d be happier if she just got on with it.

‘He’s got a string of prior offences for indecent assault, indecent assault of a minor, possession of indecent images, attempted kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment…’

Wiik’s grip tightened on the phone.

‘And his file lists him as being a person of interest in the Angel Maker case in 1996.’

Wiik nodded slowly. ‘Okay.’

Jamie held her breath.

Hallberg went on. ‘No charges were filed against him during the case, but it looks like Johansson pursued him as a lead for a while. The note on his file says he lived close to one of the sites.’

‘He still live there?’ Wiik asked, glancing at Johansson and motioning for her to follow him.

‘No – changed addresses a few times. Seems he’s been in and out of a couple of secure units by the looks of things, too.’

‘Secure units?’ Wiik parroted, eyeing Jamie to gauge her response.

‘Psychiatric wards,’ Hallberg said, then made a clicking sound with her tongue as though she was searching the information in front of her. ‘Looks like he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in 19… 1999.’

‘Jesus,’ Wiik muttered, turning the corner and heading down the ramp into the underground car park.

‘He received treatment on three separate occasions. Two separate facilities. 1999 to 2000, then again at the same facility from 2005 to 2006. Then a different facility in the city from 2011 to 2012. The last change of address and offence we have him for was in 2016. Looks like he’s been quiet for a few years. Maybe he got his shit together.’

Wiik flashed his badge at the parking attendant and dipped under the gate. ‘Or just building up to something more serious.’

‘I’ll send the address over now. You want me to meet you there?’

Wiik glanced back at Jamie, who was firmly in tow.

‘No,’ he said. ‘We’ve got it.’

‘Of course.’ The disappointment was apparent in her voice. ‘Guess I’ll just stay here, keep digging into Lundgren and Eriksson, then?’

Wiik stopped at the car and fished Jamie’s father’s notebook from his pocket. He rested his phone on the roof of the car and flipped through pages. ‘I have another name for you, too. Annika Liljedahl.’

‘You said Liljedahl?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Anything specific?’

‘No, just check it out, see what you get. The name was written in Johansson’s notebook, next to Sjöberg’s name. There’s a connection there.’

‘Got it. And, sir?’

‘Yes, Hallberg?’

‘Be careful.’

He smirked, then glanced at Jamie. ‘I’ll be fine. I’ve got a Johansson watching my back, remember?’

They rolled quickly through the city, closing in on a cluster of dank high-rise apartments.

The city slowly grew darker, dirtier around them as they edged into the worse parts of town. The day was wearing into the afternoon, and the sun waning at their shoulder.

Wiik pulled in at the kerb on the main stretch, not wanting to drive into the car parks in front of the towers. Probably because he didn’t want to alert anyone to their presence. But also because he likely didn’t want to leave the denizens unsupervised around his new Volvo.

She didn’t blame him.

Jamie wasn’t sure if it was his own car or a plain-clothes police vehicle, but the cream leather interior told her it was expensive either way.

She glanced over at him and saw the shine of a heavy, silver watch peeking out from under the sleeve of his coat. The fine black wool sleeve of his coat. His boots, too, were high-quality leather.

Wiik took pride in himself. Liked the nicer things. But wasn’t intent on showing them off.

Before Jamie could make any more observations about his attire, the driver’s door opened and he was out of the car and striding fast. She had to run to catch up.

Wiik was a man of few words. Jamie had to give him that.

And she didn’t mind at all. Maybe it was the Swede in her, or maybe she’d just got sick of hearing people talk. Either way, just like with Graeme, she welcomed the silences between them.

There were three blocks in a line, and Wiik headed for the middle one.

A series of raised lawns studded with trees littered the front of the buildings. The low walls that ran around them, dotted with benches, tried to do something to bring up the general standard of the place. But they failed.

The once bright stone was marred with spray paint and old urine, and the benches designed to allow people to bask in this puddle of greenery were either broken or played host to sleeping homeless.

Jamie glanced down, grimacing as the smell hit her. A man who could have been in his thirties or sixties, lay strung out in a thick puffer jacket, drenched in his own piss. He was sprawled back on the bench, legs splayed, chin on his chest, a dark patch stretching from his crotch to his ankles, soaking his navy sweatpants.

Wiik motioned her to speed up. ‘Come on. You’ll see plenty more before we’re done here.’

Jamie exhaled, locked away the memories of cases gone by, and pressed forward. They were here for Tomas Lindvall. And that’s who they were going to get.

Tomas Lindvall lived in an apartment on the eleventh floor. Apartment 1117 to be exact.

The block’s ground floor was open as though the whole building were on stilts. Beneath the concrete body, a car park had been placed. But there were only a few cars parked there, one of which was a burnt-out wreck, another abandoned and spray-painted with massive phalluses and worse swear words.

Teenagers and residents rode in circles on pushbikes, smoking joints and shoving each other around, laughing like hyenas.

Wiik headed towards the lifts wordlessly, not looking twice at the kids. They seemed to clam up, catching his scent on the breeze, as if they knew, and turned their heads away, holding in lungfuls of smoke until Wiik had passed.

He did have that look of a cop about him. Maybe as much as anyone Jamie had ever met. The permanent mask of expressionlessness. The distrustful eyes. The taut shoulders.

He covered ground quickly, taking long strides, and pulled a blue latex glove from his pocket, using it as a barrier between the call button and his skin. It wasn’t about contaminating potential evidence. The place was just filthy.

Jamie glanced over at the kids, who were still eyeing them cautiously, then took stock of the surroundings, the fire escape on the far side of the building, the rustling trees on the green, the network of paths there. She visualised the layout, the routes. The exits.

Jamie sighed, her eyes coming to rest on the silver doors in front of them. Another set stood at their right. Damn, the lift was taking forever.

The lit panel above it was caked in dirt, same as everything down here, and the noise of grinding cables didn’t do much to dispel Jamie’s unease.

The doors finally opened before them and Wiik stepped in, screwing his face up at the stench of old urine.

Why everyone had to piss on everything, she really didn’t know.

Jamie took one last breath of fresh air and went in after him.

Wiik, still holding the glove, called for the eleventh floor, and they went up, cables grinding again, the progress painfully slow.

The lift opened onto an open corridor and squares of grey sky appeared on either side as they got out. Wiik looked up at the wall, a tarnished metal sign told them they’d find 1101 to 1120 to the right, 1121 to 1140 to the left.

He went right, heels clicking on the concrete.

This high up, the wind was colder, more brutal. It whipped across the balcony and blasted leaves around the walkway in front of them, scarcely wide enough for them to move side by side. Though Wiik’s pace told Jamie he wasn’t really that interested in doing that anyway. Or in small talk. Or in anything, really. Whether it was the haze of the case, or he was just an unfriendly bastard in general, Jamie didn’t know. But she didn’t think she’d like to spend eight hours a day with the guy for the foreseeable. But then again, maybe Hallberg knew her way around him.

Or maybe he was struggling with the weight of this case, the weight of the lives of the girls it had already claimed, it would claim, on his shoulders.

Or maybe it was just Jamie.

Wiik stopped at 1117 and looked back at her for the first time to make sure she was with him. A narrow window ran vertically next to the door, presumably providing some semblance of natural light to the inside of the flat. It was covered by a thick curtain, though, and no sound was coming from within.

Jamie shivered and pulled her peacoat tighter around her shoulders, her heart picking up a little as Wiik raised his knuckles to the composite door. The knock was hard and even. Four loud, distinct raps. The noise was dull, carried away instantly by the wind.

There was shuffling inside and then after a few seconds, the bolts began to slide.

Wiik slid his left foot forwards so that it was near the corner, ready to be jammed into the gap if need be.

The door swung inwards a few inches, a chain spanning the distance to the frame, and a pale face swam into view above it. The man's eyes were wide, his pupils dilated. There were bags under them and his skin was gaunt, his hair tousled and unwashed, somewhere between blonde and brown.

His eyes twitched, going from Jamie to Wiik and back again. The two detectives looked at each other, Wiik no doubt reaching the same conclusion as Jamie.

Tomas Lindvall was high.

‘Yeah?’ he asked, keeping as much of his scrawny body behind the door as possible.

Jamie looked at his knuckles around the wood, noted the chewed nails.

Wiik raised his badge. ‘Kriminalinspektör Anders Wiik, SPA,’ he said flatly.

Lindvall swallowed hard and looked at Jamie again.

‘Detective Inspector Jamie Johansson,’ she said, reading the strange look of curiosity on his face and holding up the SPA lanyard Falk had given her. The guy was out of his skull.

‘Can we come in?’ Wiik asked.

Jamie watched him sniff the air, detect the scent of stale sweat and marijuana.

‘Or perhaps you’d prefer to step outside so we can talk?’ Wiik added.

He shrank behind the door a little. ‘What’s this about?’

‘We’d like to ask you about your whereabouts three nights ago,’ Wiik said plainly, not overplaying his hand.

‘My whereabou…’ Lindvall trailed off halfway through as though a three-syllable word was too much for his addled mind.

Jamie remembered that Hallberg said this guy was a diagnosed schizophrenic. She watched him closely.

‘Where were you,’ Wiik pressed, moving a little closer, ‘three nights ago? You got an alibi?’

‘An alibi?’ he repeated, narrowing his eyes as though the word was alien to him.

‘Stop fucking around,’ Wiik said, his voice cold now.

‘W-what is this about?’ Lindvall asked again.

Jamie could see he wasn’t all there. At least not when he was mixing whatever drugs he seemed to have been. There was a delay after each question as his brain did its best to process.

‘A case,’ Wiik said, his teeth gritting, temple vein bulging. ‘A murder investigation.’

‘Murder?’

Wiik's hand flew out, slapped against the wood. ‘Yeah, you piece of shit.’ Spittle flecked onto the surface and crystallised in the sub-zero wind. ‘A girl. Young, brown hair, suffocated, raped, murdered, left in the goddamn woods. You know anything about that?’

Jamie set her jaw. Wiik was pushing too hard.

Lindvall’s bottom lip began to quiver.

‘Open the door, now,’ Wiik demanded.

There was fear in Lindvall’s eyes for a second, and then it was gone.

Jamie tensed.

He looked from Jamie to Wiik and back, and then nodded, slowly, his nostrils flaring. ‘Okay,’ he said quietly. ‘Just let me…’ He stepped back, his thin trunk and round shoulders appearing in the gap for a second before he pushed the door closed, the sound of the chain sliding off audible behind it.

Wiik exhaled hard and plastered his hair against his head with his hand.

Jamie stepped back, feeling the air change.

And then it happened.

The door flew open and Lindvall burst out, shoulder dipped, and drove it into Wiik’s chest.

Wiik grunted and stumbled back hitting the balcony guardrail.

The long red strips of wood shuddered and the whole thing rippled under the force.

Wiik’s fists curled around the barrier and his body bent back over it, his head swinging out into space as he fought for balance.

Jamie was already out of the way, pressed against the barrier herself. Her hand flew out, grabbing a fistful of Wiik’s coat, and dragged him upright.

Lindvall was running, his bony elbows and fists pumping like train rods at his sides as he headed for the lift they’d come up on.

Wiik got back to his feet and swatted Jamie’s arm away, shoving past her after Lindvall. He fired her a hard look, as though she should have grabbed for Lindvall and not him, and then took off after the man.

Jamie watched them go for a second, then looked right, sticking her head through Lindvall’s front door.

The smell was stronger inside, the flat no more than a studio.

She could see white powder in a small pile on a dinner tray perched on a coffee table, an ashtray full of smoked joints and cigarettes. A laptop was open, pointed at the wall.

Jamie stepped back, glanced after Wiik, who was halfway to the lifts and not making up ground on Lindvall, and then sighed.

She closed the front door firmly and then turned in the opposite direction, cracking her neck as she walked, picking up speed with every step.

The lift hit the ground floor and Lindvall oozed through the gap, stumbling, his shoelaces untied, and then bolted towards the trees in front of the blocks.

Wiik dragged himself through the gap in the second lift’s doors five seconds later and hammered after him, his cheeks bright red, his styled hair now a mad tangle of dark strands around his crown.

He was panting hard, his long, heavy coat and stiff jeans preventing him from picking up any real speed.

Wiik took care of himself, but he wasn’t a runner.

Lindvall, on the other hand, was thin, like a whippet, wearing just a pair of sweatpants and a loose T-shirt dotted with ash-holes. He reached the first walkway, streaking past the homeless man in the piss-soaked trousers, and stole a look over his shoulder, grinning with yellow teeth as Wiik began to fall behind, clutching his ribs, at the stitch there.

Lindvall turned his head back, his eyes widening, a shocked squealing sound escaping his lips. He was moving too fast to get out of the way of Jamie, who moved cleanly into his path, sticking her leg out and twisting away from him so that his foot hooked under her calf.

She threw her shoulder into him, letting physics do the rest, and watched Lindvall sail into the air, spinning and landing hard on his side. He bounced, swore, and rolled to a stop, his head snapping up to look at her. Whatever was in his system was dulling his senses. Amphetamines, cocaine. Could be anything.

Jamie came forward, shaking the dull ache from her right leg where Lindvall’s shin had connected. ‘Stanna nere,’ she commanded, holding out her palm. Stay down.

Wiik was trundling now, fighting with his own breath, still twenty metres away.

Lindvall clocked him, then measured Jamie, figuring he could take her.

In a blur of flailing arms, he was on his feet, charging.

His fist balled and came up behind his head, telegraphing his punch from a mile off.

Jamie watched it, took stock of his feet, and then danced onto her right foot, baiting him, preloading her next move.

Lindvall got in range, unwound his arm.

Jamie sprung backwards onto her left foot, out of his path, his hand flying down in front of her, missing completely.

In the half a second it took for Lindvall’s brain to catch up, Jamie’s knee had cocked, and then sent the toe of her right boot flying upwards in a steep arc.

Lindvall doubled over the top of her foot, the sharp, well-placed jab from the toe of her boot enough to knock the wind right out of him.

He stumbled, mewled, and then collapsed into a heap, clutching his stomach.

Jamie’s heel touched down again and she brushed the loose strands of hair from her eyes, barely having broken a sweat. Her long plait settled between her shoulder blades and hung still.

Lindvall began clawing at the ground to get away, but he was going nowhere fast with no air in his lungs.

Wiik arrived and sank forward, hands on his knees, breathing hard. He eyed Jamie, his face a mix of displeasure and exhaustion. ‘How did you’ – he hawked, then spat the phlegm caught in his throat onto the ground – ‘get down here so fast?’

She shrugged. ‘Stairs. Elevator was too slow.’

‘Eleven flights?’

‘I keep fit.’

He narrowed his eyes, nodding at the prostrate Lindvall. ‘And this?’

She drew a slow breath. ‘Tae Kwon Do and Kevlar toecaps.’ She waggled her boot at him a little.

He didn’t look sold and after a second, let out another long sigh, and then knelt down, rolling Lindvall onto his front. He folded Lindvall’s hands up behind his back and pulled a cable-tie from his pocket, zipping it tight around the man’s wrists before wiping the beads of sweat off his forehead with his sleeve.

‘You got any other hidden talents I should know about?’ he asked sourly, leaning his knee into the small of Lindvall’s back as he fished his phone out of his inside pocket.

‘Guess you’ll have to wait and see.’