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

The door to Interview Room 5 opened with a creak, and Wiik and Jamie walked in.

Lindvall had been sitting there for three hours, and whatever was riding high in his system had now begun to wear off. His face was bruised from where Jamie had tripped him, and his nails had been chewed so low that the tips of his fingers were raw.

There were little shards of them on the top of the table.

He shifted in his seat and slid back, the handcuffs clinking gently on the metal surface.

‘Comfortable?’ Wiik asked, eyeing Lindvall. He sat down on one of the chairs opposite and Jamie joined him.

Lindvall swallowed, looking from one to the other. His pupils had now normalised, and his eyes appeared heavy. He’d refused water and had sat in silence since he’d been thrown in there.

Wiik dropped a file in front of him and pressed his two forefingers down onto it, the others curled into a fist. ‘Tomas Lindvall, forty-four years old. Stockholm born and bred,’ Wiik said, a disgusted grin on his face. ‘And what a credit to the city you are.’

Lindvall looked away, his hands balling loosely and pulling taut on the chains as he shrank as far as they’d allow.

‘We searched your apartment,’ Wiik went on. ‘Found some interesting things. Amphetamines, cannabis, your stash of child pornography.’

Lindvall straightened and looked at them now. ‘It’s not—’

‘It’s more than enough to put you back in a locked box for a very long time. And not one of those padded ones you’re used to. One with bars, and no fucking toilet seat. One where they just love guys who fuck with children.’ Wiik’s grin widened. ‘What do you say. Does that sound like fun?’

‘I’ve done nothing wrong,’ Lindvall said, wincing as though Wiik was about to reach over the table and punch him in the head.

‘Bullshit.’ Wiik slammed his fist onto the file. ‘You’ve not done nothing since you were a fucking child! And with your history, this will be an easy fix. So if you don’t want to go away for the rest of your measly life, you better start talking.’

Jamie eyed Wiik cautiously. He had a hair trigger. That was for sure. He’d go from cool and calm to explosive in a heartbeat. And with guys like Lindvall – who were hanging by a thread anyway – he needed to be careful. The guy was a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic – pushing him too hard would only lose him as a suspect and derail the case further. And chained up or not, you could never anticipate what guys like Lindvall might do.

They’d got a look at his file. A partial case history. But a lot of it was sealed and not immediately accessible. Still, they already had a picture forming. He was delusional – haunted and terrorised by voices, hallucinations – as a child, as a teenager and as an adult. Demons, monsters. The sorts of things that push you to do crazy things. Who tell you to – force you to – do the worst things, to yourself, and others. Things like biting through your tongue to drown yourself in your own blood.

It happened. Jamie had seen it. And she definitely didn’t want to again.

Lindvall stared back at Wiik. ‘I don’t…’ he began.

‘1996,’ Wiik said coldly. ‘Seven girls. Raped. Suffocated. Left in the woods. Ringing any bells?’ He’d narrowed his eyes to slits now.

Lindvall’s jaw began to quiver. ‘1996?’

‘The Angel Maker,’ Wiik spat. ‘A nice name, don’t you think? Though I expected someone a little more… imposing.’

‘I-I’m not…’ Lindvall started.

‘And now, you just couldn’t resist doing it again, could you? You’re sitting up there in your cosy state-provided apartment, getting high and jerking off to pictures of children, and you start thinking that it’s not enough. That you could, you know, have a taste of the real thing, huh?’

‘What? No!’ Lindvall protested.

‘And then you read about it, right? In the paper or online, that Sjöberg died. The man who went away for your crimes. And it reminds you of the good old days. You start to think about it, plan it, and then, before you know it…’

‘No! I didn’t. I wouldn’t!’ Lindvall was getting worked up now.

‘Admit it,’ Wiik said, his voice rising, booming. ‘You went out looking for a girl, you took her, you threw her in the back of your car, gassed her with exhaust fumes, then took her into the woods, and mounted her like a fucking stag!’ Wiik was almost out of the chair now. ‘You cut into her like a piece of meat. Some sorry fucking excuse for an apology, was that it? Made her an angel to make up for the fact that you defiled her and—’

‘I don’t even have a car!’ Lindvall exploded, shrieking it, jerking violently. Tears spilt from his eyes.

Jamie set her jaw. Wiik had pushed too hard. Broken him. She hung her head and exhaled.

‘Bullshit!’ Wiik continued to yell, futile as it was now. ‘You borrowed one, stole one. Admit it. You killed them then, and you killed her now!’

Lindvall was shaking, pulling at his restrains, twisting up in his chair, bringing his knees to his chest like a child. He was regressing, spilling back into his past psychoses. Jamie watched as his mind began to detach itself from the reality he’d grounded himself in. She knew enough about psychology to know that Wiik was undoing twenty years of therapy and support in as many minutes.

She reached out, grabbed Wiik’s arm.

He looked around at her and she shook her head as subtly as she could.

Wiik’s jaw quivered, but Jamie’s grip tightened.

She shook her head again, their eyes locked, and then she felt the tension in his arm release.

He exhaled and sank backwards himself, hitting the seat and causing it to slide backwards an inch.

Wiik was about to start again, maybe this time with a little more forethought, when the door behind them opened.

A woman hovering on the young side of thirty with dark hair pulled back into a ponytail and fine, sharp features knocked twice and pushed her head through the gap simultaneously. ‘Wiik,’ she said, her pale, grey eyes glowing in the harsh interview-room light.

‘What is it?’ Wiik turned on his chair.

Lindvall was still sobbing.

The woman held a file up. ‘You should take a look at this.’

Wiik bit his lip, glanced back at Lindvall and then pushed himself to his feet. ‘We’ll be back,’ Wiik warned him, as though there was any doubt, and then headed for the door.

Jamie rose beside him, letting her eyes rest on the man in handcuffs, trying to weigh him up. Trying to ascertain whether he was capable of this. Running from the police, taking a swing at a detective… Sure that wasn’t a good start for his defence, but multiple abduction, murder…? That took planning. A focused mind. Something she didn’t think this man had. But then again, if he was under the advisement of one of his voices. If he was ordered to…

Jamie drew a slow breath and then followed Wiik out.

Delusion was powerful. It had power over life and death at times. Lindvall may not have been able to consciously mastermind the crimes. But that wasn’t to say his mind wasn’t able to. Perhaps just not the part that belonged to him.

Outside in the corridor, Wiik was staring down at the file now in his hands.

The woman now had hers free and wasted no time in offering one to Jamie.

‘Polisassistent Hallberg,’ she said formally, smiling with perfect teeth.

Jamie took it. ‘Detective Inspector Jamie Johansson.’

‘Oh, I know,’ Hallberg said, grinning. ‘It’s a pleasure.’

‘Is it?’ Jamie asked, raising an eyebrow. She didn’t know if she was ready to hear anything else about her father’s career today. Wiik’s revelation at the pathology lab was enough for the whole week.

‘I read about your cases,’ she said quickly. ‘The guy hunting the musicians, the trafficking ring you took down… the organ harvester…’ She shook her head. ‘And all as a detective sergeant, too.’ She couldn’t stop grinning.

It was making Jamie squirm.

Wiik looked up briefly, surveyed Jamie in a way she’d not seen him do before, and then went back to the file.

Hallberg put her hands on her hips. ‘It must run in the family—’

Wiik cleared his throat, and Hallberg fell quiet mid-sentence. ‘That’s enough,’ he said, sighing and handing the file off to Jamie. ‘Lindvall was telling the truth. He really doesn’t have a car. At least not one that’s registered.’

Jamie pressed her lips together and scanned the report. ‘Wouldn’t need one if he stole Nyström’s,’ Jamie said, not looking up from the file. It contained all the information Hallberg had gathered on Lindvall so far. The sealed case files detailing his treatment and case history. Everything the CSTs had grabbed from his apartment. Jamie and Wiik had only gone in armed with the prelims. But now they had more detail. And it didn’t look promising.

Jamie checked her watch.

It hadn’t been long since they’d collared Lindvall, and it was late in the afternoon now. Hallberg was efficient. She had to give her that. And the report was impeccably compiled and ferociously detailed considering the timeframe.

‘You need to be somewhere, Johansson?’ Wiik asked, seeing her glancing at her wrist.

‘No,’ Jamie replied, going back to the report. ‘Looks like the pornography recovered from Lindvall’s computer was all legal. Fetish, but legal.’

‘Loli,’ Hallberg added.

‘Hmm?’

‘It’s short for “Lolita”,’ she expounded. ‘It’s a book written by Vladimir Nabokov where—’

‘I know what it is,’ Jamie said, her tone a little more cutting than intended.

‘Of course, I’m sorry.’ Hallberg reddened a little.

Jamie felt bad. And worse, that this girl seemed to be putting her on some kind of pedestal. And even worse again that it was because of three cases she wasn’t proud of.

She sighed and then started leafing through the other pages.

Hallberg bit her lip, folded her arms and then reached out, flipping for Jamie to a specific page. ‘This was the sealed file,’ she said quickly, retracting her hands. ‘Lindvall’s psychiatrist sent it over a few minutes ago.’

Jamie scanned it. ‘Jesus, when he was seventeen?’

‘What is it?’ Wiik asked, taking the file back without asking.

Hallberg interjected. ‘The report says Lindvall assaulted his twelve-year-old sister – tried to…’

Wiik nodded, reading it in front of him. ‘They arrested him, put him on the register, but no charges were brought,’ he muttered, his eyes darting along the words. ‘Apparent psychological problems… He was sent to live with grandparents following the attack in 1993, which put him in proximity to one of the Angel Maker sites.’ He said it like a statement, but inflected it like a question, glancing at Hallberg for confirmation.

She nodded.

Wiik started reading again. ‘The parents put him in for counselling while he was there. He was in and out of therapy for a few years.’ Wiik made a clicking noise with his tongue. ‘Then after a public outburst in 1999, he was arrested again at twenty-three years old – resisted arrest, clear signs of psychosis, finally diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia…’

Jamie watched Wiik closely. ‘What about the prior offences that Hallberg mentioned, the indecent assault, the assault of a minor, possession of indecent images, attempted kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment…’

Wiik kept reading, was silent for a few seconds, then spoke. ‘The indecent assault was the offence that got him arrested and diagnosed – he groped someone on a train, was subdued by staff and pleaded that the woman was his mother…’ Wiik shook his head, trying to process that one. ‘The assault of a minor, attempted kidnapping, possession of indecent images – they were in 2005, just before he was placed into secure care again. It says here that he took an eleven-year-old girl by the hand and tried to lead her away from her mother, then freaked out when she started screaming, tried to grab the girl. He was convinced it was his sister – who would have been in her twenties by then…’ Wiik exhaled hard. ‘He was arrested, his phone searched. Looks like the search history was pretty damning.’ He ran a finger down the list. ‘Nothing too gruesome, but any search beginning with the words little girl isn’t going to be pretty.’ He grimaced now and turned the page. ‘Unlawful imprisonment charge was lodged against him by his… girlfriend?’ Wiik was surprised. ‘In 2013. He moved in with her. Then, it says, he became paranoid that she was going to leave him, was cheating on him, was talking to people about him behind his back. He locked her in the house for three days, and then became agitated, and she shut herself in the bathroom, afraid for her life… Neighbours called the police following screaming and banging on the wall… He was taken into custody. Formal charges were dropped following declaration of non compos mentis, and he was sentenced to outpatient care and community service.’ Wiik closed the file, looking drawn.

‘We need to speak to her, see if we can’t get a better gauge of what this guy is capable of,’ Jamie said, filing it all in her mind.

‘I think it’s pretty clear what he’s capable of,’ Wiik growled. It seemed he’d already made up his mind about the guy.

‘I’ll admit that’s a hell of a track record,’ Jamie said, ‘but it’s not concrete. Not by a stretch.’

Wiik looked at her intensely, file still open in front of him, and silence fell between them as they sized each other up.

Hallberg shifted from foot to foot. ‘So, do you think it’s him?’

‘Maybe,’ Wiik answered, looking at her. ‘He’s definitely capable of it.’ He lifted the file a little to illustrate.

Hallberg looked from one to the other. ‘But to go from that to… this,’ she said, staring into space, visualising the crime scene. ‘It’s a big leap.’

Jamie could see that Hallberg agreed with her that the file was nothing but indicative that Lindvall had some serious problems. She was dead right in saying that it was a big leap from locking your girlfriend in a house to abducting, suffocating, and then mounting your victim in the woods.

Wiik looked hard at Hallberg, not liking the insubordination. ‘We can’t make any firm assumptions, you’re right. But he was linked to the original case, and if the conversation we just had with him told me anything, it’s that it doesn’t take much to push him over the edge.’

Jamie watched Wiik now, seeing the angle he was working.

She’d thought he’d been blind to Lindvall’s limits, but it was the opposite. He was trying to find his breaking point.

Maybe she was underestimating Wiik after all.

‘Right,’ Jamie said. ‘And he did make a run for it the second we showed up at his door.’

Wiik nodded and folded his arms. ‘We need to let him stew for another few hours, calm down, reflect on where he is.’ He sighed and handed the file back to Jamie so he could rub his eyes with his fingers.

He looked as tired as Jamie felt.

‘Where are we on the court transcripts?’ he asked Hallberg.

‘They aren’t digitised yet,’ Hallberg replied. ‘But I’ve got a requisition order in with the court archives. They’re going to send us copies when they’ve got them. I expected them to be here by now, so they shouldn’t be long, I don’t think.’

‘If they’re not here by tonight, I’ll be sending you to the courthouse myself,’ Wiik said, without a hint of humour.

‘Hopefully, it won’t come to that,’ Hallberg replied, just as little in hers.

‘When they arrive I want them typed out as quickly as you’re able, and then saved securely, okay?’

‘All of them?’ Hallberg asked, her brow creasing.

Wiik nodded. ‘That be a problem?’

She opened her mouth – to say yes, Jamie assumed – and then closed it again and smiled. ‘Of course not.’

‘What about the information from the prison – Sjöberg’s cause of death, visitors?’

‘I managed to speak to the doctor at the prison – Sjöberg was undergoing treatment for pancreatic cancer. It was progressing quickly, and after the first round of chemo, he refused further treatment.’

‘Why would he do that?’ Wiik asked.

Hallberg shook her head. ‘I don’t know, it can be brutal. Maybe he didn’t want to put himself through it. The sickness, the pain. Locked in prison, it would be—’

‘I was looking for a solid answer, not conjecture,’ Wiik cut in.

‘Right, of course,’ Hallberg said. ‘My apologies.’

Jamie eyed her. Jesus, she was like a kicked dog. She knew Wiik was a hard-ass, but the poor girl couldn’t catch a break.

He didn’t know how good he had it. Hell, if he had to suffer through just one shoddy report compiled by her old partner…

Wiik went on with his demands. ‘And the visitors list?’

‘They’re combing back through,’ Hallberg answered. ‘They changed their security system in 2013, so everything before isn’t as easily accessible. They should have it to us by the morning.’

Wiik wasn’t happy. ‘Get back on the phone to them. I’d rather have it in two halves than wait another twelve hours. Get the list from 2013 onwards, and any footage they have of visitors, too.’

‘Okay,’ Hallberg said, trying to keep her expression positive.

‘And what about the victim? Any word on an ID yet?’

‘Nothing. I’m still looking, but so far, no missing persons match her description.’

‘Jesus,’ Wiik muttered, running his hand over his head, smoothing down his hair.

Jamie wondered how many times a day he had to top up on product to keep it so perfect.

‘Is there anything we do have?’

‘Uh,’ Hallberg said, rolling through it all in her head. ‘Yeah, the stills came in from the toll gate that clocked Nyström’s car.’

‘What? When?’

‘An hour ago?’ Hallberg said.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Wiik growled.

Hallberg did her best not to scoff, but gestured to the report in Jamie’s hands all the same. ‘I was a little busy. And plus, they don’t show anything. It was dark out, and you can’t make out whoever was driving anyway—’

She stopped talking as Wiik walked away, heading for the main floor again.

Hallberg closed her mouth, stared at the ground for a second, and then looked at Jamie, her pale eyes shining in the halogens in the corridor. ‘What can you do, huh?’

Jamie closed the file and smiled, holding it up. She knew that feeling all too well. ‘This is great work, really.’

Hallberg returned it. ‘Wiik’s okay. This is just how he is. You get used to it, you know?’

Jamie watched him disappear around a corner, tail of his coat swinging. She sighed. ‘Honestly, I hope I won’t be here that long.’