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

Wiik was standing behind Jamie, his arms folded, staring down at the screen in front of her. His screen, in fact. On his desk.

‘You know,’ he said, pressing his lips into a line so his cheeks puffed a little. ‘Hallberg is really good at this stuff.’

Jamie didn’t look around and instead kept scrolling down the page she was reading. ‘I like doing my own research,’ she said, scanning a column of text. It was difficult to focus with Wiik breathing quite literally down her neck.

She was looking up Mikael Gunnarson to see exactly what he was doing at the time of his daughter’s death, but all she could find so far was that his company was in the midst of negotiating a major investment from an early-adopting green-energy corporation. Åsa, similarly, was dealing with a huge case that had spread her entire firm thin. But otherwise, nothing seemed of note, though Jamie didn’t exactly know what she was looking for. She did know, however, that Mikael Gunnarson knew something he wasn’t saying. And that whatever it was, it must have been incriminating, otherwise he wouldn’t have refused to say anything without his solicitor present.

Jamie sighed and leaned back in the chair, reaching for the statement he’d given last night at the crime scene again.

‘You won’t find anything there you didn’t the first ten times you read that,’ Wiik said, sighing.

She exhaled through her nose and lifted the page. ‘You could help, rather than just standing and reading over my shoulder.’ The truth was that they were at a wall. And neither wanted to admit it. As soon as Gunnarson had left the room, they’d worked on a series of requests for information that they knew he wouldn’t have given during the questioning. Name of the agency used for the nannies, name of the nanny herself. A list of potential enemies or people who may have had it out for him and Åsa. While Jamie and Wiik were almost positive that the shooting and Tilde’s death were related, they couldn’t rule out that it was just pure coincidence. Though neither of them believed it.

And with Eriksson still in the wind, they were no closer to solving this thing.

Jamie checked her watch. It was almost midday now. The news would be circulating the girl’s photo again. But if they hadn’t had a hit yet, it was becoming more and more unlikely by the hour that they would.

‘Coffee?’ Wiik asked from behind her, probably noticing she’d been staring blankly at the same page of Gunnarson’s report for the last few minutes. It said they were having dinner, awaiting the arrival of the detectives from Stockholm, and then he saw a flash from across the valley, out of the fog. Then he felt the hot spray of blood on his face and fell off his chair in shock, screaming, scrambling for cover as the shooter put more bullets into the house.

But Jamie hadn’t heard any screaming – and she’d been close enough to the house to have been in range.

And while Mikael Gunnarson’s chair was pushed back from the table, it didn’t look like anyone had toppled off it.

Though none of that meant anything. Maybe he’d not screamed loudly – rather squealed. Maybe he’d fallen sideways off the chair. Maybe he’d not screamed at all and had dived for cover the moment his wife’s chest had been blown all over his face.

Whatever happened, Jamie had a feeling that there was more to him than met the eye. The question was, though, how much they’d get out of him with Lassen on defence.

Wiik laid a hand on her shoulder and she looked around.

‘Coffee?’ he asked again, raising an eyebrow.

‘Sure,’ Jamie said, dropping the statement onto his desk and rubbing her eyes.

Wiik disappeared towards the coffee machine and Jamie watched him go. Though the case was getting worse, the leads drying up and the suspects disappearing, Wiik seemed in reasonable spirits.

Jamie thought about what Falk had said – that Wiik was the temperamental type, that losing his partner had really shaken him. But he seemed to be more himself now. Or what Jamie thought ‘himself’ might be. She just hoped he wasn’t getting any ideas about her hanging around.

She dragged her eyes from him and sighed, jolting in shock as she realised Hallberg was standing at the corner of the desk, clutching a piece of paper.

‘Jesus,’ Jamie said, shaking it off. ‘You scared the shit out of me.’

‘Sorry,’ Hallberg said, breathless. She looked like she’d been running. ‘Where’s Wiik?’

‘Getting coffee, what’s wrong?’ Jamie asked, reading the haste in her voice.

‘Nothing’s wrong,’ Hallberg said, thrusting the piece of paper at her. ‘We just got a call – positive ID on our victim.’

Jamie grabbed it and stared down at the photograph of their victim on the pathologist’s slab. Under it was a photograph of a young girl. She was maybe a year or so younger in that photo and was standing next to a woman at what looked like a birthday party. They had their arms around one another. The woman was grinning. The girl wasn’t. She looked uncomfortable and was wearing a pin with 13 on it, Jamie doubted of her own choosing.

Wiik appeared just then, holding a single cup of coffee. He handed it to Jamie and took the paper out of her hands at the same time. He must have spotted Hallberg from the machines and hightailed it over.

She stared down into the brown liquid. Looks like he didn’t have time to get both.

Jamie took a long, scalding gulp, and then pushed to her feet, crowding Wiik to read the paper.

‘Emmy Berg,’ Jamie said, reading the name. ‘Thirteen years old.’

‘The call was made by…’ Wiik said, scanning the words. ‘Anna Hansen, is that right?’ He glanced up at Hallberg.

She nodded.

‘Who is Hansen to Emmy Berg?’ he probed.

‘Foster mother,’ Hallberg said quickly. ‘Emmy Berg was orphaned, has been placed at several homes – Anna Hansen said she had a habit of running away. From previous homes, and theirs, too. Her and her husband Jan have been fostering her for a little over ten months – Anna said she thought the girl was happy. She wanted to report her missing, but Jan insisted that she would come back when she was ready, or they’d get a call from the police that she’d been picked up. She seemed upset by the whole thing.’

Wiik shook his head in disgust. ‘Who would leave a thirteen-year-old girl to the mercy of the city?’

Hallberg looked like she was about to hazard a guess before she decided against it and kept quiet.

Jamie nodded to her that it was the right call and she looked away bashfully.

‘Right,’ Wiik said suddenly, smacking the paper with the knuckles of his other hand. ‘We have a positive ID. Finally.’ He looked at Hallberg, as if deciding, and then landed on Jamie. ‘You ready? I want to speak to them in person as soon as possible. Just in case our shooter gets any more bold ideas.’

Jamie bit her lip and glanced at Hallberg. ‘You should come with us—’

‘No,’ Wiik said, looking at her. ‘Hallberg can stay – carry on your research into Mikael Gunnarson. You’re terrible at it anyway.’

Jamie was knocked off balance by the bluntness of the insult. ‘My research is—’

But Wiik wasn’t listening, or he didn’t care. Or both. He was already striding back towards the corridor, leaving both Jamie and Hallberg standing in silence.

After a second Jamie exhaled and looked at the girl. ‘He does that a lot, huh?’

‘Insults you, cuts you off, and then walks away?’ Hallberg raised an eyebrow. ‘More than you’d think.’

‘Great,’ Jamie said, reaching for her jacket, and her coffee too. ‘Good work on getting the ID,’ she said. ‘You’re going to make a great detective.’ She smiled at the girl, took another sip from her coffee, and then went after Wiik, suddenly full of energy.

She didn’t know if they made the coffee stronger in Sweden, or if it finally felt like a break in the case, but either way, she was moving fast and had no intention of slowing down.