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

‘Emmy was accessing a support forum for victims of sexual abuse from her brother’s tablet,’ Hallberg said. ‘And from the looks of things, this may have been how the killer targeted her.’

Jamie stirred her tea slowly, listening as Hallberg confirmed her hunches, the phone pressed to her ear. She stared across at the empty seat opposite. Rachel Engerman was gone, as were the sickly sweet couple and the man with his laptop. Just Jamie and the two girls behind the counter remained. They were talking to each other and glancing over, probably trying to assess whether Jamie was some bedraggled homeless woman who’d wandered in off the street, or if she just looked like it.

‘If Hansen knew,’ Jamie said, ‘then it explains why he took her phone and computer off her.’

‘Or even if he was just afraid she might tell someone,’ Hallberg added.

‘Right. Do we have details of the other children they’ve fostered?’

‘I’ve sent an email over to the agency, but they’re closed for the night. We won’t get a response until the morning.’

Jamie picked up her tea and sipped, embracing the bitterness of the liquid. ‘What did they find on the forum?’

‘It looks like Emmy was posting under the username EBStockholm06. The techs have trawled the site and found a few messages posted by her. She initiated two threads – one entitled – “Help” and the other entitled “Need to talk”. The first said that she thought an older man in her life was trying to initiate some sort of physical relationship, but she wasn’t sure. It goes on to list the things this man is doing – touching her arm, stroking her back, things like that.’

Jamie’s stomach churned a little, anger rising in her. ‘Does it mention any names?’

‘No,’ Hallberg said, sounding as disappointed as Jamie felt with that answer. ‘But from the responses she gave to people commenting and replying, it’s pretty clear that it’s Jan Hansen.’

‘Clear enough to use in court?’

Hallberg cleared her throat. ‘That’s not for me to— uh, I don’t know, is what I mean.’

No, in other words, Jamie thought.

Hallberg went on. ‘That was back in September – which puts it about six months after they began fostering her. Sounds like Jan’s advances had been going on for a while, but there’s no exact date.’

‘And the other thread?’

‘“Need to talk”,’ Hallberg said. ‘That was posted about two and a half weeks ago.’

Jamie sat up a little straighter. ‘So about a week before Emmy was killed?’

‘Eight days, yeah.’

‘What did it say?’

‘It’s sparse on details, but it intimates to the fact that she was raped.’

‘Jesus,’ Jamie said, knowing she had to get all the information she could. ‘And the responses?’

‘All supportive, kind. People offering the numbers of local helplines to call, offering to speak to the authorities for her. Some even offering places that Emmy could go if she needed to get away.’

Jamie perked up at that. ‘Places she could go?’

‘Yeah, it looks like two of the commenters were from Stockholm – and both said that they’d be happy to protect Emmy if she wanted to leave the house.’

‘We have their names?’

‘Usernames, yes. Real names… That could take a little while. The forum is running on a fairly new system, and considering the nature of what’s discussed there, anonymity is a big priority for them. Security isn’t lax, the techs said. They’ll need to contact the host to gain access. Trying to break in will take a long time, and we’d need a warrant to even attempt it, so—’

‘What did Emmy say back? Did she agree to go to any of them?’ Jamie didn’t have time for a discussion over the finer points of data protection law. She needed information.

‘This is the weird thing,’ Hallberg said. ‘Emmy didn’t seem to want to take them up on the offer. She said thank you, but she’d figure something else out.’

‘Something else? Like what?’ Jamie furrowed her brow.

‘I don’t know, but there are thirty-seven replies to her post, all offering different things. When Tech gets hold of the forum hosts, we can look at getting into Emmy’s account and seeing the activity associated with it, and from there, hopefully, we’ll know more. Maybe someone messaged her, or deleted their reply, or… or… I don’t know.’ Hallberg sighed.

Jamie processed. ‘This is good,’ she said.

‘Good?’

‘We’re getting closer. There was always that question – why Emmy Berg? With Sjöberg, he was choosing girls from the church. From what Engerman just told me, they were confiding in him. That’s how he was choosing them.’

‘He was choosing abuse victims?’

Jamie nodded to herself. ‘Yeah.’

‘And then he was raping them?’

‘No,’ Jamie said slowly. ‘I don’t think so.’ She took a moment, rearranging the information in her head. ‘I think that’s what my father always had wrong. He thought that Sjöberg was raping them, then suffocating and mounting them. That it was all some sort of weird crime-apology-redemption act. That he was making them into angels to restore their purity after he took it from them. And I think once he spoke to Annika Liljedahl and found out that Hans Sjöberg had slept with her when she was fourteen, he put those two pieces together, found that they fit, and that was it.’ Jamie drew a breath, finding the next part hard to say. ‘He confronted Sjöberg about it then, and when he wouldn’t confess – because he wasn’t abusing those girls, at least not in that way – my father tried to beat it out of him.’

Hallberg was silent.

‘But he had it wrong,’ Jamie said. ‘The Angel Maker wasn’t raping his victims. He thought he was saving them.’ Jamie let out a long, shaking breath. ‘Whether it was Sjöberg on his own, or Sjöberg and Eriksson, or just Eriksson, I don’t know. But the forensics supports it, right? In all cases, the examinations showed proof of sexual assault, but in all cases, it wasn’t immediately before death. It was assumed that Sjöberg was abusing them over a period of time, and then once he was finished with whatever twisted intention he had, he would suffocate them, and then he’d take them into the woods, and he’d make them into angels.

‘But he wasn’t doing that. He had their trust. He would take them for a drive somewhere,’ Jamie said, imagining it. ‘Telling them he was taking them somewhere safe. It would be at night. They would be tired.’ She remembered her own childhood, the long drives in the back seat of the car. The hypnotic strobing of the streetlights. ‘They would fall asleep there, thinking that it was over. And then he’d stop somewhere and pipe the exhaust fumes into the car while they slept. He’d go down into the woods at the side of the road and get things ready. Cut the boughs, find the right spot. While the girls slowly suffocated, not even waking up.’ Jamie took another sip, her hand quivering, and then put the cup down, watching the black surface of the liquid shimmer. ‘They’d go quietly, painlessly, without even knowing. Their last thoughts would be happy – that they were being saved. And then…’ Jamie tried to clear her throat to shift the lump there. It wouldn’t move. ‘Then, when they were gone, he would carry them into the woods, and he’d make them into angels. He’d make them the angels they were – give them back what had been taken from them.’

Jamie heard Hallberg swallow on the other end of the line and then sniff twice. She coughed away from the receiver and then spoke, her voice cracking. ‘That’s, uh… that makes… um…’

‘But that wasn’t it,’ Jamie went on, the words coming on their own. ‘That was only half of it. He would need to save the girls. But then he’d also need to make the people who hurt them pay for what they did. He promised them that. He promised Hanna Lundgren that. She didn’t know it at the time, but Sjöberg knew. And I think…’ she said, hesitating for a moment. ‘I think he felt it was necessary. A necessary evil. A duty. He didn’t enjoy it – the killing. The kills are remorseful in the case of the girls. He thought he was doing right by them. And then, in killing the parents… it was… detached. He ran one of them off the road, another was supposed suicide. Maybe he convinced them to do it? Maybe he confronted them, and got them to do it themselves or face justice? Gave them an out. The others… disappearances? We don’t know how he did it, but I don’t think he relished it.’

‘What about Lundgren?’ Hallberg asked, her voice quiet. ‘He was garrotted. That’s not detached?’

Jamie shook her head and let out a long breath. ‘I don’t know, Hallberg,’ she said. ‘I don’t know is the only answer I have. It was twenty-five years ago, and the man is dead. He denied it all in court, then plead guilty. But he never made a statement, never explained himself. You’d think, if in his mind it was honourable, that he’d want to say it, right? That he’d want to shout that from the rooftops?’

‘Unless it wasn’t him.’

Jamie pinched the bridge of her nose. ‘Yeah. There’s that.’

‘If he didn’t do it, then he wouldn’t be able to explain why. He could have confided that in Eriksson at the end, and all the while Eriksson could have been the actual killer.’

Jamie touched her cup and felt it cold against her skin. ‘We could sit here all night theorising,’ Jamie said, ‘but none of it will matter if we don’t catch the guy who’s killing now. Whether Sjöberg had righteous intentions then – fucked up as they were – and whether it was him alone or Eriksson too – at the end of the day, it was vigilantism, and it was murder. Whatever way you spin it. And now, whether Eriksson’s picked up this noble fucking crusade again, or he’s just doing it because he loves killing, I can’t say. But what I do know is this – seven girls were murdered. And then five parents were killed. Now, Åsa Gunnarson is dead too. As is Emmy Berg. And the pattern shows that Jan Hansen is next on the list. And whether he deserves it or not, our job is to stop people killing each other. If Jan Hansen is guilty, then he’ll face justice. Real justice. That’s how it has to be. Or what the hell are we even doing?’

‘Right,’ Hallberg said, regaining her voice slightly.

‘But the killer is smart, and he knows what he’s doing. If he thinks Jan Hansen is going to be a difficult target, then I don’t expect him to try anyway. He’s patient. As patient as a saint.’ An image of Per Eriksson in his dog collar popped into her mind. ‘Waiting more than two decades to go after Mikael and Åsa Gunnarson proves that. If he needs to wait to move on Hansen, he will. But that doesn’t mean he’ll stop killing. I bet he’s already searching for the next girl.’ Jamie pushed away the cup of cold tea and stood up, staring through the window at the city she’d once called home. ‘That is,’ she said, heading for the door, ‘if he hasn’t found her already.’