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

‘What do we do now?’ Hallberg asked, rocking back on her chair.

Jamie was leaning against her desk. It still wasn’t close to nine o’clock yet, and the office remained empty.

Falk had told Jamie and Hallberg that they could take the day. That she’d inform them if anything developed. But Jamie didn’t feel like walking in circles at the hotel. She had plenty to do.

She pushed off the desk and cracked her neck, shaking out her legs. They were a little sore from the exertion the night before. ‘Do whatever you want,’ Jamie said. ‘Take a day off.’ She raised a hand over her shoulder and bid Hallberg a quick goodbye, heading for Wiik’s desk.

She was sure that Falk would set her up with a temporary log-in if she asked, but there was no need. She knew Wiik’s password now. Lucas110708. His son’s name followed by his birthday in reverse. She’d been told once by a digital technician at the Met that any passwords containing the names and dates related to loved ones were utterly hackable. Which she’d then proved by hacking Jamie’s log-in details. And then her partner’s, too, for good measure.

Jamie had taken that to heart.

But Wiik hadn’t got the memo, obviously.

She’d seen him type it in over his shoulder the day before.

Jamie arrived at his desk, pushing away the Min pappa är en superhjälte mug, which now had a furry, grey blob swimming on top of the coffee left in the bottom.

She sat and logged in quickly, pulling the photograph of her and her father from her jacket pocket. She stood it up under the screen and inspected it again in the full light of day, racking her brains for any memory of where it was. Searching for the slightest hint in the landscape that offered any identifying data.

She found none.

Jamie let out a long breath and closed her eyes. This might be harder than she thought.

But she needed to find it. To find what her father had left her.

Jamie opened her eyes and jolted in her seat.

Hallberg was hovering at the corner of the desk like a child. ‘What are you doing?’ she asked.

‘I’m, uh,’ Jamie started, sitting forward and looking at the blank search engine on her screen. ‘I’m looking for a lake.’

‘A lake?’ Hallberg wasn’t following. ‘Why?’

Jamie glanced at the photograph, deciding how much she wanted to explain. ‘My father and I left something at a hunting cabin years ago. I want to see if it’s still there.’

‘What kind of something?’

‘Just personal stuff,’ she said, brushing it off, hoping Hallberg would get the hint.

The woman nodded back at her, but didn’t make an attempt to leave. She just hovered, pushing some pens around a stationery caddy next to Wiik’s desk.

‘Do you need any help?’ she asked after a few seconds.

‘You don’t have anything else to do?’ Jamie raised an eyebrow.

‘Wiik offloaded all of our other cases when we took the Angel Maker.’

‘Paperwork?’

‘Done.’

‘Forensic reports?’

‘All catalogued, filed, earmarked.’

‘The questions for Gunnarson?’

‘Sent to his solicitor. I followed up with another email a few minutes ago.’

‘Parents of the original victims?’

‘I have requisition forms in with the Vehicle Licensing Agency for updated addresses and contact details. It could take a while.’

‘The agency they used for the nanny?’

‘There were five possibles operating in Stockholm at the time of Tilde Gunnarson’s death. I’ve reached out to the two that are still running for their records, and I pulled the names and addresses of the owners of the other three from the national business registry, and followed up with the VLA for up-to-date contact details on them, too. Fingers crossed they get everything over at the same time. I’m hoping we can track the nanny down from there, but if the owners haven’t kept records for that long… And as there’s no proof of any criminal activity, we won’t get a search-and-seizure warrant for the Gunnarsons’ personal files. If Mikael doesn’t have the records or isn’t prepared to hand them over, then we’re at a dead end with this one.’

Jamie didn’t like the turn of phrase, but she accepted the possibility. She was continually impressed by Hallberg’s ability to just get work done. She was efficient and focused, and Wiik was lucky to have her. ‘So you have nothing else to do?’ Maybe she could use her.

Hallberg smiled and shrugged. ‘Do you need help?’

‘Sure,’ Jamie said, grabbing the photo from the desk and handing it to her.

‘This is you?’ Hallberg said, inspecting it. ‘And your dad.’

‘That’s right.’

‘And you need to find out where this lake is?’

‘If I can.’

‘That’s the hunting cabin?’

‘It is.’

‘And this car – what is it?’ Hallberg glanced up at Jamie.

‘I don’t know. A Volvo – early nineties model.’ She inflected it like a question. She never took any notice of what the car was. She was just a kid.

Hallberg nodded, as though that was enough. ‘And you have no idea where it is?’

‘My dad used to go fishing to a lake near Vemdalen, but I don’t think it’s this one.’

‘There are a lot of lakes around there.’

‘Yep,’ Jamie said, sighing. ‘That’s kind of the problem.’

Hallberg nodded. ‘Leave it with me. Do you mind if I borrow this for a minute? I can just make a copy and bring it back if—’

‘No,’ Jamie said quickly, not sure why that bothered her so much. ‘Don’t make a copy. Just… just look after it, okay?’

Hallberg held it against her chest. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I’ll let you know if I find anything.’ She smiled widely at Jamie, as though relieved to have something to do. Like an itch had been scratched. Like an addiction had been fed, if only for a little while.

Jamie watched her go for a second and then turned back to her own screen. To the empty search bar there. ‘Okay,’ she said to herself. ‘Let’s go.’

Thirty minutes later, Jamie was on page seventeen of Google Images, the words ‘lakes in Sweden’ in the search bar. She was trawling endlessly through photos of them, looking for anything that looked anywhere close to hers.

So far, she’d made a note of two. One on page three, and another on page eleven. Neither was it, she thought. But she didn’t really know what else to do. Maybe Wiik was right and she had become terrible at research. She supposed she was a little out of practice.

Hallberg was walking towards her then, grinning, a piece of paper in her hands, the photograph held against, pinned it under her thumb.

She slowed at Jamie’s desk, looking proud of herself, and laid it down.

Jamie took the photo off the top and put it back in her coat without a word and then lifted the paper in front of her. On it were a list of eight lakes, separated into columns. It had their names, their coordinates, their sizes, volumes, and whether or not they fell within national parks.

She knew Hallberg was good, but she was gobsmacked. ‘What… How did you find these?’

‘Oh,’ Hallberg said, thrown by the question. She probably never got asked, or thanked, by Wiik. She just produced. ‘I just looked up the dimensions of that model of Volvo, and then used a 3D-modelling software to calculate the approximate size of the cabin. Using that, I determined the height of the surrounding valley, and then calculated its width, then cross-referenced that with topographical survey maps for similar prominence and size. Then I checked which of those valleys held bodies of water. I can’t see any tributaries feeding this, so I discounted all those that were fed into by rivers. Then I checked which of those lakes fell within the areas where hunting was allowed during the nineties, and then finally I pulled up satellite imaging, and checked the remaining lakes against the shape of this one to get rid of the outliers.’ She reeled it off casually, and then sighed. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t narrow it down any further. But over the last twenty years, the size and shape of the lake could have shrunk or grown, so I didn’t want to cross out any potential matches.’

‘No, this is amazing,’ Jamie said, still amazed by the list in front of her. There was an ache in the back of her throat now, her eyes burning a little.

‘At first, I tried to grab the measurements of the lake in order to calculate its relative volume – but that can be unreliable because we don’t know what the depth is, as well as variables like seasonal fluctuation and things like weather, glacial melt if it’s near to a—’

‘Hallberg,’ Jamie said, cutting her off. ‘You did great. Thank you.’

The woman blushed violently. ‘With some more time, I could—’

Jamie didn’t want to hear any more. She felt like they were already burning daylight. ‘How fast can you calculate a route through all eight?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Driving from here – which is closest? Can I get to them all in a day?’

‘You want to go there?’ Hallberg seemed surprised. ‘Oh, er, yeah. Just give me a minute.’ She pulled her phone out and started tapping in the names of the lakes. Jamie waited, while she did. Hallberg had no intention of leaving her desk, it seemed.

‘Okay, this one is closest,’ she said, turning her phone around. ‘There’s two more within about half an hour of it. And then there are a few further north. The last three are too far to drive in a day.’

‘We can take them off the list then.’ Jamie nodded assertively. ‘My father used to drive – and it was never more than a day. A couple of hours. Maybe four or five at the most, I think. I don’t know, but it wasn’t an overnight journey. We’d get there in the afternoon.’

This seemed to spur Hallberg on. She checked her watch, dashing back to her desk and grabbing her jacket. In seconds she was back at Jamie’s desk. ‘If we leave now, we should be able to reach the first by about eleven.’

Jamie raised her eyebrows. ‘You want to come with me?’

‘Of course,’ Hallberg said. ‘Why wouldn’t I?’

‘I don’t know.’ Jamie didn’t really have an answer. But if someone asked her to drive aimlessly around the Swedish countryside all day, looking for a lost lake which may or may not have a hunting cabin next to it, which may or may not contain a package left there two decades prior, she would probably have politely declined.

‘Come on,’ Hallberg said, heading for the door, striding powerfully.

Jamie laughed a little, watching her go. She was another Wiik in the making with a walk like that. And had no doubt modelled herself on him.

Jamie stood and threw her jacket around her shoulders.

There were worse detectives to be inspired by, she supposed.

But then again, she really didn’t know if the world could endure another Anders Wiik.

At the very least, she couldn’t.