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

Jamie rolled to a stop outside the house and stared up at it.

There’s no one else it could be.

Those were the last words she’d said to Wiik before he’d walked away towards Dahlvig. He strode purposefully as always, but this time, he slowed, stopped for a moment, and looked back.

Jamie shook him out of her head, zipped up her jacket and opened the car door, stepping into the frozen evening.

Overhead, the clouds had broken, revealing a sky as black as ink, studded with stars. The moon shone down, casting a pale light on the snow at the sides of the road, which seemed to glow blue.

The temperature was well below zero, the air still, clear and as cold as Jamie had ever known. It clawed at her cheeks as she walked, the street silent, the houses dark.

It was growing late now, and those who had braved the weather earlier in the day had receded to the safety of their homes.

She closed the door of the car Falk had let her borrow to drive to the airport – after she’d made just this one quick stop, she’d promised – and looked around.

The street was deserted.

Jamie sighed, pushing her hands into her pockets. She wasn’t really here, was she? She didn’t really think…

And yet, the dog in the back of her head, gnawing on its leg, was down to the bone. The wound was raw and angry, bleeding all over the floor.

It needed to be addressed, and it needed to be addressed now.

Jamie started forward, crossing the road, and walked up the front steps to the door.

There were no lights on inside.

She lifted her hand and knocked, hard.

Nothing stirred.

Jamie knocked again, her skin breaking into gooseflesh under her collar.

She clenched her fists and stepped back, looking around.

Her breath was tight in her chest. She told herself it was just because of the cold. But her heartbeat, fast and light in her throat, told her it wasn’t.

Jamie looked around for any signs of life, spotting something at the sides of the path. Tracks in the snow, heading towards the gate.

She ventured back down onto the frozen paving slabs and followed it back onto the street, looking left and then right.

Her eyes settled on a building up ahead and she began walking.

The road ended and Jamie slowed to a halt, seeing the tracks pick up again in the snow, cutting their way into the darkness.

Her muscles tightened, her eyes searching the darkness for any hint of what lay ahead.

She could see none.

But it was too late to turn back now.

She pressed on, treading carefully not to disrupt the tracks, tracing them further and further.

Behind, the lights from the street grew dimmer and dimmer.

Jamie’s skin prickled, sweat beading around her jaw, her eyes darting left and right, breath held between her teeth.

And then she stopped, a shape swimming out of the gloom.

She blinked to make sure she was seeing what she thought she was, and then edged closer.

The tracks in front of her ended.

Two lines carved deeply through the untrodden snow, leading to an abandoned wheelchair.

Jamie stepped around it slowly, eyes fixed on the ground.

In front of it, leading towards the old, burnt-down church, were footprints.

She let out a rattling breath and pushed forward, leaving the discarded wheelchair where it was – beyond the reach of the streetlights and prying eyes.

The church loomed ahead, the red-brick front steps leading up to the old porch. It had remained intact – and the once white doors were standing firm against the years. They had been chained to stop anyone entering, but now that chain lay in a coil on the ground like a sleeping snake.

Jamie looked down at it, and then back up at the doors, the word murderer spray-painted across them.

She reached out and laid her hands on the cold wood, pushing.

They swung into the ruined interior, creaking mournfully as they did.

The snow-dusted boards groaned as Jamie entered, stepping slowly.

Around her, the support pillars rose out of the foundation like the ribs of a great beached whale, ending in charred, pointed tips. Blackened wood panelling clung between them – the last remnants of flesh on this gruesome skeleton.

This truly was the belly of the beast.

To either side of the aisle, old pews were sitting haphazardly, destroyed, rotten, and cast aside.

At the far end, Jamie could see a crucifix affixed to the central support strut that had once held the steeple aloft.

It was nearly eight feet tall and looked down upon all the sinners.

But they had long gone from this place.

All except one, that is.

Jamie mustered her voice. ‘Eva Sjöberg,’ she called out, the words echoing around her.

The woman was on her knees before the cross, hands clasped in prayer.

She lifted her head slowly, placed her long, bony fingers on the snow-covered wood either side of her, and pushed to her feet.

Eva Sjöberg uncurled until she was standing straight and then turned to face Jamie. Her once vacant expression was now razor-sharp, shadowed in black gouges by the moonlight. Her glasses had gone, the long, brittle grey hair pulled into a loose ponytail now hanging dead straight at her back.

She was a little shorter than Jamie, and slight. In her wheelchair, she’d looked withered, like a dying flower. But now, she looked like a poised viper.

‘You found me,’ she said, her voice barely a whisper, but carrying in the space between them. ‘I wondered how long it would take you.’

The elderly, frail, fading woman Jamie had met was now gone, and in her place stood the true Eva Sjöberg. A woman who never missed a thing. Who planned everything, down to the most minute detail. Who had evaded capture twenty-five years before, orchestrated the abduction and murder of eight girls, the killings of six parents and the manipulation of two men into committing some of the most brutal, evil crimes Jamie had ever witnessed.

Jamie dragged air into her lungs, pulling her shoulders back, finding her voice. ‘Is Per Eriksson dead?’ she asked.

Eva Sjöberg said nothing, but the corners of her mouth cut up into her cheeks until she was grinning, her yellowed teeth like fangs in the darkness.

‘It was you,’ Jamie said then. ‘It was always you.’

Eva Sjöberg stepped forward.

‘Don’t move,’ Jamie commanded, her fists coming out of her pockets.

’I’m curious,’ Eva Sjöberg said, lifting her chin to listen to the air. ‘Did you come alone?’

Jamie’s eyes narrowed, going to the woman’s hands. They were hanging loosely at her sides, her shoulders low, knees soft. She wouldn’t be fooled by the woman’s age. She wouldn’t be fooled by anything anymore.

‘How did you find me?’

‘You weren’t as careful as you thought,’ Jamie said, sliding her heels backwards in the snow, taking up ground, keeping Eva Sjöberg at a distance.

‘No?’ She stepped forward again.

‘No,’ Jamie said. ‘You had everyone else fooled. Eriksson was a good patsy. But not good enough.’

‘What gave it away?’ Eva seemed amused by the conversation. As though almost excited by the idea of being caught.

‘Little things,’ Jamie answered, stealing a glance behind her. She was closing on the threshold now. She had to watch her footing. ‘Eriksson was the perfect suspect. Too perfect. The evidence was overwhelming. The letter Hans sent him – the letter he sent back. The kidnapping of Nyström. The kill coinciding with Hans’s death. It was all laid out so carefully. It made Eriksson the perfect villain, the pieces of the puzzle just difficult enough to fit together to really sell it. But I’ve met men like Eriksson was supposed to be. And he wasn’t it. He really was just a nice guy, wasn’t he?’

Eva Sjöberg sneered. ‘Nice? He was weak. He was supposed to be Hans’s friend. And he turned his back on him. He deserved it. Just like all the others.’

‘Deserved it?’ Jamie parroted. ‘Those poor girls – did they deserve it?’

Eva held her chin high now, her thin lips quivering with sudden rage. ‘We saved them,' she spat. ‘What was done to them – what they suffered through – no child deserves that. I know. They would carry it with them for the rest of their lives. That pain. They would never escape it. Never. It would haunt them forever. We did the only humane thing. We saved them. Released them from that life of suffering. We made them—’

‘Angels,’ Jamie said, swallowing. She read the expression on Eva Sjöberg’s face. The anger there, the turmoil. She wasn’t a cold, calculating psychopath. She was just a broken woman, her view on the world twisted and skewed by her own experiences. You could ask her a million times, and a million times you'd get the same answer. That she thought she was doing the right thing. That there was no cruelty in her actions. Just kindness.

‘We gave their innocence back to them.’ Eva looked up over Jamie’s head and then met her eye again, squeezing her wrinkled mouth into a bitter pucker. ‘And then we made the men and women responsible for it pay. More than you or your kind ever could.’

Jamie thought of Jan Hansen, of Leif Lundgren. Of what they did. And she hated that Eva Sjöberg was right. They’d never truly suffer enough under the protection of the law for what they did. ‘Is that how you got Nyström?’ Jamie asked. ‘The old “greater good” speech? The lesser of two evils? Or maybe you just told him he could be the man he always wanted to be.’

‘Men are easy,’ Eva said coldly. ‘They just want someone to whisper in their ear. To tell them everything is going to be alright. To have someone hold them, and stroke their hair, and reassure them that they’re good, strong, righteous men.’ She twisted her mouth into another evil smile now. ‘That’s what your father wanted, too. I could see it in him from the moment I met him.’

‘Shut up,’ Jamie said, her voice taking on its own hardness now.

Eva Sjöberg ignored her. ‘He was the one I really wanted. Big, strong – not afraid of a little… violence.’

‘Shut up.’ Jamie’s voice grew now.

‘I watched him – I watched him tear himself apart over the case. He was weak, quick to anger. Driven by his emotions, plagued by his own darkness. He would have been…’ She trailed off for a moment, then locked eyes with Jamie, hers flashing in the moonlight. ‘He would have been perfect. But then he went and killed himself. Before I could get to him. Before I could give him meaning again.’

Jamie’s fists were clenched so hard her nails were cutting into her palms, the skin on her knuckles threatening to split under the strain.

‘Nyström resisted at first,’ Eva said, rolling her head left and right, flexing her fingers at her sides. ‘But it didn’t take long. They made it easy. The Polis was all he had – and they were turning their backs on him, too. Casting him aside. All he wanted was to matter. To do something again. To save just one…’ Eva Sjöberg stepped forward again. ‘More.’ Another step. ‘Life.’

Jamie was at the doorway now, holding firm.

Eva Sjöberg was closing in.

‘Now then,’ she said, lowering her head. Her hand moved at her side and a blade appeared in it. She turned it slowly so it caught the moonlight, glinting. Single-edged, sharp, small. Easy to conceal, the blade hooked. Perfect for slashing tyres. And throats. ‘What are we going to do with you…’

Jamie’s heel hit the threshold and she lifted it over, stepping back over the chain and onto the porch.

Eva Sjöberg advanced slowly. Her footsteps light and sure.

Jamie was on the bricks now and moving towards the steps.

‘You can’t run,’ Eva said, bringing the knife in front of her. ‘Your father wouldn’t have run.’ She grinned down at Jamie, stepping over the threshold. ‘Your father would have stayed and faced me.’

Jamie was down the steps now, heels crunching in the fresh snow. She locked eyes with the woman in front of her and let the tiniest hint of a smirk creep across her lips. ‘My father also wouldn’t have come alone.’

Eva Sjöberg froze, a faint click to her right stopping her in her tracks.

Anders Wiik stepped from the shadow of the wall, the muzzle of his pistol hovering about six inches from her temple.

His fingers flexed on the grip, his hand steady in the frozen air. ‘Drop the knife,’ he ordered.

Eva Sjöberg began to grin again. ‘You’re smarter than I gave you credit for,’ she said, still fixed on Jamie.

Jamie let her smirk broaden now, the tension finally draining from her shoulders. ‘And you, Eva Sjöberg,’ she said, turning away to face the city she had once called home. ‘Weren’t.’