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

Jamie sat back on her heels, her knees aching, and wiped the sweat from her brow.

It was early March and the snow was melting in the city. A string of warm days had spurred Jamie on to begin the clear-out she’d been dreading. Eva Sjöberg had been in custody for nearly six weeks and was awaiting trial.

Now, it was out of their hands.

Jamie’s phone vibrated in her pocket and she pulled it out, dragging fistfuls of mail from the space next to the TV with her free hand at the same time.

‘Hallä,’ Jamie said, not even checking the number. So few people called her it could only have been Wiik or Hallberg – or Falk. But that last one was a rarity and she wasn’t assigned to any cases just yet. Not until her paperwork came through fully and her loan to the Stockholm Polis officially started.

‘Johansson.’ It was Wiik. ‘How’s it going?’

Jamie sighed, jiggling the black bag to get the mass of envelopes and old papers to settle. She stared around her living room, a sea of dust swirling through it. ‘We’re getting there. What’s up? The idea of a day off is to have a break from your partner. You know that, right?’

He sucked on his teeth and it made a squeaking noise in Jamie’s ear. Wiik wasn’t much of a laugher. Neither was she, really. But this was about as close as it got to light patter between them. ‘Just received Sjöberg’s written statement and confession.’

‘Oh right,’ Jamie said, sitting up and focusing a little more. ‘Don’t tell me she’s going for a deal?’

‘No – she’s pleading guilty,’ Wiik said with something like relief in his voice. ‘Not to all the murders – she didn’t want to steal credit from Hans, of course.’

‘Of course.’

‘But enough to put her away for the rest of her life.’

‘Good,’ Jamie said, letting herself smile a little. ‘You call just to tell me that?’

‘No – thought you’d want to know that she details her experiences with both Leif Lundgren and Jan Hansen, too, as well as recounting the conversations with Hanna Lundgren and Emmy Berg. She’s prepared to testify to their guilt. Supposedly her and Hans had a process, did their due diligence to make sure they weren’t going after anyone wrongfully.’

Jamie scoffed a little. ‘Gotta love a serial killer with a moral code.’

Wiik harrumphed. ‘With the original forensics reports placing Lundgren’s DNA under Hanna’s nails, along with both her confession to Rachel Engerman, who is also prepared to testify in court, we’ll be able to get a conviction.’

‘If we’re lucky,’ Jamie said, swallowing. Sadly, she knew how these things went a lot of the time.

‘And with both Hansen’s wife’s testimony, along with what we pulled from the tablet, and William’s confirmation that it was only him and Emmy using it…’

‘I hope you’re right,’ Jamie said.

‘We’ll get them,’ Wiik answered affirmatively. ‘Eventually.’

Jamie stayed quiet, waiting for more.

Wiik cleared his throat then. ‘Sjöberg also gave us an explanation on the Gunnarsons and why they were both in the crosshairs.’

Jamie didn’t know if he was speaking metaphorically, but she guessed not considering the nature of Åsa Gunarsson’s death. She said nothing.

‘The nanny they hired was abusing Tilde. She told Mikael and Åsa, and apparently they fired the nanny – and get this,’ he said, huffing incredulously, ‘Eva said that they actually paid her off.’

‘What?’ Jamie said, feeling her brow crumple in shock. ‘They paid her off for what?’

‘To keep quiet, supposedly,’ Wiik said angrily. ‘When Tilde told them, they confronted her. But Mikael was in the midst of a big negotiation for investment in his firm, and Åsa was working a huge case. They didn’t want to risk any police involvement or scandal so they paid her some money to go away, and then told Tilde she’d been arrested.’

‘Jesus,’ Jamie muttered. ‘Paying the woman who did that to your…’ She swallowed the bile rising in her throat. ‘How does Eva Sjöberg know all this?’

‘Apparently her and Hans hunted the woman down, and then tortured her to—’

‘Actually,’ Jamie said, shaking her head. ‘I don’t even want to know.’ She’d not liked Mikael Gunarsson from the get-go, but this was something else. The kind of people who’d be capable of doing that. She couldn’t imagine.

‘Sjöberg said that Hans went after her, though – she doesn’t know where the body is. And with her testimony coming second-hand, Gunarsson’s lawyer will call it hearsay and have it thrown out of court in a second.’ He drew a slow breath in and let it out. ‘I don’t think we’ll be able to get anything to stick on this one.’

Jamie clenched her teeth, wondering if the guilt of having to live with what he’d done, as well as the loss of his child and wife would be enough punishment for the man. The words came to her lips then without her thinking about them. ‘Men like that always get what’s coming to them in the end,’ she said quietly.

‘What was that?’ Wiik asked, not quite catching it.

‘Nothing,’ Jamie said, shaking her head. ‘Just something I heard somewhere.’ She coughed up some dust lodged in her throat. ‘What about the bodies of the other missing parents? Eriksson?’

‘Sjöberg gave us some leads – but it was more than two decades ago now, so we’re not sure how many we’ll be able to turn up. As for Eriksson – he’s out there somewhere in that valley. She knows that much. But doesn’t know what Nyström did with him. She says that…’ His voice drifted off in her ear as she turned her head towards a knock at the door.

‘Let me call you back,’ she said, and he fell quiet.

‘Hejdå,’ he said then, and hung up. Bye.

Jamie stood and brushed herself off, going for the door. She hoped this wasn’t Hallberg ‘spontaneously’ showing up to help. The girl had been hanging on her shoulder in the office, asking to go for a coffee at least twice a week, and had even asked Jamie if she could join her on her morning runs. She was sweet, and she wanted to learn to be a better detective — but Jamie was by no means the sort of person she thought anyone should model themselves on. And she was still trying to work out how best to tell her to go away without shattering her feelings too badly.

She pulled the door open widely, forcing a smile. It slipped off and she did a double take, surprised to see a man she very much didn’t expect to see standing on her step.

‘Doctor Claesson,’ Jamie said, blinking at him. ‘What are you doing here?’

He twisted the woollen flat cap he was holding in his hands and looked at her nervously. ‘Inspector Johansson,’ he said, smiling briefly. ‘I was wondering if I might come in?’

Jamie stepped back automatically and proffered him the hallway, her mind working to give reason to his visit. ‘Sorry about the mess,’ she said then, closing the door behind him. ‘No one’s lived here since…’

He nodded, giving her another quick smile, and then turned to face her, glancing in at the living room and kitchen. He seemingly had no intention of venturing deeper.

‘What can I, uh,’ Jamie started, folding her arms, ‘do for you, doctor?’

He swallowed. ‘I wanted to speak to you about your father.’

Jamie felt her body stiffen a little, reading the conflict on the small man’s face. His bald head was beaded with tiny droplets of sweat and the skin in his neck pulsed with his quickened heart.

‘I’m guessing that Wiik told you about the… incident between your father and I?’

Jamie nodded, not able to find her voice.

‘Yes, it was quite the talk of the station from what I heard, but… but I think you deserve to hear the truth of what happened.’

Jamie braced herself, not sure if she wanted to. Had it been worse than she knew? Had her father been even more brutish than anyone realised?

‘He was working a case when it happened,’ Claesson started, wanting to get it out before he lost his nerve by the looks of things. ‘A strange case – I don’t know if you remembered that I mentioned I was just a junior pathologist at the time?’

Jamie nodded briefly, leaning in slightly.

‘The case he was working – I didn’t know anything about it. But I was under strict instructions not to file the autopsy reports and tests we had in the archives.’

‘Is that odd?’ Jamie queried, knowing it was.

‘Yes, very,’ he said, meeting her eye suddenly. ‘And what’s even more odd is that the case appeared to be far above the pay grade of a junior pathologist. The head pathologist at the time, a man by the name of Svensson, was intentionally kept out of the loop by the SPA. The bodies were delivered by night, the examinations conducted in a closed lab. I was sworn to secrecy, and told to hand the reports directly to your father.’

Jamie’s jaw was clamped firmly shut now. She stared at Claesson, willing him to go on.

‘The incident occurred after the third body was delivered. Each victim was killed distinctly, but there were common elements at work. Each of the three victims’ – he lifted his hands now and made three box shapes in front of him – ‘had faint ligature marks on their wrists consistent with being suspended upright, each had damage to their eardrums, and each was presented as though they had killed themselves.’

Jamie’s heart picked up and she sank her teeth into her bottom lip to stop them from trembling.

Claesson kept going. ‘The first had cut their wrists, the second threw themselves from a building, the third was drowned…’

Jamie didn’t know if she liked where this was going.

In fact, she really didn’t like where this was going.

‘The third victim, who had supposedly drowned — I called your father to tell him what I had found. Traces of propofol in his system.’

‘Propofol?’ Jamie asked, her voice catching. ‘Isn’t that an anaesthetic?’

Claesson nodded. ‘Yes – but more than just an anaesthetic, it has curious barbiturate effects, too. It lowers inhibitions, makes the person pliable, and essentially, it is amnesia-inducing. In studies performed with the drug, subjects under the influence are unable to recall anything that occurred—’

‘Okay, okay,’ Jamie said, cutting him off. ‘I get it. So what happened with my father?’

Claesson gathered himself. ‘I could see he was getting worse. The case, whatever it was, was taking a toll on him. We weren’t friends… not quite, but we had worked together for several years, and we were casual, you know?’

She wished he’d get on with it.

‘That night that I called him, to tell him about the propofol – just trace amounts – I thought the killer had perhaps kept the victim alive for a few days to let the drug disperse in the body before…’ He saw the look on Jamie’s face and curtailed his own story. ‘I called him in, and he arrived. Drunk.’

Jamie swallowed. She wasn’t surprised. But she was still upset to hear it.

‘He could barely stand. But he came anyway. I was being kept there late – doing this after hours – not allowed to tell anyone. Thanklessly. Without extra pay. Told by the SPA that if I didn’t comply, and keep my mouth shut, that I’d be shipped off to the forensics lab in Luleå. So when he arrived – drunk, cheeks smeared with lipstick,’ he said, and then pointed to his face, ‘nose white with…’ He stopped again, shook his head, and then looked at Jamie once more. ‘Anyway, I was angry. Here I was being confined to my lab while he was out there, partying, having a grand old time.’

Jamie’s head was whirling.

‘I spoke… harshly,’ Claesson said. ‘I can’t remember the conversation specifically – it’s all rather a blur. But I remember what I said before he picked me up by the collar and ran me through a counter full of glassware.’

‘Which was?’ Jamie’s voice was barely a whisper.

‘That behaving like this, it was no wonder your mother and you left him.’

Jamie closed her eyes, just hearing the words a knife to the heart.

What her father did wasn’t right, but she couldn’t help but understand why that would hit home.

‘He left me there, then,’ Claesson said. ‘Bloodied, alone. I wasn’t found for hours – unconscious by then. The cleaner who discovered me called for an ambulance. The surgeries. The recovery time. There was no way it could be kept quiet. And I was still angry – but I knew what I said was wrong. Below the belt. And… and…’ He stumbled over his words. ‘And I thought I could help him, then.’

‘By filing a charge against him?’ Jamie tried to keep her voice free of scorn.

Claesson nodded. ‘Yes. I thought that he was going off the rails, that maybe it would scare him straight – get him to realise what he’d done. Make an effort to get help.’

‘It got him suspended.’ Jamie thought she’d failed to keep the scorn away that time.

Judging by Claesson’s expression, she did. He went back to twisting his hat between his hands. ‘I know that. But I fear it did more than that.’ He paused, collecting his thoughts. ‘When I left the hospital, I returned to the lab to see what had happened in my absence, and found it empty.’

‘What do you mean empty?’

‘The bodies – gone. The test results – gone. The files, the reports, everything – gone. It was as though the case never existed.’

‘But why would they… I mean, who would…?’

Claesson shook his head. ‘I didn’t know, but who could I tell? Or ask? My superiors had no knowledge of it. I had been sworn to secrecy by your father, and I didn’t know who to contact at the SPA. I feared I had already done something I shouldn’t have by filing that charge. I didn’t think at the time – but I had to detail what we were doing at the lab late at night, and why we were there…’

God, she wished he’d stop trailing off and just hurry up.

‘And then, two nights later, he came to see me. At home.’

‘My father?’

Claesson nodded. ‘Yes, it was late – I don’t remember what time – but he knocked on the door to my flat.’

‘Okay.’

‘When I opened it and saw him, I was frightened, as you can imagine. I suspected that he’d heard about the charge, and come to finish me off.’

Jamie swallowed, seeing the fear return to his face for a moment.

‘But that wasn’t it at all. He looked tired. Exhausted. But he was sober. And sorry.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Yes. He said that he was sorry about what had happened, that he hadn’t meant to, but that what I’d said… He’d just lost it. He said he couldn’t tell me what he was working on, but it was a big case. He thought I should know. It was all hush-hush. Under wraps. Need-to-know. Just a handful of people were in the loop, and he couldn’t tell me anything else.’ Claesson cast his mind back. ‘In those previous weeks when he had come to see me, he’d been dressed differently to normal. Not his usual day-to-day, you know?’

Jamie nodded, but she didn’t.

‘And that night at the lab – he was in a suit.’

‘A suit?’ Her father hated suits. The only time she’d seen him wear one was in photos of her parents’ wedding.

‘I surmised then that it must have been an undercover operation, or…’ He trailed off for the umpteenth time, his face screwing up. He looked ready to cry.

Jamie saw it then. ‘And by filing that charge…’ She closed her own eyes, the words hurting to even say. ‘You might have blown the whole thing up.’

‘I had no idea.’

‘No, of course not,’ she said, her voice quietening. ‘You couldn’t have known.’

‘But he said,’ Claesson went on, more determined now. ‘That it was almost over. That he was closing in on the people responsible, and after it was done, he was getting himself together.’

Jamie picked her head up and looked at him now. ‘That he was going to stop drinking, and he was going to fix up the house, and get on top of things, and… and… and he was going to get you back.’

Jamie held her breath, measuring the man for any hint of falsehood. ‘What?’

Claesson nodded. ‘That’s what he said – that once it was finished, he was going to get you back. Even if he had to go to England himself to do it.’

Jamie’s throat clamped shut, her eyes burning. ‘Why would he tell you that?’

‘I think… to show that he was serious. He wouldn’t have joked about something like that. You know that he carried a photo of you and him in his wallet. Everywhere he went.’

‘When, uh,’ she said, her voice trembling, ‘when was this?’

‘About a week before…’

‘He…’

Claesson nodded and Jamie hung her head, looking around. ‘He must have slipped,’ she said, the words coming to her naturally. ‘I’m not surprised—’

‘No,’ Claesson said then, forcefully almost. ‘He didn’t.’

Jamie looked at him cautiously.

‘He was serious. And I believed him. I could see that he had changed in those final few months. Whatever that case was… it pushed him. Too hard. And he knew it. But he was going to come back from it. I’ve never seen a man so determined.’

‘But he didn’t.’

Claesson ploughed on, ignoring the comment. ‘The next morning, I withdrew the charge against him. It took a few days to process, but once it had, I tried to find him, to tell him. But I couldn’t.’

‘You couldn’t?’

He shook his head. ‘No. I couldn’t. I came here, but he wasn’t home. His car wasn’t in the driveway. He wasn’t picking up his phone. No one from work had seen him. His partner, Nyström – he hadn’t heard from him. I even checked with the bars local to the station – the places I knew he went. His partner got a little worried then, tried to find him, too. But… there was no trace.’

Jamie didn’t have words now.

‘And these bodies,’ Claesson said, looking at the ground. ‘From the case – the three men killed – they weren’t just nobodies. They were important people. One of them was a judge, another was a high-profile solicitor. The third was a politician. Whoever killed them was good. They were smart. They were clean.’

Jamie watched the man in front of her more closely than she’d watched anyone in her life. Listened more intently than she’d ever listened before. Felt more sick than she’d ever felt.

‘He was going to get his life together. He was. And then he disappeared. And a week later, I read in the paper that…’

Jamie held her breath.

‘I don’t know what happened to him,’ Claesson said slowly, readying himself to say something he had been holding in for two decades. He looked up, met her eyes, and then uttered the words that would shatter her world. ‘He didn’t kill himself, Jamie. Your father was murdered.’