Page 138 of The Living and the Dead

His phone rang again. Vidar opened his eyes and saw his boss’s name. He brought the phone to his ear and closed his eyes again.

“What the hell happened?”

“They didn’t make it in time.”

“Right, thank you, Vidar, I knew that much. An active lethal threat, and with a civilian right in the middle of it all.”

Markus was not very good at holding back his anger, never hadbeen. Over the years, Vidar had come to appreciate this trait. An active lethal threat. Yes, that was what it had turned into. But he hadn’t expected the situation to deteriorate so badly, despite Adrian’s skepticism.

“Well, I did ask for backup,” Vidar said.

“It was on the way.”

“And she stayed in the car,” Vidar said. “I couldn’t just magically make her disappear, what was I supposed to do?”

Markus snorted with frustration into Vidar’s ear.

“It is what it is,” he said at last. “Screw it, I’ll fix it somehow. What happened?”

Vidar didn’t say anything for a long moment.

“I actually don’t know. All I can tell you is what I believe happened.”

“Excellent.” He heard Markus sit down in a chair. It made a comfortable creak that seemed out of place in the moment. He was at home in Laholm. “Go ahead, give it to me.”

“I think Sander Eriksson was trying to stop Killian Persson from taking off. That’s what it looked like, anyway.”

“Start from the beginning, would you?” Markus said.

From the beginning?Vidar thought.Where would I even start?

The party? Maybe, but that really wasn’tit.

“I think it’s hard to understand what a bind Felicia and Madeleine Grenberg were in back then. They were dependent on Karl-Henrik Söderström; did you ever meet him? He owned that big farm in Skavböke.”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Me neither, at least not in his salad days, and I think I’m glad I didn’t. Anyway, one night in December of 1999, there’s a party outside Oskarström. Felicia isn’t there, because Madeleine hurt her foot earlier that day so she stays home to help out. Around eleven, the phone rings and Felicia answers it. It’s Killian Persson, and by this point she’s been in a secret relationship with him for a few months. Killian heard that Jakob Lindell’s father withdrew the family savingsand has it stashed in their house. He says he’s going to go take that money on his way home from the party.”

“Is this the fifty thousand kronor?”

“Exactly. Felicia and Madeleine need it, he says, that much money could free them from Karl-Henrik Söderström. Felicia probably tries to stop him, tell him no, it won’t work, not like that, but the call ends.”

As if Killian Persson decided to cross a new line in the name of love. That’s how Vidar thought ofit.

“Fast forward to one o’clock. Half an hour before the murder. Killian leaves the party with Sander Eriksson. After a while, they part ways. Killian heads for the Lindells’, thinking about how to get in. When he arrives, he sees the spade leaning against the house. Then…” Vidar said, hesitating, “here’s where it gets confusing.”

On the other end, Markus listened quietly. Vidar heard him breathing on the line.

“Mikael passes the house on his way home. Presumably he heard the glass pane break and stops to check it out. Tries to forcibly stop the break-in. Killian—maybe he’s altered on beer and adrenaline, or who the hell knows, panic—hits him with the spade, once, twice. It’s all over in a second, maybe two.”

So quickly fate can turn.

“So he’s standing there in the dark. No going back. He needs help—what can he do? He runs to Felicia’s. He takes their car and gets Mikael into the cargo area and drives off to dump the body. He manages to get away from the Lindells’, but not much farther. When he loses control of the car and crashes, it’s too far back to Felicia’s place. He runs to Sander’s instead.” Vidar opened his eyes. “Something like that?”

“Something like that,” Markus repeated slowly. “And this couldn’t have been solved back then, back when it happened?”

Exactly. Could it have been? That was the question.