Fatal Isles Read online

  The story regrettably received a lot of attention in both local and German media. Minister for Home Affairs Gudrun Kaldevik had been forced, as the political head of the Police Authority, to give about a dozen interviews in German media in her rusty school German, which had led to a number of awkward mistakes and 1 337 063 views on YouTube. As if that hadn’t been bad enough, the whole thing had also taken place just six weeks before Dunker was inaugurated as Europe’s next Capital of Culture.

  There had been dead silence after the minister finished her speech to the gathered police corps; Viggo Haugen had rushed to assure her he would personally oversee an overhaul of local police culture. Holding himself ‘personally responsible for a positive culture shift within the Authority’, would, however, prove about as futile and idiotic as it sounded.

  *

  Karen and Karl continue up the path in silence, listening to the rushing of the river, winding its way down toward the sea. Karen thinks about the inevitable task that awaits her.

  ‘You’ll have to try to reach Angela Novak today. And I wanted to ask if you could attend the autopsy instead of me? I’ll go have a first talk with Jounas alone. I think it might be best if we don’t all both barge in at once.’

  ‘I’d certainly be happy to forego that particular pleasure,’ Karl replies with a sigh. ‘This must be fucking awful for him.’

  Karen is grateful Karl has no idea her first concern isn’t Jounas Smeed and his potential feelings about his murdered ex-wife. Further interviews down the line, with more people present, are bound to be unavoidable, but she has to speak to him in private first. For the first time since she left him snoring in room 507 at the Hotel Strand.

  10

  Karen drives toward Dunker with a knot of unease in her stomach. She drives on autopilot, letting her thoughts wander freely; she knows the road so well she can feel every curve in her body before it emerges, see every new vista the second before it appears.

  The coastal road approaching Heimö’s capital from the east slopes gently uphill; rolling hills sprinkled with stony pastures and copses of deciduous trees stretch out to the north. White and grey sheep move slowly across the hillsides, grazing methodically, their heads down. The lambs still have a few more weeks to fatten up before the autumn slaughter, and the wool sheep’s summer coats still have some time left to grow before the shearers invade the island in a couple of weeks.

  On the other side of the road, steep cliffs lead down to the sea, whose presence can always be sensed, as a hushed mumbling or a threatening roar. Today, the fresh breeze is coaxing white breakers from the waves and the sun glints between swaths of cloud scudding swiftly toward the mainland.

  Coming in from the plateau in the east, the city of Dunker opens up panoramically. Easing up on the accelerator at just the right moment affords a brief glimpse of the entire bay, the long promenade that runs from the harbour in the west, past the rocky beach and all the way to the yellow cliffs in the south-east. Turning inland instead, there is just enough time to make out the half-moon shape of the town spreading out from the bay, before the road’s tight bends start winding down toward the central parts of the city.

  Dunker’s town planning follows the same tried and tested recipe for segregation of different social groups as so many other European cities. And, as in other places where fishing was traditionally the main means of survival, the sea is at the heart of the town centre. The buildings expand in concentric half circles from the shoreline, and with each circle, the character of the city changes. Along the promenade and the quay holding the sea back, sandstone houses jostle with whitewashed stone houses and low brick buildings. Rising up behind them are much more opulent brick houses, where a succession of factory owners, shipping magnates and the growing middle class took up residence as they climbed the rungs of the Doggerian hierarchy. In Thingwalla, which flanks Dunker Bay in the north-west, large stone houses preside over generous plots of land between sea and forest. Few can aspire to live there, even today; Thingwalla is Dunker’s Millionaire’s Row.

  The next circle consists of Sande and Lemdal, rows of terraced houses built in the twenties and thirties on what was then the north-east and north-west outskirts of town. Neat residential streets that radiate out from the old town, lined by grey stone houses, built during a period characterised by profit maximisation through social development. Back then, concerted efforts were being made in Dunker to build homes that could keep tuberculosis and rheumatism rates low among the workers at the textile mill, the harbour and the soap factory.

  By now, almost every house in Sande and Lemdal has been expanded to the max. Every last inch of planning permission has been squeezed out of the long, narrow plots, originally meant to accommodate potato and vegetable patches for each household.

  The circle beyond that, counted from the town centre, is made up of blocks of flats divided into East and West Odinswalla; street after street of three-storey houses from the fifties and sixties. The endless sprawl seems unjustified, but the explanation is simple: up until 1972, Doggerian law prohibited building higher than three storeys.

  In the last half circle, in the neighbourhoods of Gaarda and Moerbeck, the reformed planning laws have been exploited in full. Here, furthest away from the sea winds, the buildings are all grey, box-like eight-storey tower blocks, erected during the latter half of the seventies. Here, architects and contractors have, in the name of rationalisation, ignored any need for liveable streets, greenery or nooks and crannies in people’s every-day environment.There are no cafés here, no restaurants and no street vendors, unless you count the heroin and amphetamine peddling that takes place relatively openly in car parks or on one of the street corners near the two schools. The nightlife consists of rival drug dealers growlingly marking their territories and petty thieves scurrying through the pools of light spread by the few remaining functional streetlamps. Honest folk, who for some reason couldn’t make it home before eight in the evening, walk quickly and pull their doors shut behind them with a sigh a relief. In Gaarda and Moerbeck, safety exists only behind locked doors, and for some, not even there. But residents who open their narrow airing windows when the wind is blowing in from the north-west can smell the sweetgale from the wetlands further inland.

  *

  Karen drives through Sande and turns west toward Thingwalla. Jounas Smeed likes to stress to his colleagues at the station that his house is located on the exclusive neighbourhood’s very furthest outskirts. Even those among them who appreciate their boss’s attempts to downplay his background, however, are perfectly aware the Smeed family never has been – and never will be – on the outskirts of anything. Smeed lives in Thingwalla, period.

  She studies the majestic, whitewashed stone villas as she slowly follows Fågelsångsvägen down toward number 24. She’s only been here once before. During a heatwave a couple of years previously, Jounas had invited everyone in the Criminal Investigation Department to a barbecue together with their colleagues from the Technical Services Unit and the Prosecution Service. It had been relaxed and pleasant in the sweltering August heat.

  The meteorologists seem to have got it right. The clouds are stacking up over the island; when Karen opens the car door and reaches for her jacket on the passenger seat, she feels a first gust of cold air, which according to the forecast has blown in from the north-west. She shivers and glances up at the house; blank windows stare back at her. Not a light on, not a movement glimpsed behind the black glass or in the part of the garden that’s visible from the road.

  Maybe he’s not in, she thinks in a moment of irrational optimism. After a moment, she hears the sound of a car approaching at high speed. Karen spins around as a shiny black Lexus comes to an abrupt stop behind her own dirty Ford Ranger. Jounas Smeed stays motionless behind the wheel for a few seconds; their eyes meet. Then he shifts into first and slowly continues past her towards the garage, without so much as a nod.

  Karen watches the car go by with a growing sense of unease; this is goi
ng to be just as unpleasant as she has feared. She walks up the driveway with heavy steps, catching up with her boss as he closes the garage door. They round the corner in silence and walk side by side towards the kitchen door.

  11

  ‘Want some?’ Jounas asks, nodding to the bottle of whiskey he’s picked up from the marble kitchen counter. Karen recognises her favourite kind from the Groth distillery up on Noorö.

  She shakes her head. Jounas takes a glass out of a cabinet and leaves the kitchen. He says nothing, but indicates with a barely perceptible rise of the chin that he wants her to follow.

  Karen’s initial nervousness is replaced by exasperation as she is forced to traipse after her boss like a well-trained dog. She follows him without a word across shiny parquet floors and plush rugs through the dark house. They pass a spacious hallway from which a wide staircase sweeps majestically up to the first floor. A giant chandelier hangs above a round table with a vase filled with wilted tulips. To the right of the staircase, she glimpses something that might be a study and further on, as they pass the library, she notes green chesterfield armchairs in front of a richly ornamented mantelpiece and dark bookshelves covering the walls from floor to ceiling.

  Karen remembers the anxious neatness of Susanne Smeed’s impersonal living room. Despite having shared ten years of marriage, the contrast between hers and Jounas’s home is almost embarrassingly stark. Clearly, Susanne got no part of the Smeed fortune in the divorce.

  Jounas continues into a large rectangular living room and turns the overhead lights on. The sharp light makes Karen blink and the room is suddenly reflected in the windows that cover one of the walls. She walks over to the sliding doors and gazes out at the garden for a minute. An L-shaped wooden deck runs along the side of the house, with a well-equipped outdoor kitchen with an enormous grill and shiny utensils jostling for space under a domed brick roof at one end. Diagonally to her right is a long table with seating for twelve and over by the pool she spots big, comfortable garden chairs under a vast parasol.

  He should close that, she thinks. There’s a storm coming.

  Soft lawns roll gently down toward the sea, still vividly green. Karen can’t see it from here, but she knows there’s a private sandy beach down there; she eyed it jealously from the water just last summer, sputtering past in her motorboat. Most of the houses around here have their own jetties; exclusive boats are moored to them at this time of year, waiting to be driven the few hundred yards west to the marina at the close of the season.

  She raises her eyes to the horizon where the sea has now turned a greyish blue under a rapidly darkening sky. As she does, a gust of wind shakes the parasol and the first few raindrops land on the soft silvery surface of the cumaru wood. I should really tell him to close his parasol, she thinks to herself. Instead, she turns around and notes that Jounas Smeed has lowered his long body into one of four light-grey armchairs, slumping limply with his legs sticking straight out in front of him. One arm hangs down the side of the chair, his fingertips almost touching the floor, while the other balances his glass of whiskey on his chest.

  ‘So, Eiken,’ he drawls. ‘What’s your game here?’

  ‘Well, as I’m sure you understand, I have to talk to you . . .’

  ‘Interim Head of the Criminal investigation Department. I suppose congratulations are in order. Good day at work for you, eh?’

  ‘Come off it. I didn’t choose for this to happen.’

  ‘But you’re enjoying it. At least admit that.’

  ‘Absolutely. Relishing every second.’

  She regrets her choice of words immediately, knowing Jounas is going to seize every opportunity to strike.

  ‘Like last night, then. Why did you leave without saying bye, anyway?’

  ‘Well, why do you think? The whole thing was a mistake. A huge fucking mistake, which I hope we can put behind us as soon as possible. OK?’

  Jounas Smeed straightens up a little and takes a deep swig from his glass. Then he fixes her firmly and smiles mirthlessly out of the corner of his mouth.

  ‘OK,’ he says. ‘What do you want to know?’

  Karen clears her throat and slips her hand into her pocket to get out her notepad, then hesitates for a moment and decides not to. The situation is tense enough as it is; drawing attention to the shift in their power dynamic more than is strictly necessary constitutes an unnecessary risk. She hardly thinks memorising the answers to the questions she’s about to ask will be much of a challenge. In an attempt to retain at least a portion of the authority he’s seeking to rob her of, she remains standing.

  ‘Well, you can start by telling me where you were between seven and ten this morning, please.’

  The sound he emits is somewhere between a snort and a dry laugh.

  ‘Come on, is that the best Brodal can do? My God, getting off to a great start, aren’t you . . .’

  Apparently revived, Jounas Smeed empties his glass and gets to his feet.

  For a moment, she thinks he’s about to leave the room, but instead, he walks over to a low table. His back blocks her view, but she can hear the sound of metal on glass when the cap of a bottle is unscrewed, and the faint tinkling of more whiskey being poured into his glass. He sways a little when he turns around; it occurs to her that this is unlikely to be her boss’s first drink today. He must have had a few strong shots in him when he drove up in his Lexus. Then she recalls her own drive home from Dunker that morning. If the media were to catch wind of the Doggerian police’s blood alcohol levels on this day, it would be enough to make them jump for joy. On the other hand, it’s only a matter of time before they have something else to rub their hands with glee about. Granted, most of the town’s journalists are likely at home at the moment, nursing hangovers, but that respite is about to come to an end any minute. The news of the murder of Susanne Smeed is going to spread like wildfire across the islands.

  ‘Would you mind answering the question?’ she says calmly when Jounas Smeed has returned to his armchair. ‘What were you doing this morning?’

  ‘Well, I reckon you know that as well as I do.’

  He watches her, eyebrows raised.

  ‘I left the hotel at about twenty past seven,’ she informs him. ‘After that, I can’t give you an alibi. What did you do after I left?’

  ‘Twenty past seven, eh? And then you drove home,’ Jounas says thoughtfully, ignoring her question. ‘Past Susanne’s house? You didn’t stop by any chance?’

  ‘What the fuck is that supposed to mean?’

  ‘There now. Calm down, love.’

  ‘And what possible reason could I have for killing your ex-wife? You, on the other hand, probably . . .’

  She cuts herself short, realising she has walked right into his trap; once again, he has made her lose her control. With just a few words, he’s managed to erase years of carefully assembled indifference to his moronic prattling. She takes a few deep breaths and sits down on the edge of the long white sofa. Tenses her back and braces her legs not to sink into the soft cushions.

  ‘Please, Jounas,’ she says, forcing herself to sound calm. ‘If you could just tell me what you were doing between, all right, twenty past seven and ten this morning. You know I have to ask.’

  ‘I came home around ten, with the hangover from hell,’ he replies, unexpectedly compliant. ‘Before that, I did what you did, I woke up, threw up and left the hotel with my tail between my legs.’

  She ignores the jibe.

  ‘What time did you leave the hotel?’

  ‘At around half past nine.’

  ‘Did anyone see you? In the lobby, I mean.’

  ‘How the fuck should I know? No, I don’t think there as anyone at reception, but I didn’t give it a lot of thought; I paid when I checked in. When we checked in, I mean.’

  For a second, she toys with the idea of offering to pay for her half of the room, but she decides against it. The less they talk about it, the better.

  ‘Did you drive hom
e or walk?’ she says instead.

  ‘I walked. It’s only twenty minutes and I needed some fresh air. I left my car parked by city hall. Next to yours as a matter of fact, maybe you didn’t notice?’

  Had Jounas’s car been there? Maybe, but her encounter with Inguldsen and Lange had given her other things to think about.

  ‘Don’t you usually use the station garage?’

  ‘I did, earlier in the day. I left work late; I was in a bad mood and was planning to drive straight home. But after getting the car from the garage and driving out on Redehusgate, I changed my mind. Figured it was Oistra, after all, and I should at least have a half dozen oysters and couple of pints before heading home. So I parked in the car park, figuring I’d be back in less than an hour. But that’s not how it worked out, as you know.’

  I certainly do, she reflects. The Jounas she met later that night must have had a lot more than a couple of pints in him, more like a couple of bottles of wine.

  ‘Did you meet anyone? The next morning, I mean, walking home.’

  Jounas looks like he’s pondering that; she gets the distinct impression he’s play-acting. Given the circumstances, he must have asked himself that already. The moment he found out his ex-wife had been murdered, he must have realised he would be asked to account for his whereabouts at the time of the murder. That, and many other things besides.