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  Emily looked up, her hair disturbed by the wind, and stared out to sea. She couldn’t understand. But if it made no sense to her, it certainly did for the killer. She had to think as she usually did – move on from the bare facts of the case at her disposal to the essence of the killer’s fantasies, the keys to unlock his crime; move from logic to lack of logic, analyse the bloody work confronting her in order to understand the artist at play here.

  Gustaf Bratt restaurant, Falkenberg

  Monday, 13 January 2014, 19.00

  ALEXIS COULD NO LONGER SIT still in her hotel room. She’d resolved to clear her mind by walking over to Bratt, a restaurant in the old town where she had a dinner meeting planned for later. She’d have a drink, and, if all went well, she’d also obtain some answers to her questions.

  This first day without Linnéa in her life had seen her thoughts move between sadness and utter exhaustion. She had attempted in vain to hold onto passing dreams, as if surreal illusions might briefly banish reality. But, as Alba had once told her, death was not an absence but, on the contrary, a secret presence. For Alexis, however, this secret presence was proving even more unbearable than the abyss of vacancy.

  The waiter set a glass of rioja down in front of Alexis. She stared at the wine’s elegant coat of purple reflections.

  That morning, as they had been leaving the police station, Peter had informed his two friends that he would have to remain in Sweden for a few more days to sort out Linnéa’s affairs. With one voice, they had firmly objected. Alba had reminded him of their painful visit to Linnéa’s in the early hours of morning, which had come to a sudden halt before they’d been able to even move upstairs. Alexis had insisted they should bear the burden of the tragic events together, all three of them. She had volunteered to complete an inventory of the house. Peter had seemed to mentally collapse when she suggested this. So Alexis had proposed she should remain in Sweden alone, and had insisted that Alba and Peter return to England. There was a lot for them to do in London, too. She reckoned it would take her two or three days to complete the task at Linnéa’s and then she would go home.

  Pressured by his two friends, Peter had ended up accepting. He’d left for the airport with Alba in the middle of the afternoon, leaving Alexis to her demons.

  ‘What are you drinking?’

  Alexis jumped, even though this was said in more of a whisper than a loud voice.

  ‘Emily! Just a glass of rioja, thanks. So how are you?’ Alexis attempted a feeble smile and thought she caught a spark of irony in the fixed gaze of the profiler.

  Emily pulled off her woollen hat and her padded jacket, placed her backpack on the chair, hanging it by its straps, and sat facing Alexis.

  ‘You can interrogate me properly once we’re eating. Shall we order?’

  It was a purely rhetorical question. Alexis grabbed the menu by her plate.

  She had met Emily three years earlier, while she was working on a project about the Scottish serial killer, Johnny Burnett. Scotland Yard had put her in touch with Emily, one of the five profilers on their books – or Behaviour Investigative Advisors, as they were called in the UK.

  A transfer from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Emily had been the only one to establish any sort of close relationship with Burnett. Alexis had interviewed Emily at length, and Emily had finally agreed to introduce her to the killer. They hadn’t seen each other since that day at Full Sutton prison.

  The waiter brought their dishes. Emily, still silent, immediately dug in. She carefully forked each piece of gravlax into her mouth, barely chewing, and keeping her eyes fixed on her plate.

  Alexis opted to respect her companion’s apparently deliberate silence and gulped down her own saffron-flavoured risotto with little appreciation of its taste or smell.

  The photos depicting Linnéa’s mutilated body dominated her mind, banishing all the other light-hearted thoughts she’d previously tried to conjure up about her friend. It felt awful. In order to get rid of these lingering images, she knew she had to act, grab some answers to all the questions crowding her brain. She had, as a result, suggested to Emily they should dine together, hoping this would help her extract from the profiler some information about the enquiry.

  Alexis observed the regular movements of her fellow diner, wondering all along how and when to phrase her initial question. She knew there was no point in trying to be clever with Emily; she would see right through you if you tried any tricks and would just walk out in the middle of the meal.

  ‘What is it you want?’ the profiler said out of the blue as she sipped her wine.

  Alexis’ throat tightened. She’d always disliked the prickly tone often present in Emily’s voice. And today of all days she was unwilling to deal with it.

  ‘I saw the photos of Linnéa at the police station,’ she said, curtly. It was as if they were now imprinted at the back of her mind. In just that fraction of a second, her brain had memorised every single pixel. ‘I saw you discussing them with Bergström,’ she added.

  Emily speared a piece of salmon and a slice of potato with her fork, dipping them in the dill sauce spread across one side of her plate.

  ‘Was Linnéa the victim of a serial killer, is that it?’ Alexis continued.

  Emily raised her head and, with cold determination, looked back at her. Alexis couldn’t tell whether she was judging her, was angry or just stared at her with indifference.

  ‘That’s why you’re here in Sweden?’ she continued, sustaining Emily’s gaze.

  ‘Correct,’ Emily answered, placing the knife and fork on either side of the plate and wiping her mouth.

  Alexis blinked as if a rush of wind had slammed against her face. She’d prepared herself to fight it out with Emily. She’d carefully rehearsed every argument. But she’d never believed she would get a direct answer.

  ‘…in London too.’

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t hear what you just said,’ apologised Alexis, connecting again with the conversation.

  ‘Bodies with identical mutilations have been found in London.’

  Alexis’ eyes opened in horror. She swallowed once, her tongue rampaging inside her mouth.

  ‘But no one … well, I haven’t heard about that…’

  ‘Because we haven’t informed the press,’ Emily responded, pouring a glass of water.

  She pushed it across the table towards Alexis, who picked it up and obediently drank from it. The first sip cooled down the fire raging in her throat.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, less for the glass of water than for the trust Emily was conferring on her – something she had not expected.

  Emily silently waited for Alexis to empty her glass of water.

  ‘But how did you … know about Linnéa?’ Alexis asked once she’d gathered her thoughts again.

  ‘Bergström called his colleagues at the Rikskriminalpolisen in Gothenburg to find out if any other victims had been discovered with similar mutilations anywhere in the region or the country. There was nothing. So he’d contacted the Interpol offices in Stockholm, who put him in touch with the Yard.’

  ‘How many?’

  ‘Two in London. And now Linnéa.’

  Alexis nodded, filing away the information.

  ‘And … you think it might be the same person? Or do you think there might be two of them?’

  Emily’s face darkened and, for a moment, she appeared to be lost in her thoughts, her eyes fixed on something behind Alexis.

  ‘I just don’t know,’ she said at last. ‘And that’s exactly what the problem is.’

  Monday, 13 January 2014

  He switches the engine off, opens his rucksack, picks out the binoculars and peers through the minivan’s tinted windows. Just as she begins to undress by the sash window, as if she has been waiting for him to arrive. He likes her small, round, high breasts.

  She climbs on the bed, crawls forward on all fours, like a dog. Why the hell does she insist on doing that, every single time? It doesn’t get him hard, no
way, to see a human being act like an animal. There is nothing exciting about it. Submission? Wasn’t this concept of dog and master somewhat hackneyed? So why? Voyeurism? Displayed like this, her breasts flop limply like hanging pears, her stomach loses its tautness and you can’t even see her pussy. The guy isn’t even looking at her, anyway. He’s sniffing the cocaine the other girl has spread across her nipples.

  All of a sudden, the door opens and Logan appears. His mother doesn’t even notice; she’s too busy with her nose between the other girl’s thighs. Logan stands still for a few seconds, puts his thumb inside his mouth then departs, closing the door behind him. He knows that tonight he will not be sleeping in his own bed – at any rate, the one he shares with his whore of a mother. Sorry, Logan, Mum has guests. You should know the way it works by now.

  He focuses his binoculars on the other room in the house. He is aware that Logan will walk to the fridge and get himself a drink, which has been bought along with his ready meal on the way back from school, will park himself on the settee and switch the TV on. Later, he will wet himself in his sleep, and his mother will chide him, slap him, all the while holding his soiled clothing right in front of his nose in an effort to shame him. There’s something about this woman and dogs. It’s the same, over and over.

  He takes a look at his watch. The mother and her girlfriend always charge per half-hour. This is the fourth customer in a row, and it appears this one is going to stay for a whole hour. In twenty minutes, if all goes well, he will leave and the two friends will go out onto the street just ten minutes’ walk away, to attract further business. Later, they will end the evening at another girl’s place. The mother will return to the house at 3 a.m. and will collapse onto the bed without even taking a shower or checking out how her son is.

  It will be around eight, when she wakes up in the early-morning light, that she’ll finally deal with Logan and beat him until he manages to escape and lock himself inside the bathroom. She will knock on the door for five whole minutes, until she gives up and leaves the place, slamming the door behind her, like a teenager having a hissy fit.

  But, tomorrow, when she awakens, her pupils still dilated from the coke she’s been stuffing into her nose all night long, her little Logan will no longer be there.

  Falkenberg police station

  Monday, 13 January 2014, 22.00

  EMILY TOOK THE PHOTOGRAPHS out of the padded folder. Each one was marked with a 1, a 2 or a 3, depending on the crime they related to. She pinned them to the board, grouping them by themes, then sat herself down at the large conference table, facing the board, her notepad open, eyes staring at the story that the pictures told, a story the first chapter of which had been written in London just a few weeks earlier.

  On that Saturday, the 14th of December, Emily had been woken up by the ring of her mobile phone at 5.50 in the morning. She’d put it on speaker and dressed while listening to Sergeant Scott, from the Metropolitan Police. He explained to her that she was expected at a crime scene on Hampstead Heath and that Detective Chief Superintendent Jack Pearce had asked him to collect her. She had thanked him, but, before hanging up, she had asked him for the GPS coordinates of the crime scene. The obedient sergeant provided them with little argument. Whatever DCS Pearce had ordered, there was no way she was going to sit around waiting for someone to escort her there.

  Emily had slipped on her trainers, zipped up her parka and put her hood up. She dropped a small black box into the front pocket of her backpack and left her home, her mobile phone in her hand.

  She ambled up Flask Walk at a trot, ignoring the damp cold that made the early-morning air quite unwelcome, continued onto Well Walk, crossed East Heath Road and entered the woods, better known as Hampstead Heath, with her torch in her hand.

  Fog embraced the claw-like trees and the thorny bushes with its streams of cotton tentacles, and drifted over the carpet of dead leaves spread across the ground. Emily checked her phone: she wasn’t far from the crime scene now. She took a muddy and twisting shortcut to her right and walked down it with a lightness in her step, indifferent to the brown, earthy stains beginning to spread across the bottom of her trousers. Fifty metres east, she caught sight of a ballet of electric lights. A few seconds later, she was sliding under the white-and-blue ribbon the police had unfurled, brandishing her warrant card and shouting out ‘BIA Roy!’ to an overzealous sergeant who already had a hand on his truncheon to halt her progress.

  He quickly apologised, red-faced, trying to explain that, with her stained trousers, her mud-splattered shoes, her cap and backpack, he’d mistaken Emily for a homeless person.

  ‘Where’s Sergeant Scott?’ she heard Superintendent Pearce ask. And before the embarrassed officer had a chance to respond, he said, ‘Bloody hell, Emily! Why didn’t you wait for him?’

  The boss stood facing her, his untidy mop of grey hair uncombed and wild.

  Already intent on seeing the body, waiting for her just ten metres away, the profiler didn’t reply, or even glance at Pearce.

  Pearce shrugged, giving up.

  Emily pulled a sealed plastic bag from her backpack, tore it open and slid out a flimsy protective suit, a hair net, a face mask, gloves and shoe covers. She adjusted everything around her own clothing, her eyes narrowing in deep thought.

  ‘It’s OK, Emily, I asked the scene-of-crime guys not to touch the body until you got here,’ Pearce informed her, as if reading her thoughts. ‘They’re about to set the tent up. The body was discovered by a dog,’ he went on, ‘belonging to a retired music teacher, seventy-two years old.’

  She turned towards Pearce and gave him a dubious look.

  ‘It’s an enormous German Shepherd. I guess she’s not scared to go out alone at night with that beast. She lives close by and takes a walk on the Heath every morning around 5 a.m., summer and winter, normally sticking to the paths. She got worried when her dog disappeared for a moment. She followed its barks and found it moaning, trying to dig something up. She approached and noticed the top of the skull just emerging through the dirt. She went straight home and called us.’

  Emily nodded at this information, adjusted her latex gloves and moved towards the burial site.

  The muddy earth was littered with brown, soggy leaves, scattered here and there by the rain. First she noticed the hole dug up by the dog, then, as she kneeled down, some strands of curly hair stuck in the wet ground.

  She gave a sign to the technicians. The tallest one acknowledged her with a similar gesture of his thumb, spoke to his colleagues and the whole group joined her on the edge of the improvised grave. They quietly greeted the profiler with a ‘Hello, Em’, then began to meticulously rake the patch of earth in front of them.

  First they freed the face and the brown hair from the earth, then the forehead and the tiny snub nose. The empty orbs were unnaturally large. The lips barely open. The throat was slit vertically, from the chin all the way down to the sternal notch. Maggots were slithering inside the narrow nostrils, peering out from the ocular cavities, crawling across the lips and the borders of the gash that extended all the way down the neck.

  The technicians gradually cleared away the dark blanket of dirt, revealing a body already deformed by putrefaction. Once the earth covering the upper half of the cadaver had been removed, Emily leaned across the grave and delicately took hold of the child’s left arm, being careful not to damage it.

  Brushing some dirt away, she had found the mark she was seeking. An identical Y to the one found on the body of another little boy discovered just a month earlier, barely one hundred metres away from this very spot.

  Emily stood up, stepped around the conference table and moved nearer to the photographs she had pinned to the board. Three victims who had never known each other. The parents of the first two victims had been categorical: their children had never met, and neither had any of them ever come across Linnéa Blix. Three enucleated victims, whose throats had been carefully slashed from the chin to the sternal notch, and who ha
d had their tracheas sectioned. The letter Y had been carved into the arms of both little boys, and the letter X in Linnéa’s. The X had been a much deeper cut. Did the killer mark his victims according to their sex? An easy assumption, but it was possible. He had shaved Linnéa’s pubic thatch and had savagely cut into her arm; did this signify he was angry with women? Did he have a compulsion to eliminate little boys before they reached the age where they could be perverted by the opposite sex, which he considered noxious? But then, what was the link between London and Falkenberg? The chances of Linnéa’s case being a copycat murder were almost non-existent: neither the public nor the press yet knew about the killings committed in London.

  Emily stared at each photograph in turn.

  Could it be there were two people involved? A pair acting in tandem, but with different tastes: the one in London having a taste for little boys, while the one active in Falkenberg preferred women?

  Emily sat on the edge of the table. None of these explanations satisfied her. The pieces just didn’t fit. She would have to forget these speculations and keep on gathering information. She would reach some form of conclusion later.

  Her next step would be to visit Linnéa Blix’s home the following morning; find out more, refine her profile of the third victim. For now, there was only one piece of knowledge that was certain: whoever had abandoned Linnéa Blix’s body under the boat knew the area well.

  Buchenwald concentration camp, Germany

  August 1944

  THE SS OFFICER FOLLOWING right on his heels, Erich crossed the roll-call ground, moving towards the square-chimneyed building that spat out its thick black smoke night and day. He would not be the first to be burned alive. Josef, the eldest man in their block, had spoken of a convoy of four hundred children. According to him, they had been incinerated alive by the young SS officer with the stammer who sometimes enjoyed throwing babies in the air and then shooting them like clay pigeons.