Buried Angels

Chapter Twenty-Seven

He gazed out at the passing landscape. In the front seat that irritating fool Mellberg was having a heated discussion on the phone. It sounded as if he was refusing to turn him over to the police in Fjällbacka and instead insisted on driving the whole way to Göteborg. It didn’t make any difference, one way or the other.

John wondered how Liv was going to handle this. Like him, she had staked everything on the plan. Maybe they should have been satisfied with what they’d already achieved, but the temptation had been too great to change everything in one fell swoop and accomplish what no other nationalist party had ever done before in Sweden: attain a dominant political position. In Denmark the Danish People’s Party had carried out many of the things that the Friends of Sweden dreamed of doing. Had it been so wrong to try to speed up the process?

Project Gimle had been intended to unite all Swedes so that together they could finally restore the country. It was a simple plan, and for all that he’d occasionally worried about it, he had been convinced that it would succeed. Now everything was ruined. Everything they’d built would be torn down and forgotten in the after-shocks of Gimle. No one would understand that they had tried to create a new future for Sweden.

It had all started with a suggestion that was put forward in jest within the inner circle. Liv had immediately seen the potential. She had explained to John and the others that it might be possible to bring about a change swiftly, a change that would otherwise take more than a generation to occur. In the course of one night, they would start a revolution, mobilizing Swedes in a battle against the enemies who had wormed their way into the country and were in the process of breaking down society. She had presented a logical argument, and the price had been deemed reasonable.

A single bomb. Placed in the middle of the Sture Gallery during rush hour. Afterwards, all evidence collected by the police would point to Muslim terrorists. They had been working on the plan for more than a year, going over all the details and meticulously ensuring that it would be impossible to draw any other conclusion – everyone would believe that Islamists had carried out an attack in the very heart of Stockholm, in the heart of Sweden. People would be frightened, and their fear would make them angry. Then the Friends of Sweden would step forward, gently take them by the hand and confirm their fears. They would tell the people what they needed to do in order to feel safe again. In order to live as Swedes.

Now the plan would never be realized. John’s worries about what Leon was about to reveal seemed ludicrous and absurd compared to the scandal that would now engulf him. He would be at the very centre of things, but this was not how he’d envisioned it. Instead of being his greatest triumph, Project Gimle was to be his undoing.

Ebba studied the photographs that she’d spread out on the floor. The naked boys stared blankly at the camera.

‘They look so helpless.’ She turned away.

‘This has nothing to do with you,’ said Anna, patting Ebba’s arm.

‘It would have been better if I’d never found out anything about my family. The only picture I’ll have of them now, if we ever get…’

She didn’t finish the sentence, and Anna knew that she didn’t want to say out loud what she was thinking. That they might never get out of this place.

Again Ebba turned to the photos. ‘They must be Pappa’s students. If this is what he subjected them to, then I can understand it if they killed him.’

Anna nodded. The boys wanted to use their hands to hide their shame, but the photographer refused to allow it. Their anguish was so evident on their faces, and she could only imagine the rage that such humiliation must have fostered.

‘What I don’t understand is why all of them had to die,’ said Ebba.

Suddenly they heard footsteps outside. They stood up and stared, wide-eyed, at the door as someone fumbled with the lock.

‘It must be Tobias,’ said Ebba, terrified.

Instinctively they looked around for somewhere to escape, but they were trapped like rats. Slowly the door swung open and Tobias came in, holding a gun.

‘You’re alive?’ he said to Ebba. Anna was shocked to see how indifferent he was to whether his wife was alive or dead.

‘Why are you doing this?’ Ebba moved towards him, sobbing.

‘Stop!’ He raised the gun and pointed it at her, and she instantly stopped in her tracks.

‘Let us out of here.’ Anna tried to catch his attention. ‘We promise not to say anything.’

‘You think I’d believe that? It doesn’t matter anyway. I have no wish to…’ He stopped abruptly, peering at the bones sticking out of the chests. ‘What’s that?’

‘Ebba’s family,’ said Anna.

Tobias couldn’t tear his eyes away from the skeletons. ‘Have they been here the whole time?’

‘Yes, apparently they have.’

Anna hoped that Tobias would be so shaken that she’d be able to reach him somehow. She leaned down, which prompted him to gasp and swing the gun in her direction.

‘I only want to show you something.’ Anna picked up the photos and handed them to Tobias, who took them with a sceptical expression.

‘What’s this?’ he said, and for the first time his voice sounded normal.

Anna could feel her heart pounding. The sensible, sane Tobias was still in there somewhere. He held the pictures closer so he could study them.

‘My father must have done that to them,’ said Ebba. Her hair hung in her face, and it was apparent from her posture that she had given up.

‘Rune?’ said Tobias, but then he flinched when they heard voices approaching. Swiftly he slammed the door shut.

‘Who’s there?’ asked Anna.

‘They’re going to ruin everything,’ said Tobias. His expression had changed, and Anna could see that there was no use hoping any more. ‘But they’re not getting in here. I have the key. It was above the doorframe here in the basement, long forgotten and rusty. I tried it in every lock, but it didn’t fit. Then a week ago, just by accident, I found the entrance. It was so ingeniously constructed that it was practically invisible.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me about this?’ asked Ebba.

‘I was already starting to see the truth. That you were to blame for Vincent’s death, but you refused to admit your guilt. You were trying to shift the blame to me. And in the unlocked chest I found this.’ He waved the gun. ‘I knew that I’d have a use for it.’

‘They’ll find a way to get in. You know that,’ said Anna. ‘You might as well open the door.’

‘I can’t open it. There used to be a knob on the inside, but someone removed it. The door locks automatically, and they don’t have a key, so even if they do find the secret door, they won’t be able to get in. Whoever built this cellar was paranoid – it’ll withstand just about anything.’ Tobias smiled. ‘By the time they bring equipment over here to break their way in, it’ll be too late.’

‘Tobias, please,’ said Ebba, but Anna could tell that it would do no good to try reasoning with him. Tobias had decided to die here, and they would too, unless she did something.

At that instant they heard a key being fitted into the lock. Surprised, Tobias turned his head. That was the moment Anna had been waiting for. She grabbed the angel pendant from the floor and threw herself at Tobias. She ripped a big gash in his cheek with the sharp edge of the pendant as she used her other hand to fumble for the gun. Just as she touched the cold steel, a shot rang out.

Josef had made up his mind to die today. It felt like the logical step after his failure, and the decision had actually filled him with relief. When he left the house, he still hadn’t worked out how to do it, but when Percy began waving the gun about, it occurred to Josef that he might die a hero.

Now, strangely enough, it seemed like a rash decision. On his way down the dark basement stairs, his will to live seemed stronger than ever before. He didn’t want to die, especially not in this place which had given him nightmares for so many years. He saw the police officers in front of him, and he felt oddly naked without a gun. There had been no question that he should accompany them. He was the only one who could show them the way. The only one who knew how to find hell.

The officers waited for him at the bottom of the stairs. Patrik Hedström raised an eyebrow enquiringly and Josef pointed to the far wall. It appeared to be an ordinary wall, with crooked shelves holding old paint cans. Seeing Patrik’s sceptical expression, he stepped forward to show them. He remembered it all so well: the smells, the feel of the concrete floor underfoot, the musty air that he’d breathed into his lungs.

After a glance at Patrik, Josef pressed the right side of the middle shelf. The wall moved, swinging inward to reveal a passageway leading to a solid door. He stepped aside. The officers looked at him in surprise for a moment and then entered the passageway. At the door they paused to listen. They could hear a faint murmuring from inside. Josef knew exactly what lay behind the door. All he had to do was close his eyes for the image to be as clear as if he’d seen the room yesterday. The cold walls, the bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. And the four chests. They had put the gun inside one of them. That was where Ebba’s husband must have found it. Josef wondered whether Tobias had opened the locked chests too, whether he knew what was inside. It didn’t matter, because now everything was going to be revealed. There was no turning back.

Patrik took the key out of his pocket, stuck it in the lock, and turned it. He cast a glance at Josef and his colleagues, his face clearly showing that he feared what they were about to find.

Cautiously Patrik opened the door. A shot was fired, and Josef saw the officers rush inside, their weapons drawn. But he stayed in the passageway. All the commotion made it hard to know exactly what was happening, but he could hear Patrik shouting: ‘Drop the gun!’ There was a flash and a shot that reverberated loudly and painfully. Then came the sound of somebody falling to the floor.

In the silence that followed, Josef’s ears were ringing, and he was aware of his own breathing, jagged and shallow. He was alive, he knew that he was alive, and he was grateful for that. Rebecka would be worried when she found his letter, but he would try to explain. Because he was not going to die today.

Someone came running down the basement steps, and when he turned, he saw Ia racing towards him. Her eyes were filled with fear.

‘Ebba,’ she said. ‘Where is Ebba?’

Blood had sprayed over the chests and halfway up the wall. Behind her she could hear Ebba screaming, but it sounded far away.

‘Anna.’ Patrik took her by the shoulders and shook her. She pointed to her ear.

‘I think my ear drum burst. I can’t hear anything.’

Her voice sounded strangely muffled. Everything had happened so fast. She looked down at her hands. They were bloody, and she examined her body to see whether she was bleeding, but she couldn’t find any wounds. She was still gripping Ebba’s angel pendant in her hand, and she realized that the blood must have come from the gash on Tobias’s face. Now he was lying on the floor, his eyes open. A bullet had torn a big hole in his head.

Anna turned away. Ebba was still screaming, and suddenly a woman came rushing in and threw her arms around her. Slowly she rocked her back and forth until Ebba’s cries subsided to a whimper. Anna pointed mutely at the chests. Patrik, Martin, and Gösta stared at the skeletons, now spattered with Tobias’s blood.

‘We need to get you out of here.’ Patrik gently ushered Anna and Ebba towards the door. Ia followed close behind.

When they were inside the main room of the basement, Erica came flying down the steep steps. She took them two at a time, and Anna moved fast to meet her halfway. Only when she buried her face against her big sister’s neck did she feel the tears start to flow.

When they came upstairs to the front hall, they squinted in the bright light. Anna was still shaking as if she were freezing, and Erica read her thoughts and went to get her clothes from upstairs. She didn’t say a word about finding them in Tobias and Ebba’s bedroom, but Anna knew that she was going to have a lot to explain. Her heart ached when she thought about how upset Dan was going to be, but she couldn’t think about that now. She would have to work that out later.

‘I’ve phoned for reinforcements, and a team is on the way,’ said Patrik. He helped Anna and Ebba to sit on the front steps.

Ia sat down next to Ebba, putting her arm around her. Gösta sat on the other side of Ebba, studying both women. Patrik leaned down and whispered in his ear:

‘That’s Annelie. I’ll tell you more later.’

Gösta gave him a puzzled look. Then an idea flashed through his mind, and he shook his head.

‘The handwriting. Of course – that’s how everything fits together.’

He knew that he’d missed something when they were going through the contents of the boxes. Something that he’d seen and should have understood. Now he turned to Ia.

‘She could have ended up living with us, but she had a good life with the family in Göteborg.’ Gösta noticed that the others were listening but had no idea what he was talking about.

‘I couldn’t bear to think about who might take her in. I couldn’t bear to think about her at all. It was easier that way,’ said Ia.

‘She was so lovely. I was enchanted by her that summer, and we wanted to keep her. But we’d lost a child and had given up any idea of having a…’ He turned away.

‘Yes, she was lovely. A true little angel!’ said Ia, smiling sadly. Ebba looked at them in astonishment.

‘How did you work it out?’ asked Ia.

‘The grocery list. There was a handwritten list among the things that you left behind. And then you gave me the note with the address that you’d written down. And the handwriting was the same.’

‘Would somebody please explain?’ said Patrik. ‘What are you talking about, Gösta?’

‘It was Leon’s idea for me to use Annelie’s passport instead of my own,’ said Ia. ‘There was an age difference of a few years, but we were similar enough for it to work.’

‘I don’t understand.’ Ebba shook her head.

Gösta looked her in the eye. In his mind he saw the little lass who had run around in their yard and left such an impression on his heart. It was high time for her to hear the news that she’d been waiting to receive for so many years.

‘Ebba, this is your mother. This is Inez.’

Utter silence. The only sound was the wind rustling in the birch trees.

‘But, but…’ stammered Ebba. She pointed behind her, towards the basement. ‘Then who is that in there, with the long hair?’

‘Annelie,’ said Ia. ‘We both had long brown hair.’ And she gently touched Ebba’s cheek.

‘Why haven’t you ever…?’ Ebba’s voice was shaky with emotion.

‘There is no simple answer. There’s a lot that I can’t explain, because I don’t understand it myself. I forced myself not to think about you. Otherwise I’d never have been able to give you up.’

‘Leon didn’t finish telling us what happened back then,’ said Patrik. ‘I think it’s time for us to hear the truth.’

‘Yes, it is,’ said Ia.

Boats had appeared out on the water, still some distance away, but coming towards Valö. While he welcomed the prospect that another team would soon take over, first Gösta wanted to hear, at long last, what happened on that Easter weekend in 1974. He took Ebba’s hand in his. Ia took the other.