Slowly We Die

CHAPTER

TWO

Unknown caller.

JANA BERZELIUS SIGHED, ignored the call and turned her cell phone facedown on the desk. She seldom, almost never, answered if the number was unlisted, and for the moment didn’t want to be disturbed.

She had left the Swedish Radio offices on foot, walked down the hill and across Järnbron, picked up her briefcase from her apartment, then drove to her office in the Public Prosecution Building. Once at her desk, she cast a glance at the computer screen and began typing.

Her cell phone rang again.

This time she picked her phone up and looked at the display, which again read Unknown caller.

Just then she heard a knock on the glass door. She looked up and saw her colleague Per Åström standing there with a wide grin. He waved hello with his whole hand.

She had come to enjoy Per, and now and then they had dinner together. Per was, practically speaking, the only social company she allowed herself. She didn’t like socializing in general, and felt no need to hang out with other people just for the sake of it. To her, conversation was meant almost exclusively for the purposes of work. When she was in the courtroom, she had no problem making long statements in order to present facts, but personal conversations were a challenge—a challenge she wasn’t interested in taking on. She wanted to keep her private life private.

Per knocked again, miming: Can I come in?

She looked at her ringing cell phone again, then at Per standing outside the door. If she let him in, she could count on wasting more precious work time—after already having lost a whole morning at the radio studio. Per rarely kept to the short version of stories, and even if he saw her look at her watch, he wouldn’t take the hint that she had other things to do besides listening to him.

The decision was simple.

She shook her head at Per as if to say “not now,” which only seemed to confuse him. So she spun her chair a half turn away from him, put her phone to her ear and answered the call. “Hello, have I reached Jana Berzelius? This is chief physician Alexander Eliasson.” The voice was remarkably calm. “Is this a good time to talk?”

She frowned.

“What is this regarding, Dr. Eliasson?” she asked.

“I’m sorry to call like this, but...I would like you to come down to the hospital.”

“Why?”

“Early this morning an ambulance was called to your parents’ house in Lindö and...”

“How is he?”

“I’m afraid that...”

“My father, how is he?”

“I’m not calling about your father.”

“I’m sorry, I thought that...”

She took a deep breath.

“I’ve been trying to reach him all morning,” the doctor said. “Your father and I have been friends for a long time, you see.”

“My father has difficulty communicating these days,” she said.

“Yes, I know, and I’m so sorry about what happened to him.”

“It was self-inflicted.”

She looked out the window, watching birds soar high over the rooftops.

“So what is it you’re calling about?”

“I’m afraid the ambulance didn’t arrive at the hospital in time.”

A few seconds passed as she tried to collect her thoughts.

“Are you talking about my mother?” she said quietly.

“Yes, I am,” the doctor said. “And I’m truly sorry, but your mother...Margaretha...has passed away.”

* * *

The sun peeked through the thick blanket of clouds, and the bare trees cast thin shadows over the asphalt. Detective Chief Inspector Henrik Levin pulled into a parking spot next to a Volvo and sat for a moment with his hands on the wheel. He looked at the police cruisers and knew that the forensic techs were already there.

Officers had searched the area and collected footage from the traffic cameras. The search for Danilo Peña, who had apparently escaped from the hospital, was in full force.

“Hello? Are you going to sit there all day?” Mia Bolander had opened the passenger door and was giving Henrik a tired look. He turned off the ignition, stepped out of the car and walked with Mia toward the main entrance.

As they walked, Henrik surveyed the area. He saw the people’s curious looks and the uniformed officers standing with their legs shoulder-width apart on either side of the rotating doors. Then he let his gaze wander over the large parking lot to the little grove of trees and stones and back to the hospital buildings.

“He’s probably long gone,” Mia said, registering his searching gaze. “But it’s fucking bold of him to walk straight out through the main entrance.”

“If that’s what he did,” Henrik said. “Four buses have left the area, twenty-odd civilian cars and two ambulances, but no one saw him.”

“Have we closed off the hospital exits?” she asked.

“Yes,” he replied.

“And monitored the buses?”

“We’ve checked them. Nothing.”

“Paratransit services?”

“Nothing there, either.”

“And taxis?”

“We’ve checked with all companies, but we got nothing.”

“So how are we going to get him this time?” she asked with a sigh.

“The BOLO has already gone out. But he could just as easily still be somewhere on the hospital campus.”

“I hardly think so,” Mia said, wrinkling her nose. “And the guard?”

“He’s still missing. Danilo probably took him with him.”

With a practiced motion, Henrik lifted the plastic police tape. He held it up for Mia before he ducked under it himself and walked with heavy steps toward Ward 11.

He squinted at the bright spotlight shining from Room 38 and saw forensic technician Anneli Lindgren crouching down in the middle of the hospital room. Her white protective coverall rustled as she stood up. She pulled off her mask and nodded toward them.

Henrik stepped inside, then Mia followed. Both looked around. The air was warm, and a red handprint was visible on the floor.

“We’ve lifted footprints from Danilo Peña, so we know he got out of bed here—” Anneli gestured to the right side of the bed “—attacked the female nurse here, knocking her unconscious. She fell onto the chair, where we found her.”

“And the other nurse?” Mia asked.

“He was passed out in the bed when we came.”

“In the bed?”

Anneli nodded.

“Naked,” she added.

Henrik shoved his hands into his pockets and turned his gaze toward the door.

“So Danilo Peña forces Mattias Bohed to take off his clothes and lie in bed, then Peña dresses in Mattias’s scrubs, asks the guard to unlock the door and leaves the room.”

Henrik walked slowly to the door.

“So when Peña leaves the room...” he repeated, stepping into the hallway. “He attacks the guard, but doesn’t leave him here.”

“Probably takes him with him because he wants to use him as a hostage,” Anneli said. “But no one has seen either of them. Not yet, anyway.”

Henrik looked up at the ceiling and stroked his hand over his chin.

“So he leaves the ward with the guard’s help, but doesn’t go to the main entrance...”

“No, he likely goes down this fire exit over here,” Anneli said, pointing to the end of the hallway.

“Show me.”

They walked through the ward past a series of rooms and stopped outside the door that was the fire exit.

“We haven’t had time to go through all the elevators yet,” Anneli said, “but look at this.” She pointed to a bloody fingerprint on the doorframe. “But I have to get back now,” she said.

“Okay,” Henrik said. He listened to her footsteps become fainter as he stayed and examined the fingerprint. Then he carefully opened the fire exit door, walked slowly down the staircase to the next level and stood in front of that stairwell door, which he examined just as carefully. As he was about to turn the door handle, he noticed another bloody fingerprint. He slowly opened the door to Ward 9. Down the hallway, a television was blaring an interior decorating show. Henrik heard the show’s music along with the voice of the host, who apparently was teaching viewers how to build a stepladder. Henrik headed in that direction. As he passed the room, he saw an older woman in floral pants sitting on a couch, her gaze fixed on the TV set.

He walked by a number of other rooms, their doors all closed.

At the end of the hallway, he noticed that the door to a storage closet was ajar.

As he surveyed the area, he could still hear hammering coming from the TV as he tried to count how many civilians might be in the vicinity. Suddenly he heard a moan from the storage closet.

He drew his weapon and held his breath for a moment. Then he pushed the door all the way open with his left hand, his weapon pointed straight into the darkness.

“Police!” he yelled, but then lowered his weapon, his heart still pounding when he saw it wasn’t Danilo Peña in the closet.

It was the guard.

* * *

Jana Berzelius didn’t bother waiting for the stoplight to turn green before crossing Albrektsvägen and speeding along Gamla Övägen. As she drove, she mentally replayed the call she had just gotten from chief physician Alexander Eliasson that said her mother was dead.

A dreamlike feeling spread through her body, and she became increasingly surprised at her reaction. Her mother—not her birth mother, but the woman who had adopted her—had been one of the few people with whom she’d had something resembling a relationship.

But had she loved her?

No, maybe not.

When she had first received the news about Margaretha, she wanted to scream at the top of her lungs, smash something to pieces. Why couldn’t anyone in her life stay safe! But instead she had stood in her office, quiet and still, as if not to let the pain in, not to grant it space within her. Then, without a word to anyone, she had left her office, gone down the stairs, taken a deep breath of spring air and gotten into her car.

At the main entrance to Vrinnevi Hospital, where the ambulance had taken her mother, Jana noticed a heavy police presence. But she didn’t think much of it as she stepped through the emergency room doors.

A man with a high forehead and a silvery gray beard put his hand out and greeted her kindly.

“Hi, I’m Dr. Alexander Eliasson. We spoke on the phone.”

She introduced herself.

“I’m anxious to know the cause of death,” she said.

“Yes, I understand,” Alexander said in a calm and friendly voice. “Your mother, Margaretha, died of a heart attack. And although the ambulance arrived quickly, the paramedics couldn’t save her life. As I’m sure you know, heart attack is the most common cause of death in Sweden.”

Jana nodded.

“What do you think?” he said. “Should we go...see her?”

Jana nodded again.

They walked down a hallway. She was in no hurry to face what awaited her, but at the same time wanted to get the identification behind her. She walked a few paces behind the doctor. He looked back now and then and tried to smile at her, but she avoided his gaze.

“It’s hard, I know,” he said. “But at the same time, it’s an important part of the grieving process. I’ve heard many people say that seeing their loved one a last time gave them a sense of relief, a release.”

She didn’t answer.

“But certainly, there are many ways to feel, think and act when we’re confronted with the fate that awaits us all. Especially when we’re dealing with a parent. Were you close, you and your mom?”

He made one more attempt at small talk, but gave up after a while when he realized that she wasn’t interested.

Her concentration was fixed on her footsteps; she thought about how each step sent small, imperceptible waves through her body.

“I imagine in your profession you are accustomed to seeing the deceased. But it can affect you differently when it is someone you are close to,” the doctor said when they arrived at the room.

She remained silent, and he mumbled something as he reached his hand forward and pushed the door handle.

The door to the small room opened slowly. He let her go in first, and she felt his searching gaze on her. What was he expecting? Sorrow and nervousness? Or desperation, screaming, pleading?

Instead of meeting his gaze, she stood in the middle of the room without moving a muscle.

The entire room was yellow. The linoleum floor, the walls, the ventilation shaft. There were a table and two chairs, and a print on the wall depicting a blue sky over a valley. Otherwise the room was void of personality.

A room for death.

Her mother, Margaretha Berzelius, lay on a gurney with a white sheet covering her body. Her small, pale hands lay by her side atop the sheet. The tendons were visible under the skin. Her thin-rimmed glasses were missing. Her eyes were closed, but her mouth was gaping open. Jana noticed the slight bruise marks on her mother’s nostrils and thought it must have come from CPR.

“I am terribly, terribly sorry,” the chief physician said, pulling a chair forward. Jana shook her head.

“Are we done?” she asked.

“There’s no hurry,” he said. “Take your time.”

Jana felt her jaw muscles tighten.

“Thank you,” she said. “But I would like to leave now.”

* * *

Philip Engström unlocked the door of his single-story house in Skarphagen, stepped inside, flicked on the light and stood there as the door swung shut behind him with a thud.

From the silence, he could tell that his wife, Lina, wasn’t home. Did she have a lecture? Or was she at the library working on her thesis? He couldn’t remember what she had told him when he left for work the day before.

He yawned as he took off his shoes and jacket. He continued into the bathroom and took a pill from a blister pack of Imovane—a sleep aid—and swallowed it with a sip of water. Then he popped another sedative, Sobril, into his mouth and pushed it far back on his tongue to avoid its terrible taste. He swallowed that, too.

He’d been having trouble sleeping for at least ten years now. But he was able to get by as long as he took the pills that his doctor prescribed for him. He could only sleep when medicated, and so his sleep was never really deep or refreshing. But at least he slept.

As he dried his hands on a towel, he realized that his ring finger felt naked. He held up his hand and saw his wedding ring was missing. Where had he had it last? In the crew lounge? In the ambulance? In the locker room? He hadn’t the faintest idea.

Damn it!

Philip went into the bedroom and lay down, pulling the comforter over himself and closing his eyes. He tried to relax but couldn’t. He tossed and turned, kicked off the comforter, then quickly pulled it back over his body again.

Shit!

The conversation with his colleague Sandra hadn’t exactly made him feel calmer. He knew that she meant well, but it unnerved him. If she hadn’t become a close friend of Lina’s, he would never put up with her intrusiveness.

Sure, sometimes you might want to process something by talking it through. But in this case, what was there to talk about? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. A patient died on the way to the hospital. Period. No one’s fault. It happens. Not everyone survives a heart attack.

Truth be told, there was only one person he could really talk to these days. Not about his feelings, of course, but about everything else. His colleague Katarina Vinston, who was six years older than him and who was not only incredibly supportive, but also a skilled paramedic and ambulance driver.

He and Katarina had spent a lot of time together on the job. They had long conversations in the rig, and often ate and even exercised together in between calls. Their professional relationship had gradually spilled over into a more personal one. Katarina was the only person he could fully confide in. She was his best friend.

Philip reached for his pants on the floor, and although he knew the pills would take effect any minute, he pulled his cell phone from his pocket and called Katarina on FaceTime. When she answered, he immediately wrinkled his forehead in worry. The beautiful, dark-haired woman he knew was now pale-faced, her cheeks sunken in.

“It seems as if you’ve been out sick a long time,” he said.

“Only a week,” she said softly, “not that long.”

“You don’t look like yourself,” he said, “but I’m still glad to see you.”

She laughed out loud.

“I take it I should ask how you’re feeling,” he said.

“I’m better,” she said.

“Better, meaning healthy?”

“Yes. I’ll be there for our workout tomorrow.”

“Are you sure?”

She laughed again, louder this time, and Philip saw her eyes glitter.

“But I would’ve liked to stay at home a bit longer,” she said.

“Why? Aren’t you feeling well enough?”

“Oh, that’s not it. I’m just getting tired of working, of the routine. Aren’t you?”

“No, actually. I could work forever as long as the job stays interesting.”

“And you think it is?”

“Yes, I do. I like my colleagues, and enjoy being with them and they...well...”

“They like being with you?”

“Yes. At least I think so.”

“And that’s important to you?”

“What can I say?” Philip said, his voice steady, meeting her thoughtful gaze. “I’m reliable. Without me, the whole place would fall apart.”

“What about Richard Nilsson?” she asked suddenly.

“What about him?”

“I was asked to take his shift tonight, but I said no. Is he sick, too?”

“No idea. Either he has a bad cold, or he’s sitting at home with his old lady and kids. Doesn’t matter to me.”

“So did you take the shift, Philip?”

“Yes. I clock in again at eight tonight.”

“And that’s the start of a twenty-four-hour shift?”

“It’s not against the rules.”

She held her pale blue eyes on him for a long time before saying: “I don’t understand how you can do it. Don’t you get exhausted?”

“Not really,” he said, and now it was his turn to smile. He grinned widely but not convincingly enough.

She shook her head. “It’s never a problem for you, is it?” she said.

“Nope. I like to keep busy and I like my job.”

“Well, I’m going to have a problem with you if you don’t go to sleep now.”

“Why? What do you mean?”

“I mean that I want to work alongside a well-rested colleague at eight o’clock tomorrow morning. Especially if you’ve already been working the previous twelve hours. So go to sleep now.”

“It’s hard to sleep when it’s still light out.”

“Try anyway.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “See you in the morning, then, Katarina.”

And then she was gone.

Philip put the phone down on his stomach and observed the numbness starting to flow through his body from the pills. He looked at the potted plant on the windowsill, watched the leaves swaying back and forth, and relaxed, relieved that the pills had started to take effect.

* * *

Jana Berzelius had seen death up close many times. But seeing her mother’s body at the hospital was another thing altogether. It was too close, and she hadn’t been prepared for it. Now her body would be sent to the morgue, lying there until the funeral took place.

Jana didn’t care that a heart attack was the most common cause of death in Sweden. The only thing she could think about was how sad she felt now that her mother was really gone—forever. And that the sadness surprised her.

She rested her elbow on the inside of the car door and decided there was no reason to get all emotional. Her mother was dead, and she might as well just notify her father immediately. He should know.

She started to drive, passed a small truck, swung through a roundabout and continued on Lindövägen. She darted around a bus marked with orange-and-red circles that was about to swing out from its stop. The driver honked the horn loudly with annoyance several times at her.

When she stopped in front of the large white house in the wealthy Lindö neighborhood, she realized that her palms were damp. Her keys jingled as she unlocked the front door to her childhood home.

In the hallway, she was met by a musty odor that repulsed her. She felt a fleeting panic in her chest and fought the impulse to leave, to escape the rotten, sickly sweet smell of illness.

But she had no choice.

She had to tell her father.

Her palms were still sweating as she unbuttoned her coat and hung it on the brass hook.

Jana glanced down the hallway lined with rooms, then walked toward the kitchen. The house was unlit, but sunlight peeked in through the curtains of the living room and was reflected on the ceiling as she passed through.

She could hear a strange rolling sound coming from the kitchen.

She stood still, listening.

It was almost three months ago that her father tried to commit suicide when she confronted him about his involvement in Policegate. She alone knew that he had been corrupt throughout his career as a prosecutor. And she had made a promise to him to never reveal it.

She heard it again. A heavy, swinging sound, as if a person was slowly wheeling himself across a wooden floor.

As she entered the kitchen, she saw the wheelchair and stood observing for a long time.

There he sat.

Old. Gray. Miserable. Incapacitated.

“Hello, Father,” she said.

* * *

Lead investigator Gunnar Öhrn opened a can of Coca-Cola and drank it quickly, as if he were worried it would go flat. Henrik and Mia stood next to him near the window. It was afternoon, and the staff kitchen was otherwise empty.