Mari Jungstedt - Unseen

“Halt!” she commanded.

Instead, he disappeared behind an old windmill.

Jacobsson slowed down. She knew that he was armed. He might easily overpower her if she wasn’t prepared.

Cautiously she slipped around the side of the windmill. She heard a sound and turned around. Suddenly Hagman was on her. They rolled around on the ground. The crack of the shot that went off was deafening. The body on top of hers went limp.

When Emma woke up in Visby Hospital, it took a moment before she remembered what had happened. Then the images came back, one by one. The bunker. Knutas with the megaphone. Hagman holding the knife to her throat. Then the crash.

She opened her eyes. Blinked. Two blurry figures were standing next to the bed. Someone was sitting on a chair farther away.

“Mamma,” said a small voice.

It was Filip. Now she could see him clearly. His face was thin and pale, his eyes shiny. A second later he was in her arms, and Sara was right behind him.

“My dear sweet children. Everything’s going to be fine now,” Emma comforted them. Out of the corner of her eye she saw her husband get up from his chair and come toward her.

He sat down on the edge of the bed and took her hands in his. It was over. Finally over.

A nurse came in and explained that they would have to come back tomorrow. They hugged her one more time.

Emma realized how tired she was. She had to sleep. She would just get up to pee. Her whole world had been turned upside down. The time she had spent imprisoned in the bunker with Hagman felt like an eternity. That was what she thought as she listened to the stream of urine splashing into the toilet. She washed up, drank a glass of water, and went back to her room.

Next to the bed stood a vase with daisies and cornflowers. A card was attached to one of the stems. She smiled as she read what it said. It was from Knutas. He told her to get well soon and said he would call her the following day.

She crawled into bed and straightened her pillow. Her body was black and blue, and she had a headache. Right now all she wanted was to go to sleep.

As she was about to turn off the light on the nightstand, her eyes fell on a vase of yellow roses that stood on the windowsill.

With an effort, she got out of bed and found an envelope stuck in the bouquet. The card was from Johan. It said, “Do you want to have a potato patch with me?”

Knutas took a long puff on his pipe, which gave him a terrible coughing fit. Normally he hardly ever smoked. He spent most of the time just fussing with his pipe, filling it and sucking on the stem, but not lighting it. A very effective way to avoid lung cancer. Over the past few days, though, he had started smoking like never before. In half an hour the investigative team was going to meet to go over the dramatic events that had shaken all of Gotland this summer.

Knutas reviewed them in his mind.

As he was sitting in the barracks at the Sudersand campgrounds, his colleague Lars Norrby had called from Visby. He reported that one of Gunilla Olsson’s neighbors had identified Jens Hagman as the man who was seen at Gunilla’s house during the weeks before the murder. So that’s how cold-blooded he was, thought Knutas. He had made a point of getting to know Gunilla before he killed her.

It was Knutas himself who came up with the idea that Jens Hagman might be hiding in one of the old defense bunkers on Faro. There were lots of them on the island. When the police began searching the northwest section of Faro, it didn’t take long before they found Hagman’s car in the woods. The Saab was scantily covered with juniper branches, but it was so sheltered that it was hard to see from the air.

Knutas blamed himself for the fact that the drama ended with Hagman being fatally shot.

Karin Jacobsson went into shock and had to spend several days in the hospital. She had never even wounded anyone before. Now she was at risk of being accused of dereliction of duty and possibly manslaughter. The investigation, which would be carried out by the internal affairs division of the police, would have to prove it. Actually Knutas was entirely to blame. He was in charge of the operation. Maybe things would have turned out differently if they hadn’t agreed to Hagman’s demands. If they had called in a negotiator. Or if they had stormed the bunker.

He gave a big sigh. It was impossible to say.

He had thought a lot about Hagman. His whole life had been colored by hatred, which had developed so strongly during his childhood. It turned out to have affected all his dealings with women. He had never managed to have any sort of long-term relationship. He lived alone and had a hard time establishing social contacts. He had quit his studies at the university and worked as a ticket collector in Stockholm’s subway system. Even his relationship with his sister was strained. They had never been good friends, in spite of the fact that the age difference between them was only a few years.

Their parents had done nothing to see to it that the sister and brother maintained any kind of contact. The mother had always favored the daughter. The father, Jan Hagman, had cared less and less about his family as time went on. He had retreated into himself. Just like the mother. Neither of them had noticed what was happening with their son-the torments he was subjected to, his loneliness, or the anxiety he felt. The result was devastating.

The children had been like two isolated islands floating through life, without support or help from anyone. Both had to deal with their own problems and their own emotions. There was no sense of unity, no family solidarity.

In some ways, Knutas could understand Jens Hagman. A person didn’t necessarily have to be mentally ill to commit murder. It was sometimes enough to be seriously abused.

The issue of poor parental contact was woven like a red thread through the entire murder investigation. It was the same with the victims. Helena Hillerstrom, Frida Lindh, and Gunilla Olsson had all had strained relationships with their parents. Knutas had a feeling that it was the same with Emma Winarve. It was one thing that both the victims and the perpetrator had in common. He wondered what the turning point was that pushed him over the edge.

Knutas got up and looked out across the sun-drenched parking lot. A ladybug was crawling along the windowsill. He let it climb onto his finger and opened the window.

It spread its wings and flew away.