Emelie Schepp - Marked For Life

“Where is she now?”

“Upstairs. With Hanna Hultman.”

Henrik Levin looked down at the body that lay before him. The dead man was Hans Juhlén, in charge of asylum issues at the Migration Board. Henrik stepped around the body, then leaned down to study the victim’s face—the powerful jaw, the weather-beaten skin, the gray beard stubble and graying temples. Hans Juhlén had often been featured in the media, but the archive photos they used did not reflect the aged body that now lay in front of them. The dead man was dressed in neatly ironed trousers and a light-blue striped shirt. Its cotton material soaked up the growing bloodstains on his chest.

“Look, but don’t touch,” forensic expert Anneli Lindgren said to Henrik and gave him a meaningful look as she stood next to the large windows.

“Shot?”

“Yes, twice. Two entry points from what I can tell.”

Henrik glanced around the room, which was dominated by a sofa, two leather armchairs and a glass coffee table with chrome legs. Paintings by Ulf Lundell hung on the walls. The furniture didn’t appear disturbed. Nothing was knocked over.

“No signs of a struggle,” he said and turned toward Mia, who was now standing behind him.

“No,” Mia answered without taking her eyes off an oval sideboard. On it lay a brown leather wallet with three five-hundred-kronor bills stuck out. She felt the sudden urge to pull them all out—or at least one, but she stopped herself. In her head she said, enough was enough; she had to pull herself together.

Henrik’s eyes wandered to the windows which looked out onto the garden. Anneli Lindgren was still brushing for fingerprints.

“Find anything?”

Anneli Lindgren looked up at him from behind her spectacle frames.

“Not yet, but according to the victim’s wife, one of these windows was open when she came home. I’m hoping I’ll find something other than her prints on it.”

Anneli Lindgren continued her slow, methodical work.

Henrik ran his fingers through his hair and turned back to Mia.

“Shall we go upstairs and have a few words with Mrs. Juhlén?”

“You go up. I’ll stay down here and keep an eye on things.”

* * *

Upstairs, Kerstin Juhlén stared hollowly as she sat on the bed in the master bedroom with a cardigan draped around her shoulders. As Henrik entered the room, police officer Hanna Hultman took a respectful step backward and closed the door behind them.

On his way up the staircase Henrik had imagined the victim’s wife as a delicate woman in elegant clothes. Instead she appeared heavyset, dressed in a faded T-shirt and dark stretch jeans. Her blond hair was styled in a blunt cut, with dark roots that revealed she was overdue for a visit to the hairdresser. Henrik’s eyes searched the bedroom with curiosity. First he studied the chest of drawers and then the wall of photographs. In the middle of the wall hung a frame with a large faded photo of a happy wedding couple. He was aware that Kerstin Juhlén was looking at him.

“My name’s Henrik Levin, and I’m the Detective Chief Inspector,” he said softly. “I’m sorry for your loss. You will have to excuse me for having to ask you a few questions at this time.”

Kerstin dried a tear with the sleeve of her cardigan.

“Yes, I understand.”

“Can you tell me what happened when you came home?”

“I came home and...and...he just lay there.”

“Do you know what time it was?”

“About half past seven.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“When you entered the house, did you see anybody else here then?”

“No. No, there was only my husband who...”

Her lip quivered and she put her hands on her face.

Henrik knew this wasn’t the right time for a more detailed interrogation so he decided to be brief.

“Mrs. Juhlén, we have some support coming for you, but I must ask just a few more questions in the meantime.”

Kerstin removed her hands from her face and rested them on her lap.

“Yes?”

“You told someone a window was open when you came home.”

“Yes.”

“And it was you who closed it?”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t see anything strange outside that window before you closed it?”

“No...no.”

“Why did you close it?”

“I was afraid someone might try and come back in.”

Henrik put his hands in his pockets and pondered a moment.

“Before I leave you, I wonder if you’d like us to call anyone in particular for you? A friend? Relative? Your children?”

She looked down, her hands trembling, and whispered something in a barely audible voice.

Henrik couldn’t make out what she was trying to say.

“I’m sorry, could you repeat that?”

Kerstin shut her eyes for a moment, then slowly raised her pained face toward him. She took a deep breath before she answered him.

* * *

Downstairs still in the living room, Anneli Lindgren adjusted her glasses. “I think I’ve found something,” she said. She was examining the print of a hand that was beginning to take form on the window frame. Mia went up to her and noted the very clear form of a palm with fingers.

“There’s another one here,” Anneli pointed out. “They belong to a child.”

She fetched the camera to document her find. She adjusted the lens of her Canon EOS to the right focus and was taking photos just as Henrik came into the room.

Anneli nodded to him.

“Come here,” she said. “We’ve found some fingerprints.”

“They’re small,” said Anneli and held up the camera in front of her face again, zoomed in and took yet another picture.

“So they belong to a child?” Mia clarified.

Henrik looked surprised and leaned close to the window to get a better look. The prints made an orderly pattern. A unique pattern. Clearly from a child-sized hand.

“Strange,” he mumbled.

“Why is it strange?” said Mia.

Henrik looked at her before he answered.

“The Juhléns don’t have children.”

CHAPTER TWO

Monday, April 16

THE TRIAL WAS OVER, and Prosecutor Jana Berzelius was satisfied with the result. She had been absolutely certain that the defendant would be found guilty of causing grievous bodily harm.

He had kicked his own sister senseless in front of her four-year-old child and then left her to die in her apartment. No doubt it was an honor crime. Even so, the defendant’s solicitor, Peter Ramstedt, looked rather surprised when the verdict was announced.

Jana nodded to him before she left the courtroom. She didn’t want to discuss the judgment with anybody, especially not with the dozen or so journalists who stood and waited outside the court with their cameras and cell phones. Instead, she made her way toward the emergency exit and pushed the white fire door open. Then she quickly ran down the steps as the clock read 11:35.

Avoiding journalists had become more of a rule than an exception for Jana Berzelius. Three years earlier, when she started in the prosecutor’s office in Norrköping, it was different. Then she had appreciated the coverage and praise the media gave her. Norrköpings Tidningar had, for example, titled a story about her Top Student has a Place in Court. They used phrases like comet career and next stop Prosecutor-General when they wrote about her. Her cell phone vibrated in the pocket of her jacket, and she stopped in front of the entrance to the garage to look at the display before answering. At the same time, she pushed open the door into the heated garage.

“Hello, Father,” she said directly.

“Well, how did it go?”

“Two years’ prison and ninety in damages.”

“Are you satisfied with that?”

It would never occur to Karl Berzelius to congratulate his daughter on a successful court case. Jana was accustomed to his taciturnity. Even her mother, Margaretha, who was warm and loving during her childhood, seemed to prefer to clean the house rather than play games with her. She’d put in a laundry rather than read bedtime stories, or clean the kitchen rather than tuck her daughter into bed for the night. Now Jana was thirty and she treated both her parents with the same unemotional respect with which they had raised her.