Thomas carried on looking for a suicide note or anything else that might explain the death but found nothing. He went back into the hall and flicked through the pile of mail. Mostly advertisements, a few envelopes that looked like bills. A postcard with a picture of a white beach on the front, and the name Kos covering half the card.
Call me so we can talk! Love, Kicki, it said on the back.
Thomas wondered if Kicki was Kicki Berggren, Krister’s cousin, who was the only living relative they had managed to track down. He had tried to call her earlier on her home number and her cell phone but had only gotten voice mail in both cases.
A quick glance in the bathroom revealed nothing.
The toilet seat had been left up, just as you would expect from a man living on his own. A few dried-up splashes of yellow urine showed up against the white porcelain.
Thomas took a final walk around the flat. He didn’t really know what he’d been expecting. If not a note, then at least something that might show that Krister Berggren had tried to take his own life one cold day in March.
Unless it had been an accident, after all.
TUESDAY, THE SECOND WEEK
CHAPTER 8
With a sigh, Kicki Berggren punched in the entry code to the apartment block in Bandhagen.
Home at last.
She had been longing for her own bed and the comfort of her apartment. Home sweet home, she thought with an expression of relief on her face. How true that was.
When her old school friend Agneta had talked Kicki into going with her to Kos to work as a waitress in a Swedish-owned restaurant, it had sounded like paradise. A paid vacation in the Greek islands, room and board, and a wage, which was admittedly low but would no doubt be supplemented by generous tips. That was the way Agneta had described it, at any rate. Sunshine and heat instead of darkness and slush.
It had sounded too good to be true. And indeed it had been.
Kicki Berggren had quickly come down to earth with a bump. After three months of drunken customers, all too frequently Swedes who ordered cheap food and more ouzo than they could handle, she was sick to death of her Greek paradise. She just wanted to get back to her normal life as a single girl working as a croupier for Sweden’s leading casino operator. She couldn’t wait to be back at her table dealing blackjack in the noisy atmosphere.
She unlocked the front door and carried her bags inside.
The apartment smelled stuffy; it was obvious she hadn’t been home for a while. She left her bags in the hallway and went straight into the kitchen, where she lit a cigarette and sat down at the table. The unpacking could wait until tomorrow. She opened a bottle of ouzo she had brought with her and poured herself a glass. It wasn’t too bad, she thought, with a couple ice cubes. She wondered whether she should check her e-mail but decided that could wait, too. She had gone to an Internet café on Kos from time to time, so it wasn’t exactly urgent.
She picked up the phone and dialed a code to listen to her messages. She doubted there would be any. Most of her friends knew she was away, but her cell phone had died last week, so nobody had been able to get ahold of her for a while, and maybe they had tried her landline.
The first few messages were the usual telemarketing calls. Would she like some financial advice? Fat chance. What use would that be? Her meager earnings didn’t stretch far enough as it was.
The last message was something of a shock.
“My name is Thomas Andreasson,” she heard a deep voice say. “I’m calling from the Criminal Investigations Division in Nacka. I would like to ask you some questions about your cousin, Krister Berggren, and I’d appreciate it if you could contact me as soon as possible.” He gave a number and hung up.
Kicki stubbed out her cigarette.
Why were the police calling her to ask about Krister? She tried his number, but there was no answer. Krister had never bothered to install an answering machine, so the phone rang until Kicki hung up.
She tried the number the police officer had left. She got through to an operator, who informed her that Thomas Andreasson would be available at eight o’clock the following morning.
Kicki lit another cigarette and leaned back in her chair. Flakes of ash drifted down onto the pale-blue rug, but she didn’t care.
What could have happened to Krister?
They’d had a terrible fight after his mother’s funeral, and since then she had neither spoken to him nor heard anything from him for several months. At first she thought the fact that she had gone off to Kos served him right, but when he didn’t call and didn’t reply to her texts, she’d gotten really annoyed. She had even sent a postcard asking him to call her, but there had been no response.
Fuck you, then, she had thought. He could trudge around back home in the slush while she enjoyed the Greek sunshine. God, men could be so miserable. They were like kids.
And yet she really wanted to talk to him.
There was only she and Krister left now. He was the closest thing she had to a brother. Even though his one-track mind and his lack of ambition irritated her, he was still family and could be good company. Sometimes he was the only company she had.
Neither of them had children or a long-term partner. There had been many occasions when they had emptied yet another bottle of wine that he had “happened” to have with him from his work at Systemet, and she had wondered whether they would end up sitting there like this when they were retired. Lonely losers who hadn’t managed to get their act together. Old and bitter, passing their time complaining about everything.
That was why she had hardly been able to believe it when the chance of a new life had suddenly come along. For the first time they had the opportunity to do something different, to live a proper life, far away from his work at the store and her smoky evenings in the casino. The chance for a serious amount of money for both of them.
But Krister hadn’t had the courage. Kicki just didn’t understand it. It would have been so simple; she knew exactly what needed to be done, what needed to be said.
After all, he had proof. Written proof.
They had been sitting in his living room; Krister had been lolling on the sofa gazing at her, his eyelids heavy. His shirt was grubby, with several buttons undone. He pushed back his hair, which was in dire need of a wash, and shook his head.
“You and your ideas. You know it would never work.” He topped off his glass of wine. “Want some?” He waved the bottle in her direction.
She looked at him and sighed. “No, I don’t want any more wine. I want you to listen to what I’m saying.” She lit yet another cigarette, feeling furious. She took a deep drag and stared at him. This place was so depressing. A typical bachelor pad. “You could at least listen,” she tried again.
But he had refused to take her suggestion seriously and had dodged the issue every time she’d brought it up. She had even dragged his mother into the argument, insisting that Cecilia would have wanted him to do it. She had gone over it time and time again.
In the end she had lost her temper. “OK, you carry on sitting here, you fucking idiot,” she had yelled at him. “This is your chance for a decent life, and you don’t even have the guts to try!” She looked at him with utter contempt, seething with rage. “You’re such a fucking coward! You’ll end up sitting here in this dump until they carry you out in a box!”