Fear Of Broken Glass

Introducing Gotfridsgaarden

Ground dark, clouds parting, the last light of a fading sky receding. Almquist sat next to Elin Vikland, looking out at the illuminated white line rolling towards them as she drove. Ahead, one of the many small lakes reflecting a brooding wet sky, their orange Saab set against a backdrop austere and beautiful. To their left, the high ridge of a bowl-shaped valley rising out of the darkness, bordered on each side by a rocky escarpment crowned in thickets of pine.

Hasse Almquist had left the others to finish off at the site, Lindgren overseeing the removal of the body to the morgue by helicopter, the Forensics Officer to gather what could be gathered before dark.

'He could have just gone for a walk, gotten lost.'

Almquist shook his head, face falling into the solemn expression he wore when troubled. 'Perhaps. And then someone comes along to take his eyes for souvenirs?' He thought about that.

'We'll catch whoever did it.'

He looked across.

She looked back. 'You're not on your own this time.' Her eyes moved back to the road. 'Something like this can't remain hidden for long.'

'You want to plan the investigation?'

She nodded, 'If you want. Someone somewhere must have seen something... we could start compiling a list of all the people in the vicinity. Descriptions of people they had seen, compare descriptions, make a list of matches.' She half-smiled. 'That could narrow it down, since it's hardly door-to-door out here, but it's hardly dead.'

Almquist kept his eyes on the road. Eventually he said, 'We're going to need some help.'

'Then we get it.'

Always so sure of herself. Elin had that trait he envied the most; she devised a plan of action and followed it doggedly until the breakthrough. In the time he had worked with her he admired her for that, and for the results; she always came through. Perhaps his karma was about to change after all...

'What do you know about the place where we found him?'

'Troll's Church?' Trollkyrka.

'I heard it's seen a dead body or two over the years?'

He looked across. 'Recently?'

'No, you know, way back... quite a few Oskar was saying.'

'Don't believe everything you hear.' Almquist smirked with weary eyes. 'Troll country they say, best there is,' he smirked. 'All school kids were taught about Troll's Church. When I was young the place used to be off-limits, a forbidden place if you like.'

'Why forbidden?'

'Back in the old days... there was a group, some kind of pagan religious sect. People spoke of them conducting rites of sacrifice.' He looked across. 'Human sacrifice.'

Elin smiled. 'You're joking, right?'

Elin had a nice smile. 'Nope.'

'They didn't practice devil worship or anything?'

'Nope,' Almquist repeated, looking serious. 'Not devil worship. No, that came much later. The things they did...' He shook his head and turned to Vikland with a forbidding expression.

Vikland stopped smiling and looked across.

Almquist held her look, keeping it. Then he winked.

'You bully,' Vikland said, smiling back with relief, turning back to the passing landscape.

'It was said the mountains of Troll's Church belonged to heathen trolls. If a Christian ventured there, he would come to grief.'

'Uh huh. I guess the Dane was Christian then.'

'I guess. Are you a Christian?'

Elin Vikland kept her eyes on the road. 'Not enough to walk all the way back there. Why did they make it your case?'

Almquist looked across towards her. 'Why do you think?' What could he tell her? That he was the obvious candidate begging for more? That he had the kind of track record that usually put an end to the careers of people like him; those that didn't live in such god-forsaken places, places no one ever came to any more. That the nature of the crime meant it was going to his mess again. No, he couldn't tell her that, so he just turned back to the road, looking grim. 'I'm glad you're with me on this one Elin.'

Vikland looked back at her mentor. 'Thanks.' She smiled. 'Me too.'

'I hope you won't get tainted with the same brush. You know the talk...'

She nodded, looking back to the road. 'Just talk. You know, in case you were thinking...'

Almquist massaged one lip over the other. 'Yeah, I was thinking.'

More white lines.

'Anyone can have bad luck.'

'Yeah, well.' Almquist nodded. 'Still.'

Vikland looked across. 'Still... what, still?'

Almquist shrugged.

'Go on,' she said.

He looked across. 'You ever get that feeling you're never going to get old?'

Vikland smirked, shaking her half-pretty head. 'No, I don't.'

Almquist didn't know what else to say. He didn't feel like he was going to get old.

She saw the look, reaching over to touch his forearm. 'Hey, relax baby.'

Relax. Four serial killings. Stretching over a period of more than a decade, none of them solved. That made him the butt-end of jokes in the Department even now; he thanked the small successes along the way that meant he still had a job at all.

***

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