In the Shadow of Power (Sandhamn Murders) Read online

  ALSO BY VIVECA STEN IN THE SANDHAMN MURDERS SERIES

  Still Waters

  Closed Circles

  Guiltless

  Tonight You’re Dead

  In the Heat of the Moment

  In Harm’s Way

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2014 by Viveca Sten

  Translation copyright © 2019 by Marlaine Delargy

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Previously published as I maktens skugga by Forum in Sweden in 2014. Translated from Swedish by Marlaine Delargy. First published in English by AmazonCrossing in 2019.

  Published by AmazonCrossing, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and AmazonCrossing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781542007665 (paperback)

  ISBN-10: 1542007666 (paperback)

  Cover design by Damon Freeman

  To my darling Lennart

  CONTENTS

  MAP

  “Fatso, fatso, fatso.”...

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51

  CHAPTER 52

  CHAPTER 53

  CHAPTER 54

  CHAPTER 55

  CHAPTER 56

  CHAPTER 57

  CHAPTER 58

  CHAPTER 59

  CHAPTER 60

  CHAPTER 61

  CHAPTER 62

  CHAPTER 63

  CHAPTER 64

  CHAPTER 65

  CHAPTER 66

  CHAPTER 67

  CHAPTER 68

  CHAPTER 69

  CHAPTER 70

  CHAPTER 71

  CHAPTER 72

  CHAPTER 73

  CHAPTER 74

  CHAPTER 75

  CHAPTER 76

  CHAPTER 77

  CHAPTER 78

  CHAPTER 79

  CHAPTER 80

  CHAPTER 81

  CHAPTER 82

  CHAPTER 83

  CHAPTER 84

  CHAPTER 85

  CHAPTER 86

  CHAPTER 87

  CHAPTER 88

  CHAPTER 89

  CHAPTER 90

  CHAPTER 91

  CHAPTER 92

  CHAPTER 93

  CHAPTER 94

  CHAPTER 95

  CHAPTER 96

  CHAPTER 97

  CHAPTER 98

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  “Fatso, fatso, fatso.”

  He lay on his side without moving or protesting. If he tried to do anything, it just made things worse.

  Please let recess end, he prayed. Please let the bell ring.

  The leader of the gang, the king of the schoolyard, delivered a vicious kick, the heavy boot striking the base of the spine. His victim felt his body jolt, but managed to suppress the cry of pain before it could escape. The situation always escalated if he reacted.

  His nose was blocked with mucus and tears, but he mustn’t give in and start crying. That would be fatal.

  The bell rang. Finally. The shouts died away.

  He waited for a minute or so, then opened his eyes and looked around. He was alone in the yard. He wiped his nose, which had already begun to swell; his hand came away smeared with blood.

  The bell rang again.

  Getting to his feet was agonizing. He knew he’d get a black mark for being late, but he didn’t dare go in until the others had taken their seats.

  “I will have my revenge,” he whispered to himself. “I’ll show them.”

  The words reverberated in his head.

  “Fatso, fatso, fatso.”

  CHAPTER 1

  Monday, April 29, 2013

  Maria Svedin waited in the spacious hallway, shifting anxiously from foot to foot while Celia Jonsson helped Oliver put on his navy blue school blazer. Should she fetch Oliver’s bag, which he’d left in his room? It was often hard to know what Celia expected of her.

  Celia fastened the shiny top button and brushed back a strand of dark hair before straightening up.

  “Maria,” she said in Swedish with an English accent, “I’d like you to drive Oliver to school; I have other things to do today. You can take Carsten’s car—he walked to the office.”

  The request took Maria by surprise. Celia always did the school run in the mornings, but she was clearly stressed. There were dark shadows beneath her eyes, and her mouth was a thin line.

  Maria had heard raised voices the previous evening. Even though the apartment was large and her room was a long way from Carsten and Celia’s, she hadn’t been able to avoid hearing the angry words coming through the walls. It had sounded as if they were quarreling about Carsten’s plans for a vacation home in Sweden.

  “Maria?”

  She nodded and headed for the door. The elevator came all the way up into the apartment. She pressed the button several times to show Celia that she understood. She would have preferred not to take Oliver to school; she still had problems with driving on the left in London, and the roundabouts made her nervous.

  Celia didn’t notice her reluctance. Or maybe she just didn’t care.

  “If you get the car out, I’ll be down with Oliver in a few minutes,” she said. “I want to fetch his new mittens.”

  She used the wrong Swedish verb, but Maria made no attempt to correct her. She simply put on her jacket and picked up the keys.

  “Hurry up, Oliver!” Celia urged her son. “You mustn’t be late for school—you know what Daddy will say.”

  There was a click; the elevator had arrived.

  “See you down there,” Maria said.

  The lights usually came on as soon as someone entered the underground parking lot, but when Maria stepped out of the elevator, nothing happened. The doors closed behind her, and she was in darkness. She turned to press the button to open the doors, but the hum of the mechanism told her she was too late.

  She moved forward, stamping her foot on the
gray concrete floor, but still the lights refused to cooperate. Was there a power outage? No—in that case, the elevator wouldn’t work. There must be something wrong with the automated lighting system, but she had no idea where the switch was or how to find it.

  She knew that Carsten’s car was around the corner, at the end of the line about fifty yards away. She reached into her pocket, intending to use the flashlight on her phone, but her fingers found only a packet of gum and some loose change. She must have left the phone in the apartment. She edged backward until she felt the elevator doors against her shoulders.

  She turned around; thank goodness for the tiny pinprick of light that showed her where the call button was. She pressed it hard, keeping her index finger there as if it would make the elevator arrive more quickly, get her out of here.

  Come on, come on.

  What was that? A faint sound behind her made her jump. It was so brief that she wasn’t sure if she really had heard it, but the impression of a metallic clang lingered, as if someone had dropped a tool, maybe a wrench or a hammer.

  Maria glanced over her shoulder, peered into the darkness. She thought the sound had come from the other side of the wall, somewhere near Carsten’s car. Was there someone else down here?

  “Hello?”

  She held her breath, felt her heart racing even though she was standing perfectly still.

  “Hello?”

  An oily smell drifted by, so fleeting that she barely had time to notice it. Her eyes were beginning to get used to the gloom, and she was able to pick out the shapes of expensive cars neatly parked in their spaces. It wouldn’t be hard to hide behind one of them.

  She tried to pull herself together, but the pounding of her heart meant she was breathing way too fast. Celia was waiting for her. She had to hurry and get the Land Rover, otherwise Oliver would be late for school.

  She inhaled deeply, clutched the car keys tightly. It wasn’t far; surely she could fumble her way over there. She could feel the sweat trickling down her back beneath her thick jacket and sweater.

  Resolutely she took a step forward, then another. Almost there. The sense of relief was enormous.

  She could smell gas now, or was that just her imagination?

  Was she alone down here, or not?

  “Hello?” she called out again, though her instincts told her to keep quiet.

  Then she heard another sound, as if something was dripping slowly onto the concrete.

  A flash, and the world exploded in a burst of fire and smoke.

  CHAPTER 2

  Tuesday, April 30

  Julia let go of Nora’s hand as they reached the area outside the Sandhamn Inn. At least a hundred people had already gathered there, waiting for the torchlight procession to begin. Nora knew most of them and waved to a group of neighbors who were standing, chatting.

  It was a lovely evening, but not particularly warm; the chill of the unusually long, cold winter still lingered. The snow had arrived in November, and the ice hadn’t melted until the middle of April. It had been Stockholm’s longest winter in over a hundred years. The waters around the jetties had frozen solid, and the bitter wind seemed to have been blowing nonstop for months.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Nora saw that Adam and Simon had each grabbed a torch and were holding them up in the air.

  “Can I have one of those, too, Mommy?”

  Julia tugged at her arm, and Nora knelt down. Her daughter’s blond hair was braided into two rats’ tails, sticking out behind her ears. Her blue eyes were full of anticipation.

  “You’re not old enough to carry a burning torch, sweetheart. You’ll have to wait until you’re a big girl.”

  Nora knew exactly what was coming. Julia clamped her lips together, disappointment written all over her face. She really was ridiculously like Jonas. They both had the same narrow upper lip that almost disappeared when frustration kicked in. Julia’s top lip reappeared and began to tremble as tears of anger took over.

  “I want one!” she screamed, hitting out at Nora.

  “Julia! That’s not OK!”

  Adam handed his torch to Nora. “Want to ride on my shoulders, Julia?”

  He lifted his sister with ease and placed her securely on his shoulders. Julia beamed; disaster averted. Adam went over to join some friends, the little girl draped over his head like a sack of potatoes.

  Nora watched her oldest and youngest children, feeling a wave of love so powerful that her eyes filled with tears even though she was in the middle of a crowd.

  My precious children. Darling Julia.

  To think that she’d had a daughter, become a mother of three.

  Jonas came over and interrupted her thoughts.

  “They’re cute together,” he said, nodding in the direction of Adam and Julia.

  Nora cuddled up to him. “He sometimes seems so grown up.” Adam would soon finish his second year at high school, and the taciturn teenager had become a kind and considerate young man. “It shows there’s hope for Simon, too,” she added.

  “Thank goodness for that.”

  Was Jonas tired of Simon? That wasn’t like him, but there was no denying that Simon would try anyone’s patience. Without warning the sunny-natured little boy had metamorphosed into a grunting thirteen-year-old who spent most of his time sitting in front of the television. All winter Nora had been dealing with Julia’s tantrums and Simon’s sulky behavior. It hadn’t been easy, and occasionally she wondered if she was too old to cope with children so far apart in age.

  “Isn’t it almost time to start moving?” Jonas said, glancing over at the chair of the Friends of Sandhamn, the group responsible for organizing celebrations on the island. She was holding a megaphone and seemed to be getting ready to speak.

  When Jonas turned his head, his hair brushed against his collar. It was still brown, without a trace of gray. I’m the only one who needs to dye my hair, Nora thought as the age difference between them hit home once more. This year Jonas would be thirty-nine, Nora forty-six.

  The chair of the Friends struck up a song, and the procession slowly began to move, past the Strindberg Café and into the old part of the village. The destination was Fläskberget, the hill above the shore on the northern side of the island where the Walpurgis Night bonfire would be lit to mark the arrival of spring.

  Nora was still holding Adam’s torch. She raised it high above her head, taking care to keep it away from anything or anyone. It was madness to allow all these people carrying burning torches to make their way along the narrow lanes between the old wooden buildings; it wouldn’t take much to start a fire, and the single fire engine on the island would be of little use.

  However, tradition was tradition.

  By the time they made their way up the hill, the bonfire was already ablaze, fed by the torches the revelers threw onto the pyre. Orange and yellow flames flickered against the blue evening sky, and in the distance, a white Vaxholm ferry sailed across the shining water.

  In the chilly air, every contour was crystal clear.

  “It’s time to sing along with the choir to welcome the spring!” announced an elderly man who’d taken over the megaphone.

  Nora searched for Simon in the crowd and spotted him on the other side of the bonfire with his friends. She waved, but he didn’t see her. Adam came over to join her and Jonas, Julia still perched on his shoulders.

  The fire crackled loudly and sent a shower of sparks raining down toward the water; it looked like a waterfall of fireflies against the darkening sky.

  Julia held out her arms to Nora; she wanted to get down. Nora took her and got a big hug in return. She felt the warmth of the little body, and her nostrils were filled with the scent of her soft, fair hair.

  Darling Julia, she thought again.

  Jonas was now carrying Julia, who had tired eyes and her thumb in her mouth.

  “I guess we ought to go home,” he said quietly. The Brand villa was only a few hundred yards away, perched on top of Kvarnberget li
ke a beacon. They’d left some of the lights on, and a warm glow shone from the downstairs windows.

  “You go on ahead. I’ll just find Simon, check where he’s going.”

  Nora had not seen her younger son for quite a while. Before dinner, he’d made it very clear that he wanted to stay out until midnight on weekdays, one o’clock on weekends.

  Nora had been horrified. Midnight was way too late for a thirteen-year-old, and one o’clock was out of the question. Simon’s face had darkened when he saw her reaction; none of his friends had to go home early. Why did he have to be the only one?

  Nora looked around; the fire was dying down, had become little more than a pile of embers glowing softly, with the odd charred branch poking out. There was no sign of Simon, but she caught sight of Eva Lenander, whose son Fabian was Simon’s best friend. Eva was holding a plastic bag and waiting patiently for Marco, the family’s black poodle, to do what he had to do among the trees at the edge of the forest.

  “Have you seen the boys?” Nora called out as she went over.

  Eva shook her head. “I think they’ve already left; Fabian said they were going to the Richardsons’.”

  They also had a son Simon’s age and lived just past the chapel, only a few minutes from the Brand villa.

  “Thanks—at least I know where he is!” She sighed and pushed back a strand of hair. “It would have been helpful if Simon had mentioned it before he took off.”

  Eva laughed, the dimple in her left cheek deepening.

  “Like Fabian would have bothered to tell me if I hadn’t grabbed him just as they were leaving! I can’t get two sensible words out of that kid these days. All I hear is bad-tempered mumbling.”

  Nora realized she was smiling. It was good to hear that she wasn’t the only mother of a teenage son who was acting up.

  “By the way, have you heard the latest?” Eva said eagerly. During the winter, she had had her hair cut short with blond highlights; it really suited her and drew attention away from her round cheeks to her eyes instead.

  Nora frowned; what had she missed? They’d spent very little time on Sandhamn over the spring because Simon’s soccer training had taken up most weekends.

  “A new house is going up on the point at Fyrudden,” Eva informed her. “And you’ll never guess how much the owner had to pay.”

  Nora hadn’t even been aware that the extensive plot on the southwestern side of the island was for sale.