Buried in Secret (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

  In the Shadow of Power

  In the Name of Truth

  In Bad Company

  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 © 2019 by Viveca Sten

  Translation copyright © 2022 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 hemlighet begravd by Forum in Sweden in 2019.

  Translated from Swedish by Marlaine Delargy. First published in English by Amazon Crossing in 2022.

  Published by Amazon Crossing, Seattle

  www.apub.com

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

  ISBN-13: 9781542018524

  ISBN-10: 1542018528

  Cover design by Damon Freeman

  To my mother,

  Lisbeth Bergstedt

  (1935 to 2019)

  CONTENTS

  MAP

  PROLOGUE

  Monday, August 8, 2016

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  Tuesday, August 9

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  Siri

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  Wednesday, August 10

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  Astrid

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  Siri

  CHAPTER 19

  Astrid

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  Siri

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  Astrid

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  Thursday, August 11

  CHAPTER 27

  Siri

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  Astrid

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  Siri

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  Astrid

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  Friday, August 12

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  Siri

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  Astrid

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  Siri

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51

  CHAPTER 52

  CHAPTER 53

  Saturday, August 13

  CHAPTER 54

  Astrid

  CHAPTER 55

  CHAPTER 56

  CHAPTER 57

  CHAPTER 58

  Siri

  CHAPTER 59

  CHAPTER 60

  CHAPTER 61

  CHAPTER 62

  Astrid

  CHAPTER 63

  CHAPTER 64

  CHAPTER 65

  CHAPTER 66

  CHAPTER 67

  Siri

  CHAPTER 68

  CHAPTER 69

  CHAPTER 70

  Sunday, August 14

  CHAPTER 71

  CHAPTER 72

  Astrid

  CHAPTER 73

  CHAPTER 74

  CHAPTER 75

  CHAPTER 76

  Siri

  Monday, August 15

  CHAPTER 77

  CHAPTER 78

  CHAPTER 79

  CHAPTER 80

  CHAPTER 81

  Astrid

  CHAPTER 82

  CHAPTER 83

  CHAPTER 84

  Siri

  CHAPTER 85

  CHAPTER 86

  CHAPTER 87

  CHAPTER 88

  CHAPTER 89

  Astrid

  CHAPTER 90

  CHAPTER 91

  CHAPTER 92

  CHAPTER 93

  Siri

  CHAPTER 94

  CHAPTER 95

  CHAPTER 96

  Astrid

  CHAPTER 97

  CHAPTER 98

  CHAPTER 99

  CHAPTER 100

  Siri

  CHAPTER 101

  Astrid

  Tuesday, August 16

  CHAPTER 102

  Wednesday, August 17

  CHAPTER 103

  Monday, August 29

  CHAPTER 104

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

  PROLOGUE

  “Blast warning!”

  The foreman’s voice echoed across Telegrafholmen, and the construction workers hurried to take shelter behind a grove of pine trees.

  The yellow excavator stood ready a short distance away. When the dynamite had done its job, the shattered rocks would be removed, and soon, forty elegantly designed homes would take pride of place on the little island opposite Sandhamn. However, at the moment it was nothing more than a building site littered with machinery and rubbish.

  The explosion shook the ground beneath the men’s feet. The deafening noise bounced off their eardrums before rolling out across the sparkling waters of the Baltic Sea.

  A huge cloud of dust hid the sun, and the foreman succumbed to a coughing fit. He waited a few minutes, then straightened up. They were already behind schedule; there was a lot to do before they could lay the foundations and make a start on the walls and roofs.

  There was an eerie silence. Micke pushed back his hard hat, staring at something grayish white among the dust and rubble.

  “Boss . . . ?” he said, pointing.

  The foreman followed his gaze, unable to process what he was seeing. Then the temporary immobility eased and he moved closer.

  “What the . . . ?”

  The bones on the ground seemed to be glowing at him. Parts of a rib cage, a clawlike hand with two fingers missing. He swallowed hard, determined not to throw up.

  “Fucking hell!” someone exclaimed behind him. “There must have been a grave here!”

  Monday,

  August 8, 2016

  CHAPTER 1

  The sound of footsteps creeping up to the bedroom door woke Nora Linde. She reached for Jonas, but his side of the bed was empty.

  Then she remembered that he was working, and that Julia was staying over with her paternal grandmother. Nora was alone on Sandhamn.

  The fear gripped her immediately. He had found her.

  She’d known for months that he would track her down, that she would never be free. She’d had nightmares about coming face to face with Andreis Kovač’s brother, Emir. It had only been a matter of time before he took his revenge.

  Nora forced herself to open her eyes and face the darkness.

&n
bsp; She could see a blacker shadow in the doorway.

  Her instincts were telling her to run, but her muscles refused to obey, even though she knew she would die if she didn’t get away.

  She couldn’t move, couldn’t hide, couldn’t even call out.

  Instead she stared at the door as if in a trance. It slowly swung wide open, and Emir Kovač’s ice-cold gaze met hers. The hatred emanating from his muscular frame made her throat close up.

  She’d imagined this encounter so often, feared it with every fiber of her being.

  Kovač was wearing black leather gloves. He was holding something in one hand, she could see the glint of metal. He was only a couple of feet from the bed now, but Nora was still paralyzed.

  As he raised the shining blade, she began to scream.

  “Wake up!”

  Someone was shaking her by the shoulders.

  “Nora, wake up!”

  Nora opened her eyes and found herself looking into Jonas’s worried face. “You had another nightmare,” he said, drawing her close.

  “I thought he was here,” she murmured into Jonas’s shoulder. “It was so real.”

  He gently stroked her hair until she stopped shaking. Her cheeks were wet with tears.

  “It’s OK, sweetheart. It was just a bad dream, that’s all. No one is going to hurt you. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

  Nora shook her head. She knew that Jonas was wrong.

  The words Emir Kovač had whispered to her the last time they met still resonated in her mind. It was impossible to erase them, no matter how hard she tried.

  CHAPTER 2

  Detective Inspector Thomas Andreasson stared at his screen. His inbox was full of messages. It was the first day back after his vacation, and he ought to be rested and sharp, ready to get down to work. Instead he was finding it hard to gather his thoughts.

  His gaze fell on the photograph of Elin next to the computer. It had been taken on the jetty on the island of Harö, down below their summer cottage. His eight-year-old daughter was smiling into the camera, her blond hair blowing in the wind.

  He used to have a picture of Pernilla on his desk, too, but it was now in the bottom drawer, the glass cracked—the result of an outburst of rage when things were at their worst, immediately after the separation last year.

  However, the situation had improved, he reminded himself. The family counseling that Nora had persuaded him to try had definitely helped; at least he and Pernilla could have a civil conversation these days.

  A knock on the door made him look up.

  “Welcome back.”

  Margit Grankvist was standing in the doorway. Thomas’s boss had taken very little time off during July, but she still had an impressive tan, which made the lines on her thin face stand out even more.

  “I hope you’re well rested,” she added. “We’ve got our hands full as usual.”

  “What’s happened?”

  “It seems as if human remains have been found on Telegrafholmen. That’s out your way, isn’t it?”

  Thomas nodded. He knew exactly where Telegrafholmen lay; it was the long, narrow island directly opposite Sandhamn, protecting the inlet and the harbor from northerly winds.

  An uninhabited island.

  “Human remains?”

  “A skeleton. The CSIs are already on their way over to investigate. The Royal Swedish Yacht Club is building new houses out there, and the construction workers were blasting to prepare the site. When the dust settled, they found bones lying on the ground.”

  “How old?”

  “I’ve no idea.” Margit spread her hands wide. “I’d like you and Aram to go and take a look. I’ve spoken to the maritime police—they’ll pick you up from Stavsnäs in an hour.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Nora leaned over the handbasin. The sight that met her in the bathroom mirror didn’t make her feel any better. She looked tired and worn in spite of a whole summer on Sandhamn, and her cheeks were sunken. Her fiftieth birthday was only a few years away; sometimes she felt even older.

  It had taken her a long time to get back to sleep after the horrible nightmare about Emir Kovač; she’d been restless all night. It had been the same story for months; sleeping pills were the only way to achieve undisturbed slumber.

  The birds were singing outside the window, the sun was shining, but her body felt stiff and slow. She would have liked to go back to bed. Take a pill and pull the covers over her head, but that would have worried Jonas even more. She couldn’t cope with his anxious looks and constant concern right now. She couldn’t even cope with herself.

  He was already in the kitchen chatting with Julia. Nora could hear the clatter of cups and plates, and the aroma of freshly brewed coffee reached her nostrils.

  With a sigh, she pulled on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. She might as well get going. Standing in the bathroom feeling sorry for herself wasn’t going to improve things.

  Jonas and Julia were sitting at the table having breakfast by the time Nora came downstairs. Julia was busy munching a cheese roll and didn’t take much notice of her, but Jonas gave her a searching look.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked. “Did you manage to get back to sleep?”

  Nora suppressed a sharp response. She didn’t want to complain, and Jonas meant well. She mustn’t take out her frustration on him, but it was hard to keep up the façade. She would have to go back to work soon; her extended sick leave came to an end on August 31. She didn’t want to think about how that would go if she still felt this bad.

  “It’s been a long time since you were so shaken up by a nightmare,” Jonas went on.

  “Not now,” she said quietly, glancing at Julia. She didn’t want to talk about it in front of their daughter.

  In broad daylight, everything seemed perfectly normal, but she had spent the whole summer waking up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat and terrified.

  And always with the image of Emir Kovač’s hate-filled face in her mind’s eye.

  She was almost afraid to go to bed these days.

  Why would Kovač take the risk? she asked herself for the hundredth time. Attacking her would do him no favors. Violence toward a prosecutor would bring down the full force of the law on him.

  And yet she couldn’t shake off the fear of his revenge.

  The implacable look on his face during that final interview had said it all. The hatred had struck her with the force of a physical blow. She was left with no doubt that he blamed her for what had happened to his brother, but there was nothing she could do.

  The venomous whisper that had frightened her out of her wits had come when the interview was over and the tape recorder had been switched off.

  She’d been so shocked that she hadn’t managed to utter a single word, nor had she told anyone about it afterward. She had no proof; it would be her word against his. That was why she hadn’t raised the matter with Jonathan, her boss. It was bad enough that she was off sick; she didn’t want to be regarded as a victim on top of that, losing what was left of her hard-won professional pride.

  She hadn’t even been able to tell Thomas, in spite of the effect Kovač’s words had had on her.

  “Shouldn’t you go and see your counselor again?” Jonas suggested. “It’s been a few months now, and you’re no better.”

  Her boss had offered to arrange for counseling; Nora had agreed to go twice, then come up with a series of excuses. Everything within her fought against talking about what had happened, because then she would have to admit her guilt, admit that she had failed to protect Mina. Admit that it was all her fault.

  She couldn’t bear to expose the most catastrophic failure of her career to a total stranger. She knew it wouldn’t help, it would simply make her feel even worse.

  She took a mug out of the cupboard.

  When would she get back to normal? Was there no end to her torment?

  She couldn’t go on like this.

  CHAPTER 4

  The police laun
ch moored at the concrete quay on Telegrafholmen, and Thomas Andreasson and Aram Gorgis stepped ashore.

  Thomas hadn’t been here for some time. The island was named after the optical telegraph that had been set up there in the mid-nineteenth century. For many years the residents of Sandhamn had grazed their cattle on Telegrafholmen.

  They followed the narrow forest track past the treatment plant; there was a faint smell of drains in the air. Suddenly they heard the sound of voices, and a moment later they saw a treeless plateau littered with excavators and building material.

  An area of approximately forty square yards was cordoned off with blue-and-white police tape. A man in his fifties with cropped gray hair was talking agitatedly on his phone.

  “Thomas!”

  Staffan Nilsson, the forensic technician with whom Thomas had worked long before the district of Nacka was absorbed into South Stockholm, was on his knees a short distance away. His white protective suit was covered in dust, and the ground around him was strewn with rubble and lumps of mud.

  Nilsson got to his feet and wiped his gloved hands on his thighs.

  “So you finally got here,” he said.

  Aram gave a wry smile and took out his notebook.

  “You’re always first on the scene,” Thomas conceded. “What can you tell us?”

  Nilsson made a face; his idea of a good day at work didn’t include picking out fragments of bone with tweezers.

  “We’ve tried to gather together everything that can be seen with the naked eye. It’s definitely a human skeleton.”

  “Male or female?” Aram asked.

  “Impossible to say at this stage.”

  Nilsson pointed to a pile of sealed plastic bags. Most of them were small, indicating that few if any large bones had been found.

  “As I said, we’ve started collecting what we can see, but the remains are scattered over a large area—it was a hell of a blast. If it went off near where the skeleton was buried, then any parts that weren’t destroyed on impact will have been hurled in all directions—and they won’t be easy to find in this kind of terrain.”

  He made a sweeping gesture with one hand. Around the construction site, the grass grew tall, studded with clover and yellow vetch.

  “I’ve asked for a search dog,” Nilsson added, glancing at his watch. “It should be on its way.”

  They were almost at the highest point of the island. Across the water lay the summer paradise of Sandhamn, but its busy harbor was hidden by the trees.