The badger, p.1
The Badger, page 1
THE BADGER
FREDRIK P. WINTER
Translated by
ANDY TURNER
Copyright © 2020 Fredrik P. Winter
in agreement with Enberg Literary Agency
The rights of Fredrik P. Winter to be identified as the Author of the Work and of Andy Turner to be identified as the translator of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in Swedish as Grävlingen in 2020 by Louise Bäckelin Förlag, Stockholm.
English language translation © Andy Turner 2026
First published in English in 2026 by Bloodhound Books.
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publisher or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
www.bloodhoundbooks.com
Print ISBN: 978-1917705615
CONTENTS
Newsletter sign-up
Saturday 6 November
ACT 1
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
ACT 2
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
ACT 3
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
You will also enjoy:
Newsletter sign-up
Acknowledgments
About the Author
About the Translator
A note from the publisher
SATURDAY 6 NOVEMBER
Cecilia Wreede carefully stepped across the basement floor to avoid the risk of compromising any evidence. The floor was dusted in dry plaster which had crumbled off the walls and ceiling. Small yellow markers lay on all sides, like A-board pavement signs in miniature, amid clods of damp earth.
It was still clear to see that this had once been a rather pleasant entertainment room. Now it smelt musty and the wet had soaked through the walls, peeling the wallpaper away in large strips all along the skirting boards. The plastered concrete behind was full of cracks and uneven cavities.
The sofa was the only item of furniture that could be said to be in one piece, but even that had suffered badly. The cushions had been ripped open with what might have been knives, the stuffing was pushing its way out through the slashes in the leather. The coffee table was smashed to pieces, as was the television and the armchair in front of the fire. The glass door on the wood-burning stove was shattered. Ash and pieces of charcoal were strewn across the clinker floor tiling. The tiles had been cracked and taken up in various places, exposing the concrete underneath. Glinting in the ash and earth were green shards from broken wine bottles, along with fragments of the safety glass from the stove door.
A trail of blood was running through this mayhem of dirt and debris. Someone had hauled a body from out of the entertainment room and down along the basement hallway.
Cecilia gritted her teeth. “Where is it?” she said, looking along the blood stains. She hadn’t been affected by the sight of blood in a long time. All the same, this trail of reddish brown was making her feel uneasy. She knew what to expect.
“Same place as usual,” replied Jonas Andrén, her closest colleague, rustling as he pointed into the basement. Cecilia couldn’t help thinking he looked like a giant baby in his white plastic suit. His glasses jutted out beneath the hood which was pulled over his hair. She must look just as ridiculous. “In the storeroom. Let me show you.”
Cecilia nodded, carefully following Jonas past the boiler room as she avoided treading in the blood. Harsh light from a doorway was showing up even more earth on the floor. Muddy shoe prints were indicated with further yellow markers.
“Be extra careful where you place your feet,” said Jonas. “Forensics haven’t had time to test the blood yet. Though we’re pretty sure of whose it is. Linda Sandström was her name, a divorced mother of two. Bought the house a few years ago and was having new drains put in.”
Cecilia nodded. “Like all of the victims so far. I had to practically clamber inside when I got here. They’ve dug right around the house.”
The storeroom was bathed in the piercing light from several construction lamps. It dazzled Cecilia and was bouncing off Jonas’s plastic suit. Cecilia blinked a couple of times to adjust her eyes while she readied herself. She had gone through this so many times now that she ought to be accustomed to it. Yet she felt her pulse quickening, her gastric acid reflexing back into her gullet. She had seen so many murder victims in so many unnatural positions, the most chilling images would pass her by without scaring her. But what she was seeing now she wasn’t able to process, however many times she was forced to. There was no body. And the absence of a bloodied victim was worse than the alternative.
In the middle of the room the floor had been broken through from below. Around the opening were large piles of earth, clumps of concrete and shattered clinker tiles. The earth was wriggling with worms and crawling with black insects. The trail of blood vanished around its edge. Cecilia squatted over the opening. It was big enough for a person to crawl through. She could feel the darkness staring back at her as she looked down the narrow tunnel into the underworld. Her head was spinning and she propped a hand on the floor to steady her balance.
She hated this. She hated that there was no victim. She hated that she had nothing to go on this time either. It felt as if this entire investigation was cursed.
She shook her head. “Christ.”
“Were you expecting anything else?”
“No,” said Cecilia, getting to her feet. “But I was hopeful.”
“Of what?”
“Fuck knows. An ordinary murder, maybe?”
Jonas laughed. “It’s the sixth of November, Cissi. You know what happens then.”
Cecilia nodded. “I know. Everyone knows. I’m just so bloody tired of it.” She looked around despondently. The storeroom was full of moving boxes stacked on top of one another. Fixed to one of the walls was a shelf brimming over with Barbie dolls, most still in their original unopened boxes.
“We’ll get him, sooner or later,” said Jonas.
“I sometimes wonder.” Cecilia shuddered. If only the dolls had been witnesses, she thought. She didn’t like them. Their painted eyes stared accusingly at her. She looked down the opening again and shook her head before she turned around and left the storeroom. “You’ve all got this, no point me staying any longer.”
“Where are you going?” asked Jonas.
“Where do you think? To the station. Someone’s got to let the press know that the Badger’s claimed another victim.”
ACT 1
THE MANUSCRIPT
1
SUNDAY 7 NOVEMBER
I am the Badger. This is my story. When you’ve heard it, you might see me in a different way, but that doesn’t change anything.
“I don’t want to live here.”
Annika Granlund was smiling broadly as she whispered the words in Martin Granlund’s ear.
Martin winced. “Why not?” He looked around to see if any of the others present at the viewing appeared to be listening in on their hushed conversation.
Annika’s light brown eyes sparkled as if she was on cloud nine. “Stop it, you know why.” She wasn’t happy. Her delight was a front, no one else attending the viewing would believe anything was amiss.
“No I don’t, tell me.” Outside the living room the wind was swishing in a birch tree in the middle of the lawn. Its yellow leaves were swirling down across the tall grass. “Because if it’s the tiling in the bathroom, we can afford to redo that.”
“It’s not the tiling,” Annika chirped.
She placed her arm around her husband and gently guided him out of the living room which looked like all of the other living rooms they had seen in the past few months. She didn’t feel as if she was in someone’s home, she felt as if she was in a property advert. At best in someone’s fantasy about what a house was supposed to look like. Freshly painted white walls. Eggshell, naturally, not brilliant white. Trendy furniture, an ocean of cushions on the sofa and a couple of carefully chosen but inscrutable ornaments here and there. Annika could swear she had seen the pictures on previous viewings. She recognised the crack in the glass of one of them.
“Well, what is it this time?” said Martin, with some irritation in his voice. “I mean, the location’s good. The grounds are low-maintenance like we said we were after. We can afford the purchase as long as the bidding doesn’t start getting too out of hand.”
Annika nodded towards the stairs which disappeared down to the basement. From below they could hear the sound of muffled voices in the entertainment room where another couple were discussing matters. The sound of whispering from the stairs sent a cold shiver running down her spine.
Martin tilted his head. “You’re kidding me.”
Annika gave a tight-lipped smile and shook her head. “No, I’m not. I don’t want to live in a house that’s got a basement. I’ve already said that.”
Martin sighed. “I thought you’d like it anyway. You can’t just categorically rule everything out because of a basement.”
“Oh but I can, Martin. Plenty of houses don’t have basements, can’t we take a look at those instead?”
Martin shrugged. “Okay. I get it. Basement or not, if you don’t want to live here, then I don’t either.”
Annika looked into his clear blue eyes. She placed her hand on his cheek. Her wedding ring shone faintly against his strawberry blond stubble. “Thanks, sweetheart. Shall we go?”
He smiled, but Annika could see he was fighting his disappointment. “Sure.”
The gravel path between the front door and the gate scrunched beneath their shoes as they walked to the car.
“I understand if you think I’m being a pain,” said Annika, kicking a cone that had fallen from the neighbour’s yew tree. “But I’m just being practical. Do you know how much hassle you get with basements?”
“Yes, you’ve told me. Damp problems, drains needing relaying. Mildew. Mind you, there are actually some advantages too.”
“Is that right?” said Annika, glancing at Martin. “Name one.”
“A hobby room.”
“And what hobby would that be, then? I mean, everything you do is on a computer.”
“A gym.”
Annika laughed. Martin did too. He unlocked the car.
“A home spa, then?”
“Now that’s more like it.”
“There you are.”
“I’m still not convinced.”
“A play room for the children.”
She felt an ache in her heart. Annika turned her head and looked out of the car window. There was the house, a rectangular red-brick model from 1974, surrounded by lawn, birches and a dwarf pine. Around the corner they glimpsed a grey modernist house with asbestos cement cladding behind a few twiggy bushes serving as a hedge.
Martin leaned in closer. “And as they get older they can watch movies down there, and we can hang out with friends in the living room.”
She swallowed. “Evidently.”
One of the other couples from the viewing came out of the door. The woman was holding on to her baby bump. The man was pointing to something in the brochure the estate agent had handed out. Annika’s hand was unconsciously copying the woman’s, caressing her belly through her red coat. She felt a longing in the pit of her stomach. They had been trying for such a long time now.
“I know one thing for sure,” said Annika, looking at Martin once more. “We can’t have children in the apartment.”
“We could have three children here.”
Annika shook her head. She fixed her eyes on Martin’s. “Two. In any other house. If there’s no basement. Hadn’t we better drive?”
2
MONDAY 8 NOVEMBER
You imagine you’re safe in your own home. Nobody gets past your locked door, your smart home security system with intruder alarm. But I come through the floor.
Annika got off the tram at Järntorget and struggled to open her umbrella in the wind. It was Monday morning and autumn in Gothenburg was at its most dismal. It required willpower to venture out and just as much brute-force to hold an umbrella up. In the end she gave in, letting the squalls drench her in cold rain while she splashed between the puddles on her way to work.
Passing the Dragon cinema and Folkets Hus cultural centre afforded her some shelter but as soon as she came out onto the car park in front of the yellow former warehouse that housed Eklund Press, where she worked, the wind got up, messing up her hair again. Towering beyond the warehouse was the light blue exterior of Rosenlund Power Plant. She caught glimpses of the flashing red lights way up high in the rain.
The hissing sound of rain on soaked tarmac was competing against the eternal whoosh of cars moving in and out of the Göta Tunnel. White lights in one direction, red in the other. The closest daylight on offer these days was a grey mist around lunchtime. Yet every night Annika would struggle to achieve anything more than a restless forty minutes, despite the autumnal darkness and the soporific rat-a-tat-tat of cold rain on the window ledge. The nip in the air and coffee were thankfully keeping her lively enough to function.
Annika cut across the car park and pulled at the door to the stairwell of the publishing company. It was unlocked, as usual. The lock was temperamental most of the time and all too often the door was left unlocked overnight, which occasionally led to the homeless sleeping inside the stairwell. They were rarely there when Annika arrived at work, just odd, empty bottles would give the game away. It was as if they had a secret arrangement not to disturb the leaseholders in the hope of not losing out on their shelter.
Just outside this door was a pile of rain-sodden earth, as though someone had dropped a flowerpot and not cleared it up. Annika walked around the mess and went inside. The heel on her leather boot slid on a clod of dirt behind the front door that she hadn’t seen.
