by Kepler, Lars
‘Come out here, I need to talk to you,’ Saga says, banging on the door.
‘You can’t be in here,’ the guard says behind her.
‘I know,’ Saga replies. ‘But I think she knows something about the man I’m looking for.’
‘Come with me and we can talk about it.’
‘In a moment,’ Saga says, and knocks on the door again.
‘You’re starting to cause trouble for me now,’ the guard goes on. ‘I need to do my job, the club’s closed and I can’t let you be in here.’
‘I hear what you’re saying, but I need to speak to—’
‘Are you slow on the uptake, or what?’ the guard interrupts.
Saga brushes the hair from her face and glances at her.
‘This is important,’ she says. ‘You’ve probably noticed that, and I’d be really grateful if you could give me ten minutes.’
She turns back towards the toilet door, and when the guard puts one hand on her arm she pulls loose and looks her in the eye.
‘Don’t touch me,’ Saga says coolly.
‘I’ve tried to be nice and tell you that you have to leave – but what the hell am I supposed to do if you won’t listen?’
‘Open up!’ Saga says, banging on the door.
The guard grabs hold of her upper arm again. Saga turns and shoves her in the chest, making her take a step back to keep her balance.
The guard pulls a telescopic baton from her belt and opens it up to its full length.
‘I can see I’m going to have to deal with you and—’
‘Shut up,’ Saga interrupts. ‘It’s late and I’m starting to get really fucking tired, but if you don’t stay out of the way—’
Saga sees the baton coming from the side and moves nimbly out of the way.
She hasn’t fought competitively for several years, but she still trains at the boxing club four days a week.
The guard moves after Saga and tries to hit her on the shoulder. The baton swings down at her with full force.
Saga slides out of the way and puts her elbow in the way of the guard’s lower arm. The woman groans and the baton spins through the air and hits one of the metal lockers.
The guard moves like a kick-boxer and throws a left hook.
Instead of rolling past the punch, Saga tilts her head back, beyond the guard’s reach, to lure her into trying even harder next time.
A sort of Ali-shuffle.
The guard takes a step forward and swings again.
Saga jabs with her left hand to gauge the precise distance and moves simultaneously to one side, out of her opponent’s central line.
‘A little boxer,’ the guard laughs, trying to catch her.
Saga lands a perfect right hook to her face. The woman’s glasses go flying in a spray of sweat.
The guard looks confused, one leg is wobbling and she staggers sideways from the blow.
Saga meets her unbalanced movements with a low left hook to her ribs.
The guard whimpers, sinks down onto one knee and reaches out for a box of toilet cleaner with one hand, gasping as blood seeps from her lip.
Saga is already on her again, with a right cross from above, aimed right at the bridge of her nose.
It’s an extremely hard punch.
The guard’s head flies back as if her neck muscles had stopped working. Her body follows and she tumbles backwards helplessly, dragging a mop and bucket down with her.
Without giving the guard another look, Saga goes back to the toilet door, knocks on it and shouts at the dancer to open up.
‘Fuck, fuck, fuck,’ the guard groans, trying to sit up as blood streams from her nose.
‘Stay there,’ Saga says, then kicks at the toilet door.
There’s a crash as the lock shatters and its metal components clatter to the floor.
‘Don’t hit me,’ the dancer pleads, sinking down beside the sink.
‘I only want to talk,’ Saga says, pulling her out from the toilet.
34
It’s starting to get light as Saga puts two cups of coffee down on the table. McDonald’s on Götgatan has just opened for the day. Before they left the club, Saga took the dancer’s ID out of her purse, photographed it and confirmed her address and phone number.
Her name is Anna Sjölin, she’s twenty-two years old and lives in Vårby.
Now she’s wearing jeans and a red padded jacket. Her gloves and knitted hat are on the table in front of her, and her long brown hair is gathered into a knot.
‘Drink some coffee,’ Saga says, sitting down opposite her.
Anna nods and puts both hands round the cup, as if she were trying to warm them up. Her thin face is pale as she hesitantly answers Saga’s questions.
‘How long have you worked at the club?’
‘About a year,’ Anna says, tasting the coffee.
Saga massages the sore knuckles of her right hand as she observes the young woman’s impassive face and slow movements.
‘Pole-dancing is a sport,’ Anna says without looking up.
‘I know,’ Saga says.
‘Not like this, though. I just do simple things so I don’t get too tired, because I have to dance all night.’
‘What do you do between shifts?’
Anna rubs her nose and looks at Saga. She has dark rings under her eyes from lack of sleep, and there are fine lines running across her forehead.
‘Can you tell me why we’re sitting here?’ she asks, pushing the mug away.
‘I work for the Security Police.’
‘The Security Police,’ she smiles. ‘Can I see some ID?’
‘No,’ Saga says.
‘How am I supposed to—’
‘Tell me about the man with the pearl earrings,’ Saga interrupts.
Anna lowers her gaze and her eyelashes flutter.
‘What’s he done?’ she asks.
‘I can’t talk about that.’
Anna looks out of the window just as the streetlights go out along the pavement. A homeless woman with an overloaded shopping trolley stops outside the window and stares at them.
‘You’ve seen a thickset man with pearl earrings at the club,’ Saga says once more, to get Anna to go on.
‘Yes.’
‘Is he there a lot?’
‘I’ve seen him maybe five times.’
‘What does he do?’
‘He keeps to himself, he doesn’t join in, doesn’t dance … he stays a few hours, drinking vodka shots and eating chilli nuts.’
She pulls the coffee towards her again, then reaches for the sugar before changing her mind.
‘Have you ever talked to him?’ Saga asks.
‘Once, when some guys tipped beer over him … He looks a bit … special, like a big kid … with those earrings and, oh … I don’t know …’
She falls silent again with a deep furrow between her eyebrows. Saga tries to think of a way to get Anna to tell her more, give her something that will help the investigation along.
‘Did he get angry when they tipped beer on him?’
‘No, he just tried to explain the pearls. They weren’t listening … but I heard what he said … They’re a tribute to his sister who died when she was thirteen, they were her earrings, and he said he didn’t care if people laughed … he’s happy to take whatever abuse he gets for them.’
‘What’s his name?’
‘He calls himself the Beaver,’ Anna says with a tired smile. ‘He doesn’t exactly make things easy for himself.’
She drinks some coffee and wipes her lips with her hand.
‘So you’ve talked to him?’ Saga prompts.
Anna shrugs her shoulders.
‘A bit.’
‘About what?’
‘All sorts,’ she says, and seems to drift off in thought for a few seconds. ‘I’m not saying I believe it, but he told me he had a sixth sense, that he always knows who’s going to die first when he enters a room.’
‘How do you mean?’ Saga asks.
‘He said it like it was obvious, and pointed at Jamal, a guy who … well, he wasn’t to know that I knew him … three days later I heard that Jamal was dead, a blood vessel burst in his brain, he was born with it, apparently … No one knew about it, not even Jamal.’
Anna puts the mug down, picks up her hat and gloves and gets to her feet.
‘We’re almost done,’ Saga says.
Anna sits down again.
‘Do you know what the Beaver’s real name is?’
‘No.’
‘Have you got his contact details, anything concrete?’
‘No.’
‘Have you ever seen him with anyone else?’
‘No.’
‘Did he hit on you?’
‘He spoke about starting a club of his own, and asked if I’d be interested in changing jobs.’
‘What did you say?’
‘That I’d think about it.’
‘Where does he live?’
Anna sighed and leaned back.
‘He seemed a bit rootless, didn’t have a fixed address, kept moving round all the time, at least that’s how I understood it.’
‘Did he mention any address at all? Did he say where he was living at the moment? Did he mention any friends, anything?’
‘No.’
Anna stifles a yawn with her knuckles.
‘OK, let’s go through the whole conversation again, bit by bit,’ Saga says. ‘He must have said something … something that would help me find him.’
‘Look, I need to get some sleep, I work at Filippa Krister during the week. He never said where he lived.’
‘How were you going to let him know about the job?’
‘I don’t know, it was too soon for that, he hasn’t even got a club,’ she replies.
‘So it was all talk?’
‘I honestly don’t know, he said he was an entrepreneur, a renaissance man … he said loads of weird stuff, I didn’t understand all of it, he talked about buying a deserted research centre in Bulgaria, some state-run laboratory that was abandoned after the fall of communism, but I don’t really remember.’
‘Is he from Bulgaria?’
‘I don’t think so, he hasn’t got an accent … Sorry, I’m too tired to think straight,’ she whispers.
‘A psychologist who specialises in interviewing eyewitnesses will be getting in touch with you tomorrow, she’ll help you to remember better,’ Saga says, getting to her feet.
35
It’s quarter past eight on Sunday evening and Saga and Nathan Pollock are reluctantly calling an end to the day’s work.
On one wall of the room is a map of Europe, along with larger-scale maps of the locations where the victims were found. On the other are a series of printouts from the Belarusian security-camera footage. The recording was made in darkness and the picture quality is poor, but the man who calls himself the Beaver is still visible. His height, build, those big, sloping shoulders are all clearly evident. When seen from certain angles, a little of his thick neck, jawline, and the shape of his head stand out against the background.
The glare of the desk lamp catches on the scratched lenses of Nathan’s reading glasses next to his computer, and the reflection quivers on the ceiling as he knocks the edge of the table when he stands up.
He jerks his head to get his grey ponytail to hang down his back.
The witnesses outside the Pilgrim Bar described an aggressive man who resembles the man in the security-camera footage from Belarus.
The Swedish police have searched the home of the murdered bartender and found videos of drugged women being raped. He had twice been cleared of charges of rape in court in Stockholm.
The dancer, Anna Sjölin, has told them about her conversation with a man who fits the description of the perpetrator.
The Beaver wears pearl earrings, sees himself as an entrepreneur, and wants to buy an old laboratory complex in Bulgaria.
For some reason he seems to think he has special powers. It sounds like he has a fairly inflated view of himself, a sense of superiority, which would fit with a murderer who sees himself as a superhero charged with cleansing society from criminals the justice system has failed to punish sufficiently.
Two hours ago, when Saga spoke to specialist interviewer Jeanette Fleming, the psychologist was sitting at Anna’s kitchen table out in Vårby. It was too early to discuss the conversation with the Beaver, but Jeanette said that they were weaving Anna’s memories into an increasingly fine-meshed net.
Nathan starts to pack his briefcase and explains that he has to get home to Veronica to explain how the courts deal with cases of divorce. A few strands of grey hair from his ponytail have caught on his jacket.
‘You ought to sign the papers,’ Saga says.
‘I’m not in any hurry.’
Saga has also decided to go home; she’s thinking of going for a ten-kilometre run and then calling Randy. She ought to talk to her dad as well, but she doesn’t feel up to that. The last time they spoke he tried to ask for advice on how to behave with an internet date, as if she’d ever tried online dating. The whole conversation left her feeling impatient, it was as if her dad was pretending everything was fine, that they had a relaxed, adult relationship.
Saga goes over to the best picture they have of the Beaver’s face. Grease from the Blu Tack has stained the corners of the printout.
The camera caught him seconds before he kicked and smashed an outdoor lamp in the shape of a flame.
The glow from it lights up his backwards-tilted face from below.
In spite of the poor resolution, it’s possible to make out his round cheeks, his forehead, and the sparkle of what could be a pearl earring.
‘Now we know that the Beaver is capable of sitting down and holding a conversation,’ she says. ‘He can even be provoked without getting angry … but at the same time we’ve seen the sort of rage he’s capable of.’
‘What else do we know?’ Nathan asks quietly.
Saga meets his weary gaze.
‘He calls himself the Beaver, he’s a thickset man in his fifties, has cropped hair, wears earrings, two pearls that belonged to his dead sister,’ Saga says.
‘He claims to have a sixth sense, and is cleansing Europe,’ Nathan says.
‘He speaks Swedish without an accent, probably has no fixed address, says he’s going to start a club and buy an old research centre in Bulgaria … He makes out he’s an entrepreneur, but that could be all talk … I haven’t been able to find any old laboratories that are for sale.’
Silence fills the room again. The whole building is quiet, there aren’t many people in the headquarters of the National Operational Unit at this time on a Sunday evening.
The windows of Nathan’s office are streaked with dirt. The telecommunications mast and the spire of the old police headquarters stand out against the dark sky. In the centre of one of the windows is the imprint of a forehead. Fragments of small, pale brown leaves lie strewn on the windowsill around a potted plant.
‘How long has Jeanette been talking to the dancer now?’ Nathan asks, folding a napkin and tossing it in the bin.
‘I don’t want to interrupt them, Jeanette will call when she’s finished.’
They leave the room and walk down the corridor, leave their mugs in the kitchen and switch the lights out behind them. On the way to the lift they pass Joona Linna’s empty room.
‘We need to find some way to let Joona know it isn’t Jurek who’s trying to clean up society,’ Nathan says.
36
The streets are almost deserted when Saga goes home. A few snowflakes are swirling around the streetlamps and illuminated advertisements. At first the cold wind in her face bothers her, but it becomes slightly numbing and leaves her feeling an odd inner warmth. She’s already started to get used to her dad’s motorbike, and has come to appreciate its low centre of gravity in the urban traffic.
It occurs to Saga that Joona is bound to get in touch at some point to a
sk about the investigation. Otherwise he’d end up in hiding forever, and would never know that they’ve identified a completely new serial killer.
She turns into Tavastgatan, stops, and covers the bike with its tarpaulin.
The thin, silvery-grey material rustles in the evening wind.
Up in her apartment Saga locks her pistol in the gun-cabinet, leafs through the post, drinks some orange juice straight from the carton and changes into her running clothes.
Just as she’s putting on her trainers in the hall her mobile rings. She hunts through her bag on the floor, finds her phone, sees that it’s Pellerina and answers.
‘What are you doing?’ her half-sister asks, almost too quietly to hear.
‘I’m going to get some exercise, you know, go out for a run.’
‘OK,’ Pellerina says, and her breathing echoes down the line.
‘Why aren’t you asleep? It’s quite late,’ Saga says tentatively.
‘It’s really dark,’ she whispers.
‘Turn on your heart light.’
‘You mustn’t forget to turn it off,’ her sister replies.
‘I promise, you’re allowed to turn it on,’ Saga says. ‘Can you go and see Dad and give him the phone?’
‘No.’
‘Why don’t you want to go and see Dad?’ she asks.
‘I can’t.’
‘Is he downstairs in the kitchen?’
‘He’s not home.’
‘Are you on your own?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Tell me what’s happened … Your painting class finished at eight o’clock and then you went home with Miriam’s mum as usual, and Dad usually has your tea ready.’
‘He wasn’t home,’ her sister replies. ‘I think he’s cross with me.’
‘Maybe Dad had to go to the hospital – you know, because he helps people who have problems with their hearts.’
Saga can hear her sister’s breathing.
‘I heard giggling outside,’ Pellerina whispers, almost inaudibly. ‘I thought it was the clown girls.’
‘They’re not real – you know that, don’t you?’
Saga can’t help thinking that it might have been the girls from school who sent the chain email.