by Jens Lapidus
That had made Grandmother laugh even more. “You’re funny. You must have inherited your sense of humor from your mother. It’s saffron, Roksana joonam. It has grown in our country since the beginning of time. Do you like saffron?”
“I love saffron.”
“Good, then you haven’t been completely Europeanized. How is your dear father?”
“He’s well, I think. But he’s bored.”
“I know. And does he tell you that you have to get an education?”
Her grandmother’s short hair was still dark in places. In some respects, she looked younger than her own son, but her eyes were very similar to his. Deep, watchful.
“Yes, and I’m going to.”
“Good, good.”
Her grandmother had turned to the crocuses again. The sun was shining between the cypress trees onto the grass.
“You can be whatever you want to be. He could, too.”
“Yeah, but maybe not in Sweden.”
“That isn’t what I mean. Do you know what your father studied to become first?”
“An engineer.”
“No, no, that was later. Your father wanted to play music, he studied musicology. He played throughout his childhood. Guitar, sitar, drums, piano, everything. And he got into the School of Performing Arts and Music, only seven out of the thousands of applicants managed that. He even got to play with the big stars a few times, Googoosh and Vigen. He was brilliant, your dear father, a prodigy.”
Roksana hadn’t known what to say. “But there was a small problem,” her grandmother had continued. “He didn’t tell his father, your grandfather, that he was studying music. Your grandfather thought he had already started his engineering degree.”
Her grandmother had leaned back, as though she was studying the sky.
Roksana turned to her. “What happened?”
“What had to happen. Like always. We can’t escape who we are. When your grandfather found out, it came to an end.”
Roksana had tried to see her grandmother’s eyes, but they were up among the clouds, lost in another time.
* * *
—
“Welcome to my ranch,” said a tanned man in his fifties. He was wearing a cap and sunglasses.
Val and Roksana got up. Her head scarf itched in the heat. Val introduced her, and they shook hands with Mr. Isaawi.
“Would you like a tour?”
They started walking along the edge of the stables. Roksana wondered how much Val had told him about what she really wanted. “The Persian Arab and Caspian horses are one of the foundations of our civilization,” Mr. Isaawi explained in a slow, clear voice that suggested that this might be the most important piece of information they would ever hear.
Roksana wasn’t listening; she was just thinking about how she could bring up what she needed to bring up. She must be crazy—why hadn’t she discussed the deal in detail with Val beforehand? She didn’t even know if she, a woman, was allowed to speak to the man.
“The horses give us wings. Persia was the first place on earth where horses were tamed, Khayyam mentions more than forty-one different types of horse in Nowruznameh,” Mr. Isaawi said, continuing to drop names of famous owners and breeders. Roksana was sweating. She wished she were wearing sunglasses, too.
After fifteen minutes, they returned to the pergola and sat down. The guy with the mustache served them iced tea and small cookies. “So,” said Mr. Isaawi, grabbing two cookies. “You wanted to talk business.” He glanced at Val.
Roksana took a deep breath. “I want to buy some Ketalar from you.”
The ranch owner raised an eyebrow but then waved a finger for her to keep talking.
Roksana spoke quickly, trying to summarize what she needed.
“We call it ebastine here,” Mr. Isaawi said after a moment. “We use it to tranquilize the animals. That’s no problem. I have plenty, kilos. What do you need it for, if I may ask?”
Roksana didn’t know if the guy realized she wanted to send it abroad. She tried to smile. “I need it for horses.”
Mr. Isaawi smiled. “That sounds good. That was all I needed to know.”
Mr. Isaawi was a super nice guy. Possibly the coolest on earth.
* * *
—
In the Range Rover on the way back to Velenjak, Val laughed.
“I thought you were going to sweat to death up there. Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I did.”
“Yeah, but only after he gave a speech more boring than the ones my mom always gives.”
Roksana said, “There are just two things I don’t know now, and that’s how I’m going to pay for it, and how I’m going to get it all back to Sweden.”
“It won’t cost much. I can lend you the money,” said Val.
Roksana couldn’t help but laugh. “I swear I’ll pay you back. But how do I get them out of the country?”
Val stopped at a red light. “Listen, they’ve lifted the sanctions, but we’re still experts at smuggling things into the country. You’re wanting to smuggle something out, and that’s never been a problem. Never.”
33
Almost two weeks had passed—that was two weeks too many. Still, Teddy had been working day and night. He and Dejan had gone back to Fredrik O. Johansson’s house immediately, but it was too late. The man was no longer home. Teddy waited outside all night, but Fred O. never came back. The next morning, he had phoned Loke and asked him to help bug Johansson’s place in Djursholm. Loke—the world’s most loyal computer nerd—had delivered, and not just with his time: he had also lent Teddy money for the equipment they needed to buy. Three hours later, however, he had dealt the plans a blow. “This villa’s tricky. They’ve got tons of alarms, surveillance cameras, and sensors. I don’t actually know how I’ll manage to get anything in,” he said.
“I thought you were a magician?”
“Yes, darling, you might think that, but I’m just an average hacker with plenty of self-confidence and far too much to do right now.”
“What about the guy’s phone? Can we tap that?”
“Yes, if he uses it indoors, I can probably set up something to catch the signal, but not if he’s outside. We’ll lose him then. The plus side is that you’ll be able to see his texts, too.”
Teddy had spent every day in a different rental car, waiting outside the house. A plastic bottle to pee in, a phone linked to the bugging, and three PowerBars for lunch. He thanked his friends again—Dejan had paid for the car rental.
In a way, it was a calm, mostly restful job. It could have suited him, if it weren’t for the fact that it wasn’t a job—no one was paying him like they had when he was doing roughly the same thing for Leijon, and besides: something else was driving him now. Worry was clawing at his body. Eating him up from the inside. For Emelie’s sake. And for her tenant’s: their child.
Fredrik O. Johansson moved around less than Teddy had expected. His various companies seemed to look after themselves. Fred might have been on a number of boards, but Loke had told him they didn’t meet more than twice a month. Emelie would have been useful there, she knew all about companies and groups—but right now, their unspoken agreement seemed to be that they would each work on their own. What he didn’t know was what she was planning to do about the baby.
Every now and then, the old bastard went to the Grand Hôtel gym in central Stockholm, occasionally cycling to DJTK—Djursholm’s tennis club—with a racket bag over his shoulder. Twice, he ate lunch at a restaurant after working out, and on four occasions Teddy saw him taking a hunting dog for a walk along the water’s edge. The rest of the time, the dog seemed to be walked by some kind of assistant who took it out for regular shit and piss breaks.
He heard the old man making calls and saw him send messages to his sons and to the supervisor of the estate he owned
in Skåne; he called the other board members and the CEO of his parent company. He spoke to the construction workers fitting a new pool at his house, to friends about an annual tennis tournament; messaged his wife every other day—she seemed to spend most of her time traveling around various big cities, looking at pieds-à-terre to buy. He made calls to his lawyer about the angry neighbors of his estate in Skåne and about his will; he talked to his personal trainer about starting to work out at home rather than the hotel gym. Teddy tried to filter, sort, understand. It was an information overload. Who were these people Fred was speaking to? Often, he had no idea, even less whether it was relevant to what he wanted to know. He started to doubt that Fredrik O. Johansson had even lied, despite how certain Dejan had been.
“You need to smoke him out,” Dejan said when Teddy raised it with him.
“How?”
“Give him a bit of a scare. He’ll show his true colors then.”
Teddy spent the whole day in the car thinking. He almost drifted off. He shouldn’t tilt the seat so far back. He popped caffeine tablets and drank even more energy drinks. He thought about swapping the Ritalin for real amphetamine—he needed to be at his very best.
Then he hit the number on his phone and called Fred O.
Fredrik sounded groggy.
Teddy masked his voice as best he could. “Good afternoon. My name is Daniel Olofsson and I’m calling from the police.”
The old man sounded wide-awake now. “And what do you want from me?”
“We would like you to come in for an interview.”
“What is this regarding?”
“A murder investigation.”
“Now, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“No, no, I understand that. But you’ll have a chance to speak. We just want to talk to you. You aren’t suspected of anything.”
“I don’t know anything about any murder. I don’t think I want to come in for an interview.”
Teddy made a real effort now. He wanted to sound authoritative. “By law, we have the power to bring you in if you refuse.”
“I’d like to talk to my lawyer about this.”
“Please do. But there’s just one more thing.”
“What?”
“The case we want to discuss with you involves the murder of a young girl, but as far as you are concerned, it relates to your possible interaction with the girl during the mid-2000s.”
Teddy counted heartbeats, boom—Fredrik O. Johansson waited a nanosecond too long to reply—boom, boom.
“Aha, well I still have no idea what you’re talking about,” the old man eventually said.
* * *
—
Time passed. The seat was uncomfortable. His back felt stiff, the muscles in his legs rigid. A false tooth was niggling at him, the problem that had flared up while he was in prison troubling him again. The air in the car was stuffy. It smelled of desperation. The heat enveloped him like a suffocating pillow.
Fredrik O. Johansson continued to make his usual calls, to send his usual messages. Teddy tried to determine whether his voice sounded any different—whether he was stressed now.
Then an SMS appeared on his screen: the man was sending messages to a number Teddy had never seen before.
A policeman just called me to go in for an interview.
The unknown number replied:
What for?
It’s crazy, it was about that girl in Hägersten. But they shouldn’t be able to see any connection?
Do they suspect you of something?
No, apparently not. Do I have the right to take you to an interview like that?
Yes, you can take a lawyer even if you aren’t a suspect. But the question is whether I’m the best person for the job, I don’t work with crimes in that way.
OK, think about it. We probably need to tidy up. Just to be on the safe side.
Teddy sat bolt upright. His mind was racing. He knew what he wanted to do—he wanted to drag the old bastard outside, give him a once-over, burn down his house. But he couldn’t do that now. He couldn’t. He had to keep his cool.
He didn’t have to wait long—after fifteen minutes, the garage door opened, and Fredrik O. Johansson drove out in his new Range Rover. Teddy followed him.
* * *
—
Just under an hour later, after taking a detour to Norrmalmstorg to pick up a man that Teddy didn’t recognize, Johansson turned onto a small side road outside of Sparreholm in Södermanland. Dejan was helping out: he was slightly behind—his car was too conspicuous. He and Teddy had still taken it in turns sitting behind the guy, Teddy in his rental car, Dejan in his Model X. This journey was definitely a departure from Fredrik O. Johansson’s usual—it must have something to do with his recent SMS conversation. And the side road was enough for Teddy: he checked Google Maps. There was only one place they could be heading to along that road: Hallenbro Storgården was the name of the estate.
He and Dejan killed their engines. It was half a mile away: the estate which, in all likelihood, was the same place Mats Emanuelsson had visited and to which Katja had been taken as a thirteen-year-old. Where a number of men had raped her and other young girls. Teddy opened his car door. The air was cool and fresh. The half light felt calming. He walked over to Dejan, who had parked behind him. The window wound down without a sound—apparently it wasn’t only the engine that was silent in a Tesla. Dejan handed him a backpack.
“Wait for me here,” Teddy said. “I’m just going to check out the house. If I’m not back in forty-five minutes, you’ll have to come and find me.”
It took him five minutes to jog along the edge of the road. He could make out the house from a distance. As he approached, he realized how big it was. There was a fence surrounding it, but he had a pair of bolt cutters in his bag. One of the many reasons Dejan was a good friend.
He thought of Emelie. She must be somewhere around twelve weeks now. Teddy hadn’t told anyone, but had feigned curiosity with Linda. Asked how far developed a fetus would be at various stages, how the mother usually felt, when people typically told others, how late an abortion was allowed. Linda didn’t seem to remember a thing from her own pregnancy. She had given him her best tips: “There’s this thing called Google, you ever heard of it?”
* * *
—
A huge lawn spread out in front of Teddy, and beyond that he could see the rectangular house with the tiled roof that was probably still yellowish, just as Mats had described it. Teddy thought back to the latest he had heard about Mats—he was alive, but still hadn’t woken for more than a few moments.
Teddy could either walk straight across the lawn—the darkness might provide enough cover to prevent anyone from seeing him—or he would have to try to find some other way of getting closer to the house. Then he thought: Exactly what is it I want to achieve right now? He had found the house, and it was definitely connected to the man who called himself Peder Hult. He had even found Fredrik O. Johansson, who was also linked to the network. Wasn’t that enough? Shouldn’t he just call that police officer, Nina Ley, and ask her to show up with her team? Though, on the other hand: the cops hadn’t managed to get anywhere in more than a year, and now he couldn’t even trust them. Not even Emelie seemed trustworthy right now. Plus, he was here. Just a hundred yards from that hellhole of a house.
He started walking straight across the lawn.
The windows in the house were dark.
Dogs. Those old men were dogs.
* * *
—
He did a lap of the house. It took him five minutes. If there was anyone inside, they would have trouble seeing him in the darkness. The building was a rectangle. He spotted three entrances: a main door with a wide stone staircase, balustrades, and enormous pots containing small trees; a side entrance, which probably led straight into the kitchen; and
a basement entrance, which seemed to be half a level down, belowground. Each of them was locked. He couldn’t see anyone through any of the windows, but he knew there should be at least two men in there somewhere.
He rifled through the backpack Dejan had given him. He was Najdan “Teddy” Maksumic: before prison, he had been a made man. A multi-criminal. A hooligan in every sense. By the age of seventeen, he, Dejan, and a few other kids were already raiding houses in the more upscale areas of Södertälje, sometimes even going as far as Mälarhöjden. Break-ins were easy: people didn’t have particularly sophisticated alarm systems back then, and if they did have alarms, then Dejan would usually manage to find the power supply in advance and knock out that crap. For the most part, they had made their way in through basement doors—they were always less solid than the main door, and if anyone was asleep inside, they wouldn’t hear the noise from so far away. They grabbed watches and tennis rackets, sometimes even golf clubs. Jewelry and cash. On several occasions, they had stolen car keys, once finding the keys for a Mercedes Benz 500 SL, V8 engine, which had barely done 1,200 miles. The car had been parked outside the house, and Teddy could still remember the way its rims had glistened like freshly polished silver, despite the darkness of the night. Teddy and Dejan didn’t have driving licenses at the time, but they had managed to drive the car all the way to the former Yugoslavia that summer—the war wasn’t entirely over there yet, but that just made things more exciting. They sold the Merc for more than four hundred thousand in cash, and spent two weeks in Belgrade partying like drug barons.
After just three minutes, Teddy had managed to break open the basement door with the crowbar Dejan had thrown into the backpack. Dejan would have been so proud to see him at work—“the old Teddy,” he would have said. “Cracking doors the way I crack eggs into the frying pan.”
Teddy stepped down into what looked like a DIY pub. A huge bar stretched across the room. Red drapes, sofas, and armchairs along the walls. Dark paintings that seemed to depict animals copulating. A crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling. He moved past the bar. Beyond it was a hallway containing several doors. The light was on. Teddy listened for any noise.