by Jens Lapidus
CARL: Why was she so pissed off?
HUGO: Ahh, she thinks I’m working too much.
CARL: That’s it?
HUGO: Nah, it’s everything, you know? She was going on and on about how we don’t spend time together like normal people, how all I do is work, how I don’t want to invest in our relationship. And by our relationship, she means that estate in Upplands Väsby. She goes on about it every single day.
CARL: Can’t you just buy the place, then?
HUGO: They want forty million.
CARL: That’s not for the poor man.
HUGO: Yeah, but honestly, it’s really risky. I told Louise we can’t afford it right now, but she went completely crazy and screamed that I’ve got no idea what she’s feeling, and then she started going on about our sex life like always, even though she’s the one who doesn’t want to do it, though she denies that, too, and then she goes on about how I only want to do it when I’m wasted, that she wants to otherwise, even though that’s bullshit, because the only time she wants to do it is ten in the morning on Sundays, and then we have to lie in bed talking about the estate for an hour first, then I have to give her a massage, and then we have to make out for another hour, and it’s only sometime around lunch that I actually get to come. I told her that. She could damn well hear it.
CARL: I don’t know, Hugo. You have been working a lot lately, she’s right about that. And the estate does look nice.
HUGO: But why expose ourselves to that risk right now? We were fine as we are: we just renovated, and if I can have another year, I’ll be bringing in tons of money. It’s as good for her as it is for me.
CARL: And the sex life thing, that’s the same for everyone, but you do go to others, so maybe you don’t feel like it when she does.
HUGO: What’re you talking about, going to others? I’ve never cheated on Louise.
CARL: What about the girls in Switzerland?
HUGO: Jesus, they’re strippers, it’s not the same thing.
CARL: Aha.
HUGO: What is it with you? What are you talking about?
CARL: I’m going to be completely honest with you, Hugo. Things have been happening very quickly for you lately, and I wish you every success, but maybe you should hit pause for a while. Get away for a few weeks, with Louise. So the two of you can talk and spend some time together without any interruptions.
HUGO: You sound just like her. Yeah, things have been moving quickly, you got a problem with that? Is that a little social democrat I can hear? A little Marxist? A jealous whiner?
CARL: Come on, calm down.
HUGO: No, I don’t think I will. You’ve always been a loser, you know that, Carl? Do you remember when you started going on about the scratch cards we got from my dad? You started crying when you didn’t win. You sound exactly the same right now, you know that?
CARL: I’m hanging up now.
HUGO: Yeah, you do that, you loser. Loser.
CARL ENDS THE CALL.
HUGO: Fucking loser.
TELEPHONE CONVERSATION 83
To: Pierre Danielsson (co-suspect)
From: Hugo Pederson
Date: 1 June 2006
Time: 14:34
HUGO: I’ve messed up.
PIERRE: What’s happened?
HUGO: I left my laptop in a taxi.
PIERRE: What are you saying? How did that happen?
HUGO: I’m sloppy as hell, I just forgot the bag when I was coming home from the airport.
PIERRE: Have you checked with the taxi company?
HUGO: Yeah, hundreds of times. Such fucking bad luck, Pille. But since we’re going to the guy’s event with Mats this afternoon, at least I won’t need it this evening.
PIERRE: You have a backup, right?
HUGO: Most of it, I hope. But imagine if someone sees the stuff on it.
PIERRE: Yeah, and what’s going to happen then, do you think?
HUGO: I don’t fucking know.
PIERRE: Let me tell you: they’ll see that Hugo Pederson’s about to be very successful. That’s all.
TELEPHONE CONVERSATION 84
To: Hugo Pederson
From: Jesper Ringblad (stockbroker, Nordea)
Date: 1 June 2006
Time: 14:56
JESPER: Hi, Hugo, I’m sorry to bother you.
HUGO: No worries. You got something in the works?
JESPER: No, that’s not why I’m calling. It’s actually to let you know that we’ve got a problem.
HUGO: Spill.
JESPER: We’ve received information that HMRC, that’s the British tax authority, has requested that the Swedish authorities inspect us. We’ve just found out from unofficial sources, and of course we’ll do everything we can to protect our clients.
HUGO: Ah no, do you know why?
JESPER: Nothing certain, but it’s to do with alleged Swedish-owned accounts in the Channel Islands.
HUGO: I’ve got money there.
JESPER: Exactly. That’s why you’re one of the clients I’m calling right now.
HUGO: When are they starting?
JESPER: We don’t know anything for sure, I should say, and in the best of worlds they’ll just request written documentation and deeds at a more general level. Another scenario is that they’ll request access to our premises and documentation and schedule a number of days when they could turn up. But worst case, they’ll be at our doors in two minutes and just force their way in.
HUGO: But you must have some kind of contingency plan?
JESPER: Of course, Hugo, we’ve made all the necessary preparations, but it’s still my duty to inform you. I think you understand the gravity of the situation and why I can’t say any more. I’d risk putting myself in a compromising position. That said, you may well want to spend the rest of the day dealing with certain things. Promptly, I might say.
HUGO: Come on, this is incredibly bad timing. I’ve just lost a computer with a ton of information about those accounts on it.
JESPER: I’m sorry, but that isn’t actually my problem. I hope you can sort it out today.
38
The abandoned gravel pit looked like the world’s most deserted place, or actually: maybe this was what it was like on the moon. Still, the highway was only a couple of miles away. They could hear its faint droning buzz through Bello’s open window, something like a super fat artery pulsing through the forest. Somehow, the pile of gravel looked almost delicate, like it could collapse at any moment. Nikola thought about Frodo and Sam tumbling down a steep gravel slope after scouting out the huge black door into Mordor. Gravel, dust, tumbling rocks.
“Bello, there’s something I’ve always wondered,” said Nikola. “You know in The Lord of the Rings, how when Frodo and Sam hide beneath Frodo’s special cloak, they look like rocks and gravel—they become invisible.”
“Yeah?”
“The thing I don’t get, do they look like the rocks beneath them, the ones they’re lying on top of, or do they look like new stones on top? What I mean is, if someone looks at the cloak, do they see the ground beneath it or a new pile of rocks on top?”
Bello scratched his crotch. “I don’t watch that kind of thing.”
“You haven’t seen The Lord of the Rings?”
“Nah, I don’t care about films with dwarves and swords. Everyone I know watches Narcos, Sons of Anarchy, classic episodes of the Sopranos. No one watches stuff filmed in New Zealand or Dubrovnik.”
“But they’re movies, not TV shows.”
“Scarface, Goodfellas, The Godfather. And Straight Outta Compton. But no knights or wizards.”
“You’re missing out.”
“Maybe, maybe not. I’m just staying true to style.”
Nikola laughed and climbed out of the car. He wanted to keep Bello in a good mo
od. This was sensitive. “You can go now,” he said.
“Bro, who exactly are you meeting?”
“Doesn’t matter. I don’t want you getting drawn into this.” Though he didn’t know why, Nikola felt nervous—he had been through things that were a hundred times worse over the past few months.
“Okay, whatever.” Bello started the engine and drove away. The gravel crunched beneath his tires.
Nikola shivered. It was a cool day and he was wearing only a T-shirt. He thought about his conversation with Roksana. She had told him that she was planning to organize the biggest party, a huge illegal club. He couldn’t help it: he liked the idea. And Roksy had asked whether he could help out with the security. Maybe it wasn’t such a stupid idea after all.
Then she had started talking about something completely different. “We’re going to see a stand-up at the Globe.”
“Why?” The only stand-up Nikola knew of was Seinfeld, who his mom watched sometimes.
“Because it’ll be funny.”
“What’s his name?”
“It’s not a man. Her name is Amy Schumer. She’s been here before, and it was so good, like piss-your-pants funny. Billie, my friend, bought the tickets in February—it sold out in a couple of hours, you know. Anyway, one of our friends who was supposed to be coming has dropped out.”
Roksana had kept talking about how funny this Schumer was, and Nikola couldn’t stop himself from wondering: Should he ask if he could tag along? She had said that someone else had dropped out—why would she say that if she didn’t want Nikola to ask? But, at the same time: a golden rule—the first person to show their hand always risked being screwed over. If you told a girl you liked her and wanted to go home with her, you risked having a no thrown straight back in your face. Or, even worse: a laugh—like a slap to the face.
“Listen,” he had said. “What’re you doing with that spare ticket? Selling it online or what?”
Roksana had laughed. “You’re not so smart, are you?”
Nikola felt his face burning.
She continued: “I’ve been going on about how good Amy Schumer is for five minutes now, all because I want you to ask if you can come along. Can’t you do that?”
* * *
—
The black Volkswagen that pulled into the gravel pit ten minutes later looked dusty. Ordinarily, plainclothes officers drove Saabs or Volvos, but this must be Simon shitty Murray’s private car. It was ugly, in any case.
Murray wound down the window. “You don’t have a car?”
“Not my own. I got a lift.”
“Do you want to talk in here,” Murray asked, “or take a walk?”
“We’ll talk out here,” he said.
Simon Murray smelled faintly of sweat and cigarettes. Nikola hadn’t thought that cops smoked—they were all so sporty. Murray had swapped his heart rate monitor for some kind of rubber wristband, which probably did the same thing as the Garmin had, but it was only a third of the size. The pig’s boots were dirty and dusty, just like his worn-out old car. Nikola wondered whether he had come here to scope out the place in advance.
“Well, you wanted to meet,” Simon said once they had walked a few feet away from the car.
Talking to a cop like this was dangerous, not something he could tell anyone. But Nikola needed answers. “Have you got anywhere with your investigation into my friend’s murder?”
“Do you mean Chamon or Yusuf?”
“I mean Chamon. Why do you think someone clipped Yusuf? Have you found something?”
Simon’s laugh was gentle. It sounded more like he was blowing air from his mouth.
“Okay, let’s say this: if I tell you about the investigation into Chamon, I want something in return.”
“What?”
“For you to tell me what you know about Yusuf’s disappearance first.”
The gray vibes of the gravel pit were reinforced by the rain clouds now rolling in across the sky. Nikola looked up at the piles of rock—he was in deep water now.
“Okay,” he said. “For starters, we think another guy’s disappeared, too. Fadi’s his name.”
“We already know that.”
“But the big thing is that we think Yusuf was involved in Chamon’s murder somehow.”
Simon pissing Murray tilted his head, trying to look smart, as though he was thinking deeply or trying to work out whether Nikola was messing with him. “Come on, why would he have done that?”
Nikola played with the phone in his pocket.
“You gave Chamon’s phones back to his dad,” he said. “But you didn’t know Chamon like I did. You might’ve analyzed his phones, but did you think about the fact that on one of them, Find My iPhone was installed, and that the app was linked to a different number?”
Simon didn’t say anything. He just watched Nikola.
“I knew Chamon,” Nikola continued. “I know he never used his phone like that.”
“But that’s exactly what he was doing,” said Simon.
Nikola didn’t understand a thing. “What are you talking about?”
“Maybe you did know your friend, but we’ve searched both Chamon’s and Yusuf’s places, and we found other phones that they talked on.”
Nikola’s head was spinning. His thoughts were bouncing around his skull like Super Mario.
“And both Chamon and Yusuf were scared, let me tell you,” Murray continued. “So they’d installed those apps on their phones to keep track of one another. And to find one another if necessary.”
Nikola could barely listen. This was crazy—if what Simon Murray was saying was true.
“Have you spoken to Isak?” Murray asked without turning to Nikola.
Nikola didn’t reply. Their conversation was over. He needed to think. But Murray continued. “Because I saw the charges against him. I saw the investigation. It was the most robust case I’d seen in years. He would’ve been given at least three years for the financial crimes alone.”
Nikola couldn’t help but snap in response. “Lucky you aren’t a lawyer, then.”
They were standing fifteen feet from the car now.
Murray held out a hand. Nikola didn’t take it.
Murray said: “Maybe we’ll speak again. And say hello to your boss when you see him. Tell him he’ll only get that lucky once. This isn’t Mexico—he can’t buy us off. Not yet, anyway.”
* * *
—
In the car, as they were driving away, Bello was playing Adele at full volume. Nikola was fiddling with his phone again, but he couldn’t drop what Murray had said. He was close to screaming, but he had to say something. He tried to overpower the music. “Man, it’s incredible, you know.”
“What’s incredible?”
“That they let Isak go. Everyone said he was screwed, but they dropped the whole thing.”
“Agree. Never heard of anything like it. Sometimes you just get lucky, I guess.”
Bello clearly didn’t want to talk about it, because he turned up the volume. Nikola looked out at the road. They were heading back to Södertälje; they had work to do. His friend floored the accelerator. New deals with Estonia, new security products for small business owners in town, new guys selling good times, new jobs for the identity hijackers. He didn’t know how it had happened—but he was involved in most of it now.
Bello turned off at Sätra.
Nikola didn’t know what was happening. “Where are you going?”
“I want to show you something,” Bello said, turning off onto Björksätravägen.
* * *
—
The water tower was in the middle of the woods. Two hundred and eighteen steps. Nikola had been up there once before, when he was younger. Back then, they had simply cut the padlock on the metal door at the base and climbed to the top to s
moke. These days, there didn’t even seem to be a lock. The tower had to be at least 150 feet high, and he was out of breath by the time they got to the top. Bello was panting like he always had after PE lessons at school. The roof at the top was circular, clad with black roofing felt. Beneath it was more than two million gallons of water. All Nikola knew was that it was from here that water rushed toward Sätra, Skärholmen, Vårberg, and a ton of other places along the southern half of the red metro line. At the very edge of the ledge, there was some kind of metal framework, possibly an antenna or measurement device. He couldn’t handle looking down to the ground; it made him dizzy. Bello kept even farther from the edge.
Nikola wondered what his friend wanted to show him. It felt strange that he hadn’t said anything.
He felt a shove and turned around.
Bello was standing three feet away from him, holding a gun, pointing it at Nikola’s chest.
“What the hell are you doing, man?” Nikola asked. He could hear the blood pounding in his own ears. “Put that down, Bello, what are you doing?”
“I’m keeping it here till you tell me what the fuck you’re up to.” He cocked the Sig Sauer.
“Come on, Bello, drop it.”
“Tell me what you’re up to first.”
“Nothing.”
“Who’d you meet at the gravel pit?”
“No one important.”
“Motherfucker. I’m not stupid, Nicko. I didn’t drive so far from the pit that I missed Simon Murray in the car going in the other direction.”
The wind was blowing so hard that it whistled in his ears. Nikola was even colder than before.
“Bello, you don’t understand…”
“Shut it. I’ll put a bullet in your brain if you keep talking shit, or you can walk over the edge. I swear,” said Bello.
Nikola tried to stand as still as he could and spoke as softly as possible. “Please, Bello, put the gun away.”
“Tell me why you’re meeting cops.”
Nikola could feel the presence of the edge a foot behind him. He felt dizzy even though he wasn’t looking down.