by Jens Lapidus
Children needed closeness. Children needed safety.
* * *
—
“Can I speak now?” Dejan asked.
Teddy was torn from his thoughts. “Yeah, yeah, of course.”
“Those bastards you and Emelie are hunting seem to have no barriers, even worse than me. Just remember what they did in Oslo, how they locked you up in that abandoned prison last year.”
“You’re probably right.” Teddy wondered what he was getting at.
Dejan braked and pulled up outside Kum’s house. “So I doubt they’re just going to twiddle their thumbs now, either.”
“Definitely not.”
“That’s all I wanted to say. Stay on your toes, Teddy. Don’t let the bastards hurt you or the people you love.”
62
The Snapchat message had come in fifteen minutes earlier. It was short and to the point:
Norr Mälarstrand 17, 4th floor, apt. 1405. Grab the woman there, but don’t hurt her. Will send more instructions.
The New Kum had been clear—if Nikola did this, he could have his protection. It was finally time.
He was relieved that they just seemed to be asking for a kidnapping rather than a hit job, but he still couldn’t shake off the bad feeling that had crept up on him.
He and Bello had driven straight to Norr Mälarstrand. Bello stayed in the van. They had decided that they couldn’t just leave it anywhere. Nikola was glad that Bello was willing to step up for this. His friend was as loyal as a dog. But Nikola’s body was still crawling.
He went up to the fourth floor and positioned himself outside the door. Söderlund, he read from the mailbox. Nikola had looked her up online. The woman living here was called Josephine.
He knocked on the door. Nothing happened.
He knocked again. Heard the padding of footsteps inside.
A woman wearing a dressing gown and with her hair twisted up in a towel opened the door. It looked like she had just taken a shower and was in the process of applying her makeup. She was pretty by the usual male standards, but she still wasn’t Nikola’s type.
He quickly forced his way inside and pulled the door shut behind him. The balaclava covering his face was itchier than the wasp sting he had once gotten as a child. Maybe the woman, Josephine, knew what was about to happen. Maybe not. It made no difference—everything went much more smoothly than Nikola had expected. He didn’t even say anything as he raised his gun.
The apartment was luxuriously renovated. Recessed downlights on the ceiling, freshly sanded oak parquet, light switches that looked more like electronic devices than anything else. He sent a Snap of the woman as instructed. The whole time, she kept calm and quiet.
He got an immediate reply. Drive her into the center. She’s needed now.
Nikola wondered how he was going to get her down to the van. Would she go calmly down the stairs, or would he have to tie her hands behind her back and shove her into the elevator? Could he let her sit in one of the seats, or did he have to throw her into the back of the van?
He had to act now.
He pointed the gun at her. “Just keep calm, otherwise I’ll shoot your kneecaps.” It was the first time he had seen her react. She trembled, as though a shiver had passed through her body. In that moment, he saw Roksy’s face. Fuck—she was the best thing to happen to him in a long time—and now he was here, kidnapping someone.
Nikola looked at the woman again. What was he doing?
Honestly, what was he up to?
63
Driving through Stockholm was quick today. She had the Samsonite case next to her in the backseat of the taxi, and she could see the idyllic street that led to Kum’s house ahead. Teddy was up to speed with everything, and she had even called Nina Ley—she didn’t know any other officers she could contact about this.
“We’ve identified someone with a definite link to the network.”
Nina had sounded almost absent. “What’s happened?”
As quickly as she could, Emelie had told her about the suitcase that was taken away from the estate, about the bugging of Hugo Pederson, the number in his phone, and the case she had found in Anders Henriksson’s office.
“A lawyer, you’re saying?” was all Nina said once Emelie was finished.
“Yes, with my old firm. Leijon Legal Services. It’s crazy.”
“Thanks for that. We’ll look into it as soon as we can. Probably tomorrow. It’s not easy getting ahold of people today.”
Emelie didn’t know what to think—shouldn’t the police be taking immediate action?
Suddenly the other phone rang. The one she had found in Henriksson’s office.
A voice: “Emelie?”
“Yes?”
“I thought you’d left to celebrate Midsummer like all the others.”
“Who is this?”
“Ignore that. You have something of mine.”
“Who is this?” Emelie repeated.
“I think you know.”
Yes, she did recognize his high, whiny voice. The voice that, ten years earlier, must have ordered Hugo Pederson to lure Mats into the kidnapping trap. It was Anders Henriksson.
“I’ve spoken to the police,” Emelie said. “I’m going to hand over everything in the case.”
“I don’t like people taking my things,” Henriksson said. “But, as luck would have it, I’ve also got something of yours.”
“What do you mean?”
“If I’m not given the contents of that case, you’ll never see your friend again.”
“What are you talking about?” From the corner of one eye, Emelie saw the taxi driver turn around.
“I’m taking care of Josephine,” said Henriksson.
Emelie gasped.
“I know you have the case,” said Henriksson. “Meet me at Leijon and we’ll resolve this without anyone getting hurt.”
64
The leader was wearing the same leather hoodie as before; he was as fat as ever and seemed to be swallowing just as much phlegm. But he sounded much happier than she was used to. They met in the same hotel room.
Roksana unzipped the bag in front of him. The leader bastard looked down.
“Here’s half a million in cash. Want to count it?”
This time, there was no one blocking the doorway.
The leader rocked back on his chair. “I trust you, little lady.”
She got up. “So we’re done, then?”
Billie was waiting for her down in reception.
The leader remained sitting. “Hold up a second. I’m curious. Where’d you get the cash? You said the cops had taken all your dough. Did you borrow it, like your guy Z?”
“No,” she said.
“How’d you get it together so quickly then?”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“But I want to know.”
“I’m curious, too. Why did you have ketamine in the apartment we rented? It’s just been bugging me, you know?”
“Not everyone’s as competent as you, little lady. The cops missed the ketamine when they raided the place. We already told you that, no? And the guy I sent to fetch the crap is a loser. He can’t even tell whether a BMW’s brakes are fucked or not.”
Roksana had no idea what he was talking about.
“You, though, you deliver. You sold half a mill’s worth in two weeks, that how you got the money?”
She thought about something Nikola had said to her as she opened the door into the hallway. “I can’t tell you everything.”
The leader watched her leave.
The only thing that mattered now was that the madman wouldn’t hurt her father.
No, that wasn’t the only thing that mattered. Nikola mattered, too.
65
They had no choice but
to turn around. Teddy explained the situation to Dejan: “Someone’s grabbed Emelie’s friend Josephine, and they want to swap her for something Emelie has. You’ve kidnapped someone before…”
“So have you,” Dejan interrupted.
“Yeah, but what should I do?”
Dejan sped up as they passed Sollentuna. “You should fuck those bastards in the ass.”
* * *
—
Dejan parked illegally some way from Leijon. A minute or two earlier, Henriksson had texted Emelie the exact location he wanted to meet: the garage beneath the firm.
Teddy and Dejan had to walk around the building before they found the ramp down.
He texted Emelie.
Are you down there?
Yeah, I just got here. But no one’s arrived yet, it’s empty.
We’re outside. Can you open the door for us?
No, don’t think I should. He was clear that I had to be alone. Imagine if he sees me letting you in?
Teddy turned around and stared at the street. The shops were closed. People didn’t want to be here right now. It was four thirty in the afternoon. He could see two young men walking hand in hand toward Stureplan. There was a van approaching, and it turned off onto Leijon’s street. Teddy and Dejan took a few steps back, tried to position themselves around the corner of the building. He heard the van pull up in front of the garage door. It was going in—into the Leijon garage.
He heard the garage door slowly opening. The van rolled down the ramp.
One second. Two seconds. The door started to creak, making its way back down. “Stay here,” he said to Dejan, before ducking beneath the door and creeping inside.
At first, in contrast to the brilliant summer day outside, everything looked dark. But after a few seconds, his eyes became accustomed to the dim light. The ramp led straight down, and Teddy saw the van come to a halt. He pressed himself against the gray wall.
He was convinced that Emelie’s friend was inside.
66
Nikola parked the van in space number four, not far from the entrance to the garage, just like he had been instructed.
As he was driving toward Leijon, he had received a message containing the entry code for the garage, plus: Drive inside. Park in space 4. He did as he was told. He thought about the person in the back of the van, among all the boxes of explosives. It was sick that they had been driving Mr. One’s deadly cargo at the exact moment he’d been given the order to do this thing for Kerim. But it was what it was.
I’m in position, he wrote as he turned off the engine.
The reply was immediate: I know.
This was creepy—whoever had ordered the job must be watching from one of the surveillance cameras on the ceiling. Seemed like a real bunny boiler—what kind of jobs did Kerim accept, exactly? Nikola thought back to the decisions he had made recently.
So what happens now? he wrote back.
The handover. You’ll be given a phone and a suitcase, a Samsonite. Once I see that everything’s right, I’ll message you. You hand her over, then you drive away with my bag.
Honestly: this job really was sicker than a film. The client—whoever he was—could see everything. Like something out of The fucking Hunger Games.
67
Emelie could see the spot Henriksson had decided on sixty feet away. She thought back to when she had fallen and hit her head in the parking garage a few months earlier, when Teddy had driven her to the hospital and she had found out she was pregnant. This time, she wasn’t paranoid—this time, there really was someone else there.
For a brief moment, she had genuinely thought they were about to bring the whole sad tale to an end. She was convinced that whatever was in the case would provide plenty of evidence against the network—the men who hated women. The phone had to be Henriksson’s secure line. If the right police officer and the right prosecutor got their hands on that, they could charge him and the others. They would be arrested and convicted, and this nightmare would finally come to an end.
But not now—and all because that loser Magnus Hassel had contacted Anders Henriksson, who had now kidnapped her best friend. She and Teddy were going to lose. Anders Henriksson would take back the contents of the suitcase, destroy the evidence. No, she then thought, she and Teddy weren’t the ones who would lose—that was Katja and all the other girls.
The sound of her own footsteps in the garage—Emelie heard them echo as though she were inside a musical instrument. She thought she could hear someone else moving around. In her hand, she was clutching Anders Henriksson’s phone. She had called Nina Ley, but that was before she knew that Henriksson had Jossan. Now Emelie didn’t dare contact the police: there was too much of a risk that Henriksson would hurt Jossan somehow, or that the exchange wouldn’t take place. Plus, the police were still searching for Teddy.
Fifty feet to go. She could understand why he had chosen this particular spot: whoever was standing there could hide behind a pillar and still have a view of almost the entire garage.
She was holding the Samsonite case tight. What happened if Henriksson didn’t hand over Josephine? The thought made her stomach turn.
There were two figures coming toward her. One of them was wearing a balaclava and was pushing the other in front of them: Josephine. Her friend had a black cloth bag over her head. She was moving oddly and wearing different clothes than earlier—was that a dressing gown? Emelie wondered if she was hurt.
She could barely bring herself to look and continued staring at one of the pillars in the distance instead.
The figure in the balaclava was holding a pistol.
What kind of man was Anders Henriksson?
“Stay there,” the person in the balaclava said once they were thirty feet apart. “Put down the phone and push the case over here.” Emelie vaguely recognized the voice—it was a man, but it wasn’t Anders Henriksson, she was sure of that.
Suddenly she felt a pain in her stomach: as though her entire belly had contracted, tensed to the point of bursting. But she did as he told her: she paused and gave the case a slight shove forward. She placed the phone on the concrete floor.
“Now back up,” the man said in a calm voice.
“I want you to let my friend go first.”
“She’s your friend?”
“You know she is.”
“Then here you go,” said the man, giving his hostage a shove and making Josephine jerk forward with her arms out in front of her.
Emelie remained where she was. The chill was moving upward. Her belly was as hard as a basketball. The cramp was almost unbearable. She staggered toward Josephine, whose wrists were bound together. The man in the balaclava had turned around and was heading back to his van. He had shoved the phone into his pocket and was pulling the case behind him.
Emelie tore the material from Jossan’s head.
Only, it wasn’t Josephine staring back at her.
It was someone else. A young man. Someone she didn’t recognize. Or maybe she did recognize him: a dark-haired kid.
Damn it—Henriksson had tricked her. He still had Josephine—this was just a bluff to get hold of the bag.
The dark-haired kid said: “I recognize you. Weren’t you Nicko’s lawyer?” Emelie didn’t understand a thing.
Then he said: “Relax. We never took that Josephine woman. Nikola wimped out. We had no idea she was your friend, by the way. But he has to hand over that bag and phone, otherwise there’ll be trouble. Real trouble.”
68
Only once she and Billie were in a taxi heading away from the leader did she finally breathe out. She had done it—she had managed to find the money and she had handed it over. It was incredible.
Billie laughed.
Roksana thought about the policewoman at Täby station who had been standing ready at her computer a few hours earlier. She had leane
d forward, toward the hatch. “My name is Roksana, I’m here regarding case number 3232-K38909.”
The police officer had tapped the digits into her computer. The station was as quiet as an exam hall. “Okay. And what is it you need?”
Roksana knew exactly what she needed. Billie had explained it to her when she went over to her place earlier that day. Shit—Roksana was so glad for Billie’s chatter and awareness. She was super happy that Billie was taking the most unlikely of courses: law.
“I want to collect my bag and its contents,” Roksana said, meeting the policewoman’s tired gaze.
The police had seized the bag containing all of the cash after Our Land Club, but Roksana had been arrested on suspicion of accounting crimes and breaking alcohol licensing regulations, not the ketamine. The prosecutor had requested that some of the money quickly be sequestered, and a judge had also ruled on the matter in court: just over 1.5 million kronor should be held in anticipation of a future ruling or decision—enough to cover any potential tax obligations, fines, or fees. But that didn’t mean all the money in the bag. Billie had worked out that the prosecutor couldn’t possibly have anything to say about the rest of the money Roksana and Z had earned legally from ticket sales. And the police officer at Täby station had a duty to pay out that money.
Billie: a legal genius.
A few minutes later, the cop came back from the confiscation room with Roksana’s bag beneath one arm. “If I could just ask you to fill in this receipt for your bag and your money.”