by Jens Lapidus
Two lines to cross and sign.
Seized item number K38909-23 p1: Bag. Brand: Nike.
Seized item number K38909-23 p2: Cash: 1,404,400 kronor in notes.
It meant she had enough money to pay the psychos. The fact she had even considered giving up Nikola to claim the reward was madness—she was ashamed that the thought had even crossed her mind, but the threat against Baba had made her crazy with fear.
The policewoman had handed over the bag of cash. “You have a good Midsummer,” she said.
69
Teddy saw everything. A young man had been handed over instead of Josephine, and Teddy recognized him: it was Bello, Nikola’s friend. Thoughts were exploding through his mind like grenades. What was he doing here? Henriksson must have tricked them somehow. Teddy didn’t know what to do—he just knew that he had to do something. Move. Act. Stop the Samsonite case from disappearing with the man in the balaclava who had handed over Bello.
Teddy stepped forward. He saw Emelie in the distance. She looked confused, and his instincts told him to run over and hug her, but there was no time for that.
“What are you doing here?” he shouted to Bello.
Bello looked as surprised as Teddy felt. “This shit’s completely crazy. You need to talk to Nicko before he leaves.”
Teddy’s head was about to explode. Nikola? Nikola?
He ran toward the garage doors, the spot where he had seen the van parked as he sneaked in. The van had started to roll toward the ramp. Teddy didn’t know what Nikola was doing, but his nephew was clearly planning on driving away. He couldn’t let that happen.
Long strides. He wasn’t thinking about anything. He was thinking about everything all at once. In his mind, he saw Fredrik O. Johansson tipping documents into the case out at the estate.
The garage doors slowly started to open. The van was waiting to drive out, its motor ticking over.
Teddy threw himself at the vehicle, tore open the driver’s-side door. He saw his nephew’s uncomprehending face and pulled him out.
“What the hell are you doing?”
They tumbled to the concrete floor.
Nikola shouted back: “What are you doing here?”
“You don’t know what you’re getting caught up in.”
Teddy crawled upright. Nikola was standing over him. His nostrils were flaring. Eye to eye. Ten inches apart.
“Ujak, I’ve got no idea what you and Emelie are doing here. I’ve done everything as cool as I could,” Nikola hissed. “I didn’t know she was Emelie’s friend, and I didn’t even take her, I faked the whole thing and had Bello in the back instead. But I need that case. I’m not letting you have it. You don’t know everything, Teddy.”
“I know that you don’t know who you’re helping.”
“I’m doing this for Chamon.”
Teddy stared at him. His nephew: the boy he had rocked to sleep so many times, the boy he had taken swimming, to the amusement park, to football matches at Jalla-Vallen. Who he had never, ever wanted to hurt.
Right then, he heard a sound in the background. Teddy turned around. A metal door had opened at the back of the garage, and two people appeared.
One was dressed in police motorcycle gear, in a helmet with the visor turned down, and was holding a pistol against the other person’s head. That other person was Anders Henriksson, and his face was as white as a painkiller.
Teddy recognized the cop: the helmet was the same make as the one the officer who shot Fredrik O. had been wearing.
“One of you has a bag belonging to Anders,” said the motorcycle cop.
Teddy recognized the voice. It belonged to a woman.
Nina Ley.
“I want that bag,” she said.
70
The past six months had been about as fucked-up as a life could be, but still: this was the sickest ever.
He had genuinely considered kidnapping that woman—he’d had to, to guarantee Kerim’s protection. But he had changed his mind. Maybe it was Roksana’s effect on him. Just because other people have betrayed you, you don’t have to betray yourself—those words had bored into his mind and taken root in some fucked-up way. Or maybe it was Teddy: his ujak had done a U-turn in life. But that wasn’t what Nikola was thinking about. It was how Teddy acted toward him. The way he had always cared. Always been there. Still: his head was chipped to pieces from betrayal. All he wanted was to fuck everyone back, but how was he meant to heal after that? He would just be deceiving himself again, and he really didn’t need that. So, he had broken off the whole thing, left Josephine in her apartment, headed downstairs, and put a hood on Bello instead, who then lay down in the back of the van. All they needed to make sure the client was happy—and, by extension, Kerim—was the bag and the phone.
But now his uncle had turned up. And Emelie—his old lawyer. Plus a crazy woman in a motorbike helmet who radiated cop vibes and was holding a pistol against the head of a mega nerd who was probably the end client. What the hell was going on?
* * *
—
Teddy shouted for the cop to drop her gun, but she didn’t listen.
“Put your hands on your head,” she said to the client, turning to face Nikola and Teddy. “I want that case.”
The client was breathing deeply, hyperventilating. In the background, the van was humming away, halfway out of the garage doors, the engine still running.
“What are you going to do?” Teddy asked.
The crazy cop wasn’t speaking clearly, possibly because she was still wearing her helmet. “I’m going to end him. And then I want that suitcase.”
She pressed her service weapon against the back of the guy’s head. He was shaking. The concrete beneath him turned dark, his piss forming a small pool.
Nikola took a step toward her. Whoever she was, she had to cool down. She had to chill out.
“I don’t know who you are, but you need to lower your gun,” he said as gently as he could. “You can’t shoot.”
The cop’s voice was less steady now. It vibrated against something inside the helmet, possibly because she was so angry. “Just give me the suitcase,” she said, taking the gun off safety.
The clicking sound echoed like an explosion through the garage.
71
Confusion. Uncertainty. Madness. Things were happening too quickly. In too unexpected a form.
Emelie was staring at the motorbike officer who had appeared from nowhere with Anders Henriksson. Nina Ley.
Her brain was racing to assess the situation. The murder of Fredrik O. Johansson and all the other old men Mats had talked about—Teddy had discovered that five of them were dead and one was missing. Two had died of heart attacks and cancer, respectively, one had died in a boating accident, one had been killed by a robber in Brazil, and one had driven himself off the road. All within the space of eighteen months, it now struck Emelie. All since the abuse films were handed in.
The investigation carried out by Nina Ley’s special unit was a failure from the point of view of the police force—no perpetrators had even been identified, never mind arrested. Emelie suspected she now knew why.
“Nina,” she said. “It’s time to stop.”
The motorbike officer turned to her, still pointing her gun at Henriksson. With her other hand, she pushed back the visor.
Nina Ley’s features looked squashed. “No, you’re the ones who need to stop. You’ve done what you needed to do, now I’m taking over.”
Suddenly, Nikola started to move toward Nina. Emelie didn’t understand what he was doing—he shouldn’t approach her; it was too dangerous. But then again, everything going on right now was completely crazy.
Her stomach contracted in a painful cramp.
“I don’t know who you are,” Nina said, aiming her gun at Nikola instead, “but don’t take another
step.”
And then: without Emelie having time to see how, Anders Henriksson got up and knocked the gun from Nina’s hand.
A clattering sound.
Nina threw herself to the ground, grasping for the pistol.
But Henriksson was already making a run for it toward the garage exit.
Teddy shouted: “Grab him!”
Nina yelled something inaudible.
And then everyone started to run. Teddy. Nina. Emelie moved as quickly as she could, bent forward. Behind her, she heard Bello and Nikola shouting.
They came out onto the deserted street. The sun was blazing. It could have been a glorious late afternoon.
Henriksson hadn’t made it very far, and Nina threw herself at him, the pistol back in her hand.
“On your knees!” she ordered, pressing the gun to his face. The man did as she said.
Everyone was standing still. A triangle of death: Teddy and Emelie in one corner, Nicko and Bello in another. On the ground in front of them, Nina and Henriksson formed the third point. A complete absence of movement. The van was still standing in the middle of the doorway.
The barrel of Nina’s gun was pointing directly at Henriksson’s eye.
“You can’t shoot…” Nikola tried to say, but Nina didn’t seem to hear him.
Emelie saw images. She and Josephine had been going to lunch a few years earlier when they had passed a crowd of people demonstrating on Birger Jarlsgatan. She couldn’t even remember what they were protesting about, just the train of people streaming toward Norrmalmstorg like a huge, speckled snake. “Why are they all so angry?” she had asked. Jossan had clutched her designer handbag tight: “Because they believe in a different world. They think that if something’s bad, you have to fight to change it. And demonstrating is their peaceful way of making their voices heard.”
Emelie’s gaze was steady on Nina Ley, and she took a step forward.
Nina didn’t move. Nothing happened. They were all frozen in position. Other than Henriksson: he was trembling.
“Nina,” Emelie tried again. “You have no right to do what you’re about to do, regardless of the crime he’s committed. He’ll get his punishment, but not like this. There are peaceful ways.”
Nina moved slowly. Lowered her gun.
Emelie could feel that the cramp in her stomach had let up slightly.
Tears were running down Henriksson’s cheeks.
Nina looked stiff. Then she said: “No, because this is for Amanda.”
She raised her pistol again.
She was going to shoot.
No.
From the corner of one eye, Emelie saw a movement.
Nikola had thrown himself at Nina.
Three shots rang out. Loud cracks that bounced off the buildings around them.
And then, immediately: Emelie was thrown back several feet. Flung as though she were made of paper. An enormous explosion, a sound louder than anything she had ever heard. The ground shook. The pavement trembled. Her ears were ringing. She saw tarmac. Tasted it. Her hands were on her stomach. The baby inside.
She tried to see. Squinted.
Nina Ley’s body was on the ground in front of her: torn and deformed. She was still wearing her helmet.
Smoke was pouring out of the garage: something must have exploded. None of it made sense. But Emelie understood all the same: she saw the entire building start to crack.
The facade began to split. It looked like it was imploding, collapsing inward, like the images from 9/11. There was smoke and dust everywhere, chunks of concrete and glass. Stone and metal fell to the ground. It sounded like heaven itself was collapsing over their heads.
Leijon Legal Services had been blown to pieces.
Leijon Legal Services no longer existed.
Epilogue
To Emelie, in the event of my incapacitation.
The world turns on its own axis; spinning around itself, in other words. That’s a dizzying thought, isn’t it? That we’re all in motion, all of the time, every second of our lives. When I was a child, I couldn’t understand why we weren’t thrown off the surface, or why we didn’t at least feel the wind on our faces as the world turned. Later, once I was older, I realized that it should give us an interesting perspective: we’re constantly seeing the same things, but always from different positions, and since we as spectators are constantly moving, we must surely, at some point, discover things no one else has seen, things it’s only possible to glimpse from that particular angle, from that particular moment in time.
Emelie, I’m writing these words to you in a hurry. I don’t know what’s going to happen over the next few hours. Maybe I’ll be dead. Maybe I’ll be arrested. Maybe others will be dead. But there’s one thing you should know from the outset: everything I’ve done, I’ve done for Amanda.
Amanda never got to join my journey. But I followed hers, her much too short journey. I was promoted to detective inspector four years ago, though, in truth, I’ve felt like a police officer ever since I was very young. Even in school, I thought of myself as someone who could put things right. But now I’m not so sure. Maybe I’m no longer a police officer, perhaps I’ve been forced to become something else. I’ve noticed something I wasn’t aware of earlier. I’ve started solving problems in my own way. From a new angle, from a new position.
We’re at the beginning of the end of this nightmare. The nightmare that began for Amanda much earlier than I thought.
I’ve just realized that you and your partner have led me to one of the last pieces of the puzzle. You just called me to say that you have found a bag full of material from Hallenbro Storgården—hell on earth.
Back when I showed you the film clips during the interviews with Katja, I realized that you had recognized something. Perhaps you saw the similarity between me and my daughter, Amanda—but how were you supposed to understand the link? Amanda and I were always very similar. Not just in terms of appearance; we also shared the same strength of will. It’s just that we put it to use in different ways.
You aren’t bad people, you and Teddy Maksumic. You bear no responsibility for what has happened. On the contrary, I’m grateful to you for leading me to Fredrik O. Johansson. You have also suffered: I know they tried to blow your Teddy to pieces and that his nephew was injured as a result, I’ve found evidence as to who was behind this. I know that Teddy was arrested and mistakenly accused of what happened at the estate, and I let that happen. Forgive me, it was only temporary, it was only to avoid any disruptions and to gain more time.
There is one man remaining that I need to deal with: I’ve long called him “the helper” because I didn’t know his real name, but you have now led me to him. You and Teddy have been every bit as smart as I hoped.
So, I’m sitting here, alone on Midsummer’s Eve, about to climb onto my motorbike. I’ve already contacted the relevant telephone company and know that he has been using his phone in the vicinity of Leijon Legal Services. Maybe he’s still there. I’ll find him: Anders Henriksson. The helper. The lawyer who was with them from the beginning. Ever since Mats Emanuelsson was kidnapped. He may not have been directly involved in the crimes like Fredrik O. Johansson and the others, but he is guilty all the same. He was part of the machinery. He has made it possible.
Amanda was one of the girls on the hard drive that Mats Emanuelsson handed in. She never told me what she had been through, but I had to watch as she and the other girl, Katja, were raped by four men at once. They urinate on my daughter, they force things inside her. They laugh when she cries out in pain and fear. I’ll never be able to erase those thoughts, they’re always there, like a film between me and reality.
For Amanda, there was no way out. I know that when she took her own life, she had tried. I know that when she ended her suffering, she actually wanted to live. But what they did to her had
changed her soul, and buried it far too deep.
I couldn’t save her.
When I began studying the films as the lead investigator a few years ago, I gained even more of an understanding. I never told anyone that my daughter was one of the girls. There was no point, doing so wouldn’t bring Amanda back. Some wondered why the investigation never led anywhere, some questioned my and my colleagues’ competence. But the investigation went further than they knew—just not in the way they wanted. I’ve taken care of everything myself. On the side. Without risking some pathetic Swedish court pretending that morals don’t exist.
I’m sure you understand, Emelie, because you are carrying new life inside you. Every day and every night, every breath I endure, all I can think of is my daughter. And the more I’ve dealt with my nightmare, the more it has grown. Amanda wasn’t alone, I’ve identified at least 25 of the 30+ girls who were abused. I’ve also tracked down the majority of the men.
Sometimes, I think that there’s an image of the male sexual predator as being a lone wolf, a social outcast, perhaps someone with slight cognitive difficulties. And yes, some are like that. But the vast majority have proven to be the opposite. Just think of Göran Lindberg or the French presidential candidate Dominique Strauss-Kahn. All men with social skills, powerful men, men in high positions, with an insatiable appetite for damaging women, girls, children.
The network has been active for more than fifteen years now, and no one has ever suspected them, not even when the girls talked about the abuse with psychologists, counselors, and social workers. Their trappings of power protected them, their roots in society strengthened them. No one could believe it was true.
What I couldn’t work out was how they knew you would be meeting Mats in Oslo, nor who had helped that rotten Sundén out in Håga the year before last—until I found the police officer, that is. His name is Patrik Wallin, the Stockholm district commissioner, and he is one of the perpetrators. I discovered his involvement by sheer chance, as I was reviewing who had searched for Teddy on the computer system after he escaped. Our system is intelligent in that sense—all searches are registered, as well as who made them. Even when they’re made by high-ranking officials. Commissioner Wallin stuck out, he caught my attention. So, Emelie, if I only have a few hours left, it will be your job to make sure he is arrested.