Box 21

by Anders Roslund

  ‘Why the hell take hostages in the mortuary? No windows. No other escape routes at all. Even if she shoots the whole lot, we will get her in the end. As soon as she tries to escape, or one of the marksmen gets her in his sight. She must realise that, must have known it from the outset. I don’t get it.’

  Hermansson was sitting in the middle of the room, but had so far been silent. Ewert had noticed that she had said very little since she arrived. Perhaps chattering wasn’t her thing, or perhaps being the only woman made her reticent, as the men were all experienced and automatically took all the space they needed.

  But now she stood up and looked straight at Ewert.

  ‘There is another possibility.’

  He liked her broad dialect, it inspired trust. He felt he had to take what she said seriously.

  ‘Explain.’

  She paused. She wasn’t going to let this thought go: she was confident she was right. Still, there was that odd feeling of insecurity. She detested it but couldn’t suppress it, not when they looked at her like that, like she was a little girl. She knew they didn’t think of her like that, yet that was how she felt.

  ‘Grajauskas is badly injured and must be in pain. She can’t hold out for much longer. But I don’t think she thinks like you. She has gone beyond the limit already and done things she probably thought herself incapable of. I think she’s made up her mind. My feeling is that she has no intention of trying to come out of the mortuary.’

  Ewert stood very still, a rare sight. He constantly had to fight his restlessness, his heavy body was always pacing about, and even when he sat down he moved his arms or his feet, stamping or gesticulating or twisting his torso from side to side. Never still.

  But now he was. Hermansson had just said what he should have understood himself.

  He sighed, started moving again, circled their temporary desk.

  ‘Bengt.’

  Bengt was standing in the doorway, holding on to it.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Bengt, I want you to phone her again.’

  ‘At once?’

  ‘I have the feeling we’re in a bloody hurry.’

  Bengt went off to the phone in the middle of the room, but didn’t sit down at once. Precious seconds were slipping away and he had to fight down the awful sense of dread, the same feeling he had had in the garden when her torn back had haunted him.

  He knew who she was.

  He had known ever since he stood outside the flat at Völund Street.

  The feeling of unease, of dread, was worse now.

  Bengt glanced at the paper on the wall to check the number he was to use, then at Ewert, who was putting the earphone in place.

  He dialled. Eight rings went through. Nothing.

  He looked at the wall, at the paper displaying the enlarged number of the mobile phone.

  He tried again. Eight, ten, twelve rings. No reply.

  He shook his head and put the receiver down.

  ‘She’s turned them off. Both of them.’

  Bengt’s eyes followed Ewert, who kept walking in worried circles and whose face was bright red when he shouted.

  ‘A fucking prostitute!’

  He was about to shout more abuse when he saw the time. He checked his watch, then he looked at the clock. He lowered his voice.

  ‘One and a half minutes to go.’

  She knew the hostages would obey. They were sitting still. Just in case, she had a look. There they were in the storeroom, the air thick with archive dust. They were sitting silently in a row with their backs pressed against the wall, their heads turned towards the noise of the opening door and they saw her. She showed them the gun, aiming it at them for long enough to remind them how death felt.

  Her dad had fallen forward. His hands had been tied behind his back. She should have run up to him then. She hadn’t dared to. There was a gun against her head; it hurt when the man who held it there increased the pressure against the thin skin over her temple.

  She shut the door and checked the time. Their five minutes was up.

  The receiver was off the phone on the wall, now she returned it to its cradle. She turned the mobile handset on, pressed the button with the green icon and dialled in the code the doctor had told her to use.

  She waited only a few seconds.

  They phoned, as she thought they would. The black telephone on the wall.

  She let it ring a few times and then picked up.

  ‘Your time is up.’

  Bengt Nordwall’s voice. ‘Lydia, we need—’

  Her hand hit the mouthpiece hard. ‘Have you done what I asked?’

  ‘We need more time. Just a little longer. To sort out the fault on the lines.’

  Cold sweat was pouring off her. Every breath seemed to whip inside her body. It was hard to keep her thoughts together and fight the pain. She used the gun to hit the mouthpiece. Several blows this time, harder and harder. She said nothing.

  Bengt Nordwall waited, heard her walk away and her footsteps growing fainter. She knew he would consult with the others, the men who were listening in, standing with their earphones on and trying to understand.

  He gripped the receiver and called out, as loudly as he dared.

  ‘Hello!’

  He picked up an echo. His one word danced around the room.

  ‘Hello!’

  And then the sound he didn’t want to hear. The noise of the gunshot drowned out everything.

  She had fired in an enclosed space, and the force hitting the mouthpiece was violent.

  It was hard to know. Maybe only a few seconds had passed. Maybe it was much longer.

  ‘Now I’ve got three live hostages. And one dead. You have another five minutes. My phone lines are to be open for outgoing calls. If they don’t work, I’ll shoot another one.’

  Her voice was steady.

  ‘I advise you to remove the men who’re in the corridor outside. I’m about to set off a few charges.’

  Ewert had heard the shot. He had waited out her silence. When she spoke he had concentrated on the sound of her voice, to sense if she was calm or just pretending to be calm. That was all he could do; he didn’t understand one word of their bloody Russian anyway.

  John was leaning over to get close, mumbling the translation of what she was saying. Ewert took it in and swore.

  He swung round in Sven’s direction. ‘Fix the goddam phones, Sven. She has to have her outgoing calls and as fast as hell.’ Then back to Edvardson. They agreed that his men should retreat a good bit away from the mortuary entrance. ‘No bugger is going to stand outside and get killed!’

  Ewert paused for a second, breathing heavily, then put his hand on Sven’s shoulder and looked him in the eyes.

  ‘Sven, get a flak jacket and put it on.’

  Sven almost twitched, Ewert’s hand on his shoulder; he realised he had never touched him before.

  ‘I want you to go down there. Down into the basement. I need to know what’s happening. Your immediate impressions. Eyes I can trust.’

  Sven settled down at a point where one corridor split in two, about fifty metres from the main door to the mortuary suite. He sheltered behind the wall of the second corridor together with three men from the Flying Squad. After less than two minutes he heard the door they were guarding open and went down on his stomach, pushed himself forwards and looked in the mirror that had been positioned further down the passage.

  The corridor was dark, but was lit indirectly by the strong light from behind the opened door. A man was moving about the faint circle of light, just an outline of his dark body, leaning over and pulling at something.

  It took a little while before Sven realised what it was.

  The man was pulling at an arm. He was dragging a body.

  Sven pulled out night-vision binoculars from a bag next to a police officer, considered the risk of showing himself, crawled to the corner of the corridor and directed the binoculars at the man.

  It was difficult to make out his features. But he saw him suddenly let go of the arm, disappear through the
door and slam it shut.

  Sven crept forward, taking deep breaths, pressing the radio to his mouth.

  ‘Grens. Over.’

  It crackled. They always did.

  ‘Grens here. Over.’

  ‘I saw a man, just now. Dragging a lifeless body from the mortuary. He’s gone back in, left the body in the corridor. I saw the wires. We can’t go to it. It’s fused!’

  Ewert was just about to reply when his voice was drowned by a strange noise. The sound of a human body exploding.

  The radio went silent.

  Or perhaps it hadn’t, and Sven’s cry had been there all the time.

  ‘She did it! Ewert! She’s blown up the person who was lying there.’

  His voice was weak.

  ‘Did you hear me? Ewert! Shit, that all that’s left. Only shit!’

  Lisa Öhrström was frightened. She had lived with a pain in her stomach for a long time, now a burning, screeching pain that forced her to stop mid-step to check if she could still breathe normally. She had seen the man who had presumably thrown the punches and let the wheelchair roll down the stairs, and knew that the images would haunt her for as long as she could endure living with them.

  She hadn’t eaten anything, had tried a sandwich, then an apple, but it wasn’t any good. She couldn’t swallow, wasn’t producing any saliva.

  She couldn’t quite take it in.

  That he was dead now.

  What she couldn’t work out was whether it was a relief to know exactly where he was, what he was not doing, that he wasn’t hurting himself or others – or was it grief? Or simply that she was preparing herself for having to tell Ylva and Mum?

  She spent more time thinking about how to make Jonathan and Sanna understand than anything else. They were Ylva’s children, but she loved them like her own. They were her substitute children, the children she’d never had herself.

  Your Uncle Hilding is dead.

  Your Uncle Hilding was killed when he fell down a staircase.

  Lisa went back to the kitchen, needing the coffee she had made this morning. One of the policemen, who had been ordered to stay behind in the ward, had given in to her pleading and, in the end, told her more than he should. She had learnt more about the visitor with the shaved skull who had killed her brother, the man she had recognised in police identification photograph thirty-two. His name was Lang; he was a professional hitman, someone who was paid to threaten and use violence. He had been charged with crimes of violence quite a few times, and in many more cases had been suspected and arrested but gone free because the witnesses had changed their minds about testifying. That was how these people worked, using threats to instil fear, because frightened people don’t talk.

  Jochum stayed in the car outside the hospital entrance, but didn’t bother to look round after Slobodan. The guy was no doubt running around trying to be boss, getting a hard-on because it was him who was tidying up after Jochum this time.

  I shouldn’t have been seen, he said to himself, but that’s what happens, sooner or later you take your eye off the ball, and risk your position. The little guys are after you in a flash, they forget quickly and need to be reminded.

  He turned the ignition key to check the time. The figures lit up. Twenty minutes. More than enough. Slobodan should’ve had time to tell her a thing or two.

  Lisa was leaning against the kitchen sink. The coffee was stronger than it should be but she drank some all the same. It felt good to be able to swallow. She wasn’t even halfway through her list of patients. A long day ahead, as if the morning hadn’t been enough.

  She was just about to put the cup down when the ward sister came in, flushed and agitated.

  ‘Dr Öhrström! Shouldn’t you go home?’

  ‘Not alone. I couldn’t bear it, Ann-Marie. I’ll stay here.’

  The sister shook her head slowly. She still looked flushed.

  ‘A patient has been murdered and you saw it. Shouldn’t you get in touch with the staff counsellor? At the very least?’

  ‘Patients often die.’

  ‘It was your brother.’

  ‘Ann-Marie, my brother died a long time ago.’

  The ward sister looked at Lisa and gently touched her cheek.

  ‘There’s someone here to see you.’

  Lisa caught the other woman’s eye, as she drained the remains of the coffee.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘I don’t know. But I don’t like the look of him.’

  ‘A patient?’

  ‘No.’

  Ann-Marie sat down at the table with its red-and-white-checked tablecloth.

  ‘And what does he want?’

  ‘No idea. But he wouldn’t go away. Needed to talk to you, he said.’

  As Lisa pulled a chair up to the table, she felt the floor under her feet move and heard the cups in the cupboards rattle.

  It felt like the whole place was shaking.

  She knew that parts of the hospital had been evacuated, but did not know why. The kitchen was shuddering and she had the distinct impression that a bomb had gone off. Not that she had ever experienced a bomb blast, but that was her only thought in the after-shock of the explosion.

  Jochum Lang turned the key again, checked the time, started the windscreen wipers so he could see out while he waited. What a day. The rain was set to carry on until after dark.

  Then it happened.

  He heard it clearly, a dull thud from somewhere inside the hospital. He turned around, tried to peer through the wet glass of the automatic doors. Explosives. He had no doubt. It was that kind of noise.

  He prepared himself for more, but that was it. Just the one bang and then silence.

  The room was too brightly lit. The bloody overhead light had irritated Ewert ever since he came into the Casualty operating theatre and started to move things that were in the way. He had just heard the noise of a human body exploding, followed by Sven’s desperate shouts over the radio.

  Bloody lights, he thought. Can’t stand it for a moment longer. How can anyone live with all this light? He sat down, then stood up again and almost ran across the room, past the trolley where Edvardson and Hermansson were standing, threw himself at the switch and turned off the light.

  A quiet moment. No exploding bodies. No prostitutes taking charge of other people’s lives. A quiet moment. The light, his irritation, the dark, the light switch were all tangible things he could understand. And he needed to understand if he was to fathom what had happened. Just a quiet moment.

  It was still light enough for them to see each other. Ewert started pacing again; he needed his circling and forgot the darkened lamps. Concentrated on his breathing, felt the blood return to his face. He stopped when he reached the corner where Bengt was sitting with the earphones still on, and put his hand on his friend’s shoulder.

  ‘Call her.’

  The shaking stopped as abruptly as it had started. Lisa Öhrström was still at the table. She leaned forward and put her hand on top of the ward sister’s.

  ‘Ann-Marie.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Outside your office. He frightens me. I can’t think why, but what with Mr Oldéus being murdered and the police snooping about all morning . . .I don’t know, it’s too much.’

  Lisa was silently looking at the red-and-white-checked pattern on the tablecloth when there was a knock on the door. She turned. A man, dark hair and moustache, slightly overweight. She caught a glimpse of Ann-Marie nodding. It was him.

  ‘Sorry to trouble you.’

  His voice was soft, his tone friendly.

  ‘Was it you who wanted to see me?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘What is it about?’

  ‘A private matter. Is there somewhere we could talk?’

  Lisa’s stomach churned. One part of her wanted to scream and run away, the other was suddenly furious. Her attacks of fear had nothing to do with her own life and everything to do with Hilding and his damned addiction. Her whole life had been dictated by his attempts to escape and he controlled her sti
ll; even after his death, he was draining her strength.

  She shook her head, didn’t reply straight away. Her stomach was burning, fear tugging at her mind.

  ‘I’d prefer to stay here.’

  Ewert wanted him to call her. Bengt reached out for the receiver; he would have preferred to wait a little longer, a few more moments of peace. He had disliked that shuddering movement under his feet.

  His mouth felt so dry, he swallowed, but that wasn’t enough. Nothing could rid him of the fear that crawled all over him, the persistent unease. He kept wondering if he should speak up, admit that he knew who she was.

  Not yet.

  It wasn’t necessary yet.

  He had better do as Ewert asked. When he leaned forward to dial the number of the mortuary, the phone rang.

  He turned, caught Ewert’s eye and saw that he was putting in his earpiece. Two rings and then Bengt replied.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Nordwall?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You heard that, didn’t you?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And you all know what it means?’

  ‘Yes, we do.’

  ‘Shame that it took another dead hostage to make you understand.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Let me make two points clear. One, I don’t negotiate. Two, you can’t get in here without blowing the whole place up.’

  ‘We have understood that too.’

  ‘The hostages are fused and so is the mortuary.’

  ‘Lydia, if you keep calm I’m sure we can come to an agreement. But we have to know why you’re doing all this.’

  ‘I will tell you.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Later.’

  ‘What do you want now?’

  ‘You. I want you down here.’

  Now he knew why she had taken hostages. Somehow, he had known all along. The sense of vague dread now turned into something else, a feeling he had never experienced before. The anguished fear of death.

  He closed his eyes and spoke. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It’s hard to keep watching the hostages at the same time as I’m running about playing games with telephones. I want you here. You and I will speak Russian together. You can make the phone calls when it’s time to contact your colleagues.’