Once again she carefully sifts through the material surrounding Lenya Barzani’s death.
The CSI and computer forensics reports are coldly formal, just like the autopsy report from the pathologist and the evaluations from SKL, the state crime lab.
The technicians indicated that they found footprints from both Lenya and Schorsch Barzani in the snow on the balcony, and that there were numerous signs of a struggle. They found traces of Lenya’s blood. After scraping her fingernails they detected evidence of her father’s skin under them. Samples taken on the first day Schorsch was examined showed traces of Lenya’s DNA in wounds on his cheeks. Jenny searches for the major points in the pathologist’s long report. Lenya’s neck was broken, her skull and brain sustained injuries. Her face was swollen where there had been bruising. Her left arm was broken. The pathologist was unable to determine whether all of these injuries happened simultaneously or in brief intervals. Theoretically she may have sustained some of her injuries before falling from the balcony. Her lungs indicated that she was a smoker, but apart from that the girl was healthy. Neither drugs nor alcohol were found in her blood or any traces of semen inside of her.
The computer forensics experts easily accessed Lenya’s laptop and went through her files, e-mails, and Facebook account. Their report included an attachment of about a hundred pages of documented conversations between the girl and her friends, as well as a printout of something that looked like a diary.
Jenny spent hours absorbed in reading the printouts. The e-mail exchanges between Lenya and her friends revealed that Schorsch had been very strict with both Lenya and Lara. Granted—just as he had admitted—he had allowed them a certain amount of freedom in choosing their clothes and activities, but he made himself very clear when it came to the most important thing of all: their choice of boyfriends.
There was no mistaking that Lenya was in love with a boy named Joakim. The e-mail exchanges between him and Lenya were intense, and she gushed over him to her girlfriends.
Meanwhile, she expressed her deepening distress in her diary. Several years earlier, her father had explained that she was to marry Rawand, his cousin Naushad’s son. The fact that her chosen husband lived with his father in Badinan, in northern Iraq, did not make things less complicated.
In a private Facebook exchange, Lenya had told her friend Ebba that her father had discovered her relationship with Joakim and gone ballistic. He had subjected Lenya to a long and rigorous interrogation. After that he grounded her and said she could not go anywhere at all without either her father or Azad as chaperone.
And not only that. Her diary also disclosed that Schorsch had ordered his wife, Runak, to bring Lanya to Haval, an Iraqi in Tensta who claimed to be a doctor. The purpose of this visit was to determine whether or not Lenya was still a virgin.
Lenya described the encounter as disgusting. Her appointment with Haval took place in an ordinary apartment, and Lenya got no impression that he was actually a trained doctor. Her mother had looked away as the man poked around her genitals with his fingers. Lenya described the experience as both painful and deeply humiliating. In her text messages, she told Ebba that she had never had sex with Joakim or anyone else, but that her hymen had broken a year or so ago during ballet practice.
When Schorsch received the “doctor’s” report he had become even more furious and grounded Lenya indefinitely. This took place about a week before her fall from the balcony, and during that time, Lenya’s brother had met her at school each day to walk her home.
Jenny put the papers down, drank some coffee and sighed deeply. Would she ever get used to these cultural differences?
Lenya’s mother, Runak, and an interpreter are sitting across the table from Jenny.
Runak, weary from lack of sleep and worn out from crying, answers Jenny’s questions only briefly. She knows Schorsch well after all these years. He loves his daughters and would never harm a hair on their heads. Runak wants to know when Schorsch can come home and cries hysterically when she gets no definite answer.
Two hours later, at Jenny’s second interview with fourteen-year-old Lara, instead of an interpreter, a woman from social services in Tensta is present.
Jenny gets no clear answers to her questions. She leans across the table, and smiles at the girl.
“Are you afraid of something or someone, Lara? I promise that nothing is going to happen to you.”
The girl is silent for a moment. Then she shrugs her shoulders, looks Jenny in the eyes and says:
“How can you promise anything? You don’t even understand what this is all about.”
You’re right. How could I ever understand?
“Then tell me, Lara. Explain it to me so I can understand.”
The girl just stares down at the table, silent.
Her interrogations of Azad Barzani don’t go much better. He replies laconically to some questions, and answers others with a shrug of his shoulders or not at all.
“But, Azad, do you think that Lenya was afraid of your dad?”
“Why would she be?”
“Is it true that recently Lenya wasn’t allowed out by herself? That your father told you to meet her at school every day, to make it impossible for her to see Joakim?”
“Who’s Joakim?”
“Lenya had a boyfriend named Joakim, didn’t she?”
“She didn’t have a boyfriend.”
“But we’ve already spoken to Joakim, and he said that he and Lenya were in a relationship.”
“He’s lying.”
Not once during the questioning did Azad meet her gaze, and Jenny knows that he will never tell her anything.
Another world. A world of men with a concept of honor that differs from the Swedish one. For a moment she considers letting some male colleague take over the interrogations.
But—no way in hell!
She is Detective Captain Jenny Lindh.
The next day, Jenny questions Lenya’s best friend, Ebba Green. Ebba isn’t afraid. She confirms much of what Jenny has already learned from the computer printouts.
Lenya was definitely afraid of Schorsch. Her father had a terrible temper and was constantly setting up new rules for Lenya. She was hardly allowed to use makeup, always had to wear pants instead of skirts and having a boyfriend was out of the question—she was set to marry the older man, Rawand, in Iraq. Ebba said that they had talked about this a million times and Lenya wanted nothing more than to get away from home. But how would she do that? She was seventeen, a high school student, with no other place to live and no job. And besides, even if she had escaped, Schorsch, his friends and his relatives would have found her and brought her back home.
According to Ebba, Schorsch was a family dictator, and both the Barzani sisters were afraid of him. Lenya had even said that she feared for her life, that her father would kill her if he discovered that she had a boyfriend. And her mother, Runak, would never dare to stand up to Schorsch.
After all, she was only a woman.
The interrogation transcripts were typed out and entered, along with all the other investigation reports, into the DurTvå system —a computerized log of pretrial investigation material.
Shortly before lunch the next day Jenny gets a call from the prosecutor who curtly tells her she should report to his office immediately with an update. Slightly annoyed, she drives to Solna again, hurries along the corridors to Magnus Stolt’s office and takes a seat in his visitor’s chair. The prosecutor pushes his glasses up on his forehead. “Did you get anything from the door-to-door?”
“Hardly. Nobody seems to have seen or heard anything. It was midmorning when it happened. I suppose most people were at work.”
He gives a short laugh. “Work? People in that area are hardly known for working themselves to death, are they? You know the type—the ones who are said to enrich our culture.”
His voice drips with sarcasm. Lindh has heard it before, in paddy wagons, in the corridors of police headquarters. Cultural Enrichers. Camel
jockeys. Dune coons.
If the police, with their special training, can’t accept these people as citizens, then how can the rest of the population be expected to do so?
Jenny has seen on the news that populist, right-wing extremist parties have gained considerable support in recent years. Jackboots.
She shudders.
You can’t hate people just because of their origin.
Stolt shuffles through his piles of paper and pulls out some that are marked with a yellow Post-it note.
“You’re saying that nobody has seen or heard anything. But here’s a transcript from a witness named Pettersson who says that he heard shouting and arguing, and that he saw the father and daughter fighting on the balcony.”
“That’s true. But for one thing, that man is obviously an alcoholic. He reeked of liquor when we spoke to him. And for another, he keeps changing his story around. You can see from the transcript that he’s confused.”
“But it says here that he even saw the father throw his daughter from the balcony.”
Jenny takes a deep breath.
“But if you read on, it says later that he isn’t sure about that. I suspect the defense would rip him to pieces pretty fast if you put him on the stand.”
Stolt looks irritated and puts the papers down.
“Do another door-to-door. Without any witnesses or supporting evidence I won’t be able to charge him with murder.”
“But what if he didn’t do it?”
The words slip out before she’s had time to think.
Jenny notices a small muscle twitch near his eye. Stolt pulls his glasses back down over his eyes, leans over the desk on his elbows and fixes her with his stare.
“If he didn’t do it? Get a grip, Lindh. Read the interview with her best friend. Lenya feared for her life. This is just one more honor killing and I’m gonna put Barzani away for life. Stone Age behavior is not acceptable in this country.”
Jenny Lindh stands up. As she leaves his office she hears him say quietly: “Fucking Hajjis.”
She turns around and looks at Stolt.
“Did you say something?”
He forces a smile.
“No, no. It was nothing.”
The next morning Jenny interrogates Schorsch Barzani again. As she is about to start, in comes the prosecutor, out of breath and with his face showing clear signs that he’s under pressure. Both the morning papers and the tabloids are still headlining Lenya’s death so maybe Stolt has been fielding phone calls from police headquarters as well as from politicians. Jenny’s heard what can happen when a case becomes politically sensitive. The next election is closing in. The center/right-wing coalition government is under attack from the opposition and will resort to any tricks to stay in power. Statistically significant opinion polls show that support for the populist, anti-immigrant party has reached two-digit percentages. Not only does that mean that it will become more influential, but it will likely continue to hold the balance of power in parliament in the little country called Middle-of-the-Road.
A political disaster.
And now an immigrant girl is dead. Again.
Her father is suspected of murder. Just like so many fathers before him.
The result of this trial could have major political consequences.
Will the small, but democratic country allow immigrants from different cultures to murder their daughters in order to “protect their honor”?
It seems to Jenny that Schorsch has become smaller, hunched over. When she asks her questions about that particular day, the point at which Lenya died, he sticks to the same story as before.
He had been watching TV when she walked past. He followed her onto the balcony and yes, there was a fight when he tried to stop her from jumping.
As before, she asks why he didn’t leave the apartment and run down to the courtyard after Lenya fell.
He shakes his head slowly.
“It was like . . . I paralyzed. No could move. I just sat, no could understand.”
Prosecutor Stolt squirms in his seat, gives Jenny an irritated look that says: Get going damn it—c’mon, sink him!
But she asked her questions again and again and received the same answers. Asked about the family’s escape to Sweden, about Lenya’s childhood, about how Schorsch thought his daughters should conduct their lives. Asked what he was doing during the minutes and seconds before she fell. Asked why he was barefoot.
And sure, he is a cliché that would make any xenophobic Swede smirk. A typical Muhammad, dominating his wife and daughters, writing his own laws and administering whatever punishments suit him.
But then they return again and again to that moment when Lenya walked out onto the balcony.
And Schorsch gets that look in his eyes.
Jenny is becoming increasingly more convinced of his innocence.
Granted—through his dominance and tyranny, she feels certain that he made Lenya afraid of him. Maybe even systematically broke her spirit, contributed to her suicidal thoughts. If the prosecutor can prove that, it might lead to Schorsch’s conviction. Jenny doesn’t know if any similar case has ever gone to trial before.
But she does know that there is a world of difference between causing someone’s death and murder.
Jenny Lindh gives it one last try. She makes an effort to sound more determined, looks Barzani in the eye and says:
“Schorsch, isn’t it time for you to confess? You threw Lenya from the balcony, didn’t you?”
The tired, gray-haired man looks at her in surprise. This woman who had been so kind to him up until now. After a few seconds he bursts hopelessly into tears.
The defense attorney lays a gentle hand on his shoulder, and between sobs Schorsch manages to reply:
“No . . . I . . . loved her . . . !”
Magnus Stolt closes his notebook irritably and quickly leaves the room.
And Jenny Marina Elisabeth Lindh covers her eyes with her hand and wonders why the hell she ever became a police officer.
The pressure on her is increasing. Stolt wants a report at least twice a day and Jenny has little news to give him. Operation door-to-door number two yielded no better results than the first one. The witness Pettersson has been questioned again, numerous times. And every time there are discrepancies in what he’s seen, heard, and experienced. It is obvious that he greatly enjoys the attention and loves responding to questions. The problem is that he gives a different answer each time.
And that he reeks of booze.
Jenny questions Joakim Merker, the boy who was supposedly Lenya’s boyfriend. She had spoken to him previously a few times on the phone; now everything is formal and official.
Joakim is eighteen years old, a senior in high school majoring in media studies. He gives a calm and quiet impression, and Jenny likes him from the start.
He tells her that they met in school about six months ago. Then one thing led to another, they continued seeing each other, they took walks, went for coffee, talked—like things we usually do.
And it turned into love.
Of course Joakim can’t tell her the exact day he fell in love with Lenya, or she him. He remembers certain days and dates when they said or did something special. Like the time he wanted to buy her a ring from a shop at Hötorget in Stockholm, but she couldn’t accept it for fear her parents might see it and ask what it meant.
The boy tells his story. Every once in a while, Jenny tosses in a question or two. She is absolutely convinced that he is telling her the truth.
Yes, they had hugged and kissed, eventually made out a little. In doorways, on footpaths, in places where they could avoid being seen. Even in the basement of Joakim’s house. And yes, Lenya had come with him up to his room, but his mother or siblings were always at home, so . . . no, they had never gone any farther.
Yes, they had wanted to. But Lenya wouldn’t dare.
Before Lenya, Joakim had had two girlfriends, both of them Swedish. He had had sex with one of them. Lenya had t
old him that she was a virgin, sworn that she would happily give herself to Joakim, that she loved him and wanted to live with him for the rest of her life.
But then she also told him about the rest, and sorrow clouded their romance.
If Schorsch found out that she had a boyfriend, both Lenya and Joakim could end up in big trouble, she had said. And if her father discovered that they had had sex, she’d be killed.
Maybe Joakim, too.
At first, he hadn’t believed her.
Slowly, she convinced him to believe her and helped him to understand.
But she couldn’t make him accept it.
How do you kill love when it’s at its strongest? How do you say good-bye because someone else refuses to respect your love?
How, when you’re only seventeen or eighteen?
You can’t.
They had continued meeting in secret. Hugged, kissed, caressed.
But nothing more.
Joakim had been happy and somewhere deep inside he hoped that one day, all of it would be resolved. He had even suggested to Lenya that they could explain everything to Schorsch, and Joakim could ask him for his daughter’s hand.
That day, the look on Lenya’s face was filled with sorrow and she just shook her head as tears welled up in her eyes.
That had only been a few weeks ago.
One morning she had arrived at school completely beside herself, pulled Joakim into a corner and told him what had happened. Somehow—she didn’t know how—Schorsch had found out about their relationship. From now on she would be watched and they could no longer see each other. Azad would pick her up at school every day, so all they could do was communicate secretly via cell phone texts and e-mails—unless those things were also taken away from her.
Joakim had comforted her as best he could, but he felt a burning pain in his chest as he watched Azad walk away with Lenya after school, without so much as a glance back from her.
The next day, during their first break, she told him what her father had said the evening before:
If he found out that they were seeing each other outside of school, both she and Joakim would die.
A Darker Shade of Sweden Page 24