Like so many other women, Agneta had completely adapted to her husband’s interests and lifestyle. But she’d done so for a clear purpose: to achieve something. Something that malevolent men had demanded from her.
Sara stepped into the locker room, changed into her more durable work clothes and gathered her equipment. Pistol, handcuffs, truncheon, pepper spray, gloves, the compact comms radio and the small but powerful torch. Sometimes it was handy to be able to blind the punters when they were caught red-handed – it increased the confusion and further paralysed their ability to act rashly. Fewer of them tried to escape or fight.
‘All the animals come out at night.’
Sara looked up at David, who had just entered.
‘Whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens, fairies, dopers, junkies,’ he added.
Sara wasn’t sure Taxi Driver was a suitable source of inspiration in their line of work, but she was glad that he seemed willing to put their row behind them.
When they got down to the car park, she got into the driver’s seat. It would be good to drive – to think about something else.
Then they headed out to the most notorious street in the country. It was undeniably the road in Sweden with the most similarities to Taxi Driver.
‘Not much action yet,’ said David, and Sara looked around.
It wasn’t that late, and the bright summer evening gave the red light district a completely different feeling to a black November night. But in a way, it was sadder like this. So much grime and brutality was to be found even in beautiful summer Sweden. The Sweden that they’d all thought was paradise while growing up.
The light, enchanting nights. The warm breeze. The suddenly outgoing and happy Swedes. All the parties and festivals, all the encounters with new people, all the outdoor seating. Suddenly everyone was open, pleasant and beautiful.
Even on this infamous street, there were young, innocent partakers of nightlife stumbling past on their way to or from the bars. Or perhaps they’d their sights set on city hall for a night-time dip in the midst of a quiet and peaceful city. Simply walking through Stockholm on a summer’s night was an almost supernatural experience, Sara thought to herself. Provided you didn’t happen to be right here.
‘He wasn’t just a spy,’ said Sara without any warning. ‘He was a sex offender, too. He filmed himself raping young girls. And he filmed loads of other men as they did it. So that he could blackmail them.’
‘Jesus Christ!’ said David. ‘Uncle Stellan?’
‘Basically serves him right,’ said Sara. ‘That he got shot, that is.’
David looked at Sara, unsure what to say.
‘He was just like all the other men we see out here every single day. But worse. Sick. How do you end up like that?’
‘Don’t ask me.’
‘And he had two daughters the same age as the girls he was raping.’
‘I’ve never understood how they function,’ David said. ‘Rape, assault, degrade. Then back home to the family.’
‘Imagine being his child.’
‘Do the daughters know about it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Pity he’s dead,’ he said. ‘It would have been bloody good to put away someone like that.’
‘A celebrity?’
‘A dirty old man who thought he could get away with anything.’
They fell silent. They watched the three girls they could see were waiting for clients. Jessica, Nana, Sahara. Made-up names, obviously.
When they headed out at the start of the evening, did they ever consider that they might not come home again? Prostitutes being murdered was fortunately not that common in Sweden, but it wasn’t unheard of.
And no one knew how many disappeared and were never reported missing.
What was it like to be someone that no one cared about?
‘We’ve got a bite in progress,’ said David.
Sara followed his gaze and saw a tall, broad-shouldered man in a baseball cap speaking to the black girl, Jessica. A bit of small talk before making up his mind? Strange behaviour. But Sara was pretty certain. The punters assumed a different posture when they began the actual negotiation. Well, asked for the price. There were those who tried to haggle or get more for their money, but not many.
The man in the baseball cap was nodding to himself while Jessica answered a question he’d asked.
‘Does it help?’ said Sara, while following the conversation outside the entrance to the metro station.
‘That he small talks?’ said David.
‘What we do. Does it help? It never ends. There are always new faces. There are just more and more victims of trafficking.’
‘Think about what it would be like if we didn’t do something.’
A marginal difference, she thought to herself.
‘Show time,’ said David, and Sara saw Jessica and the man begin to head towards Sankt Johannes Church.
David got out of the car, stretched and then began to follow the pair at a distance.
Sara opened the door, but before she could get out, her mobile rang.
She really ought to have hurried along behind her colleague, but she chose to stay where she was as she answered. As if she could tell that it was important.
It was Hall.
Their superintendent.
In the middle of the night.
Sara whistled to David and signalled that he should wait.
‘Nowak.’
‘Tom Hall here. I’m, er . . . It’s come to my attention that you have got involved in a murder investigation in Västerort. Because you knew the murder victim.’
Bloody Lindblad. She always got lazy old Hall to do exactly as she wanted, even though he was her boss.
‘Got involved . . .?’ repeated Sara. ‘In my spare time, I’ve gained access to information that may be relevant, and I’ve passed it to the investigation. Anna Torhall, who’s working on it, is an old friend and course-mate from the Police Academy.’
‘But when you were in possession of important information about a missing person, you contacted German intelligence rather than our own security service or your friend on the investigation.’
‘I . . .’ Sara began.
‘That’s bad enough, but I’ve also been informed that you broke into the home of a private citizen, and additionally harassed Stellan Broman’s children by showing them shocking films of a sexual nature that depicted their murdered father. Is this true?’
Lotta had apparently decided to hit back.
‘I didn’t break in and the case has been closed. And I didn’t harass Lotta and Malin. It was pertinent to the investigation—’
‘An investigation that you aren’t a part of. And films that came into your possession by means that remain unclear and potentially criminal. There are no excuses for this kind of conduct.’
‘I’m sorry if they took it badly. It was with the best of intentions.’
‘Surely you realise that I have no choice?’
Sara didn’t reply. Could this really happen?
‘You’re suspended with immediate effect.’
‘We’re out on patrol. I’m needed here. We’re about to arrest a man paying for sex.’
‘Leave that to your colleagues and go home. Immediately. You’re suspended. And you may be terminated if the investigation proves that the accusations against you are founded. Return your weapon and badge.’
‘Now?’
‘No.’ Hall sighed. ‘The office is closed. As soon as you can in the morning.’
‘Well then, I can finish my shift.’
‘No. You’re to go home. And if you refuse to adhere to the suspension, then you’ll be dismissed without any further investigation. Is that understood?’
Sara processed the information.
‘Is that understood?’ Hall repeated.
‘Yes.’
48
Streets and squares flickered past, people moving in public places at top speed. Cars, bicycles, but above all
, pedestrians. Dressed for the summer, dressed for work, stressed, wandering aimlessly. The cast of a major city.
There was really no reason to watch the films that the program was analysing, but Breuer still preferred to follow them on a screen so that she knew the computers were actually doing their job. It might be an old-fashioned approach, but she didn’t care.
Working together, the computers in the portable command centre in the motorhome could search six hours of CCTV footage each minute. Back at base in Pullach, they would have been able to work at ten times the speed. The limitation meant that they had to concentrate on the cameras positioned at the most frequently visited locations, metro stations and in the city’s taxi cabs.
So far they had nothing.
Breuer couldn’t understand these people. Everyone had an individual personal identification number that was registered all over the place – records that went back centuries and listed everything that had ever happened to each and every citizen, and a legal principle of transparency that meant that anybody could find out anything about anyone of their choosing. But they didn’t have facial recognition cameras.
The Brits, who used nothing but their postcodes as identification, had cameras all over the place. And thanks to facial recognition, they’d been able to prevent a string of terrorist acts.
China based its entire apparatus of control on this technology.
But in this Orwellian post-socialist state, around halfway between Britain and China in Breuer’s eyes, they refused.
That was why the computers weren’t able to find any faces that matched with any of the possible Abu Rasils that Breuer had pulled up over the years. Four different men who might be Rasil. Even that was a long shot, since there wasn’t a single photograph that they knew for certain depicted the terrorist. And everyone who claimed to have met him was dead. It was like hunting a whisper, as Strauss put it.
If they got hold of Agneta Broman, that might be a way to Abu Rasil. But they couldn’t find her either.
‘No hits at the airports, railway stations or ferry terminals. None of our informants have a clue where Abu Rasil is, or where the meeting place might be.’
Breuer heard the doubt in Strauss’s voice.
‘But they say Rasil is here?’
‘Yes,’ Strauss replied. ‘But isn’t it just wishful thinking? They’ve built up a myth about the elusive Abu Rasil that’s grown over the years he’s been gone – so now there must be something huge happening to justify the long wait. A bit like Christians awaiting the resurrection of Christ.’
‘You’re forgetting Hattenbach,’ said Breuer.
‘But perhaps that was all they had? Maybe there was only one bomb left?’
‘In the West, certainly. But we know nothing about the East. Except that the bombs that were once there were enormous. And that there’s nothing to indicate their removal. This is just about who could trigger them, and who is actually willing to do so. The blast in Hattenbach was presumably just a taste of what’s to come – to show they have the ability. That was why they picked a small bomb. They want payment for the big ones.’
Strauss looked heavy-hearted. Although he’d been involved in preventing terrorist attacks on several occasions, and had dealt with presumed terrorists, this was on an altogether different scale. Hundreds of thousands of deaths – perhaps millions.
‘All you have to realise,’ said Breuer, ‘is that given all the terrorist attacks in Europe in recent decades, there are plenty of people who would be willing to set off those bombs. You of all people should know that.’
‘But how do you stop a shadow?’ Strauss asked.
‘Don’t forget how close I’ve come several times,’ said Breuer. ‘I know how he thinks. How he works. He’s in the country. The handover is tonight – or tomorrow night at the latest. Believe me.’
But Strauss didn’t know what to believe.
49
Suspended.
The punishment itself didn’t bother Sara. She’d never been career-focused, and she was uninterested in what her bosses thought of her. But she thought it was idiotic to pull an experienced officer off the street just because Lotta wanted to screw with her. And above all, it bothered her that she was excluded from the investigation. It was just like when they were kids. Suddenly she was no longer allowed to participate.
The murder inquiry had turned out to have plenty of points of contact with her own life and childhood, but it was really all about every Swede’s life. The entire population had grown up with Uncle Stellan as a unifying figurehead, as the only indisputable positive force in the country. Politicians were crooked and athletes could let you down when it came to the crunch, but you could always rely on Uncle Stellan.
Sara sent a text message to Anna.
Suspended. Let me know if anything happens.
She received a thumbs-up emoji in reply.
She was certain that Anna hadn’t said a word to Hall or Lindblad about Sara being involved in the investigation. Not even to Bielke. While Sara was angry with Hall, Lindblad and Lotta Broman, she was in equal measure glad to have her friend.
But now she was completely at a loose end on an involuntary basis. Sara had messaged the kids to say she was at home and wanted to see them. So far, neither had replied.
While she waited, she summarised the situation. Geiger was dead. Kellner was dead. Ober was dead. What was going to happen next?
What was Abu Rasil up to?
Did he even exist?
What was Agneta up to?
No, Sara thought to herself. She couldn’t spend her whole evening ruminating on the Bromans. They’d taken up far too much of her life already.
Where were the kids?
Eventually, Sara messaged both Ebba and Olle:
Come home! Now!
And she received in return, respectively, an ironic message and an angry smiley.
There was really no need. Just doing nothing felt good. If the summer evenings hadn’t been light, she could have sat in the twilight. Let the darkness slowly envelop the apartment without switching on any lights. Bow down to nature. Sitting in the twilight was one of the most peaceful activities in existence, as far as she was concerned. But she could just as well sit in the light.
Her thoughts moved on.
What would have happened if Jane hadn’t saved her from Stellan? If Sara had also become a victim? She would hardly have been likely to become a police officer. She might instead have become one of the girls that she and her colleagues tried to help.
Or would she have managed to bury that within her? The #metoo movement had shown just how many women had their own stories of assault that they had never shared. Sexism and unpleasant comments during her own teenage years were something that Sara could testify to, as well as manipulative playmates in her childhood. But she had been spared downright assault. She’d never understood how close she’d come – what her mother had done for her.
Where did it emanate from, that anger towards all the men who paid for sex that she encountered through her job?
Perhaps it was just a completely normal and healthy reaction to the payment of money for someone else’s body – to use others however one pleased, often exerting violence over them. A response to the contempt for human life that was so palpable to Sara and her colleagues. She supposed the rage had built up over the years.
Long ago, she’d tried to have some understanding. She’d believed the myths about the lonely and unwanted people who paid for sex because they would never obtain it by any other means. Before she became a police officer, she’d largely looked at it according to the principle that buying sex was a voluntary arrangement between two adults. But no explanation held water. She’d learned that after just a few days on the job.
She needed to think about something else. She picked up the novel she was reading from the coffee table and realised it had lain untouched for a couple of months. But if she was going to resume reading, she would need to switch on a light, and she di
dn’t like doing that. She also thought it would be challenging to engross herself in a fictional world when the real one was so turbulent. She knew that Anna loved to lose herself in novels precisely so that she forgot about daily life and its troubles, but it didn’t work the same way for Sara. She needed peace and quiet in her mind in order to get to grips with fiction. Sara had to make do with holding the book. The hardback binding, the shiny dust jacket, the many thin pages inside. She ran her fingertip along the print and thought she could feel the small bumps of the printed letters, although perhaps she was just imagining that. She put the book to her nose and smelled it. They said that the other senses were heightened if you stopped using one, and right now Sara thought that both her fingers and her nose were decidedly more sensitive than usual. Perhaps it was just a matter of being attentive.
Sara thought that some classical music might be a fitting addition to the darkness. She took out her old violin and put the bow to the strings, but she couldn’t bring herself to move her hand.
The way she felt now, she would never be able to play it again.
Why? Because it had been given to her by Stellan? Or because the last few days had snuffed out the small tendril of joy and creativity that she’d retained?
She wanted to smash it to pieces.
That probably wouldn’t make anything better, she thought to herself. But then she realised that it wouldn’t make things worse, either.
If nothing else, it was a good deed. A memory of Stellan Broman being erased from the surface of the earth.
She grasped the violin by the neck, raised her hand and then smashed it against the coffee table, splintering it into pieces.
Now it was 1–1 between Martin’s instrument and hers. She struck the violin another half a dozen times against the table, so that it would be impossible to repair.
And then she sank to the floor and leaned her neck against the table.
Gieger Page 35