Jonny took a deep breath. He drummed his fingers impatiently on the table, then suddenly leaned forward and stared at Krister. “Have you been threatened?”
“Threatened? No . . . no,” Krister said, sounding bewildered. He looked down at his hands, resting on the kitchen table. Jonny’s eyes narrowed, but he kept them fixed on Krister. Irene realized he didn’t believe her husband; she was filled with a sense of impotence. Strange—surely she should be angry? With Jonny? Or with Krister? Right now she felt tired and confused. She ought to try to get some rest, but on the other hand she didn’t want to stay home. She had to find out what had actually happened, and why.
When Irene and Jonny got back to the department, Fredrik Stridh was waiting for them.
“Morning. Nice to see the Organized Crimes Unit up and about,” Jonny said with a grin.
“Always at the ready!” Fredrik replied with a perfect salute.
“Is this about our flambéed friend on Kolgruvegatan?” Jonny went on.
“No—the car bomb outside Glady’s. Forensics called us a little while ago; it’s exactly the same type of bomb that killed Soran Siljac last year.”
Irene gave a start. Soran Siljac and Krister had known each other. The hardworking refugee from the former Yugoslavia had spent a year or so in the kitchen at Glady’s before moving on to other restaurants in Göteborg. Two years ago he had bought his own place in Vasastan; less than a year later he was blown up in his brand new Volvo V70.
The only motive that had come up during the investigation was the possibility that Siljac had been under pressure to pay for protection, “so that nothing unpleasant would happen to him or his restaurant.” According to an anonymous witness, Siljac had told the person who conveyed the threat to take himself off to considerably warmer climes, and had respectfully declined to pay. The police knew that one of the criminal gangs lay behind the attempt at extortion, but they had been unable to establish which one; both the Gangster Lions and Gothia MC believed that Siljac’s restaurant was in their territory.
“The same type of bomb . . . Interesting,” Jonny said, glancing at Irene.
She didn’t say a word; she simply tried to look as if the information about the bomb wasn’t particularly striking. Meanwhile, her head was spinning: Why had a gang planted a bomb under Krister’s car? Did he know the answer to that question? Or did the incident really have nothing to do with the Huss family? Was it a mistake? Were they actually after Janne?
“So that means we’ll be collaborating on this case too,” Fredrik explained. “Have you spoken to Krister yet?”
Jonny nodded and gave him a brief rundown on their conversation. Fredrik remained silent for a moment as he absorbed what he had heard.
“So you had the feeling that Krister knew more than he was telling you?” he said eventually.
The question was addressed to Jonny, but Fredrik was looking straight at Irene. Her mouth went completely dry when Jonny focused his attention on her as well.
“I don’t think Krister knows anything. He’s just in shock. I’ll talk to him again . . . later,” she replied lamely.
“It might be better if someone else does that,” Fredrik said with a frown.
“No, it’s easier if I do it, then you two can concentrate on all our other ongoing investigations,” she insisted, attempting a confident smile.
“Okay,” Fredrik agreed. He turned back to Jonny. “We need to speak to this Jan-Erik Månsson.”
“He and his girlfriend left for Majorca yesterday, but I’m sure I can get ahold of the address of the place where they’re staying,” Irene offered, relieved that the spotlight had shifted from Krister to the former owner of Glady’s. She should have no problem finding Janne’s new address; Krister would remember the surname of the English hotel owner. And there couldn’t be that many hotels in Puerto Pollensa, could there?
It turned out there were lots and lots of hotels in the small town on the north coast of Majorca. One of them was owned by a Steven Williams. When Irene finally managed to speak to him and asked how she could get in touch with Jan-Erik Månsson, he had no idea what she was talking about. He hadn’t seen his old friend and colleague since summer the previous year, when Jan-Erik had come over for a week in June. Since then they had exchanged Christmas cards and the odd email, but nothing more. Williams had no idea that Jan-Erik and his girlfriend were supposed to be moving to Majorca; he was even more surprised to hear that they would be living in Puerto Pollensa and working at his hotel. According to him, he and Jan-Erik had never even discussed such an idea.
When Irene had ended the call, her tired brain tried to process this new information. If Janne and his girlfriend weren’t in Majorca, then where the hell were they?
Irene contacted every airport in the vicinity of Göteborg. She checked the passenger lists for all departures the previous day, and established that neither Jan-Erik Månsson nor Jeanette Stenberg had been booked on a flight to Majorca. She did, however, find a flight to Miami in Jan-Erik’s name. He had bought a single ticket that departed early Monday morning. Things got really interesting when it transpired that he had never checked in. If everything had gone according to plan, he would have been in the US by now, but something must have happened. Where was he? And why had he lied to Krister?
Irene called the numbers she had for Jan-Erik; no one picked up on the landline, and the cell phone went straight to voice mail. She managed to find Jeanette’s home number, but no one answered there either. She decided to try the Sjökrogen restaurant; maybe someone would know where Jeanette was.
She was taken aback to say the least when a warm female voice said,
“Good morning, Sjökrogen. Jeanette here. How can I help you?”
“Good . . . good morning. My name is Irene Huss, Krister’s wife. I’m a detective inspector and . . .”
“Oh hi, I know who you are. We met once when I was working at Glady’s. What can I do for you?”
Irene remembered Jeanette as a curvaceous blonde in her early forties. Her black suit had been a perfect fit, and the collar of her blouse had been dazzlingly white. She had no recollection whatsoever of the woman’s face.
“I’m trying to contact Janne. Do you know where he is?” she asked, keeping her tone casual.
There was a brief pause.
“Does this have to do with your job?” Jeanette asked.
“Yes. I need to speak to him.”
“Has something happened to him?”
“No, we just need to ask him a few questions about the car that was blown up in the backyard at Glady’s last night. I’m sure you heard about it on the news.”
“Yes of course—it’s terrible. But what does that have to do with Janne?”
“We don’t know; that’s why we need to contact him, to clear up one or two points. Do you know where he is?”
“I’m afraid not. I tried to get ahold of him last night, but I didn’t have any luck.”
“When did you last speak to him?”
“On Sunday evening. We had dinner at my place.”
“What time did he leave?”
“Just after eleven. He didn’t want to stay over because he had to get up early to clean his apartment. He’s in the process of selling it, and the realtor was due in the morning with a prospective buyer.”
No, Janne was not going to clean his apartment, Irene thought. He was heading off to Florida without you.
“Do you have any idea where he might be?” she asked.
“No.” Jeanette took a deep breath, then continued: “Unless of course he’s playing poker somewhere. He loses track of time. That hasn’t happened all summer, but maybe we’re back there again.”
The bitterness in her voice was unmistakable.
“Is there anything in particular that makes you think that?” Irene asked tentatively.
“Well . . . He s
eemed very distracted on Sunday. He wasn’t listening to what I said, hardly spoke. I got mad, but now it strikes me that he could have given in to the urge to gamble again. It makes him kind of . . . distant.”
Jeanette’s voice broke, and Irene could hear her struggling to hold back the tears.
“Has he ever been gone for this long before?”
“Yes.”
Was it really so simple? Was Janne sitting in some gambling den having lost track of time?
“What does he gamble on?”
“Anything and everything, as long as it involves money. But he promised me he’d stop. He’s been going to counseling for his addiction . . . look how well that worked!”
Jeanette started to cry, then she asked Irene to hang on a moment. Irene heard her blow her nose, then clear her throat a couple of times.
“Try Casino Cosmopol, or Åby. There are also several poker clubs where he used to play. I don’t know their names or where they are; they’re probably illegal,” she said calmly.
Nothing in her voice revealed that she had just been crying.
Irene thanked Jeanette and promised to get back to her when she had found out where Janne was.
In the afternoon the team gathered in the bright conference room to share what they had come up with so far. They knew that Jan-Erik Månsson had booked a single ticket with SAS to Frankfurt, then onward to Miami with Lufthansa. He hadn’t booked an internal flight in America, nor had he reserved a hotel room or rented a car. There were no leads with regard to what he had intended to do after arriving. Everyone agreed that it looked as if he were running away and doing his best not to leave a trail.
Irene had discovered that he had withdrawn a total of 30,000 kronor from various bank accounts, which he had then changed into dollars at Forex on the Avenue.
“That’s not a great deal of money for someone who’s intending to go underground in the US. There’s around 200 kronor left in his accounts now,” Irene said.
“Except he never went to the US. So where is he?” Fredrik Stridh looked at his colleagues around the table.
“Maybe the temptation of having so much ready cash was too much for him, and he started gambling again,” Irene suggested.
“Okay, but in that case why would he have changed the whole lot into dollars?” Tommy Persson asked.
Suddenly Jonny’s face lit up. “What if he was mugged?”
To be fair, it wasn’t a bad idea. Someone could have watched Janne making the transaction at Forex and followed him, waiting for the right moment to strike. Or he could have been robbed in some obscure gambling den. He had been carrying a significant amount of cash, after all. But there had been no reports of a victim matching his description over the past few days.
“Could Månsson have realized that someone had sussed out his escape plan, and decided to lie low for a while?” Tommy wondered.
Irene looked at her old friend. They had known each other for over a quarter of a century. The years are beginning to show, she thought. Tommy’s hair, peppered with grey, was thinning, and the furrows in his brow had deepened. He had gained more than a few pounds around his waistline, but he didn’t seem to care anymore. The episode with Efva Thylqvist had taken its toll. As far as Irene was aware, there was no new woman in his life.
She realized she had tuned out of the discussion; tiredness was affecting her concentration. She made an effort to pull herself together.
“He could be playing poker in some illegal club, or he might be hiding from someone. In fact he could be absolutely anywhere,” Jonny concluded.
“We’ll put out a call for him,” Tommy decided.
“But he hasn’t committed a crime,” Irene objected.
The superintendent hesitated before responding. “Not as far as we know, but he could well have important information with regard to the car bomb. He could also be at risk. Plus he’s technically a missing person,” he said.
True, Irene thought. Putting out a call seemed like the only sensible course of action right now.
“Should we check if his apartment has been sold?” Sara said. “If so it might have provided him with a little pocket money.”
She started tapping on the keyboard of her laptop; after a couple of minutes she broke into a smile.
“There you go!”
She turned the screen around so everyone could see. The property was listed on a site used by multiple realtors. “Lorensberg, historical three-room apartment in beautiful condition, wonderful high ceilings, a thousand square feet, fourth floor with elevator. Service charge 5,280 kronor per month. Asking price: 4,250,000 SEK or highest offer.” This was followed by a lyrical description of newly polished floors, rich stucco detailing on the ceiling, a brand new kitchen and bathroom, plus two working tiled stoves. The pictures showed light, airy rooms decorated in white, a brushed steel and oak kitchen, plus a fully tiled bathroom with a washing machine and tumble dryer, plus a combined shower and sauna. The bed was adorned with a mass of small silk cushions in a range of pastel colors, with matching throws.
Sara tapped the shot of the bed with her fingernail. “Professionally styled.”
“How do you know?” Fredrik asked.
“Matti and I have been to a few viewings; you kind of get an eye for it,” she replied with a smile.
“It hasn’t been sold yet,” Irene said.
“So all he has is the thirty thousand, which he might have gambled away by now. Or he might have won more, of course. I think we’re going to have to forget about our friend Jan-Erik Månsson for the time being,” Tommy decided. He turned to Fredrik. “Anything new on the Patrik Karlsson homicide?”
Fredrik nodded. “Some interesting information has come to light. First of all, the pizza was ordered on Patrik Karlsson’s cell phone at 10:02. We don’t have the cell, but we got the number and the time from the pizzeria’s phone records.”
“Who took the call?” Tommy asked.
“The owner. He said the man spoke Swedish without an accent. It was probably Patrik himself. It could have been his killer of course, but that seems a little far-fetched.”
Tommy nodded in agreement. “Who spoke to the pizza delivery guy who witnessed the murder?”
Fredrik raised his hand like an obedient schoolboy. “I interviewed him yesterday afternoon. He was starting to get over the shock, and he suddenly remembered something. When he was reversing away from the scene of the crime toward Ringövagen, he almost collided with a motorbike. There were two of them heading straight for him, and one was on the wrong side of the road. Adem managed to swerve, but apparently it was a close call.”
“Bikers close to Bandidos’ old HQ, which is also Gothia MC’s old HQ . . .” Sara said.
“Okay, let’s just slow down here. I think we should leave this whole thing to our highly respected colleagues in the Organized Crimes Unit. Biker gangs are their specialty,” Jonny said, smiling at Fredrik.
Even if he was joking, Irene detected a serious undertone.
“Thanks for that, dear friend and colleague,” Fredrik answered, mirroring Jonny’s smile.
Sara pursed her lips and exchanged a glance with Irene. She made no comment, but started doodling irritably on the pad in front of her. Irene knew from past experience that she would fill the page with a variety of psychedelic figures.
“Was Adem able to provide a description of these guys?” Sara asked without looking up.
“No, all he recalls was that they didn’t seem to be in a hurry, which is why he didn’t connect them with the murder. However, when he’d calmed down a little and had time to think, the incident came back to him.”
“He didn’t notice whether they were wearing jackets or vests with a logo or emblem?” Irene interjected.
“I asked him, but he had no idea.”
“He might remember later,” Sara said with a hint of opt
imism in her voice. She gave Jonny a long, searching look, then went back to her drawing. The figure appearing on her pad bore an undeniable resemblance to him. When she drew flower petals around the face as a finishing touch, there was no doubt that their colleague was the model. Irene couldn’t help smiling.
“Let’s hope so. Otherwise we have nothing to go on. Matti searched for fingerprints on the gasoline container, but either it had been wiped clean, or they wore gloves,” Fredrik said.
“So the murder was planned,” Tommy concluded. He turned to Jonny: “Any luck with the door-to-door inquiries around Glady’s?”
“No. Which is surprising since it was just before nine o’clock in the evening. Even though it was a Monday, there were plenty of people out, mainly kids because the school year hasn’t started yet. But no one has contacted us, and we’ve had no luck knocking on doors. The only interesting piece of information came from an old woman who lives directly opposite the restaurant; she says she saw a ‘shady character’ slipping in through the gate to the backyard where the car was parked,” Jonny said, making quotation marks in the air.
“Shady character? What does that mean?” Tommy demanded, raising his eyebrows. Jonny started scrabbling among his notes, and fished out a piece of paper.
“Here we go: this witness was put through to me on the phone just before we came in here.”
He put on his reading glasses, cleared his throat and began:
“‘I was walking along the street toward the 7-Eleven on the corner. I guess it was around a quarter to nine. As I came around the corner I glanced along the street and saw a car slowing down by the entrance to the backyard. No, I have no idea what make of car it was, but it was a dark color—maybe black or dark blue? A shady character got out of the car and went toward the gate, which was open. He was kind of fat, with long greasy hair tied back in a ponytail. He was wearing dark clothes: a long-sleeved top with a hood. I think it was black. No logos, as far as I could see. Scruffy blue jeans. He was carrying something that looked like a small toolbox. And he was wearing heavy boots. I only saw his face in profile, but I got the impression that he had some kind of tattoo on the side of his neck and face. I’d say he was between twenty-five and thirty-five.’”
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