Protected by the Shadows

by Helene Tursten

  “How about a walk around the perimeter wall?” Ann suggested.

  “Good idea,” Irene agreed.

  “It’s probably best if we go in opposite directions and meet in the middle,” Ann said. She tucked her arm playfully under Fredrik’s and set off, while Irene and Sara went the other way.

  The trader had certainly built a thick, high wall. It was just possible to see the odd tree top above the parapet. The area close to the house was well-lit, but as they moved further away from the building, it got darker and darker. There was no lighting at all at the far end of the parkland, and any illumination from the back of the house was effectively blocked.

  Irene and Sara had to switch on their flashlights in order to see where they were going. There was a narrow path running alongside the wall, but their progress was impeded by bushes and undergrowth. Eventually they reached one of the side gates. It was about four times smaller than the showy main gates, but it was still pretty impressive. Irene gave it a tentative shake, but it was securely locked with a heavy chain and padlock. As she peered in through the bars, she could just see the outline of a summer house on the far side of the lawn, with the other side gate behind it, a black rectangle in the wall. Several men were moving around nearby; even from this distance Irene could see that they were taking a leak.

  As she and Sara rounded the corner, an extensive field opened out before them. It was surrounded by an electrified fence, and Irene could hear the sound of animals in the darkness. The acrid smell of dung hovered in the air, and just as Irene was wondering what the occupants of the field might be, a loud chorus of bleating answered her question.

  The weather was still mild, but thick clouds drifted across the sky, hiding the full moon. It could start raining again at any moment.

  They carried on along the back of the wall and met Fredrik and Ann halfway.

  “Have you seen anything?” Sara asked.

  “Nothing,” Ann replied.

  “Same here.”

  “See you at the front,” Fredrik said.

  Both pairs turned and set off the way they had come. They had gone no more than a couple of yards when they heard two shots in rapid succession, echoing through the night.

  “What the fuck?” Fredrik shouted.

  All four of them drew their guns, crouching down and peering in all directions.

  “I think it came from the other side of the wall,” Sara said.

  They started running back toward the main entrance, Sara right behind Irene. Irene stopped at the smaller gate she had just tried; she thought she might be able to climb over it, but it was impossible. The spikes on top were designed specifically to keep out intruders, plus she couldn’t get a grip with her heavy uniform shoes.

  “Keep going!” she yelled to Sara as she jumped down.

  They had to follow the beam of their flashlights to avoid stumbling. As they approached the conference center they could hear screams and agitated voices; all four of them raced through the main gates together and headed for the brightly lit building. The lobby was empty, and so was the dining room, but the tall glass doors leading onto the terrace were wide open; that was where the noise was coming from. Several women were sobbing, clinging to one another, but most people were on the lawn down below. Irene spotted her uniformed colleagues in the crowd. When she reached the edge of the terrace, she heard Stefan Bratt’s voice.

  “Move! The ambulance is on its way . . . Move, I said!”

  Irene, Sara and Ann pushed their way through to Stefan in the middle of the sea of people. The two uniformed officers were doing their best to push back the increasingly hysterical partygoers.

  Danny Mara was lying on the ground; he had obviously been shot. The front of his body was covered in blood from a bullet wound near his heart, but the bleeding had more or less stopped, presumably because most of his blood was no longer in his body; he was dead. There was another bullet hole right between his eyebrows, like a horrific third eye.

  The two bodyguards were standing beside Danny looking as if they had no idea what to do. Presumably they had plenty to worry about, as they had clearly failed in their task.

  In her peripheral vision Irene became aware of a movement as the crowd parted to let Andy Mara through. His tie was loose and the top two buttons of his shirt were undone. His face was bright red, and he looked terribly upset. His eyes were unnaturally bright and his pupils dilated, Irene noted.

  “Fucking cops! If you’re going to ruin the fucking party and hassle the guests, surely you can at least do your fucking job? Or have you been bribed to look the other way? Is that it? For fuck’s sake!”

  His voice gave way; he was shaking with rage. Stefan Bratt’s eyes narrowed to thin slits as he contemplated Andy’s agitation.

  “And where have you been until now?” he asked calmly. “It’s been several minutes since the shots were fired.”

  Andy gasped, but didn’t respond. For a fraction of a second, pure terror was reflected in his eyes.

  In the distance Irene could hear the sound of sirens. Several emergency vehicles were on the way, but for Danny Mara it was much too late.

  Irene managed to sneak off to one of the rest rooms at the police station to get a few hours’ sleep. When she woke up she felt as if a small furry animal had crawled into her mouth and died overnight; judging by the taste, it was already in an advanced state of decay.

  She had slept in her uniform, using her jacket as a blanket. Fortunately her civilian clothes were in her locker. In the pale light of dawn she crept along to the changing room and the blissful prospect of a shower. She stood there for a long time, the needles of hot water bringing her weary body back to life. It had been an intense and difficult night.

  After using the products in her emergency toilet bag, she looked positively presentable. She always kept a supply of free samples and miniature packs of assorted cosmetics in her desk drawer. She even managed to dig out a mini-mascara from the bottom of the bag.

  She went to the canteen and picked up a cheese sandwich; Stefan Bratt had called a meeting for 8:00. A quick glance at her watch revealed that it had probably already started, but there was no need to worry. After all, she had been out with the team for the whole evening and well into the night. She took her time fetching two cups of coffee from the machine—and no, she wasn’t going to share. They were both for her, and she had every intention of defending them with her life, if necessary. At least that was how she felt right now.

  As she slipped in through the door of the large conference room, she could see that the meeting hadn’t quite begun. Stefan Bratt was standing at the whiteboard, his expression grave. He had dark shadows under his eyes, and his thin features looked angular in the harsh morning light flooding in through the tall windows. Welcome to life in the field, Irene thought, smiling to herself behind her first cup of coffee.

  She found a seat next to Fredrik Stridh; Ann Wennberg was on his other side, and a little further along Sara Persson was chatting to the two officers from the security detachment who had been with them in Sävedalen the previous evening. Irene waved to her; she really liked Sara.

  “Okay, let’s start,” Stefan said, glancing around the room. He opened a bottle of mineral water and poured the sparkling liquid into a glass, then continued. “We’d decided to keep an eye on Danny Mara’s party in Sävedalen; we believed there was a significant risk that Gothia MC would turn up looking for revenge for the murder of Patrik Karlsson. We wanted to be there partly to deter any such measures, and partly to monitor what was going on. With hindsight, the evening was perhaps a little more dramatic than we might have expected.”

  He gave a wan smile, provoking the odd burst of laughter among his audience. He clicked the computer mouse in front of him, and pictures of Danny Mara’s blood-soaked body appeared on the whiteboard.

  “The operation began exactly as planned. We checked the
identity of each guest as they arrived, then patrolled the area outside the grounds of the conference center. There were no reports of any unusual activity until 11:34, when two shots were fired in rapid succession. No silencer was used; we know this because we’ve found the gun. I’ll come back to that later. By the time we entered the building, the guests had already moved out onto the terrace and the lawn at the back. We realized someone had been shot, and discovered a man lying on the ground. He had been shot in the heart and the head, and had suffered major blood loss from the wound in his chest. In my opinion he was already dead when we reached him; death was confirmed in the ambulance.”

  Stefan fell silent and gazed at his colleagues.

  “According to one of his bodyguards, Ali Reza—who isn’t entirely unknown to most of us—Danny Mara had said he was going over to the lilac bushes by the wall to take a leak. The bathrooms indoors were occupied, and apparently it’s normal for the guys to piss in the garden at Gangster Lions’ parties. Let’s revisit the pictures from the party in May, the ones we looked at yesterday.”

  This time the picture was taken at twilight and showed the back view of two men facing the lilac bushes, one with his arm around the other’s shoulders. Perhaps one of them needed some support. The male tradition of pissing in the open air always comes out after a few drinks, Irene thought.

  “As you can see, these poor unfortunate lilacs have been used as an outdoor facility on previous occasions. Ali Reza says Danny wanted to be alone while he did what he had to do. The other bodyguard, Ali’s brother Omid, took a walk around the perimeter wall. When the shots went off, he was at the far end of the parkland; he says he’d heard voices on the other side of the wall, which would have been our colleagues on patrol. Ali Reza was still on the terrace steps. He saw Danny head off toward the bushes, then he turned around because Danny’s wife Elif started talking to him. That means Ali was facing away from the garden, and didn’t see the flash when the shots were fired. Danny’s wife noticed something in her peripheral vision; she claims they came from the summer house, which is less than fifteen feet from the gate on the long side of the wall.”

  An image of the summer house appeared; it must have been taken on a different occasion, because it was daylight and there was a thin covering of snow on the ground. The place was in dire need of renovation. A fresh picture, taken much more recently, showed the door hanging off its hinges. Without making a comment, Bratt moved on to one of the side gates. Irene could see that it was the one that lay just a few yards from the gentlemen’s outdoor toilet and the summer house—not the one she had tried to climb, but the one on the opposite side. Next came a close-up of the chain and the padlock, taken with a flash. The details were crystal clear. There was only one problem. Both the chain and the padlock were lying on the ground, and the gate was open.

  “Hang on. Did no one check this gate last night? I checked the one on the other side, and it was securely locked,” Irene said.

  “Yes, I checked both the chain and the padlock, and everything was as it should be,” Fredrik assured her.

  “Was that on the way down toward the field, or on the way back?” Irene wanted to know.

  “On the way down. We ran back because we wanted to get inside as quickly as possible,” Fredrik replied, unable to hide his irritation.

  “Someone must have cut the chain after we’d passed by,” Ann said.

  “It’s strange that neither of us saw or heard anything suspicious around there either before or after the shooting,” Fredrik said, echoing Irene’s thoughts.

  “But weren’t there more than a hundred people at the party?” someone muttered behind Irene.

  Fredrik nodded. “Absolutely, and that’s kind of what I mean. We didn’t see anyone outside the wall, so maybe the chain was cut in order to make us think that the killer got in and out that way, whereas in fact he—or she—was already there . . .”

  Stefan Bratt interrupted him, bringing up a fresh picture: a patch of trampled-down grass illuminated by a portable floodlight. “The CSIs have secured fresh footprints in the damp earth outside the gate. They’re deep, so whoever made them weighs around 220 pounds. The impressions don’t match our shoes. These are Red Wing biker boots, size forty-five, and they cost a fortune! The tracks continue into the vegetation beyond the path, so this is where the marksman was hiding. It’s only a few steps from the gate. Then the tracks run alongside the wall and down toward the field, where presumably our perp disappears among the sheep. The CSIs are checking that out right now. There’s a road beyond the field, where a car or a motorbike could have been parked.”

  The weariness was clearly audible in his voice; he looked as if he hadn’t slept at all in the last twenty-four hours.

  “You said the gun had been found.” The speaker was an older officer from the Organized Crimes Unit; Irene didn’t know his name.

  “That’s right. It was lying on the ground by the gate,” Stefan said, sounding a little more enthusiastic. He clicked on a close-up of a gun lying in the grass.

  “A Baretta 92S. Fifteen bullets in the magazine. A precision firearm.”

  “A professional job,” Fredrik commented.

  “Definitely. Forensics is examining the weapon.”

  It could have been thrown out through the bars of the gate, Irene thought. And the chain could have been cut earlier, from the inside, as Fredrik had said.

  Sara waved her hand, and Stefan Bratt nodded to her. “Just an idea: Could it be someone from Elif’s family? Revenge for the fact that Danny was being unfaithful to her, dishonoring their name, something like that? Or maybe they were afraid that Danny would divorce her now that his mistress is pregnant.”

  “We certainly can’t rule out that possibility,” Stefan agreed.

  He turned and stared at the picture of the Baretta.

  “Of course there could be any number of people who wanted Danny dead. We could be looking at an internal dispute here; maybe Andy is sick of dancing to his brother’s tune, and wants to be the leader of the Gangster Lions. However, we have no evidence to suggest this is the case. We do know that Gothia MC has unfinished business with the Lions, though. I think it’s high time we paid them a visit out in Gråbo,” he said grimly.

  “Today?” Fredrik asked.

  “No, tomorrow afternoon. Today I want us to focus on the Lions, interview those who were at the party last night. We need to get as clear a picture as possible of what happened. And keep your ears open for any indication that something else might be going on.”

  Last night’s heavy rain clouds had dispersed during the early hours of the morning, and it looked as if it was going to be a beautiful day. It was the final weekend before the schools went back for the autumn semester. Irene and Sara headed out to Gunnared, where Kazan Ekici lived. Tommy Persson had decided he wanted to take a closer look at Kazan in connection with the murder of Patrik Karlsson. They might not be able to prove that he’d been on Kolgruvegatan, but thanks to the CCTV footage they knew he’d been in the area, which was suspicious in itself, in Tommy’s opinion. Irene agreed.

  Kazan was still registered at his parents’ address. They lived in a residential area made up of yellow-brick houses that looked as if they had been built in the early ’80s. Several of the owners had attached short flagpoles to the wall by the front door; Irene could see Swedish, Finnish and above all Turkish flags, plus others she didn’t recognize. There was a flagpole at Kazan’s parents’ home, but no flag was on display. The flower beds were packed with roses and lavender, filling the air with a faint perfume. Before they had time to ring the bell, the door was opened by a small, neat woman in a blouse with a tiny yellow floral print and a mid-length denim skirt. Sirwe Ekici stood in silence. Her thick curly hair was peppered with grey, and she wore it loose. Her lovely eyes were discreetly made up; it was obvious that “Handsome” Ekici had gotten his looks from his mother.

  “Ye
s?”

  Her tone wasn’t overtly hostile, but it wasn’t particularly welcoming either. As usual we’ve got “police” stamped on our foreheads, Irene thought. Everyone knows we’re here before we even ring the doorbell.

  She and Sara produced their IDs.

  “Good morning. We’d like to speak to Kazan; I’m sure you’re aware of what happened at Danny Mara’s party last night,” Irene said, getting straight to the point.

  “Yes, I saw it on the news this morning.”

  “May we come in?” Irene made a gesture encompassing the surrounding houses; she had noticed movement behind most curtains. Presumably Sirwe had made the same observation; without a word she stepped aside and let them in.

  The narrow hallway was cramped. The coat stand was laden with outdoor garments of all types and sizes, and beneath it several pairs of shoes were neatly arranged on a rack. Irene had read the notes on Kazan, and knew that he was the eldest of four siblings. He was the only one born in Turkey; the others were born in Sweden. The application forms for Swedish citizenship stated that the family was Turkish-Kurdish. Under the reasons why their application should be given special consideration, they had written: “Man Turk, woman Kurd.” The form also said that Zeynep Ekici had reverted to her Kurdish forename of Sirwe, and her son Günes had taken the Kurdish name Kazan. Her husband, Melek Ekici, ran a bakery and café together with a cousin. According to the latest tax data, the business was doing well. Sirwe was a trained nurse and worked at a home for the elderly in Gunnared. Kazan had been six years old when his parents applied for citizenship. His two sisters were fourteen and ten, and his brother was seven. Irene had gathered all this information, plus Kazan’s criminal record, in less than fifteen minutes on the Internet.

  Sirwe showed them into an over-furnished living room with an enormous TV on one wall. The floor was covered in a large rug, and Irene admired the lovely pattern and bright colors. She and Sara took an armchair each, while Sirwe perched right on the edge of the red leather sofa, which made her look small and fragile. She wrapped her arms around her body as if she were freezing; no doubt she realized that a visit from the police didn’t bode well.