by Anna Jansson
“Or else it’s bubbling below the surface. Fear and the sense of injustice are going to find an expression, I think.” Only now did Hartman hear the sound from the radio that had been grinding on without either of them listening. An exchange was going on between the Minister of Public Health and a spokesman for the opposition, about how to tackle the enormous costs associated with the purchase of medication and vaccine. The opposition advocated a school fee of a thousand kronor per child each semester, increased co-pays in the magnitude of five hundred kronor per doctor’s visit and a thousand kronor for a visit to the emergency room or a specialist. The medication subsidies would also need to be reviewed and the rate for elderly housing adapted to the cost situation. No sacred cows. The minister spoke instead in terms of a more general tax increase and tougher, more progressive taxation so that low-income workers would not be affected too severely.
“Tamiflu and Tamivir and take that, damn it.” Hartman’s calm voice had acquired a sharp tone. Maria had never heard him so angry. “Why weren’t we better prepared for this? How could this just happen? The bird flu didn’t come like a lightning bolt from a clear sky. We’ve been forewarned for several years. When we hire people with our tax money to make decisions on such important questions and at such high salaries, you expect competence and responsibility. Clear directives for who should get medicine and in what order. It’s a matter of saving lives.”
“I read an article in a medical journal last night when I couldn’t sleep. It was by Tobias Westberg. The past few years he’s been promoting the idea that Sweden should start its own manufacture of vaccines along with the other Nordic countries. In the article he is admittedly pessimistic as far as profitability goes, but money isn’t everything. It’s about what kind of preparedness a society should have. If you’re going to have resources to produce vaccine for the whole population in the event of a pandemic, this means a major over-capacity compared to what normally needs to be produced in flu season. If the project was started now it would take four or five years before a vaccine could be produced. Perhaps even longer than that.”
“I read something about that. There were problems with cultivating a vaccine against bird flu.”
“He wrote about that in the article. The virus is cultivated from fertilized chicken eggs. But the bird flu virus destroys the eggs so the vaccine virus can’t grow there. Other methods are required and that’s been an obstacle, besides the fact that the virus changes form constantly so that it can’t be manufactured until it appears again. Just like ordinary flu virus changes character and the vaccine has to be customized every year. Tobias Westberg has visited production facilities all over the world. In Europe they’re in Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and the Netherlands, and then there’s a recently opened facility in Belarus. Listen, Tomas, last night I discussed how the bird flu broke out with Jonathan Eriksson. He said that a pigeon that came to Ruben Nilsson’s pigeon loft was from Belarus and our man the painting salesman is from there too. Sergei Bykov worked with research animals. We have to find out whether he was infected with bird flu. Maybe he brought the infected bird with him. I know it’s a crazy idea, but what if the company paid him to deliberately plant the pigeon here? They were sitting on an enormous warehouse of medicine and it doesn’t keep indefinitely. A pandemic was required to make back the money.”
“Damn it! I hope the medical examiners used protective gear when they were doing the autopsy. I’ll check as soon as we get in. We probably never asked that question. What you’re saying sounds a little crazy, of course. Even a little paranoid. It’s hard to imagine that illness is being spread intentionally to make money.”
“Are you so sure?” Maria asked in a slightly sulky tone. But Hartman had already dropped the subject.
“Tobias Westberg has still not been in touch with his wife, as far as I know. It would be very interesting to find out why he’s hiding.”
“People murder for money,” said Maria, who felt a little offended that he so quickly rejected her line of thought. What if it really was the case that the pigeon was released so that a pandemic would break out and make a profit for a pharmaceutical company?
Maria Wern was about to go down to reception and meet Reine Hammar for questioning when she got a call.
“I think it’s urgent,” said Patricia in reception. “It’s about the break-in at Vigoris Health Center that was never reported. We have a person who wants to remain anonymous. Can you take the call?”
“I’ll take it now.” Maria waited while the call was transferred. A faint voice with a Gotland accent presented her business.
“I want to be anonymous. Otherwise I can’t tell you anything.”
“It’s okay, I’m listening.”
“I clean at Vigoris Health Center and I start my work at ten o’clock so I won’t be in the way when they’re busy during the day. I clean all night. I can do what I want, as long as I do my assigned work. Tuesday evening I noticed that a window in the clinic was open. It was forced open. Then I heard a sound from one of the treatment rooms where patients are usually seen for vaccination. I didn’t dare go in so instead I hid in the closet with the door cracked open a little. I heard a refrigerator door being opened inside the treatment room—it has a kind of smacking sound. Then I saw Sandra Hagg. Just for a moment. She had something in a white plastic bag in her hand and she ran toward the open window and crawled out, even though she has an access card. I didn’t call the guard because it was Sandra, I thought she’d forgotten her code or something like that.”
“Was she alone or did you see whether anyone was with her?”
“I didn’t see anyone. But Lennie, her ex, came by right after that on his first round. We usually have coffee together. I told him about it. It wasn’t the first time she’d locked herself out. It was so romantic when Lennie and Sandra got together because she had locked herself in the laboratory.”
“How did Lennie react to this?”
“He was already tired and irritated when he arrived. Mad at Finn Olsson, the security manager, they had met right before. He probably complained about something, said that Lennie wasn’t doing his job or something. Once Finn left a window open on purpose in the laboratory to check whether Lennie really was paying attention, and Lennie missed it and Finn told Viktoria. Can you imagine what a scolding he got? He almost lost his job, and Finn was there standing behind the boss sneering when he got chewed out. That sort of thing sticks. They can’t even be at the gym at the same time, because they compete so they can hardly stand up the next day. Once they even fought so hard that Reine had to intervene. It was supposed to be sparring, but then it got serious.”
“What did Lennie say about you having seen Sandra?” asked Maria.
“He got mad and said I was lying, so I showed him the window. See for yourself then! I said to him and he shut up. But then he took hold of my coat and pushed me up against the wall. ‘You won’t say a word about this to anyone, do you understand? I’ll bring it up with the boss myself. Not a word to Finn,’ he said.”
“Do you know whether he told Viktoria Hammar that Sandra had broken in? Perhaps it wasn’t all that easy for him to accuse her, even if it was over between them?”
“I didn’t hear any more about it. He must have said something about it; the window was damaged. A glazier came the next day. It couldn’t be hidden. But now when she’s dead … I’ve been thinking about this a lot. I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing now, but I can remain anonymous, can’t I?”
“You did the right thing,” said Maria without making any promises, thinking at the same time that there can’t be too many cleaning ladies at Vigoris who were working on the night in question. “If you think of anything else please contact me again. It was a good thing you told us about this.”
Reine Hammar sat down self-consciously in the visitor’s chair in front of Maria. There was antipathy in every movement.
“I really hope this conversation is necessary. I’ve bee
n away from the clinic and locked up in that nuthouse in Follingbo. I’m sure you can imagine that I have a few things to do now that I’m back. It’s not even really clear to me what this concerns. Am I suspected of something or what the hell is this about?”
“One of your employees, Sandra Hagg, was murdered. My job is to find out who did it, and why.”
“This is truly frightful. Does that damn tape recorder have to be on?” he asked, with an arrogant expression that Maria found rather irritating.
“Preferably. Otherwise we’ll have to rely on my faulty memory.”
He gave her a guarded look and a shadow of a smile passed over his face. “Of two evils, always choose the lesser. Go ahead.”
“What can you tell me about Sandra, what was she like as a nurse?”
“Dear Sandra,” he said thoughtfully. “The perfect nurse. Always so friendly and always a step ahead. When you were about to ask her to do something, she’d usually already thought of it. The tray was set. The test samples produced. The appointment scheduled. The referrals stamped and ready. It’s going to be hard to replace her. It’s always tough to teach someone new, then you have to do some thinking yourself.”
“Personally … what did you know about what things were like at home?” Maria thought he appeared to lower his guard somewhat now, but she still waited with the most burning question until he had relaxed even more.
“Sandra was single. No children.” He made a sound somewhere between a cough and a sob, and Maria had to ask him to repeat himself so that he would be heard on tape. “She had just ended a relationship with one of our other employees. Where relationships at work are concerned we have recently received guidelines from the corporate office. We prefer that employees not be personally involved in that way. In the future we’re going to call the parties in for a talk if a romance arises at work and the persons in question will have to bear the consequences of their involvement.”
“What do you mean by that?” Maria had a hard time concealing her surprise—and her indignation.
“There will have to be an agreement on who is most useful to the company and the other will have to resign. The work here is so important that we require complete loyalty. If you have a bond with a colleague there are dual loyalties.”
“But you and Viktoria are married,” Maria blurted out before she could stop herself. This was not a crucial point and the risk of ending up in a stalemate was imminent if she offered her own opinions.
“Which is just what Sandra pointed out when we called her and Lennie in for a discussion. Viktoria offered Sandra an exciting job in Montreal, but she refused and said that it wasn’t necessary. They had already decided to separate. As far as Viktoria and I are concerned, this is more of a partnership than a marriage. Three minutes at the courthouse to avoid a lot of paperwork is time well spent. No, I’m joking. The company employs us both and they don’t see our relationship as a risk, we’ve been married too long for it to be detrimental to production. Viktoria loves her work.” He laughed crudely and tossed back his hair. “I’m sure you’ve heard of a social security marriage? No? It doesn’t matter. Forget about that. Was there anything else, otherwise duty calls.” He smiled at her and got halfway up.
“You’ve had a break-in at the clinic. But we haven’t received a report about it. Would you like to explain why?”
“Where did you get that information?” He was suddenly more guarded. He sat back down. His eyes became narrow slits and his face came uncomfortably close. Maria stretched and tried not to shrink back.
“Sandra broke in,” she said, and her voice was steady. “I assume you know that. What was she looking for, and why didn’t you report it?” He rocked in his chair for a long time before answering. It was extremely irritating.
“The truth, you mean. Was what I said about Sandra’s merits too beautiful? Why couldn’t it be? You shouldn’t speak badly of the dead. It’s true that she was an excellent nurse, but the truth was that she was also a drug addict. We intended to send her to the company detox clinic in Montreal. Our twelve-step program has proven to be one of the most effective instruments available. It started with a colleague reporting that morphine ampoules were missing and that the withdrawal of morphine from the storeroom did not tally with what was prescribed for newly operated patients. We kept our eyes on her for a while and then held her accountable. She went along with detox, but the desire must have been stronger than reason and she broke in.”
“Did she get anything?”
“We counted everything. She got some syringes and needles but no morphine.”
“Does morphine for injection have to be refrigerated?”
“No, why do you ask? Who contacted the police and told about the break-in? I have the right to know, damn it! Lennie, is it him? I’m going to get to the bottom of this.” The throat-clearing that followed almost made Maria hit the ceiling with suppressed annoyance. The way he sounded was completely unbelievable. Did he have a cold or was this some kind of tic triggered by nervousness?
“It’s not Lennie and I’m not saying anything else. You can go now and if you think of anything else that may help us to understand what happened to Sandra then please call. Otherwise you should be prepared for some follow-up questions.”
“You do realize that it was one of her doper friends who did it? Do we live in the same reality? Who do you think commits crimes? You ought to know that. She probably promised one of her buddies a little party and then there was nothing. Someone got upset and out of control, and well—what usually happens then? Why do you want to root in this dung? Can’t we just remember Sandra as the capable nurse she was before she lost her grip?”
After Maria had followed Reine Hammar to the exit she picked up the phone and called Jonathan Eriksson. He sounded happy to hear her voice.
“I’ve been meaning to call you all morning. I’ve picked up the phone and hung it up again at least ten times. Cowardly. I’m not very good at this sort of thing. Wanted to say thanks. Maybe we can do it again sometime. Go out and eat, I mean. Soon. It’s been ages since I had such a nice time.”
“The same for me. How’s Emil doing?”
“Much better. But he’s starting to get a little restless. He doesn’t have a fever anymore.”
“Such a relief; I’m sorry for nagging. Listen, Jonathan, I have to ask you about something else. Is morphine for injection stored in a refrigerator?”
“No, it doesn’t have to be refrigerated. Why do you ask?”
“I can’t say. Is a vaccine the sort of thing that has to be stored cold?”
The cleaning lady had talked about the sound of a refrigerator door in the room where they usually saw patients for vaccination. Then she had seen Sandra come out with a white plastic bag in her hand.
“Yes, flu vaccine has to be refrigerated. When will you have time to see me again? The correct answer is NOW, at once. I’ve been thinking about something, but I want to bring it up face-to-face.”
“That sounds rather intimate.” Maria noticed that she got giggly and tried to pull herself together.
“Don’t get your hopes up, this is about work,” he said, but there was laughter right below the seriousness. “I was thinking about picking up Malte this evening about five. But Marianne has let them built a fort in a closet and the kids want to sleep there. Well, if that’s okay with you, that is. And because both of us would be child-free I thought it might be nice to go out and have a nice dinner. This evening, if you don’t think that’s too soon?” He was talking very fast at the end and Maria could not help smiling at his obvious nervousness.
“I think that sounds perfect.”
Maria returned to the pile of mail she had been sorting when she got the call from the cleaning lady. The response from the National Board of Forensic Medicine to the question of whether there were drugs in Sandra Hagg’s blood ought to be there. Maria browsed further and found the envelope. She opened it and read. It was as she suspected. Sandra was clean—no traces of alcoh
ol or narcotics.
Chapter 32
When Maria agreed to meet Jonathan Eriksson after work, she had not yet received the call from Nordkalk, the limestone plant in Kappelshamn, a call that would change all her plans for the day and etch itself firmly in her memory for the rest of her life. A body had been found in the limestone quarry in the crater where quicklime was dumped.
Barely forty minutes later she was outside the office of Nordkalk along with Tomas Hartman. The sound from the crusher and the wind coming in from the sea almost drowned out their voices. Down in the harbor, a vessel was being loaded. A fine layer of lime dust lay over the whole area like powdery snow. Despite the rain, the roses in the flowerbeds were unnaturally pale in color. The gray trunks of the trees appeared to be cast in cement. Conveyor belts wound high above the ground between the big silo buildings. Maria followed their path with her eyes over toward the gigantic piles of limestone. She estimated them to be almost twenty meters high. The site engineer, Karl Nilsson, with whom Maria had spoken on the phone, drove her in his Jeep. Hartman followed up into the quarry on roads that passed between cliff edges and shimmering green lakes, edged by pine seedlings in a strange, barren but beautiful lunar landscape, up a steep hill where the white turbines of the wind farm creaked in the breeze. He pointed out the production ponds for steelhead and sea trout and the breeding ground for several species of wild birds. The sun was wrapped in fog and the light reflected in the white stone was magnificent, almost supernatural, like the transfigured light on an altar painting. Maria asked a few general questions about the lime quarry and was told that limestone is used in steelworks and sugar refineries, and that exports were currently three million tons per year. They talked about the risk of silicosis and Karl said that recent studies showed that the risk was nonexistent where lime dust in particular was concerned. It felt safer to stick to more-or-less neutral subjects before they reached the place where the body parts had been found.