“Fine with me,” Kent E said. “I’d like to go home. I thought you wanted to be here.”
Loklinth clinked two glasses together to attract attention.
“Listen everyone,” and he turned to the part of the room where Matti Svensson was now chewing on a Danish pastry, and pointed toward the door. “We’re closing. You must leave the premises. The hotel is closing too, so you can all go home. There’ll be a press conference with the Chief of Police and the Minister of Trade in Stockholm in a few hours.” He looked around and squirmed with impatience. “There you will get all the information you will need. There is nothing more for you here.”
He went over to Bob Lundin and whispered something in his ear.
Göran Filipson returned to the bar, slightly red in the face as Modin noticed.
“Is it true, Filipson?” Modin said. “Are they putting a lid on it?”
“Yes, unfortunately. Orders from the government. I’ll be getting more information in a few hours. You can go home now. I’ll be in touch.”
“What did Loklinth say?”
“You’d rather not know. He’s a douche.”
“Come on, tell me.”
Filipson gave Modin a long look. Then he finally said: “He asked me why I hang around with you. An alcoholic has-been.”
Modin jumped to his feet. He felt like walking straight up to his former boss and hit him hard in the face. Instead, he went up to him, stood right in front of him, and just stared. He could see the whites of Loklinth’s eyes, which seemed yellowish round his large pupils.
Looks like a snake.
“What do you want?” Loklinth asked. His breath smelled of old fish.
“Never mind what I want; what do you want?” Modin said.
“You don’t belong with us anymore. This is a matter of national security, and I’m sorry to say, you are no longer trusted with such secrets. I don’t know why Filipson even talks to you. You are bad luck, Modin. You are a loser.” He turned on his heel and walked out.
Modin could no longer think. It was as if an old and badly infected wound had been ripped open.
He left the snow mobile at The Rock, and walked home in a fog. It was a long cold walk. The alcohol sank down to his feet, which became heavy, very heavy.
When he finally arrived home, he couldn’t quite make sense of how he got there. His house seemed like an amusement park that had taken on a life of its own. In the end, he fell asleep in an awkward position, one that prevented him from falling out of the Ferris wheel his bed had become.
CHAPTER 21
GRISSLEHAMN, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 25
It was already afternoon when Modin woke up. He rolled out of bed with a magnificent hangover, slid his feet into his slippers, and took his bathrobe from the hook.
He had a dinner appointment with Göran Filipson at the hotel, where Filipson had spent the night.
Modin turned on the stair lighting and leaned on the handrail all the way down to the ground floor. His legs where stiff.
It was snowing, as he could see through the dirty window in the kitchen. The gently falling flakes that could easily make a roof collapse if no one shoveled the accumulating snow away. He should get out his shovel and rescue his outbuildings!
Soon darkness will fall again, he thought as he opened his fridge. It’ll have to be done tomorrow.
Miss Mona rubbed herself against his legs. He gave her some milk on a saucer and drank a large glass of orange juice himself. Then he turned on the radio and tuned to a live broadcast.
“Over to our reporter at the Parliament.” After a few coughs and the scrape and screech of a microphone, the faint murmur of voices could be heard in the background. “Welcome to our improvised press conference,” said the Swedish Minister of Trade, Monica Palmer. “Jonas Zetterman, founder of Friend-Connect, was found dead early this morning in Grisslehamn.” She had a coughing fit and apologized before continuing: “On behalf of the Swedish government, I extend my heartfelt condolences to his family. I have given the order to the Ministry of Justice to give this case top priority and to solve it as quickly as possible. The U.S. authorities have also been informed. Jonas Zetterman, born in Sweden, had just returned to his home country from the U.S., where he had been living and working for many years. I’m handing you over now to Chief of Police Holger Rosander, who can fill you in on the details of the case as we know them thus far.”
More clearing of throats and scraping of microphones, which sounded as if a mic was being pushed across a table.
“At around 01:30 this morning, Jonas Zetterman was found dead in his room at the Grisslehamn Hotel. His body was badly lacerated and he is believed to have died from loss of blood. According to the coroner, his death was not instant. An autopsy will reveal more details later.” Holger Rosander paused and could be heard drinking a sip of water. “As of yet, we have no traces of the perpetrator or perpetrators. A white car was seen leaving the hotel at about the time of the murder, but details are still sketchy. Anyone who has seen or heard anything suspicious that could be connected to this crime should contact the nearest police station.” The rustling of paper dominated the airwaves as if someone were turning the page. “There are no suspects yet, but at present we assume that there was one assailant.”
Then Modin could hear the sound of endless clicking of cameras in the background and several people talking over one another.
“May we ask why the Minister of Trade is here? Do you suspect political motives?”
“I am here because a prominent international businessman has been killed in Sweden. I want to show that we are doing everything in our power to solve this crime swiftly,” said Monica Palmer.
“Do you suspect political motives?”
“No, not at this moment,” the Police Chief Rosander said. “We assume that this is the work of one lone lunatic. There are no indications that this is a political assassination, nor that it had anything to do with the Swedish business interests Jonas Zetterman’s family represents.”
“According to my information,” one of the journalists spoke forcefully, “Jonas Zetterman was about to lay a fiber optic cable over to the Baltic countries. Do you assume that the murder could be related to this endeavor?”
“As I have already said, we do not suspect that this is a politically motivated murder, or a murder relating to Mr. Zetterman’s business plans.”
“And now, the weather. It will be predominantly overcast. Snow showers near the coast and…”
Modin turned off the radio.
No political motives? If not, what the hell did the Minister of Trade have to do with the case, and why was she at the press conference? On Christmas Day! It doesn’t add up, Modin thought. Who would have a motive? Kim, maybe. A lone lunatic? There are only two lone lunatics here in the village: myself and Allan Beck.
Was this a cover-up in the making, he wondered as he got up from the kitchen table. Is there more to this than meets the eye? The mention of that cable was interesting. Communication cables are always in the intelligence community’s interest. Which would explain why Loklinth and his sniveling lapdog were snooping around the crime scene. But who would go so far as to chop up Jonas Zetterman because of a cable connection?
CHAPTER 22
GRISSLEHAMN HOTEL, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 25
Sit down, my friend.”
With the palm of his hand, Police Superintendent Göran Filipson gestured toward one of the antique stools in the piano bar. Modin sat down. An elderly waiter showed up immediately, and Modin ordered hot green tea and a cheese sandwich. He had had nothing to eat or drink apart from the one glass of orange juice that morning.
It was still snowing outside. The flakes fell gently through the still air and stuck everywhere they landed: on the decks of fishing boats, the roofs of seamen’s huts, the road to the ferry terminal and the quay. Everything was covered in snow.
Modin enjoyed his tea, to he had added honey and a slice of lemon and it tasted good. The warmth of the liquid so
othed him. He looked out through the dense snowflakes at the harbor near the Grisslehamn Hotel. A fisherman was hacking ice off his boat. The harbor was as good as frozen up. Only a small channel in the middle lay open and the boats took turns to use it. The ice might be here to stay, thought Modin. During particularly cold winters, the ice would not melt until April, and this could be one of those winters.
Modin remembered a Christmas during his childhood, in 1969, when his family had been snowed in at the summer cottage. That year so much snow had fallen that the municipality could not plow the roads. There was a power outage, and all contact with the outside world was severed. His parents had had to abandon their car and trudge through the deep snow to make it down to the village to buy milk. His father dragged him on a sledge behind him. To him, this was a great adventure; he had only been four years old at the time.
“It’s been a few years since it’s been cold like this,” he said aloud, turning toward Filipson.
Filipson had a neutral expression on his face. He was wearing a gray jacket, black pants, a white shirt, and no tie. His body language gave nothing away and he was rather adept at the art of acting as if what had happened during the night had not affected him. He seemed as indifferent as a pike ambushing its prey in a river.
Modin rubbed his cheeks and jaw—felt like sandpaper. The stubble was now a couple of days old and he was fully aware that he was a sorry sight. He was pale, too, from the lack of light in Scandinavia and had dark circles around his surprisingly bright eyes, which gave him an unpredictable look. But the scars on his bare lower arms showed that he was a man that didn’t give in easily. His crew cut rounded out the image. You could almost take him for a criminal, and some people had said as much straight into his face.
The atmosphere in the hotel was tense. Modin could hear faint whispers all around. The old waiter tiptoed around with hesitant footsteps as if he was walking in his sleep but could still manage to take orders. The background music had been turned off.
Göran Filipson motioned with his hand to command him to listen. His eyes were red and he had the creased skin of someone who had just woken up. Modin was curious to find out what the investigation had turned up.
“The Security Service is dealing with the matter now,” Filipson said in a low voice. “But it’s a question of national security. We’re trying hard to keep Military Special Ops out of it.”
“Are Loklinth and Lundin staying at the hotel?”
“No, they took off this morning. Unfortunately, they interviewed Mrs. Zetterman before we managed to get to her.”
“What did she say?”
“I don’t know yet, but we’ll be briefed this morning. Do you want to join? We suspect that the murder had something to do with Zetterman’s cable-project in the Baltic Sea.” Filipson put down his coffee cup on the shiny wooden surface of the table.
“What sort of cable is it exactly?”
“A communications cable from Grisslehamn to Paldiski in Estonia. One of Zetterman’s companies is planning to install it this coming spring. I get the feeling that in one way or another, Special Ops is mixed up in all this.”
“Could be the Stay Behind operatives of Crack of Dawn,” Modin said. “Paramilitaries in close cooperation with NATO.”
“Crack of Dawn has been disbanded, Modin. You were there yourself when the last vestiges were wiped out last summer.”
“Some cells could still be alive and kicking. For some people, things haven’t changed since the Berlin Wall fell. It’s still a matter of fighting the Russians. The CIA needs new penetration eastwards, and an optical fiber cable under the Baltic Sea can be used for all sorts of things, right?”
“Eavesdropping,” Filipson said rather stiffly. “Yes, I suppose so.”
“Estonia is part of NATO,” Modin said. “NATO has shifted its front line from Scandinavia to the Baltic countries. And that’s most likely where the cable comes into the play.”
“Come on, Modin. It’s time for our conversation with Kim Zetterman.” Filipson got up and happened to knock the tabletop with his thigh, slopping coffee into the saucer. “Damn!”
CHAPTER 23
Modin greeted Kim Zetterman formally. Her handshake was warm and damp, but also limp and tentative. She, like Modin, appeared to find it difficult to hit the right tone for this meeting. He had a hundred questions he wanted to ask that had nothing to do with some damned cable to Estonia. He wanted to ask her how she felt, about her Russian background, what she was going to do now, and by no means least of all, if she’d let him comfort her in her sorrow and despair, if she’d accept him as a decent friend. Her husband was dead, that was a fact, but there was no room for feelings and explanations, at least not while the head of the Security Service was present.
“When did you last see your husband alive,” Filipson asked as compassionate as a telephone pole.
Kim Zetterman shuffled in her chair a number of times. They were now in the small octagonal conference room at the end of the corridor on the ground floor of the Grisslehamn hotel.
She looked tired, as if she had not slept a wink since the Christmas party at The Rock. Modin noticed that she was wearing the same clothes as the evening before. And she had not removed her makeup. It was clear that she probably didn’t really care to be subjected to questioning by the Security Service in a small hotel out in the Swedish countryside.
“Yesterday evening at about eleven o’clock in the club down in the village. Anton Modin can testify to that,” she said.
“Can you, Modin?”
“Yes, at least until midnight.”
“And after that?”
“I came back to the hotel just after midnight,” Kim Zetterman said. “At around one o’clock, I found my husband in his bedroom, mutilated. We have separate rooms.”
“Did you see anything unusual on your way home? Anyone suspicious near the hotel? Waiting in a car, perhaps?”
“No.” She cast a brief glance at Modin and looked down.
“Are you sure about that?” Filipson said, stressing his words.
“Nothing out of the ordinary.”
Kim was getting agitated.
“Kim,” Modin broke into the conversations, “if you did see something, it’s really important for the investigation that you say so, because it could provide a vital clue.” Modin noticed that he was beginning to sound like a police officer, but he continued nonetheless. “Did Jonas hit you that evening? That’s what it looked like when…” He fell silent.
“No, we had a good relationship,” Kim said, and looked away.
Modin felt that Kim was hiding something. But this was an exceptional situation, and he decided not to put her under pressure and let the lie about the relationship with her husband pass unchallenged for the moment.
“Is that all?” Kim asked a few moments later, clearly suggesting that she wished the interview to be over. “Why is the Security Service investigating this case?”
“We suspect the murder had something to do with your husband’s business plans for his new offshore company in Sweden. Do you know anything about this?” Filipson asked.
“My husband was doing business deals 24/7. His offshore company is merely one of hundreds. I don’t know anything of substance about it.”
“You are Russian, aren’t you, Kim?” Filipson shot up his tongue over his upper lip as if fishing for a leftover crumb of his cheese sandwich.
“For heaven’s sake, what has that got to do with this?”
“Do you have contacts with Russians nowadays?”
“No, I do not. My father immigrated to Sweden in the 1970s. I was born in Stockholm. I’m a Swede. Is that good enough?” She glared angrily at Filipson.
He ignored her anger. “Yes, that’s enough for the time being, but I want you to remain at the hotel. If you need to leave the village, you must inform me.” Filipson handed her a business card he produced from an inner pocket. “We’ll be getting in touch with you in due course.” He leaned forward and tu
rned off his tape-recorder.
Modin heard a souped-up snowmobile cross the square below the hotel. He looked out and saw the oversnow-vehicle disappear toward the center of the village. He followed it until it was lost in clouds of snow.
At the same time, Kim Zetterman got up. When he looked again, she was gone.
CHAPTER 24
DJURGÅRDEN, STOCKHOLM, MONDAY, DECEMBER 28
This was not at all good, Chris. It went completely wrong. Poor old Jonas Zetterman.” Anders Glock was walking, leaning slightly forward, his hands held behind his back, a little bowed and old, but with agile long strides.
“True. He’s only been in Sweden a few months. Now he is dead, murdered in a gruesome way in a hole of a village in the Stockholm archipelago. How could that happen?” Chris Loklinth, who was walking on Anders Glock’s left, was making every effort to keep up with his rapid pace as they climbed the rise at Kärleksudden on the southern shore of the Stockholm island of Djurgården. They tended to meet at the Ulla Winbladh restaurant on the same island when anything sensitive needed to be discussed, would eat traditional Swedish meatballs, and then wander to the bay on the south of the island.
“Who could be behind this?” Anders Glock asked. “The Russians?”
“I don’t know. It no doubt has something to do with that optical fiber cable across the Baltic Sea. That’s the theory we’re working with, anyway. Mind you, the fact that Zetterman has been killed doesn’t put an end to the project.”
“Very nasty, nevertheless. Poor old Jonas. It must have been horrible. Lost both his hands, locked in a hotel room, not even able to use his cellphone.”
“They’re probably out to scare us,” Loklinth said. “A little rapping for us and the government.”
“Rapping?”
Under Water (Anton Modin Book 3) Page 8