by Jens Lapidus
Over the next few years, I moved five hundred million kronor through the Vasagatan branch. Do you understand that? Five hundred million. Everyone we worked for pushed their money through there. There were hundreds of companies involved, mostly from the construction sector, but we even had restaurants, hotels, the cleaning sector, home-help firms, schools, security, gyms, and advertising firms. The process was simple, the client base was huge.
So say, for example, a contractor was building a housing complex in town. This contractor would employ a whole load of others—carpentry businesses, concrete guys, prefab firms, electricians, plumbers, and anyone else they might need. Those firms would be invoiced by companies we’d invented, most often they’d be recruitment companies on paper. The firms would pay their invoices and by doing so, they got deductible costs, plus the accompanying VAT. Our companies would then move the money on down various channels, mostly via banks and companies in the Baltics, but sometimes via Dubai—or Luxembourg, Lichtenstein, and the Channel Islands if we were dealing with bigger things. We’d then send back the money via various transactions, fake loans, payments for imaginary consultations, property purchases in the East. Or else we’d just transfer them without any explanation via the currency exchange on Vasagatan, where our smurfs would withdraw the money as cash and deliver nearly all of it back to the building firms, who’d then use the money to pay their guys’ wages without any unnecessary tax.
Everyone involved gained from the system. Our man Erhardsson’s company earned about twenty million in withdrawal fees from us. The contractors could employ cheaper people. The building firms could avoid paying employee fees and take people on for less. The guys themselves avoided paying tax and earned more. And we took 15 percent for our services.
But the real money came from the purchase option business. After the financial crisis in 2008, stock exchange prices fell, and lots of companies were suddenly hot property. I was meeting bankers, auditors, and lawyers all the time anyway, not least Stig Erhardsson, and let’s just say I kept my ears open. I listened to all the rumors I could snap up. I steered conversations where I wanted them. Not many of the people I met really worked at the necessary levels, for the registered companies, but lots of them knew people who knew people. And again: in every single transaction, there were so many people involved, it was impossible to keep it quiet.
So I would invite the right people to dinner, I went to London and took auditors to Premier League matches, I booked weekend trips to the Monaco Grand Prix with a group of chief accountants. Have you ever heard the sound of an F1 car close up?
JS: Don’t think so. Loud, I guess?
M: It sounds like it’s built to hurt you. Anyway, I was in the race when K-Med got bought out. I knew about the rumors around the purchase of AstraZeneca—it never actually happened, but it still raised the prices. I was well prepared when Custia made an offer on JK Display last autumn. Stig Erhardsson came on several trips with us.
I had contacts in Luxembourg and Lichtenstein fronting businesses for me. The authorities back here were trying to stay on top of things—if they saw someone suddenly buy up huge amounts of options, they would react. Everything had to be done via proxy, be carefully weighed up and planned.
Benjamin was doing better at school. Lillan loved her horses. Sebbe made sure I had plenty of candy, as he called it. Pills that made me happy. Michaela helped me update my wardrobe every now and then. The guys were always wanting me to go out with them, but I only went when we were abroad. I preferred to stay anonymous in Sweden. To keep things short: they sometimes called me the King. The Magician. Mr. Gold. I was living the life.
I do sometimes ask myself what kind of life it was, though. Our apartment had been burned down, I’d been kidnapped and tortured. I was changing my phone once a week, looking after hundreds of different companies a year, popping Losec and MDMA just to be able to deal with my ulcer and my broken psyche.
I was doing it for the kids, no one else. So that Lillan and Benjamin would never end up in debt like I did. But still…I mean, shit…all the crap I went through, it spilled over onto them. I sometimes wonder how I could’ve let it get so far. I’ve been an idiot. And two months ago, the first cracks started to appear.
JS: What happened?
M: Maxim died.
JS: How?
M: I don’t know. They don’t tell me everything. But something went wrong, I think it was a car crash.
JS: Where?
M: On the E4. Sebbe was in the car, too. He made it, but he cracked some ribs and broke his arm.
JS: Okay.
M: Mmm…and he’s still a complete mess, I’m sad about the whole thing, too. We’d worked together for years. Maxim made me laugh.
JS: You said cracks before. What else happened?
M: I got arrested and ended up here with you.
Memo continued on separate sheet.
52
The moment Emelie turned on her phone when the plane landed, it started beeping and buzzing. Tasks, calendar reminders. Missed-call alerts, message tones, the bleeping of 208 unread emails pouring in. It even buzzed with new Facebook alerts, despite the fact she never used it. She needed to turn that function off; it was insane.
Though it was five o’clock on a Sunday afternoon, she went straight to the office. She couldn’t keep this up much longer. Trips to Mallorca, two criminal cases where she was about as clueless as a first-year law student. Plus: Mom and Dad back home in her apartment, desperate to take a trip to the Fjäderholm islands with her, visit the Royal Armory, go out for a meal at the very least. Most of the missed calls were from her mother.
She popped two Stesolid pills in the taxi. She was nowhere near done with the Investor Incubation PPL agreement. And she really should try to cut back on the pills. Though she hadn’t been taking them for so long yet. A few more days couldn’t be too bad.
She ate a microwave dinner with Jossan in the office. They didn’t even bother going down to the dining room on the floor below. Emelie needed to start searching for Peder Hult, or at least mention his name to Benjamin, but she didn’t have time. She had to get ready for Nikola’s trial, too.
The food was unevenly warm. Emelie burned her tongue on one mouthful, but the next bite tasted like it had just come out of the fridge. She regretted not just running down to McDonald’s.
Jossan hadn’t even warmed anything up. Instead, she’d taken a huge plastic bottle from the fridge. “I’m on a new diet,” she said, pouring the green contents into a glass. “Juicing.”
“Meaning what?”
“Nothing but cold-pressed juice today, for breakfast, lunch, snack, and dinner. This one’s kale, wheatgrass, spinach, apple, sunflower, cucumber, lettuce, and ginger. Super healthy. Want a taste?”
Emelie sipped the drink. It tasted sour, strongly of ginger. She pulled a face.
Jossan said: “It’s better than the pills you’re popping anyway, Pippa.”
Emelie looked around. No one else was about. She hadn’t realized Jossan knew.
She said: “I’m not doing so well, Josephine. There’s so much you don’t know.”
She was longing for Teddy.
The next day, she’d promised to eat lunch with her parents. Her secretary booked a table for them at Lydmar; they had a nice terrace. But it was still raining—at least that should send her mom and dad back to Jönköping before long, if nothing else.
She was waiting for them now. An hour, max: she just didn’t have time for longer. Last night, when she got back from the office, she’d started reading the preliminary inquiry report from Nikola’s case. It wasn’t especially thick, but it was all new to her. She underlined, made notes in the margins, transferred the same notes to a document on her computer. Her starting point was his plea. It made no difference what she thought had happened. Nikola denied any crime—he’d been on his way to Teddy’s.
“Oh, what a lovely little place,” her mother had shouted when she sat down. “Do you know what they asked us wh
en we arrived? If we were the Janssons. They must’ve been able to see it on us. Isn’t that wonderful?”
53
The last time Nikola was on trial: petty theft, handling stolen goods, assault. This time, it was aggravated burglary. Actually: he’d expected a flashier courtroom, grander somehow.
Södertörn district court: less than ten years old. Through the window, he could see the prison where he’d been locked up these past few weeks. He could even make out the cages on the roof. Kerim—Shawshank Redemption—had vanished without a trace, “like a fart in the wind.”
The room: big. The bench: high. The seats were made from pale wood, with light-green leather upholstery. Modern atmosphere: no flourishes. Straight lines everywhere. Behind the judge and the lay judges, there was some kind of green fabric on the wall. Clear color scheme: light and green. Basically: make him feel like it was somewhere that’d be kind to him. Fib of the century.
The judge: a middle-aged woman with a face like she had a constant sore throat. The corners of her mouth never moving north of her lower lip. She reminded him of the creepy old woman in The Woman in Black 2. The lay judges looked like they’d been born in the nineteenth century: Nikola wondered which of them would start snoring first. The only one who didn’t look like he’d made up his mind the moment he stepped into the room was the clerk, a young guy with a beard, constantly adjusting the knot in his tie.
“Good morning,” Emelie said loudly as they entered the room. She had come down to meet him in the custody room, and followed him and the guards up to the court. He liked her strong, confident tone.
The prosecutor was already at her desk: busy setting up her computer. A thin-haired woman with steely vibes: total I’m-your-bureaucratic-executioner look fixed on him. A cunt in the most cuntish form.
Emelie pulled out Nikola’s chair, put her bag down on the table, and started taking out piles of paper. She took her time: document after document—everyone was sitting but her. Nikola dug that, too—his lawyer wasn’t going to rush for anyone.
“Yes, good morning,” said the judge. “Let’s begin today’s hearing in case B 2132-15. We have here public prosecutor Karin Forsryd, correct?”
The prosecutor replied flatly: “Yes.”
“And on the other side, Nikola Maksumic?”
Nikola bent down toward the delicate microphone. “Yes.” He thought it sounded like his voice echoed through the room.
“And next to you, your public defense counsel, lawyer Emelie Jansson.”
“That’s correct.” Again—Emelie spoke clearly.
The judge wrote something down, then said: “In that case, I wonder, is there any reason to adjourn today’s hearing?”
The prosecutor and Emelie replied simultaneously: “No.”
Nikola glanced to his left: the public seats were almost full. More people than he’d thought. Maybe they were just general visitors, some sad school class on a field trip. He could see Chamon and Yusuf, in any case: both winked at him. Paulina was there, too. He tried to read her expression. She looked serious. No smile—right? She was at least fifty feet away, so it was hard to see. But at least she was there. And then his mom—back from her shady trip.
The presiding judge kept talking: about the procedure for the hearing, who everyone was. Then the prosecutor began with her opening remarks. Emelie had already gone through the order of things with Nikola, and explained how the prosecutor would probably try to frame it. He’d been through this before, anyway. He tuned out—he wasn’t that interested in trials.
They saw CCTV images from the shop and the area around it, two people, both in dark clothing and motorcycle helmets, breaking in and running between the shelves. They hadn’t found a helmet, though, and when they tested Nikola’s clothing for explosive particles, they hadn’t found zip. No fingerprints or traces of DNA, not in the shop and not on the motorbike abandoned nearby. The explosives had been traced back to a building firm in Bålsta. It had been burgled two years earlier, but they didn’t know any more than that. The technicians had taken casts of the damage done to the doors, but they hadn’t found a crowbar, so there was nothing to compare it to. The police had taken his phone and emptied it: even there, they hadn’t found anything detrimental to his case.
Nikola’s first bit of luck: that he’d worn gloves the entire time, kept his helmet on, and sprayed over the CCTV camera in the office: his face had never been visible.
The second: that he’d thrown the sweater, helmet, and backpack into the lake.
It was a clean job.
His bad luck: that the pigs had managed to get a tracker dog on scene so fast.
After an hour, the prosecutor had finished making her opening remarks. The next point on the agenda was his interrogation. He leaned over to Emelie and whispered: “I can’t do this.”
“What?”
“I don’t feel good.”
She requested a break. Nikola ran to the toilet—felt like he was about to shit himself. But nothing happened. Eventually he got up, rinsed his face, and went out. The guards outside smiled—maybe they were used to people cracking under pressure.
He tried to keep it together. Stared straight ahead, clasped his hands under the table. Listened to the prosecutor’s questions.
It felt like it lasted three days, but after about an hour, it was over. He hadn’t had much to say, just repeated the same thing over and over again: “I was going to my uncle’s. He can back me up. You can see in my phone, I called him. I got lost, then the police dog came running up and ripped me to pieces.”
He wondered whether Emelie really believed he was innocent; it kind of seemed that way.
The hearing dragged on. They stopped for lunch. The police took him back to prison and gave him a bowl of pea soup and some bread. He couldn’t even manage a mouthful.
Back in the courtroom, it was time for the guards and the cops to get up on the stand. One by one, they came forward. Answered the prosecution’s questions: “What did you see outside the shop? What did the motorcycle look like? How was it being driven? How long after this were you in your car? What did the person riding it look like?”
They didn’t seem to know much, but a few of them tried to say that the biker was built like Nikola. That their trousers were like those he’d had on when he was arrested. Emelie didn’t ask a single question. Nikola wondered what she was doing—she should be laying into them. Cross-examining them all, making them admit that they couldn’t actually say anything about who was like who.
They took another break in the afternoon. Emelie came down to the small holding cell with him. The first cell he’d been in was like a huge Östermalm apartment in comparison. There was nothing but a seat in this new one—both he and Emelie chose to stand.
“Why’re you letting them spout all that crap?” he asked the moment the guards closed the door.
“They’re not adding anything.”
“But they’re saying they recognized me.”
“They can say what they like, but the person they saw was wearing a helmet and dark clothing. It’s impossible for them to know if it was you or someone else. You didn’t have a helmet with you when you were arrested. And that means I shouldn’t run the risk of making them say something that could hurt you.”
“But the judge looks like she wants to give me fifteen years.”
“Just take it easy. All that really matters is the dog handler. That they say the dog picked up your scent. And we haven’t had that testimony yet.”
But now. The door at the very back of the courtroom opened. A uniformed policeman stepped into the room. His belt jingled: walkie talkie, keys, flashlights, and other police crap. Nikola recognized him: the guy’s Alsatian had mistaken his arm for a bone.
“Karl Järnnacke?” the judge asked.
The policeman nodded and sat down in the witness box. He had thin, reddish sideburns and rough hands.
“You have been called here today as a witness in this case, on the request of the prosecuto
r. Have you given testimony in court before?”
“Many times.”
“In that case, let’s proceed with the witness oath: I, Karl Järnnacke…”
“I, Karl Järnnacke.”
“Do solemnly swear…”
“Do solemnly swear.”
“To tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth…”
“To tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”
The judge glared at the dog handler in the same way she’d glared at all the earlier witnesses. “I would now like to remind you that anything you say is under oath.”
Järnnacke started to talk. He followed his own memo word for word—he must’ve reread it just before he came in, what a nerd.
The prosecutor asked a few questions about the search. How hard the dog had pulled on the lead. How sure Järnnacke was that it had all gone as it should.
Nikola tried to sit upright in his chair: it was hard. This pig invited violence, like a disgusting bug you wanted to crush under your foot. His words were sinking Nikola: making the court believe the dog had picked up the right scent, that the evidence was clear. After a few minutes, the prosecutor said her thanks. It was all over: Nikola was going to be sent down. He wondered how many years it would be this time.
But then the judge turned to Emelie. “Now to the defense for cross-examination.”
“Thank you, Your Honor,” said Emelie. Her voice was softer now. She looked up at Karl Järnnacke. “How long have you worked as a dog handler?”
“About four years.”
“And you completed the police training course on dog handling prior to this, correct?”
“Correct.”
“I assume there are certain rules and regulations you have to learn as part of this?”
“Yes, of course.”
“And certain texts about using dogs on searches, correct?”