by Jens Lapidus
Murray had kept his end of the deal. The assault rifle in Nikola’s basement had vanished by the time he got out, but there hadn’t been any raid. He spotted it in one of the pictures the cops released, though. Three assault rifles in a row: Rk 62, 95 TP, with a collapsible butt. All with the safety on the left-hand side—but only one of them had black masking tape on the grip. Murray: that sly fox. He’d added the huge gun to their haul. Couldn’t be better. In Nikola’s head: a wicked smart plan.
Plus, a different feeling. He didn’t start sweating when he thought about what he had to do. No stomach cramps. No headaches. Actually: he was sleeping well. Something must’ve happened during his time in solitary, during his talks with Kerim in the cage on the roof. What would happen would happen: anything was better than being locked up in isolation.
He rang Chamon’s bell. Silence.
He rang again. Heard whispering.
The door flew open. Chamon, Yusuf, Bello, and a few of the other guys in the hallway. “You’re a winner, man!” they roared.
They carried him in on their raised arms. Chamon’s little apartment: total party vibe. Chips, popcorn, sunflower seeds. Bottles of Red Bull and Coca-Cola in ice buckets all over the place. Vodka and cans of beer in a line on the coffee table. Colorful fucking balloons on the ceiling. Plus: a nice line. Big fat pile of coke on a metal tray, and a silver tube to snort it through. Chamon must’ve blown most of what he grabbed from the raid on this. Like a kid’s birthday party crossed with some kind of Scarface homage.
There were only six of them, but they partied like half of Stureplan. The balloons were gone after ten minutes. His pals looked like they’d dipped their faces in vanilla sugar. Half-full glasses of vodka and Red Bull on every surface. Music from Chamon’s iPhone booming from the speakers: Rihanna, Kanye West. Zara Larsson.
They crammed onto the leather sofa and played GTA for hours. Xbox One—newly lifted and shiny. The neighbor rang the bell, asked them to keep it down. Chamon yanked down his pants and showed his poor Iraqi neighbor his ass. They rolled up five-hundred-kronor bills: snorted more. Took selfies. Tried on Chamon’s caps. He had more than fifty of them—all swiped from the same Stadium shop in town. They climbed onto the sofas and swayed with the music. The neighbor banged on the door again: this time with his sons-in-law behind him. It turned into a fight in the stairwell. Everyone falling all over the place. Chamon laughed that Hillary Clinton would be turning up with a peace settlement, and then everyone would have to suck his dick.
Nikola downed five bottles of beer in under an hour. Chamon kept going on about calling Darina to come over, the whore he’d met last time they’d partied. Nikola was holding the Xbox controller upside down, made no difference to his game. He pissed from the balcony. Did a bit of pretend MMA with Yusuf in the middle of all the spat-out seed cases on the floor: they managed to knock Chamon’s only picture from the wall—a load of weird symbols on a bit of parchment. “The fuck you doing, those are real hieroglyphs!” Chamon yelled, trying to grab Nikola and Yusuf at the same time. They were laughing so hard, they almost pissed themselves.
The hours passed. The sound system broke when Chamon spilled vodka on it. Some of the guys started heading home. Nikola hugged them all—“You’re the best, guys. Real. If you were Slavs like me, I’d have jumped you in the shower.”
Another hour passed. Chamon, Yusuf, and Nikola started to come down. Nikola was drinking water. The others had all gone. Suddenly the doorbell rang. Nikola found a baseball bat. They looked at one another—that fucking neighbor again? Or was it the pigs this time?
Chamon peered through the peephole. He opened the door.
Outside, alone: Isak.
He talked slowly: “Can I come in?”
Chamon was staring. Nikola wondered what he was doing there, what he wanted.
Yusuf didn’t seem surprised—maybe he’d called Mr. One over.
Chamon swept the Xbox controllers and the bottles from the sofa. Brushed seed casings and unpopped popcorn to one side. Isak sat down. Rubbed the back of his hand against his stubble. The flat looked like a town that’d been plundered by ISIS.
“Been having a party, I see.”
Chamon and Nikola were still on their feet. “Yeah, we were celebrating Nikola,” Chamon said.
“Good, boys, good.” Isak turned to Yusuf. “You open the window? Smells like a whorehouse in here.”
Chamon held out a bottle of beer. “Want one?”
Isak, stone-faced: “I drove the A8 here.”
It was dark outside now. The TV was off. The area silent.
Isak said: “I just wanted to come and congratulate you, Nikola. Must’ve been a hell of a lawyer you had. How’d you find her?”
“Emelie Jansson,” Nikola said. “You met her. She’s the one who worked with my uncle.”
“Ah shit, her. She was fiery, that one. And sharp, seems like.”
Isak scratched his crotch.
“Yusuf told me about the raid on Abrohom Michel’s place. That you made sure it happened by…talking to the…authorities.”
Nikola felt his face burn. He’d talked to Murray, told Chamon about it. Worked with a cop—against all rules. Deadly sin in their eyes.
Isak continued: “Don’t worry. You did the right thing. There are always exceptions, to everything. They attacked me, crashed my trial, shat all over my honor. Now we know who they are, and they’ve got no weapons left. They’re under pressure. The cops did the job for us. But you still haven’t taken care of the guilty one, Nikola.”
Isak got up. The floor crunched beneath his feet as he left.
Half an hour later. One in the morning.
Nikola and Chamon sitting in Chamon’s ride. Shit, the aftereffects of the coke were still playing Lil Wayne in his head.
“Seriously, Chamon, I dunno what to do. They’re fucking organized.”
Chamon’s head bobbed up and down. “Not as organized as they want you to think. Plus, four of his guys are inside. We’ll fix this, bro…somehow.”
Nikola tried to get in touch with Teddy again, for maybe the two hundredth time that day: his phone was still off. What the hell?
Chamon pulled up in front of the house. Word was, Metim Tasdemir lived here.
Chamon tried to fish something from his pocket. “Y’want any?” He held up a bag of powder.
“Nah, no more for me.”
Chamon bent down, took a snort straight from the bag. “Nicko, man, now’s the time.”
They got out of the car. Nikola slowed down. He’d thought he was past this—but he could feel it clearly: the lump of fear in his stomach again. Enough, he had to switch off now.
Chamon was a few feet ahead of him. They smashed the window next to the kitchen door. There were plastic toys and an inflatable pool in the garden. Chamon stuck his arm through the hole and opened the window. His thumb was bleeding.
They helped each other in. Each with a baseball bat in hand. Nikola wanted to be steady, but still: he was shaking like a fucking electric toothbrush.
Then they heard a kid crying. Chamon went first, his baseball bat raised above him like a samurai sword.
Darkness. They flipped the lights on. Striped wallpaper. A fake open fire. LED lights under the furniture—they gave everything a bluish tinge. Huge candles on the floor.
More crying. They went into a room: pink everywhere. Teddy bears and Frozen characters. By one wall: Metim fucking Tasdemir changing his daughter’s diaper. He mustn’t have heard them smash the window. The guy’s eyebrows when he saw them: almost up to his hairline.
A nanosecond: pictures flashing through his mind. The cell. The cage on the roof. Where Nikola would end up again if all this went to shit. He was about to break down. He just wanted to drop the bat and run.
Still: he held the wooden bat to Metim’s forehead: “You son of a bitch.”
Drops of sweat on the guy’s forehead. “Take it easy now, boys.” Faint voice. Weak vibes. “My kid’s here, for fuck’s sake. Gentle,
gentle. We can fix this.”
The baby was crying. Metim held her tightly.
Nikola didn’t know what to do. He felt paralyzed. A baby. He couldn’t hurt a baby.
Chamon: “We’ll take it easy when you stop trying to fuck us over. Sit.”
Metim sank down onto a footstool in one corner of the room. There was a kid’s stroller next to him.
Metim Tasdemir—probably the only man who could compete with Isak in this city—was starting to whine. “Don’t hurt her, please.”
“We’re not going to,” said Nikola.
Metim put his daughter down on a play mat covered in pictures of flying elephants. The girl seemed calmer now.
Nikola hit Metim straight in the face. Felt his fist meet his nose: Metim stifled a shout.
Chamon put his bat against the guy’s temple.
“We saw the cops’ pictures. We’re not idiots—those were yours. And they’re the same Finnish guns you used when you fucked over Isak’s trial.”
“The hell you talking about?” Metim used his T-shirt to wipe the blood streaming from his nose. What a pathetic little dick he was.
“Oxbacksgatan, that’s where Abrohom lives; he’s your guy. He’s in fucking prison. So cut the crap.”
Metim groaned. “You assholes, I thought there was one too many in that picture, the one with the tape. You snitched somehow, you rats.”
Nikola gave him another punch. The blood spattered onto the baby’s pajamas. Metim bared his teeth, but he kept quiet.
The girl started to cry again.
Chamon held up his phone. “I just recorded what you said. Isak wants five hundred big to cover the wound. How d’you want to do this?”
Nikola put a hand on the baby girl, gently stroked her back. Her pajamas were pink, and he felt her tiny backbone through the soft material. She was the smallest person he’d ever touched.
She calmed down.
Maybe he should call Simon Murray instead? Hand Metim over to the police. Let this end properly, not start another clan conflict that’d escalate and go on for years. Lead to more people getting hurt. More people dead, probably. And pretty much guarantee more stomachaches and nightmares.
But Metim just nodded. He looked relieved somehow.
Afterward: Chamon and Nikola, in O’Learys. Laughing, taking it easy. What a fucking night. They couldn’t even manage any alcohol. Instead, they both ordered a Coke Zero with extra ice and three straws. The place was closing anytime now. The whole thing almost seemed too easy. Metim had handed over a plastic bag full of cash in under ten minutes. The baby had gone to sleep like Sleeping Beauty after Nikola’s soothing pats.
“Seriously, though, we shoulda squeezed him for more. He must’ve had at least a mil stashed back there,” Chamon mused.
The bag of banknotes hung beneath the bar. Nikola touched it. Biodegradable, he read. He wondered how long it would take for the money to turn to mush if he buried the whole lot in the woods.
They called Isak. He laughed for at least five minutes when Nikola told him what had happened. “He was changing a diaper, you said?”
“Yeah.”
“Number one or number two?”
Nikola: “I think it was a shit.”
It sounded like Isak was about to choke, he was laughing so hard. He cackled for so long, Chamon’s battery almost ran out.
He calmed down by the end of the call. “You’re a real man, Nikola, not like Metim—busy doing woman’s work, changing diapers and crap like that. You and Chamon can keep a hundred and fifty each. Have fun tonight. Make sure you get a lay. You deserve it, my friend.”
Nikola took his boss’s words seriously. He jumped down from the stool.
It was time.
—
Paulina opened the door. He’d never thought she would let him come over at half past two in the morning—but she’d replied to his message right away.
Paulina: sweatpants and a baggy knitted top. Comfy clothes. No makeup. Hair in a bun. He could smell her perfume all the way down the hallway and into her room. She was glowing.
Her parents were asleep upstairs.
She led him into a small room. A narrow bed, an armchair. A bookcase filled with books and a TV. It was on. Some American show.
“What’re you watching?” he asked.
“Homeland,” she said. “I’m totally hooked, watch it all night.”
“Ah shit, it’s that good?”
Paulina sat down on her bed. She turned off the TV.
Nikola felt completely sober and clearheaded now. But he could still see a fuzzy image in his mind: Metim’s baby girl.
Paulina said: “I was so happy when you got out, you know.”
She took his hand. Still: the girl’s tiny body on his mind. He wanted to say something to Paulina about her. Tell her that though he might’ve done a bad thing, it was over now. That everything would be okay.
He sat down next to her on the edge of the bed.
She put her hand on his thigh.
A rush pulsed through him.
He was free. He’d gotten Isak’s money and done what he needed to. The baby girl hadn’t been hurt. And now, he was in a quiet room, alone, with the girl he was totally into.
It might be the best moment of his life.
He leaned forward and kissed Paulina on the lips.
EXPRESSEN, 21 JULY
21-YEAR-OLD CHARGED WITH MURDER OF UNIDENTIFIED VICTIM
The 21-year-old accused of the murder of an unidentified man on Värmdö appeared in court today.
On an evening in mid-May, a guard was called to a villa close to Ängsvik, on Värmdö. Upon arrival, he made a macabre discovery. Inside the house, he found a brutally murdered man. The 21-year-old man was subsequently found in a car in the vicinity of the house. He was taken into custody the next morning.
Today, charges were read against the 21-year-old, said to have taken the man’s life by shooting him in the face. The victim’s identity is, however, as yet unknown. The preliminary investigation, also made public today, claims that tests on the dead man’s DNA have been performed, and attempts have been made to match him to dental records. Despite this, it has not been possible to confirm his identity.
Public prosecutor Annika Rölén will invoke a number of witnesses in the trial, including testimony from guards, coroners and, not least, the crime scene technicians.
According to Rölén: “No one else can have done it. The 21-year-old was the only person nearby, and has refused to give any explanations as to what he was doing there.”
No comment has been made by the 21-year-old male’s lawyer, Emelie Jansson.
59
Flash meeting with Magnus Hassel and Anders Henriksson—Emelie could guess what it would be about. They weren’t meeting in either of the partners’ offices but in one of the conference rooms on the top floor—the more formal spaces usually reserved for clients, the ones with the fantastic views. Again: that in itself was a clear sign of what they wanted.
Jossan had already seen the article on expressen.se. It had been published some time the day before. The first thing she’d said when she came through the door was: “I thought you were smart.”
Emelie had spun around in her desk chair. “Me too. Looks like I was wrong. Any advice on what I should say? You’re a lawyer, aren’t you?”
“No idea. Is this something to do with Teddy?”
“Indirectly. Think I’m on the way out now?”
“Probably,” Jossan replied, without sounding especially sad about it. “Why, Emelie? Why?”
Emelie took a deep breath. “I’ll tell you later. If I have any good answers by then.”
She thought about how she’d never really known why she’d chosen law and about how she’d gradually homed in on business law. She’d nailed the tests, chosen the right specialist courses, applied for jobs at the best firms in Stockholm—she’d been selected by all of them. Leijon had been her first choice.
Josephine almost snorted. “T
hey’re going to kick you out headfirst, no matter what you tell them. But you’re brave, I’ll admit that. Send me a message when you’re making your final statements in court. I want to come and listen. And if you win, I’ll take you to dinner at Matbordet. You heard of it? It’s got two stars—Mathias Dahlgren’s new place; you sit at the table where he actually makes the food.”
—
Emelie was alone in the meeting room. There was a tray on the table, four coffee cups, a silver-colored thermos, and a small bowl of pralines. She didn’t sit down. Instead, she walked over to the panoramic windows and tried to massage her shoulder. The number one complaint of lawyers: back problems from all the stress and too much sitting down.
Her mom and dad had finally gone home, and not a day too early. She assumed they were disappointed she hadn’t spent much time with them, but they shouldn’t complain. She wasn’t the one who’d suggested they come up, plus they’d been able to stay with her for free. One positive was that she had the feeling her dad had been sober the whole time—like he’d been waiting for an opportunity to show her he could.
She did wonder where Teddy had disappeared to, though. She’d thought their relationship had seemed more relaxed after the Palma trip, though they’d barely had time to meet because she’d been so busy. But now his phone seemed to be off. She wondered whether he was still mad at her, and if so, why.
They needed to talk: Benjamin’s preliminary investigation had arrived. She hadn’t had time to go through it in detail yet, but one thing was clear: the dead man wasn’t Mats. Despite his unstable condition, Benjamin had been clear about that: the dead man in the medical examiner’s photos wasn’t his father.
He couldn’t say whether it was Sebastian Petrovic, though. None of the photos showed a tiger tattoo, and the face wasn’t really a face. Still, Emelie sent a scan of them to Michaela so she could check. She hadn’t heard back yet.
The door opened. Magnus Hassel and Anders Henriksson came in, followed by Alice Strömberg, head of HR. It was like they were moving in a row, a little procession en route to a holy ceremony: for the first time in the history of the firm, a lawyer was about to be given the boot. Maybe.