by Jens Lapidus
The prosecutor persisted.
“Did you sleep in the house?”
“What did you do the day before?”
“Why was your DNA on the bloody clothes we found in the woods?”
Benjamin had no answers.
The minutes turned into hours. The judge called for a recess. Teddy saw Emelie go outside, to the same corner as before. She smoked her cigarette slowly. He wondered what she was thinking.
After the break, the prosecutor continued in the same vein. “Why did you change your clothes?”
Benjamin sighed. “I don’t remember changing clothes.”
Emelie raised her voice: “Leading question.”
Rölén pretended she hadn’t heard Emelie’s objection or Benjamin’s answer. “How close were you standing to Sebbe when you shot him?”
“Another leading question,” Emelie interrupted.
The prosecutor snorted but dropped the subject. Instead, she started asking questions about the house, who owned it, and so on.
Eventually she came back to her killer question. “Why don’t you want to say who you were with?”
“I just can’t.”
“You’re on trial for murder.”
“I know.”
“And there’s someone who could testify on your behalf, no?”
“I guess so, yeah.”
“But you don’t want to say who? That sounds very, very strange to me.”
Benjamin took a deep breath. Teddy saw him glance over toward Lillan.
He said: “I’m sorry, but I can’t say.”
The prosecutor turned to the judge. “Thank you. In that case, I have no further questions, Your Honor.”
The room was dead silent.
Teddy had been watching the lay judges. Their expressions gave them away much more easily than the judge’s—they all must think Benjamin was guilty as hell.
The judge was making notes. It was probably time to break for the day. Then, suddenly, the door at the back of the room opened.
A man came in. Thin hair, round glasses. Chinos and a white shirt. He walked up to the witness stand.
Everyone’s eyes followed him. The judge looked up.
The man said: “I’d like to stand as a witness.”
The prosecutor practically leaped from her seat. “Who are you? You have no right to speak.”
The judge turned to the man. “The prosecutor is right. But it may be that you have important information. Who are you?”
Again: you could’ve cut the tension with a knife. Everyone in the room, the public, the lay judges, even the clerk had their eyes fixed on the man who had just come in. Teddy thought there was something familiar about him.
Everyone was waiting for his reply.
When he spoke, he did so in a clear voice. “I’m Mats Emanuelsson, Benjamin’s father. I was in the house with him.”
Teddy realized why he hadn’t recognized him immediately; he’d done a good job of changing his appearance.
74
Magnus Hassel didn’t love his job, but it was okay. And they paid him pretty damn well. Last year, he’d taken home fifteen million kronor in dividends, paid record low tax, and brought in another million euros from a couple of ad hoc transactions organized by the firm’s St. Petersburg office. Entirely tax free. The tax laws were there to be used, after all.
Still, he’d always dreamed of being a different kind of lawyer. The courtroom represented drama, excitement on a level he never came close to, no matter how many hardball negotiations with German business lawyers or public actions he worked through.
When he first found out that Emelie Jansson had completely rejected their proposal that she resign from the case, he hadn’t known what to do. He’d called in Anders Henriksson and Alice Strömberg, and before they’d even closed the door, he’d been shouting so loudly, they could probably hear it down in reception. “Can either of you tell me what the hell’s going on here?”
Two cups of tea and a few beta-blockers later, he was a little calmer. But his rage was still bubbling.
Alice Strömberg had tried to talk softly. “I don’t think she was ever fully on board here. I never really had the feeling she had all that much to offer. But the trial she’s involved in hasn’t been postponed, in any case, and the court says she’s still serving as private defense.”
Magnus had asked them to leave the room. He wasn’t used to people acting like Emelie had. He needed to see it with his own eyes. He went down to the courthouse.
It was the first time he’d been in a law court since the placement he’d done early on in his career. It was strange, really—he was one of the country’s foremost business lawyers, but he almost never set foot in court. He’d had to take part in divorce proceedings on a few occasions, but that was completely different. Informal, somehow. The courts, on the other hand, were a world of their own: the confused visitors, turning their heads in an attempt to work out how they’d ended up there; the clerks clutching documents and law books; the lay judges, talking quietly while they waited for their trials to start. And then the main parties themselves: tragic figures who were something like the pieces in these legal chess matches. It was all very exciting.
The only thing bothering him was that he was losing about seven thousand kronor an hour just by being there. And that Emelie had tricked him.
He sat down in one of the rearmost seats in the public area. His secretary had already ordered the summons application and certain sections of the preliminary report. There was no doubt, it was a tough case Emelie Jansson had ahead of her. He hoped she would lose.
And soon enough, it was pretty clear that the hearing wasn’t going Emelie’s way. The prosecutor was flawless, proceeded calmly and soberly through the evidence without leaving anything out. When Emelie’s turn came around, all she had to offer were a few weak assertions about the uncertainty surrounding the blood found in the hallway—claims that wouldn’t lead anywhere.
At lunch, Magnus crept off before Emelie had time to leave the courtroom. He didn’t want to confront her now. He wanted to see how the case panned out first.
But then, during the afternoon, the thing that only ever happened in criminal cases happened—the complete surprise. Magnus had never heard of anything like it. A man walked into the room and claimed to be Benjamin Emanuelsson’s father. He wanted to testify. It was incredible.
The prosecutor protested, of course. Emelie Jansson’s huge, sweet eyes glared at the man who’d just made such an unexpected entrance. Still, Magnus wondered whether she hadn’t planned this, whether she wasn’t an accomplished actress on top of everything else. Though it did actually seem like she was just as surprised as everyone else.
After a few minutes’ back-and-forth, Emelie requested a break in proceedings. Magnus watched her take the man claiming to be Mats Emanuelsson into a side room.
After an hour, they came back out. Emelie knocked on the door to the courtroom, and everyone was let back in.
“The defense calls Mats Emanuelsson as a witness,” she announced.
The prosecutor was just about to protest when the judge interrupted her. “What is the evidence and purpose of questioning?”
Emelie seemed ready for the question. She read from a notepad.
“He will be questioned about his observations in and around the house on Värmdö over the course of the fifteenth and sixteenth of May, in support of the assertion that Benjamin Emanuelsson did not take Sebastian Petrovic’s life.”
The prosecutor went mad. Practically spitting teeth. “Your Honor, this is completely unacceptable. This is a classic surprise attack, not permitted under the code of judicial procedure, not at all. Any statements from this person, whoever he is, should be denied.”
“Your Honor, I can assure you that I was unaware that Mats Emanuelsson was willing to testify, nor that he was even alive. Had I known, I would, of course, have requested his testimony earlier,” Emelie replied.
The presiding judge seemed perpl
exed. He squirmed. The prosecutor continued her protests. She talked about statement periods, irresponsible litigation, and how inexperienced Emelie Jansson must truly be.
Emelie, on the other hand, kept calm. “The defendant is accused of murder. As his defense counsel, we request one single witness in support of his plea. Such a request simply cannot be denied. It would be a serious procedural error.”
The judge groaned. “The court will take a break to deliberate.”
After two hours, they reentered the courtroom. It was eight in the evening. Magnus was annoyed, but he’d stayed behind anyway.
The judge’s voice was more confident now. “The court determines that the witness examination should be permitted,” he said. “But first, the witness must be interviewed by the police.”
It was an anticlimax. The trial would have to be put on hold for a few days to give the police and the prosecutor time to interview the man claiming to be Benjamin’s father, and to prepare themselves based on what he had to say.
Magnus Hassel still couldn’t help but wonder whether it really was Mats Emanuelsson. A man who had been dead for more than four years.
But more than that, he wondered how the hell Emelie Jansson was planning on explaining why she’d spent the day playing defense lawyer here.
EIGHT DAYS LATER
75
“First of all, I’d just like to say that I’m incredibly nervous about all of this. My son is facing a life sentence for something he didn’t do. He got mixed up in this because he’s been loyal to me and refused to say anything that might compromise me. That’s why he didn’t want to give my name. Everyone thinks I’m dead. According to all of your registers and records, I’m not alive. But here I am.
“I’ve been trying to get in touch with Benjamin without giving myself away since he was first arrested. I even spoke to Emelie Jansson here at one point. I asked her to pass on a letter to Benjamin, but she refused. I guess that was in line with her rules and regulations. Maybe I should’ve gone to the police and come forward as a witness. But believe me, I’ve had bad experiences with the police force. Twice in my life, I’ve tried to cooperate with the police. Both times, it led to catastrophe for me and my family.
“But I’ve realized now, there’s no other way forward than what I’m doing today. Stepping up and talking about what happened out on Värmdö.
“I’m going to keep things short. The background to all of this is a serious threat I was subject to a number of years ago. That’s why I decided to make it look like I’d died.
“The problem was, I couldn’t live without my children, and I didn’t want them to have to live without me. So even though I’ve been living in different places all over the world, I’ve always tried to see them on a regular basis. For the most part, we met at the house I got hold of on Värmdö. My friend Sebastian Petrovic helped me buy it under the name Juan Arravena Huerta. It was a simple procedure, really; we did everything through a proxy. I know how to do that kind of thing.
“I’ve been living with a new identity for more than four years now. All so I wouldn’t be forced to do anything that might hurt me, so everyone would think I was gone. So no one would go after my kids or my ex-wife.
“I came back to Sweden two and a half months ago, I’m not going to say how, and I think someone must’ve recognized me. That’s the feeling I had, even at Passport Control.
“I came back to see the kids and do some business with Sebastian Petrovic, Sebbe. Benjamin and I spent the day down by the water next to the house, just fishing and talking. Sebbe came over later. The three of us ate dinner. Sebbe was going to give me a lift to the airport the next morning. Benjamin would drive home in his own car.
“Sometime in the middle of the night, I woke up. I’d heard a loud noise. I went into Benjamin’s room. We were both sleeping upstairs, Sebbe downstairs, but his bed was empty. The noise was coming from downstairs. It sounded like shouting. I went down.
“It was dark, but I could see Benjamin fighting someone in the hallway; I didn’t recognize the man, but he had a weapon in his hand. His cheek was bleeding. I think Benjamin must’ve hit him with a bottle—there were bits of glass all over the floor.
“Benjamin was shouting. And then I recognized the man he was trying to get out of the house. His name was Joakim Sundén—he’s the dirtiest policeman I’ve ever met.
“Anyway, I tried to help my son, to get rid of Sundén. We were fighting with him, trying to hold him down, but it just got worse. We moved into the living room.
“That’s when I saw him. It’s probably what woke me up. It was awful. Sebbe was on the floor. He’d been shot. Joakim Sundén must’ve come in on the ground floor, but he hadn’t been expecting to see anyone down there. It was the end of Sebastian.
“We ran out of the house, Sundén behind us. He was shooting at us.
“I told Benjamin to get out of there, and I ran into the woods.
“That’s all I know. That’s what happened. I was there. Benjamin was there. Sebastian Petrovic was murdered by a policeman who’d wanted me as an informant in my previous life. Sebbe saved us. He was my best friend for nine years.”
76
Prosecutor Rölén couldn’t sit still. She twisted and turned in her chair as Mats Emanuelsson talked. She pulled faces, sighed loudly. Emelie could understand her, in a way—Mats’s story sounded like something from a film, one big fabrication made up to protect his son.
But there were two facts Rölén couldn’t ignore. Firstly, Mats had given DNA samples, and these had proved—to +4, the highest-level match—that he was related to Benjamin. The samples were a match for something else, too: the DNA found in the house. Mats was Benjamin’s father, and he’d been in the house on Värmdö. Not even Rölén could dispute that.
Secondly, Mats had provided identity documents, Spanish doctors’ notes and photographs showing a smiling, suntanned man with tattoos on his arms. They corresponded to the victim’s. There was no longer any doubt that the man killed in the house was Sebastian Petrovic.
Despite this, Rölén tried to undermine his testimony. She continued to question who he was, why he’d turned up so late. She seized on the fact that he didn’t want to talk about his past. She tried to get him to say he couldn’t be sure Benjamin hadn’t killed Sebastian Petrovic. That he couldn’t explain the bloody clothes in the woods or the gunpowder traces on Benjamin’s hands.
Above all, she tried to make a point of the fact that the dead man was Sebastian Petrovic, of all people.
“You were kidnapped nine years ago, were you not?”
“That’s correct,” Mats replied.
“By people involved in the so-called Yugoslav mafia, correct?”
“I can’t answer that.”
“My assertion is that Sebastian Petrovic was known to the police, and that he had links to those circles. I believe Benjamin’s motive in taking his life was revenge for what happened to you nine years ago. For them kidnapping you.”
Mats replied calmly and steadily. “All I can say about that is it isn’t true. Sebbe had nothing to do with the kidnapping. And as far as the gunpowder particles are concerned, Benjamin and Sundén were fighting, and those particles can be transferred, end up on someone else. I’ve got no idea about the clothes in the woods. Benjamin had a change of clothes with him, I know that much. My guess is that Sundén took them and made sure they were covered in blood. He planted evidence, simple as that.”
On the whole, Mats didn’t budge from his story. He consistently maintained the same thing. Sundén had broken into the house. He’d probably arrived by boat and then approached the house through the woods. The alarm hadn’t sounded at the response center because the power had been cut. Maybe Benjamin had heard an alarm and woken up, or maybe it was the shot, and then he’d gone downstairs. Mats had seen Sundén trying to neutralize his son, and he’d seen him take out his gun and shoot at them. It was terrible no matter which way you looked at it.
Once the cross-examina
tion was over, the judge turned to Emelie. “Does the defense have anything to add?”
She knew what needed to be done. Her head was crystal clear today. She said: “First of all, I’d like to request that the National Forensic Centre compares the expanding bullet found in the wall behind the victim with Joakim Sundén’s service weapon. I suggest that Sebastian Petrovic was shot with Sundén’s Sig Sauer P226.
“Secondly, I insist that the detention of Benjamin Emanuelsson cease at once, that he be released. There is no longer even probable cause for the crime. The prosecution has not managed to reduce the value of Mats Emanuelsson’s testimony given here today. Mats was present at the scene, and everything he claims has been backed up by forensic evidence. The prosecution is responsible for demonstrating Benjamin’s guilt; there is no requirement for Benjamin to prove his innocence. But today, through Mats’s testimony, the defense has demonstrated in good measure that Benjamin Emanuelsson did not kill Sebastian Petrovic. I will show that he was shot using a weapon in the possession of Joakim Sundén at the time of his death outside the Håga prison complex recently.”
The judge seemed less confused today. “The court shall take a recess,” he said, “and deliberate on the question of detention.”
The minutes ticked by outside the courtroom. Benjamin was back in his cell in the Pit—Emelie tried to imagine what was going through his head.
Cecilia, Lillan, and Mats were standing together not far from her. Teddy had gone down to the cafeteria. Maybe he didn’t want to risk Mats seeing him up close. Magnus Hassel had disappeared, too—the two of them still hadn’t talked. Emelie didn’t even know if she wanted to talk to him—she would be getting the boot, she knew that, so what else was there to add?
A memory. She must’ve been fourteen, fifteen. She and her dad had been sitting in the kitchen, he was helping her study for an English test, and her mom was cleaning like usual. Word after word. She was good, she knew the words forward and back. But there was one term she couldn’t quite grasp: liability. Her dad had tried to explain: “It means responsibility, but more economic, you know? Responsibility in the sense that I’m responsible for you as your father, but with money, you can owe someone money. Do you understand?” Responsibility, she’d thought—you don’t know what the word means. You’ll never know.