A job, he’d responded when she asked him what the hell he was talking about. He had demanded that Dunja promise him a job, and not just any job. He wanted to use his programming skills, be given free rein to choose his own equipment, and — most important of all — his new workplace had to be above ground. If she couldn’t promise all of this, he would hang up and block her from contacting him forevermore.
Dunja threatened to report him to his superiors, but this time Fareed saw right through her and wished her luck, claiming that it was only a matter of time before he would implode from boredom anyway.
In the end, they’d had no choice. Although Dunja wasn’t even sure she would still have a job when the dust settled, she promised him a position as a programmer. Exactly how she would manage that was a question for later. All that mattered now was that he find the location of the damn phone so they could arrest the attackers.
Unfortunately, triangulation was far from an exact science, and they had spent the last two hours driving in circles around the area south of Helsingør. It didn’t look like this was the right spot either.
“This is just a farm. A lonely, deserted farm.” She looked out the side window at the two barns as Magnus turned the car around on the gravel. There were no cars or mopeds there, nor so much as a single light shining in any of the windows. “There’s zilch here. Nada.”
“Did you take a good look around?”
“It’s an old farm in the middle of nowhere. What would they be doing here?”
“I don’t know. I’m just looking at a screen; it’s not my fault the system isn’t more precise. But I can promise you, if I’d been the one to build it, it would have been…”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, you’re the best programmer in the world, we heard you. But they’re not here. Let`s head back to the main road.”
Magnus nodded and drove back down the narrow driveway. He’d hardly said anything since leaving Copenhagen. He hadn’t even nagged her for another dinner date since they’d had to abandon their pizzas. Maybe he was —
“Hold on, stop!” Fareed cried.
“What is it this time?” Dunja gave Magnus a look. “Maybe we should have gone right after all, like I said?”
“No, left.”
“What do you mean, left? We did turn left. You mean onto the main road?”
“No, right now. Straight to your left. Just do as I say.”
Dunja motioned at Magnus, who stopped the car on the driveway. “Hold on a minute. I don’t know what’s on your screen, but all that’s here is a cow pasture, or whatever this…”
“Hello, what are you waiting for? Drive!” Fareed shouted over the phone, and Dunja had to admit that she did like his energy.
“Okay, take it easy, we’re driving,” she said, gesturing at Magnus to turn into the field.
“How am I supposed to do that?” Magnus said. “There’s no road.”
“I know, but forget it — just drive.”
Magnus shook his head and turned onto the grass.
“Come on, faster. We’re talking a couple hundred metres max,” said Fareed.
“This doesn’t feel right,” Magnus said as he guided the car across the field.
“There’s nothing here,” Dunja said as they passed an overturned bathtub.
“Just keep going straight!”
Their journey came to an abrupt end as the car got stuck in a ditch.
“What did I say?” Magnus threw up his hands.
“You try to get the car out and I’ll keep going.” Dunja climbed out, jumped over the ditch, and hurried off into the darkness.
The grass came up to her waist, and her pants were already wet with dew. She had no idea what awaited her, but Fareed’s energy was so convincing that she kept going even though she couldn’t see or hear anything to suggest she was on the right track.
The fence popped up out of nowhere and hit her in the face so hard she could taste blood. She screamed her frustration into the darkness and was considering heading back to Magnus when her phone vibrated in her back pocket.
“Why did you stop?” asked Fareed.
She hadn’t even brought the phone to her ear before he started in. How did he know? Had he triangulated her position too?
“Hello? Are you taking a bathroom break, or —”
“No, there’s a fucking fence in the way! And don’t tell me to keep going, because there is nothing here!” She could hear how hysterical she sounded, so she took a few deep breaths to bring her excitement level back down to a green zone, or at least yellow.
“You’re almost there; you have to keep going.”
“Okay, I’ll climb over it,” she said in an attempt to sound composed. “But if it turns out you’re wrong again, or if you suddenly tell me to run back, or left, or why not right — it’s been a while since we went right — then I will personally see to it that you spend the rest of your life in that goddamn bunker.”
“I have to go now.”
“What? Hold on. Why? Hello?” But the call had already ended, and after a few failed attempts to get Fareed back on the line, Dunja climbed over the fence and began walking through the grass. Suddenly, a bright light penetrated the darkness, closing in from the left and passing just a few metres in front of her a few seconds later. A car.
Dunja had come to a road, or maybe more like a turnoff. Could it be the E47 between Helsingør and Copenhagen? It didn’t matter. She was going to cross it, dammit. She ran over the asphalt and into the woods on the other side.
The ground sloped sharply downward. To keep from slipping she grabbed hold of tree trunks and branches. The further down she got, the better she could hear the roar of traffic, and soon she could see cars and trucks moving in both directions.
At the same instant, she realized that Fareed was right.
There they were, on the shoulder across the highway, on the southbound side. The smiling yellow emojis hid their faces, and cars honked as they passed, wondering as she did what they were doing. She counted four of them, including one who was standing a bit apart from the others, holding something up. The other three had gathered around an object that reflected the oncoming headlights.
A shopping cart.
She was baffled. What were they doing with —
One of the group stepped aside and she no longer had to wonder. Now Dunja just hoped she was wrong. She shuffled down the slope as fast as she possibly could. All that mattered now was reaching them before it was too late.
She should have called Magnus, but there wasn’t time. Dunja had to make it to the other side and stop them. She waved her arms, trying to get the passing cars to stop and let her cross, but instead they honked and flashed their high beams. One BMW even appeared to aim for her, veering sharply across the solid white line.
Her salvation turned out to be a rusty old Volvo with a broken headlight and a trailer. It slowed down, prompting her to make a daring move into the traffic, with the glowing screen of her phone her only protection. The first lane was relatively easy. But the left-hand one was a problem — a horde of motorcycles thundered by so close that she could feel the wind from each one. At the same time, a truck bellowed as it approached in the lane behind her. She had to make a move. Dunja threw herself forward in an attempt to make use of a gap between bikers.
Once she reached the median she let out her breath, only to find that it had all been for nothing. Time had run laps around her. It was too late. She looked on in horror as the shopping cart shot out among the cars.
Inside was the homeless man from the abandoned building on Stengade. His hands and feet were tied to keep him from escaping, and his wide, terrified eyes were fixed on a box truck that was headed right for him. The truck braked, but it couldn’t keep from hitting the side of the cart, making it spin away like a curling rock. It flew into the left lane, where it was hit by an SUV and o
verturned, only to be crushed under a semi. It happened so quickly; Dunja could have counted the seconds on one hand.
She tried to breathe, but her lungs refused to work. Shock rendered all her systems useless. The volume of the traffic seemed to have lowered. All Dunja could hear was laughter and cheers from across the road.
57
Theodor couldn’t believe this was really happening. That it wasn’t just his fondest wish being performed in his brain, with sound, smell, taste, the whole package. Maybe he was asleep. If so, he never wanted to wake up, because this was…well, this was perfect, down to the tiniest detail. For once it felt like all the powers in the universe were co-operating for his benefit.
He pinched his own cheek, hard, but nothing happened. He really was lying there naked in bed.
Alexandra’s bed.
And that really was her sleeping next to him.
Last night he had given up hope — about her, about whether they would ever hang out again, about everything.
He’d had too much to drink, and by the time he switched to water it was too late. He had no idea how long he’d sat in the bathroom with his fingers down his throat. When he finally went back to the table, Alexandra was gone. Disappeared.
He’d waited at the table for a while, with an increasingly skeptical waiter buzzing around, and then begun to search for her — first in the women’s bathroom, then in the tax-free shop and on the rest of the restaurant deck. But Alexandra was nowhere to be found. He searched the parking deck twice, and he made a circuit of the various sun decks, but it was like she had been swallowed up by the dark waters around them.
In the end he’d given up on ever seeing her again and returned to their table to order a large Coke and a burger. She was there, sitting in her chair as if nothing had happened, asking how he felt and where he’d been. It turned out she had gotten nervous when he was missing for so long, so she went looking for him. Just like him, she’d looked everywhere, eventually returning to the table for something to eat.
And eat they did — appetizers, main courses, dessert. They talked and laughed and he said all the right things; he felt like he could juggle the whole world in his hands, no problem. At four in the morning they got off the ferry in Helsingborg and took a taxi to her house.
Her parents were out of town, and wouldn’t be back until Friday. In other words, there was no need to be quiet. Unlike the memory gaps left by those dark hours on the ferry, the rest of the night was crystal clear. Theodor remembered every second and could replay it all in his mind like a feature film.
How they’d pulled off each other’s clothes on their way up to her room. How they’d turned on Lykke Li, lit a bunch of candles around the bed, and made love. For the first time in his life. And with a woman he loved more than life itself. Contrary to everything he’d heard and read about first times, it had been absolutely fantastic. Everything had worked.
Okay, so he’d come almost as soon as she started touching him, but she didn’t laugh or roll over and fall asleep. Instead she took it in her mouth and did stuff that made it come back to life, and after that they started making love for real. It was like time couldn’t pierce their bubble, like time was for everyone but them.
At some point, they must have fallen asleep because he had just woken up with Alexandra beside him, on her stomach with her dark hair fanned out across the pillow.
Theodor lifted the blanket and studied her naked body. It was one of the most perfect sights he’d ever seen. There was no way he would be able to put it into words in his diary. Any attempt, any combination of letters, would be nothing but an affront to reality.
He cautiously laid his hand on the small of her back and felt her warmth spread into him, driving the cold from his every corner. Then he let his hand slide down to her ass, which was firm even though her muscles were relaxed. She parted her legs slightly as if to let his fingers in, and he felt dizzy. She was sleeping but she still wanted to. With him. She couldn’t get enough, just like him.
He suddenly heard a melody, and his first thought was that it was coming through the walls, from a neighbour or something. Then he realized that there weren’t any neighbours, that they were alone in a huge house. It sounded like synth-pop, a ploppy, echoey hook over muffled chords, something his father might put on when he thought he was alone. Theodor wouldn’t even consider it music.
He climbed out of bed and located the source of the sound in one of the many piles of clothing on the floor. It was in her jeans. The phone, a Sony Ericsson he’d never seen before, had gone quiet. It wasn’t Alexandra’s; he knew that much. She had the latest Samsung Galaxy, which she claimed outperformed his iPhone 4S in every way. So whose was it? He picked up the phone and looked at it, then turned on the screen and saw a missed call from a hidden number. Had someone misdialled?
“Hrm…message from the dark side there is.”
It was Yoda. Alexandra’s Galaxy had just received a text. He turned toward the bed to see if she was awake. She wasn’t, and the thought of rousing her to ask what was going on seemed, for some reason, like a last resort.
Called to check if it would go through and it did. A shit ton of times, which means it’s on.
The text was from a certain H and it wasn’t a long shot to guess that stood for Henrik. The Galaxy vibrated in his hand to the sound of Yoda announcing that another message had been received.
Hello, can you answer me? What the fuck is going on?
What did he want? Was he talking about the other phone, and why was it so dangerous for it to be on? He put down the Galaxy, picked up the Sony Ericsson, and started poking around without much of a plan.
There weren’t any text messages on it, not a single one, and aside from the missed call from the blocked number the call log was blank. There weren’t any games or background pictures either. It seemed like the phone was totally empty.
At least, that’s what he thought until he found the video. If the timestamp was accurate, it had been filmed just hours ago, and it showed someone trying to escape from a shopping cart as it was shoved into highway traffic, only to disappear under a truck a few seconds later.
He didn’t need to see more to figure it out. The tall figure with the yellow smiley over its face was Henrik, which meant the other two were likely Beavis and Butthead. Theodor thought he recognized Alexandra’s hyper laughter in the background. Had she been the one holding the phone?
His whole world was suddenly ripped to shreds.
Part 2
May 16–20, 2012
“This is your fault. All of it. All yours.”
T. R.
58
“My name is Fabian Risk and I work in the criminal investigation department here in Helsingborg,” Fabian said, studying the man across the table.
“Hi, Fabian,” the man said in a Skånska accent as broad as the smile on his lips.
After the arrest, Tuvesson had given the team some time off to deal with Hugo Elvin’s suicide. But Fabian insisted on conducting the initial interrogation of the suspect that night. Whether he had a sneaking suspicion something wasn’t quite right or it was just his way of keeping Sonja off his mind, he didn’t know.
“May I ask for your full name and personal ID number?”
“Rolf Tore Stensäter, 731025-1856. Tore is after my grandfather.”
Fabian didn’t give any indication that he accepted this information as true, even though it did match the contents of the man’s wallet. In it they’d found a MedMera loyalty card, some cash, and a driver’s licence that had been issued eighteen months before. It wasn’t a replacement card; apparently it was the first license the man had ever possessed.
But Fabian didn’t believe a word this man said. Even though he was in custody and there could be no doubt that the person across from him really was the perpetrator, something seemed off.
Maybe it was the man’s
smile that bothered him. That confident grin that said they could do whatever they wanted to him. That none of it mattered because in the end they would still draw the short straw. Or was it just a bluff, a sign of anxiety — armour against the realization that they had been on his trail and he had lost the game?
The man also refused the offer of a lawyer, after which Fabian usually considered a suspect fair game — if he was guilty, he’d end up in prison so fast his head spun. But this time, it felt like another reason to worry. Considering how well-prepared the perpetrator had been up to this point, they couldn’t rule out an escape hatch that Fabian and the other team members hadn’t yet discovered.
“Rolf.” Fabian looked the man in the eye. “Did you kill Peter Brise?”
“Peter Brise…Wasn’t he the one in the newspaper? The guy who drove into Norra Hamnen?”
“So you claim that you are not the person who was driving Peter Brise’s car on the ninth of May?”
The man laughed and shook his head. “I sure hope not. I was at home in Magnalund, sharpening the blades of a lawnmower belonging to Håkan Jönsson over in Håkantorp. Yes, that’s his real name. That’s like if I were to move to Stensäter outside Hagafors. Although why I would —”
“Let’s talk about Chris Dawn,” Fabian interrupted, trying to look as if he saw right through the man’s lies.
“Who?”
“Hans Christian Svensson. You were dressed as him when you came to the bank yesterday. Did you forget?”
The man looked puzzled and shook his head. “You lost me. I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”
“A few minutes before five p.m. yesterday, you walked into Handelsbanken on Stortorget to have a meeting with Mattias Ryborn.” Fabian slid over a photo capture from the bank’s surveillance cameras; it showed the man waiting in the lobby with long hair, sunglasses, and a burgundy jacket. “Maybe this will refresh your memory.”
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