Eighteen Below

by Stefan Ahnhem

  The car. Had it been gone for a while, or had she just managed not to think about it for the past few minutes? In any case, it was back. The sound of the engine behind her, almost idling since it was going so slow. There was a bus stop ahead of her, and as Sannie passed the shelter she saw the pea green Saab reflected in the glass.

  She couldn’t see anyone in the back seat, which suggested that it wasn’t the people she was worried about. Yet she was anything but calm, because she had hurried past a similar car not far from the police station. Or at least, it had been green too, and there had been three people inside — she knew that much.

  About twenty metres on, the road ended in a turnaround. But like a gift from above, a set of stairs led through the trees to the next street up. She began to climb them with calm, confident steps, but just five stairs up she started taking two at once, and soon she was running as fast as she could. They could think whatever they wanted; she just wanted to get away.

  The staircase was longer than she’d expected, and normally she wouldn’t have made it more than halfway up before she had to stop and rest. But this time she went all the way to the top step; she turned around and, to her relief, found that no one was climbing up after her. Maybe it had all been in her imagination.

  As soon as her breathing returned to normal Sannie turned to continue her hunt for the right house, but she ran straight into someone standing directly behind her.

  “Sorry,” she said, before realizing that the person in front of her had a hood up with a yellow smiley pulled down over his face.

  “Ha ha, the bitch thought she was safe!”

  Sannie turned toward the voice, which had come from the left, and saw another masked man with a phone in his hand. That was all she had time to notice before the first blow hit her.

  94

  After his conversation with Malin, Fabian started the car and put on his signal to pull out and head home to Matilda. That was as far as he got before he cut the engine again and sat there behind the wheel for a few minutes. He needed to understand what the information his Stockholm colleague had given him truly meant.

  Once its import struck him, he was filled with energy. The whole picture suddenly crystallized. The twins had bought half the estate with Johan Halén’s money, but naturally they wouldn’t be satisfied until they took over the whole thing. That was why neither Cliff and Lilja nor Interpol had been able to find any signs that they’d left the country.

  While every sign pointed to flight, they’d done exactly the opposite.

  They could even be moving on their next victim.

  The thought was normally unwelcome, but while in other cases the police always hoped the perpetrator would stop, paradoxically this meant the investigation could take a step forward. They finally had a concrete theory to go on. Without giving it another thought, Fabian decided to skip the weekend and head back to the police station to resume the investigation.

  He called Tuvesson — to his relief she not only answered but sounded sober. He told her about Didrik and Nova Meyer, the murder and their revenge on Henning von Gyllenborg, and how the signs currently suggested that they were still in Sweden, on the hunt for their next victim.

  Tuvesson called in the rest of the team and asked them to cancel whatever weekend plans they might have. They, too, surprised Fabian. Everyone returned to the police station, and with energy levels he hadn’t seen in days.

  As usual, Tuvesson ordered in pizza and soda, but no one even glanced at the boxes. Not even Cliff seemed distracted by the food; he was fully absorbed in adding to the timeline, which now took up two whole walls and extended all the way back to the late 1970s, when the twins were born in secret.

  “They would have gotten roughly forty-two million kronor from the sale of all Chris Dawn’s assets,” Lilja said, her eyes fixed on a number of printouts on her desk. “That includes twenty for the house, fifteen for his various stock and bonds and other capital, and seven for other personal property — art, vintage wines, and the like.”

  “So we’re talking money they lost when we arrested Didrik after the bank visit,” Tuvesson said. Lilja nodded.

  “How much will they need to buy the other half of the estate?” Tuvesson turned to Fabian, who was studying the pictures Malin had sent from the photo album she’d found in the hidden wall compartment.

  “Hard to say before it’s on the market, but somewhere between fifty and one hundred million is within the realm of possibility. Whatever the number, it seems Bernard von Gyllenborg’s next of kin are eager to sell. According to Malin, they tried to get him declared dead six months ago for that very reason.” In one of the pictures, Didrik and Nova, around six or seven years old, were arm-wrestling dressed in one another’s clothes. He was in her dress and she was in his pants.

  “They shouldn’t have any problem doing that now,” Cliff said.

  “The twins are getting down to the wire if they’re going to scrape up enough money before it goes on the market,” Tuvesson said. “Fabian, can you give me Malin’s number? I’d like to thank her for her help.”

  Fabian nodded, although he hadn’t actually heard her. Instead, all his attention was focused on the photograph. For some reason, he couldn’t take his eyes off it.

  “If it weren’t for her, they could have just kept going and we would have had no idea,” Tuvesson went on, walking over to the last whiteboard, which was still blank, and writing NEW POTENTIAL VICTIMS. “Okay, what do you say? Any ideas?”

  “If you ask me, they’re still operating down here in Skåne,” Cliff said.

  “Why here, and not some other part of Sweden?”

  “Taking over someone’s life isn’t the kind of thing you can do on a whim. It wouldn’t surprise me if it took them several years of preparation before they were truly able to set their plans in motion. Whoever their next target is, it’s not a decision they made hastily.” Cliff took a bite of pizza. “Then factor in that they’ll want to stay as far as possible from the estate near Stockholm to avoid being recognized. What could be a better choice than northwestern Skåne when it comes to wealthy people?”

  “Plus, it would have been impossible to work on several targets at the same time if they lived in different parts of the country,” said Lilja.

  Tuvesson nodded and turned to Molander. “Remind me about that list you came up with. Were there any more potential victims there?”

  “Not if we don’t widen the search radius.”

  “How far would we have to go?”

  “At least up to Gothenburg. The problem with that is that we’ll suddenly end up with a whole bunch of rich people who just got new licences.”

  “Hold on a second.” Fabian turned to the others. He had finally realized what the photo had been trying to tell him. “There’s something wrong with the old list.” It was suddenly so clear that he couldn’t understand how he had missed it earlier. “It only shows half of the potential targets.”

  “What do you mean?” Molander crossed his arms and looked like he was assuming Fabian’s criticism was aimed straight at him. “If you’re suggesting that they don’t necessarily have to be single, that they could have families like Chris Dawn did, I’ve already been through the list multiple times, and believe me, there aren’t any more.”

  “I believe you,” said Fabian. “But it doesn’t matter how many times you go through that list. It will still only contain men.”

  “Well, yeah. What else should there be?”

  “Women!” Fabian threw up his hands. “Or are you suggesting that there are no successful, high-earning females in Sweden?”

  “How did we not think of that?” Lilja exclaimed, interrupting Molander, who was about to say something in his own defence.

  “Yes, that’s a good question,” Tuvesson said as Molander sat down at his laptop without a word. “Especially considering that this Nova seems to be as go
od at taking on a new identity as her brother.”

  “I’d go so far as to say she’s even better.” Fabian turned to Molander, who was typing in commands. “Can you put the results up on the projector?”

  “One thing at a time, please,” Molander said, working as if time was worth its weight in gold.

  The others waited in silence. Even Cliff tore himself away from his work on the timeline and pulled down the screen as quietly and gently as he could so as not to disturb Molander, who finally looked up from his computer and used the remote to turn on the projector.

  “How many?” Tuvesson asked.

  “Eleven, using the same search criteria as the men.”

  “And how many of them got new driver’s licences in the past six months?”

  “Three,” Molander said as the projector lit up and showed three names, along with their taxed assets. “Let’s start with Lydia Klewenhielm,” he continued, with an authoritative tone in his voice that suggested he had finally recovered from the indignity of being the last to catch on. He brought up an image of Klewenhielm’s old and new licences side by side. “She’s worth sixty million and owns a number of properties here in Helsingborg and down in Malmö.”

  “What do we know about her family?”

  “Divorced, joint custody of their only child, who is about to turn four.”

  “From what I can tell, that licence is ten years old, so it would have been renewed anyway,” Cliff said; he had approached the screen to get a closer look at the numbers.

  “That’s probably why they look so different,” Lilja said. “Can you zoom in on the portraits?”

  “Done.” Molander clicked to the two pictures from the licences, which had been cropped and placed next to each other. “But like I said, one thing at a time.”

  The woman in the later picture definitely looked older. She was also wearing glasses and her hairstyle was different, much shorter. Beyond this, her face looked different. But faces could change over time, so whether it was the same woman or not was difficult to say with certainty.

  “And here we have Sandra Gullström,” Molander went on, as a picture of her two licences appeared on the screen. “She’s worth somewhere between two and five hundred million. Most of it is in a venture capital firm that she owns jointly with her husband Gunnar Gullström.”

  Fabian saw that the older licence was a little over seven years old, and just as with Klewenhielm, it was impossible to determine with the naked eye if it was the same woman in both photographs. The glasses, at least, were identical.

  “And last we have Elisabeth Piil.” Molander brought up the next picture, which showed the final two licences. “Her great-great-grandfather was Fredrik Ahlgren; he and his brother were the inventors of the world’s bestselling cars.” He paused for effect, and there could be no doubt that he was relishing the fact that no one appeared to know what he was getting at. “None of you have heard of Ahlgren’s Cars?”

  “Oh right, the candy,” Cliff said. “How much is she worth?”

  “One hundred sixty million, and as you can see, the old licence isn’t even two years old.”

  “On the other hand, the woman looks almost identical in the two pictures,” said Fabian.

  “Maybe you should use some facial recognition software to figure out who they really are,” suggested Tuvesson.

  “Sure, of course I’ll do that. But it will take up to three hours for each picture before we can be totally certain.” Molander pushed his glasses up onto his forehead and turned to Tuvesson. “And considering that there are three of them, I won’t be done until sometime tomorrow morning.”

  “Okay,” Tuvesson said, nodding. “We’ll just have to divide up and go knocking on doors. Fabian, you take Klewenhielm, I’ll take Gullström, and Irene, you can take Piil.”

  “You aren’t seriously suggesting that we head out alone?” Lilja said.

  “Definitely not. I’m planning to call in the task force and divide them up into three units. They can stay in the immediate vicinity but out of sight until we know for sure. Cliff, you can act as our command centre and redirect them as soon as one of us sounds the alarm.”

  Cliff nodded.

  “The last thing we want is to attract unnecessary attention to ourselves,” Tuvesson went on. “Don’t forget that we’ve come this far only because they don’t know how much we know.”

  “What should we say if we find them?”

  Tuvesson shrugged. “We’ll have to improvise. It would probably be best to make the visit look like a general safety measure on our part, a direct result of the increasing frequency of identity theft. Something along those lines. We’ll meet down in the lobby in an hour. Until then, I want you to read up as much as you can about each one of them.”

  95

  Dunja forced her way through the hole cut in the fence. Even though dusk was falling, she could tell right away that Maskingården — Machine Yard — was a perfect name for this place.

  A couple of tractors were parked in front of a white building with lowered garage doors. Further on, in the darkness under the trees, she saw two lawnmowers, a snow plow, and four trucks, and sticking up from the middle of the yard was a lone gas pump. It made her think of an Edward Hopper painting.

  She found the container behind a corrugated metal Quonset hut, and sure enough, it appeared to function as a dwelling for the homeless. Like the backyard on Stubbedamsvej, it was full of blankets, quilts, and sleeping bags that all reeked of urine.

  She couldn’t see Sannie anywhere. Or anyone else, for that matter. To be honest, she hadn’t really expected to. This was the last place on her list. She’d tried everywhere, and now all she wanted to do was lie down in the smelly pile of blankets and forget everything. She probably would have done it, too, if her phone hadn’t started to ring.

  Fareed Cherukuri — who else. If it wasn’t Magnus, it was him.

  “No, I haven’t found you a goddamn job yet.”

  “No? Okay, but —”

  “And like I said, I’ll let you know as soon as I have something —”

  “Hold on, would you —”

  “Look, what’s your problem? Do you have some fucking screw loose? I’m busy, okay?”

  “Are you looking for Sannie Lemke?”

  Dunja looked at her phone as if she couldn’t believe her ears. “How did you know?”

  “I think I know where she is. That’s why I’ve spent the last several hours trying to call you.”

  “Hold on, you know where she is?”

  “Not really. And I don’t like your tone. If you don’t start —”

  “Do you or don’t you?”

  “It isn’t Sannie, it’s your killers.”

  96

  Sonja had stuck her cell phone between her breasts. Not to hide it — it was just a habit she’d had since the days when phones were smaller and she needed her hands free. These days they were too big, or maybe her breasts had become too small. At any rate, it had slid down and now it was pressed against her stomach inside her overalls.

  Whether it still worked was another question. Alex, or whoever he was, had beaten her. Kicked her until she stopped trying to get away. Then he’d taped her mouth and hands and dragged her across the concrete floor to the car, where he’d dumped her in the trunk.

  The only thing he hadn’t done was discover the phone.

  If only she could somehow make it continue down her pants and out onto the floor. The tape that bound her wrists behind her back was so tight that her hands were starting to tingle from the lack of circulation. Maybe she could use her nose or chin to wake it up and contact Fabian before it was too late. Before the curtain came down on her life and all their shared memories were gone.

  Sonja had heard Alex speaking to someone on the phone. She hadn’t heard his exact words, but his tone had certainly sounded agitated. S
he guessed that they had been discussing her. She had seen too much, and the question now was what they would do with her.

  Her survival wasn’t part of the plan. She could feel it throughout her aching body. To him, whoever he might be, she was nothing but a cog in the machine. An insurance policy in case Fabian and his colleagues got too close. But instead she had gotten too close and now her life was in danger.

  In all her years, Sonja had never understood people who were frightened of death. She’d always viewed it as a natural and inevitable end to a life that had, with any luck, primarily consisted of rays of light. But now that she was at death’s door, she was absolutely terrified. She was as far from ready as you could get. There was so much left to do. All those things she’d put off and closed her eyes to. Everything she had thought but not expressed, waiting for the right moment.

  And now it was suddenly too late.

  97

  As he waited for the task force to get in position near Lydia Klewenhielm’s house at Sofierovägen 11, Fabian sat in his car trying to collect himself by paging through the photos of the twins sent by Malin Rehnberg. Their plan — to simply talk to the potential victims, and go on intuition — was as hasty as it was self-evident. If they were to have any chance of success, they would have to play it by ear — and, just as Tuvesson had suggested, improvise. There was no time for anything else.

  Twelve hours had passed since the twins had fooled the guards at the jail. Twelve hours in which they had been at large. The team could only hope that they hadn’t done too much damage. That they had been busy reuniting and licking their wounds after the arrest and their defeat while pretending to be Chris Dawn.

  If they even had any wounds. If they even had the ability to feel defeated.

  Fabian was far from certain. Although he had met and had lengthy conversations with both of them, he had no idea who they really were. They existed outside the laws of human nature. They were cold and effective, accomplished down to the tiniest detail.