“Mikhail!” Klaus shouted. “They’re police!”
Mikhail eased his grip on the trigger.
“Drop it” was all he said to the fat one.
Hasse didn’t hesitate, dropped his gun to the floor. Mikhail threw Anders across the room, and gestured to Hasse to go and sit beside him.
“The bastard shot me,” Klaus said, holding his shoulder, as blood pumped out steadily.
Mikhail looked at the chaos in the room, weighing his options, then tossed the pistol to Klaus, who picked it up in his left hand. Mikhail picked up Hasse’s gun from the floor and left the room.
He marched down the corridor as some nurses tried to take cover behind a trolley, and searched through every room and cupboard. In one office, beneath a desk, Patrik Bergkvist sat huddled up. Mikhail bent over, felt with his hand, grabbed his curly hair, and pulled him out.
“I need tranquilizers or narcotics. I need bandages, needle and thread, and equipment for removing a bullet from someone’s arm.”
Patrik Bergkvist nodded to everything. Mikhail took the man by the neck. They headed toward a storeroom.
Klaus was covering Hasse and Anders with the pistol. The door opened. Mikhail pushed Patrik Bergkvist inside, and he went straight over to Anders Ask.
“No, not him. Him!”
Mikhail pointed at Klaus and his bleeding arm. Patrik hurried over and started to examine the wound. Mikhail opened a flimsy blue garbage bag he had in his hand. He took out a glass bottle of thiopental and loaded two syringes. He drove one into Anders’s thigh and injected the drug. Anders started swearing angrily before he slumped to the floor. Mikhail did the same with Hasse, who whimpered as the needle drove into his flesh. Within a minute they were both sleeping soundly.
Patrik Bergkvist had temporarily stemmed the flow of blood with a tight ligature around the wound.
“This man needs to be operated on at once.”
“How fast can you do it?”
“One hour.”
“Forget it.”
Mikhail filled the syringe. Patrik Bergkvist shouted “No” over and over as Mikhail took his arm and squeezed the narcotics into his system. The doctor was slurring hysterically, trying to say he needed to be supervised by an anesthesiologist, that he needed oxygen. Then he fell to the floor, arms by his sides, hitting his cheek hard and slipping into unconsciousness.
Mikhail helped Klaus out of the bed and supported him as they hurried out of the hospital.
They got into the rental car outside the main entrance. Mikhail headed into the city.
“Where are you going? We have to get to the airport!” Klaus said.
“Not like this, you’ll die.”
Mikhail dialed a Stockholm number on his cell.
The telephone rang. He recognized the voice at the other end. Mikhail sounded stressed, and was offering a deal. Which was worthless, of course. Pretty much: do me a favor now, and I’ll owe you one. Jens said no. But Mikhail didn’t give up, and pleaded in a way that surprised Jens. The man sounded almost humble. But this was Mikhail, there was no way.…
“Sorry, that’s impossible.”
Silence down the line.
“I’m begging you.… You’re the only person who can help us. My friend’s dying here.…”
Was that something human he could hear in Mikhail’s voice? Someone was dying. Could he coldly hang up and never think about what he could have done differently? Could he just say no and go on with his life? He looked at Sophie, who was sitting on the sofa. Hell.
He gave Mikhail his address and hung up, bitterly regretting his decision. Ten minutes later someone banged on the door. They both recognized the bleeding Klaus as Mikhail carried him into the living room.
“What happened?” she asked.
“He’s been shot in the shoulder,” Mikhail replied.
Klaus lay on the sofa.
“Quick, Jens, get me some warm water and towels, and anything you’ve got in the way of medicine.”
Jens disappeared from the room. Mikhail emptied the contents of the plastic bag on the coffee table. Syringes, needle and thread, thiopental, antiseptics, bandages. He was about to take the bandage off when Sophie stopped him.
“Hang on, I’ve got this,” she said, sitting down beside Klaus, removing the temporary bandage around his upper arm and looking at the wound in his flesh.
“I need tweezers, or a narrow pair of pliers or something,” she called to Jens.
She felt Klaus’s pulse, it was shallow and fast.
“Where did you get this?”
She gestured to the things on the coffee table.
“Hospital,” Mikhail replied.
Sophie loaded a syringe with thiopental. A low dose, she didn’t know how much she should use.
“You decide,” she said to Mikhail. “Either we operate on him without anesthetic or I give him a small dose of this, but it’s risky.”
Klaus let out a whimper of pain.
“Give it to him,” Mikhail said.
Sophie pressed the drug into the man’s arm. Klaus’s pain vanished at once as he drifted off among the clouds. Jens came back with water and towels, together with what he had found in his poorly stocked bathroom cabinet.
Half an hour and a considerable quantity of blood later, Sophie had managed to pull the bullet out and stop the bleeding. The bullet had shredded the muscles in the arm, but the bone seemed to be intact. She cleaned the wound, sewed him together, doing whatever she could with the meager means at her disposal. Mikhail kept an eye on Klaus’s breathing.
“Thank you,” he said as she gathered up the things on the coffee table.
“This is only temporary, he needs proper care.”
She went off to the bathroom to wash. Jens caught Mikhail’s eye.
“We’ll leave as soon as he wakes up,” the Russian mumbled.
The men heard Sophie turn on a tap in the bathroom. Neither of them had anything to say.
“Are you hungry?”
Jens didn’t know why he asked. Mikhail nodded.
They ate a cold spread at the kitchen table. Mikhail sat leaning forward with his left arm around his plate, shoveling the food in with his right hand.
“What are you both doing here?” Jens asked.
Mikhail chewed, gestured toward Klaus on the sofa.
“I came to get him,” he said, chewed, then swallowed. “He woke up in the hospital yesterday and called me. I flew up.”
“What happened?”
Mikhail stretched.
“The police arrived, we had to get away.…”
“Who shot him?”
“The police …”
Sophie came out into the kitchen and looked at Jens and Mikhail, who were eating in silence. She didn’t like what she saw.
“Is he going to have another go at Hector?”
Mikhail seemed to understand the question and shook his head. She kept her eye on the Russian as she said to Jens: “I want you to ask him for something.”
Carlos was out of breath. He had come as soon as Hector called. Now he was standing in Hector’s bathroom looking at Leffe Rydbäck’s body as it lay crookedly hunched up in the bath. Hector was standing behind him.
“You need to cut him up into pieces and take him to the restaurant. Then grind him up in the mincer.”
Carlos had his arm over his mouth, the urge to vomit in his throat. Aron came up behind them with two paper bags in his hands, forced his way past, and spread a towel out on the bathroom floor. He opened the paper bags and took out two handsaws, different sizes, and put them on the towel. He carried on with dishwashing gloves, a plastic apron, shower cap, vinegar essence, pruning shears, disinfectant, a roll of freezer bags, a circular saw with a freshly charged battery, protective goggles, a breathing mask, chlorine powder, a white plastic bucket, and a Steel Eagle hammer with a rubber handle. Finally Aron pulled out a vanilla-scented Magic Tree air freshener, ripped the plastic off, and hung it up on the shower head.
“You ought to get going before he starts to smell,” he said.
Carlos hesitated, then bent over and picked up the apron, shower cap, and dishwashing gloves and slowly began to put them on. Aron pulled a folding knife from his trouser pocket and opened it up. It had a ridged black handle and a short blade of air-hardened carbon steel.
“This is sharp,” he said, passing the knife to Carlos, handle first. “And throw up in the toilet, not the bucket,” Aron went on as he and Hector left the room.
Carlos was left standing in the hollow silence of the bathroom. Staring at Leffe Rydbäck in the bathtub. He took a few shallow breaths before sitting down on the side of the bath and taking hold of the corpse’s right hand. It was cold. He held the sharp knife blade against Rydbäck’s little finger and pressed. It was pretty easy, the finger shot off and bounced off the side of the bath. Carlos repeated the procedure on the thumb. Once he had worked out what he was doing the rest of the fingers came off quickly, then he moved on to the left hand.
Hector was sitting on the sofa with a newspaper. Aron was in an armchair. From the bathroom they could hear Carlos testing the circular saw like a teenager with a souped-up moped. Then the sound of the saw working through something thick. It eased off slightly, the engine idling, then picked up again. The saw fell silent, then came the sound of Carlos heaving and throwing up in the toilet. And then the whining sound of the saw again.
Time passed, Hector went on reading, Aron stared out into space. They were interrupted by steps on the spiral staircase that led down to the office. Aron stood up, drew his gun. The steps were slow without being heavy.
A woman in her fifties came up, looked at Hector, then at Aron and his raised pistol.
“You can put that away,” she said.
Aron lowered the gun, but kept it in his hand.
“I must apologize,” the woman said. “But you’d never have let me in if I’d knocked on the door, so I had to make my own way in downstairs via your office.”
Gunilla held a finger up to her ear. The noise of the saw was coming through the wall.
“Are you doing some home improvements?”
She listened some more.
“Unless that could be Leffe Rydbäck, in the middle of being sawn up in the bathroom?”
Aron raised his gun again, but the woman seemed quite indifferent to it. She held out her ID.
“I’m a police officer. My name’s Gunilla Strandberg. Please, put the pistol away, people know I’m here.”
Aron hesitated and went over to the window. He looked down, then out, saw nothing.
“No, there’s no one there, it’s just me. I came to talk, but people know I’m here. If anything were to happen …” She gestured with her hand. “Well, you understand.”
Gunilla looked at Hector.
“I just want to talk,” she repeated in a low voice.
He folded the newspaper, indicated that she should sit down.
Gunilla sat down on one of the sofas. The sounds now coming from the bathroom were hard hammer blows to bones and flesh, and then the whining of the saw started up again. Hector inspected her.
“Do we know each other?” he asked.
“I know you, Hector Guzman. You don’t know me.”
Hector and Aron waited for more.
“And now you’re wondering why I’m here?” Gunilla fixed her gaze on Hector. “Out of sheer curiosity, I think,” she said.
Carlos was throwing up again. This time he shouted out as he vomited.
Gunilla waited until Carlos had finished.
“I’m curious about how much money you made from blackmailing Svante Carlgren, and from your dealings with Alfonse Ramirez, who I know is in town.… Just a rough idea, I mean?”
Hector was looking at her hard.
“What do you want?” he asked.
A curious look from Gunilla.
“I can see it on you,” he went on. “You want something, answers, possibly. Isn’t that what you police like most—answers?”
“No, I’ve already got the answers. And they don’t interest me at all.”
Hector looked at Aron, who in turn looked at Gunilla.
“So what do you want, then?” Hector asked.
“I want what you’ve got.”
“Sorry?”
“How much have you earned from Ramirez and Carlgren?” she asked again.
Hector didn’t answer.
“I want a share of that,” Gunilla said.
Now Hector understood.
“In exchange for what?”
“In exchange for a free hand for as long I’m in the police department.”
PART FOUR
23
The tears never came. He was rolling paint over the wall. The notes, the deductions, the arrows … the whole context. Everything disappeared behind thick, white paint.
Sara had been in his apartment. She had seen the wall, she had figured something out. Then she had contacted Gunilla. She had been murdered. And soon they would murder him as well.
He had copied everything, both digitally and in hard copy. Two sets. One was secure in the safe deposit box at the bank. The other was in the sports bag on the floor. He checked his pistol: full magazine, another in his jacket pocket. He usually carried it in a holster on his belt. Now he had it in a shoulder holster instead, he could feel the straps across his back and shoulders.
He looked around the office. The wall was as white as new-fallen snow, the room was tidy, nothing of any interest to anyone. He picked up the black sports bag from the floor. Took his laptop and the surveillance equipment and left the apartment.
Down in the street he headed toward the rental car. If he’d been paying attention, he might have seen the man sitting in a car a bit farther along. But he didn’t, he wasn’t paying attention.… He was coming down, and was mainly focused on his own pain.
Lars drove the car through the city. The traffic was light, summer vacation had started. He parked on Brahegatan, a block from the police station. He put the surveillance equipment on his lap, checked that it was getting a signal from the microphone up in the room. He moved it into the trunk and left the car with the bag and laptop in his hands.
Lars walked with his head down, crossed Karlavägen, then the small park running down the middle of the road, heading toward Stureplan.
He was nudged in the side from the left. A light nudge, he looked up, a large man was walking beside him.
“Walk with me,” the man said in English, with an Eastern European accent.
Lars went cold and reached for his service weapon.
The man showed the pistol in his right hand. And gestured for Lars to give him his gun. Everything happened quickly, suddenly the big man had Lars’s pistol in his jacket pocket and was steering him across the road to a parked car. Mikhail pulled open the back door and shoved Lars into the backseat.
“Lie still and keep your mouth shut,” Jens said from behind the wheel.
They pulled out into the traffic.
“Who are you?”
The big man punched him in the face.
The room was terrible. Like a cabin on a boat, with a constant rushing sound from the highway up above, in spite of the soundproof windows.
Once Jens and Mikhail had left she had gotten in a taxi and headed south along the Essinge Highway and out onto the E4, toward the southern suburbs. The motel was beside the highway in Midsommarkransen. There was no reception desk, just a lobby where you checked in using your credit card—Jens had given her one.
She sat down on the bed and waited. Maybe it was more of a bunk than a bed, hard and unyielding. She kept calling Jane. Jane always had the same answer: No change. Sophie noticed her reflection in the mirror above the fixed desk. She saw a sad, exhausted figure—and looked away.
After what seemed like an eternity there was a knock on the door. Sophie got up and went over to open it. Jens pushed Lars Vinge inside, and the door slid closed by itself behind them.
Lars Vinge
was lost. He didn’t know where he was. She looked at him, he looked sick, weak and pale, dark rings under his eyes—emaciated, somehow. His nose had been bleeding, he had dried blood in his nostrils. Jens gestured for him to sit down. Lars found a chair by the table, which too was screwed to the wall.
“Can I have something to drink?” His voice was quiet.
“No,” Jens said.
Lars rubbed his eyes.
“Do you know why you’re here?” Jens asked.
Lars didn’t answer, instead he just stared at Sophie and started to smile. He smiled as if they were old friends, old friends who hadn’t seen each other for a long time. The smiling made her feel uneasy.
She’d only seen him very fleetingly before. Now she realized what sort of man he was. She didn’t like him. Lars Vinge exuded a peculiar mixture of low self-esteem and unwarranted self-confidence. He was unstable, unpleasant … and scared.
“But you didn’t have to do this,” Lars said.
“Why not?”
He was looking at Sophie the whole time, his left leg was twitching unconsciously.
“You didn’t have to capture me like this.… I was going to get in touch with you soon anyway.…”
“What for?” Sophie asked.
He looked down at the table.
“I’m so sorry, I heard about Albert. How is he?”
“Tell us what you know,” Jens said.
A long silence followed.
“Gunilla wanted Anders and Hasse to pick him up.”
“Why?” asked Sophie.
“I don’t know. Something was going on. They wanted a hold over you, Sophie, they said they wanted to make sure you weren’t going to start anything.”
“Start what?”
“I don’t know, they must have been worried about you.… Worried that you’d do something without thinking it through—after all, they’d threatened you. Sooner or later you were likely to do something.”
The Andalucian Friend: A Novel Page 36