‘Abu Kabir. Isn’t that a city in Egypt?’ asked Jarmo.
‘Yes, but it’s also a district in Tel Aviv.’ Fabian turned to Niva. ‘Have you managed to find a picture of him yet?’
‘I was wondering when you would ask.’ Niva sent an image to print and handed it over to him.
Fabian immediately recognized the man in the photograph. He turned to the wall where all the other pictures were tacked up, and took down one of former Israeli ambassador Rafael Fischer sitting at a table flanked by his son Adam. ‘That’s him.’ He pointed to the man sitting on the other side of the former ambassador, who was leaning towards him as if he was about to say something in confidence.
‘Yes, of course,’ said Jarmo, nodding. ‘That explains the victims’ connections to the Israeli Embassy.’
‘In what way?’ said Tomas.
‘Instead of turning to the Swedish healthcare system in search of a new organ—’
‘But they did look here,’ Niva interrupted. ‘I’ve looked at the victims’ medical records, and all three were on waiting lists for several years until the middle of 1998.’
‘And then what happened?’ asked Tomas.
‘They were taken off the waiting list before any transplants were carried out.’
‘As far as his son Adam Fischer was concerned, I have no doubt that he connected him to Hass,’ said Fabian. ‘And when it comes to Carl-Eric Grimås, presumably he had to go through Edelman, who at that time had close contacts at the embassy.’
‘So now he’s doing all he can to sweep it under the carpet,’ said Tomas.
Fabian nodded. ‘But we still don’t know what Semira Ackerman’s connection is right now. Does anyone know when this picture was taken?’
‘In August 1998, at Adam Fischer’s sister’s wedding in Tel Aviv,’ said Tomas, emptying the protein drink.
‘Tel Aviv again,’ said Niva.
‘Maybe that’s when Adam Fischer got his new heart?’ said Tomas. ‘That would explain why he’s the one with a cane, not his father.’
Fabian moved his head in agreement.
‘Fabian, on a different topic…’ Jarmo poured some milk into his cup. ‘Exactly when did you find that passage between the apartments?’
‘Last night, sometime after nine.’
Jarmo turned to Tomas with a significant expression, then looked at Fabian. ‘So that was you I heard in the bedroom.’
Fabian nodded. ‘It makes you wonder who broke into my apartment. Until the two of you arrived, I was convinced it was the same person who’d confiscated the investigation from the station.’
‘Surely that’s exactly what they were looking for, but we got there first,’ said Tomas, smiling proudly.
‘The question is, what do we do if they come back?’ said Jarmo.
They fell silent and let the question hang in the air, as if it had only now occurred to them how little they really knew. The only sound was Niva’s eager fingers on the keyboard.
‘Listen, I’ve got an idea,’ she said at last, taking her eyes off the screen. ‘Actually, I take it back. It’s too soon to start talking about it now, and besides I’m not even sure if it’s going to work.’
‘Come on, you’ve already started telling us about it,’ said Tomas.
‘Okay, fine. We can assume with relative certainty that the perpetrator has been at certain places at specific times. And we actually have several confirmed locations. For example, we know he left the parliament building from the rear door at exactly 3:24 on 16 December. We can also assume that he was in the condemned apartment on Östgötagatan right before Fabian was there last night. What other places do we have?’
‘We have the surveillance video of him leaving the Slussen car park in Fischer’s car,’ said Tomas. ‘We’ll have to check the exact time, but I think it was some time in the afternoon of the eighteenth.’
‘And he was at the Shurgard storage facility where we found Adam Fischer’s body,’ said Jarmo. ‘He should have been there a number of times, although we don’t know when.’
‘How were you thinking about using all of this information?’ said Fabian.
‘If we analyse the cell phone traffic in the towers around each place at the relevant point in time, we should find at least one cell phone number that’s recurring. After that, it’s just a matter of locating and arresting the person in question.’
Fabian didn’t know what to say, and it didn’t seem like Tomas and Jarmo did either. But he was sure they were asking themselves the same question he was.
Why hadn’t anyone thought of this before?
Fabian’s phone started ringing. The call was from a blocked number.
‘Yes, hello.’ said Fabian.
‘Is this Fabian Risk?’ asked a stressed female voice.
‘That’s right. Who am I speaking with?’
‘Carnela Ackerman.’
‘Ackerman?’
‘I’m Semira’s sister. I think you saw me on Stureplan last Friday. Is it possible for us to meet? I know who was in your home.’
‘Name the time and place.’
‘Gondolen. I’m waiting at the back of the bar.’
There was a click before Fabian could respond.
87
IT WAS THE FIRST time Fabian had been to Gondolen since their department Christmas lunch four years before, and he’d almost forgotten how magnificent the view was from the restaurant. Despite the darkness and the heavy clouds preparing to release yet another snowstorm, it was stunning. Stockholm was literally under his feet. On his way through the restaurant towards the bar, he could see everything from the blinking Kaknäs Tower out on Gärdet to the illuminated Hötorget skyscrapers and the rotating NK clock in red and green neon.
He wasn’t sure whether he would recognize Carnela from Stureplan because his focus had been on her sister Semira. But he was able to immediately identify her as the woman with a stressed expression who kept looking over her shoulder while nervously clutching her glass. He sat down beside her at the bar. She was very attractive and looked like a model with her long, golden-brown hair and leather boots, jeans, deep red polo shirt, and a necklace strung with thick stones.
‘I don’t know what information you’ve got from the police about your sister. But—’
‘Semira would never go out on the ice like that,’ Ackerman interrupted without taking her eyes off the glass. ‘Never. I might do that, however. I’ve always thrown myself into the unknown and trusted that someone would be there to catch me.’ She took a sip of wine and shook her head. ‘My mother always said it was because of me she had so many grey hairs, although I never landed in her arms. It was Semira who was always there for me. She didn’t let me down a single time over all these years, and when there was finally an opportunity to return the favour, it ends up like this!’ She struggled not to cry, but was unable to hold back the tears.
Fabian handed her a napkin. ‘How did you help her?’
‘She suffered from bullous keratopathy, which affected one of her corneas. She was eventually more or less blind in one eye and was in so much pain that she couldn’t do anything any more, not even read. And she loved sitting down with a good book.’ Ackerman wiped her eyes.
‘So you’re the connection to the Israeli Embassy?’
Only now did she meet his gaze. ‘How did you know that? I work there.’
‘You said you knew who broke into my place.’
She nodded, unlocked her cell phone and showed him a picture of two men in suits getting into the same black Volvo that Fabian had seen outside his building entrance. ‘These are the men that were in your house. They work for the Israeli Embassy and they’re trying to arrest the perpetrator before the police do.’
Of course the embassy was conducting its own investigation. ‘Do you have any idea how the crimes were committed and any theories about who it might be?’ said Fabian.
Ackerman shrugged. ‘I don’t know, but there are rumours that someone managed to get hold of a list
or some kind of document of all transplants that have been brokered through the embassy, which actually is not that strange. The whole office is one big mess right now because we’re in the process of packing up and getting ready for the move to Nobelparken. I want you to know that you’ve arrested the wrong person, and that there are probably several people left on the list.’
Fabian nodded. ‘You couldn’t give me any names?’
She shook her head.
‘Carnela, do you know someone by the name of Gidon Hass?’
Ackerman immediately got a strained look in her eye. ‘What have you heard about him?’
‘So you do know who that is.’
She nodded imperceptibly. ‘He’s a cousin of the ambassador, and he’s here now—’
‘Here, as in Stockholm?’
She nodded again.
‘And do you know why he’s here?’
Without answering, she looked over her shoulder and finished the wine.
‘Carnela, if you have information that can help us arrest the person who—’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘but this won’t work. I’ve already said way too much.’ She took her handbag and got down from the barstool.
‘Carnela, wait. Has someone threatened you?’ Fabian reached out his arm to stop her, but she pushed it away and hurried off to the exit.
88
BELIEVE ME, I SEE how you walk around and want nothing more than to be taken, he’d said with a laugh as if it was the most natural thing in the world – that slimy fucking asshole. Every which way so that you feel like you’re alive, he’d continued, as she was almost suffocated by his sticky breath. Every cell in her body had hated him and would probably continue to do so for all time.
Yet she had to admit to herself that Kim Sleizner was right.
The revelation had come to her late the night before after a long walk along a snowed-over Götgatan in search of another hotel. She had wanted to get as far away from Carsten as possible, so it didn’t matter that it took her until Medborgarplatsen to find one. She went to bed after taking a short bath to get warm. The next morning, she had hoped to get up early, have a quick breakfast and take the first available flight home. Then she would see about having the locks changed and hire a moving company to pack up all of Carsten’s things and have them delivered to his parents’ place in Silkeborg. After all, it was her apartment.
It was the perfect plan – if only she could have fallen asleep. Voices from partying Stockholmers kept making their way up to her room, so she lay there tossing and turning, feeling the crisp sheets against her newly bathed skin. It was then that it had occurred to her how right the slimeball had actually been.
She tried with her fingers, but that only made things worse. Just as he’d insisted, she wanted to be taken, every which way so that you feel like you’re alive. And she decided it should start now.
She’d put on the dress and high heels again and followed the voices from the street to Kvarnen, a beer hall right around the corner from Götgatan. The line was long, but she managed to skip to the front, and once she was inside it didn’t take long before she had locked eyes on her victim.
He was standing by the bar with a beer in hand, talking with some friends. With his curly red hair and freckled face he was the opposite of a classic beauty and not her type at all. But the low-cut shirt showed what good shape he was in, and his charisma had been impossible to resist.
She didn’t need to do more than stand a few metres away and cast a few looks in his direction for him to leave his friends and come over to her. She tried to say something in Swedish, and he’d responded in English. She forgot his name the moment it left his mouth. Instead she would remember him as the red-haired Swede.
He’d shown her down to the basement level where ghost-like plaster casts pressed their way out of the stone walls and sweaty people collided on the boiling dance floor. They’d danced as if there was no tomorrow. She remembered how he’d stood behind her, so close that she could feel how much bigger he was than Carsten.
She had no concrete memory of leaving the dance floor. Everything felt like it happened in a split second and suddenly they were in her hotel room, emptying the mini-bar, and investigating each other like eager teenagers who finally had a house to themselves. At some point she must have finally fallen asleep and was only just waking up.
It was already ten thirty and, thank goodness, the red-haired man was gone. Considering the pounding ache between her legs, she couldn’t possibly have managed another round. She laughed and realized that she’d probably made love twice as much during the past few hours than she had during all the years she’d been with Carsten. She vowed to make it a tradition.
Every Tuesday from now on she would go out into the night to top up her self-esteem. Men did it and it seemed to work. She hadn’t been this happy and exhilarated in a long time. She didn’t even have a headache. Her only rule was that each week should be with a different person. As long as she was turned on there were no rules on whom she could pursue.
Her ringing phone interrupted her thoughts. The call was from a Swedish number.
‘This is Dunja Hougaard.’
‘Hello, I just wanted to check in on you. You disappeared. At first, I thought maybe you’d gone home for the weekend, but then I heard what happened.’ She heard a heavy sigh from the other end. ‘To be honest, I don’t understand how you could throw yourself right into that all alone. It must have been horrible.’
‘I didn’t think he would be there. And then it was too late,’ said Dunja as she finally managed to place the voice. ‘But, Klippan, I’m doing okay now.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Quite sure.’
‘That’s good to hear. Then I’ll take this opportunity to wish you a Merry Christmas.’
‘Thanks, and same to you. Have a nice Christmas vacation.’
‘Oh, I will. For once I’ve taken two weeks, even though we don’t really get many days off a year. Berit insisted. In a few hours we’re heading for the airport and then it’s on to Thailand.’
‘That sounds nice.’
‘It cost a small fortune, but hopefully it will be worth it.’
‘For sure. Have a good trip then,’ she said, trying to end the call, which was draining her phone’s battery.
‘There was just one more thing, and I hope you aren’t offended that I ask. Is it really true that he was in your apartment when you came home?’
‘Yes.’
Her response was met by silence, and Dunja could almost hear Klippan trying to find words.
‘It’s so odd,’ he said at last. ‘Why would he let you live and lock you in a car with all the mutilated body parts, if he just wanted to kill you in the end? Which would have been much easier when he had you drugged in the industrial building out in Kävlinge.’
Klippan had had the exact same reaction she had.
‘Because it’s not the same perpetrator,’ she said, even though she’d actually decided to drop it.
‘Dunja, that’s just what I suspected.’
‘I think Willumsen was a decoy to get us on the wrong path. It was so well executed that he would have been convicted in any event. We even found his semen in Katja Skov.’
‘He had nothing to lose and could just as easily find you, before you found him.’
‘Precisely.’
‘So what do we do now? Is there anything I can do before I leave?’
‘Yes, actually. Maybe you can help me find the name of the owner of a car with Swedish licence plates? It’s currently sitting at the bottom of Helsingør Harbour and I want to know why.’
‘Absolutely. No problem. Just give me the number and I’ll arrange it.’
‘HXN 674,’ she said without needing to look in her cell phone notes.
‘Okay, I’ll text you the response. Good luck. I hope everything works out.’
‘I hope so too,’ said Dunja, before hanging up.
She got out of bed, showered an
d washed her hair, and used all the free creams lined up on the sink. Then she pulled on the red dress, which was starting to feel a trifle unclean. When she was finished the text from Klippan was already waiting on her phone.
Don’t know where you found the car, but the owner’s name is Carl-Eric Grimås. He was the Swedish Minister for Justice before he fell victim to the ‘Cannibal Man’ just under a week ago. But that can’t have anything to do with your case, can it? Klippan
She entered a brief reply: No, it must be something completely different. Thanks and have a nice vacation! Dunja. Then she went over to the window, pulled back the curtains and looked out over the snow-covered little park outside. Thirty or so preschool children were playing at one end of the park, and two men were selling Christmas trees at the other.
She’d heard about the Cannibal Man who had suddenly started murdering again, several years after serving his sentence. There had been quite a bit about it in the Danish papers too. For a brief moment she’d actually toyed with the idea that there was a connection to her investigation. Two well-known perpetrators: one Danish and one Swedish, both of whom reoffend and leave obvious traces behind. But for lack of anything more concrete, she dropped the idea and continued with the Willumsen lead.
Now they were both dead and the investigations were closed.
Maybe the Swedish sports car at the bottom of Helsingør Harbour was exactly what she needed to bring her investigation and the Swedish one back to life.
89
Managed to get in. Think it’s best you come here. As in pronto. N
FABIAN LOOKED UP FROM the screen, and saw a little red laser dot moving from one suburb to the next on the projected map of Greater Stockholm. He was in the meeting room along with Tomas and Jarmo, listening to Markus Höglund and Inger Carlén’s briefing on the raid against Diego Arcas.
‘We are targeting six apartments that we’ve located in a circle around the city,’ said Carlén, looking down at a map.
None of them had an ongoing investigation of their own – at least not officially.
The Ninth Grave Page 36