“None of them are older than fourteen. One of the things that make organizations like this work.” Ewert Grens looked at the surveillance pictures of children.
And then at the face beside them, that had been hounding him since last night. He remembered a paving stone and a twelve-year-old boy who had raised it and thrown it and then watched over the others while they emptied a jeweler’s shop.
You. Just recently. And them. Very soon.
“The ones we can’t arrest. But who could be a link.”
José Pereira moved closer to the photographs that he’d taken himself of the eleven- and twelve-year-olds on their way to or in the company of experienced criminals who were only a few years older, but had profited for a long time from the kids’ yearning to belong.
“They may well have the knowledge that we don’t have. They’re always there—close to them.”
Pereira took down one of the pictures, the boy walking over Råby Torg, and handed it to Grens.
“I had him in for questioning a couple of weeks ago. The third time. He came with his mother, sat with a rucksack on his lap, and we talked about two shots that had been fired at close range at two knees. He sat on the chair that Hermansson is sitting on now and knew everything and nothing.”
Ewert Grens held up shiny photographic paper that would stick to an open palm. A child. Skinny, still no signs of puberty, a thick, gold chain, shiny slicked-back hair.
You. Very soon.
“I don’t like this wall.”
“I know.”
“They’re dying to get there. And they’re always in the know. A strange game, Pereira. We can confirm that they’re expanding.”
The red Adidas bag in the middle of the table.
In a wide circle around it lay two bulletproof vests, three balaclavas, a bayonet, a stiletto, two sets of nunchucks.
“Six synchronized raids. Eight riot police at each apartment. And this was what they found.”
Sven Sundkvist pulled one of the bulletproof vests over and held it up so they could all see—someone had sewn a badge on the chest on the left-hand side, two words, GHETTO SOLDIERS.
“Brand-new. We’ve compared them with ones that we’ve previously seized, and . . . completely different quality.”
He put it on, it fit, almost exactly the right size.
“The best body armor you can get. Reinforced metal that even protects against bullets from high-velocity weapons.”
He opened the red sports bag, the zipper got caught.
“Bulletproof vests, balaclavas, guns, as always. But this was under a bed in the apartment rented by Gabriel Milton’s presumed girlfriend.”
He dug down to the bottom of the bag with both hands.
“And this is interesting.”
A bundle of papers in one hand. He moved the balaclavas and bayonet down onto the floor and put out the eleven sheets of A4 paper side by side on the table.
A letter. Handwritten. Spiky letters that someone had struggled to keep as even as possible.
“This . . .”
There was a knock at the door.
“Yes?”
“I just wanted to say that we’re in position.”
Sven recognized the face that popped in through the door. The bomb technician who had identified traces of dynamite in the Santos apartment.
He had been about to close the door again when Grens shouted. “When?”
“I’m sorry?”
“What you found, if someone has put it together, if it’s anywhere in the area . . . when will it explode?”
The bomb technician was quite tall and more than a bit overweight, considerably younger than Ewert, but similar in shape.
He opened the door fully now.
“When someone wants it to.”
He walked over to the table and from a smaller side pocket by his knee pulled out an aluminum pipe as long as his index finger, a thin white plastic cord, and an equally thin green plastic cord protruding from one end.
“A detonator. Completely harmless. Right now.”
The large body was unexpectedly supple when he bent down to the socket near the base of the wall and pulled out first the plugs to the four computers on the desks, and then the six landlines. Finally, he got out his own cell phone and turned it off.
“Now you turn off yours as well. And all radio equipment.”
He waited until four more cell phones had been turned off, then out of the pocket by his other knee he pulled one of his bomb gloves and from another pocket, even farther down, a pair of wire-cutters. The detonator was in his hand when he cut off the white and green cords. And then again, a bit shorter. And again, making sure to get as close as possible.
“From now on, however, it’s deadly and can be activated at any moment.”
He put it down in the bomb glove with great care, and then wrapped it in a rubbery material.
“DS Grens?”
“Yes?”
“Could you turn on your cell phone again now?”
Ewert Grens muttered with irritation about buttons that were too small, while the equally large bomb technician turned his cell on without any problem and put it down on the table next to the bomb glove.
“You’ve got my number?”
“Yes.”
“Call it.”
Dialing was easier. The first signal went out. They all looked at the glove, at each other. The next signal, they could hear it clearly, and simultaneously, the other sound, the dull explosion as the glove jumped to the floor.
“One call to a cell phone. Enough current to trigger a detonator if the fuse is cut short enough.”
The smell of an explosion, sharp and penetrating.
“They’ve got dynamite, explosives, detonators. They’ve got a telephone positioned nearby. One call to that whenever they want . . . when they choose to do it, to trigger the detonator that will explode the rest.”
The big man turned and shrugged. Even his movements were similar to Ewert Grens’s.
“And they will do it in a small space. No bigger than this room. This type of explosive does more damage if the space is limited.”
Grens, Hermansson, Sundkvist, and Pereira all sat in silence as the bomb technician picked up the remains of two trimmed plastic cords and a test-exploded glove and left the room.
The current from a telephone call in a world where cell phones were ringing constantly.
At any moment. Anywhere.
When they chose to do it.
“The letter.”
Sven gathered up the eleven pages of A4 that he’d just laid out on the table when the bomb technician knocked on the door, and gave them a few sheets each.
“Found in the bedroom of Gabriel Milton’s girlfriend. But she’s not the recipient.”
One love best brutha!
They read.
Like a child had written it.
But they didn’t smile. They knew. That this was for real.
Miss u so fucking much.
Ewert Grens gave up first and
Brutha seriously ARMED and very TIGHT unit!!! 200% love respect pride bruthahood duty belonging honor.
threw his sheets down on the table.
“One of all the self-important letters by some jacked-up little gangster who hasn’t learned to spell and written the minute he feels lonely. Brother this. Brother that.”
José Pereira was not going to throw down his sheets.
“They’ve murdered someone.”
“Same fucking crap. Love. Brother. Respect. Same dream that someone will love them if they’re mean enough.”
“They might sound like kids. But their violence is grown-up. I’ve seen so many letters like this, he’s young and angry and sitting in a room in a youth detention center or a prison cell with only his grandiose thoughts to keep him company. But there’s an undertone here, Ewert, and you can see it too. The person writing it has already started to fill out the empty phrases.”
This time no one knocked at the d
oor. Instead it was flung open. And someone ran into the room.
Lars Ågestam’s face looked as weathered as Ewert Grens’s.
“Grens!”
The detective superintendent heard him. But did not move.
“Turn around when I’m talking to you!”
Back to the door, he stayed sitting where he was.
“When you were not granted search warrants, how the hell did you go ahead with six?”
The agitated besuited legs, arms in the air, hair to one side, and glasses that jumped up and down when he shouted.
“I’ll say it again, Grens! You ask for search warrants! You don’t get them! But you carry out six all the same!”
Ewert Grens turned around for the first time and looked at the prosecutor who was standing so close to his chair.
“Ågestam?”
“And carry out six!”
“Did no one teach you to knock?”
The staring faces on the wall. The staring faces around the table.
Lars Ågestam’s neck was even redder and his voice even louder when he held six pieces of paper up in the air, then slapped them in front of him.
“Sonja Milton! Sofia Eriksson! Deniz Johnson! Ana Tomas! Amanda Hansen! Wanda Svensson!”
He threw them down on top of the eleven-page letter.
“A police officer with a senior position carries out several illegal raids! With the help of the police force! Forty-eight riot police commit a crime on the orders of a superintendent!”
“Are you done?”
“I’ve opened a preliminary investigation into unlawful intrusion, unlawful interference, unlawful exercise of authority! You’ll get fired for this!”
“Look . . . this morning I stood beside an autopsy table with a very young woman on it who had been stabbed in the back of her thigh, punched badly in the face, tied and bound, and dumped in a trunk and left to choke to death—”
“You are not the law, Grens!”
“—and out there, a long way away from your desk, a murderer is still running around free. I don’t give a damn what papers you write your initials on. There are no laws in Råby right now. Certainly not our laws, as they mean nothing here. So we have to find new ways, Ågestam, ones you won’t find in your law books, we have to do what they do.”
“Six law-abiding citizens who are not suspected of anything at all, other than being in the same family! Grens . . . you would never have used the same aggression if the owners of those apartments had different names and lived somewhere else!”
Ewert Grens had been sitting down. Now he got up.
His face was red, the veins on his temples standing out, his stiff leg pushing against the floor.
“You little bastard . . .”
The large detective superintendent took hold of the public prosecutor’s collar, pulled him up close.
“What the hell are you insinuating?”
“That you’re giving yourself license to treat people differently.”
Hands even firmer on the collar, a sharp shake.
“You bastard . . . I don’t give a rat’s . . . it’s people like you, who are so far removed from reality and so fucking frightened of doing or thinking the wrong thing, or having the wrong opinion, of appearing to be prejudiced, when in fact you’re just that! It’s people like you who are so caught up with your fear of being an outsider that you can’t see it when other people are! It’s people like you who think that if they just don’t say the truth for long enough then it’s not the truth! And one thing you can be damn sure of—I would do exactly the same in rich Djursholm and rich Östermalm and even in the public prosecution offices if needs be!”
Ewert Grens let go and pushed the jacket and public prosecutor away from him.
The room remained remarkably quiet while Lars Ågestam straightened out his shirt, tie, and jacket collar. It was the first time he had been to the police station in Råby that was involved in so many of his preliminary investigations now. In recent years he’d used reports filed by José Pereira and the SAGC more and more frequently and had often thought of coming to meet them, but certainly not in this way.
He looked around, nodded to Pereira and Sundkvist and Hermansson, then headed to the door.
“I’ve already opened the preliminary investigation against you.”
He walked out and the door had swung closed when he suddenly wrenched it open again.
“And one thing you can be damn sure about, Grens—I know exactly what day it is!”
They listened to the footsteps fade down the corridor. And looked at each other. It was as if all the energy in the room had followed the prosecutor out and all the loud words and naked rage lay around them on the floor and table.
José Pereira gathered up the bulletproof vests and weapons and balaclavas—the result of six apartment searches—but left the eleven-page letter where it was.
“They’ve murdered someone and they won’t stop there.”
He had twice started to decipher the handwriting, but hadn’t managed to finish it yet.
“Wanted, successful, they’re flourishing now, they’re building.”
So now he continued, one page at a time.
“They have no other option. Just more, farther afield.”
———
There was a tiny lawn just outside the main entrance to Råby police station.
It wasn’t particularly green and nobody used it.
But this afternoon it greeted six uniformed policemen and six dogs, eager to start work.
“Sven?”
“Yes?”
“Every apartment, every storeroom.”
Sven Sundkvist nodded toward the police station and the window on the second floor where a prosecutor had just held forth about his breaches of duty and violations.
“Are you absolutely sure?”
“They have access to a bomb, a bomb, Sven, just one cell phone call away. Yes. I’m still totally uninterested in his bits of white paper.”
They were so impatient and yet sat so still. Six dogs. Sven identified at least four different breeds. The one that was a bit smaller, about half a meter high and brown and white with long ears, English springer spaniel, the kind that Jonas had asked for every Christmas and birthday for years, only to be disappointed by skis and computer games. One that was bigger, fluffier somehow, a Belgian shepherd. Farther back, two Alsatians, two Labradors. Different kinds of nose, some fast, some slightly slower, trained to see what no one else could see.
“I’m guessing about ten minutes per apartment, on average. Eight thousand apartments makes it eighty thousand minutes, divided by six dogs.”
Sven Sundkvist took a small notebook and pencil out of his jacket pocket. There weren’t many who could do that anymore. Pencil, lined paper.
“Two hundred and twenty-two hours. That’s nine days, Ewert. If they work around the clock.”
Ewert Grens had recognized the bomb technician who’d just demonstrated how a telephone signal could cause a catastrophe. Now he looked at the dogs that would prevent that. A couple of them, the two smallest, had started to bark loudly and impatiently at their leader who would soon give orders.
You’re here. You’ve built a bomb. You’ve put it somewhere.
The dog handlers and dogs set off, and Sven followed them, to start searching the first blocks to the east, the ones that constituted Råby Backe.
And you’re going to use it.
———
He watched their backs until they disappeared, then went around to the parking lot at the back of Råby police station, and Hermansson who was waiting by the car, the door open and pointing at the emblem.
Västerort Police.
“Perhaps time to deliver this back?”
Grens opened the other door, to the driver’s seat.
“Not yet.”
And looked at her briefly before getting in.
“If they torch another one, better that this one burns. Rather than one of the City Police cars
.”
He didn’t drive particularly fast, but they still managed to get to Skärholmen before either of them said anything.
“You’re scared, Ewert.”
He slowed down a touch more.
“After that grilling. In the café. I put my hand on yours. I know that you don’t like it. Because you don’t know the difference between intimacy and integrity. Because you’re like them. And that . . . scares you.”
“No.”
“Scared of getting too close.”
“No. Because what I’m scared of has already happened.”
“Ewert?”
“What?”
“That’s just words.”
“That’s what people say to me. And that’s the way it is, Hermansson. What I’m scared of has already happened.”
“Just words. If you don’t understand them.”
“Look . . .”
“Scared. Still. No matter how often you repeat other people’s truths.”
He didn’t look at her. He focused on the car in front, only looked at that.
“I’d like you to stop now, please.”
“And I want to talk about you. About your feelings. About your life.”
“Listen . . . my life is my business.”
“Your life, Ewert, your fucking life is anyone’s business who happens to get in the way. Your life, you bastard, has affected those of us who’ve had to work with you for years!”
Ewert Grens stopped. In the middle of the E4. In the middle of the middle lane.
A few seconds, then the first angry horns behind them and beside them.
The exit to Fruängen and Bredäng was near enough, he could have chosen to turn off there. He stayed where he was. His hands gripping the steering wheel.
“Hermansson? Go to hell.”
Mariana Hermansson didn’t really know why. After all, she was the one who had started pushing his buttons. But it was as if years of anger, tiptoeing around him, his inability to give anything back, more often not cooperating at all, as if everything came to a head at once.
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