Misterioso

by Arne Dahl

  “All that prosperity was nothing but an empty balloon that imploded during a seriously confused decade. Government authorities misinterpreted the plus columns, reading the figures through the old, discarded lenses of industrialism, and cheered. The financial sharks cheered too, but for completely different reasons. They sucked the juice out of the national economy, as it uttered masochistic moans of joy.”

  Söderstedt fell silent. The members of the A-Unit looked at him in bewilderment. What an odd explanation of Carlberger’s business ventures.

  “Let’s try to keep the political opinions to a minimum,” said Hultin, his tone neutral.

  Söderstedt looked around the room, as if suddenly remembering where he was. Hjelm could almost see smoke rising out of his shirt collar. He pulled himself together and went on in his resonant Finnish accent.

  “There are two things I’m trying to get at here. First, the general coupling of this social climate with what I said earlier about the serial murder boom in the United States, the hero worship of outsiders who have cast aside the system of norms that is increasingly showing its cracks and revealing the chasm behind it for one simple reason: money. We’re sitting on a powder keg.

  “Second, the specific link to our case. What if we’re dealing with an individual who has quite simply seen through, or thinks he has seen through, the whole damn game. Or to put it another way: an individual who assumes he has seen the real face of the invisible power and doesn’t give a damn about ripping it away and putting it on display. An individual who is both intelligent and insane, the worst possible combination. He has seen the connections, the more or less mysterious correspondences, and begins his exposé of these connections, most likely by accident, on the anniversary of Swedenborg’s death.”

  “For the sake of clarity,” Hultin said, “do you think these murders are politically motivated? Leftist terrorism?”

  “Not terrorism. No, I wouldn’t think so. But in a sense they are political. Someone who has been affected in some way, someone who has thought deeply and drawn certain conclusions, who is quite correct in terms of analysis but completely wrong in terms of action. Let’s think about this. We’ve just come through the worst possible financial crisis. Many people were affected by it, but perhaps everything is becoming clear only now.”

  No one said anything for a long time. Without a doubt Söderstedt’s torrent of words contained certain valid points. Both newcomers, Billy Pettersson and Tanja Florén, were trying not to yawn, wondering where on earth they’d landed. In a lecture hall at the university? In a discussion group for conspiracy theorists? Or in the presence of a police officer whose obstinate intelligence had always prevented him from advancing within the force?

  “Three representatives of the new capitalism,” Hjelm summed up. “Various possibilities. Indications pointing to Eastern Europe. Problems with the mafia establishing itself in the Baltics? Use of business contacts from the Baltics? Although one of the three doesn’t have much to do with Eastern Europe. A purely political motive? Some sort of revenge? Personal or professional? What else?”

  Silence. Clearly there was nothing else. Was there anything they had overlooked? The fraternal order, a fine old classic straight out of an Agatha Christie novel, had gone up in smoke-that type of puzzle intrigue belonged irrevocably to the past-and instead they had landed squarely in the present day: postindustrial capitalism, Eastern European mafia, and the collapse of Sweden’s financial regulatory system in the 1990s.

  Paul Hjelm preferred the fraternal order.

  “All right, shall we discuss Carlberger’s conglomerate?” said Hultin, pouring oil on the waters of the A-Unit.

  Söderstedt instantly switched from the verbose and voluble to the terse and concise. Hjelm had the feeling that the abrupt change was something deeply anchored in Söderstedt’s character. In the latter approach there was an answer, a solution, and he wanted to present it as clearly and distinctly as possible. In the former approach, there was no answer, no solution; there the “truth” trickled through the cracks between the words, in the ghastly connections. That was how society was, this postindustrial society at least, in the eyes of the eloquent Finnish buffoon.

  “The Carlberger conglomerate,” he said. “At the center is the Spiran financial firm. Surrounding Spiran are ever weaker, concentric circles formed by increasingly inaccessible subsidiaries, and subsidiaries of subsidiaries. In less than an hour I discovered one connection, and with professional help”-Söderstedt gestured toward Pettersson and Florén-“I’m sure more will come to light. My connection has to do with Strand-Julén, who was part owner in one of the affiliates of a Carlberger subsidiary, Alruna Holding AB.”

  He fell silent.

  Nobody could tell whether he was finished. But he was looking slightly burned out, so Hultin said, “Okay, we thank Söderstedt for an unusually inspired report. Chavez?”

  Chavez chuckled. “I’ll be brief. Carlberger was a member of three boards of directors concurrently with Daggfeldt and Strand-Julén. Our three victims were members of the same board at Ericsson in 1986-87; Sydbanken in 1989-91; and MEMAB in 1990. That’s the connection between our three stiffs as regards boards.”

  “What’s MEMAB?” asked Holm.

  “No idea,” said Chavez.

  “I can tell you,” said Tanja Florén, speaking in a deep alto voice. “What’s your guess?”

  “A financial company,” said a very weary Finn.

  “That’s right,” said Florén.

  13

  As far as Paul Hjelm was concerned, his work now entered an entirely new phase. After standing on the front lines, he had now been pushed to the very back of the pack. The investigation was progressing along two flanks: the Russian mafia lead, via Norlander and Nyberg; and the business angle, via Söderstedt, Chavez, Pettersson, and Florén. Holm was carrying on intensive interviews with the relatives and friends of the departed magnates, leaving the secondary interviews to the foot soldiers in NCP and the Stockholm police force.

  And Hjelm was spending his days leafing through the pages of the golf association’s guest books. The criminal landscape of the past, he thought bitterly. No one was murdered anymore because of intrigues within fraternal orders or at golf clubs. Nowadays it was kinky sex, drugs, and money laundering that brought people down.

  The phone number for the purported pimp with the fitting name of Johan Stake had been disconnected without any forwarding number. And a return visit to Timmermansgatan, together with innumerable phone calls, revealed that the young male prostitute, Jörgen Lindén, had fled the scene.

  The autopsy performed by Medical Examiner Qvarfordt on Nils-Emil Carlberger produced nothing other than signs of an incipient brain tumor. Nor had Svenhagen’s crime techs turned up any solid leads. Once again the perp had left no evidence behind-except the damned bullet in the wall.

  Hjelm was making his way backward through the golf association’s guest books. The hours dragged along. Among the signatures written in varying degrees of legibility, he soon learned to recognize Daggfeldt’s meticulous handwriting, Strand-Julén’s expansive scrawl, and Carlberger’s backward slant. They appeared frequently in the books but never anywhere near each other. Hjelm had made his way back to 1990 and was getting ready to accept that none of the three corpses had ever played golf with any of the others, when he suddenly saw the meticulous squiggles right next to the scrawl. After a moment he discovered nearby the backward slant.

  Daggfeldt, Strand-Julén, and Carlberger had actually once played golf together, just the three of them. That opened up interesting prospects. Hjelm checked with Chavez; apparently the joint golf game had taken place immediately following a MEMAB board meeting on September 7, 1990. It was, oddly, the only golf game that the lodge brothers Daggfeldt and Strand-Julén had ever played together. They had both belonged to the inner circle of the Order of Skidbladnir; they had been members of the same eight boards of directors since the late seventies; and they had belonged to the same golf a
ssociation. Yet they had played golf together only once. And on that one occasion the third golf partner had been the third murder victim.

  It was extremely puzzling.

  “Three men play a round of golf in the fall of 1990,” said Hjelm aloud. “It’s the only time they ever play together. Several years later, all three of them end up on ice, put there by the same perp, within a week’s time. What does it mean?”

  Chavez continued to type on the computer. “What?” was his inspired reply.

  “I’m not going to repeat myself. Your subconscious heard me.”

  Chavez stopped typing and turned to look at him.

  He ought to have a mustache, Hjelm surprised himself by thinking, sensing the old, deeply buried prejudices stir inside of him.

  “It doesn’t mean shit. Maybe just the fact that there are close ties between all sectors of the business world.”

  “Or that somebody doesn’t like golf.”

  “That’s it,” said Chavez calmly and went back to typing. “The whole mystery is solved. Some golf hater stood there brooding outside Kevinge Golf Course on a fall day in 1990, caught sight of the three arrogant upper-class gentlemen who were boasting about themselves on the fairway, and decided, ‘I’m going to kill those fuckers, those three right there, in one fell swoop.’ He waited several long years before he decided to act. But then he moved quickly.”

  “A caddy, perhaps?”

  “I was joking,” said Chavez.

  “I realize that,” said Hjelm. “But if we make a few changes in your story, it sounds more serious. The three men show up right after a tedious board meeting. They’ve had time to relax and chat a bit on the cab ride over, maybe had a few whiskeys in the bar, and all the usual business bullshit comes pouring out of them. They’re fucking awful. Even the flowers wilt as they pass by. Their tongues are so loose, they flap. Okay? So maybe the caddy is a little late to arrive and starts off by making some mistake, who knows, but they start in on him, badgering him, or her for that matter, and laughing good-naturedly. Then for the rest of the game they treat him like shit, inescapable but revolting. It’s possible that sexual harassment takes place. They casually force him or her so far down that it takes several years for the caddy to recover and start fresh.

  “Maybe their behavior was some sort of-what’s it called?-catalyst that ignited a bigger reaction already in process. Maybe this caddy had previously spent a few years in a mental hospital or something like that. And then he was let out with the rest of the lunatics during the general wave of cutbacks and release legislation. Finally he’s got hold of his life and figured out what triggered his persecution mania. Okay? He’s beyond desperate, everything seems clear, and then he takes them out, one by one, simply, quickly, elegantly. Sweet revenge.”

  “Very imaginative,” said Chavez. He had stopped typing. “And not without a certain interest.”

  “I’m going to make a call,” said Hjelm, and quickly punched in the number.

  “But if you’re right, then the killing is over now. And it doesn’t explain the Russian bullet. Plus it eliminates the whole financial angle.”

  “Hello, this is Paul Hjelm from the NCP. Who am I speaking to?”

  “Axel Widstrand,” said the voice on the phone. “Secretary of the Stockholm Golf Association. Are you the one who took all of our guest books? Lena doesn’t have the authority to release them. Are you going to be done with them soon?”

  “I gave her the authority. Do the golfers normally use a caddy when they play a round at the club?”

  “I’d like to have those books back.”

  “Three of your members have been murdered in less than a week, and you want to have the books back? What kind of world are you living in?”

  “Oops,” said Chavez. “Breach of confidentiality.”

  Hjelm took the noon edition of Aftonbladet out of his top desk drawer and placed it in front of Chavez. The headline screamed: EXTRA. EXTRA. THE POWER MURDERER STRIKES AGAIN. THREE CEOS KILLED. DIRECTOR NILS-EMIL CARLBERGER’S BODY FOUND BY MYSTERIOUS WOMAN.

  “ ‘The Power Murderer’?” Chavez held up the tabloid by one corner, as if it had been steeped in day-old vomit. “Newborn yet already baptized.”

  “Might as well start using the name. Everybody else is going to,” said Hjelm grimly, and went back to his phone call.

  “Just answer the question.”

  “Caddies?” the secretary of the Stockholm Golf Association echoed on the other end of the line. “Sometimes.”

  “Sometimes?”

  “It’s rare that anyone would use a caddy for an ordinary round of golf. But it does happen.”

  “How do the players get hold of one?”

  “We usually provide them. But you have to make the request in advance.”

  “So if three men are going to play a round of golf, then you find a caddy for them. Is that right?”

  “As I said: if they make the request in advance. It takes a few hours to set it up. And in the case you mentioned, there would be three caddies. One for each of them. One caddy can’t carry clubs for three people, of course.”

  Hjelm suddenly had an idea. It was a long shot, but he had to try.

  “Is Lena a caddy?”

  “Lena Hansson? She used to be. But now she works inside.”

  “Was she active as a caddy in September 1990?”

  Axel Widstrand, secretary of the Stockholm Golf Association, was silent for a moment. Hjelm could hear a murmuring, as if the man had covered the receiver and was talking to somebody nearby.

  “Yes, she was. She didn’t stop until last season.”

  “If you’ve got her there on your lap, could you ask her if she remembers caddying for Kuno Daggfeldt, Bernhard Strand-Julén, and Nils-Emil Carlberger when they played a round on the afternoon of September 7, 1990?”

  “I must say that I don’t appreciate your attempt at a joke. If that’s what it was.”

  “Ask her.”

  Again a muted murmuring on the line.

  “No,” said Widstrand.

  “Her memory is that good?”

  “Is there anything else?”

  “Is there any marking in the guest books that would indicate whether the players used a caddy?”

  “No. The players sign their names, and that’s all. Is there anything else?”

  “Not at the moment,” said Hjelm, hanging up the phone and writing the name Lena Hansson in his notebook.

  For future use.

  The theory about a lone, persecuted caddy vanished as quickly as it had appeared. It was rare to use a caddy at all, and if the men, contrary to custom, had decided to do so, then there would have been three caddies, not just one. He drew a line through Lena Hansson’s name. If the murders stopped, he would return to the idea.

  “Listen to this,” said Chavez, deeply immersed in the evening paper, which was no longer published in the evening. “ ‘There should be no doubt whatsoever that we’re dealing with the first real terrorist action to occur in Sweden in a very long time. Not even during the heyday of the Red Army Faction did we see anything like this. Now top Swedish businessmen are being executed one after the other by this “Power Murderer.” We may be facing the worst crime ever to take place in Sweden. The only thing we know for sure is that the police are clueless.’ Which is their way of saying,” Chavez added, as he put down the paper, “that since they’re not being told anything, there’s nothing to know.”

  “They forgot to mention the West German ambassador,” said Hjelm. “But you’re too young to remember all that.”

  Jorge Chavez stared at Hjelm. “Paul. If you persist in concocting old-fashioned intrigues and fiddling around with equally old-fashioned detective work-meaning if you refuse to accept that this has to do with moving money via global computer networks and professional hit men, probably hired via the same computer networks-then you need to find out more about the people involved. Instead of relying on clichés about business bullshit and flowers that wilt as the pot
entates pass by. This is about real individuals, after all, not cartoon characters.”

  “A very touching speech. What sort of suggestions are you hiding behind your concern for the lost honor of these gentlemen?”

  “You don’t know enough about them. Go see Kerstin. Borrow her tapes. Learn about them.”

  Chavez returned to the computer screen. For a moment Hjelm watched him working diligently. He saw the new breed of policeman, and for the first time he realized what a gulf existed between him and his officemate; it really had nothing to do with their backgrounds. Chavez, computer literate, international, rational, without prejudices, able to maintain a certain distance, enthusiastic. If it was true that Hjelm was looking at the future of the police force, then it was not exactly a bad thing. When he thought it was possible that there might be a certain lack of heart and soul, he realized at the same instant that he was once again working from a cliché. For a moment he thought that his whole world consisted of nothing else. What the hell could he say about his own heart and soul? He felt old. What he saw in front of him was quite simply a man who was a better police officer than he was. With black hair and a Spanish surname.

  Look deep into your heart, Hjelm.

  One of his tasks was to purge Grundström from his thoughts.

  He went down the hall to the bathroom. He had a zit on his cheek. He tried squeezing it but nothing came out. Instead, the skin around it split and began to flake off. He put a little water on his finger and dabbed the flakes of skin away. Then he went back out to the corridor, walked past his office, and stopped outside room 303. He knocked and went in.

  Gunnar Nyberg was tapping away on the computer keyboard, a woolly mammoth jabbing at a spaceship. The giant of a man looked as if he’d landed on the wrong planet.