by Anna Jansson
Chapter 38
Reine Hammar pulled back the heavy satin drapes and took in the view of the city within the medieval boundary wall. The pointed black tower of Sankta Maria Cathedral was sticking up from the light fog and the ghostly outline of the cloister ruins was dimly visible in the darkness. He opened the bedroom window and let in the cool of the evening and the scent from the sea and the peonies and honeysuckle that trailed on the wall of the house. The house at Norderklint had cost 4.5 million kronor. A bargain, if life were assessed in money; a prison if a different measure were used. Was this all life had to offer?
He looked at the clock when he heard the key in the lock. It was quarter past eleven. We have to talk when I get home, Viktoria had said, and he felt the ground quaking below his feet. He hated her strength. Hated to be the first to look away when she asked a question and then waited for him with a mean smile playing on her lips, just a slight quiver, but very clear when you are looking for a sign of reconciliation. Once they had loved each other, the thought occurred to him. In a vanished time, so long ago, there had actually been warmth. They would sit drinking tea half the night in the student corridor talking about life and death and the meaning of it all. They were convinced that love was everything; without love, life was meaningless and empty. You have to burn for someone or something. They were so young then. So full of lofty ideals and so certain of what was good and what was bad, who was a friend and who was an enemy. They made sarcastic remarks about the shortcomings and narrow-mindedness of their parents’ generation. And now … What was left of their dreams? The last seven years they had not even once made love. A final clumsy attempt ended in awkward silence. Quickly they had gotten dressed, hurt and anxious. She had said nothing. For once she was unable to put things into words directed at him. It was so clear that the desire was not there—so frighteningly clear to them both.
“Reine, are you home?” Her voice sounded nasal and whiny, quite unlike the one she used at work.
He did not answer. It was part of their power struggle. He lingered by the window and let himself be carried away by the evening breeze out toward the sea. Resisted the unpleasant conversation that was coming. I’m disappointed, Reine, she would say and creep right next to him so that he could feel her breath against his face. At the same time she would play with the hair on his neck. It was not a caress but a violation and she knew it, knew that he hated it, that his mother used to pull the hair on his neck while she talked about how he ought to behave. He had mentioned it to her in an intimate moment when the contract between them still held. Contracts written in peacetime to apply in battle. She did not hesitate to exploit every advantage. He heard her hard heels clattering over the floor in the corridor. Now she was in the doorway to the bedroom.
“I’m disappointed, Reine.” He turned aside so that she could not get at him. “How could you do that?”
“Do what?” he said stupidly. His pulse was pounding in his ears and his mouth was completely dry. She saw that he was nervous and he hated her for it. He tried to tense his muscles against the shaking that came from inside his body.
“Do what?” she mimicked. “Prescribe Tamiflu in exchange for sexual services.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. There’s no evidence.” It surprised him that his voice could sound so steady. Maybe it was because the question came so unexpectedly. It was not what he thought she wanted to talk about.
“I have the prescription here. Do you want to see it?” The quiver at the corner of her mouth was there. For a moment he got the feeling she was going to cry. But her eyes were cold and unblinking. Just wishful thinking.
“It proves nothing that I prescribed Tamiflu to a woman. Even if she happens to be twenty-four and radiantly beautiful.”
“Then why did you do it, Reine? Lechery? You know, I’m so damn tired of you. Do you understand the risk you expose us to? The clinic’s reputation is at stake. This is the last time I cover for you. The last time, do you hear that? Men like you should be castrated. Finn saw you. Don’t try to deny it. Don’t lie to me. You’re sick in the head, Reine, you need help. There is medication that dampens—”
“What do you intend to do with the prescription?” He reached for it. Viktoria turned away and tore it into little pieces. Evidently the hold she already had on him was enough. The prescription for morphine he sold for cash when he was just out of medical school. A single occurrence, a single crazy, wild action when he was in desperate need of money. He was her prisoner for life if he wanted to continue working as a doctor. Of course it was that bloodhound Finn, always on her leash, who had acquired the evidence. Who else? Perhaps they even had a relationship, the lapdog Finn and Viktoria. He snorted at the thought. It would be worth a fortune to see that. The mannequin Viktoria mounted by Security-Hitler. No, his imagination wasn’t vivid enough. He couldn’t even visualize it … Well, possibly with handcuffs and collar.
“Why are you smiling so stupidly … perhaps a thank you would be in order.”
“Thank you.” And just when he thought the danger was over, that she would leave him alone and crawl into her half of the bed with her back turned like a shield toward him, she asked the question.
“What did the police want?” He had expected it, but he was still not prepared.
“They asked if I was vaccinated against bird flu.”
“Stop talking nonsense. What did they want?” She was stamping impatiently in her narrow, sharp shoes. Stamp, stamp, stamp, up and down she stretched her ankles. She’d had problems with low blood pressure in her athletic youth and the stamping was a holdover from that time.
“They wanted to know where I was the night Sandra was murdered.”
Silence. She waited for him to continue, but he didn’t intend to give her that. For a long time they looked each other up and down. She stared into his eyes until he became dizzy and his upper body started swaying. This did not escape her either.
“Did you love her?” Viktoria’s face underwent a transformation. Her eyes narrowed and wrinkles appeared. Her mouth was pulled into a circle, a red sun with the wrinkles like black rays, and her neck sank down into her body. “Did you love her?”
“I love them all, everyone who’s soft and friendly and warm, Viktoria. Everything you’re not. What do you want with me? Can’t I just have that morphine prescription back? Can’t you just let me go?” He started to choke up, and he hated, hated, hated her because she could hear it.
“No. Where were you that night, Reine? Did it hurt that you couldn’t have Sandra, that there was someone else she wanted instead?” The tip of Viktoria’s sharp little tongue was playing at the corner of her mouth.
He did not answer her. Instead he turned his back to her and stared out into the blue-gray twilight.
“Finn saw you, Reine. He saw you standing below her window. She had set the table so nicely with candles and wine and even put on a dress, isn’t that true? A white, low-cut dress she had put on for someone else. You wanted to know who it was, didn’t you? Could you see them in your mind as they toasted each other and laughed and then made love in her soft bed? Did you go around the building? Did they pull the curtains …?”
He suddenly turned around. “I hate you, Viktoria, do you know that? The sight of you disgusts me. And if you so much as breathe a word to the police I’m going to kill you, do you get that? I’ve got an alibi; they’re not going to put me in jail, and you’re going to disappear as suddenly as Tobias Westberg.”
Chapter 39
Sandra, my dear, I’m back. At midnight I’ll be with you. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had. Our friendship has meant more to me than I’ve ever dared to say. It hasn’t always been easy, as you know. Lennie sometimes wanted me dead, and my wife hasn’t been all that happy either about how close we’ve become. It’s like we’re having a love affair, the way we have to sneak off for our secret meetings, just to talk undisturbed. You once said that you felt guilty that you had to lie to meet me. It’s been th
e price of our friendship. I didn’t always mention our meetings either. I guess because they happened more often than might be considered appropriate. How often is it appropriate to see your best friend? Friendship between a man and a woman isn’t always viewed forgivingly. There are times when I’ve wished you were a man. Don’t misunderstand me. But it would have been simpler. Life is too short not to make the most of friendship and love where you find it. And who knows, if we had met at another time in our lives perhaps our story would have been different. We’ll never know. I’m writing this to you because I probably won’t have the courage to say it when we meet face-to-face.
As planned, I went to the city of Biaroza southwest of Minsk, where I met Sergei Bykov before. The story he told me during the spring, after we’d shared a bottle of vodka, seemed highly unlikely but when I heard that the bird flu came to the island through a pigeon and about his death I realized it must be true. His assignment was to plant an infected pigeon in a dovecote on Gotland. The pharmaceutical company was running at a loss and they were sitting on large stockpiles of Tamivir and vaccine that couldn’t be sold. A powerful pandemic was needed to produce cash flow. Shareholders demand profit. I wasn’t even sure I would come back alive and be able to report my figures and the taped conversations with Sergei’s wife, but I did and the most valuable documents I managed to acquire are translated in the attached file. I want you to copy the text and make sure it reaches all the addresses on the list. I’ve hidden the paper copies and cassette tapes in the well out at the house, under a stone in the third row from the top. It’s loose and can be easily removed.
It was just as you believed, Sandra, my friend, and much worse than we realized at first. Forgive me for not believing you when you said that your social security number came up on the display when you passed the scanner over your arm in the shopping center. It sounded so improbable. Completely sick. I understand the connections better now and I’ll tell you when I see you at midnight. Have you been able to get what I asked you for? This will be the biggest scoop of my career and of course we’ll share equally in whatever it may lead to. Time to uncork the champagne! I’ll be seeing you soon. Someone’s coming …
“We’ve managed to restore the information from Tobias Westberg’s computer.” The computer technician tried to hold back his smile but did not succeed, and his face became a strange grimace. “Or when I say ‘we,’ I mean the boys in Linköping. They had an expert from Norway who managed it.” Maria could not keep from smiling.
“Where did you find it?”
“In the same dump for quicklime. They had never restored information from such a damaged hard drive before, but nothing was overwritten or reformatted, so miraculously enough it was possible to produce this text from the laptop. There were fragments of another computer in the dump but it was much too damaged, it fell apart completely. There was also corroded photo equipment.”
Maria read through the printout one more time.
“If this is true it’s a scandal the likes of which the world has never seen. He thinks that disease was deliberately planted on Gotland to sell medication? That thought did occur to me but I dismissed it because it seemed so unreasonable and crazy and fiendishly greedy. But I don’t understand this part about the scanner and Sandra’s social security number.”
“We’ve done an analysis of the contents of the syringe you found in Sandra Hägg’s apartment. It contained vaccine, but not only that. Listen carefully: you won’t believe this is true. We’ve flown an expert here from Gothenburg and he’s sure of what he’s found. In the needle itself is a 0.4 mm chip. The inside diameter of the needle is 0.6 mm. When you get vaccinated”—the technician took hold of Maria’s arm, aimed with an invisible syringe and pushed in the plunger—“the chip goes in under your skin with the fluid and remains there.”
Maria felt her arm and her eyes opened wide. “I’m thinking about something—just a detail. When we got the preliminary autopsy report on Sandra Hägg, the medical examiner noted a small wound on her left arm, and the same thing where Sergei was concerned. A little tear a centimeter or two long on the left upper arm. Could they have had their chips removed? Just a thought.”
Hartman came into the room where everyone had gathered for a joint run-through before the interviews with the management of Vigoris Health Center began. The police were already cordoning off the facility and securing evidence.
The expert from Gothenburg sat down at the podium. Anyone expecting a PowerPoint presentation was disappointed. He was of the old school and used a notebook and pen.
“This is not a new technology, actually, it’s been around for fifty years in lift tickets and personal cards for entry to offices, anti-theft marking, or to identify goods in connection with transport and storage. The chip has a code and in another database, information is stored; for example, a social security number or other personal information. What is exceptional is that the components can be manufactured so much smaller than before, especially if what we call the tag doesn’t have a separate power supply but is activated and emits information when energy is supplied from a reader. The reading distance on the chip we found in the syringe is up to three meters. It has a thin glass cover over its iron wires to prevent any biological effect on the unit. Thus it is completely feasible to install scanner arches in doorways, for example, and see who has passed room by room.”
“At Vigoris Health Center they recently replaced every oak doorframe for cherry wood, even though it was new construction,” Hartman recalled. “Could some kind of scanner arch have been installed then?”
“Possibly. An implanted chip has advantages compared to ordinary pass cards, where you can borrow someone else’s card and identification is not equally certain. In time it will certainly be possible to produce chips just as small as this but with GPS function, and thereby be able to trace a person via satellite.”
“But why? What is the purpose and why wasn’t the staff informed about this?” asked Hartman.
“There would likely be a lot of attention from the media and the decision-making process would be long and uncertain. Perhaps they wanted to test-drive the system before investing too much money in it. The Demeter Group, which owns Vigoris Health Center, also owns companies that manufacture computer electronics. Through cross-fertilization you increase the possibilities of competing on the world market. In this case the pharmaceutical producer manufactures syringes that can implant chips under the skin. If this turns out to be a functional system, it could be sold to other countries where legislation allows marking of people. Perhaps you want to supply all immigrants with chips to verify their identity, or even have a GPS function to know where they are while awaiting asylum or citizenship. Imagine that everyone has to be ‘vaccinated’ in order to enter a country. I can see that would be an attractive solution in countries that have major problems with thefts or terrorism. If another attack occurs like the one on September 11, perhaps we’ll be willing to resort to such an intervention, and then the product is already tested and ready for use. It’s a competitive advantage if other companies were to manufacture something similar.”
“Obviously they didn’t want this to get out, so it’s possible the order came from above—or at least there was silent approval of it. But who murdered them? It must have been someone with physical strength. Someone stronger than the victims or in any case stronger than Sandra, who was in good shape.” Maria Wern looked at Ek, who was back on duty after his stay at the sanitarium.
That morning Ek had questioned the two children who were selling peppermint sticks on Signalgatan, and together with an artist they tried to recreate pictures of two individuals who passed them in the stairwell.
“They easily recognized Hans Moberg from a photo. But we also have another interesting face that the artist has produced. About half an hour before Moberg came, the children saw another man go up the stairs.” It was not difficult to see who the drawing depicted. Before they made the raid on Vigoris Health Center, Hartman contac
ted the prosecutor.
Viktoria Hammar had been crying. Her big gray-blue eyes were edged with red and her smeared lipstick made her look like a clown. When she spoke her voice was not the same. Maria found something redeeming in her finally showing weakness.
“I’m not saying a thing until my attorney arrives. It’s pointless for you to ask any questions. I don’t intend to answer.”
“Then we want you to leave the room and follow Ek to the station so that we can speak undisturbed with your husband. Be my guest.” Hartman held open the door.
Reine stared at Viktoria and his eyes were full of hatred. It could not be mistaken.
“I don’t understand this. Why, Viktoria? Why did you lie to me about the vaccination and about Sandra’s drug abuse? I didn’t want to believe it at first …”
Viktoria stopped in the doorway. “You would be wise not to say anything until the attorney arrives, Reine.”
“The hell I would. I’m innocent. Don’t you get that it’s over, Viktoria? I don’t want to be involved. Watch carefully now.” Reine passed Maria Wern and went to Viktoria’s desk. There he logged onto the computer. “Password ‘Pandemic.’ You don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Okay, check the screen now. What do you see?” Reine pulled the optical reader over his left upper arm.
“Reine, stop it. I forbid you. You won’t be able to count on support from the company if you do this, Reine. Stop, Reine.” Viktoria rushed across the room but was stopped by Hartman.
“I’ll accompany you out, we’ll do the questioning at the station.”
“I see a social security number. Is that yours, Reine?” Maria asked.
“Yes, and now we’ll try it on you,” he said. Maria recoiled. She had toyed with the idea but found it too far-fetched. When she saw her social security number on the screen she started to understand the scope of the experiment that was being conducted. “Viktoria is standing under a scanner arch right now. The doorway to every unit in the building reads who goes through, which is why Sandra forced a window to get in and out.” Reine crossed the floor in a few quick steps. “Check now when I pull the reader over Viktoria’s arm and nothing happens. Why? Because she didn’t want to be monitored, and it’s the same with Finn. I’m innocent; do you believe me now? I knew nothing about this until last night.”