“I understand exactly what you mean,” Bäckström said, having at least absorbed the most important points. If I was one of those fucking analysts at Criminal Intelligence, I’d hang my head in shame if I ever met Nadja, he thought.
“So what are we going to do about this?” Bäckström asked. After all, I’m still the boss here, he thought.
“I thought we could add it to what we’ve made available to Criminal Intelligence,” Nadja said. “See if there’s anyone there who has anything to offer.”
“Go ahead,” Bäckström said, nodding eagerly. How on earth could those morons have anything to add at this sort of level? he thought.
“If it comes to it, we’ll just have to work it out for ourselves,” he added.
Thirty minutes later Superintendent Toivonen stormed into Bäckström’s office. His face was deep red and he was waving the latest Criminal Intelligence information that he’d just printed off from his e-mail.
“What the hell are you playing at, Bäckström?” Toivonen snarled.
“Fine,” Bäckström said. “Thanks for asking. And how are you?” Fucking fox, he thought.
“HA, AFS, and FI,” Toivonen said, waving the printout. “What the hell are you playing at, Bäckström?”
“I get the feeling that you’re in a position to tell me that,” Bäckström said with a friendly grin. Correct me if I’m wrong, you Finnish bastard, he thought.
“HA as in Hassan Talib, AFS as in Afsan Ibrahim. FI as in Farshad Ibrahim,” Toivonen said, glaring at him.
“Doesn’t ring any bells,” Bäckström said, shaking his head. “So who are these clowns?”
“You never heard of them?” Toivonen said. “You’d think they might be familiar even to people working in the lost property office, where you’ve spent the past few years. I daresay the guys in the traffic office know who they are. But you don’t?”
“If I did, I wouldn’t have had to put it up on Criminal Intelligence, would I?” Bäckström said. Are you thick, or what? That was a so-called rhetorical question. Chew on that, my little Finnish joker, Bäckström thought with a broad smile.
“Just you watch yourself, Bäckström,” Toivonen said.
And with that, he walked out.
45.
Before Superintendent Toivonen went home for the day he had a meeting with police chief Anna Holt. She had asked for an informal conversation, just the two of them. Without mineral water, minutes, and other unnecessary formalities.
After his encounter with Bäckström he had gone straight to see Nadja. He had explained the situation to her and asked her to keep a close eye on any information that might be connected to the armed raid out at Bromma.
“I’m sorry,” Nadja said. “I had no idea there might be a link between our case and the robbery. If I’d known, obviously I would have come to you first.”
“Good,” Toivonen said, sounding more severe than he had intended. “Tomorrow we’re picking up the pace of the whole process against the Ibrahim brothers and their cousin. I don’t want it getting out onto the street, and I don’t want to read about it in the papers.”
“Don’t worry about Bäckström,” Nadja said, patting him on the arm. “I promise I’ll keep an eye on him.”
“I’ve never been the slightest bit worried about you,” Toivonen said.
Then he had taken a quick walk round Solna to lower his blood pressure before going to see his boss.
“Sit down,” Anna Holt said. “Can I offer you anything?”
“Thanks, I’m fine,” Toivonen said, sitting down.
“Tell me,” Holt said.
“There’s a connection between the raid out at Bromma and the murder of Kari Viirtanen. I believe forensics will be able to prove that when they’re finished with their examination of the van used in the robbery. Viirtanen was the one who shot the guards. But we still don’t know who was doing the driving for him. We’ve got several names to choose from, as I’m sure you can imagine. We’re working on it.”
“So why did he shoot them?”
“Because that poor sod who died set off the dye capsules in the bag. Which made Kari mad because there weren’t supposed to have been any capsules in that bag.”
“Tell me,” Holt said.
The money came from London. Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian notes that had been exchanged in England and Scotland. As well as British pounds that Swedish banks and currency exchange companies had ordered. They had been brought into Bromma from London by private jet, with a two-man crew and four passengers, British businessmen. They had no idea that they had been joined at the last minute by about eleven million kronor in a small cloth bag.
“Security firms are doing that more and more these days. Unless the amounts are extremely large, they improvise and send them with unscheduled flights. For safety reasons there must never be dye capsules in that sort of bag. Apparently changes in air pressure, among other things, can set them off, and obviously that might be a bit tricky if they happened to be on a plane when they went off.”
“I can imagine,” Holt said.
“Because the guards themselves aren’t allowed to open the bags when they arrive, which was a demand pushed through by the unions to stop staff being suspected of theft, what usually happens is that once the money has been transferred to a security van, it’s taken to a security depot without dye capsules. They usually use unmarked vehicles, and because the depot they were heading for was just a fifteen-minute drive from Bromma Airport, and because the amount in question was so small, just eleven million, that’s what happened on this occasion.”
“A small amount? So what counts as a large amount?” Holt said with a smile.
“Three- or four-figure multiples of millions,” Toivonen said, smiling back.
“So what went wrong this time?”
“The guard who was shot was sadly too ambitious for his own good. Without asking his boss for permission, he had taken a spare empty bag containing dye capsules along with them, and he put the bag from London inside that. As soon as the raiders had made off with the bag and he felt safe, he set off the capsules by remote control. It has a range of about two hundred and fifty meters, but this time he was clearly too impatient, because the capsules went off when they were just fifty meters away.”
“But would that be enough?” Holt interrupted. “To stain all the notes in the inner bag, I mean?”
“No,” Toivonen said with a wry smile. “It wasn’t, and there wasn’t much wrong with the notes we found in the abandoned vehicle. Which they dumped, by the way, just twenty meters from the Hells Angels HQ about a kilometer from the airport. Maybe they wanted to cause trouble for them too before they ran off.”
“The problem was that Kari Viirtanen didn’t know that,” Holt concluded. “That the money was still usable.”
“That’s right,” Toivonen said with a nod. “And he got as mad as Mad Kari often did. The driver did a U-turn. Kari wound down the window and started firing at the guards who were trying to run. The one running on the driver’s side was run down as well, so whoever was driving wasn’t particularly pleasant either.”
“What do we know about the weapon?” Holt asked.
“An Uzi automatic pistol, twenty-two-caliber,” Toivonen said. “The weapons experts are fairly sure of that. The smallest magazine contains sixty bullets, and about thirty cartridges have been found at the scene. The guard who died was hit five times in the back, and his padded vest stopped those, and three times in the head, which killed him instantly. The other one was also shot ten times, but none of them was fatal. The remaining ten shots must have missed,” Toivonen concluded.
“Sounds like an inside job,” Holt said.
“Definitely,” Toivonen agreed. “Our British colleagues are looking for him at their end and we’re trying to trace his contacts at our end. If we’re lucky, something will give, and once one end is sorted, the other usually follows.”
“Viirtanen was shot by the people behind the raid?” Holt
asked.
“Yes, he wasn’t the only one who’s furious.”
“What about the driver?”
“I daresay he’ll turn up in due course,” Toivonen said with a wry smile.
“If I understood you correctly at the meeting yesterday, you believe the Ibrahim boys and their unsavory cousin are behind this?”
“There’s always a lot of talk,” Toivonen said. “Something like this takes a lot of work and the involvement of a lot of people. There are cars to be stolen, then number plates that match the make and model, you need to get hold of caltrops to scatter as you make your escape. There’s always someone who talks. The Ibrahim brothers and Hassan Talib have got pretty low odds this time. And you should always put your money on a surefire winner,” Toivonen said. He was fond of visiting Solvalla racecourse even outside of his official duties.
“What about the connection to the murders of Danielsson and the paperboy?”
“Well, to take it step by step, everything suggests that there’s a connection between Danielsson and the paperboy, the poor boy they fished out of Ulvsundasjön last night. Our colleague Niemi is even prepared to put money on the fact that they were killed by the same person or persons. One, two, possibly more,” Toivonen said.
“But have the murders of Danielsson and Akofeli got any connection to our robbery?”
“If you asked me that this morning, I would have said no. But now I think I know better,” he said, handing a slim plastic folder to Holt.
“See for yourself,” he said. “My conversation with an anonymous informant, plus information that Nadja Högberg has found in Danielsson’s pocket diary, along with her own conclusions …”
“Okay,” Holt said. “Give me five minutes.”
“Well, I agree with you,” Holt said four minutes later.
“Yes, most people who think like you and me probably would,” Toivonen said. “What remains is to slot the details into the right places, but we can probably assume that Karl Danielsson was acting as a private banker to the Ibrahim brothers and their cousin.”
“Who just two days after the robbery suffer an acute shortage of funds to the tune of two million kronor,” Holt concluded.
“It costs a lot to clean up your own mess,” Toivonen said.
46.
After her meeting with Toivonen, Holt had walked home to her flat in Jungfrudansen in Solna, stopping to do some shopping on the way. Her flat was only a couple kilometers from the police station and she liked to walk whenever she got the chance, especially on a day like today. Sun shining in a blue, cloudless sky. Twenty-six degrees and high summer in Sweden, even though it was still only the end of May.
Since she had become police chief of the Western District she had found herself thinking of it more and more often as her own kingdom, or possibly queendom, and of the importance of being a good and enlightened monarch who cared for justice and fairness and all the other people who lived there. Holt County, Holt thought, because presumably that’s what it would have been called, at least colloquially, if she had been a female sheriff in the Midwest or southern States.
More than three hundred and fifty square kilometers of land and water between Lake Mälaren to the west and Edsviken and the Baltic to the east. Between the old tollgates of central Stockholm to the south up to North Järva, Jakobsberg, and the outer archipelago of Lake Mälaren to the north. A queendom with some three hundred thousand inhabitants. Half a dozen billionaires, a few hundred millionaires, and maybe ten thousand who couldn’t put food on the table each day and lived off social benefits. Plus all the ordinary people in between.
A realm with five hundred police officers, many of whom could justifiably be reckoned among the finest in the country. And then there was Evert Bäckström, of course. Plus all the ordinary, normal officers in between.
Now the fire-breathing dragon had dug its claws into what was her territory and her responsibility. Five murders within the space of a week. As many as you would normally expect in a whole year in an area that was nonetheless reckoned to be one of the most crime-ridden in the country.
What I need is a white knight on a purebred charger who can kill the dragon for me, Holt thought, starting to giggle as she thought what would happen if she said that out loud in one of the meetings of the network of female police officers where she was on the board.
He who kills the dragon gets the princess and half the kingdom, Holt thought with a smile. And if that role is taken by any of our colleagues out here, then little Magdalena Hernandez stands a good chance of getting the role of princess, she thought. At least she would if their male colleagues got to vote on the matter.
She herself was too old, forty-eight that autumn, Holt thought with a sigh. Besides, she already had a man whose company she was enjoying more and more. She was very fond of him, maybe even loved him, even if up to now she had tried not to think like that. It would be quite good enough if my white knight kills the dragon for me, she thought.
He who kills the dragon gets the princess and half the kingdom, Anna Holt concluded, nodding to herself as soon as she had made the decision.
And I’d prefer it if he could get on with it straightaway, the police chief of the Western District thought.
47.
On Friday Detective Inspector Alm had hoped to be able to get away from work a bit early. It would be the weekend in a few hours anyway, and there was a fair amount to get done before he could enjoy it in peace and quiet together with his beloved wife and two good friends they had invited over for dinner.
Nothing remarkable about that. Their case seemed to be developing at a surprising pace, and more or less without any input from him. Akofeli’s unexpected demise had admittedly complicated matters, but it would all sort itself out if only he got the chance to have a really good think. Unfortunately all his hopes on that score had been dashed, and he hadn’t even managed to go and get wine like he had promised. Instead he had to call his wife and argue about it before she finally gave in and did all the things he had promised to do.
An hour after lunch, when he had more or less already packed up and prepared his retreat through the most suitable back door the police station could offer, he had received an unexpected visit. By the time he eventually got home his guests were already sitting and waiting in the living room. His wife was standing in the kitchen, clattering crockery and glasses, and the glance she flashed at him was not a kindly one.
“Hello, darling,” Alm said, leaning forward to give her a kiss. On the cheek, at least, he thought.
“If the detective inspector would care to look after our guests, I’ll try to see to it that they get something to drink,” his wife said, twisting her head away.
“Of course, darling,” Alm said. What an unbelievably wretched day, he thought.
“How can I help you, then, Seppo?” Alm said, giving Seppo Laurén a friendly nod and taking an involuntary glance at his watch. Maybe it would be best to switch on the tape recorder as well, he thought, as he placed his aide-mémoire on the desk. The lad was far from clearheaded, so you never could tell.
“So how can I help you, Seppo?” Alm repeated with a smile.
“The rent,” Seppo said. “What am I going to do about the rent?” he said, handing Alm a payment slip.
“What do you normally do?” Alm said amiably, looking at the payment slip. Just over five thousand kronor, Alm thought. Pretty high for a two-room flat in that building, he thought.
“Mom,” Seppo said. “But since she’s been ill I’ve been giving them to Kalle. But now he’s been killed. What do I do now?”
“Kalle Danielsson used to help you with the rent?” Alm said. “Since your mom got ill?” he clarified. I’ll have to get someone from Social Services, Alm thought, glancing at his watch again.
“Yes, and I used to get money for food as well,” Seppo said. “From Kalle, I mean. Since Mom got ill.”
“It was nice of Kalle to help you,” Alm said. Surely he should be getting some sort of pen
sion or disability benefit? Alm thought.
“S’pose so,” Seppo said, shrugging. “He used to argue with Mom.”
“He argued with your mom?”
“Yes,” Seppo said. “First he argued with her. Then he pushed her. She fell over and hit her head. On our kitchen table.”
“He pushed her?” Alm said. “In your home? And she hit her head?” What’s the lad saying? he thought.
“Yes,” Seppo said.
“Why did he do that?”
“Then she got ill and fainted at work and had to go to hospital. Ambulance,” Seppo said, nodding seriously.
“What did you do? When Kalle argued with your mom?”
“I hit him,” Seppo said. “Karate. Then I kicked him. Karate kicks. Then he got a nosebleed. I got cross. I hardly ever get cross.”
“What did Kalle do then? After you hit him?”
“I helped him into the lift,” Seppo said. “So he could go home.”
“And this happened the day before your mom got ill and had to go to the hospital?”
“Yes.”
“What happened after that? When your mom was in the hospital?”
“I got a new computer and loads of computer games.”
“From Kalle?”
“Yes. He said sorry too. We shook hands and said we wouldn’t fight anymore. He said he’d help me until Mom got better and came home again.”
“And you haven’t hit him again since then?”
“Well,” Seppo said, shaking his head, “I did hit him once more.”
“Why did you do that?” Alm asked.
“She never comes home,” Seppo said. “She’s still in the hospital. She doesn’t want to talk to me when I’m there.”
What’s going on? Alm thought. I’ve got to get hold of Annika Carlsson, he thought.
48.
Nadja Högberg had got three names from Toivonen. Hassan Talib, Afsan Ibrahim, and Farshad Ibrahim. The initials HA, AFS, and FI in Danielsson’s pocket diary. That leaves two, she thought, as she started up her computer at eight o’clock on Friday morning. Just over five hours before her colleague Detective Inspector Lars Alm got an unexpected visitor in his office.
Backstrom: He Who Kills the Dragon (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Original) Page 21