by Jens Lapidus
In Bangkok, they had made love several times a day. They had talked and hung out during the rest of the time. Sure, Hägerström had withheld a lot of things for security reasons, and Javier probably hadn’t told him everything either, but still—they had been close down there.
This felt more rushed. Hägerström had nothing against fucking Javier or being fucked. But the contrast with their time in Thailand was weird. Or maybe it was understandable. They were home now: being openly together wasn’t an option, either for Hägerström or for Javier.
They were lying in bed. Javier was smoking a cigarette. Hägerström was feeling low.
He said, “Do you know where Jorge is?”
Javier was blowing smoke rings. “Not a clue. Let him do whatever he came here to do and then go back. I’m gonna go back soon too. I’m just here to take a break, you know? What about you?”
“I did what I went to Thailand to do. I’m staying here.”
“But can’t you come, just for a week?”
“We’ll see. It’s not exactly free. But hey, do you have Jorge’s number?”
“No. My boy’s security-obsessed. I doubt he even has a phone now. Why you wanna talk to him?”
Hägerström had expected that question. “I’m not the one who wants to get in touch with him,” he said. “It’s the Thai guys down there—they’re whining about the café deal. They’ve already pulled out once, but I got them to go back in. Now they want out again. Can’t you ask around?”
The next day Hägerström went to Lidingö. He had called his lawyer first thing when he got back from Thailand, asked him to try to arrange a visitation time. Anna was unusually accommodating. Maybe that was her way of paying him back for keeping it cool for over four weeks. Over the past few years, angry legal letters, investigative meetings, and court dates had been legion. Not to mention all the angry texts and e-mails Hägerström and Anna exchanged every time they had to decide on times for pick-up and drop-off.
He picked his son up at school. They went to Pravat’s favorite park. It was only thirty-five degrees outside. They played cowboys and Indians. Hägerström wished they were in Thailand playing instead.
Pravat told him about school. He was reading. He was drawing. He was writing letters.
They discussed how long snakes can get and whether Spiderman can fly or if he is just unusually good at jumping.
After the park, they went home to Hägerström’s house. They ordered pizza and ate dinner in front of the TV. Hägerström tried to teach the boy not to chew with his mouth open, to cough into the nook of his arm, and not to put his elbows on the table. He felt like his mother.
The next day he got a text from Javier. I got a hookup.
Hägerström called him. “It’s me.”
“I’ve hit up so many homies for this, man—you wouldn’t believe.”
“Dope.”
“His mom, his sis who had her panties all in a bunch—yikes. I talked to Rolando, an amigo of his from way back who’s living real fucking nine-to-five. I’ve even talked to an old boy of J’s from the inside, Peppe.”
“And?”
“I got a number.”
“You’re an angel, in more ways than one. Would you call him and tell him I want to see him as soon as possible? The Thai guys want out of the deal. We have to talk.”
Hägerström considered ending the call with some words of affection but changed his mind. Not because he had any indication that Javier’s phone was tapped, but if it was, it could get complicated.
The following night. A cabbie hangout, the Mug, on Roslagsgatan. Open every day of the week, every hour of the day. Rumor had it the pea soup and pancakes on Thursdays were outstanding—a good old Swedish classic. Apparently the interior had not been changed since 1962. The Jack Vegas machines were supposed to bring luck to tired cabbies who had had trouble getting rides. The staff allowed smoking after midnight.
It was twelve-thirty at night. The place was half empty. Two men wearing leather taxi driver jackets were sitting on high chairs in front of one-armed bandits. Standing behind the counter was a fat man with a hairnet and his mouth half-open. His facial expression didn’t exactly exude intelligence.
The café guy might be South American. Maybe that was why Jorge had picked this place for their meet-up.
Hägerström ordered an ordinary black coffee and sat down at one of the tables.
Outside, around the corner, in cars throughout the area and in the apartment across the street: cops. Heavy artillery was on the scene, ready to collar two of the country’s most wanted men of the moment. Hägerström had informed Torsfjäll as soon as he had found out where they were meeting.
At least they would accomplish something, no matter what happened with Operation Tide. Arrest two professional criminals who had carried out the worst robbery of the year and wounded a guard for life. It would send a clear signal to the rabble, and to all the kids in the projects who wanted to become the rabble. It’s not worth it. The police always win in the end.
At the same time, Hägerström had a bad feeling in his gut. Coming home had not made him any less confused. It was seven times worse now. He would make sure Javier got arrested and most likely sentenced to a long time in prison. Hägerström would personally ensure that he never saw him again.
It was insane.
The door opened. It was raining outside. Javier walked into the café. His hair was wet. Drops of water were running down his face and light stubble. He looked up at Hägerström and winked.
Hägerström closed his eyes for a few seconds—this was just too much.
When he opened his eyes again, Javier was by the counter, paying for a bottle of Coke Zero.
He turned around, “H, you been here before? You gotta say hi to Andrés here. A countryman.”
Hägerström had been right. The man who worked at the café was from South America. Javier seemed high—he would be an easy snatch.
Five minutes later Jorge walked in through the door. He was wearing a black windbreaker and dark track pants. He had a backpack on his back, and all of him was dripping with rain.
Jorge walked straight over to Hägerström and Javier’s table, without ordering anything at the counter.
Hägerström didn’t need to inform anyone that Jorge had arrived. There were at least five officers on street corners all around, wearing concealed radios. By now, they would have communicated that the eagle had landed.
Jorge and Hägerström shook hands the regular way. Jorge swung his arm and slapped his hand into Javier’s, concrete style.
Javier grinned. “Wazzup, bro?”
Jorge sat down. “Why the fuck d’you come home?”
Javier didn’t seem to care. He really was stoned. “You went home. So. Why couldn’t I fly home?”
“You know why.”
“But Mahmud’s been checked out of the hospital. I didn’t need to be his nanny no more. He can take care of himself now. Know how hungry he was for anything but nurses?”
“Listen, you do what you want. But I’m gonna go back in a few days. I’m not taking any responsibility for you anymore. If you’re wanted and you stay here, they’ll pick you up sooner or later. You follow?”
Hägerström was surprised. They had never before been this open about their problems in front of him.
Jorge turned to Hägerström. “Screw, you wanna talk biz with me?”
“The buyers have been in touch again, complaining. You have the money now?”
“Yeah, I got it.”
“Sweet. In that case it’ll all work out.”
“There’s just one little problem,” Jorge said. “But JW’s gonna straighten it out for me.”
They chatted for a few seconds.
There were screams in the doorway.
Hägerström knew roughly what was going to happen next.
A four-strong SWAT team rushing in, dressed in black. Balaclavas and helmets on their heads. The illest bulletproof-vest model strapped on their bodies. M
P5s with laser sights trigger-ready in their hands.
They roared, “You’re under arrest! Get down on the floor!”
48
Natalie got blood on her pants. Small dark spots over her knees. They might come out in the wash. If not, she’d throw the pants out. She didn’t give a shit. What must be done, must be done. There would be more bloodstains to come.
She sat down on a plastic chair. Closed her eyes. Saw images from the past few days rolling across the inside of her eyelids.
By Sunday, Melissa still hadn’t been in touch. Natalie waited until Monday. She called at night, from two different phones. Cherkasova’s phone was off, there was no voice mail. She tried to call on Tuesday again. She asked Sascha to text her. Same deal: zero response.
That was when she decided to go to her house again.
Out there: the apartment complexes on one side, a large school on the other. Solna: not a ghetto burb like the southern territories or farther down on the blue subway line. Not a fancy burb like where Natalie lived or one of the other northern residential areas. Solna: somewhere in between. Like vanilla ice cream. Like 2 percent milk. Like Kungsholmen in relation to Östermalm and Södermalm.
Adam met her and Sascha on the street.
He had bags under his eyes. Said, “I’ve been waiting in the car since five p.m. yesterday. I haven’t seen her go in or out.”
“We’ll see,” Natalie said. She had a bad feeling about this. A small ache was growing in her stomach.
Adam knew the code to the downstairs door. He opened it.
There was no elevator. They walked up the stairs.
Natalie rang the doorbell. They waited.
Silence inside the apartment.
She rang the bell once more.
They knocked.
Adam pressed his ear to the door.
“It’s completely quiet in there. Maybe she’s sleeping.”
They knocked again.
Nothing happened.
Adam felt the door handle.
The door was open.
This felt wrong.
Adam, like a mad Navy SEAL: pulled his gun and held it out in front of him.
This felt all kinds of wrong.
They walked in.
Natalie stood in the hallway, looked around. She could see into the living room. The couch pillows and the DVDs were on the floor. One bookcase’d been knocked over. The curtains’d been torn down. Paperbacks, framed photographs, small dolls, ashtrays, and packets of cigarette all over the room. Even a pizza carton’d been torn to shreds.
Fuck.
Sascha called from the kitchen. “Someone’s really given this place a thorough once-over. I don’t think we should touch anything.”
She took a few steps toward the kitchen.
She heard Adam’s voice. It was shaky.
“Natalie, come here.”
He was in the bedroom. She went there. The grape-sized ache in her belly’d grown to the bulk of an orange.
The curtains were drawn. Dim light. All the dresser drawers’d been pulled out. Tops, skirts, socks, and panties on the floor.
It smelled strange. Melissa was lying on the bed with a bloody comforter over her. She had some sort of rag in her mouth.
Death’d painted her in its own nuance of gray—far from a flattering image. All the color was gone from her face. All the luster was gone from her skin. Everything sweet was gone from her eyes. Melissa’d looked scared the first time Natalie’d shadowed her. But the terror in her eyes now was completely different. No matter what death looked like, it hadn’t looked good for Melissa Cherkasova. That was 100 percent certain.
Adam bent down and pulled away the comforter.
Melissa’s body was ravaged. The sheets and mattress were bloody.
Her hands were bound with cable ties.
She had burn marks on her breasts and the insides of her thighs. She had bloody cuts on her arms and stomach. There was blood around her genitals. She had two bullet wounds in her chest.
Adam covered his mouth with his hand. Natalie felt the orange lump in her belly begin to move quickly. She ran to the toilet.
Thomas arrived half an hour later. He parked his van outside the entrance. Natalie and the boys were waiting in their car.
They walked in together.
The smell was more palpable now. Or else it was just that Natalie knew what was in there.
Thomas and Adam went into the bedroom. Natalie waited in the hall. Sascha was outside in the car, phone ready in case the cops showed up for some reason.
Thomas came back out. “Fucking pigs. Did you touch anything?”
“I’ve only touched door handles, nothing else. And I threw up in the toilet.”
“I pulled the comforter off. Other than that, only door handles,” Adam said.
Thomas crossed his arms in front of his chest. “Okay, we’ve got to clean up after ourselves. And then I think we should take care of the body, for safety’s sake.”
Thomas gave everyone orders. Pulled gear out of his duffel.
“Use these sponges. Wipe door handles, the sink, the bathroom floor, and any other surfaces you’ve been near. Use more disinfectant than you think you need. Tons. Put all the bedclothes in a garbage bag.”
They worked for twenty minutes. Thomas: Mr. Wolf in Pulp Fiction, for real.
The big question: How would they get Cherkasova out of here?
They spread plastic on the floor and set the body down onto it. Thomas turned the bed upside down. It was a simple model, an ordinary foam mattress. He pulled out a jigsaw, plugged it in. Sawed the bed open from the underside. Lowered the body into the bed frame. It looked like a coffin. They covered it all with the mattress and more black plastic. Taped with a whole lot of duct tape.
Thomas walked out into the stairwell. Unscrewed every single lamp—in case of nosy neighbors. They carried the bed down the stairs. Melissa inside like a heavy luxury mattress.
Adam drove off with the body in the van.
Thomas said, “I don’t think they got the material. She seems to have endured a lot. They wouldn’t have done all that to her if they’d gotten the stuff. And I don’t think there’s anything in there. They looked everywhere.”
Natalie looked up. She was still sitting. Standing in front of her were Goran, Bogdan, and Sascha. The cold storage room behind the kitchen at Restaurant Bistro 66. The place belonged to an old friend of Dad.
On the shelves: milk cartons, juice cartons, bunches of celery and other veggies, lots of limes and lemons. Cocktail fixings en masse. Large freezers on the floor.
Over the shelves: plastic wrap. On the floor: tarp. The entire room was covered in plastic.
It was a smart move—because on the floor was Marko.
Natalie got up. Four days’d passed since they found Melissa Cherkasova tortured and murdered in her apartment. Thomas’d finally found the material. A DVD taped to the back of a sewer pipe in the laundry room in the basement of the building. In total: twenty-seven mini-movies. Three different men, three different hotel rooms. Three different types of perversions. One of them was the politician, Svelander; one was unknown; one was a high-ranked police chief whom Thomas recognized. Svelander seemed to dig anal. The unknown Sven wanted to get sucked off. The final guy wanted to dress Melissa like a schoolgirl, handcuff her, and then do S&M stuff in three-hour sessions.
Natalie’d sent Sascha to inform Martina Kjellson. She would be told half of what’d actually happened: “Melissa is gone, and we’re not the ones behind it. Don’t try to contact her, don’t contact the police or anyone else. We’ll take care of this on our own.”
Natalie saw sick images in her mind. Melissa’s wide, staring eyes. The rag they’d stuffed in her mouth. Her wounded vagina.
Marko’s jeans were bloody. His T-shirt was torn. A thick gold ring on his pinkie.
Natalie walked over to him. Goran’d just given him a once-over.
He whimpered, “Let me go now.”
“Wh
y?” she said.
He spat out a tooth. “I don’t know anything about what happened to your father.”
“Yes, I think you do.”
“Fuck, no. I swear. I have no idea. He had alotta enemies. You could say he got what was coming to him.”
What he’d just said: Natalie felt a storm rage inside her.
She kicked him in the face. He spat blood.
She got more blood on her pants.
“And what about Cherkasova?” she said.
Marko spat out yet another tooth. “Please, I’m not the one who killed her.”
“I don’t give a shit. You were the one who trashed Fitnesse Club and did what you did to the receptionists.”
She kicked him again.
Yet another tooth hit the floor.
Goran screamed, “You’ve picked the wrong side, motherfucker!”
Natalie grabbed hold of Goran’s baseball bat. Struck Marko across the legs, belly. Slammed the top of the bat down with full force in his face.
His nose turned to ground beef. He screamed.
Red was bubbling from his mouth. Blood. Teeth. Pieces of his lips.
Natalie raised her voice, “Shut up, you pig! What happened to my father?”
The storm inside her pounded against her forehead.
“I have no idea,” Markos’s voice sounded desperate.
She stomped on his forehead.
He cried, whimpered, begged for mercy.
Images of Melissa flashed by once again. She swung the baseball bat at his cock.
He howled like a maniac.
She hit him in the same place again.
He continued to scream. Cry. Cough.
She swung with both hands, like a golf club.
He made a peeping sound. That was all.
He grew silent.
Natalie dried the sweat from her forehead. Calmed down. Looked at Goran. “Cut off his pinkie with the ring on it and send it to Stefanovic. Then end him.”
She walked out of cold storage room. Sascha in tow.
She wasn’t showering in the regular shower near her room, she was using the one in the basement. Mom was sleeping. Sascha was upstairs. It was twelve-thirty at night.