The Thin Blue Line

by Christoffer Carlsson

  ‘We know she saw three customers that night. The first two have been identified and eliminated. We’ve got next to nothing on the third one. We suspect that it could be him.’

  ‘That’s what you thought at the time, too.’

  ‘But you don’t?’

  ‘Afterwards, once the shock and the sorrow had started to settle, I did think about that, of course, who could’ve wanted to hurt her that badly. She had a few debts, obviously — who doesn’t? Nothing big though, mostly drugs she’d bought on tick that she was paying off. And she hadn’t fallen out with anyone, as far as I know. While we’re on the subject,’ she says, lowering her voice, ‘I guess the only explanation was that she saw a customer, a twisted sick fucker who for some reason did her in. Who that was, I have no idea.’

  She looks down at the floor between our feet, staring at a crumpled Snickers wrapper lying there, gently rocking in time to the motion of the train.

  ‘So pointless,’ she says. ‘That was what really got me to try and get out of it.’

  I ask about Angelica Reyes towards the end, whether there was anything different about her in the days or weeks leading up to the murder. Her mood; what she was talking about; what she was doing. I’m looking for signs that Grim is right, that she was preparing to leave, that someone was out to get her; looking for things that point to it being about something more than a nasty punter who lost his temper. If there aren’t any, if our murderer is just a customer with a short fuse, it’s going to be difficult to get anywhere.

  That last bit I keep to myself.

  ‘I don’t know whether she was different, really,’ she says. ‘They asked me that question at the time, and I didn’t know what I was supposed to say. I don’t think so. Angelica was her usual self, as I remember, maybe a little bit shakier, but you do get so jumpy from the drugs. Paranoid, almost. Especially if you’re wandering around in constant withdrawal.’

  ‘How long had she been doing that?’

  ‘I don’t know, the last few weeks maybe? The last time I was round at hers, for example, was the beginning of October, and she was relieved when it turned out to be me at the door. “Oh, it’s just you,” she said as she opened the door and sort of breathed out, almost. “Who else would it have been?” I asked, and Angelica shook her head and laughed. “Junkie nerves,” she said.’

  ‘Did you say that when you were interviewed in 2010?’

  ‘I can’t remember. I think so.’

  ‘There wasn’t anyone new in her life, no one who …’

  ‘No,’ she cuts in. ‘There wasn’t. Well, actually, I suppose that depends on how you look at it. There were new punters coming into our lives on a daily basis. None of them meant anything to us though.’

  ‘Are you sure about that? I mean, couldn’t Angelica have had some punter after her? Someone following here, harassing her, making her scared and jumpy?’

  Yes, I think to myself; and, in fear of her life, she tracks Grim down, because she can hardly go to the police. She’s making plans, ways to defend herself against someone or something. Grim thinks she knows something, but that might be overcomplicating things. There’s no need: a punter refusing to leave her alone would suffice. Perhaps he gets threatening; it might even already have escalated into physical violence. That’s why she needs to get away. A drastic decision, maybe, but who knows what the circumstances were? Who knows how it felt? But if that is what happened, why didn’t she turn to her pimp? That’s the way this sort of thing is normally dealt with.

  ‘She never mentioned …’ I hesitate. ‘Anyone being out to get her, or however you might put it?’

  ‘Out to get her? No. Why, is that what you lot think?’

  ‘No,’ I say.

  We roll past leafy Mälarhöjden. The platform is lined with people busy keeping an appropriate distance from one another, all absorbed in their own lives.

  ‘Did she talk about moving on?’

  ‘Oh yes. Often. We all did. You’ve got to dream, you know.’

  ‘So what did Angelica say about it?’

  ‘I can’t really remember everything that was said, there was so much. She wanted to go travelling, just like everyone else our age. She’d seen a lot of shit and been involved in plenty during those years. So had I, but she was young. She wanted to go to Asia and see the Great Wall of China, she wanted to road-trip across America, go partying in Nice, she wanted to see Chile and Santiago and the place where she was born, all that sort of thing. But it never happened.’

  ‘But it never got any more specific than that?’ I say. ‘I mean, something a bit closer in time.’

  Jonna looks puzzled.

  ‘What would that have been?’

  That’s what I don’t know.

  ‘Anything,’ I say.

  ‘She did actually say,’ Jonna continues, with a slight frown, ‘towards the end, I can’t remember exactly when, that she probably wasn’t going to be doing this for very much longer. This was working on the streets, at least that’s what I took it to mean. She said she had other plans.’

  ‘What did that mean?’

  ‘As I said, we all had plans. We were all heading for the big time.’ A melancholy smile. ‘And just look at me. Thirty-one, training to be a social worker. Big time, eh?’

  ‘Given your background, I’d say it was pretty big, believe me. Did she ever mention the name John Grimberg to you?’

  ‘John Grimberg? What’s he got to do with this?’

  A familiar searing sting runs down my spine.

  ‘So you know who he is?’

  ‘Doesn’t everyone who’s been following the news? You mean the guy who escaped a year or so ago?’

  ‘Did you know him?’

  Jonna shakes her head.

  ‘I never met him, but I know Angelica did, a long time ago. When she was a kid, like ten, maybe. I seem to remember that he’d saved her life. Not what you’d expect, eh?’

  ‘How do you know he did that?’

  ‘She told me. We must’ve been pissed, or high — we nearly always were back then. I think we were talking about times we’d nearly got in trouble. Cock and bull stories, quite a few of them in the end — things tend to happen around you when you’re involved in those sorts of things. And they matter, you tell them to people, to confirm to yourself and to others that you’re a survivor. The kind that the world can’t break down. Someone who gets through. This one was from way back, though, she’d been round at a classmate’s and was about to get run over or something and he’d saved her life. He was a few years older, and needless to say she fell in love with him a bit. Her first knight in shining armour, that’s what she called him. She lived out in Hallunda and he was somewhere else, I don’t know where, and she told me how she’d gone back there to meet him again. She was a little girl, you know. She became obsessed in that cute kind of way. Nothing ever happened between them, as I understood it — he was so much older. But she did mention that they’d met a few times over the years.’

  ‘In what circumstances?’

  ‘Couldn’t tell you.’

  ‘Were they an item?’

  ‘No. But I think she always had a soft spot for him.’

  I look down at my hands. The surface has layers, hiding more layers. Unsolved murders are mazes. We’re approaching Södermalm. The noise level on the train has risen, and now I have to lean in to make myself heard.

  ‘Did you mention this part, about John Grimberg, in the 2010 interviews?’

  ‘Obviously I can’t be sure — it’s five years ago — but I don’t think I did. Why are you asking about him?’

  ‘It’s to do with another case, from around the same time,’ I lie. ‘Sometimes they’re connected.’

  A poor lie. She doesn’t believe me, I can tell, but we leave it at that. She’s used to cops. The train soon rolls over the water, from Slussen in towa
rds Gamla Stan. I give her my number. As I step from the carriage, I find the rain has stopped.

  19

  In the sky above Vällingby, the clouds roll in like a thick grey blanket. Down here, on the ground, in a parking bay between the tower blocks, Birck’s car radio is delivering news: the waves of refugees arriving from Syria and Afghanistan have reached crisis levels. From twelve p.m. tomorrow, Sweden is reinstating border controls. The migration minister is encouraging refugees to head elsewhere. Sweden can no longer guarantee a roof over the head of new arrivals. The border checks will be carried out by the police.

  ‘They will, will they?’ Birck looks at the radio as if it has just personally insulted him. ‘Not only is everyone on active duty on shit money, and already exhausted from the overtime they’re doing, now they’re going to be checking passports, too?’

  ‘It’s a difficult situation,’ I say.

  ‘It isn’t at all.’

  I turn the radio off, lean back in the seat, and study the entrance across the street.

  ‘Are you sure that this is the right person?’ I ask.

  ‘Of course I’m sure.’

  Miro Djukic turned forty-six two months ago, and at about the same time moved from a two-bed apartment out in Kista to a studio here in Vällingby. In the original murder investigation, he was identified as Angelica Reyes’ pimp, and as such was interviewed on a number of occasions, without any significant results. His phone was confiscated and examined, then cross-referenced with mast records, which is how they managed to identify the first two punters she met that evening. When it came to the third, our prime suspect, the searches led nowhere.

  Djukic has been keeping a low profile for a few years, but he turns up every now and then as a familiar friend of some suspect in narcotics and prostitution cases. Despite that, I’ve never met him.

  ‘I spoke to Aronsson and Björkman,’ Birck says, his eyes fixed on the closed door to the building. ‘Both are convinced that they were on the right track, that it’s all about the third man she sold to that night, the same person who makes the first call to the police and who Jonna Danielsson sees on the stairs.’

  They’re wrong. It can’t be the same person; it’s not possible. The person who makes the call and is in the stairwell is Grim.

  ‘Unfortunately, they were pretty convinced that Djukic was telling the truth when he claimed not to know who this guy was.’ He turns to me. ‘How did you get on? What did she say, this Jonna Danielsson?’

  ‘Nothing we haven’t known since 2010,’ I say. ‘But she’s alive, anyway, studying to be a social worker.’

  ‘What did you ask her, though?’ Birck says, turning his head as the entrance door opens.

  According to Grim, someone was out to get Angelica Reyes. That’s too big — keeping that under wraps is a dereliction of duty. I take a deep breath.

  ‘I think there’s something I need to te—’

  ‘Hold on.’

  ‘Yes?’

  Birck frowns slightly.

  ‘There he is.’

  The man emerging into the November gloom is pretty short, with cropped brown hair and beard, and a body that looks like it’s used to weightlifting competitions. Birck studies the man’s lolloping movements.

  ‘Is he carrying an invisible fridge or something?’

  We step out of the car. The air is cold and damp.

  ‘Miro,’ Birck says. ‘Where are you off to?’

  ‘Gabriel.’ Miro flashes a crooked smile. ‘To the shops.’

  ‘In town? We’ll give you a lift.’

  ‘I was going to get the tube.’

  Miro looks around, to establish whether there’s anyone else around besides me and Birck. He’s wearing baggy jeans and a hoody under an undone white winter coat, and he’s standing with his hands in full view, hanging languidly by his sides. He knows what’s coming, no point doing anything that might make us nervous.

  ‘I don’t recognise you, though.’

  ‘Leo,’ I say as I stretch out my hand.

  Miro takes it. His grip is surprisingly warm, soft almost. He gets into the back seat of Birck’s car, and as we make our way from Vällingby up onto the main road back towards Bromma, he gets his phone out and starts writing a text.

  ‘Don’t take this the wrong way,’ he says when the telephone buzzes with a reply behind me, ‘but my ex-wife calls you pig cunts.’

  ‘Oh, to be honest, I’ve heard much worse,’ says Birck.

  Miro sits in the middle back there and leans forward between our seats.

  ‘Well I do appreciate the lift, I must say, especially in this weather,’ he goes on. ‘But what do you want? You’ve got nothing on me these days. I behave myself. I even go to parents’ evening, for fuck’s sake.’

  ‘It’s about Angelica Reyes,’ says Birck.

  Miro raises two thick, bushy eyebrows.

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘You remember her.’

  ‘Course I do. She was my girl. Well not like that. But she worked for me. Fucking awful business.’

  ‘We’d like you to tell us about the twelfth of October 2010,’ I say.

  ‘What’s in it for me? Besides getting picked up in a dark car in front of neighbours and acquaintances and then being forced to sit here talking to you, I mean.’

  ‘What’s in it for you?’ Birck says coldly.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You get out of a trip to the bunker.’

  Miro sighs.

  ‘You really are fucking cunts. I don’t even know how much I remember now.’

  ‘We’ll find out,’ says Birck. ‘You sold her, right?’

  ‘I did,’ says Miro. ‘It’s not something I’m proud of, but I can’t honestly say I’m particularly ashamed of it either. You know in this town, everyone’s fighting everyone else, just to survive. That’s what it was like back then, and I’m guessing that’s what it’s like today, too.’

  ‘How many clients would she normally see in an evening, do you remember?’

  ‘On the nights she was working for me I seem to remember she’d see two or three. Three on the night of the murder, I remember that.’

  ‘You’re sure about that.’

  ‘Yes. But it was sort of up to them, really. I pimped them, yes, but they could always say no. If they were tired, sick, or needed a break or whatever, I would respect that.’

  ‘Is that so?’ says Birck. ‘Not what I’ve heard.’

  ‘So what have you heard?’

  ‘That your cousin was the one supplying them with drugs. That he was a dealer who’d shut up shop on your say so, if the girls weren’t doing what you wanted.’

  Birck overtakes a heavy goods vehicle, and Miro stares at it as we pass.

  ‘You mustn’t believe everything you hear,’ he says.

  ‘Can you tell us,’ I cut in, ‘what you remember of the night of the murder?’

  ‘I went over this fifteen times straight after the murder, every day for the two weeks you lot were interrogating me.’

  ‘We’re looking at the case again,’ I say. ‘You are involved in it.’

  ‘That colleague of yours thought I was the one who did it.’

  She did indeed, and this is where it gets tricky.

  The person who interviewed him was Renita Björkman. She’d come from Vice Squad, and the fact that she hated pimps, even more than the average woman on Vice Squad did, was no secret. That also made her completely unsuited to the task, but we were understaffed even then, and she was the one who ended up having to sit with Miro. With hindsight, it doesn’t take long to realise that Levin himself ought to have taken care of the interviews with the pimp, but perhaps he didn’t know at the time, and afterwards it was too late.

  That Miro didn’t share what he knew, not all of what he knew, is not only conceivable but probable
.

  The police radio crackles into life: suspected assault on Torsgatan. A patrol car answers the call and is sent to the scene.

  ‘What we want to talk to you about,’ I say, ‘is the third client.’

  ‘The Third Client,’ Miro repeats. ‘Sounds like the name of a bad crime thriller.’

  It’s the evening of the twelfth of October 2010, and Miro Djukic is sitting in his apartment in Kista. He’s got three mobile phones to hand: one for private use, one for incoming calls, another for dialling out. It’s almost quarter-to eleven when he receives a call from a number he recognises.

  ‘So this was someone who’d called before,’ I say.

  ‘It was.’

  A man. He doesn’t introduce himself. He says:

  ‘I would like to meet Angelica.’

  That was it.

  ‘Was it normal for punters to ask for specific girls?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  Miro ends the call with the man, puts the phone down, picks up another, and calls Angelica.

  ‘I asked her if the evening had gone okay so far, checked to make sure they’d treated her nicely. They had, she said. I told her she could have another in about fifteen, twenty minutes. She said fine, no problem.’

  ‘How did she sound then?’ I ask. ‘If you know what I mean.’

  ‘Well … I think I remember telling you that she sounded pretty much like she always did.’

  ‘Would you like to change that statement?’

  ‘Not change, exactly.’ Miro scratched his cheek. ‘But what do you call it, expand. I think she sounded … I don’t know, a bit stressed maybe. I assumed she was tidying up or getting the bed ready or something.’

  She is stressed, I think to myself. She knows that Grim will be coming later. She’s preparing to disappear. You can imagine that she’s already left, mentally. Perhaps Angelica Reyes’ mind is already somewhere else when the arrangements for the third customer are being made. Maybe she’s scared.

  Miro ends the call with Angelica and rings the third client, confirms the booking and gives the time and place.