Once the door has slammed shut behind him, Angelica smiles broadly, before she turns over and starts looking for something behind the bed. That little hole in the wall? She pulls out a joint and grabs the lighter from the bedside table. Her body relaxes and drifts off.
It looks nice.
She’s about to nod off but suddenly remembers something and turns towards the kitchenette, stares straight into the camera. Without saying anything, she stands up and walks forward slowly, hand outstretched.
The camera jerks the instant before the clip ends.
Birck leans over the screen, clicking away until the technical details of the video are displayed.
‘The file was created on the eleventh of September 2010.’
‘A month before the murder. We need to call someone.’
Birck rewinds the clip back to the start so he can hear her say it again.
‘I’ve got the list. Give me the money. You know what’ll happen if you don’t.’
He stops the film.
‘There we have it. Then the subject of the extortion arrives.’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘You saw who it was.’
‘Yes.’
I don’t know if it was him or whether someone did it for him.
The man in the clip is Jon Wester. The man in charge of SGS.
Fuck.
51
Anja Morovi lives on the third floor of a lovely old building on Torsgatan. The apartment is in darkness, except in here, where a ceiling lamp casts a warm, soft glow on the living-room furniture. Morovi is wearing a white towelling robe. Her hair’s all over the place, her cheeks are rosy, and her stare is clear and alert.
She didn’t sound overly pleased about a visit on the phone. Since Birck insisted, she agreed to hear the explanation, and when he said Patrik Sköld is dead she went quiet, before ordering us round here. Now her eyes glide past the bedroom door. It had been ajar when we arrived, and before she’d had the chance to close it I heard light snoring inside. Neither Birck nor myself have made any comment.
‘What a trio,’ she says. ‘A policeman who killed himself, or possibly was murdered, and had been sacked, a murdered prostitute keen to disappear, and a high-ranking police officer who is paying for sex. Not only that, it’s all on film. You know how to keep your boss awake at night.’ She strains not to raise her voice. ‘It’s a fucking disgrace.’
I feel uneasy. There’s something about all of this, about Angelica and Grim and SGS and Sköld’s dead body and his empty staring eyes, the thin blue line and Jon Wester, Jesus, that makes you lose your footing.
‘Sköld was framed for the drug offences,’ she says, speculatively.
‘According to him, he wasn’t completely innocent,’ Birck says.
‘We haven’t looked into that case, but I should think that’s about right. They probably used it against him when they realised that he’d been speaking out of turn.
‘Why, though, did he choose that way out? He could easily have leaked the lot of it to the media, stormed into NPA, or …’ Morovi’s thoughts drift away. ‘Or pointed his weapon at Jon Wester instead of turning it on himself.’
‘He did actually seem composed when we saw him,’ Birck agrees. ‘But there was still definitely something … vulnerable about him. The flat was … It was a lonely person’s home.’ He turns towards me. ‘Wouldn’t you say?’
‘I don’t know. But being that disillusioned with the force, yet still wanting to stay, and then getting shut out like that … I can imagine that it felt the way he described it.’
The abyss opened up beneath him.
Morovi raises an eyebrow.
‘I do hope you’re not talking about yourself and your own imminent suspension now.’
‘Don’t worry. I’m too much of a coward to take my own life.’
‘Good.’ She nods over at the computer. ‘Put the film on. And pass me those headphones from the table over there.’
She watches two minutes of it, her face expressionless as she observes the events on screen.
‘When do you get to see him?’ she asks.
Birck spools forward. We see the man walk through the shot. This time, no longer obsessed with the man’s identity, other things become noticeable: he seems hunted. Something — a demon, or desperation — is driving him on.
Morovi stops the tape and pulls off her headphones.
‘Fuck.’ She stares at an invisible spot somewhere in between me and Birck. ‘Jon Wester. Fuck.’ She takes a deep breath. ‘This investigation,’ she continues, ‘or whatever we’re supposed to call what it is you’re up to, is no longer a secret within HQ. I had an unwelcome visit before I left work today.’
The visitor was a man from the National Police Authority, Carl Hallingström. He had recently had lunch with a good friend of his, one of the female archivists. Hallingström had asked how things were down there, to which the archivist had replied that for the most part things were pretty calm, but with busy periods. She happened to mention that two men from Violent Crime had occupied one of the rooms a while back, before abruptly abandoning their work.
‘Yes, it was Junker and Birck,’ the archivist had explained.
Since Hallingström had heard about Junker and Birck — Jesus, who hadn’t — he obviously had to ask what case they’d been working on.
She knew, of course.
‘It was about the Angelica murder.’
‘The Angelica murder? Why? There’s at least a dozen unsolved murders in Stockholm, none of which are more than a year old, and all with decidedly better starting points. Why work the five-year-old murder of a whore in the city centre?’
Needless to say, the archivist hadn’t been able to answer that question.
That was why he was sitting there, puzzled, in front of Morovi. Hallingström wanted, bluntly, to know what Junker and Birck were playing at.
‘By the way, isn’t the Reyes case about to be handed over?’
‘Yes, it is,’ Morovi replied, ‘which is precisely why I’ve asked them to take a look at it. Make sure everything is in order before the handover, that all the minutes and exhibits are in the right places and nothing that should’ve been done during the investigation has been left undone.’
If Junker and Birck found anything worth chasing up, they had her permission to do so.
‘And how did that go?’ Hallingström enquired drily.
‘They have conducted some supplementary interviews, attempted to get a few details confirmed,’ Morovi replied. ‘That’s all. But,’ she added politely, ‘how come NPA has deigned to concern itself with what my officers are getting up to?’
He was the curious type, Hallingström. The kind whose lives are powered by their doubts and not their convictions, as some wise person once expressed it. Among the tasks on his desk following the restructuring was the Stockholm region’s administrative handling of cold cases. Which resources should be allocated where, and when, how much, and so on. He’d reacted to the fact that Junker and Birck seemed to be spending vast amounts of time out in the field.
Hallingström simply wanted to hear which directives Morovi had given them and the amount of resources their execution had involved.
‘And now you know,’ Morovi said coolly.
‘Well then,’ Hallingström concluded, and after a polite farewell he was on his way out — but then stopped in the doorway.
‘You haven’t by any chance had recent dealings with a certain Patrik Sköld?’
‘Patrik Sköld? No, I haven’t. The name’s familiar, though. Is he at HQ?’
‘No, he isn’t, and, you know what — forget it,’ said the man from NPA, and left.
Morovi adjusts the bathrobe around her thigh.
If you listen carefully, you can still hear the snoring from the bedroom.
‘Recently,’ says Birck.
‘This Hallingström said that he’d recently had lunch with one of the archivists. He wasn’t more specific than that?’
‘No. My guess would be that you’ve had him, or one of his foot soldiers, on your tail since last week.’
‘I think that Sköld went to see Hallingström,’ I say. ‘When I spotted Sköld’s car, the Audi, on Fridhemsgatan, I later saw him coming out of a building where one of the residents was a C. Hallingström.’
‘Hmm.’ Birck frowns. ‘Wonder what they chatted about.’
‘But I still don’t really see what the problem is,’ I say. ‘We haven’t actually broken any rules.’
‘The problem,’ Morovi says, exhaling heavily before she continues, ‘is that, at the time, Hallingström was on the board that was responsible for SGS. Officially, he was Jon Wester’s boss.’
‘And unofficially?’
‘Yes …’ Morovi folds her arms across her chest. ‘Unofficially, he seems to have been there to protect Wester.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘He helped make sure that SGS got the resources that Wester said were necessary. Any criticism directed at Wester, Hallingström would be there to defend him. He realised that Wester was good, and would be a key figure in delivering SGS strong results. And SGS got a great record when it came to convictions. They were efficient, unsurprisingly given the methods they deployed, but then not too many people knew about that. Being efficient goes a long way, it makes us look good. So SGS and Wester were protected, not least by Hallingström, although he was far from alone.’
‘I don’t get why SGS was disbanded, if it was so successful,’ I say.
Morovi smiles a crooked smile.
‘It was soon after the Angelica murder. Is that what you’re getting at?’
‘The thought had occurred to me.’
‘Formally, it was because SGS was a pilot project. It was never intended to be a permanent unit; rather, elements of their operations were to be integrated into other units and divisions. If you look at the form of words used by NPA, it’s quite apparent. But informally …’ She shakes her head again. ‘Who knows. The use of informants and infiltrators had recently been in the eye of a media storm. The Rätz Affair was still fresh, Operation Playa was well on its way to a full-blown disaster. I think the list that Inger Johanne Paulsson demanded was important, too — looking at it, you realised just how much of SGS’s activity was completely dependent on informants, and the scale of the risks they needed to take. And,’ she adds, ‘this is the police we’re talking about. I’ve seen fully functioning divisions and units scrapped or reorganised because the boss isn’t enjoying his job anymore and fancies doing something different. It’s much easier than you think to sabotage things within the force. Whatever you do, don’t do management.’
She laughs, then realises what she’s doing and glances over at the bedroom door.
‘So you don’t think that SGS was broken up because of Angelica Reyes’ death?’ I say.
‘I don’t know what to think about so many things nowadays,’ she mutters. ‘What I do know is that we need to finish this off. A dead officer who might have killed himself and not only that but used his own weapon to do so. Jesus. You sent people in, I take it?’
‘Plenty,’ says Birck. ‘All good. We took the letter and the computer. I lied and said that both contained personal information.’
Strictly speaking, not even a lie.
‘Good,’ Morovi says. Then, more contemplatively, ‘2008 to 2011, isn’t most of the material from back then digitised now?’
‘Our stuff is, anyway,’ I say.
‘SGS’s, too, I should think,’ says Morovi, ‘even if their most sensitive activities were never committed to paper. The most important documents were probably omitted, or destroyed when it was wound up.’
She looks at us with a weird expression, almost like a different face. She looks greedy.
‘Dig, then. Earn your wages. Make sure you find something concrete tying Jon Wester to Angelica Reyes’ murder, if it is him. Thus far, you can only prove a sex purchase that falls under the statute of limitations. The rest of it is all circumstantial. Get hold of something else. Quickly,’ she adds, ‘and without speaking to those concerned. Don’t do any strange overtime, and be sure not to miss any meetings. Do it during working hours, and look out for Hallingström and his tentacles. Don’t forget, there are eyes on you.’
I look at Birck. He looks like I feel. It’s been a long, long night and it’s far from over yet. I’m so happy that Sam’s coming home tomorrow.
‘I don’t think it’s possible,’ Birck ventures. ‘Not without speaking to …’
‘You’re probably right,’ Morovi says, climbing out of the armchair and adjusting her robe. ‘But since I’m your boss, I can tell you that I don’t give a shit what you think. Just do it.’
52
I don’t go home that night. It’s as if Patrik Sköld’s dead face is stuck inside of me, I don’t know what to do with myself. I end up heading down to Karolinska to sit with Grim.
They’re operating on him first thing tomorrow, I’m informed, and the preparations for that are already underway. He’s in a deep sleep.
I sit down on the chair next to his bed, study his face.
All of this, I think to myself, started with you. Birck asked me today whether knowing about the real reasons for your actions changed anything. I dodged the question a bit. I didn’t want to show that I was unsure, but I am. I’m hunting a murderer for you. For you. So fucked up.
I agreed to investigate the details around the Reyes case because I thought you were in danger. I did it to help you. Protect you, if that makes it sound better.
And you made a useful idiot of me. I hate feeling stupid, thick, duped. It’s so humiliating, do you understand that?
The betrayal seems ancient, almost pre-historic. As though it happened before, in another time, in another life.
It’s twenty-to three in the morning, on Tuesday the eighth of December, and I’m busy telling myself that tomorrow everything will be okay.
You’re having an operation. You’re going to get better. You’re going to make it, you always do. Not even a bullet in the head can finish you off forever. Maybe you’re immortal. You’re going to get better, and you’ll be charged, then assessed by the court. A minor psychiatric assessment will be carried out, and you’ll be found sane, no secure treatment this time. A period in prison will follow — you might get five years, six at the most — and you’ll behave yourself, of course, you know it’s worth pretending. Once you’ve done two-thirds of your time, you’ll be a free man again.
Maybe everything will be different then. We’ll meet down on Norr Mälarstrand. I’ll be waiting at a table on the waterfront terrace …
I realise that I don’t even know what you’re dreaming about, beyond all this. You’ve never said what you want to work with, not even in Salem in the days when me and you were everything. Others wanted to be footballers, artists, firemen, pilots, lawyers. Some idiot even wanted to be a cop, but not you. Right?
You never said anything.
I’ve never asked you either. Maybe you knew even then that your path was going to be different? No, that’s wrong. That’s hindsight. It’s so easy to spot them now, the signs, they’re so easily read with the answer sheet in hand. At the time, they were hard to interpret, if there even were any.
Your breathing, hearing its rhythm, makes me calm. Do you know that? Do you realise that you, despite everything, have a calming effect on me? How fucked up is that?
You could almost fall asleep here.
I’m yanked from the blackness by a movement inside the room. The clock on the wall shows quarter-to six. My eyes are stinging, and my body is aching from sitting in the chair for so long. My neck hurts.
Propped up again
st the wall is a man who looks like he’s going to fall down at any second. He’s wearing unwashed clothes: black jeans, and a T-shirt that hugs his chest and shoulders tightly. His dark-black hair is on end, and his eyes are shiny and erratic, his skin so pale that the stubble across his chin and jaw looks almost blue.
‘Didn’t mean to wake you up,’ he says quietly.
‘Have you been there long?’
‘Just got here. Shall I go?’
I don’t know what to say. What’s he doing here?
‘It’s you,’ he goes on. ‘You’re the one they’re always talking about.’
‘Talking about?’
‘You’re the one who comes a lot. The nurses often talk about you. You’re his friend.’
Friend. Sounds weird when someone else says it.
‘My name is Leo.’
‘I know.’
‘And yours is Nikola.’
Nikola Abrahamsson. The man who shot my friend in the head.
He slides slowly to the floor and sits down with his back to the wall. It’s barely a movement at all, more like a drawn-out slump.
‘I usually come at around this time. There’s never anyone else here then. I think they feel sorry for me. Fucked up, eh? They feel sorry for the one who pulled the trigger.’
‘Has he said anything to you?’ I ask. ‘When you’ve been here, I mean.’
‘No, I heard he’d woken up, but …’
I haul myself out of the chair. My back crunches and my legs tingle.
‘Have you sat on that thing?’
Abrahamsson shakes his head. I stretch.
‘Don’t fall asleep on it.’
That’s not a joke, not something light-hearted to defuse the situation. I don’t know myself why I said it.
‘I don’t sleep anymore,’ says Abrahamsson.
I walk round the bed and slump onto the floor next to him. It’s not as uncomfortable as it looks.
The latest I’ve heard about Abrahamsson is that he’s still suspended because the investigation into the shooting is ongoing.
‘I met a suspended colleague earlier,’ I say.
The Thin Blue Line Page 18