The Thin Blue Line

by Christoffer Carlsson

  ‘He’s got his hands full, that one,’ said Larsson.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Leifby. ‘I don’t bloody doubt it.’

  They needed to get some coffee inside them. Partly because they needed to debrief after their first meeting with the NPC. Partly because it was so tiring to traipse around the city fighting crime left, right, and centre, and for this money? They should’ve mentioned that, by the way. That’d have to wait for their next meeting, that would.

  The canteen in HQ was almost empty at this point, which was good. They could sit there having their meeting until their shift was basically done.

  They had ten minutes to go and were just about to make their way back onto the streets again — how much shit could happen in the time that was left — when a man who’d left the canteen a while ago came back and called out their names.

  It was a charge sergeant, Stockholm Police. He’d been down for a coffee and seen the pair of prize idiots sitting there in a corner. When he got back to his room, he heard that Violent Crime were looking for that very twosome.

  By this point, people were already getting annoyed.

  Larsson and Leifby had been sought, quite naturally, via their local station in Huddinge. No one knew where they were, but someone had heard them talking about going to Solna. The receptionist there had seen Larsson, Leifby, and the NPC himself heading out the door. They were going, as she understood it, to give him a lift back into town, which ought to mean that they were in the vicinity of, or indeed inside, HQ itself. At the source of the inquiry, funnily enough.

  But in the meantime, no one saw the funny side.

  ‘Does anyone know where these fucking idiots are?’ the charge sergeant’s superior steamed, in the middle of the open plan office with the phone in his hand. ‘Apparently, they’re in the building, and they need to go to the Violent Crime Unit immediately.’

  The charge sergeant sighed. He couldn’t very well keep it to himself. He was a good old honest policeman, and whatever it was might actually be important.

  So he stood up from his chair and said that he thought he’d seen them a little while ago. Presumably, given the two they were talking about, the ‘idiots’ would still be there.

  When, finally, they amble into my room, Larsson is carrying a sandwich, Leifby a rolled-up magazine. They look confused but hopeful.

  ‘Sit yourselves down.’

  The two officers each sit down on a chair.

  ‘What’s this all about?’ Leifby asks. ‘We haven’t really got time for this.’

  ‘No, we’ve got a job to do,’ Larsson adds, staring at his sandwich.

  ‘You can eat that in here,’ says Birck.

  ‘It’s about this.’ I give Leifby the parking ticket. ‘Do you remember it?’

  He looks like a dog being shown a dishcloth — just as clueless and equally as interested.

  ‘2010,’ he reads aloud. ‘MCC 860. You know what, that one’s slipped my mind.’

  ‘It’s from the night of the twelfth of October 2010,’ Birck attempts. ‘You pulled up a Toyota at the edge of Kronoberg Park.’

  ‘Yes, I remember that,’ says Larsson, who is now leaning against his partner to get a better view. ‘It’s funny you know, that was my Mum’s sixtieth, that day. I got off at two, slept a few hours, then it was off to Vetlanda for her party. So I do remember, for that reason. And because he was who he was.’

  ‘Oh shit, yes.’ Leifby looks shaken. ‘That was that time.’

  ‘Because he was who he was?’ I repeat.

  ‘Start from the beginning,’ Birck says instead. ‘The twelfth of October 2010. Start there.’

  68

  Yes, it concerned the twelfth of October 2010, and for reasons every bit as unclear as the ones that had taken them to Solna earlier today, the duo had, on that night, stationed themselves on a Kungsholmen backstreet.

  They came on at six and stopped at a hotdog stand to refuel. Once there, they noted that the owner was using a larger area of the pavement than his permit allowed. This was tricky, they couldn’t have that, but if the owner was to be so friendly as to provide law enforcement with two specials with gherkin relish then they’d be able to turn a blind eye to the infraction, this time.

  This encounter wasn’t mentioned in the duo’s handover, a few hours later. The stand’s owner, however, contacted the police to report the reprehensible behaviour the two officers had displayed. They were rude and even casually racist, and as if that wasn’t enough, they attempted to blackmail their way to some food.

  ‘Besides, I operate within the boundaries on my permit, with plenty of room to spare,’ the owner added.

  That night, the twelfth of October, Larsson and Leifby found themselves in the heart of Stockholm, roughly fifteen kilometres from Huddinge, where they should’ve been. Larsson had worked it all out; he was driving down to Vetlanda the next morning and was very keen to have a quiet shift so he didn’t get worn out. The city centre was crawling with squad cars and foot patrols, so the chances of him and Leifby being closest to any possible incidents was minimal, and if it came down to it they could just move on.

  Which is what they did. As evening turned to night, they were starting to get bored, and Larsson’s sugar cravings were making themselves felt. They rolled up onto Drottningholmsvägen and stopped at a late-night kiosk. Larsson went in and bought two cinnamon buns for himself and two cups of coffee, one for himself and one for his tight-fisted partner.

  Not long afterwards, about eleven, something happened. They were crawling down Kronobergsgatan when they spotted the car in front suddenly veer off to the left, up the little backstreet.

  ‘Well,’ Larsson said, putting down the first, half-eaten bun. ‘Look at that.’

  They continued past the turning. The driver had parked up and was now making his way on foot. He moved quickly and purposefully, following Kronobergsgatan down to Hantverkargatan before heading east towards City Hall. Larsson and Leifby weren’t daft enough to follow him, deciding instead to stay put.

  ‘That bastard,’ said Leifby. ‘We’ll have that.’

  The car had no permit and was badly parked. Admittedly, the nearby fire station didn’t use that route when responding to calls, but it still didn’t look good. They decided to do their bit for safety and security, and occupied a position further down the street, cunningly obscured from view by the branches of Kronoberg Park.

  Larsson finished his first cinnamon bun, and drank some coffee. He was keeping an eye on the car; Leifby the immediate environs.

  ‘Aren’t you going to eat the other one?’ Leifby said, glancing at the paper bag.

  ‘I think I’ll save it a bit,’ said Larsson.

  Time passed. Fifteen minutes, half an hour. He took a bite of the second bun.

  ‘Shall we do a search on the car maybe?’ Leifby suggested, having got the parking ticket all ready to save time when the moment came to deploy it. ‘So we know who we’re dealing with.’

  ‘I’m going to finish this first,’ mumbled Larsson, who was fully occupied with the bun and the coffee, being careful not to spill anything on his uniform.

  Leifby rolled his eyes.

  They never got that far. The car’s driver returned.

  By now, it was approximately twenty-to twelve, and there was no doubt that this was the same person. He was wearing jeans and boots, a heavy coat that reached his hips, and a rucksack slung over one shoulder.

  ‘Look at that,’ said Leifby. ‘Let’s get him. Fire it up.’

  With a shuddering start, bloody blues and twos on and everything, Larsson and Leifby’s vehicle roared towards the man who’d just blipped the badly parked car, opened the driver’s door, and placed his rucksack on the passenger seat.

  That’s when he heard them. He was, needless to say, surprised — what would you expect when two cunning cops like these strike — but at
that point something unexpected occurred.

  He left the car and ran across the street, up the slope, and in among the trees and bushes of Kronoberg Park. Larsson and Leifby scrambled after him, and Leifby, easily the faster of the two, caught up with him after less than a hundred metres, forcing him to the ground, face down in the cold grass.

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ Leifby snarled, his knee pushed hard between the man’s shoulder blades as he fumbled to open his handcuffs.

  ‘Police,’ the man hissed, struggling to talk. ‘I’m a police officer.’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ said Leifby.

  Flanked by his breathless partner, who had finally managed to catch up with them, he hauled the crook to his feet. The tumble must’ve drawn blood somewhere because the collar of the polo shirt peeking out underneath the man’s jacket, Larsson noted, was bloody.

  ‘It’s true. I am a policeman.’

  ‘Come off it.’

  ‘Listen to me, for fuck’s sake, I am. I’m here on duty.’

  They ignored him, of course. Larsson and Leifby had seen it all before. Back at the car, they still needed to fill in the remainder of the parking ticket. While Larsson got back in the warm of the patrol car to carry out a records check, Leifby and the man stayed next to his car — a Toyota, registration MCC 860.

  ‘My name is Jon Wester,’ the man said. ‘I work for SGS.’

  Despite the handcuffs, and with a little help from Leifby, he managed to pull out his badge. As Leifby inspected it, he heard Larsson’s nasal tones emerge from their vehicle.

  ‘Listen, MCC 860. It’s a police vehicle.’

  He approached Leifby and the man with the search results in his hand. Larsson was as white as a sheet.

  The badge looked, as far as Leifby could discern, authentic, and the man in the picture was undoubtedly identical to the man standing in front of them.

  Jon Wester. SGS’s Director of Operations. Wasn’t he well connected with someone up in the NPA?

  ‘We do apologise,’ Leifby said as he unlocked the handcuffs, his fingers starting to tremble.

  ‘We didn’t know,’ Larsson reiterated. ‘If we had known, then …’

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ Wester replied.

  ‘We’ll tear up the parking fine of course,’ Larsson went on.

  ‘Are you alright?’

  Leifby studied Wester anxiously. The blood on the collar made him uneasy; he was looking for a wound or a scratch on the man’s face, but, confusingly, couldn’t find one. The blood on the polo shirt was already starting to dry.

  ‘Do you want us to drive you in, so someone can have a look at you?’

  ‘No need,’ answered Wester.

  ‘But you’re bleeding.’

  ‘It’s nothing to worry about.’

  With those words, he climbed into his car and drove off. Like the patrol officers, he seemed keen to forget about the whole thing. Which was big of him, Leifby thought. He knew that even the best can get it wrong.

  Sitting in their own car, the two stayed silent as they tried to determine what the consequences of the scene they’d just caused might be.

  Leifby located the parking ticket, finally managed to find his pen, and annulled the fine, thus clearing Jon Wester of any wrongdoing, at least on that front. After all, he was a cop, on a mission. It must’ve been a risky one, Leifby thought to himself, given the blood. As the two officers left Kungsholmen, the rain arrived.

  69

  Sitting in the chair, Leifby clears his throat and crosses his legs. Larsson has finished his roll and is busy brushing the crumbs off his uniform.

  I show them a picture of Jon Wester.

  ‘Is this him?’

  ‘We’ve told you it was Wester,’ Larsson says, discomfited, as though he’s embarrassed at being reminded of the incident. ‘I know what he looks like.’

  Birck has opened Patrik Sköld’s computer. He’s searching for the point in the video from Reyes’ apartment where Wester goes to open the window, passing the camera lens as he does so. Once he finds it, he shows them the screen.

  ‘Who is this?’

  Leifby puts down his motoring magazine and squints at the display. Larsson leans in.

  ‘Well, it looks like the same person,’ he drawls.

  ‘Looks like?’

  Larsson seems confused.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘You said it “looks like” the same person. How sure are you?’

  ‘You can see that it’s him,’ Larsson says, turning to his colleague, who has stopped squinting and now folds his arms instead.

  ‘Yes, it is him. What’s this all about?’

  ‘The man on this tape is the same man that you met on the evening of the twelfth of October 2010?’

  ‘Yes,’ Leifby declares.

  ‘Jon Wester.’

  ‘Yes.’

  I put Sköld’s computer to one side, pick up my own, and pull up a map of Kronoberg Park.

  ‘Can you show me where the tackle took place? Here’s where you and the Toyota were parked, according to the parking ticket. Here’s Kronoberg.’

  Larsson hesitates.

  ‘But what’s this about?’ he protests. ‘This is over five years ago.’

  ‘Show us.’

  ‘Well …’ Leifby looks sheepishly at the map. ‘He made it a bit into the park, I think, but not that far. I’m a lot quicker than Dan, but it didn’t take very long for him to catch up with us.’

  ‘You’re not that fast,’ Larsson says icily.

  ‘Somewhere over here,’ Leifby says, putting an index finger on the map, then moving it around in a little circle.

  ‘Thanks,’ says Birck. ‘That was everything. You can go.’

  Larsson looks astonished.

  ‘That was it?’

  ‘We were double-checking the detail, but thank you. We’re lucky to have such dutiful colleagues.’

  Leifby looks at Larsson, who looks at Leifby. They shrug and get up, before walking out looking thoroughly disheartened and very much as though they hope to avoid any further such encounters for a very long time.

  Beneath the tiredness, a wave of adrenaline is growing. The spot Leifby circled with his finger is pretty well exactly the spot where Angelica’s mobile phone was found shortly after the murder.

  You can see it all: Wester has it on him. But then why not in his rucksack? Maybe he remembered it at the last minute, just as he was about to leave. Oh shit yeah, her phone. Yes, maybe.

  He’s got it on him. Leifby grapples him from behind, and the phone falls out of his pocket, down into the muddy grass of Kronoberg Park. Where it remains.

  Birck studies the map of the park.

  ‘Well blow me. I need to think.’

  ‘Me, too. But if we leave it too long then they might stop us.’

  ‘We need the nod from Morovi. It’s six o’clock, I bet she’s gone home.’ He turns to me. ‘Tomorrow?’

  ‘Tomorrow it is.’

  Birck hovers in the doorway.

  ‘Listen, I … I’ve been thinking.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘That thing Morovi said a while back, about the consequences of this thing. This risks going right to the very top. A senior officer visiting whores, one who, thanks to this, we can place very close to the crime scene at the time of the murder. You saw SGS’s results. They achieved a lot. We all do the best we can. The very fact that we manage to catch crooks at all is a miracle, but we sometimes do, even though we’re on our knees. This force is under great strain as it is, what with restructuring, the refugee crisis, terrorism, the union’s demands …’

  The sentence seeps out into the room, left unfinished. The police force is an animal, shot and wounded, a great colossus struggling just to keep breathing.

  ‘SGS
is disbanded,’ I say. ‘Wester isn’t even with the force anymore. Sköld is dead. What are they going to do?’

  ‘It’s not just about that, and you know it. It’s about the public’s perception of us. Who we are, what we do. Which side we’re on. Don’t you remember what it was like in the aftermath of the Lindberg shit? I was thinking … taking that into account, do you still want to try and do this?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. Me, too.’

  I gather up my things, grab my coat and leave the room along with Birck. It’s going to be so good to get home. It’s been a long day.

  ‘Leo, Gabriel,’ I hear a familiar voice in the corridor and I turn around.

  Morovi hasn’t gone home. She’s here, heading straight for us with a stiff expression on her stony face. Walking alongside her is a man who I recognise immediately.

  It’s the man from the NPA, Carl Hallingström.

  70

  Stuck.

  We’re stuck. I haven’t a fucking clue what they might have come up with, but we’re stuck. That much is obvious.

  Hallingström is a little eel of a man, with a proper handshake but a moist sheen to his eyes, which are constantly darting back and forth, and he’s forever licking his lips. He’s like a parody of himself, but there’s nothing funny about the situation.

  We’re back in my room. Birck is leaning against one of the bookcases with a sarcastic smile on his face, I don’t know what to make of that. Morovi is also standing up, but propped against the door, as though she’d most like to get out of here and not have to witness this. I’m sitting in my chair while Hallingström has placed his peculiar frame into one of the chairs opposite. He’s struggling to find a comfortable position. The wood creaks.

  ‘What’s this about?’ I say.

  ‘It’s about …’ Hallingström folds one leg over the other, places his clasped hands around his knee. ‘Anja, can’t you explain? These are your personnel, after all.’