That isn’t really a question.
‘My understanding is that we’ve been the subject of a random spot check in the last few days. The searches Violent Crime Unit have made in the record of convictions were examined, and the inspectors reacted to yours.’
‘Among others,’ Hallingström points out, raising a bony index finger. ‘Not just yours.’
‘A random spot check,’ Birck repeats. ‘I see.’
‘You don’t seem surprised,’ Hallingström says with his back to him.
‘I can’t say that I am, no.’
‘So you knew you were operating outside the rules.’
‘We suspected that you would say so, if nothing else.’
Hallingström turns to face Birck and raises a bushy eyebrow.
‘What is that supposed to mean?’
‘You know what that means.’
‘No, I do not.’
‘Which,’ I interrupt, ‘searches, more specifically, does this concern?’
‘I’m glad you asked.’ Hallingström pulls a list from his blazer pocket. ‘The following.’
Lisa Vargas, Jonna Danielsson, Ludwig Sarac, and Miro Djukic are the first names he mentions, but it’s not about them. They’ve been flagged for further investigation by the inspector, but we can link them with Angelica’s murder. On this, they’ve got nothing.
It’s about a series of searches in November, mostly mine, about Nikola Abrahamsson and Viveka Cehaic.
I suspected that it might not have been chance that saw Grim get shot. I was looking for a connection between them and the Angelica murder, but never found one. I knew I’d end up in deep water with those searches. I knew as much, but I did it anyway.
‘Nikola Abrahamsson and Viveka Cehaic operated within the rules, the investigation will show, I’m convinced of that,’ Hallingström says coolly. ‘Regardless of their conclusions, I find it impossible to see why you got involved, as a police officer. It is unacceptable, despite your relationship to this Grimberg, which has only recently been brought to my attention. Perhaps the most alarming search, however, is one you have both conducted, concerning a Huddinge policeman, the now deceased Patrik Sköld.’ Hallingström looks up from his list. ‘Performing searches like that about a colleague. A deceased colleague. People in this building have been suspended for less. This is exceptionally serious, in my opinion.’
It is exceptional. Not the search, which, under the circumstances, was perfectly justifiable. Not only that, Sköld was alive when we did it. What is truly exceptional is Hallingström’s stupidity. Or is this an act?
‘You exposed Sköld to his colleagues in Södertälje,’ Birck says, determined. ‘He talked to us and you broke him, destroyed his credibility by framing him for narcotics offences. You were the one who caused him to take his own life.’
‘Nonsense.’ Hallingström doesn’t even turn around. Instead, he folds the paper and places it on the desk between us. ‘Naturally, you will be formally interviewed, and given the chance to give your account of events. You will remain in service, but on administrative duties only until a decision is made. It shouldn’t take longer than a month or so. I’m sure you understand, but I still want to make quite clear that you are not authorised to conduct surveillance or participate in practical investigation.’
In a month’s time, we will no longer be authorised to work on the Reyes case. Hallingström knows this, which might be why he’s straining not to smile.
‘We will appeal,’ I say.
‘I thought you might. But it doesn’t actually change anything in practical terms. Until both versions have been collated and assessed, you are restricted to administrative duties. That’s a routine safeguard.’
‘So, like records searches, for example,’ says Birck.
‘I fail to understand why you are attempting to make light of this,’ Hallingström says. ‘This is regrettable, very regrettable. But I must take the measures that discipline …’
‘How much money did Angelica Reyes extort from Jon Wester?’
‘Leo,’ Morovi snaps and takes a step forward.
‘Before she was killed,’ I continue. ‘Before Wester got desperate and realised that he was losing his grip. How much money are we talking about, fifty thousand? A hundred?’
‘Leo,’ Morovi repeats.
‘What was toughest for Wester — being blackmailed for fucking whores or managing to misplace the list of informants?’
‘Or was it the old rock and a hard place?’ Birck chips in.
Hallingström purses his lips.
‘I would say that we have luck on our side,’ he says drily, ‘in terms of random checks of record searches. Officers who come out with that kind of nonsense could certainly do with a break from active investigative duties.’
He stands up and gets ready to go.
I pull out a desk drawer and lift out Sköld’s computer.
I unlock it and show him the still frame showing Jon Wester about to leave Angelica Reyes’ apartment.
‘You know that he was paying her for sex,’ I say. ‘And that she wasn’t the first. I know that you’re familiar with all this. He must have been protected.’
Hallingström stares at the screen.
He turns to Morovi.
‘Would you be so kind as to take care of the paperwork here, I need to get going. There’s another meeting I have to attend before I can go home.’
‘Is it with Wester?’ I ask.
‘Leo.’ Morovi opens the door for Hallingström. ‘That’s enough.’
I turn to my boss.
‘Why are you protecting him?’
‘See you next time,’ Hallingström says without a smile, then adjusts his shirt collar underneath his blazer before heading out into the corridor.
71
‘Why am I protecting him?’
Morovi’s the one asking the question. She’s closed the door behind Hallingström and is leaning against the wall again, eyes closed as she massages her own temples.
‘Jesus, Leo,’ she goes on, ‘you’re getting paranoid.’ Morovi opens her eyes. ‘What’ve you got?’
‘I think he knows,’ I say, and look over at Birck. ‘Hallingström knows.’
‘Yes,’ Birck agrees. ‘He’s probably on his way to see Wester as we speak.’
‘Hello.’ Morovi raises her voice. ‘Have you got Wester?’
‘What difference would that make?’ Birck looks at me. ‘Our hands our tied. We can’t do a fucking thing.’
Morovi runs her hand through her hair and repeats:
‘Have you got him?’
‘Yes,’ says Birck. ‘We’ve got him.’
‘Go on.’
‘First of all, as background, and as circumstantial evidence, we have recorded instances of Wester buying sex, more than once. Reyes, of course, but Lisa Vargas, too. In Vargas’ case, we also have an alleged assault. That isn’t particularly pertinent to the Angelica murder, but it still means something. It shows that he visits, or used to visit, whores, and that he can, or could, turn violent. Secondly, we have a documented relationship between Angelica Reyes and Jon Wester. We know, broadly speaking, what it was based on. She sold him sex, got hold of the list of informants, and then used it to milk him for cash. She threatened to expose him if he didn’t pay. There’s our motive. We’ve also got a timeline that fits, from their first meeting up until her death.’
‘Thirdly,’ I cut in, ‘we have placed him close to the crime scene at around the time of the murder. We can also place him pretty much exactly at the spot where Angelica Reyes’ mobile phone was recovered, and explain how it got there. Not only that, he has dried blood on his collar.’
Morovi looks surprised.
‘How do you know this?’
While I recount the exploits of Larsson and Leifby and the cancelled parking
ticket, Morovi looks resolute.
‘Well I fucking never,’ she says. ‘Larsson and Leifby might just’ve saved a murder investigation. I didn’t see that coming.’
‘Wester claims that he’s there on duty, but we’ve checked SGS duty logs. There’s no mention of any operations on Kungsholmen at that time of day, which means we can assume that he is lying. He parks up at eleven and returns about forty minutes later. That fits. He also has a rucksack with him. My guess would be that it contains a laptop. While at Reyes’, he removes the list from the memory stick before returning it to the hole in the wall.’
‘Why does he put it back? Why doesn’t he take it with him?’
I hesitate.
‘I think at that point he felt like he had a chance to throw us off the scent, deflect attention from what he deleted. Instead of looking for something that’s missing, he wants us to focus on what is visible. The pictures. It worked, to an extent — those photos were shown to every last relative and friend. That must’ve used up an awful lot of man hours.’
Morovi bites her bottom lip.
‘Alright,’ she says. ‘Borderline, but I’ll buy it.’
She turns to Birck for the next instalment.
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘That’s what we’ve got.’
‘Is it?’
‘Yes.’
Morovi is pale with exhaustion.
‘You haven’t got him.’
Birck flings his arms wide.
‘But it is him.’
‘You can’t prove it. You’ve got a motive. You’ve got Wester on Kungsholmen at the time of the murder, with blood on his collar. You’ve constructed a hypothesis that makes the link between him and Reyes’ mobile phone. That’s all. You can’t put him inside the apartment, you don’t have a single witness statement indicating that he was even inside the building.’
‘We have not been able to …’ says Birck.
‘I know that. But are you going to be able to put him at the scene? If so, how? You haven’t got a weapon, no confession. What you can prove is that he once paid for sex, but it’s so long ago that it’s covered by the statute of limitations. You cannot even say how the list fell into Reyes’ hands — it’s all assumptions and guesswork.’
She shakes her head. ‘It won’t stand up.’
Birck is staring purposefully at the floor in front of his shoes.
‘What do you want from us? We’ve hoovered a five-year-old murder investigation, studied three years’ worth of documents from a whole fucking unit — we’ve looked at every bloody last scrap of paper. We’ve checked whether there are CCTV images from the night of the murder, captured by one of the nearby cameras. They’ve either been destroyed, deleted, or they simply don’t show anything. We’ve located and eliminated the cars in the area, sat up all night reading SGS inquiry files, incident reports, personnel lists, gone through their budget, outgoings, we’ve counted manually, month by month, to see whether any money is missing, I’ve sat there myself looking at receipts. There are no stones to turn. We’re not going to get any further. This is what we’ve got. Everything else has been destroyed, or was never written down to begin with. Everyone is either dead, knows nothing, or doesn’t want to talk. This is what we’ve got to go on, or nothing.’
Birck wipes his lips. Saliva has been raining forth along with his words. The echo of his voice hangs in the air.
‘Are you done?’ Morovi asks.
‘He’s the one who did it,’ he says, almost pleadingly. ‘We’ve got him paying for sex, the extortion, the list, we can put him close to the scene with blood on his collar. We’ve …’ He clears his throat. ‘We’ve got the phone, it’s, it exists, we’ve …’
He starts looking in his pocket, a piece of paper, I’m not sure which. He unfolds it with trembling hands. It’s a copy of the note Sköld left.
‘Gabriel,’ I say.
‘An officer took his own life. He shot himself. We can’t …’
‘Gabriel.’
He looks at me, surprised.
‘Yes?’
‘We haven’t got him.’
Birck makes his way over to one of the chairs and crumples into it. A little sliver of saliva glistens on his chin.
You get close, but not quite all the way there. That’s often the way. Triumphs aren’t the norm. Perhaps we should’ve sensed the defeat, felt it coming.
It’s late. So much time has passed. There’s something I want to be out of the way. The funeral. Jesus. How am I going to cope?
Birck tips his head back, eyes closed, and says to Morovi:
‘Are you scared?’
‘Sorry?’
‘Are you scared? About what’s going to happen to you, to the force, if the truth gets out? Is that what this is about?’
Morovi approaches Birck slowly, stands next to his chair and stares down at him.
‘You know that it was him,’ she says quietly. ‘I know that it was him. But that’s not enough. It shouldn’t be enough. Not even with a crime like this, with a perpetrator of this kind. Am I scared? Yes. I’m scared of what will happen if we start bending the rules.’
‘Everyone bends the rules,’ Birck mumbles.
‘We’re not everyone. We’re not Social Services or the Inland Revenue. Our arsenal of weapons to use against citizens is much heavier. And you know this,’ she says, somewhat more loudly. ‘You have taught yourselves this. You were trained in it once. I want to bring down Wester, too — what the hell do you think of me? But in a case like this, one that branches right up to the top, it’s even more important that everything is done right. They’ll shoot the thing to pieces otherwise. And based on what you’ve told me, you haven’t got him.’
Birck wipes his chin.
‘But there’s nothing more we can do,’ I say. ‘Gabriel is right, we’ve … We’ve done all we can. We’re not going to get any closer. And even if we could, we’re suspended.’
‘You’re not suspended.’
‘But you know what I mean.’
‘I know what you mean. Is there a question coming?’
‘It’s this, or nothing. Are we going to drop it?’
‘Have you spoken to him?’
‘Wester?’ I shake my head. ‘We never did, so as not to frighten him. Because we were only ever likely to get one chance. We wanted to be ready when it came.’
‘Ready,’ she repeats thoughtfully. ‘It’s late. The registrar has gone home, so the papers won’t be fed into the system until tomorrow. That means that for the time being, you’re not tied to your desks.’ She gives Birck a stiff nod and starts heading towards the door, but then says, over her shoulder: ‘It couldn’t hurt to take a trip out to have a look at Wester. Or something.’
‘Now?’
‘What have you got to lose? And remember what you’ve got from the scene …’
Her words linger inside the room as the door slams shut behind her. Birck stares into space.
‘What we’ve got from the scene …’
He stops himself mid-sentence and his eyes meet mine. It hits us both at exactly the same time.
DNA.
72
Unsolved murders are mazes. I do think that’s true.
Within this maze, though, the signs are no longer indistinct. They are forming a pattern on the walls. If you look at them all at once, you can make out a glimpse of what went on, what must have happened. Not everything, that’s never the way. So long afterwards it’s a question of likelihood, not objectivity, we all know that. Parts of the past always need to be reconstructed, supposed, assumed.
Yet still, the signs are finally clear.
The DNA register that the police have at their disposal is in fact four separate databases. First of all, the Trace Register. A record of any DNA profiles collected from crime scenes that have not been tied to a particular p
erson. It contains, for example, the sample obtained from Angelica Reyes’ apartment. The second is known as the Investigations Register, comprising individuals suspected of crimes that would carry a custodial sentence. Part three, DNA profiles of convicted criminals, primarily those sentenced to jail terms. The fourth and final database is the one known as the Elimination Register. It comprises DNA profiles of police personnel and others, and is used to compare and eliminate possible contamination that might occur when the individuals in question have had direct or indirect contact with a certain exhibit.
Jon Wester was on that database. Not anymore — we checked that on the night Sköld died. The database is regularly screened according to the laws governing personal information and integrity, with individuals’ information being removed at regular intervals. When an employee retires or leaves the force for any reason, the profile drifts off into space and disappears. It is permissible to keep the sample for up to two years from the date on which the circumstances that necessitate the taking of samples cease to apply. That’s what the rulebook says. Jon Wester disappeared from the database more than two years ago.
Birck looks at me.
‘We’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way,’ he says.
‘You mean …’
‘Yes.’
‘After what Morovi just said to us?’
‘Yes?’
‘I don’t think that’s what she was getting at. And besides, that could make the sample inadmissible.’
‘Leo, we would know for sure.’
‘And you think that’s worth it?’
‘Don’t you?’
I look out through my office’s little window.
Stockholm glitters as we roll out onto Götgatan, where the neon signs shine bright and clear.
‘I’m sorry that I got like that …’ Birck begins.
‘It’s okay.’
‘No, it isn’t.’
‘But I know how you feel.’
‘It’s not the first time I’ve felt like this. Admittedly, several of those involved are police officers, but that’s happened before, too.’ He hesitates. ‘But I’ve never acted like that towards my boss before.’
The Thin Blue Line Page 24