He carefully moved the feeler gauge upward, two or three turns until he found the right spot. Then he took out the needle-nose pliers and used them to increase the force. He heard the bolt tumble back in the lock . . .
A faint scent of rot struck him as he opened the door. He closed it behind him as he turned on the flashlight. He twisted the regulator to narrow the beam of light.
He checked the kitchen and the smaller, unfurnished room. Untouched. The same went for the hall and the living room.
He hesitated for a moment outside the door to Ramón’s room before he went in.
He looked at the mattress where Ramón had lain. He recalled the bluish-purple face with pink foam at the corners of the mouth. A dirty sock remained on the floor, but there was no syringe. A couple of tissues littered the head of the bed.
Katz lifted the mattress. The phone was gone. Had Jenny taken it?
Katz had only been given Ramón’s address; he didn’t know his phone number. Wouldn’t be traceable anyway, he thought. It would definitely have a pay-as-you-go card.
He walked over to the window, bent down, and peered under the radiator. He breathed through his mouth. The snake was still there, partially rotted. He illuminated it, looking at its crushed head and the four points on its body where someone had stomped it to death in panic or rage.
The snake had been a pet. Neither Ramón nor Jenny would have stomped it to death.
A drug deal gone wrong. Was that what this was all about?
He walked over to the wardrobe. Only Ramón’s clothes were in it. No trace of Jenny.
He went back to the desk. He looked at the outlet above the baseboard, and at the lamp cord that was hanging loose next to it. The screws of the plastic cover were gone. Ramón had been fiddling with something right there when Katz visited, and then he had stood up to give him more packs.
Katz wiggled the cover until it came loose. He saw a cylindrical hole in the wall, and severed electrical wires. A bag of pure heroin lay in the hiding spot, maybe ten grams of it. Next to it was a folded piece of paper.
Speed Services 0021. At first he thought it was a queue number, until he discovered the row of numbers further down.
He stuck it in his back pocket and got up. He thought of the moment Ramón handed him the drugs. And then of Ramón’s corpse lying on the mattress, and the syringe stuck in his left arm. He didn’t understand, at first, what was bothering him, and he fought with his memory until the image became clear, the way he had held out the packs with his left hand . . . If Ramón was left-handed, the syringe had been in the wrong arm.
PART 3
Arvid was playing on the trampolines. He had bonded with a boy his own age who seemed much braver. Her gentle little six-year-old, the furthest thing from macho you could imagine, who had just started school and wasn’t doing well. He had a hard time concentrating and complained of headaches. Ola, as usual, had been the first to react; he took Arvid to a pediatrician who diagnosed him with migraines. They were thinking of placing him in a Montessori school in the spring, but that was Ola’s project—he was the organized one.
Lisa was sitting on the bench next to her, playing Super Mario on her Nintendo. She would be nine soon, and she thought she was too old for playgrounds.
Her grown-up little girl. She wanted to be a fashion designer when she was older. Eva had no idea where that interest came from. She herself was totally uninterested in fashion, if not flat out bad at it. She hated shopping; when she needed new clothes, she just walked up to the first sale rack she saw and picked up whatever was closest. It was easier at work. There she just dressed as a prosecutor.
Arvid had left the trampolines for the time being. His playmate had gone to play with some other boys who seemed cooler. They were using the climbing wall. And Arvid was no tough guy; he was afraid of heights.
“Can I have some sweets, Mummy?” he asked, sliding his hand into hers.
“It’s only Thursday; sweets are a Saturday treat. You can ask Dad when he gets here.”
“But the boy I was playing with, Ossian, he was gonna get some sweets.”
“No buts, please.”
“You’re so owned, Mummy, you know that? Owned.”
He glared angrily at her before trudging off to the sandbox, where a few younger boys were playing. He often played with smaller children so that he could be in charge for a change. Be the brave one, the one the others looked up to.
Fifteen minutes until the start of a lonesome week. She took out her phone and pulled up her new app. It was as discreet as the guaranteed anonymity it offered. No one could see your name or where you lived; it didn’t ask for an email or a phone number. It was designed for people who liked no-strings-attached sex. Preferably in odd places, if she understood correctly: nightclubs, restaurants, parks, multi-stories, public toilets . . . anywhere people could find an outlet for their urges. She had downloaded it a few weeks earlier after reading about it in a “scandal” report in an evening tabloid, and in one day she had created a profile and received more outrageous propositions than she would normally get in a year at the seedy bars along Sveavägen. Back in the day, she would have gone to Lion Bar when desire started pecking at her. There she would hit on the first man who didn’t look like he’d make things difficult afterward. Have a few shots of tequila, go home with him, or take him home with her if he happened to be married. Fuck. Make sure to get rid of him as quickly as possible after. But this seemed more rational. Sex without even the need for introductions.
Maybe tonight, she thought. She hadn’t had sex in a long time.
She gave a start as she saw a familiar figure strolling by on the other side of the park cafe. Hoffman. Or someone who looked just like him.
“Wait here,” she said to Lisa. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
I’m acting like a stalker, she thought as she crossed the asphalt and walked past the swings to the path where the man was sauntering along.
She was twenty meters behind him now, and she watched him focus his gaze on a young blonde woman waiting on a park bench. He bent down and kissed her on the lips. She felt something heat up inside her. Jealousy? she wondered. It just couldn’t be possible.
She stayed put, half hidden by the swing set. Hoffman was her new boss. He had come from a position on the vice squad, and his task now was to build up the new international division of the Economic Crime Authority.
Her heart pounded as she saw his hand curl around the back of the woman’s neck. But then he turned around and looked in her direction.
It was a totally different man. The feeling that flooded her body was a strange cocktail of relief and disappointment all in one.
When she returned to the playground, she discovered that Lisa and Arvid had wandered over to the climbing frame. She thought about opening her app now that they were playing together for a change, but she managed to restrain herself.
A sex addict on top of everything else. But there was no longer anything that would surprise her about herself. She liked it, didn’t she? She liked casual relationships. She had abused heroin in her teens, with Katz, and she hadn’t really quit when she quit; she just filled the empty spot with other things. An addiction to studying in law school. A workaholic at the job that followed. So why not this too?
She looked at the time again. Ola might arrive at any moment.
“Come on, kids, let’s go look for Dad.”
She herded them down to Odengatan. She felt a pang of guilt at the thought of Katz and the fact that she hadn’t been more help with his old friend who’d died of an overdose. But she had enough on her plate already. Six months earlier, she had changed jobs and moved to the new international division under Hoffman’s leadership. They worked with cross-border economic crime. At the moment, she was helping some Bosnian colleagues with a particular project. Mafia money from the Balkans that they suspected was being laundered in Sweden. She had just started sniffing around, trying to pin down amounts that had moved from one virtual wa
llet to another. Her colleagues in Sarajevo were in the process of compiling a list of what they believed were front organizations.
The organization they were trying to get at had its roots in Albania. According to a memo from Interpol, they dominated the narcotics and human trafficking trade in the Balkans. And they were well on their way to taking pole position when it came to weapons trading and sophisticated money laundering.
Katz, she thought again. It was like she couldn’t decide what sort of feelings she had for him, mixing up the way she’d felt about him when they were young. And then there was Hoffman, muddling the situation even further.
Suddenly the children started running. They had spotted Ola further down the hill. He had come straight from his job at the law firm; he was still wearing his suit. Arvid threw himself at his father.
“Hello there,” he said as she approached. “Did everything go okay?”
“Sure did.”
“Did they go to bed on time, like we talked about? It’s important, especially for Arvid . . . If he doesn’t get enough sleep it can bring on a migraine.”
“Don’t worry.”
“Did you bring Lisa’s weekly letter from the school? Her soccer cleats and piano homework?”
“It’s all in their backpacks.”
Her phone dinged. Her match, “Marlon,” had entered new coordinates for their encounter. She stuck her phone in her purse with a feeling of bottomless shame. The children were her biggest priority—plus appearing to be in control as she handed them over to Ola. Things had improved between them since the Klingberg Affair the year before, but she knew he was keeping an eye on her. Checking to see if she was hungover, interrogating the children about how she had behaved while they were with her after they arrived home. He could cancel her weeks with them anytime he liked since, on paper, he had sole custody.
“Dad, I saw one of those jean jackets with sequins again; a big girl in the park had one . . . You promised I could get one.”
“And I want a new Skylander—Swap Force. You can change their heads so they turn into totally different guys. They’re mad awesome, Dad!”
The kids were talking over each other by now. They’d already forgotten about her, on their way into the world of their beloved dad. They would go home to their adorable little brother, whose name she had never learned, and to Erika, her ex-husband’s ten-years-younger wife.
“Okay, kids, say bye to your mum, then let’s go.”
They hugged her—a bit dutifully, she thought. Though Arvid had a hard time tearing himself away.
“I’ll see you soon,” she said. “I already can’t wait.”
She waved as they walked over to the car. They didn’t even glance in her direction, they were so busy talking to Ola, each holding one of his hands, clinging to him lovingly, laughing together in a way they would never do with her.
She waited until they were out of sight before she fished her phone out of her bag. She clicked on the app. Sure enough, there was a short message: “Marlon” wanted to meet her at a restaurant before they moved on to the real reason for their encounter.
The safe house was an apartment on the seventh floor of a neighborhood of high-rises near Hallundavägen. It had once been a stash for stolen goods; the name on the lease belonged to a guy who was sitting in the clink in Denmark. Two rooms, a kitchenette, and a balcony. A large hole in the wall between the hallway and the bedroom, left over from a former renter who had flipped out.
The neighbors weren’t the sort to ask questions, if they even spoke Swedish.
Jorma heard cop cars in the area sometimes, but that didn’t worry him. They wouldn’t find him here. It wasn’t even a given that they knew who they were looking for.
At least his knee had got better; it was only a sprain and the swelling was going down. Against all odds, he had survived. He had driven the stolen Mercedes down the back streets through Bredäng and Mälarhöjden as they searched for him further south. He returned to the E4 and saw the blue lights of the emergency vehicles that were still at the shopping center. He slowly began to grasp the enormity of what had happened. That the robbery had gone to shit. That Zoran had been shot.
On a forest road outside Salem, he dumped the extra can of petrol he’d found in the trunk all over the seats. He set the car on fire before he took off. One hour later he was in Fittja.
The hideout was paid up for another month. There was a TV and a laptop, and wireless internet. Sheets and blankets, food in the fridge and larder. They had left an extra revolver in the nightstand. A Colt and four boxes of bullets. There was a roll of zip ties and two foreign license plates in one wardrobe. Things he might have use for.
The images from the execution came back to him again and again, like a film on repeat in his head. The smacking sound when the man in the mask pulled the trigger and the bullet went through Zoran’s skull. That surreal feeling, as if it were all happening in a parallel universe.
He didn’t understand how he could have got himself into this situation. Why the hell had he accepted the job? He had already made up his mind, no more crime . . .
He followed the news reports on the TV and online. The robbery was the top story. He saw images from the multi-story: the armored car and the terrified guards.
One photo showed Lindros being escorted to a waiting police van with his face covered by a jacket. “Former bouncer from the Uppsala area,” according to the caption in one of the evening tabloids.
The armored car had been stopped by three men, but they hadn’t had time to open the vehicle before the police arrived. Another two had managed to flee in a stolen car. One person, with origins in the former Yugoslavia, had been shot and killed in a firefight with the chasing police. One dead, three in custody. The fifth robber was still at large.
There was speculation that it was an inside job. A former employee of an armored-car company said in a television interview that the drivers didn’t receive their schedules before the morning of their delivery. Yet the robbers had known where and when the truck would show up.
And so had the police, Jorma thought.
He laid low for a week until the robbery was no longer front-page material. The cops were still looking for him, he presumed, but the cameras must not have captured him during the job. They’d had a hard time linking the fifth robber to the crime scene, and because he had been wearing a mask they had no description of him. He was sure there weren’t any fingerprints or DNA on the fake bomb; he’d worn gloves and a hairnet as he put it together. The getaway cars had burned up, so there was nothing to be found there. And the others seemed to be keeping mum in interrogations.
His self-hatred had started to let up a bit. But his mind was churning at high speed. The insider was the only one who’d known when the armored vehicle would be on the move. Had he got cold feet and contacted the police?
That night when they met him in the forest on Ekerö, the sound they’d heard, which he’d thought was from a deer . . . Had they been under surveillance even then?
And what about the vandalized getaway car, the slashed tires?
The insider had been in contact with Hillerström, the middleman. But how had they met? Out of the fucking blue? The police must have discovered their trail at some point.
He had to be patient. Wait until people felt safe, lie low for a little bit longer.
He stole a car from a car park in Alby, changed its plates, and drove out to Bromma two mornings in a row. He sat a hundred meters down the road, keeping watch with binoculars, moving around the neighborhood to get an overview.
An honest-to-goodness villa: a two-story detached home in Stora Mossen. On paper, Hillerström ran a construction company. Two kids, girls, eleven and fourteen years old, and a wife who worked at a shoe shop in the city.
He seemed to stay at home during the day, working on office tasks, sticking to a room in one wing of the house. The man was a career criminal, so there were probably guns in the house.
Morning was best. Peop
le felt safer in daylight; they relaxed, let down their guard.
Jorma had checked the map and the aerial images on Google Earth. The best way would be to park on a parallel street, come in via the neighbors’ garden, and climb over the fence into Hillerström’s place.
One more day, he thought, two at the most. After all, the guy must have worked out that Jorma was at large. It was possible that he was prepared for an encounter.
He called the security firm from a cafe in Fittja. A female receptionist answered.
“Trans Security. How may I help you?”
“I’m looking for a guy who works at your office.”
“I’ll transfer your call if you can give me a name.”
“I’m really sorry, but my brain is on the fritz . . . Logistics. Skinny guy. About twenty-five. Shit, I know him. We’re usually in frequent contact, but it’s been a while now. I’m calling about cash deposits for our firm in Södertälje.”
The woman’s voice lowered half a notch.
“You’re thinking of Jocke.”
“Yes, is he there?”
“Unfortunately he no longer works for us.”
“Did he quit?”
A short silence before she went on. “I’m terribly sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, but Jocke is dead.”
He hadn’t expected this; he realized his heart was beating faster.
“Oh my God.”
“I know, it’s horrible. Is there anyone else here I could put you in touch with instead?”
“I have to digest this first. What happened?”
“It was a week ago now. He didn’t show up to work. We were recently the target of an attempted robbery, and Jocke took it hard. A colleague went over to his apartment and found him. He had hanged himself.”
“Shit, I just can’t wrap my head around this.”
“I know, it’s so sad . . .”
A pair of chavvy girls snickered at the table next to him. He remembered boxing the guy’s ear back in the forest, degrading him. He was almost ashamed of it now.
The Tunnel Page 10