He had driven a customer there only six months before. Another Swedish bloke who wanted to get home from the pub, and who had been so drunk he had fallen asleep in the back seat. As soon as Ara pulled up, the bloke had come round, stumbled out on to the road, fished out a bundle of notes from his trouser pocket and given him a thousand-kronor note. When Ara tried to explain that he didn’t have enough change, he had simply shaken his head and said it was fine.
Ara had protested, saying it was far too much, seeing as the trip had cost only a few hundred, but the customer hadn’t seemed to care. He just waved his hands dismissively, and as he struggled to open the gate of the drive leading up to his house he had turned round with a broad grin.
‘There’s no need to thank me,’ the customer said. ‘You should thank your old compatriots from Iran,’ and it was only when he said that that Ara had recognized him from a previous occasion, when he had driven him to Stockholm City Court. The famous lawyer he had seen on television and read about in the papers.
That was who Ara was thinking about when he turned into Ålstensgatan, and that was when things could have come to a very sticky end. The man who had given him a tip of almost a thousand kronor, and without even asking seemed to assume he was from Iran.
Out of the darkness between two cars another man had walked straight out into the road, and Ara had had to slam on the brakes to avoid hitting him. A different man entirely, who had given him a quick glance with sharp eyes before heading over to a car that was parked against the flow of traffic on the other side of the street. He was limping badly on his right leg and, even though it was dark, Ara had seen enough of him to drop any thought of stopping and saying something to him, or giving him the finger in the rear-view mirror.
When Ara finished his shift at two o’clock in the afternoon of Monday, 3 June, he had already read the message from the control centre of Taxi Stockholm. That the police in Solna, in connection with a murder that had occurred at Ålstensgatan 127, wanted to contact any drivers who had taken any customers to the Alviksvägen-Ålstensgatan area on Sunday or early Monday morning or had noticed anything that might be of interest to their investigation.
Murder, Ara thought. Hope it isn’t the bloke with the thousand-kronor note, that lawyer, he thought. Then he had taken out his mobile and called the police.
34
In spite of Ara’s hopes, evidently it was the customer with the thousand-kronor note who had been murdered. He had realized that when he heard the news on the radio as he was driving to the police station in Solna, where it seemed they wanted to question him.
Wonder how big the reward is? he thought. If you murder someone who can afford to give a tip of a thousand kronor like that lawyer had done, the reward for anyone who helped the police to find his killer had to be big. Very big.
Detective Sergeant Lars Alm was sixty-four years and nine months old, and had been looking forward to a quiet summer. In three months he was due to retire. He was planning to use up his holiday and all the time owing he had accumulated and spend the remaining month clearing out his desk in peace and quiet.
Instead, the exact opposite had happened and, if the worst came to the worst, there was a serious risk he might end up spending half the summer helping to investigate the murder of a lawyer that neither he nor any of his colleagues had a great deal of time for. Going off sick wasn’t an option, as that left a serious hole in his pay-packet these days.
And there’s that fat little moron, Bäckström, Alm thought for some reason as he was leafing through the papers he had been given by the younger officer who had taken the call. Apparently, one of the many foreign taxi-drivers had called their tip-off line and given information that Annika Carlsson thought could be important enough to call the informant into the station at once and interview him in person. The bugger’s punctual as well, Alm thought. He sighed and picked up the receiver of his ringing phone.
‘Alm,’ he said.
‘You’re got a visitor down at reception,’ the voice at the other end responded. ‘Can you come down and pick him up?’
Like I’ve got any sodding choice, Alm thought, and sighed once again.
No coffee, no water and no pissing about, because then you might end up here half the night, Alm thought five minutes later, once he and his witness were sitting on either side of his desk.
‘Can I see your driving licence and the print-out from your meter that my colleague asked you to bring with you?’ Alm said, opening his computer. Bloody hell, what a summer, he thought.
‘Here you go,’ Ara said. ‘Have a business card as well, in case you need to call me.’ Miserable sort, he thought.
‘Where are you from, Ara?’ Alm asked as he looked at the driving licence.
‘From Gnosjö,’ Ara Dosti said. ‘In Småland. But I’ve lived in Stockholm for the past fifteen years. I wrote my address on the back of my card.’ Ara nodded towards the piece of card he had just given Alm.
‘I didn’t mean like that,’ Alm said. ‘I mean where are you from originally,’ he clarified.
‘From Sweden,’ Ara Dosti said, with affected surprise. ‘Småland’s in Sweden. I assumed you knew that. I was born and grew up in Småland. I went to school there and, when I was eighteen, Dad, Mum, my two elder brothers, my younger brother and my two elder sisters and I all moved to Stockholm. Eight people in total, a real exodus,’ Ara Dosti said, smiling amiably at Alm.
‘Okay, I understand,’ Alm said, and sighed once more. ‘Well, if you could tell me in your own words what you saw at two o’clock this morning, once you’d dropped your customer off in Alviksvägen out in Bromma.’ Another one of all the bastards who’ve only come here to fuck with the police, he thought.
Ara had managed to tell his whole story in less than five minutes. How he had dropped the customer off outside his house at ten past two. How he did a U-turn and drove back to the junction with Ålstensgatan – about a minute later – and almost hit a man who stepped out into the road right in front of the house where the lawyer had been murdered. In that time, he had also managed to give a reasonable description of the man and of the car he got into.
‘He was my age,’ Ara said. ‘Maybe a couple of years older – thirty-five, something like that. But a lot taller than me. One metre ninety, maybe. Blue jeans, dark jacket, no hat. He seemed to be limping on his right leg. He was certainly holding his right thigh with his right hand when he almost ended up on my bonnet. He looked sharp, if you know what I mean. Seriously sharp.’
‘Sharp?’
‘Not the sort you’d stop the car to argue with,’ Ara explained.
‘Don’t suppose it was someone you recognized?’ Alm asked. ‘Someone you’d seen before?’
‘Nooo … Why would I have seen him before?’
‘You drive a taxi. Was he an immigrant, or Swedish? You must have noticed something else?’
‘No,’ Ara said. ‘He looked the way everyone does these days. I’ve got a suggestion, though. If you get out some of those pictures that the cops on telly show people like me, I can have a look and see if I recognize anyone. What do you think?’
‘The car he got into. Can you describe it?’ I’m the one asking the questions here, Alm thought.
‘Merc, silver, sporty … low, wide, expensive, recent model …’
‘You’re sure about that?’
‘Yes. Hundred per cent. Like you said, I drive a taxi.’
‘You didn’t manage to see the registration number? In the rear-view mirror, I mean.’
‘No.’
‘You must have seen something, though. I mean, you seem to have noticed an awful lot else.’
‘The man inside the car turned the headlights on as soon as I’d driven past.’
‘So you’re saying there were two of them? There was already someone in the car?’
‘Okay,’ Ara Dosti said. ‘I’ll go through it again. The man I almost ran over is on his way up on to the pavement as I drive off. The one sitting in the car, which is p
arked on the wrong side of the road, puts the headlights on as soon as I drive past. I’ve got no idea what he looked like. I drove straight home, got out of there as fast as I could. What would you have done?’
‘I see,’ Alm said. ‘There’s nothing else you’d like to add?’
‘No. Like what?’
‘Then I’m declaring this interview over,’ Alm said, glancing at his watch. ‘Before you leave, I need to impose a disclosure ban on you. That means you’re not allowed to tell anyone what you’ve told me. If you break the ban, you’ll be committing a crime. Is there anything you’d like to ask?’
‘Photos. What about the photos?’
‘We can come back to those later,’ Alm said. ‘It takes a while to get them sorted out, as I’m sure you can appreciate. I or one of my colleagues will be in touch if that turns out to be necessary. Anything else?’
‘Is there a reward?’
‘No,’ Alm said, shaking his head in surprise. ‘Why would there be? Surely it’s reward enough that you’re helping us solve a serious crime. Besides, it’s a social duty to come forward and bear witness. That applies to all of us. Even people like me and my colleagues, in case you’re wondering.’
‘This has already taken a couple of hours of my time. I’m a working man. I’ve come here when I should be working. Plus the phone calls and the petrol to get here to talk to you. You’re getting paid to sit here. I’m not.’
‘And, naturally, we’re very grateful,’ Alm said. He nodded, smiled and got to his feet. That shut you up, he thought.
‘In that case, I’ve got one more question,’ Ara said.
‘Yes?’
‘How do you get to be a police officer? How does anyone manage it? I mean, it must be really difficult.’
Alm contented himself with a nod. Just you fucking watch yourself, lad, he thought.
Alm went down to reception with Ara Dosti, if for no other reason than to make sure he left the building.
‘We’ll be in touch about the photographs,’ Alm said as they parted.
Ara didn’t say anything. He just shrugged and disappeared out into the street.
There’s something I’ve forgotten, Detective Sergeant Alm thought as he took the lift back up to his room again. Oh well, it’ll come back to me.
Alm had spent the remainder of his working day calmly summarizing his interview with Ara Dosti. Then he asked a younger colleague who was based in the office to pull out some pictures of known criminals for Dosti to look at, based on the description he had given.
‘See if you can cross-reference the description with known criminals who own or have access to a silver Mercedes,’ Alm suggested.
‘Anything else?’ his younger colleague asked. Ever wondered why everyone here calls you Woodentop? she thought.
‘Make sure he signs a non-disclosure agreement,’ Alm said, having worked out what it was he had forgotten quarter of an hour earlier.
As soon as Ara got into his car, he called a friend who was also a taxi-driver. He was a Kurd named Kemal and came from roughly the same background as him. A good bloke, a white man, to use the sort of language the average Swede used. A couple of months earlier, Kemal had witnessed the robbery of a security van. He’d taken some pictures with the camera on his phone. He called the biggest evening paper straight away and was given twenty thousand kronor for his trouble, and he’d told anyone who would listen that the cops were the last people you should go to if you ever found yourself in that situation.
How stupid can you get? Ara thought, thinking about himself.
35
To save time, the interviews with Eriksson’s work colleagues had been set up in the firm’s offices. This had been suggested by Danielsson, the lawyer, and Lisa Lamm didn’t have any objections. Annika Carlsson had called in four lead interviewers from Solna police station, while Danielsson arranged a small meeting room and three empty offices where the interviews could be held.
As soon as her colleagues arrived, Annika Carlsson had taken them aside and explained their tactics. Everyone in the firm was to be interviewed, preferably on their own, to gather information. Initially about how they had come to work at the law firm and about their relationship with Eriksson – personal as well as professional – and what they were doing on the day of Eriksson’s murder. Their last contact with the victim, of course, and what the nature of this contact had been. Only then would it be time to delve into dissatisfied clients, adversaries and anyone else who, for professional or other reasons, might be thought to have a reason to assault their murder victim. She also wanted them to be interviewed in a particular order.
‘Start with the partners and the legal associates, and do the others last. I want you to question Danielsson first of all,’ Annika Carlsson said. ‘It looks like he’s the new cock on this particular pile of manure. You don’t have to be unnecessarily friendly, and I’d suggest that there should be two of you questioning him. You can deal with the rest of them individually, and it would be good if you could get through them all before you leave. We’ll deal with anyone who isn’t here and any supplementary questions later, as soon as we can. Any questions?’
Murmuring and shaking of heads, no questions. Three hours later it was done, and Annika Carlsson had been given a preliminary report over the phone by Detective Inspector Johan Ek.
‘You’ll have transcripts tomorrow morning at the latest,’ Ek said, ‘but I can give you a brief summary, if you’d like to hear it …’
‘I’m listening,’ Annika Carlsson said.
‘Eriksson seems to have been one hell of a guy,’ Ek said. ‘No one had a bad word to say about him. Everyone in his office is extremely upset, and one of the so-called paralegals – that’s those secretaries with a bit of extra legal training, isn’t it, if I’ve got that right? – even seems a bit too sad, to my thinking.’
‘Isabella Norén,’ Annika Carlsson said. ‘At a guess, she’d made a move on her old boss. Or at least had the ambition to do so.’
‘You’re thinking along the same lines as me. Yes, that’s probably what was going on. What do we do about her, then? Because I didn’t ask.’
‘We’ll leave her to stew for a day or two before a rather more thorough interview,’ Annika Carlsson suggested. ‘I could even imagine joining you, as a fellow sister.’
‘Exactly,’ Ek said.
‘Anything else?’
Nothing unexpected, according to Ek. They all had alibis for the whole weekend. The last one to speak to Eriksson was Danielsson, who called at about twelve o’clock to discuss various things that would be happening over the coming week, but the only thing these had in common was that they were nothing to do with Eriksson’s demise. Which was obviously very handy for Danielsson, because they were all covered by legal confidentiality.
‘Who’d have thought it?’ Annika Carlsson said.
‘Yes, and, according to Danielsson, Eriksson’s murder is an attack on our entire judicial system, which might be one explanation why both Eriksson’s clients and their opponents were so happy with him. With one exception, however, which we had to drag out of our reluctant lawyer with pliers.’
‘Who’s that, then?’
‘Fredrik Åkare, born Åkerström. Former chair of the Hells Angels out in Solna. Now honorary chair of the same group of middle-aged motorbike enthusiasts. In the fortunate position of being able to sit on the saddle with his hair flying around his head, because he’s got a doctor’s certificate stating he’s got dandruff and therefore doesn’t have to wear a helmet,’ concluded Ek, who was a police officer with an eye for both personal and poetic details in his opponents.
‘I know who you mean,’ Annika Carlsson said. ‘So Fredrik Åkare has expressed dissatisfaction. I didn’t even know Eriksson ever had him as a client. I didn’t think he took on bikers.’
‘More of an opponent,’ Ek said. ‘Eriksson was representing the Ibrahim family when Åkare and a couple of his friends were charged with the murder of the youngest Ibrahim b
rother, Nasir. As I’m sure you know, there were three brothers to start with. Farshad, who was an alcoholic and died trying to escape by climbing out of the window of his room at the Karolinska Hospital, where he was being treated after our colleague Bäckström shot him in the leg. Then there’s the middle brother, who’s alive and kicking, and seems to have taken over from Farshad. Then there’s the youngest, Nasir, who was murdered not long after a failed bank robbery. That’s a few years ago now. I can email you the preliminary investigation and verdict if you like.’
‘I’ve already got it,’ Annika Carlsson said. ‘I remember the case. Åkare and his friends were found not guilty, weren’t they? On all counts, if I remember rightly?’
‘Yes, that’s right. Even though Eriksson worked harder than the prosecutor to get them put away. Either way, Åkare doesn’t seem to have been terribly fond of Eriksson. Sometime after the trial he sent a postcard to Eriksson at his office, saying that, now justice had been done, all that was left was for Eriksson to go over to their clubhouse in Solna to apologize to him and his colleagues, and then he would be prepared to move on with his life.’
‘Did he go?’
‘No,’ Ek said. ‘According to Danielsson, he called Åkare and read him the riot act. Obstruction of justice, illegal threats, all that.’
‘Mmh,’ Annika Carlsson said. I must dig out the file and read the verdict, she thought.
But that didn’t happen because, just five minutes later, she had considerably more pressing matters to think about, even though it was really high time she went home and got some sleep.
36
It was Hernandez who opened the door of the house on Ålstensgatan when Bäckström rang the bell.
The Sword of Justice Page 13