A moment later the minibus crashed through the barrier on the right-hand side of the bridge at full speed, skidded over the edge, and plunged into the water.
Thirteen
Natalie crossed the street. In one hand she held a bag containing milk, a microwave dinner, and the glossy magazine that was her guilty pleasure, and in the other her cell phone. She’d already scrolled down to find the number. Oscar Wallin, aka Rickard: her handler, the police officer who had placed her undercover with David Sarac last winter in order to find out the true identity of the person behind the code name Janus. And who later, once everything had gone to hell, did his utmost to hide his own involvement in the matter.
He had threatened to reveal her former deceptions, take everything she had away from her, if she breathed so much as a word about why she was really out on the island. At the time she had believed him. Accepted his demands, gritted her teeth, and lay low. Apart from one short interview with the police last winter, she hadn’t talked to anyone about Skarpö.
Not until today, when that detective with the Buddy Holly glasses and air of melancholy showed up and started asking questions. She hadn’t heard from Wallin in several months, hadn’t seen any dark police car parked beneath her windows since early that spring. Presumably he had better things to do than keep an eye on her.
But maybe it still made sense to call him. Tell him about the visit, explain that she hadn’t said anything, that there was no need for Wallin to worry. She had more to lose now than last winter, more things to worry about. Besides, a phone call would give her an excuse to ask about David Sarac. She had felt a nagging anxiety ever since the visit, an anxiety that wasn’t entirely rooted in her fear of being uncovered and fired. She wanted to hear that Sarac was okay, that Buddy Holly had accidentally used the wrong tense when talking about him.
She opened the door to her building. Some of the kids must have had a water fight in the stairwell, because the steps were covered in splashes of water. As she got farther up she saw that some of what was on the steps wasn’t water. Nosebleed, she guessed. Damn kids.
She stopped outside her door. The splashes, red and transparent alike, continued on up the stairs to the attic. A junkie, she thought. Not the first time, and almost certainly not the last. Another idiot hoping to find something valuable up there among the chicken-wire storage compartments. Objects of value that all the other petty criminals before him had somehow mysteriously failed to find. She could only hope that he liked Christmas decorations, battered paperbacks, and old skis.
She put the bag down and inserted the key in the lock. She thought about calling the police but doubted that something like this would be considered a priority. The cops were hardly likely to kill themselves racing to get a junkie out of an attic. On the other hand, what if someone was dying up there while she sat and drank coffee in front of Paradise Hotel? She started slowly climbing the stairs again. She still had her phone in her hand; she got rid of Wallin’s number and tapped in 112 instead. She held her thumb over the green dial button.
Two more steps . . . three. The landing up above was as gloomy as the inside of a Hollister store. She thought she could detect movement next to the door to the attic. She took a few more steps and saw a pair of shoes. A sharp smell of pepper made her nose itch. Then she saw legs, a pair of green jogging trousers. A well-built man was slumped heavily against the attic door. His face was turned away, and between his head and the wall was a blood-soaked rag. It looked like he was asleep.
Natalie raised her phone but stopped herself. The man slowly turned his head.
“I was beginning to wonder when you were going to show up,” he said.
• • •
Atif felt the needle being pushed through his scalp for a seventh time. Natalie tied off the stitch with a practiced gesture.
He grimaced as she stuck the needle in again.
“Sorry, but I haven’t got any local anesthetic at home,” she said. “How badly does it hurt, on a scale of one to ten?”
“Two,” he replied quickly. Then wondered why he was lying. “Four,” he corrected.
“You took a hell of a risk. What if you’d been knocked unconscious in the crash? You could have drowned.”
“But I didn’t.”
“No, but you’ve lost a lot of blood. There’s still some pepper spray stuck in your hair; when we’re done here you’re going to have to take a shower. And while you’re at it, I’ll try to find you some clothes. I presume you don’t want those ones washed.”
She nodded toward the sealed plastic bag containing his wet prison clothes over by the door.
Atif was about to shake his head when it occurred to him that that wasn’t a good idea.
“So, why were you so sure I’d help you? How did you even know where I live?”
“Your address was in the report of the preliminary investigation from Skarpö. I was actually thinking of managing on my own, but I needed a backup plan in case I injured myself too badly. Anyway, the Vårby bridge was a good place to crash.”
“So I’m the backup plan.” Natalie sounded as if she was teasing him gently, but Atif couldn’t be sure without seeing her face. “And what would you have done if I’d resisted the temptation to patch you up again?”
“I’ve got a relative who’s a vet. If worst came to worst . . .”
“So you rate my nursing abilities higher than a vet’s? That’s good to know.”
He was quite sure she was making fun of him now, but wasn’t really sure how to deal with it.
“Like I said, I’ve got money. Or I will soon. I’ll transfer twenty-five thousand to an account of your choosing. Ten for medical help, ten for your silence, and five for clothes. Okay?”
“And I’m supposed to trust you? Let you have everything on credit until further notice?” Natalie tied off the last stitch and cut the ends.
“Do I seem like the type who wouldn’t keep his word?”
Natalie looked at him for a few moments.
“No, you don’t. But, on the other hand, most men seem pretty fucking honest when they’re sitting in nothing but their underpants.”
She kept a straight face for a few seconds; then, when her face cracked into a smile, Atif found himself joining in, to his own surprise. The impression he had gathered out on the island last winter hadn’t changed. There was something about this woman he liked. Respected, even.
“So, what happens now?” Natalie got up from the armrest she had been sitting on. “The divers will have been down to inspect the wreck of the minibus by now. The cops will have worked out that you didn’t drown, so there’ll be a nationwide alert for you.”
Atif nodded. “I was expecting to be hunted. Counting on it, actually.”
“I don’t get it.”
“My niece . . .”
Atif stopped. There was no reason to explain his whole plan to Natalie. Quite the opposite, in fact: he ought to say as little as possible. But he couldn’t help it.
“Tindra,” he said, and thinking about her made him feel better instantly. “There are people threatening her and her mother. Using them to put pressure on me. But if I’m on the run, Tindra and Cassandra’s apartment will be the first place the cops look. There’ll be surveillance units in cars and in neighboring apartments, maybe even a rapid response team around the corner. As long as I’m on the run—”
“Your family is safe.” Natalie nodded. “Not a bad plan so far. After that?” She went over to the little open-plan kitchen and started to dig around in the freezer. “Sooner or later the cops will get fed up of watching your family. Particularly if they work out that you’ve fled the country. Here, put this on the wound for a bit: it’ll make the blood vessels contract.”
She tossed him a bag of frozen peas, then returned to the sofa with two bottles of beer and handed one to him. When he looked up at her, she held his gaze for a few mo
ments.
“You’re not going to leave the country, are you?” she said. “Not without your family.”
Atif took the bottle and took a couple of swigs. The beer washed the last of the pepper spray and seawater from his throat. The coldness from the bag of peas was spreading through his head, slowly diminishing the pain.
Natalie continued to look at him. She seemed to be studying his whole body. The pale skin left by the removal of the tattoo on his shoulder, his misshapen left ear. The scars and irregularities on his arms, legs, and upper body. All of a sudden he felt naked, exposed to her gaze. As if all his secrets were suddenly visible and the red-haired woman in front of him were reading them one after the other. He removed the bag from his head and took a couple of gulps of beer to shake off his awkwardness. He could feel the last of his energy draining away. He tried to straighten up and fight against exhaustion.
“You can crash on the sofa tonight,” Natalie said. She interrupted him when he began to protest. “Don’t be stupid. You wouldn’t even make it down the street in the state you’re in right now. And if the cops caught you here, near where I live, it wouldn’t take them long to work out who patched you up. Stay till tomorrow, get some proper rest, have breakfast, then you can blend into the rush-hour traffic on the subway. Breakfast and a bed for the night are included in the twenty-five thousand. And I’ll clean the stairwell up too. Deal?”
“Deal,” Atif mumbled. He lay down and closed his eyes for a few moments, trying to think about Tindra. About the night sky above the desert, and the constellations he’d be able to point out to her.
No more than a minute later he was fast asleep.
• • •
Natalie looked at the sleeping man on her sofa. She didn’t really understand why she’d let him in. Any normal person who found a blood-smeared escaped murderer would have made a quick about-face, locked the door of their apartment, and called the cops. Whereas she had done the exact opposite, helping him down the stairs and sitting him on the sofa while she fetched her well-stocked medical kit and patched up his injuries.
Maybe she did it because she’d already patched him up once before, for far more serious injuries. By the very narrowest of margins she had saved his life and for that reason felt somehow responsible for him. Besides, he owed her, and even if she didn’t know him—even if he hadn’t said a word about it so far—she was absolutely certain of one thing: Atif Kassab wasn’t the sort of man who took that kind of debt lightly.
Fourteen
Jesper Stenberg looked at his heavy wristwatch. Wednesday, lunchtime: in one minute and fifty seconds it would be twelve o’clock and John Thorning would walk through the door of the restaurant. John was anal about punctuality and had an almost uncanny ability to appear exactly on time. Never early, never late. Just on time.
The restaurant had been refurbished; nowadays it was furnished with light furniture and pale wood. But the grand old staircase was still there. Stenberg followed it up to the next floor with his eyes. He felt a brief shiver of excitement that vanished the moment he heard John Thorning exchange a few friendly words with the maître d’ over by the door.
Stenberg quickly adjusted his facial expression. He had put off this meeting for far too long, but he could not avoid his former mentor any longer. Especially not when Wallin was clearly cozying up to John.
Listen, smile, and promise nothing, as Karolina had needlessly pointed out to him.
“Jesper, great to see you at last. How are your nearest and dearest? Karolina seemed to be in fine form. I heard she’d registered to take part in a bicycle race around Lake Vättern and the Vansbro Swimrun this summer. She’s already done the Lidingö run a couple of times, hasn’t she? She’s almost done all four Swedish Classics.”
Stenberg smiled and murmured politely in the right places as he shook John Thorning’s outstretched hand. His handshake was just as firm and dry as ever. They sat down at the table.
“And I see you’ve got the Security Police with you.” John nodded with amusement toward Becker, who was sitting over by the door.
“Comes with the territory, I’m afraid.” Stenberg smiled apologetically. Just as he had noted the other day, John looked considerably brighter now than he had last winter. He’d regained the weight he had lost following Sophie’s death and had acquired a healthy suntan, and both his voice and eyes were back to their former sharpness. John gestured toward their grand surroundings.
“I don’t know that I’ve been here since the firm’s Christmas party. How long ago was that, now, four years?”
“Three,” Stenberg said. “It’s been closed for refurbishment. New owners too.”
“Ah, that’ll be why I don’t quite recognize anything. But I do remember that the party was a great success. We hired a big band, I seem to recall.”
We did, Stenberg thought, smiling at his old mentor. And your psychotic daughter gave me a blow job in one of the upstairs bathrooms while you were dancing the fox-trot with my wife. Sophie liked sick games like that. But that was then. I’m no longer the Thorning family’s puppet.
“In a lot of ways, everything was much simpler back then, wasn’t it, Jesper?”
Stenberg didn’t answer, just sipped his mineral water instead. He would have preferred something stronger, but it wouldn’t have been fitting for the minister of justice to be seen drinking alcohol at lunchtime on an ordinary weekday. Thinking about Sophie and the Christmas party had given him a bit of an erection, and he drank slowly to calm himself down.
“But enough of that,” John Thorning said. “What’s past is past. That was really what I wanted to say to you. As you no doubt noticed, I went through a very tricky patch last winter. Losing a child . . .” He held his hands out. “But I’m back now. Business as usual, for both the firm and the Bar Association. I have no intention of slowing down, certainly not now that we’ve got the chance to achieve so many good things together.”
Stenberg made sure he kept smiling. Deep down he had been hoping that John would tell him that he was going to retire and spend the rest of his life playing golf on Mallorca, that Sophie’s death had somehow made the old bastard realize it was time to stop. But when he looked into John’s eyes when they met by chance the other day, he had begun to suspect that it was a forlorn hope. And now there was no doubt at all. We’ve got the chance to achieve so many good things together. That was a pretty good summary of what he least wanted to hear.
“I’m very pleased to hear that you’re feeling better. It can’t have been easy for you and Margareta. Karolina and I have thought of you both a lot.” Stenberg paused, then lowered the warmth in his voice slightly and turned up the sharpness. “Naturally, I’d be delighted to hear your thoughts. I’ve always considered you my mentor . . .”
Stenberg trailed off involuntarily. Maybe it was his lingering thoughts of Sophie that made him lose concentration. John wasn’t slow to exploit his hesitation.
“Splendid. I’ve already got a number of things I’d like to discuss with you. The appointment of Eva Swensk, for instance. Most unfortunate, in my opinion. You need a more loyal national police chief, someone who doesn’t glance at other people when you give them orders. Oscar Wallin would have been an excellent candidate. What made you overlook him?”
Well, Stenberg thought. To start with, the fact that Wallin is an unreliable little sociopath who isn’t afraid to blackmail his boss.
“Oscar was on my list. But there were a lot of factors that had to be taken into consideration.”
“You wanted to ally yourself with Carina LeMoine and her section of the party. I’m guessing your father-in-law advised you to do that. Said it would be important in the future.” John Thorning shook his head. “I’m afraid I think Karl-Erik was mistaken. You should have held back, waited until things looked clearer. You should have focused on the tasks in front of you instead of dreaming about shortcuts to the top. There’s
still plenty to do. Just look at Skarpö and that restaurant shooting the other night. Dead police officers, gang warfare, snipers in the middle of the city. That’s where your focus should be right now, Jesper. That’s where you can do the most good.”
John Thorning leaned forward across the white tablecloth.
“Besides, Carina LeMoine isn’t a kingmaker happy to sit on the steps of the throne. She’s got plans of her own. And no one really knows what the prime minister is thinking. The only thing you can be sure of is that he’s following events very carefully. Biding his time.”
The waiter brought their starters and the conversation paused briefly. Stenberg took the opportunity to pull himself together. He had hoped to escape this. Being given a lecture by someone over sixty. But John Thorning hadn’t finished.
“You’re becoming a pawn in a bigger game. A game you’re not ready for. Not yet, anyway. Without good advisers you’ll end up being outmaneuvered, all your good ideas will come to nothing or, possibly even worse, will be credited to someone else. Instead of being the great reformer of the legal system, you risk becoming a mere parenthesis.”
Stenberg was on the point of saying something but stopped himself. It wasn’t what John Thorning was saying that annoyed him most, but his tone. That patronizing You-don’t-know-what-you’re-doing tone that John sometimes deployed against inexperienced prosecutors and lawyers. He had experienced it himself when he first joined the firm, but that was a long time ago now, and he was now the country’s minister of justice, for fuck’s sake.
He really felt like telling John Thorning to go to hell. Explain that he had merely made use of him. That the days when he had played the subordinate protégé of the Great Lawyer were over now and that he, whatever the old windbag might claim, was already the prime minister’s running mate and successor. It was time to demonstrate that he was in full command of the game these days.
“What do you suggest, John?” he said, so calmly that he surprised himself.
Ultimatum Page 14