MemoRandom: A Thriller

by Anders de la Motte

  They headed east along Valhallavägen and turned left at the Swedish Film Institute, then right, across the empty parkland of Gärdet. Snow had drifted across the road in several places, but the four-wheel-drive Volvo had no trouble sticking to the almost invisible little road.

  The black 4x4 was waiting in the cul-de-sac among the patch of trees at the top of the hill. The police officers stopped the car and got out. They were hardly visible in the darkness. Sarac could see a number of shapes outside. He already had an idea who they were.

  Less than a minute later the door beside him opened.

  “Get out, David,” Molnar said abruptly. “It’s time for us to have a serious talk.”

  FORTY-SEVEN

  They pushed Sarac into one of the seats in the back of the big 4x4. Molnar got in beside him, with Josef in the driver’s seat as usual.

  No hugs this time, Sarac thought as he watched the taillights of the patrol car disappear into the snow swirling over the field.

  “You don’t trust us, do you, David?” Molnar said. His voice was dry, neither friendly nor hostile.

  “First you cracked the code in your notebook and found Sabatini, without telling me.”

  Sarac didn’t answer.

  “And now you’ve talked to Jan Dreyer. Let me guess . . .” Molnar frowned. “He told you that you worked for him. That you were on your way to see him when you crashed.”

  Sarac didn’t answer.

  Molnar exchanged a quick glance with Josef in the rearview mirror. Then he took a deep breath.

  “Dreyer’s smart, he’s trying to manipulate you, David. Trying to implant things in your head that never actually happened. Did he say anything about a traffic report, and damage caused by another car?”

  Sarac still kept quiet.

  “That was floating around at the start, but closer examination couldn’t find any proof, except for what looked like some much older damage to your car. But I bet you Dreyer said someone tried to make you crash. Maybe even one of us?” Molnar shook his head. “Dreyer’s crazy. Properly mad, I mean. Why do you think he works for the Internal Investigations Department? Josef, you tell him!”

  “Because he’s made himself impossible to work with anywhere else,” Josef muttered from the driver’s seat.

  “Exactly! Once upon a time, before he became the most hated man in the force, Dreyer was a damned good cop. He and Eugene von Katzow set up the whole CI handler program. In those days every detective had his own contacts, there was no coordination at all. But the pair of them began to structure the whole thing. Started using systems to evaluate the reliability of different sources, all the sort of stuff we take for granted these days.

  “But something went wrong. I’ve asked the Duke what happened, but he won’t talk about it. Anyway, Dreyer ended up with a serious drinking problem. His wife left him, they had to sell their house, and it messed with his head.”

  The police radio crackled, but Josef switched it off.

  “Dreyer got paranoid, got it into his head that the Duke was building up a secret intelligence service that was spying on everyone and everything.” Molnar looked up at the roof with a sigh. “After that he was on sick leave for a long time. And got a transfer to Internal Investigations, who were stupid enough to take him on.”

  Sarac squirmed in his seat. A gust of wind showered some loose snow against the window.

  “Dreyer set off on his crusade against von Katzow and managed to get a miserable old prosecutor on board. Secret operations, unaudited accounts, all manner of accusations. The fact is that they conducted over fifty interviews. They got warrants to search our offices, even the Duke’s apartment in Gamla stan. But the only thing Dreyer managed to get him on was a few cases of inadequate record keeping. The sort of thing you could find in any police department. Complete nonsense.”

  Molnar shook his head, more forcefully this time.

  “The Duke was suspended for six months and was hung out to dry in the media. The papers wrote no end of articles about it all, the Duke running his own private intelligence service, recruiting celebrities, politicians, and businessmen, paying them from secret accounts. The whole thing was made up, gossip without a shred of evidence to support it. Then it all came to an end with two pathetic charges of professional misconduct and a few lines hidden away on page twenty-five. Dreyer was taken off the case and given strict instructions to stay away from us. Ever since he’s been waiting for a chance to get revenge. To ruin, once and for all, what he helped to put together long ago. Your accident and the missing list gave him the opportunity. Not to mention your memory loss.”

  Sarac looked up. He remembered the whole story now, almost every detail. But there was something else there, something to do with Eugene von Katzow. Molnar’s words interrupted his thoughts.

  “The Duke realized he couldn’t carry on. He’d become a burden to the department, so he left. A lot of people interpreted that as an admission of guilt. No smoke without fire and all that. The bosses all competed to distance themselves. The Duke’s name is still like a red rag to a lot of people,” Molnar said.

  “And that’s why you don’t think he’s involved in the Janus operation?” Sarac asked.

  Molnar nodded. “Eugene was something of a mentor to me. We talk regularly, he can be a bit secretive, but I can’t really believe he wouldn’t have mentioned something like that to me. And, like I said, Eugene isn’t well.”

  Sarac tried to think. Molnar’s explanation sounded genuine, and Dreyer had certainly seemed a bit erratic up at the hospital. Not to mention all the cloak-and-dagger stuff before their meeting, the alcoholic tracery of veins in his face, the overdose of aftershave, and all that nervous, compulsive fiddling with the cigarillo. Everything suggested a man who wasn’t entirely stable but was trying hard to hide it.

  “You don’t have to trust me, David,” Molnar said. “To be honest, you’re one of the best police officers I know. The idea that you could be an infiltrator, a rat . . .” Molnar pulled a skeptical face.

  Sarac swallowed and tried to maintain his poker face. Suddenly the feeling that he had done something unforgivable was back, this time twice as strong as usual. But neither of the other two men seemed to have noticed anything.

  “Dreyer’s desperate,” Molnar said. “He’s prepared to do whatever it takes to get the whole lot of us. Lying, manipulation, all manner of promises and threats. The most important thing is for us to get hold of Janus. To limit the damage he’s done. If we can do that, no one will have anything on us. Not even Dreyer.”

  “Hansen,” Sarac said, without really knowing why.

  Molnar nodded. “What do you remember? Be honest, David.”

  “I remember meeting him in his car on Skeppsbron. And that he died.”

  Molnar exchanged a glance with Josef in the rearview mirror.

  “That’s what we suspected but didn’t want to say anything. Not until we knew more.”

  “My cell phone, the calls you said couldn’t be traced?”

  Molnar nodded slowly. “You called Hansen. Probably just an hour or so before . . .”

  “I shot him!”

  “Is that what you believe?” Molnar said.

  Sarac shrugged. “I honestly don’t know what to believe anymore, Peter. Everything’s just one big mess of theories, blurred memories and pieces of a puzzle that won’t fit together.”

  “I’m not going to pretend I can imagine what things are like for you, David. But the team and I are doing our best to help you. You’re one of us.”

  Sarac swallowed again and looked down at the floor, thinking about the secret accounts and all the money.

  “Brian Hansen was a total bastard,” Molnar went on. “He had his own little sideline that the rest of his biker gang knew nothing about. Methamphetamine, sometimes heroin, not much, but more than enough. We found out about it and raided his home. Didn’t find any drugs, but a computer full of pictures. Little girls, ten years and younger.”

  “So I approach
ed him with a proposal,” Sarac said. “No charges if he agreed to work for us, was that it?”

  “Yep, a fully paid-up gang member owned by us, one who didn’t even dare go for a piss without calling you first. Pure gold,” Molnar said. “We used him to break up an entire chapter down in the Southern District. But I think Hansen gradually realized that you were taking drugs. He was terrified of being uncovered as a rat and ending up in some gravel pit with his cock stuffed down his throat. So he changes tactics and threatens to expose you, see to it that you get fired from working as a handler, maybe even chucked out of the entire force.”

  The high-pitched voice was suddenly echoing through Sarac’s head. I was thinking of suggesting a deal. Your secrets in exchange for mine. So that’s what the meeting had been about. Hansen trying to bargain his way to freedom.

  “You and Hansen agree to meet at Skeppsbron,” Molnar went on. “He’s scared, so he chooses somewhere public. But he’s got that wrong. It’s dark, it’s snowing hard, and there’s no one around. You meet in the car and he tries to blackmail you into letting him go. But Janus knows about the whole thing. Maybe you’d even confided in him. If you get fired, his secret is in danger. So he follows you, and halfway through your meeting he jumps into the backseat. And gets rid of the threat to both you and him.”

  Another gust of snow lashed the windows, but Sarac was listening so intently that he hardly noticed.

  “But instead of being grateful that the problem is solved, you’re badly shocked by what’s happened,” Molnar continued. “One of your informants has died, right in front of your eyes. Murdered by someone you’ve promised to protect. Your most important source. So you shoot yourself full of drugs, then you call me, babbling about something unforgivable happening. We arrange to meet but you drift through the streets in your car instead, high, stressed out, and paranoid. Until you end up in the Söderleden Tunnel. And just as we catch up with you the pressure in your head gets too much.”

  “And I have a stroke and crash,” Sarac muttered. His headache had been quiet for a while, but now it hit him like a sledgehammer. His vision started to flicker.

  “Hansen was already one of the living dead,” Molnar went on. “His so-called brothers would have got rid of him if they found out he was informing on them. Not to mention his disgusting sexual preferences.” He pulled a revolted face. “You don’t have to worry, David. In my team we take care of one another. The test results of the blood sample are gone, as is your list of calls. We’ve just got a couple of more loose ends to sort out, then everything will be under control.”

  Sarac slowly shook his head. Back and forth, as if the movement could help keep Molnar’s words at bay. Everything made sense, the details matched up with his memories. But there were still plenty of pieces missing.

  “Hansen, Markovic, Lehtonen, Sabatini . . .”

  He was about to say Erik Johansson’s name as well but stopped himself at the last moment. He wasn’t ready to talk about his base, let alone the money he had been receiving from Crispin.

  “What’s the connection between them?”

  “We don’t know yet,” Molnar said. “Markovic had been in the water for about a month. I knew him, he was small potatoes, the sort who liked to shoot his mouth off about nothing. Someone strangled him with a piece of wire, then dumped him in Lake Mälaren sometime over the days following Hansen’s death.”

  Molnar’s mouth narrowed.

  “Lehtonen took off to Thailand the day after your crash. He got back the day he was shot. His duty-free bags were just inside the door, so it looks like someone was waiting for him. He did a bit of dealing in performance-enhancing drugs, gave us a few tip-offs about his competitors. Which leaves Sabatini, but we’ve already talked about him. Four dead men, pretty much four different types of death.”

  He shrugged.

  “With the exception of Hansen, they were all small-time crooks. They may have moved in the same circles to an extent, but there’s no direct connection between them apart from the fact that all worked for you.”

  “You mean apart from the fact that they’re all dead?” Sarac said somberly.

  Molnar ran his tongue over his front teeth. “Here’s what I think, David. The pay-as-you-go cell numbers you called just before you crashed—my guess is that they belonged to Markovic, Lehtonen, and Sabatini. You were probably trying to warn them about something, or someone.”

  Molnar paused, as if he was waiting for Sarac to take over. But when Sarac didn’t say anything he carried on.

  “Lehtonen bought his plane tickets that same evening, and one of Sabatini’s credit cards was used in Italy a few days later, so he probably went by car or possibly train. Markovic, on the other hand, never made it. We found a filled-in passport application form on his computer.”

  Sarac was trying to gather his thoughts. But it was almost impossible. Flashes of memories, fragments of conversations, faces. It was all flying around inside his head, a wildly spinning maelstrom.

  “Leave, get out of here! Right away!”

  “But I’ve got the dogs, I can’t just . . .”

  “Fuck, Erik, I haven’t got a passport.”

  “I’ll go and stay with my family in Italy for a while until this blows over.”

  It all fit. He had told them to run for their lives. But why? Who did they have to run from? There was something else, one last secret. Something conclusive that he still couldn’t get hold of. Something to do with Janus.

  Something that meant that all of them . . .

  Without exception . . .

  Had to die.

  “You asked me the other day if we were watching you. The answer to that question is yes,” Molnar said in a low voice.

  “But not for the same reason as Wallin’s gang,” he added. “They’re using you as bait. Hoping that Janus is going to show up at your door so they can pick him up.”

  Molnar shook his head.

  “Wallin was on the right track when he said you were in danger, David. But what he hasn’t worked out, what no one seemed to have worked out”—he looked at Josef in the rearview mirror again—“is that Janus has an entirely different plan. He’s watching you, trying to work out if you’re likely to keep his secret. If the answer is no, he’ll disappear for good. And get rid of all the evidence.”

  Sarac looked up. He realized what Molnar was about to say.

  “Including you, David.”

  FORTY-EIGHT

  Molnar went with him up to his apartment. He even asked whether Sarac wanted the spare keys he had to the new locks. Of course Sarac ought to have laid all his cards on the table. His secret lair, the gun, the bank accounts, the whiteboard with all the pictures. He probably would have done so if it hadn’t been for that visit to Club Babel. Molnar and his team weren’t the enemy, as Dreyer had almost managed to have him believe, but his friends. Loyal friends at that, who were looking out for him. They were prepared to overlook his shortcomings and were taking risks for his sake. Protecting him from Wallin, Dreyer, and Janus.

  But all that would change if they found out the true source of the money in those accounts. That he himself was in the pay of organized crime. Erik I. Johansson, a corrupt police officer, a CI. A rat.

  So he had to go on keeping his mouth shut. Pretend he couldn’t remember anything while he tried to figure out some way of escaping from the infernal labyrinth he found himself in. If there was a way out, of course. He was beginning to doubt that more and more. The pieces of the puzzle were starting to fit into place, but the problem was that he was finding the pattern they were forming increasingly unappealing.

  “We’re right across the street,” Molnar said. “Press the alarm once if you want us to be discreet. Twice if it’s urgent, okay?” He handed Sarac a small gray box with a button on it.

  “Sure, no problem.”

  “And don’t hesitate to call, David. No matter what the reason, okay?”

  He nodded and attempted a smile. It worked better than he expected
it to.

  “Thanks for everything, Peter. I really am . . .” Sarac was momentarily lost for words, then couldn’t bring himself to say them.

  “Like I said, you’d have done the same for me, David. We’re almost there now. All we have to do is get hold of Janus, and this whole nightmare will be over.”

  And what do we do then, once we’ve found him? Sarac thought. He realized that he already knew the answer. Bergh had given it to him along with the bulletproof vest and the revolver with the filed-off serial number.

  • • •

  Atif discovered the police officers almost immediately. All he had to do was work out where the perfect place to park would be if you wanted to keep an eye on the door, and then look for an anonymous Volvo. He walked closely past the car, chewing some gum very obviously and swinging the Nordic walking sticks he had bought from Stadium. Inside the car sat a man and a woman, both wearing dark clothing. The red diodes of the police radio in the middle of the dashboard removed any lingering doubts. The police officers in the car gave him no more than a cursory glance. They assumed he was yet another of the early-bird, sourdough-kneading spandex phantoms that seemed to have taken over the whole inner city.

  Atif estimated the distance from their car to the door, trying to work out how much the van would block the view if he parked right in front of the door. He realized that it might work.

  When he went around the corner of the street beyond the Volvo he spat out the chewing gum and stabbed it with the point of one of the walking sticks. He pulled a little cluster of spikes he had cut from a barbed-wire fence from his pocket and fixed it firmly to the chewing gum. When he walked back past the unmarked police car he carefully held out the walking stick and attached the spikes to the grooved pattern of the rear tire. He gave them thirty feet max before the spikes punctured the tire.

  Atif carried on down the road toward his parked van. He saw the front door open and quickly slipped out of sight into another doorway, so he could watch what happened without being noticed. A large, blond man emerged onto the street, reeking of cop.