MemoRandom: A Thriller

by Anders de la Motte

  The man crossed the street and went around the corner without so much as glancing at the Volvo. He looked back over his shoulder briefly before going into the building on the corner. Atif waited for him to come out again, and stood there for almost half an hour before he was reluctantly forced to admit that he had a problem. The cops in the Volvo weren’t on their own. There were others there too, and they’d been smart enough to conceal themselves properly. That meant he’d have to change his plan.

  • • •

  The man on the roof was standing perfectly still. Below him on the other side of the street he could see the dark windows of the apartment. If he took a couple of steps forward, stepped out of the shadows, and looked over the edge, he would see the police officers down there. For a moment he toyed with the idea of doing just that. Neither of them would see him, they were too busy focusing on the apartment. Hoping that the man asleep inside was going to reveal his secret at last. Their secret.

  For a while he had been worried, actually more worried than he was prepared to admit. But he had done what was required and had got rid of all the risk factors. All but one.

  The man turned around and pulled a half-smoked cigar from his inside pocket. He lit it between his cupped hands and took a deep puff. He was going to stop, he promised himself once again. But not just yet.

  • • •

  Sarac is dreaming he’s back in the car. Hansen is in the front passenger seat, and he himself is behind the steering wheel. But there is someone else there too. A figure in the backseat wearing a hood, someone whose face Sarac can’t see. A man, he’s sure of that. Roughly his height and age. He knows who it is, but he still can’t bring himself to say the man’s name. Hansen is talking, trying to sound tough. But the anxiety in his voice is clearly audible even though he’s trying to drown it with words.

  “I was thinking of suggesting a deal,” he says. He turns to look at Sarac and grins, trying to keep both his gaze and voice steady. But Hansen has sat in the front passenger seat for a reason. He’s scared, he wants a backup plan. A quick escape route.

  “We’ll part as friends, no hard feelings.” Hansen is still grinning, revealing a nicotine-stained row of teeth. Sarac looks at the man’s pudgy hands and thinks about the girls in the pictures, no more than ten years old.

  “So, what do you say, Erik? Have we got a deal or what?”

  Sarac looks in the rearview mirror and meets the gaze of the man in the hood. Pale eyes, like his own. They’re very similar, he and Janus, more similar that he likes to admit. They’re both balancing on a high wire. They’ve chosen that for themselves, live for it. Love it.

  The connection between handler and CI can sometimes become too strong. Is that what’s happened with him and Janus? Have they grown too close?

  “Well, what’s it to be, Erik?” Hansen grins uncertainly.

  Sarac goes on looking in the rearview mirror. He can see the other man smiling. Realizes what it means. He opens the door and gets out into the road. Takes out a cigarette and cups his hands around it to protect the flame of the lighter from the snow. Takes a deep drag.

  A flash of light inside the car, then a bang.

  The sound woke Sarac up, making him sit bolt upright in bed. His heart was pounding in his chest, and his T-shirt was wet with sweat. His bladder was full, but he didn’t bother to turn on the light and walked through the apartment toward the toilet in silence. As he passed the living room he glanced at the building opposite. The window was dark, but he knew that Molnar’s men were in there. He wondered whether they would be so keen to protect him if they knew he was actually a lousy rat. And somewhere out there was Janus, perhaps waiting for the right moment to cut the last ties. Was Janus really prepared to go that far, after everything they had been through together? Had he actually created a monster, someone who would be the death of him? Was it now a matter of finding him before he himself was found?

  Sarac shook off the feeling, turned, and took a step toward the toilet. He suddenly imagined he could see movement from the corner of his eye. He turned back and looked at the building opposite, then up at the dark rooftop.

  But of course there was no one there.

  FORTY-NINE

  Natalie went up the stairs a bit too quickly. She stopped on the last landing for a minute or so to catch her breath. Didn’t want to seem too keen. She fingered her cell phone. Hoped he was home this time.

  Once she had collected herself she went up to the door and rang the bell. No answer. She tried again, with the same result. She opened the mail slot and called into the apartment.

  “David, it’s Natalie. Open up!”

  She heard noises, shuffling steps. She glimpsed a pair of slippers and the bottom of a threadbare dressing gown. She quickly let go of the mail slot. The door opened slightly, with the security chain still on.

  He looked terrible. Black bags under his eyes, his beard straggly and greasy, and the little woolly hat he was wearing could have done with a wash a long time ago. His shabby dressing gown was at least one size too big and hardly helped the overall impression.

  “Are you going to let me in, then?”

  He didn’t answer, and just shut the door. A few seconds later she heard the chain rattle.

  “Come in. Lock the door behind you.” He shuffled into the living room ahead of her and slumped down on the sofa.

  Natalie took a quick look in the kitchen. Clean and tidy, not so much as a dirty glass in the sink. She opened the fridge door. Full of unopened packets.

  “When did you last eat? Properly, I mean?”

  He muttered something she didn’t hear. He was a complete wreck, could hardly keep his eyes focused. Natalie took a deep breath.

  “Okay, this is what we do,” she said. “First, you need to have breakfast, or lunch, to be more accurate.” She nodded toward the clock on the wall, which said half past eleven. “Then you need a shower, and then I’m going to give you a shave and cut your hair. Have you got the things here or shall I go down to the 7-Eleven?”

  More muttering, something about the bathroom cabinet.

  “Okay. And get rid of that dressing gown. You look like that guy in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

  “Toward the end of the film, not the beginning,” she added.

  • • •

  He ate with a hearty appetite. Three eggs, a whole pack of bacon, two slices of toast. He washed it all down with orange juice and a cup of strong coffee. While he showered she dug out a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt from his wardrobe. She also took the opportunity to have a poke about but didn’t find anything interesting. With the exception of the new sofa, everything looked just as it had when she had cleaned the place up. She had been struck then by how impersonal the apartment was. No pictures, nothing that gave any clues as to who Sarac really was. The bookcase was full, admittedly, but it contained mostly English nonfiction. Natalie pulled out one of the books. Influence, by Robert B. Cialdini. She turned it over and read the back: The classic book on persuasion, explains the psychology of why people say yes.

  Natalie put the book back in its place. A piece of paper fell out and she bent down to pick it up. A black-and-white photograph of a thin-haired man in a white shirt and black trousers balancing on a high wire. In the background was one of the towers of Tower Bridge in London, and beneath him, far below, the dark, swirling water of the Thames. But the man didn’t seem bothered by the breathtaking view and was just staring ahead of him, toward his goal. She turned the photograph over, read the ornate handwriting, then put it back in the bookcase.

  When Sarac emerged from the bathroom he was already looking a bit brighter. Seemed almost happy to see her.

  Natalie nodded toward one of the kitchen chairs. “Sit down!”

  She went into the bathroom to get shaving cream and a razor from the bathroom cabinet, and grabbed a towel. She found a pair of scissors in one of the kitchen drawers. She wrapped the towel around him.

  “Chin up.”

>   She trimmed his beard quickly, then soaked a kitchen towel in warm water and wet his chin and cheeks with it.

  “Your bandage needs changing, it smells awful, and the tape isn’t sticking properly anymore,” she said.

  She covered his face with shaving foam and carefully started to remove his stubble. Sarac moved his head slightly and she almost cut him.

  “Sit still!” She grabbed his chin. She slid the razor blade carefully down his cheek and onto his neck. The blade scraped against the dark stubble. She noticed he was looking at her. There was something in his eyes she hadn’t seen before. Not gratitude but something else. Something she liked.

  “There,” she said abruptly. “Wipe the rest of the foam off and we’ll get your hair tidied up.”

  The transformation was complete. Freshly shaved, with his hair cut and wearing clean, intact clothes, Sarac actually looked very nice. The only sign of the wound in his head was a neat little plaster, no bigger than the palm of your hand, that she had fixed to his scalp. He was still pale and thin, but that would improve with time. He had cheered up and seemed more talkative. He had even made them both a cup of coffee.

  “Look at this,” she said, holding her cell phone up at him and trying not to show how eager she was. She would rather have shown him the picture straightaway. But she’d changed her mind when she saw the state he was in. She needed him focused so he could give her the answer she wanted. That Rickard wanted, she corrected herself.

  “I took it over at Högbergsgatan,” she said when he didn’t react. “I saw this guy coming around the corner and thought about the description the police had given after that man was killed in Roslagsgatan.”

  Sarac looked at the picture and felt his stomach tighten. Then he realized that he recognized the thickset man.

  “He helped me, or rather, he helped Sabatini. He ran across the street and used my scarf to try to stop the bleeding. He disappeared just before the police showed up.”

  “And you don’t think he’s got anything to do with it?”

  Sarac slowly shook his head.

  “Okay, shame.” Natalie tried not to sound disappointed. She had been hoping this was the man Rickard was looking for. She had even toyed with the idea of how Rickard would react when she showed him the picture. Giving him exactly what he wanted, in color and everything. Whereas in fact she had nothing new to give him. Nothing at all. Damn it! She looked down into her coffee cup, trying to think of something else to say.

  “How does it feel, David?” Fuck, she could have kicked herself. Classic sports journalist question, cliché number one. She ought to be able to do better than that.

  “I don’t really know how to describe it. Part of me wants to know everything, every little detail. And another part”—he shrugged his shoulders—“just wants to forget.” He met her gaze and smiled rather wearily. “And I’m somewhere in the middle. Trying to stay up on the tightrope.”

  “Like the man on the bookmark.” She nodded.

  He nodded back, then frowned.

  “The photograph of the tightrope walker,” she clarified. “The one your friend Eugene sent you.”

  • • •

  Atif saw the woman come out of the door. He had recognized her when she went inside a couple of hours earlier. The red-haired woman who had taken his picture up at Högbergsgatan.

  He watched her as she jumped into a battered old red Golf parked on the other side of the street. She started the car, did a U-turn, and drove off. Without really knowing why, Atif turned the key in the van’s ignition and began to follow her.

  • • •

  “No, no, it was only Natalie. She redressed my wound and patched me up a bit. She left a little while ago. Everything’s fine, I’m going to get some rest, watch a bit of television. I’ll call if there’s anything.”

  Sarac ended the call and couldn’t help gazing across at the windows of the building opposite. He looked at the time, then at the photograph. He turned it over and read the writing on the back. To David, from your friend Eugene von Katzow. Below the words was a familiar symbol. Two intertwined Js, forming a head with two faces, facing away from each other.

  Twenty minutes left, time he got moving. The remote was on the table, and he surfed the channels until he found one with a lot of talking. He sat down on the sofa but got up again fairly quickly and lowered a couple of the blinds. He tried to make it look as if the light were bothering him.

  After a while he stood up. He got out the bag containing the revolver and bulletproof vest that Bergh had given him and put his notebook inside it. He pulled on his jacket and boots and slung the bag over his shoulder before quietly sneaking out the door. When he reached the ground floor he turned right and emerged into the walled inner courtyard, then carried on toward the clump of bushes in the corner. He was relieved to see that Natalie had put the stepladder from his locker in the basement in just the right place. He tossed the bag over the wall, then carefully climbed up the steps and reached out his hands toward the tin plate covering the top of the wall. The steps wobbled but settled again.

  Sarac took a deep breath and kicked one leg up. It went better than he expected. His body was reacting better with each passing day. He still ended up lying prone along the top of the wall as he gathered his strength. For a brief moment he felt ashamed; he had lied to Molnar again and tricked the men who were supposed to be protecting him. But he was a rat, a corrupt police officer, and possibly even a murderer. From now on he had to try to manage on his own. Try to sort out his mistakes. Clean up this fucking mess.

  • • •

  Atif was taking it easy. He let a few cars slip in between him and the Golf. The woman driving didn’t seem to be in any hurry either. She drifted through the streets toward St. Eriksplan. Eventually she pulled over into a loading zone. Atif drove past slowly. He saw the woman reach across the passenger seat and unlock the door. He did a U-turn and parked on the other side of the street.

  • • •

  Sarac emerged from a door on the far side of his own block. He walked as quickly as he could toward the subway station. When he reached the platform he carried on and went up the stairs at the other end. He opened the doors and emerged onto St. Eriksplan.

  • • •

  Atif saw the man come walking across the square carrying a bag. He recognized him at once from Högbergsgatan. David Sarac, the man he was looking for. He smiled, started the engine, and put his hand in his pocket. He could feel the cold plastic handle of the pistol.

  • • •

  “Number 2, Själagårdsgatan, Gamla stan.” Natalie put her foot down and pulled straight out into traffic, without waiting for a gap. Sarac looked behind them through the rear window but couldn’t see anyone following them.

  “He’s got some sort of consultancy business, involved in training and lectures. Website and everything. Seems to be quite a big fish.”

  She tossed her smartphone to Sarac. The background picture of the website was the same as the photograph in his inside pocket. The tightrope walker above the Thames. The high wire.

  He quickly scrolled through the text. Eugene von Katzow is a former detective lieutenant at the Intelligence Unit of the Stockholm Police Force. He currently works as an international security consultant and lecturer. Among his clients are major organizations such as OSSE, ASIS, Interpol, and the ICC.

  “I didn’t have time to read the whole thing. And there’s loads of abbreviations. OSSE and ASSE or whatever there were.” Natalie changed lanes again.

  “They’re both security organizations,” Sarac said. “One’s intergovernmental, the other’s private. The ICC is the International Criminal Court in the Hague. Look out!”

  Natalie forced her way in front of a taxi. The driver slammed on his brakes and blew his horn hard. Sarac turned around again. Apart from a few taxis, all he could see was a white van of some sort with a tatty company logo on the front. Everything looked fine.

  FIFTY

  Number 2, Själagå
rdsgatan was a beautiful, coral-colored, four-story seventeenth-century building with leaded windows, situated almost right in the middle of Gamla stan. It had to be one of the most beautiful residential buildings in Stockholm, and presumably also one of the most expensive.

  Traffic was banned from the narrow alleyways and the snow that had settled between the cobbles made the street treacherously slippery, but none of this seemed to bother Natalie. She steered the car in between the old buildings and stopped right in front of the door.

  Sarac sat in the car for a minute or so, studying the building. He remembered it clearly now, especially the beautiful, protruding stone porch. Pale sandstone with inlaid cherubs, and two statues on top. Roman gods again, that could hardly be a coincidence.

  “You can park up there.”

  He pointed along the narrow alley to where it widened to form a small square. Then he opened the car door before she could offer to go with him.

  For a moment he wondered about taking the bag containing the notebook and other things with him, but decided to leave it in the trunk of the car for the time being.

  Some snow had caught in the building’s doorway, leaving the door slightly ajar. He kicked it away and closed the door behind him.

  E. von Katzow lived on the fourth floor. Sarac went up the stairs and stopped in front of the oak door. He took a few deep breaths, trying to lower his heart rate. Just as he was about to ring the doorbell he heard footsteps on the stairs.

  “You could have waited,” Natalie panted. “As luck would have it, a little old lady showed up and let me in.” She winked at Sarac and for a moment he almost smiled. Instead he managed to turn the smile into an unhappy grimace. He didn’t want to drag her any further into this than he already had. He would have told her to go straight back to the car if she hadn’t already reached over and rung the doorbell.

  The bell set off a familiar buzz inside Sarac’s head and he closed his eyes for a few seconds. The door was opened by a straight-backed, desiccated little man.