by Peter Mohlin
Awesome Ink.
He had found the right place.
A courier sped around the corner, forcing him to wait before he crossed the street. The small windows of the tattoo parlor were at ground level and covered in faded photos of tattoo designs. Some steps led down to the entrance at the basement level. He went inside and found a dark room with Persian rugs laid out across the floor. Hanging from the low ceiling there was a patinated iron candelabra with five black candles, their flames fluttering in the draft from the open door.
“With you in a minute.”
A bamboo curtain was hung up behind the reception desk and the soft voice seemed to have come from behind it.
“Okay,” John replied, looking around.
Framed pictures of yet more tattoos covered the walls. The designs comprised everything from simple black-and-white drawings to large works of art with complex detailing. The perspective and shadows were perfect, and John realized he was in the presence of someone who had mastered the craft.
After a few minutes, a wiry young man with straggling long hair appeared from behind the bamboo curtain. His face was covered in tattoos and piercings that had been added to his skin in all sorts of likely and unlikely places. The piercings in his earlobes were the size of coins and through them he had pressed what looked like two spiral-shaped pieces of ivory.
John was about to offer his hand when the guy passed him and vanished out through the door.
“Jesus Christ, isn’t it just tragic?”
The soft voice again.
John turned around and discovered a man of about fifty who was the exact opposite of the Christmas tree that had just left. Graying hair neatly combed, no piercings or tattoos.
“Can you guess what that lad’s job is?”
“No idea,” John answered, nonplussed.
“Home help for the elderly,” the man said with a smile, shaking his head. “You just have to hope someone like that doesn’t turn up to wipe your ass when that day comes.”
John took a few steps toward the counter.
“Fredrik Adamsson, Karlstad CID. Are you the owner of the shop?” he said, in an attempt to reassert control after the confusing introduction.
“The parlor,” the man corrected him. “Yes, I am.”
“And how long have you run it?”
“I opened in the January after the arrival of the new millennium. What’s this about? Is there a problem?”
John put his hand in the inside pocket of his jacket where the rain hadn’t managed to seep in and took out the card Matilda Jacoby had received from Awesome Ink.
“I’m looking for a girl who I think might have been a customer here,” he said. “Did you send this Christmas card?”
The man took the card and examined it carefully. John was still struggling to believe he was a tattooist. His white shirtsleeves made him look more like he worked in a bank.
“Yes, that’s right. It’s been a few years—but for a while I sent out cards with this design.”
“To customers who had been tattooed here?”
The man nodded.
“This card in particular was one you sent to a Matilda Jacoby in Charlottenberg,” John continued. “It’s postmarked 12 December 2008.”
“Gosh—that’s a long time ago.”
“Can I take it that she came here in 2008 and got a tattoo?”
“That sounds likely, but I can’t be sure.”
John searched his jacket pocket again and found the photo of the girls that he had torn out of the album at the treatment center.
“Do you remember her?” he said, pointing at Matilda.
The man stared at the picture of a pale girl with dark, short hair, repeating the name. “Matilda Jacoby … No, not offhand. But it was some time ago, like I said,” he added.
John nodded as his thoughts whirred.
“The address must have come from your customer database. Could I take a look at it?”
The tattooist frowned thoughtfully.
“I’m afraid it’s been lost. My computer crashed a couple of years ago, and I had to start all over again. But I’ve still got the folders.”
“Folders?”
“Yes, every time I do a tattoo I take a photo and put it in a folder together with the customer’s name. Do you know what kind of designs this girl was interested in?”
“Perhaps. Can I borrow a pen and some paper?”
The tattooist bent down and retrieved a sketch pad from the shelf below the counter. John took a ballpoint pen from the tin next to the vintage cash register and began to draw.
“Wait—I recognize that,” said the man, before the three squares were even finished.
John looked up from the paper.
“Is there a tattoo like that in the folders?”
“I think so, unless my memory is failing me completely. Do you have any idea roughly when during the year she might have been here?”
John thought. Emelie Bjurwall’s parents had said during questioning that their daughter had gotten her tattoo around the same time she had left the treatment center. It wasn’t impossible that Kirsten Winckler and Matilda Jacoby had done the same thing.
“Try the beginning of 2008. January, February, maybe even March,” he said.
The man disappeared behind the curtain and returned with a large folder bound in red leather. He placed it on the counter and began to leaf through it. He hummed gently while examining his past handiwork. John was burning with impatience. He had to leave the counter and walk around to calm himself.
“Might she be one of these?” he said, turning the folder around to show two Polaroids.
John hurried back to the counter. In one photo there were three young women showing their freshly tattooed forearms to the camera. He immediately recognized them as the gang from Björkbacken. The picture had been taken from too far away to make out any details of the design. That was presumably why the second Polaroid had been added. A close-up of three pale forearms. All featured three squares—and all had ticks in the first square.
“Oh my. I remember those girls,” the man said. “They didn’t have an appointment. They just walked in. It was pretty late. I had closed up, but I was still here painting. It’s a bit weird now I come to think of it.”
“Weird? How so?”
“They didn’t say much. I mean—girls that age usually babble on and joke around, but they were quiet. Somehow serious.”
The tattooist seemed to become lost in his thoughts.
“So, what happened?” said John.
“I remember explaining that the parlor was closed but that they could book an appointment for later that week. But they insisted and I didn’t have the heart to say no.”
“So, you helped them? You tattooed them that evening?”
“Yes. They wanted to have the same design and it wasn’t complicated.”
“Do you know why they wanted that design in particular?” said John.
“No, and I didn’t ask. Designs can be very personal and it’s not my place to pry.”
“Did they say anything about why it was so urgent?”
“Not that I remember offhand.”
John took a deep breath.
Think a bit harder then.
He held his tongue and made an effort not to show his irritation. The man was doing a good job given that the event he was trying to describe had taken place more than ten years ago.
“And all of them just wanted one of the squares filled in?”
“Yep,” said the man, pointing to the folder. “Three squares and one tick.”
John tried to picture the scenario: the three teenage girls leaving the treatment center in Charlottenberg and heading straight to Awesome Ink to get tattoos.
Did they want to celebrate their time at Björkbacken being at an end? Perhaps, but the serious atmosphere indicated something else. John had the feeling that the girls had done something they had been forced to do. As if the design were a necessary evil that needed to
be inscribed into their skin.
In his head, he compared Emelie Bjurwall’s arm in the Polaroid in the folder with the picture that had been posted on Facebook. He’d looked at it many times and had no problem remembering it. When she had gone missing, all the squares had been ticked. The last one had been carved straight into her skin, but tick number two had been tattooed on. On some occasion, Emelie must have returned to Awesome Ink or visited another tattoo parlor to complete the original design.
The same logic applied to Kirsten Winckler, who had had all three boxes filled in when she was declared dead in Gothenburg several years later.
“Did any of the girls come back to add any more ticks?” he asked.
“For a new tattoo?”
“Yes, to add new ticks?”
The man shook his head.
“No.”
“You’re absolutely sure?”
“Of course. I would have remembered that. It’s such an unusual design and those girls stood out the first time, if you know what I mean.”
John prepared to wrap up the conversation.
“You understand that I’ll need to take the photos with me? They’re evidence in a criminal investigation,” he said, pointing at the folder on the counter.
The man unfastened the rings in the center and handed over the sheets of card stock to which the two Polaroids were attached. John took them and for the first time he looked properly at the names written under the photos.
Emelie, Kirsten, and Maja.
He read it again.
It definitely said Maja—the same name as the missing friend from Magnus Aglin’s party.
“Did you write this?” he said, pointing at the slightly slanted lettering.
“Yes, that’s my handwriting. I always write the date and names under the photos.”
“One of the girls is called Matilda, but you’ve written Maja. Why?”
“I guess that’s what she called herself,” he said, with a shrug of his shoulders. “I ask customers what they’re called and write down what they say.”
John looked at the sheet again.
If you took the first two letters of the first name and last name and put them together it made sense. Matilda Jacoby became Maja.
A nickname known only to the girls.
There was nothing more to it than that, but John had still missed it.
But he didn’t intend to punish himself too severely. This breakthrough in the investigation was still his. Struggling to remain impassive, John thanked the man for his assistance and began to walk to the door. He glanced through the small basement windows. It was still raining. He put the sheets with the photos inside his jacket and turned up his collar.
Just as he was about to grasp the door handle he came to a halt. His brain had spotted something that hadn’t emerged into his consciousness until then.
“Was there anything else?” said the soft voice behind him.
John turned around and looked at the man without replying. Then he went back to the window and looked out through the wet pane of glass. This time he didn’t care about the weather—instead he focused on the parked cars on the other side of the street.
What he saw sent pain shooting through the back of his head. He had to support himself on the wall to keep his balance. By the curb, four cars behind John’s Chrysler, was the wine-red V70.
It was the third time he had spotted the car in just a few hours.
It was no coincidence.
Immediately, he pictured Ganiru’s meaty face before him. The boss staring at him on the stand during the trial. The pain ran through him. It was as if someone was striking him repeatedly on the back of the head with a hammer.
“What’s the matter?”
The soft voice again.
John felt his muscles cramping. Just as it had in the container at the dock, the paralysis began in his feet and legs.
What the hell is wrong with me?
He forced himself to look out of the window again and he saw that the driver’s seat of the V70 was empty. Soon, the fragile wooden door leading into Awesome Ink would fly open and he would be face-to-face with the man who was going to torture and kill him.
He fumbled in his jacket for his service weapon. The paralysis worsened; soon his body would be useless.
“Can I do anything for you?”
John felt the tattooist’s hand on his shoulder.
“Is there another exit?” he managed to say.
The man looked around as if it was the first time he had visited his own parlor.
“Yes, there is,” he said uncomprehendingly, pointing toward the bamboo curtain. “But that’ll take you into the basement store. What’s …”
“Show me,” John interrupted him, pushing the man toward the counter.
His muscles were still working well enough, but he had to summon all his mental strength to deal with the painful cramps. The man went through the curtain and John followed. They passed through a small room filled with tattoo equipment before they entered another even smaller office. The tattooist went over to a white fire door and began to fiddle with a keyring.
“Is there someone here? I don’t understand …”
The soft voice was soft no longer—it was jittery.
Once the man finally found the right key and unlocked the door, John pushed past and stumbled into the dark basement. Then he couldn’t move any farther. It was as if two steel cables had been wrapped tightly around his legs.
“Lock the door and wait in the office,” he said, using the last of his strength to slam the door behind him.
The crash rumbled inside his head and the pain reached its numbing climax. His legs gave way and he sank to the grimy concrete floor.
When John opened his eyes, he didn’t know where he was at first. Nor how long he had been unconscious. Without lifting his cheek from the floor, he let his gaze wander along the poorly illuminated basement passage. It was lined with several small storage units divided by chicken wire. The air was cold and damp. Three lightbulbs were hanging from the ceiling, but only one was lit. Farther away at the end of the long corridor there was a door ajar and a faint strip of daylight was forcing its way through the gap. It probably led to one of the staircases in the building.
John tried lifting an arm. It was stiff, but seemed to be obeying orders. He did the same thing with his legs and noted that his body seemed to be working again. The back of his head still hurt, but the pain was no longer as explosive. On the other hand, he felt sick.
He tried to gather some saliva and swallowed a couple of times before grabbing hold of the chicken wire and pulling himself to his feet. Apart from the sound of running water from the bare pipes on the ceiling, the basement was completely silent. He put his ear to the fire door leading into the tattoo parlor and listened. He could hear nothing from inside.
He checked the time on his phone. It said 3:27. He remembered he had parked outside of Awesome Ink a little after three, and the conversation with the owner had probably taken about fifteen minutes. In other words, he’d not been out cold for long.
John checked that his service weapon was still in its shoulder holster inside his jacket and then began to walk toward the light at the end of the corridor. The closer to the doorway he got, the quicker his thoughts flew on. He had to get out of the building—that much he knew. But then what? Where was he supposed to go?
If the Nigerians had managed to find out where he was, then it was certain they had uncovered his new identity too. They wouldn’t have any trouble tracking every plane ticket he booked in the name of Fredrik Adamsson.
Fuck.
John considered whether to call Mona Ejdewik in Stockholm to demand that she organize his immediate extraction from the country. He would explain to her that his cover had been blown and that he had only hours left to live. But it would take time—and he would still need to go to ground and hide somewhere.
He had underestimated Ganiru’s organization. The Nigerians had probably had hi
m under surveillance at all times in Sweden. But how had the cartel managed to crack the FBI’s witness protection program so easily? He simply couldn’t understand.
John carefully nudged open the door into the staircase. The clatter of dishes and voices speaking Arabic were audible from inside one of the ground-floor apartments, but it was otherwise quiet. He pressed himself against the wall and went up a half-flight of stairs to the main street door.
The street outside wasn’t very busy even though it was near to the town center. By a hot dog stand farther down the street toward the river there were customers waiting for food, sheltering underneath their umbrellas. He leaned forward and turned his head to the left. The V70 was there, but there was still no one behind the wheel.
John tried to plan his next step. Going out onto the street was a big risk. At the same time, he couldn’t stay in the stairwell. If his pursuers kicked down the door of Awesome Ink, it wouldn’t take them long to find his escape route through the basement. The tattooist wasn’t likely to keep quiet about where his visitor had gone if someone pointed a gun in his face.
John had just decided to ring the doorbell to the apartment with the Arabic name on the mailbox when he saw something that snagged his attention. A man had left the hot dog stand and was walking toward the door. At first, John wasn’t sure what he had reacted to. But there was something about the way the man was moving. The stooping posture. The distinctive, almost exaggerated gait. John recognized the movement. He squinted to make out the face beneath the hood, but it was too far away. Only when the man was level with the door did he see who it was.
Detective Inspector Ruben Jonsson.
John stepped back and let him pass by. After a few seconds he looked out again and saw Ruben get a car key out of his jacket pocket and unlock the wine-red V70. Then he opened the driver’s-side door and got in.
John stared at the silhouette of his colleague through the foggy windshield, slowly realizing that it all made sense. How close he had been to overreacting and doing something really stupid by contacting Mona Ejdewik!
He pictured the nurse at the home. She had clearly told her husband about the visit to Mrs. Nerman. That was all it had taken to make him suspicious, so that he started following his new colleague. But the question was: how much did he know? Did Ruben know that Billy Nerman was John’s brother? And if he did, had he told their boss?