by Peter Mohlin
Then she colored in the area where the two circles overlapped.
“It’s here—at this intersection—that we’ll find our perp.”
John looked around the abandoned office. Despite everything, he was glad they were in the police station basement. These kinds of meetings didn’t need anyone listening in.
“Getting a list of everyone who gave a sample shouldn’t be hard,” he said, pointing at the first circle. “It must be in the investigation files.”
“Good—you can take care of that,” said Mona. “I’m going to get hold of the staff lists so that we have something to cross-check your list against.”
John had no objections to the division of labor. He was glad to avoid the thankless task of ass-kissing and threatening stretched HR staff who wanted to avoid checking old databases.
He tried inserting an ethernet cable into the nearest socket and was happy to find that the connection still worked in the basement. It took just a few clicks to get into the police’s internal system. He pulled up the AckWe case and began to review its contents list. It was very familiar to him by this stage. All the documents that had been created were assigned reference numbers, and using this list, he’d be able to find the one he needed. He scrolled slowly until he found what he was looking for.
“File 32078:657. DNA samples sent for analysis.”
John typed the number into the search field and hit enter. An hourglass appeared while the search was being processed. The answer came quickly. “No file found.”
John repeated the process, but this time he copied and pasted the document reference number from the contents list to avoid any typos. The same answer again: “No file found.”
Mona must have noticed his confusion.
“Is something up?” she asked from across the desk.
“Maybe. Come and take a look at this.”
She stood behind him so she could see the screen.
“According to the contents list, there should be a record of all the people who gave a DNA sample. But the file seems to be gone.”
“Let me try,” she said, taking his place at the keyboard.
John watched the document reference number being inserted into the search box for the third time, resulting in the same negative response.
“That’s odd,” she murmured, as she began to search the system.
John leaned forward and tried to keep up. He’d always liked hanging out with the nerds in the NYPD’s technical department, and he considered himself more knowledgeable than most detectives when it came to IT. Nevertheless, Mona seemed to be sharper. Her fingers were flying across the keyboard and soon she accessed a system overview.
“You’re searching the logs?” he said.
“Yes—every change made to the system is recorded and if someone deleted the file, we ought to be able to see who it was,” she said, pointing at the screen.
Her finger left a mark. In New York, the detectives had called those marks BPs—Boss Prints. Pictures of suspects, CCTV footage, interview transcripts—the boss needed to point at all of it. But this was hardly the moment to get annoyed by something like that. If Mona could dig up something about this file then she could stick her ass against the screen for all he cared.
“Look,” she said, making a new mark.
John leaned in and read the row she was pointing at.
11/21/2019. File 32078:657 deleted. User: parker3
He checked the date again. November 21.
The file had been deleted just a week ago—the day after Billy was released.
Primer balanced three paper cups filled with coffee in a triangle in his two hands.
“Jesus, they’re hot,” he said, blowing on his fingers after he had put them down on Mona’s desk.
“Don’t you have any real mugs?” Mona asked.
“Yes, but we seem to have lost a lot of mugs from the kitchen and when the cupboard’s bare we use these delightful things.”
John searched for a sarcastic undertone to what Primer had just said but didn’t find one. The rumor about his revolt against the kitchen schedule hadn’t yet reached the boss.
“What do you want to talk to me about?” Primer added.
Mona got right to the point and explained what had happened to the missing file and how suspicious the date of deletion was. Primer sank into one of the chairs and slowly shook his head. He looked tired and concerned.
“This isn’t good,” he said.
“According to the logs, the user who removed the file was ‘parker3.’ Do you know who has access to that account?” said Mona.
Primer ran a hand self-consciously through his hair.
“Quite a few people, I’m afraid.”
“Quite a few? What do you mean?”
“Well … everyone in the building knows that keystrokes are logged in this place and sometimes you might want to read a file you have no reason to read. Just out of interest. So some genius in IT created that account and the details got around. ‘Parker’ as in nosy parker …”
Mona looked at him blankly. She couldn’t believe what she’d just heard.
“So, it could be anyone?”
“Yes, unfortunately so. Those logins have been around for as long as I can remember,” he said. John was almost beginning to feel sorry for the big man. First he’d been cut from the investigation and now he was being humiliated in the police station basement.
“Is there a parker1 and parker2?” Mona asked.
“To be honest, I don’t know how many parker accounts there are. You’d have to check with the boys in IT.”
It looked as if Mona had a number of profanities on the tip of her tongue, but she wisely chose to save them for another time. Primer might be useful to them and there was no point kicking a man when he was down.
“Is there a printed copy of the list of people who gave DNA samples anywhere in the building?” she said.
“It’d be in the archives if there was,” he said.
Mona asked him to take her there and before John had time to even finish his coffee they were back. With them was a rubber-wheeled cart with six boxes of case files on it. All the documentation from the AckWe case.
John soon saw that the person leading the investigation ten years earlier had been very thorough. The papers were sorted in numerical order. Document 32078:657 ought to be in box three or possibly four.
As he approached the magic number, he felt his hands becoming clammy. The sheets of paper stuck to his fingertips, making it harder to get through the piles of paper. He stopped and leafed back a few pages to double-check that he hadn’t mixed up his numbers. No—there was a gap in the series.
“The list is missing here too,” he said, looking at his colleagues.
Both of them appeared to shrink by a few centimeters from the gravity of the news. If there had been any doubt, it was now erased. Someone had cleaned up after themselves and deliberately made any further investigation difficult.
“Let me guess,” said Mona, unable to contain her sarcasm any longer. “There’s no guard, CCTV, or sign-in sheet for the archives.”
Primer squirmed.
“We’ve been talking about honing our procedures, but we never got round to it. We have to stretch the budget as it is. Well, you know what it’s like,” he said, attempting to solicit sympathy.
Mona’s silence said it all.
Fucking country bumpkins.
John thought about a final opportunity to retrieve the list that he didn’t want to share with either Primer or Mona: the flash drive he’d been sent in the hospital in Baltimore. It would probably be another dead end. His mother—or rather, the lawyer who helped her compile the investigation files—had omitted a lot of this kind of background information. Just to be sure, he would check that evening when he got back to the new apartment.
“Could the samples still be in some database?” he said.
Mona replied without looking at him.
“No, they’re only kept if the people w
ho provided them are subject to reasonable suspicion, and in this case, we’re dealing with a mass collection of DNA.”
“What about the lab?” said John. “Even if the results weren’t kept, maybe they still have a list of those tested.”
“I find that hard to imagine after this length of time. But it’s obviously worth checking up on,” said Mona, reaching for her phone.
A short phone call later, her suspicion was confirmed. The lab monkeys in Linköping couldn’t help them.
“Somehow, we have to re-create the damn list,” she said, turning to Primer. “How were people chosen to give samples?” she said.
John was impressed by the decisiveness of his new boss. He was the same. The best cure against setbacks at work was to try to find alternative ways of achieving the same goal. Plan A was something any cop with two brain cells could come up with. It was the ability to come up with and execute Plans B, C, and D that set the real police apart from the amateurs.
“Well,” said Primer. “This wasn’t exactly yesterday. But I assume we followed protocol and started with men in the victim’s direct vicinity—family and friends.”
“Did any of them have a job that would’ve granted them access to the DNA samples?” said Mona.
Primer shook his head.
“No, it was mostly people who were Emelie Bjurwall’s own age. Most of them were students.”
“Then we’ll put them to one side. What next?”
“When we didn’t get any matches, we started taking more samples. I seem to remember we used postal codes on Hammarö. We started with people closest to the crime scene and worked outward. There was a hell of a fuss about it.”
“How so?”
“There were people who thought we were invading their privacy. The papers wrote about it and there was a big debate. Mass DNA collection wasn’t that common back then and the lower age limit was pretty low.”
“How low?” said Mona.
“I seem to remember that all men who were fifteen or older and registered at an address in the postal code area had to submit a sample.”
“How many postal codes did you get through before you got a match to Billy Nerman?”
Bernt Primer tried to remember, but then shook his head.
“Three, maybe four. I can’t remember precisely. We must’ve taken DNA from hundreds of people on Hammarö.”
Mona saw she wouldn’t get any more information out of him and let the man return upstairs. While she escorted him to the elevator, John searched online. Primer’s remark about public debate relating to the DNA collection had caught his attention.
His search for “DNA + AckWe + criticism” brought up several hits. He clicked on an article from Nya Wermlands-Tidningen that had been published in September 2009 after Billy was arrested. A female professor was interviewed and compared the investigation in Karlstad with one in Linköping a few years earlier. On that occasion, mass DNA samples had been taken in connection to a double murder. She particularly emphasized the problematic issue that the police might be tempted to run DNA samples against biological evidence from other investigations, thereby securing evidence for less serious crimes by the back door.
John shook his head. Sometimes he felt as though he didn’t understand anything in his old home country. Surely it didn’t matter how criminals were uncovered—they were still criminals.
He was about to click away from the article when he read the sidebar under the headline. The newspaper had reported that more than eight hundred men ranging from fifteen to eighty-seven years old had provided DNA samples in the AckWe case before the perpetrator had been arrested. There was then a list of the three postal codes on Hammarö where samples had been taken.
He clenched his fist in a spontaneous gesture of victory. This information would make it easy to produce a usable dataset from the national population register.
John had just told Mona the good news when his phone rang. He didn’t recognize the number but he still answered. The voice on the line sounded metallic; it reminded him of a robot in a bad movie.
“She’s come back.”
He realized immediately that it was Torsten Andreasson—the manager at the Björkbacken treatment center. He could picture the man pressing a hand against his throat to generate that unusual voice.
John put the phone on speaker so that Mona could listen in.
“Are you sure?” he said.
The manager’s voice sounded even more artificial as it echoed out of the phone.
“I just drove past the cabin and saw a light was on in the window. It has to be Matilda. She’s the only one who knows where the key is.”
“Where are you right now?”
“A couple hundred meters from the cabin.”
“Has she seen you?”
“I don’t think so. I drove past and she can’t see the car where I am now.”
John thought for a moment.
“Go back to the treatment center,” he said. “I’ll drive to Charlottenberg right away and talk to her. I’ll let you know when we’re done.”
“So, I should just pretend nothing out of the ordinary has happened?” said the metallic voice reluctantly.
“Yes, and under no circumstances should you visit Matilda. Do you understand?”
There was silence on the line.
“Yes, I understand,” said the manager.
“Good,” said John, ending the call.
He looked at Mona.
“Coming along?”
She waved her hand dismissively. “No, you go. I’ll stay here and try to get hold of the staff list. I’d like to cross-check it against the population register before the end of the day.”
John nodded and then headed to the elevator.
With a little luck, he and Mona would come up with the same name—by two different means.
36
Heimer usually woke up after his wife, and he was surprised to see the car still in the drive. He called out for her and at first he couldn’t hear her reply through the closed double doors at the far end of the hall. Only when she raised her voice did he realize that she was working from home.
He wrapped his dressing gown more tightly around him and went to her study. Sissela was sitting at the big desk, just as meticulously dressed as if she were going to the office. Heimer didn’t know how she did it. There were no signs of fatigue. No rings around her eyes, no tousles in her hair.
He heard her come home late the night before after the “management team meeting.” She had crept into the bedroom and lain down on her side of the bed. Feigning sleep, he had turned toward her to see whether he could smell any trace of Hugo Aglin. But no matter how much Heimer had sniffed, he hadn’t discerned any hint of aftershave or lingering note of bodily secretion. All he was able to make out was the soft rose scent in his wife’s skin lotion.
Sissela was a professional when it came to infidelity—that much he grasped. She hadn’t made him suspicious by showering when she got home. At the same time, she must have washed away the smell of her lover some other way. He remembered the scentless wet wipes she always had in her handbag. Maybe that was what she used them for.
He looked around the study—the only room in the house that Sissela had furnished. The sofas by the window had been imported from Italy. Had they fucked there some time when Heimer was away? Was Hugo Aglin’s hairy ass on the white calfskin while Sissela rode him until he came inside her?
His wife continued to look at him. As if she were expecting him to say something, rather than merely stand there in the doorway like an idiot.
“Do you want coffee?” was all he managed to say.
Sissela said yes and asked him to put on a pot. She would join him in the kitchen in ten minutes.
He shut the door behind him and staved off the impulse to tear the doors open again and demand to inspect her computer. It was one of his new fantasies: making Sissela take off all her clothes and read everything she had written to Hugo Aglin aloud while he videoed
it all. The oldest emails on the phone had been from 2013, and given the contents of them it was clear the relationship had been going on for some time before then.
Emelie had named no names. But maybe she had been referring to Hugo Aglin when she taunted him for not being man enough to satisfy her mother in bed. In that case, Sissela and her colleague had been a secret couple even back when his daughter had been alive. That meant at least a decade of infidelity. Probably even longer.
Heimer didn’t know exactly when Hugo’s wife had died from cancer, but he remembered that they had had to get a babysitter for Emelie so they could attend the funeral. Was it once he had become a widower that it had all started? Sissela had been there to support him and suddenly she’d had his cock in her mouth? Was that how it happened?
Heimer would never know unless he put his wife’s back against the wall, and he had no intention of doing that. Quite the opposite: this was a new challenge in the art of separating the inside from the outside. From now on, the wall between what he felt and what he showed would be so dense that nothing would be let through that he hadn’t decided to let through.
He switched on the coffee maker and went to check the mailbox. He threw the newspapers right into the recycling. They weren’t a good way for either him or Sissela to start the day. Billy Nerman had been a free man for several days, but the hungry reporters refused to stop gorging themselves on the case.
He didn’t have time to start opening the letters before his wife sat down across him at the kitchen island. She poured milk into her coffee—Heimer never understood why she ruined the taste like that—and she watched him as he opened the first envelope. It was the bill for the gas credit card. He checked the summary, then tore it in half and put it next to his cup.
Sissela raised her eyebrows quizzically.
“Direct debit,” he said.
She managed the big finances and he managed the small stuff. Sissela hadn’t paid a bill for as long as he could remember. The next envelope in the pile was from the postal code lottery. Personalized direct marketing was a nuisance that the polite notice on the mailbox didn’t prevent. Nevertheless, he opened it and saw a game show host fanning himself with a span of lottery tickets. Neighbors’ delirium in Bergeforsen it said in large letters above the picture. One hundred fifty-two winners had shared sixty-five million kronor. Heimer did the math. That wasn’t even half a million per person. He doubted whether anyone in Tynäs bothered to play the lottery.