Europa Blues

25

THE TWO WOMEN Viggo Norlander would be watching videos with were really something. Alone with them in the small, sweaty room, he felt almost horny as he pressed play on the VHS machine.

It was true, he was having a hard time ignoring the short greenish hair, but given that it was crowning a face that was a triumph of youthful beauty, it was utterly irrelevant. The messy chestnut hair, on the other hand, was incredibly appealing. And the woman it belonged to, beyond description. He could see straight through her clothes. It was fantastic.

‘Lay off, Viggo,’ said Sara Svenhagen. ‘They’re practically popping out.’

‘What’re you talking about?’ Norlander asked with well-masked shame.

‘It’s like they say,’ said Kerstin Holm. ‘Whenever a man finds out he’s fathered a baby, he suddenly gets hornier than ever.’

‘What is it with you two?’ asked Viggo, blushing for the first time in thirty years. ‘What have I done?’

‘Just press play, will you?’ said Sara.

‘I have,’ Viggo said confusedly.

It felt so strange to be blushing. Memories he had no desire to be reminded of were pushing forth. But at the same time, it felt good that they were returning. They had been gone for so long.

‘It’s coming in a second,’ said Sara Svenhagen. Norlander couldn’t help but interpret her words in all manner of ways.

‘The Environmental Protection Agency had four hours’ worth of film,’ she continued. ‘They’d been following the poacher from the St Anna Archipelago in Östergötland, where someone had reported seeing a bus full of feathers. They were filming while the poacher was having a coffee on the ferry. They shot this sequence just as he was about to disembark and be busted by the Polish customs police.’

The picture crackled into view, gradually coming into focus. The bow of a huge ferry. The bow visor rose slowly upwards; buses came driving out. A couple of tourist buses first, one German and one Swedish. Then a smaller one, an utterly clapped-out-looking thing. It was driving straight towards the camera, which followed its movements. The customs officers moved in. Tough-looking Polish officers in uniform, yanking the door open, rushing into the bus and hauling the driver out. The poacher was thrown to the ground. The camera was filming him as it passed by. The bus doors were open. The camera panned up the steps and then swung to the left, inside the bus. It moved over the passenger seats. Ten or so sea eagles were laid out on them. The picture swept down the left-hand side of the bus and then froze.

‘There,’ said Sara, pointing at the television screen. Above the eagles, the bus window was visible. Through it, the front of another, smaller bus had appeared from the left.

She let the film play, as slowly as she could, until the front window of the other bus became visible. A face could be seen through it. She froze the image again.

‘This,’ said Sara, ‘is Svetlana Petruseva, the Belorussian from room 226 of the Norrboda Motell.’

Viggo Norlander and Kerstin Holm both glanced at Svetlana Petruseva’s passport photo, comparing it with the slightly blurry figure from the screen.

‘Yeah,’ said Viggo. ‘That’s her.’

‘Seems that way,’ said Kerstin. ‘But the question is whether it holds up as evidence.’

‘There’s more,’ said Sara.

The bus continued its slow-motion journey past the poacher’s bus. Just as it passed by, the camera shifted slightly and the back of the other bus, the one in which they had seen Svetlana Petruseva, came into view. The picture froze again.

They had a clear view of the rear window of the other bus. Two faces were peering out at the customs raid. They immediately recognised one of them. It belonged to Lina Kostenko, the Ukrainian from room 225, the room the ninja feminist had been calling. The face next to her was unfamiliar, but belonged to a young, dark-haired woman, and in her hand a mobile phone was visible.

‘There you have it,’ said Kerstin Holm. ‘A few hours later, that phone would be ringing a disembodied arm in Odenplan metro station.’

‘This is our first and last picture of a member of the league,’ said Sara Svenhagen. ‘The technicians are working flat out on it. They’re working with this, too.’

Her finger moved down the screen to a blurred, half-obscured registration plate.

‘It’s Swedish,’ she said. ‘But we can’t see much else for the moment.’

‘Swedish vehicle…’ said Viggo.

‘Driving through Sweden, from Stockholm to Karlskrona, in a Ukrainian bus, would probably have been tricky,’ Sara replied. ‘It would’ve drawn too much attention. They probably rented it.’

‘Should we assume,’ said Viggo, ‘that the ladies also had Swedish passports? That they did the whole thing as Swedes? And their real passports stayed behind?’

‘Yeah,’ said Kerstin, standing up and stretching. ‘It seems pretty likely they were given fake Swedish passports. Or Western European ones, at least. So there wouldn’t be any problems with customs. We’ll send the picture of that girl out, plus the registration plate, as soon as the technicians are done. Sara, are you still going to Karlskrona?’

‘It’s too late now,’ said Sara, glancing at her watch. ‘Apparently it’s the same crew coming back from Gdynia tomorrow. I’ll catch them then.’

‘Take Viggo with you,’ said Kerstin. ‘He doesn’t seem to have much to do. Plus I think a bit of sea air will cool him down.’

Viggo Norlander nodded eagerly.

It would be another thirty years before he blushed again.