The Blinded Man aka Misterioso

29

They were eating breakfast in the hotel restaurant when Chavez’s cell phone rang. Jorge answered it, then didn’t say a word, and his face turned noticeably pale. Hjelm recognized that kind of phone call. He could guess what it was about.

Another murder.

Had they committed a serious breach of duty by neglecting to report immediately the name of Göran Andersson and provide his picture?

If they had reported their suspicions at once, would Hultin have been able to redirect the surveillance from the members of the Lovisedal board to those on the Sydbanken board?

Hjelm looked at Kerstin and saw that she was thinking the same thing.

Had their determination to wait until they’d achieved complete clarity and put together a perfect resolution, with all the ends tied up, cost someone his life?

The thought made his head swim.

But that wasn’t all.

“Gunnar Nyberg was seriously wounded last night,” said Chavez in a subdued tone as he ended the call. “During the Lovisedal stakeout.”

The burden grew heavier.

“Goddamn it.” Kerstin Holm crushed her liverwurst sandwich in her hand.

“How seriously?” Hjelm was stunned.

“I couldn’t really make that out. Hultin sounded so damned angry. Nyberg’s injuries aren’t life-threatening, in any case. It was apparently at the home of the chairman of the board, Jacob Lidner, in Lidingö. Nyberg was on his way in when he was shot. He got up and went totally berserk, crashed through a big fucking hedge, and charged the gunman’s speeding car with his own body.”

Hjelm couldn’t suppress a slightly hysterical hoot of laughter. “Sounds like Nyberg. It sure does.”

“Tackling the car did the trick too. The gunman drove right into a lamppost. Söderstedt pulled the guy out just before the car caught fire.”

“Do modern vehicles really catch fire?” said Hjelm, puzzled.

“You’ll never guess who the gunman was,” said Chavez.

“Let’s not play guessing games,” said Holm.

“The sole surviving Igor. Alexander Bryusov.”

“You’ve got to be kidding!” shouted Hjelm. “What the hell was he doing there?”

“And there was another murder, wasn’t there?” Holm said calmly.

Chavez nodded. “In Göteborg. And he was a member of Sydbanken’s board of directors, anno 1990. Ulf Axelsson was his name. A bigwig at Volvo.”

None of them said a word for a moment. Then Chavez went on. “The worst possible scenario is that what happened to both Nyberg and Axelsson can be blamed on the fact that we didn’t put in a call last night.”

Silence again.

“Although we’ll never know for sure whether it would have helped,” he added.

Jonas Wrede looked a bit livelier today. He’d pulled himself together and helped to create a very clear and detailed sketch of the purported colleague from the NCP. The man who’d taken over back in February and buried the investigation surrounding the death of Valery Treplyov in the locked vault.

The face was staring up at the three officers from Wrede’s desk. They all recognized him at once: fair-haired, powerful, hard-boiled.

The last time they’d seen him was in Nils-Emil Carlberger’s kitchen in Djursholm.

It was Max Grahn.

From Säpo.