Bad Blood

25

When two heads that were not usually the cleverest were put together, something new was born. Viggo Norlander was working on John Doe; Gunnar Nyberg was working on LinkCoop. At a certain juncture, their laboriously struggling thoughts met, and the world took on a new shape.

At first Norlander got nowhere with his unknown body. He had incredibly little to go on. He sat in his office and read through the autopsy report, time after time.

Directly across from him sat the considerably more swiftly working Arto Söderstedt, who had obtained his very own whiteboard and was playing mini-Hultin.

“What the hell are you working on?” Norlander said, irritated.

“The Lindbergers.” Söderstedt said distractedly, continuing to draw.

“Do you need a whiteboard for that?”

“Hmm, need… He left behind a lot of notes that have to be sorted out. And she had some, too…”

“She? You swiped her notes?”

Söderstedt looked up with a scornful smile. “Not swiped, Viggo. A policeman never steals. Just as a policeman never harasses female immigration officers and never runs down little girls.”

“Idiot!”

“A policeman never steals. He makes copies.” He continued to fill in his squares.

“Like that’s any better,” said Norlander.

Söderstedt stopped again. “It’s much better. Not least because you can compare what you’ve copied with what she chooses to share. The difference is what’s essential. As soon as I’m finished with this, I’m going to ask to look at her planner and see if she’s removed anything. Comprende?”

“That’s a grieving woman, for fuck’s sake! Leave her alone.”

Söderstedt put down his marker. “Something feels wrong about them. They’re in their thirties and live in an enormous apartment in Östermalm-eleven rooms, two kitchens. Both of them work at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and are gone half the year. In Saudi Arabia. If they’re up to something in the Arab world, and if it has anything to do with Eric’s death, then she is quite possibly the next victim. I’m not trying to harass her, Viggo. I’m trying to protect her.”

Norlander made a tired face. “Then put her under watch.”

“It’s still too vague. I have to figure it out. If I get the chance.”

Norlander threw out his arms. “I’m very fucking sorry,” he said.

He tried to return to the autopsy report but couldn’t. Thoughts of his unknown son, who was only just coming into being, wouldn’t let go. He stared out through the window.

It was late afternoon; soon it would be time to go home. Outside the darkness was thick; rain was still drowning Stockholm. He thought of the flood in Poland a year or two earlier, the one that had contaminated the Baltic Sea. How much rain would it take for Lake Mälaren to run over?

The door flew open, and Chavez put his head in. “Hi, middle-aged white men,” he said cheerfully. “How’s it going?”

“Hi, swarthy young man,” Söderstedt replied. “How’s it going with you?”

“Incredibly badly. I was just at Hall sniffing Andreas Gallano’s old underwear. What are you two doing?”

“I’m trying to figure out John Doe,” Norlander said grimly. “If I get the chance.”

“Okay, okay,” said Chavez, closing the door. He continued through the hallway till he reached Hultin’s door. He knocked, heard an indefinable mutter, and stepped in.

Hultin pushed his owlish glasses up toward his forehead and scrutinized him coldly.

“Have you heard anything from the United States?” said Chavez.

“Not yet,” said Hultin. “Leave them alone. How’s it going?”

“I’ve just returned from Hall. None of the other prisoners had anything useful to say; no one knew whether Gallano had contacts in the United States. And that new drug syndicate he’s supposed to have belonged to is invisible-no one knew anything about that, either. Here’s a list of what he left behind when he escaped: underwear, a few reminders from various authorities, electric shaver, and so forth. A total failure. Then I went to the cabin in Riala, talked to the techs. They’ve given up now, I think, incredibly frustrated that they didn’t find a single clue. Except what was in the refrigerator, and here’s a list: butter, a few packages of tunnbröd, hamburgers, cream cheese, honey, parsley, mineral water, bananas.”

Hultin sighed and took off his glasses. “And the blue Volvos?”

“It will take some time. There are sixty-eight dark blue Volvo station wagons with license numbers that start with B in the greater Stockholm area. Thanks to the rank and file, forty-two of them have been inspected and eliminated. I myself have looked at eight, and they were clear. If that isn’t a contradiction in terms. Two that are still missing are fairly interesting: one belongs to a company that doesn’t exist, at an address that doesn’t exist; the other belongs to a habitual criminal by the name of Stefan Helge Larsson. We haven’t had time to look at the other twenty-four yet, because I had to go to Norrköping.”

Hultin observed his frenzy neutrally. “Proceed.”

“I’m on it,” said Chavez, and rushed out into the corridor.

Outside the two middle-aged white men’s office, he couldn’t resist the temptation to yank the door open and yell “Boo!”

Söderstedt drew a broad line straight across the whiteboard.

Norlander jumped almost two feet. He threw the autopsy report at the door, but it was already closed.

“Fucking idiot,” he muttered as he bent down to pick it up. Söderstedt chuckled as he carefully erased the line.

Norlander once again opened the autopsy report. Four shots to the heart, each one of which would have been immediately fatal. No bullets were left behind, probably nine-millimeter caliber. The victim was generally in good shape. He had some old scars, probable razor scars along his wrists, at least ten years old, and some even older circular scars spread out over other parts of his body. “Cigarette burns?” Stranded had written in his sprawling, old-man handwriting. How had the old devil missed the computerization of the world? What planet did he live on?

Clothes. A blue T-shirt with no print. Beige lumber jacket. Jeans. Tennis shoes. Dirty white socks. Boxer shorts. None of that told him a thing.

He switched his attention to the man’s possessions. How many times had he dumped the contents of the little plastic bag onto the desk? Apparently often enough to get a frown out of Söderstedt.

A fake Rolex, a roll of ten-kronor coins, a key. The key seemed very new. He turned it over and over.

It was a pretty substantial door key. Its lock must be more massive than you would find on a regular door, a safety lock of some sort; but it was hardly possible to say more than that. The key said “CEA” and “Made in Italy” and could have been made in any shoe repair shop anywhere.

But did shoe repair shops really manufacture such large safety keys?

Somewhere in the back of his head, a diligent brain cell went on the loose. Hadn’t he, at some point during this case, run into this very thing, just in passing, something that flickered in the corner of his eye? On one of the dunce jobs, perhaps? Yes, sure as hell, at the very beginning of the case, he had been in charge of all the idiotic reports of “crimes committed by Americans in Sweden.” One American had exposed himself and got beaten up by the women’s soccer team, another had copied thousand-kronor notes in Xerox machines-and another had copied a forbidden key at a shoe repair shop. Could that incident be connected with this key?

Norlander turned to the computer with an intensity that made Söderstedt look up in surprise. He dug into his archive, feeling like a hacker. He found the case, with a reference to the fraud squad of the Stockholm police. Why the fraud squad? After enough hard work to put an end to any hacker aspirations he harbored, he came to a minuscule document from the uniformed police. There it was. It had been the fourth of September. A little shoe repair shop on Rindögatan in Gärdet. The owner, Christo Kavafis, had copied an illegal key from a Plasticine original, was seized with remorse, and was then stupid enough to report the whole thing to the police. He was arrested, but the case was dropped for lack of priority.

Norlander didn’t have all the threads clear in his mind, but it was time for action. He grabbed his leather jacket and rushed out into the corridor. As he passed Gunnar Nyberg’s door, another stubborn brain cell in the back of his head started to dance. He stopped. That computer company-what was it called? And the key-weren’t they connected? He approached the door and took it right to the head.

Nyberg came out and stared at the crouching, swearing Norlander.

“Just the man I was hoping to run into,” said Nyberg, perhaps unaware of the double meaning of this expression. “Didn’t your John Doe have a key on him? I wonder if we should test it out down at LinkCoop’s warehouse. Something about that break-in still seems mysterious.”

Norlander forgot his pain in a flash and held the key up to Nyberg’s face, as though he were trying to hypnotize him. Nyberg let himself be hypnotized.

“I’ll drive,” said Norlander.

Nyberg followed him willingly. The two stout men half-jogged through the corridors, and the local seismograph registered an unexpectedly high reading on the Richter scale.

They reached the basement and drove out in Norlander’s service Volvo, which he had been refusing to return for four years, and set out for Frihamnen.

That was the planned destination, anyway. But they got stuck in traffic as soon as they got down onto Scheelegatan. It was the middle of rush hour, and it seemed to get worse every day. Shouldn’t the sky-high unemployment levels mean that fewer people had reason to come to the city at five-thirty, the time when they gave up?

“Let’s stop and eat,” said Nyberg.

“Weren’t you on a diet?” said Norlander.

“Yes. Past tense,” said Nyberg.

Norlander parked in a highly illegal spot on Kungsbroplan. They ran through cascades of rain into the closest restaurant. It was called the Andalusian Dog and was so pleasant that they nearly forgot their urgent business. Norlander dug in to some Mexican fucking sludge. Nyberg gulped down four baked potatoes with skagenröra.

“You could diversify a little, you know,” said Norlander.

“It’s skinny food,” Nyberg said, with half of his fourth portion in his jaws.

By six-thirty they were full, and the traffic had become a bit lighter.

“Damn it, he’s probably closed by now,” Norlander exclaimed, standing.

“Who?” said Nyberg.

“The shoe repair. On Rindögatan.”

“We’ll take our chances and drive by. It’s on the way, after all.”

They took their chances and drove by. Kungsgatan to Stureplan, Sturegatan to Valhallavägen, Erik Dahlbergsgatan to Rindögatan.

“Lidingövägen would have been better,” said Nyberg.

“Lay off,” said Norlander. “But umbrellas would have been good.”

It was pitch black, as if it were the middle of the night; actually it was only quarter to seven. The shoe repair shop was a short way up the long hill of Rindögatan. There was a faint light coming from the little workshop. They hurried out into the pouring rain and pounded on the window, where old soles and keys from the 1960s were lying and collecting dust.

A small Greek man in his sixties peeked discreetly out the window. He gaped in fear at the dripping, pounding Nordic giants. Polyphemus, he appeared to be thinking. Two of them.

“Police,” Norlander mimed, showing his ID. “Can we come in for a minute?”

The Greek opened the door and, with a small gesture, let the cop-Cyclopes in. On the ancient worktable lay an open book under a small, weak shoemaker’s lamp. The man walked over to it and held it up. It was in Greek.

“Have you heard of Konstantin Kavafis?” he asked.

They stared at him like idiots.

“Never has the modern Greek language sounded so sweet,” he said, stroking the cover of the book. “He lifted us up to the level of the ancients. I always sit here for a while after closing time and read him. A poem a day keeps senility away. He was my grandfather’s uncle.”

“So you’re Christo Kavafis?” Norlander said briskly.

“That’s right,” said Kavafis. “To what do I owe the honor?”

“A few weeks ago you copied a key from a Plasticine original, right?”

Kavafis turned pale. “I thought I was free.” He felt the threat of grievous bodily harm nibble at the back of his neck. My name is No One, he seemed to be thinking.

“Yeah, yeah, you are free, don’t worry. Tell us about it.”

“I have already told about it.”

“Do it again.”

“A young man who spoke English with an American accent came in and asked to get a key made from a clay impression. I knew it wasn’t legal, but it was such a challenge. I don’t come across that many challenges in my work, so I couldn’t resist. Then I regretted it and called the police, and they came and arrested me. I was in jail for the night. I haven’t been that scared since the civil war. All my memories came back.”

“What did he look like? The American?”

Kavafis shook his head. “It was a long time ago. Ordinary. Normal. Young. Pretty blond.”

“Clothes?”

“I don’t remember. Gray jacket, I think. Tennis shoes. I don’t know.”

Norlander took out the key and held it up to Kavafis, who was not hypnotized.

“Is this the key?”

The Greek took it and turned it over. “This might be it. It was one like this.”

“Can you come up to see us tomorrow and help us try to get a picture of him? It’s very important.”

Kavafis nodded.

Norlander fished out his wallet and took out a dirty business card, which he gave to the Greek. Then they said goodbye.

Kavafis looked hesitant. “I wonder,” he said, “if I don’t remember one more thing. He paid in ten-kronor coins. Out of a long roll.”

Nyberg and Norlander exchanged glances. They had been right. John Doe was an American. He had made a clay impression of a security lock. He had gone to a shoe repair shop in Gärdet to get a key made. Then he had been shot in the heart. Why? Where? In the rush to get going, they couldn’t really get all the threads to come together, but they had to get to Frihamnen; they knew that much.

It was almost seven-thirty when they reached the sentry box outside of LinkCoop’s warehouses. It was pitch black, the heavens were wide open, and they had no umbrellas. They had at least thirty-four doors to test. They didn’t hesitate.

Tonight it wasn’t Benny Lundberg sitting in the sentry box but another of the guards. Nyberg went over and waved his police ID in the air.

“We need to take a look at the premises in connection with the break-in,” he said to the cracked window hatch. “Isn’t Benny working?”

“He’s on vacation,” said the guard.

“How long has he been gone?”

“A few days. Since the break-in.”

“Strange time for a vacation.” Nyberg felt a twinge of suspicion.

“I know,” said the guard. He could have been mistaken for Benny Lundberg. The stench of steroids trumped the perpetual ozone scent of the storm. “He took a vacation in August, so it is a little odd. He traveled somewhere. Out of the country, I think. Was it the Canary Islands?”

Nyberg nodded.

Norlander came jogging up after having parked the car around the corner. They entered the grounds and walked to the door where the break-in had taken place. Thick planks were nailed up across the door as a temporary repair job. Nyberg heaved himself up onto the loading dock and inserted the key. It went in. But it didn’t turn in the lock.

“Right kind, anyway,” he said. “I guess we should start from the left.”

They followed the loading dock past the series of doors up to the far end of the large warehouse. There were about as many doors to the left of the entrance as there were to the right. There ought to be more on the back of the building as well. Mayer, the chief of security, had talked about thirty-four units; after testing ten doors it felt like considerably more. They were soaking wet. The torrents of rain were splendidly combined with loathsome gusts of wind. Two cases of pneumonia sailed through the air, searching for their rightful owners.

The key fit in all the locks but was never the right one. They reached the entry and began to work their way through the other half. It felt more and more hopeless. A fool’s errand. And a voluntary one, at that. They were doing overtime that they didn’t know if they dared to put in for. Couldn’t they have waited until tomorrow?

They approached the end of the row. By the time they came to the last door, they were resigned.

“What do you think?” Nyberg held the key a few inches from the lock.

“Aren’t there any doors on the other side?”

“That remains to be seen,” said Nyberg, who inserted the key. He turned it. It was the right one. “Haha.” Laughing, he pulled the door open a few inches.

Then he got it in the face. It was violently kicked open, straight into his nose. He tumbled over. A black-clad figure in a balaclava jumped over him and raced along the dock in the pouring rain. Norlander drew his pistol and set off after him. Nyberg got up, his hand to his face. He roared. He felt the blood welling between his fingers. He was about to throw himself after them when he turned to the storage unit.

Looking down a set of stairs, he saw Benny Lundberg, the guard. He was naked and tied to a chair. Blood was streaming from his shredded fingertips. A needle was threaded through his genitals. And out of his neck stuck two gently quivering syringes.

Gunnar Nyberg stiffened. His own pain vanished immediately. He took his hand from his face and let the blood flow out of his nose. He went down the stairs. He was trembling. A small, bare lightbulb radiated a ghastly glow over the macabre scene.

Benny Lundberg was alive. His eyes had rolled back; only the whites were visible. Spasmodic jerks passed through his face. Convulsions were ripping through the pumped-up body. White foam bubbled out of his mouth. No hint of sound.

Gunnar Nyberg was looking at pain beyond words.

His large body shook. What could he do? He didn’t dare touch the horrible pincers in Lundberg’s neck. Any movement could have disastrous consequences. He didn’t even dare to unfasten the leather straps around his arms and legs. What would happen if Lundberg convulsed and fell to the floor? The only thing he could do in the way of a small attempt at care was to pull the long needle out of his male organ. He did so.

Then he got his cell phone out of his inside pocket, and, with concentration, managed to dial the number. He didn’t recognize his own voice as it asked for an ambulance. “A doctor has to come too,” it said. “A neck specialist.”

Then he bent toward Lundberg. He placed his hand on the shaking cheek. He tried to speak comfortingly to him. He embraced him. He tried to be as brotherly as he could.

“There, there, Benny, take it easy. Help is on the way. You can do it. Hang in there, Benny. There. Everything is okay. Nice and easy.”

The spasms and twitches began to subside. Benny Lundberg grew calmer-or was he about to die in his arms?

Gunnar Nyberg realized he was crying.

Norlander ran after the man in black. He was in good shape these days, and he was gradually gaining on the man. But the man was quick and lithe. He threw himself down from the loading dock and kept running, past the sentry box. Just as Norlander ran by, the guard peered out. “Call the police!” he bellowed as he ran.

The man in black dashed onto a cross street and vanished from sight for an instant. Norlander approached the spot. He saw the man disappear behind a building about ten yards away. Without thinking, he ran that way. His weapon was dangling from his hand. The man in the balaclava peeked out and shot at him.

Norlander threw himself forward into the mud. He checked himself out for a second, then was up again. His pistol was muddy. He tried to wipe it off as he ran. He raced up to the corner and carefully peered around it. It was empty back there, an alley. Crouching, he ran to the next corner and peered around it. Empty again. Up to the next corner. Peer around it carefully.

One step was all he heard behind him, a faint splash. Then an incredible pain on the back of his neck. He fell into the mud like a pig. He was nearly unconscious. He looked up into the rain clouds. Everything was dancing. The man in black was staring down at him through his balaclava. He couldn’t make out his eyes. The only thing he could see was the silencer on the barrel of the pistol that was pointed at his face.

“Get out of here,” the man hissed. “Beat it.”

Then he was gone. Norlander heard a motor start up. He stood and peered around the corner of the building. He was dazed. The world was spinning. Very, very vaguely he could see the contours of a car in the middle of the centrifuge. Maybe brown, maybe a jeep.

Then he fell down into the sludge.