He Who Kills the Dragon

27.

‘What the hell do we do now?’ Bäckström snarled, staring first at his colleague, then at the safe-deposit box.

‘We have to call one of our senior officers at once, to make sure our backs are covered,’ Annika Carlsson said. ‘We have to make sure they come down here and seal—’

‘Shut the damn box!’ Bäckström said, unable to look at the wretched sight any longer. Dragging a literal-minded dyke with him when he had for once been let into Ali Baba’s treasure chamber. And he had no signal on his phone either.

‘The walls in a vault like this must be extremely thick,’ Annika Carlsson said. ‘If you like I can run up and call,’ she added, taking out her own phone.

‘This is what we’re going to do,’ Bäckström said, pointing at her with his short, stubby index finger. ‘You stay here, don’t do anything, and if some bastard comes in, shoot him. And for God’s sake, don’t lose that damn box.’

Then he had gone up into the main bank premises and called Toivonen. He had quickly explained the situation that had arisen and had asked for orders. To cover his back, Bäckström thought. If there had been any justice in the world, he would have been on his way to Rio by now.

‘Who have you got with you?’ Toivonen asked, not sounding particularly excited.

‘The Anchor, Annika Carlsson.’

‘You’ve got the Anchor with you,’ Toivonen repeated. ‘How much money are we talking about here?’

‘Must be millions,’ Bäckström said, and groaned.

‘And you took the Anchor with you?’

‘Yes,’ Bäckström said. Fuck, his voice sounds really weird, Bäckström thought. He can’t be drunk, can he? Not at this time of day?

‘Okay, then. Ask if you can have a plain paper bag, take the damn box with you, and get yourselves back out here, and I’ll talk to Niemi and he can sort out the rest.’ The Anchor, Toivonen thought. This was all too much.

‘But we need to cover our backs,’ Bäckström said. ‘I mean—’

‘You’ve done that,’ Toivonen interrupted. ‘The Anchor will stick to the rules until her dying breath, and she’s as flexible as an old traffic cop and straight as a die. Just make sure you don’t get any ideas, or she’ll try out her cuffs on you.’

As soon as he had hung up Bäckström got a paper bag from the bank official. He had signed a receipt for the box. And carried it out to the car himself, where he held it in his lap the whole way back to the Solna police station. Annika Carlsson drove and didn’t say anything.

As soon as Toivonen had got off the phone he had gone out into the corridor, called his closest and most trusted colleagues into his office, and closed the door behind them.

Then he had explained what was going on in broad strokes, saving the punch line till last in the traditional way.

‘Which one of our colleagues do you think the fat little bastard took with him?’ Toivonen said, so delighted that he couldn’t stand still.

Hesitant head shakes.

‘The Anchor, Annika Carlsson,’ Toivonen said, his smile stretching from ear to ear.

‘Poor bastard,’ Peter Niemi said, shaking his head. ‘We’ll have to take his service revolver away from him so that he doesn’t do himself any mischief.’

A quarter of an hour later Bäckström had personally placed the paper bag containing the money on Niemi’s desk. Annika Carlsson had faithfully clung to his side all the way from the garage to Niemi’s office. Was the dyke trying to scare him? Suddenly she was walking like a fucking bodybuilder, thought Bäckström, who by this point hated every single fiber of Annika Carlsson’s well-honed body.

‘How much money do you think we’re talking about, Bäckström? Are we talking millions, or what?’ Niemi had asked with an innocent expression.

‘I thought you might be able to tell us,’ Bäckström said. Get hold of some bastard who can count and just give me a receipt for the bastard box. I have to get out of here, Bäckström thought. I have to get out of this building. I need a stiff drink.

Two hours later he was sitting in the bar on his block with his second stiff drink and his second pint of beer. It hadn’t helped, at least not yet, and it hadn’t got any better when Niemi called him with the news.

‘Two million, nine hundred thousand kronor,’ Niemi said. ‘Twenty-nine bundles, each worth a hundred thousand, and that was all,’ Niemi said, sounding as disinterested as if he were reading from a report in front of him. ‘No prints, and no other evidence either, but he must have been careful and worn gloves when he was touching the money. Anyway, congratulations.’

‘What?’ Bäckström said. Now the bastard Lapp’s just making fun of me, he thought.

‘On finding all that money. Maybe Danielsson wasn’t just your ordinary pisshead after all,’ Niemi concluded. ‘Was there anything else I can help you with?’

‘Hello? Hello? I can hardly hear you,’ Bäckström said, switching off his phone and ordering another drink.

‘A large one,’ Bäckström said.

‘Vojne, vojne, Bäckström,’ his Finnish bartender said, smiling and nodding maternally.